I must have walked through a hundred shoe stores and taken recommendations from every runner I know.  My brother is a powerful voice on the subject haven given me the first pair because they were slightly too large for him.  At the transfer of ownership of the shoes he made it clear staring at my eyes to make the point clear, "These already have some miles on them but you should be able to get a year out of them or so."  That was three years ago.  Since then the fabric on the side has begun to tear, enough for the casual observer to wonder when the retirement age was.  My old shoes were the Brett Favre of running shoes, never knowing if they will see use again.  Honestly, I kid you not.  I can't bring myself to throw them out, they MAY get use again if I don't like the new ones.  I took those out for a 5 mile run today, there was more life to each step but I tried a different arrangements of the pads.  I finished the run, but it was work.



And in astronomical news, there are several new objects in orbit...mostly home runs given up by Jonathan Broxton.  I love my Dodgers and far be it from me to take on the genius that is Joe Torre but his patience with George Sherrill and Broxton would test the Dalai Lama's.  I made the happy pilgrimage to Chávez Ravine a handfull of times again this year, and narrowly missed yet another foul ball that fate wants me to get.  By the way, I don't think I have ever seen the Dodgers lose a home game I have been to...a fortunate interrupted run spread out more than a decade.  The game pictured above was a recent extra innings win which Broxton tried his best to give away but managed to get a 'W' for.    Now 11 games back I am searching for which team I will follow in the post season.  The Minnesota Twins are the natural choice, duking it out with the White Sox for the AL Central for what seems like the 10th straight year.  Is it too early to give up on the Dodgers? Never!  But I thought I would take a position on my AL rooting interest just in case.

As for the NL, It'll be really hard to cheer for anyone else from the West since I root against them all year.  0-162 is the record I prefer the Padres to have each season, I would love to hear "The Coach" spin that on San Diego's sports radio 1090 which cracklingly leaks into the Central Coast, but of course they could win the West which somehow justifies the bit he did about songs on Geoff Blum's iPod a few years back. That is when I knew I could never like the Padres.  There are just some things which should not be known or at least open to public discussion.  Also I don't think an Illiad length discussion needs to be done on the strengths and weaknesses of Lake Elsinor's bullpen complete with live interviews, just in case dengue fever hits the big club and the entire roster gets called up.  OK, maybe I dislike the radio station more than the team...I am just saying I will not be rooting for them.

Last night I sat in bed and watched the Minnesota Vikings pre-season game which re-aired on NFL-HD.  I went to extraordinary lengths to not know what happened in the game.  It took place Saturday afternoon but didn't hit the network until Sunday night.  No ESPN, no Facebook, no AP wire, no talking to relatives or family.  Why I did this is of some concern.  There was no Brett Favre or Adrian Peterson, so I watched Sage Rosenfels cut apart the tame St. Louis Rams.  I think it was the admission to myself that maybe some synapse in the back of my skull really doesn't believe the Dodgers won't go on a 20 game win streak and it is time to re-stoke the flame that the Vikings can somehow turn back the hands of time again and win something more than just respect.