Statrix Redux

Picture this…
The Rainbows come to bat in the ninth inning having trailed since the first inning when the Arizona Wolfpack scored two off of Ian Harrington. We scored one in the fourth, but still trailed by one. In the sixth Arizona added another leaving us two behind again. That’s the way it stayed in this pitching duel until the bottom of the ninth.
Justin Frash led off the inning and hit a long, hard fly ball to center that should have been caught but wasn’t for a two base E8. Brandon Haislet comes to bat and hits a single driving in Frash. Kris Sanchez is up next and hits into fielder’s choice that goes 6-4 and almost becomes a double play. Haislet had pretty much taken out the second baseman and the throw to first was a four bouncer didn’t reach the bag in time. Eli Christiansen is up next and takes four straight pitches for a base on balls moving Sanchez to second. At this point the Arizona pitcher comes out of the game short of a complete game. Rodriguez threw 119 pitches in a beauty of a game, but he was tired. Still at this point it’s still three to two in their favor with a man at first and second.
Up to the plate comes Evan Zimny who struggled at the plate for the first half of the season but has recently gotten his average up to .275 coming in to tonight’s game. He takes the first pitch for a strike. The second pitch he fouls for a strike. The third pitch is a ball and he fouls off the fourth. The next pitch is thrown, Zimny swings, and hits a three run home run to right field near the foul line winning the game and sending the fans into a frenzy!
I’ll post my scores later, but it was a beaut.
In other news, I took the first half of a “Zen and the Art of Photography” course today from 9-4 taking the day off of work. A fellow named Doug Beasley is giving the course, a shortened version of fuller version he usual gives. I enjoyed the class today, but will have to digest a bit more before I can say much about it. Tomorrow we are off to the Contemporary Museum in Makiki for brunch(?) and photography.
Here are two shots I web-sized quickly just to throw up here. The first is a “blur” shot taken by moving the camera during the exposure in a section of the class about breaking rules.

That’s it for now. I’ve got to get everything plugged in for tomorrow which promises to be another fine day!
Aloha!
The second shots was taken during the same section, but doesn’t really break any rules. I like it though.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s baseball team was in town for four games over three days this last weekend. Admittedly as a former resident of Milwaukee (though I lived here prior to that time) and a former student of UWM (though I’d spent more time at UH before age 13 than I ever did at UWM) I had some mixed feelings about this series. It wouldn’t have killed me if UWM won a game. They didn’t though and you could see how frustrating it must have been for them. In any case I tip my hat to their team because they are really much better than their record shows and I hope they do well in their own conference. Here are the scores from each of the games…
Game 1 (9 innings Friday night)

Game 2 (9 innings Saturday afternoon)

Game 3 (7 innings Saturday afternoon)

Game 4 (9 innings Sunday afternoon)

I had a great time at the games and finally started feeling better after my recent cold. I was off from work all week (5 days), but got lucky and wasn’t overwhelmed when I returned yesterday.
Coming up this weekend is the beginning of WAC play and while the previous games counted in our overall record, the rest of the season counts towards getting past the season and into a regional or better!
Aloha!

I’m still sick, indeed I’m home from work for a couple of days. I guess going to all the games this weekend wasn’t the brightest of ideas. On the other hand the games were pitching gems for the most part. We lost 2 of 3, but it was still a good time, even the rain delay. Anyway, here are the scores…
Game 1

Game 2 (This is the one we won.)

Game 3 (A heartbreaking loss through errors.)

Aloha!

I made it back to work at 6:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning, ran a few jobs, and looked forward to a pleasant week. Alas and alack, it was not to be. When my coworkers arrived at 7:00 A.M. they said I’d missed nothing important and I thought perhaps the week would continue that way.
In a word, NOPE!
It’s been a busy week in Lake Woebegone…whoops, got a little lost there.
It’s been a busy week in Lake Workbegone. On Tuesday Bob Harrison fresh from the cold of Portland received more requests than usual at his place of work. Here in Hawaii we like work, it’s good for the soul, but we like our rest as well. If we didn’t, we’d live in Minnesota.
The rest of the week kept up apace.
And none of that is the problem.
The problem is I seem to have caught a cold. Actually it may be a minor upper respiratory infection as my doctor would say. I’m not bothering to go unless it gets worse though, as there’s very little he can do about.
Luckily I may be in for a little better time of it than in the past as it’s been something like six weeks since I quit smoking. [As it turns out, and documented here, January 22nd, 2007 was the first full day I didn’t smoke, making six weeks not a bad guess.] I must admit that not smoking made being in airports a lot easier. I didn’t have to keep going through airport screening just to sneak out and grab a smoke while waited for my next plane. Instead I had all the time in the world to overspend on airport food.
Speaking of which the soup at SFO isn’t too bad. I got the Chicken Pot Pie, which is, as it sounds, more or less the filling of a pot pie without the crust.
Anyway I’ve been ill for days now and would have taken today off of work save for the fact that my supervisor decided to take two days off and the requests for jobs haven’t stopped coming yet.
Enough whining you say? I’m lucky to even have a job given my history? Yep, you are probably right. But to be honest, I’ve got very little to whine about in my life, so I’ll take what I can. 🙂
Aloha!

I’m at PDX on my way back to Honolulu. The conference was excellent, but there’s not much more I can say about it here. Suffice it to say I learned a lot, met a lot of great folks, and can’t wait for Anchorage next year. If you can figure out what it is from that, more power to you.
Here’s me at the airport…

I had a great time yesterday after the conference closed heading into Portland proper and checking out the coffee shops on NW 23rd Ave. and Burnside (I think). It’s a funky part of town and a lot of fun. Boy do folks have dogs in Portland and they seem to be allowed in a lot more places than in Honolulu (where everyone seems to have decided their dog is a service dog even though it’s clearly not – and I’m willing to give folks the benefit of the doubt most of the time on this one).
Then it was off to Powell’s Books. The big one. My gosh, I could spend weeks in there and never see the half of it. I bought a couple of books, some souvenir tees and a book bag for a friend. I also got a box of Band-Aids for a friend in a bacon and eggs design. She was the one I was hanging out with so I thought she’d better have a souvenir of our day – Band-Aids seemed appropriate. 🙂 [Nothing requiring them came up, but still, better safe than sorry. She can put them over her vampire bites.]
I did get a parking ticket in a lot whose money taking apparatus was broken. I’m pretty sure it was a scam. The rate on Sunday was $4.00, the ticket $24.00. If you shut down the money box people are going to park anyway, but then you ticket them. If one in six pay, you’ve broken even, if more than one in six pay, you’ve made a dandy little profit. I’m going to pay, I’m just going to complain about it here. I wonder if all of Portland is like that? I may write the city fathers (and moms) a letter about that.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ve got to find some coffee and crack open my new book!
Aloha!

Here’s a shot of Vancouver, WA across the river from my hotel in Portland. It’s been foggy, rainy, and quite cold as far as I’m concerned. Others might find this good weather depending on where the are from. I’m not sure how well vampires do in the fog, we’re learning quite a bit about organizing hunts though. 🙂


Aloha!

Well I’ve arrived somewhat worse for wear, though no worse than expected. My arthritis always seems to kick in when it’s cold and wet and Portland is, well…cold and wet. It’s about 38F and raining off and on. Luckily I figured this out before I got here so I packed properly.
My trip started in Honolulu, naturally enough, at Honolulu International Airport (HNL). I haven’t always liked our airport as much as I do now. That might be because it’s been under construction off and on for so long it’s been kind of a pain. It might also be because I’ve been to so many other airports in the last few years. Ours has its issues, but on the whole, it’s okay. For instance, we offer free WI-FI.
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) does not. I showed up there about 4:30 AM and discovered that not much was open (things open there at 5:00 AM) and that it’s a T-Mobile hotspot. Thanks but $9.99 for an entire day when I’m only going to be there an hour or or two is a bit much. Luckily I can use my cell phone as a wireless modem. It may not be all that speedy, but it works just fine thank you. I didn’t have breakfast in SFO as I’d planned because the restaurant I was going to eat at didn’t open till it was a bit too close to my next flight’s departure.
On to Portand (PDX). They do offer free internet, but I wasn’t around long enough to use it. I’m sure I’ll get a chance on the way back though.
I picked up my car, which was a fun experience. I’d reserved the cheapest possible economy car I could as I always do. The salesperson really, really, really tried to get me to upgrade a level or two (at an added cost of course). I declined. At that point it turned out they didn’t have any economy cars and I’d have to get one a level or two up, at the orginal cost. Had I agreed I’d have been paying for what they were willing to give me for free. Lovely.
Then it was off to my hotel, Red Lion on the River, a reasonably nice business type hotel. I got there at around 9 AM after only taking one wron turn. I’d love to blame that on the directions I got from Google, but I suspect I was reading them wrong.
My room was ready and it’s even got something of a view of the river and the city of Vancouver, Washington across the way. Having my room ready at 9 AM was great. I might have had to wait till 2 PM. In any case, I checked in, had breakfast, and took a nap. When I woke I showered and such and went off to register for the vampire slaying conference. The earlybirds meeting was at 7 PM and it was nice. I saw a couple folks from home.
After that i went to Safeway to get some supplies for my stay. You know, things like toothpaste which is hard to take on planes these days. Getting to Safeway, which is almost literally across the street from the hotel was a 10 mile adventure. It was dark and I made a wrong turn coming out of the parking lot. That meant I was headed on to the freeway heading towards Washington. On that side of the river I got onto another freeway and had to go several miles to get to an exit where I could turn around. Needless to say I finally got to Safeway, about 30 minutes after I left the hotel. 🙂 I guess I’m not much of driver. 🙂
That’s it for now! I’ve got the morning off, so I’m going to try to get some photography in before the conference starts.
Aloha!

I’m off to Portland, Oregon for the weekend to attend a conference on vampire slaying. It should be a good time, but it’ll keep me away from this for a bit. While there I’ll also get a chance to visit one of my sisters, which should be fun too.
I really don’t have much to add other than I’m looking forward to it and if I get a chance, I’ll report one what I do and see as far as I am able.
I am taking some camera equipment and there’s a chance I’ll bring home a shot or two I’m not ashamed to show off. We’ll see. 🙂
Aloha!

What a depressing weekend it was baseball-wise. Last night, Saturday, the game was postponed due to rain. I got soaked going to and from the game, but you know, you can never tell what the weather is actually going to be like at the yard. I’ve been in rain at my place and sunshine those few blocks away in the past. In any case, it rained and a doubleheader was scheduled for today.
The first game was almost a repeat of Friday’s game, at least as it started out that way. It ended pretty much the same way too, we lost 10-4.


The second game was much better. In fact it was a bit of a heartbreaker. We still lost. Read it and weep…


So there we are in the 8th inning. The scoreboard says we have 10 hits, my score says 11. I’m searching and searching to figure out where I made the error, but I just can’t see it. We get two more hits, the scoreboard says 13, my score says 13. Apparently the scoreboard operators weren’t doing all that well today. All those hits and we still lost. 🙁
Aloha!

Tonight’s game was not something to write home about. Of course, being at home, I guess I can spare a few words. We got one run on two hits, which, had we been playing defense might have seemed respectable. However…
It wasn’t to be as Wichita hit, ran, played small ball, played big ball, and basically just looked good out there.
Early on it was fine. Ian Harrington pitched well and we turned a couple of double plays to boot. Then came the fifth. There was this very strange E5, bouncing between the third baseman and the shortstop while a runner went around and in. We ended that inning 0-2. Even that might not have finished us had we been able to hit, but 1 more run in the sixth, and three in the seventh (2 RBIs on a home run) pretty much cooked our goose.
Read it and weep (I can’t account for everything in the game so there are likely errors on my part, but it’s mostly right – sadly).


That’s it for now. I’m going to try for tomorrow’s game, and Sunday’s. I’d like to see us get a bit of revenge. And to top it off I’m off to Portland next week and will miss the five game stand against our next opponent.
Aloha!