Three cheers for Voyager!! We aren't in Mt. Healthy so it's all good!!

The weather has been so refreshing the last two days and it's pretty much spring's last gasp. The summer solstice is a week away which means the dark specter of humidity's blanket is looming. Of course I really don't mind heat or humidity with my follicle challenged head effectively cooling my body and a pool at my daily disposal. What's that? Noooooo ... I'm not rubbing it in ... I'm way to nice to point out my abundance of summer leisure time. Plus I have to be concerned about burning my bald dome .... those of you who have sizzled your scalp know what I'm talking about!

The Voyager I spacecraft, launched in 1977, is at the very reaches of our solar system and soon will become the first man-made object to exit the heliosphere. Voyager is another part of my childhood which is receding faster than my hairline (at least I think I still have a hairline somewhere up there!). I can remember the first pictures Voyager I sent back from Jupiter and later Saturn when I was in grade school and believed the dawn of Star Trek style ships would definitely occur by the year 2000. When you're seven years anything seems possible, even James T. Kirk! Voyager I will continue sailing through the cold reaches of space indefinitely, sending radio signals which must travel for sixteen or more hours to reach Earth until it's nuclear power supply runs out in around 2025. Maybe something will intercept the deep space probe and listen to the golden record playing inside, but probably it will be 1,500 lbs of space junk to be found in thousands of years by humans who will look at Voyager the way we look at the ruins from Pompeii. Well ... except for the radioactive part. Hopefully they won't look or touch that part.

The Reds just completed a sweep of the Indians today with a 12-5 victory. No .. it's not a misprint .. the Reds scored 12 runs today for the second time this season. The game itself was unremarkable except for the 34,000 fans who showed up on a perfect late spring day in Cincinnati. Oh yeah ... Joey Vottomatic hit another bomb along with Dat Dude and Ryan Ludwick. Nothing new to see here people ... move along ... Vottomatic hits. The most interesting Reds news today was the Derek Lowe - Dusty Custer feud which flared up last night. Lowe issued the first blast, a NWA-worthy profanity laced tirade directed at Dusty. Dusty, connoisseur of fine wine and cool jazz, showed he can be just as prickly as his ever-present toothpicks in firing right back at Lowe. To hear his Dustiness say it, Derek Lowe might as well be Otis Campbell. Lowe did play in Boston - home of mid-game clubhouse suds - so the Dustrator could be more correct than we know. Either way, Lowe's next start will be against the Reds early next week in Cleveland. I know Nuke LaLoosh beaned a mascot once, but I wonder if any of Lowe's pitches mysteriously get away into the Reds dugout. I like to see old man fights!!! Plus Johnny B. Cueto can deliver a mean roundhouse .... Advantage Redlegs!!!

The Mt. Healthy school district finally made it to national TV, but I doubt they're cheering the publicity they received last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Jimmy - close friend of my idol Howard Stern - interviewed Anthony Cornist and his mother last night about Mt. Healthy's decision to withhold Anthony's diploma because his family cheered at his graduation. It seems Mt. Healthy High School has a 'rule' prohibiting loud or excessive cheering after a graduates name is called and encouraging the parents/family/friends in attendance to hold their hootin' and hollarin' till all the graduates names have been read. Well Anthony's family didn't really get the memo, or choose to ignore it, and Mt. Healthy decided Anthony wouldn't get his diploma until he or his family completed twenty hours of community service. I would make fun of this situation myself, but I'm not as funny as Jimmy Kimmel sooooooo here's Jimmy!!! (note: I'm not citing these quotes. Jimmy said them, not me. That's my disclaimer. I know I'd get kicked out of Clark Montessori for plagiarism but oh well .. I'm a rule breaker like Anthony!!)
- “They’re saying you’ve got to complete 20 hours of community service, as if this was felony cheering or misdemeanor cheering or something.”
- “They called it excessive cheering. For a football player. Don’t schools usually encourage the female students to put on skirts and wave pom-poms and cheer excessively for football players? What could be more excessive that that? It seems very unfair to me that they would hold the diploma back just because the student is popular.”
- “I hope you get the diploma. Don’t do the community – Don’t ever serve the community. The community does nothing for any of us! That’s why Costco sells those huge bales of toilet paper – for people like Lori Handler (Mt. Healthy Superintendent)!”
- “If Lori Handler had her way, Tinkerbell would be dead!”

That's all I got for today. The Cougars are scrimmaging the Taft Senators in an hour and I gotta beat the traffic. Enjoy!