Peter King has a long article on Tom Brady’s comeback in this week’s Sports Illustrated. While I enjoyed watching Matt Cassel do his thing last year, he can’t compare with having one of the top quarterbacks of all time back under center.

“People say, ‘What will you do if you don’t play football?’ Why would I even think of doing anything else? What would I do instead of run out in front of 80,000 people and command 52 guys and be around guys I consider brothers and be one of the real gladiators? Why would I ever want to do anything else? It’s so hard to think of anything that would match what I do: Fly to the moon? Jump out of planes? Bungee-jump off cliffs? None of that s— matters to me. I want to play this game I love, be with my wife and son, and enjoy life.”

I’m loving the Red Sox so far this season, but I really can’t wait until September and opening day for the New England Patriots.

(And God help me if the Red Zone Channel comes to Fios – I may never leave the couch.)

Lucy hasn’t quite started walking yet, but she’s getting around pretty well regardless. She’s started to explore more outside, and she really likes the little climber and slide we have in the backyard.

Here she is thinking about heading down the slide. Not quite sure yet, though…

The semi-annual posting of the fallen-soldier memorial signs in Holliston happened this weekend. The Holliston Reporter has the pictures and the writeup.

It’s always a chilling reminder of what’s happening in the mountains and deserts far away. I hope we don’t need too many more Memorial and Veterans Days with these signs.

I’m doing a lot of librarian work for Serendeputy‘s beta launch. (Real. Soon. Now.) I’m coming across tons of new and interesting sites. I’ll drop quick links in here as I find them so that you can enjoy them too…

New Geography writes about the lessons of geography in understanding life in the United States. It’s actually much more interesting that that sounds — you should go over and give it a read. If you’re a combination data/sociology geek, you’ll spend hours playing with the information.

Recent topics include U-Haul prices as migration indicator, which shows parts of the country getting versus losing population. It looks like everyone’s moving to Charlotte and Austin. Detroit (unsurprisingly) is one of the biggest losers, along with Virginia Beach and our lovely neighbor Providence.

New Geography is showing up very high in my profile these days.

Curt Schilling calls out the utter inanity of some of the denials you’re seeing when players are caught with their hands in the pharmaceutical cookie jar.

I’ve never taken steroids, I’ve never taken HGH, and I am not saying that to clear my name or make a statement, I’m saying that because even though I did not, I’ve never drank a protein shake from my strength coach, I’ve never taken medication from a doctor or the team, I’ve never gotten an injection from a team doctor or otherwise that I didn’t ask and wasn’t told exactly what it was. I’m far from svelte or ripped, and never have been. I was never a fitness freak or gym rat — those are the guys that measured every milligram, count every tablet in their regimen. Yet somehow we’re hearing these same people talk about being struck momentarily stupid when West African bullfrog semen is found in their blood. “What? How’d that get there????” Their routines, from reps to nutrition are as mapped out as scouting reports. They eat a certain way, train a certain way, and they play a certain way. There is no ‘black hole’ or ‘hidden formula’ happening in these instances. So you get up at 5am? You eat at 6am? Thirty minutes of cardio, upper body, lower on alternate days, whirlpool for x minutes, maintain x calories of protein and carb intake? You do all that, and at some point you let someone stick a needle in your ass, or throw a ‘protein shake’ or rub a ‘crème’ on you, and for that 30 seconds to 5 minutes you have absolutely no thought, care or concern about the product? A step recognized as vital to strength gain, or recovery, a step to setup the acceleration of your recovery or magnification of gains from your hours of work and you just go dumb?

I’m sad that Manny Ramirez took steroids, in the same way that I’m sad any of the players felt the need to take them. But, it is what it is, and I’m not going to fret too much about it. At least Sadie and Lucy are young enough that I don’t have to answer any uncomfortable questions.

Also, Dan Kennedy does some nice conjecturing on when Manny started taking the juice.