Aug 10th

Well, that did it. The Rockies lost one to nothing and it dropped us down into fourth place in our division. I was expecting a win today because it was our ace on the mound. If or should I say when he wins his next game, he will have broken the club record for the most wins in a season. He is tied with the record right now. Well, what can I saw? We only lost by one and there is always tomorrow.
I’m helping a guy at work again today with his C++ programming class. He needs to write a program that reads in a letter and then counts all of the letters individually, giving a total for each in both upper and lowercase. Then, gives the percentage of each letter’s usage and prints it out into a file. And, everything has to be done in functions instead of in the main. I started it yesterday for him and I only had an hour. I typed it upstairs and I think I was trying to do too much, because when I got downstairs to compile it, it was a mess. Today, I’m just going to go through and make sure each function works and then throw them together. It shouldn’t be too hard. I just need to take thins slowly and go for simple instead of elaborate.
I finished Chapter 21 yesterday and I’m starting chapter 22 today. I’ll work on it upstairs and then on my buddy’s program downstairs. That way I’ll have time for each. I think I’m going to finish chapter 15 in the Great Detective also. I didn’t have a way to end it the other day and it came to me last night. I would have done it last night, but I was screaming on chapter 21.
Nothing really significant happened at home today. It’s my last day of overtime and I didn’t really get to see anyone. I tried to go to sleep when I got home, but couldn’t for a few hours. Then, when I woke up I had to go back to work. Tomorrow will be different. I’ll have time to spend with the family. It’ll be nice.
-Thom

Aug 9th

It looks like the wave of overtime is almost over. Tomorrow is my last day until some of the new people quits. The boss hired a bunch of people and threw them into the shifts everyone quit from and I have a normal looking schedule. That was much quicker than I anticipated. That’s all right though it’s time for a weekend off. I finished chapter 20 yesterday and even started chapter 21. I might get a little of the Great Detective today. We’ll see.
There isn’t a Rockies game today, so the only update on that front is that we’re sitting at 58 – 53. That puts us six games out of first and five out of second. We’re only half a game over the Dodgers, so we need to slap down some wins here pretty quickly.
Well, now I’m going to be freaked out all day long. I was sitting here at the community desk typing away when a large bug just ran across my leg. It was about half an inch long and it was black with big long feelers. I jumped up and swiped it off of my leg, but I didn’t see where it landed. I’m not squeamish about bugs or anything, but it could be anywhere. I’ve already brushed myself off twice now, and it feels like I need to go take another shower. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could find the bug and squish it.
All right, still thinking about the bug. Nothing really happened at home. I wasn’t able to take my daughter to the DMV today, but I’ll make it up to her sometime this week since there isn’t any more overtime. Ok, now the fan fell from the counter. I couldn’t have been the bug. I’m sure it just vibrated off, but I had to look. I didn’t find anything, not even any little bug footprints. I think I’m going to have to move things around to see if I can find it. So, that’ll be all for today.
-Thom

Aug 8th

A lot has happened since my last blog. I finally got a day off and it just happened to coincide with my daughter’s sweet sixteen birthday party. Which was nice, I would have been in deep you-know-what if it wouldn’t have. The party was a big success. It’s been so long since we’ve had a really good escape like that, I think everyone was really ready for it. Of course there was way too much food, so that means leftovers for the next week or so for everyone. We did have a few snafus. It started out at 98 degrees in the shade. But, it was so shady that it started to rain. We had prepared for that eventuality. We bought several collapsible canopies or tents. I’m not sure what they were called. They were ten by ten so the tables fit nicely under them. We begged borrowed or stole enough tables and chairs to fill my brother and sister-in-law’s back yard. (We didn’t really steal any, but that might have been cheaper) When the rain came, it wasn’t a disaster until it started angling in sideways. So, we had to move everyone inside where it got really hot. Just as we finished bringing in all the chairs and wiping them down, the rain stopped. It was too hot to stay inside, so we dragged them all back outside. We had one of those big bouncing things for the kids. I’m not sure what that is called either. But, it looked like a castle and it was filled with air so that they can climb in and jump around. It was a big hit and kept the little ones occupied. One of my daughter’s uncles hired a DJ for the party as his present to her, so we set him up in the garage. With the door open, there was plenty of room for dancing. I led it off with my daughter, but no one really got out on the floor until we started serving the booze. We held it back until after everyone arrived and all of the cake and regular party stuff was over. I was the designated driver, so I didn’t partake, but it got much more interesting after everyone started drinking. We only had one accident with one uncle that either danced too much or drank too much. Either way, he landed on the floor with a twisted ankle. I did have a neighbor that wandered over talk to me for about twenty minutes. It took him that long to realize that I didn’t speak Spanish and had no idea what he was saying. The party didn’t break up until well after three in the morning, but I had to leave just before one. My wife was getting just a little too happy. Then, today, we had to wake up early – 11:30 to go back and help clean up. That was much more work than setting it up.
Great news: Football season is officially underway. The Hall of Fame game was today. The Cowboys spanked the Bangles 16-7. The first Bronco game is on Sunday the 15th against the Bangles. I mistakenly thought that their first game was today, and I was telling everyone. But, when I went to look for it so that I could schedule everything else I had to do around it, I couldn’t find it. I had to look it up again before I figured out what had happened. I have two daughters. One’s birthday is on the 4th which we celebrated yesterday on Saturday and the other’s is on the 14th. They’re different months, but somehow I saw the 15th on the schedule and decided that it was the day after the birthday party (Which wasn’t even on her birthday so I don’t know why I was thinking it in the first place) So, we have to wait another whole week before we get some Bronco football action. On the other hand, the Rockies beat the Pirates today, 8-4. Our starting pitching has been having some issues of late and we brought up Esmil Rogers from triple-A to start. He did a really good job and got the win. So, we split the four game series with the Pirates. We have the Mets on Tuesday. Ubaldo will be on the mound, so we should have a really good game.
Grandpa’s Faerie is now available in book form. It was available only in Kindle for last week. But, I approved the proof on Saturday morning and it is now out on Amazon. Or, you can pick it up from my website. www.thomnichols.com I finished chapter 19 on Friday and have a good start into chapter 20. I’m hoping to finish it tonight. I worked a little bit on the Great Detective and I put down a few pages to the one that came to me in the car the other day. I really don’t want to start it yet. I want to get these others finished first, but I just had to get some of it down. I’ll try to stay away from it, but sometimes when a story comes to me like that it pushes the other stuff out of my mind and wants me to work just on it. Ok, I put in some Pink Floyd and Zeppelin on the play list and I’m ready to get going.
-Thom

Aug 5th

It looks like this is going to be a short one. I had to go to a CPR class today. Of course it had to be on my own time. But, at least I got paid for going. It was a four hour class and the instructor kept trying to get us to want to extend it out to five hours. We, the students in the class, wanted to see if we could decrease it to only three hours. I had gone through it before, but I guess my CPR license expired after two years. So, to work it around my work and overtime schedule, I ended up getting off work. Sleeping for three hours, getting up and going to the class, going home to sleep for another three hours and then get back up to go to work. Yep, that was fun. Tomorrow is a twelve hour day, but I have Saturday off. It’s my one day off this month. And, it’s my daughter’s sweet sixteen birthday party. So, at least I get to enjoy my day off.
At some point today, the Rockies lost to the Pirates. I didn’t get to see it of course. It puts us tied with the Giants for third and fourth place in our division. We need to get on the ball and start cranking out some victories. The Padres have a seven game lead while they sit in first place. We have plenty of time to overtake them. But, we have got to crank out some wins.
I finished another chapter in the Great Detective today. And I finished chapter 18 of Kidnapped yesterday. For some reason, I’ve been on a roll. I have some Bad Company and Skynyrd in the playlist. It’s time to get going again.
-Thom

Aug 4th

It’s Aug 4th today. That’s my daughter’s birthday. She’s 16 and the first thing she wants to do is go get her driver’s permit. I’ll take her as soon as I stop working all of this overtime. We’re going to celebrate her birthday on Saturday. We have a huge party planned. I’m sure it’ll go good, but we had just a little family get together today. We had cake and sang happy birthday. It was nice. I got her a glass doll inside a wire carriage made up in the same colors as her sweet sixteen dress. Of course it was supposed to be ready last Saturday and it wasn’t ready until today. I would have given the guy that sold it to us a piece of my mind, but my wife was the one that kept going down there to pick it up. I’m so lazy. But, if it wasn’t going to be ready today, I would have gone down there and demanded my money back.
The Rockies had a two game series with the Giants yesterday and today. We had a bad outing yesterday. We lost 10 to nothing. Our veteran pitcher has been in a huge slump and hasn’t lasted more than three innings in a long while. He gave up four or five runs in the first inning. I was so upset, I don’t even remember how many it was. Anyway, even after they took him out, we didn’t make any of the runs back. It was pretty bad. But, on the plus side, we spanked them today. The final score was 6 to 1. Our ace pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez was on the hill and he is now 17 and 2 which beats the team record. Carlos Gonzales also hit two homeruns in the game and Tulo also got one right on the back of Gonzales’s. It was a much better game. We have the Pirates again in Pittsburg tomorrow. We definitely need to give them some payback. Then, the countdown is on. Football is back on Sunday. That’s only 4 days away. We are playing the Bengals at 5:00 Denver time. It’s an away game so no chance of going. My wife was trying to get me and my brothers tickets to the first home preseason game against Detroit Lions. But, we waited too long and missed out. That’s ok. I would rather go see a regular season game.
I started chapter 18 yesterday. I’m hoping to get pretty far into it tonight. I’m putting Boston, Chicago, and REO Speed wagon in the playlist to play in the background, and I’m set to go.
-Thom

Aug 2

It has been raining and raining today. It was one of those days where you want to spend the whole day in bed and just watch movies. So, that’s almost what I did. I couldn’t stay in bed, so I went out into the living room and watched some movies. They were pretty good. I watched Splice. It was about a couple of scientists that were splicing together genes from different animals to create vaccines. They made a different species of life and then from that they added human genes into the mix. It grew into a baby, so the girl scientist wanted to keep it and raise it as her own. The guy scientist didn’t want to keep it and tried to kill it. Of course the girl won. Then, as the critter grew, the guy wanted to keep it and the girl wanted to get rid of it. She was a little bit crazy anyway. But, it was a good monster and a pretty good movie. I also watched Cop Out with Bruce Willis. It was really funny. Bruce Willis’s character needed to raise money to pay for his daughter’s wedding, so he was going to sell a baseball card. Things get out of control and the card gets stolen by the bad guys he’s chasing. The other guy, Tracy Morgan, his partner made the movie. He was hilarious. Anyway, what I should have done was go to the store with my wife. For some reason she was mad at me for staying home and doing nothing. Oops. I’ll make it up tomorrow… oh wait, I have to go in early tomorrow. I’ll have to make it up to her on Wednesday.
I finished chapter 16 yesterday and I’m starting chapter 17 today. But, first I’m going to jot down a few notes. I was driving home from work yesterday listening to the radio and I got an idea for a new book. It wouldn’t let me sleep because I was thinking about it. I know if I don’t write some of it down, It’ll either drive me crazy or I’ll forget about it. In my head, it doesn’t sound half bad so I don’t want to forget about it. But, if it doesn’t let me get any sleep, I’ll be cranky all the time and no one will want me to go to the store or anywhere else with them and I’ll die a lonely old decrepit man living I a wheel barrel under the bridge somewhere.
There was no Rockies news today because they didn’t play. But, we left on a high note when we swept the Cubs. So, we just need to pick up where we left off and dish out a little punishment to San Francisco. They and the dreaded Padres are both six games over us as we moved up into third place over the Dodgers. We have the Pirates after that and we need to give them a good butt kicking too. I still can’t believe that they beat us two out of three games.
Till tomorrow
-Thom

Aug 1

O’Yeah!!!!! It looks like our losing streak is gone and the Rockies are back with gusto. We are now four games into a winning streak and the middle two were something to watch. Our first game against Cubs was a whopper. We made 12 runs in the 8th inning alone. We ended up winning 17 to 2. We set all kinds of club records and even an MLB record. Then, the next day, we were up for most of the game. The Cubs hit a three run knock to tie us. It was getting tense, but in the bottom of the ninth, Carlos Gonzales came up to the plate. On an 0 0 pitch, he knocked the cover off. It went into the second level to win the game. But, not only that, the home run completed the cycle. He had already hit a single, a double, and a triple earlier on in the game. It’s too bad they’re off on Monday. It’s only one day, but I’m already Jonesing for another game. Speaking of games, however, FOOTBALL is starting in just a week. I’m going to be in sports heaven. (Too bad my wife will probably divorce me for the season)
I managed to squeeze in a little time for the family today. All that overtime is wearing a little. But, what can I do, I have to take it while it’s available. We didn’t do anything but go to the grocery store and then out to eat. It was fun. We were talking about everything and laughing. Pretty soon, they’re all going to be gone. I’m going to miss them. (They’re not dying or anything, they’re just growing up) My son was talking to me about moving out. He’ll be 21 in October and his girlfriend and my granddaughter are at the moment living with us. They were going through school and getting their lives situated before getting a place of their own. But, it looks like that day is now just around the corner. My eldest daughter will also be leaving at the end of the school year. She’s going into the Air Force. That just leaves me, my wife and my youngest. Then, a year later we might be kid free. I don’t know what I’ll do then.
I got the proof for Grandpa’s Faerie. Of course I misspelled a word on the back cover and omitted several words. That’ll teach me to re type it with these big ham hands of mine. I should have cut and pasted. But, noooo. I had to type it. Oh well, I fixed everything and sent off for another proof. It will be available as soon as I approve the new proof. I’m currently working on chapter 13 of the Great Detective and chapter 16 on Kidnapped. It’ll be a while for either of them to be ready, but I’m shooting for them to be ready and available by Christmas. I’m going to work on Kidnapped today. I’m feeling a little nostalgic today, so I put in a bunch of 70’s (Sorry, no disco) and 80’s music on the playlist for background and I’m ready to go.
-Thom