Poor Dottie ...

... You know some things in life just aren't fair. Take the case of a dalmatian named Dottie, who my nephew Josh rescued last week.

Dottie's story is very sad, and I'm still not sure I know the whole story: But here's the gist: Dottie was found with three horses -- all of them had their necks slashed, including Dottie. Not sure why, not sure what happened to the horses. But poor Dottie lived through that hell, only to face a prognosis that was anything but good.

But we had hope -- for a while.

By the time Josh got Dottie to the vet yesterday, it was too late. She had suffered kidney failure, and they had to put her down. Dottie was only 2 years old. I told Josh that as sick as Dottie was, she probably really appreciated having at least a few days of peace, quiet and friendliness.

I'm told the guys who did this to her and the horses are in jail, but on other charges. That's all fine and dandy. But to me, justice would be seeing these guys mutilated themselves -- much like they mutilated those helpless animals.

Rest in peace Dottie.

There's been a Gnome-napping!

Ed and I are big fans of gnomes -- another reason to love The Amazing Race, but I digress. Anyway, we have several of the little guys hanging around the yard.

Well, when I went out this morning to mow I noticed one missing! Somebody in our neighborhood has kidnapped one of our gnomes! His little legs can't move very fast, so I know he didn't run away. I can only imagine what horrible things must be happening to him.

If anybody has seen my gnome, he looks something like this. He's not armed, he's not dangerous. He just wants to come ghome...

The yard looks fabulous!

So I mowed today -- right now I'm having to mow about twice a week -- and I must say the yard looks great.

I take care of the lawn and Ed takes care of the flower beds and planting. Here's a few pictures of what's going on in the Seyah-Znum house ... check out those azaleas!

Lord, please find this man some clippers

Oh my God!

This guy is a NASCAR fan. Need I say more??

I spoke too soon ...

OK. So I say a couple of good things about the Cubs and they go out and lose a 4-3 game to the Pirates in 15 innings. A game they should have won long before it reached extra innings.

Oh well. I think I'll be quiet about them for awhile. But doesn't this logo I found sum up the feelings of most fans???

Amazing Race All-Stars

Another season has come and gone. And now I'll probably have to wait until September or October to get my Amazing Race fix again. (Thank God for TiVO in case I want to watch this season again.)

Danielle and Eric came out on top in Sunday's season finale, most likely a fitting end for a team that had been crapped on a lot this season. I wasn't a big fan of the two, but after getting yielded twice and not winning a leg the entire race, they picked a good time to come out on top and win the $1 million. And Eric is great eye candy, so he's got that going for him, which is nice.

The final leg on the 28-day, five-continent, 45,000-mile trip took them from Guam to Hawaii to the final destination, San Francisco. The Beauty Queens were second (darn! -- please note my sarcasm) with Charla and Mirna third.

Charla and Mirna were ahead going into Hawaii, though, because they were smart in looking for earlier flights. But when it came to kayaking to a clue near an old shipwreck, they didn't stand a chance because of their size and a ferocious wind that knocked them back. They were still able to overcome that and get on the same flight with the other teams to San Francisco.

Give Charla and Mirna credit. To me, they ran the best race, and only came out on the short end of the stick -- so to speak -- because Danielle was more of a gossip and was able to click with Eric on the final detour. I say gossip because the task involved questions about other teams, and to open a safe combination the answers had to match. That gave them a 10-minute lead that they used to win.

They crossed the finish line at the Botanical Gardens, with host Phil Keoghan and the rest of the teams there to greet them. The strangest moment, though, came when Phil gave Eric a cellphone and let him call his partner Jeremy from Season 9 to let him know they had just won. Jeremy's response was something along the lines of "I'm rich beotch!" He also promised Eric a "spanking" upon his return.

Since Eric and Danielle have broken up (big surprise) since the end of the race, me wonders about Eric and Jeremy. Boyfriends?? Hmmm.... Now THAT would be amazing.

All in all a good race -- not great, but good. See you next season...

Eric and Danielle photo courtesy CBS

I hope this doesn't jinx them ...

... I know it's early, but my Chicago Cubs are starting to play some really good ball. They started slowly, but they are above .500 after winning 8 of 9 and can make up some ground on the first-place Milwaukee Brewers (the Brewers???) this week when the Pirates come to Wrigley Field.

If Carlos Zambrano can get his head on straight, if the Cubs new pitchers continue to pitch like Cy Young, and if Derrek Lee continues to hit .400, it could be a fun season on the North Side of Chicago.

But then I think back to Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, five outs to go to the World Series, and Bartman.

Me thinks I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch ... then again I could be a Washington Nationals fan. Oh wait -- I am.

Softball Sunday

Opening day in my gay softball league was not a good one. Frustrating to be exact.

My team, NITRO, lost twice. The team we have to beat to advance to the World Series, DC Disturbance (I like to call them the Disturbed) came back from an 8-0 deficit and a 12-5 deficit to beat us 14-13. We then lost to my old team, the DC Metz, 15-9.

The Disturbed do it to us every time. Seems like we get out to a big lead only to let them back in the game when our butts pucker up late in the game. The same thing happend in our Word Series qualifier a couple of years ago. But that may have been fate -- the Disturbed went on to win the B Division of the World Series that year in San Diego.

Not a good start for a team I consider one of the best I've played on. The World Series is in Phoenix this year, but if we don't come together soon, I'll be making plans for something else to do that first week of October.

Amazing Race All-Stars

Go Charla and Mirna!

I can't believe I'm saying that but since Danny and Oswald were eliminated Sunday night, that's who I want to win out of the final three. I can't stand Mirna, but boy has Charla grown on me. So to speak.

My second choice is Eric and Danielle, but only because they've been "Yielded" twice and fought back from the brink several times.

The Beauty Queens? Oy vay. No way.

In Sunday's penultimate episode, Karma continued to bite Danny and Oswald in the ass. They just couldn't ever get a step ahead. They were close in Guam, but Oswald had trouble with the Roadblock, and with the 30-minute penalty they suffered for being last in last week's episode, it was just too much to overcome.

So now we're down to the final three. If you had asked me when the show started who I thought would be the final three I'd have said Rob & Amber, Danny & Oswald and probably Uchenna and Joyce, with the Guidos close behind.

Boy was I wrong. Which means I should probably cheer for the BQ's this week.

Charla and Mirna photo courtesy CBS

How much can one team take??

Trust me, as one of the biggest Chicago Cubs fans in the world, I am no fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. After the White Sox, I probably hate the Cardinals more than any other baseball team.

But I would never wish this on anybody:

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Josh Hancock, a key member of the bullpen that helped the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series last season, was killed in a car crash early Sunday.

Police said Hancock, 29, was alone in his 2007 Ford Explorer when he struck the rear of a tow truck at 12:35 a.m. The truck was in the left lane assisting another vehicle that was involved in a prior accident, officer Pete Mutter said.

The Cardinals postponed their home game Sunday night against the Chicago Cubs.

It was the second time in less than five years that a St. Louis pitcher died during the season. Darryl Kile was found dead in his Chicago hotel room in 2002 of a coronary artery blockage.

My prayers, sympathies and best wishes go out to Hancock, his family and the Cardinals.

Softball Opening Day (kind of)

The first of my two Opening Days for softball happened Saturday, with mixed results. My USA TODAY work team lost a heart-breaker in our first game against CNN, losing 7-6 when CNN scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, all after two were out.

But we bounced back to win the second game 5-4, beating ABC News with a three-run rally of our own in the bottom of the sixth inning.

That makes us -- the defending champions -- 1-3. Not the start I wanted or hoped for. But I think we'll be just fine.

Check out the MMSL website here.

My next Opening Day is next Sunday when NITRO begins its 2007 season. Can't wait. I think we'll be pretty good this season (we say that every year). We have a different attitude and new uniforms -- you can never go wrong with new unies. Hopefully I'll have a picture to post after next week's games.

We'll be traveling to Philadelphia for Memorial Day. We were supposed to go to Chicago for July 4, but that tournament has been cancelled. Oh well.

The big tournament for us, though, is the NAGAAA World Series, which this year is in Phoenix in October.

Thank God. Could you imagine Phoenix in August, when the World Series is usually held?

Amazing Race All-Stars

Oswald and Danny are still alive, but by the skin of their teeth.

They are still my favorites to win, but they made a pact with the devil on Sunday night (the Beauty Queens) and it nearly came back to "bite them in the ass" (their words).

Danny and Oswald were out of money, so they made a deal with the BQ's -- if you give us some cash, we'll "Yield" Eric and Danielle, who had already been yielded once in the race. Well they did, but when they got lost during a Detour, they ended up last at the pit stop in Macau, China. But in a surprise, it was the final non-elimination leg of the race, keeping them alive, but marking them for elimination next week.

Charla and Mirna were a little taken aback by D&O too -- they told them that had they waited, they would have given D&O some cash with no strings attached.

As it is, the BQ's finished first, Charla and Mirna second, and despite being marked for elimination last week and being yielded this week, Danielle and Eric finished third.

Hopefully, D&E will be eliminated next week. I've tried to like them, but just can't. They are whiney, and while he's fun to look at, he's not got much upstairs and continues to make homophobic statements (though he's probably so dumb he doesn't even realize it).

My prediction: D&O win, Charla and Mirna finish second and the BQ's third.

Pretty please??

Softball forfeit

I hate to forfeit softball games. Hate it.

While Ed and were running in the Urban Dare on Saturday, my work team was opening the season in the Metropolitan Media Softball League, where we are the defending champions.

Well, we didn't have enough women (it's a 7 men, 3 women league), but league rules specify that you can borrow or loan another team enough players to play the game. Which makes sense. You give up about 4 hours of a beautiful Saturday, driving around the Capital Beltway, and want to have something to show for it.

Well, the first team we played was cool with that, but the second team we played said they would not loan us a woman player (you can play with 2, we had 1), so we had to forfeit. Granted, it is their right not to loan us a player, but it totally goes against the spirit of the league.

That's all fine and dandy. It's going to come back and bite them in the ass when we end up defending our championship.

Talk about motivation -- they've gone and pissed off the wrong team.

The photo is of me during last year's tournament.

Updates to follow.

Urban disaster

Well, disaster may be too strong of a word.

Ed and I ran the Urban Dare on Saturday (with the help of my sister Cheryl, sitting in front of her computer in Des Moines, Iowa. Thanks Cheryl!). We were doing pretty well until the final three clues -- and then we figured out we screwed up a dare at the Iwo Jima memorial.

We watch The Amazing Race and yell at the contestants all the time for not reading the clue correctly. Well, duh, we did the same thing. There was a dare at the memorial, but all we thought we had to do was take our picture in front of the memorial. So even if we had completed the final three tasks, we would have been penalized for not doing that particular clue/dare correctly.

That's why we are thinking of doing it again when Urban Dare returns to the D.C. area in September. Ed said "let's do the one in Philadelphia." Umm, sure, we did so well in the D.C. one that of course we'll do even better in a city we know nothing about.

Oh well. You live, you learn, you move on.

The Urban Dare awaits

If I'm skipping the opening day of softball season, you know it must be important. Since Ed and I probably will never be participants in The Amazing Race, we're doing the next best thing: the Urban Dare.

The Urban Dare is a one-day mini Amazing Race. A couple of years ago, we did the Urban Challenge, which has since gone the way of the Dodo bird. Teams of 2 solve clues to find checkpoints where they must perform dares. Walking or using public transportation, we should finish in less than 4 hours -- the winners are expected to finish in about 3. The picture at left shows the winners of last year's race in San Francisco.

Can't wait. It's going to be as close as I ever get to traveling the world -- even if it is only Washington, D.C.

Virginia Tech

How sad that one demented person can affect the lives of so many. Lives that will never be the same.

Parents sent their children to the Blacksburg, Va., campus to get a degree, to build a life. Not to be senselessly murdered.

And the person that did this? He's a coward who ended up taking his own life. But that's OK. He'll get his -- if he hasn't already.

RIP

Need I say more?

Amazing Race All-Stars

Now that the power is back, I can report that this was a non-elimination leg of AR, with Eric and Danielle marked for elimination next week.

Oswald and Danny were first into the pit stop in Hong Kong, taking advantage of the Fast Forward to bolt to the front. They had to go head over heels in a car in a movie stunt, and did it in their own fabulous way. Only this time they didn't chase Phil Koegan around the mat, which was pretty funny earlier in the race.

The Beauty Queens were second, with Charla and Mirna third.

Four teams remain, and next week is not the season-ender on CBS. Which is good, because I don't know how I'll get my fill of AR until it returns this fall.

Thank God for TiVo.

Phil Keoghan photo courtesy CBS

The power is finally back on

Well, after about 12 hours, the power returned to our homestead last night. The N'oreaster that ravaged the East Coast did some damage to our neighborhood, knocking down trees and power lines, and we got about 4 inches of rain in the process. We needed the rain, but didn't need all that wind. My new windmill bore the brunt of the 60 mph winds, finally falling this morning. But it's back up, doing its job again. Until the next storm.

Gym update

With my schedule returning to "normal" -- normal being back to nights, which I really hate -- I've been able to get back in the gym.

I'm not a big fan of working out with a lot of people around, so when I'm able to go -- usually at 10 or 11 a.m. -- it's perfect because there aren't a lot of people around and you are able to use the equipment as you please. I've officially lost 20 pounds, as I now weigh 169 after starting this process back in January at 189. Still a few more pounds and some toning to go.

The only problem is this skin condition I have, actinic keratosis, which seems to get irritated when I sweat. It's a pre-cancer skin condition caused by my years tanning as a lifeguard, starting when I was about 20 years old. I'm being treated by a dermotologist, but the clobetasol cream I'm using on my arms is having little effect.

And don't worry about that "pre-cancer" term. In severe, untreated cases it can turn into squamous cell carcinoma (about 1%). But I've had this for years, I've been seeing a doctor for years, and I'm determined to get this under control.

More updates to come ...