the unlikely orange

ouch.  you go into st. louis for the third game of the season, thinking that you are just getting used to this new kind of pittsburgh steelers team: one that dominates on offense and just hopes not to give up too many points on defense.  and then.... well, before we get to that, how good was it to get mr. bell back?  he looked so awesome and so much better than the players around him.  i worry about his health, too, with the beating he takes, but when he is healthy, there aren't too many athletes in the nfl quite like him.  he was leaping over people, making one handed catches, and pounding out tough yards through the middle.  amazing. and then, of course, there is the uncoverable antonio brown.  i only bring it up because everyone on defense knows that ab is the best receiver on the field, and yet they still can't seem to stop him.  it is remarkable to watch.  he is a great one. but with the breath-taking injury to our franchise quarterback, who i just wrote

in  my hiatus from doing much of anything resembling blogging the last couple of months, i have totally missed being able to gush about baseball, particularly the success of both of my favorite teams, the pirates and the yankees.  the yankees, in my opinion, have exceeded expectations, and are on pace to win a wild card spot, if they can finish strong.  the pirates, on the other hand, have been very, very good.  they have the second best record in the big leagues, and have for some time.  the only problem is that the team with the best record, the st. louis cardinals (cue excessive booing here) are in the same division.  so the pirates have been chasing for months.  in any other division they'd be division winners.  and they still have a chance to do that, but, if nothing else, they have already clinched a playoff berth.  even if they lose all of the rest of their games, they will be in buctober with a chance to play for the world series.  and if any team besides the cardinals i

i know it seems a bit late to write about it now, but i am still basking in the glory that was the steelers' complete dominance of the san francisco 49ers on sunday.  after the frustrating reality of losing to the cheatriots in new deflate-land on opening night, it was so fun to see the team come out of the tunnel at heinz field, wearing the black jerseys and ready to find the win column. well, when i say "see" i really mean "hear."  the game wasn't on tv in my area, so i had to listen to the radio instead.  i would have preferred to see the action in living color, but when ben started flinging the ball all over the field to antonio brown for 195 yards, it didn't really matter.  i just enjoyed listening to every single second. ben was the best player on the field on sunday, in my opinion.  don't get me wrong, i love antonio brown.  he is amazing, and may end up the greatest receiver in pittsburgh steelers history.  and if that ends up be

quin is our little entertainer...even when he doesn't know all the words.  check it out.

after months of drawn-out legal battling, baffling choices, and incessant babbling about all of it, there will be finally be football. and once again my emotions are mixed.  i miss the days when i just loved it, for pure reasons.  now, it makes me feel sort of dirty.  like a roman in the stands at the coliseum, i feel like i am witnessing something that is so wretched and wrinkled that i should be shouting "stop!"  and yet, a part of me still very much enjoys it.  no, i don't enjoy concussions and jock culture and the wasting of billions of dollars on a sport that is pretty meaningless when you take a big picture look at life on planet earth, where people are killing each other over resources, and dying for lack of basic needs.  and yet.... and yet, when i see that rich black, mixed with that vibrant yellow, and that starry little logo, my knees get week and i start to think of such noble things as glory and honor and teamwork.  my mind dwells on the thrill of vict

part of our summer tradition is to create a bucket list at the beginning of the summer which serves as a kind of agenda for us, giving us some goals to reach throughout the summer.  some of the items are annual traditions, and some are brand new activities.  this year we decided to try and color an entire coloring book together as a family over the course of the summer.  we bought one that would be interesting to children and adults, and we had a ton of fun working on it and using our creativity. we had help from my two sisters on two of the pages, but the rest was all us.  here are most of the pages (27 of them), although they didn't fit evenly, so i had to leave out 4 or 5.  what do you think?