Pretty in Pink

Sarah volunteered at the Run for Breast Cancer. She worked at a station handing out drinks to the runners. 

Most of the runners were married ladies. Sarah got a sore hand from giving high fives to the runners as they went buy. The ladies' wedding rings hit her hand.

Sarah got her picture in the Guelph newspaper in the pink beret that Barb knit for her. She posted the picture on her Facebook page.

A Costly Mistaken Identity

Sarah has been selling her used textbooks online. She had found a buyer for her Statistics textbook who was willing to pay a good price of $100. So she arranged to meet him at the elevators of one of her engineering buildings.

When she got to the elevators, there was a guy sitting in a chair and a guy standing. She went up to the guy standing and asked him if he was the guy who wanted to buy her Statistics book. He looked at the book and said yes it looked good. He got out his wallet and gave her $20 then got on the elevator and quickly left. Sarah was confused because the deal was for $100. However, this guy had taken her book and given only $20. There was no way to find him now that he was gone.

She later found out that the guy sitting was the guy who wanted to buy her Statistics book for $100. The guy who took her book was just a random guy waiting for the elevator.

How Can You Not Know Where You Live?

Since my Dad died, my sister and I have been busy handling his estate. Although my sister and my Dad had made everything very easy, we still had the difficulty of selling the family house.

There were many phone call, emails and negotiations. I had to run out a number of times to a real estate office and lawyer's office in Barrhaven to sign papers from Burlington.

This was all happening around my birthday.

I wanted to get a package of new recordings of The News for Lake Wobegon by Garrison Keillor for my birthday. So I ordered it on line.

When I looked at my receipt, I realized I had mistakenly written the shipping address as 705 Maple Avenue, my family home. I panicked. Barb couldn't believe I could make such a silly mistake. I had to phone the company a number of times to get the shipping address changed.

I was relieved when the CD package finally arrived before my birthday.

When the GPS Fails You

We have a GPS now.

 

Barb has found it indispensable when we are in Florida.

 

It will always get you to your destination but sometimes not the easiest way.

 

One of the things that Barb can never understand is why it will take us on one route going there and on a different route coming home. I tried to explain to her the subtleties of the mathematical concept of the “greedy algorithm” but that didn't seem to help.

The Truth Doesn't Hurt

I was riding my stationary bike in the basement. Julia and Dillon came downstairs to get some hot dogs for dinner. Dillon wanted to say 'hi' to me. So he came into my study. We talked for a long time about many things because he jumps from topic to topic quickly. He was just leaving but he wanted to tell me about his latest success story.

Apparently, a non-government organization that produces data for policy makers wrote a report about the positive impact they were having. I immediately thought of all the times that my organization at work had tried to justify their existence and the many times that I had tried to aggrandize my work for my Personnel Evaluation Report.

In this organization's report, they referenced people who had used their data. Dillon was proud of the fact that the first report they referred to was one he had written. I said in an off-handed way “They must have been desperate”. 

Julia was shocked that I would say such a mean thing but she thought it was very funny. She couldn't believe that I would put down Dillon so blatantly.

I immediately felt bad that I had insulted Dillon. Julia said that he wouldn't be offended. She asked him later about it and said that I felt bad. He said that he wasn't offended.

 

I guess for Dillon the truth doesn't hurt.

Unusual Family Rituals

We visited Barb's friend Barb Dankelson in Indiana for the August long weekend. 

On Sunday night, we had a big family dinner with her son and daughter and two grand children as well as Barb, Sarah and I.  Barb D. made her famous spare ribs and corn on the cob. 

The spare ribs were ready before the corn on the cob.  So Barb's son brought out the spare ribs.  He said we should start serving it up.  So I picked out a few ribs and started eating.  Barb's son said that he meant serve it up not eat it up.

When Barb D. finally arrived with the corn on the cob, we served that up too.  Then we all held hands in a big circle to say a prayer before we could started eating.

I am not used to these types of pre-meal ritual.

Out of Retirement

This year I played for the best team in the Glen Cairn Men's Fastball League. The team has the best pitcher in the league. We are not a good team but with him pitching we win all of our games. He is a big guy and an older fellow.

 

In the league tournament, we played one game on Friday night.  We were scheduled to play two more games in the round robin on Saturday.  Then the playoffs would be on Sunday.  We would need to play two playoff games to win the championship.

We won the first two games and were assured a playoff spot in the A Division.  Unfortunately, the afternoon game on Saturday was rained out. It was rescheduled for 8 am on Sunday morning. That would mean that to win the championship we would need to play three games on Sunday.

When I arrived to the ball park on Sunday morning, our pitcher came up to me and told me that I would be pitching.  It was a meaningless game in the round robin.  So he wanted to save himself for the playoffs later in the day. 

I had only pitched one game in the last two years. So I wasn't very excited about the prospect of trying to get people out.  I didn't even think that I would be able to throw strikes.

The first batter I faced hit a long home run. I walked a few batters.  They scored a few more runs in the first inning.

 

The outfielders were happy though.  Our regular pitcher strikes everyone out. So they never get to field the ball. They had to run around like crazy to field the balls the other team hit off me.

That same player who hit the home run in the first inning hit two more home runs off me in his next two at bats.

 

He came up for a fourth time in the last inning.  He hit a ball out of the park again.  It would have been a home run but it went foul. Eventually I walked him so that he didn't hit four home runs off of me.

We lost the game 9-5.

 

Then we lost the semi-final game in the A Division playoffs. We were eliminated from the tournament.