Am I once a week?

It saddens me to think my blogging rate has dropped off faster than a GW approval rating. Face the facts I must – it’s been a tough stretch of putting together coherent, consistent thoughts for all the world to ingest over the past few weeks.

Where have I been? What have I been doing? Actually, I am not quite sure the answer to either of those questions. For sure, though, I haven’t been where I want to be – comfortably alone with my thoughts for a few hours a day. Just enough time to write and re-write, providing some sort of fodder for the few folks who saunter through this site.

I spent last weekend down at the Jersey shore. I was in town for a wedding, but got to stay at my old man’s house located about four blocks from the Atlantic (ocean that is) and around 3.75 miles from Monmouth Park.

After arriving in NJ on a Friday am red-eye, I managed to head on over to MP for the last few races on Saturday. Hosting one of my Portland friends* who I am (was) in the process of converting into a horse fan, I didn’t quite settle into the day like I would have preferred. Nonetheless, it was a great few hours. No cash's, but as the track was closing at 6pm due to the lame-ass budget crisis, I threw $20 down (def. a big bet for me) on the last race at Belmont Park. I thought I had the tout cold (thus the large win bet), but came up a nose short. Oh well, sometimes being hat close to being right is good enough for me.

Sunday we arrived prepared to “spend a day.” MP allows unlimited coolers into the grandstand and they have a huge picnic are with tables and umbrellas that span the entire backstretch. With the rumors of the track being closed due to the budget crisis, it wasn’t too difficult finding a table. With us, we had a brand new $20 cooler from K-Mart stocked with a dozen Bud Lights (aka the Portland Cosmo), a flask of Canadian Club and a small Gatorade bottle filled with tequila…..

Needless to say, by the 9th race, the 90+ degree temperature and the foggy-thick humidity deteriorated both my body and mind. No cashes later, we headed home.

It was fantastic to get a chance to sit down and meet the one and only Patrick P. of Pulling Hair. We were graced with Patrick’s presence sometime just before the 4th or 5th race. Patrick, toting his lovely 1 yr-old daughter, Molly, proceeded to pick a nice winner on his first tout (sans form nonetheless). Patrick loved the #3, and needless to say we didn’t pool our money for a 3-all-all triple, as place came in at 70-1 and show at a measly 75-1. YIKES!! At least my buddy had the 75-1 to show and was able to cash.

I’ll end my story here as long form bios usually bore me….

It is so awesome when the Internet can bring “virtual connections” into the real world leading to human interactions that would have never taken place were there no Internet. Patrick: how dare you compare blogging to internet dating!!! I think it’s awesome that people can communicate and learn about each other (sometimes thousands of miles away) only to have that relationship cemented with an actual meeting.

Ok, so maybe it is like Internet dating, but so what. I’m not looking for a date, just a few winners.

*This friend (Dale) informed me that there is a an "OTB" that is a Chinese Restaurant pretty close to my house. This I never knew and nearly blew me off my seat. With my new bike (given to me by a another friend) I will surely be checking out that joint and reporting back.