The Glass Box

The other day, Lincoln went to bed super easy. So easy, that as I'm walking out of his room, I said to Ange, "We're going to pay for this later." As it turned out, it would be sooner rather than later. I heard Lincoln trying to open the door an hour and a half later, so I opened up and took a look inside. I saw the face of a mime...

Lincoln had somehow managed to unscrew a big ol' jar of cream, and smear it all over himself. If I'd of only had a glass box, he would have looked perfect in it.

Those who have kids know that only half of the cream actually made it on his body, the other half was smeared in the carpet, on the door, on his drawers and clothes and shoes etc...

Then, we spent until midnight or so cleaning up the mess

Also, I decided to post a gratuitous picture of Ellie...

She hasn't broken any bones, or made huge messes lately, in other words, nothing worthy of news.

Finally, I should report that I threw another guy out of a game. There was a play at third, and the throw was a little short, so the third baseman, moved toward the runner to field the ball, just as the runner slid. The result was a pretty sweet takeout slide by the runner. The ball went up the left field line, so the runner wanted to go to home, but was tangled up with the 3rd baseman. So he did what any other logical human being would do and started to kick the 3rd baseman. I called the ball dead and tossed the runner for fighting. Then he swore, which of course didn't change my mind. He didn't want to leave, so I had to tell him to go like five times, using my 'angry voice', which meant that teams from nieghboring fields came to take a look at the show.

I guess five times wasn't enough, because he decided to go back out and play left field. He said that he thought he wasn't really kicked out. I think the league decided that he was gone for the season after those antics.

That should be it.

Kronos

101 Posts

Yes, I finally got to triple digit posts. I would have mentioned it in my last post, but I didn't realize I was going past the century mark. When I reach post number 525,600, I know a song I can use, not that I would ever consider watching the musical "Rent".

I need to do a list, but I can't think of any topics to do a list on, so hopefully next time.

I can talk about softball. Platypi is 10-0 right now, but our toughest remaining game is this Tuesday. We are playing the 9-1 Salt Lake Blues. We easily beat them last time, so they're going to be wanting some revenge.

In umpiring news, I had quite the night last Wednesday. I had my first multiple ejection night.

Everything was going well until late in the 3rd game. One of the batters swung way soft, and tried to hit the ball into the ground-- hoping for the ol' swinging bunt. That is against the rules in softball, so I called him out. He told me I didn't have to be so 'professional', which was confusing to me since I am getting paid, technically, I am a professional. I told him that we might as well follow the rules, at which point, he said 'You're the sh***" and then repeated it, so I tossed him for arguing with me.

I will admit that I was probably too hasty to throw him out, certainly Treebeard would agree, but I have low tolerance for swearing, especially if it's directed at me.

After the game, Dad shows up, and I tell him how he missed an ejection, he stayed and watched a couple of batters the next game, but left about three minutes too early.

The fifth or sixth batter in the lineup for the visiting team took exception to a strike I called on him. He said that the ball was high because it 'came in at my elbow'. I told him that was a pretty good definition of a strike he just gave me. He continued to argue about the pitch, and I said 'The ball is coming in a 2 miles per hour, so you might as well swing at it.' The next pitch came in over his head, but he decided to swing, intent on proving his point. This would be called putting yourself ahead of the team. Predictably, he popped it up, threw his bat way hard, and said the F word. I tossed him at that point. His main argument was that he has never said the F word his entire life. I told him that he chose a bad time to drop his first ever F-bomb.

I am less than halfway through the year, and I have already tossed the same amount as last year. I need to grow some thicker skin.

Blue Bubs

As I am writing this post, I feel a little sick, so you should all appreciate the effort. Part of the reason I feel sick is because it suddenly got hot, and I umpired 4 games in the middle of the day on Saturday. I don't know why everyone can't wait for it to be hot. As far as I'm concerned, perfect weather is in the 60's with enough rain to let you know it's there, but not enough to cancel baseball/softball games. It's what I like to call Platypi weather.

Speaking of Platypi, we played a doubleheader last Tuesday, which was also my anniversary. We beat the first team 24-3 and the second team 27-8, for a combined 51-11. Yes, we are not happy that we allowed double digit runs over two games, but in good news, we are now 8-0 with six left.

Umpiring this year has been pretty nice, mostly because I think the weather had broken people's spirits. I haden't tossed anyone the whole year, then I suddenly had to toss 2 people on consecutive games, right as the weather started to turn nice. Interesting.

The first guy that I tossed was probably the calmest ejection I've ever had. He popped up, and then threw the bat in disgust so hard that it hit his dugout fence four feet above the ground. After the play I said "Eleven", then he says "Sorry", but not to be detered by his sudden change of heart, I threw him out. As he's crossing in front of me to his dugout he says "My bad." Then the scorekeeper (Bill) had to tell him to leave the park, and he said "I understand." It kind of threw me for a loop, I felt like I was visiting some Bizarro softball field for a while. That was the last game of the night.

The first game of Saturday seemed to be going ok, except for I missed this way obvious call at third. The team argued tons, and as I was replaying it in my mind, I realized that there was no way the runner could have tagged up, but it was too late to change the call. Unlike NBA officials, I did not compound my mistake with an ejection. When the game ended, two teammates started fighting each other. I broke it up, but someone in the crowd yelled "Let them fight." Then one of the people fighting yelled at the fan, saying like 5 f words, so I had to eject him, which means he won't be able to play his next game.

I think after that, everyone was too hot and tired to argue, so there were no further incidents. This all means I'm going to have to update my toss o' meter at the bottom of the page.

Angel Hernandez

Triple Play Bubs

Brett and Rachel have officially moved down to SLC... they are staying with us until an apartment opens up. I figure I'll let them tell everyone the details on thier blog, if they ever get around to updating it.

The following is a list of things Brett has dominated me at since he moved in.

fooseball
raquetball

This list is likely to grow as time goes on... I didn't realize I was so bad at raquetball, I was like those guys that think they are way good singers, and then embarass themselves on American Idol.

Lincoln is getting real good at identifying letter sounds. He just picked up a magnetic P, and made the P sound, and then did the same thing with F. He isn't a big talker yet, he does have a few words he tries to say...

Mama
Dada
Amen
mar mar mar (marshmelows)
mo mo mo (more)

and so on.

Yesterday while I was umpiring at West Valley, I saw quite the show. I also saw two of my former students from last year. From seeing thier parents, I now understand more about them. That was a joke.

So bases are loaded, 0 outs, and a guy pops up to the shortstop, and promply says the F word. Knowing I have to toss him, I wait to see the play develop. I call infield fly, the shortstop catches the ball, for some reason, the guy at second is way off his base, and the shortstop goes there for the double play. The guy at third, seeing that the throw went to second, decides to tag up and try for home. The throw comes home, and easily gets him. My first ever triple play... the old F6-4-2.

Of course, the team that got the triple play turned against them, was arguing for some reason with me, whilst I was trying to find the batter, to break the bad news to him. I finally found him, and let him know he was gone for using the F-word. Now the team is real mad at me. They asked for a warning. I told them that this guy getting kicked out is a warning to the rest of them. For the rest of the night, that team hung around saying every swear word except the F-bomb, whenever possible to see if they could irritate me. Seems like a waste of a couple of hours, but I guess harrassing the umpire was more fun than going to the local bar.

In conclusion, I tossed a guy and called my first triple play, all on the same at bat. Hopefully Thursday at West Valley goes a little better, especially since they give you cold hard cash at the end of the night, and then I have to hope I don't get jumped on my way out of the ballpark.

We went to Bear Lake for a day. It is the time of the year when we need to try to get vacations in before I have to go back to work, which is only 4 days from now. A good time was had by all, especially the campers next to us, who got to listen to Lincoln cry for half an hour at 2:30 in the morning. Link managed to wake up another kid about 5 sites away, that was crying well after he went to bed. Needless to say, we got out of there fast, before anyone could get mad at us. We also got out of there fast, because Ellie managed to throw up on two outfits at once, and destroyed 4 in the space of 3 minutes thus leaving her outfitless. The joys of camping with kids...

The Rocket

So if I gave you three guesses to figure out what the Rocket is that I'm referencing, some would guess the ride at Lagoon. Others would guess a pitcher that can't make up his mind about retirement. Other's might make jokes about NASA employees. Everyone would be wrong. The Rocket is what I call Rocket Park in Bountiful. I usually umpire once a year there, and last night was the night.

There was a huge thunderstorm that came through Salt Lake, and I had quite a nice view from The Rocket... it faces southwest, and is kind of high up. I kept thinking how it had to be close to our house in West Valley, and I was right. Ange said it was quite the show... you could've read a newspaper by the lighting light.

Anyway, I had to umpire games in between enjoying the lightshow, and I got to toss someone, so that made my night. An overthrow at first base, and the runner decided to go. I had worked my way to about the pitchers mound. When I saw the runner going, I got as close as I could. I ended up about 5 feet away from the most obvious tag out at second. The runner knew he was out, and didn't even try to slide.

The 3rd base coach disagreed, and while walking in, yelled 'You can't see tags, you can't see the plate, you can't see ****'. I said 'Do you know what? You're done.' and made my signature tossing action. He then had the best comeback of all time: 'Well, you should be done.' After much laughing by his team was done, he left the ballpark.

We had a nice trip up to Idaho. It's kind of a Bummer, because that was our big trip for the summer, and now it's over. I now have less than a month before school begins. We enjoyed our all the time we got to spend with our family, and certainly enjoyed the cabin and the river trip. I'd have to say that Steve and Sharon put on a pretty good show.

This time down, I was in the boat that, at John's insistence, took a Ghandi style approach to water fighting. We tried the best we could to not react, and everyone just figured we were too boring to soak, so we got left alone. Then Matt had a brilliant plan, which was to steal the other boat's water cannons, but his brilliance was only short lived, because he only stole two of the three, thus leaving them with a weapon. Too bad.

We are hoping to be able to make it up to the cabin one more time around Labor Day. We sure are lucky to have such good family.

In conclusion, Lincoln just woke up.

Ms. Flint

Escargo Anyone?

First off, I'd like to mention that the streak is alive and well. I thought I was going to have to reset my throwup streak, but the thought of doing that helped me tough it out. Now Ange is sick which means I haven't slept in 2 days, and explains this post at 3:30 in the morning.

Next, I have now tossed two people this year. I was thinking that I wasn't going to get to toss anyone this year, but in the last five days, the full moon has wrought strange behavior on softball players.

The first victim of the tossing was a guy who was sent home for arguing balls and strikes. In his defense, he was mad that he didn't swing at the most perfect pitch in history. His team had kind of worked me up with sneaky complaining all night about obvious calls, so when he complained, I took it out on him.

The second guy was sent home for dropping an F bomb. In his defense, he did hit a way crappy pop up. Plus, his whole team thought that if you drop a fly ball, it counts as an out as long as the fielder was diving. These rules can be hard to keep track of.

We can only hope I get more opportunities to toss people, because I have a pretty good tossing motion. It comes from years of practice in the shower. I start my hand at my hip, and swing it up toward my head while pointing just over the nearest fence. It's perfect.

I will keep track of all ejections at the bottom of this page. We can only hope the list grows.

We put sod in our backyard recently. John was the only person cool enough to help out, so thanks John. I'll bat you leadoff next game for your troubles. Now that there is grass in our yard, I've noticed this huge snail migration. They come from under my deck, and try to make it across the grass where there is a wooden fence. This seems to be the goal of the snails. I don't know if snails are bad for grass, but they are a little creepy, so the other night, I went out with a small garbage can, and plucked 58 of those snails off this small patch of grass that we have.

I was thinking it would be a good idea to sell them to some French people as expensive food, but there are no French people that live by us, which also explains why I haven't started a bottled water business, or a surrender your country at the first sign of an invasion business.

So I figured I made my point with the snails, because 58 of them were crawling around the garbage can, so I went out 20 minutes later only to find 6 more crawling around. Needless to say, I was not pleased, so I picked them up and threw them on to the road. I threw them as high as I could to see if I could break their shell. I don't know if that makes me a bad person or not.

Then today, I found ten more out on the grass, so clearly, the message isn't being sent. They recieved the same treatment as the others, and I kind of feel bad that I made snails needlessly suffer, but in my defense, they are pretty annoying.

For those who don't know, we'll be blessing Ella, the date, time, and place will be on the Family Wiki here.

The End
F Bomb Nazi