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.

WWW Wednesdays #21

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

Predation by SJ Parkinson

This has been good so far but I’m not very far in it.  It has a war quality as well as a Star Trek quality since it takes place in another galaxy.

What did you recently finish reading?

The Ultimate Game (Echo’s Revenge #1) by Sean Austin

This wasn’t to bad, definitely different.  A video game comes to life and starts kidnapping it’s best players and uses them as slaves to make itself stronger to potentially take over the world.  The book follows 2 brothers, 1 being one of the best players when they happen to run away from home at the same time that the game is coming after them so it has to track them.  Once caught, they are taken to a cavern where they basically become slave labor to it.  Can they escape before they go crazy?  Read it and find out.

The Guardian of Threshold (Threshold #1) by A.A. Volts

I liked this book and look forward to the next 2.  Mark learns how to have out of body experiences in order to see his mother again but gets a lot more than he bargains for.  2 siblings who are his best friend try it out as well only to become trapped in the Threshold and being stalked by a demon.  Along the way, they make some new friends and find out about the new world.  It all leads up to the ending when everything comes together.   Like I said, I look forward to the next 2 books and have already put them on my wishlist on Amazon.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Zomblog (Zomblog #1) by TW Brown

A regular guy’s journal becomes a firsthand log of the rising of the dead.  I have this and the second book downloaded and I believe there are 2 others.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go to http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.

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.

Swimming and Worrying

I missed all my weekly posts this week, no Music Mondays, no WWW Wednesdays, not even a Flashback Fridays or Stacking the Shelves.  I’m a slacker I know.  I did do a post about joining Pinterest a few days ago, hoping to get a few followers.  It netted me exactly 0 so thanks for that.  The sad part is this is my 2 day work week so I’ve been home more than not.  Although Samantha has had All-Star practices all week to prepare for her games starting tomorrow (today/Sunday) and I usually sit and watch them so I’ve been busy in the evenings.  Friday I took the kids swimming at my grandfather’s sister-in-laws house and accomplished this.

If Trevor doesn’t want to do something, he won’t.  He will be 9 in August and I finally got  him to swim across the deep end.  I begged, pleaded, threatened, told him kids were going to make fun of him, none of it worked.  The sad thing is he can swim, he just doesn’t want to.  I’m hoping filming it and having him do it a few times gave him the confidence to go to town but it didn’t, he went back to playing in the shallow end.  He’s the same way with riding a bike, he just doesn’t care if he learns.  I have to force him into doing it.

Samantha on the other hand, I can treat her differently.  This is how I taught her how to swim.  I knew if I did that to Trevor, he’d drown.  He wouldn’t have even tried to swim, just sink.  It’s amazing the differences between my kids.  It also scares me that Trevor is so like I was when I was his age (although I could swim and ride a bike way before 9) and his laid back attitude just drives me nuts. (Shut up mom).  He’s content by himself, doesn’t need anybody to play with.  You ask him a question that he doesn’t want to answer, he just stares at you.  I worry about kids picking on him in school but it hasn’t been an issue yet, or at least not that I know of.  He scares me because he’s not really like other boys his age.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care that he’s different, I just don’t want his life to be harder than it needs to be because of it.  I was picked on in school and I don’t want anything like that to happen to either of my kids.

Maybe I’m worrying too much, but it’s my job as a parent to worry.

Pinterest

I did it, I took the plunge.  I joined Pinterest about a week ago.  It’s a little better than I thought it would be.  My wife uses it to store recipes which I never thought about using it as storage.  It’s kind of what I used my Tumblr for only there I can use multiple pictures in one post.  In Tumblr I can use tags, but on Pinterest, I can use boards.  Plus on Pinterest, I combined my sports tumblr and my personal tumblr into one.  You can click on the Pinterest logo to go to my profile page there or click on one of the boards below.  The boards are alphabetical.

I mainly post book covers of stuff I’ve read or purchased to read but I do have a few other things book related on it.  Such as the cover photo above.

These are the hotties of the big and little screen and even sports celebs.  Don’t worry, no nudes, I would never look for nude pictures on the internet.  Never.

I post humorous stuff here, a lot of it is the same stuff I post on my Random Thoughts facebook page, but not everything.

One of my big 3 sports teams that I follow.  Albeit it the least of the 3.

Can’t have a social media site that has pictures without pictures of my kids can I?

It’s sad to say but this board has my 2nd highest amount of pins (1st is humor).  I take enough pictures of her (usually to make my wife jealous) that I figured I might as well have a board of her.

My 2nd favorite sports team, although technically I follow multiple sports from Michigan so I don’t know if you can call it a sports team.  It may be my 2nd favorite but it’s very close to my 1st favorite.

I titled it Star ? because I post Star Trek and Star Wars stuff to it.  They are both awesome, but I am a Trekkie first.

I haven’t added too much to this board yet, but I’m sure I will.

I combined TV, Movies and Music into one category.  It’ll mostly be Movies and TV but I have added a few music album covers that I loved growing up.

This board is mostly vintage baseball with a few basketball.  It won’t have much football just because I didn’t really watch football growing up.

Of course, my number 1 sports team board.  Even though they suck (except against the Tigers apparently) lately, I still like them.  It’s a curse.

So far I have 210 pins.  (Humor (31), Kitty (29), White Sox (28), TV Movies & Music (23), Vintage Sports (20), Star ? (19), Michigan (17), Female Celebrities (14), Kids (12), Books (11), Indianapolis Colts (4) and Superheroes (2)

Pinterest is easier than Tumblr because I go through Feedly for most everything that I read and all you have to do is click the little P on the top left of any picture, and it goes right to Pinterest.  A lot easier than reblogging something on Tumblr.  I did go through my Instagram account, that’s where all the kitty and kids pics came from.

So there you go, you now know my shame.  I joined Pinterest.  I doubt I can compete with my wife on this social media site so come join me there, follow a board, or better yet, me.

Work Randomness

Saturday

I'm so bored, it isn't even funny. I caught up on my reading blogs around 9 am. I've been dicking around on my Kindle since, with a little work mixed in there. It's so slow that I can't read because it puts me to sleep. I messed around on Pinterest for awhile then I decided I'd play Candy Crush for a bit. So I sat down on my 5 gallon bucket in front of a fan with my phone. That didn't last long because I started doing the head bob thing when you fall asleep. Problem with that on my line is I was afraid I'd drop my phone while I was falling asleep and it's not like I'd be dropping it on some soft carpet or even hard concrete, it would go here

What your looking at is my feet standing on a metal catwalk. Under that is various piping and about 5 feet of space. Then there is a trough where all the overflow in the tanks go so right below where I'm at this week, it would contain mostly water with some sulfuric acid and a little nitric acid. So you can see why I wouldn't want to drop my phone down there.

My back hasn't gotten any better and if this morning was any indication, it might be getting worse. I took some ibuprofen for the first time in over a week. It has hurt throughout the week but not nearly as bad as it was. I don't think I'll be able to put off the doctor much longer.  Cheri’s been telling me to go, I just don’t want to spend the money for him to tell me what I already know.  Work days are always the worse.  I seem to do ok on my off days, it’ll hurt here or there when I turn wrong, but it usually isn’t too bad.  The problem is after relaxing for a few days, I have to go back to standing 12 hours on a metal catwalk and it gets bad again.

A shift and C shift’s schedule this week was we worked on Monday & Tuesday, had Wednesday and Thursday off, then we worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  A far cry from when we were on 8 hour days and I probably would have had a 4 day weekend.  B shift and D shift worked Wednesday, that’s it.  Tell me how that is fair.  I think on holiday weeks they need to change the days worked so it’s at least close to being even.  We also worked the weekend before Memorial day and the weekend of Easter.  We are also scheduled to work the weekend of Labor Day.  That means all those weekends that I’m working around the holiday, the other 2 shift have all that time off.

Sunday

I decided since it’s dead again at work, that I would keep a journal today.  A day in the life of an average employee.

• 7:00 - Started work
• 8:10 - Finished blog reading already. I'm not as exhausted as I was yesterday so I'll probably end up reading my current book.
• 8:45 - There's 3 things I'm not supposed to do on the line, sit down, be on an electronic device and take my safety glasses off. I just got busted sitting on a bucket while reading on my Kindle with my safety glasses on my forehead. Oops!
• 9:04 - Break. I usually text Cheri on my breaks but she isn't out of bed yet. Had some oatmeal and my sippy cup of Orange Juice.
• 9:40 - Just got lectured about what happened earlier. Didn't go well, my responses generally had the F bomb in it. What pissed me off was when I got busted, one, my job was caught up. Two, the line leader was on the line reading her Nook. Just because I'm the best operator up here (by far, actually) doesn't mean that I'm going to do everyone else's job so they can do nothing.
• 11:26 - We have contact. Apparently Cheri needed some sleep. She just text me but knowing her, she has been awake and playing Candy Crush. She plays it all the time.
• 12:00 - I'm supposed to be going to break now but I noticed the seal tank temperature had dropped so the line leader is off chasing maintenance.
• 12:05 - Break. Apparently I'm having someone's leftovers for lunch.  I usually have leftovers but this isn’t what we had for supper last night.  Hmmm!
• 12:35 - Break is over, no texting from Cheri, she was probably playing Candy Crush again (still). Just kidding honey.
• 1:17 - Back on the bucket, glasses off and if you didn't know, all this being typed out on my Kindle. Shhh!
• 1:42 - I'm bored. I'm going to mess with Cheri.

• 2:00 - Now until 3:00 is the longest stretch of the day. Not only does the clock slow down, but the temperature starts rising.
• 2:34 - Current temp outdoors - 78, current temp indoors - 101.
• 3:00 - Break.  I had some apples.
• 3:45 - Foreman comes over to me and I tell him about the money I've saved the company today by catching the seal temperature down, and how we've been buried with color and I've been cheating the system to keep all the tanks full, or how I've been doing the processors computer work because their computer has been down all weekend. I told him you and the rest of management don't see that, all you see is what you want to see.
• 4:00 - Jaime whined all day and finally left. It shorthands us up on the line but at this point, it's a break for my ears.
• 4:35 - Daily goal. Check. Got to the restroom right after it was cleaned so I could conduct my business in a little bit of cleanliness. TMI?
• 5:00 - Break, oh wait, cancel that. Jaime's whiney ass left and now I can't go for another half an hour.
• 5:30 - Break. Ran into my foreman on the way to break. I told him next time I run into his boss (the plant manager), I was going to tell him this ˝I owe you an apology, after all this time I'm starting to see we are a lot alike. All you see is my negatives and I for damn sure can't see any positive that you've done."
• 6:00 - Break's over, now for the home stretch. My body is exhausted, it usually is on my 3 12 hour day weekends.
• 7:00 - I am out of this place till Wednesday. It'll take that long for my body to recover before doing it all over again.

As you can see I have an exciting life at work.

Stacking the Shelves #3

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual.

This is another weekly meme about books, I’m probably boring you all but it’s my blog and I can book if I want too.  These are what I purchased this week.

 

Extinct by Ike Hamill

What comes in as a winter storm, blows out much more.  After coming out into the snow, they find out most everyone is missing.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

Ravage by Iain Rob Wright

Another apocalyptic book.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

 

Tartarus (West of Hell #2) by Jason Brant

You can read my review of the first book here.  I actually bought this whole trilogy together but I’ve already read the first book so I’m listing the second 2 books separate.

Kindle Edition

 

 

 

Sheol (West of Hell #3) by Jason Brant

See above book description.

Purchase Price – all 3 books for $.99

Kindle Edition

 

 

 

 

Blood Reaction by D.L. Atha

A mother is content running her farm until a vampire takes it over and holds her daughter over her to get what he wants.  She has to do what he says, but she’s working to find a cure to the problem.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

 

 

The Biomass Revolution (Tisaian Chronicles #1)

A city of the future surrounded by a wasteland isn’t all it seems to be.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Edition

WWW Wednesdays #20

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

The Ultimate Game (Echo’s Revenge #1) by Sean Austin

This is pretty good.  Right now, it seems that the game Echo has come alive and is hunting down the masters of the game that tend to defeat him in the game.  I’m wondering if it isn’t real life and they’ve been sucked into the game somehow but you don’t know for sure.  If you know me, I don’t like knowing everything, I like a little mystery so I’m enjoying this book.

What did you recently finish reading?

The Gate by Jason Brant

I enjoyed this one.  It was a little different then what I expected but it was still pretty good.  A couple of college kids win an internship on a ghost hunters type of show only to get pulled into a real life gateway to another world.  It has some pretty good action and the creatures are believable with a little humor mixed in.

What do you think you’ll read next?

The Guardian of Threshold (Threshold #1) by A.A. Volts

Another series starter.  I’m always looking for a good series.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go to http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.

Stacking the Shelves #2

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual.

This is another weekly meme about books, I’m probably boring you all but it’s my blog and I can book if I want too.  These are what I purchased this week.

 

Chasing Vegas by Tad Vezner

This looks different and entertaining.  I can’t quite tell if it has a supernatural touch to it or not but I know it has a science fiction feel which is certainly good enough for me.  This book is #40 on my To Read list.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Version

 

 

Creatures of Appetite by Todd Travis

A couple of FBI agents are in search of the Iceman, a seriel killer who preys on little girls.  The search gets more intense when the Iceman challenges the profiler and agent in charge of him.  Sounds like a great thriller to me.  This book is #41 on my To Read list.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Version

 

 

 

Blood, Smoke & Ashes by Bradley Convissar

In 1955, Jane the Ripper is killed in the electric chair.  Every decade a copycat has come out and killed in the exact same way.  When a victim survives, they get more evidence, only the evidence leads to Jane the Ripper and not a copycat.  This book is listed as a Supernatural, Thriller/Horror, yes please.  This book is #42 on my To Read list.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Version

 

 

Origins (Zombie Games #1) by Kristen Middleton

A zombie book, a female lead who kicks ass, a possible series of zombie books.  How could I not pick this one up.  This book is #40 on my To Read list.

Purchase Price – Free

Kindle Version

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.