Down to Earth

Well, it's official. The smokestack in the Crossings is coming down. Even more unbelievable than that is that I took these two pictures from my moving van with my cell phone and they're almost in the same spot. It's weird to see this guy coming down as it's been there longer than most of the people in the city. So for those of you who are no longer here. Celltacular pictures.

So here it be Monday afternoon.

And this afternoon.

Heard it on the Radio

As some to most of you know, I live in the eastern portion of the Bay Area in usually sunny California. The local baseball team (and the one I root for)? Oakland Athletics. The slightly farther local team? The San Francisco Giants. My son has taken to listening to baseball games at night on the radio in his room. Geographically we're closest to the A's, and yet we get the worst reception for their broadcasts. Which teams local broadcasts come in better, you ask? The Giants for one, who he's been listening to so much he's decided that next year in Little League he wants his team to be named the Giants. It's a little sad for me. But we won't be doing that, because he can still only be named after minor league teams. And speaking of minor leaguers, he also gets the Sacramento Rivercats games. They come in very clear since they're more or less across the delta from us. But wait, there's more! He can also listen to the Padres games. They come in clearer than the A's broadcasts, and they're coming from San Diego. I know this because I hear the ads for the local car lots and lawyers from down in the Marine Corps. Capitol. And who else can he listen to in his room? Why the L.A. Dodgers of course! Another of my least favorite teams, thanks to 1988 and Kirk Gibson. Damn that lousy gimp. But all this brings us back to the fact that he can listen to four teams who are farther away than our local favorite teams on the radio. Now he can listen to the A's games, but we have to get the dial just right, and angle the radio just so, and be careful not to breathe to hard in the direction of the radio waves so as not to disrupt them and cause massive buzzing and other horrible sounds besides the voice of Ken Korach to come out of that radio.

So I pose to you a question, how do I improve the reception on a simple boombox within a small boy's bedroom to better hear the team we root for? Please leave all suggestions in the specified comment area below. NASA people, I'm looking at you.

Graduate

Today I have nothing really exciting to report, other than Big T's promotion. So here's a blog post, right? T-ball is officially over for the year. Kooni has killed another mouse. And Big T had today is his 'graduation' from Kindergarten. We're took him to school at 8 in the a.m. Usually he doesn't start until 9:50, so I guess this earlier start time is to get him ready for next year when he goes all day. Well, not all day, but for longer than this year. He gets three recesses, I think, and also a lunch, so from 8 to 2:30 he gets almost an hour of breaks. So that should help him ease into the transition right? I also discovered that a number of the onions that I'd planted a few months ago, that I got from my uncle, had flowered. I just found out that this means they're unedible. Inedible. Nonedible. You can't eat them. So I've prepped the rest of the onions to be picked this weekend. Hopefully. So now?? Pictures!!!

Not to ruin your suspense, but he did hit this one. To the outfield.
Getting his perfect attendance certificate for the third trimester. It was a quick shot by me and I was impressed it came out, so I'm sharing it with the world.

Beware! Cougar!

No, not the new pop culture kind, the old kind that's a wild animal. But more on that later. First off, the rain held off yesterday and the infamous water balloon practice went great. Even the kids who aren't the best hitters were able to hit a water balloon and soak themselves. My lovely and beautifully helpful wife was able to make another 140 or so balloons before the practice, and her fingers were paying for it last night. Even the massive water balloon fight at the end between the kids went well, no major injuries and only a few head shots. It was somewhat unfortunate that almost every kid already knew what was coming and so it was difficult to get them to pay attention at the beginning of practice because they were just waiting for the towel to come off the giant tub to start playing. But it did rain just after we finished practice. So well timed.

Also, we may have discovered the secret hiding place of the mice. It would appear that the neighbor behind us has a trail of sorts for them because that's where we saw Kooni snag one the other night. She played with that thing for a good half hour. She either threw it back over the fence or ended up putting it somewhere other than the back porch, but it was fun to watch her stalk that thing all around the backyard. And I learned that a cats eyesight is similar to that of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. If the prey doesn't move, they can't see it. She looked right past that mouse a few times and couldn't see it right in front of her face, until it twitched and then she was able to continue smacking it around the yard. It was a great time for both of them. I'm sure the mouse had fun playing hide and seek. Aren't you?

Balloons

So a quick update on the water balloons. I had made almost 200 balloons and left them here, when my wife got home she sent me this picture:

Only about 20 were left. It was like Jonestown or something. So tonight she helped me fill up almost 200 more. If they don't make it through tomorrow, it's gonna be rough at practice. I can't fill up that many that quickly.

I Want to Tell You

OK, so I know I've been slacking in my postings as of late, and I have some great excuses, but the short story is, I got sick, busy with T-ball, potty training has been happening, accident occured, and I can just be a little bit lazy. So on to the fun!!!

That cold that I wrote about previously? It kicked my behind and turned out to be walking pneumonia. What's walking pneumonia you ask? Well, it's the pneumonia that isn't quite serious enough to make you stay in the hospital. However I wasn't allowed to do much walking so it's a very deceptive name. I was put on what amounted to bed rest as I had to stay home from work and just rest for a week. Not much got accomplished around the house and the grass grew pretty high. I caught it in the early stages of pneumonia as I'd had the cough for almost three weeks before I went into the doctors office. 'Cause I'm a guy, that's why I waited so long. So due to the illnesses and trip to Disneyland I've only played in 5 of the possible 11 softball games this year. (An estimate). I'm really having withdrawls about that. I needs my fix.

We're in the last week of T-ball and then I'm out for a while. I don't know if E will want to play, but she seems like she might. Wednesday I'm having the second annual water balloon practice. Which sounded like a lot more fun until the weather peeps are telling me that it might rain, in June. It hopefully won't and the 300ish water balloons I've filled up won't be for nothing. I'm going to enjoy it anyway. What happens is I have the same practice but we use water balloons instead of baseballs. I do get a little kick out of the kids trying to throw them and I like throwing them back. A good time will be had by whoever shows up.

Little E is finally getting the concept of going in the potty. It's a wonderful feeling for me. I'm one step closer to not changing a diaper for a while. Also, all the stories about how girls are easier? Lies. The stories about the second child being easier? Also lies. Lots of people have lied to us about this potty training thing.

I hit a car a couple weeks ago. It wasn't my fault. It was almost the perfect combination of stereotypical bad drivers, an old Asian man. If it was his wife, I would have had the trifecta! But two out of three ain't bad. Anyhoo, I was waiting at a red light, like good drivers do (foreshadowing!), with my 6 year old boy in the back seat at 6:40 in the a.m. The light turned green and I started across. I'm about 2 and a half lanes across a six lane road when I see a blur coming out of the corner of my eye. Alertly, I slam on my brakes and see a golden 2005 Acura whiz almost all the way by me. Except for his back rear tire, which catches my front bumper, thereby qualifying this event as an accident. He pulls over in the fast lane and gets out, so I do also. After a few minutes of confusion, as I can't really understand what he's trying to tell me, a CHP motorcycle cop pulls in and moves us over and takes down a police report. He asks me what happened and I tell him. Then he asks Old Asian Man, "Was the light red when you entered the intersection?" Old Asian Man replies, "Well, it might have just been yellow." CHP Officer writes on the police report, "Old Asian Man at fault." Well, ok he didn't write that exactly, but on the report Old Asian Man, or OAM as I'm going to call him from now on, was Party 1, and on previously mentioned report, he wrote P1 at fault. SCORE! It's my first accident where it wasn't my fault at all! No possible chance it was me. All him! And all it took was for the other driver to be an OAM. So the check from his insurance company should be arriving shortly and I'll be fixing up the front of my van. Wanna see it?


And to end up this brief, yet long, summary of the past month or so, I leave you with this image:


Kooni the Cat has killed 5 mice in the past week, that we know of. She had one laying out on the back porch last Tuesday when my wife got home from work, and has left us a mouse each of the last four days. It's extra impressive since I've haven't seen evidence of a mouse for almost four years at this house. So go cat go!