Apparently we are getting a new driveway. Holy smokes.

Ball was really good last night - despite the cold. I sat out the first game, and watched the team put together a solid win. I pitched the second game, and only gave up a handful of runs - this despite giving the other team 4 outs in the second last inning and letting them bat the order in the final inning. Meanwhile, I also knocked in 9 (10?) runs in 4 at bats. I was the 10th batter in the first two innings basically hit doubles, which produced a couple of runs each, didn’t bat in the third, then hit a grand slam in the fourth and a double in the fifth. At least I think that’s how it went.

I pitched ok - I experimented with my spins quite a bit, and managed to be in and around the strikezone for most of the game. It even seemed to warm up some as the evening went on - and the sun came out!

I see that a couple of people have gotten their finals pick in - we’ve been doing pretty good as a group, with William’s essentially random picks being the only one of us below .500 at this point. It looks like the winner will have an 11-4 record, though how many winners we have will be determined by the two teams in the finals.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Son, when you participate in sporting events, it’s not whether you win or lose — it’s how drunk you get.” - Homer

Yesterday, someone on a technical mailing list that I subscribe to sent a link to a news story about “Scratch.” I hadn’t heard of it before, so I had a look at it last night. I downloaded the Mac client, and William and I spent a few minutes playing with it. It requires too much reading for William to really use it fully, but he was having a good time as we made a scuba diver swim circles around a spinning baby.

In other news, the cleanup crew took all the carpet out of our basement, and cut the bottom couple of feet off of the walls (yes Trent, we use feet - there’s really no good metric equivalent for the foot - decimeters doesn’t really roll off the tongue.) There’s a concrete specialist coming in Friday to take core samples of the pad in the basement as well as the driveway. We’ve been given a dollar value for the carpet replacement, but at this point the full scope of everything still hasn’t been determined.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Arr, why buy a house, when ye can buy a house boat.” - Captain McAllister

Sometime this past winter, the water line linking our house with the water main sprung a leak. I suspect it was the same day that the driveway slabs suddenly jumped up a couple of inches relative to the garage. Anyway, after fighting a valiant effort to keep spring melt out of the basement (and winning the fight, I might add,) there was water in the basement this past weekend. Very damp, very moldy smelling, terrible news.

The city came out and dug up the street in front of our place, fixed it up, and the water problem should be solved, but now the cleanup begins. The carpet in the basement needs to be ripped up, the walls likely need to be at least partially removed, and a bunch of mold needs to be cleaned up.

Fortunately, insurance will cover it, and the city will likely cover the deductible.

It was a near thing too - I had finally broken down and ordered some Screen Goo, and it arrived last week. I was planning to paint the screen on Saturday, but I decided to hold off when the water was discovered. I don’t know how insurance would have dealt with Goo replacement, and I’m not inclined to find out.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Brace yourselves gentlemen. According to the gas chromatograph, the secret ingredient is… Love!? Who’s been screwing with this thing?” - Professor Frink