History Witnessed

My buddy Keith in San Fran watching Bonds hit number 715!!!





I am so jealous it is crazy!

Bullsdogs, a Weiner, and a Squirrel...Oh My

Just some of the things you can see on a casual hike around Buntzen Lake Beach on a warm Sunday afternoon.

Not English - But Classic

They are really into this. The facial expressions are awesome...

My Love of the Game

Baseball is a game of 'what if's'.

This past weekend I was coaching my team in a tournament in Kamloops. We were in what is known as the tournament of Champions. It was a great weekend full of great weather. Sunny but not too hot that it was melting. The tournament consisted of six teams. My team, Coquitlam, as well as the host Kamloops, and four other teams from Alberta; Airdrie, Cochrane, Calgary, and Lethbridge.

We rolled though most of the games with the Albertan team, with the exception of Lethrbidge, in which we had a massive slobber-knocker. It was a back and forth game with the end result being a 12-10 win for us in the 6th inning as we ran into a time limit.

Anyways, through the round robin we had finished 4-1 with our only loss coming to Kamloops and they had ran the table. This set up a winner take all final against the two BC teams. We were two time defending champs going for the three-peat and Kamloops was sick and tired of being the bridesmaid.

Back to the point - Baseball is a game of 'what if's'.

Long story short, Kamloops beat us 3-2 in their last at bat of the game. We scratched and clawed our we back from an early 2-0 deficit just to see it all just slip away in the bottom of the seventh. It was another one run game with Kamloops. It was another great game with a great team. It was a really heart breaking loss. The guys played their guts out and just came up a little short.

After the game I was thinking back to everything that happened and how easily things could have been different:

If that ground ball would have been reached in the first.
If we didn't leave runners stranded in the 6th and 7th.
If the grounder was scooped in the 7th.
If one of two pop-ups in foul territory were caught late in the game as both landed inches any from the outstretched glove of the diving players.
If we made a pitching change.

What would have happened?

It makes you think about the entire tournament.

What if the catcher didn't get hurt in the first game and what if the centerfielder get hurt in the second game. Would a different team on the field be enough to make a difference.

This is why I love baseball. This what make baseball so great. This is the part that I think a lot of people miss. It is the chess game that occurs at every moment of the game. Shifting fielders, calling pitches, calling for the steal, the sacrifice fly, and the....SUICIDE SQUEEZE!!!

Your mind is constantly analyzing situations and outcomes. Risk versus reward. A game where success 3 out of 10 times at the plate in still considered quite good.

Baseball is more exciting than people give it credit for. It is a thinking mans sport. A sport for the analytical.

And do NOT compare it to beer league softball because it is NOT even close to the same thing.

We're Number 14!

Ok, I am not sure how we placed exactly but somewhere between 5th and 14th. We did win the "C" division playoff so that counts for something. I have to say that it was one of the most poorly organized tournaments that I have ever been in from the schedule stand point and standings. You never knew who won or lost and how you really fit into the standings and you never really knew when you were playing the next day until late the night before. Regardless, we left the park big winners. Even if we didn't show up to the Park Sunday morning feeling like big winners.

Special credit Goes To:

Poutine - At 1:30am you are a great friend

ATB and Todd - For making sure my arm really hurt all weekend

The Organizers - 8:00am is not a game time on a Saturday morning

Isley and Shack - Without you the left bench would have been cold

Alex and Maddy - The Condo was awesome! Great Find!

Lord and Savior: Without your support we never would have won the 'C' Division Playoff in the Longhorn Tournament. Big shout out to the Lord, Jesus Christ!

Rock......Wall

A little Before... ....and After

If I Could Only Tread-Dance...

...Oh, the success with the ladies I would have had!!

Things You Find Online

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

20% Yankee

10% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Maybe this is why a mumble?

I Would Not, Could Not With a Mouse...

As many of our loyal subscribers would already know, Lola and I have a little field mouse problem. I am hoping that after last night, it is now past tense and is considered that we "HAD" a mouse problem. It was a successful hunt last night.

The trap had gone off four times. The first time we checked the trap and saw nothing so I am not sure that maybe it just didn't slip off itself.

The second time the mouse set it off, which was only 10 minutes later, and he was caught by the hair of his chinny chin chin but before Lola and I could capture him he had escaped. And by him, I mean George (aka Mickey). This attempt prompted me to rig a new kind of trap so that once the mouse was caught by the trap he would not be able to run away. The trap was in a box that would allow the mouse in but he wouldn't be able to run out with the trap stuck to him. This second attempt also provided this valuable information to me....I am a wuss. Oh, I tried to act tough in front of Lola, but I did a terrible job.

So we reset both traps in my new invention and went back to the living room to wait.

Time ticks by...

So slowly, slowly...

And then around 11:00pm we hear what we thought was the trap going off. We checked the first box. Nothing. I picked up the second box and thought it was light and there was no mouse in it. We took it outside and I shined the flashlight though the hole I cut in my trap box and sure enough, dead mouse. For those of you who might feel bad, don't, because this mouse did not feel a thing. Granted he was cute, in a rodent kind of way, but he died a quick death and would have been dead before he knew what pain was.

I decide to keep the other trap set, just in case George's family came looking for him.

Time ticks by...

So slowly, slowly...

It is now about 2:20am, and I was in the computer room, when "POP", the second trap goes off.

Now this is the trap that had gone off before by itself so I wasn't expecting there to be a mouse for sure. I opened the cupboard and saw what I needed to see. Another mouse and my new trap worked like a charm. The mouse got trapped, tried to run away, but the box stopped him from pulling trap back through the hole. This mouse, I will call him Renaldo, was the Spanish brother-in-law of George, unfortunately did not die right away, but was dead a few moments later. The trap crushed his lower body and although he tried to run at first he died fairly quickly afterwards.

So where does that leave us. Well I am not positive that all the mice are gone but I at least know exactly how they are getting in. There was a small space betweem the pipe and the floor below the kitchen cupboard, so I will fill that with steel wool so the mice can not come through it again and then rebuild the cabinet base. Hopefully this will be the end of this issue for us.