Camping disaster Bubs

Following up on Matt's comment from my last post, I will prove that soccer causes riots via a simpsons episode.




So the Bubs, having the summer off can do things like go camping on weekdays, while the rest of the world is slaving away at thier unfulfilling jobs.

We reserved a campground a few weeks ago, and thus begins the tale.

A few mistakes were made on this camping trip.

Mistake #1 I thought I had reserved a campground in American Fork Canyon, turns out I accidently reserved one by Strawberry Resivour. Here's a visual.

The red car is where I thought we were going... the green car is where we were actually going.

Not bad, I was only off by 40.2 miles. I included our house and dad's house as reference points.

Mistake #2

Taking the baby... this was compounded by Mistake #1. When we got there, I asked the guy if it got cold. He said it was 36 degrees the night before. Our tent is built to be cool in the summer, it isn't necesarily a winter tent. Apparently we lucked out, because it was only 38 degrees. Nevertheless, Lincoln was awake at 3 am with a soaking diaper, and it was so cold. We eventually got in the car, and drove around for 3 hours with the heater on.

On the positive side, we did get to see Duchesne.
This was our campsite.
40 degrees 07.379 North, 111 degrees 02.203 degrees West. 7,715 feet in elevation.

Mistake #3

My sleeping bag is broken, and so I just brought some blankets. Again, I didn't know how cold this place was. I think we're going to have to restrict our tent to 7,500 feet or below.

Mistake #4

Didn't bring any firewood, matches, and even worse marshmellows, so when we were way cold in the morning, the car was the only way to go.

So those were the major bummer points of our little trip.

In good news, we did get to go geocaching.





We found our 8th ever geocache in a place called "Big Hollow" south of Heber. It was a pretty easy find, only about 70 feet off the trail, so Lincoln could come with us.

It had a nice view of the Heber Valley.

This is a picture of the geocache we found.



Our 9th ever cache was easy also, as long as you could find the right road to take. It was just west of Jordanelle, and it had all sorts of kid toys. You can see the cache in its hiding place in the picture to the right. It's the ammo box on the ground. You can also see Lincoln working on my hair.

I'll leave everyone with one more picture below, of the contents of this geocache, and some advice.

When you go camping, make sure you know where you're going, what the temperature will be, and bring along supplies.

Yes, those sunglasses Link's got on are from the cache. In other news, Lincoln is crawling around like crazy, and I just made an heroic save as he tried to go down the stairs. They should invent something that prevents babies from falling down stairs, or make a video game about babies falling down stairs.
In conclusion, Bubba now, Bubba now.

Soccer Hater Bubs

It's not that I hate soccer above anything else. In fact, I gave it a chance -- ask my brothers. I was into the 1994 world cup, because I thought it would be cool, especially since I had just returned from Venezuela. Instead, it was a huge disappointment.

Here are some of the reasons why I hate soccer, as you will see, they are quite reasonable.

• I could make the sport more enjoyable, and I know nothing about soccer

- Do away with offsides determined by defenders, and draw a line on the field, like hockey.
- Don't penalize a team based on how "injured" the other player looks.
- Put the actual time on the scoreboard instead of making it a huge mystery.

• Most penalties don't affect the game much, but if the penalty happens to occur near the goal, it's a huge penalty. That is like awarding a layup attempt for a breakaway foul in basketball that's worth 25 points.

• US will never win, because US athletes don't fake injuries.

• Refs can change the game with thier bad calls more than just about any other sport, since a red card not only means an ejection, but the team now has to play a player short.

• Draws

• "Fans" just sing or blow whistles the whole time.
  

• The team that plays the best wins only 30% of the time. I usually like to see the team that plays the best win. Notable exceptions include BYU, Utah Jazz, and Platypi

That's all my soccer hating for now, I'll let other add reasons as I'm sure I have forgotten a few reasons to hate soccer. The sad thing is I'm sure I'll be sucked into the world cup in 2010.

In other news, I found my first geocache the other day. Pictures of that find to come shortly, it was near Valley Park. Visit the geocaching link for more info.

Also, for those who are interested, I've updated a few videos on millburnland as well as some Platypi stuff. Big game next tuesday. Matt, you should check out the game summaries to make sure you know how the games went.

That is all.

Papa John

Umpire bubs

It is a little known fact to all those who aren't part of the tight knit umpire community that the worst games to umpire are coed games. This is not because coed games are boring to watch, but because there is more whining and complaining in these games than most mens games. The theory goes than the men try to impress the women by constantly crying like a little baby. The logic may seemed flawed to most, but I think these men are thinking 'women like to take care of babies, so I'm going to act like a huge baby, then the woman will think I'm cool'. What they don't realize is that they are niether cute nor cuddly at the ripe old age of 45.

So I am umpiring this coed game yesterday. Here are some of my calls they disagreed with:

8- On a force play to second, the second baseman completely misses the ball. Entire team tells me it was on the transfer, and should be an out. 3rd baseman tries to explain to me what transfer is. I tell them that they need to have caught the ball first. 3rd baseman says he's not arguing, he's 'just trying to make me better'.

7- A hit down the line, right fielder dives for it, but the ball bounces, team gets mad at me because I didn't yell 'fair ball'. I tell them I'm not supposed to yell, they tell me I need to point, I tell them I did point, then they say 'how is the right fielder supposed to see that?'

6- Pitcher throws 3 straight balls about 6 feet deep. Then askes me if I'm calling the plate or the batter. I say 'you know what I'm calling, why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?'

5- Between innings, team chewed me out for getting a drink and 'delaying the game'. I get behind the plate, and notice they don't have a left fielder yet, the other team notices as well, and promptly hits a lazy fly ball to left field that nobody is there to catch. Team then gets mad at me for starting an inning without all thier players on the field.

4- Pitch hits the center of the plate, catcher claims it hit the 'black'

3- Pitcher asks me clean the plate, then the next pitch is inside, catcher claims that I covered the black on purpose whilst cleaning the plate.

2- Player looks at a perfect strike, and I ring her up, team claims that we are not playing fastpitch.

1- Batter takes off early to run down to first because of a percieved ball 3. The 'ball' was actually a strike, and I called it that way. He then claimed the call was 'horse (expletive deleted)'. Then he hits a double, but is still mad. After the game, he says again that the call was 'horse (expletive deleted)' at which point I observe that he has a limited vocabulary. As he continues to yell at me saying that my call was 'horse (expletive deleted)' I try to reason with him to no avail.

The above list does not include every single pitch that was not in thier favor.

Yes, I hate coed games

Player hater

Camping Bubs

Number 1

I have updated my website, updates include the Platypi page where I have summarized the last few games, and a video page. On the video page, make sure you check out "Canadian Tax". Michael will like it because so many people get 'rung up', Pirate Joe will like the catchy song, Matt will like the political statement -- it works on so many levels.

Number 2

We are going camping right after Lagoon at that one camp spot next to Lagoon, if any one wants to camp out, we have plenty of room, and would love to have you -- unless your name is Osama Bin Laden.

Number 3

We bought a new tent, and set it up, here are the results in jpeg form.

Number 4

We went to the drive in the other night, and saw 'Over the Hedge' and 'Mission Impossible 3'. I thought 'Over the Hedge' was good, I can't tell you about Mission Impossible 3, because predictable, I fell asleep. Here is Ange and Link at the movies.

Number 5

I have a mini early anniversary treasure hunt for ange.

Start at the tree by where we set up the tent,

go 34 steps north

14 steps west

17 steps south

10 steps east

look for a plastic bag

what will it be, feel free to comment on your predictions, as for me, I'm predicting that it will be a banana cream pie.

Homestar

Think in over Bubs

In the history of the world, there have been many poor decisions. Peter made one such decision the other day.

Everyone in the nieghborhood had been warned that the street was going to be repaved, and they would need to stay off for a certain amount of time.

Peter, upon seeing the road blocked, decided to drive past the baricades, via the neighbors grass, through the newly paved street, and into the driveway, blazing a tar trail for all to see.

Of course the cops figured out who the culprit was, and he is now in the hook for $2000, the cost of repaving the road.

Now that's a poor decision, but I don't want Peter to feel bad, so I'm going to list some decisions that were worse than Peter's to drive through fresh tar.

19 - Michael Jackson dangling his baby over a balconey
18 - Refs continually putting time on the clock until the Soviets finally beat the US Olympic Basketball team in Munich.
17 - Dan Rather running with made up stories about George Bush.
16 - Us moving to Tooele. Liked the house, the drive was a killer.
15 - Hitler turning on Russia.
14 - Pete Rose gambling on baseball, and so the only person to record 4,000 hits isn't in the hall of fame.
13 - Rebels attacking a fully functional Death Star in "Return of the Jedi".
12 - The White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series.
11 - Howard Dean's scream. I didn't know a single non fart noise could cost a guy so many votes.
10 - Jimmy Carter trying to spring hostages from Iran with a helicopter rescue.
9 - Tonya Harding hiring someone to club Nancy Kerrigan.
9a - Tonya Harding pleading with judges to let her redo her routine because her shoelace was untied.
9b - Judges going for it.
8 - Matt leaving opened can of rootbeer out all night.
8a - Matt drinking said rootbeer without checking for ants.
7 - Leaving Wild thing in to pitch to Joe Carter.
6 - Richie Phillips talking umpires in to handing in resignations. Quote from some league official "This is either a threat to be ignored, or an offer to be considered seriously."
5 - Marrying Lorena Bobbit.
4 - Yahoo turning down the chance to buy Google early on.
3 - Clinton turning down the chance to bag Osama/Usama Bin Laden before 9-11.
2 - Tony Larussa deciding to have Dennis Eckersly pitch to Kirk Gibson.
2a - All the Dodger fans that left early, you can see thier tailights in the background as the ball flies out of the yard.
1 - Nixon taping conversations in the Oval Office.

Who am I kidding, Peter should be number 1... sorry, I guess I couldn't help out.

In other news, school is out, and it's the Summer of the Bubs.

I'll probably spend it umpiring softball games. I should keep track of the number of times teams argue about an infield fly because it carried one foot onto the grass.

I'll set the over/under at 13.

But then I'd be gambling on softball, and never make the hall of fame.

Bubs "the blaster" Millburn.