Meandering Thoughts from a Man of Leisure

Combine a scanner that's schizophrenic, with a man who is well in to summer and all of its lazy charms, with a budget that has left him with very few baseball cards coming in and you would have the portrait of me. The inattentive blogger and man of leisure.

So what you get instead of daily posts and musings about various Angels cards and players, is a guy who's enjoying the physical vacation as well as the mental vacation that is upon him. Rather than actually organizing my thoughts and giving you a coherent post, I will instead just put down my thoughts as they come to me.

I remember when the College World Series took a week to complete, not the month it seems to be now. Everything seems so drawn out, but even so, I would loooove to go to Omaha within the next couple of years and experience it first hand. Just give me 2 days on the first weekend and I'd be a happy man. Go Horns, by the way.

For Father's Day I got a box of Goudey...it was cheap. The ugly of the set has been well discussed and I don't disagree one bit. My "hits" were pretty atrocious up until the final pack. Within the first 3 packs I got my autograph, a backup catcher, and my jersey was the Giambino with full mustache. That was pretty disheartening, but then in the final pack I got an autograph of Jim Palmer. Not terribly valuable, but pretty cool to get an autograph of a Hall of Famer.

The Angels are finally back in the first place mix with the Rangers in the AL West. Injuries to the pitching staff have been troublesome as has the bullpen's reliability. I think the most intriguing part of this season going forward and into the off-season, is what the Angels are going to do with Vlad. He's been hampered by injuries and his pitch selection has gone from terrible to atrocious. I'm really interested to see in the Angels make a move to replace him near the trade deadline and then let him walk after the season. It's hard to picture the current Halos without Vlad, but it seems like a very real possibility.

Completely off the topic and in no way baseball related, I'm currently reading Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child. It's the 13th book in his Jack Reacher series. This is easily one of my favorite series of books that my dad turned me on to a couple of years back. They read so effortlessly, without just being breezy junk. I always have the urge to read them in as few sittings as possible, but have to stop myself so I can enjoy them for a little longer. Just a great series of books about a lone man, always wandering the nation, always kicking ass.

The U.S./Spain soccer match today in the Confederations Cup was one of the most enjoyable soccer games I've seen in a while. I'm still not sure how the Americans pulled it off, but they did. The Spanish offense was relentless, but they just couldn't get anything past Tim Howard. I can't having the gnawing feeling in my stomach that the U.S. would blow it, but they pulled off one hell of a victory for a nation that could care less.

Ok, that's enough of me. I sincerely doubt many if any of you made it to the end, but I commend for sticking with my wandering mind if you did.

Go Halos!