Wednesday Wanderings - Straight onto the Baseball Field

Last night was another disappointment because the San Francisco Giants just can't quite climb that last stretch and get into real contention for their division title.

They started the season badly. Hunter Pence, their right fielder, was hit by a pitch near the end of spring training and had his arm broken, so he was out for the first few weeks, but April and much of May were really bad for the entire team. They couldn't seem to win anything.

Then Pence came back and, for whatever reason (I find it hard to believe one man in a nine-man roster can make 100% of the difference), they started to win. They won enough games that they climbed out of the NL West cellar and started beating the teams that had trounced them.

Since then, though, it's been a rough year. Between injuries to several of their key players and stronger teams (damn those Dodgers!), they're not in the cellar, but they're out of contention for the playoffs.

The closest they've come to catching up with LA is 1.5 games back - then they've slid again and can't get the momentum to climb that last slope and catch up.

Of course, with the field of other contenders, I don't think the National League West is going to do well in the playoffs.

The Chicago Cubs are playing really well, as are the Pittsburgh Pirates. Both teams handed the Giants their hats and sent them packing.

Now, to the credit of the Cubs which have had sketchy runs at the playoffs in the past decades - getting close but not quite making it in, or being the bridesmaid who stumbles on her hem - they are playing hot ball this season. The Giants have played them five times this year and all five times the Cubs have walloped them.

Against the Pittsburgh Pirates they've played seven games, six of which they've lost. So the East is going to be hard to beat come playoff time.

It's probably for the best, anyway. As of now, the Giants have so many key players out on the disabled list that they're playing guys who have washed out at other teams, rookies and wet-behind-the-ears kids called up from the minor leagues.

Granted, a couple of their rookies or first year guys have played extremely well.

Matt Duffy, in his second year playing in the Bigs, took over third base from McGehe (who, I'm really sorry to say it, SUCKED). Duffy came up playing shortstop in college and the minors and hadn't played the third base position before this season. Since being tried out there, he has played it masterfully.

Joe Panik is another one. After a couple of rookie mistakes last season, he has really come into his own at second base. He and Brandon Crawford make a great infield duo. While he still has a lot to learn, watching him at the plate or on the field he seems older and more seasoned than he is. Unfortunately, right now, he's out with a sore back and hasn't played for several weeks.

Kelby Tomlinson came up from the minors after Panik's back started acting up earlier this month, and took over second base. He's not doing too badly there, either. He's a rookie and it shows, but he's made some solid plays and when he's at the plate, he's been really good. And, he is one class guy.

In his first at bat, he was in as a pinch hitter and hit a single into left-center field. What makes him class, though (IMO), is that he dedicated that hit to Kaiser Carlile, a nine-year old batboy who was hit in the head by an errant swing on Sunday, August 2nd during a college world series game and died on Monday, August 3rd. Tomlinson had played for the team for which Carlile served as batboy, but it's not clear whether he knew the boy. To me, though, it just shows class to be thinking of a little kid while taking your first major league at bat.

As for the other injuries, they've been rough.

Hunter Pence, their Right Field Man of Steel, has been off and on the roster all year. First, with an arm broken by a pitch in Spring Training, then with tendonitis in that same arm, now with a pulled (torn?) oblique. It's been a rough year for a man who never missed a game.

Nori Aoki who the Giants acquired from Kansas City was having a solid year, up until he was hit just above the ankle by a bad pitch. It broke his leg, so he was out for several weeks. Then, almost as soon as he got back, he was hit in the head, just above the brim of his batting helmet, by a pitch. That was one seriously scary moment:

After that, he tried to play but was concussed so missed several games.

Angel Pagan, their centerfielder, tore up his knee twice this season. First, by sliding to make a great catch but also catching his knee in the turf, and then by ramming it into the centerfield wall making another great play. He's out with tendonitis in his knee and isn't expected to be back for a while, yet.

With these guys not playing, their bats - key in the Giant's offense - have been MIA and the Giants just haven't had good luck trying to replace them.

They've also struggled tremendously with their pitching staff. Their only really good, solid, consistent starter is Madison Bumgarner. The rest? Pffft.

Vogelsong has been all over the place - one quality start, three miserable outings seems to be the pattern. I don't know what his contract is, but he's not worth whatever they're paying him. I feel sorry for the guy because you can see he really is trying his best, but I hope the Giants trade him this off season.

Cain can't find the groove, but their pitching staff has been working with him (heck, the guy had two surgeries on his pitching arm during the off season last year, so what do you expect?). I hope next season he'll be all the way back, and be able to really take over the mound like he used to.

Lincecum started the year looking pretty good but then took a nosedive. The problem? His hips. He's got a degenerative condition that's going to shorten (if it hasn't already ended) his career. That's a shame because, in his day, he was a great pitcher. And that sounds sooo wrong. The guy is only 31 years old! On the other hand, his contract is up this year so the Giants will have a choice - keep him and try to get him working again, or cut him loose on some other team. Personally? I hope he retires. He's got a solid reason and it would be a shame to see him keep trying and break his body down more, creating an old man before it should happen.

Heston - iffy. Hudson, he's had a couple of good starts but, for the most part, hasn't done notably well. Peavy was a mid-season acquisition who's had a couple of rocky outings. It's been rough, and their bullpen hasn't been up to snuff, either.

Jeremy Affeldt was the bright spot, there, but he would face one or two batters, then be replaced. He's not and never was a long reliever. Now he's on the DL with a knee problem.

It's just been a hard, hard year on the pitching side of things. Which is a lot of the reason why they have lost as many games as they have. Doesn't matter how good your offense is if your pitchers are letting the other team score runs. 

Oh well. 2015 wasn't their year, anyway. If recent history is anything to go by, they'll be back with a vengeance next season and will add another even-year ring to their collection.
Now, how about that? Miracles do happen! Hadn't a clue what to write and this post just about took care of itself.

Hope your day goes as easily!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Scary Movies and Other Stuff... It's Weird (trust me).

I am not a fan, at all - not even a little tiny bit - of blood and gore movies. I don't like them. As a general rule I won't watch them but, with that said, I have to confess that I'm eerily fascinated by the remake of War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise.

The special effects are truly astonishing and talk about blood and gore!  Jeez-louise. The fine mist... Yeah.

But every time it comes on the television and we don't have anything better to watch, my husband turns it on. Every time I cannot take my eyes away from certain scenes. The one in the basement with the crazy man in particular. It's gripping and terrifying and even though it lasts what seems like forever on the one hand (by the clock) it is so frightening, the tension is so high, that it seems to pass in a minute.

I thought the Exorcist was lame. This is not.

(If you're reading this over your Rice Krispies or bangers and mash, sorry - it's about to get distasteful) I thought that Alien, once the penile projectile burst through the guy's chest (seriously - it looked like a dick with teeth), the movie was laughable.

I was going to upload a picture of it, but then I thought that you might, indeed, be eating and I don't want to put you off. More, I don't want to be responsible for projectile anything hitting your computer. That would be bad and I would feel awful about it, so best not.

The one movie that really got me the most was The Town That Dreaded Sundown. I watched it when I was still living at home when I was nineteen or so and I still remember it. That one scared the crap out of me to the point where I, literally, had nightmares for three nights running - and I turned it off at the scene with the trombone. It's almost (and yes, this is the crazy lady talking again) as if that was me, as if I lived that and that's why it affected me so tremendously.

For creepy and tense I like Silence of the Lambs. An excellent movie with remarkably little blood given that Hannibal the Cannibal likes to chew on people. Like the nurse whose face he ate.

What got me going on this today is that last night, while we waited for the SF Giants pre-game show, we watched War of the Worlds. As always since the first time I glimpsed it, I was fascinated by the basement scene. The nut job, the little girl, Tom being the Hero (with the capital 'H'), the creatures, wondering (even though I know not yet) if. Will the creatures find them? Can Tom and the others hide in the dark room with the filtered light from the spaceships glimmering through the windows.

In the entire movie, that one scene is the very best.

Then, the movie ended (thank goodness) and we watched the Giants baseball game. It was a really good game. The Philadelphia Phillies (the Girl-horses) took a one to nothing lead. The Giants came back and tied it. Vogey did what Vogey does so often - he choked. Gave up four runs before he was relieved.

He was heartsick. You could see it in his reaction. God bless the guy - he tries and he tries so damned hard, but he just doesn't have 'it' anymore. Not since he had his hand broken in 2013. I don't know what Bochy is going to do with him. He's been given all the chances, but he just can't do it.

Anyway, we were down four to one and didn't think the Giants would come back, but they did. They scored four runs so it was five to four. Then they added another three - eight to four. The game ended eight to five after the Girlhorses scored another run in the top of the ninth with two out. A great night.

After the game my hubby wanted to watch Svengoolie. It's camp, pure and simple. The silliest of the silly 'horror' movies - whatever is cheap or free - and it's on every Saturday night at 10:00. Last night it was 'The Invisible Man' - which is actually quite a good movie. Last week it was 'The Creature That Walks Among Us', the third in the 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' nonsense, and that's typical of the quality.

Eventually (10:30) I came up to bed.

Now I am a lady of a certain age and I want to throttle the moron who tittered 'horses sweat, men perspire and women glow'.  God dammit! I am a woman, of a certain age, at a certain stage of my life and I sure as shootin' do not glow. I sweat. I sweat buckets. And I hate it and there is not a bloody thing I can do about it because I am not going to start popping pills that might work on this but will probably screw something else up. As a result of my own recalcitrance, I suffer and grind my teeth.

When I go to bed, or when I get stressed or when I get angry, embarrassed, upset, just about anything, it's like my personal sauna kicks to high. The water hits the already red hot stones and WHAM sweat.

Caffeine is a trigger, but I'm not going to stop drinking coffee. Wine is a trigger, but I don't drink wine all that frequently (rarely), and I'm not going to stop that. Spicy foods, another trigger, another 'hands off' item. Make my choices and live with them, whining as I go.

I've been lucky, really. I am not in my forties or early fifties. I dodged this particular bullet for years after when some women hit this Stage of Life, so I'm fortunate. On the other hand, waking up in a pool of chill fluid in the middle of the night at any time of life sucks. Big time.

When I was little it was different fluid, but it sucked then. Now it's sweat and it sucks now. It simply sucks.

"They" those guys in the basement (I wish I could find that cartoon panel...) say that this Stage of Life lasts two to three years and then either stops or at least diminishes. God I hope it's only that. I started this Stage of Life two years ago so you'd think I'm almost done with it.

I hope so, I really do.

So guys - count your blessings. You don't spend thirty-five or forty or more years dealing with cycles and you don't end up spending however long this situation is going to last dealing with sweating like a horse on a hot day in a Florida swamp.

And, on that happy visual note - have a lovely day! :)

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Do Umpires Cheat?

I love baseball. When I was a kid, I loved playing it. A tennis ball, crushed cans, gateposts, manhole covers, mailboxes, we figured out how to get a game on. If we were lucky we had gloves (I didn’t). If we were lucky we had a real bat (I didn’t). But we would gather in the street and start the game, yelling ‘car’ to warn the others whenever a vehicle impinged on our playing field.

For years after growing up I stopped watching baseball. My husband wasn’t excited by it so we stopped watching because it was too slow, too boring, etc.

Then, on a whim, we turned on a Giants game in 2013.  It just happened to be Matt Cain’s perfect game and we were hooked.

When the league instituted instant replay in 2014, we were excited. We had seen a number of calls since May 2013 that were obviously wrong, but the teams against which those calls went had no recourse.

Football has had instant replay as a regular part of the game for several years, and that was our sport. We liked watching pro football and college. We paid close attention to the replays and rooted for ‘our’ teams. When bad calls were made, they were usually fixed and the game continued.

In baseball not all plays are reviewable. It’s meant for on-the-field determination of close plays, not balls and strikes at the plate. The point is not to slow the game to a crawl - it's to fix a mistake.

Each manager has one chance to request a replay before the seventh inning. If he burns it – asks for a replay and the call isn’t upheld or overturned, depending on what he’s asking for, too bad. He’s out of luck. In the seventh and innings beyond, the manager can ask for a review but it’s not necessarily granted. It’s up to the officiating staff.

Before 2014 it was unusual for umpires to review calls and there was an increasing cacophony from players, fans, managers and owners to ‘get it right’. Some calls, bad calls, affected the outcome of games – winners and losers were ‘picked’ by umpires. Some umpires gained reputation as being good and fair, others not so much. Two, in particular, seem to take their personal feelings about teams, players or managers with them onto the field. Instant replay was supposed to help deal with that too.

Last year it was everyone’s joyous deliverance. Managers liked it, players liked it, it resolved a lot of questions and controversy before it got outside the park because, historically, a large part of baseball has always been human error. People make mistakes. It’s the cost of being a person and having a brain that allows us to make choices. But some mistakes are so bad one just has to shake one’s head.

It is why the league instituted instant replay in 2014. It was a chance to give officials the ability to get it right after a bad call but bad calls still happen. In fact, a lot of managers and players who were relieved last year to have the lines between fair and foul, safe and out more clearly defined through the replay system are starting to stir again.

Not all calls can be replayed or challenged. Balls and strikes is one group that is not reviewable because it’s too fast and, for the league to stop play every time a batter wants to argue would be ridiculous.

But there was a game played on Sunday that was still a head-shaker on Monday evening.

I don’t normally listen to radio chat about sports. I don’t care that much. I do like the games so, last night I tuned into the local sports station KNBR to find out what time that night's game would start. They were still taking about Sunday afternoon’s game between the San Francisco Giants and the Washington Capitals.

Phil Cuzzi was the plate umpire during the game and, according to the pre-game analysis I heard on Sunday, he tends to be ‘inconsistent’ in his calls. That's an understatement, but it's a gentlemanly understatement. It's polite.

Okay, he's 'inconsistent'. That’s the human factor. He makes mistakes and isn’t perfect. However, one analyst on yesterday’s radio show declared that Cuzzi is the second worst umpire in all of baseball. In any case, Cuzzi seemed to have two entirely different strike zones on Sunday.

The Giants were playing the Capitals and when the Giants were pitching, the strike zone seemed to be narrower across the plate and a bit (noticeably) shorter between the knees and letters. The constraints of the strike window gave a decided advantage to the Capital players. In order for Vogelsong, the Giants’ pitcher, to get a call strike, he could not finesse the ball at the corners or edge of the plate. He had to throw it straight down the pipe – into the hitter’s wheelhouse.

On the other hand, when the Giants were at bat and the Capitals were pitching, the strike zone was every inch and then some that it should have been. A ball at the corner of the plate, it was a strike. Sneaking down the edge of the plate, it was a strike. Low, at or below the hitter’s knees? Strike. At the letters or just above? Strike.

Watching that game and Cuzzi’s opposite approaches to the two teams leads to my fundamental question: 

Can game officials, for personal reasons – dislike of the manager, a player, the team or because, perhaps, they’ve a bet on – affect the outcome of a game?

I think it’s definitely possible.

Cuzzi seems, based on my own observations, to have it ‘in’ for either Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager, or the team organization. We’ve seen him before and every time he is officiating a game in which the Giants are playing there is a noticeable difference in how he makes calls for the two teams.

On Sunday it was so egregious that even the ESPN analysts – who don’t usually pay more than passing attention to what’s going on down on the field – spent nearly an entire inning commenting on it.

First, there was a conflicting call at the plate. The Capitals had the field, the Giants were at bat. Brandon Belt was up. He checked his swing – which means he started to swing his bat in a hitting motion. If the batter starts to swing and stops before the head of the bat arcs past the batter’s front knee, it’s called a check swing. If the ball is high or low or outside of the strike zone, it is then a ball.

On appeal about the swing from the Capital’s catcher, the third base umpire who is responsible for deciding whether it was a check swing or a swing for a strike, waved it off. It was not a swing. Behind home plate, Cuzzi overrode him. Even though it had been waved off by the third base ump, and the ball was clearly down around the hitter’s ankles, Cuzzi called it a strike and, because it was the third strike, the batter was out.

Another, even more questionable call, decidedly raised a lot of eyebrows. It was the bottom of the fifth inning. The pitch was clearly outside – off the edge of the plate enough that the catcher had to reach to his left to get it. Given its location, it should have been called a ball. Instead, Cuzzi called it a strike, even though the catcher had to move the glove outside the strike zone.

By this time Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ manager, was about to come unglued. He’d been seeing bad calls, terrible calls, all day and that was it for him. Bochy came out of the dugout and spoke to Cuzzi about it. That is the manager’s prerogative, so long as he does not get aggressive or ‘show the umpire up’ in front of players and fans.

Watching it on Sunday and seeing the replay of their ‘conversation’ after, Bochy did nothing but exercise his right. He asked ‘what the hell was that’ and Cuzzi threw Bochy out of the game.

Ryan Vogelsong, the Giant’s starting pitcher was on the mound. He knew it should have been a strike, also questioned it. From his position on the mound, he has, along with the catcher, the hitter and the umpire, the clearest view of the pitch. He has never before been thrown out of a game – until Sunday, because he was exercised enough to confront the umpire over it.

Pitching is not an exact science. The goal is to develop a variety of throwing methods – cutters, curveballs, sliders, fastballs, splitters – and work on them until you’re capable of using them in a game. Once in the game, there’s the strike zone which is the area above home plate, between the batter’s knees and shoulders, and extends the width of the plate. Pitching well at 80+ mph is an art form.

The catcher’s job is to make sure the balls pitched don’t get past him or the runners can advance. If a pitch does get by him, and if it’s an error by the pitcher, a ball badly thrown that is uncatchable, it’s called a wild pitch. If it is deemed catchable, but the catcher misses it, it’s deemed a pass ball.

In Sunday’s game, according to the ESPN pitch tracker, the Giants were disproportionally called out on strikes that were outside of the strike zone. It was so egregious that even the national ESPN announcers commented at length on the obviously bad calls.

And those guys never notice anything but themselves! Seriously, they sit in the booth and shoot the breeze. It's like sitting at the bar at Hooters and listening to a group of guys talk about themselves. No calls, no discussion of what’s going on down on the field. Yet Sunday, they paid enough attention to comment, at length, on Cuzzi’s screw ups.

 

So what is up with that?

Does this umpire have something personal against the Giants, or against Bruce Bochy? Is he taking his personal attitude to the plate, using his position to ‘cheat’? Or is he simply incompetent?

He hasn’t blown calls only for the Giants. He’s known for making a bad call during an ALCS playoff game that cost the Detroit Tigers a double that could have put them in position to win the game.

He’s so bad he’s featured widely on “MLB bad call” videos.

As far as his dislike of the Giant’s and deliberately making bad calls against them? It looks like it to me and to the radio announcers for the Giants, based on what they said and, apparently, to the announcers for ESPN. Are all of us wrong and the umpire is right?

If the umpire is cheating, if he is deliberately making unfair calls against the Giants or any other team, what recourse do the teams have?

Sure, they can complain to the league, but at what price? Word will spread, other umpires might back the umpire who is cheating, and then where will those teams be?

It’s so obviously wrong, so utterly unfair. Enough so that the announcers on both the radio and the national broadcast are questioning it – which is not something I’ve heard before in all the games I’ve watched and/or listened to.

The league needs to step in. Independently, they need to take a look at this game, at this umpire’s history and his calls. If it’s obvious that he’s incompetent, they need to relieve and retrain him. If it’s obvious, upon examination, that he’s consistently favored one team or certain teams over others, they need to relieve him and ban him from the league for life.

That’s the only thing that would be right and fair. It won’t change the outcome of any of the games he has cost teams but maybe, if the game officials know that the league is paying attention, and is willing to do the right thing, it might make it a more level playing field for all teams.

Whatever. It's just a game, right? No, not really if the umpire, the representative of Major League Baseball is using his position to cheat a team or a manager out of a win.

Players put too much energy and effort into their health, their skills and their life for it to be 'just a game'.

Teams and fans get together and spend time in the fresh air and sunshine. It's a community and it's a place where families can safely go and spend time together.

It's an important part of the American psyche - too important to be mildewed by cheating.

I hope he's not. I do hope he's simply blind and incompetent.

No matter what the case, though, I do hope MLB steps up to the plate, takes a look and decides to do the right thing. Either retrain him or eject him from the game.

Best~

Philippa

Follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Mental Meanders or Through the Looking Glass

This is a weird day. It's more than peculiar, it’s weird and it’s barely begun. When I started this, I had no clue, no vaguest hint of what I would put down or where it would go so let's see what happens.

I woke up early, about twenty minutes before my alarm was set to go off at 4:45. For whatever reason, when I stopped sleeping and my brain kicked in, I felt a sense of foreboding. Like something momentous and not so good is going to happen. It makes me a bit nervous. It's nothing I can pin down, nothing I can point to. Just a weird feeling that something is not right or something won't be right. It's like the heavy weight that is the prelude to a massive thunder storm.

Since I did get up without injuring myself, turned off the alarm without incident and made it downstairs safely, it’s none of those things. I didn’t electrocute myself when I turned on the coffeemaker. So it’s not that. I turned on my computer and nothing bad happened there. So far, so good.

Well, we’ll see. In life, at times like this, I find it’s best to hunker down in my seat and just be a passenger. What will come will come and que sera sera.

The good news that's going to be widely heralded today is the Warriors win over the Cavaliers last night. Even though I don’t follow, watch or (sorry everyone who does) care at all about basketball, congratulations to the Golden State Warriors! It’s been a long forty years since they won a championship and I’m delighted their drought is over.

What is a very pleasant surprise this morning is that the team’s fans didn’t burn down half the city in celebration last night. Oakland is a blue collar community with a history and reputation as being ‘rough’. Kudos to the residents for not getting stupid and ruining a great party.

Upon checking, it doesn’t look like the Chicago Blackhawk fans did anything silly in Chicago, either, which is also great news. But I guess they're kind of used to it, three Stanley Cup wins in six years. I guess they're a bit blase these days.

The reason I sound cynical is because when sports teams win something important, like a title, it seems that some fans take that as a sign to riot. I think a lot of people expected something bad to happen in Oakland if they won, and it didn’t, and that’s great. Particularly since the Oakland Athletics are doing so poorly. The juxtaposition between one team and the other this year is stark.

Last year, the Warriors got into the playoffs but got knocked out. This year they won the championship

Last year the A’s looked like they might get to the championships, except things started to fall apart with trades and injuries in the last third of the season, so they missed. This year, after trading away some of their better players last season, the A’s, in a word, suck. The poor players can’t catch a break even though most of them are playing their hearts out, but management, through its trade decisions, gutted a very good team.

Now I don’t know why they made the choices they did because I wasn’t in the room when things were decided. Perhaps the players were unhappy. Rumor has it that Josh Donaldson said some pretty inexcusable things to the manager, and that’s why he’s gone. No one with whom I’ve spoken understands why Yoenis Cespedes was traded, though. The guy was a solid outfielder and downright amazing at the All Star Home Run Derby two years straight but pffft off he went. Maybe he asked for the trade? I don’t know. Perhaps the team management just thought someone else might do better in those positions. Perhaps it was a combination. I don’t know. All I know is the result. Last year the A’s had walk-off after walk-off and they looked really strong through most of the year.

Oh! Excuse me for being rude. For non-fans, when a team is trailing or tied in the last half of the last inning and they win, it’s called a walk-off.

The Giants did that to get to the World Series last year – if someone had written a script for that team in the playoffs – start to finish – it would have been laughed at by a potential agent or publisher and pitched in the bin. It really was, in a lot of ways, a fairytale.

Travis Ishikawa, who hit the game winning walk-off in the bottom of the ninth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals to get the Giants to the World Series had talked about quitting baseball altogether before being signed by the team. Then he does this (it's short and it's great because there is such a feeling of tension and then - jubilation):

And the Giants go to the World Series, which they won.

Thanks Warriors and Giants. I feel better now.

 Have a lovely day!

Best~

Philippa

Follow me at Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

A Little Music and Quiet Happenings in a Quiet Life

May I suggest you play this marvelous piece in the background while you read this? It's not hip hop, rock, country or one of the typical genres. It's just a fantastic instrumental piece. And when you get there (if you get there), trust me - it's worth it. Besides, listen to one minute (it's a ten minute piece) and if you don't like it, turn it off. What have you got to lose?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNdlWXlTAK8

Anyway, here we are at another Saturday and I’m whipped into submission by the week. Tired, even with the caffeine, and not quite sure which end is up.

It was a good week, a really good week, actually. No bad happenings on the roads. Got a lot of things going at work that will, I hope, open other doors. Of course, I’m still struggling with that stupid database.

See (no worries – I’ll be very short but I have to vent), I don’t want just the form that’s linked by the two tables to reflect the information. Doing that is a piece of cake but I want to be able to see a bunch of records all at once, and the table view is the best. Therefore, I want the ID I assign to the record and the associated field to show up in the other table so I know without a lot of hard thinking what I’m looking at. Then I can I enter all the pertinent information that explains why I want them there in the first place.

The problem is, I’ve tried everything the books say and it still doesn’t work. But, since that’s the only shadow on my week I’ll call it good and leave it.

I did get started on a new template form for another project and I think that’s going to make the folks for whom I’m doing it sit up and take notice. Just suggesting having over-writeable fields was exciting. Now, when we sit down next week and I can show them off… Yay, me!

Other than that, things muddled along. It felt like summer for two days but we’re back to spring today. Fog and cool, which I love. It feels good against my skin.

 Last night, getting home, I was less than pleasantly surprised to find that my husband had done a bunch of laundry and it was will hanging on the line. He doesn't work. He stays home and takes care of his elderly mother so it was a bit disconcerting to get home to a pile of laundry waiting to be folded.

You know what, though? It was actually a good transition. Folding laundry (unless it's a fitted sheet) isn't precisely rocket science. It was a pleasant evening - not hot with a soft breeze - and I had a perfect excuse to be out in it instead of inside fixing dinner, taking care of Sam, or doing some other must-do. Halfway through the process my husband showed up with a glass of wine.

I don't drink a lot - I prefer not to because I don't like the way it makes me feel, but I won't say no to a little. A bottle of beer or one glass of wine is almost always enough. So it was very welcome and added a nice touch to the peacefulness of being outside, doing a simple task in a lovely evening.

After getting the laundry off the line I sat down on the deck steps and relaxed - something I never do - and that was nice, too. I need to do that more often because it set up the rest of my evening in a good way.

By the time we finished dinner, the Giants had won their game against Philadelphia and there was nothing worth watching on TV, so we popped in a disk from the 'Odd Couple' series and watched a couple of episodes of that.

This morning we'll have Giants baseball (they're only 1/2 game back from the Dodgers!) and tonight Blackhawks v. Tampa Bay (Go 'hawks!).

The Warriors are playing in the NBA finals against the Cleveland(?) Cavaliers. I am not at all interested in basketball. I've never been able to get excited by it, but I do feel terrible for the Cavaliers who lost one of their key players to a fractured kneecap. Now that is one injury that makes me cringe just thinking about it! Just how does one fracture a kneecap? Never mind, I don't want to know. So he's out for three to four months.

Just quiet happenings in a quiet life around here. Nothing bold, nothing exciting, just being and getting from here to there.

I hope you enjoyed that piece of music - have a lovely day!

Best~

Philippa

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Stuff, and more Stuff.

Meandering through my brain this morning there's 'stuff'.  All sorts of 'stuff'.

We watched game seven of the series between the New York Rangers and the Washington (DC) Capitals - if you have never seen professional hockey, you have never seen one heck of an exciting sport! It flashes by so fast, and the scrums in front of the Rangers's net last night (they were in overtime) were furious and intense - and seemed to last forever because I was rooting for the Rangers.

Mike Emerick - the game caller last night - WHEW!!  How he does it, I don't know, but he keeps up and calls the plays like an old time radio announcer. He gets so into the game, so invested, that I can just see him hunched over the microphone, his eyes following every move, every flash of a stick as he tells us who just did what. He's almost as exciting to listen to as the game is to watch - and he is one impressive caller!

And I use the term 'caller' with precision because that is what he does - he calls it, play by play - and it makes what we're watching that much more exciting because it adds so much to the visual. Sadly, great game callers are few and far between.

Emerick is one. Lon Simmons of the Giants who recently passed was another. Bill King is a third. You can count great game callers of the past on two hands. The rest, and there are a lot of them, sit back and jabber on about anything and nothing. We get frustrated by the A's announcers because it's like sitting in a room with two idiot blowhards.

They know everything but don't talk about what's happening on the field. They talk about everything but what's happening right in front of them. It drives us nuts because there will be a play - perhaps we missed it or what happened wasn't clear - but they won't describe it. There are at least two or three important plays - runs, hits, errors, great fielding - in each and every game we watch and they talk right past them. Sometimes, but only sometimes, they'll go back and mention it in a casual 'oh yeah, and...' kind of way. Grr! Infuriating.

So, back to last night. Lunqvist, the Rangers' goalie, was amazingly good! Through it all, he blocked every attempted goal - surrounded by bodies all flailing away with their sticks.

Credit to Holtby, the Capitals goalie, because he was just as good - but the Rangers got a shot off almost immediately after a faceoff because of a Capitals icing call.

Part of it might be attributable to the fact that the Capitals captain, Ovechkin, declared they were going to win last night. I'm sure the Rangers weren't happy with that attempt at a 'psych', so went in determined to prove him wrong. Whatever. Fans got a rockin' good time!

They've advanced to the second round of the playoffs, and game one for them is on Saturday against Tampa Bay (Florida). On Sunday, the Blackhawks (Chicago) will play the Anaheim (California) Ducks - and both of those are going to be really good series, too.

On the baseball side of things, both the Giants and the A's lost. I didn't see the A's game, but I heard it was 'ugly'. The Giants got a tough break. Apparently, the Houston Astros are 'hackers' - they swing at anything and everything, just as hard as they can. Normally, that's not a good idea because you get a lot of outs that way but, because of the power of their guys, they also get a lot of home runs. Last night there were three - which accounted for three of the four runs that won them the game. 'nuf said on that.


The weather people are saying we're going to get rain today. They said that about yesterday, too. I'll believe it when I see it. No rain that I saw yesterday and while there are clouds out my window this morning, they're not rainclouds. They're high and ... not rain clouds. Maybe that will change, later, but we'll see. At this point, if it's not actually raining, I don't believe it will because the promises sound almost desperate.

Watching television will get a little easier once hockey is over. The season is expected to end in early June - June 3rd I think, which is when Game 7 of the Stanley Cup will be played, if needed. In the meantime, hockey is a filler when the A's and Giant's are off or have early games, but when they're playing at the same time it's click...click...click... all night long until one or another of the games end. Which is fine - because if something exciting is happening in one, we'll stick to it - like last night's hockey game.

Next fall and winter we'll still watch 'nancy' football, but it will be primarily college ball. The pros have gotten too stupid.

'Inflategate' with Tom Brady knowing that the staff of the Patriots was tampering with the balls before one of the playoff games. Hello, Tom - that's called 'cheating'. Cheating is not good sportsmanship. Idiot.

If you can't win by talent and guts, and you have to cheat to win, what is the point of playing?

That's something hockey and baseball both have going for them. There's no really good way of cheating in either sport. You can't deflate a puck and you can't deflate a baseball. In theory a baseball team could 'throw' a game (sorry, couldn't help it) by bad pitching or taking swings at pitches that are obviously out of the strike zone - but it's not like football where there's so much scope for cheating.

Unfortunately, with the salaries the players make, the old saw, 'cheaters never prosper' is just not on any longer. Oh, yeah. They profit plenty. Bonuses for winning playoff games, wildly inflated salaries, signing bonuses, etc. They prosper plenty and the consequences for cheating are non-existent. Oh yeah. A fine - to the team. And a four game suspension to Brady. That'll be effective.

How about he's suspended for a full season? How about he's fined $1M and the team is fined $10M? That might make a bit more of an impression.

The one sport I really wish we could watch here is Aussie Rules Football. Every once in a great while ESPN will deign to show a match and it is so fun, so fast. It makes soccer look like a nancy sport (sorry, guys) and I can't see much scope for cheating there, either. Oh, yeah, a forward could take a dive, but it would be hard and with both teams using the same balls during the game any tampering would be seen immediately.

Anyway. It's getting late, I gotta run - have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

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