We went to Taste of Saskatchewan for supper last night, which was good. When Erin was out foraging amongst the massive crowds, she spotted some beer tickets on the ground that had apparently been there for a while, and scooped them up. End result - found beer for Jason and me. The weather has been really cooperative, and now that the weekend is on it’s way, the forecast is for cloudy and cool. :)

And what was the CFL thinking, letting a Grey Cup rematch be one of the handful of untelevised games this year?

Simpson’s quote of the day: “They smell good, they look good, you’d step over your own mother just to get one!” - Homer

Just so you don’t get to thinking that I only complain about the weather…Today is absolutely perfect. I went down to the riverbank for the “Taste of Saskatchewan” festival for lunch, and it was very hard to convince myself to get up off of the bench and walk back to work. Not too hot, nice little breeze blowing, sun shining, a smattering of white fluffy clouds in a beautiful blue sky. Basically ideal weather.

Last night, ball went really well. I hit a triple a double and two singles (one of which would have been a double, but the runner in front of me stopped at second ;)) with a bunch of RBI’s (four in my first two at bats, I didn’t count after that) and I pitched pretty well for the four innings I was in there too. I got beat up for an off field grand slam after walking two to load the bases, but otherwise I was untouchable - it helped that our defence played really well last night too. My night was good, but one guy on our team hit four home runs on the evening. He said he was feeling a little “juiced” after the weekend. Why is that? Well, he got hit by lightning while out fishing with his dad…

Simpson’s quote of the day: “It all started last year during a terrible thunderstorm, when I locked myself out of the house. Sheltering myself with a large piece of sheet metal, I ran for cover under the tallest tree I could find!” - Homer

The power was out at our place for nearly three hours last night. Erin and I had settled in downstairs to watch an episode of Enterprise (we’re nearly a season behind, so it’s not cancelled for us just yet ;) ) and the whole world went black. We’ve had problems with the power ever since we moved to the new house - probably two or three times as many power blips in the seven months we’ve been there than in the prior (?) years on Cumberland. It’s pretty frustrating, and even though I had the A/V equipment plugged into a very good surge suppressor, it’s always a little troubling when it happens.

We’d been talking about getting a battery backup UPS ever since the third or fourth time it happened, and last night was the last straw. We got the kids in the car, and picked up an APC BE650BB at London Drugs. When we got home with it, I spent a bit of time in the dark pulling power cords and hooking things up correctly, but of course there was no way to tell if I’d gotten all the plugs plugged in until the power came back. Just as we decided to go to bed (in fact, we were on our way up the stairs) the power came back on. I went downstairs and confirmed that I’d plugged everything in correctly, and I’d only missed one component (not bad considering I was working with just a single little wimpy AA powered flashlight.) Nothing was damaged either, which means that our luck held out yet again.

One of my co-workers who lives a couple of blocks away said his power was off until six this morning.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Could this town be any stupider?” - Snake

William made a new friend last night. Our neighbour had her 5 year old grandson staying with her, and when William saw him through the fence, he walked over and said “What’s your name?” and they played the rest of the night together. It was pretty cute.

So we were talking about various things at coffee today, and someone mentioned some friends of theirs who bicycled from Winnipeg to Halifax at one point. Someone else mentioned that they could take that 42 days and golf instead, which gave me a mental image of someone golfing while riding a bike (polo style.) Anyway, somewhere in the back of my brain, it triggered a memory of watching Donkey Baseball as a kid. I wonder if they still play it somewhere. The net’s donkey baseball information is sadly pretty sparse, but there is some out there.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Bob is no maniac. He explained his reasons for trying to kill us all, and I assure you they were perfectly sane.” - Mayor Quimby

The weekend was pretty quiet, though we did get out to see a movie for the first time since Julia was born. We took William to see “Robots” yesterday, and it went ok. He didn’t sit through it quite as well as he sat through The Incredibles, but I think he could have, except about 20 minutes in, someone sat down right in front of him, and so I picked him up so he could still see the screen. He never really settled down after that. He’s been having a rough go of it lately, being the typical two year old.

How typical? Well, Erin suggested that we might have to hang the chairs from the ceiling to prevent him from getting into all the cupboards (and the microwave.) He’s pretty good most of the time, but when he gets overtired he’s impossible to deal with. Unfortunately it’s like a switch gets flipped or something. On the plus side, if we can get him calmed down, he usually falls asleep right away :)

I finished setting up my MythTV box last night too. William and I watched a life-sized version of “The Backyardigans” on the projector (as a quick test) and I think things are in good shape. Wait - it just occurred to me that I haven’t set up the remote control yet. Ok, so I’ve got that to do yet. Shouldn’t be a big deal though. Once it’s all set up and ready to go, I might have to look into High Def. The only catch with it is that I’d have to switch from satellite to cable, and I’m not sold on the advantages just yet.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “It’s not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.” - Homer

We took William out to the park last night on his bike, and he started getting the hang of pedalling. Once he gets going, he can do a few rotations of the pedals before he forgets what he’s doing and slams on the brakes :) I think he might be tooling around on his bike by the end of the summer, no guarantees of course, be he’s made a lot of progress.

Now if only he realized that he can steer the thing.

At one point he hit the grass at the side of the path, and one training wheel was high enough to pull the back tire off the pavement. He pedalled furiously - exercise bike style - until I pulled him off the edge. He really enjoys his bike.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “They think they’re so high and mighty, just because they’ve never been caught driving without pants before.” - Moe

As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, London was hit by a terrorist attack this morning. It’s still early, and the full extent isn’t clear (casualties, etc.) so I won’t comment too much on it, other than to ask the question - “What do they hope to gain by blowing people up?”

So, then, as I was looking at CFL news, I came across an article posted on CBC Sport’s website with the title: “Bombers try to regroup against Stampeders” and I got a mental image of a group of evil terrorists huddled up watching people stampede out of the tube stations in London. Totally inappropriate, but that’s the way my mind works sometime.

As Jason mentioned, we didn’t play very good ball last night. We ran into a stretch where we seemed to be hitting the ball right at the other players, and at the same time they were hitting the ball where we weren’t. Even at that, our (my) defence wasn’t exactly stellar on the night either. On the other hand, it was a near perfect night for ball. The temperature was just right, with a nice breeze blowing to keep the bugs at bay, and the light dusting of clouds made for a spectacular sunset that made me wish I had my camera with me.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oww! My face is on fire!” - Ralph