"Freddie" dies

This really hits home for me.

Freddie Garrity, lead singer for the '60s pop group Freddie and the Dreamers , has died at the age of 69.

As a kid growing up in the '60s, I listened to this group a lot on the old WLS and WCFL in Chicago. My very first "45" was "Tell Her No" by The Zombies and my second "45" was "I'm Telling You Now" by Freddie and the Dreamers. My first LP was "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks.

It's tough knowing these artists are passing on.

Baseball thoughts

It's mid-May already and I haven't chimed in yet on the state of baseball in Chicago. I'm sure most of the free world knows the Chicago White Sox won the World Series last year for the first time since 1917. The Chicago Cubs, meanwhile, have not won the World Series since 1908 (at the time it was their second in a row!) and therein lies the problem. The Boston Red Sox [1914] and the White Sox [1917} are two-thirds of the trilogy of futility. The Cubs seem to be holding on to their part of the futility by continuing to play poor baseball.

The White Sox, as of this writing, have the best record in baseball at 25-12 and are one game ahead of the surprising Detroit Tigers. The Cubs are 15-22 and are 8 1/2 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals (they are 5 1/2 games ahead of last-place Pittsburgh).

This weekend, the Sox and Cubs play each other in their annual city series. The first three games are at U.S. Cellular Field with the final three games played in late June-early July at Wrigley Field. Most of the Cub fans I know are not even acknowledging the upcoming series. Usually it's a chaotic weekend at the Cornelius household with most of my family favoring the North Side team, but hardly a peep so far!

Yes, I know I've been away

Actually, I've been nowhere in particular. It's just for the past several weeks I've run out of thing to say. There's been nothing particularly newsworthy or comment-worthy, and I've been busy with work and with life. I remember I went through a period like this about a year ago so I'm blaming it on the time of year.

To catch up with my role in the Sprint Ambassador Program, I've been enjoying using the multimedia capabilities of the phone. I haven't been using it for callingmuch, but rather downloading music, watching sports scores, catching weather forecasts and the news. The one problem I've noticed -- and I don't know if it's the network or the phone -- is that sometimes the volume goes down in the earpiece when I'm talking to someone. I alternate between hearing them fine and then suddenly it's like they've covered their mouth and I can barely hear them. This is happened on several occasions at different locations. I probably should contact the special e-mail address I was given to report the problem.

It's the Friday evening before Mother's Day and it's in the low 40s in the Chicago area! Unbelievable.