Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 2:45 a.m. in "The City."

The fur-children and I took individual sojourns to the front-yard of the PE around 1:45 a.m. They are having to use the front-door to allow the newly stained deck time to dry. Given the weather conditions in West, MI right now, that may be an iffy proposition due to both the high temperature forecast and the actual conditions. The fur-children may want to walk, but I am going to discourage them.

Right now, we have a temperature of 77° under mostly clear skies with 80% relative humidity. Later today, the temperature will rise to 88° with 77% relative humidity. In nearby Rothbury, MI, the NWS, which has issued an Excessive Heat Warning, is concerned for the people attending the annual Electric Forest due to the inland temperature forecast of 95° with an accompanying "Real Feel" of 106° and 77% relative humidity! People with respiratory conditions, young children, and elderly people, like me, are advised to stay indoors and seek air-conditioned conditions. I can follow that advice very easily.

The sun will rise this morning @ 6:08 a.m. and set later tonight @ 9:28 p.m. as people settle into the remodeled and mostly new Lynne Sherwood Waterfront Stadium to watch the Grand Haven Musical Fountain go through its paces. Since the Excessive Heat Warning mentioned earlier will be in effect until late Sunday night, attendees at the Grand Haven Musical Fountain light and music show are encouraged to be cautious.

Baseball news yesterday was not good if you are a Tigers, Red Sox, or White Caps fan. The lone bright spot was a 10 - 6 victory by the 45 - 35, 2nd place in the NL Central Cubs, over the 35 - 43. 2nd place in the AL Central Twins. The Cubs bats were on fire, as Addison Russell belted a Grand Slam, and Jason Heyward, and Ben Zobrist each got two-run home-runs. Kyle Schwarber hit a solo-shot too.

Good news, Kris Bryant is due to come off the 10-day DL on Tuesday and is feeling much better. Sadly, there is also bad news from the DL, as Yu Darvish, the $126 million, 6-year free agent off-season signing by the Cubs, is still on the DL. He will likely receive a cortisone shot in his sore elbow. He had Tommy John surgery in 2016. I hope that there is a clause in that huge contract that limits the Cubs' liability in case of injury. I am betting that Theo Epstein would have insisted on that type of clause in a contract of that magnitude. Darvish does have an opt-out clause in the second year and also possible bonuses for winning the Cy Young Award.  Yeah, like that will be happening! Only time will tell who got the better end of this contract. The Cubs and the Twins play again today @ 2:20 p.m.

My beloved, 55 - 28, 2nd place in the AL East Red Sox, dropped a stinker to their arch-rivals, the 53 - 26, now 1st place Yankees, 1 - 8, in Yankee Stadium. Usually reliable Sox starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez, who now has a record of 9 - 3, was totally ineffective, while his mound opponent, C.C. Sabathia started for the Yankees and dominated. The Yankees and the Sox are in a virtual tie for the division lead, with the Sox having played four more games than the Yankees in 2018. The Sox and the Yankees meet in Yankee Stadium again tonight @ 7:15 p.m.

The 36 - 47, 3rd  in the AL Central Tigers, could not get it going versus the 38 - 43, 4th place in the AL East Blue Jays, as the Tigers lost to the Jays, 2 - 3. Nuff said. The Tigers and the Jays play again today @ 1:07 p.m.

The 5 - 4, tied for 3rd place in the MWL East Caps, looked awful, as they fell to the also 5 - 4 Bowling Green Hot Rods, 2 - 13. The baseball pundits said that the Caps got "Run-Over" by the Hot Rods. A bad pun, but a great description of the outcome. The Caps and the Hot Rods play again tonight @ 7:05 p.m.

We got our respective computers on the new to us, cloud-based back-up, Backblaze, service. According to our tech guru, we should now have reliable, all the time back-up. Since, like many people these days, I keep our photos in/on The Cloud, I am much more comfortable.

We didn't get to Muskegon to select our new carpet yesterday, due in part to the heavy traffic that plied Beacon/US Route 31, heading north to the Electric Forest. We will put that off until the following week as the carpet representative will be on vacation next week. No hurry, because the new carpet that will be replacing our nearly-new, less than one-year old carpet, will be replaced at no cost due to a manufacturing defect. Not a big deal until you remember that the last installation took the best part of three days!

We have John coming in today to repaint the master-bathroom and replace the items on the hopefully dry deck. I can't/won't do it, so John will be the main-man.

The new book for indexing is now in and printed. So, I'll be receiving it on my desk for highlighting and commentary very soon. That reminds me, I have to exchange the toner cartridge in the printer to use up what is left of the old one. We exchanged it for a new one to avoid the regular warnings about low-toner that always come about 5,000 copies before the cartridge actually runs out of toner. Ciao.