On Ka-BOOM, lower back strains, and unexpected vacations...

Been an eventful two days...

( Ka-BOOM!! )

( So, we won't be amputating anything? )

I've now got a week off. This gives me a chance to start researching new jobs, clean up my resume, and do research for my panels at Baycon.

Damn, this got long.

Barry who?

Anyone who still thinks the Giants can't win without Bonds, prepare to eat your words

San Francisco Giants: 15
Colorado Rockies: 2

San Francisco rookie Fred Lewis hit for the cycle Sunday, powering the Giants past the Colorado Rockies 15-2.

Four days after being called up from Triple-A Fresno, Lewis became the 22nd player in franchise history to hit for the cycle. He went 5-for-6 and drove in four runs, three of them on his first major league home run.

He doubled in the first, and hit 1-0 pitch over the left-field wall in the fourth off right-hander Taylor Buchholz (1-2). He greeted reliever Tom Martin with a run-scoring triple in the fifth and sent a Denny Bautista fastball into right field for a single in the seventh that sparked a six-run inning.

Lewis added another single in the seventh off Bautista.

In 11 at-bats over 13 games for San Francisco last season, Lewis had just one extra-base hit, a double in his major league debut. He became the first rookie to hit for the cycle since Houston's Luke Scott on July 28 last season against Arizona, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The Giants had a season-best 22 hits, including a career-high four by Kevin Frandsen, who drove in three runs, one with a bases-loaded walk. The beneficiary of all the offense was the usually hard-luck right-hander Matt Cain. Until Sunday, the Giants were just 1-6 in his starts despite Cain holding opponents to a .194 batting average.

Staked to an early lead, Cain (2-3) gave up one run and five hits in six innings.

Barry Bonds sat out as the Giants went to their bench to salvage a four-game split and kept the Rockies from winning their first home series since taking two of three from Arizona to start the season.

Bonds remained 10 home runs shy of Hank Aaron's record 755 after cooling off in Colorado, where he didn't go long once.

Lewis is 7-for-14 with seven RBIs since getting called up Thursday, when Dave Roberts went on the 15-day disabled list after opting for surgery on his troublesome left elbow and the Giants designated struggling outfielder Todd Linden for assignment.

Lewis scored on a balk by Buchholz in the first. He made it 4-0 when he sent a 1-0 pitch over the left-field wall with two on in the fourth and his run-scoring triple in the fifth made it 8-0.

Buchholz surrendered eight earned runs and 12 hits in 4 2-3 innings, and the Rockies' beleaguered bullpen continued its wayward ways. Bautista faced eight batters and got just one out, allowing six runs, all of them earned, and seven hits.

Notes:@ Lewis' cycle was the 24th in Giants history. ... Rockies 2B Kaz Matsui, on the DL with a bad back, leaves for extended spring training in Arizona on Monday. ... During the game, the Rockies traded RHP Byung-Hyun Kim to the Florida Marlins for RHP Jorge Julio. Said GM Dan O'Dowd, "It's a trade of one guy struggling for another guy struggling."

For the non-baseball folk, "hitting for the cycle" means that in a single game a batter gets at least four hits: a single, a double, a triple, and a homerun. Most people agree that the triple is the hardest part of the cycle. This Lewis kid is showing he belongs in the Bigs. 22 hits show that everyone was contributing. This came on a day when we rested many of the starters like Bonds. This team has depth, and that is vital to winning championships.

GO GIANTS!!!

Baycon Schedule

OK, here we go!

Along with co-hosting the Traveller 30th Anniversary Party with kshandra, aurictech, and ataniell93, I have seven panels.

( See Doug blather. Blather, Doug, blather! )

I think I'll be pretty busy...

It's the little stories of history that always fascinate me.

For sale: Rolex sent by mail order to Stalag Luft III

A mail order watch bought by a British prisoner of war and delivered to him in the Nazis’ notorious Stalag Luft III camp is expected to fetch more than £66,000 at auction tomorrow.

The story of the elegant Rolex watch ordered in 1943 by Corporal Clive James Nutting casts light on an extraordinary commercial enterprise that defied the disruption of war.

The camp, in what is now Zagan, Poland, was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape, which told the story of an imaginative but ultimately ill-fated breakout.

Corporal Nutting helped to organise the escape and later advised the film-makers. He ordered the stainless steel Rolex Oyster 3525 Chronograph, which cost the equivalent of £1,200, directly from the founder of Rolex, Hans Wilsdorf, in Geneva in 1943.

Mr Wilsdorf, a German, immediately arranged for the timepiece to be sent to the camp and, in a letter to Corporal Nutting, even apologised for the possible delay, making it plain that his unlikely customer should not “even think of settlement” until the war was over.

Wow. The image of a POW camp is always bored, dispirited soldiers waiting around to be liberated or exchanged, but her in the story of one watch we learn of a whole different side. Prisoners mail-ordering watches (and probably other things, with their captors' permission) and creating a small community. As a huge fan of fine timepieces, I'd love to be at that auction. Knowing Rolex I'll bet the thing still keeps perfect time.

I think my favorite part is the seller refusing to even discuss payment until the war ended. You don't see gentility like that anymore.

Here's the watch