Kull's World

BUD SELIG OWNS BASEBALL!!!

Are you kidding me?  This makes me freaking sick to my stomach!  Bud Selig and Major League Baseball are now making Little League teams stop using team names of MLB teams unless they buy the official Majestic brand uniforms?  We're talking about kids here Bud, the future of your sport!  Last time I checked, most Little Leagues aren't exactly cash cows.  I think they pretty much just operate and make enough money to run the league and lets kids all over the world groom their skills so that one day they can make millions of dollars as a member of the most powerful players union in all of professional sports.  But now, if Bud has his way they'll have to do so on teams named the Birds, or Cats...instead of the Orioles or Tigers?  Seriously?  How can he say he owns the team name Tigers?  Isn't that like one of the most popular team names in all of sports?   There's probably a hundred Tigers in the NCAA.  Wow.

It was bad enough when Bud banned the Cape League teams from using MLB team names, now he's going after the kids.  What a fuck up.  The kids look up to professional athletes, I was beyond excited when I found out I was on the Red Sox in Little League.  That was like the most coveted team (for obvious reasons).  I can't imagine a Little League with generic team names.  Man...way to go Bud!

Sweat Equity

Dining Area Before & After:




 


Damn man...my mother in law can really work some magic. Thanks Karen!
(but we gotta get rid of that ugly light!)

You wanna live in the ZIP?

How did I miss the chatter on this one? No doubt it will be absolutely horrible but that does not mean I won't TIVO it just to see. No character on this show will ever live up to the coolness that was Dylan McKay, but it might be worth a chuckle. I recognized a couple of the actors in this promo, one was the slutty HS chick from Nip/Tuck and another was a journalist on Dirt. And of course John Stamos' wife from Full House! I think the only way to go with this series is crazy cameos from original cast members, like Kelly Taylor playing the guidance counselor.  Last time I checked, most of their schedules were clear!


 

Turn right onto Easy Street

 

I scored one of these bad boys through work last week.  And let me just say, it's prettty freakin cool.  This is a relatively inexpensive model, in the 300 hundred dollar range but I have seen them well over 5 bills.

I have been spending more time in the office the last year or so, but as the nice weather approaches, I find more reasons to visit job sites and put the paperwork off so having this unit sticking to my windshield will be a great aid.  I have a decent handle on the streets of Boston, but in less than a week, my girl "Gipsy" has already shown me a few routes from A to B that I never knew before. Before the Garmin, I would tend to travel routes that I am familiar with.  At times that would require back tracking to a certain spot.  Just today, I was at the Museum of Fine Arts and needed to get over to a job near the Bayside Expo Center.  Two weeks ago, the route I would have chosen would have taken me double the time it took today.  I know most of the neighborhoods of Boston, but I don't always know how those hoods connect to one another, so Gipsy is taking some guesswork out for me.  And as a friend recently said to me while raving about his Garmin, "she has a sexy voice too so it's a bonus!"

Another bonus, that before I had one didn't realize was a feature is the points of interest.  No matter where you are, you can go to this screen and look up restaurants, banks, museums, etc.  Bottom line, I can now find the closest burrito in a matter of minutes.  And the first time Ben heard "arriving at Benjamin & Caleb's House" from the backseat, seeing and hearing his reaction was worth the (company's) purchase price right there.

Looking forward to many adventures to unfamiliar towns and cities with Gipsy leading the way!

"My Dad"

Ben has known his last name for a while now, can't exactly pinpoint when we became aware of this, yet I often quiz him from time to time, just to hear him say it.  Cuz it is damn cute and all.  So the other day, we had this exchange:

Me:  "Ben, what is your last name?"
Ben: "Kullman...what is your last name Daddy?"
Me: "Kullman!"
Ben: "NOOO...that's not your last name!"
Me: "Then what is my last name?"
Ben " MY DAD!"

Any hoo...I thought that was cute.  It's cool when Ben recognizes that Ben, Mommy, Caleb, and Daddy are all Kullmans.  As many people know, I was the last male on the family tree and felt a lot of pressure (from myself, not my Dad) to churn out a few more KULL-MEN to get the name back into heavy rotation.

Thanks Yellow Box

Nice apology Herald.  I can honestly say this is maybe the third time since they published that Super Bowl drivel that I have even read an online article in their freakin' tabloid of a paper.  And it will be the last.  Weak apology, with no mention of the wannabe writer that wrote the fake article.  He needs to be fired, suspended, publicly tarred and feathered, or something.

NKOTB

As I was driving to my basketball game last night, I was flipping radio stations and came across these guys cranking out their new song, Summer Time.  I only needed to hear the chorus and a couple verses before I said to myself "these guys are freaking geniuses!"  Here they are more than 20 years after bursting onto the scene and basically inventing the boy band craze, with a no doubt summer hit on their hands.

They know the drill, they did the boy band thing, did the producer thing, the solo thing, the acting thing, the celebrity dance thing.  Now they pull off the infamous reunion album and tour to make a few more million.  Genius.  Check the lyrics to the song, pure bubble gum pop by guys that have to be pushing forty years old.  But you know it will be on top of the charts, all over MTV, a top download on Itunes, popular ring tone, the whole nine.  This song could suck, the album could suck.  But their song will be one of those "summer songs" and make them lots of money.  Since I am sure they all really need it!

FULL DISCLAIMER:  I never owned an NKOTB album nor attended a show.  But I always respected them from a music business perspective because obviously they had a good thing going and were the innovators for an entire genre of music.  I once met Donnie, Jordan, Danny, and Jonathan at Whalom Park when Marky Mark Walberg performed on Center Stage (when he was only known as Donnie's white rapping brother).  So before people break my balls in the comment section, simmah down!

Dream a little dream with me

For a long time, I have been fascinated by dreams.  I have had both pleasant and horrible experiences dreaming.  After a traumatic event a number of years ago, I went through a period of night terrors, which was not fun at all.  However, for the most part now I enjoy my dreams and always kick myself that I don't write them down as soon as I get up. 

I've been having lots of dreams within dreams lately.  Does this happen to anyone?  By this I mean, I am sleeping (obviously) and having a dream.  But in that dream I am asleep and having another dream.  I then wake up from the dream within a dream and just go about normal awake activity.  Does that make any sense?

Another weird dream thing that has happened to me lately is that I am sleeping (again I know, kinda obvious) and having a scary dream or a nightmare.  But even though it is scary, it is sort of enjoyable because even in my sleeping state, I know that anytime I want, I can wake up and get out of the situation.  Anyone experienced this before?

A couple nights ago, I had one of those scary dreams, although it wasn't too scary because in it some random woman was trying to attack me with a blender.  But not by hitting me with it, by counting on the fact that the actual blender blades would injure me. Yet the blender she was wielding required the top to be in place for the blades to spin, so I knew I was safe and kind of just watched the chick get frustrated.

Any good dreams to share?  Anyone experience dreams within a dream or the ability to dream in a half awake state so you have an out if you want to end the dream?

Mother's Day Gift

As Kristin and I sat on the couch Friday night, we realized we had nothing going on for the weekend.  Well, we had just finished up a short, but very enjoyable visit with this guy and his wife. By the way, I love having friends that you can see for the first time in like 18 months and just start to hang out like you were just together a week ago.  The power of the internets can really keep people connected, it was weird when Mrs. November 1973 felt like she knew my kids even though it was the first time she met them.

Any how...so we decide to head out to the Burg and see my Dad & Step-Mom, let Ben & Caleb have a play date with cousin Alaina, etc.  We leave after the boys take their naps on Saturday, for the over night.  Anytime we decide to leave right after naps, they tend to take longer naps.  But whatever, not a big deal, we didn't have any specific time we HAD to get there, just a ballpark figure I had given my Dad.  So, after we figured we'd leave about 2pm, they slept til 2:30 so by the time we were getting in the car, it was close to 3pm.  We leave, go home for a very enjoyable time with the family.  Fast forward to Sunday night about 6:30 when we pull back up to our house.

Pull in the driveway, get the kids and a couple bags of stuff and approach the front door.

Kristin, "umm....did we leave the front door WIDE OPEN?"

Me, "uhh...I don't think there would be a reason we would have done that, stay here I will check it out"

Now for those that have been to my home know, you enter my house and are in the living room.  So I walk in the door, surprisingly my heart is not beating a mile a minute and I feel pretty confident nothing is wrong.  I scan over to the corner where our computer sits, it's there along with my Nikon D70.  Phew.  But you never know, the big ticket item is in the back family room, so I scoot back there.  Sweet jesus, the TV is still sitting on the TV stand.  Circle back to check the bedrooms to see if there are any bad guys hiding in closets.  Keep in mind I have no weapon, thankfully my Blackberry is a little more substantial than the average cell phone and I might be able to knock a bad guy out with it.  Peep the closets, no guys in ski masks in there.  Crisis averted.  Over 24 hours of the house wide open.

I signal "all clear" for Kristin and the boys, but she is still not convinced and suggests I check the basement.  I do and report to her the washer, dryer, and oil burner are missing.  She does not see the humor and gives me a look.

The rest of the night, we didn't really talk about how fucking lucky we were.  Especially considering just last week we received an automated voice message from our town's police department urging us to lock our vehicle doors, as there has been a rash of vehicle break ins in the town lately.

I should have ran out and bought a lottery ticket.  Although maybe we used up all of our luck for a long, long time.  It could have been really bad.

CLARIFICATION: Thanks Jeff for asking for an important detail that I apparently left out.  Blogging while multi-tasking is not a good idea!  I guess we left the door open.  It was weird in that neither one of us could remember the circumstances of leaving.  Although as you can imagine, any departure with a 1 and 3 year old in tow can be chaotic.  Often times, we'll get in the car and one of us will remember something and run back in, but we didn't remember if that was the case.  And not that we wanted to point fingers, but we couldn't remember who went out last or what happened.  But I can confidently say that we definitely left it open, not wide open but we probably just went to pull it shut and it didn't click like we thought and the wind blew it open?  We need to make a policy to lock the deadbolt anytime we leave for an overnight from now on, that will eliminate any chance of this happening again.

World Cup here I come!

 

Ben had his first "Parent and Me" soccer class at the YMCA last Saturday.  It was a great time.  As you can tell in the photograph, he got an official team shirt and everything.  He is #14 for the Lions.  Surprising, I did not get choked up when I grabbed his shirt and put it on him.  I think it all happened too fast and I was still jet lagged.

Anyway, I am not one of those fathers that says, "he's just playing soccer 'for now' or 'to get in shape for football'"  I think soccer is cool, and while I have busted on the MLS for years now, lots of my peeps are huge fans of real soccer or futbol so I am prepared for many years of treks to soccer fields on Saturday mornings.  Ben seemed to enjoy it.  Although he kind of free lanced and just kicked the ball around a lot more than he did at the stations, but I am sure he will improve over time.  And the Head Coach is great with the kids so I think it will be a great experience.

P.S.  That is Field Turf we're playing on, stuff is amazing!