No joy in self-deprecation

The least sucky part of the day was rushing from work to pick up the kids with little time to spare before after care closed, getting them a quick bite, and then taking them over to my dad's while I went to help some family types move the remnants of aunt Helen's belongings out of the house she was renting and into the homes of other relatives that wanted it. I borrowed my dad's pickup for the task, the most exciting part of which involved getting a sizeable computer desk into a rather small apartment, trying NOT to run over the black cat that crossed my path while on the way.

And as if that whole ordeal wasn't tiring enough, I can't describe to you my level of exhaustion from three straight days of dealing with the kind of suckage that merely reinvests itself into further suckage the very next day. So when you think you have it "dealt with", it comes right back at you in time to swipe that moment of relaxation from you as you only began to ponder the possibility of its existence.

I need a serious nap.



(Sorry for this whole "my life sucks" bit... I'll get over it soon. Or die trying. Well, okay, that would be too easy. I'll get very near death, divulge all of my lame secrets, and then the seeming imminentness of my death will disipate in time for me to be thoroughly embarrased as I begin yet another cyclic suck-trend. Argh... there I go again...

Maybe I don't need a nap, but an attitude transplant.)

Today's roundup

Darby has not done so great the last couple of ball games. She's been striking out, and tonight she was pulled from the game because she wasn't paying attention, thus completely missing (as in, didn't know it came and went) a ball that was thrown to her to take out an advancing runner at second.

Shelby did better at fencing this week over last, but she got a couple of tallies at school to counter balance the equation.

I was surprised to learn today that you can't just walk into a photo lab that supports digital media (flash memory), and expect to walk out moments later with your photos in hand. Turns out they treat it like traditional one-hour-photo prints, in that they print out your pictures and have them ready for you in an hour. I guess there's a reason they do it that way. I can think of a couple good reasons, but mostly I think it's lame.


And lastly, the ambient suck-factor has still not returned to pre-yesterday levels. But that's a one day at a time battle.

End of an era

Two Thanksgivings ago, an aunt from New York moved to Oklahoma. Since then, family events were more frequent and more tolerable. And my kids had a steady non-parental face at their events, cheering them on. She seemed to bring people together, and she was a very easy-going woman, in her retirement years with nowhere to be in a hurry. Yet she never just poked around either. She new, even at her age, that you had to move with purpose. And over the last couple of years, I became very glad that she moved here, and was hoping she'd stay awhile.

Unfortunately those days are over. My Aunt Helen had to move back to upstate New York today for essentially stupid reasons, and already I feel the local family (who gathered this evening to bid her adieu) fracturing in some ways. It was only an hour ago and already my kids have said they miss her.

She lived on a fixed income, and as a retiree of the New York City public school system, she had decent healthcare coverage. At least in New York. By moving to Oklahoma, she put herself out-of-network, subsequently driving her healthcare costs higher. I guess after two years of that, she could no longer keep up with the costs, so she retuned to New York where she says the cost is dramatically lower.

So, just like that, we end as we began, though we are left with these memories to remind us just how much better it was back then.

The new suckiest day

Some time back I posted something about the suckiest day ever. I'm too tired to go back and find that entry at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that today was suckier.

Unfortunately, no one can be told how sucky today was. They have to be shown. Only I'm too tired to show any body any thing right now. So instead I say good night, cruel world. You can kick my butt against my will more tomorrow, but you're not getting my Bud Light.

Rocking Eagles, Respectable Phillies

I'm very proud of the Eagles as they continue to live up to the hype that I hope endures beyond the regular season. Keep on rockin' phellas.


While I know the Phillies won't be going anywhere but home in the next week or so as the regular season concludes, they have overcome my post-all-star-break disappointment by rallying back to second place in their division. For a while there, they looked as though they would sink completely, but they have come back to a respectable 7 games over .500, with two-games over Florida on their way to their last week of games. Even if they lose all of their remaining games, they'll have a .500 even season, which I can live with.

Ignoring internal factors for a moment (because there are plenty), it all comes down to two arch-nemises destroying Philly's hope to win their division this year. The dreaded Atlanta Braves (who were in third place at the break), and the infamous J.D. Drew (the would-be-Phillie-rookie-sensation of a few years back). Without these two factors, I think the Phils could have overcome their internal woes. But piling them onto the internal issues simply lead to a downward spiral from which they've only recently recovered. Is it just me, or is anyone else tired of the Braves and their 13-straight division titles?

Just what we needed

At dinner tonight, which was at a Chinese restaurant, Shelby's fortune from her fortune cookie read "God will give you everything that you want."

That's what we need, for Shelby to be more spoiled than she already is.


--
The kids went to the state fair this morning, which is good, as I was hoping to avoid the fair this year. Though we have another opportunity to go tomorrow, I'm just really not feeling very fair.

Eating dirt

As planned, I left work early yesterday to pick up the girls and get them fed in time for Darby to change into her softball uniform and be at warm-ups at 5:30. We did have to make one diversion, which was to hand-off Shelby to my father so she could lay down at his house and ponder her behavior for the day instead of playing with her friends at the ball field. But we'll get into that later.

At 5:30, there is supposed to be a coach present, warming up the girls for the game. However, a couple weeks ago we lost the assistant coach that was doing that, and the head coach hasn't really been getting there early enough to get the girls into a warm-up routine, so the parents have just kind of been having the kids throw balls to one another, which isn't a real warm-up really.

So, yesterday I took some initiative to get Darby warmed-up at least, and I had her stand at the pitcher's position on the field (as she's been playing that position a lot lately) while I threw her some grounders and then ran to first base trying to get her better at getting runners out in that scenario.

Shortly after doing that, one of the other girls asked me "where do I go?" so I put her on first. And then another girl. And another. So before I knew it I had several positions filled out and I was throwing different types of grounders and having them try to throw me out as I ran the bases.

I felt guilty telling the other girls what to do because I'm not a coach and they're not my kids, but none of the parents seemed to mind (though I really don't have time [or the knowledge] to be a steady coach, so don't go getting that in your mind). First baseman, stay on your bag. Outfielder, the short stop is standing right there as your cut-off, why did you throw the ball over her head to throw me out at home when you should have hit your cut-off man?

The little outfielder just kind of shrugged her shoulders at me so I told her I would give her a dollar if she could throw it from the outfield all the way home. She tried and didn't make it. So I told if she had hit the cut-off... girl, I might have gotten thrown out at home instead of making it as the ball rolled gently past the pitchers mound.

But the highlight of my little warm-up exercise was my little embarrassing moment of eating dirt. First base was partially sand-covered, and I was wearing my regular no-traction-on-sand sneakers, which proved to be a painful combination as I slid off the bag and slammed face first into the ground with the full weight of my body. The front of my body was covered with dirt, I got a nicely scraped up elbow, and a good taste of sand. Yummy. But I got up and ran to second, still making it safely as I yelled for the girls to keep the play alive even if I fall on my butt. On the next play I realized that my cell phone got half-buried in the dirt on my impact and was still out there. It took me awhile later on to get all that dirt out of it but it still works. My ex-wife, who was in the stands to witness my folly, told me that the parent reaction to my self-pummeling was interesting. And just think, all this fun and the game hadn't even started yet.

Once it was about game time, I removed myself from the field and let the actual coach take over since he had finally arrived. It is important to mention that I also worked with Darby on her swing a little bit as she struck out twice the last game, which has been unusual for her of late.


As it turns out, the fruits of my labor were split down the middle. Darby did get to play pitcher again, but she had a few fielding mis-cues that were quite contrary to what we worked on, so it looks like we'll need more work. But behind the plate, she did excellently. She had two very solid doubles and a run scored. I managed to capture one of those hits in progress with my camera in sport-mode.

For the first time they weren't beaten outright, as the final score was 3-2 (they usually get run-ruled). So maybe a win is in their future. I explained to Darby, to emphasize the importance of making plays, that she didn't cause her team to lose that game, but that had she made one or two of those plays she missed, she may have prevented one or more of those runs the other team scored, keeping her team in the hunt for a win.

The down-side to not being run-ruled, especially when you are the home team, is that your game can run over the one-hour you get to play while the home team gets their last at-bat. Unfortunately they didn't get on base to have a chance to score and tie it up, but that might have been for the better in this case.

You see, we still had to get Darby to her school at 7:30, and the game didn't end until like 7:09. Even then, her mom had to take her to school while I went and got Shelby from my father's. We did make it to the school on time, though barely.

The school was having a little carnival type thing, which is a fundraiser, where parents have to work the booths. We had to work Darby's booth, a basketball-shoot, at 7:30, and Shelby's at 8:30. I don't even know how to explain what Shelby's booth was (a "cake walk"), but fortunately they were out of cakes by 8:30, so we didn't actually have to work that booth, which was good because everyone was plenty tired.


We did get a chance, however, to talk with the PE coach and Shelby's teacher about her recent behavior and the reason she got a C in reading on her progress report. Turns out she is being contradictingly (for Shelby) shy when she is reading to the teacher, and she is not reading loud enough for the teacher to properly grade her. So we'll have to work on that.

As for PE, the coach called me at work today and explained that instead of changing into her PE outfit in the locker room, Shelby instead was playing around, and even got into someone else's personal belongings. She apparently found a bottle of lotion and got it all in her hair and on the clothing of whoever owned it, which was an older girl if I understand correctly. He said she has been goofing around in the locker room a lot and hasn't been listening very well in general. While the latter was not a surprise, I'm a little shocked Shelby would do what she did with that lotion. If she was still five I wouldn't be surprised at all, but she's seven now and really should be over that kind of thing.

Anyway, because of her excessively bad behavior today, I didn't want her going to the game and getting to play with her friends, so I had her lay down at my father's instead and she got a nice lecture when I picked her up, not that I think that will help much.

Taking a breath while I can

Probably the first not-all-that-busy day in two weeks. I mean, work was fairly busy, but it could have been worse to be sure.

The kids went to their mom's and Darby had no game, so I didn't have to go rushing off anywhere after work. Shelby had fencing, but didn't do as well as she did on Tuesday.

I did work late, but left in time to get to Best Buy before closing so I could pick up the new Green Day album while it's still 9.99. I had only heard the one song from it that's been getting airplay, but Green Day doesn't make bad albums so it was low risk. So far, so good, though most of the songs are much slower than the very upbeat single.


It's good that I've taken this moment to breathe, as tomorrow I'll not likely have such opportunity.

Planning myself to death

Friday is forecasted to be very hectic. As the girls are usually with their mother on Thursday and Friday, I was trying to plan ahead to get a handle on the activities for that evening. So after our errands tonight, I went by the ex-wife's house to drop off Darby's softball uniform and equipment bag, so that when she took Darby to her game on Friday, she would have everything.

But then, in discussing the sequence of events, it was determined that I would actually have to pick up the girls (leaving work early) and get them fed and Darby changed so that we can be at the field for warm-ups at 5:30. It's basically not possible for their mom to get across town and have all that done in time for Darby to be at the field, but she will meet us at the game and take the girls from there.

At least she would if we were finished with our duties. Instead, we have to rush from the game back to the girls' school, as they are having a festival, for which the parents are required to help operate class booths. Our time-slot to operate Darby's booth is immediately after her ballgame, and then immediately after that, I have to take over at Shelby's booth. It's nothing I'm remotely looking forward to, but am parentally obligated to oblige.



So the bottom line is, I could have avoided going to my ex-wife's at all if I had thought the day through more. I wasted a bunch of time as a result and made the completion of homework and baths fall way behind once we got home. And everybody got to bed way later than I would prefer.

Way to go Shawn.

Hickies and French Kisses

Topics you should never have to discuss with your seven year old daughter.

After I picked up the kids, we went to a mall with a Gap Kids to exchange the jacket Shelby recently received for one of a larger size. That worked out well, so we then grabbed dinner at the food court, followed by a trip to Walmart for some near-term needs. When we left, Shelby said something in the car about wanting a hickie. I about flipped out, but on questioning her, I'm not sure she understands what that really means, though I did say she should avoid saying that anymore.

Later in the evening, she said she knew how to French kiss. If only I could have seen the look of shock on my own face. After moments of speechlessness, she gestered what she believed was a French kiss. Well, I was much releived after that, and actually burst out laughing. She did one of those left-cheek, right-cheek sort of kisses that you do often see French people doing as a customary greeting.

Twice in one night that kid almost gave me a heart attack. I may be getting old, but I'm a little young for THAT.

Progress and Prog-less

Shelby won her bout today at fencing by four points. I better watch my back or I'm going to get stabbed.

Darby's softball team did better than previous weeks, but not as good as yesterday in my opinion (i.e. still winless). We seem to have gone away from what I thought was a solid batting order. I'm not sure what the coaches are doing at the moment.

Both girls received progress reports at school today. Darby is doing well, with all As, though a couple were surprisingly low As, not that I'm complaining, just thought she was doing better in those subjects. Shelby, on the other hand, had one C to go along with her As. But in a completely unexpected twist, while all this time I thought Darby was behaving so much better than Shelby, it turns out they both have eight tallies on the year thus far.

The night's entertainment was provided by the ex-wife, who -- when asked by Shelby what "back-handed" meant -- demonstrated a back-hand right into Shelby's head. Of course, Shelby actually walked into the back-hand demonstration, but it was still pretty funny.

Buck-toothless and defibrillated

Darby's team had their best game to date. They didn't win, but had their best shot. Run production was good, but it kind of fell apart defensively about halfway through the game.


--
How about those Eagles!!!!
I took a radio with me to Darby's game and was listening while watching, so I let out an occasional out-of-place cheer.


--
UPDATE 21 SEP
Forgot to mention yesterday that Shelby lost a tooth. Her second top incisor. And she had already lost the other, though the permanent tooth has not yet come in. So now she has no buck teeth at all and has to eat funny, with slight impact to her speech.

Also, on the way out of work, I about took my arm off with a wall-mounted defibrillator. It was only a matter of time. They put these things up all over our building a few months ago and I just knew I would eventually run into one. Much like a wall-mounted fire extinguisher, these defibrillators also protrude from the wall, though farther, something like a foot out from the wall. I was reading a message on my cell phone when I turned the corner and clipped my shoulder on the darn thing. It seems to me they only put them there so that they will fulfill their own need. People will knock themselves out on one and someone else will have to come along and use the life-saving device to revive them.


UPDATE 22 SEP
Here's pic of Shelby's new look. She lost the first incisor back in July. Personally, I kinda miss the pre-incisorless Shelby.


UDATE 25 SEP
Wow, that tooth grew back in sooner than I thought it would.

Back to business

The Phillies game yesterday, and the new ballpark, were awesome. Jim gave me the grand tour since he's been there so many times this year. It's an amazing place that I wish I could visit more often. Our seats were excellent (updated photo posted below) and the Phils won after dropping the previous two games to the same team and starting this one out not so good.

Last night, my sister took a train down from NYC so she could meet up with my mother and I for dinner. Mom's birthday was last week, but we celebrated last night with a hearty meal together, which is uncommon considering how far we all live from each other.

My flight was way early this morning 5:30 OKC time, so I woke up at 3:30 OKC time. My plane landed in OKC at 10:19, and I swung by the house to drop off the luggage before heading to the office.

Darby has a game tonight so it's going to be a bit before I have a chance to unpack. I miss Philly already.


UPDATE 22 SEP
You may recall I previously posted a computer generated view of my Phillies seats, well, here is the much anticipated actual view. Not TOO far off, really. Here's another from the opposite side of the field.

Who invited Ivan?

The wedding I was here for today was at a retreat just outside of West Chester, PA, which got more than five inches of rain as a result of our uninvited guest. Did I mention the wedding was supposed to be outdoors?

West Chester is more than an hour outside Philly. When you factor in the rain and our course corrections after missing turns, it was good we left early.

Thanks to some last minute planning last night (I'm told) the entire event was moved inside in a hurry, though the indoor facilities were much more cramped than the outdoor venue. It's a shame, because the setting out there in the Pennsylvania countryside would have been beautiful on a clear late-Summer morning.

The wedding was very nice the way it turned out, but it's sad that the bride couldn't get the wedding the way she had been planning it for many months.

The whole wedding was very delayed in getting started anyway because of the weather conditions impacting the preparations of the wedding party. In fact, the wedding party was more than an hour late to the reception because pictures were originally supposed to be outside also, but they had to make do inside.

It was really good to see old friends again, so I'm quite glad I made the effort to come out. The bride is one of my very close friends from high school, and there were other friends from high school.



Fortunately the rain was over by the evening, so our plans tomorrow shouldn't get rained out.

Macaulay in OKC?

I wouldn't care less about this story but for where it happened. I must have heard the story eight times on TV before I caught that it was in Oklahoma City. Funny stuff.

Ivan is here

It's pouring out. The news says it's Ivan. I just hope it's gone by tomorrow afternoon.

41 days later

More than a month ago, I drove away from Philadelphia with the kiddos upon the conclusion of a long but fruitful vacation. Here I am now, 41 days later, back in Philly, at the same hotel even, for a wedding tomorrow morning. Here's some observations from my travels...

Philly shuttle in OKC?
When I parked my car at the airport and got on the shuttle to the terminal, I was shocked to have felt like I was already in Philly. I mean, this is Oklahoma, the land of courteous, smiling, country folk, right? Well, it sure didn't seem that way. The guy sitting across from me on the shuttle had his feet a little bit in the aisle, and another guy that got on the shuttle after stepping over the other guy's feet said out loud, "don't make any effort to move your feet or anything." I couldn't believe it. That's something I would have expected in Philly, but is quite atypical in OKC.

Sometimes second guesses work out
When I was scheduling my flight to Philly, I had two connecting city choices, Atlanta and Cincinnati. I originally chose Atlanta to make my connection, but I changed it to Cincinnai to tweak my arrival time in Philadelphia. Had I not done that, my flight would have been delayed significantly as there was 5" of rain in Atlanta as a result of the remnants of hurricane Ivan.

That's some flight, wish I were on it
While I was on a bus traversing between terminal C and terminal A to get to my connecting flight, I noticed a Delta airplane on the tarmac (i.e. not a private jet) with what looked like a pallet's worth of gatorade on the conveyor belt leading to the cargo hold. I've yet to be on a Delta flight with gatorade as one of the beverage choices. I then noticed several coach buses parked next to the plane, which seemed peculiar, but what do I know. I have no idea what that plane was for, but I would pretty much guess it was for a sports team. I poked around a little bit when I got to my terminal but didn't see any clues.

Long layovers
There's good and bad in them. With short layovers, sometimes you barely have time to make your connection, so you're back on the road in no time, but you also don't get to do much if anything else. With the longer variety, you don't have to be in such a rush, and you often even have time for a meal, but there's only so much of a good thing you can take. My layover in Cincinnati, for example, was 2.5 hours. Sheesh. And then we were stuck on the runway for a bit, so my layover was just about as long as the combined flight times of both legs of the trip. I think that is probably pushing it, for your trip to be twice as long as it needed to be.

Airplane seatbelts, do we need them?
If you've ever seen the Seinfeld HBO special where he goes on about the silly need to wear a helmet when you sky dive, you'll know where I'm coming from. Now, I know there's turbulence on flights sometimes, but in all my years of flying I've never been in such turbulence that I needed a seatbelt to hold me down. Now, in a car, where survivability is likely after a crash, I don't question the need for seatbelts. But I got to thinking today on the plane... you know, if it got to the point where we were going to crash, I'm pretty sure the seatbelt wouldn't help much.

Scenic Philly
I caught a shuttle service from the airport to my hotel, but there were several other stops before me (as my hotel is about the furthest you can get on the other side of Philly from the airport while still actually being in Philly). It took more than an hour to get to the hotel, but it wasn't so bad as I got to cruise around Philly and take in the sights. Typically I'm driving when I'm in Philly and it was nice to not be driving but rather getting to enjoy the view(s).

Time to go

I'm packed, my stuff is loaded in the VUE, and I've stopped by the office to
grab a couple of documents to work on from the road (I have a >2 hr layover
in Cincinnati). Time to go catch my plane (actually, I'm a little behind).

Philly folks, see you tomorrow. Okie folks, I'll be right back.

unFULRed

At work, websites are content filtered for various, often valid reasons, and at different levels. I am actually responsible for the local administration of a content filtering service at work, but today's lesson is about the FURL.

When you are blocked from accessing a site by the base, you receive a big nasty "Forbidden URL" message citing various regulations concerning internet use, etcetera etcetera, and we've come to non-lovingly call it being FURLed when you try to access a site that is blocked.

At times, they tweak with the keyword filters, for example blocking anything with the words game or webmail. I've generally not been impacted by their policies, as I don't hit too many off-limits kinds of sites, but all of that changed this last week. They've been phasing in a new keyword block, that not only resulted in a good FURLing when trying to access certain sites, but I had personally been FURLed.

You see, they started blocking the word "blog" from web addresses (the technical address of this blog was blogs.shawnwright.us/news), so any address containing that word would get FURLed, meaning I've not been able to read my own darn blog from work (even though the rest of the world could read it just fine). So... I've gone and added an alias address for the blog (the change is transparent to the whole world, but very visible to my base readers). Instead of "blog" being used in the address, I'm now using "slog", the idea being "Shawn Log" instead of "Web Log". I toyed with several options, but I needed something I could say and others could remember without too much trouble. All of the "blog" addresses for my sites will still work fine. But if you're in a location that is FURLing my blog, you now have a workaround.


It's good to be unFURLed.

Somewhere else I'd rather be

I'm missing a concert tonight that I REALLY wanted to see, though I'm not sure how I would have made it fly. Shelby had fencing and at the same time Darby had softball practice, which lasted an almost two hours, so both parents were tied up on opposite sides of the city.

Plus there's the fact that I should be packing. I'll be in Philadelphia 24-hours from now. I got the girls all packed up last night and took their stuff to their mother's tonight. Now it's my turn. And my do I love to pack.



(There was one scenario for which I would have made sacrifices to make the concert work, but much to my regret, that scenario never saw fruition.)

200 pounds of meat

That's what I was carrying around in my trunk this morning (202.5 pounds to be exact -- which is more than I weigh by 35% -- of sausage, bacon, and chicken), as it was Blue & Gold fundraiser pick-up day. I knew it was coming, but I just didn't conceptualize how much meat people had kindly ordered from us. Once I had it all in the VUE, I realized I couldn't take this stuff to work and let it sit in the car all day, but that I also couldn't get it all to fit into any refrigerator to which I had access (or course, it didn't hurt that there's a helpful little message on the side of the boxes). This stuff needed to be divided up and quickly, so I had to take off a couple hours from work and become a meat delivery man. (Don't even go there) But to make matters worse, there were "multiple multi-car accidents" on I-40 this morning, which meant a whole lot of sitting in traffic for me. My how I love to sit in traffic immersed in the smell of thawing meat.

You want more?

What a long day. I didn't take a lunch, and I worked a little late when it turns out I shouldn't have. There was something I should have taken care of but I was too late. It will be a must do tomorrow, which is what I was wanting to avoid.

After school I took the kids to the mall because we needed to eat, exchange a gift that Shelby received recently, and get a haircut for Darby. With our time contraints, it seemed best to go somewhere we could get all that done at once.

When we go to the mall, the girls always beg for Chick-Fil-A. They are big fans, and Shelby is practically a chicken herself judging by how much of it she eats. I tried to get them to go to the A&W restaurant, but they couldn't be swayed. Speaking of A&W, did you know that the W stands for Wright (the A stand for Allen)? I only learned in the last few months, and was mildly shocked by the news (see for yourself). The downside of CFA is that the kid's meals don't come with toys, they come with an ice cream cone. If we don't have a list of things to do, it's not a problem, but on nights like tonight we could have done without it. I don't know about your kids (if you have them), but mine aren't exactly speedy (or non-messy) with the ice cream eating.

After dinner we tried to exchange the jacket my sister got Shelby for her birthday for a larger size, but as it turns out, that mall no longer has a Gap, though I know it used to. So we'll have to do that another time.

Next came Darby's haircut, or trim anyway. Her bangs needed to be reduced, and she wanted the rest of it a little shorter, too. I think it took us longer to wait for her turn than it did for the actual cut. Fortunately I had Shelby bring her homework so she could be doing that while we waited. I should have done the same for Darby, though I did ask her to bring her reading book in, but she forgot it. She isn't half-way through her book and she has to have it finished by the end of September, yet she keeps forgetting to bring it. I've told her to take it everywhere and just read it when she can, but she hasn't quite perceived the urgency.

While we were at the mall, I picked up a copy of New Found Glory's latest album, Catalyst. I actually went in for Green Day's new album, but it's not out until next week. On Tuesday morning as I parked my car at work, Green Day was playing on the radio. And when I left it, Green Day was on the radio again (different song) when I started the car. So I thought they're playing so much GD that surely their new album must have come out this week, as I knew it was due out in September. But no, it was not out. So I "settled" for NFG, but it was by no means a bad deal. I've been wanting to get their latest for some time now anyway, it just kept getting pre-empted by something else that I wanted just a little more.

So we left the mall, but we still had to stop by the grocery store for milk, which we ran out of this morning, and shampoo for the girls. Would you believe they've been "washing" their hair with conditioner the last couple of days? I get that Suave kids shampoo for them, but the shampoo and conditioner bottles look identical (just different colors... and words), and I must have picked up the wrong stuff this past weekend. So here I thought we were good to go for a bit with regard to hair care products, but then Darby says last night after her bath... "Dad, did you know we are out of shampoo and we have two conditioners?"

Grrr. So what have you been doing these last couple of days about your hair?

Turns out they've been using the "new shampoo" (conditioner), and then using the conditioner we already had on hand. So we definitely needed to rectify that tonight.

It was something like 8:20 when we got home, and the girls still had to take their baths. And Darby still had ALL of her homework to do. AND she had to practice piano for lessons tomorrow. While Shelby got to bed a little after nine, Darby was up past ten-thirty.

Maybe it's just me, but that seems to add up to being a long day. I mean, we didn't have a game, which was good, but I'm still tired like we did.



--
So it's basketball sign-up time at Darby's school, and she is on my case big time to get signed up (I swear if she asks me again I'm "losing" that darn paper). I have a week to get her on the list and I'm pondering. I got all in her kool-aid about the hard time she gives me with softball and piano (both of which she asked to do) and school, but still wanting yet another activity. I want to put her on the team (everyone keeps saying she's tall for her age), but we can't drop softball at this point, and every time I indicate it's time to drop piano, she says she really wants to stay in. But I'm weary of the overload factor (hers, not mine).



--
And for the best news of the day, not related to free dinner (see previous post comments), my best friend Jim in Philly informed me that he has successfully acquired nice tickets to the Phillies game on Sunday. Here's an approximation of the view we'll have (strangely, we both have VUEs, but neither look as good as this one). Jim, you rock.

Hard to beat flying to Philly over the weekend for a ballgame. I mean wedding. For that wedding, that's the important part. Then ballgame. I think. Sorry Jen.


(it must be said, though, that if Ivan gets to Philly by Sunday and ruins the game, I will be seriously bummed)


UPDATE 16 SEP: JIM ROCKS HARDER
He got BETTER seats than I noted earlier. Here's an updated perspective.

Almost there, but then not

Today was pretty much as hectic as expected, but it certainly could have been worse.

Darby's team was their prior-to-yesterday selves tonight, coming out strong in the beginning, scoring early, holding the opposing team off, maintaining their lead... until about half-way through the game and the other team broke it open, much the same way it happened last Thursday. After that point they were run ruled a couple of times, yet it wasn't a nearly complete floundering in the same way as yesterday. Meaning that the kids looked like they were ready to play and trying hard today in contrast to yesterday.

Darby didn't get any hits for the first time in a while, but she did hit the ball twice. It just so happened that both efforts were ground-outs to first, though the second was a sacrifice, moving another runner from second to third.

Darby played pitcher again today, but she had a better time of it today. She had a couple of good put-outs, one of which was particularly admirable. She stopped an infield grounder and ran down a runner that was bettween bases for the out.

Probably the best part of the game was that, for the first time, we had a completely revamped batting order, with all the top hitters stacked up at the top of the order. I think this helped them get their early momentum. If they can just keep from falling apart half-way through, they may break their winless streak yet.

So much for the up-trend

As noted last week, Darby's softball team had been showing good improvement, and it seemed to continue today as they started the game batting first. The lead-off batter singled, followed by Darby, the #2 batter, who hit an RBI double (though she was nearly thrown out at second because she paused at first, contrary to the advise of the base coach). I believe it was the earliest they've ever scored in a game.

But this success was followed by three quick outs, and it was all downhill from there. The girls were run-ruled every inning, and didn't do much more hitting or scoring. Their fielding was all over the place, too (though there were a few bright spots), presumably due in part to a couple of missing players.

Darby was benched in the bottom of the first, not punitively, but because there are more than nine players on the team, and they rotate who sits out (but everyone gets to bat). To the coach's credit, this was the first time in all the games so far that Darby has sat on the bench, though I must admit it was frustrating given what was happening on the field.

But my frustration was quelled somewhat by the fact that Darby didn't do all that great in the field today either (compared to how she had been doing). She played pitcher when she was put back on the field, and on three occasions she threw the ball somewhere other than where her coach had told her to throw it, creating a missed put-out each time, and subsequently allowing extra runs to score, not that we were really in the game at that point.


I have to admit I had a bad feeling about the evening when I arrived at the school and Darby was not changed into her uniform as I had asked of her. She knew we had an early game today, and very little time to eat and otherwise get ready from the time I would be picking her up. That, in addition to her stuff being generally not together and ready to take, caused us to have to go to the game first and eat afterwards, instead of having a quick meal before hand.


--
Tomorrow should be... interesting. If not worse.

It's picture day. And chapel day. And PE day for Darby. I've always hated that combination. So we're going to fix her hair, she'll run around in the gym thereby messing up her hair, and then she'll take pictures? Ugh.

And, of course, Darby has another early game after school, so she'll have to change for a third time, which will create the potential for lost clothing (she has already lost a pair of shoes that way this year). Plus... she wants a classmate of hers to go watch the game with us, which could create imbalance in the planning (not that she shouldn't go, just not sure of the details yet).

And then there's the fact that Shelby has fencing after school (at the exact same time as Darby's game). This is something her mom has been taking car of, but her mom flew to Houston this morning. So her step-father will be taking care of it, which is fine, but again could add uncertainty to the planning.

Yo, Colonel, gimmie that number

I was holding a staff meeting this morning and I needed to make a call to bring someone else in on the meeting. I didn't have the number I needed handy, so it seemed like a good idea to call the division secretary -- only because I knew THAT number at least -- and ask if she would mind looking up the number for me real quick.

However, the division secretary did not answer the phone, the division Colonel did instead. So what was I supposed to do? Say get me that number and hurry it up already? To the Colonel? The man that could have me fired faster than Donald? I don't think so.

(For you non-military types, a Colonel is basically one step down from a General. I'm pretty sure Generals have redundant, fault-tolerant secretaries so that they never have to answer the phone.)

Instead I politely excused myself from the phone call with an apology for interrupting his day. One of my team members kindly volunteered to go ask the other person to join us.

Eagles soaring, Redhawks diving, and Phillies surprising

While I hate to see the sunset of a baseball season, the one consolation is the arrival of a football season with which we baseball fans can lick our wounds. The fact that the Eagles won their season opener for the first time in years is enough to start me off excited about this year's team. Considering that their 0-2 start last season had everyone writing them off as worthless, only for them to come back and make it to the NFC championship game (at which time they promptly proved themselves for all practical purposes worthless for the fourth year in a row), this year's start, if enthusiasm is equaled in perfamance, should have the nay-sayers nay-saying themselves.

And so it is only fitting that I indeed skipped the Redhawks game today, as they lost their crucial playoff game, ending their excellent season for naught. If they win the PCL championship, I expect the Iowa Cubs to be sending us a great big thank you present for practically handing it to them these last couple games.

But the Phillies have surprised me of late with a now 6-game win streak (my fingers are crossed, I'm not jinxing it), though it is too little too late. If they're very very very lucky they might re-take second place in their division (along with their dignity for the season), but it's pretty much impossible (probably mathematically so) for them to re-take the division, and nearly as unlikely that they can overcome the Giants for the wild card (notwithstanding the fact that Houston, Chicago, San Diego, and Florida all have dibs on the wild card as well).


--
In kid news today, it was the first day of the new Sunday school year, and the girls seem to enjoy getting back to that.



UPDATE 13 SEP
Okay, so maybe I jinxed it. The Phillies lost today. Sorry guys.

Hosed by Redhawks

I picked up the girls early from their mom's today because I wanted to catch a ballgame (a playoff game), but unlike most Saturday games, this one was in the afternoon. Truth be told, I would have rather caught the game on Sunday, but at the time, whether there would be a Sunday game or not was TBD.

The Redhawks were ahead in the five game divisional series two games to one. If they had won today, the series would have been over, and they would have gone on to their conference championship. However, they did not win, and so they are playing again tomorrow.

So I had a dilema... take a chance they would lose the game today and try to go tomorrow, or if they win today, catch the next playoff series. However, given Darby's game schedule next week, I wasn't keen on our ability to make a ballgame in the middle of the week. The killer here is that if they lose tomorrow, the season is over, and I will miss the last game of the season. I could always try to go tomorrow also, but it's already not looking good schedule wise.

I was surprised just how low attendance was (I don't think I've ever seen this bad) for a playoff game. But the girls had a blast, especially considering they got hosed down by the apparently bored Redhawks bullpen pitchers, leaving them quite soaked.


After the game I took the girls to the dollar theater to see Cinderella Story, something they wanted to see when it was in first-run theaters (it's Hilary Duff afterall), but we were on vacation at the time and it didn't last in those theaters long. They liked it a lot, of course, especially Shelby since one of the main character names was Shelby. Her name is not terribly common, so she just eats it up when she sees another Shelby. Personally, not that I'm into these tween movies, I thought Princess Diaries 2, which we saw last weekend, was better.

Happy birthday mom

Happy fiftieth birthday mom. I hope you have a good one in spite of the sadness invoked by the memory of this day.

I'm sorry that I'm not there to help celebrate, but I'll see you next weekend when I'm in Philly and I'll take you to dinner.


Let me also take the opportunity to thank you. I know that we argue a lot, but if there's one thing you're right about, it's that I am the way I am because of how you raised me. Though it may seem the opposite, I am always cognizant of that fact, and I will always appreciate the fact that I would not be where I am today were it not for you. I know that I didn't like it at the time, but thank you for kicking my butt and keeping me in line.

I was SO very tired ALL DAY because of my last night's silliness. And to make matters worse, I had to work until about 9 to get all my hours in since I left work early a couple of days last week. Once again I'm tired and hungry.

You know you have a hurricane problem when...

...you start hearing the professional weather people use phrases like
"extrapolating the eyewall"

Powerless

Well, that was a nice little test of my battery backups. Apparently, there was an accident in Oklahoma City that caused a significant power outage for parts of OKC and surronding areas, including parts of Del City. The outage lasted about an hour and forty minutes. I long ago learned that it was a good idea to have the OG&E outage reporting phone number on my cell phone, so I made use of that almost immediately after the power went out.

It was a late night for me, I was wrapping up, about to go to bed when (insert sound of many electronic devices powering down at once here). Fortunately, I have a UPS on my main PC/monitor that kept me up for another six minutes, allowing me to save stuff that was in progress. I didn't shut down though as I wanted to actually see the UPS software auto-shutdown my PC, and it seemed to work well (I even didn't save one thing on purpose and the software did it for me). I also have another UPS powering my infrastructure devices (network switches, DSL modem, firewalls, etc) so even though the entire block was without power, I could still surf the net. Ha! (How sad is that?)

I let the second UPS die on its own as well to see how long it would last, and it made it 45 minutes. Were I really desperate for more net time I could have gotten my laptop out after my main PC died and continued to work for awhile.


You'd think I'd then go to sleep, but I had this paranoid thought as the recent near-victim of a residential crime, that this moment would be the perfect opportunity for an alert criminal (at 3am?) to return and finish the job. So I stayed up until the power returned, brought my systems back online, and here I am. Now, I may regret that decission when I'm getting up for work in two hours, but I know if I were the criminal type, and I noticed a major power outage (aka burgler alarm disabler) like that, I would have immediately hit the streets and "got to work". But maybe that's just me and my paranoid information security administrator self getting all wacky on the junk.

All I know for sure is that I'm freakin tired. And hungry. But that will have to wait.

(Almost) Got Game

Shelby got another tally today at school, making it four for the week so far. If she gets two more tomorrow, that's a trip to the office. If she gets in trouble beyond that, the school will swat her. I had been telling her all summer that 1st grade is nothing like kindergarten, that it's the real deal and much harder (based on my experience with Darby's K-to-1st transition). Now she's starting to say that first grade is too hard, which is not a good sign a mere three weeks into the school year.

But she had a good fencing lesson at least. She had her first "combat" today, sparring another kid her size in full gear for points. We've contemplated taking away her fencing lessons if her school performance doesn't improve, but we're not sure she cares, plus I feel strongly about each kid having at least one extra-curricular activity, and this is all she's got.


Darby had a very good, very active ballgame. Hitting was typical, a strikeout and a single, but she played pitcher today for the first time during a game (in machine pitch that means standing next to the machine and just having to worry about defense -- infield grounders, shallow pop-flies, etc), and she did a good job. She was running all over the place after that ball. I almost think she has to play a high-attention position like catcher or pitcher in order to keep her interest in the game. It's the only time she doesn't play in the dirt and get yelled at by the coach to pay attention.

While Darby's team didn't break their winless streak today, the got VERY close. They held the opposing team to zero runs until the last inning, when they allowed one run to come in (unfortunately due to a fielder's choice by Darby -- throwing to first for the force instead of to home to hold the runner on third... maybe not such a bad deal, but she threw wide to first, drawing the fielder off the bag so we didn't even get that out). Even then, they got two runners on in the bottom half of the inning, but weren't able to get them in, probably their biggest remaining problem, as they are definite starting to hit and field better. In every inning they left one or two runners on the bases, which I attribute largely to lineup strategy, and maybe a little to base running skills (i.e. getting the kids to watch the base coaches, which are doing a good job).

The lineup has changed slightly recently -- for the better -- but there are still fundamental problems. For example, in the the last inning when there were two runners on, and we only needed one to tie, there were two outs and batter number three was due up. In a properly stacked lineup, batter number three coming up is a good thing. In tonight's case, not so much, as our number three batter (as hard as she is trying) has never touched the ball with her bat.

The wait is over

The real Shelby has arrived.

Just when I thought Shelby might be maturing at school, not getting as many tallies as she traditionally has, and actually getting decent grades (I've been pleasantly surprised thus far by the grades on the papers she's brought home), she goes and shows off her bad self.

She apparently spent a majority of the day goofing around in class, thereby not getting her work done, so she got a tally for that. And, she threw a fit in PE class after defying direct instructions from the teacher (who sent a note home), garnering another two tallies for herself. So, lucky daddy got to spend fifteen minutes in an impromptu meeting with her teacher when I picked her up this afternoon.

And her prize out of all of this? More than two hours of make-up work.

Since the time we got home today (excepting dinner) she's been doing class work that should have been done this afternoon. Wednesday is supposed to be no-homework day. The original plan was to eat dinner and then go to the park. But there has been no park for us today. None. Only school work. School school school. You'd think she'd be tired of it by now.

Even Darby spent most of that same time period this evening doing school work (and practicing piano). So I don't know what's going on (must have been the Chick-fil-A, what they had for school lunch today), but this simply will not do, especially tomorrow, which will be hectic all on its own. Shelby has fencing and Darby has piano lessons and softball. Plus they should both have an expected amount of homework. Having even more to do tomorrow is just not part of the plan, and I sure hope she gets that.


(can you feel the frustration?)

Bah (humbug)

You may recall that a few weeks ago I had my "first Christmas thought." And I thought I was early about it. Well, on Monday (6 Sep!) I was in a Hobby Lobby and they had one whole side of the store split between Halloween and Christmas displays.

They're not even waiting until after H-day anymore!!! Sheesh.


And just now, I'm looking through a fundraising catalog and there's gobs of Christmas stuff... uuhhhg... it's depressing. I haven't even fathomed discussing with the kids what they want to be for Halloween yet, and already I'm being bombarded by yuletide yuck. It's just too much.

I'm starting to think that you people that leave your Christmas lights on your house year-long (you know who you are) are on to something. That you are pioneers. You have seen the future, and it is a year-long Christmas. I dread that future, but thanks I guess for the heads up.

Could have been worse

A couple more (largely unmentionable) not-so-great things happened on this two-in-one day, but it could have been much worse. The kids didn't get in trouble for being out of uniform (and it turns out that I was not the only one with that dilema), and Shelby's PE clothes fit Darby just fine.

Shelby had her second fencing lesson, and it is reported that she is doing well and enjoying herself.

Darby had a REALLY long softball practice. They started at 5:30, played a practice game with the school t-ball team (they used their T, we used our pitching machine), and then continued practice after the game. I think it was close to 7:30 when we got out of there and we still had to eat (Darby anyway... Shelby ate after fencing), take baths, and do homework. It was after ten before Darby got to bed and eleven by the time Shelby got there (she's VERY slow at EVERYthing... especially homework).

It's already started

See, I told you it would go non-well...


One of my many early mis-steps for the day was dressing my kids as though it were Monday. Though I knew in my mind it was Tuesday, I completely forgot to inform my involuntary processes that they were to skip a day in our pre-school preparation. Tuesday is chapel day you see. On chapel days the children are to wear skirts and blouses, not the everyday uniform. So now my children will likely get tallies for being out of uniform. Bleh.

Also, Shelby has PE on Mon/Wed/Fri, and Darby has PE on Tue/Thu. Guess who I packed PE clothes for? Yep, Shelby. Pretty swell, huh?

(Near) labor-less days

We all know about my very laborous Saturday, but aside from mowing the lawn on Sunday, we had a largely labor-free rest-of-the-weekend.

On Sunday we went to a friend's for a birthday party that was quite festive and relaxing. The kids got to go on a boat ride and swim in a pool, so I'm pretty sure they had plenty of fun.

Today I took the girls to see Princess Diaries 2, which they had been dying to see. We have the first movie on DVD, though I've not seen it, but they tell me the second film was better than the first, if you're thinking of taking your own kids to see it.


I've been VERY tired all day, and I don't see myself getting a good night's sleep to recover, so I'm going to go out on a limb right now and predict that tomorrow will suck. You just wait and see. Or listen. You'll probably hear it from where you are just as well.

T-town and back again

Got the kids back this evening from their little weekend adventure. Last night after work, I took the kids up to Tulsa to spend the night at their friend's. Darby's best friend's birthday party was today in Tulsa and she would have missed it if she would have stayed down here as I would not have been able to take her due to my commitment with the game. So I made arrangements with the parents to meet up last night so the girls could stay the night in Tulsa and attend the party today. It so happened that they were making a trip down to Dallas after the party for a short Labor Day weekend getaway, so they dropped the kids off down here on their way to Texas this evening.

The kids reportedly had a blast, and all the timing seemed to work out well. It was only about a 24-hour adventure for them, but there's more in store for the remainder of the weekend.

Aftermath

As expected, working the game was a truly grueling experience. Not something I'd want to repeat if I can help it. I left my house at ten til seven this morning and am just getting home. I haven't eaten all day, and I am SO tired, but I'll have to be getting the girls soon, so I can't nap. I don't think I've (physically) worked that hard since my days as a UPS loader/unloader/sorter back in college. And I didn't even get paid for it.

Our concession stand was very close to a seating area, but I didn't get to see one iota of the game. We opened at 9:30 and didn't close until after the game, so the game pretty much came and went. In fact, not only was it over for twenty minutes before I knew it was over, but I had to get the score from my cell phone. I have my service setup to alert me with local scores, and that's when I found out what the score was.

We were just completely busy the entire time (we had something like $14K in sales). It was unbelievable. The first time I sat down once we got there was more than an hour after the game ended. At the height of confusion, we were completely out of ice (our ice machine couldn't keep up), out of $1 bills, and a lady passed out in (VERY LONG) lines of heat exhaustion, leaving us to try to contact medical assistance in the thick of frustration.

As a fundraiser for Darby's softball team, it was a good way to earn a bunch of cash for the team in a short period of time. But it sure was insanity incarnate, especially since it was our first game ever working the stadium. One girl out of the sixteen people we had working had previous concession stand fundraiser experience, but for the Redhawks baseball team, which doesn't get anywhere near the turnout that OU does.

The sadest part of the entire ordeal is that Darby will never fully appreciate what her mother and I did for her today, though she will benefit greatly.

All Sooner's Eve

Most Oklahomans are seething for tomorrow to be here now. Right now. Not in 11.5 hours, but right this moment. Or "sooner" if possible.

The OU football season is upon us, and you can smell in the air the raving madness of the locals as they impatiently await the kickoff at 11am tomorrow morning. Even I, as a transplanted East coast-er, start getting mildly into the OU hype around mid-season.

But by 11am tomorrow, rather than glee-filled like most local types, I am certain I will be quite full of dread by contrast. Instead of enjoying the game in the stands, or even kicking back and watching it on the tube, I'll be at the stadium sure enough, but serving drinks and food without the privilege of witnessing a kickoff or touchdown or interception. Or in the unlikely event that Bowling Green stomps the boys in red, I'll not get to witness the mammoth shock on the faces of soonerfans directly as it occurs.

Though I am not a native, even I can see the shame in this situation. I am an OU game rookie. And not being terribly fanatical about the topic, I've not seen it worth the traffic, parking madness, and overall hassle to go catch a game in the 13 years I've lived in Oklahoma. But considering that I will actually go through the trouble of being there on Saturday, it is definitely a shame that I will not get to watch the game.

The greater shame is that after my experience tomorrow, I expect I'll be even further put off by the prospect of attending future games, even if to actually watch the game. There can be few better ways to make a man shun a ball game than to stick him in the concession stands to serve refreshments to thousands of blood thirsty fans just as they've crossed a long, dry desert to reach your oasis.

Go Sooners go. If you must kill BG, please do it quickly, so that I might flee Sooner-land sooner.

Closer to victory

Darby's team actually scored runs tonight. They got within a few runs of the opposing team but ran out of time before they could catch up.

Darby had a single and a double, though the double should have been at least a triple or homer as she didn't see where the ball went and thought she had popped it back foul (as she had done previously in that at bat), so she stood around obliviously while ALL the parents in the stands were yelling for her to run. Her delay allowed the other team to get the ball back in and hold her to second. Her two hits were moot, though, as she was stranded without being able to score.

I feel her team is suffering in the run production department (and thereby not winning) because their four or five most consistent hitters are scattered throughout the lineup instead of batting the top four spots. For example, the lead-off batter often strikes out or grounds out, Darby (the second batter) hits a single more often than not, and the two girls after Darby almost always strike out, very often leaving Darby stranded. Then, the next at bat, the first girl up usually hits, followed by a couple of occasional hitters, followed by a good hitter. I don't understand why the coach hasn't tweaked the lineup one bit since we started play. I believe they would start winning or get much closer if he would make some minor adjustments (in particular, if he would get his yet-to-touch-the-ball-with-her-bat-in-seven-games daughter out of the cleanup spot, not that it's at all his daughter's fault). I like the coach personally and all, but sometimes I wonder just a little about his big picture coaching strategy.

In the defense department, Darby played third base the whole game. Even though we spent some dedicated time just last night talking about the difference between a force out and a non-force out, as well as the duties of each position, she missed a put-out due to tagging third instead of the runner. She also had issues running off and leaving third unattended when there were runners headed her way. She did eventually clue in and got a nice put-out, tagging a runner from second and holding the next advancing runner to their base.

Tonight we finally got the team's full season schedule. I have posted game times to the calendar for interested family.

All fenced in

Shelby started fencing lessons today. We pulled her out of t-ball after one practice because it was going to conflict too heavily with fencing, which we knew would start in September. She did pretty good for her first day and seems genuinely interested, in contrast with many other activities we've tried to put her in. We'll see how it goes.

The things we do for our children

Today I left work WAY early (and I have to make that up), to drive thirty minutes south to Norman so I could visit the Cleveland County Department of Health, stand in a long line, sit in a waiting room, move to a jam packed classroom with ~115 other people, watch a video and a powerpoint presentation, and take a 14 question multiple choice test.

Barring my non-failure of the test, I should now be the proud holder of a food handler's permit, along with my 115 mostly teenaged, probably fast food working wannabe classmates (not that there's anything wrong with that).

All of this is so that I can work at a concession stand at the OU game on Saturday. The activity is part of a fundraising program for Darby's softball team. We have to be at the stadium at 7:30am, and they tell us it will be a ten hour day. Yuck.

September Bleh

September is NOT a summer month. In almost all ways (the exception being baseball), I loathe what the arrival of September signifies. While it is still quite nice outside of late, the autumn will show its colors soon enough, and more than just leaves fall in the Fall.

Among the others... the temperature, the sun (earlier), my youth (I get older in October), sometimes a little early frozen precipitation, the amount of cash in the wallet (due to the inevitability of -- dare I say -- Christmas [U-G-H!]), my hopes of achieving the goals I set for the year in but a fraction of the time, my enthusiasm that maybe THIS will be the year that "it" all comes together... it goes on and on and on worse than that darn bunny...


Go away September. Who invited you anyway?

Missed (last) chance for buck dogs

(this post was meant for Tuesday)

Every Tuesday home game at the Brick -- home of the Oklahoma Redhawks -- is Dollar Hot Dog night, or what those in my ellipse (sorry, it's not quite a circle) call "Buck Dogs". The plan for some time was to take the kids to a ballgame on Tuesday for one last hoorah, with the season winding down, and to take advantage of the last buck dogs 'til April.

Unfortunately, Darby had a ballgame herself at 8pm on Tuesday, which was just the most terrible timing. Were her game at 6pm, we would have missed the beginning of the Redhawks game, but could have caught much of it and still enjoy a buck dog dinner. But with a 7:05pm Redhawk start time, a 7:30pm warm-up time for Darby's team, and with homework and baths to take care of, there was just no practical way to convert dreams of buck dogs to reality.

I was reminded of our missed opportunity today by an article on mlb.com, Ode to the Hot Dog.

To make matters worse, tomorrow is the last regular season home game for the Redhawks, but Darby has a 7pm game. I'm still somewhat pondering on that one, but based on how the rest of the week has gone, it is unlikely that we'll have finished homework before Darby's game, and of course baths are still at issue even if we have finished homework and get back from a Redhawks game by 10-10:30pm.

As the Redhawks are in first place in their division, I think I may have to try for playoff tickets instead.