Feast or Famine

The weekend was beyond great...

Chantel and I talked often while she was in Vegas. She got home late Friday and called to let me know she got home ok. She then asked about coming to see me and the kids on Saturday. I figured she would need some rest after her trip, but she wanted to see us. She wasn't positive she could make it, and would call me the next day. We had the first day of baseball that I mentioned in my last post.

I dropped Erik off with my ex so that he would not have to be hanging around while Kevin's team photos were done. I got Kevin to his team session on time. They finally got their uniforms right before the pictures. At least that guaranteed the shirts would be clean.

We had a short break before the first game. The game started at 9am sharp. Kevin was starting catcher. The first 2 innings were quite exciting. Kevin had hit a triple in the first inning. The score was 3-1. Then the battle began. Our pitcher was doing a phenomenal job. He was pitching fast, straight, and in the strike zone. Nothing got past Kevin.

The scoring had stopped we had more hits than they had, but neither of the teams were scoring. It was getting intense. Each team wanted to get more points on the board, but both defenses were doing a hell of a good job. Errors were just not happening.

During the last inning Kevin had a chance at ending the game by catching a pop-up foul ball. It dropped right into his catcher's mit, but then he bobbled it. That pissed Kevin off. His emotions were high. This is where he can make big mistakes. He picked up the ball and threw it wildly at the Brad. He couldn't reach it, but luckily the short stop was paying attention and got the ball back in control before the runner on 3rd had a chance to take advantage. Final score 3-1. I had a talk about Kevin keeping his cool. He knew he almost blew it. I think he just needed to know the risks and it brought him back down to reality. I took the boys to lunch near the ball parks.

Chantel and kids showed up just after we got back. We had a little time before Erik's pictures. We hung out and talked while the kids played catch. Chantel's kids don't play baseball, but we had extra gloves. Tugg (her oldest) is very good at throwing and catching even though he hasn't ever played baseball. Cody is not as coordinated. He had a good time though. He's a crack up, and always makes me laugh. It was good to see them all getting along so well.

We did the picture thing for Erik, then we all went to cool off with some ice cream. It was an abnormally hot April day (strange to think that we were bitching about the blizzard not even a week before). We headed over to the field for Erik's team's game (The Alleycats). I had asked Chantel if they all wanted to spend the night. The kids were all for it.

Erik's game started at 5. He was playing 3rd base to start with. The coach had noticed in a previous practice that Erik has a great arm. He promised to have him start at 3rd. Later Erik got to play first base, then he pitched the final inning. Erik got one really good hit, and played his heart out. Unfortunately the game ended in a 0-0 tie.

We took a vote on what to do about dinner. They all wanted to go to Fargo's Pizza. My vote was over-ruled. Actually, I rescinded my vote since they all wanted to go there so bad. We filled up on pizza, the kids numbed their brains on some games, then we went home. After a couple minor melt-downs from the kids.

All 4 of the bigger boys slept in the family room on the floor, couch and recliner. We let them stay up late playing XBox and watching movies. Josh was not doing so well. He is 3, is trying to get over a cold, and could not sleep.

Chantel and I decided that sleeping in the same bed was probably not a good idea the first time with all the kids together. She talked about sleeping on the floor in my room. I would not have that. We tried to get Josh to sleep on the floor in my room. It worked for a little while but then he was up around midnight and wasn't going to go back down. We stayed up most of the night watching cartoons with Josh, hoping he would fall asleep (we tried to keep the hank-panky to a minimum... we almost succeeded).

The next day she and I were exhausted from lack of sleep. They needed to get back home and I was taking my kids, and my brother to my mom's house for the day. We cleaned out my mom's garage for her. We had a good day with mom. Had some of her amazing spaghetti sauce, an apple pie made from scratch (Kevin requested this weeks ago) and practiced baseball stuff with whiffle balls in mom's back yard..

Monday and Tuesday during the day was spent with Chantel, Cody and Josh. It feels so good to spend time with them. Chantel's kids have really taken a liking to me. Cody was teasing us that we were going to get married. We just chuckled. That thought is not one that scares me.

On the job front I have been getting tons of calls for jobs. Many of them the same jobs I have already been submitted for, but there were a couple new ones and some new developments on old ones.

I had a phone screening/interview today for one of the new calls. This is for a mortgage company that is developing some software. It sounds like they need a lot of help. All of which I am willing to assist with. I have another phone interview tomorrow for a large corporation on the north side of Denver (add another hour to the commute). On Friday I have a face to face interview with a company on the south end of Denver that seems a bit out of the ordinary. They have software development going on, but have not implemented much as far as a Configuration Management philosophy or tools. It would be a large undertaking for me, plus I may have to learn a new tool set. We'll see how that goes. Out of the 3 I just spoke of I like the sounds of the one I interviewed for today.

I am still hoping for the local company I spoke of the other day to come through. I know they have talent and dedicated engineers that I can work with. I think it's time to give them a nudge to see where things stand.