Thursday, July 31, 2008

DWT

For all of use who text ,surf, etc. while driving...

http://www.startribune.com/local/26136934.html?location_refer=Homepage:highlightModules:3

and
http://www.startribune.com/26142699.html?location_refer=Local%20+%20Metro

Sadly, I'm probably guilty of this - usually when I'm stopped at a light, but it's still a bad thing and I'm lucky I haven't gotten into an accident. So I guess it stops tomorrow.

Airline madness!

Shelley must be rubbing off on me for my blog titles - I think half of hers are "something something something madness" :)

I really don't understand how the airlines set prices, book (and overbook!) flights, etc. To me, it sure seems like a flight is a flight is a flight, and that every ticket on a given flight should cost the same price - it costs $x amount to run flight y, and there are n passengers. OK so I'm not an economist, and it's probably a bit more complicated than that...but the way it works is just crazy. My recent example:

A couple of weeks ago Erin, through his HR department, had them book his Las Vegas trip flights and hotel for the conference he was attending for work. We had decided to make a vacation out of the trip, so Erin had them extended a couple days before and after the conference - and we'd pay for the extra days on the room. Still a good deal for us because his flight and 3 nights at the Mirage were all paid for.

They booked his flights but did not get back to him right away with the flight information - which I wanted because I wanted to book the same flights for myself. I was getting concerned because prices tend to go up as it gets closer to the date you want to book. He finally got his flight info - outgoing flight from MSP at 7am on the start date, return flight from Vegas at 2:20pm on the end date. I went right to the web site and chose those flights, and found the cost to be $572. Doing a little more looking, if I took the same outgoing flight but chose a return flight at 12:00pm instead of 2:20pm, it was $350. So for a flight on the same day 2 hours earlier it was $200 cheaper. Crazy #1. I wanted to make sure that was ok with Erin - that I might have to return on a different flight than him. By the time I got home and talked to him about it, and tried booking again, the prices had changed so that they were now both $572. Crazy #2. I went ahead and booked for fear that the costs would go up even more, and went to bed kind of frustrated.

In the morning, out of curiousity (masochism?) I went out to the booking web page again and just looked to see whta the flights and prices were. BOTH flights were now $350. I was very frustrated and started looking around for numbers to call to see if I could get the lower price or at least complain - not confident of either. I stumbled onto a "cancel reservation" option...but was leary of that because almost always there are huge fees to cancelling or changing. Crazy #3. In this case, you are allowed to cancel within 24 hours of purchase for a full refund. Hooray! So I cancelled, and re-booked for $200 less, for the flight I wanted in the first place. Crazy #4.

Now, WHY would a flight be one price at 8PM one night and be $200 less the next day at 8AM? This makes no logical or economic sense...anyway, morals of the story are book early, or (apparently) book often.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Last game

On a sunny, nice (and a bit humid) Monday evening, we had our last softball game of the season. The last week of the season is actually next week but we have a bye on the final week (weird). The standings are here - I believe we will finish 4th no matter what happens next week, because we beat both teams that can be tied with us. Considering how our year started, 4th out of 12 is really good! I managed to get on base a few times and also got an injury - I wish I had a better story to go with this one, but when the game was starting, the umpire tossed me the ball to throw to our pitcher (every other batter you have to switch balls as there is a women's ball and a men's ball). I wasn't looking, and turned to him at the last second and the ball smacked me square in the mouth. It wasn't a hard throw but I have a slightly fat lip. I really should have made up a better story :)

Other randomness of the day

ESPN stands for "Entertainment Sports Programming Network" - I learned this at Caribou this morning as it was the trivia question - I've NEVER in all my years of watching ESPN heard that - it's an acronym that has taken on a life of its own.

I am distraught at how much airline ticket prices are - and this was a flight to Vegas, which used to always be the "cheap" flight - I can only imagine how much people are paying to go elsewhere.

I have gotten used to my new phone and have even decided I like it - GPS Google Maps is a pretty neat application.



Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Dark Side of the Phone...

Besides all the other weekend activities going on, I have been partially consumed with trying to get my new phone working. I have a hard time resisting the lure of new technology, and the Palm Treo 800 was released last week, and after many lunchtime discussions with friend Wayne, we both ended up getting one on Friday (both of us had our 2-year phone rebate coming and a bunch of other incentives made it fairly cheap). This model has 802.11 wireless and GPS, a significantly better camera, as well as Sprint's high-speed EVDO network capability. The one hitch was that it runs Windows Mobile, not Palm OS which has been on every Treo I've had since the first Treo 300 I got in 2002. This is my 10th Treo (but only the 3rd one I've actually purchased - I bought a 300 to start, got a replacement under warranty, upgraded to a 600, got FIVE replacements under warranty, AND a 650 as a replacement when they quit making the 600s, and finally bought this new 800). I took a good look at Windows Mobile, wanting to make sure I wasn't getting into something I didn't want. It does have some downsides, but it is a lot snappier than the Palm OS, and the newest 6.1 release did look like it fixed a lot of problems. So I jumped in...not knowing that getting my data from the old Palm OS calendar, tasks, contacts, and memos was going to be very difficult. The main difficulty is that you have to sync to Microsoft Outlook instead of Palm Desktop. I followed all their simple and then "extended" directions, read all sorts of forums, and tried many many syncs to no avail. I finally broke down and bought a program I found that allowed you to migrate the data directly from Palm Desktop to Microsoft Outlook - something that they should have provided in the first place, but it did turn out to be worth the money, as it copied everything over flawlessly.

So finally this morning I had almost everything re-set up - I'm still learning about Windows Mobile, but so far I actually like what I see, and I believe with all the other phones that run this, it will probably be a good choice in the long run. (I can already see Michael and Cory shaking their heads wondernig why I didn't just go to an iPhone - yeah, get Apple to not sign exclusive deals with AT&T :) The sync software for Windows is much faster and more reliable than the palm sync ever was, the phone uses MicroUSB which is supposedly the future of phones, and, well, I have it and now I'm going to use it. GPS-enabled Google Maps is QUITE awesome too - I may never get lost again. And after trying out the camera yesterday, it is decent enough to take normal pictures on, as long as there's an ok amount of light.

Honkers and Vaders and Fairs...oh my

I was going to do this in 2 or 3 posts but here it is Sunday night and, well, I'm going to abbreviate a bit...

The weekend kind of started Thursday night when I got some free tickets to the Sommerby deck at the Honkers game. Smaller than the main sports deck, they also had some additional good food including ribs, roast beef sandwiches, lasagna, pasta salad, and 7th inning cheesecake. A big thanks to Zac, my financial advisor at Ameriprise, who gave me the 6 tickets and let me bring some friends. (as a side note, if anyone is looking for a financial advisor - Zac Saiki at Amerprise Financial, I've had him for 4 years and he's been terrific). We got home around 11 - if you want to know the story of me losing my wallet at the game and finding it the next morning refer to my earlier post.

I was excited for Friday night because my good friends Trevor and Karli from Nebraska were arriving for the weekend. I've known Trevor since the 6th grade, and we always have fun - they love movies and video games just as much as we do! Friday night was low-key, we ordered some pizza and caught up, and Erin made bread and from-scratch english muffins for breakfast the next day (yeah, I've never seen that done before and they were GOOD).

Saturday after a wonderful breakfast of strawberry pancakes (again from-scratch), juice, coffee, and milk we decided what to do with the day. We ended up playing some video games, hanging out some more, and then Karli decided we should go play mini golf. I have occasionally gone to the mini golf course in Byron so we headed out there, picked up DQ on the way, and did a round of mini golf. I won't mention the scores, but I'll say Erin wasn't too happy :) but I think the ice cream made up for it. By then it was 5:30 and we headed over to Shelley and Ryan's for grilling/dinner/drinks and to celebrate Shelley's birthday - I actually got another bday present from Paul, Anne, Lukas, Shelley and Ryan as well since S&R weren't in town for my birthday dinner. I have to say the theme of my birthday presents this year was Star Wars - mom got me a Star Wars talking card and the gang got me all sorts of Star Wars stuff including a cool yo-yo (I used to be quite the yo-yo champ). We left around 7:45 and decided to hit Batman:Dark Knight - Trevor and Karli had already seen it, but were up for seeing it again. I hadn't heard a single bad thing about the movie from anyone, and my expectation level was pretty high but it did not disappoint. I'm really sad that we'll never see Heath Ledger in another movie - obviously I'm sad that he died, but his performance in this movie was just amazing. It's rare these days that a 2 1/2 hour movie can keep your attention the whole time but this one sure did.

We pre-purchased tickets to the MN Science Museum for Sunday, and headed up at 8:30 loaded up with english muffins and Caribou coffee, to get to a 10:00am show at the IMax. The current big attraction is the Star Wars display (more Star Wars!) and the IMax show was all about special effects - pretty neat stuff. Seeing all the technology they have now for special effects makes you appreciate even more the 1977 Star Wars movie - no computers, no motion sensor cameras, etc - it really did set the bar pretty high. We then headed down to the actual Star Wars display and saw everything Star Wars you could think of, from all 3 movies. Many models, costumes, interactive displays - fantastic. Lunch a few blocks away at McGovern's, my favorite place to eat in St. Paul, then headed back home so that Trevor and Karli could start the long trek back to Omaha.

(the whole set of pictures is here - too many to put on the blog page)

This week, looking forward to our last softball game (we may very well finish 4th out of 12th, didn't seem possible at the beginning of the season!), and on Friday, IBM day at the fair, where they give us a half day off to go enjoy the Olmsted County Fair. And we get to attend a wedding of one of Erin's friends this weekend - I will have to dust off the awesome suit I never wear. The next weekend in Ames, the following in Vegas! Where does the summer go???

Friday, July 25, 2008

Saved

I just got in to work a few minutes ago (9:25am) - which is about an hour and a half late for me. With good reason....

Last night I went to the Honkers game with some free tickets my financial advisor Zac gave me, for the Sommerby Deck. The pockets on the shorts I was wearing apparently don't close really well or tightly, because this morning as I was getting read to go to work, I realized I couldn't find my wallet - searching all over the house, under the bed, in pockets, in the car, etc. I knew I had shown my ID to get into the deck at the game, so I knew I had my wallet at that point. We never left the deck all evening, and it was unlikely (but I suppose possible) it had fallen out walking back to the car. So I decided it was worth a drive down to the stadium to look and/or see if there was a lost and found. I finally found a way in on the back entrance and found a cleaning person cleaning up from last night (Anne - God bless her!). I walked up to her and asked if there was a lost and found, and she said "Are you Paul?" Well of course I knew I was saved! I shook her hand, tried to get her to let me buy her a coffee or something but she refused, and said she was just glad she could help.

WHEW!

I could have recovered if I hadn't found it - I knew everything that was in there, and could have cancelled the credit cards, and I carry very little cash anymore, but it would have taken some doing to replace all the IDs and cards. I hardly needed the Caribou coffee I got after that as I was already running on adrennaline.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

and sadly...

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid57909.asp

This was too not funny not to post. I understand the whole religious freedom, freedom of speech thing, and everyone is entitled to their beliefs and opinions. But if you're going to have a law aimed at trying to prevent bullying and violence in schools, it would make sense that it targeted the things children get bullied and beat up for. Those things are facts - they are not beliefs, opinions, or political agendas. Children are getting beat up for, among other things, their sexual orientation, real or perceived. Those things need to be said, to be stated, and not just glossed over because some people are uncomfortable talking about them. No kid deserves to be beat up, bullied, and sometimes killed because someone thinks they are gay.

Whither sewage

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25576371/

Whatever your political affiliation, this was just too funny not to post :)

Monday, July 21, 2008

Cleanup!



I'm behind on my blogging! Here it is Monday already...last week was good and busy as usual - the regular activities such as work, trumpet lesson, band practice, etc. as well as the unexpected AC going out, and then getting fixed 2 days later, and the addition of rain gutters to my house. Fortunately, Erin and I were looking at a whole weekend where we were both off and had no plans...that might be a first!

Friday night was just a "sigh" of relief, as we relaxed, had dinner, and just took some time out - Erin with some video games, me with some reading. We didn't want to stay up too late because Saturday Erin was to be at Chipotle at 6AM, not to work, but to help with the Red Ribbon Ride for AIDS research, an event Chipotle sponsors. I decided to go too to enjoy the fun, and by 7:00am, we had fruit, bagels, donuts, coffee, and water ready as the riders started coming in. Music playing from the big Red Ribbon Ride RV, and lots of Chipotle people (and others) around to cheer everyone on. WOW, I was surprised at how many riders there were. One of them told me they were riding 80 miles that day, to Northfield. 300 miles total in 4 days.

We were back home by noon, and had to take another "break" to recuperate again (although with all the coffee I had, I wasn't all that tired!). We did decide we needed to get something done though, and cleaned up the flower bed next to the house (above) and went to Sergeants to look at additional plants, which we decided we weren't in the mood to buy that day.

The rest of the afternoon, I was reading - I have been at last reading the last two books in the Star Wars "New Jedi Order" series, and being in the middle of the last one it was getting good. At 6:00, we decided we needed to eat something, and then somehow got into cleaning the house - even mopping the floor. We had planned on going to see the movie "Wall-e" with friends that night, and they came over for drinks beforehand. Probably a bad idea for me, because I was already tired from the long day and a drink combined with a 9:30pm movie...well I dozed for awhile. The movie was pretty good, although a little slow. I still want to see Batman Dark Knight soon.

Sunday was the traditional breakfast and coffee at Panera, and more enjoying the afternoon, reading, housework, and dinner. I finished my book - great ending! I was doing the last of my 3 diversity presentations on Monday so didn't want to stay up too late. We did get in a couple episodes of "Lost" and I ordered my new server - actually Andy and Erin ordered my new server - Andy, in all his generosity, contributes to my gadget fund in exchange for letting him live here all the time, and Erin for my birthday. I'll write more about the server later, but it will have 3.81TB of storage when it's done.

Updates

A sad heart goes out to my friend Shelley and the family of her friend Nick, who passed away this weekend from Lou Gherig's Disease. I never met Nick personally but feel like I know him from his blog and from what Shelley has shared with me.

Finished with "Star Wars: The New Jedi Order" series - and have rediscovered how much fun reading fiction is!

The Vegas trip is ON for August 14-20, and we started planning on what to do and see - anyone with suggestions please post or write!

The yard is finally returning to normal after all the digging and re-sodding.

50th Ave update - they've now dug out the entire "swath" where the road will go - it already looks so different. I can't wait to see it done.

Thank you to the unknown person at the liquor store this weekend who carded me, and really did wonder if I was over 21 :)

And last but not least, I can't wait to see friends Trevor & Karli this weekend when the come up from Nebraska to visit - Trevor is bringing his Xbox 360 and Rock Band, should be a fun weekend!
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

PC security

I keep meaning to do a post on computer and internet security and don't...but I'm going to post this again because so many people ask about antivirus/firewall stuff. I use a program called "Blink" which is made by a computer security research company. I've been running it for over a year and love it - it is small, well-written, and easy to set up and use. It is free for a year, and $29/year after that and you can run it on up to 3 computers with one license.

http://www.eeye.com/html/index.html
or the direct link to Blink:
http://free-antivirus.eeye.com/

Since this company's primary business is research, they're not in this to make money which is probably why it's so inexpensive. If you have something you already like, by all means stay with it, but if you're looking for something new, check it out.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

It is a cellular peptide cake...

...with mint frosting. If you aren't a trekie, that's from a Star Trek Next-Gen episode, but today, for my birthday, I ACTUALLY got a cellular peptide cake with mint frosting (or at least as close as you can get). But let's back up...

What a wonderful weekend - and after such a busy week! Just to summarize the week, there was softball, golf and salsa band practice, along with some very full days of work including a 3-day conference where I was on the phone most of the time (and presented a couple of times).

So I was very glad to see Friday roll around. Erin was working Friday night, but I met some friends at Rookies for the show going on there, made it until about 10:30 and was just too tired to continue. Right when I got home it started storming hard, so I was glad I went when I did.

Saturday, after stopping off at Caribou for some coffee, I headed down to Central Park in downtown Rochester, to set up the IBM tent/table for Rochester's 11th annual PrideFest. This was the first year I'd worked at the IBM table - "work" is probably too strong a word, sit and talk to people and hand out pens and candy is what we do. It was a beautiful day in the park and I got to see and catch up with a lot of people I don't see otherwise in my daily routine. There were 7 of us taking turns manning the IBM table so I had a chance to walk around and see what else was going on, including the table my financial advisor Zac Saiki had, where he had sumo-suit wrestling set up - well you just have to look at the picture. Saturday evening both Erin and I were tired enough that we went to bed by 9:00.



Which brings us to Sunday, July 13th, 2008 - the day Paul turns 34. After a wonderful night's sleep, I woke up around 7:30am to another beautiful weather day. After a relaxed bit of reading and taking a shower, I headed over to Menards to get some replacement parts for my grill (which is old and needed a new burner and some new brickettes) and then over to Caribou Coffee - which is a normal stop for me most mornings anyway, but today I got a free drink of my choice because it was my birthday - so I had an out-of-season Ho Ho Mocha and it was wonderful.

At 11:00am, I headed over to Whistle Binkies and met up with friends Jeff and Amber and some other people from the softball team. The reason this was significant though was because Amber and I share a birthday - not just the date, but the year, and even the hour (I was born at 11:05am and Amber was born at 11:08am, July 13th, 1974). So it was appropriate that we met up about 11...we all had lunch, had a couple of drinks (Amber and I decided a "scooby snack" was in order) and just laughed and talked for a few hours. Thank you Robin for once again capturing these moments on film...well on flash memory anyway :)

A quick stop at Target and then it was home to get ready for the REST of the birthday day - Erin and I invited some friends over for dinner, cake, and drinks that evening, and of course with Erin, dinner is always a feast. I installed the new grill parts, while Erin and cousin Andy prepared food for most of the afternoon, and we all got done by 5:30 in time for people to start arriving. The menu was either grilled chicken or brats, milk bread rolls, fruit salad in a watermelon bowl (I should have gotten a picture) and of course my very own cellular peptide cake with mint frosting. It's really white cake which is then soaked in condensed and evaporated milk and butter cream frosting with creme de menthe. Erin drew counselor Deanna Troi from Star Trek on the cake wishing me a happy birthday (he embellished a little bit :) - if you are wondering why, watch "Phantasms", which is the 6th episode of season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Overall it was a wonderful evening of food, cake, and great company. After everyone left I noticed a message from my mom, who sang me happy birthday over voicemail - thanks mom!

As year 34 starts, I realize how truly blessed I am to have so many wonderful people in my life - friends and family.

Miscellany

Just FYI, I think I've actually had enough of the presidential campaign already. For music - well Debbie Gibson is still a recurring theme although I've been back to listening to the salsa band music again now that we have some stuff coming up. Reading - after about 4 years I'm actually finishing the Star Wars: New Jedi Order series that I never finished because I was so disgusted with the way they were doing the story arc (killing off main characters, destroying planets...) but the last two books aren't bad.

Construction updates - the path next to my house is done and all the sod is back in place. This week I'm going to have rain gutters put on the house. 50th Ave is moving right along - I didn't get a picture, but they've cleared the entire swath of trees where the road will be. The (likely) harder task of reshaping the land and building the bridge is next. But I'm fairly confident they'll be done by September as planned.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Happy Fourth

As another blog I read pointed out, the Fourth of July is a holiday where we get to celebrate rebellion against government...take that for what it's worth :)

The theme for this week has been birthday - Erin's birthday as well as the birthday of our great nation. Tuesday night, friends came over to celebrate with Erin spending all afternoon making a wonderful dinner (salad, cornbread, and chicken cordon bleu, as well as homemade bright-blue frosting cake). Wednesday, Erin's actual birthday, cousins Brent, Cindy, and Andy took us out to dinner at the Olive Garden (for my birthday too, which is coming up on the 13th, as well as Brent's which is also on the 13th - which we both share with Patrick Stewart and Harrison Ford, but I digress...) Thursday good friend Caryn was in town with boyfriend Andy whom we had never met, so we went to Fridays and then back to our hours for more cake. Each of those nights, Erin was sung to, including both restaurants - which he hates - but seemed to take ok :)
Friday we got up and headed to sister Erin's good friend Carrie's in Eagan, where we met up with Carrie, Erin, mom, and all the kids for some lunch, and just general fun on this most beautiful of days. All 4 kids are just terrific and a lot of fun to play with. Keagann insisted that we do something for both her "uncle's" birhtdays, so they made cupcakes which sister Erin cleverly decorated - see the picture. I got a cool looking dice game and a Star Wars musical card, and Erin got some cookbooks and a Happy Feet musical card. Keagann brought along HER musical card which plays the Hamster Dance song, and we had all 3 musical cards going. The littler kids Laynie and Perrin were also making faces and having lots of fun - and Laynie is ALMOST walking (she can walk if she has a chair or in this case a Tonka truck to lean on).


But the day was not over! (you may be seeing a recurring theme with me, that I can't sit still) At about 5:00, we headed over to the Mall of America to meet up with my bestest friends John & Jen who I went to college with. Conveniently they were driving back from a week further north in Minnesota at the lake, and wanted to come to Mall of America. So we met them at the Rainforest Cafe, and got to see Julia and the newest Finch, Jaycie! We hung out at the new Nickelodeon amusement park until 8:00 when the mall closed.

Other "News"

Hit some more balls at the batting cage today lefty - I am still convinced I am a lefty batter even after my first night of doing it wasn't so good. Debbie Gibson, for some odd reason, has been dominating my iPod playlists lately, must be some sort of weird nostalgia kicking in. The trail between my house is almost done - the trail is done but they haven't put the sod back down yet. 50th Ave is now offically closed and they are already ripping everything up - I'm hoping this will go faster than the two months they have planned. It will be very nice for us when it's done! Erin and I have been watching "Lost" which is kind of intriguing, and we only have two seasons to watch so hopefully can borrow the rest somewhere else. Finally, this morning my iPod shuffle seems to have died...I'm going to have to dig up the receipt and see how long I've actually had it. It's funny that my 5-year-old 40G iPod which can't even hold a charge anymore is still just chugging along, but my solid-state less-than-a-year-old iPod died...

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Flip-floppin' away



So I see a lot of McCain reports like this, and there are probably similar Obama ones (although he is younger and has less "past" to flip-flop on). John Kerry got completey beat up on this during the 2004 campaign, and Hillary Clinton did too in the primary.

As I have thought about what the impact of someone (a politician) changing their stance or views on something is, I start to wonder why it is that we think this is ALWAYS a bad thing? Don't circumstances, society, and a person's level of knowledge and experience CHANGE during their lifetime? Isn't it a good thing for someone to sometimes question themselves, learn from their mistakes, apply new information to a situation? If I had stuck to every belief and "stance" that I had earlier in my life, I would hate myself right now. It seems like "wisdom" is not just knowing a lot of stuff, but being able to admit you were wrong about something and change it if necessary. I'd certainly rather have a president that could change and adapt to a changing world than one who just sticks to the same path on everything "just because".

Now, that being said, I have no patience for making contradictory statements during the same campaign, sometimes in the SAME DAY, or "telling us what we want to hear" - which all politicians do to some degree, and I do see McCain seemingly doing a lot of that this year. But someone changing their mind on an issue or stance between 2000 and 2008...well, I'm not sure it's fair to judge someone solely on that. Of course we don't know someone's motivations for doing it, but I don't think that changing your mind on something over the course of 8 years should automatically be a bad thing.

Just some political food for thought...is it January yet???

Triple softball action!

After a busy Monday, I had just enough time to head home, change clothes, grab a quick something to eat, and head down to McQuillan field at 5:45, for our 6:15 softball game...one of two that I was playing in, and then a third that the girls team was playing and I stayed to watch. Wow...bad scheduling, but a beautiful night and a lot of fun!

For game 1, I had a large cheering section - Ryan & Shelley, Paul & Anne (and LP), Dan, and Erin. Complete with Leinie's beer! We won game one by 10-run rule in the 5th - hooray! This was the first time trying batting left-handed, and I didn't do so good - 2 walks and 2 outs, but hey gotta start somewhere.

Game 2 was a couple fields down, supposed to start at 8:15, so we had a nice break - and the break turned out to be much longer than that, as that field was running behind and there was no umpire. So at 8:45, we FINALLY started - not a big deal except the girls team (which half our co-ed team is on) started at 9:15. The park coordinators managed to get word down to the other field that we were running behind and that they other team would have to wait. It took 7 innings but we won the second game by over 10 runs too. After two unsuccessful at-bats lefty again, I just got tired of it for now and went back to right - and then got a hit.

The girls all dashed down to field #1 for their game 3, and Jeff and I walked over to watch - buddy Robin was already down there and taking pictures (the one of me above was from her too!) By the time we got there the girls were already up 6 or 7, and ended up winning 25-1 in 5 innings. I had heard the stories of this most awesome of teams but had never seen them play until tonight - wow! Just one hit after another...

I didn't get home until about 11:15, but it was a fun night!