Kevin's Ramblings…

I’ve been bad at keeping up with blogging. I’ve been keeping quite busy and have lots to write about, from a boring point of view, but finding time to actually write a post has eluded me.

The last week has zoomed by and it’s already Tuesday on a 4-day workweek for me. Last week I had a 4-day weekend and it went by quickly.

I umpired just 2 baseball games but they were both great baseball games. I’m umpiring back in the Cal Ripken league in Calgary which is the 12u team that goes down to the Cal Ripken World Series where I had the honour of umpiring in back in 2017. The ball is really good quality, I’m surprised at how good those 12 year olds are. It comes down to how the program is run and my friend who organizes it is a great coach and has put together an amazing program. I umpire every Friday evening for Cal Ripken and am mentoring a great young umpire who’s my partner every week.

On the Babe Ruth side of things, they had a LOT of umpires sign up this year, a problem area taken care of, finally. There are over 80 umpires in total which has allowed me to cut down the number of games I’m doing, which is good and bad. I’m only doing 1-2 games per week for Babe Ruth and that’s fine with me. I’ve been able to be very picky about what games I take and what ball diamonds I umpire at. The AAA league has been great and I have a few AA and A games scheduled as well.

In late July, I’m off work for a few days and will be umpiring the regional 14u tournament so that’ll be fun.

Work has been steady but very, very slow. My client has rock solid infrastructure which leads to very few tickets for issues, so, basically we are in stand by in case something goes wrong and this far, not much has. If I were younger, I’d find it too boring and would likely move on, but at the twilight of my career, I’m ok with a slow pace.

All in all, life is good. I hope it is with you as well.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks… I’m settled into a 4 on 3 off, 3 on 4 off schedule at work. I love the 3 and 4 day weekends, that’s excellent, and working 12-hour shifts is easy.

Umpiring season, aka baseball season has started and I’ve been busy with that as well. I’m not taking too many games, a few on the weekends and one or two during the week.

JT and I are going to the Y and that’s awesome. The steam room and hot tub are very relaxing, a great end to the day for sure. I try to make it daily, some days just get away from you is all. I wish they were open earlier and stayed open later, they may be on summer hours now, unsure, hopefully they’ll expand in the fall when more people are going.

So, time is just flying by, and, in general I’m keeping out of trouble, so that’s a good thing.

In sad news, my favourite relative, my Aunt Bernie passed away yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t unexpected, she was 95 after all. There will be some sort of service in the next bit so I’ll be making a trip back to Ontario. I must admit, I’m not a huge fan of Ontario any more. I grew up there, but it’s not a great province. Alberta is definitely home and has been for some time.

Enjoy the rest of the week, the weekend will be here before you know it.

I woke up this morning to a dusting of snow. It’s April 22, so we are a month into spring, but, this is Alberta. We’ve had some nice warm weather, then it’s followed up by cold weather and snow. The snow won’t stick, it’s going to be about 10C today, but for now, it looks festive – if it was Christmas Day.

We had a decent enough weekend. I umpired a double header for Babe Ruth Calgary. Two excellent games. We had a 15 minute hail delay in game two. What excitement.

I didn’t go into work on Monday, I wasn’t feeling well and had absolutely no sleep from the night before. I’m feeling much better this morning and actually slept last night.

Back to the regular routine. Work, dinner, walk the dogs and head to the YMCA. I’m hardly watching any TV any longer, but that’s OK. The evenings zoom by and we often don’t have enough time to get everything done. I’m liking it.

JT and I are heading down to Crowsnest Pass on Friday. I’m going to retrieve my parents antique dresser from a friend who’s been looking after it since I left CNP almost 2 years ago now. We are then heading for dinner at the Indian restaurant and then heading home in the early evening. Should be a good day for a road trip. We’ll bring the dogs as well and will go for a walk before dinner.

This weekend is the Babe Ruth Calgary umpiring clinic. I’m helping out. It’ll be good to mentor the younger umpires. The Supervisor is going to use me to evaluate and train some of the younger recruits this summer, that’ll keep me out of trouble, maybe.

JTs birthday is May 5, we are heading to Banff May 4 and spending the night, should be an awesome trip. We are planning on taking the gondola to the top of the mountain and doing some hiking. I’m toying with the idea of bringing Hera up there with us, we’ll see I guess. The dogs are staying in a boarding/spa facility overnight. They probably won’t like it a ton, but it won’t kill em.

I guess it’ll be a bit busy over the next few weeks. I’m looking forward to the adventures.

Some of you may not know that I have a Doctorate in Procrastination. Actually, I’m well on my way to a second Doctorate in Procrastination.

JT has a Master’s degree in Procrastination. He’s working towards his Doctorate as well.

This doesn’t make for a good combination and we’ve realized that. We’ve acknowledged this, yet, nothing has changed. We’ve realized that we are not going to get done a lot of what we want and need to get done, at least not right away.

Yesterday, for instance, we had a lot planned for the day. We got some of the items completed, but not everything. We had planned on taking the dogs for a walk first thing in the morning. That ended up being later in the afternoon. We planned on going to the YMCA on Friday as I have some guest passes. We didn’t go Friday and although we made plans for Saturday, we didn’t go then, either.

The sad part is that I don’t even know what we did instead. The days zoomed by, so we were busy doing something. What, I’m not sure.

We did hit up a couple of different farmers markets, so that is something. We need to change our Procrastinating ways, for sure. We’ll get on that, first thing tomorrow.

JT is all moved in and all setup. I’ve unpacked three boxes of kitchen stuff and the dishwasher is running to clean it up. He’s got some stuff that I don’t have, so it’ll be added to the various drawers and cupboards and used.

He’s got some very cool wine glasses, have blown, a set of 6. I like em.

Yesterday was a busy day. My cleaning lady came around Noon and then JT and I started our gallivanting. Lowe’s was first on the list, the back gate needed a new latch. Bruce was able to push the gate open and escape, now he’s trapped in the yard as he should be.

We then hit up two different farmer markets, one that I hadn’t been to before. We made a stop at my doctor office so JT could have an infection in his finger checked out. While he was being looked at, I explored the plaza and found a candy store. They had Good and Plenty, my favorite candy, it’s candy coated black licorice. It’s either a love it or hate it relationship with Good and Plenty.

We bought a French baguette at the first farmers market and we were so hungry we ate the entire thing before arriving at the doctors office. It was amazing.

The afternoon was quiet. I had a quick nap, the dogs suffered as well missed our walk yesterday. We are heading to an off-leash park as soon as JT wakes up.

Tonight we’re heading to St. Louis Bar and Grill with a former coworker, so that’ll be good. We are both back to work tomorrow, another week begins.

We got another few inches of snow overnight. Although we didn’t really have a bad winter, I’m tired of cold and snow. It’s supposed to be spring now. Mother Nature is quite the bitch.

The high today is around -3 I think and it’ll be 18 on Monday. Hopefully that’ll be it for winter, but, knowing Alberta weather, we’ll get more.

Nothing much planned for my days off. JT is working today but off on Friday and Saturday. We’re planning on taking the dogs for a hike and I’ll try Bruce off leash for the first time. I mean he’s been off leash already, but that was in a dog park without other dogs around. He’s definitely dog friendly, a little energetic is all.

I’m thinking we’ll go to Edworthy Park, I haven’t been there with the dogs since before Blondie passed. It’s a large park with excellent trails, should be fun.

I do want to clean the truck this weekend. The dog hair is a bit insane. I’m need to get the seat cover back in as well. That’ll keep me out of trouble for an hour.

Enjoy the weekend when it arrives.

I started my workouts today. There is a Y basically right around the corner. It’s a good facility, and like every Y I’ve been in, it’s immaculately clean.

I got a membership plus membership when I signed up. It’s $30 per month more but it has perks that I like such as towel service, better change room, access to a hot tub and steam room.

I started slowly as I’m, quite frankly, out of shape. I did 10 minutes on the elliptical and then walked 8 laps around the track and jogged 2 laps. I was tired afterwards.

I chatted with a guy in the lounge area, good discussion. I actually remember his name, what’s wrong with me? LOL

I got a few guest passes and plan on bringing JT with me on Friday. He’s thinking of joining, this may convince him.

Here’s to getting into a shape other than round.

We received 4″ or so of snow overnight. Does Mother Nature not realize it’s supposed to be Spring? Well, it is – at least according to the calendar.

I do live in Alberta and Winter tends to start early (sometimes when it is officially still Summer) and ends late, always when it is technically Spring. I suppose I am used to it, but then we get a few days, or weeks, with nice weather in March or April and we think Spring is here – no, it’s False Spring and there are several of those.

It is supposed to warm up by the weekend so all this snow will melt and we will think Spring is here again. We’ll see if it sticks around next time.

I am looking forward to getting back on the field for umpiring. We have a clinic in Calgary on April 26/27. Games start that weekend I believe and then the season will be in full gear. I will be umpiring for Babe Ruth Calgary on Saturdays and for the Alberta Cal Ripken program on Friday nights. I work Sundays now, so that throws umpiring out the window for Sundays. I may take some time off of work on Sundays to umpire, I have to use my PTO somehow.

I am finding that with this new job and 3 and 4 day weekends that I don’t need other time off. I have booked some for trips, but will still have a ton leftover.

Well, I hope wherever you are there isn’t snow on the ground. If there is, don’t worry – Spring will arrive eventually.