Prolonged Absence

Haven’t had much time for blogging as of late. As my fellow blogger, Rachel, said on her blog, everybody is busy. I’m no different I suppose. I really miss my random musings here on the blog though. I’ve had to resort to writing down possible topics in hopes that I can write about them at a later time. But that doesn’t seem to work because when I get the urge to write, I write. Waiting several days before I write something is hard because I lose the urge and motivation or train of though if you will. So that’s where I’m at right now. I don’t have time to write and when I get the time to write I don’t feel like it.

This weekend should be fun. I’m going up to the Smokey Mountains with the young adult group at church. It’s one of the trips I most anticipate each year. It will be great to get out of the city for 3 days. Relaxation will be in full effect. I’ve made plans to hook up with one of my old friends from CN, Jason Stansell. He’s a very talented graphic design major and accomplished actor. If you get a chance, check out his website Design Sushi. He’s married now and in school at ETSU currently so he doesn’t have much time to update it anymore but just looking at the site you can see what a talented and creative guy he is. I’m crossing my fingers in hopes that we’ll actually get to see each other. Last year on this trip, my plans to hook up with Aaron, Carlton, and Aaron’s family at CN were disastrous. Hopefully this year’s effort will fare better.

In personal music news…. I’m really into Coldplay at the moment. I’m soooo digging their song ‘Trouble’ right now. The video for this song is really interesting. Very creative and different from what’s out there right now. I find Chris Martin’s voice intrigueing. His melow, somber tones combined with the random falsettos he sprinkles liberally throughout his songs are very refreshing. What really sold me was seeing them live on MTV2 this past sunday evening. They’re a good band. I downloaded their entire album on Monday to have a listen. It was very good so (The RIAA will be pleased to know) I went out today and bought a LEGAL copy of their first CD today.

(Side note: You know how people try to be nice but all they end up doing is annoying you? Well that happened at the music store today. I walked up to the register today and gave the clerk the CD. She immediately pipes in with “You know this isn’t their brand new CD right? They have another one that just came out.” I gave her this blank look and said “I know.” By coincidence or perhaps clever marketing placement and strategy, my sudden interest in the band happens to coincide with the release of their new album this past Tuesday. I know she was just trying to be helpful but at the time her comment kind of annoyed me. Anyway, random clerk lady who’s name I don’t know because she wasn’t wearing a name tag, I’m sorry for my reaction to your harmless question. :End Side Note)

Actually I buy quite a few CDs thank you very much. (Over 200 and counting) Usually after downloading the musician’s songs to give them a listen. If I’m going to drop close to $20 bucks like I did today, I want to have a listen before I buy. Kind of like a test drive. And I’m not talking about a 30 second snippet like on CDNOW and Tower or Amazon. Which brings up another thing. Has anybody noticed that CDNow has stopped having audio clips of every CD under the sun? I’m rather disappointed at that but I do understand. There’s only so much server space and it was probably getting cost prohibitive maintaining all those songs on all those servers for so long. I only buy something from them once or twice a year but I go there at least once a day to get a track listing or listen to a song clip or whatever. Oh well, Tower still has clips of just about every CD out there. I guess I’ll start frequenting it more now. Anyway as Eminem joked earlier this week, “It sounds better than what you get off the internet.” He was right. Listening to the songs straight off the disc as intended definitely sounds better than listening to an mp3. Even an MP3 ripped at a high bit rate. I guess you have to be an audio nut to notice the difference sometimes but it’s definitely there. MP3 is fine for listening to stuff here at work through the crappy computer speaker that came with my office computer. But if I burn a CD of MP3s and take it home to play in my stereo or even through headphones on my Discman, it just doesn’t sound the same as the real deal. That’s the main reason I’ve kind of gotten away from the whole download and burn thing. I’m not diametrically opposed to downloading songs and stuff. Quite frankly I think that the record companies are useless, money hungry monstrosities that care nothing about the average consumer. I’m ticked that the average price of purchasing a CD has GONE UP not down since the introduction of the CD to the public in the late 80′s. The average price of a CD nowadays is around $18. And you pay that whether the CD has 8 songs on it or 18. So personally I say the record companies can go jump in a lake for all I care. Copyright laws be damned. They don’t give a rat’s backside about the artists or the consumer so why should we care about their precious sales? I don’t care about any of that. I simply enjoy the sound and quality of CDs, which is why I buy the CDs of the artists I like. It may not be immediately after it’s been released (I only bestow that honor on my very favorite acts. Most recently that was Linkin Park and Dave Matthews Band) but I’ll eventually get around to buying it. Here’s a good op-ed piece on the mess the music industry has gotten itself into.

Well so much for not having anything to write about. I got off on a tangent there that I didn’t intend on. Oh well, I guess that shows how starved I’ve been to write. Fridays seem to be the rather slow days amidst all the chaos that is my job. Maybe I’ll designate Friday as writing day since this seems to be the only day where have a little time to put my thoughts down on screen these days. That’s all for now I suppose. I MAY fill in any interesting tidbits about my trip this weekend next week if I can find the time. Until whenever, later.

Ray Charles

I think I know what it must be like to be Ray Charles. He’s blind. On an almost weekly basis I get to provide tech support for software, hardware, etc. that I’ve never seen , touched, or been trained on before. So basically I’m working blind. Funny thing is, I don’t know I’m supporting this new thingamagiggy until our customer calls and says I need help with such and such. I was told you’re supposed to help me with this. I call my superiors. “I’ve got a call about such and such. Do you know where these people are supposed to go for this?” “Oh yeah, we forgot to tell you. You’re now providing support for such and such software. Good Luck. Click.” Man I love my job. Late.

Weekend

Braveheart rocked as I knew it would. We lost our first official soccer game in the history of Tornado FC. Hope that doesn’t start a trend. I saw Blue Crush. Very good movie. Ebert and Roper (I almost typed Siskel and Ebert) gave it two thumbs up. Though I think Roper is making Ebert soft because before Siskel left they wouldn’t have been so nice to this kind of movie. Anyway I agree with them. This is a good movie. Plot was a little bit on the weak side but it was passable. The visuals were breathtaking. (As in the hawaiian scenery, waves, beaches, etc.) Oh yeah, and the hot babes (which some guys (not me of course) would classify as scenery) didn’t hurt either. Hehehe…. This is actually a pretty cool female empowerment movie. It works well on many levels. The guys like it cause of the cute chicks. And the girls will like it because the cute chicks kick major butt. Everybody is happy. And the PG-13 rating doesn’t hurt either. All-in-all a good weekend. I accomplished my goal of relaxing as much as I could. Recovered from last week and tried to prepare myself mentally for this one. Well I gotta jet. The workday is over. Which means I’m don’t need to be here anymore. Late.

Braveheart

Today has been miserable. I won’t elaborate. Let’s just say that that 18 wheeler I’ve been waiting to run over us did today. Along with several of its buddies. Alas, in roughly 11 minutes the work day will be over. Hallelalujah!!! The evening is looking up. I’ve going to see Braveheart. On the big screen no less. The Orpheum Theater is showing it tonight. A bunch of us are getting together to go see it. I really like that movie. I hate I missed seeing it in the theaters. Now I’ll get my chance. This weekend could not have gotten here any slower. But now that it’s here I’m going to try to relax and enjoy it as much as possible. Our first soccer game is Sunday. That should be fun. Our whole goal on my new team is to go out and have fun. That will probably go out the window if we loose a few games but hey the season is young and we enter it with high hopes. We’ve got a lot of talent and I’m looking foward to see how we do in a real game situation. I just hope I don’t hurt any of the plethora of parts I’ve already got dinged up on my body. Until next week…. Adios.

P.S. Mom called me this morning. They had just arrived home about an hour earlier. Almost 23 hours total traveling time (Flying, layovers in airports, etc.). But they got to travel back home in style. The airline bumped them up to business class. So they were flying in the lap of luxury all the way from Chicago O’ Hare to Tokyo. If you gotta be stuck in a plane for 9 hours that’s the way go. Late

Bye, Bye Mommy

Well my parents left today (Thursday— but due to a problem with blogger publishing this probably won’t be posted until Friday or if not then Monday). Heading back across the big lake to their small island home in the Far East. It’s been nice having them on the same continent with me. I really enjoyed having my whole family here even though we were only able to all be together for a couple of days. This summer was a bit strange but in a nice way. I got to spend time alone with each member of my immediate family. My Dad and I played in the church golf tournament (and won it!). And we had a couple of days to talk and catch up. I got to spend a long weekend with my brother. We had a blast just sitting around laughing, cracking jokes, and playing Nintendo 64. And eating. Man my brother can eat. I’m sure my parents are glad (from that standpoint) to have him out of the house. Me too for that matter. Having to feed him for 3 days put a hurting on my pocket book. Well not really. But sort of. My Mom was the first one to get here. We got spend a few days here and there at Grandma’s talking, and talking, and talking. (Mom loves to talk. And I love her for it.) Maybe that’s not the proper phrase. She talked and I listened while occasionally interjecting comments when the opportunity presented itself. I think this individual time I was able to spend with each of them made this summer all the more special. I wanted to make the most of every moment we got to spend together and I think we did for the most part.

I also got to spend time with just my parents the last couple of days. That was cool too. Kind of a return to the way it was back before Kenny was born. We got to eat lunch together yesterday which provided a nice respite from the stresses of work. Then we went to watch the Memphis Redbirds baseball team play last night. Dad and I had been planning to go for a couple of weeks. I promised him that when they got back in town I’d take him to a game. The Redbirds have a beautiful new ballpark that I wanted him to see. We’ve been asking Mom if she wanted to get with for a while now but she always said no. “If I didn’t enjoy seeing a major league baseball game (Cardinals vs. Braves circa Mid-90s) why do you think I would enjoy seeing a minor league game.” That’s been her stock answer for several weeks. Well last night I used the weapon that all children have in their arsenal from the day they’re born. I begged. “Go with us Mom. Pleeeeeeeease.” Then I threw in a little guilt. “You guys leave tomorrow. I’d like take you guys out. You know I won’t see you again for a year. Please Mom.” She was defenseless in the face of such an onslaught. She relented and said she would go all time protesting that she knew she wouldn’t have a good time. I’m glad she went. I think she had a better time that me and Dad. We bought peanuts and coke (can’t go to a baseball without those) and popcorn (for Mom). We had a great time. Mom was in a really silly mood and kept us and the folks around us in stitches the whole game.

I’ll miss them all (Mom, Dad, and Kenny). The older I get, the stronger (or maybe deeper) my love gets for them. I’ll miss you guys. See you next year.

Did I Blow It?

Saturday night our young adult group had a get together. This girl that I like, decided to come. We’re trying to invite her to things and try to get her involved. I wasn’t sure she would come so when I saw her there, I was ecstatic. The only problem was I wasn’t dressed the same way she was dressed. She looked incredible. I looked like a beach bum. T-shirt, shorts, addidas soccer sandals. The people hosting the event have a pool so I went prepared to swim. Nobody else was dressed to swim. Well one guy was but that was because he had just come from a pool party. I’m too tired to go into great detail. Maybe later. I keep asking myself though, Did I blow my chances with her? First impressions are lasting impressions and all that. This isn’t the first time I’ve met her but it is the first chance we’ve really to interact outside the context of church or a bible study of some type.

Anyway like I said. I’m tired. First day of school was day. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I only took 50 calls today. I’d say we only got ran over by a small truck today. Not bad considering. I waiting for the semi to come up the road and run over. That should be fun. I’m too tired to think coherently. Gotta go home, make some stir fry, and watch some preason football. Adios. Late.

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A Pathetic End To Our Softball Season

That was the title of the email I had waiting in my inbox this morning. It’s from our softball coach. A pathetic end it was. Last night against all odds softball was actually played on the fields they were holding the city tournament on. The downpour that enveloped the rest of the city was merely a shower out at the softball complex up in North Memphis. Before I left work, I checked the city parks website to get a status check on the fields. It said that the status of the games would be left up to the “Umpire’s Discretion”. They’ve also got a phone hotline to call to check field status. I tried calling that but it was busy and after 4 tries I gave up. With the knowledge that we may possibly be playing, I made a beeline to Target to get a new glove. After that I rushed to Fazoli’s to grab a bite to eat. From there I zipped home, inhaled my food, donned my uniform and all of my various medical aids (ace bandage for hamstring, knee brace for knee, ankle brace for ankle, etc.) and headed for the field.

I got to the field about 10 minutes before start time. I didn’t expect anybody to be out there but when I saw the lights of the complex from the Interstate, I got excited in anticipation actually getting to play. Well low-and-behold there was only one other person from my team at the field. Apparently we were the only people that didn’t get the message. And apparently every other team in our league missed the memo that said that we weren’t playing because ALL of them were there. Turns out there was a snafu with the phone hotline at the Park Commission. My coach called around 4 o’clock and learned that all games were postponed for until Thursday. There were no specific instructions for specific fields so he assumed that this meant that all games at all city fields were postponed. With this information in hand, he passed the word along to the rest of the team (why this word didn’t reach me or Jose, the only other guy that showed up, I don’t know). Anyway, that’s why nobody was there. I called Kirk, our coach, from the field and he said that the games were postponed. When I informed him that the games clearly were not postponed he got upset. (Not at me but at the Park Commission) It turns out that they revised the phone message at 4:30 to say that most of the fields in the city were washed but the games at the complex we were playing at were still on. Since we didn’t show up we forfeited our 7:45 game. Since the other teams were already there (the winner of the 7:45 game played again at 8:45) they went ahead and played each other in the 7:45 time slot so everybody got to go home sooner. So basically we got screwed out of a tournament we paid to participate in. Kirk contacted the City Park Commission today to try to rectify the situation but they will not allow us to make up the game because other games have been played based on the forfeit decision in our game.

I’m ticked off 1) because I wasted a ton of gas driving out to this softball complex in the middle of nowhere dubbed “the best facility in the city” on two consecutive days without playing a lick of softball, 2) I reinjured my knee for nothing seriously putting a hamper on my upcoming soccer season, 3) I paid 40 bucks for a softball glove (though a darn cool one I must say) that I won’t get to use until next spring, and 4) we didn’t actually play all of the games we paid for (10 regular season games plus at least one post season tournament game). What we actually got was 8 regular season games (thanks to multiple rainouts) and zero tournament games. Considering how poorly we’ve played this season, we may well have lost those 3 games but I’d much rather loose the games on the field than have them decided by circumstances we can’t control off the field. Definitely a fitting end to a pitiful season.

Ugh!! I feel like such a scrooge. Nothing but complaints lately with the occasional bright spot brought on thankfully by the presence of my family. Today has been a much better day than the first two days of this week. That’s a blessing. Wednesdays are usually my worst days of the week for some reason. I’m glad this one has gone fairly well. Well I’ve got to head out for my mid-week recharge. A.K.A, Wednesday night worship service. Here’s looking forward to another better day tomorrow and a better softball season next spring. Late.

The Rain Wins Again

It’s not official yet but let’s stop kidding ourselves. We’re supposed to play softball tonight. So of course it’s raining like cats and dogs right now. Yesterday it knew that the other team wasn’t going to show so we had a nice, bright, sunny day. And Friday it just got confused, or lost the memo or something. Tonight our apponent is apparently intent on showing up so the rain has stepped in to put a stop to that nonsense. The rainmaker must have gotten the memo a little late though because it was nice and sunny until about an hour ago.

This summer I think the weather forcasters here in Memphis should stop using the whole percentage system when it comes to rain fall. You know. “Tomorrow there will be a 50% percent chance of showers.” etc., etc. This summer if there’s been even a 1% chance of rain it’s, rained. The weather guys have got to be loving this. They’ve been right more times in the last 3 or 4 months than they probably have their whole career. Anyway, I suppose this is for the best. It will give me a little time to rest my knee. Not heal it mind you but at least rest it. I really don’t need to play on it tonight but knowing myself, if there’s a game to be played I’ll be there. I’m just stupid like that. Kind of like the Trix rabbit. I’m cookoo for Cocoa Puffs… I mean sports activities. (I think I’m mixing up my cereal commercials but who cares. It’s been a long day. Let me have my fun.) I can here some kids somewhere out there saying, “Silly Daryl. Sports are for kids ….and physically healthy adults.” To whom I reply, “Shutup and eat your veggies.”

Not Worth The Trip

Last night was the first night of the city wide softball tournament. Our team enters the tourney with 3 wins, a bunch of losses and a couple of games that weren’t made up due to rainout. Apparently our mighty reputation proceeded us because the other team didn’t show. Not a single one of them. The trip was definately not worth it. While warming up for the game that never happened, my well worn glove wore itself out. The pocket of the glove has a nice big hole in it now. My fielding in the past has evoked questions of whether or not I had a hole in my glove. Now I can answer yes to that question. To top the wasted evening off I reaggrivated my nagging knee injury. Since the other team didn’t show up and we had the field for an hour we decided to practice. We never get to practice so our coaches jumped at this oppurtunity. I hurt myself going for a ball in the outfield. When I found out that the game wasn’t going to happen, I had the strong urge to leave. For whatever reason I mulled around and eventually our coaches decided to have the impromptu practice. I should have left. I wouldn’t mind hurt myself during a game. But hurting myself during practice is just annoying. Now I won’t be 100% (actually I’m never 100%. More like 85%) for tonight. Dangit!! Fall soccer kicks off in 13 days. I’m never gonna get well. I need to just take a whole season off and completely heal up. But what would I do then to blow off steam? I’d be bored stiff sitting doing nothing athletic for 5 months. Gotta do something about this knee though.

We’ll try again tonight. If we win we play again an hour later. I gotta go buy another glove and maybe some Theragesic or something to rub on my knee. Hopefully this won’t be another wasted effort. It wouldn’t be so bad if the field wasn’t like 25 minutes away thanks to traffic. Well that’s my daily rant. I’m in a generally foul mood today. I literally woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and it’s been all down hill since. Tomorrow will be better though. Even if it’s just for the simple fact that it’s Wednesday which means mid week worship service and singing class. Late.

It Was An Amazing Slide

…. THIS JUST IN …. WE INTERUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING FOR THIS IMPORTANT UPDATE!!

…. WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING. ALREADY IN PROGRESS …..

….. met the girl of my dreams and we got married. Hale Berry and I lived happily ever after. (Oh we’re on? Man that update didn’t take very long. Guess I should stop daydreaming.)

Friday night we had our last regular season softball game. It was fun. My Mom, and Dad, and brother were there. That gave me flashbacks of playing REC soccer and little league baseball back in Okinawa and Turkey. My Mom yelling “Go Daryl!” when I stepped up to bat. That was great. It brought a big smile to my face. I have to admit though. I was really nervous during my first at bat. That definately affected my initial performance. I wasn’t my usual focused self in the batters box and thusly proceeded to pop a ball up that was quickly caught by the catcher. The catcher. He’s one of those slimey guys that’s always trying to get in your head to gain an advantage. Off the field, he tries to come off as the nicest guy. He even tries to portray that same farse on the field. But I recognize his slimey game for what it is. Alas, since I wasn’t my usual focused self that first at bat, I succumbed to his sneaky ways. The pitcher threw me a really crappy outside pitch low and away. Mr. Slimey whispered “That’s the one,” and I swung. I give myself props for even making contact with such a horrible pitch. Instead of making solid contact though, I merely nicked it which caused a miniature pop-up right into Mr. Slimey’s glove.

After that, I settled down though. My next at bat I hit a solid single into left center. My next at bat (and final one of the game due to our extremely poor hitting that game) I walked to get on. And that’s where the excitement began. The next guy hit a riffle shot almost to the wall. I got a late start to second because I was holding up to see if the outfielder caught it or not. He didn’t so I took off to second. I made it and rounded for third only to stop in my tracks about 7 steps off of second. The fielder had recovered from his missed catch and hit his cut off man perfectly (if only my team had such solid mechanics). Even though my body protested I changed directions in mid stride and dug as hard as I could to get back to second. Slid face (actually arm first) back to second and made it just under the tag. My heart was beating a mile a minute, I had dust on my face and in my mouth, and I had huge smile on my face. I had the base in a death grip and didn’t let up until the second baseman threw the ball back to the pitcher. Then I stood up and dusted myself off. The crowd cheered (especially my Mom and Dad), the bench applauded and even the second baseman on the other team turned to me and said nice slide. But that was only the prelude…. The next batter popped out I believe so now we had 2 outs. The next guy hit a pretty deep single to center field. I took off. I couldn’t tell if my roommate and then thirdbase coach was signaling me to hold up or go but my adrenaline was pumping so I decided that he was telling me to go. I rounded third and heading for home. Everything got quiet just like it does in those cheesy sports movies. All I could see was the third base line, home plate, the catcher (Mr. Slimey) yelling for the ball and the Umpire watching intently. I ran as hard as I could. As I got close to home I felt (hard to describe. I just felt it) the throw coming before I actually saw it enter my peripheral vision. It was a bit wide because it pulled the catcher off the plate towards the third base side. That was the perfect opening I needed. I slide this time feet past the plate. The catcher recovered from the off the mark throw and brought his glove in to make the tag. But I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I slid in such a way that basically I was slidiing away from the plate (down the first base line) and just as about to pass the plate completely I swiped my arm across the outside edge of the plate. The silence broke and the Umpire said, “Safe!!!” I let out a loud scream of triumph. The crowd (10 or 12 fans we had there) went nuts and so did the dugout. I was pumped. It was an amazing slide and I was on cloud nine. We lost the game. It had been out of hand long before then but that’s the most fun I’ve ever had playing softball. Actually the most exciting sports moment I’ve personally participated in in a long time. Sometimes, life is much more exciting than fiction.