MLB Records - Someone Always Watching and Waiting

Justin Hayward - Watching and Waiting

While driving on our way to Panda Express for dinner, we were listening to NPR All Things Considered news and heard that a new Major League Baseball record fell last night - for the first time. It seems there never was a day in the past 150 years (at least since the expansion to 30 teams), that all 15 home teams won all of their games in a single day. It was especially fun to hear that the Seattle Mariners were the home team to win their home game last night, and in extra innings against the Baltimore Orioles. The NPR news report made a point that there was actually someone out there who was watching and waiting for new records - in this case, one that was not in the record book before.

It is humid out this evening, and greenish dark storm clouds are forming this evening over the Front Range in northern Colorado and making their way to the east of the western Great Plains. I can watch and wait for the August days these weeks to pass by as we head to September. A good time to remember watching the Seattle Mariners baseball games on our television back in Corvallis, waiting for the rains in the early evenings here in Fort Collins, thinking about and listening to the Moody Blues play Watching and Waiting.

Watching and waiting
For a friend to play with
Why have I been alone so long
Mole he is burrowing his way to the sunlight
He knows there's some there so strong

'Cause here there's lot of room for doing
The thing you've always been denied
Look and gather all you want to
There's no one here to stop you trying

Soon you will see me
'Cause I'll be all around you
But where I come from I can't tell
But don't be alarmed by my fields and my forests
They're here for only you to share

'Cause here there's lot of room for doing
The things you've always been denied
So look and gather all you want to
There's no one here to stop you trying

Watching and waiting
For someone to understand me
I hope it won't be very long

THOMAS, RAY/HAYWARD, JUSTIN

Watching and Waiting

I did a two-talk day today. First to an advisory committee, and then to a group of delegates who have been working for a couple of years on a position paper about biofuels. I took a cab from the Crystal City Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia to Harry S. Truman Building. I couldn't get to the 21st Street entrance because the President's car had arrived just a couple of minutes before me - just a little bit of bad timing (1). If I would have caught my cab a little earlier, maybe I would have had a Kodak Moment. It was still interesting - the notable yellow

At the corner of 21st Street and Virginia Avenue

police line ribbon was stretched across the sidewalk, and I was standing at the corner of 21st and Virginia Avenue with a group of State Department employees who couldn't get back to their offices. The composite photograph done with the Photoshop software using the File / Automate / Photomerge commands shows the scene: flashing police and Secret Service cars and SUV's, officers with hand phones, and a line of police motorcycles. After a little while I was told that I could walk around the building the long way to the C Street entrance. My host met me there and got me through security. It is pretty cool the coming and goings that are a part of daily life in the Washington, D.C. area. I was pretty proud of myself - both talks for the day were finished last night before 11:30 PM. That was better than the situation I wrote about in Human Nature a couple of months ago. I was still up early finishing some paperwork and taking a conference call at 7:15 AM with folks around the D.C. area and in Beijing. I'm ready for bed and a few pages from one of several books I'm juggling at the same time. It might be nice to listen to a quiet song to relax with - watching and waiting for the next burst of effort to get ready for the next set of deadlines.
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(1) Both Jan and I heard on the radio (separately), that the President was going to give a policy speech at the State Department this morning. I figured it would be before noon, so was surprised that it was at mid-day, but I knew right away what was up when I arrived and the street was cordoned off.