No Wheels This Weekend

My van is spending the weekend with my mechanic, to whom I took it so he could (a) check out the overpriced emergency repairs from Wells to make sure they're okay, and (b) look into some other engine-related matters.

I actually dropped the van with him last night so he'd have it first thing in the morning. From the notice I'd received from the complex management, everyone in my section was supposed to have their cars out of the lot before 8 AM or face being towed, on both Thursday and Friday of this week for parking lot stripe repainting. Turns out that it was only Thursday for my block; Friday I needn't have done so. But because I had a 7 AM conference call, I took the van over last night and walked home (it's about 2 km to the shop) to be safe.

No word from my mechanic today, but I didn't expect any news until Monday. I have groceries enough for the weekend, and even if I didn't, there are stores within walking distance. The walk is good for me. If necessary, I could take the Match Game SF stuff out of its rolling box and use it to haul stuff home.

Not that being home means I'm completely immobilized. Despite having a "day-after-night game" (conference calls at 18:30 last night and 07:00 today, on two different unrelated subjects, in order to accommodate respectively China and US East/Central time zones), I got sufficient work done this afternoon that I felt confident enough to take the long 5k walk around Quarry Lakes after lunch. The walk's benefit to my blood sugar would have been better if someone hadn't called me with an urgent support question just before I was heading out the door, resulting in me instead spending a half-hour behind the computer troubleshooting.

Unintended Consequences

It's a game that has no bearing on the final outcome of the season (the Dodgers have clinched the division; the Giants are locked into fourth place). But it may prove to be a ground-breaker and result in a change to Major League Baseball's newest rule: the Home Run Instant Replay Rule.

( Much Baseball Neepery )

I believe that this weird combination of events will lead to the HR Replay Rule being getting an addendum prohibiting personnel moves in the middle of a replay adjudication. I wouldn't be surprised if the League Office issues an emergency rule addition in time to affect post-season play. Thus tonight's game will make baseball history, albeit in a strange way.

Update, 23:12: The protest is moot because the Giants won the game. I still think the league office will have to put in a special rule or interpretation to cover this oddball situation.

Update, 27 Sep 10:00: Here's the MLB.com news story about the game, which does clarify a few details, such as the fact that the call to the official scorer was not to check to see if Burriss had been officially entered, but to advise the scorer that the game was being played under protest. That's because the official scorer is responsible for preserving the state of the game at the point of the protest in case the game has to be replayed from that point.