Well, the optimist that I am (at times) was sort of hoping for a great picture to celebrate the 500th post on the Tales, but unfortunately, none of my plans came to fruition last night and I'm sort of left with very little, if not nothing. Well, I just figured out how to get the pictures from my camera's internal memory onto the Memory Stick, so I do have something. Yay!



It really isn't too much of a picture, but at least it's something. A little bit more colour to brighten up the Tales a bit. It was taken in the backyard as I was waiting for Chris to get ready to step out to the pub last night. The sun was just barely poking through the trees and I thought, 'why not?'

But maybe I'll back it up a bit in the day and sort of start from scratch here.

As it turned out, I was shit-kicked pretty good at work yesterday. The final count of new filings on my holiday Monday was 11 new ones, plus the 3 or 4 that were left over from the week before. It was almost an official shitting of one's self... a jaw-dropping discovery, if you will. So, I spent a good hour or so sorting out what needed to be done for when and got myself organized for the rest of the day. I got started on my BIG one that was due for the end of the day, 135 pages, 68 of which were PDF and the other bunch were an interesting combination of text and tables. A challenge like no other. All in all, it took me 3+ hours to finish it up, thankfully it was pretty okay when it passed through the proofing stage of the client or else I would have screamed. But before finishing, I had employed Fred to help me out a bit. If that big one didn't take up the gist of my morning, I would have been fine finishing up everything that was due today by myself. Unfortunately, I just wasn't that lucky. On the bright side, everything I could accomplish for yesterday was completed on time, a couple pending customer proofing, but was finished on our end on time. Thankfully.

The stress was somewhat interesting though... it made my sore shoulder almost seize up a little bit more and stretched the pain over to the other shoulder. I thought for sure that I was gonna end up really feeling it by the end of the day, but by the cut-off time for yesterday rolled around, I was done, the stress was lifting and my sore shoulder became a lot less sore... as if to say the relieving of the stress, relieved whatever tightness or soreness I had in my shoulder from the night before. Hooray!

Just as I was finishing up work, I thought I'd give Barb a call, as per the plan. As I did, I had a slight chill brush over me thinking that we weren't gonna be goin' out at all... and as it turned out... the chill foretold the truth. A cousin of her's from Bermuda was up in town for one night only and she had to go see him last night. We sort of hummed and hawed at another idea, thinking that lunch on one of her day's off would be a tad too short of a visit (that's actually what she said!!) and that when she gets off work on Friday night, she'll give me a call and see where I am or what I'm up to. Works for me... but later, I sent her a message saying that despite our possible Friday get-together, we should still meet for lunch this week. I was feeling a tad greedy... heh heh.

So, when I got home... no one was around. I flipped on the TV and relaxed, made dinner and watched the Hurricanes and Sabres play Game 6. But hangin' out with the animals was a tad boring... Chris wasn't home yet from his later shift at work... so I ended up nodding off during the third period, waking up to see Bret Hedican's tying goal to send the game to overtime. Then I nodded off again during the intermission, waking up to watch the 5 minutes of overtime before Daniel Briere scored to win it for the Sabres and send it to Game 7.

When the game had ended, I was still yawning like a motherfucker... so I thought I would just skip off to bed. Costas was freakin' me out with his constant staring and Maggie was just milling about... so I thought, 'sod them' and I went off to bed. I wasn't there for long though... when I was laying there it finally dawned upon me that today, the 31st, would be the end of the month and that rent would be due here pretty quick. And since the bank is right next to the pub... well..... you'll generally figure out what comes next. So, I got dressed again, tidied myself up a bit and looked out the back after coming out of the bathroom... and low & behold... there was Chris's car... so I gave him a bell. Lucky enough, he was okay to go for a couple... so we did. And that's where the picture up above came from.

Okay... now that I've caught up with everything now!

So, I picked up the rent money for June... we went and had a couple pints at the Yardhouse and then it was home for us.

At home, the girls were home and now I've found for sure that Karli will be stayin' with us for quite a while, by the sounds of things. She had a bad night last night with her new boyfriend... I think what I heard is that he has a pretty good drug problem and gets her to give him money for it... or something along those lines and/or she wasn't getting along with some of his friends. It seemed like a pretty good soap opera, which I didn't really need to delve into at all. But as it is now, the house will play along the lines of Three's Company... you can just call me John Ritter from now on... or Jack Tripper, as the character is aptly named.

Chrissy: Jack, I have a two-part question... Why?
Jack: How is that a two-part question?
Chrissy: [turning to Janet] We both want to know!

Somehow, I see that coming... I think I'll keep the Three's Company page on IMDB.com bookmarked for future reference. I'll probably be able to find some of the quotes quite useful.

Jen was also going on at long lengths about this guy-friend she had run into earlier this week, Greg. This ex-boyfriend, but still a friend, had approached her the other day out of the blue and as it turned out, he has had 10 percent of his brain removed from tumors and such and is now living at a hospice in town somewhere. The compassionate one that she is, has been rather troubled by this all week. Now, it seems to me that she hasn't seen this Greg fella in who knows how long(???) and now that he's quite possibly on his last legs, she'll have to see him as much as possible. That's not quite in my realm of reason, but I do seem to understand and have grasped a better understanding of who Jen is. That will probably be saved for another post.

Anyways... that was pretty much the day yesterday. Somehow, I really stretched it out on the post... not quite the celebratory post I was hoping for... the little picture for a title will be the best I'll do for it. Hopefully, there will be some better posts to come in the next 500.

Post #499

A Tuesday that feels like a Monday... how novel. This was a picture I quickly snapped walking through Prince's Island Park yesterday. The afternoon was actually quite nice as I took a walk into the core to sort myself out the hat from the Keith's bottle, which turned out to be a really nice Alexander Keith's hat, made by Roots. It actually is one of those nice-fitting caps, unlike the shallow sort of hats that Roots makes for themselves. They must have realized that most beer drinkers have really big heads... or have lots of hair.

All afternoon, Karli was trying to nap on our front couch. I'm thinking somewhere along the line I mis-understood Jen when she said Karli would be sleeping over a few nights for that she'll practically be living with us for a little while. Seemingly odd and sort of out of the blue... what had seemed to have happened is that Karli has now officially left her boyfriend of 3 years, for whom she moved to Calgary with, to be with another guy, who probably lives with his folks, definitely a younger fella, and now she needs a place to crash as she gets herself sorted out. Of course, I have had to figure this out for myself, which is probably the worst part of it all. So it turned out that I was tip-toeing around the house all afternoon, instead of relaxing in front of the TV, but I suppose that isn't the worst thing, since there wasn't anything like hockey on. It was just a Monday's worth of TV.

Soon enough though, it was rollin' around the time that I wanted to get out to the ballpark. There was a spot of rain that flew by the house early in the afternoon as I was sitting around and/or making a bite to eat, but the skies seemed to clear up quite well. I had decided, since there wasn't a great deal to do, I thought I would get to the park early, get a few rounds in the batting cages to warm up. I picked up a few beers on the way to the park, for afterwards, and then drove over to Shouldice.

I took about 80 pitches in the cage, taking me a while to try and find the groove that I should be in. I'm finding that when I'm at the plate, I'm going up there and taking way too big of a step forward, thus my eyes change position and I don't see the ball in the same place for when I try and swing, causing a huge swing & a miss. So, the exercise of the 80 pitches was to calm down and just get the bat on the ball, from both sides of the plate. Hindsight here is 20/20 as I really didn't get all my stretches in before taking the swings of the bat in the cage. Now, my left shoulder blade hurts like a bastard, which it continued to do through the game and when I went to bed, which made sleep pretty uncomfortable all night.




After the cages, I went over to the diamond and Rollie, the assistant coach of the team, was already standing behind the diamond that we were going to be playing at and this was before 7pm. Our game was at 8:45pm, which I was super-early for as well, but thought I would watch some of the games, just in case we were playing one of these teams in the late game. As it turned out, we were playing the backcatcher, number 21's team from Canmore in the late game, so it was a little bit of a scouting job before our game.

The game before us was pretty close. The Canmore team ended up beating the other team, CBA, 7-0 on a default decision. The first baseman for CBA got called out on a seemingly questionable play, where he thought he was so incredibly safe that he lost it. Fuckin' this and fuck that... givin' the ump a lot of shit, eh. Well, he got chucked from the game, no surprise, but he didn't leave the park as you're supposed to when you get chucked. So after an entire inning of hanging around the dugout, the ump called the game (without warning) giving Canmore the 7-0 win. Well... an eruption of sorts from CBA and blah, blah, blah... it just wasn't the most sporting of finishes to a game, that's for sure.

Since the game had ended, we were now free to take the field and start warming up for our game against Canmore. The shoulder was hurting, but not too much... just enough to slightly be a bother. The warm-ups sort of proved that I could play through the night, but the colder, wetter air that was coming across the sky, probably wasn't gonna help things too much. Yeah, it was thinking about the rain that was forecasted when we were warming up, so we were all pretty anxious to get the game started.

The game went fairly well for us. Not the greatest outing, but still not too bad. The umps were still sort of licking their wounds from getting shocked by the game before. Yes, we had the same umps, probably for pay reasons. The strikezone for Allan was pretty inconsistent and some of the calls were a tad bogus, but we prevailed in spite of them 7-5. Our first inning was finally worthy of mention, in the good fashion, as we almost hit around for 5 runs. Allan hit a 2-run homer and then Menzies hit a single bomb for back-to-back jacks. Very impressive and really got the team going. But Canmore kept themselves in it, for the most part. A responding homer to lead off the bottom half of the inning and then they just tried to claw back runs though the game. But we held on.

I didn't figure too prominently through the game. I had gone 0 for 4, striking out once. For some reason, I didn't get a bunt signal in the first after Munden had reached base, so I was swinging away, which kind of caught me off-guard a bit. No excuses though. And then in the field, I pretty much got nothing. I was really only a cheerleader for the most part on the field, but it seemed to help. Without Tom there last night (since he's away on business), I took a bit more of a leadership role and helped a few of the guys out through the game. It kind of fit for me and it'll probably help if I go with them to provincials and coach them there as well.

Since we won, we hung around the car after the game and had a beer. That was pretty good. Gets a good spirit of the team with a few of the guys. Alex, Aaron, Menzies and Munden all stayed around and we chatted for a bit. We finished up awfully late, getting away from the park after 11pm.

I got home to find Karli sleeping on the couch again, which again, I wanted to wind down with a little telly before I nodded off. Nope... wasn't gonna be. Dammit... so straight to bed with my mp3 player. And yeah, the shoulder was pretty uncomfortable overnight. It sure took me quite a while to fall asleep in what seemingly was the most comfortable position in bed.

This morning, it's still pretty sore. If I could have stayed in the shower a lot longer and possibly had an in-house masseuse, then I'd probably be okay. But I don't... so it's probably gonna be pretty sore all day today too.

On the personal front, I caved in again and called Barb up to see what she was doing yesterday. She was actually working the Monday, but had today, Wednesday and Thursday off, so I'm gonna give her a call tonight after work and see what she's up to. Hopefully get out and about. Kristy, on the other hand, wasn't able to do anything yesterday either, having lunch with clients and having to wait for her older brother to finish work, but she said she'd be free probably on Saturday afternoon, so I'll give her a call then and then we can finally catch up a bit.

Otherwise, it looks like today, I'm gonna get pretty badly beaten with a quite a few smaller filings that came in on my day off. I have much doubt that anyone even looked at them and I might get a tad swamped. It's a good thing I got to work early so I can write this post. So, I best be going now, then I can sort out all these little ones, work on the two big ones I have and then see where it goes from there. Ciao!

Post #498

Look at that, eh? I'm almost coming up on my 500th post on the Tales. That's kind of exciting. I have already passed the 1-year anniversary of the Tales without real mention, but I think the number of posts make the biggest mention.

There hasn't been a lot of time since the last post, granted, but the head sure has been rolling again. I was writing text messages to Barb, without her number on the phone, which would be a disaster if I had been drinking. Nah, I saved what I wrote and put it on the Scribblings this morning, 'cuz it does seem to me to be a small keeper. There is a certain level of impatience with myself (not so much her, since I think it'll have to be me to find out for sure) when I'm by myself in the quiet contemplation of the time before sleep.

May 28 - Hooligans - Postponed
May 29 - Royals
May 31 - Royals - Game 1
May 31 - Royals - Game 2
Jun 1 - Possible make-up for Royals or Cruisers
Jun 4 - Hooligans @ 3pm

So that's my schedule this week for ball... I'm playing tonight at Shouldice @ 8:45pm... hopefully, we get ourselves a game like we had last week, the big win. A doubleheader on Wednesday, possibly another game for the Royals on Thursday, but we'll find out about that tonight, I'm hoping. There is thundershowers in the forecast tonight, so we may be lucky to get our game in tonight and there will be some make-up games to be had later in the year.

I got some running around to start thinking about... it's coming up on 10:30am already. I want to give Kristy a call around 10:30am, see if she's available for lunch, rather than her client lunches or if we should go out for a drink after work. Which might work too.

And then I'll leave you with today's image. Jen's cat, Maggie, has been hangin' out with me this morning. With my hair in the mornings, I think the cat believes we're almost the same species. Ha ha.



She was making a weird "cackle" this morning at the birds outside the window that she's sitting at there. Jen had told me about it before, but I had just heard for the first time this morning. It's actually quite funny to hear, but not quite as "cackling" as I would have expected.

I want to take more photos each day to colour up the Tales. I'm hoping to get something really good for post #500, but I'm not putting any expectation on it at all.

The Rest of the Day

Rain out. No game. No practice... so a full day to do pretty much whatever. So... Chris and I decided to go for a walk down to the Lilac Festival by ourselves.



We thought if it was just the two of us, then we wouldn't have to wait for any of the girls to make stops here and there to look at the crappy bits of jewelery or cheap entertainment. Chris and I just wanted to just go do a quick circuit through, since he had never been to it before and I've been a few times... it's mostly just the large crowds of people down 4th Street SW, hanging out, listening to music, getting their palms read and sampling all the delicious treats along the street. All of which is mildly amusing, but we were mostly people watching. We also sort of thought it would be cool to find Jen a tacky piece of room furnishings that we could laugh at consistently, but unfortunately, it was only little trinkets and jewelery to be had and nothing too tacky to display at the house.

Afterwards, we walked around the malls for a while looking for the perfect thing to eat. Not finding the best food for the longest while. We had stopped in Play to look for some CDs, but I couldn't justify any new purchases, although I was looking for some Death Cab For Cutie, as it is one of those bands that Barb keeps recommending (you know, when I see her). But nah... I managed to sit down with a small bowl from the Tiki-Ming in Eaton's Centre. Then it was back to the house to drink some beers and watch the Hurricanes & Sabres, Game 5.

The game was pretty good... I also got my Playoff Pool off my USB key that wasn't really working, not to mention a few of the other pieces of info that were on there. Chris had figured it all out. Phew! So, that was updated tonight as well after the game was finished. We had watched Austin Powers again tonight as well, before shutting it down for the evening. From downstairs in Chris' place, I could tell that Jen was home, unbeknownst to me, so was Karli and Lee. They were watching Dogma and I decided to tidy up my room instead, listening to my mp3 player. And that was pretty much that.

Actually, just before starting to write this piece, I thought I would go out of my room to get a glass of Pepsi... and Karli was off the big chair in the living room, which I could immediately see from outside my room and then moving closer to the kitchen saw a lump of people making out on the couch with the DVD player off and the blue screen of the TV giving them whatever light they needed. Almost picture worthy... but then I'd be in big trouble.

Well, that was pretty much my day in lieu of all the rain-soaked fields... and now I'm thinkin' about hittin' the bathroom and heading to bed. Not a lot else goin' on. I was thinking about giving Barb a call all day today, but realized that I didn't have her number in my phone today... 'cuz since I have tomorrow off, I could probably go out. But I thought about going out and it wasn't quite the right idea since I had blown quite a bit of cash on going out already this weekend. It might be somewhat of a quiet one tomorrow. I do have tenative plans with a friend, Kristy, who I have yet to see since coming back from England. I told her I would give her a call tomorrow to see when we'd be able to get out and see each other. I said to her that I would make a point of seeing her this month and since it's the 29th tomorrow, I better get my act in gear. It's been quite a long while since I'd seen her last.

Memorial Day Weekend

Allo... Sunday of the long weekend already and I've had a pretty good time so far.

Friday night was a very drunk night at the Yardhouse. Chris and I started there just after the first period of the Hurricanes/Sabres game. After the game, Jen and Natasha came in and we went and sat with them... I helped Natasha with her philosophy homework, which is appropriate when I was well on my way... but I was holding my own in the arguments of philosophy. Natasha had taken off not too long after she got all of her points down for her paper and then Jen was expecting her friend, also named Jen. But really... once the other Jen showed up, the night became more of a blur and I didn't even really remember why we left. Ha ha. I think Jen and I stayed up for a little while listening to some tunes... and that's about all I kinda remember.

Yesterday morning, I was pretty hurting. Both symptoms of a good hangover... both the headache and the queeziness in the gut. Ugh. At about 11:30am, Jen and I decided we both needed something to eat... from McDonalds. So, we hopped in the car and went and grabbed some grub. As exhausted and unwilling to really doing anything as I was, I still managed to do my laundry yesterday and did a little bit of shopping at Safeway. I was actually somewhat productive. And then I was feelin' pretty good to go catch the hockey game somewhere... or just the Yardhouse. Ha ha.

Chris and I decided to head over before the Oilers and Ducks started. But we were not in any mood to drag race the drinks, even when we accidentilly ordered the yard-glasses of beer, which we generally scoff at when we see other people order them. We only managed a drink a period, watched the Oilers move on to the Stanley Cup Finals and then decided... let's go see a movie.

We had been contemplating watching X-Men: The Last Stand and that's what we did. We raced up to Sunridge to catch the 10:25pm show, but when we got there, that show was sold out already... rather the 10:05pm show was just starting and we all know it takes 25 minutes to get through the ads and trailers, so we got in and had to sit in the front section of the theatre, which wasn't overly pleasant, but not too, too bad. The movie itself was done okay, but I'm one of those X-Men purists, much like the Spiderman movies, the story had been skewed and made it somewhat unenjoyable for myself.

After the movie, I gave Natasha a call, since she had been trying to get a hold of me all night, seeing where everyone is going to drink. She was down at Molly Malones by herself, so Chris decided to go in and I walked over to have a drink there and that's all that really was. Just one... and then I Was home. Had another beer with Chris and then came up to bed. That was pretty much up to now.

I gotta get myself ready and out the door for a 1pm game at Optimist Park. I gotta get Rob's bat back to him. I'm sure he's probably wondering where it is at the moment.

Rainy Day Post

Well, it was a good day to be in the office, weather-wise... I wish I could say the same for work-wise as well. Ha ha. I knew this morning that I would have a smaller annual filing to complete when I arrived in the office this morning... but that wasn't all. Of course. Nope, it wasn't long into the morning when I got a bomb (a 280+ page bomb) dropped on me for filing this afternoon. Which as of this moment, that is past the deadline for filing, has still yet to be approved for filing. Hooray... what was the rush then?!? It'll actually work out for this company to be over $2,000 in filing fees... sweazy. A good couple hours worth of work.

And then there was another filing that had to be done today, but the legal assistant in the company, who had laryngitis, didn't calcuate the necessary fees to the new schedule (that was out on Monday) or take into account that there were charges for doing wire transfers of fees to the SEC and well, although the filing was completed and ready to go on time, the filing will now not be completed until Tuesday as she has now gone home and didn't want to deal with it anymore. Not to say that I blame her. This has relatively been my day today.

As for last night, I'll let the schedule update do the talking...

May 23 - Cruisers - Win (21-17)
May 24 - Royals - Loss (3-0)
May 25 - Royals - Win (10-2)
May 28 - Hooligans @ 1pm

Yup... we won! And won big, too. Everyone played well last night... Alex pitched well, we all seemed to get on base or made a good enough effort to try and it just worked out.

My line last night... 2 for 3, sac bunt, bunt single (suicide squeeze), & 2 RBIs. I didn't get any work really at all in the infield, a quiet night at second, but not all bad. The defense was there behind Alex all night and there really wasn't anything we could possibly complain about last night.

After the game though, I thought I was meeting up with some of the guys, but obviously I had left before an absolute decision had been made. So, I ended up having a couple bottles at the place I thought everyone was meeting up, before giving up on them and just buying a case and heading home.

Note to self: do not go back to Nottingham's on Nose Hill... expensive bottles of Keith's.

And there ya have it. Not really much to report... 'cept it's MY LONG WEEKEND this weekend... no plans, but do I ever need plans for shit to happen?? Hell, no! I don't know how much I'll post over the long weekend... saying that, I don't have much for plans, the weather forecast is for dreary and wet weather, so you might see a few more posts out of me yet. Maybe I'll get the camera out and we'll go taking pics on some pub crawls or something this weekend. Yah!

Urgency to Write

The rain has come and gone this afternoon over top of the Forest Lawn office. There was a bit of lightning and one or two good cracks of thunder. Very exciting. It's still rather cloudy over top, but the temperature still reads in the mid-teens, so that'll be alright. Quite a few clouds still left in the sky, but they're all moving in an Easterly direction, which looks a little more whispy than daunting.

That giant 330+ page document that scared the life outta me sorta disappeared. Well, it shrunk, is more like it. Since the lawyers that wanted it filed didn't want to pay us a grand in fees, they settled for making the document 40 pages and having it filed tomorrow. Thank goodness. But since then, it has gotten a tad crazy with all the filings that have come in. In the 2pm hour, I had 5 more filings come in, some in the same Send/Receive funtion through Outlook. Ugh. I guess I'll have something to do tomorrow. I might... might... try to knock out a couple of the small ones in the next 80 minutes, but I don't really feel motivated. My best time of the day for work is first thing in the morning, with the drive to finish everything up for the end of the day. That's fine... that's what motivates me. The deadline. When I can do a lot of these filings in under 10 minutes, it doesn't make me to worried about having them done before 3:30pm the next day.

There was another purple pants sighting this afternoon. And it's not so much the woman herself, it's the pants. A purple army-fatigue style pair of pants that never seems to go away... Forever, if you will. The Lawn just continues to amaze. The rains this afternoon has kept away the freaks and geeks from Lee's general viewing time... rather sitting there reading his books and such.

I have just decided to write for the sake of writing this afternoon. There was just this need to put something down on the Tales this aft, so there would be some sense of accomplishment to quell the urgency of needing to write.

The rain looks to have cleaned up the Cavalier a bit. My vantage point here on the 3rd floor gives me a good view of the car, just what like... I do feel a small paranoia about parking it in this neighbourhood and all. Unfortunately, it sounds like the rain will continue through the weekend, which kinda sucks, since I wanted to try and skate to work tomorrow.

You may have noticed that Karli's name had changed from what I was originally spelling it as Carly. Yeah, I saw her name on her bathroom carry-all bag... as I'm guessing she stayed the night at the house with Jen. I know I heard her come in last night as I was trying to (or possibly not to) get to sleep. I was drunk, leave me alone. Yeah, I couldn't believe how far off I was... but in actual fact, I have been known to really miss the boat on a few occasions on trying to spell names. But with so many variations and such, some things just don't surprise me anymore. But now, I should have everything right at the moment.

Anyways... that'll be my writing for the afternoon. Fingers crossed for our game tonight. Gotta be at the park for 5:30pm, for batting practice before the game.

Not With It... At All.

I don't know what to make of this morning. I didn't set my alarm in my drunken stupor last night, so I didn't get up on time. Actually, Jen was kind enough to wake me up at 7am, since I hadn't been up quite yet. So, no shower... even after ball last night. A little deodorant goes a long ways, I guess. The trip to work, wasn't too bad... though I was a tad unlucky trying to get by a couple cars and the slow one turned to the lane that I was in to get by him. D'oh. Got into the office and there were a couple filings new in the inbox. No problem, right? Nope. One of my "favourite" clients decides they need an amended filing done today with a grand total of 330+ pages. Yay! Good thing it's all text or I'd really be shitting myself. The best thing about that filing is that you multiply that by 3 and that's what I'll be charging them for the pleasure... in Canadian dollars. It's taken me over a half hour just to open it all up and print it off. Crikey.

May 23 - Cruisers - Win (21-17)
May 24 - Royals - Loss (3-0)
May 25 - Royals
May 28 - Hooligans @ 1pm

As you can see to this week's results, we lost our ball game last night. Again, a case of not getting our bats going at all. Plus, we gave up all the runs against us in the first inning. There was absolutely no scoring past the bottom of the first inning. You know it sucks when...

Allan was pitching again last night... and despite his first inning jitters, he pitched a very good game. He also hit a triple in the third or fourth inning, which no one could cash him in. Nick also hit a long double, but again... he didn't score, as you can tell by the scoring summary. Dave had a good game making a couple great sliding catches in right field, but he has yet to get his bat goin'. I made contact at every at-bat, reaching once, but it was on an error by the second baseman, letting the ball go right under his glove and through his legs. Kind of a dorky lookin' play. And then when I reached, I thought I got a decent jump, but I got called out stealing for taking off too early from the bag... which is one of those softball rules that kind of licks.

My line last night was 0 for 3, reached on error, caught stealing (lead-off). Played decent in the field again. Caught a pop-fly, knocked a hard grounder down and kept runners from an extra bag. Munden got himself a 6-3 double play, not needing my help at 2, despite being there. It was the right play for him though.

Overall, it was a good game, but we just needed a smidgen of offense and we would have been set.

After the game, I got home and needed a beer. So, I had called Chris and he had informed me that the girls were already at the Yardhouse (Jen, Karli & Shannon) and wasn't too comfortable goin' alone, but now that I wanted to go, he'd go for one. Well, we headed down there after I had changed and I proceeded to drink. The Snakebite and Cranberry was uber-refreshing, as they served the cranberry on the side and I got to pour it in myself, instead of the bartender splashing it in. Sweet! So, I proceeded to have 5 of those... much to Chris' amazement. Ha ha. Actually, it was sort of amazing, 'cuz we weren't there very long. Maybe a couple hours.

And then it was home time... hardly remember the walk, really. Got home, Jen & Lee were on the front porch drinking wine and listening to Fiona Apple, I got in, cranked it, went to bed and that was pretty much that. I had realized drunkenly that Fiona Apple isn't really able to sing me to sleep. Oh yeah, and there was contemplation that I should rock the boat a bit with Barb via the text messages, but kept myself reasonable, not saying anything I shouldn't have. Woo hoo!

And that's where I stand at the moment, after paragraph number one this morning. Should really start looking at some work, especially if that big one, in fact, needs to be done today.

Something Other Than Ball...

Well, since my post this morning was a little "mucho-baseball," I thought I would find a couple other things to write about... with pictures.

Lee has taken to eyeing up the neighbourhood in his slow time and he had noticed one of the shops across the street, Clothing Forever. Well, the lady who obviously runs the place comes outside ever so often, probably when no one is in there and watches the world go by for a few minutes and then retreats back into the store. Well... we have kind of noticed a very ironic thing about this lady. She always wears the same purple pants. Every day. If you've got Clothing that goes on Forever, would it be too much to ask to maybe... I don't know... change your outfit.



On my drives into work in the morning, I tend to find myself in the same ol' traffic, just like everyone else. In a time where randomness seems perpetual, it almost always seems like when I get to the interection of 36th St & 17th Ave SW to turn left, I will almost always be one car away from being able to squeeze through into the turning lane. The picture below was from this morning, but it's happened all but a few times in the month we've been working here in the new office. Talk about frustrating.



Today has been rather productive... well, the morning anyways. I'm sitting here dreading the work that I should be doing next. I have a 100+ page document to prepare for tomorrow. If I get'er done today, then I'll less guilt about updating the hockey pool first thing in the morning or doing up another post on the Tales. Procrastination is the name of the game, somewhat. I have done all the filings that I've needed to for today's deadline... and before lunch to boot.

Only 3 3/4 hours to go... roll on 4:30pm!

My Ball Schedule

Game 2 of the season WAS successful last night... 21-17 final for the good guys! Despite the hour or so of rain just before the game, it was still really nice enough to have a good game of ball last night. Unfortunately, my line wasn't quite as impressive as I would have liked last night.

2 for 3, double, walk, 2 RBIs and got caught down in a rundown between 2 girls playing 1st and 2nd. Had a few plays at short, including a catch on a quickly dropping liner to my right... quite the good catch, really.

And I thought I would provide my ball schedule, more for myself as a reference through the year. And then I can update it as the summer goes by. I brought in my fastball schedule this morning, so I am able to do it.

Calgary Royals (Calgary Fastball)
Crilly Cruisers (Langdon Slow Pitch)
Hooligans (Calgary Slow Pitch)

Apr 23 - Hooligans - DNP
Apr 30 - Hooligans - DNP
May 7 - Hooligans - Win
May 8 - Royals - Game 1 - Loss (11-9)
May 8 - Royals - Game 2 - Postponed
May 10 - Royals - Loss (6-1)
May 14 - Hooligans - DNP
May 17 - Royals - Game 1 - Win (10-2)
May 17 - Royals - Game 2 - Loss (?)
May 18 - Cruisers - Win (?)
May 23 - Cruisers - Win (21-17)
May 24 - Royals
May 25 - Royals
May 28 - Hooligans @ 1pm
May 29 - Royals
May 31 - Royals
Jun 1 - Possible make-up for Royals or Cruisers
Jun 4 - Hooligans @ 3pm
Jun 5 - Royals @ 8:45pm or Cruisers @ 7pm
Jun 7 - Royals
Jun 11 - Hooligans @ 11am
Jun 13 - Cruisers
Jun 14 - Royals
Jun 18 - Hooligans @ 3pm
Jun 19 - Royals
Jun 21 - Royals @ 8:45pm or Cruisers @ 7pm
Jun 25 - Hooligans @ 1pm
Jun 26 - Cruisers
Jul 4 - Cruisers
Jul 5 - Royals
Jul 6 - Royals
Jul 9 - Hooligans @ 1pm
Jul 10 - Royals
Jul 12 - Cruisers
Jul 16 - Hooligans @ 1pm
Jul 17 - Royals
Jul 19 - Royals
Jul 20 - Cruisers
Jul 23 - Hooligans @ 1pm
Jul 24 - Royals @ 8:45pm or Cruisers @ 7pm
Jul 26 - Royals
Jul 30 - Hooligans @ 3pm
Jul 31 - Royals
Aug 3 - Cruisers
Aug 8 - Cruisers
Aug 9 - Royals
Aug 13 - Hooligans @ 11am
Aug 14 - Possible Royals Playoffs or Cruisers
Aug 16 - Possible Royals Playoffs
Aug 17 - Possible Royals Playoffs
Aug 20 - Hooligans @ 11am
Aug 21 - Possible Royals Playoffs
Aug 22 - Cruisers
Aug 23 - Possible Royals Playoffs
Aug 24 - Possible Royals Playoffs
Aug 27 - Hooligans @ 3pm
Sep 9 & 10 - Cruisers Playoff Tournament
Sep 10 - Hooligans possible Quarter Finals
Sep 17 - Hooligans possible Semi-Finals & Finals

Wow... that's a lot of ball. The only problem with the Hooligan's games for me is that I have practice with the Royals at 2pm, tenatively, every Sunday as well. Seeing that I am playing so much ball though, I might skip a few of those practices OR show up to the batting cage sessions afterwards. Depending on the participation of the guys on the Hooligans as such.

Gorgeous!

There is something about this cover photo of Keira Knightley that really gets to me. Yeow! Like, I'm still under the impression that she is the hottest thing on this Earth at the moment and she's got such a great sly smile in this pic... that it just had to be posted. I keep seeing this cover just inside the door of the 7-Eleven here in Forest Lawn and without actually buying a copy of Vogue magazine, I can now just keep coming back to this post in the months past and look at this wonderful cover.

So, yeah... as you might have guessed after my late-night posting last night, that yeah, I saw Barb again. This post is great so far... two unbelieveable women in the same post. Something must be going right. Yeah, we went down to the Yardhouse for a bite and a few drinks. We sat and chatted about all sorts of things again... music, what we've been up to, how much drinkin' we've been doing and all sorts of miscellaneous stories (some of the ones I told her have been posted here) and so on and so forth. Went into a little bit about eating and stuff like that and she had brought up for dinner that an entree salad would work really well if you're not really that hungry. And I never really clued into that sort of mode of thinking. I never really gathered that walking through the produce section of Safeway that instead of having and buying salad stuff as an appetizer before dinner, I could buy salad stuff as my dinner. So, we both ended up ordering salads and that ended up being just right.

But as it's been the last few times I've seen her... it always sort of stems back to feeling like we have to catch up and chat about anything and everything, 'cuz we don't see each other often enough. Maybe this will be a good point to bring up next time, since I'm still sitting here fancying her to death again and there is that uncertainty of 'well, do I think I can work this out now?' It was again very comfortable and I had made those points last night of the differences between last night and other times... and it is sort of hinting... but bein' a little too fast off the mark has never done me any good. Ah well... until the next time she calls.

I was feelin' a tad artistic this morning... I thought that since I had updated the Scribblings last night a bit, that it finally needed a new header. So, I came up with this one using Photoshop this morning. If you click on it, it'll take you to the site and you'll see it in full view. I thought it turned out pretty well, using my Frontpage 2000 For Dummies book and erasing what I didn't need and incorporating the logo. Now it sort of lends itself to the Scribblings blog and I feel a little more comfortable showing it off in the Traffic Exchange sites.

Speaking of which... both BlogMad and Blog Advance have been giving away double credits. I was doing a Form 6-K filing, a rather large one, for one of my clients... but I wasn't quite as efficient as per normal, 'cuz I was trying to get as many clicks in as possible. Still, I finished the job well within my own personal guidelines... but I thought I'd mention it. There's only like an hour left of it on BlogMad though. I'm almost up to 180 credits at this point today. The more hits, the merrier.

Out to Langdon tonight for a ball game. Game 2 with the Crilly Cruisers. We'll try to improve on our 1-0 record so far this season. Go team!

And that's that.

Question

If I am waiting for Barb to give me the green light to ask her out proper again, is it at all proper to ask when I think the signal is coming?

I went out with her for dinner again tonight... and there were a couple things that I had noticed about the couple hours we spent together.

1. Every time she had a phone call, she wasn't seemingly ashamed to tell whomever she was talking to that she was out with 'Clayton.' That hadn't happened before.
2. When her Mom had phoned, once she had mentioned my name as who she was out with, her Mom had hung up on that moment. And then Barb had phoned back as it seemed rather abrupt, then citing that the power went out in Chestermere. Something to look into.

But as it stands, time is still an issue with her. I try to offer up a chance to get together, but I generally skeptical about whether or not she will or not. She was good enough to call me out of the blue tonight. I really wasn't expecting it at all... like again, I had deleted her number, as I was just randomly sending her text messages again. Nothing terrible, just wondering if she was out or not... but with the lack of responses, I got concerned again.

I like her so much... but until she gives me a better chance, I'm not gonna walk out onto the limb and wish for the best. I have done that too many times with good intentions, but bad pretenses and had lost badly. I think my strategy will be best... its not easy... I'd rather put it all out there, but the prospect of making her runaway doesn't appeal.

There's a new poem on the Scribblings tonight... just in case you're wondering if there was something new ever to appear on it.

Drop a comment if you've got any insight on this sorta thing. It would be appreciated.

Too Late

Uh-oh... Jen's home already. She had just given me a call... and well, she isn't really pleased with the state of the house, which granted, isn't overly clean... but it wasn't THAT bad either. I hadn't really had a chance to tidy up the joint, which kinda sucked... so, the wrath will be faced in a couple hours.

Can I just stay at work today?

Or does someone have a good suggestion of what to do??

Crikey.

A Not-So-Long Weekend

You know, I had no real ambition to post anything this weekend... but since my weekend is already over (yes, I'm at work on the May Long Weekend Monday), I thought I would drum up a post for the Tales and make up some time. My May Long Weekend will actually take place next weekend with the US Memorial Day... the EDGAR server will be down on the 29th for the US holiday, so I won't actually be needed in the office.

A quick recap of the weekend...

Friday night - At the Yardhouse with Chris, Julie & her mate Gaylene. 74 photos on the camera, lots to drink... and a very long sorta night.

Saturday - Not hungover. Went for only my 2nd time in the rollerblades with Julie in the early afternoon. Went back to the Yardhouse with Chris. Actually shutting the place down. Snakebites & cranberry juice was the drink of the evening.

Sunday - Not hungover again! Family BBQ at Donna & Bill's house. Bought Napoleon Dynamite's 2-disc SE DVD set... a new batting helmet for ball... and a mini soccer ball, for no apparent reason. And back home to watch Napoleon as well.

That really sums up the weekend in the least amount of words possible. Now I'll try and elaborate a little bit more, but some of you guys only show up for 20 to 30 seconds, so the quick update should be enough.

It was rather fortunate on Friday afternoon that it was looking rather dead. There wasn't a lot coming in for either Lee or myself and Fred decided to let us ago rather early on Friday... I being out at 3:30pm, after the deadline for filing and Lee out at 4pm. So, the traffic was fairly light on the drive home. I was even home in time to see Jen off to camp. I didn't honestly think I would be at all... but I was. I wasn't around for too long before she had to take off and then... poof! She was gone for the long weekend. She had told me to expect Carly coming around and looking after Maggie, feeding her and such. And then when she left, Carly had actually called the house, just a little too late. I had told her that she could come by anytime if she felt the need to look after the cat, but I think I had told her it wasn't totally necessary.

Once all things were settled, I gave Chris a call... no one picked up. So, I decided to start my Friday night with the Ringer. I still hadn't seen it since buying the DVD and thought a good laugh would best be employed. Then Chris had phoned back after I got into it, but only about 15 minutes... so he came up and I started the movie again. When the movie was done, then we decided to head over to the Yardhouse to start all weekend drinking festivities.

On the walk over, Julie had called and asked if she could join us and bring a friend. Willingly, I agreed... and we continued to head over. We got into the pub and the Edmonton/Anaheim game was on... luckily, we only missed the first half of the first period and that really wasn't too bad. We found ourselves a booth to watch the game and wait for the girls. Chris and I were already well on our ways by the time we had gotten there... we had a few while watching the Ringer. We were in pretty cheeful moods. Ha ha.

When the girls had shown up, we were gettin' sorta bombed, since they arrived just before the third period as we were finishing our nachos. It got a tad odd as well when the girls had finally arrived. Julie and Gaylene seemed to have alternate ideas to our just sitting and getting drunk idea... which was really, all we wanted to do. Our goal was to sit, get drunk and just admire the talent within the establishment... the girls, didn't really seem to have an idea that was similar to that. Julie had an interest in Chris all night... which seemed somewhat uncomfortable for Chris, but was a little too drunk and made the best of it. Since Julie is actually my ex, it was a little odd to see her hit on who I was with... and it did make me chuckle all night. I would lean over to Gaylene and say how odd it was... and for the most part, I was actually okay with the whole thing... if Chris was actually okay with it. Eventually, I had pulled out my camera from my pocket and then it all went into a flashbulb set of memories. There were 74 pictures taken, but they're all on my laptop, which I hadn't brought to work today, so I can't post any of the photos with this story. There were some pretty funny pics that came out of those 74... and a lot of blurry ones. There is a chance I'll post a few of them on my MSN space, then they'll be in a slideshow format.

We didn't stay too late in there... I don't think. It was getting quite late... oh yeah, we made through to last call. So, that was pretty late. Chris and I saw the girls off and then went back to the house for another beer downstairs at his place. Julie had called twice or three times... I can't remember what for... knowing that I had hung up on her at least twice. Ha ha. I don't have a clue what we talked about. Chris was quickly fading away to the boozey sleep, so I finished up my bottle of beer and took off for the night. I actually went upstairs and started Batman Begins. Needless to say, I couldn't keep my eyes open for too long either. I passed out fairly early into the movie.

Saturday morning came without the hangover I would have expected. I woke up on the couch, Maggie lying over me on top of the couch and I was free of any ill effects of the night before. Hooray! I actually didn't have much of a plan for the day... couldn't really come up with anything to do except try and find the right trails on the rollerblades to get to work. Julie wanted to come with and she was online waiting for me to arrive on MSN... and so we had made eventual plans to go for a skate. I wanted to watch all of the Hurricanes/Sabres game, but she had to work in the afternoon, so I had to go earlier, if I wanted some company for the skate.

After the first period, I got myself changed and put my blades on and went to meet Julie at Eau Claire for our skate. So, we cruised East on the paths at a mixed pace. The sky was very overcast on Saturday afternoon, but it kept the warmth in and it was actually really good weather for a skate, until it really started to spit some rain here and there. The Bow River Parkway, the path, would be such a great skate if it wasn't home to all the transients and homeless near all the C-Train tracks along the river. The huge homeless shelter isn't far from the River and all the drunks & druggies hang out at the park, usually minding their own business. Julie and I met it to the Blackfoot Trail interchange which is where I'd find the bridge to skate over to Forest Lawn in about 25 minutes from Eau Claire. There were times that we were at a crawl pace as well, so it shouldn't really take that long to get to the bridge and then I don't think it'll take too long to get from there to here at the office. On the way back to Eau Claire, the rain started to spit more and more, making the ground a little more slick and it was certainly not gonna be good for the bearings, so we skated with a little more pace on the way back. Fortunately, we really didn't chat about the night before... which still would have been a tad odd. It was just to pass along a "hello" to Chris when I saw him next.

I made it home in time to watch the last few minutes of the hockey game that I had left earlier. Caught Carolina's second goal to make it a little closer, sadly, they couldn't get the tying goal to make it 3-3 and lost 3-2 to Carolina. I hung out at the house, sort of expecting to hear from or see Carly... since I hadn't seen her by that time at all this weekend. But that wasn't to be either. Instead, I just cranked the tunes, made some burgers and waited for Chris to finish up his running around.

Blah, blah, blah... and then Chris had shown up to my door with a couple of beers and the willingness to do something the same, but only a little different... no ex's. Ha ha. So, we got to the Yardhouse and found ourselves a decent table to view a good portion of the pub, yet not all of it, regretfully. But our waitress, Ashley, was great to look at and there was all sorts of talent in and around the place, so we didn't starve ourselves from the eye candy. Actually, we probably actually made up for what we lost in entertaining the girls the night before. The drink of choice for the evening was Snakebite and Cranberry Juice, which was actually really good. Since there isn't Blackcurrent Squash in Canada, to my knowledge, I had to change the Blackcurrant to something else, since they didn't have grape juice either. Cranberry it was... and I wasn't disappointed. Chris and I ended up closing the place down... Ashley was putting up chairs and we were few of the last one's there. We went back to the house and tried to watch Batman Begins again... and failed... again. I had passed out... Chris had killed the DVD player and went home, I was to find out last night.

I awoke in the morning to a lack of a hangover again... and again, little to no plan for the early part of the day. Maggie decided to cough up a major hairball and vomit on the carpet. That awful yellow shit and is just horrible... to look at, smell... ugh! I managed to use the BBQ tongs to move the hairball into the trash... I wasn't hungover, but that was really starting to make me feel sick. I tried to get what I could out of the rug. I looked underneath the sink and didn't find anything for carpets, so I still haven't really gotten the spot out yet. Plus, I was just out of the door to head down to Donna & Bill's place for the BBQ. I wanted to make a couple other stops as well to pick up some stuff and did that as well.

I picked up the latest issue of NME available here and Napoleon Dynamite at HMV and did a run to Sport Chek and found a mini soccer ball and new batting helmet, since I don't like any of the helmets that the ball team has.

The day for the BBQ was quite warm and sunny. A great day for a Sunday BBQ. Mom & Dad had shown up, Chris, Graham, Grandma and Uncle Dale's Mom, Pat (or Jamma, to the boys) were all around for dinner. Graham and I kicked around the soccer ball for a good part of the afternoon, played a little NHL 2003 on the PlayStation and hung out all afternoon. As it turned out, this was somewhat of a birthday BBQ... as the cake had come out after dinner. All the upcoming birthdays really did escape my head... Graham's birthday being today, he's turning 9... Dad's birthday is on Wednesday and Mom's is on Thursday. I'm sure if we didn't get together, I would have forgot until Friday, where I would have had to do all the guilt-full belated birthday wishes. Yikes.



Pictured, you can seem Mom & Graham blowing out the candles on the cake... Dad is behind Mom and managed to hide from the camera pretty well. Yes, I did bring the camera and got this shot as the only good one of the three.

It was a pretty early night... I had left around 8pm and was back home to enjoy a load of Simpsons and Family Guy episodes before loading in Napoleon Dynamite and Chris came up for a beer and the movie. And that was my weekend.

You can sort of argue that the lack of work going on today... that this is sort of a weekend day as well. But I did have to get up this morning, which I really didn't feel like doing at all... so... that negates that in any way, shape or form. I'm not too sure when Jen will be home, but I am sort of hoping that I can get some rug cleaner and make it home to clean the cat stain from the carpet before she gets home. I don't think I'll be that lucky.

First Come, First Serve

Game 1 of the Langdon slow-pitch league went down without a hitch yesterday. The Crilly Cruisers got off to a HUGE 1-0 start to the season with a win against the Mavericks. My non-inquisitive self didn't find out what the score was in the end, but we did pretty well, including a big six-run inning in the third.

It was quite laughable, since Corey volunteered my services to drum up the batting order for the team. Man, it had been absolutely ages since I thought about batting orders, since there is sort of a science to it in baseball. It is sort of scary as well, 'cuz you can never be too sure about politics and the possibility of the ol' "why did he put me down so low" behind the back chatter. It's always something I'd care to avoid. Anyways... my scientific formula for drumming up the ball line-up found one bunch of the girls together in the middle-bottom of the line-up and Dallas & Kirby didn't show up until late... so the whole science of batting orders was more of a first come, first serve sort of order. Fortunately, the bats worked all the way around and we won!

My slow pitch line, which is formulated a little-less harshly, was 4 for 4, a double and 2 runs scored. Everyone played exceptionally well too... I think we can have ourselves a winning team in the league this year. Kevin and I were chatting after the game and had both agreed that losing Todd and Mike this year wasn't going to hurt our chances at all... rather the contrary. Todd's pitching did cost the team a few games in the season... so, we all had a pretty good time without the stress of losing runs and just sheer disappointment.

The mosquito-laden, unraked ball diamond was a little depressing to play on, but it was the first game of the season, so it wasn't really complaining worthy. Actually, the mosquitos were complaining-worthy, since the swarms were already huge.

After the game, it was to the Wildfire with Benny for a few. The best thing about getting back to Langdon is that I don't really get away from the guys. Jeff and Jay stopped by the diamond on their way back to Jeff's place. So the social circle remains... hopefully they'll all come downtown this weekend.

As of right now, I don't have any plans for the weekend... it won't be very long for me as I will be working the Monday. The US May Long Weekend isn't until the weekend after, for Memorial Day, which I get off and everyone else has to work. Yay! I'm pretty sure this weekend, however, will be a mix of sunshine, rollerblading and beers, in no particular order. I'm hoping to meet up with a bunch of people... first come, first serve... ha ha. Jen's going away to Church Camp this weekend... so I'll have the whole top level of the house to myself. Giddy up.

Anyways... I have a couple filings, including that Technical Report this morning to do. I saved it for today, since I work at my best first thing in the morning... and when things are due. I also have a trial filing for that new company that Brydon is wooing. It's finally here and it's only 30 pages, so that'll be interesting. I have to doll it up a bit so I can attract the client. No problem! Otherwise, the slate is clean for filings today... I'll probably end up with a few news releases and such... so, hopefully I won't be back playing Pogo Bowl... online bowling. It's actually kind of fun and somewhat challenging... especially to bowl a strike.

Sorry about the lack of pictures lately... I haven't been too determined to take many. I shall be soon. This weekend should spawn a few shutter moments.

No Pictures Today...

Looks like I'm back to a little bit of the slow period now at work. It kind of looked that way before I left yesterday and nothing really has changed. I received one filing this morning, which I just finished before starting this post and had a few easy ones to do that I left from yesterday, just so I'd have something to do today. I have one more due for tomorrow, that I am going to save for either later on this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning. It's 68 pages, so it'll take some time to do it... it's a Technical Report, with all sorts of tables and graphics. Yay! I've heard that we might go ahead and do another test filing for a potential new client... but Brydon wasn't too sure when we'll actually receive it. I'm looking at roughly 30 pages of work... anytime now.

So yesterday's ball... the highs and the lows of sporting, I'm afraid. The first game, it was a definite high. Once everyone showed up... ha ha... we all wanted to play. Alan, the eldest (by a margin) came back from PEI on Monday and pitched for us again. He had played for us during the First Pitch Tournament to start the season, but had to go back 'cuz one of his kids became ill and was away for quite a while. Gladly, all things became better for him and he came back to Calgary and was made available to play for us again. Damn, that guy can really throw the heat. And behind him, everyone was pumped and ready to go. So much so, that we creamed the team we played against 10-2 in five innings. Despite a few of our performances, we beat a team via the mercy rule.

My line for the game was 1 for 4 and a run scored. My one hit came in the first inning and it was a good bloop into left-centre from the left side (my unnatural side of the plate) and I came around to score in a good first inning rally. The rest of the game, I still getting the bat on the ball, grounding out the other three times. I didn't want to get up there and strikeout. Certainly my confidence in the box is growing... so that's a big plus.

Game 2 was against the team that we didn't finish with the first time. The official ruling on the unfinished game was that we are going to play them on June 1 (I think) on the rain-out make up day. We'll continue playing them from when we left off... but nevertheless, we had another game to play against them then and there. Unfortunately, the break between games, although short, was enough to really slow us down. Doubleheaders are increasingly difficult to play. And above it all... the team, I can't remember names for the life of me, came out to play us... hard. Aaron was pitching for us to start the game and as much as he had the velocity in his pitches, the other team had determination in their batting and their heads up in their running. We just weren't there at all and we ended up getting run out of the park. I don't even know what the final score was, but it wasn't pleasant.

My line last night was 0 for 1, a sacrifice bunt and a walk. Again, both times I was out I had gotten the bat on the ball. I think if I got a better jump on the bunt, I probably would have reached, but my muscles had already started to seize up during the break between games and well... it took a while to get it all out.

In the field, I had a pretty good night. There was one play I probably should have had... a slow hit that came in the air a little to my left. But it was so slow that when it actually came to me, I was having so much trouble judging its speed (due to the dusk and the lights of the park) that it dropped right under my glove as I was falling to my left to pick it out. If I had the out, it would have made somewhat of a difference... but playing under the lights at dusk is kinda weird. Oh well. Otherwise a solid night.

After the game, a few of us ended up at the Yardhouse in Kensington for a birthday drink for Munden. Munden, Aaron, Josh and I sat and had a few. Nothing major... the talent in the bar was also a little lacking. I was really disappointed, since the night before with Chris was a hopping good night. Since it was already after 10pm when we showed up to the place, it could have been the fact that it was a school night and already sorta late that it was kinda dead. Oh well, no matter. Nevertheless, we still sat, drank, laughed, watched the Oilers highlights and was home around 12:30am. That wasn't too bad of a night.

I didn't want to really get up again this morning. I just wanted to put it off and put it off... but then Jen's alarm on her phone starting going and she got up. And then she threatened to get in the shower before me, which really would have put my schedule out of whack, so I finally conceded to the day and got my ass out of bed. As much as I put everything off, I still was out the door on time, as per usual.

And since then, it's just been a hazy day... no real drive to do too much... everything is done that I needed to do and that seems to be enough for me. I've even updated the hockey pool this morning, as the Oilers and Sharks finished the series last night.

Soon, it's off to 7-Eleven for my daily dose of slurpee... good thing there is one right across the street. Tonight, its slow pitch with the Crilly Cruisers in Langdon. Opening game of their season... I will play for them when I can. They play mostly during the week, so if I don't have a fast pitch game, then I'll go swing the bat for them. Should be good... then I'll probably get some time during Langdon Days as well. Excellent.

Anyways... that should do it for me today. I think I'll go get my slurpee now.

A Walk In The Park

Good morning all... in the blurry, shaky picture, there is a bird in the lilac tree. It was right outside of the house, but since I have the shakes and a camera with zoom, it was all meant to happen, really. I thought I'd keep the picture, 'cuz you can sort of make out that there is a bird in there... somewhere.

Well, I did make it outside last night... but not rollerblading. Actually, when I got home last night, Chris and I went for a walk... looking for pubs with patios. It was really a win-win, 'cuz we didn't find anything in Kensington, so we went for a longer walk to Eau Claire. The warm day brought out the crowds, I tell ya. The paths were just full of people... much to the delight of the two single guys that we are. Yeowsers! The women were out and it was an absolute paradise for the eyes... heh heh. Sorry lads, no pictures... didn't want to be too creepy on the first real hot day in Calgary.

Chris and I ended up at Joey's in Eau Claire for a couple or three beers... and enjoyed the scenary in there as well. We had a good time picking out the waitresses we liked the most... as I normally would with Kelly or something. It was lots of fun.

Then we headed back to Kensington and hung out at the Yardhouse for a few more beers before heading home. Kensington wasn't really all that busy... when Chris and I walked through the first time, the patio at Original Joe's was already full and inside isn't too great... the Yardhouse was practically empty... Molly Malone's patio was seemingly dead... so, the trip to Eau Claire was more to be in the middle of all the action. But when we went back to the Yardhouse, it had picked up a bit and we didn't mind sticking around for a couple more.

Overall, it was a pretty cheap night... I only spent $40 and had a pretty good time.

http://www.hotfreelayouts.com/music.php

Yesterday, I also added to my "CDs I Bought This Year" table... at the end is the new Raconteurs CD. I was really looking forward to it... and for good reason. It's a pretty good CD. There are quite a few tracks on there that are worth getting, if its downloading or from iTunes... Steady, As She Goes (the single) is awesome, Broken Boy Soldier (the title track), Together, Level and Store Bought Bones are definitely worth a listen if you can find them.

I have sort of decided against buying the new CD from Live, Songs From Black Mountain... I'm not normally a guy that listens to reviews, but the reviews I've read or heard have been somewhat what I've dreaded from the band... Christian Rock. I mean, they've been somewhat religious in their music from the start, but on the album Birds of Pray, it was really starting to become too much... almost Creed-like, which makes me a tad uncomfortable. The rock songs and ballads on Birds of Pray are great... but the single, Heaven, was a little over the top. Oh well... so, I think I'll hold off on that new one for a bit.

Today... what's goin' on today?

It's not really gonna be too busy today at work... there are a few that need to be done this morning. I have had an e-mail from a client looking for their filing for today... which is good, because that's when I have it as "due." So, I'll knock out the ones that I need to get done today and then probably burn a few mixed CDs for the car. I am gonna put together a good compilation of White Stripes tracks from all the albums and the single, Walking With A Ghost. That's a pretty cool track.

Tonight, doubleheader of ball at Shouldice Park tonight. Should be getting to the park around 6pm for a 6:45pm start. After taking a ball to the face on Sunday, I actually feel a little more confident in goin' back out there. Especially when you know that you've taken a tough one and it wasn't that bad. We might be able to finish the game that we didn't complete last week... up 2-0 in the top of five. That'd be excellent... a night of two and a half games, if you will.

Afterwards, it'll be a night out for Munden's birthday. We should be able to get some good pictures from the evening, if I try hard enough.

Finally, I thought I'd give a shout to a couple Blogs that I'm renting space from this week... Chell's Roost has come over and left a comment already, thanks! And really, unbeknownst to me, I bought space on the Bed & Breakfast Experiences blog... it's already brought a click, so it couldn't be all that bad. I haven't looked to see if anyone has rented my space for the week yet... I had the function on "accept the first bidder," so I have no idea what I'm gonna get.

Anyways... until later on then! I better get to work.

Since Brunch...

After Mother's Day Brunch, it was pretty much off to ball practice in the afternoon. Up to the sandpit diamonds of Tuscany... which is quite a ways from Langdon... Google Earth says 33 miles, but I think its more than that. I might have found the wrong spot.

At practice though, we had a pretty decent turnout. Got to run a few drills, shag a few balls and play around for a little bit. At the end of practice, we were playing groundball elimination... and the sandpit was my worst enemy on the day. We played almost three games and the ball took some funny hops and I only managed to stop three... one with my face!



In sort of a rush to fill in the third game, I took a hot groundball from Nick towards my backhand. I had a pretty good beat on it as it was rolling, with pace, towards me. But out of nowhere, it takes a HUGE hop and smokes me right around my left eye. I had my sunglasses on, which was a bonus, 'cuz it took quite a bit of the shock... knocking out one of the interchangeable lenses (without scratching it or breaking it)... and all I was left with was a ball burn on top of my eye... and the road rash from kneeling on the shale.

The road rash seemed to sting a lot more than the ball in the face. I was remarkably quite alright from taking a hot one to the noggin'... everyone was making sure that I wasn't concussed or anything, which I wasn't... bonus! We had to stop the third game of elmination, because of it and plus, we had to be at the cages at 4pm.

The batting cages were super-helpful again... I'm really getting more and more confident in the batters box again. I kinda wish I continued to play a lot more baseball in my younger years. I would think I'd be pretty good at it by now. Not pro good, but good...

Munden and I went for a couple beers afterwards... it was way too nice out not to have a celebratory "It's Finally Summer-ish" beer. So that was alright. I had a pretty good buzz on by the end of the afternoon.

Once I was home, I didn't really get a chance to watch the hockey game. Chris didn't want to go out and Jen rented Memoirs of a Geisha, which I ended up sitting and watching. I did enjoy it, although the storyline was still a tad cookie-cutter. The scenary and history is quite spectacular and somewhat fascinating... it makes me want to go to Japan again, this time by myself and experience it. I never really wanted to go back before.

Yesterday, it was the busy day at work. I even showed up really early to get things done and I think it paid off in the end. There were no snags or snarls to speak of and everything was completed on time on my end. I was pretty proud. This morning, there looks to be quite a few news releases to go out... so it could be a bit busy again.

Last night, Chris and I just sat out in the front yard of the house, drinking beers and then throwing the football across the street all night. I found that the mechanics of throwing a football and a baseball (or softball for that matter) are completely different again and my arm really started to hurt after a while. It kinda sucked. There didn't seem to be enough beer to squash the pain.

Tonight, I'm hoping to get out rollerblading again... finally! It's gonna be a whopping 30 degrees outside... so I want to take full advantage of it this afternoon. Jeff said he'd bring his change of clothes to go for a skate... I'll wait and see if he does or not.

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Happy Mother's Day 2006!!

It was brunch in Strathmore this morning, I drove out to meet the folks at the Station. Dad had given me a ring at 9am this morning and said we should go get in line at the Station, as they weren't taking reservations today. So we did...

I was out there for 10am and they already had their table downstairs. It was a buffet brunch for Mother's Day at the Station and it was as busy as we thought it was going to be. The food was great and the service was a little disorganized, but it was all alright.

Mom and Dad received the portraits that Tegan and I did while I was down in Victoria. They were pretty pleased with them... all of them. Tegan sent them most, if not all, of the entire package we bought at the Wal-Mart there.

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!

Late Saturday Post...

Wasn't too much of a productive day... well, I guess it was... a little bit. Last night's drink session with Chris (from downstairs) went down a treat at the Yardhouse in Kensington. We sat and drank for a few hours... watched the Oilers beat the Sharks... saw Jen and her friends come in, although not sitting with us. We both had a good laugh and more than enough pints to get us proper liquored up.

So this morning, I didn't really want to get up. And I didn't until 11am... which was perfect. My small headache had dissipated and I was good to go for the day. Except I didn't know what I was gonna do for the day. So, I met Jen at Starbucks and sat with her for a while as she pretended to study and I tried to figure out what I needed to do for the day.

As it turned out, I went up to Best Buy and Sunridge Mall and shopped around there for a while. I picked up the Raconteurs single and an old David Grey CD, each for $4.99... and also Batman Begins & Constantine on DVD in a 2 for $16 deal. That was pretty good. At the mall, I managed to pick up a new Blue Jays cap to wear for ball, since I hadn't actually received a ball team cap yet. And then it was a quick trip to Rona to pick up a rack for the shower as I don't really have any room in the shower to put all my soaps and shampoos and stuff... not that I have very many, its just that I need a little bit more space amongst the amount of stuff Jen has in there.

When I got back to the house, Chris was just on his way out... so I decided to join him for his walk. We went to Original Joes for a bite to eat and managed to watch the end of the Devils/Hurricanes game on the TV. That was alright. Then back at the house, instead of going for a skate, we managed to setup my wireless router to his internet connection and I have now agreed to split the cost of the internet with him. Perfect! Only like $25 a month... can't complain with that. That means that the hockey pool and the Tales can continue over the weekend and not just for when I am at work.

And then for the rest of the night... it was a combination of watching the Senators get eliminated by the Sabres in the playoffs, updating the hockey pool, listening to some tunes and just hanging out in the house. That's it... nothing really special. I sort of fancy going out right now... but Chris doesn't seem to interested. He's taking people's money at poker tonight.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day... so, I'm off to Langdon tomorrow at some point during the day. I don't know what Dad has decided to do for it... but either its gonna be a brunch or dinner... both of which pinches me for time around my ball schedule @ 2pm... or 3pm if I'm needed for Rob's slowpitch team. I could go either way... ball is ball to me. I need to drop off some boxes at the house at some point as well... finished sorting out a lot of the stuff in my room. I think I might finish sorting all the kitchen stuff in the morning tomorrow. Maybe that was something I could have done in my boredom tonight, but never got around to it.

And that's about all I have tonight... it's a pretty quick post tonight. I just thought I'd motor through the day post-wise... I wasn't terribly excited about the day and I believe it should show.

Later!!
http://www.hotfreelayouts.com/music.php

Bow-Legging

Have to keep this somewhat brief... I tackled the great CD organization last night. Nothing really better to do than that. I sort of wish it was as big as the great record re-organization of High Fidelity... that would be so awesome to own that much music.

Watched the Senators stay alive in the playoffs... that was good too.

Drank only 4 of a case of beer... somehow, drinking alone doesn't make you drink that quickly.

And that was that. Now it's time to get my ass raped here at work. This quarterly deadline is becoming much worse than the annual deadline a couple months ago.

Wireless Pocket

Well, I finally got my power pack for my laptop back... didn't really miss the laptop a great deal... just when I needed to do some hockey pool stuff. But I met Dad after work and he gave it to me... I still have to run out to Langdon though, I forgot to pick up all that other stuff that I wanted to bring back to the house.

Last night at ball didn't go quite as well as the team could have hoped. We ended up losing 6-1 after giving up quite a few of the runs in the first inning. After the first though, Munden pitched a really good game and the defense was pretty solid... it was just those mistakes that gave away the game. The pitcher we were playing against wasn't that fast, but no one could really get a hold of him at all.

My line last night was:
0 for 3, reached on error, 1 stolen base and 1 run scored.

I scored the only run after making it on in the first inning.

So, as it stands the team is 0-2 with one result still pending. Not the greatest of starts to the season.

Today, it was pretty shitty at work. I got really swamped with quarterly filings and one annual and a whole bunch of little ones. To my credit, I got everything organized, so the stress level wasn't too bad. I should have a full plate of things to do in the morning as I've got some financial statements to convert and format in the morning. Otherwise it won't be too bad.

I seemed to have found a nice pocket of wireless internet here at the moment. I'm sitting on the chair in the living room with the Senators game on and I seem to have a pretty decent connection at this spot. I don't think it's ever been this good... even when I take the computer outside.

Well... I've got a certain level of concern and/or depression at the moment. Barb doesn't seem to be returning any of my phone or text messages at the moment... which really sucks, since I began to really fancy her again. So, I've deleted her number from my phone again to save myself writing or calling something stupid when (not if, but when) I get super drunk and get one of my "great" ideas.

I really don't want to think about anyone else at the moment... I haven't really met anyone that holds a candle to her... she's a pretty special match... or so I think. I know Jen's friend, Shannon, fancies me, but I don't reciprocate at all. There really hasn't been anyone new floating around, nor would I really be considering anyone else. There is a level of content with being single now in the summer months, unless either the one I fancy comes around or someone new really wows me.

Since I'm at home now... I thought I would try writing my post, but now that I seem to have found a decent connection, I think I'll post it as well. Woo hoo!! Well, I bought beer & wings to watch the game with... so I think I'll put my wings in the oven and give my attention to the hockey game. Coach's Corner is on pretty soon.

Blinding...

Sunny morning... as dangerous as it is beautiful. The 7am sun in the morning is still pretty low, it's hard to stare into the East and try and pull onto Memorial Drive. There's an element of being clever to making sure I get my timing down... traffic one way and then the other. The number of cars that park on Memorial Drive in front of the houses along it is amazing... and being in such a low car, it also doesn't help matter much. I'm still alive... so I'm still doin' okay.

Last night actually went according to plan... sadly, I forgot the leftovers of my pasta dish that I did up last night for lunch today. Damn. I did watch the Avs & Ducks game last night... wishing I had more Ducks on my pool team. Laundry didn't quite go as planned... it was sorta doomed from the start though. I went to Safeway to pick up some laundry soap and such... but I forgot to pick up a stain remover. So... as much as my ball pants are now less-dusty and fabric softener fresh... there are still grass stains. D'oh!

6:45pm... back to the ballpark for Game 3 of the season. Tom called to remind me last night of the game. He had also made mention that the game on Monday night that was called due to weather will either count as a win for us or we'll resume playing it in the 4th inning up 2-0. Thank goodness for that.

Should be home in time to catch a good portion of the Oilers/Sharks game tonight... see if Edmonton can pull one back from the Sharks. That's been some pretty fast hockey... not quite as offensive as one may like... but still not bad.

Not a lot else on the go at the moment... been behaving myself of late. No drunken debauched nights to speak of lately. Kinda crappy though... but oh well. There's money to be saved.

I certainly am enjoying the Babyshambles album, Down In Albion. But after listening to Dirty Pretty Things on MySpace, I have come to notice where each of the influences for the Libertines came from. All have their merits, but the Libertines were sheer brilliance with the combination of Carl and Pete. It's too bad I didn't get to see the full line-up of the Libertines at Leeds. I will just have to continue listening to the albums. But Down In Albion is quite enjoyable... certainly 'Fuck Forever' being the best tune on the disc.

And that'll be all for this morning... a few filings are ready to go for filing tomorrow. So, I should get them out of the way this morning. Make it look like I've accomplished something this morning.

Nothing To Do But Post

There's one of Calgary's finest... I knew I'd catch one today. There isn't a filing left to do today... with 2.5 hours to go in the working day, that is. So, I've resorted to doing some webcam shots from my desk. A wonderful shot from up atop 17th Avenue...

Not long after, an ambulance rolled by as well. I would say on average, we'd get sirens buzzing by us about 5 times a day.

And not long after starting this post... another filing comes in. By the looks of it all, it won't be due until Thursday... so I won't be in a big rush to tackle it... or even open it up.

I just thought I'd post... just for the sake of it, really. Not a lot goin' on... I'll open up and print off this new filing. See what I'm up against here. Actually, I should get some billing done. Yeah... it's about time I've done some of that. No, wait... I need to make sure our software program works on my computer since I've scrubbed it. Crap.

Game and a Half

Sadly, that's exactly what it meant... we didn't get our full two games in last night, much to our chagrin. The umpires called our second game due to periodical snow fall, which really sucked for a few reasons.

1. We were up 2-0 in a hard-fought game
2. It was only the bottom of the third inning
3. We were the only diamond to have our game called out of 4 diamonds
4. There was no 15-minute rain delay called and the weather cleared up.

We had lost our first game 11-9 in an up-and-down battle more or less with ourselves. Everyone had their moments of being up and down in the game, which sort of led to a late innings breakdown and loss of the lead... myself being a guilty party at times.

The silver lining though was that everyone had a glove working very often and the bats came alive in a few of the innings. I was 2-for-4 last night with a single and a double and 3 RBI's... which was absolutely huge for me and a great leaping grab at second where I had to "climb the ladder," if you will.

Unfortunately, I'm finding myself somewhat confused about this team. I have been made to believe that this is supposed to be a very competitive team, but there is a few guys on it that don't really have any drive and/or focus that believes that they're really trying. It's kind of unnerving and I'm sure it brings down the rest of the guys.

Game 3 of the season goes tomorrow... 6:45pm... can't wait.

I was sure sore last night as well... wow. My lower back needed a good bend the other way... thank goodness for an exercise ball in the house. Such a huge benefit. I'm not feeling too bad this morning, although I really didn't want to get up. Ha ha.

Tonight will be watching the Avalanche and Ducks game... with a spot of laundry and probably a pasta dinner. But who's to say that'll actually happen? Nah... it probably will. I need to get all the stains out of my ball pants.

It's supposed to rain today with a high of 12 outside... it wasn't too bad on the drive to work. It was supposed to be thundershowers last night, but that didn't happen... rather snow at 9:30pm. I really wish I had my camera to get some pictures of playing under the lights at Shouldice Park. That's pretty cool... especially with the snow coming down.

Oh, there goes the Impact Hummer... ha ha, John. Gotcha!

And the view from my window this morning looks a little something like this. I had set-up my webcam with my work PC now... then I can spy on the going's on from up above. I was thinking yesterday, that I might one day try and take as many pictures as I possibly can of cop cars rolling by the office. There are so many that go down 17th Ave SE... it's unbelievable. You never need to exaggerate about the number of times you see one go by... 'cuz there is at least a couple an hour. You would think that this neighbourhood would be really, really safe with all these cops going by. Somehow, none of us really feel safe at all.

Lunchtime Post

I've cleaned up my major to-do list this morning at the office, so as I finish up lunch today, I thought I would get started on my post from the weekend.

Friday was a pretty warm afternoon, reaching the heights of +23 degrees outside. The perfect sort of evening to try out the new rollerblades... and it was!! As soon as I got home, I laced up the ol' skates and did a quick lap from the 8th Street bridge to Edmonton Trail on both sides of the river (as shown below, courtesy of Google Earth).



I'm not too sure how long it is in total, I need to get one of those trail maps for the City of Calgary. Hmmmm... I wonder if there is one online. I'll check a little bit later.

The rest of the evening was quite quiet, actually. I got home just as the first period in the Senators/Sabres game was finishing. It was 2-2 when I came in... a LONG way to go before that one was done.

Jen had a house party to go to... a friend from work was having a Cinco de Mayo party at his apartment, not far away. Jen wanted me to come, but I was more content with the little beer that was in the fridge (with the idea of getting more) and making some hamburgers on the BBQ, as I didn't want to get wrecked. Saturday morning was gonna be an early one to setup the garage sale in Langdon. Jen's mate, Natasha, came over and was gonna head to the party with her, so they both sat and chatted while I watched the hockey game.

They left shortly after the 3rd period had finished... game tied at 6. I was texting Benny the score when it happened quickly and often. When the period ended, I thought it was a good time to start the BBQ. So, I went outside and tried to spark it up and found that there wasn't any sparking goin' on. I thought it was a trick BBQ (this being the first time I am using it). So, I rang Chris' doorbell, as it was his BBQ I was using and he laughed and said it was out of propane.

Not really thinking, I got myself ready to go, not paying any attention to the game, thought if anyone scores while Chris and I are out picking up more propane, I'd be really choked. So, Chris got some new propane, I picked up a case of beer... we got home... and the news was already on. ARGH! Unbeknownst to me... the Sabres had already scored before we left and that was it. So... I was choked. Ha ha. Otherwise... the night was pretty quiet. Had a few more beers by the time Jen got back and that was pretty much that.

Saturday I was up nice and early. Had a shower and a couple cups of coffee... then I was off to Langdon. Another nice day to be outside. The sun was out... unfortunately, the wind was up. It wasn't a little breeze either... it was gusting pretty good at times. Still, we managed to get all of our crap out onto the driveway... and my Dad's fishing boat on the lawn... and the people came in droves. Through the day, I managed to get rid of a lot of stuff (for cheap) that I didn't ever want to move again or worry about. Sets of speakers, hats, other computer accessories, toys and other crap. I didn't make much money at all, really... just the fact that I was getting rid of it all made all the difference in the world.

My Dad ended up selling his fishing boat and all the accessories that went with it on Saturday too. It was just gaining cobwebs in the backyard... probably wasn't gonna see much more fishing in his career. And if there was... it probably wasn't gonna be in that boat.

Saturday afternoon also brought some ball practice over at the diamonds in Langdon with Rob. We picked up the bat, ball & gloves and tossed it around... hit a few grounders... didn't stay out very long, since it was only the two of us. That was alright though... good to get out. He also had put the invite out for Sunday's ball game @ 11am. Also, a very good idea.

By the time I got back home, it was goin' on 6pm... I had already sunburnt my forehead, the backs of my arms and legs and was a lot more red in other places (not quite burnt though). I didn't do anything with my hair on Saturday, so by noon... my giant wirey 'fro was waving around getting blow dried in the gusting wind. So, I needed a hat. What I found was my old Greg Norman shark hat... a really nice hat, with a leather strap to adjust the size. Since I was wearing it backwards and wearing sunglasses... I had the raccoon shape around my eyes and a big red spot where the opening of the hat was on my forehead. REAL attractive.

Between the heat, the small ball practice and the few beers after the selling was done... I was a pretty tired guy. I got home and did next to nothing again. Jen and I set-up her record player to my receiver... which reminds me... does anyone know how I could amplify the phono cables from the turntable on my Sony receiver?? There is next to no sound that comes from the turntable through the input. Jen was pretty tired that day as well from working nice & early in the morning as well... so we were both pretty useless by the end of the night.

I was sorta waiting for either (or both) Julie and Barb to call... but by 10:30pm... I had already passed out, with all hope gone in the matter It wasn't a big deal... but I didn't hear from either of them on Sunday either.

Sunday was ball day... up reasonably early , anxious to get goin'. I had the slow pitch game with Rob's team at 11am and practice with the fastball team at 2pm, including the batting cages at 4pm. I found my way to Optimist Park in West Calgary a tad early for the slow pitch game at 11am. I was used as a sub for that game and went in during the 4th inning. Batted in the 4th spot, which by that time wasn't necessarily the clean-up spot with all the subs and played in left field. It was good to play in the outfield... I managed to track down quite a few balls out there without any mistakes, so that made for some good practice. I went 1 for 2 at bat, reaching once on a fielder's choice, scored a run... not a bad day on the base pads. I was one out short of a third at-bat, but it wasn't to be.

After the game, Rob, Michelle, Dallys (pronounced Dallas) & myself sat out at the cars and chatted with a beer or two. Just shot the shit for a bit after the game... no one wanted to get anywhere as it was too nice to actually to any chores or driving. Ha ha... it was pretty nice out. But by 1:30pm... we all took off. I had to be up in Tuscany (far in the Northwest) for 2pm.

Unfortunately, as I pulled out onto 37th street coming out of the ballpark... my cell phone rang. It was Munden. He needed a ride from Langdon. It was 1:30pm!! Man, was I ever choked. I didn't want to be late... I really hate being late. That's why I'm early practically everywhere I go. I agreed to go pick him up, despite it being a half hour drive out to Langdon from where I was and then 45 minutes to an hour to get to Tuscany. Choked.

So, reluctantly, I made the drive out and got him. We ended up being an hour late to practice... shitty. I was looking forward to practice to work on shaggin' some ground balls... but no. Not gonna be the case. We managed a couple of drills before taking off to the batting cages down at Shouldice Park. I brought out my Dad's old bat to take some swings with... he had said to me that he got little to no vibration from hitting the ball with it... and I thought I'd test it out. It was a much heavier bat, so it would at least be good for some weighted swinging. In the cage though, it worked a treat. So much so, I gave some of the other guys a go that were complaining about vibrations through the bat... and they liked it as well. I think I'll be bringing the bat to most games, 'cuz I know I sure got a hold of some balls in the cage there last night.

Again, I was pretty pooped after another day in the warm sun. Good exercise too... and fortunately, the Oilers and Sharks were playing on TV, but no matter how exciting the game actually was, I was still nodding off on the couch.

And the quiet evening, the small amounts of filings this morning brings me to right about now. The lunchtime past about 70 minutes ago... but I just kept on writing this afternoon. I have one or two more filings I can get started on for filing tomorrow... but I'm in no rush. If I get them done tonight, then first thing in the morning I can write about the doubleheader to start the season I hope I'll get to play tonight, weather pending.

So until tomorrow...