buckpassing

[last baby-related post I promise...I wrote this for my other 2 kids so I guess I want to make sure it applies to Junior as well!!!]As sure as darkness can be full of many dangersAs sure as little children shouldn’t talk to strangersAs sure as night follows day you’ll ask me the questionAs sure as Mother Nature cannot be predictedAs sure as one to nicotine can be addictedI’m sure I can safely say you’ll ask me the question“Daddy, what’s really going on?”Well, I could give you a bible and tell you to readI could give you commandments and tell you to heedBut could I honestly say they’d answer your question?Ask me how,I’ll show you ways in which you can proceedAsk me whereI’ll show you places you will not believeAsk me any of the above and I’ll gladly replyThere’s just one thing thoughDon’t ask me whyNow if you wonder why I question my abilityMy train of thought it’s greatly lacking in mobilityIn fact, when it comes to this, it’s stuck at the stationI asked the conductor what on earth the whole delay was forHe just laughed and said “Stop using stupid metaphors!You can dodge all you like but they’ll still ask the question!”“Daddy, what’s really going on?”Ask me how, ask me where,Ask me which,I’ll help you choose the one that serves you wellAsk me what,I’ll give you things to use for show-and-tellBut with one small request I cannot complyYou get the pictureDon’t ask me whySee in my soul, there’s a voidThat I can’t avoid any longerWhenever I try another year goes byAnd the feelings can’t get any strongerSo when you ask me why I’ll sing this lullabyIn the hope that one day you’ll seeI’ll always learn more from youThan you could ever learn from meAsk me how, ask me where, ask me which, ask me what,Ask me when,I’ll take you all the way through historyAsk me whodunit,And I’ll help you solve the mysteryBut if it’s reasons you seek then don’t even tryI sure can’t help youDon’t ask me why© JL Pagano 1994click here for a full index of my poetry and song lyrics

Welcome back Bishop Richard Wills

Bishop Wills and area delegates at the Southeastern Jurisdictional ConferenceThe 2008 Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference concluded with the joyful news that Bishop Richard Wills, Jr., has been reassigned for another four years to the Nashville Area of the United Methodist Church.Bishop Wills has gained support across the country from persons who have appreciated his strong emphasis on Spiritual Preparedness through the reading of scripture and prayer. He leads by example through Faith Journaling – a technique for studying each daily scripture reading, reflecting on how that scripture passages applies to the situation in which the reader finds him or herself, and praying that that God will make the scripture passage come alive in the lives of the reader.“God’s ways are not our ways. This is where I can often get tripped up,” notes Bishop Wills. “If I do not stay daily in scripture and prayer, I find myself adopting the thinking of the world and trusting my own ‘good ideas’.”“Trusting God and trying to live the way Jesus would live if he were in my body is hard work. I would much rather trust in what I can see rather than trust in the leading of the Holy Spirit which I cannot see. I spend my day searching for God’s Will and here it is right in scripture each morning.”In addition to Bishop Wills’ strong emphasis on Spiritual Preparedness, he has also found major support throughout the Tennessee Conference for his focus on the following:·An emphasis on the wholeness of persons which includes the spiritual, emotional, and physical aspects of life. Wills stresses healthy life-styles, reflection and renewal.·Renewed stress on the importance of the small church·Strong emphasis on reaching out to the un-churched (Bishop Wills often does his journaling in public places like Starbucks—because he finds that strangers note what he is doing and ask him about it (a major conversation starter)·Restructuring of the conference to enable a more effective relationship between the Annual Conference Staff and the more than 600 local churches – all to augment each local church’s mandate “to make disciples.”·Strong support of special offerings to help recovery from natural and man-made disaster – from Katrina recovery on the Gulf Coast to medical defeat of malaria through “Nothing but Nets.”·Sponsorship of the Bishop’s Convocation for Church Renewal – with one day specifically for lay leadership, and a three day retreat for clergy – a Convocation that drew over 500 people.·For pushing the conference-wide reading and discussion of pivotal books such as Restoring Methodism by Dr. James B. and Dr. Molly Davis Scott.We welcome back Bishop Richard W. Wills, Jr., as Episcopal Leader for the Nashville Area of the United Methodist Church

Technical Officer, Project Heart

Job Summary In close collaboration with Project Director, Deputy Project Director, and project team provides technical guidance and programmatic support for a multi-country HIV care and treatment project (Project HEART) funded by CDC. Maintains information to promote, track and support the project with specific attention to agreement management, including budget and financial reporting activities. Works in close collaboration with the Foundation’s program, finance and budgeting, and contract and grants staff. Essential Duties and Responsibilities Project Agreement Management • Provide support to Project Heart objectives and direction, while ensuring that country programs and projects are implemented in accordance with donor (O/GAC, CDC) technical, programmatic and operational guidelines and are consistent with Foundation’s mandate and goals. • Develop CDC-required requests and correspondence to CDC/country and/or CDC/Atlanta in support of project work. Develop electronic and paper tracking systems for Project HEART documentation. • Coordinate preparing, editing, compiling Project HEART annual reapplication and semi-annual and annual program reports. • Review sub-agreements for accuracy, inclusion of language and requirements for CDC approval. • Represent the Foundation and/or the CDC-funded Project HEART program at external inter-agency meetings, program symposia and conferences. • Supply key programmatic information for proposals and external communication requests; update materials that describe and promote programs. • Support the Project HEART agreement management team and the budget analyst responsible for the CDC agreement to ensure compliance with the CDC agreement and support project financial activities. • Lead the development of CDC-required requests for funding carryovers, redirections, and supplemental funds. • Work closely with contract and grants and budgeting and finance to close out and liquidate project year funding.

Photoshop Video - harsh reality

Before you watch the video, the photograph used belongs to this girl.Taken from comments:The girl in this picture is a 12 yr old child who was abducted and raped in 2003. (Shevaun Pennington - Google it). She didn't choose to have her pic on the news, in the papers or on the net in the same way she didn't choose to be abducted & raped. Imagine how she would feel if she saw this vid and read comments from people on how ugly she is. Don't you think she's suffered enough? The guy who made this vid should have used a pic of himself. Read on (I googled for the girl's name. Kids out there should be careful of who you meet in online chat rooms. She met the fiend in Neopets. 'Xue-te' And I thought Neopets is a pretty safe place. Prevention is better than cure. Don't meet anyone you know online.) Bits and piecesSHE was just an innocent child of 12 when she was whisked abroad and sexually violated by evil US Marine Toby Studabaker-sparking an international manhunt. And only now, five years later, does pretty Shevaun Pennington, feel strong enough to talk of her terrifying ordeal for the first time. In an exclusive interview with the News of the World she told how vile paedophile Studabaker, now 36:GROOMED her for a year by internet chat roomDRAGGED her from one sordid hotel room to the nextPLIED her with vodka andCAJOLED her into sex. Bravely waiving her right to anonymity, Shevaun, 17, said: "It began as an adventure and for a long time I felt I was to blame. Now I realise what an evil pervert he truly is. "If I ever saw him again I'd shake his hand and thank him for making me the strong resilient person I am today. "Then I'd turn around and knee him where it truly hurts-so he'd feel what it's like to trust someone and then have it all ripped apart and abused." Widower Studabaker, who was with US forces in Afghanistan, is now serving 11 years in America for abduction, child sex and possessing kiddy porn, after completing a 4-year sentence in Britain.

calling all book tour photos - win a LIAV t-shirt!

I'm in the process of creating a wee video of my extraordinary completely grassroots supported by readers 32-city book tour beginning last September (in anticipation of my next book, coming in Spring 2010 - more on that soon!).If you have photos from any of the Life is a Verb book tour stops (of the reading, of me and you, of the knitting you completed while I read to you about saying hi to Yaron), would you email them to me at patti(at)pattidigh(dot)com with the subject line BOOK TOUR PHOTOS--your city name? Would love to include as many as I can!Many thanks! On Monday, May 11th, I'll do a drawing for a LIAV half-marathon t-shirt from those folks who send photos!Next stop on the book tour? DEERFIELD, NEW HAMPSHIRE on June 2nd!

Eliza

Runes of Magic new dungeon is a Treasure Trove of pirate fun

Since the official launch of Runes of Magic in March, the team at Frogster Interactve and Runewaker Entertainment have been incredibly busy developing more and more tasty content for players to enjoy - for free! With more than 1,600 quests in the world so far and counting, Runes of Magic is proving to be a really solid, feature-rich free-to-play title. Now we've received word that the RoM team is at it again, this time including more piratey content based on the recently introduced Black Sail Pirates. This new dungeon for players to explore is called the Secret of the Treasure Trove, and it will offer lots of swashbucklin' adventure for those scurvy dogs brave enough to step foot in there. This new area, a cave located off the new area Ravenfell, will be home to a bevy of new monsters - from undead pirates and skeletal warriors, to weird mutated part-squid monsters. Players will also have the chance to test their skills against a variety of named mobs from a giant octopus named 'Will's Curse' to the missing pirate leader, 'Snow Blake', and her fearsome phantasmagorical crew. So if ye be lookin' for a Treasure Trove of adventure, this sounds like it may just be your Runes of Magic ticket, mateys. Gallery: Runes of Magic Gallery

geordie & scouse national identity

Liverpool convincingly trounced Newcastle United yesterday, which set me thinking about the cultural similarities between the cities.The recent appointment of Alan Shearer - who looks eerily like a cross between Robson and Jerome - as manager of the ailing Newcastle United caused great jubilation in the city.This wasn't just about a club hero coming home, there was something in the delirious optimism of Toon fans that few others could ever deliver.In Pies And Prejudice, Stuart Maconie speculates that Newcastle United's fans are so derangedly passionate about their team because the city is anomalous in being so large with only one club.But why isn't this true of Leeds at three times the size (even if you allow for a little split of affection with the rugby team)? Why doesn't it apply to cities of similar size to Newcastle such as Leicester?It's not to do with a unitary focus of club, but the passion with which a people focus on their culture. A serious proportion of Geordies regard themselves as Geordie first and foremost rather than English or British. It is, in many sense, a nationality. It shares much in this with Scousers. This may be to do with their geographical positions as ports facing the outside world, but whatever the cause they both have a very separate identity, and there is nothing else like it in Great Britain outside of Welsh and Scottish national feeling.All four nationalities are prone to sweeping up their compatriots in huge swells of unshakable, ineffable pride, stuff dismissed by baffled outsiders - those more in thrall to English reserve - as sentimentalist claptrap.Not even Cornwall, despite its historical distinction and linguistic heritage, can muster the strength of patriotic emotion that readily pours forth with little prompting from these other four.For the cities with more than one club, there is usually a deep-seated rivalry that can never be overcome. Yet, as Maconie notes elsewhere in the same book, Scousers attending the Liverpool-Everton FA Cup final in 1986 sang in unison 'Merseyside Merseyside Merseyside'. I guatrantee that you won't hear the whole crowd at Manchester United vs Wigan singing 'Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester'.As Merseyside was one of those weird administrative regions put together in 1974, it seems scarcely credible that the unity of feeling was really about affinity to a recently contrived municipal district. They took to this new identity because it cut them away from the greater Lancashire with which they never identified and gave them an administrative body that recognised what they had felt for centuries, that they were a breed apart.(It should be noted that with the typical idiosyncratic twists of boundary makers, Merseyside has a long sliver only a couple of miles wide sticking all the way up to encapsulate the swanky seaside resort of Southport. Here, more than thirty years after it was deemed to be in Merseyside, you can still find car stickers huffily proclaiming that the town is really in Lancashire - they too see Scousers as a separate identity).

We are back, with actual rock star Jonathan Coulton

We last left our hero, the hypersensitive F.W. Thomas (only slightly renowned as a novelist, attorney, bureaucrat, bon vivant, D.C. fixer, and devoted friend) in the clutches of a certain Washington Post reporter, whose tart-tongued ministrations forced Mr. Thomas into months of seclusion from which he has only just emerged.His raging self-doubt and inner turmoil notwithstanding, Mr. Thomas drops to his two knees and pleads with you to attend this, the Fourth Inaugural Edition of the F.W. Thomas Performances.We are convening Monday, September 18 at 7:30PM in the big room at the Warehouse Theater. For the demonstrably ludicrous admission of $3, you will enjoy the best efforts of: Jonathan Coulton. The singer/songwriter whose cover of "Baby Got Back" is a bona fide sensation on The Internets. Click here if you have no faith. Reihan Salam, a writer living in Washington, D.C., explaining the hilariously lamentable phenomenon of the "Beta Male." Elspeth Reeve, a reporter at the New Republic, on her forbidden love for Ann Coulter. T.M. Lowery, F.W. Thomas artist-in-residence, presenting his cartoon journalings.And F.W. Thomas Impresario and Master of Ceremonies Adam Mazmanian will explain what it is like to watch one's father slowly but inexorably transform into a doppelgangerof Kim Jong-Il.The Warehouse Theater is located at 1017-1021 7th Street NW. It is a short and not altogether unpleasant walk from the Chinatown/Gallery Place Metro. Phone is 202-783-3933.Mr. Thomas has missed you lo these many months, and bids you to rejoin him. Please do not disappoint him, as he is very, very fragile.

Do you beleive in sportdrinks?

When You are exersicing your fatburning are going on. And to have a sprotdrink after is one way to provide your body with fast kalories. But how do the fatburning then respond. I for one think that sportdrinks are full of kalories and are no god for the fatburning. I think that suply your body with that is losing the reason for exersicing in the first place. I beleive that some water is the best way to have for quench one's thirst, and that is what you need to do after a god exersice. Not put in new kalories. I take a bottle of water, go home an prepare a god healthy meal.

American Clean Energy Act Of 2009

The initial draft of the Anerican Clean Energy And Act Of 2009 has been released by the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee for initial review by Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Chairman Edward J.Markey respectively. Subcommittee hearings will begin the week of April 20th with the intent to complete consideration of the legislation by Memorial Day. The Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 if passed, will be the the consummate legislative act of the progressive fascists, that are currenlty reign in Congress and the Presidency. Barack Obama and the progressives currently in control of Congress are determined to usher in a new socio economic order in the United States of America. The 648 page bill outlines their objective to control energy distribution by promoting renewable energy through various programs administered by a plethora of acronymical bureaucrats. The bill has been written by environmental special interest groups which serve to benefit through this legislation by exerting additional influence on government policy as it impacts the environment and directs American energy policy through 2050. The bill addresses four titles including: Clean Energy, by promoting renewable sources of energy, carbon capture, electric vehicles and the smart grid Energy Efficiency, addresses energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy Global Warming, that fully embraces the progressive position on the topic  Transitioning, to promote green jobs during the transition to a green economy The bill, if enacted, will limit choice in this nation. It will expand the reach of the federal government through the development of a super bureaucracy and the creation of numerous Councils and Advisory Boards including the Offsets Advisory Integrity Board or the National Climate Change Adaptation Council which will administer the appropriately named National Climate Change Adaptation Program. The bill also creates the Natural Resources Climate Change Adaptation Panel and the Renewable Electricity Deployment Fund within the Treasury Department to name but a few of the councils and board required to administer the legislation. Additionally, the bill creates numerous oversight Boards which include among others, the Secretaries of Energy, Commerce, State, Treasury, Transportation and Agriculture. This proposed legislation is Orwellian in its breadth and vision as it encompasses every aspect of our lives from the water pressure in our shower to the electric vehicle in our garage to the reading lamp at our bedside. This bill if enacted by Congress, will certainly be signed into law by Barack Obama. It will lead the United States further along the progressive path toward Eurotopia and provide the foundation to further restrict American choices and freedoms. Ceo4adaybelieves that all Americans should be conscientious and voluntary stewards of our environment. We believe that concerns for the environment should be in balance with market economic forces and not be dictated by the National Academy of Science, the Sierra Club, or Greenpeace. We believe that market forces should dictate whether or not consumers elect to drive electric vehicles or gasoline fueled SUVs. This bill will result in the federal government dictating that choice for consumers and create a socio economic environment where the energy and environment police will become a prevalent element in our American life. This bill will result in a further incursion of our freedoms and a massive victory for progressive fascism.  Fight For The Right   ceo4aday

Harry and Louise ride again

Will insurers once again scupper health-care reform?THE final nail in the coffin of Hillarycare came when Harry and Louise appeared on television. Hillary Clintons effort to introduce a government-run health system over a decade ago fell apart when two worried, middle-aged Americans were shown equating reform with bloated bureaucracy. That ad was paid for by the health-insurance lobby. Now Barack Obama says that reform is a priority again. He argues that the recession only adds urgency, as there is no way to tackle long-term deficits without fixing health care. Kathleen Sebelius, his new nominee for the post of secretary of health and human services, this week pointed out to a Senate committee that nearly half of all recent home foreclosures have resulted, in part, from families being hit by health expenses not covered by insurance. ...

Swallow Your Pride

"It's kinda like an Amish barn-raising. Except with strippers." The Wing Bowl in Philadelphia began as a competitive eating contest hosted by a local radio station and has grown into an event witnessed by crowds of more than 20,000. What kind of person becomes a competitive eater? Filmmakers Joshua Camerote and Brian Dwyer followed six individuals through a variety of events on their way to the Wing Bowl, and the result is the documentary Swallow Your Pride, now available for free streaming courtesy of our friends at SnagFilms. Frankly, the doc initially teeters between being fascinating and being repellant; it's not the most pleasant experience to watch people stuffing their faces with all manner of food items as rapidly as possible. But if you can get past that, fascinating, sometimes funny human stories emerge. One of the competitive eaters, who calls it the "sport of the common person," is married to a woman who is fighting to lose weight. Another contest participant is married to a vegetarian; she doesn't agree in principle with what her husband does, but she can live with it because she views his competitive eating as a sport, not a way of life. The doc also covers the I.F.O.C.E. (International Federation of Competitive Eating), the self-appointed governing body of the sport, which was formed by two brothers in 1997. The organization seeks to organize, supervise, and regulate eating contests around the world, but not everybody appreciates what they do. One competitive eater says: "I don't want to eat for Wal-Mart. I want to eat for Mom and Pop." And thus a competing body is formed, the A.I.C.E. (Association of Independent Competitive Eaters). Everything leads up to the Wing Bowl. We've embedded Swallow Your Pride below for your viewing convenience. As always: no wagering, please.

TEST & EVALUATION ENGINEER

Location: Seattle, WA Job Description: Yoh Aviation has a contract opening for a Test & Evaluation Engineer in Seattle, WA. Duties and Responsibilities: Work in Flight Test Engineering to support developmental and certification flight testing of all BCA models and military derivatives. Provide certification expertise in support of aircraft ticketing, Certification Plan reviews, FAA Specification submittals, Type Inspection Authorizations, Type Inspection Reports, and First of Model testing. Support test program reviews with FAA Flight Test and foreign regulatory authorities, address certification issues that arise in the course of certification test programs, and participate in occasional First of Model test flights. Job Requirements: Applicants must have excellent communications and interpersonal skills, and have worked closely with a diverse community including airplane manufacturing personnel, design engineering, customers and suppliers, FAA, pilots and management. Certification background within the context of flight testing is required. Familiarity with FAR Parts 21 and 25 and the certification tools and processes used by BCA in the certification of Large Transport Category aircraft is also required. The applicant should have familiarity with computing applications including mainframe, PC based applications and test specific computing tools. Requires educational credentials meeting the standards for engineers. Certification experience required. Discover all that's possible with Yoh Aviation. Type: PermanentLocation: Seattle, WACountry: United States of AmericaContact: Yoh Managed ServicesAdvertiser: YohReference: JSJ8H2VG620KQN842YYNQ

Of Interest

This morning Ish woke up, showered, and shaved. He opened three boxes before finding his clean "work" jeans, and transported much of the clothing he found in the first two boxes to his side of the closet. After he got dressed, fed the cats, and cleaned the litter box, he drove to Starbucks. He returned to the house shortly thereafter with a half-caf soy latte (and a kiss on the nose) for me, and left again for work. He will probably be in his office before I finish this paragraph.Do you have any idea how mind-blowing this is? After nearly three years of his commuting 60-70 miles each way?(Btw? Ish just popped up on IM.)* * * * * * * * * *Thank you for your kind words of support from the post below. I definitely got into a snit over the anonymous comment, but I snapped out of it, too. Your thoughts helped a lot.Now that I've had some time to put things in perspective, I want to make a few points for the record. A few small ones and a really big one.First, I do not expect people to agree with me all the time, and I don't have an issue with people who take the time to comment and to respectfully dissent. As Em pointed out, saying that the house we picked seems "out of sync" with me is a fair -- and, as it happens, accurate -- statement. One I've had to think about for a while to be able to answer. However, couching that statement in insults clouded the point and, well, insulted me. Second, for what it's worth, I won't ever turn off commenting. The thing is, there's a difference between someone who says something totally off-the-wall stupid (like that guy who told me he can't enjoy reading my blog because he knows he wouldn't want to have sex with me because of my "fatness") (true story), and someone who says something mean that resonates with me because it hits a sore spot.The anonymous commenter did the latter. I'm not especially concerned about being "uncool" (good lord, I'd never leave the house), and I think "mid-brow" is completely debatable, given this house's relative expense and specific location. BUT I did have a lot of hesitations about moving to a tract home. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even really know what a tract home was a few months ago -- I'd heard of them but coudn't have defined them accurately and had to ask Ish if this was one. We turned down many houses for that reason. In fact, one of the most gorgeous homes we looked at was so close to the other houses in its development, and the development was so in the middle of nowhere that I actually started crying on the way home from going to look at it.But this house seemed totally different. It's not, I guess, but it felt that way to us -- which is why we selected it.And so yeah. I'm sensitive to it. The anonymous commenter knows exactly what s/he is talking about, right down to the effing hollow-core doors, which was the very first thing Ish said he'd be replacing. (Those and the silver-and-gold-tone faucets in the bathrooms.)I'm sensitive to it because this isn't how I grew up. This isn't the kind of suburb I know. This isn't anything I'm familiar with at all. How 'bout that, huh? And so we come to the big point.Do you have any idea how "interesting" the house I grew up in was? No, of course you don't. And that's totally my fault, because I haven't the skills to write it yet. It is my greatest challenge as an aspiring writer to ever, ever put into words that house and all that happened there. Part Anne of Green Gables, part Running With Scissors, with maybe some Pippi Longstocking and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant thrown in. But funny, and not in a dark way. Not Sedaris. More like Gene Shepard (the guy who wrote the series of stories that the movie, A Christmas Story came from). Yeah, much more like that.And this? This newly constructed home? Oh, I get it. I get anyone who aspires to have something more unique, more inspired, less like the others and more full of "character." Of course I do. I get the difference. I know exactly what our anonymous commenter means.I lived and breathed "interesting" for over twenty formative years. Our over-a-century-old farmhouse had the most charming brick floor throughout the entrance and giant kitchen. Our kitchen, where we spent most of our time, featured a huge brick fireplace in the corner. Charming, yes. But have you ever tried to clean a floor made of bricks?The farmhouse had five-and-a-half bathrooms, but never once did all 5.5 work correctly at the same time. Leaky faucets. Drafty windows. A crack here, a hole there. Rip in the screen door. A sliding door stuck shut. A bathroom carpet perpetually damp. Lights that went out and never went back on again. For whatever conflation of reasons, my parents simply did not keep up with the constant repair needs of the house; mostly when things would break, they'd just stay broken. So you know what is completely novel to me? Having a house where all the bathrooms work at the same time. Living in a home where I don't have to worry that a leaky faucet may mean a plumbing "problem" that would cost half the home's value to repair.Here, everything works. Everything is clean, or at least possible to clean in a way that homes built before 1940 are not. I don't have to worry about faulty wiring or lead poisoning or how I'm going to plug a television AND a dvd player in the livingroom. I don't have to pull up decades-old carpet or paneling or linoleum. If a door or faucet or window or light fixture breaks, we have a warranty.From the outside, I know. I am in a home in a somewhat cookie-cutter neighborhood, and no one out there could possibly see or guess what informed my decision to move here. But you can.

A Zoom Zoom

With two new stadiums in my neck of the woods in the new Mets and Yankees digs, I'm hoping to make a solid effort to pay a little attention to baseball this year. I say it every year and it usually lasts about two weeks before the reality sets in that fantasy baseball sucks dong and watching games is only fun at the ballpark.Still, this year, I will stick it out. Hell, I made it out to the first ever baseball game played at Citi field, even if it was a St. John's game. Nice place though, Citi Field. The food is not all its cracked up to be, but there are lots of good spots to hang out besides the actual seat, Caesars Palace and up by the scoreboard being the best.Anyway, the problem is the Tigers look like crap again. Off to an 0-2 start against the Jays, things are looking a little grim. The starting rotation looks fine as does the offense, so it's clear that the success or failure of the entire season rests in the hands (or Sega Thumb) of one man, Joel Zumaya. Without Zumaya, we have no hope. Maybe that's hyperbole, but with the likes of Rincon, Rodney, Lyon and Robertson in the bullpen, I honestly think with Zumaya there's playoff potential, without, there's 90 loss potential.Zumaya is allegedly about a week away from resuming activity in the minors and hopes to be back in two weeks. Thus in about two months Zumaya should be back and playing Tiger baseball. Are the Ghosts the least bit optimistic? No, but the thought of his return would certainly increase the odds of an interesting season for a Tigers fan. After last season's disappointment, we could sure use a little zoom zoom in our zoom zoom.