It's A Tad Wet...

On a rainy Thursday morning, one of the few things I didn't really feel like doing was working with the network to get mine and a couple other machines back online here in the office. It's a good thing that I get in so early... it makes the panic a little less stressful when not many of our clients think we're open that early.



I come into the office this morning and my computer isn't on the network and isn't accepting any new e-mails. That's the mess that I have to sift through to plug & unplug routers, hubs and modems to get everything back up and running again. It just looks like so much fun, doesn't it? I suppose it could be worse, but it's hard to think how.

I'm glad that there isn't really anything to do this morning... I worked on four filings that were due for today and all but one are filed... and it's just on 1pm. Woo hoo! There's a good chance that I'll continue doing my hockey pool statistical review for next year. Preparation is almost as fun for me as the actual doing of the draft and the pool. Weird, I know.

Last night was Royals vs. Rusty's again... and what a game it was. Rusty's is the best team in our league, I've heard that they are undefeated in the league thus far in the season. We wanted to come out and avenge our loss from the previous week, where their ace pitcher kept us off the board... period. Well, last night... the ace was back and we had the task of trying to hit off him again.

The first few innings were a bit of a slow start. We couldn't seem to get the bats working... a little bit of this and a little of that, but we couldn't generate any runs. Defensively, we were fine... except for me. I haven't honestly taken enough grounders with runners (quick runners at that) to really be confident enough to throw ALL of them out. My glove works fine... I'm knockin' them down or scooping them up, but I had another bad throw last night which led to an unearned run and possibly the second of the third inning. But once we got up to bat in the third, we got it going again. Munden hit a great triple into the gap and I brought him home on a sacrifice bunt. The ol' squeeze again... and it worked like a charm. Then were only down 2-1 after three innings. The next few innings were tight again. But Alan pitched a strong game... the defense again were pretty good... and we held them until the 6th inning, where the team got on the bats again... Alan came across to score as did Aaron on Ryan's RBI single... we were up 3-2 going into the Top of 7... the last inning. A groundball through the middle and a big hit to the right field corner tied the game up at three... and then Alan just sort of lost all control, Munden came on in relief, but by the end of the inning it was 7-3. Unfortunately, we got mowed down in the bottom half and that was the final.

Jun 5 - Royals - Win (13-2)
Jun 7 - Royals - Loss (7-3)
Jun 11 - Hooligans @ 11am

My line last night was 0 for 3, sac bunt, RBI, 2 Ks. Not overly impressive... I found it really tough to see the ball out of the pitcher's hand all night. The reaction time is cut so short due to the small distance between the mound and the plate. It's not like the fastball pitches in the cages... the distance is far greater, which I can see all the way in and I can take 20 pitches at once and see them all clearer.

Yay!! I just filed my other filing that was due today. I think after I finish posting this, I will send a few e-mails reminding people of some outstanding filings that need to be done and then get some billing done. I have to earn my pay somehow.

When I got home last night, Jen had gotten the keys back from Karli as the Three's Company experiment had been completed, without much fanfare. Lately, Jen had been feeling rather clausterphobic with Karli coming in and out of the house at will, since she had keys it was really easy to do. Jen had given her keys to look after the cat once and Karli never gave them back to her, especially after Jen said that Karli could hang out at ours until she finds somewhere new to live. So back to Jen being clausterphobic... and mildly paranoid... this is what I've gathered in fly-on-the-wall situations (as I don't need to ask, I'll just be told or overhear Jen, as she's kinda boisterous from time to time).

1. Karli and her new boyfriend Dave like the drugs. Not just the minor ones, but the real head-fucking ones. That I kinda already knew from hanging out with Karli from time to time.
2. Karli "lends" money to Dave for said illicit drugs, because Dave doesn't work to support his habits, so I am to believe.
3. Karli has less-frequently shown up to work at Starbucks.
4. Karli and either Dave or her ex, Mike hang out at the house when neither of us are around... Mike being the one that Jen can trust and Dave... not so much.

So these were sort of the points of concern for Jen... and to some degree myself. Let's face it... an unemployed drug-user historically doesn't have the best record in the trust department. There are stereotypes for a reason, people. Now, I wasn't totally aware of all of this until yesterday, 'cuz I didn't think Dave was that bad of a guy, but did sound rather faulty due to some of the backstory I had overheard. But I'm not really nieve this way... eventually, due to lack of job, he'll get desperate. And since Karli hadn't shown up for a long period of time for her shifts at Starbucks, she had gotten the boot from there... so the desperation math keeps on growing. The blanket of trust was looking rather vulnerable around the smoldering desperation of chemical dependency.

As it turned out (or as the story goes last night from Jen), Karli had shown up to Starbucks to relinquish the keys and Jen confronted her about all the issues that I had noted above. Now Jen can come off rather abrasive in her upfront, take-charge sort of attitude, although she does mean well and doesn't always want to offend a lot of people. Unfortunately, 20 year-old Karli couldn't see past what looked like a scathing attack. Granted, I wasn't there... I don't know. But it does sound relatively possible. Jen was pretty worried yesterday that since she had notified Karli of the troubles or worries she'd been having that Karli would come by when Jen was at work and I was at ball and do something really silly. So she employed Chris to look over the place while we were out. Ahhh... what a great situation to be in.

Thankfully, by the sound of it all, it could be done now. I'm kinda hoping so.

Tonight and Friday night, I'm hoping to have quiet ones. I don't necessarily want to go out. My bank account saw some pretty good hits over the last couple weeks and could see some more painful excursions in the near future. Saturday, there is a team BBQ at Tom's house, from where the lads wanna go out into town afterwards and party it up. Eek. I would really like to go out and ham it up real good, but I don't want the financial burden of it all coming back and biting me on the ass. We'll see. Maybe I'll play good guy and drive a few of them around... it makes much better sense to me. Let them do all the work. Ha ha.

Not this weekend, but the Father's Day weekend... Alan has invited me out to Carstairs for a ball tournament with his team. That sounds like a gas... don't know what the costs are around that and I don't know if there is anything going on around here to make for sure plans. I'll probably call the folks on Sunday and see what they're up to at least.

Another tournament is getting looked into for the weekend of the 24th of June in Sicamous, BC as well. Alan is trying to organize that for the team and I've gotten the okay to take the 23rd (the Friday) off. That could be expensive between travel and hotels... eek. This is sorta what I want for the year... quite a bit of ball. I'm a tad unsure of how serious I wanted to be, but the team is looking pretty keen to go, so why not?

Anyways... I think its time for some billing to do and then maybe some more hockey pool work. Man, is it ever miserable outside.