October 22, 2004

Going Downtown

As most of you are probably well aware of, I've been writing previews for each postseason series over at The Hardball Times. When the Red Sox finished off the Yankees on Wednesday night, I thought about pre-writing two versions of my World Series preview -- one with Boston playing St. Louis and one with Boston playing Houston, so I could have the preview ready immediately regardless of who won Game 7 of the NLCS.

Normally I wouldn't even consider something like that, but the first game of the World Series is on Saturday and a lot fewer people come to websites to read about baseball on the weekend. Because of that, today would have been the day to bust out the preview for the largest possible audience. But being the lazy bum that I am, I decided that writing two previews, including one for a series that isn't even happening, was far too much work.

Instead, I watched last night's thrilling NLCS Game 7 with a plan to work on my World Series preview today and have it posted sometime before Game 1. So, if you're interested in reading that, make sure to stop by either here or THT at some point late tonight/early tomorrow.

In addition to finding some time to work on that, I also have a pretty busy day scheduled. First, I'm heading downtown to City Hall to sit in on this morning's Minneapolis City Council meeting in the hopes of finding something interesting to write about for an assignment in one of my journalism classes. Actually, more than finding something interesting, I need to find something that I can understand, which will probably be more of a challenge. After I finish up there, I'm headed to lunch with the "Stick and Ball Guy" from, where else, the Stick and Ball Guy blog.

The entire day is based around a) waking up early, b) negotiating my way downtown, c) finding my way to City Hall, d) understanding politics, e) getting myself to our lunch destination, and then f) negotiating my way back home.

Aside from the understanding politics part, and maybe the waking up early, that probably doesn't sound like much of a challenge for a reasonably bright, relatively able-bodied person. And for a normal human being it's not a big deal at all, but I have a slightly worse sense of direction than a doorknob. You wouldn't believe how many times I've told someone that I went somewhere and they've asked, "Oh, where was that?" only to have me stare blankly back at them and say, "I'm really not sure."

There are places that I've been to dozens of times -- restaurants, stores, people's homes -- that I couldn't find without incredibly detailed directions if you offered me a $50,000 prize and gave me five hours. The fact that I can be in a car that travels from Point A to Point B and have literally no clue about where the points were or what the route between them was is something that amazes everyone who knows me.

So that's that. City Council meeting in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, World Series preview at night. Oh, and in case you're wondering, this counts as an exciting day in the life of Aaron Gleeman. Plus, I'd say there's a 50/50 chance I'll never make it back from downtown, getting on some bus that I think is headed back to campus only to find myself in Nebraska before I realize I'm going the wrong way.

Today at The Hardball Times:

- Mythbusters (by Larry Mahnken)

- Rivals in Exile: The Comeback (by Ben Jacobs and Larry Mahnken)

- Hoosier Daddy (by Brian Gunn)


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