July Update

It's pretty clear that my blog has been neglected the past month.  Even without a 9-5 job July is pretty crazy busy.  I looked at the start of the month and there were about 5 days where Monica and I were actually free in the evenings and two of them were last night and tonight.  A couple others opened up, but it's busy, busy, busy.

Softball really becomes a dominant factor in July.  We have weeknight games which are always challenging to field a team. The playoffs start and takes a lot of time to get my team RSVPs and get ready for games.  As league commissioner there are a lot of little things to deal with -- questions, complaints, issues, players going postal on umpires, etc.  Oh and then I actually have to play softball.  We won our first two games, including knocking off the #1 seed which was a great start.  But then a bit injured and a bit shorthanded dropped our next two to finish in 3rd place.  3rd out of 11 teams isn't bad but when you think you have a championship caliber team and there are only 4 real contenders, 3rd of 4 isn't that exciting.  Still we had a pretty good year, had a lot of fun, and were well behaved.  My team actually likes each other which is a good thing.

Mariners.  Yuck.  Still going to a lot of games and watching/listening to my team.  Cubs, ditto though obviously I'm not going to games.  Can baseball season be over yet?  I can't recall a year where my teams had so much "potential" and were so terrible.  Can't believe the excitement is the Cubs reaching for .500 and the Mariners trying to avoid 100 losses.

Busy around the house.  Deck is done.  Hardwood floors are done.  I put in grout between the hardwood floor and the tile edges.  Learned a lot and will be easier next time.  Of course, "next time" will probably be 20 years down the road and I won't remember anything.  Don't you hate when that happens.  Have been watering plants and the lawn now that summer has arrived and it doesn't rain anymore.  Sadly everything is too wet in May and June and then dies in July and August.  Re-arranged the art with help from my parents.

My mom and dad visited for 5 days last weekend and I spent a lot of time running around town with them.  We mainly spent time at the Belleve Arts Fairs.  Monica and I bought a few things for our house and my parents found an anniversary gift for us -- though we have to pick what we want and order it -- but I'm not sure they actually bought anything despite hours of looking at arts and crafts.  They also helped with hanging art as noted.  They are helpful, but it's really more their presence inspires me to hang things up.  And dad likes putting up pictures.

Tommy has been getting acupuncture twice a week and will start the underwater treadmill next week.  We're trying to strengthen his back and legs or at least make sure they don't get any worse.  Cocoa has horrible yeast infections in his ears that won't quite clear up.  They're better especially in one ear, but we're still working on it.  Hunny Bear is good.  He's suddenly the easy one.

With all that, I really haven't played much poker.  I active in online forums thinking about my game, but really need to find time to play.  Hard to believe, but someone it never quite happens.

Busy doing little things

The hardwood floors are done.  Closet doors are back in finally.  Just need to grout a couple of transitions.

The deck is coming along nicely.  All the framing is done and decking is down for about 3/4 of the deck.  Should be pretty close by the end of next week.

We fired our house cleaners this week.  We've had the same cleaners since we moved in.  At first they did really good work but as staffing has changed and I think one of the girls has gotten board, service has gone downhill.  They're very slow and we find too much stuff that was outright missed. 

Slowly working on straightening some stuff up, but it seems to get messed up faster than I can put things away .

We're temporarily a five dog household.  Monica is watching two dogs while their families are away, coincidentally both beagles.  Well, Monica's business is getting paid to watch the dogs, but I'm watching them.  How do I handle having five dogs?  Not very well.

Getting ready to go to the All-Star game next week.  Quick one day in-and-out trip.

Piniella

Just had to vent as there are those who think Lou is a great manager.

Much as it pains me to admit, Derrek Lee is done.  This is hard to believe for a guy who was a superstar last year but 35-year-old first baseman often fall off a cliff.  Lee's OPS by month are 679, 733, 706, and 638 so far in July.  Anyone can have a bad month simply by not being "on" and getting unlucky.  Lee has had one bad month and two terrible months.  Digging deeper, Lee can't hit a fastball anymore.  It's possible he's hurt and not admitting it but either way he's totally unproductive.  Yet Piniella has run Lee out there every day hitting 3rd or 4th in the lineup.  And here's the thing, if I can figure out Lee is done, why can't Piniella.  Meanwhile he can't figure out how to get playing time for his four outfielders. 

Here's an idea -- have one of them take fielding practice at first base.  I suspect none of them have played first on a regular basis since high school if ever, but for a player with center fielder skills, first base should be easy to learn.  Might not make Fukudome the every day 1B, but with a fly ball pitcher on the mound and facing a right-hander that's the type of thing winning teams do.  And if you're going to play Lee, hit hit 6th or 7th.

Thankfully it sounds more and more like Lou is done after this year.

Poker Tournament Win

Been working on a lot of small projects over the past couple of weeks.

Had cousins in town last weekend -- on their way to an Alaska cruise -- and spent much of Thursday, all day Friday and Saturday evening with them.  Working on getting ready for 4th of July this week.  Cleaning up, though Monica doesn't notice it, planting plants, making lists and checking them twice.

I took a break today and played the 11 AM tournament at Hideaway.  As I've probably mentioned, this is the best local daily tournament as you start with 100 BB but it's still pretty fast.  Was able to grind my way through with great short stack play and bully the table, despite losing half my stack with QQ vs AA, ironically with both of us limping in.  One thing I like about this tournament is that the short stack play is terrible and any tournament like this involves mainly short stack play from about 12 players left.  Stole blinds, but really I won because I won a bunch of races, mostly as a slight underdog.  After the ugly QQ vs AA hand, I won KQ vs. 77, 33 vs a very short stack A6, KJ vs 99 for 75% of the chips, and on the final hand my JTs beat the small stacks Q6.  I raised on the button and he called.  Made a net of $300+.