Lake Stevens is hidden behind the fog on our early morning walk. I wonder where the person is who belongs to those abandoned flip-flops?
Nephew James gets some help as he practices for the roping contest.
These Alaskan Pigs really fly while racing around the track on the grounds of the Evergreen State Fair.
Nephew James is too young to show an actual cow at the 4H show, so he and a lot of future farmers show cardboard ones.
Don’t pack your Benefiber in your carry-on luggage. It makes the TSA nervous, causing them to hand search your bag, then sprinkle out some on a piece of paper and watch what color it turns. I guess blue means OK.
The Sox are playing the Texas Rangers in Texas tonight and ESPN2 is kind enough to be showing the ball game. I have complained here before about the length of the Red Sox games, but tonight is one for the ages. Josh Beckett is on the mound for the FRS and he is what the announcers politely call deliberate, but you and I would call it slow, a lot slower than the other Sox pitchers.
The game has been going for just a little under 2 hours and we are exactly midway through at 4-/2 innings. May be looking at a 4 hour game. Because it is in Texas the normal start time was to be 8:10 Eastern, but was moved up to 7:10 for TV. Good thing too or I’d already be thinking shower and bed, now I’ll probably get to see another inning and a half…
I hit the Daily Double yesterday as both the 7:00 & 7:30 PM episodes of Two And A Half Men were new to me.
In today’s Draft Order Draw for this year’s at work Fantasy Football League I got #11 out of a possible 12.
My wife said she felt today’s earthquake that was centered in Virginia, me on the other hand, the first I heard of it was on Google News about 20 minutes later.
Keep your fingers crossed that Irene keeps creeping east, because yesterday’s predictions placed the west side of her possible path over Charlotte about midday on Saturday, which coincided un-nicely with our departure on Delta Flight 2446 to Minneapolis/St Paul.
Saturday morning we meet with the MMC for our monthly breakfast run that would then be followed with a few frames of bowling.
[English Majors, is the first sentence in this paragraph an example of irony?] We meet 2 other cars in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel for the drive to breakfast at Kegler’s Cafe at Gordon Lanes Bowling Center. The group consisted of the Rally Masters who are Wii bowlers extraordinaire, another couple who own their own bowling balls and us, whose parents bowled.
Gordon Lanes is located on Fort Gordon, an Army base located south and west of Augusta. Civilians are allowed on the base and can make use of the recreation facilities, you just have to stop at the gate, show a picture ID, car registration and proof of insurance. Since 9/11 everyone has to do that, including the military folks stationed on the Fort, us civilians then get directed to the visitor area where we again show those same documents to another set of guards who fill out our daily vehicle pass.
It used to be when you were entering a military base you were “greeted” by the respective service’s police force. Now a days, it is cheaper to contract that function out. And if you check out the full size version of the thumbnail above, it is apparently done on the lowest bidder method. Officer Jackson had a little trouble spelling my first name, but you have to give him credit for the missing A at the end of MAZD because that is how it is listed on the registration. Now, the listed destination, that right there made up for any disappointment caused by the closed Gordon Lanes and cold French Toast at the Huddle House.
Relax, nothing happened to the Purple Whale.
We went to an Augusta Greenjackets game last night. The draw was twofold, fireworks after the game and admission plus a hot dog/hamburger buffet for $20.
As is normal at minor league ballparks there are a rash of promotional stunts between innings and one of them at Lake Olmstead Stadium? is called Hit the Hyundai. A fans name is drawn at random and he is brought out to the field just on the outfield grass beyond first base. He is given a bat and has three chances to knock a baseball off a plastic tee and hit the Hyundai Sonata as it drives slowly along the warning track from right center field to the foul line.
The first ball last night’s contestant hit lands about half way to the warning track and about fifty feet ahead of the car. His second hit travels the same distance towards the car, but more online with it. He really connects with ball number three and for a second it looks like it has a chance, but it lands smack in the center of the warning track about 2 feet behind the car. The PA announcer says, “Wow! That is the closest we’ve had all year!”* Had he hit the Sonata he would not have won the car (dent and all), but merely $50.
*He probably says that at every game.
