Sep 29

Yes, no one has to say it. The Rockies lost again. That means we were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Both of them are at the bottom of our division. Arizona is just about at the bottom of the league. So we are definitely out of the post season games. We have four games left. Hopefully, we’ll win at least one of them. I’m shooting for the one where Ubaldo is pitching. It will give him his twenty wins for the season. But, now that the Rockies are out of it, I can focus on football.
My granddaughter brought me her Halloween costume today. She’s going to be a princess. The little dress is so cute. I can’t wait to get pictures of her. I’ll put one up on my facebook page as soon as they let her put it on.
I started packing for the big move at the end of October. We’re putting almost everything in storage and moving in with the in-laws. We’re going to stay there for about six months so that we don’t have to sign another lease at the apartment. We’re trying to buy another house and with the money we’re saving on not paying the rent, we’re going to use as a down payment. Plus, we won’t have to worry about trying to break a lease. We could have signed a six month lease, but that would have upped the rent quite a bit. So, it’s living upstairs at the in-laws place. At least there is a private entrance. It’s really an upstairs apartment, but it’s still the in-laws.
I got about half way through chapter 40 yesterday. I’m going to finish that up and start working on 41 today. I’m not sure how far I’ll get. I’m putting some Bob Segar, Paul Simon, Crosby Stills and Nash, Jim Croce, and Bread on the playlist. So, it’s time to get going.
-Thom

Sep 28

Santa Claus gets a bum rap at my house. My granddaughter is two and a half. Last year, we thought it would be fun to get a picture of her with Santa. Well, it was a disaster. She knew who Santa was. She saw him on TV and pictures of him everywhere. She even seemed excited to go see him. We told her that he brings gifts and toys and she talked about him the whole ride. We didn’t go to a mall. Instead, there was a grocery store that had a Santa setup in the back. When we got there, there was a huge balloon of Santa outside of the store. She wanted to touch it and she was still excited. When we got inside, however, she must not have realized that he was going to be a real person. She freaked out big time. She wouldn’t even go anywhere behind the registers. For the next six months or so, she would always mention Santa Claus as if he were the boogeyman or something. Naturally, we tried to tell her otherwise, and she has been kind of receptive. Now, whenever something happens it’s always Santa Claus’s fault. Today, my wife came home to find juice spilled on the floor. The kids didn’t bother to clean it up. Someone just threw a towel over it. The baby was the only one out in the living room at the time, so we asked her what happened. Of course she said that Santa Claus did it.
The Rockies managed to lose again today. I believe we are officially mathematically eliminated from the post season. We started out really good. Usually, the other team has been getting runs in the first inning. Instead, we made a run in the first. Then, it went downhill. We had several chances to make a comeback. We even had the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth. The Dodgers walked a run in, which put us down by only one run. Then the next batter struck out ending the inning. It was heartbreaking. I know that there was only a very sliiiiiiiiiiim chance after our little losing streak, but I was hopeful. There are only five games left in the season. Since we’re through, we can just sit back and enjoy the games. Next year is just around the corner.
I finished chapter 39 yesterday and started 40. But, I’m going to have to go back and change up some things in 40. I didn’t like the way it was going and I had a better idea this morning. So, I’ll be working on 40 today. I’ll get pretty far into it, but I won’t be able to finish it. I’ll have to take a little break sometime today because my daughter is finishing up her report. She’s going to send it to me so that I can look it over for her and print it.
-Thom

Sep 27

I had an interesting weekend. We had two birthday parties to go to on Saturday. It was fun, but I should have known better than to play football. We kicked butt when we played kickball, and I knew I should have stopped there. I managed to catch a few and almost made a touchdown. But, some of those guys on the other team were pretty big and they had ten years or better on me. I wasn’t that hard to bring down. At least my eldest daughter’s friend was on my side. Last time one of her friends played, I accidentally punched him in the face when I was trying to tackle him. (Seriously, it was an accident. His face just happened to be where my hand was going. I don’t know how it curled up into a fist.) Both my girls played. My son would have, but he had to take his girlfriend to work. So, he left the baby with us. Now, we had an incident when my youngest was a baby the first time I got transferred back to Denver. We were moving stuff into my wife’s mom’s house and no one was paying too much attention to the baby. She wandered off. We were frantic when we noticed that she wasn’t there. Everyone was searching for her, and luckily she turned up around the block. A little old lady was watching her from her porch. Since then, I always turn to look for any kid I’m watching every few seconds. I always know where they are if I’m supposed to be looking after them. But, on Saturday, after we stopped playing football, I was talking with the other guys and my wife thought she had gone with my daughters. They took the car for a bathroom run. We were at a park. She wondered off to the swings. She was following one of the older girls. It was pretty far away. As soon as we noticed that she wasn’t there, it was panic time again. Luckily, the older girl was watching her. They were swinging. (I could have had a heart attack right then.) Once again, we were lucky. I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened.
It was also a bad week for sports. The Rockies can’t seem to win. We’re pretty much out of the race for first or the wild card. We would have to win all of the rest of the game and everyone else would have to lose. The Arizona Diamondbacks swept us. The Giants took two of three games and tonight we lost the first of three to the Dodgers. I guess it’s just about time to look toward next year. The Broncos also lost to the Colts. It was a really good game. We had plenty of really good drives, but we couldn’t put the ball in when we got to the red zone. The Colts (Which are an extremely good team) were kept to only 27 points. They usually have double that. Our defense was very good. We stopped their run completely. If we would have done better in the red zone, we would have won that game. We’re standing at 1 and 2 now and we have a tough schedule ahead.
I am halfway through chapter 39. I should be able to take care of it today and maybe even start of 40. It’s beginning to wrap up. Unless something goes wrong, it looks like it will be between 47 and 50 chapters. I won’t get it done by the end of September, but it should be within the first couple of weeks of October. Next time when I set a schedule, I’m going to make it more realistic. I did work on the Great Detective over the weekend. I want to have it done by the end of October or early November. So, if I’m going to get it done, I better get started. I’m going to put the radio on in the background just to mix things up.
-Thom

Sep 23

I don’t know what’s going on with the school system this year. We had the parent teacher conference yesterday. They said that they are no longer using the ‘D’ as a grade. They aren’t changing the scale for the first three grades, so ‘A, B, and C’ will still be the same. But, anything under that will be a failing grade. My eldest daughter is a very good student in all of her other classes, but she was a ‘D’ student in English. ‘D’ was barely passing, but it was passing. Now, she has to work so much more just to get up to a ‘C’. She is a senior this year, and a requirement for graduation is for every student to receive an acceptance into college. It takes months for the colleges to interview and decide on students and then send out the acceptance letters. It takes so long that if you don’t get it started in the first quarter of the school year, you might not get it by the end of the school year. Now, she is going to have to overcome a failing grade which will exclude her from many schools. I really don’t like this new grading scale. My wife is going to call the school principal and the school board.
It has also been a very aggravating series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. We lost the first two games and in the top of the seventh inning of today’s game we were down eight to two. But, as I was typing, Carlos Gonzalez just hit a Grand Slam to bring us back into this ballgame. Carlos is a home run hitter, but he has been in a long ball slump. He has still been hitting. He’s working on a nine game hitting streak. But, it’s been a while since he’s hit a home run. It’s nice to see that streak broken. He’s at 33 homers for the season.
The girls had to drive me to work today. My wife is working some overtime today. She normally works seven to three, but today she has to go in at three in the morning. It sucks having only one car. We gave our other one to my son. But, I think it’s about time to get another one. It will officially be for my wife, but she probably won’t drive it as much as my daughter. Then, my youngest is going to have her license next year. We’ll need another one then.
I got about half way through chapter 38 yesterday. I should be able to finish it up today. That is as long as the baseball game doesn’t go into extra innings. If it does, I’m going to have to watch it on the computer. I’m not sure what I’m going to put in the play list. But, the Diamondbacks just made another run, so I better finish this and pay more attention to the game.
-Thom

Sep 22

Today was the commission ceremony for my daughter’s JROTC. The pictures didn’t come out very well, it was kind of dark. But, I’m posting them on my facebook page anyway. It was a logistical nightmare trying to get everyone there. It was held at a different school halfway across town. Every time we turned around, someone needed a ride. But, we managed to get everyone there. There were ten battalions besides the Brigade platoon that were receiving their promotions. We were the fifth and before it was our battalion’s turn, there was only light applause. As soon as we got up there, it was like an explosion. After that, the parents and friends of the other schools began cheering much louder. I was surprised that there were so many girls. All ten battalions were predominantly female. There were some that only had a single guy in the whole platoon. I wonder if more girls are joining the military than guys. I guess it doesn’t matter, but it was interesting. There was one thing that I didn’t like. Usually, my eldest calls the cadence. But, since she was the new colonel and the battalion commander she wasn’t supposed to do it. The battalion Sargent Major was supposed to. I might be prejudice, but my daughter would have been better. She has a much louder voice (When calling cadence) and I couldn’t hear the other girl.
Well, we lost yesterday to the Diamondbacks. That put us back in the playoff race. So, I was anxious to get to today’s game. Since we were at the JROTC ceremony, I couldn’t watch it. But, with a long drive, I was able to listen to it. We were four to one until I got home. Then, Arizona jumped up to Five to four. It has been like that now, into the eighth. We really can’t afford to lose again. But, the Giants were nice enough to lose today which only really helps us if we win. The Padres are being stubborn. They are leading the Dodgers by two in the eighth. (Crap, the Diamondbacks just got another run. This doesn’t look good.)
I was able to get quite a ways into chapter 37 yesterday. I’m going to finish it today and start on 38. There is no way that I’m going to be able to start until the game is over though. So, we’ll see what happens.
-Thom

Sep 21

What a disappointing loss for the Rockies tonight. It was a late game, so I had to listen to the end of it on the road to work and at work. We were down three to nothing most of the game. But, it looked like we were starting something several times. In the eighth, we got a run and we had a bunch of base runners, but we couldn’t get any more home. We lost in the top of the ninth. The worst thing is that both San Francisco and San Diego won their games. We really need to be in top form these last few games. We play San Francisco after Arizona, so those will be our do or die games. Still, even if we take all three of them, we still need both of those teams to drop a couple while we win out. Let’s just take a deep breath and start thinking about tomorrow’s game.
Even worse than losing, the Rockies game didn’t start until seven forty. And you know what that means. Yep, that meant that I had to help with dinner and even help clean up afterwards. I had to rinse off the dishes after my wife washed them and I had to clean off the table. (Life is so unfair) But, I did get a chance to spend some time with the family which is good.
My youngest daughter is the manager of the boy’s soccer team at high school. She likes it and it gets her out and about. But, today she brought home a bunch of their jerseys in laundry bags. She doesn’t even wash her own clothes and now she’s washing some of their jerseys. I don’t think I like that. My eldest daughter was transferring her medals and ribbons from her JROTC jacket to a new cleaner jacket. They both are going to have their promotion ceremony tomorrow. There is going to be one at school and then another one for the parents at seven. I went to the last one, and it was pretty nice. One of my nieces came over to eat nachos and do her homework on the computer. They’re more than welcome to come over whenever they want, but when they do my granddaughter would rather play with them than with me. She was unusually loud today. My son was trying to talk to me and my wife while I was playing with her and he could barely get in a word. We were playing “Her feet are grubby” The object of the game is for me to smell her feet and say how stinky they are. She thinks it is very funny and laughs very loudly all five hundred times I did it.
I finished chapter 36 yesterday. I’m going to bang out the lion’s share of chapter 37 today. I didn’t get to start it yesterday because 36 turned out to be a little longer than I thought it was going to be. But, 37 sounds like it is going to be a short chapter so I’m sure I’ll get pretty far into it. I put on some Night Ranger, Abba, and some U2 in the old playlist and it’s time to get started.
-Thom

Sep 20

We had a family reunion on my wife’s father’s side of the family. There were about ten or twelve of them. It was their first ever family reunion. (Half of them don’t speak to the other half. There were two dads, so it was always the older ones against the younger ones.) It didn’t turn out to be the disaster that you might have thought. And, there were plenty of opportunities for it to turn south. One of the older family members did most of the arranging. My wife got drug into it, because she likes throwing parties. She mainly was in charge of contacting everyone and getting them all there. (She gets along with everyone.) She should have been in charge of a little more than that, because… It was supposed to be the primary family, my wife’s dad and his brothers and sisters, were to contribute twenty dollars. That was to be used for a deposit on the park and all of the plates, plastic forks, napkins, hamburgers and hotdogs. Their children and grandchildren were supposed to bring a potluck dish. Well, all of the primary kids pitched in and it was going fine. When the organizer her husband and my wife got to the park, they found that someone else had appropriated the spot they rented. There were table cloths on the tables, balloons, and the grills were chained up. But, no one was there. Our party was reserved from noon to seven. They waited until noon, but no one showed up. So, they started taking the table cloths and stuff off. Seconds later, some people came running up telling them to leave their stuff alone. They said that they had been at the park since seven in the morning and it was their spot. The organizer whipped out their paperwork, but that only enraged the other people even further. It got so bad that they were threatening violence. So, my wife called the police. After that, they grudgingly left and swore to come back and wreck our party because we wrecked theirs. We saw where they set up their stuff, and the police and park rangers went over there. I don’t know what was said, but they didn’t come back. Catastrophe number one averted. We brought soda pop and ice and my son brought water bottles. Some kid with a Mohawk that I didn’t know started cooking the hamburgers while my wife and the organizer set up the tables like a buffet. One of my wife’s sisters brought a fruit salad, another brought cookies, and the other one brought chip salsa. They placed all of that towards the end of the tables as they prepared chaffing pans for the food the other families were bringing. As people came, we started putting out the chips. We would have put out the food, but the other thirty couples all brought chips. One of them brought ketchup, mustard, and mayo. The fruit salad disappeared almost instantly and everyone else ate hamburgers, hotdogs and chips. It wasn’t what was planned, but everyone got full. Catastrophe number two averted. Halfway through cooking the hamburgers, the gas tank and the hoses leading up to one of the grills caught fire. It took a while for everyone to get it put out. It didn’t explode, so catastrophe number three was averted. I really didn’t know anyone, so I played volleyball and kickball and catch with the football. Everyone took about a thousand pictures and I only had to be in a few. As the day progressed, no one got in a fight and everyone seemed to have a good time. No fighting was the last hurtle. Like always, as soon as it was time to start cleaning up, everyone suddenly had to leave. But, it didn’t take us that long. There were only two of us that brought a lot of tables, chairs, grills, tents, and ice chests. Me and whoever that other guy was helped each other pack up the trucks while my wife helped clean. The worst thing was that someone decided to face paint early on during the party. My granddaughter and several of the other little kids thought it would be fun to paint the tables. That did take a little bit of cleaning.
While the party was going on, I was also elected to ferry my wife and kids back and forth to the house. They didn’t want to use the bathroom at the park. While doing that, I managed to listen to a lot of the Rockies game. It wasn’t televised, so I would have had to watch it on the computer or listen to it on the radio anyway. I didn’t get to hear the ending, but in the ninth, it was twelve to nothing. Yep, I was happy. Over the weekend, we moved to within one game of first place. Then, we lost on Sunday. We’re two games out right now, but we didn’t play today. We’re up against the Diamondbacks tomorrow. All of the games in our division are late ones, so it’s going to be an exciting next few days. There are only thirteen games left and it’s coming down to the wire.
The Broncos won today against the Sea Hawks. It was an upset victory. After last week when Seattle beat up on the 49ers, everyone thought that they were going to be a really tough team to beat. We got three or four interceptions off of them, and they even flubbed a kickoff. I won’t say it was an easy win. But we were firing on all cylinders. Our next four games are going to be tough. We’re playing the Colts next. That’s the one I was supposed to have tickets for. But, with the mess up, I have tickets for the Chargers game at the end of the season. Watching the Broncos this week was difficult because it was playing at the same time as the Rockies game. I had to switch channels back and forth to keep up with both games. That’s the only bad thing about the end of the baseball season and the beginning of the football season. They need to start baseball earlier so that it can end before football’s regular season starts. They could play during pre-season football. That would be all right.
Taking Thursday off was a bad mistake. I didn’t get a chance to work on chapter 36 on Friday or the weekend at all. I usually can’t do anything on the weekends. My wife and the kids keep me pretty busy. But I lost four days instead of two. So, I really need to do some make up. 36 is almost done. I’m going to whip that out tonight and get started on 37. Today’s the twentieth. That only gives me eleven days to completely finish if I want to meet my personal deadline. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
-Thom

Sep 16

I’m taking the day off today. It’s going to screw up my schedule, but I just don’t feel up to it for some reason. I got pretty far into chapter 36. I’ll finish it tomorrow. Today, I’m going to throw in an audio book and listen to the whole thing. I just don’t feel like doing anything.
There wasn’t a Rockies game today. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so down. The game yesterday wasn’t televised and it was their day off today. The Padres managed to lose today, which was nice of them. It’ll move us another half game up. But, unless the Giants plan on blowing their six point lead in the ninth inning, they’re going to win. So, that’ll put us another half game under them. We still have 16 games left so we should be ok. We’re playing the dodgers next, who we’ve been having trouble with this year. We also play them again later on. Hopefully they won’t be our downfall. If we hang on and the Giants hang on, we play each other next Friday. Those should be our do or die games.
My wife contacted the Broncos season tickets guy. The seats that are open are a little over a thousand dollars each. At first I was all for it, but we wouldn’t get them for the first home game against the Seahawks and I already have tickets for the last game of the year against the Chargers. That would give us only six home games. And, I can get tickets for between seventy and ninety-five dollars for two. They would be cheaper but not as good seats. So, I’m passing on them.
Nothing real exciting going on with the kids today. It was laundry day. We have a washer and dryer, but my wife doesn’t like to do the blankets and pillows in them. She prefers to take them to a laundry mat where they have bigger machines. So, the girls went with her to do that. I babysat for a while and did my best job at making a mess in the kitchen while I burned dinner. (I could burn cold cereal while pouring in the milk) So, nothing real exciting happened to me either. Hopefully we’ll have a much more exciting weekend.
-Thom

Sep 14

My eldest daughter went to the rifle range today for JROTC. She shot at a sharpshooter’s pace. It’s the middle ranking, marksman, sharpshooter, and expert. She told me her score, but I forgot. She’s still having second thoughts about joining the military after she graduates, but she has the whole year to decide. My youngest daughter, the manager of the soccer team won their fifth straight game today. They’re undefeated right now, but it was a close game. And, it looks like it’s getting close for my son to move out. He came home today with a bunch of boxes. He got a vacuum, a toaster, and a bunch of other things. They even have salt and pepper shakers. I think they’ll be ok. The baby’s room is going to be packed. We were checking out all of her toys and she has more than you could imagine. It must be nice being only two and a half.
The Rockies dropped their second game to the Padres. We were 2 and a half games out of first before today’s game and 3 and a half out of the Wild Card. The score was 7-6. We were trailing all game. There were a few costly errors that really cost us the game, so I can’t say we played great. We did keep up with them, so it was exciting, especially the ninth inning. We started out with two doubles. Then, we had a single to bring the sixth run home. So, we put in our power hitter, Jason Giambi. They walk him. That gives us runners at first and second with only one out. Eric Young Jr. gets up. He’s doing exceptionally well at the plate lately. He’s working on a ten game hitting streak and he had several today. All we needed was a base hit and it would have tied the game. But, he hit it in the worst possible location and they turned a double play. We were so close to bringing home another ninth inning win. There are only a handful of games left, so these are the crucial ones.
My wife called me today after a Bronco representative left her a voice mail. We are on the list to purchase Bronco season tickets and they finally called us. Usually it takes about ten years to get the call. I’m not sure how many it was for us, but it wasn’t that long. They are for club level. She’s going to talk to the guy tomorrow to see how much and exactly where they are. It would be nice to have season tickets. I would go to all of the home games. I don’t care if it’s snowing or pouring rain. Even if these tickets are not the best seats, we would be able to upgrade when better seats become available before they become available to other people waiting on the list.
I made some great progress in chapter 34 yesterday. I’ll finish it tonight and get a good jump on chapter 35. It’s all coming together and I think it’s looking good. I still don’t think I’m going to make my deadline, but if I concentrate solely on it, I should come close. I’m feeling a little nostalgic tonight, so I put on some Gordon Lightfoot, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young on the playlist. Until next time.
-Thom

Sep 13

The party is over. Our ten game winning streak finally came to an end. The Padres beat us 6-4. I was in my car trying to listen to the end of the game as I was driving to work. It’s probably the only time I ever stretch out that ride. I’m sure the cars behind me weren’t too thrilled though. It was only the first game of the series. We’ll take the next two and make up the ground. It’s already the middle of the month and there aren’t that many games left. I know we can’t win them all, and we’re so close. We just have to make the most of them.
I helped move my mom into a new apartment over the weekend. Mondays are my day to go visit. She tried to rearrange things a little and put some of the stuff away, but she can’t really do that kind of stuff anymore. So, I spent the day moving furniture and unpacking boxes for her. My mom is a huuuuuuuge reader. She has more bookcases than anything else and all of them are completely filled with books. She has so many books that she has to stack a bunch of them in the closet. We unpacked about twelve boxes of them. At first, she wanted to put them in order. The best we did was organize them by authors. She’s retired now, so she has plenty of time to rearrange them in the shelves. The hard part was just getting them out of the boxes. One of my brothers came over to help. After he got there, we all sat down and talked for a while. Then, when we were getting ready to get started again, his phone rang and he had to go back to work. (He just didn’t want to help, see how he is. I’m the good one.)
My eldest daughter brought home the paperwork for her graduation. I’m sure that I had one when I graduated waaaaay back when. Hers said that we need to pay a $30 deposit for the cap and gown, a $60 deposit for the invitations, and a $60 deposit for the class ring. (I knew I should have home schooled.) Of course they send those things out with only a few days to come up with the money. Good thing I worked all of that overtime over the last few months. Hopefully the ending total won’t be too outrageous. Actually, I don’t think I got a class ring when I graduated. If I did, I lost it somewhere.
I finished chapter 33 on Sunday and I started chapter 34. I’ll get a good chunk of it done today. I don’t have anything ready in the playlist, so I think I’m just going to set it at random and let it choose. Time to get to work.
-Thom

Sep 12

Well, the Bronco game is over. We lost 24 to 17. I was only able to see the first half because I’m at work. So I had to watch the last quarter on the internet. I also have the Rockies game up and I was looking back and forth between them. It’s the top of the fifth and the Rockies are also down 2 to 0. But, we are on an eight game winning streak and we were down yesterday and came back. I’m sure we’ll come back from this one too.
It didn’t take us as long to move my mom yesterday as I thought. Usually, it’s just me moving everything. But, we had a lot of help this time. We arrived at about nine in the morning and were on our way home before three. She didn’t have a lot of stuff, but what she had was heavy. She’s a big book reader, and books are much heavier when they’re in a box filled with other books than when you just pick one up to read. We didn’t help unpack, so I’ll probably be rearranging things for her on Monday and helping her put some of the things away.
I’m just about done with chapter 32. I’ll finish that today and I’ll start on 33. That is, as long as I can tear myself away from the games. It’s not the same watching them on the computer. In fact, it sucks. But, it’s better than nothing. I keep trying to do other things with the window up to the side, but it’s hard not to keep looking over at each strike. It’ll be even harder now, because I’ll have to keep track of both baseball and football. I can’t believe that I got hoodwinked into working today. I should be on the sofa being lazy and watching the games.
One good thing happened today. My wife cooked breakfast and it’s not even a special occasion. She made steaks and eggs. We had biscuit and country gravy with little pieces of sausage in them. She made homemade hash browns. It was so good I’m still full. She is a very good cook, but with our schedules, she doesn’t get to do it as much as she wants to, or as much as I want her to. And, I don’t know if I missed an anniversary or birthday or something, but she’s going to also cook tonight. I don’t want to accuse her of anything underhanded or anything like that, but I think she might be up to something. We’ll see. Either way, I should do something nice for her. We’ll think on it.
-Thom

Sep 09

I know it’s not Halloween yet, but no one had flipped over the calendar. It was still showing as July. My granddaughter and I were looking at it and we decided to flip it over to the correct month. While we were there, we were pointing out today’s date and I showed her my brother’s birthday. She wanted to see her daddy’s birthday, which is also Halloween. After showing it to her, I asked her if she remembered dressing up and going trick or treating. She said that she did, but I’m not too sure. When I asked her what she was going to dress up like this year, she said. “Like a girl.” Actually, I love taking the kids out trick or treating. I like to dress up with them, even though I didn’t last year. It’s my second favorite holiday after Christmas, which is also coming up. I better start saving.
The Rockies had a humdinger today. It was the fourth game of the series and we had taken the other three. It was an early game and of course it wasn’t televised. So, I was watching it on ESPN’s website. We were down five to nothing at one point in the game. We had a bad second inning, but it happens to the best of us. Anyway, we fight back getting a run here and a run there. Finally, when we were tied, they put in the new guy Chris Nelson to pinch run for Chris Ianetta. He was on third, so it was a strange from the very beginning. Nelson took a healthy lead and then, when the pitcher was checking on the runner at first, Nelson steals home. It had to be an amazing play, but of course it wasn’t televised and I didn’t get to see it. Still, it was the run that put us over the top and we ended up sweeping the Reds. That’s three top of the division teams we have swept in the last few weeks. The Giants are spanking the Padres as we speak. It was Seven to one in the eighth inning, so they’re going to flip flop in the standings. The Giants will take first and we’ll be two behind the Padres and three behind the Giants. It’s always exciting near the end of the season. We play the Arizona Diamondbacks tomorrow at home. If we sweep them and the Giants and Padres switch back and forth winning and losing, it will move us that much closer.
The Saints beat Favre and the Vikings tonight to start off Football season. I can’t wait until Sunday when the Broncos play. It’s an away game. My brother wants me to go over to his house to watch it, but it looks like my boss is going to make me work some overtime that day. It really sucks, because I have Rockies tickets in the afternoon. The day was shaping into a Broncos game in the morning on the sofa and then a Rockies game in the afternoon outside. Now, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I’m considering trying to change my shift with one of the morning guys. I could always watch the Broncos game on the computer. It’s not the same, but at least I would be able to go to the Rockies game and still get the overtime.
I finished chapter 31 yesterday, and I started chapter 32. I haven’t had a chance to look at the Great Detective for a while. I want to get a little bit more done in that. I had another idea for it this morning and I would like to get it going, but Kidnapped is supposed to be first. I need to finish it before the end of the month. If I can squeeze in a little Great Detective towards the end of the night, I will. So, for now, I put in some Phil Collins, Heart, and Night Ranger on the playlist and I’m ready to get going.
-Thom

Aug 7

I went out into the living room today and sat down on the sofa. I turned on the TV and watched a bunch of junk. For some reason, the trash didn’t get taken out. The drive I was going to format and put into the pictures computer didn’t get done. My website didn’t get updated. Even the rice and vegetables I was going to make to help with dinner didn’t get fixed. I don’t know what happened. I was just sitting there watching TV and nothing I was supposed to do was completed. It’s one of those great mysteries of life. Well, there is always tomorrow.
Good news on the Rockies home front. We beat the Reds again. Ubaldo won his 18th game. It’s a club record. That gives us a five game winning streak. Unfortunately the Giants and the Padres also won. But, that just means that our standings haven’t changed. We’re four games behind the Giants and four and a half games behind the Padres. I get to go to the game on Sunday. We were thinking about going to the one on Saturday also, but in the morning I have to help my mom move and in the afternoon we have something else to do. We should be finished by game time, but if we aren’t I would hate to spend the money for the tickets and not be able to go.
I’m going to finish chapter 30 today and hopefully get started on chapter 31. I’m not sure what I’m going to put in the background. I think I’m just going to put it on random and let it decide. Well, this is a short one but I better get busy.
-Thom

Sep 6

I got that news that every parent just loves to get. My sixteen year old daughter came up to me and said that she slept with twenty two guys today. She said that she was sleeping with this one guy until he got tired so she had to go sleep with another one. As strangely as it seems, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. She is the manager on the school soccer team. They had a tournament in Colorado Springs on Saturday. They won the first game, so they had to wait until the other teams finished before they could play their second game. So, the whole team lay down in the grass and took a nap. (They were supervised.) It ended up their team took first place. While she was down at the Springs, the rest of us went to Lakeside. It was ten cent ticket day so we took the baby. We tried to get her on the little kid rides. That way the older ones could ride the big rides. But, she was all by herself and didn’t want to get on the little ones by herself. So, we took her to the carousel. That way the wife and I could get on with her. She liked it so much we spent about an hour just riding it and changing from animal to animal. She liked the purple and pink bunnies and the deer. We must have ridden it about two dozen times. There is a train that goes around the whole lake, so we rode that once and the house of mirrors a few times. The kids bought funnel cake, pizza, and nachos. Surprisingly no one threw up. My eldest daughter took my wife on a couple of the big rides. They had a lot of fun. On Sunday, we took in a movie. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to go to a movie because of working a lot of overtime. But, this week I have a normal schedule and we decided to splurge this weekend. It took us a while to decide which movie to go to. Everyone wanted to see something different. And, because we hadn’t gone for a while, we wanted to get something good. Naturally, we picked the worst movie they had. My wife likes the supernatural movies so we went to the Last Exorcist. Yes, it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I can’t believe I paid to go to it. Even more, I can’t believe I stayed through the whole thing. I should have snuck out and went to something good. Well, next week I’m going to something good and it had better be good or I’m going to be mad.
The Rockies are sliding up that ranking scale. We shut out the Padres putting us just four games out of first place. We were fighting to get a spot in the Wild Card, but San Diego decided to go on a ten game losing streak. It was very nice of them, because we have a better chance of taking the division than we do of getting the Wild Card. We’re still behind them and the Giants, but we play both of them coming up this month and we’re on a roll. September is always a good Rockies month. So, all we have to do is overtake them and hold first and we’ll be playing in October.
It was my brother’s birthday today. He got a Nook. It’s the Barns and Noble version of a book reader. He was charging it when I went over so I didn’t get a chance to see it in action. I like the Kindle. I’ve seen what it can do and it would be nice to compare. I have seen the commercials for the Ipad. It looks real nice. It’s not just an E-reader, but I’ve heard it still has a few bugs. I would love to see one of those in action. I’m going to have to check and make sure that my books are available on the Nook. I’m pretty sure they are. I think I submitted them to Barns and Noble, but I’ll check anyway. I still haven’t heard from the Tattered Cover. It’s been three weeks. I think I’m going to have to go with the big guns and see if Barns and Noble will stock my books in their stores. I printed the form to get it started, but I haven’t filled it out yet.
I didn’t like the way chapter 29 was coming out, so I started revamping it on Friday. I’m going to finish that today and see about moving on to chapter 30. I also worked a little on the Great Detective Friday. If I get a chance today, I’m going to finish that chapter. I think it’s 18. But, I need to buckle down. I put an end of September deadline on both of them and it’s going to be close. I think mid October is more realistic, but I’m still going to shoot for the end of September. The reason for the deadline is that I want to have all of the rejections back before Christmas. That way I can get them published by Createspace and send out a whole set to the family and friends as Christmas presents. Since I only started getting them in book form this year, not very many people have seen them all finished. A lot of them have seen them printed on just paper, but the book form is really nice. Ok, it’s time to get started. I’m putting Tom Petty, Deep Purple, and Dio in the playlist.
-Thom

Sep 2

Why is it that everyone in the whole city picks the same day to forget how to drive? It took me nearly twenty minutes extra to get to work today. There was one guy getting off of I70 and onto I25 south that was going only fifteen miles an hour with no one in front of him. Of course there was construction on the ramps leading from one to the other so there was only one lane open and no one could go around the idiot. Don’t get me wrong, the speed limit was reduced because of the construction. Instead of fifty five, it was reduced to thirty five. I don’t know where the guy got fifteen from. Then, I had to go the long way around Coors Field because the Rockies were getting out and that would have been another twenty minutes. So, I manage to get behind someone that had something else better to do while they were driving. At every stop sign and stop light, it took him an extra five minutes to stop what he was doing so that he could start driving again. I’ve never heard so many horns blaring but the guy didn’t care. Whatever book he was reading while driving must have been getting to a really good part. He even sat through an entire green light as he was rummaging around in his glove compartment. Finally, the Taste of Colorado is going on this weekend for the holiday. That means that they close off the main thoroughfare through downtown. The put up roadblocks and everything. It happens about five or ten times a year for different events. And, every time, the whole city can’t figure out how to get where they’re going. They drive about five miles an hour and look at the road blocks for several minutes before they realize that they can’t go that way. Then, they slowly drive down the road looking for another way to go. It was very aggravating. If I would have known about it, I would have left a half hour early. As it was, I just barely got here on time.
The Rockies lost their game against Philadelphia today, but it was a great game. Everything that possible could happen in a game happened. There were missed calls and bats flung out into the stands. Jim Tracy our manager was thrown out of the game. We were up most of the time. At one point we were up 7-3. Then, in the top of the seventh inning, they take out our starting pitcher and put in three reliefs. Of course Philadelphia makes nine runs that inning. We end up pulling within one run. We had several opportunities in the eighth and ninth, but we couldn’t pull it out. It was very exciting and would have been an incredible game if we would have managed to win. It would have put us only four and a half games down in the Wild Card. Now, we’re not out of the running, but it’s going to be a difficult climb. We’re playing the Padres next. They’re at the top of the division, but they’re coming off of a seven game losing streak. Let’s hope we can take advantage of that. Then, we have the Reds. They’re at the top of their division also. It’s going to be an interesting September.
I got a little way into chapter 29 yesterday so I’m going to finish that up today. It looks like I’m going to have a normal shift for the next couple of weeks, so I’m going to have to buckle down if I’m going to make my schedule. I’m putting Styx on in the background so, it’s time to get busy.
-Thom

Sep 1

With the Padres losing their seventh in a row, the Rockies went up against the Giants. Both of us were hoping to move up in the rankings. We’re both within spitting distance of first. But, the Giants had to go and beat us two of the three games. It was a very close game today and our mistake wasn’t pitching or hitting. Both teams had their Ace pitchers so I knew it wasn’t going to be a high scoring game. Our mistake was errors. The winning run came in on a throwing error to third. There were also a few other errors during the game and it cost us. We have Philadelphia tomorrow for a makeup game and then we’re on to the Padres. There are still thirty games left, so our post season aspirations aren’t over yet. We’re a good September team and we’ll make it.
I finished chapter 28 yesterday and I’m starting chapter 29 today. It’s Wednesday, two and a half weeks since I submitted my last book Grandpa’s Faerie to the Tattered Cover book store. It is supposed to only take two weeks, but their website said they were going through some changes. I still haven’t heard from them. So, I don’t know if that’s bad news or not. If it is, I’m going to try Barns and Noble next. I was even thinking about this small chain of local convenience stores. I saw a small book section in one of them. I think I’m going to find out who the owner is and see if I can get him to put them on his shelves.
Not too much is happening on the home front. School takes up a lot of the girl’s day. My eldest daughter was named Battalion Colonel or Commander (For the life of me, I can’t remember which one she said. I was even paying attention and everything.) for her JROTC. My son has been hitting the pavement really hard looking for a job. They’re getting closer and closer to moving out. He’s been working handing out fliers and tattooing people. But, he needs a steady job if they are going to make it. My youngest daughter received her driver’s permit today. I was surprised that she didn’t even ask if she could drive to school. We were running a little late. That was probably why. My wife is trying to organize a family reunion get together for her dad’s side of the family. Most of them came out to my daughter’s sweet sixteen, but they want to try getting everyone there. It should be fun.
Well, time to get to work. -Thom