Patrick425

Is it Tom Pippins saying this. If so, I would take it with a grain of salt.

Ugghhh...don't toy with our emotions like that! Maybe your source is right, but it will just give me more hope and make me more upset if it turns out that he gets suspended.

Yeah, look at all the people on this site right now (bottom of the page). The views on this thread are increasing almost faster than the national debt!

Yeah, my son brought this point up last night. If it's bad news at least he have had some time to let it sink in. Although it will still make me upset that it took this long to come up with a "guilty" verdict.

Well, he possibly already knows the outcome, but has been "warned" by MLB not to say anything and this is his way of looking "smart" when the announce is made.

I'm not getting a good feeling from this.

If this guy is able to get this information, I would assume that some "credible" member of the media would also be able to get this and it would be all over the internet by now.

If anyone has one lying around that they want to get rid of for a relatively cheap price please let me know. Thanks.

I'd be pretty upset as a Brewer fan if a decision is not announced by the end of the day tomorrow. If not I believe that this will begin to become a big distraction in the Brewers camp especially with Braun arriving at camp tomorrow. If I had to make a bet on this, I would bet that the decision has already been made and I'm guessing that the announcment will be coordinated with Braun's arrival tomorrow. I expect a press conference to be announced sometime tomorrow morning. Some have said that it won't happen that way and that it will just be a press release by MLB and/or a statement released to the press by Braun. However, I don't think you can compare this situation to suspension decisions in the past. There was a leak here and it seems possible that there are other unusual circumstances involved in this case. I'm guessing that a large part of the delay in announcing the decision is due in part to MLB and Braun's people working out how the decision will be announced and what information will be disclosed. This is purely a hunch on my part.

For what it's worth (and I'm sure not much), if I'm counting correctly, today is the 25th business day since the first day of the appeal hearing. edit: Take that back, tomorrow is the 25th business day (forgot about President's day).

We take all of our "trash" to the garbage cans as well (cups, bottles, bags, wrappers, etc.). We just throw our peanut shells on the ground.

Ok, this will probably be a long rant. No one will probably really care about it or read it, but it will be cathartic for me. So here it goes: I purchased a Toshiba laptop a couple of years ago. From the start I had issues with it. However, even though I had a one year warranty, I ignored them and just lived with the issues because I didn't want' to go through the nightmare of having to send the computer to who knows where and waiting who knows how long to get it back. The issue kept getting worse. 3 or 4 weeks ago I tried to install some tax software and could not do it. I also could not install updates to adobe or anything else. I ran virus scans from various programs and none of that helped. Finally I decided to just wipe out every thing and restore the factory settings. Pretty much everything on the laptop came EOM and so I did not have any disks, but through research I found that there is a partition on the hard drive that I can use to reset my laptop back to it's factory settings. So I carefully backed up everything and started the process. Not long into the process I got an error and could go no further. So I now had this "useless" computer. I called Toshiba and explained the problem. They told me I needed a new hard drive and recovery disks. The hard drive cost me $130 and the disks cost $30. The hard drive came the next day with no shipping costs, the disks never came (I ordered them on the 7th and the tracking just stopped on the 9th). I called DHL and USPS (DHL first handled the shipping and then gave it to USPS in Des Plains, IL according to the tracking information). USPS said they never received it and DHL said they gave it to USPS. Wonderful. So, I called Toshiba back and told them that I never got the disks. They told me to call USPS. I told them I already did and after a lot of back and forth with them trying to convince them that the shipment was lost they finally agreed to send me knew disks at no cost. Meanwhile I have the new hard drive with a 15 day return policy and my window for this is running out. I call Toshiba Direct (from whom I ordered the Hard Drive) to explain the situation and they issued me a product return that they said I could choose not to use but it would give me an extra 15 days. My disks (3 of them) finally arrive yesterday. Everything on the disks seemed to install correctly, but then once the laptop began the recovery process it got to 3% and gave me an error code. I looked up the code on the internet and it gave me several different possibilities as to why I was getting the error - from bad CD to bad hard drive or memory. Here is the part that really bothers me. I brought my laptop to work today and I called the Toshiba tech support number that is on the disks. I explain the situation to the person and give him the error code. He immediately tells me that its a hard drive issue. I tell him that I just installed a new hard drive that I got from Toshiba, but he continues to insist it's a hard drive issue and wants to connect me to Toshiba Direct (to probably sell me another hard drive). Not wanting to go through all of that, I argue with him that it most likely is not the hard drive and insists that it is and tells me to Google it and I'll see. We debate back and forth for a while and he then puts me on hold for a few minutes. He then comes back and says he was wrong and that its my memory that is the problem. Well, now I don't believe he has any idea what he is talking about and that he's just looking up all this stuff on the internet (he's clearly operating from a call center overseas). He transfers me to Toshiba Direct and they are not open yet, so I hang up frustrated. We have an IT person that comes in to our work every other week. Today happens to be the day he is in. I explain the situation to him and tell him the last thing Toshiba told me was that it's a memory issue. He opens the back of my laptop (where the memory is located) and there are two "memory sticks" (not sure what the actual name of these are). Both are 2G. He tells me I don't need both of them to do the set up process and suggests that I take one out and try to run the process again. If that works then I will know there is a problem with the memory stick that I took out. Sure enough I run the set up and it works and I have my laptop back! Now I just need to replace the 2G memory stick that I removed. While I'm overjoyed to have my laptop back, I'm ticked at Toshiba for not being able to (or not being willing to) tell me about trying this "fix". I'm now wondering if I even needed to purchase the new hard drive in the first place. Seems to me that Toshiba just tries to suggest fixes that will cause me to buy expensive parts from them. I'm also really surprised that none of the "fixes" that I read on the internet mentioned this.

Is this supposed to be in blue? If Aoki was on the Yankees or Red Sox, I could possibly see this.

I actually have thought about this alot and have wondered how people with peanut allergies handled ball games (or if they just did not go). We usually bring peanuts to the game and I sometimes wondered if at some point someone would ask us if we could put them away because they have allergies. We sit in the family section, so there often kids in our section. I think you are. We always just throw our peanut shells on the floor and I notice that most others that eat peanuts at the games do the same thing. I don't consider it being rude as it seems to be a generally accepted practice. If it were not, I would probably stop eating shelled peanuts games.

This is how they ranked the teams (from the article): The Wall Street Journal examined every transaction this off-season and ranked each team by how well it fared. The numbers are based on FanGraphs projected 2012 wins above replacement (WAR).....rankings don't include contract extentions, promotions within organizations or players returning from injury. The Brewers got a -5.6 and the Cards got a -8.5 (the Cards ranked 30th). Angels, Marlins, and Tigers were 1,2,3 with 13.3, 7.1, 5.5 respectively. Other NL Central teams: Cubs 0.3, Pirates 4.2, Astros 1.7. Again none of this takes into account guys like Wainwright, Gamel, K-Rod for a full year, and I'm assuming it also does not include Aoki (not sure if FanGraphs has a WAR number on him).

I have had my radio at work on WTMJ for the last 2 weeks. However, I know not everyone is able to tolerate listening to Sykes and/or Wagner every day.

So, based on online reviews and the type of treadmill we are looking for, I just ordered the NordicTrack 1750. They have a President's sale today (an extra 10% off). If anyone else is looking to buy a Treadmill and they end up selecting a Nordictrack - a few notes: - It appears Sears is the only other place (other than directly through NordicTrack) that you can purchase NordicTrack equipment. Unfortunately they did not have the model that I wanted in our delivery area (although, can't believe in this day and age there are "delivery areas" with a company as large as Sears. Where is the nearest delivery area where it is available? Put it on a truck and bring it here!). - Before ordering online through NordicTrack, call and negotiate. I called them because we are going on vacation in a few weeks and I was concerned about a possible delivery while we were gone. They have 4 delivery options ranging from just dropping it off in the box, unasembled, on your doorstep (free) to delivering it to the room you want, assembling it, making sure it runs, and discarding all packing materials ($249). I told the sales guy I would like to get the full delivery option but it's too expensive. He told me he could give me that option for $139. I took it. -I also had some questions about Ifit. This feature is free for the first year, then there is an online subscription fee of $15 a month (or $180/year). He told me he could give me the 2nd year for $79 and that this subscription would be fully cancellable (and refundable) at any time during the first year. Seemed like a no brainer to me, so I got that too, but I don't think he ever would have brought it up had I not started asking questions about IFit. It will not be delivered until we get back from vacation. I'll try to remember to give a "review" of it after we have used it for a month or so.

In regards to only a select few people knowing, I'm not sure how "select few" that can be. The leak happened 2 months after the failed drug test occured. I'm assuming that if Braun stated to MLB that he was going to appeal, then MLB would in turn notify their legal counsell and prep them on the facts of the drug test and failed results so that they could formulate an "argument" as to why the suspension should be upheld. In addition Braun's attorny(s) would be involved as well. It's not like just Braun and an MLB official knew about the failed test. I would guess that once the appeal process is set in motion (before the actual appeal hearing) as many as 6-10 people know about the situation. Their could have been some careless handling of files or information by one of the attorneys involved (or Braun's agent) and the leak could have come from some clerk inside one of the law offices (either on MLB's side or Braun's side).

Yeah, but the point was made that this thread had more views than the Braun thread...seems unlikely (although, now the Braun thread has passed this thread - You would think the Braun thread would have 20 times as many views as this thread). Also noticing that my posts number never increases now. Edit: Nevermind, I guess it does and it also changes the number on all your previous posts as well. Sorry, I know this is off the topic of the thread.

This would help the 2012 Brewers, but wouldn't help Braun's reputation. Everyone would see it as Braun getting off on a technicality and being a steroid user. If Braun is truly innocent, he does not want to go this route. And if it happens, every player would "leak" the information. I get that and agree with that thought, I was just wondering if anyone thought that this could be a possibility. Also, I'm not neccesarily saying it's his entire defense. He might be saying, Hey,here is what happened, I'm innocent, but if you don't agree that I am, I also have a problem with the fact that this story was leaked and how it may affect the objectivity of MLB in the decision making process of this appeal.

I understand that the MLB drug testing policy is supposed be confidential and secret until all appeal processes have taken their course. It is well known by now that this confidentiality agreement was broken. Is there anything in the agreement that talks about any consequences if this confidentiality is broken? Perhaps this has already been brought up, but is it possible that one of Braun's, his attorney's, and possibly the union's argument is that this whole case should be thrown out because MLB broke it's confidentiality agreement? I guess this is probably a long shot since MLB could argue that it was the player that secretly leaked the news so that they could then argue that the case should be thrown out. Off topic: OK, I'm going to ask again, is there a spell check anywhere on this site? I desperately need one!

I'm not sure what the "district office" is and I don't mean to pry, but why don't you just have the checks automatically deposited into your accounts? I can't imagine there are any employer's (including the governement) that does not have this as an option (In fact many employers make this mandatory). Perhaps you have your reasons but it saves two trips, one to the district office and one to the bank. Not to mention that most banks now waive certain fees on checking accounts when you have your checks automatically deposited. Also, you would most likely have access to your money sooner since they are generally deposited the night before or the morning of date of the paycheck.

Ok, yeah, I guess that makes some sense. By the way, anyone see them on the Grammys? Brian Wilson sure seemed to make a b-line off the stage when they finished. edit: felt I needed to change grammies to Grammys..didn't want anyone to interpret that incorrectly.

When you call a customer service number and before you talk to someone they ask you to punch in your account number. Then, when a live person comes on they ask for the account number again. What was the purpose of me punching in my number in the first place?

So far, not very impressive. Seems like groups way past their prime like Iron Maiden and the Beach Boys used to be reserved for the side stages. Now they are headliners? I'm waiting for them to announce Three Dog Night as a headliner. It appears that Summerfest may have lost it's pull as far as current big name acts go.