Gabe Kapler? On the Red Sox? Huh?!?!?!?

(Apparently, the Sox bought his contract late last week after Kapler got his unconditional release from the Colorado Rockies).

My first notice of this was today when he hit a laser into the Monster seats, his SECOND home run of the game. In his first two games with the Sox Kapler is 7 of 9, 2 HR, 7 RBI. They should trade him now, hopefully for some bullpen help.

I was in Maine this weekend, meaning that I missed both the Sox 14 run outburst in the first inning of Friday's game and their bullpen collapse during Saturday's game (Sarah's folks just moved and haven't gotten their dish hooked up yet, probably for the best with Saturday's result). The Sox are apparently moving Kim (BK, not Sunny) into the bullpen, which couldn't hurt. He couldn't to any worse than the current group... could he?

Pretty run of the mill weekend in Maine. We were supposed to go to a wedding that wound up not happening (don't worry, won't happen with me, because Sarah would hunt me down and kill me, and my family would give me up in a second). So we spent Saturday in Bangor, where I came to the realization that I don't think I've ever been there without making a visit to the Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what that means.

It was warm but thankfully less hot than when we went up on Friday. Same is true back here now, but the combination of the temperature change and location change was nice. At some point we'll have to have more like a week up there to do some of the touristy stuff that I've never done and that we never have time to do in a weekend.

With the upcoming July 4 holiday, I've discovered that I'm not really getting a day off. We're in our flex time here at Babson, meaning I get Fridays off in June and July. But we work longer hours (and get less time for lunch) Monday through Thursday. Rather than give us an actual day off for the impending Friday holiday, we just get to work our "regular" hours this Monday through Thursday. I know, poor me.

Oh, the one "highlight" of our drive back was in my finally winning money on a Maine State Lottery scratch ticket. It's become a custom that, either on the way up or way back, we stop at the rest area on 95 in Kennebunkport. At both there is a scratch ticket machine for suckers like us (the money theoretically goes towards education, so I look at it as a charitable donation). So if we've got a spare buck or two we'll take a shot. I have never won anything in all the trip we've done this. So today I tried to break the streak by waiting until I was back in the car to scratch the card. That was the key, apparently. My winnings? $1. Breaking even is better than nothing, I'm telling myself.