Project Miner

I’m writing this before the weekend is truly over, since we have Monday off for Memorial Day, but I thought I’d get it out since I’m a bit bored, Katy is resting and a good bit has happened already.  I’ll just add tomorrow later. 

Friday, I actually had the day off thanks to the “Alternate Work Schedule” where I put in 80 hours over 9 days instead of 10.  As usual, all I really did was run errands.  Had meetings with cabinet makers to go over pricing for our upcoming kitchen renovation (one was in Canton, which is like 45 minutes away), and also did a ton of work continuing the move of our office and bedroom locations (all I really did was switch the closets and organize more, but it was a lot of work, pics of the new layout will be uploaded soon).  After all of that, Katy came home from work and we went to catch a movie.  We saw “Waitress”, which was a putrid movie with whatever her name is who was “Felicity” on the TV show with the same name.  Really, what a piece of garbage that movie was.  Katy liked it, but I think she was just in the mood for something sappy and wasn’t looking at it with any bit of criticism like I was.  I won’t go into it, because it’d take this whole post, but it was dookie.  Bad acting (except for Matlock), bad writing (truly putrid), bad cinematography (it felt like a play that was filmed), etc.  I guess the movie put me in a daze, because I can’t even remember what we did that night.  I guess just watched TV and hung out.

Yesterday, we got up and went to breakfast at the Belly General Store in the highlands.  We love that place.  Afterwards, I went to the gym and Katy came home to meet with the cabinet maker from Alabama that Tom used.  She seemed awesome and her samples were super high quality.  If she can make the budget work, she’s #1 on the list.  We shall see.  After that, we went up to Woodstock and spent several hours with Katy’s family at Grandma’s pool.  Nice to just lay out in the sun and play cards.  After the pool, it was on to Katy’s friend Katie Frasier (formerly “Katie Lee”) and her husband’s house, where they had a “rib fest” party going on.  Holy schnikeys, that dude can cook up some piggys.  Great stuff.  I hope we end up there for some college football game(s) this year!  It was a good time, even without the food… their friends were very cool and did a great job of talking with the only two people there who didn’t know anybody.   That’s always nice.  After that, we were so stuffed and tired that we just came home and went to bed.  Well, Katy did… I played guitar hero and read baseball junk for a while.  mmmmm.

Today, it was racquetball with Tom in the morning (won 2 of 3, but they were all close and good games) and then on to the Braves game.  Met up with the Mahans and friends (again, cool people, and it’s unlike me and my shyness to go two straight days being happy to have hung with strangers) before the game and shot the breeze.  The game was a nightmare for Braves fans.  The Phillies won 13-6, and that’s only because we scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 9th.  We did get to see Andruw Jones make a stunning wall leaping grab to rob some rookie of what woulda been his second HR of the game (what was his name…. Dobbs, I think, he was their 3B) and Saltalamacchia (sp?) hit his first career HR.  Otherwise, it was poopy, though it was baseball so it was still fun.  Actually, the game was better than the people in front of us, who seemed to hate their daughter.  Poor girl, she was getting crapped on constantly by Mom, Dad and Brother and she wasn’t really doing anything wrong.  I felt really bad for her, you could see she was already just beat down and had no self-esteem.  Sigh.  Katy said afterwards, “you know, you don’t have to have kids”.  Stupid people suck.

We have no solid plans for tomorrow.  I’ll probably do some work on the house (gotta get the cable run to the new bedroom and do some more cleaning) and we’ve talked about going to something like Dave & Buster’s.  Maybe catch a movie, maybe go for a walk in the park, maybe just lounge around.  We’ll see.

What a game.  It was the Mets against the Braves, which is always a battle.  Add in Tom Glavine against John Smoltz and it’s awesome.  Then add in that John Smoltz entered the game with 199 wins and it’s super awesome.  The atmosphere was actually electric.  As much trash as I talk about Atlanta fans, they were amazing last night — standing up and shouting and hollering even in the first inning as Smoltz struck out two hitters.  The game itself stood up to the hype.  Both pitchers threw great games, but Smoltz got the better of Glavine thanks to some amazing defense behind him (two plays by Renteria, one great one by Prado at third and a truly amazing run-saving play from Kelly Johnson at second) and Matt Diaz supplying all the power the Braves needed (ok, Francoeur gets credit for the first run with a sac fly, but I’m biased).  In the end, Wickman came in and did the usual heart burn inducing closer routine, just getting out of it with the save and securing Smoltz’s 200th win (actually, Kelly Johnson booted a ground ball, so Wickman doesn’t get all the heart burn credit).

Katy works late on Thursdays and had to work this morning, so I took Mom to her first game in somewhere around 10 years.  She’s not sure, but it doesn’t seem that she’s been to Turner Field before, so it was probably even longer than that (I think Turner Field opened in ‘97, the year after the Olympics).  She had a blast, though, and so did I.  Truly a great game, I love it when the other fans are into it and cheering on every semi-major moment.

Braves vs. Mets, 05.24.07

[NOTE: this is several weeks old.  our camera won't connect directly to the computer anymore and i was waiting on that for the photo uploads.  SD card reader does the trick, so here goes old baseball post] 

Went to two Braves games this weekend, both against the Dodgers.  I was hoping the Braves thing of “selling food from the visiting team” would mean there would be a stand somewhere that was selling Dodger Dogs, but I must have dreamed up all of that, because there was no such animal.  Guess I’ll have to fly out the Hell (aka L.A.) and go to Chavez Ravine to get one some time.

Saturday, May 5.  Dodgers 6 – Braves 3.

Went to this game with a group of 8 – Wade, myself, Katy, Katy’s brother, Michael, Luke, Tom and Rachel.  I bought tickets for the group on Friday afternoon and ended up with super duper sweet seats.  They were in the upper deck, 8 rows back, directly behind home plate.  The killer part was that row 8 was behind and above a section for handicapped seating, so we were basically the first row in the third little tier of seating, which meant nobody was in front of us and we had a rail to put our feet up on and kick back.  Awesome.  The only thing that kind of stunk was the 40 year old virgin that occupied the 9th seat in the row.  This guy was seriously who that movie was made about.  He was probably 40-45 years old, pretty large and in charge, and was full-on super geek.  He knew way too much Braves trivia, but the really bad part was that he needed friends and wouldn’t stop trying to talk with us about nothing.  If he was saying something interesting about the game, Wade (who was next to him) or I (who was next to Wade) probably would have engaged him in conversation from time to time.  But, since it was “that was a foot outside, am I right?” every single time a Braves player had a strike called on them, we tried for the “if he gets no response, he’ll stop” approach.  Not this guy.  He just kept going and going.  Oddly, for somebody who seemed to be a genuine baseball and Braves fan, he left before the bottom of the 9th inning with the Braves down 6-1.  They made some noise, gave us something to cheer about and then lost 6-3.  Oh well, still exciting, and definitely a good time to see the crew of friends that came to the game. 

Braves vs. Dodgers, 05.05.07

Sunday, May 6.  Dodgers 4 – Braves 6

Ah, fun in the sun.  This game was really a good time.  Kyle Davies started for the Braves and did really well until he gave up 2 runs in the 5th inning (I think) and then a two-run pinch-hit home run to Wilson Betemit (who hit a pinch-hit homerun the night before, saying “thanks for trading me”).  The Braves were down 4-1 in the 7th, but hit around and scored 5 runs to take the lead.  Totally awesome inning.  A few times, it was that great tense feeling where you are so nervous you don’t want to look.  They did a bit of that damage with two outs, and Chipper Jones (and Bobby Cox?) was ejected after being called out on a check-swing that was definitely not a swing.  That got the crowd riled up and made it even more tense.  Fun stuff.  Katy and I went to this one in the regular seats we have this year and soaked up the sun.  Good stuff.

Braves vs. Dodgers, 05.06.07

We are in absolute hell.  We are dog sitting for friends who have a very young “teacup maltisse”, which is basically a guinea pig that barks.  When I say “bark”, that is the polite way of saying it.  “Yelps like a spawn of hell” is the more accurate way of saying it.  And it likes to do that the most between the hours of 12 and 5 am.  Good times.  Oh yeah, and it’s still learning to be potty trained, which is the polite way of saying “it craps on our floor”. 

Upside?  Katy doesn’t want a dog any more.

Some would say this is training for what’s ahead with a kid, but I beg to differ.  First off, I’m going to love my kid.  So, there is a huge difference right there.  Secondly, I’ve heard babies cry and scream and nothing comes close to the bone piercing yelp from this dog.  Thirdly (?), my mindset will be different about it, since I’ve made the conscious decision to make the kid.  Sounds weird, but it’s easier to deal with hell when you know it was your choice to be there.  At least for me.  Fourthly, I hate dogs.  Way more than I hate babies (side note: as it turns out, I kind of like babies, surprising… well, at least I like Ellie Netherton/Hall).

Ok, the dog is cute looking.  Really cute looking.  When it sits and chills (of every 24 hours, that seems to be 10 minutes), it’s adorable.  Is it worth the rest of the time?  Absolutely not.  Not even almost.  If I ever were forced to buy a dog, I would insist on an adult (or young adult, if there is such an age for dogs) that is already trained.  I say ’sit’, it does;  maybe plays fetch, maybe gets me the paper, maybe doesn’t crap wherever it wishes, that kind of thing.

To end this with something funny and continue the kid talk, I have to add this in… got a funny note from Waldner today…

Lynn got a free Pedometer in the mail the other day. On a whim she decided to put it on Mela this morning. She put it on her at 8:00 AM and by 10:00 AM she had already logged….2,920 steps (in the house, between two rooms!)

I bet the dog logs more.  It takes four hundred steps when it moves three feet.  Though, it does it at the speed of light and with a poo trail following it.