Everything Ends

For those not tracking the stretch run of the MLB season, it may not be news to you that the Detroit Tigers lost last night. However, it is if you consider the fact that their improbable win on Wednesday over Chicago, which included two pinch-hit 9th inning home runs to send the game into extra innings, raised their winning streak to 12 games.


I'm not going to predict a World Series win or even an appearance, as the baseball playoffs are an enormous crap shoot, but it's worth noting that every other Tigers team that won >10 consecutive games during a season made it to the Series. I'm looking forward to seeing what our AL Central champions can do this year.

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On a completely different note, since January I've been reading the 27 book Time-Life series on the Civil War that I inherited from my grandpa. I finished the last one this morning, detailing the failed attempt at Radical Reconstruction of the South from 1865-1877.


I've made a few half-hearted attempts in the past to read this series, but have never made it past the sixth book before. I've enjoyed it each time I've tried in the past, but failed because of the huge time commitment required. Now I'm pleased to say that I've learned everything there is to learn about the Civil War. Well, at least I've learned a lot about it.

It's already paid dividends at quiz bowl (first practice was yesterday) because I can laugh mercilessly when those puny high schoolers don't know who the Confederate general at Shiloh (and Fort Sumter) was. It's Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, of course.

Twitter ca 1748

I have a thing for US Presidents. Don't ask me why, but I can name them all in order and I find them pretty interesting. I've found that learning about them is a pretty nice gateway for learning about the history of this fine country through the ages. Most recently I've been hooked on the OG himself, Mr. George Washington.


Late last year, I read a book all about the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. While Jimmy was in town last month I picked up the first book in the "American Presidents" series at our favorite local used book store for $5. The bibliographies of these two works led me to discover that the Internet is a great place for armchair historians. You want to read the actual writings of GW? Blammo! Another fabulous reason to stare at my computer all day... awesome.

Anyway, that brings me to the title of this post. The first extant writings are a diary that GW kept while performing a survey of some land in the Virginia backcountry. Ah, for the days of private diaries... If Twitter had existed back in the mid-18th century, we would have ended up with pointless tweets like this:

"This Morning Mr. James Genn, ye surveyor, came to us ; we travell'd over ye Blue Ridge to Capt. Ashbys on Shannandoah River. Nothing remarkable happen'd."

Sheesh George! If nothing interesting happened, why'd you waste the ink? Incidentally, this made me learn all about the word ye. Did you know that when used in this context it's just a typographical shortcut for the word the? It should even be read and pronounced as such. You really do learn something new every day.