I have a few things to say...

I've taken what I can only call a 'vacation' from blogging.

Real vacation: The first few days you spend relaxing... LOVING the freedom, and enjoying the absence of schedule and pressure. You wonder why you ever worked in the first place. This shit is sweet!

Then, toward the end, you begin looking forward to going home... you start thinking of what you miss about your neighborhood, your friends and your routine.

Then, it's over. At long last, you are home... and you remember why you love where you live and what you do, you anticipate getting back to work, to your routine... to life.

The past ten days have... been nothing like that at all. But it sure sounded good.

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The St. Louis Cardinals have surprised, amazed and dumfounded the experts. As for the fans... I'd love to say we expected it all along, but we're pretty freaking amazed and dumfounded too.

Situation: A few guys that had been thrown onto the scrap heap... several first-year rookies... a couple of geriatric near-retirees... and numerous injured and hurting players... have stunned the world. In a fit of determination and grit, an unlikely group of heroes have dragged the team into the FALL CLASSIC, and nobody has an explanation as to how ANY of it happened.

It just did.

And now, the Cardinals will take their scrappy group of talented but injured, green, left-for-dead guys to the field once again for seven games that promise to be as exciting as Game 7 was against the Mets.

And it will be against another unlikely team. With 119 losses last season, the Detroit Tigers have surprised almost as many experts. I can think of no more deserving team than the Tigers to go to the world series...

... and lose.

But this is what baseball is really about. No 25-million-a-year Yankees, no Bonds-esque assholes, nothing even close to what the experts predicted.

But it's real. It's American. It's baseball. And it's sweeeeet.

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After this week, I will have jumped several hurdles in life and settled back into some sort of routine... almost like coming back from vacation. And, just like vacation, I am tired and broke, but I have all kinds of pictures to show ya!

Just kiddin'.