It's been such a long time...

(all apologies to Boston)

Time flies...

Sorry that it's been so long.

While I find blogging therapeutic to an extent, the time to do it has been fleeting.

I've been so busy with work and softball. I have two new clients that I've been working with in Maryland to add to the third one. I've been running up and down the road to the tune of a hundred miles a day or more back and forth.

Softball has been pretty good. The travel team did fairly well. We won about half of the the games that we played, beating most of the teams that we should have. We will struggle at times because we are going to end up playing 14U teams that are a year older and stronger.

We have been caught up in the whole swine flu epidemic the past two weeks. My dearest Ellen had a cold for a couple days, then my youngest (now 5) got sick a couple days later at the same time I did. It all lasted about 5 days. Now my dearest and my oldest are sick.

I will try and post some more later...

Clark

Back to tournament ball

In the past, I have been a fastpitch softball coach for tournament level teams. Theses teams are together year round and play tournament on the weekends usually once or twice per month.

I've been out of that for a little while since my oldest was only playing in high school and my middle daughter had only just started to achieve that level.

An opportunity appeared one day in the form of a bridge between the 12U and the 14U level...13U!

This gave me an opportunity to get my daughter on a tournament team and then to bring her along as she grows, helping her to get the right skills to play high school.

This particular organization is pretty prestigious compared to the organization in which I used to coach. The caliber of player is higher and there is a lot of support.

I hope I'm able to fill the open spots with good players.

Clark

Softball Updates!!

It's been a long spring and summer season:

My house league team was runner up in their 12U division. The team entered the playoffs having lost more games than they one, but the average loss was only by a couple of runs. They played very well throughout the playoffs, winning an emotional game against one of our rival teams in the last inning on a deadly change up pitch by my dearest 12 year old daughter.

I was asked to coach a summer league all star team. Despite being loaded with good pitchers, we only had a .500 record. My dearest 12 year old lead the team in RBIs and triples. Rain dogged us in our early tournaments, where we only got to play two games out of a four game tournament. Our second tournament was much better as we seeded #1 on Saturday only to lose Sunday to the eventual tournament winner. Our last tournament was rained out on Sunday. We played very well on Saturday despite losing one of two games. We were seeded #4 going into the Sunday bracket, so we had a good seeding, although if we had won we would have needed to most likely play the #1 seed.

Clark

Leadership, part deux

Recall my post on leadership? Well, since that post, the captains of my daughter's softball team have threatened her with bodily harm and told her that "I hate you".

Nice. If these are the future leaders of our country, I hope I don't live too long.

Clark

Leadership

I'm not generally one to get up on a soapbox and blather on, but I need to step up and make a statement about leadership.

You see, my oldest daughter plays high school sports. I won't say which one, but it involves a ball with seams. Somehow, two of the least likely kids on the team were "selected" captains. Usually this involves a vote, but there seems to have been some kind of skulduggery at that as well. No matter, on with the story. It seems that no one told these girls that being elected team captain does not immediately make them tin plated dictators. Being a leader is one of the hardest things to do (just look at our last couple of presidents) right, but one of the easiest things to do wrong. Boy, do these girls have it wrong. They seem to thing that barking orders and doing nothing to support the team is what a captain is supposed to do. WRONG! A captain leads through the examples they set. A captain should be the first one on the field and the last one off. A captain should be the first one to cheer their teammate when they do something exceptional and the last one to criticize them for making a mistake. A captain never uses the word "I" only the word "We". A captain doesn't sit around with a penis shaped lollipop in her mouth giggling like she's some sort of mental patient.

I'm done. The soap box has been put away for a while.

Clark

Major Dramz!!

(With all due apologies to Perez Hilton)

It was a whirlwind weekend of drama last weekend.

The dog bit a neighborhood boy. It wasn't aggressive or anything, just going after a ball the boy was playing with at the time (the dog loves to chase them). Unfortunately, my middle daughter's friend was holding the dog's leash at the time and let go. The boy's stopped by later looking for my wife or I. The mother verbally assaulted my oldest daughter asking questions like: "Where is your mother? You do have a mother, don't you? When is your mother coming home? She does come home, right?" I'm a little more old school in that any adult should feel free to correct the behavior of a minor child, so long as they are not abusive. The questions and demeanor of this woman towards my oldest was bordering on abuse. She left my darling child in tears. So much so that she couldn't speak to me on the phone about it. I was very angry, but my dearest Ellen talked me down from the ledge. She handled speaking to the mother. Thankfully, the injury was minor and the mother must have come down off of her abusive "high" and spoke to my wife about the situation. No harm, no foul, she basically said. However, she chastised my wife for having a daughter "with a sassy mouth". I can't imagine what my oldest said back, but I'm pretty sure it was in response to her abusive comments and tone.

Saturday was a completely different story. My middle daughter (it was her major drama weekend) and a friend went to the movies. It was the last weekend of an already long run for this particular movie and it was in our small town theater. Besides my daughter and her friend, there were only three other children in the movie. From what I've been told, there was disruptive behavior by the other children: running, gymnastics, and noise. My daughter's friend decided to throw some popcorn. That escalated into some chair kicking and finally some mild touching/tapping. For some reason, my daughter's friend arm looked appetizing to the oldest of the other group, so she bit her! I would have expected this from a toddler or perhaps first grader, but not a fifth grader (the approximate age of the biter). I received this frantic call from the theater (my middle daughter is old enough to attend the movies with friends without a parent) about the biting incident, so I raced right over. I confronted my daughter and her friend and found out that the biter was still there. In fact, the biter's father was sitting in the lobby of the theater! After some searching I found the movie theater manager and I requested he make a report of the incident and take down names and phone numbers since I was responsible for my daughter's friend's well being. I lectured a little bit on the proper behavior in a movie theater and what they should have done if someone was misbehaving in the theater. I had to tell my daughter's friend's parents about the incident. They said "kids will be kids". Not quite the reaction I expected, but since the bite marks were superficial, there seemed to not be any sense of urgency (in their opinion).

I'm hoping this is the last of the drama for a while...

Sad Event

I recently attended a funeral for a former colleague of mine who's daughter and my oldest daughter happen to be good friends and on the Color Guard together.

He passed way too early (he was 50) and will be missed terribly.

God Bless Tim and his family. They are now honorary Grizzwold's.

Clark

Another successful season

Fall Softball is done!

I enjoyed getting back into head coaching. While we didn't win every game (we were 4-6, I think) we were in just about every one. We only got blown out once (16-5...yuck).

I had a good group of girls and asked all of them to come back. I hope I can get all of them and a couple more good players.

The kids gave me a gift certificate to a local restaurant. A hundred bucks will buy me a lot of food!

Clark

Oops

My oldest caught the pinkie on her right hand in the door of the truck. She tried to shake it off, but her threshold of pain is pretty low (she tends to faint too) so she couldn't hang with the finger in the shape that it was in. Through a consultation with the school nurse, we decided to get it looked at, so she met me at home. Her finger was in sad shape. The french nail she had on was punctured at the nail bed and it was swollen with blood. The nail bed was a delightful shade of reddish blue (purple for you "artistes").
We went to the local ER and the PA (we'll call him Dr. Apu) drilled a small hole in the nail bed to release the pressure. It took him a while (he didn't seem to understand that the french manicure was on top of her real fingernail, which explained why it took him far longer to drill the hole than I believe he thought it would take) to get the hole made, but finally blood started to come out.
Then they took the largest finger splint they could find and bent it in half to cover the end of the finger and the nail and wrapped it with some tape. It looked ridiculous. She held her pinkie up in the air like some affected snob at a tea party.
Oh, and she plans to attend Color Guard practice tonight. I told her that she was nuts and she was more than likely to injure her finger further. I sent her back to school. We only spent about 90 minutes in the ER. Quite a feat.

Clark

Softball Season is over!

Another softball season is done. My middle child performed well overall at the last tournament, smacking a single and a monster double over the course of the tournament. Her team only won a single game, but I think they had a good time overall.

Oddly enough, my oldest got an invite from her last coach to sub in for a girl who couldn't make a the tournament in the same location. That was fortunate. Her team did better, winning 2 of 3 in the pool play and 1 game in the trophy round. She did it as a favor, stating she was glad that she didn't play tournament ball anymore.

Word of advice: Avoid the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza in Williamsburg, VA. The only saving grace about that place was the food. The accomodations weren't as stellar as they should have been, given the price.

Clark

What's new

Hey!

It's your old pal Clark. It's been a little while since I last blogged. I'm not very good at this yet, so time passes before I can get back to writing here.

The Speck is running fine. I still don't have a radio...but I have been getting consistent gas mileage...around 27 to 28 mpg.

We have a new guy on the team at work. He has more experience than I do, so the CIO put him in charge of the project while I retained a corporate management position. He's the subject matter expert, so there is a ton of hope that he can right some of the messes that are going along with things. One things for sure, I already like him. You see, he has a way about him. In fact he called "she" "weirder than a football bat". In his honor, "she" will now be known as "football bat".

The kids are doing well in school and their teams are doing reasonably well for their spring seasons. Oldest has done a great job on her varsity team. The middle has done a super job on her house league team. She's played first base and pitched well. Youngest has done a super job being toted around like luggage. She's been practicing her hitting in the back yard. I must say she can smack a whiffle ball pretty good.

Clark

OCD threes

For those of you out there that have little children (or remember how it was when your big children were little) I'm sure you can remember "the terrible two's". Tantrums and crying and misbehavior...I'm still having nightmares about it. Well, my dearest and I have come to a conclusion that there is another life stage of the toddler: "the OCD Threes".

Our littlest obsesses over certain things to the point of absurdity. She has to close the door. She has to pour the ketchup. She has to set the plates on the table. It's to the point where I think the child needs therapy. If she doesn't get the response to "let me do it" there are tears and much gnashing of teeth. Anyone that's been through this with their children feel free to drop me a note. An especially juicy story get's an Honorary Grizzwold mention.

Clark

New job!

I'm proud to announce that my dearest Ellen is back to work full time!

Since money has been so tight, Ellen decided she would get a full time job and we would put the baby in child care full time. It was really weird...it took her three weeks to get her resume together and about three days to land this job. She is working at a call center for a pharmaceutical company. You know, the folks at the end of the 1-800 number on the back of the package? She loves it and she's making good money.

I'm very proud of her.

The kids have made the transition fairly well. We found a neighbor with a set of home-schooled kids that agreed to watch my 11 year old. The baby has even taken to the day care setting. It took a while and a great many tears, but she is almost completely transitioned. I have had kind of a harder time because I have to get up at about 5:30am in order to be able to leave work at around 4pm to make sure that I am home in time to pick up the baby from daycare. By Friday I'm pretty exhausted. I've also picked up all the dinner obligations. I really don't mind cooking, but the cleanup really stinks.

In true Grizzwold fashion

My dearest Ellen took my oldest daughter to one of her away tournaments this past weekend (June 23-24, 2007). The middle daughter came along for the ride. As is typical for the Grizzwold family, mayhem ensued.
During the prosecution of the tournament, the middle daughter decided to go back to the Grizzwold Family SUV for some much needed escaping from the heat. At some time during the hour or so period in which the middle child was in the car, some facets of the electrical system were used. When my dearest Ellen made it back to the vehicle to start it up, she was met with a whole bunch of NOTHING! It seemed that the battery had been stressed to the beyond its ability to start the vehicle. Several parents stepped up to help by removing some corrosion on the battery terminals with Coca-Cola and checking over the fuse boxes to see if perhaps a burned fuse was the problem. At the point where people were searching around for jumper cables, a man in a big pickup truck pulled into the empty parking space next to the Family SUV. Interrogatories ensued (something like “hey, is your battery dead?”) and it so happened that the pickup truck driver had a battery charger! Less than an hour later, the Grizzwold’s were up and running again.
The story does not end there. At the point where Mrs. Grizzwold entered the sports complex, she had more than enough gas to get back to the hotel where they were staying. It was a short ride, maybe 5 miles or so. As soon as she got the vehicle up and running, she decided to take it for a ride to charge the battery up and to refuel. Shockingly, the once ample fuel supply had been rendered to mere droplets! The computer display showed ZERO miles left in the tank, the needle on the dash was on “E”, and the “Low Fuel” light was on and blinking. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed on. She knew there was a gas station across the railroad tracks on the main highway leading to the sports complex. It was no more than a mile, she estimated. Surely she had enough to go a mile. Not this time. In true Grizzwold fashion, the truck ran out of gas on top of the railroad tracks! My dear Ellen was panicked as she expected that a train would be soon upon her, smashing the Family SUV to shrapnel. Being that she was in Southern Virginia at the time, another pickup truck pulled up behind her. Interrogatories ensued (something like “hey, is your truck out of gas?”) and it so happened that the pickup truck had several gallon sized gas containers on board. Fortunately, one of them had gas inside. The pickup truck driver was nice enough to give my dearest Ellen enough gas to get off the railroad tracks and proceed to the gas station.It’s puzzling how it was that the gas disappeared like that. The middle child had the keys to the vehicle, but claims only to have turned on the key to run the radio and turn on the lights (which explained away the battery situation). More than likely, there was less gas in the tank than there was and the computer did not accurately display the number of miles left in the tank: Garbage in, garbage out. In true Grizzwold fashion, she ended up no worse than from where she started.

Biological Warfare

Having a passel (three) kids is hard work, especially for my dearest Ellen. We've been especially challenged over the past couple weeks since the kids have been passing the strep throat around. The Typhoid Mary was the two year old. She started it a couple weeks ago. A few days into that episode, the 15 year old started with symptoms. My dearest took them both to the pediatrician for treatment. The Nurse Practitioner and a Student Nurse saw them. Big mistake. The two year old was diagnosed with strep because of a positive 5 minute test. However, the 15 year old's sample did not test positive. We've since figured that the Student Nurse who took the 15 year old's sample didn't do it right. Even so, the fact that the two year old had it and was most likely passing her germs on to the whole family should have been enough to prescribe anti-botics for the whole fam-damily, right? WRONG! "Oh, your older daughter isn't showing that she has strep. It's probably just a cold" claimed the NP, even though my oldest was showing outward symptoms of strep.
Fast forward a couple days to where the oldest was on a softball tournament outing with my dearest Ellen and the 10 year old. Well, the 10 year old comes down with it bad, including some vomiting. The missus manages to keep it together that weekend and bring it all back home. Meanwhile, the oldest is getting sicker. She has a bad cough and has broken out into a rash. Another visit to the doctor. This time, both kids have positive strep tests (yay!). We actually saw a real doctor this time. Since I'm with the kids this time, I point out the cough and the rash. The doctor downplays the cough and the rash as unrelated. I asked if she could get a shot to combat the hives and Z-pack, a powerful antibiotic I've taken in the past. She prescribes some ointment and antibiotics, but not Z-pack.
A day later, the oldest comes home from school saying that she is having trouble catching a full breath and her coughing is disrupting her day. We keep pumping her full of meds, thinking that it's just a matter of time. Overnight things get worse and we decide the next day to call the doctor. In the morning, the oldest faints twice. Immediately, the missus takes the oldest over to the hospital and has her seen. Lo and behold, she has strep induced pneumonia! Lovely. The ER doctors ask all sorts of questions related to the two weeks of symptoms and the related treatment by the pediatricians office. My Ellen was given the impression that the pediatrician's office (two medical practitioners mind you) pretty much botched her case. The ER docs pump her full of fluids (she was somewhat dehydtrated) and recommend she see her pediatrician again. We were already on antibiotics, so it was not necessary to get more. The next day the missus tots typhoid Mary (the two year old who started all of this mess) and the oldest down to the doctor for a follow up. All the ER records were transferred over. New antibiotics and a breathing treatment program (including a machine to do it all) were prescribed INCLUDING a steroid for the rash. Guess what antibiotic this doctor prescribed? You guessed it, Z-pack!!

At this point, everyone is doing much better. The two year old is on the last few doses of her meds. The 10 year old is a close second. The oldest is missing the first day of a big three day softball tournament, but the doctor said she might be able to play on the second day, depending upon how she felt. Given the breathing apparatus, the inhaler, the steroids, and the anti-biotics, she should be able to fight off just about anything.

Sadly, my dearest Ellen and I are exhibiting cold and sore throat sympoms. It might not be over yet!!

Clark