Last August I thought I’d be sad to see the last pieces of Shea Stadium hit the ground. A part of me thought that watching my favorite baseball team in some other stadium just wouldn’t be the same without that old rusty bowl - it wasn’t much, but it was ours. Then I saw video of it:

No tears, no sadness…nothing, really. Probably a culmination of the beatings that I’ve taken by that same favorite team over the last couple of years. I’ve been disappointed by them before of course - ‘91-’96 was pretty bad, as was ‘02-’04. A spattering of playoff appearances, the ‘99 NLCS and the ‘00 World Series are basically all I have to hang my hat on. I guess that’s why the last few years have been so tough - 177 wins but not a single playoff game. Brutal. And Shea Stadium has been home to it all.

So I guess I’m a bit soured on the whole thing and I want to start fresh. I want Citi Field to be a place of renewal and a place where the Mets play the kind of baseball that I think they’re capable of playing. I want to believe that using a pretty box will somehow turn a mediocre present into a great one.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation may soon be joining forces to create a single ticket brokering conglomerate which will undoubtedly be bent on world domination.

While maybe the future isn’t that bleak, this really is something that should concern fans of live music. Ticket prices are going to rise, and you can bet that the best tickets - the tickets that these companies claim they sell to fans - won’t be found the day of sale. They’ll instead be found in the secondary ticket market (mainly TicketsNow, which Ticketmaster owns) marked up at a huge premium.

Though, given the myriad of problems during the Phish onsale last week, this could be somehow for the better. At least with Ticketmaster running the show I know that I’m out of luck in the first 5 minutes.

Making the move from my previous company (where I was a project manager) to here was a necessary one. There reaches a time where you simply aren’t learning anything new and you need to “revitalize” your creative and competitive juices. I reached that point sometime in the middle of August. Carm had been pushing me for some time to get out because I clearly hadn’t been happy with how things had been going and I finally made a move. “Shit or get off the pot” took on a new meaning.

One of the best things that has come out of this is that I’ve gotten back to my roots as far as web development goes - I think I’ve written more code in the last 4 months than I had in the previous 4 years. Being a PM was great and all, but ultimately it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as working through problems on my own, coming up with solutions, and then having those solutions directly benefit a customer. I can’t count how many times I felt I did way more work than what was required of me as a PM, only to get slapped down as soon as one little thing went wrong. Perhaps I’ll go back to it one day, but not anytime in the near future.

And one indirect benefit of all of this is that I’ll hopefully be able to spend more time blogging on and improving this website (and others) as I gain some new chops - that is, as long as I’m not working 50-60 hour weeks like I was for a time in December. I’ve already done a couple of things here and there which I’ll let you discover on your own. If you happen to have an iPhone, hit chrisbartley.net and check out the new iPhone version of my site (all thanks to BraveNewCode’s WPTouch plugin for Wordpress). Enjoy!

Thank you, Grandma- you will be missed.

July 5th-6th
We made it down to Scranton for the Bartley family gathering. It was great to see everyone again…these are always enjoyable because of the long stretch where we didn’t do a whole lot as an extended family, so being able to hang out with my aunts, uncles, and cousins for a couple of days again is a welcomed change to the summer routine. Thanks to Uncle Peter and Aunt Noreen for hosting us!

July 12th
Although the new iPhones came out on the 11th, we didn’t manage to get one until the 12th (we weren’t about to camp out). I’ve gotta say, though, that it’s a pretty remarkable device. The 2.0 firmware allows you to download applications from the iTunes store to extend the things you can do with the phone. Check your e-mail, play games, or even figure out what song is playing at the grocery store. Fantastic.

July 18th
The Mets were just finishing up a 10 game winning streak, during which they managed to catch and overtake the Phillies for first place in the NL East. Omar proved that he made the right move by firing Willie in mid-June - although this turnaround wasn’t all Manuel’s doing, Willie clearly showed time and time again that he wasn’t able to truly turn this team around. Jerry can thank Castillo’s bum knee for knocking him out indefinitely and Delgado for learning how to swing a bat again.

July 25th-26th
Harborfest in Oswego. As always it was great to catch up with everyone and see people that I might not otherwise see for another year. The Gongshow Golf Tournament course record was broken by my team - we won’t get any credit for it thanks to tourney rules, but I’m going to recommend that those get changed for next year. Check out the gallery for some more pictures of the day and the fireworks.

The Harborfest fireworks were nice as always, though I think they started about 10 minutes early which made us miss the very beginning. However, I was able to get some video of the grand finale anyway:

In August we’re heading out to Cape Cod with the usual Oswego+ crew. My hope is that no one will wander off into the ocean in the middle of the night, but we’ll see if we can’t contain the usual suspects from doing just that. Until next time!

Matt and Rachel seem to be doing a terrific job even if they claim to just be winging it. Hopefully she’ll be big enough soon to wear the pink Mets onesies I got for her - luckily she’s too young to understand how awfully mediocre they are. Maya is obviously quite loved and in a great situation. As the guardian I’m taking notes guys!

Somehow over the last 2 years or so I’d forgotten how good Dave Matthews Band is live- stale setlists and weak performances tend to do that. However, apparently all you have to do is just add in a little Tim Reynolds to any Dave Matthews recipe in order for it to be a success. We had a great time last weekend and we wish we were hitting up a few more shows, but such is life. Here’s #40 - the first time played full band in over a decade - from Saturday night’s show:

The pictures are up too…