"Fields Of Gold!"

Gold? Well, if you consider dried grass as gold, then yeah! This is the time of year when Emily participates in JB Little's annual field day! She's been doing it every year since first grade so why stop now? A few pix:


The point of this event was to make a daisy chain and get the hula hoop from the first person to the last before anyone else. Emmy's class came in third. Ah well. Not whether you win or lose, right? Unless you're Vince Lombardi.


Emily: "Wow Dad, did you see how far I threw it?"
Me: "Well, yeah, but the softball is behind you. You actually threw a rock into a parking lot full of cars..."
Emily: "Ohhh...is this gonna be a problem?"
Me: "Nah...unless you happen to hit-"
***CRASH*** Me: "RUN!!!!"


She even did the 60 yard dash!! I had no idea she even signed up for it. Us Overalls weren't built for the marathons, but the sprints can be won by us sometimes.

And...the "We Are The Champions" shot:


I always use a couple of sick days to see her field day and also to get some fix-it jobs done around the house. I managed to get all of the holes in the walls filled in, now I just need to paint them. I also managed to finish putting the floor tiles on the kids' bathroom! Took FIVE hours to do it. And I didn't even have that much to finish. What took so long was getting the toilet up. There was a nut that would not come off. Man I hate that. But it was worth getting it finished. Friday night we went and saw The Avengers!! Man this was one great movie. The Hulk literally stole the show. And he was only in two scenes! Turns out everyone wanted to see this at Studio Movie Grill, and I mean everyone, so Zach had to sit in my lap the whole time, but it was all good. Emmy sat in the seats in front of us and got the frozen hot chocolate while Zach and I shared the brownie sundae. We tore it up is all I can say.

Not to go out of order, but Thursday I took my mom out to lunch for Mother's Day at one of the finest restaraunts in Los Colinas, McDonalds! Her idea, not mine. I got her the new Norah Jones CD and framed picture of her and Zach when she came to see his T-Ball game:

Not bad eh?

Friday I managed to make my way up to the school and had lunch with both Zach and Emmy:


Braums, where else? Perfect place actually. They're 1 minute from the school.

Now how do we top a weekend like that? Relaxing? Nah. Red Kane Park! We woke up on Sunday morning and made our way out there since we had only been there once before:


Zach: "Hey Dad, take my picture!"
Me: "Okay, one minute. This lens is acting up. It's making you look all short and furry."
Zach: "That's not me! That's a squirrel!"
Me: "What the...you're right! Wow, the resemblance is uncanny!"

Speaking of squirrels...

Now THAT'S a squirrel! All of the animals in this park are very brave and will take food right out of your hand if you let him. For example:

Turns out ducks will eat anything, even the donut right out of your hand. Zach found that one out the hard way.

We managed to take some cool family shots:

I just noticed this, but it looks like Zach is holding a baby duck!


This shot I like for the simple fact that the two of them aren't fighting like crazy! They seem to have accelerated this behaviour in the last couple of months. I should be worried, but...who doesn't do that these days?

And now...some of the wildlife I managed to snap:


This was by far the loudest goose ever. He kept chasing us but when we approached him he ran off like a scaredy cat.

I thought this was a pretty cool duck, with the green plumage and everything...

Just three ducks hanging out by the lake...not a care in the world...I know a lot of people who would love to live life like that. Zach went up to them and all three of them flew away real slow over the pond. I would have loved to have gotten a picture of that!

Was a really fun weekend. Normally they go by in a rushed haze of games and meals, but this one was four days of accomplishments and fun things to do. Not enough of those in our lives sometimes. I guess it all depends on what we want to make time for. Sometimes we have a choice, sometimes not. But nothing lasts forever...even cold November rain. Quote Axl Rose on that one.

"How Bout Them Rangers!!"

Yes, after many weeks of waiting and waiting, we finally made our way out to the Ballpark In Arlington for our first Ranger game of the year! Thanks to Cari's sister giving us their tickets due to her daughter in law graduating from college(kind of...grad school still to go), we got to sit underneath the home run porch and were close to catching a foul ball. One day...one day. A few pix:


Easily the biggest draw for the Rangers not named Josh Hamilton, Yu Darvish has lived up to the hype and more. So far he's leading the team in wins with six! Plus he has a cool pitching motion:


He gave up a few runs, but when the Rangers score ten, you have a pretty good chance of winning. Which we did. We also got to see our traitor CJ Wilson:

I think I zoomed in a bit much, but ah well. We had to endure a 2 hour rain delay, but it was worth it.

After the game we got so see some boss fireworks:


For some reason they did the whole show right behind the jumbo tron, so it was hard getting decent shots. But I got a few:

This one is pretty cool.

This one is probably my favourite. It's like the jumbo tron is exploding or something heh heh.

Sunday was Mother's Day and Cari wanted to go to Six Flags so us and the Barkers saddled up and managed to get out there pretty early:

This one I printed and will display at work for a while. I just realized the ones I have up here are a year and a half old! Will have to find some new ones.

Zach: "Hey Dad, guess what I see?"
Me: "Um, an airplane? Top of a building? Somebody naked? Give me a hint here..."
Zach: "None of those! It's your wallet! You left it at the top of the Superman ride!"
Me: "Aww man! Say...that's some real good eyesight you have there."


This one I love! So glad to have kids who will pose for anything.

After the game we had dinner at Boston's and watched the Ranger game. We got there just in time to see Nelson Cruz blast a grand slam after they intentionally walked the guy in front of him! Serves them right. Man, Six Flags always wears me out. I'm in good shape for the first two hours, then after that I'm dragging something serious. Thank goodness for an abundance of park benches. We had a great weekend though. Nothing like packing it all in 2 days, right? Next week is Emmy's field day! Using a couple of sick days since I never call in sick ever. I heard a commercial where a guy was planning on calling in sick because he wanted to go to a baseball game. I guess if I search myself long enough, I could find something, anything wrong with me as an excuse for calling in sick. But I only call in sick twice a year, once for Emmy's field day and the other for Cari's birthday. If you've kept up with this thing over the years, you know every year on her birthday I bring her roses and a card with a Starbucks gift card in it. So twice a year. That's not too bad. I give a lot of myself to Healthmarkets and all I ask is a break now and then to enjoy the daytime a little. I rule!

"Post Number 400!"

Wow, has it been 400 posts already?? Seems like just yesterday I started putting this thing together. And now, seven and a half years later, we finally reach the magic 4-0-0. When I hit post 200 I featured some of my favourite posts from the past. I may do that now, haven't decided yet. What I do know is that I finally...finally...got to see one of Emmy's softball games! Everytime there was one scheduled on a Saturday the coach went and re-scheduled it! Maybe there was a good reason, maybe not. But this one was at 7:30 so I was able to see it. man I hate working until 7 every night...every day...something's gotta change. But, enough about me. A few pix:


Man, that's a good shot. Emmy's all "You wanna pitch to me? I'll make you pay!" and the pitcher's all "Oh yeah? You can't handle what I'm throwing ya punk!" and Emmy's all "Oh you'll pay for that. I'm puttin' the ball into the parking lot NOW!". At least...that's how I imagine what a conversation would be like between Emmy and the pitcher.


Just a little blurry, but that had more to to with the dark cloudy sky and bright overhead lights and less to do with my skills as a photographer. Just so we're clear on that. Emmy got two hits, but those may have had something to do with the other team's defense not being very good. Man, if they had Ron Washington as a coach, they'd do all the little fundamental things very well.


Playing third base!! Zach seems to be a really good third baseman and maybe Emmy will be too. We'll work on the fielding part of things. Not always the most fun thing to do, but sometimes ya gotta.

Last Saturday we went and saw our nephew Ethan's baseball game. Two of his teammates got plunked by the other team! You could have sworn it was intentional the way the two of them winced in pain and one of them got hit in the funny bone and couldn't stop crying. His dad was in the stands going "Walk it off son..." but you can't do anything about that. I took two really good shots of him:


Why do pitchers always make thatface? It's like they're Rubberman or something.


I like the way his cleat was just off the ground. Maybe I should quit this lousy insurance company and start being an on-call photographer, ya know?

Oh, um, tonight? What are we doing tonight? Oh, not much...only going to the BIGGEST Ranger game of the year is all!! Yes, our old # 1 pitcher CJ Wilson is coming back as a defector to our biggest nemesis Anaheim Angels to face his old team. I don't think the city of Arlington ever really liked CJ a whole lot. Most of it was due to his complete lack of pitching in the post season the last two years, but there was also this snippet off his Wikipedia page:

Wilson, who has requested a chance to make the starting rotation since 2006, spoke about the upcoming season and his frustrations with the organization not giving him a chance to start prior to 2010.

“ "It's no secret I don't think I should be limited to the set-up role. I have too many weapons. Here is the reality. It is real simple. There are not very many guys that have the stuff that I do that would be willing to sign here if they were free agents. There is no experienced pitcher that has my stuff that would sign here, historically." ” — CJ Wilson, Fort Worth Star Telegram: February 18, 2010.[56]

Wilson’s comments were not well received by media or fans of the team.[57] Team president Nolan Ryan stated CJ is a guy "who likes to communicate" and Ron Washington said the team would not address the situation.[58]

This was not the first time comments made by Wilson caused problems for the talented left-hander. Wilson was a regular poster on the website lonestarball.com under the handle blueglovelefty and in 2005 he stated the average ballplayer is a douchebag. Wilson was later talked to by several team leaders on the Rangers, including Michael Young and Kevin Millwood. After the incident Wilson deleted his user ID and removed all posts from the web site.

Now does that sound like someone we need hanging around the Rangers clubhouse? I think not. So we went out and spent $107 million on THIS:



Yes, Yu Darvish, the man, the myth, the legend, was persuaded to sign with Texas and has done nothing short of dominating the American League with his assortment of EIGHT pitches that hitters don't know what do to with. Hopefully tonight won't get rained out like we thought might happen. The chnace of rain went down from 80% to 40%. We haven't been to a game in almost a year so we are due. This is our year. Make no mistake. So, to do a little Ranger-style reminiscing, here are some cool pix of our family's time together at the BIA:


This wasn't Emmy's first Ranger game, but it sure was her first Ranger shirt! Now Zach wears it...a lot...the collar is a little frayed but it's still going strong!


Speak of the devil, there's that Rangers shirt on Zach! Which he promptly got mustard on before the game in 2009. That's my boy. Great shot of all three of them. We took 'Grandma Mary' to the game for her birthday!


This was the game we went to last summer. So hot and humid, but it was worth it. And yes, Zach has that Ranger shirt on yet again. Hey, some things are classics, yes?

"Grandma Is How Old??"

84, that's how old! And I can honestly say, she has not changed since the day I met her. Same black curly hair, same 4'8" frame, same accent, which I would have thought would have been phased out as time went on, not unlike Ross's British accent on that episode of "Friends" that not only wasn't there in the first place, but he had to figure out a way to get rid of it, which, as us Friends fans know, didn't go well. But that's another story for another day. We all got together at Grandma's house Sunday for an Italian lunch where we brought spaghetti, Keri brought lasagna, and everyone else brought everything else and man, were we full afterwards. We were also sweltering, as apparently her air conditioner had broken down and uncle Dean had taken it out to get it fixed. Man was it hot. I wanted to wear a thin shirt to keep myself cooler, but nothing could have prepared me for the sauna we were walking into. But we had a real good time. Most of us gave money for a new patio furniture set, which we all agreed was needed as most of what she has is less than stellar. I took a few pix, mainly because I was in a bad spot to take them, but I got a few:


Me: "Okay Grandma, blow out the candles and make a wish!"
Grandma: "There aren't 84 candles on this cake! I'm not doing anything until I see some more candles!"
Me: "How many more do we need?"
Grandma: "Um, about 72 more..."
Me: "Yeah, pretty sure we'll be violating some fire hazards there..."


Grandma: "Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic, and so am I..."
Me: "Oh man that's hilarious!"
Grandma: "I don't get it..."
Me: "That's surprising...it really is..."

Saturday Zach had a T-Ball game (surprising) and we were warming up before the game, mainly to get Emmy some practice work since she's playing softball now! I haven't been able to see any of her games yet since all the Saturday ones keep getting re-scheduled or cancelled...arggh. But we played some toss:


Got a new haircut and some new glasses! She's got a really powerful swing and throwing arm, now we just have to figure out how to harness it and maximize it.


Apparently Zach is under the impression that our new Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish addresses his catcher this way before he's about to throw a pitch, so he was doing that. Better to be over-prepared then under-prepared I guess.

Oh, and today is offically Star Wars Day! I've already gotten an e-mail from Dad stating "May The 4th Be With You..." Ugh. Bad pun. Or is it genius? I don't really know. So, I thought I'd dust off a few of my favourite Star Wars pics and toys and bring them out for an encore presentation!"


This was a sampling of all of the stuff I started collection when Phantom Menace came out in 1999. I happened to be working at Pizza Hut which was the big winner to distribute toys from the movie as well as cups with giant cuptoppers. Who knew this little collection would grow so massively?


To my knowledge this is the only action figure of the older Anakin Skywalker out there, but there maybe others. Thought this was pretty cool and maybe a rarity in the toy world.


This was the Star Wars convention at the Fort Worth Museum of History back in 2007. Look how young I was. And, as it turns out, it wasn't all just baby fat. There's some real fat too I'm trying to get rid of. A friend of Cari's was supposed to go with me but he was selfishly having bone marrow drawn out of his hip. Why would anyone choose THAT over going and seeing Chewbacca costumes? To each thier own I guess. Unfortunately he had cancer and actually passed away last year. Things really suck sometimes, don't they?


This is the real Millenium Falcon used in the outer space shots. This was a pretty good picture considering 1) I had my flash of my camera on the whole time 2) Everything was covered with plexiglass and 3) most of my other pictures have this bright star on them from the flash. Great explanation eh?

And finally...


This one is kind of my showpiece of my collection. A re-creation of the last scene of Return Of The Jedi where all three spirits of the slain Jedis get together at the Ewok kegger to celebrate the end of the Empire. This was the only one of the three original movies I got to see in the theater. Back then we didn't have Netflix or Blockbuster or even a VCR to rent Beta tapes. Ahh, Beta...good times.

Was a pretty fun week. Of course, what week would be complete without a little family drama? Thursday morning I'm trying to get the kids to school and Emmy teases Zach or calls him a name and Zach's all upset, which isn't a good way to start the day. So then Zach pulls one of his silly dialogue routines out and starts asking me to back over him with my car. Of course I tell him I would never do that but of course that's not enough for him so he keeps it up. Then that night after Emmy's softball game we ate at Double Dave's Pizzaworks and on the way home I asked him if he was feeling better and of course he said no and started getting really dramatic and wouldn't be serious so finally I just shouted "Quiet!" And I mean shouted. If you knew me at all you would know I never shout, or at least like to. So we drove home in silence and I pretty much ordered him to go in and take a bath which I was impressed when he went and did it without having to be asked 100 times. While he was in the bath he looked up at me with those big ol puppy eyes and said "I love you" and I said "I love you" too in a real apologetic voice. We had a father son talk that seemed to be really productive. At some point he has to stop hiding behind being the youngest of our clan and start taking some responsiblity for not only his actions but his words, as we all know they can be just as powerful. I hope one day we will be better friends then we are now. Something tells me we're on the right path.