Games

Barb's friend got a new computer from her mother.  She writes a long email to her mother every night and her mother thought it was important that Barb's friend have the same computer as she does.  So Barb's friend was using the new computer now but she couldn't play her favourite games on the new computer because the games came on a DVD and the new computer didn't have a DVD drive.  So she asked Barb if I could help her transfer the games over to the new computer.  We went over to her house and I started working on it.  First, I couldn't get the old computer's DVD drive to open up. I wanted to transfer the exe files from the DVD to a memory stick.  I worked and worked trying to figure out some command line program to open the DVD drive.  Then after working for a half hour and being very frustrated with how slow the computer was.  Barb and her friend asked how it was going.  I told her the trouble I was having opening the DVD drive and her friend just pushed it and it opened.  I told Barb how frustrated I was that the computer was so slow.  I couldn't even scan the memory to find the files that I needed.  Barb asked why I sat there and struggled so long when I should just drive home and get Barb's computer.  I guess it is not good to be too patient.  Barb would have taken action.  So I drove home and brought back Barb's computer which has a working DVD drive and is so much faster.  Then I found out the exe files were too big to fit on my memory stick. I thought I would have to go home again and get a bigger memory stick.  Then I noticed a memory stick in her friend's new computer.  It looked like one of my bigger memory sticks which holds 128 GBs.  So I used it and the files fit.  I was able to transfer the exe files to the new computer and the games worked great.  When we got home, Barb asked me why her friend's computer was so slow and I said I noticed it had multiple virus scanners on it and they were probably conflicting with each other. I didn't want to change anything on either of her computers. I also erased the exe files from her memory stick after I tested the games on her new computer so she wouldn't notice I had used it.

Free Book

I listen to many more audiobooks than I read.  I had listened to an audiobook and written a good review on the Goodreads website I use to keep track of my books.  I guess the author's agent thought my review was good.  So he sent me a message asking me to write a review of the author's new book prior to publication.  I said sure and he sent me the ebook.  I had to read this one though.

Water Aerobics

Barb does water aerobics at the local pool. She will drive there and I will walk and meet her there.  I was watching her in the pool and it started to rain a little bit.  I moved under the shelter.  Barb didn't want to stop her aerobic workout half-way through.  She asked me to get the plastic bag she puts her bathing suit in when she gets changed after her workout.  Then she put the plastic bag on her head so the rain wouldn't ruin her hairdo.

Glasses

Barb is always losing her reading glasses and gets so frustrated.  Today, I couldn't find my glasses.  I looked all over the house.  Then Barb got up and looked in my study and saw my glasses right away on her sewing table.  I had taken them off because I don't need them to read papers.  I only need them for distance.  I was sitting at my desk and beside Barb's sewing table.  So I just laid my glasses on the sewing table out of the way and forgot about them.

More Magical Thinking

Barb got pulled over for speeding by a cop on a motorcycle.  It was an honest mistake she was making a left turn and was rushing to squeeze out in front of a car coming down the street.  The cop said she should be more careful.  It could have been a $253 ticket for doing 41 mph in a 25 mph zone.  Barb said things always happen in threes.  First, it was her tooth and now this.  So she was worried about what would happen next.

Magical Thinking

Barb's tooth cap broke off.  She thinks it is from chewing gum and flossing her teeth so much.  She said whenever you get something for free, you have to pay for something else.  I find her magical thinking somewhat unusual for someone who doesn't believe in fate.

Canadian

Barb was given a free paddle from the owner of the Engage company and he asked her if she wanted a special Canadian Engage pickleball shirt.  So Barb got a free paddle and a free Engage Canadian shirt.  She will wear the shirt when she gets back to Canada and the other players will think she is being sponsored by Engage and be very jealous.

Confusion

During the game I was scorekeeping a terrible thing happened.  The bases were loaded and the batter hit a double and the runner from second base, who was a new player, touched the pitching home plate not the runner's safety plate.  So the umpire called him the second out of the inning and his run didn't count.  However, the guy scorekeeping, on the computer that is used to keep on the stats, couldn't figure out how to score that.  We had to stop the game and call the programmer up to the scorekeeping tower to help us.  He said we would have to wait until after the game to make the correction.  It was too late now that it was already in the system.  We would have to erase the inning and reenter it.  The players on the field were very upset we stopped the game for so long to figure that out.

Scorekeeping

Every player in the softball league has to do the announcing and scorekeeping for one or two games during the season.  I had to only do one game but I was very nervous about it because the players rely on the scorekeeper to tell them the right score and the right inning and the right number of outs.  I also have to announce the batter and the player on deck and in-the-hole which is hard to keep track of and I have real trouble pronouncing names.  Barb thought I was being silly being so nervous.  I told her about all the different buttons on the scorekeeping machine.  She said I should bring some sticky notes to write on and stick them beside the buttons to remind me.  I did and I survived the ordeal.

Pajamas

I went out in the driveway in my pajamas to clip my finger nails.  Then I saw my neighbour and was embarrassed because I was still in my pajamas in the afternoon.  The next day, I was driving to my softball game and noticed I had only clipped the finger nails on one hand.

Personality

Barb was asking her friend what her mixed pickleball partner for the US Open was like because Barb had never met him and her friend played with him up North in Illinois.  Her friend said he's got personality.  Barb asked what does that mean?  She said well you have personality.  Barb wasn't sure it was a compliment.

Smoke Alarm

Barb was making pizza in the oven at the same time she was doing laundry in the shed. She forgot about the pizza and when she came in she noticed the oven was smoking.  Then the fire alarm went off.  She wondered if I would ever notice the smoke.  I said I would definitely notice the smoke alarm.  I thought it was funny she just had to wave her oven mitts in front of the alarm to turn it off.  I guess it has happened a lot.

Valentine's Day

We never get any mail in Florida.  So Barb was very surprised to find a Valentine's Day card in the mail.  It wasn't to our address and Barb couldn't find the address on the map of The Villages but she found the sender's phone number through her return address on the envelope.  Barb phoned her and went over to her house to give back the Valentine's Day card and Barb found out she was a confused little old lady sending a little old man a Valentine's Day card.

Distressed

The organizer of the ladies pickleball afternoon sent Barb an email saying how bad she felt for not sending Barb an email about Tuesday's group being rained out.  Barb is new to the group and wasn't on the email list yet.  Barb found out from another friend it was cancelled and she thought it would be cancelled anyway because of the rain.  So the organizer lady didn't have to feel bad.

Golden Corral

Barb's womens pickleball partner always takes Barb to the Golden Corral all-you-can-eat buffet after their pickleball tournaments.  Tonight Barb snuck a steak out she wanted me to taste because she thought it was so great.  She snuck it out in her partner's cutlery package and in her partner's purse because Barb's purse was too small.

Prayer

Barb is playing women's doubles with a very religious lady.  She prays before and after every game win or lose.  Barb and I are sure she thinks God helped them win the Gold Medal in Okeechobee. 

Charlie Horse

Barb was playing in the Gold Medal game in Okeechobee and got a Charley Horse in her bum.  She could barely move.  So during a time out, she got her friend to punch in the bum over and over to try to remove the Charley Horse.  Barb said it must have looked very funny seeing someone punching someone else in the bum during a pickleball game.

Gold

A player on my softball team used to play a lot of pickleball before he hurt his shoulder.  He was a college baseball player in his younger days and is great athlete.  I told him that Barb won Gold in mixed doubles in Okeechobee and he said oh she's the "Real Deal".

Cardinals in the Wash

Barb washed my Cardinals softball jersey and hung it up to dry in the shed with her pickleball shirts. She was leaving for Okeechobee on Wednesday afternoon for a tournament on Thursday and Friday and when she was preparing to leave she noticed my jersey in the shed.  If she had left without telling me, I would never have found it for my game that Thursday.

False Starts

The reason it took me a month to write the scheduling program for Barb's pickleball ladies was because I had so many false starts.  I would write my program and then print out the results and show them to Barb and she would find a problem with them.  I was trying to schedule anywhere from 5 to 24 players on 4 courts with 4 players on a court at a time.  When I was trying to find the best schedules Barb would only tell me what she wanted when she saw the results and noticed a problem.  I tried to tell her that the computer has no idea what she is thinking.  I have to tell it everything that she wants very specifically.  Computers don't assume anything and they can't read minds.

Mixed Partner

Barb is booked to play in the US Open in Naples, Florida in May.  She is playing women's and mixed.  Her mixed partner messaged her telling her he would have to cancel.  Then a minute later another man asked her to play mixed with him.

Scheduling

Barb comes home from pickleball every Friday afternoon complaining about the pickleball court assignments that are used to schedule her games with the ladies.  She seems to always be playing with the same people and not getting to play at all with others.  She was complaining to the organizer lady and the lady said she got her court assignment schedules from an internet bridge tournament scheduling site.  I used to do schedules for my fastball leagues and Barb thought I could write better schedules.  The lady said it was very difficult but then she thought about it and realized I could probably do it.  Barb was telling me all this.  So I said I could try it.  So that is how I started writing a optimization program for Barb's pickleball court assignments that would take me all month.  All the ladies were very excited to see the new schedules.