One more season

I woke up a little late and had to rush across town to pick-up the girls, as Darby had an appointment at church. Unfortunately when I rang the doorbell at their mom's house, I woke them all up. We were only a couple minutes late to the church thing, but it was a serious mad dash I tell you.

We went home to clean-up after church since they hadn't done so yet at that point, having just recently woken-up. It was mostly an errand running day, so we weren't in a hurry to be anywhere. We had to get some pictures developed to be sent off (to Philly) in a mother's day card, run by the post office to send it (since it needed extra postage), and we had to pickup Darby's new softball uniform. Personally I prefer the old (left) over the new (right), but I do understand the new ones will be much cooler for the spring/summer than the fall uniforms.



While we were at the sporting goods store getting Darby's new uniform, I got one more softball season out of her. She had been planning to quit after this season, but while we were there looking around she wanted to get a new glove and some other accessories, but I told her no way if she's quiting soon. So she said she changed her mind recently, and that she wanted to keep playing. I added up the stuff and told her between the uniform, new glove, and other stuff, it would be more than a hundred dollars, so she better get a whole other season's worth out of it. She said she would, so...

After we finished our errands, we went to the park and I let the girls play for a couple hours before dinner time. For the first twenty or so minutes of that Darby and I practiced ball so she could get used to her new glove.

For about another thirty minutes after they played at the park, they pet the cats and dogs at a pet-adoption-a-thon being held at the park. I only let that happen upon receiving promises of zero can-we-get-a-pet nagging. We're just not home enough and I don't think it'd be fair on the animal to just be home alone all the time. Plus the fact that there are cats, gerbils, spiders, and a dog at their mom's house, that seems like plenty of pet exposure for them.

All the fuss

At the beginning of the month, I said come back in the few weeks for an explaination. But then deadlines were extended. And extended. And extended again. But today was the day. The final due date. So I can divulge some details (though not all).

Well, back on the first, the government released an "RFP", meaning they were asking for contractors to bid on new work. I convinced my company to make a go at it (after much teeth pulling), and was put in charge of some of the proposal technical content. I ended up putting in 10-20 hours a week the last few weeks on the proposal, and today it was finally turned in to the government. We'll find out in 14 days if we've won or not. I think we have a good shot at winning the work, though it's not a gimmie by any means.

What does this all mean to me? Well, it's a multi-million dollar contract, and since I pushed the company so hard to dive in, there's a little bit of corporate visibility in it for me, win or lose, good or bad. If we do win, my team will grow by a couple of people (the contract is for many more people, but I will get two of them), and the impact of our work will be more far reaching than it is now. The work we do will have a real opportunity, if we do it right, to make (our part of) the government more efficient, and save it money.

So, come back in a couple more weeks and see if we won. See if my life will get even more complicated yet again.

Guide Realized

I was introduced to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy during my high school years, I think by my girlfriend at the time (thanks KL!). It, and the entire series, quickly became one of my favorite "entertainment entities", along with the various works of Monty Python, anything Star Wars, and most things Star Trek. I learned so much from the stories of Mr. Adams that I don't think I would be the person I am today without having been introduced to his work. I learned the meaning of (life, the universe, and) everything, how to fly, God's final message, who the smartest creatures on Earth really are, the importance of towels, and so much more. I definitely think I'd be in a worse place in life right now were it not for the Guide and its author.

So as you might imagine, it was an honor for me to have met Mr. Adams back in the almost-Spring of 2000, while at a technical conference in San Francisco. He delivered an amazingly humorous keynote address, and afterwords he signed autographs. I was disappointed in myself for not having thought to bring my Guide with me for him to sign, so I had to settle for using the speaker bio in our conference binder.

A year later, my honor fed into sadness as I learned of the untimely death of Mr. Adams (is he Sir Adams yet? If not, he really should be). But I'm glad the movie they referenced in the bio (which they noted as being released in 2001) finally came to pass. It opens in theaters today, and I hope to see it very soon. It will be interesting to see how his ideas were translated to the screen, without his direct advisement (as I'm sure would have happened had he not passed on).

We miss you Douglas Adams. But at least your legacy carries on to keep you fresh in our minds, hopefully inspiring a whole new generation of hitchhikers.

No free lunch

After dropping the kids off at school a little earlier than usual, I headed down to Norman for the 2005 OU IT Spring Symposium. However, I had to leave to head back to work for an important meeting (that I kept hoping would get cancelled). So not only did I miss the technical session I most wanted to see, but I also had to skip out on free lunch. Lunch was included with registration, but I had to leave before I could even check out what they were having. That's practically sacrilegious (skipping free lunch). What might save the day with regard to the symposium, is a couple of contacts I made. If one in particular pans out, missing the lunch will be an acceptable sacrifice.


Today was Darby's big arts day. We spent a couple hours at her school, checking out her art display, watching her sing with her school choir, and listening to her piano recital, all in one sitting. She did pretty well.


After the arts I had to go back to work to take care of some server maintenance, plus to make up my time for being gone all morning.


UPDATE, 29 APRIL
I had forgotten to mention that at least I got a free t-shirt out of the deal. My pal Berto reminded me that the shirt will, in most cases, last longer than the lunch would have. He's right in that I still periodically wear the shirt from last year's symposium.

I had to work late to meet a deadline so the kids were picked up by their mom while I finished up. Shelby got a long promised haircut while they were out. It's shorter than Darby's, but should save time in the morning, being easier to brush.

Reprieve

THIS Thursday just got a little easier. Darby's coach was able to get their game rescheduled, so no longer have a conflict and won't have to rush around quite as much. However, the game was moved to NEXT Thursday, which means we'll have back-to-back games next Thursday. That ought to be interesting. The calendar has been updated to reflect the schedule change.

Darby started out not so well in the game tonight, but she redeemed herself quite well. She got a single that she very narrowly stretched into a triple due to overthrows. I say narrowly because the third baseman had the ball when Darby got to the bag but didn't apply the tag. Darby scored on the next hit.

The team in general made many mistakes and lost the game. Pretty much no one was listening to the coach so he had them run three laps around the field after the game. Several kids got cramps (including Darby) from that and started crying. And the lap-running made us a little bit late for piano pre-performance practice.


Also today, Shelby brought home her fencing newsletter (1MB PDF), which has her plastered all over it. Mostly because they got a lot of the photos from me, and who else would I be taking pictures of? There's a photo credit on page 2.


UPDATE, 27 APR
I changed the above newsletter link to the smaller PDF file as noted in the comments.

Has it REALLY been 20 days?

I started a (not all that complicated) blog entry back on 6 April and just got around to wrapping it up. The topic has since been quite overdone, but back then, I was out in front of it. Or at least running hastily along side of it.

Calm before the storm

Darby's softball practice was cancelled today. I was so releived. It will be a hectic week, so I was glad for the slow start.

Darby has a game tomorrow and Shelby has fencing, which is a fairly typical Tuesday, but immediately after Darby's game we have to book it to a piano performance practice and at some point get Shelby.

Wednesday, Darby will likely have practice, shouldn't be a big deal. Thursday will be the day from hell. I'm supposed to be at an all-day IT symposium in Norman (25 mi south), but I also know I have a 1pm meeting back in Midwest City. I'm debating if I want to skip my free lunch at the symposium to head back for my meeting (I might HAVE to), and then decide if I want to go back to the symposium only to come back to Del City to pickup Darby from school on time. Shelby will have her scheduled fencing lesson, but Darby has two things occuring at 7pm -- singing with her class at her school and a softball game -- between which we'll have to choose. Then she has a piano performance at school. If she chooses to sing with her class, she'll already be at school for her piano performance. If she chooses her softball game, we will have to hurry back to school AND get changed out of her uniform into something nice. The coach is trying to get the game schedule tweaked because there are three third grade girls on the team that are supposed to sing. If they all choose to sing there won't be enough girls to play and we'd have to forfeit/lose.

I took three naps today, I'm still so zonked from yesterday. Oh, and apparently I got a tad bit of sunburn myself yesterday.

They just... keep... coming

The things we do for our children.

Last year, it was working concessions for an OU football game. This year, it was working a car wash. I had no great enthusiasm for either sports team fundraising activity, but both were supposedly compulsory. Well, they say that, yet the parents that don't participate are never penalized.

Last weekend we had 70-80 degree weather. This weekend was somewhat milder and I wondered immediately upon the morning temperature check just how bad this was going to be considering it was 53 outside and we were supposed to be working with water soon. Knowing it was supposed to warm-up later I had the girls wear swim suits with shorts and t-shirts on top, but I also brought pants and their jackets. As soon as we got to the car wash location, the girls wanted their pants and jackets on it was that chilly. I wore my jacket for probably the first hour.

At first I didn't think it was going to be too bad a deal because the flow was slow. A few cars here and there. I was hoping the weather kept them away. But the pace picked up steadily and before we knew it we were in car wash hell. Both the ex-wife and I were working this event, and between the two of us it was still difficult to keep an eye on the kids (who were either be washing cars or holding signs by the street... way too close to the street at times) while hastily washing and drying cars.

It got to a point where for probably a few hours there was a constant line of cars (though I heard it was worse down the street at another car wash run by cheerleaders). We got started at 11am, and it was scheduled to run through 3pm. Not a single parent was remotely enthused to be there and we mostly-jokingly contemplated having each parent donate $50 instead of doing this crazy fundraiser. The entire time we were there I didn't sit down once, and my only "break" consisted of walking around with a slice of pizza in one hand.

And then 3pm arrived, with much rejoicing. Only... we didn't stop. I asked if we were going to put up a "closed" sign but they said we'd keep washing cars for as long as they kept coming. Which was so NOT what I needed to hear just then. So we kept washing, much to my dismay. And it didn't get any better. In fact, it got quite bad when a VERY muddy pickup pulled in with a couple of kids that had apparently be muddin' TWO DAYS AGO.

All of the parents stopped washing and stared at the truck in weary awe. "We don't really have to wash that thing, right?" was the repeated sentiment from every parent. But sure enough, we did. At first, it seemed hopeless. The two "garden" variety hoses we had didn't make one dent in that two-day-old mud. AND, all the kids (who had gotten bored with washing cars and were playing) ran over and started scraping the mud out from under the wheel wells and began playing with it. Before long all of the kids were muddy in some way, but that truck wasn't getting any cleaner.

What I didn't know was that one of the parents brought a gas-powered pressure washer, just in case. He went to his truck and got it and we thought the day was saved. But apparently between the time he last used it (the day before) and today, he lost an o-ring, which rendered the unit no more effective on the mud than our hoses. So we stood there futilely spraying down the truck with the hoses (making more wet mud for the kids to play with) while the parent went to a hardware store for an o-ring.

Even once we had a fully functional pressure washer, it took FOREVER to get that truck "clean", AND we were left with a parking lot full of remnant mud, something the property owner was not going be happy with if we didn't clean it up.

So how much beyond the 3pm stated ending time did we continue to wash cars?

Try three hours plus. Shortly after six we were cleaning up (all that mud in particular), but before we could wrap it up and split, another car pulled in. I thought we were going to turn it away, but everyone started grabbing sponges again to my severe disappointment. Seeing that we were still washing cars, another pulled in, and another, and another. I blame it all on the mud. Were it not for the mud clean-up, I think we would have been out of there before that next round of cars. It was 6:45 before we were cleaned-up and out of there. Finally.

Many of the parents went to a restaurant together to get some much needed rest and nourishment while the kids ran around and got in just about everyone's way (waitresses, patrons, you name it). I tried to keep mine as tame as possible, but that was difficult considering all the other kids were quite untame.


Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, the girls started peeling away layers until they were in their swim suits. I brought sunblock, but by the time they were in their suits, I was quite pre-occupied with car washing. Subsequently, the girls got VERY sunburned. Already they are not enjoy that aspect of the day. A little while ago they got done with showers and got in bed and were quite vocal about their wounds.

Unfortunately I can't go around complaining that the whole car wash thing was not a worthwhile fundraising effort. The team pulled in more than $500 that will go towards much needed equipment. Also unfortunately, the parents are already talking about doing another car wash. Personally, I think that's insane. I mean, we need equipment, but I'm thinking the $500 will cover it. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The day's most ironic moment was when all the parents saw that my car was dirty as we were leaving. Each of them had their cars washed during the day and they asked why I hadn't. I told them I didn't care and didn't want to even think about washing another car -- even my own -- for a very long time.

Kid Pigeons and Forgiveness

After lunch I went to Darby's school to see if I could join her at the arts festival tomorrow. She was scheduled to participate, but I originally wasn't going to be able to help out. When I learned that a deadline I was working against was pushed back to next week, I decided to see if I could go along (the school had previously announced that they needed sponsors). However, when I got to the school and started asking around, all of the teachers I asked seemed confused about Darby's level of participation. At one point during the confusion, there were four teachers, Darby, and myself standing in the hallway (during school hours, so being a little disruptive... and oh yeah, during all of this Shelby lost a tooth in her class so she came running out into the hallway, "daddy, daddy, I lost a tooth," further adding to the mayhem) trying to figure out the disconnect. I explained that Darby had gotten two information sheets, one for an arts festival this week and one for an arts expo next week, and that money had been sent to school with her to register for this week's festival, so I was expecting she would participate. All the teachers essentially said that the artwork was sent home with her, but that they had her down as not having brought it back and not having paid, so I was getting a little frustrated by this point. I told the teachers that I personally had the artwork matted as required and brought it back to the school myself and that Darby's mother had sent a check in to pay for the registration. This is when I first learned that there were two different artworks, one for each event, but that Darby had lost one of them and didn't tell me. The teachers said they didn't know she lost it until the day it was due and then there wasn't anything they could do to recover (had they known sooner they could have had her do another artwork, but she couldn't use the other work she did for both festivals because it was not the right kind of art). Knowing she didn't have that first piece of art, Darby stashed the check sent to school in her desk instead of giving it to the teacher. When interrogated about it in the hallway, she went and got it. I apologized to all of the teachers for wasting their time and disrupting the day, and then had a further conversation in the hallway with Darby. She started to cry because she thought I was mad at her, but I explained that this was an extra-curricular activity so I wasn't too broken up about it. I told her the real shame was that I was trying to do something special for her by taking half a day off work and spending it with her at the arts festival, but that was all moot now. I said the real issue was lack of communication on her part. If she had just told me up front when she lost the art, we could have asked the school what to do, and they would have had her do another piece.

After that whole arts festival fiasco, I headed back to work for a meeting, shaking my head along the way. But I had to leave work again immediately after the meeting to pick up Darby earlier than usual so I could get her fed before her ballgame. I would have waited until afterward given the hecticness of the day, but Darby had to be at church after the game. Just getting her to the field on time proved challenging though. I picked her up, we swung by the house, her mother called explaining she was stuck in traffic, so I went back to the school to pick up Shelby (who was supposed to go with her mom to fencing lessons) and take her with us to get something to eat. I was going to have the girls' mother meet us at the sports complex after we picked up food, but I learned she was already in the area, so we had to head back towards the school to trade off Shelby. Finally, Darby and I were able to head for the field (she had been eating in the car the whole time, and fortunately she remembered that I sent her uniform with her to school and changed like I had asked her to).

The coach was later than usual to the game and no other parents were warming up the kids, so I got Darby up and started warming her up with ground balls. Of course as usual, the other kids started to join in and I didn't want to be rude by excluding them, so before I knew it I was warming up the whole team. Trouble is, it was not my day for throwing balls to kids. In the span of just a few minutes, I had four times injured a kid (one of them twice). First a kid missed the grounder I threw and it hit her in the ankle. She went crying of the field. Then, two kids later the girl got a glove on the ball, but in bringing her glove up, the ball bounced out and hit the girl behind her in the forehead. She went crying off the field. Yet another two kids later, the kid (this time it was Darby) didn't put her throwing hand over the glove when the ball went in, so it bounced up and clocked her in the jaw pretty solidly. She tried to go crying off the field, but I gave her a hug and told her to get back in line. Just before we were out of warm-up time, the first girl had come back, but she got hit in the other ankle. SHEESH. As if all that weren't enough, during the game, a foul ball was hit right to me, so I threw it back to a kid on the opposing team (they were fielding), and the ball bounced out of her glove and hit her in the head. Fortunately, it was the catcher, and she had her mask on, so there was no harm done. But man, it started to seem like I was purposely taking shots at the kids.

Probably because of my "battery" of the team, they started off real slow. Before we knew it we were losing 4-zip. Towards the end of the game, though, we had come back to tie it (Darby had a hit and a run scored), but right at the climax, Darby and I had to leave. She was already going to be a couple minutes late at the church. (I later found out the team lost in extra innings).

So we walked into the church, freshly grimey from the game, and sure enough everyone is waiting for us. You see, tonight was Darby's First Reconciliation (first confession), which proceeds her First Communion here in a couple weeks. Just after we arrived the priest said there were four other kids missing but that we weren't waiting any longer, so things got started. The whole way to the church in the car, Darby expressed fear about this process. But her fears were quest fairly quickly with the assurances of the priest. When it was all said and done, Darby herself was saying she was all scared for nothing.

The priest made a point of celebrating after reception of each of the sacraments, so afterwards I took Darby for some ice cream (hey, his suggestion). Of course, before she was halfway done with it, she dropped the scoop right off her cone onto the ground. A perfectly crazy ending to a rather crazy day.

Real progress

Darby brought her progress report home today. Her last progress report had three Cs, which were brought up to Bs on her report card, but she only had two As that whole report card and all the rest Bs. She usually has a more even mix of As and Bs. Today, however, she had all As with two Bs, which was both surprising and refreshing. Hopefully she keeps the grades that way for her final report card of the year. Also surprising was that she only had eight tallies for the period thus far, in sharp contrast to the 29 she had for the third quarter and 55 on the year up to that point.

Shelby had brought her progress report home yesterday, and while it had a C on it (in phonics, we'll have to work extra on that), all but two of her other grades were As. She's usually more of a B student. Further shocking was that she only had four tallies this period so far, compared to her 25 for the third quarter and 59 on the year.

Ten years onward

On April 19th, 1995 I was fortunate to have not been home when the blast went off. I was still in college and lived with my father at the time, here in Del City, 7.2 miles from ground zero. But that day, I woke up at my girlfriend's house in Kingfisher, OK (45 miles away), so I didn't hear or feel the blast the way my family still in the metro area did.

When I turned on the TV that morning, the first thing I saw was live coverage of a devastated building. My first thoughts were, "my goodness, where is this at?" And I can't adequately describe to you the look on my face when the reporter said "we're reporting to you live from Oklahoma City". I watched for I don't know how long in total shock. It was unbelievable. Within a day or two I was down there to see the devastation myself, and having seen it with my own eyes, I can say no degree of television watching does any level of devastation justice. Oklahoma City, New York, Sumatra. However horrified you were watching it on TV, magnify that by several orders of magnitude, and you'll have some idea the feeling of seeing it with ones own eyes.

Today, I can't believe it's been ten years. There has been progress at least. The folks at the memorial foundation have outdone themselves by building what I consider to be one of the most solemn, beautiful memorials in the country. If you're ever in the area, it's simply a must experience. But there have also been setbacks. While the "Lone Assailant" has met justice, there are still unanswered questions. And the fact that Oklahoma City is no longer the worst terrorist incident in the US is very counterproductive to the cause of progress.

My mother is simply distressed at the fact that the cities her children left home to live in/near (New York, where my sister lives, and Oklahoma City) are the number one and two terrorist targets to date in the country (and it hasn't helped that every couple years or so a massive tornado skirts my neighborhood). In both cases she couldn't get through to her children for days while phone lines were tied up.

Ten years from now, I hope that NYC and OKC are still the two worst terrorist incidents in the US (i.e. that there haven't been worse attacks). I hope we will have tied up all the Oklahoma City loose ends, and that any new assailants have met justice. And I hope that the families will finally have their peace.

When the VEEP comes to town

For a moment I had forgotten what day it was. And I found it strange that, while traffic was flowing fine on the Eastbound side of the highway, the Westbound side was completely desolate of cars. That's just not normal. Moments later I saw squad cars blocking every Westbound highway ramp, then I saw a helicopter and more squad cars, pretty much everywhere.

I had forgotten (VERY briefly) that it was April 19th (I know, how could I, right?). But right as I remembered, the Vice-Presidential motorcade zoomed by me on the Westbound side of the highway, presumably on a collision course for downtown Oklahoma City, to give some kind words to honor the fallen.

So for maybe a couple tenths of a second today I was less than a hundred feet from the VEEP. Not that I haven't been closer to a sitting Vice-President. My high school band-mates will recall our band performance for Bush 41 in 1988 (I think that was the year), where I was, what, twenty feet from the VP (not much more than that if any).

I predict this brush with importance will be the highlight of my day.

Relentless

The bad guys are just completely relentless, and it's getting rather tiresome. Tonight, for the third time since November, I found myself paying $180 to have a window fixed. It's really getting quite ridiculous. I must have some level of thanks, though, because they didn't get into my house this time.


So what was it that stopped them?

My fancy new alarm?
No. (in fact, they didn't seem to care about the big alarm sticker that was square in the middle of the window they broke)

My walking in on them in-progress?
No.

My big giant imaginary guard dog?
No.


It was the steel freakin' bars my dad put over the windows, drilled into the interior studs with 3 1/2" screws. They broke the window, gave a good swift kick to the bars, saw that it was useless and left. I am extremely thankful of my dad's effort in that regard (and I called him to tell him so, because I gave him such a hard time for wanting to do it in the first place), though I'm still out quite a bit of money for nothing. I didn't even have the police come over because it would have been a waste of their time to come look at my broken window. I've spent an hour and a half cleaning up glass and I'm still not done. There's just tiny pieces of glass EVERYWHERE it would seem. I definitely hate this.

So was it the same folks as before? I don't think so (hopefully because they're still in jail). Completely different M.O. These guys did the whole knock on the front door and since no one answered they must not be home so lets go around back and break-in thing. I know this because of how my screen door was situated when I got home. Definitely not how I left it this morning.

You know, I really don't have time for this right now. I really wish word would get around with them bad guy types that it's just not worth it.

Let me introduce you to... yourself

So a few minutes ago, I got a sales call from a nice woman at a hotel chain offering a discount vacation. Unfortunately what they had available didn't jive with my existing vacation plans for the year, not that any of that is the point of this entry. She tells me as we're talking that she was sitting next to a "Shawn Wright" (spelled the same way), and that after further discussion it turns out that his middle name is also Michael. So there we were talking about myself and my other self, which was strange indeed. I assured her, however, that my individualism is not compromised by this incident, as I own the "shawnwright.com" internet domain, and there can only be one of those.

I already knew there were hundreds (or maybe thousands) of people named "Shawn Wright" in the world (heck, a google search doesn't even show me in the top thirty), but there will be no confusing of shawnwright.com's.

Lazy Sunday (sort of)

After Sunday school, I took the girls to mass (they were supposed to go to 5pm mass yesterday with their step-grandmother, but that was impacted by the tournament), before we headed across town to meet the girls' aunt (my former sister-in-law), who is in town for a few days, for lunch (here's a pic). We had a typically wacky lunch (typical in that any lunch where the girls have an audience usually gets wacky), followed by ice cream cones and the park. We spent a solid two hours at the park, playing on the playground and then walking around a bit. Nearly the whole time we were walking around the girls were nagging me for their skates/scooters, so I eventually got those out of the car and they hit the trail for a bit.

After saying goodbye to their aunt, who had other people to meet up with before her short trip was over, the girls and I headed back to our side of town, but before going home ended up diverting to another park. Shelby complained (she's good at that) she didn't get to do some things she wanted to do at the park earlier, and since we weren't in a hurry to be anywhere, we stopped off at a different park on the way home. I let them play at least another hour and a half (which included more scootering/skating) before everybody got hungry and we took off for dinner.

Overall it was an extremely nice and relaxing day. I foresee a hectic week ahead, so it's probably good that we took the time to enjoy what was left of the weekend. It wasn't exactly filled with laying around or anything, but it was sort of a lazy day considering we didn't have to "do" anything.

It must have been the haircut

Not surprisingly, the day was no lazy Saturday. We got up quite early for Darby's game and were at the field by 8:30 for warm-ups, but the game that was supposed to start at 9am didn't start until fifteen minutes later due to technical difficulties with the pitching machine. The problem with that was the fact that Darby needed to leave the game early to attend a first communion class at church just down the street. I thought we'd get almost the whole game in, but we ended up leaving only half-way through it because of the delay.

After Darby's class and a CiCi's pizza lunch, we got her the haircut she'd been begging for of late. It's not been this short since she was a baby.



We had a 2pm softball game afterward, met with more delays. It was probably more than thirty minutes after the scheduled start time before we got to play because the previous game went on so long. It was another nail-biter as Darby's team was losing but then came back to tie it, only to be overtaken in the end. During the game, Darby had an excellent third-to-first put-out and a couple solid hits. The irony of the loss is that the girl that scored the go-ahead run for the other team was on Darby's team last year. So the question of the day is, did we lose because the other team overpowered us, or was it the haircut?

Since it was a double-elimination tournament, and since they lost this morning, that was it for us and the tournament. Had we won that last game we would have had to go grab some dinner and head back to the field for a third game of the day. Not that I'm going to say something crazy like we had enough baseball for a couple of days, but I was okay with that second loss considering they played so hard and almost pulled ahead against a very good opponent.

Five hours of baseball

It was one of those rush around late afternoons, having left work early so I could get the girls fed before a 6pm softball game and still have Darby at the field in time for warm-ups. The first tournament game was tonight, on the heels of yesterday's win, so the team was pretty excited. Darby had a couple of good hits, BUT nearly lost the game for the team on two occasions. It's a little unfair to make such a statement, but the facts are compelling. I had a discussion with Darby about it, hoping it came across as a lesson rather than ridicule.

Ahead by one run, with two outs, a grounder was hit to Darby's position, but instead of throwing the ball to first (as she had been told to do) for the third out and to conclude the inning, she threw it home to beat the runner heading in. That would have been fine, but the catcher missed the ball (a regular occurrence and thereby predictable), so the runner scored, while the runner on first was safe and also later scored. By the time the inning was over Darby's team was losing by a run instead of the other way around.

Later on in the nail-biter, the team tied it up again, and there was a winning run coming into home when... Darby got in the way of the runner, who was then tagged out before she reached home. Darby was on deck and a little anxious to get out there. She stepped up to the batter's box before the play was over and in the process kept her team from scoring and winning. She actually had done that twice in two innings so the umpire even had a talk with her about it. At that point it was into extra innings and that half a second delay created by Darby stepping into the runner's path extended the game many more minutes. Fortunately for Darby, she and the game were saved by the last minute heroics of her teammates. One of the newer girls on the team hit a nice one to shallow center, allowing our runner on second to get home to score the winning run (though not before a dramatic fall and slow recovery after rounding third). Holy cow, it was our second straight win, something not done before by this team.

Immediately after Darby's game, the girls and I headed to Bricktown for the RedHawks season opener. We missed the first two innings, but we got our money's worth in the end. The game went into extra innings and the RedHawks won it in style with a bottom-of-eleventh homer. The girls had a great time at the new ballpark playground built in the off-season (though it was clearly inundated with children), and they also enjoyed the fireworks after the game. What was not enjoyable was the hellatious traffic trying to get out of Bricktown on a Friday night after a home-opener near-attendance-record-setting game. I think we were sitting still for longer than it took us to get home once we broke free of the traffic. Plus it was late (after 11), and we found out after Darby's softball game that we have our next game at nine in the morning. That ought to be... adventurous.

No Tax Pressure

I'm SO glad I didn't put it off to the last minute this year. The last couple of years I got mine done reasonably early, but waited until the last minute to do my parents' taxes. But this year I've had all that done for weeks and it's so nice to not be worried about it. And with all the things going on, it couldn't have worked out better.

Eating chalk

Darby had an excellent game tonight, and the team had what I would call their first quality win of the season (i.e. we won it vs. the other team losing it). Darby had two singles and a run scored, and she had a couple good plays in the field. I can't really think of any glaring mistakes she made.

Well, maybe just one. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to eat the chalk that marks the foul line, but Darby got herself a nice taste of it. She would have had two singles and two runs scored, but after her first hit (which was really a single that Darby stretched into a triple due to bad throws), as she rounded third for home, the ball came in and she had to turn back for third. In doing so, she lost her footing and did a face-plant into the chalk-line. Below is a video clip. I stopped recording right after she fell, but she basically came into the dugout crying and the ENTIRE front of her uniform was covered with dirt and chalk (she later said she had dirt in her throat). I gave her a big hug for doing so well out there and coaxed her through walking it off while I reminded her of my similar dirt-eating experience during the Fall season, which got her smiling a bit.

We have another game tomorrow, our first of the weekend tournament games, but it's going to keep us away from the Oklahoma RedHawks home opener. If we can get out of there at a decent time, we may still try to catch part of the RedHawks game, especially since there are fireworks afterwards and Shelby can't get enough of the fireworks.

Photos, racing Darby, the weekend ahead, and oh yeah, cookie dough

The girls got their proofs back today from Spring school pictures. I scanned them in and put them up in the album pending receipt of the actual photos.

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At softball practice today, they were racing around the bases. It has always astonished me that Darby is one of the slower girls (but not the slowest) on her team, considering she is the tallest and has the longest legs by far. After practice I had her run around the bases one more time, only in an attempt to light a fire under her... feet, I chased her. I gave her a head start in that I did't leave home plate until she crossed first, and told her I should not be able to beat her to home plate, especially since I was still wearing work clothes and shoes (i.e. NOT sneakers). Well, I did beat her to home plate (with about a 4-foot lead) without my knee giving out (it felt like it might give out as I rounded third, how fortunate I was spare the embarrassment in front of all the parents). Needless to say I haven't let her hear the end of it. A few times already this season she's been barely thrown out a first and I attribute that in some degree to her running speed.

After practice, the coach announce that the team would be participating in a tournament this weekend, which means in addition to our game on Thursday, we'll have games Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as well. Ugh. Tournaments always makes for a particularly hectic weekend. Not to mention that it likely ruins my plan to take the girls to opening weekend of our local AAA team.
Lastly, if anyone (probably local) has an affinity for mass quantities of cookie dough, Darby's team is selling it as a fundraiser through Friday, so this is your last chance to get in on that action. It comes in 3-pound pails and we're selling chocolate chip, peanut butter, and M&M flavors.

Camcorder remnants, up for grabs

A couple weeks ago, I finally replaced my old camcorder that was stolen back in November with similarly-priced-but-quite-nicer model. However, the theives quite strangely didn't take the whole camcorder bag, just the camcorder itself, so now I'm left with the cables, A/C adapter, and remote control for the old model ( a Sony DCR-TRV19) just sitting there doing nothing, and of course not compatible with my new Sony DCR-HC42.

So, I've put the stuff up for grabs on eBay (here's a PDF version for you RURL victims) to see if I get any takers. So, if you have a Sony DCR-TRV19 (or know someone that does) and could use an extra power adapter or lost your remote or something like that, please go bid on my stuff.


UPDATE
Anti-RURL link re-RURL-proofed.


UPDATE, 20 APR
It didn't sell, so it has been re-listed (PDF), for cheaper. Please buy my stuff. Thanks.

Starting out strong

Darby had a good hitting game tonight with a solid single (the first hit of the game, a later the first run) and a ground out to first (which was almost another single), but the team in general made way too many fielding mistakes which blew their lead. Just about everyone came out hitting and scoring, which is good, but the overthrows and off target throws in the field just killed them.

Drawing blood

At Shelby's fencing tournament, before her first bout, she had a nose bleed. They actually had to skip her bout while her mother helped get the nosebleed stopped. But then there was blood on the front of her jacket the whole time so it looked like she had battle wounds. Though she didn't do much battling. As with her previous tournament, Shelby did a lot of backing-off instead of attacking, so she lost all of her bouts. For one half of one bout she did well at attacking, but then she got discouraged again. Not sure if we're going to do many more tournaments until she's more comfortable with attacking people bigger than her.

We're not the bloody colonies anymore!!!

I can mostly handle the excessive coverage of the pope's funeral, but this British wedding stuff has got to stop. It's just not that newsworthy folks. Every freakin news channel in America (read: NOT the colonies) has been showing live coverage of the wedding for hours now, and I'm about tired of it. Can we please move on?

Crikey.

Dangerously too easy

The company stock price went up today (as it is not a public company, it is adjusted by an independent firm quarterly based on our performance compared to similar public companies) by 4% since last quarter (15% over the last year), so I thought it would be a good time to execute those options that expire next year. Fortunately I've acquired enough stock over the years (mostly through bonus awards -- I just don't have that kind of expendable cash) that I was able to use in a stock for stock swap (meaning I trade in my higher priced shares for lower priced shares, no actual money changes hands), but it was an $11,000+ transaction that took less than five minutes online. It was kind of fun, but... too easy, and a bit dangerous. It's a good thing I'm not a gambler.

Today' s would be cool band name is...

From the if-I-had-a-rock-band-it-would-be-called department, I give you the product of today's lunchtime banter (excluding Rob's camcorder nostril-zoom, of course), inspired by the words of Vicki:

The Purple Infringements


Personally, I'd probably just go for a simpler form, "The Infringements", and a quick non-comprehensive google search finds no existing group of either name, so that's the new name of my non-band, until I like another better.

No drink for you

Darby had a good game, with a single, run scored and showing some decent defense. But the she messed it up by misbehaving in line for team drinks after the game, so I removed her from the line and we left the park. I must have told her a dozen times to settle down and stay in line. When another girl got in line ahead of her (because Darby wasn't quite in the line), she got into a shoving match with the girl and I got on her case to stop. She did stop, but then while the girl (Darby says) was "staring at her", Darby gave one last spiteful shove. That's when I pulled her out of line, at which point she oozed a little attitude my way. I told her she better not do that if she didn't want to get further embarrassed in front of her team. Of course, since we were in line for ten minutes, that was a great big waste of time.

That girl and her attitude sometimes. Sheesh.

Google maps kicks online mapping butt

Google Maps is the coolest thing since Gmail (which was the coolest thing since Blogger [which was the coolest thing since Google.com -- do we see a trend?]). If you haven't used it yet, you're missing out. And since they added satellite imagery recently, they leave everyone else in the dust.

Here's a composite I pieced together (for max resolution) of the building I work in (on the left) using Google Maps. Yes, all those little dots on the right of the building are cars (and mine's in there somewhere). My building is something like three-quarters of a mile long, and many times in the past I've groaned about the terrible parking. Here's the same composite image, but with parking notes for perspective. Those that think this is some kind of security problem should get a load of this (and this is public info!) before getting on my case about parking diagrams.

But the coolness doesn't stop there. Try driving directions. It's so cool that it overlays the route right on the sat. image. And the fact that you can click and drag the map just rocks compared to other online mapping sites where you have to click the nav buttons and wait for the page to reload.

Here's one more annotated sat. image (not a composite) of my former little corner of Northeast Philly. I used to walk between all those places. And it's still difficult to believe the mall I worked in back then is bigger than the building I work in now.

Opening Day "Expo"

I neglected to mention on Monday that the Phillies opened their season with a win against the Expos Nationals. Of course, they went and lost today to give the "new" franchise its first win.

My aspirations for the Phils this year? 90 wins. That's it. No division title, no wild card. Nothing grand. I'm aiming small this year. They've had two straight 86-win seasons, and I'd like to see a little improvement. Sure I'll take more, but if they make it to ninety wins and no further, I'll have no complaints. Am I being impractical? Maybe. But with ony two games down, this is the time for impracticality, as there is no data to contradict me.

Batting Practice

Darby's team had batting practice at the cages today. Darby did quite well, as did all of the girls on the team. She has a game tomorrow and if everyone does as well as they did at the cages, maybe they'll score a win.

I just realized that we'll have had five straight days of softball stuff come tomorrow. We had practice on Sunday, and with the game on Monday, practices yesterday and today, and the game tomorrow, I think Darby will have had softball up to her ears. We usually practice on Fridays, so that could be a sixth straight day, but I think I'm going to drop a hint with the coach about giving the girls a break. Especially since they have a game next Monday, too.

Ball Schedule, Tournament, and the Arts

I received Darby's softball schedule today. The calendar has been updated with all game dates. I also added a syndication link to the calendar and changed the way I'm labeling activities so that you get a nice quick listing of updates if you use a feed reader.

Shelby was signed up for a fencing tournament this weekend. This one is local, so at least we don't have to head up to Tulsa.

Lastly, it would appear that the girls have been selected to have their artwork on display at their school arts expo. Darby's will apparently also be on display at Oklahoma Christian University as well. Maybe Shelby's will be shown in both places, too, but I haven't received word of that yet.

Hey, watch the hair!

Darby had her first regular season ballgame tonight. They got stomped and Darby didn't have one of her better games, largely because she was distracted. There are a couple of new players on the team that happen to be a couple of her closest friends, so she was gabbing and generally not paying attention.

After the game I got a quick haircut that was nearly a disaster. The woman that cut my hair had her very young child (< 3 yrs) there with her that was wandering all over the place and getting into things. I'm not a real fan of my own hair, but I got real nervous on several occassions when she turned her head to yell at her daughter while cutting or clipping my hair. While I can appreciate being at work with the kiddos, I just wanted her to focus for the five minutes it takes to cut my hair...

Baptism and baseball

A day after the death of the pope, my children were baptised into the Catholic church. Below is a picture with godparents. We all had a nice lunch with gifts afterwards.



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Update, 5 April
I forgot to mention that before the baptism got underway, Shelby, in all her traditional flamboyance, called the deacon old because he had grey hair. It was typical Shelby but got a good laugh out of everyone else.

Oh, and while I got some good photos, I got no video of the event because my honors student little brother, who is a master computer and console video game player, doesn't know how to push the little red "REC" button on a camcorder. Sure, it looked like he pushed it, but apparently, he just touched it, because there's no new footage on the tape.
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Post-baptismal activities included almost three hours of baseball practice for Darby and I. It should only have been almost two hours, but dumb daddy over-compensated for daylight savings. Having nearly been burned by it this morning (woke up with 40-minutes to get the girls ready for Sunday school, mass, and baptism which were back to back to back), I added an hour to the time displayed on my cell phone, only to realize when we got to practice that my phone automatically adjusted to the new time, meaning we were there an hour early. So Darby and I got some extra practice in ourselves before the rest of the team showed up. But even then there was no resting for daddy as the coach was late and I decided to take over practice. Though the coach eventually showed up, he let me continue to run the practice, so my yesterday-skating-soreness and day-before-that-knuckle-soreness have been appended with baseball-playing-soreness.

I love that spring is finally REALLY here. And I love that baseball season is here. But I see now that I'll be more busy and less rested in the coming months, which makes me slightly (very very slightly) appreciate the lesser activeness of winter.

First burn

Shelby went to the Medival Fair with her mother this morning to watch some members of her fencing troop compete in sword fighting contests. She wore the belly dancer outfit she got from her aunt (a belly dancer) last Christmas and even danced a little with the belly dancers. But she got a nice sunburn out of the deal, her first of the season.

Darby had a first communion class and so couldn't go to the Med Fair. Instead I took her to her choice of lunch places, which was Nothing But Noodles, followed by a relaxing stroll along the Bricktown canal. It was the most perfect weather day in recent memory, as we walked the trail with a slight breeze blowing to keep the 70-degree temperature feeling just right under the cloudless blue sky. We walked just long enough for Darby to have worked off her lunch, so she then got some ice cream from Marble Slab. We could have just sat there all day in that awesome weather, but it was time to pick up Shelby at that point, so we knew our much enjoyed calm had come to an end.

After picking up Shelby we went skating/scootering at a lake trail. Darby and I had roller blades and Shelby had a scooter. It seemed like a good idea at the time as Shelby can barely skate, but we started to hear about it not long after we got underway. At one point she fell over, off the scooter, and then in racing back to get to her I fell onto my butt, too. Well, actually onto my side, which still hurts along with my elbow (and my fist from last night).

When the girls got tired of skating/falling, we put the skates up and they played at the park for a couple hours before we grabbed some dinner and spent a bit in a book store getting books for the girls' next book reports.

Confessions of a hand-talker

Those who know me know that I'm a hand-talker of the highest order. Tie my hands, tie my tongue.

Well, last night, while at my friend Scott's house, I punched a wall, full force, in the process of hand-talking (yes, everybody was watching... and yes, they all laughed at me). But I didn't just punch the wall, I punched the corner of the wall, and that corner went right between two knuckles. At the time, it didn't hurt so bad and I just kind of walked it off. But when I woke up this morning, my hand hurt like hell to move, or especially make a fist.

I am such a dumba$$.


You hear that people? DUMB. A$$.

Jim Rocks

Jim is the kind of friend that knows how to give gifts. Make them unexpected and super-cool. Knowing I'm both a Mike Schmidt and Todd McFarlane fan, he went and got me the ultimate meshing of the two, the McFarlane Toys Cooperstown Mike Schmidt figure. What a way to herald in the new baseball season.

Thanks, Jim. You rock.

Oh, boy

(Professional) life over the next ten days just got ginormously more complicated. Come back in a couple weeks for an explanation.