I had great plans to say farewell to 2000 and welcome 2001 and the new millennium. Slowly, each of those plans were shot (another story for another day) and I was left to plan a quiet dinner at home with my family. I thought I would grill some steaks and some shrimp, we would spend the evening watching a movie and ring in the new year. What could possibly go wrong? The Y2K bug, that is what could go wrong. There is no other explanation. I took the steaks out of the refrigerator and took them outside. I started the grill and went back inside to get seasonings for the meat. When I went inside, Dog Dot Com took one a bite out of one of the steaks! How was I supposed to know that dog was not Y2K compliant? When I picked up the Montreal Steak Seasoning, I noticed it was empty! Another case of a seasoning bottle not being Y2K compliant! I took the shrimp outside along with melted butter to marinate the shrimp. After a while outside, the butter hardened back into a solid. I didn’t even think to check if the butter was Y2K compliant! About halfway through cooking the steaks, I ran out of gas for the grill. Man, even the propane tank had a Y2K problem! I had to move all of the food inside to finish cooking. I put the steaks under the broiler without noticing that the oven had something spilled in the bottom. This resulted in some smoke coming from the oven. Yet another Y2K bug! The smoke of course set all of the smoke detectors off in the house uncovering another Y2K problem. I quickly went to the garage to get the ladder only to find it missing. Trina had lent it to the neighbors. Oh great, my ladder is not Y2K compliant! After tracking it down and making my way through the crowd that had gathered in my front house I began to tear off all the smoke detectors and reset them. All that is except the one in the stairwell. I could not reach it with my 8 foot ladder. I cannot believe it, my stairwell is not Y2K compliant! Armed with a broom, I was finally able to reset the smoke detector. After dinner, I began to reinstall the smoke detectors in the house only to find most of them had a nearly dead battery. Darn non-Y2K batteries! By the time I finished putting all the smoke detectors back in place, it was after midnight. Stinking clocks were the only things in the house that were Y2K compliant. I guess now all I have to worry about is that Y10K problem. It’s a good thing I have 8,000 years to plan.

For one reason or another, this dog is psychotic when it comes to laser pointers. She will chase that little red dot around the house and will ignore everything else around. It doesn’t matter if there is food, water, treats, an open door, guests to the house. She ignores them all once the little red dot appears. She will chase it all over the house, up the walls, follow it across the ceiling and back down the other side of the room. This worked great as long as there was someone to hold the laser pointer. The problem came when one of us were not around to run the pointer, she would go back to her destructive ways. Then I came up with an enhancement to my idea. I attached the laser pointer to her collar and turned it on. Then she ran the pointer while trying to attack the light. It was great. Wherever she went, there was the red dot. To test my device, I attached it to her collar and left the room. I came back 10 minutes later to check on the dog. What I found was tipped over chairs, tables and lamps and a trail of destruction. I couldn’t figure it out until I watched the dog. She would see the light and chase it in a straight line knocking over everything in her path. Ok, small design flaw. After a brief re-design period, the laser pointer was reintroduced. I attached it to the ceiling fan and now it just goes in circles as does the dog. You know, with the lights off, the house looks kind of like a Disco party. I wonder if I still have that white polyester suit. I’m beginning to feel like dancing.

I scheduled my appointment as late in the day as I could possibly find. There is no reason ruining my whole day. I am not sure which is worse though. If the appointment was in the morning, I could at least get it over with. This way, I have to dread this appointment all day long. Besides, there is blood work to be done which means I have to fast for the day. Finally, it was time to go to the doctor’s office. The nurse led me back to the lab. They would take my blood first before I saw the doctor. I watched as she brought out what looked like a knitting needle and a 55 gallon drum to suck all the blood out of my arm and probably every other part of my body as well. She smacked my veins around before picking one out. I could have sworn I heard her cackle when she stuck me. I sat there watching the blood leave my arm and pour into the test tube. I had to laugh at the sight. The nurse looked at me and asked why I thought this was funny. I explained that my wife was wrong, I didn’t bleed Diamondback purple. It was red just like everyone else’s. I seem to be the only one who had a sense of humor. Well, at least that is what I thought.

After draining all my blood, I was led into an examination room to wait for the doctor. The wait seemed longer than an Armando Reynoso pitching start but finally the doctor came to see me. Things went fairly well, he took my temperature, listened to my heart and lungs all the while making notes. Even my blood pressure was normal. When he was finished, we talked for a while as he asked me questions about my health. As he was wrapping up his examination, he asked me my age. I explained I was 39 and would be 40 in March. “Oh.” he said. “Well, for all intents and purposes you are 40 then. In that case, there is one more test that we need to conduct.” All of the color left my face when he uttered the six words that every man dreads hearing from his doctor, “Drop your pants and bend over.” I tried to assure him that this was really not necessary. I was pretty sure that with some rest, plenty of liquids, and some rest I would be feeling fine. He was determined that a test for prostrate cancer was necessary. I frantically tried to come up with a series of questions or justifications for why this did not need to happen. My doctor must have been a telemarketer in a previous life since each argument was met with the appropriate response thereby leaving me really no alternative. I had just one last question for him, “Please tell me your favorite movie is not Deliverance. You don’t own a banjo do you doc?

This story seems all to coincidental if you ask me. I am beginning to think that we don’t know the whole story nor does baseball want us to. Let’s look beyond the surface of this story and dig a little deeper. First we have A-Rod signing a contract that pays him more than what the Texas Rangers cost some three years ago. Then you have Bud Selig standing up in front of a crowd stating that there are problems in baseball’s financial situation when clubs are in dire straits and cannot possibly compete in the market place. He further states that these spiraling payroll costs will lead to a potential work stoppage after the 2001 baseball season. Soon after that players, agents and owners all begin to spread rumors that baseball as we know it will cease to be after the next collective bargaining agreement is radified. This is all sinister enough but then we should really add Bud Selig’s move to destroy the umpire’s union thereby getting rid of several umpires and requiring the rest to agree to lesser demands. At this point the commissioner is involved in a tragic accident where one of his kneecaps is broken. Coincidence? I think not. Perhaps union boss Donald Fehr spoke to someone in the family, made a few phone calls, had a little pasta, and BAM! the commissioner has an accident. I don’t think we will be hearing any more about possible break-up of the player’s union any time soon.

This whole thing stinks like a horse head in your bed. Then again, maybe I just need to quit watching those Godfather movies during the off-season. “Honey, Where did we put that Smurfs video? You know, the one where Papa Smurf works as a scab for the Keebler elves at Christmas time?”

Alex Rodriguez turned 25 years old on July 27. If you take into consideration that scientists now calculate the life expectancy of an average American male to be 75 years old, Alex has a mere 50 years in which to spend $252 million. If we break this down, Alex Rodriguez has to spend at a rate of:

* $5,040,000 per year

* $420,000 per month

* $96,923.08 per week

* $13,846.15 per day

* $576.92 per hour

* $9.62 per minute

* $0.16 per second

These figures assume that A-Rod takes all of his money and places it under his mattress and earns no interest for the rest of his life. He can’t afford to earn interest, there isn’t enough time left in his life to be adding more money. So you can plainly see, Alex could not possibly attend something as trivial as a press conference. In his case, time really is money. If we take into consideration that the press conference lasted 30 minutes, that would have cost him $288.60 to sit and listen to people talk about him. That would have in turn put him way behind the spending curve that he would never be able to recover from. As it is, he will have to find a way to recoup his spending time during the games. Last season, the average American League baseball game lasted approximately 3 hours 15 minutes. The time that A-Rod spends playing a baseball game will cost him $1,875.06. You can quickly see that Rodriguez is fighting a battle of time. There is just not enough time left in his life for him to spend that much money. So please, don’t bother him with trivial items such as press conferences. Time waits for no one, even at $0.16 per second.