Kevin's Ramblings…

It’s been a few busy days this week.  I am having some work done at the house so yesterday the handymen were here all day.  The bathroom shower is being ripped out today and replaced and some minor work is being done all over, mostly removing junk that the previous tenant left.  It will be nice to have a new shower, the one that is here is in pretty bad shape and I am unsure when the last person might have cleaned it, pretty gross.  I am showering wearing sandals, and I will leave it at that.

I have tried and failed, to cut the cord for TV.  The streaming services I’ve tired aren’t bad, but they aren’t particularly good either.  Some of them are very tough to setup and then once they are setup, they don’t support Chromecast so you can’t cast them to the TV.  I can cast the screen on my phone, but then the screen has to remain on and using the phone for anything else is impossible.  So, I’ve ordered Bell Expressview to be installed and they are coming today, this morning in fact around 8am.  Hopefully they will find the place without any issues.  It is $50 per month for 6 months and then goes up to $80 for the rest of the time.  Not too bad and I will have 250 some-odd channels.  With winter around the corner (hard to say that when it is currently August 22), I don’t want to be snowed in with no TV to entertain me.  I hope that I can set-up MLB.tv with the satellite TV, as opposed to streaming it.

Streaming brings me to my second point, the internet.  I am currently using a Rogers Hub for my internet.  It connects to the LTE network and there is a cell tower a few kilometers away on one of the mountains so I get an amazing signal – I had checked that out BEFORE I decided to move here.  Anyway, in general, the service works really well, it is a bit expensive but I knew moving to the “wilderness”, I would be paying more for some things and less, for, say, rent.  Anyway, I have an odd issue where some things just don’t work when I am connected to the Hub that should, they are minor things, but annoying.  For example, with my phone (Google Pixel XL) connected to the Hub, it won’t load Facebook properly.  If I turn WiFi off, it works great – the phone is also on the Rogers network now (I switched from Freedom since I am no longer in their home area).  The really odd part of that is that my iPad works great on Facebook when connected to the Hub.  It makes no sense.  None at all.  I’ve adjusted some settings and they’ve made no difference.  I talked to Rogers technical support yesterday and the tech agreed, it is a very weird issue.  We got disconnected and then oddly, she never called me back.  I didn’t want to start the process over with a new tech, so I didn’t call back.

Anyway, long story short (when do I ever write short stories?), I have scheduled Xplorenet to be installed tomorrow.  It will be slower but much more reliable, I think, we will see.  I also won’t be paying for bandwidth like I am now.  It will include 100GB which isn’t a lot of data but will be more than I need.  After 100GB, it will slow the connection down, or I can choose to have full speed data, at $1 per GB.

Anyway, this will fix my technology issues.  I can go back to watching TV again which will be good.  A new TV system means having to learn new channels, I hate that, but I will get it, eventually, probably around the time I switch to a new service provider for TV…

Sunday, apparently, was a day to relax.  I went out in the morning to 7/11 to get a coffee and a apple fritter (their apple fritters are quite amazing, if you’ve never had one) and came home.  I was supposed to organize my bedroom, pretty well the last area of the house that needs to be set up.  Did I?  No, I didn’t.

I went back to bed for a nap around 11am and slept for a couple of hours.  I lazed about the afternoon, playing with the dogs in the backyard and caught some baseball on MLB.tv.

So, I didn’t really accomplish much during the day.  To top if off, I went to bed shortly after 7:30, I was dead tired for some reason.  Perhaps I was still catching up from all of the sleep that I missed when I was in Missouri.  This is why I am up so early today, slept from 7:30 until about 4 so that was a good nights sleep, for sure.

Back to work today.  I will get the bedroom configured tonight, for sure.  I’ve got to stop being so dang lazy.  Enjoy your week.

Today has been a very productive day thus far. I didn’t wake up until after 630 so for me, that’s late. Feed the dogs and let them out and I freshened up.

The plan for the day was to go to Lethbridge, specifically Costco. It was about an hour and a half drive and pretty straight highway between here and there.

The membership was $60 plus GST, they found my old one, it expired 10 years ago. Anyway, new membership in hand, I explored the store.

I had done some research on the Kirkland brand of dog food and it looked as good as Pet Kind that the dogs have eaten (since I got Hera) but far cheaper. I took a look at the ingredients and sure enough, it was essentially the same stuff so I bought two huge bags. Now, as opposed to spending $250 per month on food, it’ll be around $100 per month. I plan on making monthly drives into Lethbridge for supplies. I also stopped at a pet food store that carried Pet Kind and bought a small bag to help with the transition to the new brand.

I also bought a new convection oven for the counter, the current one is on its last legs and has seen better days. It doesn’t owe me anything, that’s for sure, it’s been very well used.

I also picked up some large bags of frozen fruit, decaffeinated coffee and some dog treats. On the way back, I stopped at Domino’s and bought 5 medium 2 topping pizzas, 4 of them are currently freezing. Heat them up and they are as good as when they came out of the Domino’s oven.

All in all, a great 6 hour round trip. This will be a monthly thing, on a weekend. I may make a few other stops as I get to know Lethbridge as well.

Anyway, hopefully you’ve enjoyed your Saturday.

I’ve gotten internet for the flight from Denver to Calgary. For an hour, it’s $5.99, helps to pass the time for sure.

The day started really early. I went to bed around 1230 and wanted to get up at 230 to see the guys off who had the early flight. I thought that I had set my alarm, but at 231, I woke up, on my own. I called California No. 1 to ensure he was awake, per his request. He was.

His ride showed up and we all said “see ya”, again. I’m sure they were wondering why I was up…

I went back to bed and slept pretty well until 6am. My roomies alarm went off and he left, heading home to Texas.

I got picked up around 1030 or so for the trip back to Springfield. We stopped at Cracker Barrell for lunch. Huge portions and not a bad price, I was impressed. We got to the airport early, checked in and breezed through security, there was no one in front of us.

We had a 2 hour wait for boarding. The flight to Denver was uneventful, the kind of flight you want. We had a shorter layover in Denver, just over an hour. We explored the terminal, I was looking for Colorado Rockies gear (hat, shirt, something) and nothing was to be found. Oh well, I spent enough money.

We are now cruising at 36000 feet, so I am told and are just over an hour from Calgary.

When we land, I’ll call DM and he’ll leave the Cell Phone lot and pick me up at arrivals. I had originally asked him to leave the dogs at home but with close wildfires (not too close, but close enough), if there was a evacuation order, there’d be no one to evacuate the dogs. I don’t even want to imagine anything further along that topic line.

So, I’ll have, what I’d expect, three VERY excited dogs. I’ll be excited to see them as well. We’ll drop DM off and then I’ll decide the next steps. I’ll either nap for a bit in the car or just head home. It’ll be a 4 hour drive back.

I’m loy forward to getting back to my regular routine. I’m actually looking forward to getting back to work too – it’ll be more relaxing than the last 3 weeks.

I’ve spent the last 10 days in Branson Missouri umpiring at the 12u Cal Ripken World Series and it’s been quite the experience.

I flew out on Wednesday, August 1, the first leg of the trip was Calgary to Houston and then on to Springfield. From there, it was an hour long bus ride with Team Canada to Branson and Baseball Parks of America. The team got settled into their dorms and I was taken to my hotel, my home for the next 10 days, the Belmont Inn and Suites.

As an umpire, I had nothing on tap for Wednesday or Thursday. The other umpires weren’t there yet either, so I was on my own. I watched Team Canada play Team Australia in an exhibition game on Thursday morning, Canada won and looked good for the tournament. I had dinner with Team Canada at Golden Corral, a popular buffet restaurant, I don’t think anyone went home hungry.

On Friday, we had the opening ceremonies and it was held at Dolly’s Stampede. It was a good show and an excellent meal. I met the other umpires, there were 11 of us in total.

This year, the World Series had 4 International umpires, myself, representing Canada, one from Puerto Rico, Australia and New Zealand. The rest we’re from the US, two from California, my roomie, from Texas, Indiana, two from Arkansas and the UIC (Umpire in Chief) from New Jersey. I immediately knew I’d fit in with this bunch, they were almost as sarcastic and dry humoured as I am.

Finally, Saturday arrived, the start of the tournament. In the round robin portion, I was scheduled for 9 games in 4 days and was on the plate 4 times in total. We ran a 3-man system for the opening round. The baseball was generally good quality and was fun to umpire. I was on the plate twice for Team Canada, which I considered odd, but the UIC didn’t seem to have an issue with it. Speaking of Team Canada, they struggled offensively and dropped their 3 round robin games to Japan, Korea and the Dominican Republic. Talk about a tough division. I’d say their highlight of the tournament was against the DR, myself on the plate. The game was tied going into tg 6th inning but they ended up losing by 2 runs. The boys seemed to have a great time, nonetheless.

The playoff round had us using a 4-man system, something I wasn’t overly familiar with. It was great, always having an umpire covering a base for a potential play. I think I drove the UIC a bit insane sometimes forgetting my rotations, but, I also think it may have been a short trip for him. 😉

I umpired in the International Championship game yesterday, Korea vs Japan on the right field line. As expected, Japan easily defeated Korea to advance to todays World Championship.

In the other game, the US Championship, I was watching from the media center and witnessed one of the best games I’ve ever seen in youth baseball.

It was Virginia vs Mid-Atlantic, both teams scoring in the first with Mid-Atlantic taking an early 4-3 lead that they’d hold until the 6th.

Virginia scored 2 runs in the top of the 6thto go ahead by one. In the Mid-Atlantic teams bottom of the 6th, with 1 out, their batter hit what was almost a home run, he started trotting out of the box, thinking it was gone. Rounding first, he headed hard for second base and the center fielder threw a strike to the second basemen (it might have been the SS, I’m unsure), all I know for sure is that California Two (and Number One, to me, more on that, later) called him out. It was one of the best throws I’ve ever seen in baseball and came at the absolute right time. The Virgina fans exploded with applause while the Mid-Atlantic fans couldn’t believe what they saw. With 2 outs, the next batter grounded out, causing the Virginia boys to pile on (I think), their first baseman.

This setup today’s championship game, Virginia vs Japan. As good as the Virginia team is, and believe me, they are a great team, I don’t think they stand a chance against a nearly perfect Japanese team. I’m predicting a 6-0 Japan win, for back to back World Championships (I think it’s back to back, but hey, I wasn’t here last year). I could be wrong and for Virginia’s sake, I hope I am.

At any rate, it’s been an honour and privilege to umpire in this World Series. I have memories that I’ll keep for a lifetime. Thanks, Branson Missouri.

Today at the 12u Cal Ripken World Series we had two games, the International Championship and the US Championship.

I was umpiring in the International Championship game that featured Korea vs Japan. It remained scoreless until the 3rd when Japan opened the scoring. They held the Koreans to no runs and won the game easily. I have watched a lot of baseball over the years and this Japanese team has some of the best defence I’ve ever seen.

In the US Championship, Virginia faced Mid-Atlantic in one of the most exciting games I’ve witnessed. Mid-Atlantic held a 4-3 lead after the first until the top of the 6th when Virginia went ahead 5-4. In the bottom, the leadoff hitter struck out. The second hitter nearly tied the game with a shot to center field, but the ball stayed in the park and the center fielder threw a perfect ball to second base to retire the runner attempting to stretch it to a double. It was, likely, one of the best throws of the tournament. The 3rd out was obtained from an easy ground out sending the Virginia team to the World Championship tomorrow.

They’ll have their hands full against a Japanese team that likely hasn’t committed an error in the tournament. I’m sure it will be an exciting game.

Today wraps up my umpiring at this, my first, World Series. I didn’t expect to be assigned to the Championship as other umpires have been here before. Watching from the media center will be a much better view anyway.

I worked with some of the best umpires I’ve ever had the honour to work with. We’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the last week. We’ve bugged the hell out of each other and I hope, we’ve made some friends that we’ll have for some time.

As of now, I’ve retired from umpiring. I’m definitely taking 2019 off and, if I’m not bored and don’t miss it too much, that’ll be it. To work with such a great group at such an excellent tournament, I can’t imagine a better way to go.