Patrick425

Thanks!! Actually we are planning on going some day during the week next week (on a weekday). I know that 8-5 is not a ton of time, but we only have the ability to take one day off of work and we did not want to go on a weekend (and there was not an available weekend for us in the near future).

My Wife, my 15 yr old son, and I have decided to take the train down to Chicago next week and spend the day. We are not looking for anything that would be a "commitment" of time like the Museum or anything like that. Some of our initial thoughts are to go to the observation deck in Willis Tower, maybe Navy Pier. Any other suggestions of things we should do or see? Lived in Milwaukee my entire life and I should really know more about what there is to do in Chicago, but the only time I ever really spent in Chicago was shortly after I graduated from college and had a friend that was going to grad school down there. However, most of the time when we went down to visit him it was just to hit the Chicago Bars, and not really do any sight seeing. edit: We are not staying the night. Probably getting there around 8 and leaving at around 5. edit 2: Reading about Willis tower skydeck, sounds like the lines can be as long as 2 hours. There is the option to buy a speed pass for $40 per person, but not sure I want to do that. If anyone has any experience with this, could you tell me if the lines would be a bit shorter if we got there first thing in the morning (like right when it opens?).

My son picked up his HS yearbook a couple of weeks ago. He was in 5 sports/activities. They spelled his last name wrong in 3 of the 5 pictures. It is a common last name (according to one site I found, there are about 140,000 people with this last name in the U.S.) that is not hard to spell at all (one syllable).

This is the main reason I have stuck with TWC as well (several TVs). TVs in the basement, kitchen, bedrooms...don't need boxes for those. Although, I heard something the other day about TWC taking 4 or 5 channels off the "non-box" option and I'm wondering if this will be the trend and eventually all TV's will need boxes to get cable TV.

He will probably at least use capital letters and punctuation. And I'm sure his hair will look flawless as he's writing it.

Paying $30 to get $10 is not "FREE MONEY". They probably had an extra 5 to 10 thousand people at the game last night because people were willing to spend money to get something for "free"....and yes free does belong in quotes when you have to pay to get it. So, let's say you walk into a bank and there was no one there and instead of going through the rope maze you just went right up to the teller window. The teller tells you that he/she can not help you until you walk through the rope maze. This chore seems "trivial", but after doing it wouldn't you at least ask "Ok, why was that necessary?" I would. If you wouldn't, I guess I'm just more curious than you are, that's all, and not a lazy whiner as you seem to be insinuating. I put "supervisor" in quotes because I don't know his actual title. Maybe he's an "attendant" or a "guests service manager", I have no idea.

Well, it was a "sort of a deal" because it seemed pointless. I understand why I have to re-enter, but why do I have to go to another gate. If the point is to give back to the fans, and more importantly, generate ticket sales, shouldn't I get 2 vouchers for 2 tickets? Walking 100 yards is not a big deal to get something free, but sorry I found walking 100 yards (and if I had entered at the hot corner...it would have been much longer than 100 yards), waiting in line again, and then my family having to wait for me to be an annoyance when it seems pointless. Anyways...this is what I thought....but after going to the brewer web site and reading the rules of the promotion, I now see that they were actually allowing me to break the rules (the supervisor really did not explain this clearly to me). Here is what the rule state: Please note that vouchers will be distributed as one per fan, not per ticket. I guess when the attendant showed me this last night I thought it said one per fan per ticket. Not sure I agree with this rule or that I understand the reasoning behind it, but knowing this now, I understand better why he made me go to another gate. Again, the guy was very nice with his explanation and I felt sorry for him that he felt his job would be in jeopardy if he let me in the same gate....and for the record, I wasn't a jerk about it, I asked him because I was curious as to what the point was to having to go to another gate. So Torts, just because someone complains about something, doesn't mean they were "put out" by the task they had to perform, maybe they just want to know the reasoning behind it. Do you always just do what people tell you to do without questioning it?

Pretty clear you missed the point of my post, but thanks for your jerk reply anyways.

So, went to our second August game last night. We had an extra ticket and so I went in got my voucher and then left and got back in line. The ticket line "supervisor" saw me doing this and told me if I wanted to do this I had to go to a different gate. What?! It's bad enough that they make you leave and come back, but really? My family was already in so I had to meet up with them again at the original gate. I asked the ticket supervisor why I had to go to a different gate. He took my voucher and showed me the language that said "one voucher per customer per ticket" and I said.."yeah, per ticket". He was nice and said, sorry, these are our instructions, there are cameras that watch us and we could lose our jobs if we give out more than one voucher to a customer. Wow, I really hope the Brewers are not that hard on their employees.

Great to hear Hammer and yes the working hard and having fun should go without saying and sometimes sounds "cliche", but there are so many youth coaches out there that say they just want the kids to have fun, but then coach the team in a way that does not really coincide with that line of thinking. My son just finished his first year of HS baseball this year and is now playing Fall Ball. I coached his youth teams from the time he was 5 through U14. I was volunteered to coach against my will at the pee wee level, and there was no getting out from there (Of course, looking back, I'm so glad that I was forced to coach as I ended up really enjoying it). One thing I always tried to stress is the importance of being good team mates and that there is no room for egos (on or off the field). I never hesitated to sit one of the better players if I thought they were not being a good team mate, not exercising good sportsmanship, or not giving there best effort. I'd rather lose a game than allow these type of behaviors to happen. You can never let any kid on the team believe they are so good that they can do what ever they want and not have to worry about ever being benched. Winning is never that important. Best of luck. Coaching can be quite a commitment and hopefully you can avoid the politics that unfortunately goes along with youth sports at times.

Amen Brother. Is this how people were raised...or how they are raising their kids? "Hey son, it's ok to do bad things as long as other people are doing them also" Yikes.

Ralph Sasson gave a brief interview to JSonline: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/220231331.html Nothing much there but he states he came out CA in 2011 to visit his friend Ryan Braun, fell in love with the place, and decided to move here. Now, I have lived in Milwaukee my entire life and I have nothing against it, but I find it hard to believe that a California Boy falls in love with a town like Milwaukee and moves here for that sole purpose. I think it's more likely that he like the thought of being part of Braun's "entourage" and wanted to be closer to that. Then things went south between the two after the failed drug test and here we are. As critical as I am of Braun this smells of desperation by Sasson.

Agreed...they never have it on TV. This is some of the old John Cusack 80's movies like "Better off Dead" and "A sure thing". Never see these on TV. Then there are others like Idiocracy that are on all the time. Not that I don't like Idiocracy, but it kills me when someone says they never saw it. How could you avoid it!?

Well, unless maybe the statement is something along the lines of being unable to speak at this point in time because of ongoing matters.

Keeping quiet will not do any good because he was so loud about is 'innocence'. Quiet will equal arrogantly satisfied with his actions and motivations, and merely sorry he got caught. Think of it this way, if you found your wife or girlfriend was cheating on you, it's possible nothing she says will ever allow you to trust her again, but some things might make it so you don't despise her forever. Genuine remorse over all his actions would be the best bet, but it will be difficult to convince people that he is sincere. Things that could help would be full disclosure on how long he's been juicing and what his motivations were when he started and why he continued. Giving back the MVP and ROY because he feels he does not deserve them would at least give some credence to his sincerity. I don't want to see tears in is apology, that would just annoy me and come off as manipulative. Agreed...as long as he doesn't use motivations as excuses. Clearly one of the top motivations to rob a bank is for the money. A thief could give some sob story in court about how he needed money to pay the rent or for chemo treatments (ok...maybe I have been watching to much Breaking Bad!), but that doesn't mean that I would have any more sympathy for him. Many people who can't pay bills don't feel the need to break the law in order to solve their issues.

Yeah..even I have to say that the whole Sasson thing really seems to be coming from someone with a huge chip on his shoulder.

[sarcasm]Well then I guess since Ryan Sandberg played on the Cubs prior to S. Sosa, he must have been a big juicer and K. Griffey Jr. must have gambled on baseball since he played on the Reds about 10 years after P. Rose played, for that matter anyone who has ever played on the White Sox probably bet on baseball at some point.[/sarcasm] Is this really the extent of the arguments we are going to use against anyone who is critical of Braun?

Yes there is a difference, especially with the lower body mechanics...crow hops for OF's...foot "shuffle" or what we would sometime's refer to as "heel clicks" for infielders. However, my guess is with 7 and 8 year olds it's has a lot to do with arm location, extension, grip, etc. One other drill that I thought of and I have seen done at the HS level as well is players doing warm up tosses on one knee (kneeling on the same side as the throwing arm). Then drop the arm down, past the belt, and then back up behind and above the head. Repeat 3 times before making the actual throw, stopping each time to look back at the position of your arm, hand, grip, etc. Then when completing the throw making sure you followed through and the throwing arm goes across the "up knee" (this part mostly beneficial for pitchers). If you pair the players up and in a line and have them do this you can easily check each players "throwing position" when they pause at the top. For the players who are not at the proper position, you can go to them and manually move the arm/hand to where they should be, so that they get the feel of the "proper" position.

I'm glad "well-known" is being put in quotes because that is where it belongs. If it really were well known someone would be able to find some article somewhere, especially around the time he was drafted, that would have said something like "rumors circulate around Braun and possible PED usage". Rumors that circulate around a few students that know him on campus does not qualify as "well-known". Some are making it sound like he was the Bonds of college baseball....there does not seem to be any evidence of this amount of speculation going on during those days (that doesn't mean he was not using them then however). While anything is possible, I find this talk that the Brewers "looked the other way" to be a bit far-fetched. Someone has to first explain to me how they would have known. It's not like he was shooting up in the clubhouse. Speculation about what he was taking sounded like some sort of "gummy bear" that he popped in his mouth. He was passing all the drug tests and unless they had a PI following him around or other players came up to management and told them that they knew he was taking, I don't see how anyone can accuse the Brewers of turning a blind eye to Braun's usage of PEDs.

The problem I have with British shows is that sometimes I have no idea what they are saying.

I completely agree owbc. I don't really understand the indifference by some or the inference that anyone that cares about this stuff needs to get a life. This is a guy who makes a very good living off of playing baseball. The money he receives comes from us the fans. My son is now 15 and since age 10 Braun had always been his favorite player. He had a big poster of him in his room and a couple of Braun t-shirts. Oh, and by the way, just because I stated this doesn't mean I am teaching my son to "idolize" sports figures. Just about every kid who grew up in America (and elsewhere for that matter) watching professional sports has pretended they were that player in their back yard or has collected baseball cards or has poster's/ bobble heads in their bedrooms. As big of a Braun fan as he was, at least my 15 year old son has the sense to see that there is no way he can really cheer for this man any more. If he continued to defend him and disbelieve all the bad stuff that is being reported about him, then I would think my son is "idolizing" him. Also, it's really not that hard to believe that the stories of Bruan reaching out to others to help him defame the collector. A) Several sources are now reporting this, including Yahoo who goes as far as to mention the names of players that Braun tried to contact (Votto, Kemp, and Tulowitzki) and B) Bruan's statement in his press conference to the effect of "we found out things about the collector" would seem to be in line with these actions.

Not sure what the exact issue is with the throwing but I'm guessing it's they don't take the ball back properly. Some the "visualization" that I used when coaching my son's youth teams was to imagine "snake eyes" on the knuckles of the two fingers that grip the ball (the forefinger and the middle finger) and that the two "eyes" should "look at" the target when you bring the ball back (and not be behind the ball like most kids tend to naturally throw). Another drill that I would use to help reinforce this image (I would use this a lot with pitchers), is to stand behind the player holding the ball behind them and about head high or higher. I would ask them to start their throwing motion without the ball and then bring their hand back and grab the ball forcing their arm and hand to be in the correct throwing position.

I'll add to the whole TWC "what's bugging me" list that is in this thread. So, our company needs to upgrade it's internet connection in order to make our offsite backups run more efficiently. It's somewhat of an urgent issue. So, we signed a contract with TWC on August 8th to increase our internet speed. At the time we were told that someone would contact us "within the next few days" to set up an appointment. We just got a call today (after numerous unreturned messages were left with them asking to expedite the request). The soonest they can get someone in is on the 22nd. So a full two weeks after we signed the contract. When I asked why it took so long to contact us it was explained to me that there is a 24-48 hour turn around that each person in the chain has. The person on the 8th used their full 48 hours to get it to the next person. So then next person got it on the 12th and used their full 48 hours to get it to the next person on the 14th. That person used their full 48 hours before they contacted us today to schedule an appointment. Why it takes 3 departments to handle this and why they are each given up to 48 hours to do anything is beyond me. Needless to say....we will be shopping for a new internet provider.

At the risk of turning this into a topic that belongs in the "Major League" forum, not sure how you can state that Estrada has put up numbers that are "as good as, if not better than" Gallardo's. It's not that I'm some huge Gallardo fan, but to be fair, Gallardo has pitched a total of 540 innings in 2011-2013 to Estrada's 311. So, it's like comparing a starter to a middle reliever. Also Gallardo put up ERA's of 3.52 and 3.66 in 2011 and 2012. While Estrada posted 4.10 and 3.69 in just little more than half the innings that Gallardo tossed.

I guess I'm in the minority in that I like D. Sutton. Matt V. was probably my favorite Brewer TV announcer. I loved that Schroeder did not get 90% of the references that he would make. Last night BA made a reference to the song "Deep in the hart of Texas" and Schroeder had no idea what he was talking about. Sometimes I get the feeling that Bill knows 4 songs, has seen maybe 3 movies and has never watched TV.