So let’s do this without much preamble this week other than to say Happy Friday and thank you as always for swinging by Roads Lesser Traveled!

One: Last Saturday was one of the most epic nights of baseball I’ve ever had with my bestis mensch, Shawn, at Camden Yards. Great seats, great company, the Orioles championship Class of ’83 including our man, Eddie Murray (for me, the GOAT I was blessed to have met as a kid back in the day with Cal Ripkin) and a terrific 7-3 win by the Orioles.

We initially got skunked out of a 20,000 only Murray bobblehead giveaway even showing up an hour early thanks to some rough traffic jams. The game was nearly sold-out and competition for Eddie’s bobbler was fierce, even amongst fans of the visiting team since Eddie was once a New York Met. Yet the baseball gods found a way to bestow us the bobbles anyway after the game. I’m still in awe of how it happened. We got the Murrays! Orioles Magic, we were feelin’ it happen. Ed-die! Ed-die! Ed-die!

Two: Legent bourbon is one of THE finest swills I’ve ever had. My boss gifted me with a bottle of Legent a few months ago as an atta-boy for my part on a million-dollar closing. I fell in love with it. There’s a certain best mensch I mentioned moments ago whose wedding party gift will look very similar to this picture above, just sayin’.

Three: So we tried Dave’s Hot Chicken on Wednesday and they’re not playing in the hot department. I went for the full Monty and tried the Reaper spice. They actually made me sign a waiver before taking it out. God’s honest truth. I said then it would be the weekend before TJ lets me kiss her again. Luckily, that was false. 🙂

Four: I’ve not been as much as a cereal guy as I used to be maaaaaany moons ago. In fact, other than the annual box of Boo-Berry my folks gift me and my son as a Halloween treat tradition, I’ve just shied away, even though I love the healthy-for-you cereals that would’ve made Mikey up here sneer.

TJ knows her cereals, and she keeps bringing home the stuff adults love and kids cringe at, including Life cereal. It’d been so long since I had me some Life, it was a breakfast mouth-gasm. Hey Ray Ray! He likes it! Again.

Five: Always take time to pet the palm.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.