Patrick425

I work at home, and my office is in my basement. My new phone actually pushes out the EBS 'tone' (as I found out yesterday) during emergency alerts, and then puts a message on the screen about the type of weather emergency it is. I certainly didn't panic, but I was definitely puzzled, and went upstairs and looked outside to see why in the world we were getting a tornado warning. Yes, you were puzzled. Exactly. Why? Because you are an informed person who at least pays some attention to weather forecasts and have some reasonable thoughts about the types of conditions in which tornadoes form. You didn't automatically think.."OMG, a tornado!" Some of the "viewer feedback" that they showed on the news last night regarding this story just made me shake my head. People were not questioning it, nor were they "puzzled" by it. They just automatically thought there was a tornado. When I got it on my phone, I was puzzled by the "icon" that showed up that I had never seen before. When I clicked on it and saw what it was, my first thought was that somehow the integrity of my phone had been compromised.

I also understand why some people will try to find an edge with all the money at stake. Doesn't mean that I'm not mad about it or think that it's ok. There is a lot of money at stake in many professions outside of baseball, it doesn't mean that lying and cheating is an acceptable means of obtaining that money. If someone is able to lie and cheat about their grades to get into an Ivy league school and takes the spot of someone who is more "naturally" qualified, is that ok? Should we just say "that's the way it is" and live with it? I understand it's just sports. But, people pay money to see sports. Sports serve a role in our lives just like movies, the arts, or any other non-work related recreational activity. Maybe I'm in the minority, but when I watch a sport I want to be able to believe that the athletes I'm watching are doing what they are doing based purely on a combination of hard work and natural abilities. I'm not sure I understand the person who doesn't care if the athletes he or she is watching are "roided up". Would you prefer that instead of using baseballs they use superballs so that they fly farther? How about if we let pitchers use some sort of projection device on the mound to throw harder? Why don't we just replace all the athletes with machines?

Watching the news right now. Was there really "panic" by some in regards to the erroneous tornado warning today?? Are people really thar clueless about the weather?

I really hope they go with Hunter Morris, but I'm not optimistic that they will. The Brewers tend to be overly cautious with this type of thing and it's always bothered me. If he comes up, hits .100 for a month and that ruins his confidence for the rest of his career, then I'm concerned about his "make-up" anyways. I'll never understand this "we don't want to put too much pressure on him" or "risk hurting his confidence" stuff. Just reminds me of the commercial (not even sure what it's for) of the soldier in WWII talking to the camera saying something like "Hey this is your grandpa...stop LOLing all the time".

I completely understand how you feel. I'm angry as well. However, not sure if you are a fan of other sports, but if you decide to "boycott" baseball, then you basically have to give other sports the same treatment, as I don't think it's safe to assume that any of the sports are completely clean.

What story are you talking about? There was this one from Haudricourt that was in the paper this morning, but I don't see anywhere in here that suggests that the clinic is leaking the info: http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/brauns-team-must-go-to-bat-for-him-5n8ptnv-191567531.html I don't agree with everything Haudricourt states in this article, but I believe in the overall message, especially the last line: Leak by leak, your client is dying a slow public relations death. What are you waiting for?

Exactly. C'mon Braun....if you are really innocent...you can't just stand by and let all of this happen to you!

I really, really hope it misses us....We are leaving for AZ on Friday morning!!

Every thing Braun has stated from day one has indicated that there is more to the story. His first statement that he released after he won his appeal stated this in the first two sentences: "I am very pleased and relieved by today’s decision. It is the first step in restoring my good name and reputation." Sorry Ryan, it's now about a year later and we are still waiting for the steps 2, 3, 4, and 5 in restoring your good name and reputation. So far, you seem content in just letting the media drag it through the mud. Braun's press conference: "I want to take a moment to especially thank the fans, all the fans who have supported me as well as the fans who withheld judgment as I respected the confidentiality of this case.... I’ve tried to respect this process, even though the confidentiality of the process was breached early on." and then at the end: "I’ll try to answer all of your questions, but please respect the fact that I can’t get into many details of the process because it’s supposed to be confidential, and because of potential ongoing litigations and the fact that I am considering all my legal options. There may be some questions I can’t answer." There is a difference between saying you are respecting the confidentiality of the case and making a statement that telling my side of the story would violate MLB confidentiality policies. MLB's statement after the appeal decision basically threw him under the bus and sure made it sound like they did not believe a word of his defense case. This statement by MLB did anything but show respect for the decision and for Braun. Ok, so he was holding back things because of potential ongoing litigation. This was a year ago. If he still believes that there is potential for ongoing litigation, then yes, I think he should have reiterated that in his most recent statement. What if 2, 3, 4 years go by and still no legal issues arise from this?...will he release more of his story then? Will he then make some attempt to "restore his reputation" as he mentioned in his initial statement? Ryan, if you are innocent, it's a real shame what you are letting them do to you. You are not acting like a person that is interested in "restoring your good name and reputation". If you're guilty, I wish you would have just admitted it right away.

Welcome back Geno! Agree on both points. Especially the 2nd one. I'm not overly thrilled with the off season moves and the cutting of payroll. Like you stated, they are not going to have this lineup forever and I feel like they are wasting this window of opportunity. I would have had no problem trading prospects for a real #2. When you are the Brewers and you have a chance to make the playoffs, I'll always be for trading unproven talent for proven talent. People who don't agree with this, are either too young to remember or have chosen to forget the years of 1993-2006 (especially the early 2000's), among other not so great years in Brewer history. They have only made the playoffs 4 times in 40+ years! When you have an opportunity and the talent the Brewers have now in there offense...you go for it! It just seems like Antanasio has had a change of heart. When we needed an Ace down the stretch in 2008, he went out and got Sabathia. Then he made the big trade for Grienke and also signed Marcum. He seemed to understand the Brewer's situation as well as the need to reward the fans for their support. In my opinion, he did not do that this off season.

My guess is that this decision, like many decisions in this world, was financially based (TV ratings, crowd sizes, etc). With the increasing lack of attention span of the general public (especially in the U.S.), I have all sorts of fears about the future of the Olympic games. Over the past 10 or 20 years the games seem to have become more about human interest stories than about the athletic competition itself.

Yeah, I don't know that I need to necessarily have him produce any evidence that backs his side at this point, but I would at least like to hear from him why he can't. There are plenty of good points made in this forum and in other blogs that speculate why he may not be able to give his side of the story at this point, but that's all they are, speculation. No one, other than Braun and his attorneys, know for sure why he would not be able to give his side of the story (assuming he really does have one). Last year, during his press conference in Spring Training, all he basically said was that he was taking the "high road". He did make a slight reference to possible future legal battles, but I would like to hear him reiterate and elaborate on that. I don't think he would be violating any labor agreement rules or put himself in any legal jeopardy if he just said hey, there is much more to this story, but my attorneys have advised me not to disclose this information at this point and time. I think he could even be a little more specific and state "because of subject matter waiver" issues and/or "MLB labor agreement issues" I'm unable to fully give my side of the story at this point. I don't know that this would cause anyone who thinks he's 100% guilty to suddenly believe him, but it would help give a little more faith to those of us who are starting to have our doubts about him and why he seems to not really want to do anything to protect his name and reputation. If you are truly innocent, you can only take the "high road" for so long. You have to give a better reason and be a bit more specific as to why you are not speaking out more.

On a somewhat related note....I have Sprint for my cell phone and the reception in my house has never been good. I told someone at work about this and they stated that they knew someone with the same problem. That person called Sprint and they sent him a "signal booster" to hook up to his internet modem. So, I called Sprint to get one of these. I got the unit yesterday, hooked it up, and all of a sudden, we have 4 bars in our house! I wish I had known about this 2 or 3 years ago.

Yes, I would add another dependent. If that puts you in a situation where you owe taxes, I would then use line 6 (Additional amount, if any, you want withheld from each paycheck) to try to get the net to as close to zero as possible. I realize that money market, savings, and CDs are basically returning zero at this point, but I still don't think this is a good excuse to just let the government hold your money. Why not set up a "rainy day" savings account and put a fixed amount of funds in there each month? Again, you can set it up so that money automatically transfers from your checking into this account (similar to how the govt. automatically takes money from your paycheck each month). The purpose of the fund would be to pay for "unexpected" expenses such as car repairs, home repairs, medical expenses, etc. Then, you have the money for these items when you need it (not just when the government feels like returning it to you). What kills me is that often people put the types of "emergency/unexpected" expenses I mentioned above on a credit card and pay 15% or more to the credit company for the use of that money, yet they have no problem letting the government use their money for no charge at all. Don't use the government as a savings account!!

I'll try to be as kind here as possible with my comments, but it really pains me when I hear something like this. BSC, if the government (or any other institution) started a program today that offered you the opportunity to give them $1K a month and then, a month or two after the end of the year, they will give it all back to you (without any interest) would you sign up for that program? That is basically what you are doing. You do know that there are several institutions out there that will hold your money for you and actually pay you to do so, right? If you want, they will actually pull it directly from your account every month or two weeks, so you don't even have to think about it! Yes, I realize that interest rates are very low right now, but still...it's something, and for the amount of money you are talking about, I would take at least half of that and invest it, put it into my retirement, kid's college fund, something! The last thing I would do is let the government just hold it for me.

Yes, you can get penalized. My wife and I did a few years ago. I believe our penalty was something like $40. The marriage tax penalty basically got us. Since then I have changed my w-4 to add a fixed dollar amount to my tax deduction each paycheck.

What are the ramifications of Braun releasing information about what happened last year in regards the failed drug test and/or the arbitration hearings that followed? Can he be fined?, suspended?, taken to court?, kicked out of baseball?

No kidding.."Here we go" I don't know what to say other than I really hope you meant that to be in blue. It's not just what you said but how you said it...wasting 5 minutes??....stupid song?!? Wow...just...wow.

Yeah, someone I work with has basically done this, but there are still a lot of channels you can not get including sports channels. Doing this is fine if you are not a big TV watcher to begin with or if you are mostly into just watching movies. However, I'm a flipper. I like having a channel guide, and yes, I enjoy having 100+ channels.

Right after my previous post I called TWC to inquire about what my bill would come to if I were to drop my phone service (and retain cable and internet). Of course, the person looked at my bill and told me he could offer me all sorts of promotional discounts. When all was said and done he basically reduced my bill by almost the entire amount I was paying for my phone service. While I will enjoy the savings and the fact that I don't have to deal with changing my phone provider right now, it's a bit annoying that I had to call and threaten to drop a service in order to get this discount. It makes me feel like they should reimburse me for all the months that I was paying the "pumped up" fees. I do know that in 2 or 3 months I'm going to call again and ask the same question (we will see what happens then).

I'll probably purchase the Ooma device in the next day or two. I've done a little research on it and it all seems good. Clark Howard has recommended it on his show. You can buy the device on Amazon for $150. If you believe what they state on their website, I have calculated that my monthly bill will be $3.73 per month based on my zip code. That's quite a bit less than what I'm paying now. The savings will basically pay for the cost of the device in a matter of 3 or 4 months. My biggest concern was number portability. Sound like it takes a few weeks for that to happen, but in the mean time you just use your old provider. They then send an email to let you know that the number has been "ported" and have you call to cancel your old service.

Yeah, I tend to believe that it's closer to $500 for college level or a lower level minor leaguer and closer to $10,000 for a high profile player. Secrecy, "detectability", quality all become greater factors and, as JimH stated, star players have greater means and desire to pay for those things (and the people that sell to star players probably know this). I'm not stating with any certainty that I think Braun is guilty or not guilty. I'm just choosing to be a bit more skeptical this time around.

Is $20k to $30K of PED's a lot? I have no idea what one PED "treatment" would cost.

Fair enough, but considering what Braun said in his statement, Cornwall should have been a bit more clear in his statement. Perhaps stating that while he did not previously know Bosch, other attornys working on the case did and he was introduced to him through them. It would be nice to know how he was "introduced" to Bosch.

Problem with the point you are trying to make is that there is no date on any of the documents. The purchasing of $20K to $30K of PEDs could have happened over a number of years prior to Braun getting caught. I really want to believe Braun, but I'm finding it harder and harder to do so.