Ballpark Betty

Barb’s friend wanted me to put some audio books on her iPod so that she could listen to them on their drive home to Nova Scotia.  She told Barb that if she had some audio books to listen to she wouldn’t have to listen to her husband who talks all the way home.  So I found out who were their favourite authors and looked up some books on the library websites.  I have access to three libraries: the Avon Park library in Florida, the New Hamburg library at home and I still have access to the Ottawa library.  For some reason, the Ottawa library automatically renewed my card.

I found some audio books and downloaded them.  I have a way to save them on my computer so they don’t expire which is very useful.  Then I copied them to my mp3 player and rode over to Barb’s friend’s house on my bike.  I copied the books onto her iTunes and then her iPod.

On my ride home on my bike, I was waiting for a car to pass some construction vehicles and the car stopped and signalled to me.  A lady got out of the car shouting “Ivan”.  It turned out to be Ballpark Betty a fastball fan from Peterborough that I see at all the tournaments with her husband Jerry.  They travel all over the continent watching tournaments and I see them a lot.  She had come down to Florida to help a friend from another park drive home and they had come over to our park to visit a friend.  It was quite a coincidence that she was driving out of the park at the exact same time as I was on the road riding my bike home from Barb’s friend.

Convocation Causes Cancellation

I was asked to present my work at Michigan State University at a workshop in June.  They were going to pay my conference fees and travel expenses.  I thanked them and registered for the conference online.

Then Sarah told Barb that her convocation was scheduled for 11 am on the 14^th of June.  The same day as my presentation was scheduled.  I had to email the organizers and tell them I couldn’t present.  They were very understanding and said it was no problem.

Lost Coffee

Barb spent a long time looking for her coffee cup.  She searched the whole house and it is not a big house, but she couldn’t find it.  She retraced her steps and still couldn’t find it.  She got another cup and poured a fresh cup of coffee.  Then later she was putting something in the microwave and found her full coffee cup there where she had heated it up.

Bookmark Solution

Barb is always frustrated when she falls asleep reading in bed.  She drops her book and loses her page and then has to spend a lot of time looking for her page again.  She can never remember where she was in the book and has to reread a lot of pages until she finds her place again.  She thinks she has found a way to solve this problem.  She now puts her bookmark in her book before she starts reading the page and then moves the bookmark every time she reads a page.

Redneck Heaven

Sebring has a racetrack and every year they have a 24 hour car race on one weekend.  My sister and her husband go to see it every year.  They volunteer at the racetrack for the weekend.  So they get in for free.  It is one of the highlights of the winter for them.  My brother in law was working the first day of the race weekend when the cars do there trials.  So my sister offered to bring me to the racetrack and get me in with my brother in law’s ticket.

We saw the trials and watched them setting up the pit stops.  We walked all the way around the track which I think is more than a mile.  There were a lot of crazy people setting up for the weekend.  They were building platforms to sit up high to watch the race.  There were couches up on the top of RVs.  It was Redneck heaven.

Inflation Problem

I got this really old and rusty bike from one of my softball buddies last year.  He just wanted to get rid of it but I liked it and when we sold our golf cart both Barb and I used it to get around the park.  The tires kept going flat. So I went out and bought new tires and inner tubes.  They cost me $60 USD.  So the bike was really quite expensive.

One day I noticed that my tires were a little flat.  So I went to the maintenance area where there was an air pump and filled them up.  Then I went over to a fellow’s house in the community to talk about Linux.  He had been installing Linux on the old folk’s computers because he thought that they shouldn’t still be using Windows XP because Microsoft no longer supported it.  I left the bike out in the driveway in the sun.

After that I rode down to the Clubhouse.  I just got there and my front tire exploded.  It must have scared all the people in the swimming pool.  I had to walk the bike home and then the next day Barb bought me another inner tube and I replaced it.  When I went to fill it up with air, I got help from one of the workers to tell me the air pressure I was putting in the tire.

Go Pirates Go

I got a call in the evening from my softball buddy asking me if I was free tomorrow and wanted to go to the Pirates and Red Sox pre-season game.  The Home Owner’s Association had arranged a bus trip to Bradenton to watch the game.  I didn’t buy a ticket because I thought they were too expensive.  My softball buddy told me that there were some people who had bought tickets and now couldn’t go.  So they were giving their tickets away for free.  So I went.  I had to get up early to catch the bus at the Clubhouse.

I wore my Kanata Pirates hat and the Red Sox fans on the bus teased me and my softball buddy wore his Blue Jays hat and jersey.  He was definitely out of place.  When I got to the game I tried to take a few selfies.  I am not good at them.  Also my iPod screen was very hard to see in the bright sunlight.  However, I took a lot of photos and was able to find a few that I could post on Facebook the next day.  I can’t even remember who won the game.