Not a post about Major League Sports, but of girls fast pitch softball and a coach I knew.

We started helping out because our girls were on teams. For my last few years of coaching girls softball I was his assistant. We tried to instill some knowledge of the game, but our biggest task was to get young teen and pre-teen girls to have some fun playing ball.

We had many good players, but sometimes their interests headed away from the ball field. We took this in stride and hoped that the girls had some fun. Funny I can’t seem to remember how many years I coached with this man, but I think it was 3. They were good summers.

Through the following years, we failed to keep in touch, even though my youngest was friends with one of his step-daughters. When we did see each other, it did bring back some of the those good memories. For years he walked in the “Walk for Life” to remember my dear wife. He will no longer walk that walk, he lost his own battle to the very opponent he walked against. I will miss the occasional meetings at Wally World or Taco Bell. I will miss a friend. Children will miss a father. A wife will miss her husband. And Cancer takes one more…

I rented a BIG truck today. I then went to the Froggy’s house and help load up things into a van, a couple of pick-ups and The BIG truck. With this thing and that thing happening, the move didn’t start as early as we would have liked. It got hot, very hot. The vehicles were loaded up and we left B-town at around 1:45.

BIG truck liked to BOUNCE. I’m not sure if I would have been sore with just moving stuff, but I was sore after driving that BIG truck. It actually handled well, but it bounce me up and down in the seat for the entire trip to T-town.

At 2:45 we were emptying the vans and pick-ups. We had more help on the unloading end, so it went much faster. We took most of the stuff for storage. That was another adventure that I may write about when I have a bit more energy.

I’m still wondering why today reminded me of George Carlin… The link is not really kid friendly, it is George Carlin on stage…

https://youtube.com/embed/MvgN5gCuLac

On my last phone I could set ringtones for each caller if I wished. I could also download ringtones (usually for some nominal cost, but I never did that). On the new phone I can make my own ringtones. I can record something and set that to be a ringtone. Bits and pieces of MP3 files can become ringtones. The only limitation I can see is my very fertile imagination and the time I would need to spend on each ringtone.

I thought of recording each daughter saying “Hey Dad it’s me.”, but then I remembered that over the phone they all have similar vocal characteristics. I could record myself telling me which daughter is calling, but then anyone within earshot would know which daughter is calling me. Interesting concept, but not enough imagination yet.

I guess I could do my Stitch or Bullwinkle impersonations and make a slightly different message for each daughter. Maybe, maybe???

I could find bits of their favorite songs and set those as ringtones. One daughter is very, very easy to pick — Anything Star Wars or Frogs. I don’t think I’ve heard any phone that rings with a Bullfrog croak. Dogs barking for the young Vet Tech student?
Something that sounds tropical for the daughter in Florida? Or maybe the sound of a zoo, since I hear she has the start of one. And the oldest, hmm?? I will need to think on that one.

I currently have some picked out, so I can recognize some of my callers, but what about friends? Should each friend have their own ringtone? Should I group some friends together? Group my work contacts together? Have some annoying default tone for anyone not on my contact list? The choices seem to be endless, but I will get tired of this soon.

Do you want to have you’re own ringtone. What would it be?

Had a bit of nasty weather last night. I really didn’t think much of it at first. Being out in the middle of nowhere, I only hear the storm sirens when I’m outside. When there is thunder and lightning, I’m not outside. But my new phone likes to chirp when there are storm warnings, so I knew about what was happening.

The lightning flashed, the thunder rumbled, the wind was ripping through the trees. The phone chirped. It was an actual tornado warning. I did actually go downstairs to sit out the storm. It was ominous when the wind actually died during the heart of the storm. Seemed surreal. Then the lightning flashed, the thunder rumbled on again. Our lights flickered. The winds died down. All was well in my little corner of the world.

This morning I heard of some storm damage in the area. I haven’t been by any serious damage, but I did have to detour around some downed tree limbs this morning. I always hope people will pass through the storms safely. I haven’t heard any bad news yet. I hope all is ok.

Until the next storm, and in the next storm, stay safe.

Apparently not much happened. I checked on various places that google found and the only reference for that date was that tennis star Arthur Ashe had bypass surgery. I found that Summer Solstice occurred at around 7:00pm Eastern Daylight Savings time. But then I knew that. I’ve known that time for most of these 27 years.

At almost exactly Summer Solstice in the year 1983, I proposed to my future wife. Later on she wondered why I picked that day. It was VERY early in our relationship, and it could have been assumed that this could cause problems. I stated as an absolute fact that the stars were aligned properly. My lovely wife knew, even at that point in our relationship, that I did not mean astrology. I was never a believer in horoscopes of any kind. She looked up what I meant, and found the time of the Solstice.

The timing was a complete coincidence, but it did help me remember that date. It was one anniversary that I could surprise her with. I always remembered to get her a little something special on the first day of Summer.

I remember that day even now. There are many important days that I tend to forget, but this will never be one of them. 27 years and counting. I remember that first day of Summer in 1983…

I’ve read that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the novella “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” after having a nightmare. I’m really wondering how that works. I can remember only a handful of nightmares that I have had and not one would have made a good story.

Most of the nightmares that I remember are random things. Very short, with whatever it is that makes it a nightmare happening quickly and then waking me up. Never anything that I thought could be expanded into a story. Integrated into a story sure, but not as the basis of a story.

I guess I just have the wrong type of nightmare. They just wake me up and now give me the desire to write something in a blog to calm down.

I was thinking about writing about the nightmare itself, but I now have no desire to re-visit this dream. I hope it becomes a faded memory by the time I awake for the second time this morning.

And don’t forget the big ball of rope. What does that have in common? Why would my mind put all of that in one dream? And why Susanne Pleshett?

On the explanation of dreams. I get some weird ones on occasion. I’ve never really tried to find any deep meaning or explanations to any of my dreams. I figure they are just my brain working a little overtime.

Baseball is easy to explain, I’ve been listening to some games and trying to find out when I can see a game this summer.

Philosophy — Blogging recently on this topic.

Dinner with the folks. Well I did see quite a bit of my family recently. We used to always gather at my folks house when they were alive, so that is also an easy one.

Big ball of rope? No clue

Susanne Pleshett? Well, I was talking about the Newhart show with someone recently, and she was much better looking than Bob Newhart.

Now if I can just figure out the BAD/GOOD stuff. I don’t thing that is going to happen very soon.

I just woke of from a very strange dream. At first I was playing in a High School baseball game, but that soon turned into a ballgame with current friends and a few big league stars (and a couple of those are no longer with us). Then I’m in a play trying to discuss some deep philosophical point with Susanne Pleshett, she eventually morphed into many different people and I was still trying to discuss the same point.

I’m not sure what the original point was, but it was a discussion of what is good, and what is bad. And then when or how to make bad things worse, bad things better, good things better and good things worse. All very confusing, especially when it ended, I was trying to discuss this with my oldest daughter, while making a big ball of rope, just before a big family dinner at my parents’ house. Wonder what Freud would say about that dream…. 😉

Anyway, I woke up contemplating the Good/Bad discussion. My fuzzy 2 am brain just isn’t wrapping around the dream discussion at this time (It was very deep 😉 ) Maybe by putting these words down, I can remember the finer points to what was being discussed. Or, I will find out that it was only deep in the dream.. 🙂

Oh well, I’m going to think more on this latter, I need to sleep and I think I got out what was needed. Of course, I think I will need to re-read “When bad things happen to Good people”, or some other book of the same genre….

Let’s say that you have 40 hours per week to get a job done. No more, no less, just 40 hours. After that was done, you could spend the rest of the week doing exactly what you wanted. 40 hours is just shy of 2 full days. How would you allocate your work time.

I am contemplating on this. 40 hours is a normal full work week. Some jobs require a bit more, some a little less. That is our ‘normal’ allotment for work, job, career.

If I were the only one to think of, my desire would be to get as much in as I could in a day. Two 16 hour days and one 8 hour day could do it. Then I would have 4 days on my own every week. Maybe a 14, 12, 14 week? Four 10 hour days? Four 9 hour days and a 4 hour day? The old standby, five 8 hour work days? Five 7 hour days and one 4 hour day?

Is it worth contemplating this at all?

A wandering mind can discover many new things. A stagnant mind only sees what has been.

I was listening to a ball game tonight and it sounded like it was going to be something special. Very close, well pitched game. 1 – 0 going into the 8th inning. A blown call and a hit/error later made it a 3 – 0 game going into the 9th. The home team pitcher had a perfect game going.

Long fly ball to deep center field, chased down by the center fielder, 1 out.

Ground ball to short, 2 outs.

Ground ball to 1st, close play at first. Perfect game/no hitter ruined. And then the announcers started to complain. They yelled, they screamed. The could not believe what they just saw. The same ump that blew the call in the bottom of the 8th did the same thing in the 9th to ruin a perfect game. Both announcers said it was and outrage.

Tempers grew hot when the game ended. Final score Detroit 3, Cleveland 0.

Strange thing, I was listening to the game on the Cleveland network, since I get that better than the Detroit network at home. The Cleveland announcers were outraged at that call in the 9th. They were the ones yelling and screaming about the umpire. I’m sure the Detroit announcers were doing something similar, but I was amazed to hear this from the Cleveland crew.

Watching the replay on the net, confirms that the umpire blew the call. Out by at least 1/2 a step. I didn’t see the 8th inning close play yet, but I am going to assume the announcer got that right too.

There are very few times we are able to witness perfection in any activity. A perfect game in baseball is very rare indeed. Funny how human error eliminates this perfection. Good life lesson that.