Winter Fun

The old saying, "Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it," is appropriate for me this winter.  I was hoping for some early chilly temperatures so that I could get an ice rink built in my backyard.  When the right time came - a reasonably mild day followed by four days of well-below freezing temperatures - I hastily put it together.

I learned a few things, some from advice that I didn't take.  Not that I was stubborn or felt smarter than the advice-givers, but rather that I realized I needed to hurry to beat the oncoming freeze, so I took a couple shortcuts. They were:

1. I didn't affix the boards to each other.
2. I didn't lay the tarp as tight against the boards as I had hoped to, in part because of #1
3. I tried at first to use cheap tarp, and thankfully soon realized I needed something better
4. I didn't measure exactly the slope of our back yard
5. I didn't buy Rebar as my main type of support stake initially

Not too bad, as it turned out, but the errors above made the project cost a little extra and take a little extra time, but it was fun, and sometimes you just have to learn your lessons yourself.

As for being careful what I wish for, the rink has so far seen limited action, because the "early winter" has brought a lot of snowy days and too-cold-to-skate days for the little Mites in our family.  But it's been a blast so far, and a hit with others as well.

Lastly, my sons' skating and playing skills have improved dramatically.  They may last longer in the sport of hockey than I originally speculated. One thing I've read about practice time seems to be true: small areas for hockey practice are ideal for learning the game.  Our rink is 22' x 32', which is good for their ages, but will likely have to increase slightly for next year's version.

One unexpected pleasure of the rink: the homemade, hand-held Zamboni is a lot of fun to use!

One-chord Pop Songs

One of the tenets of pop songs is the repetition.  I love a good four-chord song.  Three chords and the truth works for me, too.  Even two-chord songs are OK. (Paul McCartney's Helen Wheels comes to mind, as does a song by my oldest son's band, Void in Reality, called Matchbook, coming soon to iTunes.)

I can't, however, handle one-chord songs for more than a minute.  

Tonight, as I cuddled with my eight-year-old at bedtime, The Guess Who's American Woman came on the radio.  I like the guitar riff and Burton Cummings' vocals.  For about a minute.  Maybe less.

Then it's like nails on a chalkboard. While chewing on aluminum foil.

No, it's more like your older brother holding your head under water (I presume, not having had an older brother).

It's like a claustrophobic being locked in a dark box, I would imagine, beyond a minute.

What I'm trying to say is that it is more than just a pet peeve. I get quite irritated, physically even.

Yeah, OK, technically it's not just one chord.  I believe it's actually three.  But you would never know just by listening to the music track. And maybe that's why it hurts to listen to.  The exact same riff over and over and over, even while the chords are supposedly changing.

Born in the USA is the same, but is an exception.  It's nowhere near my favorite Bruce Springsteen song, but I can handle it. Probably because the chord is played with variations throughout.

Paul McCartney's Old Siam, Sir is another.  Love it, for about a minute.  Then it starts to piss me off. It's E-minor the whole way, except for the guitar solos.

A goal of mine is to find, or write, a one-chord song that I truly enjoy. I might end up dying trying on that one.

Tooth-hurty 24/7

Last Halloween, while I took my boys out trick-or-treating, I sampled one of there Tootsie Rolls.  Or maybe it was Laffy Taffy. Whatever it was, it was one of those softer, chewy candies.  It was the last thing I expected to cause the pain I am in now.

Peanut Brittle, I'd understand.  Or a Gobstopper that I didn't have patience for.

Anyway, while I was chewing it, I felt some crunches that I knew didn't belong. They were from fragments of my lower back-left molar and its filling. Just a little less than half of both have been gone ever since.

Anything cold and/or hard has caused pain, so since then I've generally chewed with my right side.  It's odd that I learned from this that I actually prefer chewing on the left side.

Anyway, the day has come that I knew would eventually, and that is to say the pain is steady.  So it's time to go to the dentist.

I will be calling the dentist in the morning to make an appointment, and I hope that I can get in without waiting two weeks. I'd rather it not even be two more days of this, but I'm a realist.  Until I do get in, it will be popping my maximum 6 Ibuprofens  per day.

I'm ready to sheepishly admit to the dentist that I should have come in sooner. I just hope they don't tell me by doing so a year later I've caused more problems than what a simply cap, crown, or tooth pull would have fixed.

Until then, my clock has stopped at tooth-hurty.

Umpire passes away too young

I give professional umpires and other officials a hard time on my blog, but Wally Bell was a good one and a good man.  My sincere condolences to his family.

I am also moved by the fact that he died of a massive heart attack at age 48.  I'm 47 1/2, and just skipped a late-night session on my elliptical, to opt instead for watching baseball and downing two bowls of Lucky Charms.

The Dodgers-Cardinals game just ended. It's not too late to put in 15 minutes on the elliptical, so I'll go do that now.

A little Sunday BP

It was a gorgeous mid-October day in Minnesota today, so instead of watching the hapless Vikings (anyone who was "excited" about Cassell starting should, as I said even before his win against Pittsburgh, donate their brain to science), I hit softballs off a tee.

Today I did it a little differently from other days.  I typically find a field where the wind is favorable or at least neutral.  Today it was at a slight disadvantage, although it didn't blow more than 5 MPH for the most part.

Secondly, I practiced hitting the gap between left and center.  Normally, I practice pulling.  But from now on I will mostly be practicing the left-center gap.  Hit a line drive there, and it's a double.  Top it a little, and it still has a good chance of finding the hole in a five-man infield.

I got several past the 350' mark off the tee today, so that was definitely a good thing considering my choice not to pull.  Oh, and one more thing I did differently today was hit a lot more balls.  Four rounds of 30+ each.

Below is a picture of my left hand this evening, and yes I wear batting gloves. It's a good thing I don't bowl left-handed, because even though it's not my fingers that have blisters, a la The White Album, that one by the index finger might still sting even two days from today when I have league night, were I a lefty.

My wife thinks I'm crazy for taking BP off a tee when I won't be playing games again until next spring.  I doubt she thinks going to a golf dome in the winter is crazy.

I think should would agree that sitting through three hours of the Vikings is.

Update on John

I posted a while back about an old friend who was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  As he puts it, it was a 44 day roller coaster ride of his life being turned upside down and all around. Well, those are mostly my words; but he did say the entire process was 44 days.

Oh, what that means is from the time he was diagnosed to the time he was pronounced cancer-free, 44 days had passed.

Yep, cancer-free.  That's pretty cool.

Of course a lot of people were praying for him and now are thanking God.  I won't begrudge them for that. But I'm thankful for science and the people who use it.

Looking toward 2014

I've posted many things on this Blog in the past about resolutions, goals, plans, dreams, etc.  Many of them, if not most, I either did not follow through on, or let the momentum slip and reverted back.

Still, I'm naive enough at my age to already be looking toward what I consider my "offseason," which I loosely define as the time of year when I spend more time indoors.  Sure, I spend a lot of warm weather days filled with several hours of daylight indoors too, but my "offseason" is when I do better minding my weight, keeping my workout schedule, working toward goals, and such.

I'll try again to come up with some inspiring goals for the offseason and New Year as it approaches.  But one thing I am committed to is to try at least one thing, and hopefully more, well outside of my comfort zone. New, unique, exciting, and where failure is a very real and even scary possibility.

A few ideas:

1) Perform a set of stand-up comedy at an open stage.  I don't necessarily think I'm particularly funny, but I do find a lot of things funny every day, and the thought of putting a well-rehearsed act together to see if it resonates with others excites me.

2) Perform a musical set on an open stage.  I'm not a good enough guitarist to think that will impress anyone, but I pretty much perform for our two Westies at least every other night, and they don't seem to mind the singing.  Perhaps humans won't mind, either, and might even find it in their hearts to humor me with a nice golf clap at the end.

3) Bowl a major scratch tournament (or more).  I used to do this in my twenties, and failed miserably. Today, I have a different definition of failure, and thus should have no problem just doing it for my own joy of competing against others who are significantly better than I.  I've done this in golf tournaments and enjoyed it, so  bowling should really be no different.

4) Focus on a work project on my own, with no direction from upper management, on my own time, and not having anything to do with my day-to-day task management. My employer's annual Innovation challenge is too far underway to try that, but that doesn't mean I can't do my own personal challenge.

I'm not thinking too creatively right now, so I'll cut the list of possibilities at four.  But I want to get this documented, to put a little pressure on myself and not let my enthusiasm of the possibilities die.

I was in a management training course today, and one thing that stuck with me was a comment from another participant and former colleague of mine made a comment along the lines of, "My nature is to feel that if I'm not scared to death, I'm doing it wrong." I really want to pick her brain and see if I can develop that same trait.  I enjoy the nervous excitement of putting myself "out there," but not quite to the level of actually wanting to be scared.

Previous posts on my goals didn't seem to drive my motivation that much, but even at 47, I'm youthful enough to hope that this time will be different.