Everyone deserves second chances in life.

The Los Angeles Dodgers gave one to the most reviled Red Sox manager since Don Zimmer. The Dodgers hired Grady Little to fill their vacant managerial position yesterday. It's an interesting choice. Can you think of a guy who is less "Hollywood" than He Who Must Not Be Named?

The Dodgers new GM, Ned Colletti, seems to be going a little nuts. Aside from hiring You Know Who, he threw $13 million a year at Rafael Furcal to get him away from the Braves. Now, I think Furcal is a good player, but $13 million? Considering that the Dodgers already had Cesar Izturis, a decent shortstop (although admittedly not at Furcal's level), I don't think that position was their biggest problem.

Another team that has opened the wallet wide in the hot stove season is the Toronto Blue Jays. They signed B.J. Ryan and A.J. Burnett for five years each at a total of $102 million. Pretty good money for starter who has never won more than 12 games in a season, and a relief pitcher with exactly one year of closing experience. However, assuming these guys live up to their potential, the Blue Jays are going to be a force in the AL East and have a good shot at breaking the Yankees and Red Sox stranglehold on the first two spots in the division.

We're only two weeks away from our desperately needed vacation to Florida. This has been one heck of a year with all the medical stuff and all the changes at work, so I'm really looking forward to getting away. What I'm really looking forward to is a 2-night getaway A. and I are taking while my parents watch the kids. It's been a long time since we've had some "grown-up" time together for more than an evening.

We also have scheduled some fun stuff with the kids, including a day at Epcot, my favorite Disney park. The kids are also going on the Albatross Cruise (the Albatross was the name of Captain Hook's boat, in case you don't know), and of course we have our annual family dinner at Chef Mickey's.

One more Disney related item: the former CFO of my company got a new job. He retired last year and moved down to Celebration, FL, which is the town Disney built on a portion of the land Walt originally purchased back in the '60's. Well, he went out and got a commercial drivers license, joined the Teamsters and is now driving a bus for Disney between the Magic Kingdom and whatever resort they need him to go to. Of course, he's the only $9.25/hour bus driver who comes to work in a red Corvette!

I think this is amazingly cool. Not so much that he's driving a bus for Disney, but that he has the freedom to take the job just because he thinks it would be fun to do. I'm hoping I'm in that position when I hit my late '50's. I could see spending the summer as an usher at some minor league ballpark.

Late note: The Sox traded Doug Mirabelli to the Padres for 2nd baseman Mark Loretta. Loretta was injury plagued last season, but he had a great year in 2004. My only reservation about trading Mirabelli is that he had a great rapport with Wakefield. Wake had his worst stretch of the season last year when Mirabelli was on the DL and Varitek caught him for the most part. It seems like Kelly Shoppach will get a chance to win the backup role, although I expect the Sox will invite some other veteran catchers to spring training to compete for the job as well.

Of course, this begs the question of what happens to minor league prospect Dustin Pedroia, who looked very impressive at 2nd for the Pawsox and Portland last season. Even more oddly, the Sox offered arbitration to Tony Graffinino, who played 2nd much of the second half of last season after Mark Bellhorn's strikeouts got to be too much to take. I'm not sure why they need Graffinino if they have Loretta, but perhaps they think he'll end up getting signed elsewhere or they will offer him as trade bait in a later deal.