Ok. I got out of surgery today and everything's ok. Thanks for everyone who's expressed support, maybe I'll talk about that another time. Right now I need to rant before the moment passes.

I got an e-mail today. It was spam, and it was from our president. It was about a video they made about John Kerry, comparing him to the Nazis. They then justified calling John Kerry a Nazi because he and Al Gore (what the fuck does Al Gore have to do with this?) have called the Bush administration Nazis before. Thank you President Bush, you hire speechwriters and content experts to deal with this and the best they could come up with is "He started it." The next time you come up with something this fucking stupid don't even waste my time with it.

There are two groups of people in this world I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. One of them currently runs our government, and one of them sends me spam day after day about generic viagra, making my penis and/or breasts grow, and refinancing my mortgage. It's really rather fitting when they show up in my inbox next to each other.

Here's the e-mail I returned to the gracious folks who felt the need to tell me what the President wanted to waste my time with today.

Why do you continue to ludicrously spam my inbox? I
don't like your candidate. I've compared him to a Nazi
myself. I find your use of mass e-mail sickening and
your policies flat-out disheartening. And Yahoo's
inability to block your crap from filling my inbox
should be criminal.

Please don't bother me anymore. You lost my vote years
ago. Satan could run against you and I'd vote for him.

And I feel like I let them off light cause I'm tired and on pain killers. Maybe the next time I'll hit them harder.

Rant concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Greetings from Appleton, WI, new home away from home of the one and only KL Snow. I'm on my day off from work, but sadly Laura is not, so that's leaving me some time to kill.

But, I do have a story to tell, so without further ado, it's AN ALL NEW ONE ACT PLAY BY KL SNOW! I call this one, "Wow, that was stupid."

KL is in the basement of LAURA'S house watching the 17th inning of a 0-0 baseball game at about 1:45 in the morning. Scott Podsednik doubles, scoring Craig Counsell and giving the Brewers a 1-0 lead. Everyone else is asleep, KL is in the basement by himself.

KL jumps off the couch with his fist raised in the air, smacking his fist and head on the ceiling loudly and simultaneously. Realizing what he just did, KL gets very quiet to see if he hears anyone moving to find the source of the noise. A few moments pass quietly.

KL squeezes his left hand and feels something wrong. He looks down and finds his left middle finger now points way farther to the left than it did before. After a few moments of wiggling, it painfully pops back into the knuckle it came from.

KL: Wow, that was stupid.

In the middle of writing this one act I was called to help Laura's dad move what remains of an old shed in his backyard. The moving itself was nothing notable, working hard to carry things because I want Laura's dad to like me, but then the neighbor from across the street came over to help haul the wood away. We took it to the dump and had one of my favorite "I wish I had a camera" moments of all time. We pulled up to a big dumpster with two legs sticking out of it. Yes, two legs. With pants and shoes on. Apparently someone threw away a mannequin. But it was funny looking from a distance.

That's all for today. I've gotta go clean up before Laura gets home.

Humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Wow...it's a tremendously lazy day. I was supposed to stay home today and wait for the phone call to let me know I passed my drug test and I can go start my new job. I got that call at about 9:30 this morning. Since then, I've watched 2 episodes of the West Wing, ate lunch, came back to the computer, chatted online for a little while, moved the couch so I could sit on it and chat online, folded some laundry, moved back to the couch...I feel like such a lazy bum right now.

Laura was in town this weekend, that was awesome. She came up on Friday night and we went out to dinner with Chris and Jess, then we spent the day together on Saturday, introduced her to a lot of the local friends on Saturday night, then spent a pretty quiet day together on Sunday. She left last night and I already really miss her. I hope I'll get to see her again soon.

Laura and I have our 6 month anniversary coming up on June 26...if you have any ideas for things we should do, let me know.

Post concludes. This has been KL Snow

Welcome to KLSnow.blogspot.com. Please have a seat, today's rant about how retarded some people in our midst are is about to begin.

So I got an e-mail today from an Uncle who shall remain nameless for the time being. Here's the text of this e-mail.

DON'T BUY PEPSI IN THE NEW CAN

Pepsi has a new "patriotic" can coming out with pictures of the Empire State Bldg. and the Pledge of Allegiance on them. However, Pepsi left out two little words on the pledge, "Under God". Pepsi said they did not want to offend anyone. If this is true, then we don't want to offend anyone at the Pepsi corporate office. So if we don't buy any Pepsi product, they will not be offended when they don't receive our money that has the words "In God We Trust" on it.

People shouldn't send me e-mails like this. They inspire me to break things. There are times and there are places where bringing God into play is acceptable. This is not one of them. But apparently, someone "under the guidance of God," or perhaps someone who works for Coke, has felt the need to tell you which soft drink God favors. So if you want to stay in the good graces of God, crack open a Coke, or a bottle of wine, or a vial of heroin, just not a Pepsi.

Furthermore, I couldn't care less what's printed on my soft drink can. My can of Pepsi could say "We at Pepsi hope you have a stroke and die before finishing this can so we'll have half a can of Pepsi left to drink when we come ransack your house.", as long as it says "Pepsi" somewhere in there so I know what's in the can. I don't need my soft drink companies to be religious, moral, or patriotic. I need them to make soft drinks that taste good and don't make me vomit. And if you're going to stop consuming Pepsi because it doesn't say "Under God" on it, then I'd like you to stop consuming all things. Including oxygen, which for years has had the utter disrespect to refuse to acknowledge the existence of God.

Wow...it's been exactly a week since that last post, and a hell of a lot has happened. But this is a Blog event for me, the following is the first writing that will ever appear on both my blog and Snowbaseball.com, So I guess the title "stuff I don't put at Snowbaseball.com" is no longer accurate. Perhaps I'll fix that. Perhaps.

Anyway, here's the full Montana story:

Friday, May 21: The day started with a lot of tears, Laura and I parted ways in Des Moines, and to say this made me really sad would be a tremendous understatement. At this point I started counting the days to August 28, when I would be home again to see Laura. Probably should've seen that as a bad omen. Once I got on the road and composed myself I drove for a long time because I didn't want to stop to think about the events of the day...I drove from Des Moines to Sheridan, Wyoming, ate at a good Chinese restaurant, called Laura (briefly) and went to bed.

Day 2: Up early and on the road to make the short second leg of the trip to Missoula. Got to Missoula around 2 in the afternoon, the first day didn't hurt all that much. Moved into the new place, actually was pretty optimistic about it. I met Dan and Lorie for the first time this day, Dan was at home when I got there and the first thing he told me was "Welcome home." I'm going to write a section later where I talk about all the nice things I have to say about all the people I met in Montana, but I'll say this now, I didn't make it in Montana for very longer, but the kindness Dan and Lorie showed me made me want to stay way longer than I would have stayed on my own. Stayed in the hotel with my mom on this night, figured I'd sleep in my bed in Montana enough this summer.

Day 3: Woke up relatively early, did the last setup things in the new place, did laundry with my mom, went to dinner (the Montana Club was excellent and is a definite must-stop in Missoula, btw) and went to see Van Helsing with my mom...said goodbye to her for the summer this night, cried a fair amount. The last person I knew from home was leaving and for the first time I started to feel completely alone in Montana. Dan and Lorie were very cool about it and tried to cheer me up, but really I just wanted to see familiar faces. I called Laura but it was too late, she had already given up on me for the night and gone to bed. So I went online and talked to Tara. Here's the first absolutely glowing reference I have to give out in this story. In every tough phase of my life, the person who's been able to reason with me has always been a female friend who can somewhat relate to how I feel. As I tell story after story, it's usually someone different every time, but in this case it was Tara. Virtually every time I needed someone to talk to this week, Tara's been the one who's come through for me. She was the first one to agree with my decision to come home, and of everyone (except Laura) I've seen since I've gotten home, she's the person I've been able to keep in touch with the most. I'm assuming at some point in the future you'll read this, Tara, and when you do, know that I know that you know that I owe you big for all the support you gave me this week.

Day 4 (Monday, May 24): Woke up early for my first day of work, showered and the like, was ready for work at 8:15 (I had to work at 9) and got bored. For those of you who talked to me during this week, you know boredom was public enemy #1 and created the only situations I couldn't recover from. Being bored made me think about home, all the things I could (and would) be doing if I was home, and all the things I was missing out on. After 15-20 minutes of moping I went to work and for the first time in a few days the excitement I showed wasn't fake. I met everyone in the office right away Monday morning, and I think I got a pretty good impression of the people I was working with right away. I'll talk more about people I worked with later on, but here I've got to mention the first person who went out of his way immediately to introduce himself to me, Tom "Tugboat" Carter. Tug held my job last summer, and did a good enough job that he was allowed to remain on the staff as Community Relations Director this season. The immediate interest Tug showed in meeting me made me feel important and definitely gave me the right impression right away. I worked all morning folding letters for a future mass mailing, and went to lunch with Brett, the other intern, who was nice enough to cancel his lunch plans to take me for a walk around downtown and show me some of the sights. After lunch we came back to work and I went back to folding, and I made it until 4 or so before I finally got bored.
That's when I started to see the problem. I didn't get out of work until after 6, and by the time I did I absolutely wanted to scream. I went home and called my mom, and told her I didn't think I was going to make it. I agreed to press on, and then called Laura, who finally managed to calm me back down a bit. After I talked to Laura, I went back into my room, laid down on my bed and drifted off to sleep. At about 6:30. I woke up briefly and met a friend of Dan's later that evening, but I remember nothing about the conversation...for all intensive purposes I was still asleep.

Day 5 (My 21st birthday): Lorie invited me this morning to go out with Dan and some of their friends that evening to celebrate my birthday, and I accepted. I went to work, had a staff meeting, looked at photos for the team website, and spent most of the afternoon stuffing envelopes again. Finished the day off with a tour of what will be the new ballpark (if it ever gets done) and went home to call the family and Laura...had some nice conversation there, got off the phone and decided another nap was in order until Dan and Lorie got home. I slept like a baby for another couple of hours, and got up and had a good time with Dan and Lorie and their friends. Credit where credit's due here for Dan and Lorie...they saw me struggling and they pulled out all the stops to make me feel better. After partying for a little while I went back to my makeshift desk to receive birthday greetings from those who had waited up for me (most notably Tara) and went to bed.

Day 6 (The breakdown): I had a really hard time sleeping Tuesday night and woke up feeling out of sorts on Wednesday. I went in to work but after a few hours I was really disoriented and just completely not myself. Someone at work who had seen me struggling suggested that my grogginess could have been mono, since I had been so sleepy the last few days. At this point my groggy mind began to worry, earning me a team-forced trip to the doctor. Spent the late morning and early afternoon there, underwent some blood tests (and most of you know how much I love needles) and was found negative for mono, but positive for something. Yes, that's right. By looking at my white blood cell count, which was high, the doctor decided I had contracted something, but decided not to further investigate. He recommended I rest the remainder of the day, but said I could go back to work if I had to. I decided to go back to work. I worked for an hour or so before deciding nevermind, I could not actually make it, and I was sent home, where surprise! I got bored. I napped for a few hours, and then I got up and did some hardcore thinking. I realized that the concept of potentially having mono had actually gotten me excited, because if I had mono I'd have to come home. I realized all I'd been doing all day was trying to find an excuse to get out of Montana and back to my life. After some more thought, for the first time the possibility of giving up and coming home entered into my mind. I didn't want to find out what would happen in the next 93 days, if my brain was already trying to derail itself after four. I talked to Dan and Lorie to work out a deal to possibly leave, and I called my mom. Neither were happy with my decision, but I was able to explain my side to both. Finally, I called Laura. We talked for almost an hour about my decision, how disappointed she was in it, and how she thought it was the wrong move, but eventually I got her support as well. I went to bed Wednesday night having told myself it was the last time I would sleep in Montana.

Day 7 (The ending): I woke up early Thursday morning, couldn't sleep again. I hadn't been able to reach my dad since making my decision, so I tried to call him again at several places, but ended up leaving him an e-mail and a phone message. I packed some things before work this morning, then went in to talk to Assistant GM Chris Hale about what I wanted to do. After I talked to him for a few minutes, then talked to GM Matt Ellis, we reached an agreement for me to leave. I said some quick goodbyes to people around the office, went back and loaded up my car, and left Missoula for the last time at 11 am Mountain time. I drove all the way through Montana and North Dakota that first day. My dad found out about my decision and called me while I was in a cell phone dead zone in Montana, so I was able to talk to him briefly and let him know what was going on. I spent the night in Fargo, North Dakota and drove the rest of the way back the next morning, stopping briefly for dinner and to unload some things in Rapids before I moved on to Appleton, meeting Laura after work. Laura and I spent the weekend together and I think her and I are back on good terms. I'm still upset about the way things turned out but all in all I'm happy to be back home and I think I learned something about my own limitations in Montana. I learned that some things are more important than any baseball career I may have, and I will not neglect those things again.

Storytime concludes. Promise next time post will be made on a lighter note.
This has been KL Snow.