Kevin's Ramblings…

It has been a busy few days.

The Nicholson campaign offices finally have internet and phones – it took forever for it to get installed, that’s for sure.  I don’t know how Bell can be such a huge company and yet be so incompetent. It baffles me, really, it does.  No wonder I left them – never to return.  Thank goodness there are alternatives.  Cogeco isn’t much better really.

I have Distributel for home phone and internet.  Sure, the internet isn’t as fast as I might like it, Cogeco is faster, but they could come back and bury my temporary connection nor could they fix the connection to the house.  So, for the time being anyway, I don’t have cable to the house, that is where Distributel came in.

I was off for 1/2 of a day on Thursday and all day on Friday – lieu time is a good thing.  On Thursday afternoon I went to an endorsement rally.  The Seafarers Union in Thorold publicly endored both the Dykstra and Villella campaigns.  That is great – for a labour union to endorse someone other than the NDP, I am sure sure that I have heard that happen before.  From there, I went to a Stephen Harper rally in Hamilton at the Convention Centre.  It was a blast.  The Prime Minister gave an excellent speech, the place was packed, it was a lot of fun.

I spent the day Friday finishing the setup of the Nicholson campaign office in Niagara Falls.  I still have some work to do and will take care of that today.  They also have their open house this afternoon which is good.

I haven’t darkened the door of the Dykstra campaign in a few days, I have to get in there today otherwise they might forget that I exist – we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Today, I have a two ladies coming in to do cleaning in the house.  It is about time I say.  I am also having a security system installed.  That will be the morning.  I’ll drop into the Dykstra office after that and then head to Niagara Falls.

Tonight, who knows.  I am supposed to meet two friends for coffee.  Speaking of coffee, I met CR, otherwise known as R for a coffee on, when was it, hmmm, Thursday night I guess.  I hadn’t seen him in ages, it was good to see him again.

Nothing really planned for Sunday.  I am supposed to get out for baseball on Monday evening but the forecast doesn’t look good.

I guess we will get outside some day this week – cooperate for a change, would ya Mother Nature?

No, it isn’t what you may think.  I am not talking about baseball politics, even though that’s how I wrote it.  I am talking baseball.  I am talking politics.  Read on.  🙂

Although I haven’t been on the field as yet for the 2011 baseball season, a LOT of background work has been done.

I think that I will have at least 20 guys come out to tryouts, this is good. It could be more for all I know, I really don’t know what my numbers are as yet.  I’ve created a Facebook group where I am posting information, there are 22 members (or so) but a few of them are parents.  I have a large number of people on my contact list in email, but some of them haven’t registered.  I have only had negative responses from a few people – they have either moved onto other associations or aren’t playing at all.

The league is forming up quite well.  We have our highest numbers in recent history, partly in thanks to Blast Ball registrations (3-4 year olds).  Mind you, Blast Ball isn’t exactly a money maker.  We were charging an early fee of $40 and now it is $50.  Other divisions have also went up $10.

I am looking for a Peewee coach for the All-Star club.  The coach that was lined up had to back out because of work conflicts.  I am hoping that a new coach (from the London area I believe) will work out.  I am supposed to meet with him sometime this weekend.

I have booked diamond time for the month of May.  A fairly busy practice and exhibition game schedule.  We start with our first tournament at the end of May though and that will be here before we can believe it is.

Good luck to the Bantam Cobras !!!

On the election front, I am going to two rally’s today.  The first is in Thorold this afternoon @ 2PM.  Apparently, although it sounds odd to me, the Seafarers Union and the Teamsters are publicly endorsing the local Conservative candidates.  I always thought that unions typically backed NDPers but I am sure that the endorsement will be welcome.  I am then going to the Nicholson campaign office and we are heading to Hamilton for a rally with the Prime Minister.  Will be sort of cool – I have never been to such an event.

I am learning a lot about campaigns here – it is quite interesting.  My sister asked me why the interest in politics all of the sudden?  Well, I really don’t know.  I have always been sort of interested in politics, now I am doing something about it.

I am off on Friday so it will be a long weekend.  I don’t have too much planned.  I am getting people in on Saturday to clean my house.  That will be good.  I will likely take Zeus somewhere and get out of their hair.

Well, until next time…

Yesterday was my first day back to work after a week off.  Wow, was it busy.  The day slammed by faster than I thought a day could go.  That was nice, if only every day would zip by like that.

Dropped into the campaign office for a bit last night, did a little data entry and got a bunch of files ready for entry for this evening.  We had our second campaign meeting.  Lots of accomplishments in the first full week of the campaign.

Someone at work asked me why I would volunteer for something like that.  Why do I volunteer for anything.  Well, the two main things that I am volunteering for are baseball and this election.  In both instances, I am meeting people who share the same interests and objectives.  It gives me something to do with my time as well.  I like to be busy.  I don’t like a lot of idle time.  I am not into working around the house or fixing up my car.  Baseball takes a big chunk of my time and this election campaign has kept me hopping for the last 10 days or so.

Speaking of baseball, Bantam players are starting to come out now, slowly but surely.  I have received a few registrations, a couple of people have said that they aren’t playing for various reasons and of course, I have a few players on the fence.  I am hoping that those fence players will fall on my side.  It’ll be an interesting year.  I have never coached Major Bantam (15 year olds) before – it’ll be a different age group, likely not much different than Minor Midget but I guess that we will see.  I am really looking forward to it anyway.

Back to work again this morning.  I am working a short week though, I took Friday off with lieu time.  I have also booked all of the holidays that I will need for the rest of the summer for baseball.

That’s it – time for a walk with Zeus and then get ready for baseball.  Have a good one.

I recently purchased an iPad and I do use it to read the morning paper.  I haven’t been caught doing this however:

Great comic, have enjoyed it for years.

Well, baseball is officially here I think.  I am meeting with my coaching staff tonight so that is the start of it all.

Update – Sunday, April 3

Well, I am not sure what happened to the post that I started above – odd…

Anyway, I met with Shaun.  I think he’s going to work out quite well.  WB is also going to assist.  Not sure if he will be able to dedicate all the time that is needed or not, guess time will tell.  I’ve asked an old friend, FP, if he wants to be the Business Manager.  I am hoping that he says yes.

I am hoping that we will get outside starting on Monday, April 11, weather permitting of course.  The stone dust fields will hopefully be dry enough.  I have to zip over the Berkley Park to see if there is still a stone field there or not.

Well, more campaigning to do today.  I am finishing up on Nicholson’s computers at his office.  Back to work tomorrow so that I am relax, based on the last week anyway…

I received an email from DV the other day asking if I wanted to go “across the river” to the casino.  I had never been before and figured that I might as well give it a shot.  We went to play Texas Hold’em.

We only had to wait 15 minutes or so for a table, not bad at all really.  I didn’t get very many good cards and when I did have some good cards the other players either folded or beat me with better cards.

On DV’s final hand, he had pocket kings and went all in – he was called by the player beside him who had pocket aces.  The cards turned up didn’t help him at all and when the aces were shown, a “FUCK” came out of DV…  He normally doesn’t swear, he was a little ticked me thinks.  That knocked him out.

So, all in all, we helped the US economy to the tune of $400 between us, perhaps a bit more.  Not a bad evening all in all.  I got home about 12:20 this morning and was awake at 5:00.  Yeah, I’ll be tired later today.

This has been an interesting week to say the least.  I have been off work, but that doesn’t mean that I am not working.  Working hard actually.  Not that the work is physically demanding, but, it has been fun.  I am looking forward to going back to my job on Monday and being able to relax a bit more than I have this week.

I am heading to Niagara Falls this afternoon to asisst with the computers/network/printers and who knows what else at Rob Nicholson’s campaign headquarters.  I knew Rob when he was a Regional Councillor back before he ran in, well, 2004 I guess.  If so, that was 7 years ago – amazing how time flies.  I don’t know exactly what they need out there, guess I will find out.

I’ve been invited to play some poker across the river at a casino – not sure where, not sure when, but I am hoping to be done in NF so that I can join DV for an evening.  I need some down time for sure.

For the morning, I will be back at the Dykstra campaign office.  The office is now setup and ready to go, operating quite well now.  They are still looking for some volunteers though, hopefully they will come through.

I did mention to the campaign manager that I have to go back to work next week.  I guess I could blow though my vacation but that isn’t going to happen.  🙂

I was at a baseball workout last night and got a call from the campaign manager at around 8pm.  There were a few people in the office and they couldn’t leave since no one had a key to lock up.  Seeing as I wasn’t really doing anything at the practice I figured that I could drive across town to arm and lock up – rather funny when you think of it.  Neither the campaign manager nor the candidate had a key to lock their own office. 

Well, let’s see how the day goes…  Enjoy the weekend and, oh, happy April Fools Day.

The campaign for the federal election is now 5 days in, well, nearly 6 now.  The office is all set and ready to go for Rick Dykstra, MP for St. Catharines.  I’ve run network cabling in each office, configured the router and internet, set up sharing, etc., etc.

Today I tried something new.  I went out on the trail and did some door to door knocking.  I didn’t think that I would like it, but, low and behold I did.  I actually enjoyed myself.  The feet were a bit sore after 3 hours of walking and it got a tad cold out there, but the actually chats with the people was pretty good.  Don’t tell JR that I enjoyed it, he’ll try to send me out again.  I will actually volunteer to go out again, that must mean something.

My sister made what I would consider an odd comment today.  When I told her that I was taking this week off to help on the campaign, she asked “why”, “you never volunteer for anything” …  Pardon me?  I don’t volunteer?  Me?  Holy shite …  I have volunteered my time, nearly 12 months per year for the last, oh, 17 years in coaching baseball, running the league, volunteering on various executive boards, driving all over the province for baseball as well as parts of the US of A.  I don’t volunteer?  Wow …  I also help out with various charity events at work.  Once a year, I put in a 8-10 hour day helping with the ball hockey tournament for “In out of the Cold” …  I have been a Big Brother.  Not exactly sure where she was coming from, but, likely one of those things a person says before they think of what they are saying.

Anyhow, now that I am done with that mini-rant.  It is 23:58 and time for me to go to bed.  It all starts over in a few hours.  Out.

The past few days have been busy, busy, busy.

On Saturday we had a baseball registration.  Actually, we had two registrations.  One was at the 4-pad arena and the other one was at Canadian Tire.  I was at Canadian Tire and we had nearly 90 players register which just about doubled our numbers.  The other registration had 3 players.  Hmmm…  The 3 of us at CT didn’t stop for a minute in the 3 hours that we were there – the time FLEW by, believe me.  Now I have to enter all that registration information into the database.  Boy, that is going to be fun.

On Saturday afternoon, I dropped into the Rick Dykstra campaign office and went to work for the remainder of the afternoon and the early evening putting out lawn signs.  Not a bad big actually.  I got BP to assist, had to convert him mind you, but he saw the light.

Sunday was an NDBA Board meeting.  I was approved as the Secretary/Registrar AND the Manager of the NDBA Bantam club.  Both of those jobs should keep me out of trouble – perhaps.  The Bantam club will be the only one, it was decided not to divide the district up, it would have made for weaker clubs.  Hopefully I will get a bunch of kids to try out and I’ll see how it goes.

Sunday afternoon found me back at the campaign office.  I was stringing network cable through the ceiling to hook everything up.  Not a bad job really, except for the heat in the ceiling, wow.  Didn’t take too long to do, everything is ready to go.

Decided to take the week off of work.  Not completely sure why, I do need to get some baseball stuff done and I also am helping out with the various campaigns in Niagara.  I am doing the IT setup for Rob Nicholson and perhaps for the Welland candidate, haven’t heard back from her team though.

Just finished applying for tournaments for the summer.  I had to get going on that one.  Looks like we will be going to Niagara Falls, Kingston & Dundas plus perhaps Cooperstown, NY.  Not too bad at all.  Not sure where the Provincial Championships are, I should check that.

Well, it is WAY past any normal bedtime, strangely, I am not that tired.  Either that or I am so tired that I don’t realize it, that is probably more likely.  Time for bed and I think that I will set a backup alarm.

Well, there is a federal election coming up that the public didn’t seem to want.  Hmmm…  What can ya do, well, I guess we should start campaigning.  So, in saying that, I’ve joined the Dykstra campaign.

I spent part of the afternoon delivering and installing lawn signs.  It takes a surprisingly long time when you are driving from property to property.  Good thing that someone invented a GPS.

We also had a baseball registration this morning.  We had a ton of kids register.  It was busy from bell to bell and we took in nearly 90 kids which almost doubled our number.  Excellent turnout to be sure.

I have an NDBA Board meeting tomorrow.  I have volunteered to be the Secretary/Registrar.  I’ve done it before but the last time I did that job there were 50+ teams, this year we will have 20 or so which will be much easier to handle.

More campaign stuff tomorrow.  I’ll be setting up a network in the office.  Shouldn’t be too bad at all.