The Home Run Derby

Always a highlight of the #ASG festivities, the HR Derby is for kids of all ages. And the mythical beast, Judge won last night. He did have the advantage of always going last so that is a bonus in itself. But you gotta hit the dingers, and he did. A couple balls came off his bat to the opposite field which I figured would be a little flare to RF, but they would go over the fence. He's strong folks. I'd still take Cody Bellinger though.

But that's not the point of this randomly inserted post. It's the utter chaos of ESPN's commentary. At the mikes we had: Karl Ravith, mildy annoying announcer type; Mark Texeria, ex-ballplayer, close to stupid type; and my personal non-favorite, Jessica Mendoza, supremely annoying, I played softball so I'm an expert on baseball, screaming Mimi type. Between these 3 idiots I had to repeatedly MUTE my TV. How anybody could make Chris Berman seem reasonable is beyond me.

Twin Peaks The Return

Eight episodes in and I'm pretty sure that David Lynch is insane. The 8th episode was so over the top crazy that I thought I was watching dome drug-induced hysteria.

We've barely been in Twin Peaks. Haven't seen Audrey Horne, only a single scene with Bobby Briggs, etc. Cooper is bad and Cooper is dumb (Dougie). Harry has cancer apparently and his brother Frank is the Sheriff. This show is, as they say, off the chain.

Summer Baseball

YSSS aka Rizzo is playing for two teams this summer. The first is an 18U team playing in a wood bat league. The other is a 16U team comprised of mostly his HS teammates. More on that later.

18U is an extension of team we played with last fall...but over the spring they added some HS seniors who were not playing HS ball for a myriad of reasons (mostly coach related from what I gather). Anyway, he has rejoined in summer (and fall) as a 16YO HS Soph. We had a short practice the other night and Rizzo was rocking the balls to deep OF...which I saw the 18YO players were pleasantly seeing. Apparently the younger players in Spring couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.

The 16U team is basically his HS team. Now I could write a book on how unhappy I was with this team this season and how YSSS was used. But that's in the past. Anyway, I told the guy organizing (I guess you'd call him the head coach) I'd be happy to help out of needed. So what do we get? The HC was "unavailable" this week so I ran a practice (7 players attending) and then we had first game last night. SoulSlam was the only coach in attendance. And better yet, we had 8 players! Sweet. We fought hard, but 8-9 errors, plus a WP and two passed balls kind of killed us. Rizzo had a good game though. 1-3 with and RBI Double and 2 runs scored. Played 1B which wasn't plan for the evening until we had nobody to play 1B. Oh well.

We'll make it work I guess. I have only so much time with YSSS until he goes off to college so I will make best of any opportunity I have.

It Will Be Hot From Now On

At least that is what it looks like. It's been chill for last week or so. And that is playing havoc with my pool, since the chlorine rarely activates when it's kind of cold. So I will be like Mr. Wizard starting tonight after the gym to keep it shipshape. Make no mistake, it's not in dire straits, but you've gotta keep on top of these things. Going to party manana for a young man who joined the USMC, he's shipping out in a few days to basic. Known this young man since he was 7-8 yo, he's a good kid, hope he does well. YSSS made his Conformation last night. I think he's relieved the long journey is over. Mets are not where I want them to be, standings wise. Or playing wise. I'm drinking a Monster Lo-Carb as I type. Work is over in 2 hrs and 41 minutes or so. Then I go get my bi-weekly haircut. High and tight, zero on sides and back. Swell.

Is Summer Coming?

We had some really hot days last week ( 3 of 'em!) in the land of North J...but overall it's been a pretty cool May. Forecast for the foreseeable future features temps in the 60's and 70's and rain...awesome.

Memorial Day is this weekend so we've got that to look forward to.

OSSS is back from college, and his truck (my Tahoe) has been AWOL as a pal is working on brakejob. He does work on the side and apparently replacing the brakelines on a 2005 Chevy Tahoe is a bear. So I've been letting the kid use my Lincoln MKX during the day, after he drops me off at the J-O-B. I'm a good guy.

HS Baseball season done for YSSS. It was a struggle this year, mostly due to HC and his use of the player. But he soldiered it as best as he could, and seems like a new kid now. Thanks for that because he was rough living with for 6 weeks or so.

I deadlifted 385 lbs. last week. I'm a beast.

Wow.

RIP.

We Got AC!

Now the House of SoulSlam is about 117 years old. It's an old house. Nice house, but every project is a major project. The bedrooms upstairs have plaster walls. We've done over the bathrooms (2.5), the kitchen, added a deck, hardwood floors, new basement (thanks random hurricane), etc. The one thing we never had was central AC.

So every year I would put 5 or so window units in various rooms. One is about 12,000 BTU and H-E-A-V-Y. It would usually be a half day project to get them in, shore them up so they were level and stable, and get them going. And I would never put them in in April or early May, it would typically just be 88 degrees one day so here we go.

Anyway, it was pretty hot. We didn't have units for the some of the upstairs bedrooms or main bath, so that would be sweltering in the North J summer. Rough livin".

We had looked at central AC many years ago, but remember, the house is 117 years old. So there is no ductwork. So that was gonna be a challenge. A big one. So this year we decided to check it again. And the AC guy and our regular contractor came up with a plan. A semi-expensive plan, but the house would be 1) cool and 2) increase in overall value. So we went with it. Nice.