Brewer finds perfect use for it’s ‘Inoffensive Beer’ – Put it in a shoe

Posted on by johnpbaur

Heineken has launched a new version of what one reviewer calls it’s “super-inoffensive lager,” Heineken Silver. The salient point of Heineken Silver seems to be it is even less offensive – four percent alcohol by volume compared to the flagship brew’s five percent. Inoffensive. This seems to want to be your best buddy. Is that what people want? Beer with LESS alcohol? Less flavor?

Me, I want a beer that fights back. Give me a Dead Guy, or an Arrogant Bastard Ale. 

To celebrate the launch of their new harmless beer, Heineken partnered with an athletic shoe designer who came up with a kick in the brewer’s colors, with a built in bottle opener and the new beer IN THE SOLES! Good place for it. You can literally walk on beer, which in this case sounds like a better use for it than actually drinking it. But you probably can’t get your hands on or your feet into these new sneakers, since they only made 32 of them and they’re probably already all gone. 

A 20-Year Anniversary I’d Just as Soon Not Have

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My dad, Edwin Charles Baur II, died 20 years ago today. It was not a surprise. He told us about three years before that he had been diagnosed with ALS and probably had about three years. (It was the same phone call in which I learned mom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Great day, huh?) He fought it on his own terms and on that night when his body stopped breathing, his heart beat on for another five minutes.

Dad and mom were always a close couple. It’s a cliche to say, but it’s absolutely true that I never saw them fight. I honestly can’t recall much if any in the way of disagreements and certainly no fights. They were as close as any couple I’ve known. And as their conditions progressed they actually grew closer. Dad became mom’s contact with the world, she became dad’s hands.

And when he died and mom was living her last year in an assisted living home for people with Alzheimer’s, he was more alive to her than any of the residents or staff. She was talking once to a staff member about him, the things they had done and what he was like. The staff person said, “Your husband sounds like quite an amazing man,” and mom replied, “Oh, he is. He is.”

As one of my sisters said later, “She’s in denial – and it’s working for her.”

Dad was interested in everything. He was occasionally referred to as a workaholic, yet he always reminded us to “stop and smell the roses.” And the roses he grew were sort of legendry in the neighborhood. At the funeral, a lot of people talked about his roses. Also at the funeral were:

– A man who had worked for him, who told my sister, “Your father was the basis of my whole career Whenever I have a problem I ask myself, ‘What would Ed do?'”

– Members of the barbershop chorus he belonged to.

– A young man who had been having trouble in school and life, who dad began to tutor in math and eventually became something of a “life coach” before there were such things.

– And a couple of hundred other people who had touched his life or been touched by his.

He didn’t read music but was a self-taught piano, harmonica and guitar player. He read anything, science, history, . I remember many a long drive where he just wanted to talk about the article he had recently read. One of those drives is why I know – in a very general way – how a laser works. He was also the best storyteller I’ve ever known.

One thing that still stings, that I still feel bad about, is that he died seven months before the whole Talk Like a Pirate phenomenon exploded. Up until September 2002 it was a small, private joke among a few friends. I don’t even know if I had mentioned it to him. I probably did, there were seven years to have shared that, but I really don’t know. But he never got to see that, and I think he would have enjoyed the spectacle.

In explaining the wild ride Talk Like a Pirate launched for me, Tori and my partner, Cap’n Slappy, I often have said, “It’s not the way our parents would have chosen for us to come to the world’s attenton, but when the wave comes up, you ride the wave.”

But I do think dad would have enjoyed it, or at least been amused. Dad knew a good story when he heard it.

Oh for a Few Thousand Extra Bucks!

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Oh, for a spare couple of thousand dollars!
 
We went to a yard sale in the neighborhood. Picked up some office supply stuff, many paper clips and a heavy duty stapler for Tori’s class. A car jack for a buck. Couple of other things.
 
It’s what we DIDN’T buy that was so painful.
 
The woman was clearing out her house preperatory to moving to be nearer her daughers and granddaughters, and had a lot of her late husband’s stuff: tools, jackets – cameras.
 
And not just a couple of cheap pocket cameras. Nothing digital. These were cameras that just a dozen years ago were the top of the line.
 
A Hasselblad A HASSELBLAD! I can’t think of the last time I saw a Hasselblad. (probably a wedding in the early ’90s.) A large-format Bronica. A Nikon F3. A couple of Mamiya Sekors. A table covered – covered – with lenses (and judging from the lenses, there was at least a Canon or two back there somewhere.) Two boxes filled with filters for said lenses. Tripods, camera bags, light meters. The whole kit and kaboodle. And there was more inside, the woman said.
 
All film cameras, except for some older video gear.
 
The collection had no business in a yard sale. It was the sort of thing that you call a couple of people who deal with high end older camera gear and let them make you an offer on the lot. You can’t piece it out on a couple of tables in the front yard and get anything like its worth.
 
The last thing I need is an older camera that requires film. Still, I wanted one of ’em – the Nikon or the Hasselblad – or both!. But even at yard sale prices, they were WAY out of my range – by a factor of 10 or more. And in the real world, not the yard sale worls, by a factor of 20 or more.
 
The woman and her daughters who were running the sale were lovely people – they even bought a copy of my book! So that was definitely a plus! The copy of “Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter” offset the price of the tripod I bought. A good one, not the best one there. They had a big, shiny German tripod she said retails for about $200. Asking 20 bucks – but it was so big it would have made my camera look silly. I got another German tripod, appropriately sized, for the price of the copy of “Chrissie.”
 
But man, if I’d had a spare thousand bucks or so lying around.
(NOTE: You might have noticed I haven’t posted in, what, six or seven months, anyway. I’ll make that the topic of another post really soon. Suffice to say, I’m back at work.)

A Day 18 Years in the Making

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In 1997, Tori and I – much to our surprise – learned we were going to have another child. Our youngest then was Millie, and when Max was born in 1998, she was six. So yeah, we were surprised.

At some point during the pregnancy I did the math and said “Holy smokes! (I didn’t say smokes) When this one (we didn’t know the sex) graduates from high school, I’ll be 62 years old!” It seemed just impossibly old to have a graduating senior.

Then I thought about it and sighed. “Well, I was planning to be 62 anyway, so I might as well be doing something useful.”

And now I’m 62 years old, and today Maxwell Mark Charles Douglas Oscar Baur is graduating from high school. Couldn’t be prouder of the young man he’s turned into. Yes, he’s smart – graduating fifth in his class and I never see him working that hard – yes, he’s talented and fun. But what we’re really proud of is how thoughtful he is of other people, how sensitive he is. how much he cares about other people. I imagine it’s mostly his mother’s influence.

In a couple of months he’ll be off to the University of New Orleans to study computers and jazz guitar (where else would you study jazz guitar than New Orleans?) It’s a very exciting time, and we’re proud of him and eager to see him make his mark.

Congratulations Max. You done good! We can’t wait for what comes next.

Big News and Lots of Work

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Bunch of things in the last two weeks – Here’s the best.

jack-and-caseyMy eldest son, Jack, sent me two photos on New Year’s Eve. One was of him and his girlfriend, Casey, a picture we’d requested a little while earlier. When decorating for the holidays we’d noticed that our family photos were getting a little dated – we like the older photos, but we didn’t have anything current.

The other was this. Somewhere in that gray blur is my first grandchild. Yeah, sometime in August I’m going to become a grandfather. Yippee!

I have never pujack-and-casey-21shed my kids to procreate. I’m not against the idea of grandchildren, far from it, I just want them to live their lives. But Tori has noticed for several years that I have been paying more attention to babies in the supermarket and elsewhere around town. Or on TV. It’s all she can do to keep me from playing with their toes. That ‘s not a good thing, touching some stranger’s baby, and I have refrained. Tori says I’ve lapsed into permanent “grandpa mode.”

What can I say, babies are cute. It seems like a pretty great way to start life.

I have friends my age who have been grandparents for 20 years or more. One who is a great grandparent. And that’s been fine for them. Like I said, I never was in a hurry for my kids to reproduce. I want them to get their lives in shape and on track, make sure they’re responsible for themselves before they become responsible for someone else.

Well, Jack is 37, a librarian in the Berkeley Public Library System in California. A respected professional and something of an authority on graphic novels and comics – he’s a regular panelist at San Diego Comicon. I think he’s good to go.

Tori and I have joked that whichever of our kids became parents first, that’s where we’d move. Well, cost of living in the Bay Area is crazy high, so that’ll take some planning (and perhaps winning the lottery. Or at least selling some movie rights.) But for the short term, it sure changes our travel plans for the year. We’ll definitely be heading to the West Coast in late summer or early fall to meet the little sprat. Can’t wait.

In the meantime, I’m working on my new project and I like it a lot. You always do at this stage. It’s when you get about halfway to two-thirds in that things start getting hard. But this is a story with a lot of potential and I’m very excited about it.

Tori is arranging a time after school when I can read chapters to a group of students, whose feedback will help shape the story. That’s the same way it worked for “Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter” and it was very helpful.

I can’t even write the title here yet, because it pretty much gives the whole story. It’s not a pirate story. It’s something different. I want it to be equal parts funny and exciting. It’s a stretch for me, and that’s a good thing. What do you learn if you keep doing the same thing over and over?

Sadly, I didn’t get much work done on it that last two weeks. I just finished a 12-day stint of work for my day-job, which is a misnomer since most of it is done at night. Working desk shifts for the Source until 1 or 2 in the morning, then getting up at 6 to get Tori and Max off to school. By the time they’re out the door I’ve been kind of brain dead, so not much writing has been going on.

But my colleague is back and I’m on the job again. Looking forward to getting back to the adventure of Connor and Ronnie and their struggle to save their town from an unspeakable horror.

2016 – a Kidney Stone of a Year

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This is the first day of 2017, and I say, thank gods!

2016 was a kidney stone of a year. Yeah, it finally passed, but – Ow!! At times it seemed as if everyone who’d ever had their names in the paper for anything was on a list, and the guy with the sickle was collecting. And I’m still not ready to talk about the election.

So I’m delighted to see the new year in, though there’s really no reason to think it’ll be a whit better. But before I start looking ahead, I want to take a quick look back at the personal parts of the old year, which from that perspective had some great highlights.

Tori and I had a couple of great road trips. The long one took us to Virginia for the Blackbeard Festival, with stops in Jamestown, Yorktown and Harpers Ferry, and up to Maryland to see our niece, Jenny, then on to Pennsylvania for a book signing, and down to Baltimore for a book event (and a very, very disappointing dinner at the Silver Queen Cafe. If I never go back it’ll be too soon.) Then down to Knoxville for a couple of days with our friends Robyn and Dan and a couple more book events and then home. Our second trip was on the Talk Like a Pirate Day weekend, when we headed out to Cedar Key, Florida, the little town with the giant heart, for the Cedar Key Pirate Festival, followed by a drive home for the holiday itself and an appearance at the local Barnes & Noble.

Along the way, we met some great people who I now count as friends.

Besides the events themselves, it was just great to spend so much time with Tori, just the two of us. Max is getting ready for college (another highlight of the year, he’s near the top of his senior class and has been accepted at the University of New Orleans where he’ll study jazz guitar or computers are both.) That certainly suggests that we’ll have more time together – just the two of us – than we ever had before. Since the day we met we haven’t had a whole lot of that, we both had kids when we met, and then had a bunch more right away. So, while we miss the kids who are out making their own way, we have to admit the idea of being a couple is kind of enticing.

We also got some news Saturday that makes us even more excited about the new year, but I can’t talk about that quite yet. It’s not my news, and I have promised to wait a couple of weeks.

Speaking of the kids, Millie and her boyfriend, Kevin, spending the Christmas weekend with us was a treat. It also brought one of my favorite moments of the holiday, maybe of the year. A little thing, but sometimes those are the biggest.

I have used a coffee grinder for most of the last 27 years, but when we moved from the island in 2012, our latest coffee grinder did not make the move with us. So I’ve been buying ground coffee for four years. This Christmas Tori got me a new grinder and a pound of beans. As I opened it up, it opened a channel to a memory for Millie and Kate.

“Oh, yeah,” Millie said. “Every morning when I was lying in bed I’d hear the coffee grinder in the kitchen and know it was almost time for you to come wake me up.” “Yeah,” Kate said, “I remember that.”

You never know what’s going to spark a memory for your kids. You hope it’s something important, some way you’ve shaped their lives, or something fun, vacations to the coast or reading all the Harry Potter books out loud together.

But sometimes it’s going to be something as simple and homey as the whir of the coffee grinder from the kitchen stirring them from sleep, signaling that their day is about to start. A sound you associate with the comfort of sleep and the comfort of family life.

And of all the things that happened in 2016, that was the one that got me a little misty.

Monday I’ll talk about resolutions (spoiler alert, I’m not making any. I’m making something better, instead.) But for now, so long 2016. You were pretty awful, but you still brought us some light from time to time. It’s just a question of what you’re looking for, and where you look.

Happy Pie Day, Everyone

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Thursday is Thanksgiving. And around our house, that means today – Wednesday – is Pie Day.

It started a little more than 20 years ago, when we were in Oregon. We started hosting what we called the “Theater Orphans Thanksgiving.” Virtually all our friends were people we knew from Albany Civic Theater, they were in many ways our family. And a lot of them, not all but a lot, were either single or on their own in way way or another, with no definite plans for the holiday.

So we invited everyone over. We hosted it for three or four years, then it worked its way around the group. We made a turkey (until we started making two) and everyone brought the thing without which it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving for them. Greg brought a ham to go with the turkey. Pat always brought “the pink stuff,” a cranberry and horseradish concoction. Sandy learned how to use the end of the potato peeler to dig out the eyes – he was amazed! Reed brought those candied yams – the sweet potatoes with marshmallows melted on them. I would be happy if I never saw those on my table again, but for Reed it just wouldn’t have been Thanksgiving without them. And that was the point.

It was always a great crowd and a great time. I think the biggest crowd was right around 30 people.

And Tori spent the day before making pies. Not a pie. Many, many pies. All kinds. Apple, cherry, pumpkin (of course,) pecan, chocolate, even for a couple of years, mince meat – which no one ever ate but her mother, but that was OK, because that was the thing that made it Thanksgiving for her.

It was always at least nine pies, and the biggest year, she made thirteen. Thirteen pies laid out in our kitchen to cool. That’s a lot of pie!

We don’t live in Oregon any more. I assume the theater orphans still gather somewhere, still share the holiday and their personal traditions “without which it wouldn’t be …”

And for us, now, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving if Wednesday weren’t Pie Day. Tori isn’t making as many – Thank god! I’m supposed to be losing weight! – but she’s got more than a couple in mind. An apple, a couple of pumpkin, a pecan (or maybe two!)

We actually are expecting one of the old crowd for dinner tomorrow, Cam, the son of a theater friend and a theater friend himself, is coming by to share the holiday with us. And beside the turkey and the potatoes, there will be pie. Plenty of it.

When You Work the Fair – You Work

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the-jolly-rogers
Ol’ Chumbucket and the Jolly Rogers.

That’s how you sell them, one book at a time. One reader at a time. Over and over. You do whatever it takes.

We were at the Louisiana Renaissance Festival last Saturday. The festival has theme weekends, and last weekend was pirates. I had made arrangements with the guy who runs Pigasus Books, a roving Ren Faire book merchant, to sign books.

I was the guest of Master James of York, the owner of Pigasus and a right charming gent. He had set up a table outside his tent and had a chair for me. It looked disreputable, but he told me it was actually very comfortable. I wouldn’t know. I never sat down.

That’s rule No. 1, of course. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – The bookstore or venue will usually provide a table and chair. Never sit down in the chair. If you sit down, you disappear. It’s too easy for the crowd flowing past to ignore you, to refuse to make eye contact, to willfully not see you, even when you’re dressed in full pirate gear. (And at a Renaissance festival, pirate gear tends to blend right in.)

No, you’ve gotta make them see you. You’ve got to engage them, draw them in. Especially at an event that isn’t specifically about books. If you’re working at a bookstore or book fair, people expect to buy books. At a Renaissance festival, books are one of the last things on their minds. So you have to get their attention.

Hardly a soul walked by that didn’t, at the very least, get a hearty “Ahoy!” from me. I talked to almost anyone. If they gave an embarrassed smile and muttered, “Hello!” they got a rejoinder that it was pirate weekend and only “Ahoy!” would do. One woman gave me a “Howdy,” and I chased after her until she mended her ways.

And sometimes that was it. More times than most. But if they slowed, paused, or looked inclined to interact with the pirate, I’d start pitching “a pirate adventure, written for pirates, BY a pirate!”

You never knew what might work. If they wanted to talk, you talked with them. One family was the Jolly Rogers – their last name was Rogers, and by god they were jolly! I explained about International Talk Like a Pirate Day, how I came to write the novel, listened to them talk about the books they liked, and eventually made the sale. Nice people, I hope to see them again.

Then there was the husband and wife from Lafayette who listened, and whose ears perked up when I mentioned writing the first draft while living in the Caribbean. What was that like? Turns out they were feeling very bad about the election and were contemplating moving back overseas. They had been thinking Europe (they’d spent a couple of years in the Czech Republic) but wanted to know what the Caribbean was like. We talked about island life for about ten minutes, maybe more. Then, a little bit to my surprise, they bought a copy of “Chrissie.”

Sometimes you can tell in the first 30 seconds whether you’re going to make a sale, but you never give up. One family had a couple of smaller kids. We chatted, and I talked with the kids, but you could feel it wasn’t happening. Then the wife suddenly looked at Tori and asked, “Were you guys on TV?” I sighed inwardly. She was talking about our “Wife Swap” experience, in which we played the “pirate family” on the ABC “reality” show. (I put “reality” in quotes for a reason.) So we chatted about that for a minute or two, and they ended up buying a copy of “A Li’l Pirate’s ABSeas.”

You do what it takes.

And everyone who bought a book went away with the postcard with book info, my website and my email address, and I asked each one to please write to me and let me know what they thought of the book. I always do that, and I mean it. I really want to know.

By the end of the day, we had moved some paper. And Master James of York took the rest of the stock I”d brought in. So at the end of the day we had had a lot of fun, and made a little money.

Well, we made a little money unless you count the fact that while Tori and I were selling, our kids Max and Kate were out wandering the festival, with my credit card in their pocket. SO it was more of a wash, really.

But a fun wash.

Win a Signed Copy of ‘Chrissie’

Posted on by johnpbaur

csFINALfrontNews for my friends on Goodreads: Starting Thursday you have a chance to win a signed copy of “Chrissie Warren: Pirate Hunter.” For the next three weeks Goodreads is hosting a giveaway of four copies of my young-adult adventure pirate adventure novel.

As you no doubt know, Goodreads is an online community of more than 20 millions book lovers designed “to help people find and share books they love… [and] to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world.” It’s sort of like Facebook without cat videos, pictures of your dinner, and all that.

If you’re interested and haven’t signed up or just want to check it, you can go to Goodreads.com. And signing up is easy and free. If you’re any kind of a reader, you really want to be a member.

One of the things they have at Goodreads is giveaways. With three clicks, Goodreads members can sign up to win books offered by authors. The winners are randomly chosen by Goodreads, so I’ll have nothing to do with choosing.

From Nov. 18 to Dec. 8, you can enter to win one of four autographed copies of “Chrissie.” When it goes online I’ll post the link.

Here are just a few of the comments readers have given the book.

Just finished reading this book. It’s a great read for young and old! … Good job. John Baur! Looking forward to the sequel! – David Garrett

If you like a good book I would like to recommend Chrissy Warren Pirate Hunter … Great reading all the way through. – Sharon Denardo

This is a very compelling story, moving at a great pace. I hope there is a sequel in the works, because the story leaves you wanting more, in a good way. While I am technically not a young adult, I think they will enjoy this, too. – D. Van Middlesworth

Just finished Chrissie Warren! Wow what a journey! I laughed, I cried, and I can’t say I could enjoy anything more. This has to be among the top in my favorite pirate books. I’m so glad this amazing piece of literature found its was onto my bookshelf! – Janine Myers

The Cubs Won? Is That Even Legal? A Son of Chicago Contemplates the Impossible

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I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around the idea that I live in a world where the Chicago Cubs are champions.

I’m from Chicago, born a Cubs fan, the son of a Cubs fan who was himself the son of a Cubs fan. And until last night, the only one of us who had ever seen the Cubs take it all was my grandfather, and he would have been six or seven when they last did it, in 1908. Dad never saw it happen. Until last night I never did.

I came of age in the ’60s and the Cubs were the first team I rooted for, in any sport. The first time I really started following baseball was the cursed 1969 season. There was a chant in Chicago that year – “Beer is great. Whiskey’s fine. The Cubs will shine in ’69.” They were the Cubs of Ernie Banks (my favorite player of all time,) Billy Williams (I still have my Billie Williams model fielder’s mitt,) Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins, Don Kessinger, Glenn Beckert, Randy Hundley, Ken Holtzman. By late August they had an 8 1/2 game lead over the New York Mets. At that time the Mets, who had been started in the early ’60s, were a joke, a horrible mess. 1969 was the first year they were even respectable.

And then, the unthinkable happened. The Cubs went on a losing streak, the Mets with their great pitching staff started a win streak, the Cubs went into Shea Stadium clinging to the lead and two days later left town in second place. New York never looked back. They went on to win the most improbable World Series ever, routing the mighty Baltimore Orioles in five memorable games. In the space of about three months they had gone from being a joke to the Miracle Mets, the Amazin’ Mets. And the Cubs were an afterthought, just a pathetic punchline in someone else’s story.

I never quite got over that.

My family moved out west and I became a Dodger fan, and eventually was able to enjoy a couple of World Series victories with the teams of Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, Dusty Baker. And don’t forget Fernando Valenzuela! Fernandomania swept Los Angeles and took me right along with it. Dodger Stadium was more than a sports complex. It was a holy place, the way Chicago’s Wrigley Field had been. Coming down the tunnel to the stands and seeing that impossibly green field glowing under the lights, it was special.

But my interest in baseball was starting to fade. A player strike didn’t help, but more than that it was the sense that baseball didn’t care about its history, about its traditions. The designated hitter, steroids, interleague play. Free agency in which players that were part of “your” team could switch cities like so many hired guns. (Don’t get me wrong, I support the idea of free agency, I’m all for players’ rights. But it stings when a beloved star flees your town for greener pastures.) When some young player was told he was approaching a record held by some legendary figure from the past, he’d as often as not say, “Who’s that?” I interviewed Dodger pitcher Don Sutton once, which should have been a highlight, and the way he treated the questions I asked made it clear baseball was a silly passion to me, while to him it was a job, nothing more or less.

And if the owners and the players didn’t care about “the game,” why should I? Why should I care and pay for the privilege of caring?

Then, in 1998, the O’Malley family sold the Dodgers. And they didn’t just sell them, they put them in the hands of Rupert Murdoch and the Fox Entertainment Group, where the corporation viewed it not as a sacred trust but as an asset they could use to attract viewers, especially in Asian markets and Mexico.

That was it. I literally have not watched a baseball game from that day until this month. I couldn’t tell you who won last year’s Series or even who played in it, don’t know the names of any players. Anything. I was done.

Until I started hearing this spring that the Cubs were pretty good, in fact the favorites to win it all this year. “Yeah, right,” I thought. “Been there before. Won’t get fooled again.” And if they somehow did make it to the Series, god wouldn’t let them win. It would be the ultimate divine “fuck you” to the city of Chicago. In fact, if they won it might usher in the Apocalypse.

So I really don’t know how the season played out. Was it an exciting pennant race, or an inexorable march to the pennant by a team that wouldn’t be denied? I have no idea. All I know is I woke up one day and heard on the news that the Cubs had beaten the Dodgers (a little irony there for me) and would be in the Series against the Indians, another cursed franchise. Not as cursed as the Cubs. The Indians last won the Series in 1949. The Cubs in 1908. Cleveland fans are neophytes, rank amateurs in the art of suffering for your team. Plus the Cavs had just won the NBA title, so it just didn’t seem fair.

But I actually watched a good portion of the series. Not all of it, but I did find myself falling back into the rhythms of the game. I actually enjoyed it. It didn’t seem possible that the Cubs would win, down three games to one. But they scrapped their way back into it and forced a seventh game.

Still, I wasn’t fooled, even when they were up 5-1. When the Indians tied it in the eighth, I thought, “Ah! Here we go again. I know how this story ends.” Then it went to extra innings and there was a rain delay and I laughed. It looked as if the baseball gods weren’t going to let either team win.

But the Cubs used the delay to pull themselves together. And with me watching, and feeling my dad’s presence, I watched as they pushed a couple of runs across the plate, then withstood a final Cleveland rally and won.

So it seems as if I now live in a world where the Cubs are champions. And that means almost anything is possible.