Sad News on Facebook

Laura's apartment building caught on fire and we found out as usual when she posted video from the local news on Facebook.  We also got an iMessage from Sarah saying that Laura had asked her to iMessage us because she can't iMessage using her Android phone.  Laura couldn't get into her apartment.  She had to draw a picture of her apartment and the firemen would go in and get some of her important stuff because they thought there might be asbestos in the building.  Later they found out there was no asbestos but because the damage was so bad they would have to tear down the building.  Eventually, Laura was able to get into her apartment wearing a gas mask and get her stuff but it was covered in ashes.  She would have to spend days and days washing it all.  2017 starts off just as bad as 2016 for Laura.

Yahtze Again

Sarah iMessaged Barb and told her that she bought Yahtze for her and Ali to play.  Barb was jealous because she loves playing Yahtze and I won't play with her.  Sarah said that Ali had already had two Yahtzes in the same game but he had already crossed off his Yahtze.

Neighbourhood League

The captain of my softball team in the recreational league is named Doug.  I got picked up by the team, the Vikings, part way through the season and was happy to be on his team and be able to play first base.  The other day I got an email from him saying that I was now on the team he captains in the neighbourhood league.  I thought that it was a great coincidence.  Little did I know that he actually had to pull some strings to get me on his team.  At my first game, he introduced me to the other players and said I was a really good first baseman.  So I get to play first base on his team in the neighbourhood league as well.

Chicken Deal

Barb's likes the cooked whole chickens that she is able to buy at Sam's Club using her friend's Sam's Club card.  She says they are really big for cooked chickens.  Also they are really cheap at $4.99 each.  Today she bought a chicken and as usual she keeps all of her receipts.  She was looking at her receipt after dinner and realized that it said that she got $4 off her chicken.  So it was only $0.99.  She thought that was crazy and must be some kind of mistake.

Conditional Probability

Julia iMessaged me to ask our phone number because she said Dillan had a question to ask me about Yahtze.  I got all excited because I thought he wanted me to do some probability analysis about dice rolling.  Later that night Dillan phoned and asked me a simple question about the conditional probability of Julia rolling a Yahtze in a game and then him rolling a Yahtze too.  I said that since the rolling of the dice are completely independent conditional probability didn't apply.  I don't think he understood my explanation and I was disappointed it was not a more difficult question that I could do some probability analysis on.  Julia later told me that she had already tried to explain it to him but she also said that I did all her probability and statistics homework when she was in university.

Mindmapping

We decided to go out for dinner with some of Barb's good pickleball friends.  We drove to the restaurant in their golf cart in the cold.  The boys sat in the back and the girls sat in the front and drove.  The husband was a real talker and was asking me all kinds of questions about fastball.  Then at the restaurant he asked me all kinds of questions about what I did for a living.  Then we sat across from each other at the table and we talked about podcasts and books.  He said that his son sends him emails with links to articles to read and then they discuss them on Skype.  I said that I send a lot of links to articles to my friends too and we discuss them on Skype.  He even mentioned that he uses mindmapping.  Barb's ears perked up when she read mindmapping.  She thought it was so cute that we had mindmapping and so much other stuff in common.

Silver Valentine's Day Present

Barb and her partner played in The Villages pickleball tournament on Valentine's Day and won silver.  Later we went out dancing to celebrate at the Market Square.  We didn't like the band at the local Market Square so we went to another Square a little farther away.  We got there between sets and were watching the line dancers dancing to the DJ music.  I said to Barb the my friend from softball, Chuck, does line dancing.  Barb said that guy in the grey looks like a really good line dancer.  I said that is my friend Chuck.  So Barb went up to talk to him.  Chuck didn't know who she was because he had only talked to her on the phone.  Then she pointed to me behind the seats and he realized Barb was with me.  Chuck said that the lady who runs the line dancing club keeps track of the bands that play at the Squares and picks the good bands that they can line dance to and then she emails everyone in the club to go out that night to that Square as a group to line dance.