Dakota Fun

Dakota's been a lot of fun recently. He's come up with some funny sayings or responses.

I found a book that Kristy had made for me, with pictures of Dakota and I called "10 reasons I love my daddy". I told Dakota I wanted to read it to him and he responded "I don't want to go to bed yet". We usually read to him before his nap.

He's also become a bit more opinionated, which we are dealing with. Someone taught him (Walmart crowd) to say things a bit more forceful (NO!), and so we need to teach him what is acceptable in speaking to others.

Last night we moved the rest of the shed things to the basement, so we're full to the "gills" but enjoying everything being under one roof.

We even survived our first plumbing issue...a check value needed to be replaced. That explained why the toilets were making a "glug, glug" sound when we flushed it.

Now to get things done before Dakota has a new sibling....

Phillies Pfun

Okay, so it was unexpected, but I ended up going to a Phillies game just 4 days after I attended one, and said it was the last of the year (unless they make playoffs).

It was rainy, I wasn't exactly sure if it was worth going...but it was free tickets, and so I went.

When we got there it was steamy and humid, but we sat in the shade, got some breezes, and had a good time.

The guys behind us sounded like they had an even better time. Two quick "hits" from the afternoon: after the PA system played the trumpet sound (du-du-du-DU-du-DUUU...CHARGE!) they one guy said "C'mon Ruiz, we gave you a du-du-du" (repeated sound). That one made me laugh. The other one was, "Man, they must put a chemical in this food to keep you hungry". I heard that a few times that afternoon, as they scarfed down food. Between them and the family to our right, there were a lot of $$$ flying around for food and beverages.

A few thoughts from the game: I was surprised to hear the loud booos when Alfonseca entered the game (he replaced Madsen who was injured). One strike later (a strikeout) everyone cheered. I hope "Alfie" has thick skin.

Same for Iguchi. He's the first Japanese born player to play in Philly. The guys behind us thought it was funny to say "c'mon mitsubishi" or whatever Japanese sounding words they could think of.

Replacing Utley is hard, but if he plays anything close to the 2005 form when he was with the White Sox, then all will be well. I'm not opposed to the Phillies acquiring the rest of that team...they already got Rowand, Garcia and Iguchi.

Moving Moving Moving

Thanks to some fantastic help from family, we moved in 3 days (Thu-Fri-Sat). We certainly haven't decreased our possessions/keepsakes/junk/stuff any. In hindsight, we should have had a big garage/yard sale, but I really thought we were in good shape.

Now the fun begins. The basement is pretty much covered in stuff that was storage, shed stuff, etc.

At least the upstairs looks fine (to me).

The Marathon

This week has been crazy, and it's only Wednesday. Most of it has been self-inflicted.

Monday we had inspection on the house. The inspectors found a few minor things. Monday night there was a softball game, but I worked on the house. (We won!)

Tuesday I went to Provident, and worked on some house things in the late afternoon. Then had a softball double-header, where I played the first game (lost) and left part-way through the second game (a win). I came back to finish up some for house things.

Today was a 2nd inspection, on the things I needed to finish from Monday's inspection. All went well, and we're finished with the inside inspections. Then we had a landscaping inspection and retention pond inspection. The "pond" passed, though if it ever is a pond for more than 72 hours, we'll have to replace sand, sod, etc. It's really kind of crazy, all it does is clean the water, and then drain the water out the back....which I guess is supposed to be a benefit to everyone. An expensive "benefit". Perhaps land engineers just find ways to spend other people's $$, but I shouldn't talk/write...I'm not an expert on engineering or the environment.

There are a few minor changes that need done with the "grading", so hopefully Dave will have that done in the next day, and we can still move in this weekend.

Tonight I should be raking topsoil, and seeding the lawn, but the Phillies are calling, and this may be (what's that Kristy...okay...will be) the last game I attend this year. Unless they make the playoffs.....

Christmas Pines

While it sounds like a place in a "Jay-Jay the Jet Plane" dvd/video, it's actually a campground that Kristy's family went to this weekend. Kristy and Dakota went up on Friday, and I came up after working at the store and house on Saturday.

It was a nice campground that featured a lot of people driving golf carts. Here's where I found it ironic, these people seemed to be pleasure riding, while my pregnant wife was walking a few hundred yards to the bathroom.

Dakota enjoyed the playground, where there was a "crawler" mini-excavator, and some diggers to play on. He also like swimming, though preferred to spend as much time out of the pool, as in the pool.

It was a nice fun weekend, for the most part relaxing, and really the deep breath before a stressful (hopefully last) week before we move.

Making Friends At the Lumber Yard

It's been another week of trips to Musselmans, Lowes, etc.

I found it amusing that when I was at Lowes, the song by U2 "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was playing over the in-store music. That seemed pretty appropriate at the time.

I've also been there at Lowes when the store opens at 6:00. It's interesting that around 6:15 they call everyone to the front of the store for a staff meeting. I'm pretty sure one thing they say is "serve the customers in your department".....hmmmm, kind of hard, isn't it? Bad time for a meeting.

If I felt like being belligerent, I would walk around and push those buttons that are for customer assistance in ____ department. The ones that cause an overhead announcement "Customer assistance needed in the tool department" Now those buttons are a nice feature, they tend to get employees out from the woodwork pretty quick.

Praise the Lord

We got electric at our new house! PPL came out Monday, and did their work.

Now we have a few things to wrap up, and hope to move in July 27-28.

What an answer to prayer! I was preparing myself mentally for electric in early August....Kristy was not ready to be that pessimistic. Everytime I saw a utility pole laying along the road, I would think to myself, I wonder if they're ahead of us on the "list" or behind us.

Lighting strikes Twice.....sort of

Thanks to some creative church softball scheduling, we got to play "Bethany" 3 times in 4 games. There's a lot of "background history" when it comes to softball, so we really wanted to beat them at least once in 3 (they're stacked with power hitters).

Friday night we got smoked, they were prepping for a tournament the next day, and were hitting the ball really well. Monday night they were missing a few guys, and we played a close game, until the 6th inning when went up 3 runs.

Not to be denied, we came back with 5 runs in the top of the 7th, and then lighting flashed, and flashed, and flashed, and we had to vacate the field. Being solid in the brain that we are, we then went on the other side of the fence, and stood around there.

So the field is empty, and no one is holding a metal bat in the air, but we're still standing together out in the open. I stood next to Linford and Sheldon, hey...they're taller :)

After 30 minutes they called the game, and we won! .....oh, wait....what?....I guess there is a rule that states if the inning is unfinished, and the game is called, it goes back to the score of the previous inning (or so "Bethany" claimed).

Regardless, we came back the next day, without any lightning storms, and played against them...again.

At the end of the game, we had won! Getting 3 in the bottom of the second to win!

A fun, slightly nerve-racking at the end, game.

Dakota and Stuart Little

This past Thursday, Dakota was sick. So, Kristy held him for most of the afternoon, and they watched Stuart Little......from here-on known as the "cat-mouse movie" by Dakota. This ranks closely to the "baby chick" movie (Happy Feet) which he enjoyed watching.

A quick note from it, it was funny to see the "House" main character (Hugh Laurie) play an upbeat, positive dad in Stuart Little (Hiddy-High, Hiddy-Ho). It's about the exact opposite of the cane-wielding, sarcastic, smirking doctor on "House, MD".

Friday the 13th

I guess it's a sign to how superstitious I am, I didn't realize it was Friday the 13th. The Phillies made a minor deal about it, they won 13-3, on the 13th, and had their 13th sell-out of the season.

Dakota Dictionary - Cubbers

Cubbers [cubbers] noun. plural.

1. Something that covers or is laid, placed, or spread over or upon something else, as:
a. a bed cover

When used in a sentence:

Daddy, more cubbers please? I want cubbers.

-
Dakota is a big cubbers guy, even in the summer. Thankfully he has kicked them off into the night. It would be hot and humid outside, but he would want a thin cubber, to cubber his body, when laying down to go to sleep.

Slammin Sammy Sosa

On one particularily humid night in June of '03, I was driving to Nappanee, Indiana for one of Kristy's softball games. As I was driving, I was listening to Pat Hughes and Ron Santo call the Cubs game, turned out they were playing the D-rays that night.

About 2 miles from the softball game, Sammy Sosa came to bat, and shattered his bat, with cork flying everywhere. I remember thinking it was a pretty big deal, a superstar slugger getting "caught" with cork in his bat. During a commercial break, I switched to ESPN Radio 1000 and they were all over it.

4 years later, Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune writes about the story and how Major League Baseball told the Cubs that they had 1 hour to get rid of any other corked bats, and apparently clubhouse personell rounded up 70 such bats, used by a bunch of players (no names given).

Interesting story. Reminds me of the Albert Belle story, where Jason Grimsley supposedly crawled through a crawlspace into the Umpires locker room, and replaced a corked bat with the conventional model.

Also reminds me about how our opponent last night was using a harder core baseball, and thus was hitting more home runs than normal......hmmmmm....

Sky, Shadow, Boss & Friends

Recently our church held it's annual summer bible school. It was interesting, this year, to experience it through Dakota.

I spent most evenings working on the house, but Dakota would come home, with one of his "bible buddies" and we'd talk about it.

There was "Sky" the eagle, "Boss" the steer, "Shadow" the cat, "Buck" the bronco, and one other one that I cannot seem to remember.

It is a nice experience to hear Dakota talk about sunday school, bible school, bible stories, etc. Often you're not sure how much he picks up....but he is almost always listening.

If the Amish can do it....

So today my dad and I framed a few walls in the basement, and to frame up the 2nd floor stairway area.

In terms of time and ease, I could have rented an air compressor and nail gun. Instead, I went to the old fashioned, nail-by-hammer-in-hand method.

Why you might ask?

Well, for the most part, I thought it would be manageable. It was, but I have a few blisters forming, and my arm is tired. Also, I wanted the experience of framing a few walls this way.

Oh well, if the Amish can do it....so can I. Now when it comes to farming or making electricity out of unconventional methods.....they have me there...

Weaver All-Star?

Last night I had the privilege of playing in our church softball league all-star game. I say privilege, not to over-glorify the event, or my participation, but rather to point out that any number of other guys from my team could have played in it as well.

It was a good night. I had 4 hits in 5 at-bats, 2 run scored, and 3 RBI's.

Now, before you think I am bragging, let me be quick to add that last year I went 0-3, so combine the 2 years, and I'm right on .500 (4-8), right in line with my "career" average.

Now I'm unofficially in the "deferment" stage of All-Star games. Those of us who have played in a few games, and now will defer so that others can participate.

This year was a lot of fun. Last year, I tried too hard, and well, 0-3 pretty much sums up trying to hard in softball.

Oh...and fearing my power (which I, um, don't have any) they put me in the cleanup spot in the lineup.

Paint by Number

Last night I did something kind of risky. A lot of the "final" decisions on the house have been made by Kristy, on what I would consider "littler things" but bigger in Kristy's eyes. Case in point, I bought a bathtub from the store, and was taking it home (a harrowing experience driving on Route 222 with a bathtub/shower on the back of my S-10). Long story short, Kristy didn't like it, and so I returned it and bought another one.

Well, we decided to paint our bedroom (it was mutual). I didn't really care what color, so Kristy picked out some paint samples, decided on a color, and I picked it up at the store. Last night I went to paint, and had this horrible thought....what if it's the wrong color.

Fortunately she was next door, and came over and confirmed that it was correct.

Whew!

It's a dark olive green...and looks pretty cool with the white ceiling. We'll revisit this opinion in 10 years.

Dakota Dictionary - Shoefly

Shoefly (SHU-fly) noun.

1. any of numerous two-winged insects of the order Diptera, for example the common housefly.

When used in a sentence:

"There's a shoefly"

"Daddy you hit the shoefly?"

--

At one point Dakota saw me swatting at flies, and went and got me the fly swatter from the bedroom. Apparently I wasn't doing a good enough job :)

Happy 4th of July

I think it's great that the 4th of July fell on a Wednesday this year. Last night I was working at the house, and it felt like today (Wednesday) was going to be a Saturday.

Now for those going back to work on Thursday and Friday, that might feel kind of weird, like a second Monday or something. Me, I'm taking off those 2 days to work on the house.

Initially I had hoped (rather optimistically....which I guess is what hope is) that we could be in a position to wrap things up this week, and move in next weekend. It looks like we're 2-3 weeks off that schedule, depending on PP&L. Crazy monopoly....I'd be content to get a utility pole and hookup from "savemart utility company".....where's a discount utility company when you need it :)

I need to tell myself, it will all work out, and when it does, we'll be in the house for a long, long time. However, even 2 weeks feels like a long time to wait right now...

New Basement Floor

Recently, John, Jason, Sheldon, Linford & Ervin lent a hand on a Saturday morning to pour concrete. The first issue that needed to be resolved was "how do we get the cement trucks to the back of the house?"

I assumed they could drive down the dirt ramp Dave had made, and pull up to the house. The drivers didn't think that would work, as the ground was soft in the area the would be turning around in. As they put it, "you'll have bigger problems than cement if we get stuck".

So, Ervin went and borrowed a neighbors tractor, and scooped away some of the top soil pile. This allowed drivers to drive straight across the lot, and avoided getting stuck.

With 3 wheelbarrowers, and John and Jason "floating"/leveling , it all got poured in 2-3 hours.

That's when the waiting process began. Unfortunately, because it was metered concrete, it took awhile to set up. However, half a day later, John and Jason were putting on the finishing touches with the trowler, and the job was done.

Then began the 48 hour period where I didn't want to walk on it, get dirt on it, have others walk on it, etc. It was like something that is brand new, you want to preserve the "newness" or something. Kristy, Dakota and I even ate supper off it Saturday night (okay, no we didn't).

After John Ray and I did some plumbing, and a few puddles from the storm, I felt a little different, as it lost it's newness, and became a regular basement floor.

Let me rephrase that, a really nice regular basement floor. My dad, and subsequent friends/workers/subcontractors all commented on how nice the floor looked. John and Jason did a great job.

Now to get those steps finished....

Interesting Baseball Articles

Phil Rogers, Chicago sports columnist wrote an interesting article on White Sox picture Mark Buerhle.

At one point Buerhle talks about proposing to his wife in a deer stand, and dealing with the redneck jokes the followed. His logic....I like the outdoors, and I like to hunt. Kristy said "I hope his wife does too..."

Also...

As the Phillies near 10,000 loses, no other professional sports franchise has more loses, there are a lot of articles being written about that. Sports Illustrated did a short piece, and some Philly papers have done some articles as well.

What's interesting is not that they've lost so many games, it's who's next on the list.......the Atlanta Braves. I would have never guessed that. Granted, the Braves have a 325 game lead in that category, and have been in existence 7 years longer, but still....after the past 15 years of record-setting division titles....they are seen as a winner.

So I guess it gives some hope....maybe by the time I'm 45-50, the Philles could be seen in that same light. History on the other hand tells us.......

Progress

Progress has been steady. At times I'm sure Kristy wishes it would be faster. Today the Heating and Air Conditioning guys are going to work at installing that system.

As it turns out, I went to the same grade school as one of the workers, Brian. His brother Merlin was in my class.

Right now, aside from the many items on the to-do list, we're waiting, hoping, praying, that PPL can get their portion of the job done in a reasonable time period. For now we press ahead, with the hope that it all comes together sooner rather than later.