Kevin's Ramblings…

Well, it has been nearly a few since my last update.

Baseball has been quite insane. My team (Peewee, 12 and 13 year olds) have had a few practices and have played a total of 4 games.

We opened our Boys of Summer league this past weekend against the Ontario Prospects. We did lose both games but considering that we had only been together for a few short weeks and they have likely been working out all winter (and together for who knows how long) we did pretty well. It was 6-0 in the first game of our double header. It was a much better second game with a 6-4 loss. Our boys played well.

We opened our NDBA League schedule and came from behind to defeat the Port Colborne club 6-5 in the bottom of the 7th. It was a great comeback and the boys never gave up. We played our second league game last night – that one I'd prefer to forget. Enough on that … lol

Well, it is the start of a long weekend. Enjoy the May 24.

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The weather has taken a turn, for the good this time. We got our first team practice in on Wednesday evening and another last night, both good practices. We are set for another this morning at 9am and the weather is great.

There is a lot to cover and we aren't going to get to a heck of a lot before we play our first double header tomorrow. I haven't even decided who'll be playing what positions or who my starting pitcher is going to be – guess that I will figure that out tonight.

I have stopped waking up at such insane hours. For a few months it was 4am, 430am or earlier perhaps. No idea why it was happening but it was sort of annoying. I am now waking up at a much more reasonable 6am, I can handle that. I am also going to bed later so perhaps that is the key. When you wake up so damn early you don't have much of a choice but to go to bed early, like 8pm – that's a bit insane.
Well, off to practice for me shortly. Enjoy.

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Well, that was an interesting game. The Thorold pitcher who started didn't do a bad job at all – he held us to one run over 3 innings, not bad at all. One our side, our pitcher struck out 7 or 8 of the 9 he faced – good job there.

The issue that Thorold had is that they changed their pitcher. The fourth inning or rather the bottom half of the fourth inning took 45 minutes to complete. We scored at least 15 runs. My second pitcher did a good job as well, we didn't allow a run and only allowed a few base runners in total.

I don't expect an easy run like this on Sunday. I don't expect the other end of the spectrum either though, somewhere in the middle will be fine.

I hope that the weather this week will hold out so that we can get a practice in. The forecast doesn't look all that good though, guess we'll see.

Good job Cobras, keep it up.

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Well, although we have not yet practiced as a team, we have our first exhibition game tonight. The forecast calls for clear and cool weather. Hmmm … I've heard that before actually.

I am actually hopeful that we will get our game in tonight. We are playing Thorold at home. It'll be a good chance to see what we can do and what the players know without having any "formal" instruction from us. Should be interesting.

I have become one of those that doesn't believe in weather forecasts. They are calling for showers on Wednesday, a practice day of course. Same with Friday. Saturday, at this early point in the week looks good. It could work out that our first practice happen the day before our first league game. Lots to go over.

Anyway, wish us luck if you would.

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Well, baseball tryouts went very well. The prediction of rain was high but we got them all in, worked very well.

I have since had three team practices cancelled due to rain. Actually, Saturday's practice was cancelled due to rain and hail.

We have an exhibition game tomorrow and we still have not had a practice yet. The weather has been driving me insane, I know, short trip.

So, anyway, we play Thorold tomorrow evening. We are missing a couple of players though, both catchers. One catcher sprained his wrist and the other has a rehearsal or something. Good thing I kept 14 players.

Back to work in the morning. Have a good week.

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Ok, what is going on here. It has been a while since I posted anything. I am actually sending this message from my Blackberry, I haven't done that before.

I have selected my Peewee baseball team, tryouts finished this past Monday. We were supposed to have our first team practice but the weather didn't cooperate – at all. Thunder and lightning ruined it. Oh well, I am sure that at some point we'll get a practice in there. We have one scheduled for tonight, forecast – rain. We also have one scheduled for tomorrow, you guessed it, rain as well. Sunday is Mother's Day so we have the day off. We have an exhibition game on Monday and the season kicks off on Sunday the 16th. Good stuff.

I picked up my new bike. It's a great ride, now I just have to get out there and ride it. I should likely go out in the early AM hours and do some riding.

Well, that's it for now – it is tough typing a long email on a Blackberry, try it sometime and see. 🙂

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It has been a week since my last post.  I don’t have regular Internet access at the moment – I am using a Rogers Rocket stick.  It isn’t bad, but I have to connect and what-not and haven’t been online much at all.  I also haven’t been using my laptop at all so I guess I have gotten lazy about posting …

So, since last week a fair amount has gone on. 

I got the Shaw Direct TV connected, it is pretty good.  Excellent signal and it is an inexpensive option for sure.  After summer I will likely bump up the programming a bit but for summer I am going to be too busy to worry about TV too much.  I don’t get CHCH from Hamilton and I do miss the news in the morning, but I will get over that.

I am off work this week – I have been off since Friday.  I have a total of 10 days off and by this time, my vacation is half over.  I figured that I would book myself a week off – I needed a break.  I was supposed to have a week off at the end of May and I was planning on heading to Washington.  Well, when I submitted my availability sheet for baseball, I screwed up and said that the team was available the weekend that I wanted to go away.  Anyway, we are scheduled for two double-headers that weekend so I will be sticking around.

I attended the Level 2 umpiring clinic this past Saturday.  I didn’t get my certification last year so I decided as opposed to asking to be able to recertify Level 3 I would just do Level 2 – the only thing that Level 3 allows me to do that I can’t now is umpire Senior ball which I don’t want to do anyway.  I got 100% on the exam – not too shabby at all.  The exam is true/false but getting perfect is still something.  I have my first umpiring assignments today in Grimsby.  My partner is RF so that will be fun – we haven’t umpired together very much if at all.

Baseball is proceeding well – we FINALLY start our tryouts on Friday evening.  I am looking forward to cutting down to 12 or 13 players and getting on with it.  We will have just 2 short weeks to go over a LOT of stuff before our first double-header.  Niagara Falls made their final cuts last week and sent us 6 players, 5 of whom came out to our workout this past Friday.  There is some talent there for sure and a few of the NF boys will help us out.

I have ordered the house league uniforms for SCMBA – they will be in by the middle of May.  That was a fairly big job and I hope that I got it correct.

J&D celebrated their 23rd anniversary this past Sunday, Happy Anniversary.  I took them out for breakfast – wow eh?  lol

My friend RS fell and badly damaged her knee.  She was in the hospital for a few days and has had one surgery already.  She has to wait until the beginning of June or so and then have another round so they can reattach everything in her knee – a painful experience I am sure.

Well, that was a long update.  Time to get my day under way.

We have an excellent buy/sell/trade eBoard @ work.  I have purchased a few items off of people over the years.  Recently, I purchased an air hockey table.

I have always wanted one and now I have one.  It is big, 7’ long and 3.5’ or so wide.  It is heavy, over 200 lbs I am sure.  Currently, the legs are on it and it is sitting where I want it, only issue is that it is upside down.  I need to flip it over and install the score board arch.  I think 4 of us will be able to flip it over easily enough.

So, the bedroom upstairs in my house is going to become a games room of sorts.  I can’t wait to play it.

I am off work today.  I am getting Shaw Direct TV installed – it used to be Star Choice TV (satellite TV).  They are supposed to get here around 9am.  Their basic package is a pretty darn good deal @ $23 per month for about 100 channels.  I will be getting all of the Canadian and American basic networks – none of the specialty channels that I don’t want anyway.

I also have to drop off my cable equipment today, make a dump run, order baseball uniforms, go to the Rookie clinic tonight – will be a busy one.

It has been a busy few days …  I was off work on Friday, had a fair amount of stuff to do and I did most of it – didn’t do all of it mind you, we all know how hard I find it to motivate myself.  LOL

Yesterday I took advantage of a free oil change at Niagara Motors for the Grand Prix.  They sent me a certificate in the mail so I figured what the heck.  I expected to have to pay something, you know, a disposal charge or something – nope, totally free.  One of the nice things about going to the dealership for an oil change is that they wash your car for you.  Not a bad deal at all.  It rained yesterday but that likely wasn’t the dealerships fault.

Had dinner yesterday at my Aunts place in Toronto.  Oh, how I love driving to Toronto.  Actually, the traffic wasn’t all that bad.  It slowed down a few times on the way there – the construction that NEVER seems to end between Burlington and Oakville ALWAYS causes some sort of a slow down.  I drove my sister home after dinner and the ride back was uneventful – a very quick ride.

I am meeting later this morning to go over coaches and what not for the up-coming season.  I have to compile all of the information that I have for coaches.  I also have to connect the computer I am writing this on to a printer …  Hmmm, I don’t think I have a long USB cable.  Maybe I will simply move the document via USB stick – that is likely my easier option.

I have decided to get TV back.  I am going with Shaw Direct which used to be Star Choice.  The basic package that they have gives you all of the Canadian and US “basic” channels for $23 per month.  I might miss Discovery and Space but do I really want to spend $20+ per month to get those channels?  Not really.  I’ve been without for a month now, well, nearly a month.  It is being installed on Tuesday.

I’ll be getting my new bike in a couple of weeks – next pay day.  I plan to get on it a lot this summer, hopefully get into shape.  I am also getting my sisters treadmill – that might happen later today, weather permitting.

Well, I have to stop delaying getting my act in gear.  Enjoy Sunday.

OK, it has been a few days since I last made an entry.  I haven’t had ready access to the Internet and I guess I haven’t had a lot to say.  OK, I’ll admit it, I ALWAYS have a LOT to say …  LOL

Nothing overly exciting has happened since I last posted.  I am still getting up early, although I have slept in well past 5AM a few times.  Work is good, keeping busy.  Baseball is good as well, keeping very busy there as well. 

We have been outside a few times with the Peewee’s.  We have some talent on the club, that’s for sure.  There are also a couple of players who are currently coming out that if they continue to come out during try-outs they will be QUICKLY cut.  One thing that I have learned over the years is NOT to over estimate players.  I made those mistakes BIG TIME way back in 2001.  What an awful year of baseball that was.  At least it was a learning experience and I don’t make those mistakes any longer.  I think that I have also become a bit harder-lined, if I did choose a player who wasn’t working out, I think I would release him.  I think we’ll have a good core of players, we will have a few weaker ones of course, that always happens.  Pitching might be an issue – not sure, haven’t really looked at pitchers yet.

We have an indoor workout tomorrow (Friday).  It is supposed to be crappy weather in the evening so I figured an indoor workout might be a good idea.  I think that I will take a look at some pitchers and see what, if anything, they have to offer.

Saturday will be busy too.  I am getting the oil changed on the Grand Prix at 8AM and then have to zip off to bingo @ 9:30AM.  After that I have to go to Toronto for dinner and I really don’t feel like doing that, however, I’ll be a team player, this time anyway …

I will be meeting with DV on Sunday to discuss coaches and do uniform stuff for baseball.  I am definitely taking on a much more active role in baseball this year than I EVER have before – I hope that I don’t burn out from it …  Should be fine, the pre-season stuff is nearly over.

Well, just about time to officially start my day.  Enjoy yours.