The weekend

Posted on January 25, 2014 by kdarcy21

The weekend is here.  Thankfully.  It was a busy, insane-like week at work.  This is not a bad thing though.  Being busy means that I will likely stay gainfully employed.  That is good – means that I can pay for things like rent, food, mobile bills and what not.  The dogs likely want to be fed as well.

The week zipped by pretty quickly.  I had my coaches meeting on Monday and it was a good meeting.  One of the potential coaches didn’t decide to coach with our club, he felt there was a better fit with another club.  Oh well, I am sure we will locate another coach or two.  I was supposed to go to the Forest Lawn Conservative Association meeting on Tuesday but I didn’t make it.  I got home from work fairly late, actually I likely wouldn’t have had enough time to make it to the meeting on time anyway.

Nothing much planned for today.  It is supposed to be another non-typical Alberta January day with temps in the low double digits for a high.  Not bad at all.  Yesterday, we got up to 12C I think it was.  I made a comment on Facebook about the weather here in Calgary as compared to the weather in St. Catharines.  There was about a 25 degree difference in temperatures.  We had a cold December here, but since the New Year it has been quite pleasant.  The snow is just about gone, it is really hanging around though, I am surprised with so many days above freezing that it isn’t entirely melted as yet.

Tomorrow I am going to drop by the registration for BRC.  I hope to meet some of the parents of my players for the upcoming season.  Since I have typically been on the baseball board of directors, I am used to helping at registrations anyway.  Tomorrow, the temps are supposed to return to seasonal norms – below zero and snow.  If everything re-freezes then I think I will take the dogs for a walk in the dog park as well – they love that.

Tomorrow is also the Pro Bowl I guess.  Not sure what time it starts and I am also not sure if I will bother to watch it.  It tends to be a pretty boring game, more touch football than anything else.

Well, hopefully my readers will have a good weekend doing whatever they plan to do.  Enjoy.

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Something new…

Posted on January 24, 2014 by kdarcy21

As I indicated in my last post, or I think it was my last post anyway – I was asked if I wanted to join the umpire association Board of Directors.  I asked them to ensure that my coaching activities would not be considered a conflict of interest.

Well, I received a follow-up call from the association and they do not consider my coaching to be a conflict of interest, so I have accepted a position on the Board.

I have sat on numerous Board of Directors.  Baseball at various levels, in St. Catharines, Niagara District, Baseball Ontario.  I am also on the Board of Directors for the Calgary Forest Lawn (formerly Calgary East) Conservative Association and will likely move over to the  Calgary Centre Board once they have their AGM sometime in the spring.  So, I have plenty of experience on Boards.  When it comes to baseball, I was also on the “other” side of the Board when it came to umpires.  In Niagara, there was what I would call a hate-hate relationship between the various Associations and the Umpires Association.  Some of that was likely due to the members on the various Boards not liking one another and the scheduler for the Umpires not being the easiest person in the world to get along with.

I are that some of the same type of politics exist here.  I am hopeful that there won’t be a lot of issues.

In general, the quality of umpiring in Calgary is way better than what it is in Niagara and in Ontario in general.  I don’t know if it is the training or what.  Now, of course, I am only seeing this from the umpires point of view.  I guess I will really see this summer when I am coaching.  I hope that my opinion stays the same – I am sure it will.

So, a new challenge ahead and new experiences.  Also, I will get to know some of the umpires better.  Not bad potential at all.

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Winter

Posted on January 23, 2014 by kdarcy21

Calgary is having a non-typical Calgary winter.  It is much more like a Southern Ontario winter it would seem to me.  It was very cold and snowy in December, I will admit, BUT, most of December is still fall, not winter.  The constant thaw/freeze/thaw cycles are getting a little tired.  I don’t mind snow, I don’t like ice.

My dogs both like going for walks.  They also tend to like to pull unless I am very strict with them which I am often not.  Zeus isn’t too bad, he can’t really pull that hard, he’s not that big of a dog.  Blondie on the other hand can pull pretty hard and she seems to have a goal of taking me off of my feet.  If I keep the leash short, she heels very nicely.  I guess I like her to be able to explore a little bit.

The other option would be to walk them daily in the dog park down the street.  The only issue with that right now is that the sun doesn’t come up until nearly 8am and I am leaving for work by that time.  I don’t want them running around in the dog park when it is dark and I can’t see them.

So, I guess I am getting tired of winter.  Where is spring?  Well, according to the calendar, we have nearly two more months of winter and I am sure we will hit another deep freeze or two between now and then.  The days are, at least, getting longer.  It was still light out at 5:30pm yesterday.  Not bad for the end of January.

I don’t mind the cold, prefer it actually over the hot and humid of summer.  Not that Calgary gets hot and humid, or at least not often and never like Southern Ontario, if it hits 30C here, it is sort of surprising.

The spring will also bring baseball.  I am looking forward to that.  Speaking of baseball, I got a call on Tuesday night from the umpires association.  Back in the fall, I volunteered for a Board position or to help out if they needed help.  I never heard back so I figured that they had the members that they needed.  OK, that’s fine – I pursued the coaching avenue.  So, I got a call asking if I would be interested in joining the Board as VP.  I explained my current coaching situation and said if they don’t consider being the VP and a coach with BRC, I would do it.  I can see that there may be a conflict – guess I will see how this plays out in the next bit.  I don’t mind doing it, I am always willing to help.

Time to walk the dogs and see if I get pulled off of my feet.  Hoping that the bit of snow that we had yesterday doesn’t cover up the ice.  Wish me luck.

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Let the season begin…

Posted on January 21, 2014 by kdarcy21

I met with the coaches that I will be working with this summer last night at a little pub near my place.  It was a good meeting, we got to know each other a little better and talked about the upcoming season.  It seems like we are on the same page with regards to philosophy towards how the teams should be run.  This is a good thing – it will be easier to get along for sure.

We have set, sort of, the coaching staffs for the two teams.  We need need a few things to fall into place and a potential coach needs to decide if he wants to join our staff or go with another club.  We have a parent from another team that is interested in moving over, that also needs to be hashed out.

The league, Babe Ruth Calgary is slightly different than anything that I have done before.  When a player enters the league, they go through a series of evaluations where coaches and managers from the various clubs evaluate these new players and the a draft is held.  Once a player is drafted by a club, in my case that would be the Rockies, that player plays his entire BRC career with that club – unless he is traded or chooses to re-enter the draft.  So, I guess one of the keys is to draft well, otherwise, you could be “stuck” with a weak player for a number of years.  Since I am on the ground floor, I have a fairly steep learning curve, but I am looking forward to it.  There is a lot of experience in the coaches that are around me, both with coaching in general and the league and how it operates.

I am looking forward to getting back on the field.  I do enjoy umpiring, but not in the same way as I enjoy coaching.  We start with evaluations in a few short weeks, then the draft and then March and April are indoor workouts preparing for the season.  I am sure it will be here before we know it.

I have taken two years off of coaching and it has been nice – a break.  I coached for 19 straight years up to and including 2011, my last year coaching in St. Catharines.  That is a lot of time and energy every summer.  Enjoyable, for sure.  Now, I start a new chapter in a new Province and a new league.  Looking forward to the challenges ahead.

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Old BLOG Entries

Posted on January 18, 2014 by kdarcy21

I have been reading my old BLOG entries recently, when I am bored I guess or just listening to the radio or iTunes and want something else to do.  I started my BLOG in November, 20009 and this post number 606 or so (605, 607, not entirely sure), so, that is a LOT of entries to go through.

It is amazing what you remember when you go through this stuff.  Leaving my previous job and being unemployed for almost 9 months.  The happiness that I felt when I was finally offered a good job – I had turned down what I would not consider a good job.  As of this morning, I have read entries up to and including April 25, 2012, so I have just about 2 more years of entries to read to catch up to the present.  It is an interesting look back at my life.  If I continue to blog, let’s say, for another 20 years, other than I don’t think I would ever be able to make it through everything, it would be a pretty cool look back.

I think I may have mentioned that at some point in the time-space continuum that I am thinking of turning my BLOG into a book.  Well, if I don’t do that for 20 years and I average, say, 100 posts per year, that would be one hell of a thick book.  It would be pretty cool though, at least to me.

I don’t document everything that goes on in my life.  There are some aspects that I am not going to share with the general public.  At one point, I had a few entries that I had locked with a password.  In thinking of that now, those posts seem to be gone.  Not sure why…  I don’t remember removing them.  Perhaps I removed the password requirement.  They were likely posts about my previous job or the people that I worked with/for.  Oh well – don’t really remember.  That part of my life is better forgotten anyway.

Anyway, not sure when/if I will go back from the start and read these entries again.  It is a good look back.  Here is to many, many more posts.  If you are reading this, thanks for being part of it.

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The coming summer

Posted on January 17, 2014 by kdarcy21

I have had phone chats with a few of the people involved with Babe Ruth Baseball over the last couple of days, good chats.  The current Club Manager for the Rockies that will be turning over the reins to me has called me a couple of times, trying to bring me up to speed.  We’ve scheduled a meeting with our coaching staff for this Monday evening.  We’ve picked a quiet, out of the way pub to have the meeting in.  Should work well.

Indoor evaluations start in February, followed by team drafts and then in March, indoor workouts.  Sounds like a good plan to me.  This league looks like it is well run and very organized – it is what I like to see.

The last time I was involved with SCMBA, it was not particularly organized well.  Sort of a fly by the seat of our pants type thing.  A few of the Board Members were on the ball, but most of the new people weren’t on top of it.  It is still in existence though, so that has to be a good thing.

I don’t really have any plans on getting involved at the Board level here.  I’ve definitely been there and done that.  I was on the SCMBA Board for, well, must have been at least 10 years.  I was on the NDBA Board just about that long and was President for 5 or 6.  Most of those years were good years.  There were trying times and trying people to work with, but, all in all, it was enjoyable.

So, this season and the summer will be here, I am sure, before I know it.  Two of the three parks that I will be coaching at are pretty close, that’s good.  The third is in the north-west of the city, but it isn’t hard to get to.  Cross town traffic can be a killer at times though – much like traffic in Toronto.

I am looking forward to what the season will bring.  So, bring it on.

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Coaching. Managing. Baseball.

Posted on January 13, 2014 by kdarcy21

I attended, quite excitedly, the Calgary Babe Ruth coaches meeting yesterday afternoon.  As I often do, I posted something about attending the meeting on Facebook.  Well, one of my co-workers replied to my comment that he might be interested in assisting – long story short, he attended the meeting as well.

So, it is downtown, started at 2:30pm.  Not the best of times for sure – I was missing a good football game.  But, being the true baseball person I am, I didn’t mind.

The meeting covered a lot of ground and I learned a lot about the league.  I have previously only umpired in this league.  I decided to offer my services since, from an umpires point of view, the league looked to be well run, good coaches and players and the diamonds that they use, with one exception, are close to my place.

I had previously spoken to one of the Technical Directors about coaching and we went over some basics.  He told me what he was looking for and I told him what I was interested in.  It looked like it might work out well.

So, after the meeting was over, I stayed on to meet with one of the Managers of one of the clubs – the Rockies.  He is going to be too tied up with work to allow him to continue with the job that he’s done with the team.  The league is divided into 5 different clubs and each club has two teams – one AAA club and one AA club.  He oversees both clubs and is the “Manager” or “Head Coach” of one of them – this is the position that they need filled.  I have plenty of experience in Managing a ball club, it is what I have done since I was a Manager with my first All-Star club back in 2000.  I suppose that taking on the Managing job with an additional club isn’t going to be all that much more difficult – time will tell.

I think, from what I heard yesterday, that the AAA club is fairly well coached at this point in time with existing coaches.  That is fine, I don’t mind stepping into the AA club and taking over.

We are planning on getting together in the next week or two with all of the coaches in play to make sure that we are on the same page.  I also need to speak with and possibly meet with the Technical Director.  There are applications and police checks to be done – I can’t use the check that I just had with with Big Brothers for this unfortunately.  So, I will need to make a trip into one of the Calgary Police Services stations to hand in a vulnerable sector search request.  If it is like my Big Brothers check, it will take about two weeks.

We have evaluations starting in early February, inside of course, this is Calgary after all.  Should be a good indoctrination into the league.  My co-worker is still interested in helping out, so that is great.

I am really looking forward to getting back onto the field.  I mean, I have umpired the last couple of seasons and have really enjoyed it, but coaching has always been a love.  Umpiring is a hobby.

It will be fun being on the other side of the field again.  Not sure how busy I will be, guess time will tell on that one.  Wish me luck – I know, for sure, that I am going to enjoy it.

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The Weekend

Posted on January 11, 2014 by kdarcy21

The weekend is here.  Thankfully.  It was an interesting week at work to be sure.  It zipped by, but there were odd issues that made it sort of annoying.  I survived.  That is a good thing.

I have no plans this weekend, other than a baseball meeting tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon.  I am looking forward to that and to the possibility of coaching again.  I really don’t know what to expect.  I am not counting on anything other than possibly going back into the coaching world.  If the conditions aren’t just right then I won’t return – I will continue umpiring away.  Umpiring isn’t a bad way to spend the summer.

My double-signed Darth Vader picture arrived at the office on Thursday.  Now I need to get it framed.  I have not decided on how I am going to frame it but the advice on where to get it done was pretty well unanimous at work, a place called Michael’s.  OK, I will check them out.

My not smoking is going very well.  I am pretty well done with the coughing associated with stopping smoking.  I do feel better as well and my sense of taste is coming back which is awesome.  This time around, I am not going to have that “once every 3 months or so” smoke.  I have decided that I am done and don’t want to start up again so I am also done with the occasional one to remind me of how gross they are.  Sometimes, such as this last time, they lead me back to the path of smoking.

I think I will also take the dogs to the dog park a couple of times this weekend.  It is a lot nicer letting them off of their leashes and having them run around smelling the flowers than having them try to pull me off of my feet while we walk around the neighbourhood.  The temps are supposed to be in the mid single digits today so it might get a little sloppy out there.  Tomorrow, it is supposed to be below zero.  Oh well, if we get sloppy, so be it.

Anyway, if you have plans for the weekend, I hope you enjoy them.  For me, I am going to enjoy relaxing.

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Religion. Why?

Posted on January 10, 2014 by kdarcy21

As a lot of us do, I use Facebook on a regular basis, perhaps too much even.  Perhaps it is one of those things that I will try to cut back on.  I enjoy catching up with what friends are doing or making sarcastic comments about pictures or statuses.  It is fun.  I really started with Facebook when I was coaching baseball in Ontario.  It was a great way to communicate with the players, they were all on Facebook, all of the time.  According to news sources, this may not be the case any longer or for much longer.  It appears that it is mostly older people using it – older meaning people 30+

Anyway, back to my topic.  Religion.  Quite a few of my Facebook friends spew various religious “crap” on their walls via statuses and what not and, unfortunately, it makes its way to my wall.  I honestly don’t get how intelligent people can follow a religion and believe in God and, apparently, think that everything we do on this lonely little planet of ours is by “His” design.  Really?  Are you serious?

It really surprises me who some of these people are.  Some of them might read this post and they might be offended.  Frankly, I don’t really care.  As I have said, time and again, this blog is for me, not you.  If you don’t agree with it, feel free to post a comment, letting me and my readers know your thoughts.  I honestly believe that religion causes a lot of the issues we have on this planet.  I really do.

I subscribe to a couple of anti-religion type pages, mostly for the humour.  I rarely share what they post – some of it could be considered quite offensive.  I am not easily offended myself.  I do think that you are entitled to your own opinion and if you want to be religious and it does something for you, fine, go for it.  If it makes you feel better, that’s awesome.  For me, it is a waste of time and money.  Once you start posting your views on Facebook or via Twitter and I see it, well, it isn’t as bad as you coming to my door to try to “convert” me or whatever, but just about.  Now, I am not going to (or I likely won’t) reply to your post with the intention of insulting you and your beliefs, but, what it does make me do is talk about it on my blog.

I have a co-worker who recently, not sure when, converted from being a Muslim to a Christian.  OK, fine, whatever you want to do.  He’s never really talked about it all that much until last week.  He called me on the phone and actually started to try to, what I would call “bible thump me”.  I stopped him pretty quickly and told him, in uncertain terms that I was not interested.  I don’t think he will do it again.  I certainly hope he won’t.  My guess would be that he has switched to some brand of church that likes their members to actively recruit.  I could be wrong, but that is my guess.

I think, as I get older, I lean closer and closer to being an Atheist.  I was forced to go to church until I was 13 or so at which time I simply refused to go.  My mother was a fairly religious person and she would go to church most Sundays.  I guess she enjoyed it, we never really talked about it.  My dad, he would go to church for weddings and perhaps funerals and I don’t recall him ever stepping foot in one for other reasons.  I never felt that going did anything for me.  As I got closer to being a teen, I dreaded Sundays and being forced to go.  Perhaps I went to a particularly boring church – it was Anglican, likely one of the more boring religions.  I can’t see any of the others being any better though.

So, now that I am far past my teens, no one can or does force me to go.  I will step into a church, like my dad, for wedding and funerals.  That is about it.  Can’t imagine another reason why I would.

Anyway, a bit of a mild rant this morning.  I think I just needed to get that off of my chest.  I feel better now.  🙂

Can someone explain to me why they follow this stuff?  That would actually be nice.  Please, feel free to post a comment or two.  As long as you don’t swear and what not, I will approve it.

Enjoy your day.  And stop posting religious stuff that makes it to my wall.  🙂

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Sleep

Posted on January 8, 2014 by kdarcy21

I was rather tired last night, went to bed pretty early, right around 8:30pm.  I have been battling a cold for the last few weeks and I must be a bit worn out from it – I am not getting any younger you know.  It started in my chest hand lasted there for about two weeks or so and then shot to my head on Christmas Day.  My head is mostly clear and empty again but I am still feeling lingering effects.  I really hate colds, but, this was the first one that I have had in Calgary since moving here.

Anyway, back to sleep.  So, I went to bed early which typically means that I will also wake up early, 3am or so.  I have gotten used to it over the last few months and I tend to get a lot accomplished in the morning before I go to work.

Well, this morning, I wake up and look at the phone – it is 6am.  I actually slept 9.5 hours.  Quite amazing.  That is the longest that I have slept in a few months, well, if you remove the naps that I sometimes (or often, whichever you prefer) take on weekends.  So, I am hoping that my early morning wake-up trend is over.  Maybe I will actually be able to sleep in a little – you know, wake up at a normal hour, that would be REALLY nice.

Back to the normal routine today.  It is Wednesday so I am working from home.  I am sure that the dogs like having me here.  I get a lot done, people in the office can’t drop by and ask me to do stuff for them.  My co-worker is in the office so he can handle any office issues.

I guess I will see what time I wake up tomorrow to see if my early morning stuff may be behind me.  Wish me luck.  I am going for a nap…

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