Harry Kalas - Outta Here!

Philadelphia paid tribute today to Harry Kalas, the voice of the Philadelphia Phillies. Kalas passed away earlier this week and the fans filled Citizens Bank Park to pay their respects and to hear Harry Kalas' close friends and colleagues share their thoughts and feelings.

I think Mike Schmidt summed it up the best in his eulogy when he said that Harry Kalas' life was "bountiful".

I think we should all strive to lead "bountiful" lives.

While I've never met Harry Kalas, he has been a part of my life for many years. Thinking of him reminds me of my father who taught me to love baseball and the Phillies. My dad was my little league coach, and he came to watch me play baseball through high school, college, and even into my 30's when I played over-30 baseball with some of my old high school buddies.

I visited my dad's grave today to spend some time reminiscing with him about the great calls that Harry Kalas made over his broadcasting career, including:

"Long drive! It is....outta here!
Home run...Michael Jack Schmidt!"

We definitely heard that call many, many times.

Unfortunately my dad passed away before hearing one of Harry's best:

"The 0 - 2 pitch...swing and a miss...struck eem out!
The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 World Champions of Baseball!!"

So long Harry. We'll miss you.
And if you get a chance, please say hi to my dad for me.

For those who weren't Phillies fans or for those who want to reminisce along with me, here's a handful of Harry's best calls:


And here's a nice tribute to Harry Kalas by Comcast:

Google App Engine Is Groovy Baby!

The SpringSource Groovy team and the Google App Engine Java team worked together to make sure that Groovy works on Google App Engine now that App Engine supports Java: "Seriously this time, the new language on App Engine: Java™"

Guillaume Laforge, of SpringSource, has a great post about how to "Write your Google App Engine applications in Groovy".

Check out some initial Groovy sample apps running on App Engine:
http://myowngroovy.appspot.com

Here you'll find the standard "Hello World" app, a Google Maps, Google Geocoding service, Flickr mashup application, and more.