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.
Showing posts with label softball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label softball. Show all posts
Saturday, July 31
Monday, June 21
TGIM
Yes, really. Thank goodness it's Monday. This was a crazy weekend. Saturday we went to the Edmonds Art Fair. Monica wanted to go to the Fremont Fair -- I don't really like the Fremont Fair but it's one of those things you do for love and I'm willing to go every 4 years or so. But I thought it would be fun to try something different. The Edmonds Art fair was actually pretty good. It's a lot like Salmon Days with a lot of arts, crafts, and food vendors (honey, spice rubs), along with a couple of concessions areas, though not as big. Monica was really happy we went. However we walked around for a couple hours, then decided to walk into downtown Edmonds and walk around for another hour, then walked up hill to the car. Add in a long drive there, a longer drive home to get around the traffic on I-5 and it's a long day. But it didn't end there as I went to the Mariners game that night.
Sunday we got up all took all three dogs to the Furry 5K. They start the walk at 10 AM because they want to be done and get the dogs away before it gets hot. Hah! It was mid 50s and rainy. Monica and I were wet, a bit cold, and a bit unhappy. The dogs were all filthy messes but they had a great time. Unfortunately at the end of the walk, we just wanted to get home rather than spend much time at the vendor booths. Got back to the car and headed home just as the rain got a lot worse. The walk wasn't as exhausting physically as it was mentally.
Got home just in time to get a call from the JCC Softball League Coordinator about whether we should cancel softball games. This is the un-fun part of being league chair. People want to play, and you have to play in rain in Seattle, but no one wants to get hurt on wet outfield grass. They installed turf fields so the infields can take a lot of water. We'd already had one injury so we decided to cancel the rest of the day. Of course, 30 minutes later the rain stopped. Still I think the fields were really, really wet and the outfields weren't safe.
Had some lunch then took a nice hot shower. Then I went to the Storm game Sunday night. Great game, though Sue Bird got hurt.
Now it's Monday and I can relax and get some stuff done around the house. Though all I'm actually doing is email and blogging.
Sunday we got up all took all three dogs to the Furry 5K. They start the walk at 10 AM because they want to be done and get the dogs away before it gets hot. Hah! It was mid 50s and rainy. Monica and I were wet, a bit cold, and a bit unhappy. The dogs were all filthy messes but they had a great time. Unfortunately at the end of the walk, we just wanted to get home rather than spend much time at the vendor booths. Got back to the car and headed home just as the rain got a lot worse. The walk wasn't as exhausting physically as it was mentally.
Got home just in time to get a call from the JCC Softball League Coordinator about whether we should cancel softball games. This is the un-fun part of being league chair. People want to play, and you have to play in rain in Seattle, but no one wants to get hurt on wet outfield grass. They installed turf fields so the infields can take a lot of water. We'd already had one injury so we decided to cancel the rest of the day. Of course, 30 minutes later the rain stopped. Still I think the fields were really, really wet and the outfields weren't safe.
Had some lunch then took a nice hot shower. Then I went to the Storm game Sunday night. Great game, though Sue Bird got hurt.
Now it's Monday and I can relax and get some stuff done around the house. Though all I'm actually doing is email and blogging.
Tuesday, May 18
Day 11, Cocoa's Birthday
Today was Cocoa's 6th birthday. He got some steak with breakfast, took a nap, then I dropped him off at daycare to hang out with his friends. There's a great picture of him on my and Monica's Facebook pages. Cocoa also got some steak for dinner.
Spent most of the day dealing with a couple of issues from the softball league where the rules are a bit ambiguous... and I thought we had fixed all the loopholes and confusion years ago. Also looked into purchasing a second home, either to flip it or as a rental. The previous owners started an illegal conversion to a duplex -- they never got any permits -- and then the bank foreclosed on them. The house is in limbo -- either the conversion needs to get the legal approval and be completed, or it needs to be reversed back to single-family housing and the bank certainly isn't going to spend any money to do so -- so it's selling at a big discount. Unclear how much work and time would be required to fix it.
Picked up Cocoa. The day care put a birthday hat on Cocoa and took a picture of him. He's adorable. Cocoa got more steak for dinner. I think he ate better than I did today. Then I made dinner for Monica and I -- salmon and brown rice -- and as I type this the brownies are out of the oven and cooling. Mmm, time for dessert.
Spent most of the day dealing with a couple of issues from the softball league where the rules are a bit ambiguous... and I thought we had fixed all the loopholes and confusion years ago. Also looked into purchasing a second home, either to flip it or as a rental. The previous owners started an illegal conversion to a duplex -- they never got any permits -- and then the bank foreclosed on them. The house is in limbo -- either the conversion needs to get the legal approval and be completed, or it needs to be reversed back to single-family housing and the bank certainly isn't going to spend any money to do so -- so it's selling at a big discount. Unclear how much work and time would be required to fix it.
Picked up Cocoa. The day care put a birthday hat on Cocoa and took a picture of him. He's adorable. Cocoa got more steak for dinner. I think he ate better than I did today. Then I made dinner for Monica and I -- salmon and brown rice -- and as I type this the brownies are out of the oven and cooling. Mmm, time for dessert.
Monday, May 17
Friday and the weekend (long)
Friday I finished cleaning our outdoor furniture and moving it upstairs to the deck. We now have 10 chairs and a "bench", so it's more work than it sounds. Though it's mainly tedious -- lots of trips around the house. I moved our table on Sunday. It's big, glass, and heavy; that was actually work. And when I thought I was done, Monica said "hey let's put one chair downstairs so I can sit with the dogs". Score one point for well-written acceptance criteria.
Met my friend Jay for lunch on Friday and got to catch up. Jay's sort of like Griffey, Jr. -- he was the face and the star of our softball team for a number of years but was often injured and those injuries have finally led him to retire. What's that? Griffey hasn't retired yet?
Spent a lot of time over the weekend working on taxes, mainly stock sales, interest, and dividends. This is where having managed accounts -- like mutual funds but you own actual stocks -- becomes a pain. Lots and lots of stock transactions. Import/download is a life saver, but verifying is still a fair amount of work. Yuck!
In more fun stuff, Saturday I helped man the both for Monica at the Redmond pet fair. My role is basically to watch the booth when she needs a break and keep her company. It isn't busy enough and I don't really know enough about Ttouch or pet adoption counseling to share the booth. For the first time she's set up at one of these things, it was actually useful. I don't know if she'll actually get anyone who calls, but she talked to a number of people who seemed very interested in her services, took her card, and should call her. On of our observations mid-way through the day was that 10-3 was too long for this event. Everyone started packing up their booths at 2:30, so I guess we weren't alone in that view. I walked outside at 2:25 to get some fresh air and when I came back 1/3 of the "vendors" were gone. I think once the first person bailed, everyone else decided it was OK to follow suit. By 3:00, there was no one left.
Saturday night we went to a great dinner at Ruth's Chris, separate post coming. Sunday was mainly running around. We had softball in the morning and played one of the key games of the season. Before the 2008 season I split our team in two. We had developed a group of players who thought recreational co-ed softball was all about winning and not about having fun (OK they liked to have fun, but their idea of fun was winning). Their attitudes sucked and it made it no fun to play on Sunday. I kicked a couple people off the team a few of their friends from my team joined them and they decided to recruit a bunch of good players and form their own team. I wouldn't say this team is our rival but they're one of the better teams in the division, they care a lot about the final score, and half the players used to be on our team, so the game is special. We scored 3 runs in the top of the first and never trailed though the game was a toss up until we pulled away in the 6th and 7th innings. We played terrific defense which was the key and got them out running the bases four or five times, though the umpire missed one of the outs. Final was 13-6.
Sunday afternoon Hunny Bear had an acupuncture appointment. And then Sunday evening I went to the Storm Opening Night. The game was sloppy as I'd expect. Training camp is about 3 weeks in the WNBA and the star players don't get back from overseas until the last week. So you're watching a team that's practiced together for about 4 days. It was pretty ugly at times and the Storm had long stretches where they didn't score, but in the end they beat LA, their #1 rival, by about 10 points.
Oh yeh, Sprint 3 planning Sunday night.
Met my friend Jay for lunch on Friday and got to catch up. Jay's sort of like Griffey, Jr. -- he was the face and the star of our softball team for a number of years but was often injured and those injuries have finally led him to retire. What's that? Griffey hasn't retired yet?
Spent a lot of time over the weekend working on taxes, mainly stock sales, interest, and dividends. This is where having managed accounts -- like mutual funds but you own actual stocks -- becomes a pain. Lots and lots of stock transactions. Import/download is a life saver, but verifying is still a fair amount of work. Yuck!
In more fun stuff, Saturday I helped man the both for Monica at the Redmond pet fair. My role is basically to watch the booth when she needs a break and keep her company. It isn't busy enough and I don't really know enough about Ttouch or pet adoption counseling to share the booth. For the first time she's set up at one of these things, it was actually useful. I don't know if she'll actually get anyone who calls, but she talked to a number of people who seemed very interested in her services, took her card, and should call her. On of our observations mid-way through the day was that 10-3 was too long for this event. Everyone started packing up their booths at 2:30, so I guess we weren't alone in that view. I walked outside at 2:25 to get some fresh air and when I came back 1/3 of the "vendors" were gone. I think once the first person bailed, everyone else decided it was OK to follow suit. By 3:00, there was no one left.
Saturday night we went to a great dinner at Ruth's Chris, separate post coming. Sunday was mainly running around. We had softball in the morning and played one of the key games of the season. Before the 2008 season I split our team in two. We had developed a group of players who thought recreational co-ed softball was all about winning and not about having fun (OK they liked to have fun, but their idea of fun was winning). Their attitudes sucked and it made it no fun to play on Sunday. I kicked a couple people off the team a few of their friends from my team joined them and they decided to recruit a bunch of good players and form their own team. I wouldn't say this team is our rival but they're one of the better teams in the division, they care a lot about the final score, and half the players used to be on our team, so the game is special. We scored 3 runs in the top of the first and never trailed though the game was a toss up until we pulled away in the 6th and 7th innings. We played terrific defense which was the key and got them out running the bases four or five times, though the umpire missed one of the outs. Final was 13-6.
Sunday afternoon Hunny Bear had an acupuncture appointment. And then Sunday evening I went to the Storm Opening Night. The game was sloppy as I'd expect. Training camp is about 3 weeks in the WNBA and the star players don't get back from overseas until the last week. So you're watching a team that's practiced together for about 4 days. It was pretty ugly at times and the Storm had long stretches where they didn't score, but in the end they beat LA, their #1 rival, by about 10 points.
Oh yeh, Sprint 3 planning Sunday night.
Thursday, May 13
Week 2
After another typical weekend -- Mariners lose, softball team wins -- it's back to work.
This week I've been keeping an eye on our dogs while parts of the remodel are in progress. I was going to put them in daycare, but they're actually been pretty good about staying out of the way and not barking at the workers or all the noise. Nailing in a hardwood floor is noisy, but Tommy sleeps right through it.
Monday the hardwood guy got to work installing boards and my painters arrived. Fortunately the were working around each other. When we moved in we removed a divider from the bottom of the stairs and patched the walls and ceiling but never painted. I picked up some paint six months ago to see if I could get a match, but it was never on the top of the to do list. Sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind but more after staring at the ugliness every day, we just learned to live with it. But with hardwoods going in, we wanted to paint first rather than risk getting paint on the new wood floors. In the end, we cut out a chunk of the wall and did a color match. They were able to feather in the paint to avoid painting the 15" wall above the stairwell and perhaps other walls to match which was a great saving of time and money. Hard to explain really; you have to see it.
Tuesday the hardwood installer got most of the floor done and Wednesday he finished up with the hallway and the edges. Looks great and it hasn't been sanded or finished yet.
Meanwhile I've been working on planning my trip to Las Vegas and it looks like it's a go. I'll be there May 24th through June 4th. Have airfare, hotels, and a rental car booked. I'm staying off the strip at Alexis Park the first week to keep my costs down. Even Imperial Palace wants $200 for Saturday over Memorial Day weekend, then moving to IP the second week where I have 4 nights for $85! My plan is rather than to play poker non-stop to actually have a vacation. See some shows, walk down the strip, maybe sit by the pool. Get away from the strip to see some other parts of Vegas. And really before 11 AM the poker action isn't that good.
Also working around the house. It seems the laundry never stops, even for just the two of us. I've been catching up on entering our financial records into MS Money in preparation for doing our taxes. Yes, I haven't even started taxes yet. Finished reseeding the back yard. Dogs and dog "output" do a number on a lawn. I can't believe how bad it looks just a year after we put down sod. Seeding is more work than it sounds like. Had to loosen up the soil in lots of places and work the seed into the dirt. Otherwise it just washes away. The lawn eeds a lot of TLC (and a lot of water) this year. Hope to see some grass and hope in a couple of weeks.
I installed a keyless entry for the garage. That was actually a fun project where I felt like I accomplished something rather than started something that will eventually finish. Our garage is attached to our house but is external so the door is locked and it's a pain to unlock it, every time to go into the garage. I looked at doing this when we first moved in, but didn't see one that would work. Maybe it's a new model, but this was pretty easy to install and only took an hour and works great.already.
Also made a trip to the vet. Hunny Bear and Cocoa are fine -- still needs another round of meds for his yeast infection -- but Tommy has problems with ears and eyes. And it's almost impossible for us to medicate him. He sees the dropper bottle coming for his ears or eyes and he runs. When you catch him he shakes and jerks his head. Try putting eye drops in while shaking -- impossible. That's my challenge foe the week.
This week I've been keeping an eye on our dogs while parts of the remodel are in progress. I was going to put them in daycare, but they're actually been pretty good about staying out of the way and not barking at the workers or all the noise. Nailing in a hardwood floor is noisy, but Tommy sleeps right through it.
Monday the hardwood guy got to work installing boards and my painters arrived. Fortunately the were working around each other. When we moved in we removed a divider from the bottom of the stairs and patched the walls and ceiling but never painted. I picked up some paint six months ago to see if I could get a match, but it was never on the top of the to do list. Sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind but more after staring at the ugliness every day, we just learned to live with it. But with hardwoods going in, we wanted to paint first rather than risk getting paint on the new wood floors. In the end, we cut out a chunk of the wall and did a color match. They were able to feather in the paint to avoid painting the 15" wall above the stairwell and perhaps other walls to match which was a great saving of time and money. Hard to explain really; you have to see it.
Tuesday the hardwood installer got most of the floor done and Wednesday he finished up with the hallway and the edges. Looks great and it hasn't been sanded or finished yet.
Meanwhile I've been working on planning my trip to Las Vegas and it looks like it's a go. I'll be there May 24th through June 4th. Have airfare, hotels, and a rental car booked. I'm staying off the strip at Alexis Park the first week to keep my costs down. Even Imperial Palace wants $200 for Saturday over Memorial Day weekend, then moving to IP the second week where I have 4 nights for $85! My plan is rather than to play poker non-stop to actually have a vacation. See some shows, walk down the strip, maybe sit by the pool. Get away from the strip to see some other parts of Vegas. And really before 11 AM the poker action isn't that good.
Also working around the house. It seems the laundry never stops, even for just the two of us. I've been catching up on entering our financial records into MS Money in preparation for doing our taxes. Yes, I haven't even started taxes yet. Finished reseeding the back yard. Dogs and dog "output" do a number on a lawn. I can't believe how bad it looks just a year after we put down sod. Seeding is more work than it sounds like. Had to loosen up the soil in lots of places and work the seed into the dirt. Otherwise it just washes away. The lawn eeds a lot of TLC (and a lot of water) this year. Hope to see some grass and hope in a couple of weeks.
I installed a keyless entry for the garage. That was actually a fun project where I felt like I accomplished something rather than started something that will eventually finish. Our garage is attached to our house but is external so the door is locked and it's a pain to unlock it, every time to go into the garage. I looked at doing this when we first moved in, but didn't see one that would work. Maybe it's a new model, but this was pretty easy to install and only took an hour and works great.already.
Also made a trip to the vet. Hunny Bear and Cocoa are fine -- still needs another round of meds for his yeast infection -- but Tommy has problems with ears and eyes. And it's almost impossible for us to medicate him. He sees the dropper bottle coming for his ears or eyes and he runs. When you catch him he shakes and jerks his head. Try putting eye drops in while shaking -- impossible. That's my challenge foe the week.
Monday, June 15
Woo hoo, softball
Our softball team finally won a game this weekend to move up to 1-7. Funny thing is unlike all of my brother's teams, this team isn't bad at all. We've played even with the top teams in the league. Seems like our good games are against good teams and our bad games -- missing people or didn't play well -- are against the teams we should beat. Good news is every team makes the playoffs as we'll be ready.
Our house is coming along. We're replacing the carpet downstairs with a tile floor. Should increase cleanliness and reduce allergens. Time to think about painting/staining outside now that it's warm.
Our house is coming along. We're replacing the carpet downstairs with a tile floor. Should increase cleanliness and reduce allergens. Time to think about painting/staining outside now that it's warm.
Wednesday, April 23
Taking Responsibility
Yesterday I left voice messages for five different people, two left for businesses before 9 AM. In three cases I was doing someone the courtesy of responding to their message or email and in three cases I was calling a cell phone (two overlapped) where I'd think I'd be able to reach someone in the first place. Just about every call required a two-minute discussion.
None of the people called me back yesterday though one did just email me back this AM -- to say he found other Mariners tickets. Now I don't expect people to drop everything when I call or they get a voice mail from me. But each of my calls had some sense of time sensitivity, in some cases for the callee. Have people lost common courtesy. Do people not take responsibility anymore for communication? Are we all too busy surfing the Internet to have a human conversation?
I admit some of the pot calling the kettle black, but my frustration is the underlying sense that three days from now I'll still be waiting for responses.
None of the people called me back yesterday though one did just email me back this AM -- to say he found other Mariners tickets. Now I don't expect people to drop everything when I call or they get a voice mail from me. But each of my calls had some sense of time sensitivity, in some cases for the callee. Have people lost common courtesy. Do people not take responsibility anymore for communication? Are we all too busy surfing the Internet to have a human conversation?
I admit some of the pot calling the kettle black, but my frustration is the underlying sense that three days from now I'll still be waiting for responses.
Tuesday, May 15
Softball Season
(or our 15 minutes of fame isn't over yet)
Most of you know that Monica and I met playing softball and continue to play in the league making us busy on Sundays throughout the summer. What you may not know (or not remember) is that I'm the chair of the league softball committee which oversees the league, effectively making me the commissioner. The season started May 6th and we played and won our first game this past Sunday. When I say "we", I mean the Jay Berry's team. Monica has decided to play on a different team this year for a number of reasons.
Also the seattle Jewish newspaper has a story about the league on their new web site; I'm not sure if it will make the print edition. I was interviewed for the article and the story of how Monica and I met is the lead. Check it out!
Most of you know that Monica and I met playing softball and continue to play in the league making us busy on Sundays throughout the summer. What you may not know (or not remember) is that I'm the chair of the league softball committee which oversees the league, effectively making me the commissioner. The season started May 6th and we played and won our first game this past Sunday. When I say "we", I mean the Jay Berry's team. Monica has decided to play on a different team this year for a number of reasons.
Also the seattle Jewish newspaper has a story about the league on their new web site; I'm not sure if it will make the print edition. I was interviewed for the article and the story of how Monica and I met is the lead. Check it out!
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