Isaac's First Baseball Game

Opening day 2010 for the Penn Trafford Athletic Association was Saturday April 24th. I was there because it was my son's first day of baseball. This was how I saw it.

It was supposed to rain. The weather forecast all that week called for it. I was bummed about this because there were 4 practices before the games started. Out of those practices, 3 of them were cancelled due to rain. Although I did practice with him myself several times I don't think Isaac was catching on yet. I thought he needed more practices with his team and coach but that time has past. The games were how he was going to learn now.

I woke up around 8am and got ready. I needed to remember to grab his gloves and his cleats. He would be receiving his uniform today when we got there and found his coach. When I was ready I put the stuff in a bag and walked over to the fields. (I live very close) It was cloudy but it wasn't raining yet. Maybe it would hold off.

I got there and I texted my ex and located her and Isaac. She was unsure of where to go so even though I thought I knew I pulled out my iPhone and verified anyway. That's what I thought. We were headed the right way. No worries. We went up on the hill by field 5 and there was everyone. The Pirate Parrot was even here. (Probably more fun cheering for and watching these kids then our loser MLB team) We found Isaac's coach and got him into his uniform. It did start sprinkling around this time but wasn't raining yet. We hung out, took a bunch of pictures, and schmoozed with his teammates and their parents. We tried to get a picture of him with the Pirate Parrot but for some reason he was terrified of him. I'm not sure what was going on with that. We pointed out that there were girls even smaller than him that weren't scared but that didn't convince him. He was awful whiny even besides that. As soon as he got his cleats on I encouraged him to run as fast as he could over to a bench and back to test them out and he flat out would not do it. He kept hiding behind Lisa. I don't know what the problem was but it better get fixed quick. Oh they are yelling for us to line up. It was time for the parade to start.

We walked down with them and then had to hurry around the side of the field as they marched on and got in line to be announced. I think the guy said something about there being around 1500 kids involved in the baseball/softball programs. That's a lot!! I could believe it too because the field was packed. They would announce the team and coach and then they would run out between the cheerleaders and slap hands with the Pirate Parrot and then go line up. The whole field was full by the time they were done. Some high school girl sang the national anthem after all the teams were announced and it was raining pretty hard by the time all that was done. Isaac got a ticket to get a free hot dog at the concession stand. The only problem with that was that so did the other 1499 kids. :\ I wanted to get out of this rain so I went for the nearest pavilion and started catching up with all my junk on my phone. Soon Lisa and Isaac found me and he had his hot dog. He still won't eat them in a bun. He was the only kid I saw who took it out and and ate it naked.

We had an hour to kill before the skills competition so we sat there for a while. When we went down to the field I saw some of his teammates so I encouraged him to run around the bases like they were doing for practice. We did that for a couple of minutes before the coach came over and told us the rain had cancelled this event but as far as he knew the game would still be on. At least that was good news. Lisa offered me a ride home but I refused. I needed the exercise so I walked home. It had almost stopped raining by then anyway. I hoped his game wouldn't be called off. I got home and took a nap before Chuck woke me up to start messing with my car. It was pretty nice out now so we started taking things apart until around 2 when I mentioned to him about the game. He told me to go ahead and go. That he would handle things until I got back so I jumped on my bike and bolted.

I got there just in time. Apparently this is how it goes. Everyone bats for each team. there are no outs or strikes. You get about 10 pitches to hit the ball and if you don't you get to use the tee. You hit it and you run to first base and everyone else advances. The last guy clears the bases when he hits and then it's the other teams turn. Isaac only needed the tee one time which was good. The other team must have had more practices cause they killed us. They were all hitting it on their 1st or 2nd pitch and they were cranking it too. Maybe they had better coaches. I don't know. Isaac kept playing in the dirt while he was on the field. That did not please me. I wish he would pay attention more. He still runs like a little girl half the time too but he's still a small boy and that's what signing him up for baseball was supposed to help him with. Learn to be on a team and get along with them, learn discipline and hand-eye coordination and get some exercise, oh and of course have fun. I think they played like 5 innings before it was over and they all got their snacks and were happy. I gave him a big hug and told him he did good. I got nice pictures and good memories. :D

Revacation Part 2

2010/03/27

Someone must have reached across me and shut my window shade because when I woke up it was closed. That was a smart thing though because when I opened it, light blazed in. It was morning and I was almost at the airport (EZE). Nothing could stop me now!!

When we de-planed we walked down these awesome glass hallways that attached the planes to the terminal. Nothing like the retractable pieces of garbage at (PIT). I followed everyone down to Customs. We had to wait in line to show our passports and pay some kind of entry tax. Apparently you don't need a visa to visit Argentina from the US but the other way around, you do. Argentina recoops this cost to their citizens with this tax. Either way I could have used the $131 for other purposes but I knew about it ahead of time so I was prepared. After that I waited in line for another guy who stamped my passport and that was it. Get my bag and head out. Happiness!!

The area sort of funneled everyone towards a frosted glass double door that was the exit. I walked thru it and directly in front of me was a giant glass wall with hundreds of people staring at me with their faces pressed against it looking for their loved ones. Hi everyone that is staring at me. I am not the person you are looking for. Now I know how the monkey's at the zoo feel like. Where was my loved one? How was I supposed to find Alejandra in this mess? I started walking and saw the end where my area merged with the area all these people were. If I didn't see her by the time I got there what was I going to do? Ah I see her arm outstretched. I iz saved!! Hugs! Wow I'm here. You're here. This is slightly weird but not. I can't believe this. How was your trip? How long were you waiting? Where are we going now? Let's go to the hostel. Okay.

Outside a taxi man told us I couldn't bring my bags on a bus and that we should go with him. Ale said he was lying and we found and boarded the #8 bus after a few minutes with no problems. She sort of sat half on me and finally got to start enjoying each others company. We took our first picture together here. There was a rear view mirror on the ceiling in front of us for some reason and we could see ourselves in it. We did it! The revacation has started!

I got to see the country side of this strange land I was in while Ale filled me in on what was going on. The bus was empty when we got on it but the closer we got to the city the more and more people that boarded. Wow here we are, check this city out. Every block was packed with stores and there were signs and huge billboards everywhere. Wow there's a gas station, a sign to drink Coke, a soccer stadium, a train station, huge apartment buildings. This looks like normal familiar stuff but for some reason slightly strange to me. For blocks and blocks and blocks it just went on. NYC probably looks something like this but I have never been there. Ale showed me her bus schedule book. As big as this city was I was impressed she had studied this manual enough to know when and where to go. The bus wouldn't go directly to where we needed to go but we could get a taxi the rest of the way. 4 pesos for the bus but it would have been 40 pesos to get a taxi this far. I love that she knows things like that. We stopped and I dragged my stuff off the bus and into a taxi. Do these intersections lack signals? I think so. I don't know how many car accidents they have around here but from what I'm seeing it should be a lot. At least half the cars on the road are taxis and it doesn't seem to be mandatory to stay in your lane either.

Here at the hostel it is kind of weird. I had my first real interaction with someone that could not understand a word I was saying and vice versa. Luckily Ale took over and handled all this but it was neat to be right there and try to figure out what they were saying. They didn't clean our room yet or something but we could dump our stuff and by the time we came back it would be ready. Sounds like a good idea to me. My arms are killing me from hauling these bags around. There's only one remote for the air conditioners so we have to get the guy to come up here to turn it off and on. :/ Okay there's a bed and a dresser. Where is our bathroom? Oh it is the room next door. So we have to leave our room to go take a shower and stuff. :/ I got some shorts on and got my feet out of my big boots. It was cold in Pittsburgh but it's not here. We will go get a bite to eat and take a quick walk around while they finish doing whatever they are going to do to our room so we dumped our stuff and walked back out onto the street.

Right down the street from the hostel was a nice looking restaurant called Imperio's so we went in there and took a seat. Now I get to see how they do things down here. First thing I noticed, they don't give you free refills on drinks and everything is either con gas or sin gas (do you want it bubbly or not). It was fancy here. They had cloth napkins and the waiters were all dressed sharply but I could not read the menu. Yeah I see it says Pizza but what kinds are these? You don't have pepperoni down here? That is the most insane things I ever heard. Hmm since I don't know what this crap is I'm going to have to bite the bullet here and just trust you Ale to get me something I'll like. She ordered me 'Matambre con papas a la espanola'. It was awesome!!! :D Imagine a kind of regular personal pizza but instead of a bread crust that everything is on it's a big piece of meat. On top of that is ham. On top of that is a ton of melted cheese with spices and a few tomato slices. The whole thing is served with what we would call here potato wedges. It was awesome. I had a couple of 7ups with it, we took some pictures, I stole one of their classy cloth napkins and we were out.

It was a nice day for a walk. I remember seeing a block on the bus map that was in the shape of a circle. Apparently that was the park Ale wanted to show me so we went off in that direction. Watch where you step. There is dog poop all over the place. There is a burned out car filled with trash. Don't they clean up that stuff around here? Is this a foreign land thing or just a big city thing? I never figured that out. I started taking lots of atmosphere photos to remember how it felt to be there and pretty soon we were at the park. Around the outside were lots of vendors selling their stuff out of tents. Ale told me that most of the stuff there were selling was pirated America stuff. I guess it is marked up so bad in regular stores that no one buys it and almost everyone there has no qualms about buying their goods this way. That's just how it is. (I discovered this later when we found an electronic store and I looked at their PS3 stuff. Both the system and the games were about 4 times as expensive as if I would of bought them in a store back home.) There was a big pond in the middle of this park and there were a million pigeons flitting about. There were fountains in the water and cool statues around. We sat down and relaxed for a bit. We talked for a while and enjoyed each others company and the environment but there were some strong desires burning in the background. I think it's time to see if they finished our room.

I won't go into what happened next in too much detail. Let's just say the bed was insanely squeaky almost to the point of embarrassingly so. Now we can clean up and go back to meet her parents at her house and have dinner.

Wow this bathroom that we had to keep our clothes on to walk to doesn't even have a shower. Oh wait there is a hose in the sink. Oh we hook it to the faucet and hang it on the wall. How novel. :\ Wait the water pressure is so much that it keeps blowing it off the spigot. This sucks.

So we went to Ale's house and met her family. Her mom and dad and sister were all awesome I just wish I could understand them better. I got to see her house and her room. For some reason I never got the impression that her room was that small. They have a huge brick oven / grill thing in the middle of their house that is cool. Her dad grilled us all kinds of meat that we had for dinner. They kept testing things out on me to see if I'd eat it. Most things were ok. I mean meat is meat. Sure it tasted a bit different but as long as you don't tell me what it is until later I'll be okay. There was one kind of purple sausage that was all mushy and I didn't like. I found out later it was mixed with cow's blood so that was totally gross. Everything else was awesome. I gave her dad the headphones I bought for him (although for some reason Ale told him that she gave me the money to buy them. I'm not sure why. I thought he'd like me for giving him that present but if he thinks she bought it I won't have that going for me).

I also got to give Ale all the stuff I had been collecting for her. The Pens calendar, tons of American chocolate candy, a book on how to speak Pittsburghese and most importantly the less than 3 necklace. She really liked it which made me happy. When I saw it I knew it was the perfect gift since in all our chats we <3 each other. She says it's the best present she ever got and that she's never taking it off. That makes me feel good. We went back to the hostel and .. and slept. What a crazy first day!

TO BE CONTINUED

Your non-caring really bugs me

Ok here is a bloggy thing to blog about - A Cause. This is something that really bothers me and I want to set the record straight as far as my stance and what I feel about this.
Why is it that people think it is okay to litter and throw their cigarette butts on the ground (or where ever) when they are done smoking? Don't they know that is disgusting? I will not abide while you think there is nothing wrong with that. It seems to me that even people that are against littering in general don't have much of a problem with cigarette butts, like they are exempt for some reason. It is not hard at all to pop out the remaining burning part when finished and put the butt in the trash, your pocket, the ashtray, anywhere but the ground!!

It is because you can just walk away from it and not have to see what you've done that makes it okay? I don't understand this behavior and I feel bad for us and the planet that this is something that is almost acceptable. You throw your McDonald's bag on the ground and a cop might write you a ticket for littering (or at least make you pick it up!!) but you flick a butt in the grass and hardly anyone bats an eye?! I wonder if you'd pay attention if when stopped at a stop light and you flick your butt out the window if I got out of my car behind you, picked it up off the ground and flicked it back in your car.

I'm more concerned with this writing to speak more about the littering aspects of this habit rather than go off about everything else but I will say that it's about time that the education about the harm of cigarette's is getting around. It took long enough but I can say with the way things are going every 10 years the number of smokers should be half. I have great confidence that, despite the somewhat inconsiderate smoking habits that the mother of my son has shown in the time I knew her, Isaac will probably never pick up this vice. Maybe as we go along more people will care about this issue.

At least there is something that those of us who are bothered by this can do now, today! There is a website, Litterbutt.com that allows you to create a log in and submit license plate info for people who see who throw their butts out the car window. There is more info there about how it works and what they do with it (Sends them a polite letter that basically says, HEY, WE SAW THAT, DON'T DO IT AGAIN PLEASE!) but I encourage everyone to go to this site and participate. If these people don't think anybody cares what they are doing then they will just keep doing it. A tiny little thing that could do so much good if everyone just did it.

Revacation Part 1

2010/03/26

I went on a Revacation recently. I left from Pittsburgh airport on 2010/03/26 to go to Buenos Aires. It was probably going to be the trip of my lifetime. I never went anywhere that far away or that exotic. This is what happened in sort of timeline of events kind of way.

"What is a Revacation anyway?", you might ask. This is a vacation that you've already planned out and actually left to go on but before you make it events beyond your control end it early and it's like it never happened. When you replan it and successfully make it to that 'rescheduled vacation' then that is what I am referring to as a revacation. It makes it a little more special to call it that.

As you may have guessed I did leave to try this vacation once already. In February, in the heart of the worst snow storm we have ever had in Pittsburgh, I got on a plane to connect in Atlanta to get out of this. Unfortunately in Atlanta it only snows once every 10 years or so and 3 inches of snow was enough to shut the whole airport down. I was stuck there and after 4 hours on the phone the only choice was to wait until Wednesday to continue to Buenos Aires or go home to Pittsburgh at 1:30pm tomorrow. I didn't want to cancel after going this far but the thought of spending 5 days in the airport was even less appealing. It killed me to do but I had to call it off in hopes of trying again later. Alejandra didn't really like this decision either but what other choice did we have? To complete my 24 hours stuck in the Atlanta airport then 1:30pm flight back to Pittsburgh was delayed several times, we boarded and re-boarded and didn't actually leave until 6:00pm. Not a pleasant experience. I decided due to this I would not fly to Atlanta airport again unless absolutely necessary nor would I book another flight with Delta for the way they handled the situation.

So I came back went back to work on Monday and worked to reschedule. The other possible week we were thinking about originally came to be the revacation 03/26 thru 04/02. I did what I needed to do until that date came. This time we were using United and I was going to DC and I was positively hoping that there would be no issues this time.

I left work around 2:30pm on this Friday. I wanted to get thru Pittsburgh before I got caught in Friday rush hour traffic. I decided that after a bad experience with FastTrack airport parking

[mini rant] I loved the service, I loved the shuttle, the parking area seemed fine, everything seemed great until my vacation was cut short. I paid to park my car for 8 days but since I came back I only used 2. It took over 5 weeks and I don't even know how many phone calls to get my balance refunded. They don't like giving refunds apparently. I won't dissuade anyone from trying this service but after that experience, I don't think I will use them again. [/mini rant]

Like I said because of this bad experience I would just park at the airport instead. It took forever to find a space. I was in 16D which is pretty dang far from anywhere. When I got my stuff out of the car I seriously wasn't even sure which way the airport was. I couldn't see it. I started walking though and I found it. I was pretty far out though and even after I made it to the terminal with those moving walkways, my arms were still sore from hauling all my luggage with me. I checked my bag and even though the security lines were long I made it through with no trouble. I had some time to kill so I got a burger and a beer at TGIFridays. I met a crazy character there. This guy had to be on some kind of drugs. The lady sitting on the other side of him and I kept giving each other look when he'd say something that was crazy. He was cool though. It's better to meet people like that then regular boring fools. About another hour later I was on my plane to DC.

DC airport is like one long huge corridor. I had time but I still hurried to my gate when I got there. Since it is an international airport I saw many strange foreign people. That was a pretty neat experience for me. I made it to my gate, got on chat for a few minutes with Ale before we boarded. This plane was huge. I've never been on anything like this before. The 1st class passengers didn't even have seats, they had their own booths. Impressive. Every seat had a screen on the back of the seat too. You could either watch movies or the feature I liked the best was a GPS for the plane. It showed our route as a dotted line on the map and gave constant updates as far how how far away we were, how long it would take, how fast we were going and how high we were. I liked just watching that the best. I had dinner on the plane which I've never done before either and I was awake for a while with excitement before it all caught up with me and I fell asleep. I was off for an overnight trip to another continent!

TO BE CONTINUED