A Big Round Head

Barb knitted Sarah a beret for winter. Unfortunately, when she was finished it she thought it would be too small for Sarah's big round head.

However, Barb thought she could stretch it. She sprayed it with a little water. Then she got a volleyball. She stretched the beret over the volleyball for a day or two.

When Barb gave it to Sarah at Thanksgiving, it fit perfectly.

Sportsmanship Award Nomination

One of my fastball teams, nominated me for the sportsmanship award this season. I didn't win but I thought it was nice to be nominated.

Co-op Confusion

Sarah was very busy when she got back to school after Labour Day. She had all of the classes. She also had to look for a co-op job for the winter. She was sending out tons of resumes with individually written cover letters for each one.

Third year was so different from second year. She was getting all kinds of interviews. If she had to go to all these interviews, she would miss a lot of classes.

She had also just changed from Biological Engineering Co-op to Environmental Engineering Co-op. So she had a lot to do to arrange that too.

She had originally thought that the environmental engineers were all flakes. By third year, all of the flakes had dropped out. So that was no longer an issue. She didn't like biological engineering because all of the people in the program were interested in bio-medical work.  She wasn't.

One of her first interviews was with a lady from the Atomic Energy Canada Limited in Chalk River. Sarah didn't even say very much. The lady just talked about how great it would be to have her on the team with her biological background. They liked to have diverse teams. That was good because Sarah didn't know much about the job.

The next day she got an email from the lady saying that she was sorry.  Somehow she had not emailed Sarah the attachment with the information about the job that Sarah was supposed to use to prepare for the interview.

Sarah got the job. So now she doesn't have to look any more or go to any more interview. She was very happy.

It was neat because we know a lot of people from Deep River right next door to Chalk River.  They have winter places in the same park in Florida with us.

Who Am I Kidding?

My two fastball teams were in the playoffs. Both teams were in the semi-finals. One night both teams played on the same night and at the same time. However, one team was facing elimination and the other team was playing their first game of the series.

I went to play in the elimination game. Our best pitcher wasn't there. So we were in trouble. We had three pitchers try to get the other team out.  None of them were any good. We lost the game 19-13. I thought that when you score 13 runs in a game you shouldn't lose. But we did. And we were eliminated.

The next day I had off. I checked my email when I got up.  There was an email from the captain of the team that was still playing. He said that they won the first game but our pitcher hurt himself in the rundown play. He asked me if I would be at the game. He said I would have to pitch. 

I replied that he must be kidding. He said no it was true.

We had won the first game of the best of three series. So the game was not an elimination game. The captain thought that the pitcher might be better by the next game.

When I told Barb that I would have to pitch. She was furious. She said that I was going to get the ball hit back at me. I wouldn't be able to get out the way.  I would be killed. She said it wasn't worth it. We were going to lose anyway. We should just forfeit the game.

Later in the day, I got a phone call from the pitcher. He told me about his injury. He tried to talk it up. He said that if we can score enough runs, we could win the game. I might be okay.

As I was leaving for the game, She asked me if I was really going to pitch. Barb said it was nice knowing me.

 

As I was driving to the game, I thought to myself. Who am I kidding? I am going to get killed. It was stupid to be pitching. These guys were good hitters. Barb was right.

When I got to the game, the teams who had played earlier cheered me on. They called me Ivan "The Terminator" Taylor.

We scored a run in the top of the first inning.

I got the first batter out. Then the second batter hit a triple. The third batter hit a line drive to the second baseman. The second baseman threw to third base to catch the runner off base. But he threw wild. The runner tried to go home. The third baseman fired a strike to the catcher.  The catcher got the runner at home for a double play.  We got out the inning with no runs scored against us.

From then on we never looked back. We scored at least one run in every inning. I walked a lot of batters but we almost always got out of the inning without them scoring. Just one time they hit a based loaded triple and scored three runs.

We won the game 9-3 and were headed to the finals. The guys thought this was the greatest thing they had ever seen.

When I got home Barb said she was surprised to see me.  She was even more surprised when I told her I had won the game.

The president of the league who was watching the game said the next day in an email to the executive that he kept saying to himself that I might get through the batting order once but eventually they would adjust and then poor old Ivan would get hammered. But it never happened.

Our pitcher was back for the finals and we won easily.  We were the league champs.

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.