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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What to expect this week…

Posted on January 6, 2014 by kdarcy21

The holidays are officially over now.  Kids go back to school today.  I would guess that we will be back to full staff at the office today.  I mean, who takes holidays in early January?  I expect the office to be busy this week and since I am working on ITAssist, I expect to be extra busy.

I have a meeting tonight BBBS, it is my 4 month meeting with the case worker just to talk about how things are going.  Last night, my LB and I went to the Calgary Hitmen game.  I picked him up shortly after 5:30 and we drove to Franklin station to take the train.  As we were walking through the BMO Centre, a LOT of people were walking the other way, as if they were leaving Saddledome.  NM asked where they were coming from – I answered that I didn’t know, thinking that the Dome wouldn’t have an event right before a hockey game.  So, I stopped and took a look at the tickets.  It was 6:45pm.  Game time on the tickets – 4:00pm.  Nice.  We’ve missed the game.  I suppose that I shouldn’t assume that all games are 7pm starts.

As it turns out, we were not disappointed in missing the game and we can trade in these tickets for another set to a future game.  I didn’t really feel like seeing another game and when I picked NM up, he told me he really didn’t feel like going.   I told him we didn’t have to, but he said we should since we had the tickets.  So, I guess we both got our wish.  Oh well.

Anyway, meeting tonight and then wings at 1410 on 17 Avenue.  Should be good.

I was invited to the coaches meeting for Calgary Base Ruth this coming weekend.  Guess I will see what they have to offer me and what I can offer them.  By the sounds of it, they are more interested in me being a head coach than an assistant as they prefer when fathers aren’t head coaches.  It will all depend on the travelling and what not.  I don’t want to be driving all over the province.  I do look forward to getting back into the coaching fold – I have enjoyed umpiring, and will continue to do some umpiring, but coaching has always been my passion.

Not sure what the rest of the week holds.  It will be nice to be back into a regular routine, back to working from home on Wednesday as well.  I am sure that the dogs will like that.  I have spent a fair amount of time at home though being sick with a cold and all.  I still have not completely shook it – this week, I hope.

Anyway, if you are heading back to work or back to school, enjoy.  Only 50 some-odd weeks until we do it all over again…

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First weekend of the New Year

Posted on January 4, 2014 by kdarcy21

This past week was a good one.  It is nice having the week broken up by a holiday right in the middle.  Can we somehow arrange to have every Wednesday off?  I work from home on Wednesday’s and that is pretty good, breaks the week up nicely, BUT, having it off is even better.  Even though I am sure that I would have lots of support on making every Wednesday a day off, I sort of doubt it is going to happen.  Oh well, I tried.

It was a busy week for the most part, zipped by.  I have to drop into the office, hopefully briefly, this morning.  Our internet connection speed at the office is being upgraded.  Currently, we have a 10Mbps connection and it is being upgraded to 30Mbps.  That connection is shared among 160 some-odd staff.  Currently, at home, I have a 25Mbps connection, for one person.  Well, business connections are a little different.  I am pretty sure that we don’t pay $50 per month for our connection at the office.

I am hoping that everything goes well.  The last time that we tried to install new hardware, it didn’t work.  I am not sure why.  We used the entire 30 minute maintenance window and had no success.  It isn’t complicated.  You take a cable from one device and move it to another device.  Not rocket science, not by any means.  Well, I moved those cables, didn’t work.  My fault?  Nope.  Who’s then?  Well, I presume Telus perhaps.  Not sure.  Maybe someone else configured something wrong.  I moved a cable.

When it didn’t work, I moved the cable back.  It worked.

So, today, I think I have to move two cables.  I would guess that this doubles the chances that it won’t work.  Guess I will see.  Just from past experiences, I seem to be some sort of pessimist.  Well, when things don’t work on a regular basis, I think you are sort of forced to become that way.  I don’t claim to be a network guy.  Don’t really want to be a network guy either.  Perhaps it is because nothing ever works.

Anyway, after that, I am going out for coffee/lunch with a friend and nothing else planned for the rest of the day.  It is supposed to be snowy and cold.  Colder still tomorrow.  Gotta love winter.

One of these weekends, I am going sledding with my LB.  Not sure when.  I think I will need to buy a good pair of boots before hand.  I do have a pair from Ontario, BUT, Ontario winter boots are NOT Alberta winter boots.  It is an entire different creature out here.

Actually, S. Ontario has been having some real winter weather of late.  They had that big ice storm that left thousands without power until just recently and over the Christmas holidays at that.  Now, they are in the grip of a major cold spell with more snow.  Not typical for S. Ontario, not at all.  It is sort of fun to read the posts from friends back there on Facebook. complaining about the temps and snow.  We deal with it daily out here, so, suck it up.  🙂

Anyway, enjoy your weekend – more later.

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What a first day back…

Posted on January 3, 2014 by kdarcy21

Yesterday was an interesting day, to say the least.

It was the first day back to the office after nearly two weeks of holiday time for a lot of staff.  I decided to “jump on the queue” and assist since there were only a few people covering.  I do this often to help out, it also gives me some work to do when I start early in the morning.

One of the first requests that I received was an account re-activation.  Those are a bit of a pain to begin with.  This one had a twist – it was a rename as well, those are definately a pain.  So, I took to it – the user started yesterday. I got the request at around 7:30am MST, 9:30 EST and I knew it would take a bit to do.  Oh well, shouldn’t wait until the last minute to request an account setup.

So, started with that bit of a challenge – not bad.  As staff started coming into the office, we realized that there were other issues.

Over the holidays, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, we did some server maintenance to correct issues.  I was in on Christmas Eve to swap some drives and the RAID array had to be rebuilt.  We had to copy data from the server, rebuild, copy back.  Shouldn’t be any issues.

I was asked to check on Boxing Day to ensure all was well – it appeared to be.  My drives mapped, I was able to print and I had access to data on the drives.  Well, I didn’t think to check to see if a “regular” user would have access to the data as well.  I have administrator rights to all files, so, of course I had access.  We discovered, for some reason, that users had read only access – not good.  We also were not sure why they only had this type of access – it looked like they should have full access.

I waited for the network guy who did the work to come in – he works in BC so is an hour behind us.  As soon as he came online, I called.  He spent the better part of the next 5 hours fixing the issues.  What fun…  I spent the better part of the next 5 hours checking with users, emailing the office (likely about 10 times in total), doing this, doing that.  It was a busy day, to say the least.  Don’t get me wrong, I like busy days – it went by rather quickly.

I didn’t make it home for lunch.  I don’t like leaving the dogs all day without a pee break and Blondie in her crate all day.  I did leave work a little early and got home around 4pm.  Zeus was good, didn’t pee in the house (thanks Zeus) but was very happy to get out.  Blondie was likely happy to get out of her crate and able to stretch.  I hope that she won’t have to be in the crate too much longer.  I am going to try her on her own again in the next few months.  I will see how she does.

Last night, despite being a little tired, I went to the Calgary Hitmen game.  It was a good game with the Hitmen taking an early lead and they ended up winning 4-1.  Not bad hockey at all.  Speaking of hockey, Team Canada defeated Switzerland 4-1 at the World Juniors.  I was so busy at work that I completely forgot about the game – didn’t watch, didn’t check for updates on the score.  Canada now faces Finland with the winner facing the winner of the Russia/Sweden game.  Good luck Canada.

Today, I think, will be a more relaxed day at the office.  I start my day on the road.  Shouldn’t be too bad.  I have to go in tomorrow for a bit, we are doing a WAN upgrade so hopefully that will go well.  It seems that none of our other upgrades have gone according to plan.  Maybe 2014 will be a more lucky year?  One can hope.

 

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