Working the polls

A lot has happened in the past month - we visited Madeline at DePaul, Pony came home - but I'll get back to that sometime sooner or later.

Yesterday, I was the clerk at one of our local election poll.  As clerk, I had to write the name and address of everyone who voted in the poll book.  I forgot my Ibuprofin.  My hands hurt.  Some interesting (to me) observations.

1. Someone in charge of creating the voting process at the Ohio Board of Elections (or maybe it's the Licking County Board of Elections) has a background in computer science.  We vote primarily using the Diebold touch-screen machines.  As part of the polling place set-up, we hang a sign in each machine, numbering them - 0, 1, 2, ... The only people I know who count from 0 are programmers.  And not just any programmers, but those that work in languages rooted in 'C', the languages that have curley braces, semi-colons, and base arrays at 0.
2. Big turnout.  Including our absentee voters, 85% of our registered voters voted.
3. My neighborhood has more Democrats in it than I thought - but still not very many.
4. My attempt at very subtle and subliminal pursuasion was futile.  A poll is a partisan-free zone.  No political buttons, shirts, hats, signs.  I wore my Blue Man Group t-shirt.  We still voted McCain over Obama 2-1.
5. If you want to avoid the lines, come in the afternoon. We had a line at the door before we opened, were packed until noon, and had a steady line until about 1pm.  Then it was quiet until about 3:30.  I thought we'd get hammered after work, but though we were busy, it wasn't hearly as bad as the morning.  (Could be there weren't too many voters left - over half our registered voters had voted by noon).
6. Give yourself plenty of time to vote absentee.  We had a number of voters who sent in absentee ballot request forms, but never received their ballots.  Some were mailed to the wrong address (in Cincinnati!), some never showed (like Madeline's). Those who lived in town could come in and vote a provisional ballot.  Folks out of town were screwed.

It was a long day.  Showed up at 5:30am, got home around 10:00pm.  I'll do it again.

Great weekend

Went to cousin-in-law Catherine's wedding this weekend. Beautiful bride, great weather, good food, lots of family face-time.  What could be better?

Best comment of the weekend came from father of the bride.  "You know you're getting old when your moustache is whiter than your teeth."

Rough week

This was a rough week.

Early last week I helped Perrin move the final load of stuff to her new apartment. She's still in and out, coming home a couple times a week to ride the horses, but I think we are officially empty nesters. Robin got a part-time job as a cashier at Meijers 4 nights a week, so for the most part I'm home alone. If I start to blabber, you'll know why.

Then, last Tuesday, Rocky, who was 16 or 17 and diagnosed with diabetes this summer, died. (The girls, when they were like 3 and 6 picked Rocky out from a litter of barn kittens where we found Lilly. Named him Rocky because he "dropped like a rock.") It was pretty abrupt too. He was old and skinny, but seemed to be enjoying life. Then Tuesday morning when I went out to take care of the horses, he was in the front yard having, what I thought were the death rattles. He hung on until that evening, when I finally took him to the vet to have him put down.

Then Chloe, our 3 year old Siamese cross disappeared for a couple days, and when she returned she looked bad. Severely dehydrated, she spent the night at the vet getting IV fluids. Blood tests showed her liver wasn't functioning right. Two days later, she still wasn't eating on her own and had to be put down. Her loss has been particularly hard on Robin, who loved Chloe dearly.

Then this Tuesday, 3 batters into Red Rock's softball game, I went to field an infield pop-up along the third base line. Not sure what happened, but the ball missed my glove and caught me square in the face (I lost the ball in the lights - at least that's the story I'm going with). At least the infield fly rule was in effect, so the batter was out anyway, and even though the ball was still live, the base runners had the common courtesy not to advance. Broke my nose pretty good. Blood everywhere (good thing our shirts are red). Our catcher is a nurse, so I was patched up pretty well, and carted off to the e.r. - where I waited for 3 hours only to have a nurse practitioner wash the blood from my face, tape some clean gauze under my nose, and send me on my way. On the up-side, I'd rather break my nose than loose teeth. I hope this doesn't make me shy from the ball next week. The swollen face and black eyes will give me bouncer cred when I work the door at the Village Inn Saturday night.

One down, one to go

We dropped Madeline off at DePaul on Sunday.  Thinking back on all the good times, and learning, of my college years, I'm a bit envious.  Her dorm is sweet.  We moved her in without incident, got the fridge fired up, made a trip to the local grocery to stock it up, then headed back home.  Per Madeline's request, there were no tears on the sidewalk.

Get Rocked

In the first game of our summer co-ed league single-elimination playoffs, Red Rock Pub pulled out one of the great all-time come-backs last night. Defense started out rocky, giving up 5 in the first and another 5 in the second. Offensively, our bats weren't weak, but the balls seemed to have a homing device for the opposing players, the runs were scarce. Just just barely sneaking in under the 12-run mercy rule, we entered the seventh down 16-5.

Then the sun came out (really, it did), angels sang (or was that Mary Jo cheering us on from the bench?), and a miracle occurred. Red Rock put up a 13 run seventh, 7 of those runs with 2 out, to put us up by 2. An outstanding defensive bottom of the seventh secured the win.

Man, it doesn't get much more fun than that!

Lash Chevrolet is rude

Our local Chevy dealer, Lash Chevrolet, is staffed with rude and unhelpful employees. I wouldn't buy a vehicle there, or have a vehicle serviced there, no matter what.

This started when I called the service department to ask if there were any known trouble spots I should be on the lookout for on the '03 Silvarado I was going to look at. The guy on the phone made it pretty clear that if I wasn't buying the truck there, he had no interesting in helping me out

A couple weeks ago, I was looking at used trucks on Lash's lot. They had nothing for me at the time, but said they'd look around and let me know if they found anything. They also asked that I call if I found a truck, so they could stop looking for me. (1) I never heard from them. (2) Today when I called the sales department back to let them know I found a truck, I took the opportunity to share politely my experience with the service department. The salesman hung up on me.

Moral of the story:

Never deal with Lash Chevrolet

By the way Coughlin Ford has always been helpful and polite, and has gone out of their way to help me out. Maybe that's why I've bought a truck and a car from them, and why all my Fords are serviced there.

No more sissy truck

Robin never did like our truck. Even though it worked hard, it just wasn't the testosterone infused beast she envisioned a work/farm truck should be. We are sissy truck owners no longer. Last week we bought a new-to-us '03 Chevy Silvarado 3/4 ton, 4 wheel drive, standard cab, long bed truck.

We didn't really want to buy a new truck, but after Robin and Perrin were stranded on the highway with horse in tow (every horse owner's nightmare), our faith in the old F-150 was seriously shaken. Couple that with the fact that (1) the Ford recently violated "Provenzano's axiom of horse trailer towing" - get a new truck at 150,000 miles, (2) the Focus will be paid off in August, and (3) gas prices have depressed full-sized truck prices; and the time was right.

For some reason, I'm feeling the need to name this truck. Something other than "the truck" or "the chevy." And by the way, is it pronounced chevvy, or chivvy? Or is that a function of your address relative to the Mason-Dixon line?

2% Solution

This is a post on a softball statistic you won't see in any record book.

I pitch for 2 slow-pitch softball teams. In one 24 hour period, I was hit 3 times by batted balls - once in the chest (finally there's a bruise - which I deserve), once in the right shin, and once in the left knee.

I got to wondering, what are the odds of that happening? Well, here's the math.

The rubber is 50 feet from home, so the length of the circumference of the quarter-circle between the foul lines is 75 feet. I'm about 1 foot and a half wide, which is 2% of that arc. So, assuming hit balls are evenly distributed around the field, there's a 2% chance one of them comes my way.

Now, softball games are 7 innings. Let's assume that each inning, I face 6 batters: 3 outs, 2 left on, 1 run scored. That's 42 batters per game. Times 2% means I have to deal with a batted ball once per game.

Better get to work on my reaction time (there's stats for that too... less than .4 seconds from bat to rubber).

Maybe I'm getting too old.

Update: in last night's game, the opposing pitcher took a line drive right to the, uh, "legs apex." He managed to protect the important parts.

Get Oriented

Just got back from Madeline's DePaul Freshman Orientation. The more we hear, the more we like this university. We think she'll thrive here. A few highlights.

In the "boy, we're sure glad we got that taken care of" category, Madeline's now on a first-name basis with the local tattoo/piercing shop owner. She was having trouble with her lip ring (don't ask), so Robin took her to the Tattoo Factory to get fixed up. Wouldn't want to send our baby off to college without the essential local contacts, would we?

Going to school in Lincoln Park just might offer a slightly skewed view of the universe. This is a very well-to-do neighborhood. Walk 1 mile east, and you're on the Million Dollar Mile, the 2nd wealthiest neighborhood in the US, behind the upper east side of Manhattan.

View from my seat

Wednesday, the night before orientation, I took in a baseball game at Wrigley. Just my luck, the Reds were in town, so I actually had a rooting interest (though the guy in front of me, who is from the south side, comes to Cubs games just to root for whomever they're playing). Wrigley is very cool. Cubs fans are nuts. The game was good too. Two out in the top of the ninth, Reds down 5-1, load the bases. Brandon Phillips has a full count... one swing and this game is tied! But it's not, Phillips strikes out, the game's over, and the Reds loose. Bummer. I catch a bus, and for $2 I'm dropped a half-block from our motel.

Thursday evening, Robin and I walked to Lake Michigan. We walked past the Nature Museum and the Zoo. Took a little detour around a garden built around a lilly pond. Got to water's edge just as a thunderstorm rolled in. Hung out under the Lake Shore Drive overpass, then headed back to campus.

The drive back wasn't bad, though we didn't get home until about 2am. I imagine it will get easier each time - just like the trip to Knoxville did.

It's like a roller coaster ride

"It's fun, it's like a roller coaster ride." These are not the words a father likes to hear as his daughter is climbing aboard the lawn tractor to mow the yard. Despite the cavalier attitude, she's careful, and pretty meticulous. And I'm not mowing! Too bad we didn't own a tractor she could handle years ago. (Though the Lo-Boy offered up anything but a roller coaster ride).

Been a long time

To long lost family and friends:

If you're here because I stuck the URL to this site in the note I included with Madeline's graduation announcement, hi, how have you been?

I'm sorry about falling out of touch. I'm sorry about playing catch-up with a form letter. I'm hoping to be much better about keeping in contact.

Madeline Made It - JHS Class of '08

We are now the proud parents of 2 Johnstown-Monroe High School Graduates, as Madeline graduated with honors with her JHS Class of '08.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

Memorial Day Catch-up

So much has happened in the past month and a half.

It snowed in May. Not a lot, but heavy. We lost half of one of the old apple trees next to the house. Been too busy to break out the chain saw an clean up the mess just yet.

The mounted games team I coach for pony club competed and did really well.

Rain, rain, rain. Tough to keep up with the mowing. Tomorrow will be week 5 week of the softball season, but we've played only 2 with 2 rained out. Forecast looks like we'll be getting rained out tomorrow too. Weather permitting, we're having fun. Red Rock Pub is 2-0, I'm batting 778, and my ERA is 5.5 (which I think is damn good for slow-pitch softball). Hey, if you're female, over 18, live in central Ohio and would like to play co-ed softball Tuesday evenings, let me know, we're short a woman.

Madeline has attended her last day of high school. Commencement is Friday night. Woo Hoo!

Perrin's waiting tables at the Rusty Bucket. Seems like a much friendlier atmosphere than her previous employer. Last Sunday morning they even made french toast for the staff before the restaurant opened. She actually comes home from work in a good mood.

The Reds are at the Cubs the week we're in Chicago for Madeline's DePaul University orientation, and I've got a ticket, section 515, row 9, seat 101. Hopefully it's not an obstructed view. I've seen Wrigley from the outside, but I've never been to a game there. If I have a new camera by then, look for some photos.

Rocky (16 or 17 y.o. cat) was diagnosed as diabetic, explaining why he pees a pint on the bathroom floor every night. Insulin shots twice a day (there's no such thing as a free cat) hopefully will stop that nonsense.

Big Starnbach family reunion (see, that's why mother's maiden name stinks as a "secret") was this weekend. Lots of fun. Spent quality time with cousins I'd never met before. Talked with others who are in their 20s and I last saw at their Ba[rt] Mitzvahs. We actually have a pretty cool family.

Alas, my trusty new Canon G9 camera was stolen. I left it hanging over the back of my chair in the restaurant next to the hotel Saturday night. Went back and it was gone. As much as I'll miss the camera (or the $500 it'll cost to replace it) it's the photos from the weekend that are the real loss. (If you're the one who took the camera, just mail me the SD card.) You know, I sold my DSLR because I wanted a camera that was more portable, easier to take with me everywhere I go. Guess I need to keep it tied to my belt or something.

Un-American!

No Peanuts for sale at a baseball game? What are you, communist?

I worked in the hot dog stand at Bill Davis Stadium for the OSU v. Central Michigan baseball game last night (Buckeyes lost, 4-2). Did you know that they don't sell peanuts in the ballpark? Something about clogging the drains. Who builds a baseball park with drains that can't handle peanut shells anyway?

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out to the crowd.
Buy me some popcorn and Cracker Jacks,

Who are we kidding?

Dimitri, Rest in Peace

Sadly, Perrin's Cockatiel Dimitri (AKA Bird) died Friday afternoon. It happened so fast. Robin noticed he didn't seem to be feeling well on Wednesday or so, and by Friday morning he couldn't hold himself up. We took him to an aviary veterinarian, but he died in the office before we got to see the doc.

Bird spoke one phrase, the rather narcissistic "Pretty Bird." Of course, that wasn't his fault. He ignored my constant attempts to get him to whistle the Close Encounters of the Third Kind alien tune, but that might have been my inability to carry a tune. And Bird always knew when someone was coming home. The car wouldn't be half way down the drive and he'd start screeching. Of course, sometimes he screamed just for the fun of it. That I won't miss

What I will miss is Bird accompanying Perrin while she practiced her flute. He always sang along.

I'm stunned that we don't have a photo.

35,440

This is the first year I ever filled out brackets for the NCAA basketball tournament. At first it was fun, I had an interest in every game... and I watched more basketball than ever. But then, it went awry. There's this tension between picking who you think will win, and who you want to root for. I wanted Xavier to beat UCLA, and I just had to root for Davidson. What's a guy to do? Doesn't matter too much anyway, I'm in 35,400th place in the CBS Sportsline online Bracket Challenge.

Hey, my final four were right on, that should be worth something.

---

April 8th update: alas, I picked Memphis to win, and finished 78,803rd. Bracket probably doesn't pay that deep, you think?

The Boss is too loud

I was selling beer at the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert last night at The Schott. I tried adding a concert sample to my Cinch audio blog, but it seems that The Boss was too loud for either my cell phone (where I tried to make the recording) or the BlogTalkRadio stuff making the recording on the receiving end. Either way, the recording just didn't work, so you'll have to take my word for it - the concert sounded good. Well, good for a concert in The Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center which has horrid acoustics. To be honest, I heard most of it from my post at a beer cart as far away from the stage as one can get in the arena. We did close up shop in time for me to watch the encore from a better vantage point. I love Max Weinburg - he is so not the prototypical rock-and-roll drummer, the guy just lays down a solid groove. After two and a half hours of pounding the skins, he did look like he was about to die, at least in the giant TV screen close-ups. Maybe they're Bruce's core fans, or maybe they're the only ones who could afford the ticket prices, but it was an older crowd. Hardly had to card anyone.

I'll try the audio blog thing from Nationwide Arena if I get to work the Hank Williams show next month.

Happy Pi Day

Who knew today ( 3/14 ) is Pi Day. I've even read we should eat a piece of pie at 3/14 1:59

Weekend from hell

Let's review:

Friday: Chimney fire. It's out by the time the fire department gets here. They get stuck in the mud leaving, and call a neighbor/farmer with a monster tractor to pull the 42,000 lb. truck out of the ditch. That's after lightening the truck's load of 1000 gallons of water into the yard. Now we can't have a fire in the woodstove until I get things inspected - and of course, it's blizzard weekend.

Then I drive downtown to work selling beer at the Blue Jackets game. The Jackets score with 8 seconds left in the game to tie it up - and still manage to loose in regulation. Not really sure how that happened.

Since there's an underground leak in the barn water spigot, the drain pit filled, so the standpipe doesn't empty, so the water froze. We're carrying buckets of water to the barn from the house again.

Saturday: The "Blizzard of '08." It's pretty and everything, but, as mentioned above, the house is cold and I am now carrying buckets of water through thigh-deep snow.

On the up-side, we took the horses for a walk last night. That was fun. Then Lilly colicked. We were pretty much on our own. The vet was snowed in, and if he wasn't, he'd be snowed out of our place. She's fine now.

Sunday: The "Blizzard of '08" after effects - AKA, digging out. My back hurts just thinking about what's in store this afternoon.

Telephone Blog

Take a look to your right - see my Cinch Telephone Blog? I'm experimenting with a new service from http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/, where I can phone in, record a message, and voila, it shows up over there. I think this might be pretty cool. I wish blogger let me customize the format more than it does, though I've been experimenting with some code that will slip the recorded blog entries right in with my typed stuff. Maybe this will be neat. Maybe not. If you want to subscribe directly, my URL is http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/littlewoodEd. Man, the web can be fun, no?

Drowning

Water. Can't live with it, can't live without it. My soaked saga of the past week.

1. Last Wednesday I stopped in the barn on my way out to work the Blue Jackets game. Casey needed some water, so I opened the spigot to fill a bucket while getting hay for the horses. One thing led to another, and I forgot about the running water. About an hour or two later Robin came home to find a mess. Perrin, god love her, bailed water for who knows how long to get things cleaned up.
2. By Friday, Robin noticed that water was percolating up from underground around the standpipe. Bummer. We have a leak. I don't know if it was precipitated by Wednesday's flood, or that I forgot to anchor the standpipe to some rebar when when I installed the spigot last summer. You'd think that being buried three feet would provide enough stability, but I know that every time I open/close the spigot, the whole standpipe wiggles, so I guess not (hence the rebar hint in the installation directions). This is going to be a major hassle to fix. In the mean time, we have to remember to shut the water off in house when not filling water buckets. And the gravel-filled pit below the standpipe to absorb the water that drains down when you shut off the spigot is probably full. Hope it doesn't freeze.
3. It's raining cats and dogs. The ground is a saturated mess, and the Direct TV guys, who came down the drive looking for an address drove through the grass while turning around. The barn is flooding (natural causes - and at least Casey has a dry stall now that he's moved into Pony's old digs). There's standing water everywhere. The french drain in the basement is gradually clogging with silt - I hope it holds up.

Just to make life more interesting, the horse trailer lights/brakes have quit working. I think I need some ice cream.

Ouch!

Madeline got hurt at last Wednesday's Twistars practice. No, that's not a photo of her knee, that's her ankle. Fortunately, it's not broken. Just a very bad sprain.

After a couple days she could almost put a little weight on it. Naturally, by the weekend with a mere 2 ibuprofen, 2 acetaminophen, and about 50 yards of tape she was competing at the Arnold Classic. The girl is a rock. Of course when it was all over, vicodin was the only way she could sleep with the pain.

I'm not sure what hurt more, the injury, or soaking her foot it in a bucket of ice water after getting home Sunday night. I bet she feels the 1st place finish was worth it. No pain, no gain, right?

While I'm at it, this was the first time we went to the Arnold Classic. What a hoot. Watched fencing, table tennis, ballroom dancing, and of course the cheerleading. Perrin was bummed because the body building competition was over at Veterans Memorial - though there was no shortage of bulky folks at the expo. Got to see Lou Ferrigno too!

P-Funk

I got to see George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic play the Newport Music Hall last night. I think it was almost exactly 30 years since I last stepped into the place to see Leon Russell back in the day, and the air was just as full of pot smoke last night as it was in the '70s. Anyway, P-Funk puts on quite a show - nearly 20 on the stage at any one time, and new players cycling on and off nearly every song. With three drummers working shifts, they provided a solid three and a half hours of non-stop funk. "Starchild" Shider is still performing in nothing but a diaper, and at 67, Clinton hasn't lost a step. I'll may write some more about the concert later, but I have to run, and I'm sorry about the sorry photo - should have taken a camera instead of relying on my cellphone.

View from the tractor

Back in August I started taking photos of the crop field to the north of our property with my cellphone while I was mowing the yard. I've always liked watching the crops change color as we move from summer to fall. Being a lazy artist, stopping the tractor for a few moments to whip out my phone and snap a photo worked out. Maybe next year I'll use my good camera to take "real" photos. In the meantime, click on the photo to view the album.

Bzzzzzzzt - game over

That's that. I suspect last night was the last high school basketball game I'll attend for a very long time where I have any skin in the game. Alas, the Johnnies lost and Madeline's high school cheerleading career is over.

Blue Demons, it's time to watch out.

She can take a punch

Competition season for TwiStars, Madeline's competitive cheerleading squad, is in full swing. This past weekend, we competed in the Buckeye State Championships. The team looked real good - and getting better every time they take the floor. Anyway, in one of the first stunts, Madeline's flier comes down all catywompus and pops her full in the face. The girl never missed a beat though. What a rock.

It's a New Year

I haven't been very good at keeping up with what's going on lately. Here's what's new.

We gave Pony the pony away to Sarah, a pony clubber we know well. He's going to double as a games pony for Sarah, and a trail horse for her mom, so I'll get to see him at games practices.

Madeline was accepted at DePaul University, so she'll be heading off to Chicago next fall for college. Hoping to be a DePaul Cheerleader, Madeline's been working real hard on her tumbling and pairs stunting (you know, guys lifting the girls over their heads) with a couple ex OSU cheerleaders.

My hopes of our Escort reaching 300,000 miles was dashed when the brakes went out at around 286,000. On top of that, the truck needs to be retired from horse trailer pulling duty soon. Planning on nursing it along until July, when the Focus will be paid off.

Perrin's waiting tables at O'Charley's in Gahanna. If you're in town, stop by for dinner and leave a big tip.

Robin's still driving the special needs kids school bus for New Albany Schools.

Marc Zirille, the Johnstown band director that mentored Perrin, and grew the Big Red Band program from 60 kids to almost 200 (this in a high school with less than 600 students) is leaving Johnstown to teach at Olentangy. I'm glad Perrin got to learn from Mr. Z.