Why I am a complete idiot

On Friday, June 19 our family is going to see the Chicago Cubs in the beautiful Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.  Now given my deep and abiding love of the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field you would think this date would be writ large on my consciousness with big red letters.

Apparently not.

Yesterday The Princess brought home a Campfire USA flyer advertising their many summer camp options.  One of them was a horseback riding day camp, the holy grail of summer camps in our family.  She has been asking to go to horse camp for a couple of summers now, but I have never been able to find one that was not a sleep away camp.  And I don’t want to send her to sleep away camp.  I am too much of a wimp. 

So when she showed me this wondrous brochure I checked the dates.  The month of July is out, we are very busy.  But they had several weeks in June available.  Further investigation also revealed a different day camp that the C-man wanted to attend.  A day camp that met in the same time and in the same place as the horsey camp.  Allow me to repeat that:

Both camps meet at the same time and in the same place.  For a whole week.  You know what that means?  Freedom!  Horrible, horrible freedom for the mom (that would be me).

I got online this afternoon and signed them up.  I signed them up for the week starting June 15.  Do you remember me mentioning that we need to be in Chicago on the 19^th?  D’oh!  Obviously we cannot attend this camp!  But I already sent in the forms!  And the deposit!

After calling my sister to confirm the Cubs date I called the Campfire USA offices and explained my dilemma.  The nice woman who answered the phone took down all my information and told me that the woman who handles registrations was out of the office and would have to call me back. She also told me she didn’t think there would be any problem switching them to either the week before or the week after our Chicago adventure.  Now I wait with baited breath to hear from her.

I swear I have a mind like a sieve.

I am a complete idiot.

More later.

No more Matt Giraud

He got voted out of Idol tonight. Oh I’m so sad.

McLaren gets a suspended sentence

It’s a Formula 1 day today.  Sorry Mom.

So the World Motor Sport Council met today and handed down a suspended three race ban to McLaren over the whole lie-gate episode.

Source

I have been going back and forth about this whole thing.  On the one hand, they lied to the officials in an attempt to steal points away from another team (Toyota).  This is a very underhanded and crappy thing to do.  On the other hand, they have already been punished for that by being disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix and losing all their points from that race. 

There are a lot of things about this whole affair that still bother me.

For example, I still haven’t figured out why Lewis didn’t tell Dave Richards that the press already had the story that he had let Trulli pass.  And I don’t understand why he went along with what he knew was a lie when he went into the stewards hearing.

I have been trying to cut Lewis some slack on that one.  He only had an hour between the end of the race and the stewards meeting, and as we have already discussed, some of that time was spent talking to the press.  He probably didn’t have a lot of time to think over what the team was telling him to do, so he chose the path of least resistance and lied to the stewards.  I’m sure plenty of other people would have done the same thing.  And he did seem remorseful about it later.

They were DQ’ed from Australia for lying.  They were brought before the World Motor Sport Council for bringing the sport into disrepute because of it.  I thought this seemed like overkill at the time and I still do.  This is the second thing that bothers me.

But, none of that is important anymore.  The show’s over folks, nothing to see here.  The WMSC have declared that no further penalty is necessary right now.  However they aren’t done yet.  They also handed down a suspended three-race ban saying if anything further comes to light or if McLaren get caught lying or cheating again in the next 12 months they will be sitting out three races.

This bothers me too.  It implies that this isn’t over yet and it should be.  Either McLaren have been punished enough or they haven’t.  If the WMSC doesn’t think the original punishment was severe enough they should have had the cojones to ban them now instead of just saying “we’ll be watching so don’t do it again”.

It makes you wonder what the point was in the first place, and makes it look like Max Mosley really does have it in for McLaren*. 

*I don’t really believe that, but I know people will be thinking it.  Let’s not forget that McLaren did screw up.  Mosley may be holding the gun, but McLaren keeps giving him the bullets.

Wild kingdom

There is a robin building a nest in our garage.  This is not as surprising as you might think.  Our garage is in pretty sorry shape.  In fact it is an insult to garages everywhere to refer to the building that sits on the end of our driveway as a garage.  Four walls and a leaky roof would be a better description.

A family of chipmunks has also taken up residence, but they have been in there for a while.  The robin is new.  At first he/she (I’m not sure which gender is in charge of nest building) was constructing their nest right over the door.  Tom knocked that one down.  Not to be deterred, the robin has started anew, this time over the garage window. 

This is unfortunate for the robin because we are tearing down the garage this summer and building a shiny new one.  One that we can actually put the cars in.  So, we are preparing for the contractors to descend.

I’ve already ordered a dumpster so Tom can throw out all our junk (I’m not going in there, there are chipmunks and robins in there).  I am also investigating storage options for the bikes and other things we will need to access while the new building is under construction.  So far we have no clear front-runner in that category. 

The other thing on my to do list is find a home for the too small blue bike and the tricycle that is still floating around in there somewhere.

And of course, we need to convince the robin that our old garage is a very terrible place to build a nest.  I am worried about him/her.  I would hate to have them knock the garage over after there are eggs in it.  To accomplish this goal I have told the children to go in and out of there as much as possible and make a lot of noise. 

They have also been instructed to knock on the outside of the winder just under the nest.  Maybe we can convince him that he has chosen a terrible neighborhood and he will fly away.

Otherwise, we will just have to knock this nest down too.  And keep doing it until he gives up.  I feel terrible about it.

I’m watching Twilight again

This really has got to stop.

The Bahrain Grand Prix report

For the first time this season, we had a race that did not start behind the safety car, end behind the safety car or have a safety car period somewhere in between.  Amazing.  It also didn’t rain.  Of course they were in Bahrain, in the middle of the desert, so that isn’t really all that surprising.

Jarno Trulli was on pole for Toyota.  I spent most of yesterday hoping the race would go better than the last time Trulli was on pole, way back in 2005 at the Indianapolis Grand Prix. (link)

Timo Glock qualified P2 with his Toyota, making it an all Toyota front row for the first time ever!

Both Ferraris made it into Q3 for the first time this season, and after qualifying ended Adiran Sutil of Force India was given a 3 place grid penalty for blocking Mark Webber during Q1. 

With all that said, it was not a terribly exciting race.  It was a relatively clean start for the pointy end of the grid.  Alonso didn’t start well and dropped back to 9^th.  More on his lackluster performance later.

Hamilton jumped up to third briefly but then Jenson Button made a very nice move on Hamilton and passed him for third.  It was a very very nice pass.  Later there was another interesting moment when Alonso was trying to pass Trulli who had dropped way down, and the two touched wheels.  Yikes!  I hate when that happens.  But the race proceeded without incident for both of them so all’s well that ends well.

In the end Button won again.  That makes three out of four for our Jense.  I am finding myself rooting for him (well, Alonso first and then him) this season.  This is odd because I have never really liked him much.  Actually, I have never really liked him at all.  He always struck me as kind of whiny and yet smug at the same time. 

Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull was second and Jarno Trulli rounded out the podium in third.  He looked disappointed, I think he had been hoping for more.  I like Trulli, and I suspect this will be his last year in F1.  I would really like to see him win one this season.

Back to Alonso and his sorry finish in 8^th place.  It turns out his drinks delivery system wasn’t working for the entire race.  This is bad when the air temperature is a blistering 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the track temperature is somewhere around 112.  Add to that five layers of fireproof clothing and you’ve got a big problem.  The fact that he managed to finish at all is amazing.  He was in pretty rough shape just after the race and almost fainted while he was talking to the press.  He says he is “fine” now though, so that’s a relief.  Renault really should fix that drinking system. It broke in Singapore last year too.  And in Malaysia in 2005 Alonso almost keeled over on the podium with the same problem.

Ferrari finally got some points as Kimi Raikkonen finished sixth.

Nelson Piquet junior finished 10^th.  He started 15^th so that’s a respectable result.  Of course I still maintain that the only reason he was able to stay close to Alonso was because Alonso was struggling with dehydration.  (I don’t like Junior, have you noticed?)

The next race is in two weeks in Barcelona.  I love that one.

So that’s the race as I saw it.  As usual, I urge to seek out better information from a legitimate F1 news site.

Odds and Ends – Bacon edition

If you Google the word “bacon” you get approximately 50,900,000 hits.  Or at least that’s what I got at 4:29pm central time today.  Your results may vary.

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Of course some of those results are for sites related to Francis Bacon, not actual bacon.

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Bacon ice cream anyone?

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How about bacon muffins?

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Squeez Bacon?

 

 

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Baconnaise?

 

I especially love the page on this site titled “Kosher Certification”.  Huh?

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And of course who can forget that old favorite, the Bacon Gum Ball?

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It’s not just for breakfast anymore.

It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame

NOT!  It was Little League opening day here today.  The temperature was a whopping 47 degrees and it was raining.  Ah, nothing beats an afternoon at the old ballpark.  I’m sorry, I really should take that tone out of my voice.

The C-man and I arrived at the field just before 1pm for our team pictures.  Once that was done we beat a hasty retreat to the restrooms, which were heated.  The C-man put his long sleeved shirt on under his jersey shirt, we girded our loins, and headed forth into the rainy field of play.

It was a rough game.  Tom and Princess O came out and joined us for the first inning or so and then went home like sensible people. 

After about an inning and a half the C-man appeared at my side and said he was FREEZING (he was too, his lips were blue).  We went back to the bathrooms and I gave him my sweatshirt.  Now he was wearing all the extra clothes.  Luckily for me I was wearing a parka, so sitting around in my t-shirt wasn’t so bad.

I went and helped out in the dugout at that point.  Mostly I wrapped children in blankets and rubbed backs.  Everybody was freezing, even the coaches.  At one point C-man turned to me and said “mom, what’s hypothermia?”  I assured him it wasn’t really cold enough for that.

When the fourth inning started I heard one coach say happily that this would be the last inning because we were out of time. 

After the top of the 4^th our catcher came back into the dugout so cold he couldn’t get his catcher’s gear off.  He couldn’t move his hands.   But, the end was in sight.

We made it through the bottom of the fourth without incident and it was time to go home!  The coach didn’t even have a post-game talk with the team.  He just said “make sure you have all your stuff, I’ll see you Monday”.

A quick detour to the snack bar on the way to the parking lot yielded a bag of chips and nine Laffy Taffy’s for the boy. 

We blasted the heat in the car all the way home.  

I am not a servant

I should tell you about the aftermath of last night’s concert. 

The kids got to bed late last night, and I had to wake The Princess for school this morning.  She woke up hard to use the family term, and was a real Crabby Patty all morning leading to the following exchange:

Me:  what do you want for breakfast

O:  Cereal

Me:  What kind?

O:  I can’t decide.  You pick one.

Now, a seasoned parent can see this trap coming a mile away.  Whichever cereal I pick will be the wrong one so I tell her she has to decide because I’m not falling for this one.  This was not well received.

Me:  O, what kind of cereal do you want?

O:  I CAN’T DECIDE!  YOU JUST PICK ONE!

We only have two kinds of cereal.  I don’t really know what her problem was.  It’s not like I had set out a buffet of 20 kinds of cereal for her to choose from.

Meanwhile the C-man has finished his breakfast, and put his dishes in the sink.  He is bending over backwards to be the Happy Fun Child.  This is so pitifully transparent that I have to laugh, even though I do appreciate the gesture.  Ahh, there’s no better way to start the day than with your sister getting in trouble.

Finally I hear this pronouncement from the living room:

O:  I’ll just have a waffle.

Me:  What?  (This is the cue in our house for “you forgot to say please”)

O:  I”LL JUST HAVE A WAFFLE!

Me:  Well, I’m not making it if that’s how you are going to ask for it.

Stomp!  Stomp!  Stomp!  The Princess comes storming into the kitchen, throws open the freezer door and makes a big show of looking for the waffles (what did you think I was going to get out the waffle iron and make them?  Silly you), and then stomps over to the toaster oven.

Moments later she had a warm nutritious (plain) waffle and then Stomp!  Stomp!  Stomp!  She went off to her room to sulk.

She isn’t even anywhere near being a teenager yet (she’s 10).  I am quaking in my boots at the mere thought of her at 16.

By the way, don’t get used to these twice a day postings.  It won’t last.