A Beautiful Day For A Ball Game

Going into this baseball season, I wasn't sure what to expect. Last season was so-so. While The Evil Dictator loves baseball, he got stuck in right field all last season. His preferred position is second base-- but it was also the coach's son's favorite place to play. I'll let you guess who got to play second.

As this season started, he got stuck in right field again. I could tell he was getting bored (for you non-baseball players, most people are right-handed hitters; most balls hit go to left fielder, the short-stop or the third baseman. Right field is a good place to work on your tan). He didn't say anything to me, but he did mention it to my ex, who told me about it. She encouraged him to talk to his coach. He did this, and soon found himself occasionally playing first base as well as right. Then, about mid-season, it finally dawned on the coach that his regular third baseman couldn't play third base. Time after time through the first half of the season, we parents cringed as the kid missed easy plays. The coach started having Adam practice at third. Finally, one inning he finally put him at third. With a couple of guys on base and two outs, a batter that came up slapped a liner down the the third base line that was headed toward being a certain base hit and a run or two. Adam quickly reached out and snapped up the line drive, ending the inning.

He got to play third base a lot after that.

Late Saturday, a notice went up on the league website that we were making up Saturday's rained out games the next day. We were dubious; it had rained a lot on Saturday, but when Sunday afternoon rolled around, the weather was perfect-- a beautiful day for a ballgame.

As we got ready for the ballgame, Kim was resting from a 5K that she ran/walked Sunday morning with Mel. I asked Mel if she wanted to come to watch the ballgame. She did. She grabbed the camcorder we'd gotten her a couple of Christmases ago. I'm glad she did.

As the game started, we quickly went up by a bunch of runs. I was alternating between watching the game, studying for the Microbiology test I had today and chatting with parents I knew. Suddenly, I heard my ex calling to me. I looked on the field, and to my surprise, I saw Adam getting ready to pitch!

He finished warming up and started pitching. Apparently, he'd been nagging the coach all season to let him try pitching. Since this game couldn't affect our standings (we're second in the division) and we were up by five runs, he decided to let Adam pitch.

And you know what? He was pitching strikes. And he was throwing heat.

He struck out a couple of guys in the two innnings he pitched. They tagged him for three runs, but two of those were on errors his teammates committed. He was calm and confident, particularly given that he (and we) had no idea that he was going to pitch that day.
















The second inning he pitched, he gave up no runs, and was looking even more confident.

The last-- and up until now only-- time he'd pitched was three seasons ago, when his coach had asked him to go in and finish an inning when the regular pitcher had melted down (he was crying). Adam went in and finished the inning, giving up one run-- the least any pitcher gave up that day. Later, when I asked him how he'd felt going in unexpectedly, he told me "really nervous." He probably felt that way yesterday, but I think in six years of playing, he's learned one big lesson of baseball-- and indeed, even life-- never let them see you sweat.

I had meant to grab my camcorder to get some footage, but in my haste to grab my schoolwork and digital camera, I forgot to. Happily, Mel, as I mentioned, brought her camcorder with, so we'll have some footage of Adam pitching up soon.

After he finished pitching, he went to his now-familiar third base, where he forced a guy out and came close to turning it into a double play, a rarity at this level.

When he went back to the dugout after pitching, I saw his teammates congratulating him. He was chatting with his coach-- I could tell that he was looking for pointers for improvement. I could also tell that something in him had changed. He'd been handed an unexpected challenge, and had taken it as an opportunity. Ah, baseball as life.

This last month was hard. My class was hard, and I know that it's not been easy on my family. I've had to balance the quality and quantity of time with them with needing to do well at this class. On top of that, I've missed time with both of my kids because of scheduled time with the families of our respective ex's. It's been over a month since we were all together. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the Monopoly game the kids and I played Friday night.

I was happy that as my class and this season are ending, both have turned out so much better than I expected. I was happy that a rainout turned into my favorite game I've watched in 6 years of watching him play (they won 14-6, by the way), and happy that my other kid got to share it with Adam and I. I'm happy that in our blended family, two kids are happy to have one another as siblings. And I'm most happy that the two of them, after the disruption that break-ups of their families caused, have, I think, normal and happy lives.

Now, on to the playoffs!

Rainout

Today was supposed to be the last regular game of The Evil Dictator's baseball season. It has been raining hard on and off since last night. As of 11:30, we hadn't heard whether his game, scheduled for 1:00, was going to take place. I checked the website, and all the morning games had been cancelled, but not the afternoon games. My ex called, asking me if I'd heard from the coach. I hadn't, so I decided that since I we live only about a block from the park that his games are played at, I'd walk over there and look at the field. It was pouring rain as I walked out the door with my umbrella, the rain began to really pour. I had a feeling I already had my answer.

As you can see from the picture I took with my phone camera, the diamond was more suited to a swim meet than a baseball game. By the time I'd walked back home, the league had posted the cancellation of the 1:00 PM games on their website. Looking at the standings on the league website, I saw that none of the standings in the division could be changed by today's results. In all likelihood, the game will not be made up. The regular season is probably over unless we have make-up game tomrrow. On Monday, the playoffs will begin.

In his league, everybody makes the playoffs. The playoffs are single-game elimination, and the teams they play are based on their standings. The Red Sox, Adam's team, finished second in their division. They will play the Tigers, who they soundly beat when they played them in the season. If they beat the Tigers, they play the Yankees for the league championship, and go to the World Series. This would be a first for us.

The Yankees, who are coached by his coach from last year, have done well, with 11 wins and only 2 losses. They beat us twice this season, but just barely. Will the third time be the charm?

The Quality of Mercy

I read the other day that Susan Atkins, one of the idiots who followed Charles Manson and killed at his behest, is dying of brain cancer and has asked to be released to spend her last days in freedom as an "act of mercy." I am astonished at her chutzpah

This is the woman who entered the home of director Roman Polanski (who was not home at the time) and actress Sharon Tate and helped murder Tate and four other people. Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, begged for her life, asking Atkins to spare her life so that she could have her baby. Atkins told Tate she had no mercy for her and then stabbed Tate to death, tasted Tate's blood and used Tate's blood to write "PIG" on the front door of the house. In her trial she showed no remorse for killing Tate or for killing Gary Hinman, a young musician, two weeks before.

I have long opposed the death penalty, and am still opposed to it-- even for Ms. Atkins or even for the sociopath who murdered one of my closest friends two years ago. By not executing Ms. Atkins, we as a society have shown the unrepentant Atkins more mercy than she showed her victims. Atkins was sentenced originally to death, but her sentence was commuted to life in prison. Whether she died at 90 of a heart attack or at her current age, 59, of brain cancer doesn't matter-- she was sentenced to be in prison to the end of her life. She forfeited any claim to mercy when she murdered those people. She can spend her final days pondering, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the quality of mercy.

The Nearly Home Friday Random Ten

Turned in my Standard Plate Count lab online late last night after work, and now all that's left before Tuesday is my test on 75 pathogens, my lab practical, in which I have to do a gram stain of a bacteria and a couple of other procedures and turn in my lab report on my unknown, now known as E. coli. That's all.

And looking at my list of songs-- none of them younger than 20 years old-- it reminds me that I've got a bunch of recently acquired newer music I've got to load onto my ipod.

1. Beyond the Sea- Bobby Darin
2. Amos Moses- Jerry Reed
3. Breakdown- The Alan Parsons Project
4. Don't Look Back- The Remains
5. You Can't Get What You Want ('Til You Know What You Want)- Joe Jackson
6. Mission of Mercy- The Motels
7. Bad Company- Bad Company
8. Midnight Rambler- The Rolling Stones
9. How Many More Times?- Led Zeppelin
10. The Forgotten Years- Midnight Oil

Notes:
1. Love this one. They used it in a particularly creepy X-Files episode, and I now think of that when I hear it.
2. From sometime actor Jerry Reed.
3. Alan Parsons was a studio engineer with some big albums to his credit-- most notably Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album-- and formed a band in the late seventies. The singer on this song was the Hollies' Alan Clarke.
4. From the fabulous "Nuggets" collection of garage rock.
5. I associate this song with the summer of 1984.
6. A lesser-known but great song by the Motels, who had a few hits in the mid-eighties.
7. The eponymous song for this group.
8. One of the great albums and album covers from this group.
9. I posted last week about the other kind of Zeppelin. This group got its name from the Who's Keith Moon quipping that the newly formed group would go over "like a lead balloon."
10. Peter Garrett, who was the singer for Midnight Oil, is now a member of the Australian House of Representatives, for the Labor Party.

A Happy Ending

Good news, everybody-- the "butt" of my TSI slant turned yellow overnight in the incubator! It's an E. coli!

Oh, and my lab partners and I won the "Microbiology Jeopardy" game today.

Everybody can just relax and take a breath now...

Good News, Mr. Yen-- It's An E. Coli!

Last week, my lab partners and I ran various tests on both gram negative and gram positive bacteria and recorded the results. Last week we were each issued an unknown bacteria sample and we had to first figure out whether the bacteria was gram negative or positive, and then run the appropriate tests.

After determining last week, through gram staining, that I had a bacillus-shaped (rice-shaped) gram negative bacteria, I ran the gram negative tests on it.

As I ran the tests, I expressed the hope that my unknown was E. Coli, mainly because E. Coli has a unique result in the Easion Methylene Blue (EMB) test; the culture turns a really cool metallic green.

As you can see from the picture, I got my wish. When I took my cultures out of the incubator this morning, my EMB test was metallic green, indicating the likelihood that my unknown bacteria, whose current name is "Unknown #24," is E. Coli. This conclusion was bolstered by the fact that it also turned the McConkey agar dark pink, indicating a lowering of pH caused by the fermentation of lactose.

My Triple Sugar Iron (TSI) "stab and streak" test, which is a differential test-- it tests for multiple things-- mostly backed up my E. coli conclusion. The slant was yellow, indicating that the bacteria metabolized lactose and/or sucrose, which is consistent with E. Coli. The "butt" was not black, indicating no hydrogen sulfide production, again consistent with E. coli. and there were bubbles in the "stab" portion, indicating carbon dioxide production, again a sign that Unknown #24 is E. coli.

The only inconsistent finding was that the "butt" portion, the bottom of the test tube, was red, rather than yellow. If it is E. coli, it should ferment the glucose in that portion of the test tube and turn the agar yellow due to a change in pH. My professor said not to worry-- give it an extra day; it sometimes takes an extra day for that to turn.

Man, I love this stuff!

Occasional Forgotten Video: Scandal Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In the Heart"

Summer school is racing through its last week-- I've got two labs, a final test where I'll have to identify the pathogens of 75 different diseases (what causes Impetigo? Hah-- I know it!) and a lab practical. So time is limited-- I've actually been working on a couple of posts during breaks from work, studying, etc. But for now, here's an Occasional Forgotten Video.

Not all the great vids came out in the eighties. This one was from 1990. It was alternately wonderful and ridiculous. The song was a mix of a throwback to straight-up old school funk and the club mix/sampling that was all the rage back then. Appropriately, the bass was played by P-Funk legend Bootsy Collins (he's in the video too).

Singer Lady Miss Kier was also joined by Super DJ Dmitri (Dmitri Brill), Towa Tei (Chung Dong Wha), Rapper Q-Tip, and Maceo Parker. They sampled from several songs, including Herbie Hancock's "Bring Down the Birds." The song was a lot of things, but mostly it was a lot of fun.

The Wait Was Worth It

Those of you who read this blog regularly know about the renovations we've lived through. Starting about 9 years ago, my landlord, bless his heart, has been giving this two-flat, which was built in 1908, the once-over. Starting about nine years ago, with a new porch, there's been steady improvement in our home. The old tar-paper fake brick covering was itself covered with thermal insulation and much better looking vinyl siding. The old wooden windows, which leaked heat like sieves, were replaced with handsome, energy-tight windows. Central air was installed; now, for the same amount of electricity I was using just to cool my and my son's two bedrooms, we can cool the whole apartment.

Then came the real stuff. Last summer, the kitchen and bathroom were completely redone. The plumbing and electricity were upgraded (we can now turn the microwave and coffee maker on at the same time without tripping a circuit breaker!), new appliances and fixtures installed, which I posted about last summer. After a microburst flooded our (and many of our neighbors') basement, my landlord installed a new furnace and had his almost-new one hooked up to our unit.

The final stretch was the backyard. It was torn up in anticipation of being finished last autumn, but various delays kept that from happening. Finally, a couple of months ago, it was finished.

As I sat this morning eating breakfast with Kim in our beautiful backyard, I contentedly thought, my god, it was worth the wait.





































I love so many little things about the backyard. Yes, those are Concord grapes growing across the trellis. By next year, they should be growing all the way across the trellis, providing us shade. I love the way the statues of Buddha and "Uncle Ho," the three hundred-plus pound statue buried in the vines next to our neighbor's garage evoke the way the temples and statues of Angkor Wat were engulfed by the jungles of Cambodia. They've installed solar-powered lights which shine on the statues after the sun goes down. I particularly love the head of Apollo, which has become the spot our escape-artist black cat Helga hangs out when she's snuck past us to get outside.

The best part is that its given us a great excuse to have friends over. Bubs and Mizbubs have joined us back in the garden, as well as STPTT, his wife and kids (the gnome planter on our back porch was a gift from them).

This morning, I was talking to my landlady, who did the lion's share of the gardening work that made the backyard so nice, about the fact that next month is will be ten years since my son and I moved into this home. It'll also be, in September, three years since Kim and my stepdaughter joined us here.

I remembered that when my then-girlfriend (and now ex-wife) Cynthia and I were looking for an apartment, I nearly skipped this one. From the outside, the place looked ragged. It had, as I've mentioned, that awful tarpaper fake brick that so many of Chicago's old buildings were covered in back in the old days. The porch was sagging. But when I went inside, I saw a diamond in the rough-- beautiful old wood floors, handsome old fixtures.

Cynthia came and went. These days, she's got the husband, house and baby she wanted. After she left, I took in a roommate, who turned into a nightmare. After I kicked him out, I thought about downsizing-- moving to a place that was smaller and cheaper. As I looked around, I discovered that I was paying for a three-bedroom place what a lot of people in the area were paying for a one-bedroom. After a lot of consideration, the deal-breaker in moving was the fact that this was my son's home. His mother kept moving from one place to another in the same bad neighborhood. This was the place where my son had grown up, where a lot of his childhood memories are stored. I stayed.

My landlady mentioned that she remembered how much I worked in order to keep Adam here-- I was working full time as a teacher and working another 10-30 hours a week as a waiter. I felt like I was treading water.

Nearly three years ago, as I mentioned, Kim and Mel moved in. Things in my life got better at every level. They got to join Adam and I in living through the last and most disruptive renovations. But I think they all agree that it was so worth it. Just look at the pictures.