Recap time, then it's on to doing some prework work.

We were able to get our softball game in yesterday, just before the rains came. It actually started sprinkling in the sixth inning and continued light rain through the end of the game and on the way to the bar. It held up until all the team folks were in the bar, and then the skies opened up. We won the game, 13-6, which was nice.

Apparently, the Oak Lawn tornado sirens were blaring away outside as the area was under a tornado warning. Strangely, we were unaware and continued talking and drinking. Great management, to keep the drinkers away from the windows in case there actually was a tornado or something. Had those windows blown in, I'd be in the hospital right now with shards of glass in my back. It looked pretty fierce out there at one point too, but nothing that we were too worried about...simply because we didn't realize just how bad it was. Again, much thanks to the crappy Gilhooley's management.

Eventually, the storms passed, without incident. Friends came and went over the course of the night, and I was quite happy with those who showed up. Hell, if no one showed up, I'd have been happy too. I'm most proud of the fact that I'd had enough to eat beforehand and paced myself quite well enough that I was able to do about six shots over the course of the night, not get sick or even hungover and be able to drive home last night too. I was quite happy about that. A couple of the shots were pretty weak, but some were powerful. It was a nice mixture. Big ups to Beth and Andy for the movie poster postcards. They kick much ass...plus, I wasn't expecting any gifts at all, considering it was quite a hike. Presence, not presents, was all I expected. So that was cool.

Today I woke up and took Kazak to Petco to get him a new ball and some dogfood. He was, as usual, happy to go for a ride. I then met my mom and dad at my cousin's house for what was supposed to be a nice, beautiful, May 31 barbecue. Unfortunately, it was damn freezing today. But we all stuck it out pretty well, and I stayed there a bit...it was, as usual, fun.

Now, I'm going to do some editing and writing and then who knows what...maybe I'll go to bed early. Ha! :)

Not to let you down here. I'm not so good a person that I can't post on my birthday.

We have softball this evening, barring major rains. In fact, I'm leaving work in an hour or so to get there. That simply means I have to take work home for tomorrow, which hopefully won't be a chore...in other words, I've invited everyone I know practically to the game and the bar afterward. Hopefully, people keep their pocketbooks in check. :)

Other than that though, I have work on Sunday, which means Monday off. So I'll be fighting through doing some work tomorrow in advance for Sunday. I never like that, but if I start on my work in the next hour, I might be able to finish it or put enough of a dent in it to where it won't be so painful tomorrow. We shall see, I guess.

Well, happy birthday to me, and if you're planning on meeting me tonight, well, see ya then. :)

We are now watching the "Math Counts" competition on ESPN here at work. It's ridiculous how quick these kids are with their answers. And it's even funnier the sports-like production values ESPN has put on them. They have a play-by-play and color commentator and bios for the competitors even...and now, sideline reporter! Hells no...this chick is rattling off the digits of pi. This is just too funny.

I now miss the old math/spelling/geography competitions I used to be in in grammar school all the time.

UPDATE: Now the National Spelling Bee is on...this is far too fun.

Finally, I can show you guys some photos of my gardening pursuits taken with my digital camera. Ignore the black specks all over the pictures...I still need to take the thing to get repaired/cleaned. By the way, I think you need to sign up for this Snapfish service to view the photos, and don't worry. They don't really spam you and they don't pressure you into buying stuff or using their service more either. I've been really pleased at how "silent" they've been.

I wish I had something useful or thought-provoking to post more often, but I simply guess that doesn't happen with me that often. So, here I go, continuing my meaningless, here's what I did today posts.

I forgot to mention that last night, after softball and the trip to Cubby Bear North for the postgame celebration, I stopped at a gas station on Milwaukee Ave. to fill up. As I was standing there, I looked down, and there were two scratch-off lottery tickets upside down on the ground. I thought to myself, hey, why not? and picked them up. In a fit of fun superstition, I did not look at the fronts until I got home. That means I basically forgot about them in my car the whole drive to Hawkeye's (to meet Luis to mildly celebrate his birthday) and then the drive home. When I got home, I found that their previous owner had scratched them off already. One was a loser, so I figured that I'd just come across another littering human being (though the garbage cans were right there by the gas pumps). But the second card was a winner. The prize had not been scratched off, so I immediately grabbed a nickel and found myself a winner of $15. Hey, it's $15 I didn't have, and it's nice to have a stroke of luck like that. It's good for morale. :)

Anyway, today I tried to call Chicago Sport and Social Club's weather line, but it was messed up. Big shock, with CS&SC...they're terrible. So I had to suffer through going into the city in the rain down to North Avenue Beach just to make sure our beach volleyball game was rained out. When I got there, there was absolutely no one there. I walked around for about 10 minutes and decided to head to St. Rita to see my little brother play postseason volleyball instead. I made it just in time and got to see him play, which is huge.

I got home to find out that none of the bad weather in Bolingbrook really did anything here. Apparently, it was all on the other side of town. But I guess we had hail and some downed small tree limbs. But nothing else, really, thankfully. Except that my stomach is just killing me for some reason for the past hour...hopefully it goes away soon and I can get some sleep. I don't know why it hurts though...for once, I'm not "ulcerating" over something. :) All in all though, it was a pretty uneventful day, as usual.

File under: "Holy Crap."

PFW softball is now 2-2. We are on a two-game winning streak, both comeback wins. Last week I told you of our 19-16 win after being down 16-2 at one point. This week, we were far more consistent, hanging around and keeping it close throughout. We were down 14-10 heading into our last raps in the bottom of the 7th, and we plated five runs to win the game. It was huge.

Personally, I pitched a gem in relief for the second straight week. I know by saying that I'm tempting the softball gods and all, but I'm pretty confident in my abilities to bounce back, as well as the way my teammates are playing right now.

I like the way we have it set up. I start in right field until our "starting pitcher" starts letting in runs. Then, our coach makes the call to the "pen," which is me, and I take over. It's great because our "starter" throws much flatter pitches than I do. So the opponent is not as prepared for my pitching as they would be. Yesterday, I played a little mind game type thing too, coming in, stepping on the mound, throwing one warmup for a strike and announcing to the ump and the world, "I'm ready, Blue, that's all I need." He responded a little stunned and told me I could have more warmups. I said I didn't need them. I proceeded to get the first batter I faced to ground out on the first pitch to end the inning. The other team's pitcher/captain was calling me Troy Percival at that point. He was damned good and I respected him because he respected me. But he tried to play mind games with me too, telling the ump to watch my delivery, as it looked like my foot was coming off the rubber. It didn't faze me. :)

Tonight, I'm supposed to have my first beach volleyball game, but it could very well be rained out. We'll see. If it is, I'll go to St. Rita to see one of my little brother's final volleyball games. If I play, that'll be great and I'll go see his game maybe Saturday...we shall see. All in all, a very sports-filled day.

Well, I decided to go see "Bruce Almighty" with Donna this evening, and the movie did not disappoint. Some people are not fans of Jim Carrey. I however, am one. It's weird, because there are times when his schtick would seem to get annoying to me, but for whatever reason, it just doesn't happen. The movie was funny, plus, one of my favorite actresses, Catherine Bell, is in it and looks pretty good. Jennifer Aniston also looks pretty good...but, ahem, the movie itself was good, and there actually a moral to it, which I could agree with. Unfortunately, I cannot share that here, lest I spoil it for others.

Other than that, I spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to get Donna's resume in an edit-able fashion so I could do just that, edit it. I finally got it to work, and edited it. See, even when I'm not working, I'm working. ;) But that's OK...

I get a nice, short week, but certainly a busy one, now, culminating in my birthday on Friday. How nice. Oh yeah, and I guess since it's technically Tuesday now, it's Luis' birthday. Three days separate us in age. How about that useless factoid? At least I don't share a birthday with Mr. T. But for now...bed calls.

Well, I haven't screwed anything up yet. I went, got lunch and stopped at Best Buy in the hopes of buying "Weird" Al Yankovic's new album. Unfortunately, they didn't have it, and neither did Circuit City. I guess "Weird" Al doesn't have as much of a following out here in the western 'burbs. So I ordered it online, because shipping is free and all anyway. :) So that should be a nice birthday present for myself, from myself, since it should be here Friday or so.

I was going to do some woodwork in the workshop, but I'm not sure. I thought about going to my parents' house to have a burger or two off the grill, but it seems like too much to drive there just for that. I don't have any other real reason to go there, since I visited yesterday and the day before, what with the Sox games and all. So who knows...this day, fortunately, seems to be dragging on. That's OK, like I said. But I know once I find something to do, it'll fly. :) That always happens.

You know what's great? Getting a blank canvas to paint your day on.

You know what's not great? Having so many options for that canvas that chances are you'll screw it up.

So we'll see what I actually do today, the final day of my 4.5-day Memorial Day weekend.

Andy sleep now...

But first, a couple things I learned today:

1. My brother, born in 1985, was 11 years old in 1976 when my uncle died.
2. Barb and Pete went antiquing even though Barb "hates" antiquing, because it's all "crap."
3. Barb's mom and Mr. T share a birthday.

The Sox won in grand fashion today, thankfully, since I really got tired of the game after about seven innings. Stupid Sox. I then went with Barb and Pete and friends to a tiki bar near their house called Hala Kahiki. Froofy drinks for all. I had three drinks and can't really remember the names of them...who cares, right? I remember one was Pineapple Boomerang. Another was Beyond the something...and the middle one was Dr. something or the other...Pete would know that one, because he had that drink too. A good time was had by all, of course. We weren't there long however, since our pretzels were not replenished very quickly. I then offered up a pretzel sacrafice to the tiki god/lamp, demanding that they pay for not replenishing our pretzel supply. The host came by five minutes later and said our waitress had suddenly gotten sick and he was taking our order. Ah, the power of cheese...I mean, salted breadstuffs.

But now I'm off to bed, because I'm tired. That is all.

Well, history was made today.

For the first time in my life, I stayed for a fireworks show at Comiskey/U.S. Cellular. EVER. You see, quite frankly, I hate fireworks. I think they're the dumbest thing anyone ever invented. You wanna make noise, then yell, but what's the sense in wasting your time to light a firecracker only to have it blow itself to smithereens? I never understood. Of course, part of that is because when I was little, I was afraid of them. The noise was too loud and scared me always. I rarely went to Sox games and when I was there, I became a big fan of small ball (White Sox win, but no home runs, please). Fourth of July was a living hell for me. I used to sit in the house on the Fourth while my family, grandparents and friends would sit on the porch and watch the M-80s and firecrackers and any legally-obtained-in-Indiana-but-illegally-brought-into-Illinois fancy fireworks go off, as rare as those were in my neighborhood. Meanwhile, I'd sit in the frontroom with the TV uselessly on because my fingers were in my ears. My arms were quite sore after that long a night. My ears too. It was the same with thunderstorms and balloons popping. I have no idea why those things scared me so much, but they did.

Eventually, I grew out of that, first the balloons, then the thunderstorms and then the fireworks, but it took a long, long time. I still, by habit, try to get as far away from firecrackers as possible, and night thunderstorms sometimes freak me out if the thunder's particularly loud (though not so much here in my cave). Now, the firecracker thing is not a bad thing, per se, as I won't have my hand blown off or anything. But sometimes I feel silly. Well, until today, I had come no closer to the Comiskey postgame fireworks than the parking lot of Comiskey. But today, I sat in the seats with my brother and cousins and it wasn't bad at all (which I figured it wouldn't be). Now, you still won't catch me sitting front row on the Fourth when some jackass is blowing off bricks of firecrackers, but at least I took this step.

Other than that, the Sox continued their losing ways, the bastards...I hope they get swept by the freakin' Tigers tomorrow, just so everyone can get really, really frustrated after they do NOTHING to fix the problem and deny there's a problem, though they'd just been swept by the Tigers. I mean, here's how bad it is: My brother and I are ripping the players at the park, joking about how bad they are and such to fellow fans around us. That's a practice Tim and I usually get pissed about and rip on the fans for--two-faced-ness. But man, they're really, really sucking right now.