As always, please visit my website at http://www.thomnichols.com/
Yeah, I know. There was no baseball today. The game was rained out. I was bummed too. So, the Rockies are going to play the Pirates tomorrow as scheduled and then a double header on Wednesday. If you need an update, we took two games from the Brewers over the weekend which was nice. We’re one game over 500 at the moment and everything is beginning to come together.
I had a horrible weekend. I got off of work at 6 in the morning on Saturday and tried to sleep for only a little while. I got about four hours from 8-noon. Then, I tried to stay up so that I could sleep in the evening because I had to be back at work at 6 in the morning on Sunday. I fell asleep about 10 or 11pm and woke up at 3am. I was really dragging the whole day. It was a 12 hour shift, but it was all overtime. When I got home on Sunday I didn’t even want to eat. I just turned on the TV and was out by 8.
The worst thing wasn’t the lack of sleep or the weird hours. The worst thing was that my right eye swelled up. At first it wasn’t hurting or anything. So I figured I got bit by a spider or something. But, around midmorning today, it started irritating me. I was visiting at my mom’s house and had to leave early. I had to put something on it. My wife usually has stuff, so I called her and she told me where this gel stuff was. The only problem was I had to put it in my eye. I pulled down the bottom lid and there was this big white sore on the inside. I put the junk in and it stopped the itching, but everything became very fuzzy. I decided to just rest. By the time I went to pick up my wife, it was crusted shut. My other eye works fine, so I went to work. Now, everyone is asking who clocked me. It looks like I have a black (Purple) eye.
On the good news side of the day, my mom got her electricity back today. She has been having problems for the last month or so with the electricity shutting off. None of the breakers were tripped, the electricity would just go out whenever she turned on her TV or bathroom light. She finally got the apartment maintenance to come look at it and he immediately knew what the problem was. He said that about a month ago one of the maintenance people installed a new outlet in the bathroom and kitchen of most of the complex. He said he’s had to fix about a hundred of them. So, during that entire month or more when my mom was having problems, she would call the office and complain. They would always blow her off with one excuse or another. If they knew that over a hundred of these things were broken, they should have sent someone over to look at it the first time she called or even sent someone out to all of the apartments that were upgraded to make sure it was working. The only way she got them to come out this time was to tell them that her refrigerator wasn’t working and she had to throw out all of her food. But, it is fixed now. She still isn’t going to buy anything for a few days just in case.
More good news, my youngest daughter finally filled out some paperwork for her college tuition. She’s getting about three thousand more than we originally expected. So, she’s starting at the same time as my eldest daughter. (Not the same classes though) My older one wants to be a teacher or a social worker or a psychologist. My younger one is going for a double major in computer science and linguistics. I hope they all do great.
My youngest daughter is taking a bunch of AP tests. (Advanced Placement) They qualify for college credits so she might not have to take some of the math, science, and English classes. That will be nice. She has a full schedule over the next couple of weeks. There are only 18 school days left in high school. She has the tests, the prom, and graduation. We’re also going to throw in a graduation party in there somewhere. My wife keeps telling me the date, but I can never remember. My daughter wanted to do something different for her graduation. She wanted the whole family to get together and go camping. It wouldn’t be the last gathering, but it would be her last gathering as a high school kid. But, we found out that we have to reserve the campgrounds a year in advance. So, camping is out. Now, we’re going to have a picnic party over by Lakeside. My wife already reserved the area with the benches.
We went to a Rockies game during the week last week. We took my daughter and my granddaughter. At first, my granddaughter didn’t want to be there. She is still afraid of people dressed up in costumes, and we had some awesome seats. They were in the 4th row right beside the Rockies dugout. We could have thrown peanuts at Todd Helton on first base if we were mean people and wanted to waste some perfectly good peanuts. The game was great, but Dinger the mascot came over before the game started so he could say hi to all the kids. Well, my daughter freaked out and during the whole first few innings constantly asked if Dinger could climb the little fence between the stands and the field. We assured her that he couldn’t, but she didn’t settle down until the clapping and cheering started. She did manage to spill two pops and mangle a hotdog. Overall, it was a very fun day. We should be able to get those seats again. They are season tickets and they belong to someone at my wife’s job. He can’t go to all the games so he sells them to her very cheaply. They even come with a parking pass. I had to work after the game, so we left right before the last out. It was in the hopes of getting to the car and avoiding as much traffic as we could. But, there was a little secret passageway out of the stadium parking. It took us a back way where there was only one other car. We bypassed all of the traffic and if I would have gone from there to work, I would have made it with time to spare. But, I had to take everyone home so I was only an hour late.
I’m a couple of chapters into Sliders. It’s turning out to be a fun book. I think I’m defiantly going to do it first instead of Gremlin Planet. So, I better get going. I’m putting some Grateful Dead, Elo, and Journey in the playlist tonight for background music. I’ll see you next Monday.
-Thom
Monday, April 23, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
April 16
As usual, please visit my website at http://www.thomnichols.com/
Let’s get it over with. The Rockies lost again today. That’s ten games in the books and we’re 4-6. It’s not the way I wanted it to start, but it’s still just the first ten games. I really would have liked us to sweep the Padres, but they beat us today 7-1. That put them at 3-8. Yes, that’s embarrassing. The worst part is that the Padres are my brother’s team and he’ll probably be obnoxious until we kick their butts tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, my wife got us four tickets in the fourth row right beside first base. We had a couple of these tickets last year and they are phenomenal. The game starts at 6:40, so I had to arrange it with the boss at work to be late about an hour. So, it better not rain. We went to the game on Saturday against the Diamondbacks. We got there a little late, but it was ok, the game had a rain delay. The Rockies were kicking butt for the first four innings. Then, it started raining. My wife pulled out about fifty dollar store ponchos. (One size does not fit all) We got everyone mostly in them, but it just started coming down to hard. If we wouldn’t have had my granddaughter with us, we might have stayed longer. But as it turned out there was another rain delay as soon as we left. When we got home, the game resumed and everything switched around. The Diamondbacks were doing everything right and they switched the game from a 5-0 deficit into a 5-6 lead. I was at work for the rest of the game, but I was on the edge of my seat. Todd Helton finally hit a two run homer to win the game for us. But it was a nail biter. Since we lost today, I’m expecting us to kill the Padres tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll have Carlos Gonzales back. He’s been out with strep throat for the last two games. But, he was at the field tonight. So, there is a good chance he’ll play tomorrow.
Not a whole lot happened this week. My eldest daughter had to do her army weekend this weekend. It was Friday, Saturday and Sunday instead of just the two days. I didn’t know they had three day weekends, but she said that there can even be four day weekends if they want. They didn’t say that in the recruitment office. But, she’s getting paid for it, so I don’t see the real problem. They did tell her that they are sending her off to computer school in a few months. They had told her that before, but this time it is official. She’s got orders and dates. She’ll be going to Arkansas. Yes, I did warn her not to go anywhere barefooted. (Ticks all over the place in that state)
MY youngest daughter is trying to get a new job. She’s still keeping the one at the movie theater, but she needs something in the day when school gets out. She needs it for two reasons. (No, one of the reasons isn’t because I want to work her to death) She’s going to save all the money from her second job for college and since she works nights at the theater, she doesn’t want to end up sleeping all day.
My daughter in-law is also looking for a new job. I haven’t heard if she’s found one or not. But, she came over this weekend to update her resume. It’s my fault she couldn’t do it on her computer. I originally made it, but I used Microsoft Project and she doesn’t have that on her laptop. So, when she opened it, it looked like a bunch of gibberish. My youngest daughter converted it so that she could work with it and I assume that they got it all finished. I should have been more helpful in the whole situation, but the Rockies were on upstairs. (I’m such a bad person)
My granddaughter and I spent one of the days this weekend sneaking around and eating one of her chocolate Easter rabbits. We had to do it on the sly because we hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Her grandma doesn’t like her eating candy before eating real food. (Especially that much chocolate, I didn’t think there was anyone that could eat more chocolate than I could.) So, every time my wife walked by, we had to pretend to be on our best behavior. She never found out.
My wife also had to work a little overtime today. They made her go in at 3 in the morning. I don’t know what it was about this last week, but it was overtime central. I put in three 12 hour days and had to work on Saturday. It sucked. But, I’ll have a good paycheck coming up next Thursday.
I didn’t quite make my ten query letters. But, I did get eight of them out. I know I messed up on three of them, so those were a waste of time. I always seem to do that. I don’t like the business end of it, so I must subconsciously sabotage myself. But, now that they are out of the way, I can sit back and wait for the rejections and get started on my next book. I was going to work on Gremlin Planet, but a new one has been creeping around in my head and it wants to come out first. It’s called Sliders and it seems to be a much more fun book than Gremlin Planet. So, I’m going to throw down a few chapters and see how it works before I make a real decision. So, I better get started on it. I’m putting the Eagles, Rush, Stray Cats, and Dire Straits into the playlist for background listening. I’ll see you again next Monday.
-Thom
Let’s get it over with. The Rockies lost again today. That’s ten games in the books and we’re 4-6. It’s not the way I wanted it to start, but it’s still just the first ten games. I really would have liked us to sweep the Padres, but they beat us today 7-1. That put them at 3-8. Yes, that’s embarrassing. The worst part is that the Padres are my brother’s team and he’ll probably be obnoxious until we kick their butts tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, my wife got us four tickets in the fourth row right beside first base. We had a couple of these tickets last year and they are phenomenal. The game starts at 6:40, so I had to arrange it with the boss at work to be late about an hour. So, it better not rain. We went to the game on Saturday against the Diamondbacks. We got there a little late, but it was ok, the game had a rain delay. The Rockies were kicking butt for the first four innings. Then, it started raining. My wife pulled out about fifty dollar store ponchos. (One size does not fit all) We got everyone mostly in them, but it just started coming down to hard. If we wouldn’t have had my granddaughter with us, we might have stayed longer. But as it turned out there was another rain delay as soon as we left. When we got home, the game resumed and everything switched around. The Diamondbacks were doing everything right and they switched the game from a 5-0 deficit into a 5-6 lead. I was at work for the rest of the game, but I was on the edge of my seat. Todd Helton finally hit a two run homer to win the game for us. But it was a nail biter. Since we lost today, I’m expecting us to kill the Padres tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll have Carlos Gonzales back. He’s been out with strep throat for the last two games. But, he was at the field tonight. So, there is a good chance he’ll play tomorrow.
Not a whole lot happened this week. My eldest daughter had to do her army weekend this weekend. It was Friday, Saturday and Sunday instead of just the two days. I didn’t know they had three day weekends, but she said that there can even be four day weekends if they want. They didn’t say that in the recruitment office. But, she’s getting paid for it, so I don’t see the real problem. They did tell her that they are sending her off to computer school in a few months. They had told her that before, but this time it is official. She’s got orders and dates. She’ll be going to Arkansas. Yes, I did warn her not to go anywhere barefooted. (Ticks all over the place in that state)
MY youngest daughter is trying to get a new job. She’s still keeping the one at the movie theater, but she needs something in the day when school gets out. She needs it for two reasons. (No, one of the reasons isn’t because I want to work her to death) She’s going to save all the money from her second job for college and since she works nights at the theater, she doesn’t want to end up sleeping all day.
My daughter in-law is also looking for a new job. I haven’t heard if she’s found one or not. But, she came over this weekend to update her resume. It’s my fault she couldn’t do it on her computer. I originally made it, but I used Microsoft Project and she doesn’t have that on her laptop. So, when she opened it, it looked like a bunch of gibberish. My youngest daughter converted it so that she could work with it and I assume that they got it all finished. I should have been more helpful in the whole situation, but the Rockies were on upstairs. (I’m such a bad person)
My granddaughter and I spent one of the days this weekend sneaking around and eating one of her chocolate Easter rabbits. We had to do it on the sly because we hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Her grandma doesn’t like her eating candy before eating real food. (Especially that much chocolate, I didn’t think there was anyone that could eat more chocolate than I could.) So, every time my wife walked by, we had to pretend to be on our best behavior. She never found out.
My wife also had to work a little overtime today. They made her go in at 3 in the morning. I don’t know what it was about this last week, but it was overtime central. I put in three 12 hour days and had to work on Saturday. It sucked. But, I’ll have a good paycheck coming up next Thursday.
I didn’t quite make my ten query letters. But, I did get eight of them out. I know I messed up on three of them, so those were a waste of time. I always seem to do that. I don’t like the business end of it, so I must subconsciously sabotage myself. But, now that they are out of the way, I can sit back and wait for the rejections and get started on my next book. I was going to work on Gremlin Planet, but a new one has been creeping around in my head and it wants to come out first. It’s called Sliders and it seems to be a much more fun book than Gremlin Planet. So, I’m going to throw down a few chapters and see how it works before I make a real decision. So, I better get started on it. I’m putting the Eagles, Rush, Stray Cats, and Dire Straits into the playlist for background listening. I’ll see you again next Monday.
-Thom
Monday, April 9, 2012
April 9
As always, please visit my website at: http://www.thomnichols.com/
Well, today was a bust. Can you believe the Rockies lost their home opener? We didn’t just lose. We were shut out. The score was seven to nothing. It was the first time we’ve ever been shut out on a home opener. To make matters worse, we lost to the Giant’s worst pitcher. It wasn’t pretty. We’re only 1-3 for the season so far. Not the start I was hoping for. So, I’m going to attribute it to start of the season nerves. We’re at the beginning of a nine game home stand, so everything should be better from here on in.
On a better note, I messed around with the taxes this week and arranged it so that we don’t have to pay. The last time I looked at it, we were down 24 dollars. But, it worked out so that we’re getting a little back now.
Even better than taxes: today is the day that I send out the River of Magic to all of the literary agents. I’ve decided to send it out to a couple of dozen this time instead of the two or three I usually try. I’ll get more rejection letters, but it was a New Year’s resolution of mine to try harder to get published. So tonight, all I’m doing is researching agents.
Easter was fun. I found out that Easter was Sunday sometime last week. Usually I’m right on top of those kinds of things. But, this time I didn’t put any money aside or even pay attention to the calendar. When I found out how close it was, I didn’t know what I was going to do. So, on Saturday, I charged everything. We had a card that we’ve been trying to pay off just sitting there doing nothing, so I used it. Surprisingly, I didn’t max it out. (That’s not like me. Usually, I would have used every penny on it.) Instead of going all out, we got the kids a small wire basket and some candy. We went a little bigger on my granddaughter. We got her a princess basket with a little tea set in it. We went to Walmart on the day before Easter to get the stuff and naturally it was packed. There was so much stuff and customers in the aisles that it was hard to move around. When we were looking at the basket for my granddaughter, a family of three adult ladies and four or five kids tried to move past us. Naturally, we stepped back so that they could squeeze through. As they were walking by, one of the ladies picked up the basket we were looking at and started walking away with it. The princess basket was the last one on the shelf and we were almost decided on getting it. After the lady picked it up, we wanted it twice as badly, so my wife started after her. It would have been a really good fight, my wife is a scrapper. But, the lady set it down and turned away. My wife snatched it up and put it in our basket. I was surprised that she didn’t at least shout at the women. But, we did have a lot more shopping to do.
On Easter, we went to the park. All of my wife’s sisters and their families showed up and we had a barbeque. It was fun. We hid eggs and the little kids hunted for them. We played kickball and football. Everyone except for me got a little too much sun. I had on sun block. I was sticky, but I was safe. I only had to return to the house twice for forgotten stuff. But, the game was on, so I tuned the radio to it and got a little Rockies action. It’s funny. There is a perfectly good park right next to my wife’s parent’s house where everyone gathers. But, we always go to a park that is miles away.
My youngest daughter had to work on Easter. But, she got us into the movies for free to watch American Reunion. It was hilarious. I think I like having someone in the family that works at the theater. Speaking of work, my eldest daughter got a job finally. She’s working at Safeway and her first day was today. I didn’t get to talk to her to see how it went. But, my wife stopped by to pick up some groceries and saw her. She was bagging at the counter. My daughter in-law quit her job today. She was being hassled by a boss because she’s planning on getting pregnant and having another baby. The boss was constantly over her shoulder telling her that she might as well quit because she wouldn’t be able to do the job pregnant. I guess she put up with it for a while, but she finally had too much. Maybe she can go to work with my daughter at the movies. Then, we’d probably live at the theater. Especially this summer, all kinds of good movies are coming out.
Well, I better get to work. I’m putting Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Tesla, and Ratt in the playlist for background music. Until next Monday…
-Thom
P.S. Happy Belated Easter
Well, today was a bust. Can you believe the Rockies lost their home opener? We didn’t just lose. We were shut out. The score was seven to nothing. It was the first time we’ve ever been shut out on a home opener. To make matters worse, we lost to the Giant’s worst pitcher. It wasn’t pretty. We’re only 1-3 for the season so far. Not the start I was hoping for. So, I’m going to attribute it to start of the season nerves. We’re at the beginning of a nine game home stand, so everything should be better from here on in.
On a better note, I messed around with the taxes this week and arranged it so that we don’t have to pay. The last time I looked at it, we were down 24 dollars. But, it worked out so that we’re getting a little back now.
Even better than taxes: today is the day that I send out the River of Magic to all of the literary agents. I’ve decided to send it out to a couple of dozen this time instead of the two or three I usually try. I’ll get more rejection letters, but it was a New Year’s resolution of mine to try harder to get published. So tonight, all I’m doing is researching agents.
Easter was fun. I found out that Easter was Sunday sometime last week. Usually I’m right on top of those kinds of things. But, this time I didn’t put any money aside or even pay attention to the calendar. When I found out how close it was, I didn’t know what I was going to do. So, on Saturday, I charged everything. We had a card that we’ve been trying to pay off just sitting there doing nothing, so I used it. Surprisingly, I didn’t max it out. (That’s not like me. Usually, I would have used every penny on it.) Instead of going all out, we got the kids a small wire basket and some candy. We went a little bigger on my granddaughter. We got her a princess basket with a little tea set in it. We went to Walmart on the day before Easter to get the stuff and naturally it was packed. There was so much stuff and customers in the aisles that it was hard to move around. When we were looking at the basket for my granddaughter, a family of three adult ladies and four or five kids tried to move past us. Naturally, we stepped back so that they could squeeze through. As they were walking by, one of the ladies picked up the basket we were looking at and started walking away with it. The princess basket was the last one on the shelf and we were almost decided on getting it. After the lady picked it up, we wanted it twice as badly, so my wife started after her. It would have been a really good fight, my wife is a scrapper. But, the lady set it down and turned away. My wife snatched it up and put it in our basket. I was surprised that she didn’t at least shout at the women. But, we did have a lot more shopping to do.
On Easter, we went to the park. All of my wife’s sisters and their families showed up and we had a barbeque. It was fun. We hid eggs and the little kids hunted for them. We played kickball and football. Everyone except for me got a little too much sun. I had on sun block. I was sticky, but I was safe. I only had to return to the house twice for forgotten stuff. But, the game was on, so I tuned the radio to it and got a little Rockies action. It’s funny. There is a perfectly good park right next to my wife’s parent’s house where everyone gathers. But, we always go to a park that is miles away.
My youngest daughter had to work on Easter. But, she got us into the movies for free to watch American Reunion. It was hilarious. I think I like having someone in the family that works at the theater. Speaking of work, my eldest daughter got a job finally. She’s working at Safeway and her first day was today. I didn’t get to talk to her to see how it went. But, my wife stopped by to pick up some groceries and saw her. She was bagging at the counter. My daughter in-law quit her job today. She was being hassled by a boss because she’s planning on getting pregnant and having another baby. The boss was constantly over her shoulder telling her that she might as well quit because she wouldn’t be able to do the job pregnant. I guess she put up with it for a while, but she finally had too much. Maybe she can go to work with my daughter at the movies. Then, we’d probably live at the theater. Especially this summer, all kinds of good movies are coming out.
Well, I better get to work. I’m putting Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Tesla, and Ratt in the playlist for background music. Until next Monday…
-Thom
P.S. Happy Belated Easter
Monday, April 2, 2012
April 2
As always, visit me at http://www.thomnichols.com/
Oops, it looks like I totally forgot to update my blog last Monday. I guess that means that we’ll have a nice long one today. Let’s start with something that happened last week. I found out that I am not a very nice person. It happened at work. As an overnight security guard, we’re supposed to kick people off the property who are sleeping. The idea is to keep the transients away and make the buildings look more professional. On this particular night, one of the other guards called over the radio that he was kicking two teenagers off the property. I swung the camera around and watched him point out a place for them to go. They left and that should have been the end of it. The other guy did what I would have done and what he was supposed to do. He didn’t say anything about it later on and I pretty much forgot about the incident. When we were relieved at the end of our shift, instead of going downstairs to leave, he started walking across the plaza. I asked him where he was going and he said that he was going to go buy those kids breakfast. Then, it dawned on me that they were just kids and they were homeless. But, I know that I wouldn’t have even thought of helping them if I was the one that was kicking them off of the property. I would have just kicked them off and not thought about them. The rest of the week, I noticed a lot of little things that other people were doing for other people. In each case, I wouldn’t have thought of helping. I really need to reevaluate the way I live. I never considered myself a bad person, but I’m defiantly not a good person either.
Speaking of not being a good person, I’m not even a good dad or grandpa. It came to my attention over the weekend that next Sunday is Easter. Usually, I am on top of holidays especially Christmas and Easter. But, this year it just snuck up on me. I haven’t saved any money or bought any little toys or candy for Easter baskets. I don’t know what I’m going to do. The kids are a little big for baskets, but I would like to get them a present or something. I usually spoil my granddaughter. We were walking around in the store yesterday and she was showing me all of the stuff she wants the Easter Bunny to bring her. We found chocolate rabbits with big ears and a bunch of other candy. I think I’m going to have to float a bill until next payday so I can at least get her something. With the older kids, I’ll probably take them out to eat as a family. We haven’t had one of those in a while. I’m sure I’ll get them something small, but it will be small.
On the family home front, it looks like the kids have to wait for a whole month before they start working on the new baby. My daughter in-law had the birth control removed and they doctor told them to abstain from “practicing” for a whole month. They’ve both given up drinking and the occasional cigarettes so that there won’t be anything in their systems to cause any troubles and they’ve started taking vitamins and stuff the doctor recommended. So, it looks like it might be a late February or early March baby. Since Leap Year was this year, a Leap Year baby is off the table. That would have been kind of cool, a birthday every four years.
Spring break is finally over. My youngest had a hard time getting up for school today. In her defense, she worked until midnight the night before. I went to pick her up at about fifteen or twenty after so she didn’t get a chance to get a really good sleep. It took me about ten times to wake her up this morning.
My eldest daughter is still struggling with finding a job. She went to apply for a police academy program today. I didn’t get to see her to find out how it went, but I’m sure she did well.
Today was my Goddaughter’s son’s first birthday. I didn’t get to go to it because I was upstairs sleeping. But, my wife said that it went ok. She and her mom did all of the cooking. I would have liked to go, but Mondays are not a good day for me. I have to sleep in the afternoon so that I can be awake all night. Still, the party went off nicely. There were a lot of people and my wife made pot roast. She snuck me up a plate before the party and it was really good.
We went to my brother’s house this weekend. He had a new game called Werewolves. It was pretty fun. It takes a lot of people to play and it is different than most games. Everyone is selects a random card and it tells them if they are a villager or a werewolf. There are other characters but that would take too long to explain. Anyway, after everyone knows who they are, everyone has to close their eyes and pretend that they are asleep. The game mediator asks a bunch of questions. The main one is who the werewolves are and who they want to kill. When the mediator finds out everything, he pronounces it daytime and everyone wakes up. Whoever the werewolves choose to kill is dead and the villagers have to guess who the werewolves are. They villagers hang who they think it is and then go back to sleep. The game continues until the werewolves kill all the villagers of the villagers kill all the werewolves. There is more to it than that, but I’m not selling the game and don’t get a commission so that’s all I’m telling you about it. All you really need to know is it was pretty fun. It did get us together as a family even though my other brother didn’t show. We had cookies and fruit and hotdogs. It was nice.
My son sent a lot of shoes and clothing for us to give to my brother that didn’t show up. They’re hand-me-downs, but my son usually only buys nice clothes and designer shoes. He also takes care of his stuff, so they’re in really good shape. But, my brother’s kids missed out. I’ll probably drive them around in the back of my car for a month or so before I break down and go to his house and give them to him.
I received the corrections for the River of Magic today. There were a lot, but most of them were just quick fixes. I tend to forget some of the small words when I’m typing so I have to insert a lot of “in, to, of, the…” But there were some sentence structures and continuity discrepancies. I would have brought them in today to fix, but I have such a headache that I don’t think I’m going to do anything except this blog. I have been working on Gremlin Planet. I’m seven chapters in and it is coming along nicely. But, I have Sliders running around my head. So, I might throw down a few chapters of that when Gremlin Planet isn’t looking.
Well, it’s getting kind of late and I haven’t even mentioned baseball yet. So, here goes. Opening day is only days away, Woo Hoo!!!!!! In case you’re wondering, yes, I can’t wait. We did have an incident over the weekend. Our old ace pitcher Ubaldo was throwing to one of our star players Tulo when he hit him in the elbow with the ball. Both benches cleared as the teams started fighting. It was a mess. Ubaldo has always been a little wild, but he fires it off at 100+ miles an hour. Everyone was worried that Tulo wouldn’t be able to start on opening day. But, at the game today, one of the announcers said that he would. So, I only have to drudge through the rest of this week for the first game. I think we’ll have a really good year. Of what I saw today, we didn’t have a good game. But, it’s still spring training. One of the announcers asked our coach Tracy if he thought that spring training was going by too quickly. He said it was, but I think it’s dragging. It’s probably because they don’t televise enough of the games.
Ok, I’ve rambled on enough. I’ll try not to forget next week’s blog.
-Thom
Oops, it looks like I totally forgot to update my blog last Monday. I guess that means that we’ll have a nice long one today. Let’s start with something that happened last week. I found out that I am not a very nice person. It happened at work. As an overnight security guard, we’re supposed to kick people off the property who are sleeping. The idea is to keep the transients away and make the buildings look more professional. On this particular night, one of the other guards called over the radio that he was kicking two teenagers off the property. I swung the camera around and watched him point out a place for them to go. They left and that should have been the end of it. The other guy did what I would have done and what he was supposed to do. He didn’t say anything about it later on and I pretty much forgot about the incident. When we were relieved at the end of our shift, instead of going downstairs to leave, he started walking across the plaza. I asked him where he was going and he said that he was going to go buy those kids breakfast. Then, it dawned on me that they were just kids and they were homeless. But, I know that I wouldn’t have even thought of helping them if I was the one that was kicking them off of the property. I would have just kicked them off and not thought about them. The rest of the week, I noticed a lot of little things that other people were doing for other people. In each case, I wouldn’t have thought of helping. I really need to reevaluate the way I live. I never considered myself a bad person, but I’m defiantly not a good person either.
Speaking of not being a good person, I’m not even a good dad or grandpa. It came to my attention over the weekend that next Sunday is Easter. Usually, I am on top of holidays especially Christmas and Easter. But, this year it just snuck up on me. I haven’t saved any money or bought any little toys or candy for Easter baskets. I don’t know what I’m going to do. The kids are a little big for baskets, but I would like to get them a present or something. I usually spoil my granddaughter. We were walking around in the store yesterday and she was showing me all of the stuff she wants the Easter Bunny to bring her. We found chocolate rabbits with big ears and a bunch of other candy. I think I’m going to have to float a bill until next payday so I can at least get her something. With the older kids, I’ll probably take them out to eat as a family. We haven’t had one of those in a while. I’m sure I’ll get them something small, but it will be small.
On the family home front, it looks like the kids have to wait for a whole month before they start working on the new baby. My daughter in-law had the birth control removed and they doctor told them to abstain from “practicing” for a whole month. They’ve both given up drinking and the occasional cigarettes so that there won’t be anything in their systems to cause any troubles and they’ve started taking vitamins and stuff the doctor recommended. So, it looks like it might be a late February or early March baby. Since Leap Year was this year, a Leap Year baby is off the table. That would have been kind of cool, a birthday every four years.
Spring break is finally over. My youngest had a hard time getting up for school today. In her defense, she worked until midnight the night before. I went to pick her up at about fifteen or twenty after so she didn’t get a chance to get a really good sleep. It took me about ten times to wake her up this morning.
My eldest daughter is still struggling with finding a job. She went to apply for a police academy program today. I didn’t get to see her to find out how it went, but I’m sure she did well.
Today was my Goddaughter’s son’s first birthday. I didn’t get to go to it because I was upstairs sleeping. But, my wife said that it went ok. She and her mom did all of the cooking. I would have liked to go, but Mondays are not a good day for me. I have to sleep in the afternoon so that I can be awake all night. Still, the party went off nicely. There were a lot of people and my wife made pot roast. She snuck me up a plate before the party and it was really good.
We went to my brother’s house this weekend. He had a new game called Werewolves. It was pretty fun. It takes a lot of people to play and it is different than most games. Everyone is selects a random card and it tells them if they are a villager or a werewolf. There are other characters but that would take too long to explain. Anyway, after everyone knows who they are, everyone has to close their eyes and pretend that they are asleep. The game mediator asks a bunch of questions. The main one is who the werewolves are and who they want to kill. When the mediator finds out everything, he pronounces it daytime and everyone wakes up. Whoever the werewolves choose to kill is dead and the villagers have to guess who the werewolves are. They villagers hang who they think it is and then go back to sleep. The game continues until the werewolves kill all the villagers of the villagers kill all the werewolves. There is more to it than that, but I’m not selling the game and don’t get a commission so that’s all I’m telling you about it. All you really need to know is it was pretty fun. It did get us together as a family even though my other brother didn’t show. We had cookies and fruit and hotdogs. It was nice.
My son sent a lot of shoes and clothing for us to give to my brother that didn’t show up. They’re hand-me-downs, but my son usually only buys nice clothes and designer shoes. He also takes care of his stuff, so they’re in really good shape. But, my brother’s kids missed out. I’ll probably drive them around in the back of my car for a month or so before I break down and go to his house and give them to him.
I received the corrections for the River of Magic today. There were a lot, but most of them were just quick fixes. I tend to forget some of the small words when I’m typing so I have to insert a lot of “in, to, of, the…” But there were some sentence structures and continuity discrepancies. I would have brought them in today to fix, but I have such a headache that I don’t think I’m going to do anything except this blog. I have been working on Gremlin Planet. I’m seven chapters in and it is coming along nicely. But, I have Sliders running around my head. So, I might throw down a few chapters of that when Gremlin Planet isn’t looking.
Well, it’s getting kind of late and I haven’t even mentioned baseball yet. So, here goes. Opening day is only days away, Woo Hoo!!!!!! In case you’re wondering, yes, I can’t wait. We did have an incident over the weekend. Our old ace pitcher Ubaldo was throwing to one of our star players Tulo when he hit him in the elbow with the ball. Both benches cleared as the teams started fighting. It was a mess. Ubaldo has always been a little wild, but he fires it off at 100+ miles an hour. Everyone was worried that Tulo wouldn’t be able to start on opening day. But, at the game today, one of the announcers said that he would. So, I only have to drudge through the rest of this week for the first game. I think we’ll have a really good year. Of what I saw today, we didn’t have a good game. But, it’s still spring training. One of the announcers asked our coach Tracy if he thought that spring training was going by too quickly. He said it was, but I think it’s dragging. It’s probably because they don’t televise enough of the games.
Ok, I’ve rambled on enough. I’ll try not to forget next week’s blog.
-Thom
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)