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Book 61 (of 52) – Dark Sacred Night

Dark Sacred Night – Michael Connelly

When Detective Renée Ballard finds a former LAPD detective hanging around the squad room rifling through cabinets, she joins him in working a cold case, the murder of a teenage prostitute nine years earlier.  She juggles her usual workload on the night shift to look through old files looking for suspects.  Meanwhile, her new friend, Harry Bosch, sees his other case, and job working part-time for the San Fernando police force, blow up after a colleague gives away the identity of his informant to the gang he’s trying to bust.  Can Bosch stay ahead of the gang that is trying to kill him?  And can he and Ballard find out what happened to a young girl nine years ago?

Michael Connelly wasted no time in getting his new character, Renée Ballard, intertwined with Harry Bosch, the detective he introduced in 1992, in Dark Sacred Night., the second entry in Ballard’s series and the 21st in Bosch’s.  After getting introduced to Ballard, and Connelly, two months ago, this was my first time interacting with the book version of Bosch.  It looks like the two characters go hand in hand going forward, so it looks like I’ll be getting more exposure in the future.

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Ballpark Tour: Rays

With the offseason underway, we continue our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we head south to the Tampa Bay area for a look at the Tampa Bay Rays. So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my history with the place now known as Tropicana Field.

Stadium Name: Tropicana Field

Years in Service: 1997 – Present

Visits: 2

Originally known as the Florida Suncoast Dome, the stadium now known as Tropicana Field was built in the late 1980s in the hopes of luring a baseball franchise to the Tampa/St. Pete area.  Ironically, the White Sox would have called the park home had the Illinois legislature not approved funding for what is now Guaranteed Rate Field.  The stadium opened in 1990, hosting the Davis Cup finals that fall, but was still looking for an MLB team as the primary tenant.  After National League owners blocked the sale of the Giants to Tampa-based investors who planned to move the team, the park was used for the local Arena Football team and as the initial home of the Tampa Bay Lightning.  In 1995, the area was awarded an expansion franchise, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who would begin play in 1997.

After the long pandemic, I decided to take the long drive down to Florida in August of 2021 for a long getaway.  After arriving in town on Friday night, I made my maiden voyage to Tropicana Field the following afternoon.  The White Sox put up little fight, losing to the Rays 8-4.  I returned the following afternoon looking for a better result but instead saw a 9-0 shutout by the Rays.

Due to damage from Hurricane Milton, the Rays will be forced to play their 2025 schedule at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the spring training home of the Yankees.  A new stadium built in the same location in St. Petersburg was planned to open in 2028, but, if the funding is still in play, may be needed sooner.

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FB10: Week 48

The first full week of my year-end vacation helped push me back above the elusive 30,000 plateau.  Sunday got the week off to a good start, finishing with 5000 steps.  An additional 51 steps on Monday gave me another 5000-step day.  Tuesday led to my best day of the week, coming in over 5500 steps.  A drop on Wednesday pushed my down to 4200 steps.  Another drop on Thursday left me with just 4100 steps.  A nice bounce-back on Friday pushed me back up to 4900 steps.  A dip on Saturday left me 36 steps away from 3200, my lowest total of the week.

Total steps: 32,046

Daily average: 4578

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2025 Calendar

Now that Christmas has come and gone, we can unveil the cover to this year’s calendar gift, given annually to my mom and sister, and made up of pictures I have taken throughout the year.  I imagine this will be the final edition, with both Angelina and Danny out in the workforce and Michael away at school despite still being mostly homebound.  As in year’s past. the calendar was produced by the good folks at Shutterfly and we will unveil each month’s photo(s) on the first day of the month throughout 2025.

This year’s cover features all three kids posing prior to Danny’s graduation dinner at Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, Indiana, with both Angelina and Danny in their respective caps and gowns.

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Book 60 (of 52) – Swan Song

Swan Song – Elin Hilderbrand

When a new couple arrives on Nantucket, they initially upend the social scene but quickly seem to be wearing out their welcome.  When their live-in concierge, a young woman they met in the Virgin Islands, goes missing off their yacht the same night their mansion burns down, the retiring police chief has one final case to solve: what really happened on that boat?

Elin Hilderbrand first crossed my path two years ago, when The Hotel Nantucket was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award.  Two years, three novels, and one short story later, she returns with her final Nantucket beach read, appropriately titled Swan Song.  Many of the characters appeared in her previous works, including a couple I recognized from the few I’ve read, and the retirement of the police chief does seem to parallel her own decision to move away from this location and its characters.  There’s still plenty of her back catalog for me to wade through, though, so the story isn’t quite done for me just yet.

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Fifty Years Of Music – 2021

Fifty years ago, I made my first appeared on the Earth.  In celebration, we are going to take a look at the year-end Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for each year of my life and see what songs resonated with me at the time and if they continue to do so to this day.

We continue our look back at the music of my lifetime with 2021, the year the world started to recover from the effects of the novel corona virus and I celebrated my 47th birthday.  Only three of these songs are familiar to me today, but all of them appear in my collection in one way or another.

#92: Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
iTunes stats: 0 plays

Originally released in 1958, peaking at #2 in 2021.

#78: Mariah Carey – All I Want for Christmas Is You
iTunes stats: 0 plays

Originally released in 1995, it returned to the #1 spot in December for the second consecutive year.

#55: Taylor Swift – Willow
iTunes stats: 4 plays

The lead single from Swift’s ninth studio album, it debuted at #1, giving Swift her seventh chart topper and third #1 debut.

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Ballpark Tour: Rockies

With the offseason underway, we continue our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we head west to Denver for a look at the Colorado Rockies. So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my history with Coors Field.

Stadium Name: Coors Field

Years in Service: 1995 – Present

Visits: 2

After spending their first two seasons at Mile High Stadium, the Rockies moved to their own ballpark, the first baseball-only park opened in the National League since Dodger Stadium in 1962.  During construction of the park, numerous dinosaur fossils were found, eventually leading to the creation of the team’s mascot Dinger, a purple triceratops.  Coors Field has hosted two All-Star Games, in 1998 and again in 2021.

A quick trip to Denver in 2022 saw me taking in two games versus the White Sox.  I arrived in town on a Tuesday afternoon, heading to the ballpark for a night game in the Rockies’ club level.  The White Sox managed to pull out a squeaker, winning 2-1.  I returned to the ballpark the following afternoon, sitting on the first level down the third base line.  Things did not go as well for the White Sox this day, as the Rockies managed to score late to take the game 6-5.

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Book 59 (of 52) – The Midnight Feast

The Midnight Feast – Lucy Foley

Fifteen years ago, a summer ended with a murder, covered up by a rich family that summers in the otherwise poor town.  Now, the grounds have been turned into The Manor, a luxury retreat catering to the rich and famous, and many of the players from that fateful summer have been drawn back for the grand opening.  When a body is found the morning after the resort’s midsummer celebration, the police work to figure out who is who and what actually happened.

The latest offering from Lucy Foley, The Midnight Feast, was inspired by her trips to southwest England and the local folklore.  She once again tells the tale through the use of multiple narrators, following the story through multiple points in time.  I look forward to what comes next from Foley.

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Another Name Change

Eight years into a thirteen-year deal, Guaranteed Rate Field will now be known as Rate Field.  While the new name rolls off the tongue a little easier than the previous moniker, it is still a bit of a clunker.  Guaranteed Rate rebranded as simply Rate this past July, so the new name aligns with the corporate master.

In the time the park was known as Guaranteed Rate, I saw 203 games, including post-season play in 2021 and the worst team in modern MLB history in 2024.

All-Time Team Records

Team Name Won Loss Winning Pctg
Milwaukee Brewers 3 1 0.750
Cleveland Guardians 4 2 0.667
San Diego Padres 2 1 0.667
Arizona Diamondbacks 2 1 0.667
Chicago Cubs 7 4 0.636
Seattle Mariners 7 4 0.636
Toronto Blue Jays 5 3 0.625
Boston Red Sox 6 4 0.600
Cleveland Indians 7 5 0.583
New York Yankees 4 3 0.571
Detroit Tigers 13 10 0.565
Houston Astros 6 5 0.545
Cincinnati Reds 1 1 0.500
Los Angeles Angels 3 3 0.500
St. Louis Cardinals 2 2 0.500
Texas Rangers 3 3 0.500
Oakland Athletics 6 7 0.462
Chicago White Sox 93 110 0.458
Minnesota Twins 7 9 0.438
Kansas City Royals 8 12 0.400
Baltimore Orioles 3 5 0.375
San Francisco Giants 1 2 0.333
Tampa Bay Rays 2 5 0.286