Inland Empire 66ers - Reasons

Lil, Kelly, Tim and I went to the Inland Empire 66ers game last night. The 66ers, in case you didn't click the link, are a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Dodgers.

It occured to me that we all went, barring mutual friendship, for different reasons:

Lil and Kelly went for the game.

Tim went for the 66er Dance Team who are shown here wearing far more clothing than they actually had on last night.

I?

I went for the food.

Hot dogs, nachos, cheep beer (you had your choice of "regular" and "lite", they both look and taste the same too me) apples slices in a carmel bath, funnel cake with strawberries and powdered sugar. Don't think any of this is high quality or even medium quality stuff. For $15 I can feed Lil and myself until we're sufficiently gorged and must be greased with sticks of butter and rolled out of the stadium.

I have no real knowledge or desire to know who the players are, what their stats mean, or why the guy sitting next to us was decked out in knee-highs, knickers and a flat cap, all in an American Flag theme.

No, those things remain a mystery to me, and in this case ignorance is bliss.

I am there to hoark down mass quantities of terrible food and quaff cheep beer.

Quaffing, for the uninitiated, is different from swilling. In quaffing, the object is to toss the head and plastic cup with enough momentum that the drink spills in a trajectory toward the mouth, but the majority does not actually enter. Those who are untrained will end up swilling, in which the cheep alcoholic beverage is actually consumed.

It takes a very steady hand, and the more quaffing you do, the less steady you will be. Practice is the only friend to the true quaffer, and thus the reason that I attend 66er baseball games. Well, that, and my wife likes them.

It's always good to give your wife what she wants, especially when pregnant.

Why I Prefer a Private Bathroom

Besides the cleanliness issue, the comfortable toilet paper, and the privacy . . . there's always that odd individual who makes your public bathroom experience slightly uncomfortable. Today, for example, there was a man, in a stall, talking to someone on his phone.

I do not make this up.

The guy is on the throne, taking care of business, and at the same time holding forth at great length on some topic that requires he keep his friend on the line.

Sign of the apocolypse? You decide.

Papa

A number of years ago, I was asked to speak at my wife's church on Mother's Day. It is not often that non-members speak at church, not out of fear of what they will say, but rather that the talk, as it is called, is supposed to be a teaching/learning experience, and thus is better given by a member rather than a non-member. Think of it as asking a Catholic to stand in place of the priest during the homily.

It can be done, but it's not a regular occurance.

I only mention this because the conclusion of my speech was aimed specifically at my own mother:

[Y]ou did not know that your children would grow so fast or go so far, but as a loving teacher, a nurturer, with sacrifice and God’s blessings we have prospered.

I say this because it equally applies to my father as well. While I gained a certain dry humor from my father, a degree of stubborness to rival various extinct mules, and a temper that can go from zero to psychopathic-killer in 2.5 seconds, I also learned some very valuable lessons:

1 - True friends are to be considered a gift. My father would, and in some ways has, given the very shirt off his back to those people he considers to be friends. His old mining partner, Jack Vanoy, though as curmudgeonly and difficult a breed of gnarly, twisted oak as you will ever find, was always treated with dignity and respect. I know that, when asked, my father did not question a call for assistance, but jumped in the truck, slammed the gas and drove as fast, legally of course and obeying all the rules of the road, as possible.

2 - Money isn't everything. There is something to be said for being a skin-flint and tight-fisted where money is concerned. Certainly, many of our culture's problems stem directly from the get-it-right-now instant gratification mentality. This has never extended, for my father, toward those around him. To be certain, while working in the corporate world he could have negotiated with the devil's own advocate and come away with a peach of a contract, but for himself, his deals are, if not completely fair, then slanted toward the other side.

3 - Education, education, education. My father came from a time where education wasn't as important as experience. He has done more with his 60-odd years of life than I ever hope to accomplish. But the days when experience-only was a determining factor have faded to the point that even a good mechnic requires a wall full of degrees. My father hammered this concept home, so that now, of three siblings, I boast the least education with my measly Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication.

So, dad, Papa, you did not know that your children would grow so fast or go so far, but as a loving teacher, a nurturer, with sacrifice we have prospered. Thanks dad.

Home Improvement Skills Be-Damned

Sometimes, I'm actually handy to have around. My grandfather was a precision carpenter who built cabinets by hand. If you don't think that takes some measure of skill and expertise, go out and build a set of cabinets with only hand tools and let me know how they turn out.

Mine were rejected by homeless children living in Paraguay as "unsafe for life as we know it."

I think they paid someone to write that. Homeless children are generally not known for their scathing litanies.

My father, on the other hand, is a rough carpenter. Together we've rebuilt the covered porch on my first house. Installed bottoms in the original cabinets in my third house and repaired any number of other smaller items. We've even drawn up some impressive plans to enclose the back patio and turn it into a sitting/entertainment room.

Now me, I'm more of a crude carpenter. By the love, patience and understanding of my parents, not to mention the "motivation stick" my father beat me with, I was able to follow a career path that largely steered me away from having to rely on my carpentry skills to support me.

Most carpenters agree this is a good thing.

They have a party to celebrate my not joining their ranks.

This dubious distinction has not prevented me from doing the odd jobs around the house. To wit, we recently had central air installed in our house, which allowed us to remove the through-the-window air conditioners and replace the original windows and screens. All except one.

There is one window in the front room that was removed before the previous owner painted the front room. The missing window was carefully stored in the wood shed and covered with protective debris, bricks, odd ends and logs. Retriveing the window, which had somehow been taken for a god by a tribe of were-rats from Patagoinia, I found that the window didn't match at all.

"At last," I said to myself, "I can try my hand at stripping and staining a small window."

I rushed off to Home Depot, not because I have an affinity for Home Depot, but because I have an affinity for being lazy, and Home Depot is close. I asked for directions to the paint-strippers and was only mildly let down to find out that the name was something of a misnomer. They really shouldn't mislead people like this.

Trucking my roll of singles back in my pocket, I purchaseda smallish bottle of orange-type paint-stripper that said it was "Easily strips off even the oldest layers of paint." I eagerly rushed home and applied the substance to one side of the window's framing, watching to see as my miracle paint-stripper tore through the offending layers of hundred-year old, mercury and lead-filled coverings.

Alas, it was not to be. Back in the 1920s they understood something that my grandfather also understood. Anyone can slap a house together, spill paint over it and sell it for a profit. If you wanted it done right, though, you had to put some effort into it. They apparently built their paint at some kind of foundry complete with large vats of molten metals and secret chemicals that would join so strongly to wood that the two would form a bond stronger and more impenetrable than the mind of God Himself.

The mind of God Himself.

Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exageration and not a little blasphemous, but still, after two coats of the orange paint-stripper, the frame has only shed a couple of layers of gooey, messy, permanently staining and eye-melting paint.

I'm thinking I'll just paint the damn thing white.

Tagged - And I'm It

Tagging, for those of you who don't know, is a time-honored tradition among bloggers going back almost five years. Some of you weren't even alive back then . . . no, wait, that doesn't work.

Some of you didn't even read my blog back then.

Ahhh, much better.

Anyhow, the object of tagging is to have a little fun with people you like or have an acquaintance with and ask them some questions or receive some hithertofor unknown information.

A friend of mine, SubDes, from ToonDoo tagged me with this:

Here are the rules:
1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

8 random facts/habits about me:

1 - I was a runner in high school and college, I specialized in long-distance and cross-country running.

2 - I wore glasses/contacts until 2003 when I had laser eye-surgery. I love it.

3 - I've had surgery on both of my knees, most likely from over use due to #1.

4 - I knew my wife for ten years before we dated.

5 - I'm a writer. No, wait, that's not random. Everyone knows that. Oh, well, too late to delete it now!

6 - I'm a videophile and have wasted more time watching mediocre and bad movies than most people do with useful hobbies like stamp collecting.

7 - I hate coffee. Coffee tastes like someone burnt something.

8 - I'm painfully hard to shop for, and in general prefer to not give out my birthday for this reason.

Ok, there ya go. I've been tagged and fulfilled my tagg-esque responsibilities. Hope everyone enjoyed!