The end of Summer (hours)

Today was the last day of Summer hours at work. Shucks. Does this mean fall is now here? Is Fall weather coming soon? I hope so!

I’ve been muddeling around with words again. Mostly in my head.  I really need to get them down on paper.

Something I don’t think I’ve mentioned is that I finally started my book.  Well, I actually started it about two years ago… but I didn’t get very far.  I’m not ready to let you know it’s premise yet, other than to say it’s a fictional story set in Seattle.  (No – it’s not about baseball.) 

finally, sticking to the post title theme about summer and parenthesis.  I’m going to go see (500) Days of Summer tonight.

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A/C

I think my A/C broke today. I came home from my brother & sister-in-laws house (which is where I went directly after work) and here it is 8 pm at night and my apartment is up over 90degrees. the A/C is running, but no cold air. So that makes me think a couple of things:
1. BUMMER! its going to be hard to fall asleep tonight
2. WHEN did it break!?!?! How long have I been paying for the A/C to be running at full speed and making zero difference.
3. DO I have enough ice in the refrigerator to keep me cool?
4. SHOOT! I was going to cook dinner in the oven, but I don’t dare heat up the house anymore.

I hope they fix it tomorrow. I already have a call into the apartment.

I think I might just go jump in a cold shower before heading to bed.

still here

Wow! that was a huge blogging break!

Let see, what’s happening… Well, I have a new niece! She was born on July 1st, Canada Day.

It’s really hot here.  we’ve had several 100+ degree days. There should be some clouds moving in tonight, even some possible rain! Bringing with it a “cool down”  mid to low 90s.

Finally, I am looking forward to Saturday.  Why? Harry Potter 6!  I haven’t had a chance to see it yet, so I figured I’d go to a 3.25 matinee.  Hard to beat the price.  And I am also planning on making Ribs Saturday in the slow-cooker.  It should be a fantastic day.

Blogging up a storm!

We are under a tornado watch right now…
Anyway, I wanted to give a penny update.  As of today – 1866 Pennies have found a loving home at “Pennies for Debra.”
Also for our daily trivia game at work, I started out quite dismally with an 0-4 record. Finally on the fifth day I got one right.  Before this week began, I was still at a sorry 2-5 record.
I am happy to announce that I had an amazing 5 for 5 record this week!  The best of all participants. So my running record is now 7-5.  I have to be honest, I was a little nervous and feeling the pressure heading into today’s question.  One other individual was also 4 for 4 before today’s question, but he did not get it right today.  We play in two week segments (after two weeks, the scores are wiped back to zero), so next week, I will be trying to stay ahead and add to my one point lead heading into next Friday.

Progression of a Rain Delay

Ok, here are some photos:

These first two are from our original seats. They were great seats and for wonderful price – but they were pretty far away.

These next three are from our first move down and closer. As you can see we were just up from the on deck circle, in between home plate and the dugout.

Do you reconginze this back of the head?
I’ll give you a hint…Low Rider…A song that was played when he went to bat?
I’ll give you another hint: my favorite player in 1995 and a few of the subsequent years.

Joey Cora! He’s the bench coach for the White Sox.

We moved a second time and ended up practically behind home plate.

Me. Please excuse the “I look like a drown rat” look. That’s about how I felt. My shoes are still drying out two days later.

Finally, this is a picture of me preparing for the M’s game next week. I recently realized that I did not have a hat to wear to the game when I go watch the M’s play the Rangers, so I picked up a M’s circa 1981 design. – I also acquired a lovely retro jacket to wear as well.

More company & baseball

I had another friend from out of town this weekend so we went to another Rangers game.

It was my first experience with Rain Delays (thanks to the Kingdom & Safeco Field). The game started about 40 minutes late and there were another 3 or 4 delays after that. We got pretty wet, but it was still a ton of fun. The typical three hour game – which was supposed to start at 7 pm, didn’t end until after 12.

One really cool thing is that so many people went home with each rain delay is that there were tons of empty seats. The first game interrupting delay came during the 5th so they couldn’t call it yet, and each time they stopped, we expected them to just end the game. But they kept resuming and we eventually moved down by the third base line By the top of the 9th, we were a few rows up from home plate.

I’ll have to post some pictures of the night and our progression to better seats.

Tornado Warning

I got to “hide in my safe room” – well make that “safe cabinet” yesterday evening as the Tornado sirens sounded. I decided that one of my cabinets makes for the safest place in the house. It’s a big cabinet. It was only a little scary.

I don’t think there were any tornado’s that touched down in our area, though the same storm is responsible for tornadoes and a few deaths up in Oklahoma.

Other than that, life has been decent. Work is still extremely busy (It’s a quarter to 7 right now and I am about to head home. I’m taking some work with me to do while watching LOST). We had a HUGE meeting today at work as well. Check out the cool things that are happening at Pursuant!

I am also learning all sorts of new things at work. I hope to learn enough HTML to be able to put together my own blog – as far as the design and lay out go – maybe I’ll even be able to move over to www.debauslaugh.com and lose “blogspot” all together. That won’t be any time soon though.

I also am excited about how church has been going. This last Sunday I finally got matched up for a small group, so that starts this week and I am looking forward to actually having friends or knowing people at my church. Well, that’s not quite right, I do know some people who I also work with, but the church is pretty large so I do not usually see them.

Oh yes, and I am busy reading. Book 8 of the “Wheel of Time” series. I also picked up “Tolkien: Author of the Century” from the library but I fear I need to renew it. Because of a show I watch (LOST) and because I have regreted never taking physics, I am on physics kick. I am reading a biography on Galileo and as well as working through “Physics for Dummies”.

All that and no internet, thus the infrequent blog posts and one Very long one. I’m Impressed, you made it to the end of this post!

Degrees of my life

Degrees F

Glen Ellyn/Lombard: 12 (feels like -4)
Puyallup: 32 (feels like 26)
Edmonton: -2 (feels like -17)
Wheaton/Winfield: 11 (feels like -3)
Dallas: 29 (feels like 19)

For my Canadian readers:
Degrees C

Glen Ellyn/Lombard: -11 (feels like -20)
Puyallup: 0 (feels like -3)
Edmonton: -19 (feels like -27)
Wheaton/Winfield: -12 (feels like -19)
Dallas: -2 (feels like -7)

Oh – and yesterday, it was 75 degrees here.

3.39

Thats how much per gallon I paid to fill up the tank on Thursday morning. Looks like that was a very fortunate decision.

Ike is pummeling Texas, south of here. I think the first rain band just made it over DFW but its very small here and the there is barely any wind to speak of. The forecast for this afternoon has been slightly downgraded, but it looks like well get a couple inches of rain and some strong wind. Nothing, of course, compared to Houston or Galveston.

We planned for possible power outages.

Here’s a funny story: Last night I was going to make a trip to the store. I was asking my brother and sister-in-law if they needed anything (pre-Ike), and then writing down their requests. My five year old niece decided to take advantage of this “wish-list from the store” and sweetly requested that I purchase “Hi Ho Cherry-O” (a game she saw at the store that morning and wanted her mom to buy, but it was not purchased at that time). At first, I thought she was requesting I get it down from the closet shelf, but quickly realized she wanted me to add it to the shopping list. I had to say no. She understood but again very nicely said “well maybe you could get that for us some other time when you go to the store.” No wanting to accidentally promise something or give false hope, I explained that I could not promise that, but (along with a suggestion from her mom) pointed out it was a great thing to put on her christmas wish list. It just made me laugh. I don’t know if she was purposely being sneaky (probably not) but it certainly was clever.

Ike

I guess Hurricane Ike is on its way toward Texas. It is a Cat 4 and may even be a tropical storm still when it gets to DFW. I was thinking about Ike today. I was thinking about how people talk about prayer and storms in the same sentence. I understand praying for safety and not too much destruction, but can you pray for it not to hit? Isn’t that the same as praying for it to destroy somewhere else, hurt other people? It’s kind of like praying for you team to win; inherently, you are praying for the other team to lose. Praying for Ike not to hit your home town means praying that Ike hits the town down the way. I was just thinking about this today…