GrillSgt's Firepit

Softball – Game 9

Last night we played Texas Catheters for the second time. Same result – we lost. This time 7-17. It was more or less a comedy of errors defensively. I had no fielding chances at 1st base. It seemed no one could catch the ball. Lots of errors and bad fielding decisions. That’s not to say there weren’t any good plays made, just not enough of them. Offensively, it took a couple of innings to get going. I was 2 for 2 with 2 singles, an RBI and a run scored. Next week we have a doubleheader.

Memorial Day Weekend 2008

Friday

We had a very enjoyable Memorial Day weekend this year. Ed, Stephanie’s Dad, and Judy, Ed’s wife, flew in on Friday morning to spend most of the weekend with us. I took Friday off, so I had a four day weekend. Ed and Judy got into Charlottesville about 11:00 AM and went to their hotel to get a little rest. They came up to our house about 3:00 PM. We showed them our unusual rental house and chatted for a while. We then decided to go to Cheeseburger in Paradise for dinner. After dinner, Ed and Judy were tired, so they headed back to the hotel. It was a nice dinner.

Saturday

Ed and Judy showed up about 11:00 AM. We served bagels and cream cheese from Bodo’s Bagels, lox, onions and tomatoes for brunch. Bodo’s Bagels are New York style bagels and very good. We’ll be going there more often. About 1:30 PM we loaded up in my truck and drove to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home. We bought our house tour tickets, which were for 5:10 PM. We had a couple of hours to kill before the tour so we took a 45 minute guided walking tour of the plantation. It isn’t a long walk really, no more than a 1/4 mile down Mulberry Row. Our guide was very good. Not only did we learn about the plantation and the lands around Monticello, but also about the Jefferson family and some of his dependencies (slaves). It was quite interesting. After the plantation tour, we stopped in the gift shop to get a couple snacks and souvenirs. After a short rest, we made our way to the line for our house tour. Like the plantation tour, the house tour was quite interesting. Thomas Jefferson was quite the innovator and architect. He incorporated alcove bedrooms, double paned windows, pocket doors, dumbwaiters and a variety of other interesting features into Monticello. Unfortunately, no one is allowed to take pictures or video inside Monticello so I don’t have any photos inside the house, but I have plenty of the house from the outside, the plantation, gardens and the views, which are spectacular. I’ve included a slideshow below. If you want to look at the phots full size, use this link, Monticello Photos or click on the slideshow. There were some things we didn’t have time to see, like the dependencies (slaves) quarters and Jefferson’s grave, so we’ll definitely have to go back again.

After the house tour, we went back to the parking lot on the shuttle bus and headed for home. We were planning to eat out at the Downtown Mall, but needed to get home to let Juneau and Cinnamon out and feed them. So we decided to eat in. We barbecued chicken and green beans, microwaved potaoes and mixed up a quick Caesar’s salad. We had fresh fruit, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries for dessert. Ed and Judy headed back to the hotel around 10:00 PM.

Sunday

Ed and Judy arrived about 10:30 AM for another bagel brunch. About 1:00 PM, we drove down to the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, VA. The Downtown Mall is an outdoor walking mall with a collection of shops, restaurants, offices and other places. There is a movie theater and an indoor ice rink at the west end. At the east end there is the Charlottesville City Hall and the Pavillion. A variety of musical acts play at the Pavillion throughout the summer. On Friday’s after 5:00 PM, there are free shows during the summer. There are also some flea market style vendors, street mucisians and other interesting characters at times. We walked around the mall for an hour or so then had a late lunch at Caffe Italia. Very good Italian food (but I still haven’t found anything stateside that compares with the restaurants I ate at while in Italy!). I took a few photos, which are in the slideshow below. If you’d like to see the full size photos, click this link, Downtown Mall or click on the slideshow.

After our late lunch, we drove around the University of Virginia for a little while then headed back to our house. Ed and Judy left for the hotel around 6:00 PM for an early turn in as their flight back to Florida left at 5:30 AM on Monday.

Monday

Stephanie and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We both liked the movie, but it definitely lacked a little bit in plot and wasn’t as good as the original (none of the sequels were). Still it was good fun. We also stopped off at Lowes to pick up a couple of desk lamps, patio umbrella and a charcoal grill.

Overall, it was an enjoyable weekend.

Softball – Game 8

Optimism from our first win against Sam’s Club All-Stars quickly turned to disappointment. Playing Silverchair for the second time and looking for revenge from a 47-2 throttling, we met with a similar result as the first time around (although not as bad) as we lost 16-0. They aren’t the top team in the league, but they seem to play very well. They don’t make a lot of errors and they all can hit, including the ladies. We didn’t help ourselves either, making some errors on easy plays and allowing some walks. The game only lasted 3 1/2 innings. I didn’t start and because of the mercy/slaughter rule, I never got to play the field. I did have one at bat in the top of the 4th inning and laced a line drive between the right and right-center fielders that rolled to the fence. I ended up with a stand up triple. 20 years ago it would have been an inside-the-park home run. HA HA! Unfortunately, then next two batters grounded out and I was unable to score.

Halfway through the season, here’s my stats:
Batting
10 at bats
3 hits
1 single
1 double
1 triple

Batting Average – .300
Slugging Average – .600
On Base Percentage – .364
On Base + Slugging – .964

Fielding (all at 1st Base)
19 chances
17 putouts
1 assist
1 error
Fielding Percentage – .950

So halfway through the season, we are 1-7 and in 7th place, just ahead of Sam’s Club All-Stars. We’re playing better, but really could use more consistent pitching. We still give up too many walks. Otherwise, defensively and offensively we are playing much better. The errors are fewer and almost everyone is hitting better, especially the ladies. Hopefully the second half of the season will have more games ending up in the win column rather than the loss column.

Softball – Game 7

Woo Hoo! We finally won a game and are no longer cellar dwellars. We beat the Sam’s Club All-Stars 10-0. Everyone contributed in some way. Tony Marbury hit a 3-run homer, our team’s first of the year, well, sort of. It was the first one to be hit out of the park. Earlier in the season Matt Froelich hit an inside the park home run. I didn’t hit, going 0-2, but I had 5 putouts, including a low line drive from the game’s first batter. Definitely our best game of the year, although I will temper the enthusiasm a bit because the Sam’s Club team isn’t all that good. In fact, one of our player’s son had to fill in for Sam’s Club All-Stars because they didn’t have enough players to start. So rather than accept a forfeit, we loaned him out until their player arrived.

Still there is some optimism. We are playing better than we did at the beginning at the season. While I’m almost certain that we’ll win a second game (we play Sam’s Club All-Stars again toward the end of the season), I’m optimistic that we can beat one or more of the other teams in our last 9 games.

Interesting Weather

Well, we’ve had some interesting weather this evening. We’re under a flood watch until Friday morning. Not much of a concern where we live as we’re up on a slight rise. We were under a severe thunderstorm warning most of the night, as well as a tornado watch. There was a tornado warning for our county earlier this evening, but the actual “event” was west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. According to the warning, doppler radar indicated a thunderstorm with rotation, which is one of the criteria for tornado formation. However, I don’t think a tornado ever did form, so that was good. It’s raining as I write this, but most of the severe weather has moved east. There is some severe weather in south central Virginia, but that’s about 200 miles away and it’s moving east. It looks like the severe weather has died down for the night.

Looks like we’ll have more rain with occasional thunderstorms tomorrow and probably throughout the weekend.

Softball – Game#6

Well, we’re still winless, 0-6. We lost again tonight, 15-4. Once again, I played 1st base. Not much action there tonight. I had 2 putouts, although one of the putouts was called against us… interference. Our pitcher stumbled into the baseline as I tagged the runner out, but the umpire ruled her safe because our pitcher tripped over his own feet into the baseline. Kind of a ticky tack call. She would have been out even if our pitcher hadn’t fallen. As usual, I only got one at bat… I walked so it wasn’t even an official at bat. I was left on base.

Next up is Sam’s Club All-Stars. We may have a shot at our first win. They have forfeited 3 of their 5 games and the other 2 they have had scores not unlike some of our worst games.

Iron Man

This afternoon, Stephanie and I went to the movies for the first time since we moved. We’ve talked about going before now, but there hasn’t really been a movie we wanted to see since last summer. That changed this weekend, as Iron Man came out Friday.

The theater appeared to be older as the seats were torn in spots. It’s a Regal theater, which made us happy. The theater across the street from our house in Las Vegas is a Regal theater. We almost always went there because they had the best popcorn in town. We weren’t disappointed here with the popcorn.

Iron Man was my favorite comic book super hero and we weren’t disappointed with the movie. The setting was updated (Afghanistan… the beginning of the Iron Man story was originally set in Vietnam). But other than that, it followed the origin of Iron Man very well. Iron Man is now my favorite super hero movie. I don’t think that will change either. Don’t get me wrong… the X-Men movies were great, so was Batman Begins and several others were pretty good too, but Iron Man rocked!!! Stephanie and I give it 4 THUMBS UP!

We’ve got a few more summer movies on our must see list… The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. There are a few others that look like they might be worth a trip to the theater, but those three are the must sees for the summer so far.

If you haven’t seen Iron Man yet and you like super hero comic book movies, GO! You’ll love it.

Softball – Game #5

This week’s game was against Spring Hill Baptist Church. As has been the case the last few games, we played pretty well throughout the game, except for one inning when we just couldn’t get the outs we needed to keep them from scoring bunches of runs. This time it was the 4th inning. We lost this game 15-3. Although he called a good game, the umpire didn’t help. In one at bat, we had runners on 1st and 2nd. Our batter hit a pop fly right on the line to 3rd base. Since it dropped fair (the lady playing third base didn’t catch it), it should have been called an infield fly and the batter out. But the umpire failed to call it. So, instead of having a male on first base with two outs, we now had a lady on seond base with two outs. It probably wouldn’t have mattered much, and perhaps the fact that it could have been a foul ball fooled the umpire into not calling the infield fly rule, but he blew that call.

Since I played the entire game the previous Sunday (Game #2), I rode the pine for this game and kept score. I don’t like sitting but we’ve got 13 guys on the team and coach tries to get everyone playing time, even if they aren’t very good. I’m sure I’ll be in the lineup next game against Second Street Swingers.

If you haven’t been keeping track, we’re now 0-5. The season stretches into mid-July, so I remain optimistic that we’ll win one eventually.

Softball – Game #2

Game #2 was against Texas Catheters. Once again, I played first base the second half of the game. Once again, the 5th inning was our downfall. We lost 22-4. I got one at bat. I hit a solid line drive over the first baseman’s head, but he made a good play and caught it.

We’re improving, but we always seem to have that one inning in which we just seem to let the other team score too many runs. I started working with our weaker hitters, especially the ladies. They are improving. I hope that means that they won’t be the automatic out anymore.

Softball – Game #4

Game #4 was going along pretty well. We had a 3-1 lead going into the top of the 5th inning, but the other team, International Auto, started hitting them where we couldn’t catch them. Our pitcher also walked a few, which, if you walk a guy in coed softball, he gets two bases. The final ended up 13-7. This was the first game in which I played the entire game. I’ve been playing 1st base exclusively, which suits me fine since I’m still rather out of shape. I went 2-4, with a single (to right field) and a double (to left field) and a run scored. But, with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth, which was the last inning (because of time), I grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the game. I was a little frustrated at that. Overall, I’m hitting .286, which isn’t bad, but I know it can be better.

Next up, game #5 against Spring Hill Baptist Church.