brad’s bobeche blog

As those faithful readers of the bbb know, in july our announced contest was for the best use of the name “Bill Budroe” on a blog posting. My attempt was to get my friend more recognition on the web. The results put us in a very difficult position. Of all the postings entering the contest the one we here at the bbb thought was best and most creative unfortunately misspelled Bill Budroe and Bill Budro! What should we do in a situation like that? Our goal is to get more web hits for bill - and this didn’t accomplish the goal, but it was so well done!

After many cups of coffee and a couple of long nights around the conference room at the bbb world headquarters we decided to go with our heart and recognize Chels182 as the winner of the July bbb contest. This of course causes us extra problems because we now need to prepare a bio of this Chels182 person, and frankly we don’t know much about her. For this contest winner - and hopefully for this contest winner only, we are asking for your help, loyal reader, does anyone know anything about this Chels182 person that we can publish?

As of this morning I’m ahead in the bet by an even dozen. A few weeks back Mr. Baseball was ahead by the same margin. I hope it’s not a pendulum that is ready to swing back in his favor. Truthfully, i enjoy winning more than losing, that could be why I win most of the time!

In Mr. Baseball’s defense, he has been on vacation in Colorado with his family for the last week and I doubt he has been able to pay as much attention to the bet. I don’t know if he has another vacation scheduled this season, but I’m sure hoping that he has.

The first Tuesday in November can’t come soon enough. I love politics and i try to follow the issues and I have to admit that I get very upset when one of the candidates “hits below the belt.” I wonder if this is what the founder fathers envisioned when they put this government together 210 years ago?

I’m currently reading a book about the founding fathers in which a story about the election of 1800 is retold. I don’t remember reading this bit of interesting fact before, but it seems to fit into the current set of mud slinging we are seeing. Durning the election of 1800 one of Thomas Jefferson’s supporters who was the editor of a major newspaper in Pennsylvania published a false story. This story claimed that John Adams had imported a mistresses from France and one from Germany. The story also claimed that Adams sent the one from Germany back. In a private letter John Adams credited this story with his defeat in Pennsylvania, which also led to his defeat for reelection. His theory was that Pennsylvania voted against him because he lost the Germany vote because most of the Germans were upset that he would send the German mistress back and keep the French one.

I guess we’re not going to see anything new in this election/

As many of you know I enjoy the political season. My belief is that the American political process stands as a bright and beaming light for the rest of the world. We have the honor of participating in the most successful and long-running democracy in the history of the world. I try to stay up with the current issues and debates between the parties and candidates and I’m proud of the American Dream, that “All men are created equal.”

There are a few things that I don’t understand about our process. Fortunately this year there seems to be less attack ads between the presidential candidates. What strikes me as odd, is the ones I’ve seen from both sides have what i would consider a humorous similarity. McCain and Obama are both be accused of being “flip-floppers” on minor changes in positioning. What’s I find humorous in this is both candidates are being criticized by their opponent’s team for changing their position to more closely match their opponents. Shouldn’t that be a good things. Shouldn’t McCain’s people be happy that Obama now sees the possible need for support troops in Iraq past his near term withdrawal date? Shouldn’t Obama’s people be happy that McCain is now embracing a timeline for withdrawal? (I know he isn’t calling it a timeline but that’s what it is.)

I know you can say it’s just politics, but shouldn’t a country as great as ours rise above this or is this what makes our country great?

A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation with Mr. Baseball and he complained that I didn’t post enough about “the bet” - he attributed this to the fact that he was in the lead. He did concede that the bbb is completely under my control and that he didn’t blame me for not posting as much while I was behind.

I now have a conundrum, currently I’m in my rightful place with a 3 point lead. should i post about or just let this important information be ignored?

OK, we’re at the All-Star break and Mr. Baseball is leading by 3. As you’ve all read or heard me say, the tradition of the bet is that whom ever is in the lead at the break usually wins. this year i’m going to try and break tradition.

Nevertheless, please congratulate Jerry on his lead

I just got back from a week in California for company meetings. One interesting thing my friend Bill Budroe told me is that he has a new girlfriend and she googled him the only reference that came up was an entry on my blog from 2 years ago.

I have a request from all of my readers who have blogs (Jen please let Ben know); the request is simple, please add the name Bill Budroe to your next post. Just in case this girlfriend googles him again - (or if she doesn’t last) I think it would be nice to have more than one entry for Bill on the World Wide Web.

As a way to reward you, the author of best blog entry that features the name Bill Budroe will have their bio featured on the bbb with the normal in-depth coverage associated with this blog.

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU HAVE ALREADY WON, YOU CAN WIN AGAIN!!!!!!! We might not even repeat your bio but make up a whole new one!!!!!

as always thanks.

Language is a very interesting vehicle; we are presented with numerous choices. Or maybe I should say there are a lot of ways we can say the same thing. There seems to be certain words and phrases that I repeatedly use that might be a little arcane and seldom used by others. I was wondering if anyone knows of a study of why we chose the words we use. Usually I rely on the same words and expressions over and over again. As an example at dinner time I usually say “June it’s time to make dinner.” I don’t say, “June it’s time to fix dinner or cook dinner or bake dinner or order dinner or think about getting something to eat.” Why do I always use the same expressions, is it because of a lack of intelligence? (Or could it be because of an overabundance and I need to keep the brain waves open for more important thoughts?)

I’m now ready to get to the point of this post; I recently learned a new word. Just as I was getting ready to start using it in my everyday vocabulary I find out there is an alternative word that is just as good. I need your help; which of the two words do you like best and think would be better for me to sprinkle into my dangling conversations?

Paraskavedekatriaphobia or Figgatriskaidekaphobia?

Please let me know?

Jerry “Mr. Baseball” Smith called Thursday to complain that there hasn’t been an update on our baseball bet in a very, very, very long time. Of course he acknowledged two things, 1) if he wanted he could get his own blog and post updates, and 2) no who reads this blog (or doesn’t read this blog) seems to be interested in the bet.

However in the spirit of total customer satisfaction click here to see that as of right now Mr. Baseball has an eight point lead. At this point in the season that is nearly insurmountable!

Here’s a picture of Mr. Baseball and family.