The Mets' new home jersey debuts in 2010.

The Mets announced that the team will wear a new pinstriped home uniform in the 2010 season that is inspired by the early years of the franchise:

The design combines new and old elements of Mets uniforms.

The Mets created the retro uniform following research and positive responses to the jerseys the 1969 World Champion Mets wore during their 40th anniversary celebration in August.

The natural color and pinstripes were staples of the original Mets uniform when the team debuted in 1962. The Mets will also continue to wear their white uniform at home with the black jerseys as an alternate.

The new jerseys will go on sale this Friday, November 27 at mets.com.

I’ve always liked the Mets pinstripes (reminds me of the ’86 team), so this announcement has got me pretty excited. Now let’s pick up a couple of key trades for next season.

And let’s hope the retro nod to the Mets past will help them win in the near future!

Winter snow. (Photo courtesy jgollner.typepad.com)

Waking up to go to work at 5:30 this morning, it was a chilling 34 degrees out, the effects of which I felt when I had to separate myself from the covers and get out of bed.

As if waking up to go to work on it’s own isn’t hard enough, right?

The sudden winter chill reminds me of the even worse conditions that are all but guaranteed to come in the next few months during a New York winter:

• Even colder temperatures
• Snow, ice, and hail
• Shoveling
• Double and triple commute times
• Teeth-chattering coldness

Yeah, as you might imagine, Winter is my least favorite season. And in New York it can be downright brutal.

Sure, not Canada brutal or North Pole brutal, but bad enough to disrupt one’s quality of life.

Why do you think so many people with the means to do so, follow the now seemingly intelligent flocks of birds and go south for the winter?

Unfortunately, I am not in a position to simply avoid the cold by fleeing for the winter months each year.

When I complain about my disdain for winter to other people, they usually ask why I don’t simply move to a warmer locale like Florida or California.

But, I love New York.

You don’t throw away the baby just because the bathwater gets cold (or something), do you?

No, you most certainly do not. And like the baby, I love the place where I live.

It just gets freakishly cold and makes my life extra troublesome for about three months a year.

Maybe bears have it right with that whole hibernation thing…

Now while millions of Americans don’t vote (especially in a non-Presidential election year), I have always voted since the first day I was legally eligible to make my voice heard.

Voting is a fundamental right.

Today I just ran out of time before work. I didn’t leave myself enough time before work to vote.

That’s the excuse, anyway. And maybe I didn’t feel like this year’s races were all that important.

Until I thought of the implications.

What if the Republican challenger had managed to win Town Supervisor this time around? After years of Republican rule in the Town and County, Democrats had finally broken through to take over the leadership and change local government for the better.

We had come together to vote out “Crookhaven” and vote in favor of a corruption-free Brookhaven.

What if my non-vote, combined with the non-votes from hundreds of other people in my area gave the Republican the seat? Its not something I would feel good about and it would likely directly effect my happiness down the road.

And all because I didn’t take 15 minutes to vote today.

It does add an extra layer of guilt to an otherwise okay day.

Luckily, with 70% of the vote in, it looks like the Democratic incumbent will hold onto his seat by a 12% or so margin.

So I can take a brief sigh of relief that my not voting today didn’t screw things up too much.

But then again, there are all the other races, some of which Democrats didn’t win. And some of those races were very close. How much of an impact did my non-vote play in that outcome?

I guess I may never know.

But what I do know is that I won’t take my civic right to make my voice heard for granted again. It just means too much to not participate in a participatory government.

And I know that if someone I didn’t agree with were to get elected because I didn’t vote, that I wouldn’t really have the right to complain, since I did nothing.

That, and I couldn’t take dealing with the day’s worth of guilt again.

RELATED: I just heard that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was elected to a third term as NYC Mayor. I guess that answers the question of what spending millions and millions of your own money in a mayoral race can get you.

In New York, concrete jungle where things are made of… there’s nothing you can’t do… Now you’re in New York… these streets will make you feel brand new, big lights will inspire you…

I left work with a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

Someone who observed me smiling might have attributed it to the fact that I was going on vacation. While my footstep out the door towards my car did signal just that, it didn’t explain the smile nor the anxiety bubbling under the surface of my skin.

No, this was something big and I was so ready for it to finally happen. I was finally getting to be with someone that excited me to no end, that had challenged ever fiber of my being. I was going to experience what I had long been waiting for… a connection that I had, at some points over the year, thought may never come.

But it was coming, at approximately 6pm New York time. We had been counting down the days in anticipation of this very moment, and now it was less than an hour away.

I got into my car and proceeded to drive to La Guardia. A crazy volume of thoughts raced through my brain as I got closer and closer to my destination. It became difficult to make sense of them, having not been able to get much sleep the night before — a combination of my work schedule and the nervous energy coursing through my body for the past few days.

As I struggled to untangle the chaos in my head and keep my eyes on the erratic rush hour traffic, a sudden vibration began to beg for my attention. I looked down long enough to see my phone screen light up.

So… we got in early.

I looked back up at the road and after navigating through the maze of parking lots and ramps and taxicabs at the airport, I scanned up and down the curb to pick out my passenger.

And then, from about 200 feet away, I saw her.

It was unmistakably her. The hair, the height, the cute dimples. Okay, maybe those came into focus once I drove a bit closer, but I just knew it was her.

As I got closer, she told me over the phone that she recognized me and my car pulling up.

“Okay, I’m going to get off the phone now,” she said.

And as I stopped the car, our eyes met, and I realized that gigantic grin had found its way back to my face for the second time today.

In the fog of it all, I can’t remember if I got out of the car to help her put her bag into the car, as was my intention. But almost immediately, she was sitting in my passenger seat, with a smile matching mine, just inches away.

This was going to be amazing, I thought. And its finally happening.

Almost immediately, she was sitting in my passenger seat, with a smile matching mine, just inches away.

And as long as no one gets seriously injured, its all just part of a New York day.

Wow, I guess the penny cab driver got away this time. Unless the NYPD finds this video online. Hard to say who’s to blame. The road rage seems to have got the best of both of them.

Of course, tossing the garbage can was probably going over the line, sir. Some would call that assault… unless they’re WWE fans. :P

Wrigley Field

I’m a diehard lifelong Mets fan. However, I’ve always been partial to the Chicago Cubs.

Allow me to explain.

When you think about it, the Cubs are similar to the Mets in a number of ways.

As I watch the Mets play the Cubs at Wrigley Field, I am watching two teams that came into the 2009 season with great expectations, but which are both now far out of playoff contention.

The fans in Chicago are definitely upset with how the team has performed, but they’re still there in the stands. Mets fans are the same way, even if this year’s arrival of Citi Field means Blue Smoke ribs and Shake Shackburgers as an extra bonus for filling the seats.

And both teams are traditionally viewed as underdogs in a big city setting. As a New Yorker, I could see myself living a similar lifestyle in Chicago, purchasing a partial ticket plan as I have at Citi Field to watch the Cubs play at Wrigley.

Citi Field

And they are both underdog teams, which means that as a fan it becomes a super-exciting event when our teams make it to the playoffs. Unlike other teams that seemingly make it to the playoffs year after year where it is just part of the routine, I’d like to point out.

Both Cubs and Mets fans are shameless in expressing their dissatisfaction with underperforming players. Cubs fans today are booing their own outfielder Milton Bradley who has been very outspoken in letting everyone know he wants out of Chicago, despite having two years left on his contract. Then he commited the additonal sin of dropping a routine fly ball in rightfield. Fans in Chicago booed him just as loudly as us fans booed Luis Castillo’s dropped pop up that cost us the game against the Yankees earlier in the season. I could see myself continuing the booing in Chicago. Well, at least until the players get the team to the playoffs.

There’s just the same amount of cheering in both stadiums, as there should be. But the unapologetic booing is really what sets Cubs and Mets fans apart.

Mets were Amazin' in 1985

And then there’s the team colors. The Cubs have a very familiar shade of blue… called Cubbie Blue in Chicago. But I’m pretty sure its Mets blue in disguise. It looks very much like the blue I’ve been rooting on my whole life. And while its true that the Cubs other color isn’t orange, red happens to be my favorite color.

And I guess history has something to do with it too. The very first Mets game I attended back in 1985 when I was just a little kid was way up in the red seats at Shea Stadium against the Chicago Cubs. I watched Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez play Chicago that day. Mets won, by the way.

So I’m partial to the Cubbies. And that doesn’t mean I don’t love my Metsies any less. It just means that as a Mets fan, I also follow what’s going on in Wrigleyville, whereas I really have no idea what’s going on in, say, Houston or Pittsburgh these days.

But then again, who really does?