Well, I won my first fantasy football game by a score of 75-68. I got solid performances from my QB and WRs, but I was surprised by my RBs. Westrbrook had a good game, but 20 points from Michael Turner was a very pleasant surprise. I also had 11 points from my backup QB (Favre) and 10 points from my backup RB (Forte). Good to know I have a solid bench, so far anyway. I spent a little too much of the day watching the fantasy scoreboard, but I think that is because I was a little excited for my first ever fantasy game. Although I will certainly pay attention next week, I plan on spending less time by the computer during games. At least now I know I will not go winless this year.

As Katie mentioned on her blog, we joined a fantasy football auction league today. The league is made up of MBI alumni who enjoy giving each other a hard time, so this could be fun. I have never done fantasy football before because I never wanted to follow the stats closely enough. They needed one more team for this year after Katie joined, so I figured what the hell? We had a mythical $100 to spend, and I must say that I think I did OK for my first ever draft. Of course one injury to one of my top players and my opinion of my draft skills will change drastically. Here's my team.

QB: Eli Manning (NYG), Brett Favre (NYJ)

RB: Brian Westbrook (PHI), Michael Turner (ATL), Matt Forte (CHI), Justin Fargas (OAK)

WR/TE: Reggie Wayne (IND), Jerricho Cotchery (NYJ), Santana Moss (WAS), Jason Witten (DAL), Dallas Clark (IND)

K: Josh Brown (STL)

D: Indianapolis

Teacher workshops start today. It doesn't seem like it was all that long ago that I was looking forward to the summer, and now it is over. Wow, time goes by faster each year. Before I know it I will be writing about how quickly winter break arrived. It was nice having a summer with no drum corps or marching band, and I am looking forward to not having marching band this fall either. It should make for a relaxing start to the school year.

Our townhome development has had an association wide garage sale yesterday and today. I am not sure if I am more amazed by the amount of crap on display in the driveway across the street or by the number of people that have stopped by to look through it.

About 10 years ago--July, 1998 to be exact--I saw my first outdoor baseball game when the high school band I was working with at the time took a trip to Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York City. The first stop on the trip was an Orioles game at Orioles Park at Camden Yards. Beautiful ballpark. Last June--2007--Katie and I took a trip with some family and friends to Pittsburgh where we saw two Pirates games at PNC park and this past June we saw two Twins/Brewers games in Milwaukee at Miller Park. This past weekend Katie and I took our third baseball trip in the last two summers. We went to Kansas City to see the Twins play the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. The Twins won both games we saw. The park was beautiful. The more outdoor baseball games we see the more excited I get to have an outdoor stadium here in Minnesota. I hope the Twins do a lot of things to get fans out to the park like the Royals did on Friday. For that game hot dogs, peanuts, and small pops were all only $1 and there were fireworks after the game. The stadium was packed. One Royals fan we talked to said it was the biggest crowd of the year. There were a lot of Twins fans there which boosted attendance, but there were also a lot of KC fans who brought their kids out to the game. Cheap food and free fireworks = a good family night at the ballpark. Hope the Twins do things like this. Here are a few pics.

The view from our Saturday seats. Our Friday seats were closer, but these seats were far better.

Me and Katie enjoying a Twins lead which eventually became a Twins win.

Their new scoreboard is fantastic. It has a lot of information and the picture is very clear. They don't show as many replays as they could however.

The fountains in the outfield are pretty cool.

We almost saw a brawl when Young got hit by a pitch, but cooler heads prevailed. Damn!