Journal, August 16th

I got up at 9 again, which is my “get your ass out of bed” time on non work days.  I ran and got us some breakfast and hung out for a bit until taking Samantha to her try outs.  She wasn’t feeling well again, she’s been sick quite a bit lately.  We think we know what it is, just waiting for the meds to kick in.  She played through it though and did pretty well.  I really want her to make this team because the coach’s could help her become so much of a better player.  On the other hand, it’s not cheap to play travel ball.  I might have to take out a small loan, it’s kind of ridiculous.  I was really proud of her, she hit the ball well and fielded well in the infield.  She had some problems in the outfield but so did most of the girls.  They said that we should get a call by next weekend, cross your fingers.

TheEx and the JackAss were supposed to be there to watch.  I was very vague about where the ball field was and when they did eventually show up, probably about half an hour late, I received a phone call asking where it was.  I didn’t answer, I figured I’d let them search it out.  About 15 minutes later they finally showed up.  The diamond is right behind the high school, but you have to go all the way out and around to get to it, so if you don’t know where it is, it takes a bit to find it.  If they had come to her game on that diamond last season, they would have known where it’s at.

I was going to finish working on my cards tonight, but it’s already 10 o’clock so I’ll probably just hang out on Feedly and do my cards tomorrow.  Since I typed out all the posts for the cards I have, I just need to post them to my have lists and put them away.

What I clicked on to read today.  I read all kinds of things in my Feedly, but these I found in other places or a link in Feedly.

• He Chose Death (via Feedly) – A blogger friend of mine’s take on the Robin Williams death.  She recently lost her husband and has a past with suicide so it was a different side of the story.  I mainly went to make sure people weren’t saying stupid things in her comment section, because I know how people are.  I don’t comment too often on her stuff at this point because what I have to say isn’t going to matter during her grieving process, I  just post once in awhile to let her know I’m still reading.
• Gene Simmons Just Went COMPLETELY Ballistic Over Immigrants Who Don’t Learn English (via Facebook) – I loved it!  You go Gene!
• It’s Me Again (via Facebook) – My cousin’s blog.

Check out them all – Random Thoughts from a Random Guy, My Sports Obsession, My Sports Obsession Tumblr,  My Sports Obsession – Wolverines, My Sports Obsession – Index, A Day in the Life of a Nobody,My Life (private), and Cats Are Cuter.  I also post on Too Many Manninghams.

• I did the usual post to the 4 tumblr accounts that were already queued up.
• I posted one to My Sports Obsession as well as typed 8 other posts up for it.  So I’m actually ahead of the game for once on that one.
• I even typed up one for Too Many Manninghams.

Here’s a listing of all the new (to us) episodes that we watched tonight.

• Legends (DVR) – Pilot episode, we liked it.
• the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon (DVR) – Jason Stathem is always a good time.  He smoked Fallon in a hamster ball race.  Demi Lovato was also on it, I don’t really know much about her.

Missing in action

I know I’ve been MIA, between working almost every day and little league games most nights, I’m just to worn out to blog when I get home.  I have made some headway on my Feedly, I’m under 4300 unread posts now.  While I’m watching TV I tend to just scroll through it.  It takes little effort and I don’t have to be fully awake to view a lot of them because there are pics and such.  The blogs I read are all in my All-Star folder which I check daily.

I just want to sleep in once in awhile

We were supposed to have today (Sunday) off of work but they came to us on Saturday morning and said they were taking volunteers because we had some maintenance issues that stopped work too much this past week.  Once they got enough volunteers to run at least one of the lines, it makes it mandatory for me.  If the line is working, so am I.  They ended up running both lines but didn’t have enough people to cover every position so some people had to jump back and forth.  They ended up training me on part of the line as well so I could help out.  I didn’t mind it once I got into a rhythm, I though I was doing pretty good.  I could probably do that all day if they would allow me to listen to headphones but they don’t.  So today I finished my 8th straight day working with at least 5 more scheduled this coming week.  I would assume at least 6 because we’ve worked every Saturday but holiday weekends since I’ve started there.

I talked to the regional HR lady this week about getting hired in and off temporary status.  Our HR lady got fired awhile back and they haven’t replaced her so the lady doing the job now is also still trying to do her job so hiring us temporary people is the least of her problems.  The regional HR lady said she would run the reports with our hours and such and start the paperwork this week so hopefully this is the start of officially getting hired in.  I desperately want to get hired in for 2 main reasons.  Not getting paid holidays sucks ass and the temp place I technically work for, sucks ass.   I have to check every paycheck because they screw them up constantly.  Twice now they didn’t pay me double time for Sundays.

I wish these were my clubs

One nice change with the new job is getting off at 2 in the afternoon means I’ve gone golfing 3 times already this year.  The local city course is fairly cheap so we can go play 9 with a cart for $14 so my brother and I and various other people are trying to go once a week or so, time and weather permitting.   I’ve been really enjoying it, so much that I actually purchased brand new balls (first time in probably 20+ years) and I’ve actually (window) shopped at new clubs and a bag.  I play with the clubs I bought from my friend 25 years ago.  After seeing prices, I highly doubt I’ll be buying either for awhile, if ever.  I’m sure I’ll get a bag sooner or later but clubs are just outrageous.

This is how I feel at games this year

If you followed my blog last year then you know how much I love little league season.  Well, this year, not so much.  Both kids teams suck but that’s not the bad part.  Trevor is in his first year of minors which is the first year that kids pitch, which means there are a lot of walks and still not so great defense.  I love baseball but these games just drag on and on.  Trevor doesn’t do much in the field and he’s not a great hitter.  He seems afraid of the ball, although I’m not sure why because he hasn’t been hit at all this year.

Samantha’s team is a whole another story.  The “star” player on the team (and she’s not as good as she thinks she is) is a spoiled, moody brat.  She has all the talent in the world to be a really great player, but her attitude absolutely sucks.  So bad that I’ve found myself not enjoying Sam’s games at all.  Her mother is the coach to and it’s clear where the spoiled, moody attitude comes from.  She does nothing in the way of coaching the girls and then when they make mistakes she’s yelling at them from the dugout.  Samantha says she’s still having fun and she’s had her shining moments but I fear that her (hopefully) last year of little league isn’t going to teach her anything.  I say hopefully because I’m hoping she makes the school team next year.

This is the first year I remember ever dreading having to go to either one of their games.

Not to much else going on in my life so it’s not like you’ve missed anything.  I’ve had one nephew graduate and running off to college this fall and our daughter is transferring to another university.  Cheri is not to thrilled because it’s a few hours away and she likes having her close to home.  Their relationship has really gotten pretty good in the last year.  Skyler has finally figured out that her mom isn’t the enemy.  She’ll be a Junior this year and we have been pretty proud of her previous year, she seems to be growing up in a lot of ways.

I’m now going to head off to my Tumblr blogs and add some content there since I’ve been MIA on those too.  Although I have been posting my Last song of the Day on A Day in the Life of a Nobody.  It posts the album cover along with the song itself so you can listen to it.  Everything posted there goes to my Twitter as well so if you want to follow along with those, feel free.

Until next time.

Randomness #16

For those of you asking, which is nobody, Samantha lost her last All-Star game and was eliminated.  But before I get to that, I have to tell you what happened when I got there.  I drove Cheri’s car because I had very little gas in mine and was trying to make it to Friday (it was on Thursday).  She has to be there an hour before the game starts so I drive out early and stay there and then my mom picks up Cheri and they show up at game time.  Anyways, when we got there, we got out of the car and went to the trunk to get her bat bag and my chair.  It was still locked, then I realized it was still running.  CRAP!  It was the first time I’ve locked my keys in the car in probably 20 years (I used to do it a lot when I was in school).  So Samantha had to do her pre-game practice in her slide on sandals and borrow the coach’s glove.  I felt like a dumb ass sitting on the bleachers with all the other parents knowing what I did.  Had I taken my car, you can’t lock the keys when the keys are in the ignition.  Stupid car.

But back to the game, it wasn’t pretty either, her team only came up with 2 hits and I’m not so sure it was their pitcher.  Our girls just weren’t into the game, at all.  Samantha only had 1 at bat and she grounded out.  I was still happy for her, she made All-Stars and she loves to play but she is done for the year.

I’ve taken some time to update a couple of my pages above.  I caught myself up on the book page (although I will be taking some time in the future to change the layout) and I also updated my Social Media page, I deleted the GetGlue and FourSquare sections.  I don’t use either of them anymore.  GetGlue I stopped using when I updated the app on my phone and one of it’s permissions was to take photos and videos without my knowledge.  FourSquare I wouldn’t mind using, if more people did.  On the rare occasion (usually Walgreens) there would be a discount for checking in but I just got tired of using it.  I didn’t have many friends on it and only one local so it was kind of pointless to even know where those friends were.  I thought it would be fun to be close to someone and search them out, and surprise them.  But with nobody in the area, that really wasn’t going to happen.

I need to update the Track of the Day (I actually need to post more of those) and I wish I could add to the Published Content page but I haven’t come up with anything to write and publish.

Our foreman’s carry a cordless phone at work.  On the weekends, since the office personnel isn’t there, all phone calls are routed over the intercom so he knows when someone is calling.  While I was on my break Sunday, he came in and sat with me for a few minutes until they needed him on the line.  He walked out of the breakroom and left the phone on the table.  So I called the work number and listened to it ring over the intercom.  Since he didn’t have the phone on him, he had to run to the shipping office to answer it.  Apparently he didn’t realize he left the phone in the breakroom as he ran right past it to get to the office.  When he answered, I played stupid.  I basically repeated what he said.  He answered with the company name so I asked if it was the company name.  He said yes, this is his name, I asked if this was his name.  I told him my name was his name.  He eventually got mad and hung up on me.

After my break was over, I walked into the shipping office and handed him his phone and started repeating our conversation.  He proceeded to tell me that he called the cops and reported a prank call.  We argued, he kept to his story, I told him he was full of shit.  As I was walking back to my line, my phone rang.  It was a local number and I figured it was my foreman and he was going to act like a cop so I just sent it to my voicemail.  When I got upstairs, I sent Cheri a text message, gave her my foreman’s phone number and told her to copy and paste it to him.  He wouldn’t have her number in his phone.

I thought it was pretty funny but he never responded and I didn’t see him for a few hours until I was leaving.  I asked him if he got it, he said yes and asked if I got his phone call.  Apparently he had a friend call me to pretend to be the cops so I wouldn’t recognize the number.  We both think alike.

Tonight (Thursday) is Samantha’s birthday party at the local roller rink.  She’s been asking for one for years but we never had the money.  I don’t this year either but my mom offered to help pay for it so she’s finally getting it.  I’m debating on whether or not to skate because of my back.  I’ll be ok as long as I don’t crash which I don’t do often but it happens on occasion.  Last time we went was 2008.  I have some videos on my YouTube channel if you want to check those out.  There’s nothing special on my channel, mainly family stuff, which is why I don’t advertise it.

Cheri had Samantha help her with the cupcakes and cake.  It was a bonding experience that I know Samantha loved and I loved seeing it.  Their relationship has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 6 months or so.  The kids are much more comfortable around her.  I’ve always let it just grow rather than force it.  I’ve never told them to hug or kiss her (they do everybody else when leaving) and I’ve never told them to tell her goodnight.  They do both on occasion, not all the time, but more and more.  I know theEx has told them to kiss and hug the JackAss and Samantha says she doesn’t like it at all.  She actually complains about him a lot to us now but I don’t know if she’s just doing that because she knows we don’t like him or if she actually doesn’t like him.  I don’t think she does, but what do I know.

Track – No Se Tu

Artist – Luis Miguel

Holy crap!  It’s been over 4 months since I did one of these.  I have a bunch saved and I’ve been forgetting to throw some up here so I started where I left off.  If you know this song, congrats, and you probably speak Spanish.  This song is completely in Spanish, and no, I don’t speak it.  This song was in the movie “Speechless” a number of times.  It played along with the video and it’s supposed to be a love song.  I had a friend translate for me way back when I first heard it and I remember liking it.  I don’t remember what exactly it’s about now, but I still like it.

All-Star post #2

Samantha’s team won the next 2 All-Star games and are heading to the semi-final tonight (Thursday).  She hasn’t faired much better with her bat, not exactly a great time to go into a slump.  She has played well in the field, no errors that I can think of.  The second game she at least got on base 3 times with a hit by pitch and 2 walks before grounding out in her last at bat.  They won that game 18-1 after scoring 11 runs in the first inning.  In Wednesday’s game she didn’t start but made it in for 2 more at bats, both strike outs.  She made a few good plays at 1st base though and they won that one 8-3 (I think).  They play one of the better teams tonight so we’ll see how that goes and if Samantha can break her slump.

I’ve been keeping the book the last couple of games, the coach that kept it the first game had no clue what she was doing.  She’s pretty much a worthless coach anyways, she just sits there, the only time you hear from her is when she’s either yelling or cheering for her own daughter.  There is a guy in the stands that was supposed to take her place after an issue in practice and he would have been so much better for it, actually helped the girls.  But they let her come back and I doubt this coach will let her coach with him again.  She’s pretty much useless.

All-Star game #1

Samantha had her first All-Star game today.  It was a sweltering real feel temperature of 93°.  The team didn’t fair to well, which sucked because the coach of the other team was an ass so I really didn’t want them to win.  They lost 12-8 after jumping out to an early lead in the first inning.  They had Samantha batting 5th which she didn’t too well.  You could tell she was nervous just by looking at her.  She struck out her first 2 at bats and then hit into a fielders choice her last at bat.  Which goes for an 0-3.  Her  2 strikeouts, she had swung at high pitches and what made her good during the season is she didn’t chase balls out of the strike zone.  She ended up coming out of the game after hurting herself sliding into 2nd.  Not sure if it actually hurt or she was looking for an excuse on her sucking.

I sat and talked to her tonight about her being nervous.  Part of the problem is her step-father (the JackAss) is always saying stupid crap to her while she’s batting,  She also mentioned that there were a lot of people and that made her nervous.  I told her about learning to block out the stands, you listen to your coaches and the field and that is it.  Don’t listen to anyone in the stands.  That if she was going to play sports in school, there were going to be a lot more people watching her so she need to get used to it.  I also told her that I was so proud that she made the All-Stars, whether she strikes out or hits that I was proud of her.  I told her that she needed to just relax and hit the ball, that she made the All-Stars because she could hit, to go up there, relax and pick out her pitch and drive it.  So hopefully she’ll be a little more relaxed at the plate on Monday.

As far as the team goes, they just didn’t play as a team well.  A lot of little mistakes that add up to more.  They didn’t play horrible, but not great either.  They play again tonight (Monday) and Tuesday night.  Depending on their record in those 3 games will determine whether they move on to play Thursday and/or Saturday.

It’s all good

I have stuff to blog about, but I’m not really in the mood to blog about it.  I could tell you how my oldest daughter got my wife to keep paying for her storage, even though she’s got over $6000 in her bank account and we’ve struggled to eat this past couple of weeks.  Or how my wife knew about the money and still paid it.  Or how the same daughter could teach a class on how to make money from financial aid for college.  Or how my oldest son surprised us by coming up from Virginia last weekend.  The problem being he quit his full time job before he came up and he’s blowing through his money on fast food and pop because he knows the first bank of grandma will give him some when he runs out.  Or that my whole family has all kinds of time off next week and I have to work 5 days.  Or how when I thought we’d be able to buy a house this summer, but my credit score is freaking 10 points to low.  Or how the AC was out for 3 days and it was 90°+ on those days.

All that has gotten me pissed off in the past week at one point or the other.  But I had a decent day today so I don’t want to talk about the crappy part of my life.  Let’s talk about the good.

• My oldest son has come home for a visit.  He has been pleasant and helpful around the house.  I think we bore him to death because we don’t do anything and he always has to be moving but he says he’s not bored.  He was originally just going to stay the weekend, then that extended to the next Friday, now he’s here through the 4th.  Like I said, I don’t mind him being here, he isn’t a bother.  But I do enjoy my evenings with Cheri and no kids, not that we do anything, but it’s our time.
• My oldest daughter has found her own apartment.  We love her, but she annoys us.  Granted, very rarely is she ever home, but she is at night and she has no clue how to be quiet.  She can’t even open a freaking door without being loud, she grabs the doorknob’s, yanks the doors open and close, slams the cabinets, fridge and toilet lid shut.  She just doesn’t care about anybody around her.  So we are happy that she’s on her own, just so we can sleep without getting woke up.  Sure, we worry about her being on her own, but she’s self sufficient and will be fine.
• I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before here but Samantha has made the All-Star team in softball.  She had her first practice last week and a batting practice tonight.  Of course, I’m happy for her but it also means I get to watch her play more.  I’m really enjoying watching her this year and she looks like she’s really enjoying playing.  Here’s a vine video of her in the batting cage - https://vine.co/v/haagaKvYgX2.  It may not work in chrome but I’m told it works in other browsers.  If you follow my Twitter you can link up to my Vine page or just continue to follow Twitter because they’ll probably all be posted through there.  Or you can watch the following YouTube video.

• Trevor’s team made it to the championship game which is tomorrow morning.  While it sucks it’s at 9 am, I’m happy his team has made it this far.  He’s not as good as his sister and to be honest, he doesn’t even look like he’s having fun, but he says he is and wants to play so there it is.  I’d say that they are favored to win, his team is the best in the league.  While they have taken a couple of losses, they are definitely the better team.  I believe they’ll be facing the team that they beat in the first round but they barely beat them in the final inning so it’s certainly not in the bag.  I know it’s a double elimination tournament and they haven’t lost so they will have to lose 2 in order to not win it all.
• Had a good day at the pool with the family.  3 of my kids, 2 of my brothers, and 4 of my cousins kids plus the adults.  I even took a dip in the pool for awhile, got in a water battle with Samantha (she lost, of course).  It was a pleasant afternoon.  If you follow my Instagram, you would have already seen this photo.

The bad part is, I couldn’t do the infamous butt dive because of my back issues (I think I’ve mentioned them here).  I was also supposed to go golfing with my cousin from North Carolina in a few days and I think I’m going to have to bow out of that too.  What is the infamous butt dive you ask?  Ask and ye shall receive.  This is from a couple of years ago.

Upon further review, holy crap am I white in that video.  Ignore the fat gut, just watch the dive.

So I guess you take the good with the bad.  While it has been a crappy week in some areas of my life (including work, because it always sucks), there is also is some good points.  So I guess I’ll dwell on those and try to enjoy my weekend, before I have to go back to hell (work) next week for 5 12 hour days.

Randomness #11

Due to the A to Z Challenge, I’m not posting much this month other than those posts.  But I have Sunday’s off from the Challenge so I’ll throw a Randomness post to cover the week.  I typed this out throughout the week.

Monday

Took Samantha to her 2nd softball practice, first one I was able to attend.  Most of it was throwing and hitting exercises so there wasn’t much to watch so for the most part, I read.  I sat in my car and was glad I did, since it rained through most of it.

Tuesday

Samantha had another practice tonight but it was just a batting cage practice.  So once again, I took my Kindle and read in the car.  And once again, it rained.   I ended up getting a text from my cousins wife who was also out there with him and their kids.  They have 3 kids who play out there at the same diamonds.  Their 4th used to but he made the high school team this year.  I also ran into my niece who lives up the road and was there with her neighbors kids.

This is the first year that I’m not coaching or at least helping out with any team.  This is, of course, because of my stupid ass hours at work.  Last year I was Trevor’s head coach and I helped out a little with Samantha’s team.  I was asked to be Samantha’s head coach this year but I had to turn it down.  On one hand, I’ll miss being a part of the team, I already know Samantha misses it.  But on the other hand, it’ll be nice to just sit and watch and not have to worry about anything else.

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We watched “Psycho” tonight because Cheri had never seen it and we’ve been watching the TV Show “Bates Motel”.  Netflix didn’t have the original so we watched the newer version but it’s not real far off the original so it did the job sufficiently.

Wednesday

I was at work today and grabbed my phone to check the weather and this is what I see.

Now notice the “Dry Conditions Will Continue”.  Like I said in the last 2 days posts up there, it rained both days.  So I’m not quite sure where they get “Will Continue".  But also notice the little icon underneath that. It’s usually some kind of weather watch or warning so I figured I’d click it and see what’s up.  Here’s what I saw.

A flood watch?  But I thought it was supposed to be dry.  I’m thinking maybe I should just get the Weatherbug app that my brother suggested.  I liked this one because it has a widget that I can get today and tomorrow’s weather with just a glance.  But after coming home to this

I may change my mind.  It doesn’t show as well as I had hoped but on the roof next to the siding, where you see the white, is rain water running down and at a pretty good pace.  You can also see the water puddled up on the ground.  Yeah, maybe time for a new weather app.

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The founder of the A to Z Challenge emailed me today and notified me that he noticed my link wasn’t working and he said that he was going to try to get it fixed.  A few minutes later he commented on my Randomness #9 post where I was bitching about them not answering my tweets about it.  You can read about it there, I complained that they didn’t answer but I also admitted that it was all my fault so I wasn’t too bitchy (I don’t think so anyways).  He apologized and said again that he was going to fix it and give me a little love on the A to Z Challenge blog so hopefully in the next few days, my viewership will go up.

Thursday

I noticed they got the link working on the A to Z Challenge page, my numbers haven’t boosted a bunch yet but I have picked up a follower or 2.  Arlee said that he’d plug me on the A to Z blog tomorrow which I greatly appreciate.  That’s pretty awesome of him.  I just hope my Q post is worthy.

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Samantha’s practice was cancelled last night, Trevor’s was cancelled tonight.  Samantha has at least had a couple of them, Trevor is still waiting for his first one.  Every one they’ve scheduled in the last few weeks have gotten either rained out or cancelled because of the cold.  Tomorrow is a practice free day but both have practices on Saturday but they aren’t going to those due to our annual trip to the Maple Syrup Festival.

Friday

Today was a day of driving.  We drove to Cheri’s sisters house (31.4 miles per Google Maps) and spent a couple of hours there, mainly talking and the real reason we went over is Cheri is baking a cake for her niece’s graduation from college.  So we got together so they could make plans on the type and design of the cake.  Little was accomplished there but my phone battery was dragging.  I was charging it all the way there (about 45 minutes) and it was still dying before we left.  So I was playing around with it trying to figure out why.  I use a task manager, whenever my phone starts to run slowly, I click it and close all the apps I’m running which is usually a crap load.  Since the ladies were chatting and I was more or less sitting there, I did a test.  I opened up my task manager and closed all my apps.  I then opened up the timer and set it for 5 minutes then set my phone on the table and did nothing with it, for 5 minutes.  After the timer went off, I opened up the task manager again.  Now the only thing that should have been running is the stopwatch.  I’m also not naïve and I know there are some apps that automatically restart so I figured there’d be a few things running.  This is what I saw

    

I could have screen capped a 3rd one but it only had a few on there so I didn’t bother.  Some of those I don’t care that they are running because I use them.  But the majority of those, I rarely use and some of them, I never use.  The only thing I actually used since I shut everything off 5 minutes ago was the Alarm Clock Xtreme (stopwatch) and at the top, it shows I got a Facebook notification so that should be running, and the task killer.  But no, there are 25+ apps running.  How about instead of trying to invent a battery that lasts longer, you invent something that won’t let apps start unless you click them.

Anyways, from that sister’s house, we drove to her other sister’s house (48.6 miles, (1 hr, 6 min) to pick up Cheri’s wheelchair that she had loaned to her other niece who has just had surgery on her ankle but wanted to be a part of the local Relay for Life walk but Cheri needed her wheelchair for tomorrow’s activities.  We picked it up and hung out for awhile and chit chatted before heading home.

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My stats have definitely gone up the last few days since Arlee helped me out.  I’m up 100 or so more pageviews in a day which is up a little more than double my usual.  My followers are also up 8 more.  But a lot of the people commenting aren’t following via the Google connect so it may be more than that anyways.  I don’t blog for the stats but you can’t help liking a confirmation that someone is reading.

Saturday

Had our annual Maple Syrup Festival today.  Here’s the schedule that we adhere too every year.

• 8:00 am – Breakfast (All you can eat pancake & real sausage)
• 10:00 am – Parade
• Whenever we’re done with the parade we go to Nelson’s and have an all you can eat buffet.

It’s a fun day hanging out with the family, although it was freaking cold today.  The real feel temperature was in the low 20’s mainly because it was windy.  Cheri really froze because she was more or less stuck in the wheelchair where she couldn’t move around a little and try to stay warm.

Afterwards, the kids went with their grandma on theEx’s side because she and the JackAss are out of town this weekend and she wanted to spend some time with them.

Both kids had practices cancelled again today on account of the cold.  So they didn’t miss them because of the festival like I had planned.  Trevor will miss one on Sunday though because he will be at his grandmothers.

Sunday

Has anyone else seen this commercial, it is hilarious.

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I seriously need to to get some blog posts prepared and read.  I’ve gotten way behind on checking in on all the A to Z Challenge blogs.  Not to mention there are over 8000 posts in my Feedly that I’m behind on reading.  I’m in the color section this week at work, which is the slowest so hopefully I’ll be able to put a dent into that.  I’m caught up on all my posts that I had finished in the challenge so I need to write some and get ahead of the game again.  I have submitted a few articles to Yahoo and am waiting to see if those get posted as well.  But today’s plans are, read and write posts.  I should probably pick the kids up from the grandmother as well, but blogs are more important then kids, right?

Chalk up a win!

My wife refers to our little league team as the Bad News Bears.  We were put together at the last second because the 5 teams had too many kids.  So the park funded our team and the other coach’s selected 2 kids each to come to our team.  So naturally, I got most of the kids with little experience.  Because they try to keep the ages of the kids the same per team, I did get 2 kids that are good hitters.  The team didn’t even have a coach, which is where they begged me to do it because I had already helped out with a couple of practices.  So rookie coach’s and a bunch of rookie kids.

Due to the late start of our team, we only had 4 scheduled practices on diamonds.  2 of them got rained out and 1 had a scheduling conflict with the diamond.  So we ended up only having 1 practice before we started games.  Our first few games were horrible.  We had one kid who could hit, nobody else could.  So we would basically go 3 up, 3 down, almost every inning.  Loss after loss.  We signed up for batting cage time for a couple of weeks and gradually a couple of the other kids starting to hit the ball.  Not all the time, but they got hits here and there.  We had a few games where we hit the ball well but couldn’t quite get over the hump to get our first win.  We ended up going 0’fer for the season.

Tonight was our first game of the end of season tourney.  We came out early and scored 2 in the first inning.  I was hoping we could get on a roll for the game.  We ended up giving up a few runs and were down.  Then we had a 5 run 4th inning that put us on top for good.  That’s right, for good.  My boys came through for their first win.  And in the tournament at that.  I was so proud of them and they were all so excited.  I bought them all slushies in celebration.  Trevor was so excited.  A couple of the kids that don’t get very many hits had a couple.  And we actually had a kid with his first Grand Slam in our 5 run inning.

I don’t know how many games we have to win to take the tournament and I don’t even care.  They won a game, and when it mattered the most.  They came out and hit the ball and played some defense in the heat.  And pulled out a win.  I was proud of the boys tonight.  Even if it’s our only win this year, I’m still proud of this team.  Every one of the boys have improved throughout the year, and that’s what I told them that I wanted.  To get better every game.

Our band of misfits

We got pictures back tonight as well.  Apparently all the Coach’s got a copy of the team photo with the inscription above.  I thought that was pretty cool.

I’m too pooped

I’m too tired to come up with a real post, this will have to do.

I didn’t even pick up my laptop yesterday, which is a rarity.  I usually spend at least a few hours on my laptop daily.  Most days, more than that.  But I just haven’t been in the mood.

We started the 12 hour days last week.  I only was scheduled to work 2 days.  I left early on Wednesday by and hour and a half (worked 10 1/2 hours) so I could go to Samantha’s first tourney game.  Then worked 12 on Thursday.  It wasn’t as horrible as I had thought.  The worst part was around 1:00 when I get back from my lunch break.  I used to be pumped because it was my home stretch, less than 2  hours left to go.  Now at 1:00, I think, “Damn, I’m only half way through my day.”  So 1:00 to 3:00 sucks.  But after I get past 3:00, I got a second win and made it through all right.  So much so that I volunteered to go in on Friday (my off day) and worked 9 hours.  The only reason I didn’t stay for 12 was Samantha had another game.

So Wednesday night, Samantha won their game 29-28.  She was the tying run in the bottom of the 6th (they only play 6 innings).  She drew a walk on a full count and later scored on a bases loaded walk.  The next girl that came up, is our best player.  But she had struggled all night, a couple of strikeouts.  But she ripped a line drive through the infield that rolled to the fence.  It was such an exciting game.  But we didn’t get back home until after 10:00.

Friday night, they had to forfeit because they were a player short.  They only have 8 girls on the team, and you have to have a minimum of 8 players to field a team.  One girl didn’t show up.  That one girl, was the one that hit the walk off in their last game.  They played the game anyways, even though it was freezing and raining.  And it was an automatic loss for the tournament.  This time I made it home by 9 though.

Today, Samantha had her little league pictures at 10:00, and a game at 11:30.  Trevor had his pictures at 12:15 and a game at 3:30.  Tomorrow, we are going to Cheri’s nephew’s graduation.  Tomorrow night, I get the kids back, and work 12 hours on Monday and Tuesday.

So as you can see, or read, I’m spent.  And probably will be until I get used to the 12 hour days or until little league is over in a few weeks.  I’ll post when I can.

Assistant Coach vs. Head Coach

You’ll have to wait another day for the MS walk 2012 post.  I haven’t gotten over to my mom’s to grab the photo’s that she took.  We only took a few and my mom has the one of us crossing the finish line.  So be patient and I’ll eventually get it out.

I had a practice with Trevor’s team tonight.  I’ve decided that I definitely prefer assistant coaching to the head coach position.  Tonight’s practice was in the batting cages.  So basically all I did was stand just behind the kid hitting and help them with their swings.  Gave them some tips, did a few things to help them connect with the ball, and watched them grow.  All my kids hit the ball at least a few times.  I’ve got a few kids that have yet to connect with the ball in a game (including my son) so let’s see how well they do on Friday night when we get out in a game.

Like I said above, I like the assistant position because I actually get to get in with the kid and help them learn the game, where as the head coach, I have to work with the whole team at once.  I have to deal with the lineups, switching positions after a couple of innings, making sure parents are contacted about games and practices.  Blah!  I just want to teach the kids the game I love.

I’ll admit it was very satisfying when I watch a kid miss a few pitches, I correct their stance or have them try something for a few more pitches, then have them start to connect with the ball.  I’m not turning the boys into all-stars, but the smiles they get when they finally hit the ball is pretty awesome.  One of the boys who haven’t hit yet started to get the ball tonight.  His grandmother was talking to Cheri a few weeks ago, and said that his coach from last year didn’t work with him at all.  Just threw him out there to fail.  So she was excited that I’m actually working with him.  I just hope he can get a hit in a game.  He tends to chop at the ball so tonight I was working with him taking a full swing so I just hope he doesn’t revert back to chopping at it.

Trevor has a really good swing but has trouble connecting with the ball.  The hand/eye coordination isn’t quite there yet.  I got him to connect on a couple tonight.  3 to be exact, he counted.  I talked with him on the way home and let him know that if he doesn’t like baseball, that it’s ok.  He said he still likes it and he has fun playing.  Which is all I need.  I’m not going to push my kids in sports they don’t want to play.

So in closing, I definitely prefer assisting.  Let someone else deal with all the headaches, like the parents, snacks, blah, blah, blah.  Let’s just play some baseball.  But I guess as long as I have kids playing, I’ll always be an assistant.  Maybe not to the team, but to them.

Wore out

We are wore out this evening.  Friday night, Samantha had a ball game so we spent a couple hours out there.  Saturday morning was the MS walk, which went great.  Cheri decided she was going to try to do the 2.5 mile walk so we headed out and did it.  She took off, she’s a much faster paced walker than I am.  I annoy her because I just take my time and stroll while she’s off to the races.  I guess I’m just never in a hurry.  She made it, the whole 2.5 miles, but with consequences.  Her feet hurt, but worse her left hand went into a spasm and froze in a fist.  She took some meds after the race and eventually got her hand back.  I’ll make another post about the walk itself when I get around to downloading the few pictures that were taken.  But we all survived.  Our walkers included Cheri and I, Samantha and Trevor, my mom and my grandmother.  That was team Laws.

We got done, had some lunch and sat around most of the evening.  We were both feeling pretty good.  I figured it wouldn’t hit until this morning.  But all we did was walk and I walk all day long at work so I figured I’d be ok.  Well, this morning rolled around and we both actually didn’t hurt.  We were rather pumped.  Then at 2 today, Trevor had a game so Cheri and I were out at the diamonds again for a few hours of coaching.  Not sure what happened.  But between me standing on the field all game, and Cheri standing in the dugout all game.  It wore us out.  We went to grab some lunch and just some quick groceries and came home so we could relax.  We weren’t tired, but our bodies were extremely exhausted.  Just as I’m about to fall asleep on the couch, I get a phone call.  My step dad needed help moving a fridge.  So I went and did that and eventually made it back home.  Odd thing was, once I was up and helping with the fridge, my exhaustion went away.  So I’m not sure what happened there.  But I came home feeling pretty good.

We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.  Maybe I can get back to some regular posting this week.  I have a practice with my team on Tuesday, Samantha has a game Thursday, Trevor has a game Friday, and both play Saturday.  So maybe I won’t get back to regular posting.  I’ll try to get the MS walk post done tomorrow.

Catching Up

I’ve been getting a little sporadic as of late.  My boring life has become busy with baseball season rolling around.  As you know, I am now coaching my son’s team because they couldn’t find anyone else.  I’m also assisting Samantha’s coach at her games.  So now 4 nights a week, you can find me at the ballpark.

Saturday was Opening day.  I took a vacation day off of posted overtime at work so I could be there at 9am for ceremony’s, noon for Samantha’s game and 2 for Trevor’s game.  It was crappy weather, rained all morning.  First they delayed opening day ceremony’s until 10 hoping the rain would break.  It didn’t.  At 10 we went ahead and did it in the rain and got soaked.  They ended up cancelling both games.  So basically, I wasted 8 hours of time and a half to stand in the rain.

Sunday, I went to work for some double time, but had to request to leave early because they rescheduled both games for Sunday afternoon.  Luckily my boss is a coach, so he understands.  I had to take a point though because I hadn’t previously put in a vacation day for it.  Good thing I don’t ever call in so I have plenty of points to give.  Samantha lost her game, I missed the end of it because I had to leave to start coaching Trevor’s game.  Trevor lost his but at his age they don’t keep track of scores.  That game was my coaching debut.

Monday night, Trevor’s game ended up being cancelled as well as Samantha’s practice.  Just chilled at home, wasn’t really in the mood to do anything but relax.

Tuesday night, Samantha played a game in the drizzle.  She walked all 3 at bats, which was a definite improvement from last week.  Scored once, got left on base once, and got called out because the coach touched her rounding third which is a big no-no.  He was sending her home so she rounded and then changed his mind, yelled no, get back, and grabbed her to stop her.  So it definitely wasn’t her fault.  I’m enjoying watching her games more since they are actually playing closer to the real rules of baseball.

I haven’t done anything tonight but sat my butt on the couch and chilled.  Right now, I’m watching the Sox game, which you would know if you check out the widget over there to the right and probably down a bit.  Cheri went to bed already so I can watch it guilt free without feeling bad for making her watch it.  I try to tell myself she loves baseball when I watch games with her.  Even though I’m a pretty good liar, I apparently can’t lie to myself very well.  She hates watching baseball.  I feel bad that I suckered her in to help with Trevor’s team as well.  But she’s a big help so I can’t tell her not to.

One productive thing I did do tonight, was finish my blog roll.  I now have all the blogs I read (non-sports related) listed in the blog roll to the right, and down probably.  It went from 70 blogs to 174 blogs.  My sports and sports cards blogs (which I also update tonight) equals 263.  Add all those up, and a few other that aren’t related to those 3 lists and you get the grand total of 519.  That’s how many blog feeds I read in my Google Reader.  So now you understand why I tend to get behind on my blog reading.  Which is what I’m going to go do now.  Since I can now barely move my left arm.

Stupid cat!  Good thing I’m a nice guy and don’t like to disturb her.  Eventually I’ll have to when my arm falls asleep.  Just for the record, and because my wife will get upset if I didn’t explain, the trash bag in the background are clothes for Goodwill.  We don’t store our trash in the living room.  Cheri would freak!

Before I go, Saturday is our MS walk, if you want to still donate, click the banner below.  For those of you who have donated, thank you so much, it was greatly appreciated.

Click the following banner to donate to the National MS Society and support our cause. To view our personal involvement, click MS Sucks!

Books & Music

Not too much going on today.  I’ve been keeping up with blogs since the weekend.  I even read an actual (digital) book for about half the day on Monday.  Didn’t quite get the chance today, but I did get through all my blogs.  I’m almost done with the book so I was hoping to finish it.  I’m at 84%, which you never know how close that is because sometimes there’s other pages at the end that take up space.  It’s actually a book of short stories (4 stories) and I’m not overly huge on short stories.  But I wanted to read the 1st story (book to the left) because it was a prequel of a series that I’ve been keeping up with.  That’s another reason I want to finish this book, because I want to read the new book in the series.  It’s the 10th book (book to the right) of the series and it is my favorite series ever.  The author has already said that she will stop the series after book 13 which sucks, but it is a great series if you like supernatural.  The actual genre of the series is Urban Fantasy.  So if you like witch’s, demon’s, werewolves and vampires and all that supernatural stuff.  Then go pick up the first book and start from there.  They really are a great read and the more you read, the better the books get.  So go check out “The Hollows” series by Kim Harrison.  I’ll probably do a book review of them when I finish.  I just need to either keep up with reading blogs or just set time to read books.  But I really need to start reading more.  I’ve got all kinds of books on my Kindle just waiting for me to start again.

Insane in the Membrane

I’m not proud to admit what song I had stuck in my head today.  Please don’t judge me by this.

Yeah, don’t know where it came from.  At least I was walking around work putting my hands to my face and saying “Vogue”.
Although in the last hour or so, I’ve had this song in my head.

I’m not sure where that came from.  But it’s certainly better than Madonna.

I need to get off here. We’re about to have supper and I still have to call all the parents on little league and let them know info about Opening Day on Saturday as well as when our first game is because they just finished schedules today.

Be sure to check out Flashback Friday this Friday.  It’s a post that I’ve been promising Red that I would get out.  It’s all typed out and ready to go.

Parents are stupid

As you know, they asked me to run one of the baseball teams at little league.  Well, the whole story is that they had 5 teams of 13-14 kids per team.  So they created a 6th team and begged me to coach.  This way, each team has 10-11 kids and every kid gets more playing time.  My team is even sponsored by the little league park, so they are paying for it just to give the kids more playing time.

I talked to the lady that helps run the park with her husband.  She said that more than a few of the parents have been bitching because their kids got moved after practicing with another team.  OK, this is an instructional league.  Which means no score is kept, you play against other teams but the rules are pretty laid back.  You can even stop the game to talk to a player and explain what he did wrong or what a better way to do it would be.  INSTRUCTIONAL.  Which means it doesn’t matter what team your on, we are all there to teach the kids.  You’ll find coaches helping the players on the other teams.  INSTRUCTIONAL.  We are here to help your kids learn the game and to get better.  Not coddle the damn parents because all your other favorite moms are on the other teams.  It’s freaking ridiculous.  It doesn’t matter if your kid had to switch teams, we don’t even keep score.  It’s INSTRUCTIONAL.  And do you know what the big problem is, the lady mentioned above called the parents, father usually answers, says yeah, no problem.  I understand, more playing time for my son, great.  Then she’ll receive a call a little bit later from the mother, bitching up a storm how her kid doesn’t want to switch.  These kids are 7-8 years old.  They don’t care what team they are on, YOU’RE the one that doesn’t want to switch.  Because you like to hang out with the other mothers on the other team.

I had one mother who I was having a conversation with, she was pleasant and curious.  She asked me if I’ve ever taught baseball.  I told her I hadn’t, because I haven’t.  Other than my kids.  I’ve been an assistant coach on my daughters team every year she’s played, which she is going on her 5th year.  I know and love this game.  I played through school and played softball for 10+ years.  I can probably teach every position, throwing and hitting.  But technically, I’ve never “taught” baseball.  She apparently called the lady and told her that I said I know nothing about the game and wanted to switch teams.

I’m really hoping a parent says something to me.  I will not hold back.  And neither will my wife, who will be sitting up there beside them while I’m coaching.  Or my mom, as far as that goes.  Parents are stupid and need to remember why their kids are playing.  And it’s not for the parents.  IT’S FOR YOUR FUCKING KIDS!!!!!

WTF Did They Just Say?

This is a special edition of WTF Did They Just Say? because I’m plugging a TV show.  If you get a chance, watch “Impractical Jokers” on TruTV.  It is hilarious.  These 4 guys who have been friends for years have to do challenges and complete them.  Each guy goes through the challenge but here’s the catch.  He’s wearing an earbud and can hear the other 3 and the challenge is, you have to do whatever they tell you, or you lose.  Here’s a clip.

Here’s another clip, if you can find this whole episode, it is hilarious.  The guy that wins steals from a lady’s plate, then she tells her husband and he comes over to him at the buffet.  Takes food from the buffet then when the guy goes to take off his plate, he smacks his hand.  The husband goes and sits down and the guy stalks him to his table and goes after his plate.  Here’s the beginning of that prank.

They do multiple challenges in a half an hour episode, then whoever loses the most challenges, has to do a dare that the other 3 decide.  Such as this.

My wife and I laugh so hard watching these.  My eyes usually hurt from wiping the tears off from laughing.  If you have a chance, you have to catch an episode of this.  I have Comcast cable and they have it On Demand, I don’t know about anybody else but if you have On Demand, look for it.  Otherwise, I believe it’s on Thursday nights on TruTV.

I stuck this on WTF Did They Just Say? because the reactions from the everyday people on here is hilarious.  Usually they are just stunned and have a look on their face that says “WTF Did They Just Say?”

Insane in the Membrane

I had a song stuck in my head this morning.  A nice, slow song.  I whistled and sang it for hours.  But the bad part was, I sang it to Adam.  He looked at me and said “I’m glad I don’t know that song”.

Damn kids these days, don’t know good music.  I offered to load it up on my Spotify but he didn’t want to hear it.

Click the following banner to donate to the National MS Society and support our cause. To view our personal involvement, click MS Sucks!