Survived TS Hannah, Can I Survive my Fantasy Football League?

Well, TS Hannah didn't amount to much here in the local area. I guess downtown show some minor flooding, but they usually do when any good rainshower comes through the area. Around 1am as the storm was about as close to the area as it was going to get, it did wake me up a couple of times when I heard the wind blow the rain onto the window kinda hard. Hurricane Ike is going through Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico today. Looks like it might stay south of New Orleans and hit into the Texas coast line north of Brownsville. No more tropical storms are on the map so hopefully we will have nice weekend.

It has been a few weeks since we have been able to get the boat out on the water and Susan and I are really looking forward to it. Sassy hasn't said anything but I suspect she is looking forward to it as well.

How many of you out there get into fantasy sports, well am not a serious geek about it, but I enjoy getting into acouple with the guys at work (no money involved, just bragging rights and fun BS'ing) I have Fantasy Baseball team and am currently in 1st place with over 6,000 points and Susan is right behind with about 5,700 pts. I have about 1,200 pt lead on the 3rd place team and we only have 3 weeks left in the season. Most of the same crowd that is in the baseball league also has a fantasy football team. The 1st week is done and am 1-0 with 8 other people including Susan. We have alot of fun with these things and unlike most people we don't sink alot of time into it, but we enjoy the fun of poking at someone that didn't get as many points as ourselves... that is until it is us that aren't getting the points we need.

Fall baseball starts tonght and I have a game to umpire. Buddy Carter who assigns the games to us umpire has once again put me with someone new. Buddy likes to do that cause I have been umpiring for 16 yrs. For the most part I don't mind, I wish someone had taken the time to show me how to umpire those 1st couple of years, maybe I would have take alot less grief than I did if someone had been there for me. So I figure if I can give someone a few lessons that helps them out it makes it alittle easier on them and the kids hopefully will get a better official. That is if I have learned anything over the last 16yrs. I figure if I can make HALF the crowd happy HALF the time then I am doing good. I will say this about umpiring some of my best games I have done are the ones that no one even knows am on the field.

Tropical Storm Hannah

Well we have the 1st Tropical Storm of the season to hit us. How many more is yet to be seen. Next up is (Category 4) Hurricane Ike. Where is he going? Way too early to tell. right now the forecasted track has him going into Florida, sometime early next week. We have taken time to get things cleaned up around the yard so hopefully nothing will get blow away. It is just a little after 9pm on Friday and we haven't lost power heck I don't think the wind has kicked up much at all. Hopefully we will be here in the morning when we wake up.

Happy Birthday Lincoln

Lincoln's 25th birthday. Hard to beleive he survived to see that age.

Our Lives are Full of Blessings and Sadness

This evening Susan I went to a viewing of the mother of a dear friend from church. Though you show alot of courage in the face of our friend and very brave front you could also see in her eyes the sadness of losing her mother. All around her were family and friends many speaking of stories of Jesse and how she had interacted with them through her life. We never had the chance to meet her but from the few stories we heard she was a woman full of life. Though her health had taken a turn for the worse for the last few years she was someone that wanted to be the center of attention.
After we had a given our respects to our friends and listen to some lively stories, we made our way over to Trident Hospital to visit some other friends daughter. Angie gave birth to Joshua David last night (10:15pm 19 Aug 2008) Joshua came into this world real slow, so slow that the doctors finally had to help him and Angie along by doing a C-section. Baby and Mom along with dad Stephen are doing well, though you could tell Angie was still very tired. Still for all the sadness (though some laughs from some of the stories shared) we had just experienced at the viewing. Now the joy of a new life coming into the world always brings laughs and shared experiences from the older people (Grandparents and friends of grandparents). Though Angie was excited to have Joshua with her and out to share the world with her and Stephen, you could also see the fear of the unknown in her eyes.
Life will always be a mystery. One life leaves and next comes into the world, one leaves the suffering of a tired body while another comes in, full of health and his entire life ahead.

Been Awhile

How is everyone doing? I asked that, knowing that I shouldn't worry about a response. What have Susan I been up to since we got back from New York? Alot of choirs needed to be caught up with. Mowing the lawn, cleaning house, hmmm going boating. Oh we did have a solid week of umpiring for me and score keeping for Susan as Cal Ripkin Southeast Regional Tournament was held here in town. Teams from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virgina as well as couple teams from South Carolina. very good baseball was played. Part of being a umpire for some of these tournaments is that the directors will come around and ask us umpires who we would vote for, for the Sportsmanship Award. We all gave them our vote, I can't even tell you who won. I can tell you who didn't win and who didn't get a single vote. That is the host team West Ashely team. The kids were great, the parents for the most part were good, but the Manager of the team was to put it simply was awful. He is the only one that I heard of to get a warning from any of the umpires. After his team was eliminated from the Tournament he came back out the next night and stood to one side of the field by the backstop and started to bad mouth the umpires. What in the world was he doing there giving the umpires a hard time. Anyway I just thought it really looked bad for the host team to act that way.

Susan and I are headed back out to water this coming weekend. Anyone want to go and get wet?

Some More Pic's from our Trip to New York City

Subway Train, Headed down to Ground Zero. Susan did great for getting us around the city using the subway. I was very thankful. Not that there were alot of FREAKs but there were a few. I had to remind myself that they are all God's Children and go from there. For the most part that worked.

Grand Central Terminal. Yes that is the name. Grand Central Station is under this and is where all the subway trains actually come in, and yes New Yorkers will correct you on this. More Pics and video's are coming, I have to down load them and save them over.

Home

We made it home. Now here is a question for you. Am not sure if I should be glad or upset. I will take poll from you all to see which it will be. Originally our flight was to take off from Newark Liberty International Airport New Jersey just across the River from Manhattan NY at 7:30am arrive Charleston just about 10:00am. The shuttle service told us that we needed to leave our Hotel around 4:15am for this flight (with me so far). Okay Susan and I get to the Airport just after 5:00am and check in and get our boarding passes. So we have time to kill before our flight had alittle breakfast and then went to our gate to read our books and wait for the flight. At 7:20am they tell us it will be alittle late new take off time 7:45am not bad I think. We board the flight about 7:30am again not bad. Then we back away from the gate about 7:50am alittle later than they said but again I say not bad. Then we waited and waited and waited some more. 8:25am we finally take off almost an hour from the originally take off time. Now get this, we still arrived at the time we was suppose to 10:00am. Now here is the question. Should I be happy that we arrived on time or Should up I be just alittle upset that they had me awake at 3:45am to catch a 4:15 shuttle for a flight that didn't take off until 8:25? There ya go. A side note. We did make it home in time to have lunch at Mai Tai. All things considered a very good day. Oh did I mention that our AC unit has crapped out and it is very warm in this house.