A few thoughts at the end of another hot August weekend and hoping we get some big rains from Javier later in the week:

…Funny, I was watching the Olympics today and they were showing the women’s cycling event. I was just thinking to myself various ways in which they could make the event more interesting – for example, like having it take place on the median strip with cars racing past them in both directions – when the leader with no one around her suddenly takes a header. Crazy man.

The same holds true with the other events; they’re all just sooo boring. For example, wouldn’t men’s volleyball be more interesting if they electrified the net? Or allowed the kayaks racing to have a gun placement on each bow? Or put sharks in the same pool as the swimmers? Now that would get me watching! Otherwise? Meh.

…So it’s the first week in August and I see at the local Fry’s the Sam Adams Summer Ales have all been replaced with Octoberfests. I understand marketing, but jeez, we’re still neck-deep in summer here. Fortunately, there were a couple of cases of Summer still around so I grabbed them. Octoberfest is my all-time fave Sammy, but everything in its good time, right?

…Headed back to the gym yesterday for my first workout since late February. Felt good. By the time the holidays come around I’ll be back in the same tip-top shape I was before my mom got sick. One of the Saturday regulars recognized me and said with a grin, “We thought you had died. You look like shit, get back to work!” Talk about incentive!

…No one listens to The Great White Shank, Vol. 4,234: So the lady who runs the Scottsdale rabbit rescue we frequent for bunny supplies had been getting pressured to move for months because the landlord wants to upgrade the property to put in hotsy-totsy home improvement companies. She’d been having no luck finding a new location, so I told her to go to the news media and start naming names, telling them a bunch of helpless, cute bunnies were about to be tossed to the curb due to a heartless landlord. She’d been resisting, expressing confidence that things would work out, but I wasn’t so sure – the landlord was playing hardball.

Turns out while I was away for Goodboys Invitational weekend things must have gotten desperate because she finally took my advice and took her plight to the Arizona Republic. I especially like the part in bolding:

A rescue sanctuary that cares for about 80 rabbits in north Scottsdale is scrambling to find a new home after the current landlord declined to renew its lease earlier this week.

Tranquility Trail Animal Sanctuary, which has operated a small shelter near Hayden and Redfield roads for five years, has just six weeks to find a new building, Executive Director Kelly Ames told The Republic. The group is setting up temporary foster homes where it can send the rabbits if it does not find a new location in time, she said.

…

The sanctuary pays about $6,000 per month for its 6,200-square-foot space in an industrial/office building at 7848 E. Redfield Road, Ames said. The landlord has raised the non-profit’s rent twice in the past year but had initially agreed to let Tranquility Trails stay on a renewed lease, she said.

That changed suddenly when the time came to sign lease papers, Ames said. Greater Airpark Realty Services manages the building and declined comment when contacted by The Republic.

Heh. I’ll bet! No surprise, then, that a week later, someone came forward to offer the bunnies a bigger place, less than a mile away, and at a lower monthly rent! So it’s a big win for the bunnies. Sooner or later y’all will start listening to The Great White Shank.

…You know what I like about August? Changing the music I listen to while working from surf music to classical. There’s something soft and sentimental about August that makes classical music just perfect.

…Never mind what happened to Debbie Wasserman Shultz and the rest of the DNC hacks who had to resign because of Hillary’s e-mails – DWS got a cozy gig with – gasp! – the Clinton campaign, and the other hacks will do just fine in their next Democratic Party gigs (if they haven’t already). At least they didn’t lose their lives. Is there anything Hillary touches that doesn’t result in death, destruction, or mayhem?

…When the season is over and done with and manager John Farrell has (thankfully!) been fired, we will look back on this past West Coast visit as that moment when the season was lost and the Sox’s post-season hopes were dashed. The fact is, this has become a very average team. David Price sucks. Farrell has worn out Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara. They need a real third baseman and a real first baseman. They could use a left fielder who can thump and perhaps a catcher as well. But first and foremost they need a manager who knows how to run a pitching staff.