Beach League Week 4

It’s official – we are now 0-7.  Yep, I’m leading with the outcome, we lost both of our games again this week.  How I wish it weren’t so.

We actually started out up in the first game by 2-0, and it was 4-2 at one point.  But then the wind picked up and we couldn’t really get it together.  We lost 7-11 or something like that.

In the second game, we were playing the dominate team in the league, the team that drafted some unknowns late in the process and got lucky with outstanding players.  We lost to them 4-11, which is better than the last time we played them (3-11) and the first team to play them that day (1-11).

Still, I felt I had a good day.  I caught a score and assisted with a score in the first game.  I wasn’t scored on easily during the times I was on the field.  It felt good.

As I mentioned, it was windy most of the day, which was a bummer, but it was warm and the sky was perfectly blue.  Plus, I was at the beach.  It would be nice to win upon occasion, but at least the location and weather were pleasant.

Word Association for April 25th

I thought I'd start out the week with some word association for something different.

1. Delay :: Project
2. Knock knock :: Who's There?
3. Pointless :: Post
4. Crook :: Arrest
5. Rating :: 5 Stars
6. Orange :: Citrus
7. Update :: Edit
8. PG-13 :: Movie
9. Routine :: Questions
10. Werewolf :: Full moon

Beach League Week Three

I missed week two of beach league to go to the Festival of Books, but I was back last Saturday.  It was a gorgeous day – upper 70’s, a stiff breeze but nothing too bad, and beautiful blue sky.  Couldn’t have asked for a better day.

Well, maybe if we’d win a game.

Yes, we lost both of our games again this Saturday.  The score wasn’t super close in the first game, although we all did come back from a 1-6 deficit at half time.  The second game was closer, but we were never really ahead.

The highlight for me was the second game.  Chuck was on that team, and we always have fun guarding each other since we are similar in speed and stamina.  Of course, he’s 30 years older than I am, so what does that say about me?  There’s was one point where I was on defense where he was running away from me and getting the disc at will.  Fortunately, his teammate over threw him in the end zone, so I wasn’t scored on.  The best part, however, was that we got the disc backed and hucked it to someone near our end zone.  While he wasn’t quite in, I had taken off running and was by myself in the end zone for a score.  Something like that always makes me feel so good.

Tomorrow is another day of league, and I’m hoping we can finally come away with a win.  Either way, I’ll be at the beach, so it’s hard to complain too loudly.

Word Association for April 20th

Here's this week's word association.

1. Professional :: Liability (Can you tell I work with a bunch of doctors?)
2. Liquid :: Water
3. Thrusting :: Engine
4. Button :: Hook
5. Late :: Me
6. Binge :: Watch
7. Trail off :: Sentence
8. Comic book :: Hero
9. Large quantity :: Bulk
10. Fabulous :: Outstanding

Down and Dirty 2016

Sunday the 10^th was my first mud run of the year.

Down and Dirty was back in town (literally), and I signed up.  I thought I was going to do it with a friend, but he wasn’t able to make it after all, so it was just me.  And it was cooler than I would have liked, but not so cold as to be unpleasant.

The course was the same as always, which is to say fun.  I still hate the one giant hill they have us go up near the half-way point, but other than that, they’ve got some very fun obstacles.

And I can’t complaint about the distance.  It’s about 30 minutes from home, one of two I do that are so nicely close.

This was also the end of an era.  After the run, I donated my mud run shoes, the only shoes I’ve done mud runs in for 5 years.  They had a lot of holes in the top and I couldn’t see them lasting too much longer.  But not to fear, I have several pairs of old running shoes around the condo, and I will be putting them into service as mud runs shoes starting with my next mud run.  I’ve got three lined up in June, and I may slip one in May before then.

LA Times Festival of Books – 2016

As I mentioned Wednesday, I went to the LA Times Festival of Books this last Saturday.  It was cloudy and threatened rain all day, although it didn’t rain as much as they predicted it might.  It poured for about 10 minutes at one point, and sprinkled a little off and on, but nothing much worse than that.

The day started out with a pleasant surprise when I found an author I thought was going to be there on Sunday only was there.  Fortunately, I put his books in my car just in case, so I dashed to my car (literally) and back, bought his new book, and got all three signed all within 15 minutes.

All that was before Angelique showed up, too.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around with her and talking to mystery authors.  We pretty much spent the time hanging out in the mystery section chatting.  While the festival isn’t nearly as great as it used to be, it is still fun and a great chance to find out what our favorite authors are up to.

The rain definitely kept the crowds down, although it was a nice change to not be roasting, which is usually the case.  I kept some plastic grocery bags in my backpack and wrapped books in those.  Then my backpack was under my jacket.  It made it hard to get in and out of my backpack, but my books were all dry.

I left late afternoon instead of staying until the event ended so I could hit another book signing.  The author I really wanted to catch was only at the festival on Sunday, and I couldn’t make it back that day.  There were a total of three authors there and lots of kids, since they are kids book authors.  It was a fun event.

It made for a long day, but it was a great day.

Word Association for April 14th

Here's this week's word association.

1. Ridiculous :: Hair
2. Privilege :: Lucky
3. Consider :: Choices
4. Legally :: Blonde
5. Account :: Balanced
6. Coping :: Mechanism
7. Disclaimer :: Warning
8. Dreaming :: Sleep
9. Logo :: Advertisement
10. Frustration :: Scream

Beach League Begins

Yes, I’m back in league ultimate Frisbee.  Being spring, that means it is time for Men’s Beach League.  I’m carpooling with a couple of friends from here in town, and I’m even on the same team with one of them.

Our kick off week was a week and a half ago.  We played pick up for a while so the captains could watch us and hopefully pick even teams.  Then we played our first game.  Our opponents were short men (the captain picked several people he knew who weren’t there that day) so we agreed to play down.

Never do that.

As I knew it would, it really hurt us.  We went down at half 0-6.  We stayed with them for the second half and finished with 5 or 6 points, but they beat us in the end.

On the plus side, I scored one of our goals.  And everyone seems to be nice.  And I was on the beach on a perfectly lovely blue sky day.

Last week, I missed due to the LA Times Festival of Books.  It was cloudy and even rained briefly at one point.  I’ve heard that our first game was really bad, 3-11, but the second was better, 8-11.  We were even ahead for a while that game before we lost subs.  Obviously, I should have been there.

But I’ll be there again on Saturday.

Out of State Author Signing

A week ago, I was in Studio City (which is in an area here in Los Angeles).

I headed down there after work (fortunately, I was against the worst of the traffic) because the Barnes and Noble down there was hosting an event for several out of state authors in town for a conference.  That included some authors I read, including a couple I’d never met.  How could I pass that up?

I thought there might be a formal talk, but there wasn’t.  And there didn’t seem to be a ton of people there, but it was fantastic.  I got to chat with authors about their books to my heart’s content.  And I am always up for talking to authors.  About the only author I didn’t really talk to was Diane Vallere, but she’s a local author so I can chat with her later.  Like this weekend at the LA Times festival of books.

One of the highlights for me was getting to talk to two of the authors on the Wicked Cozy Author blog.  I found the blog two years ago, and I’m on there every day.  I’ve read all of those authors’ books.  But I had yet to meet any of them face to face.  That was a thrill.

After the signing was over, a bunch of us went out for drinks and dinner.  Okay, so it was just dinner for me.  I was the only non-author at the dinner part of the night, and it was a blast just sitting there chatting.  I drove a group of them back to their hotel and then went home.

I was a truly fantastic night.  I’m so glad I was able to make it down for it.

Word Association for April 6th

Looks like I've got some time to do this week's word association.

1. Inappropriate :: Touching
2. Spam :: E-Mail
3. Detailed :: Proposal
4. Breakfast :: Syrup
5. Emoticon :: ;)
6. Grammar :: Proper
7. Jointly :: Shared
8. Spontaneous :: Celebration
9. Auto :: Insurance
10. Burnt :: Toast

Easter Trip Home

Yes, I’m skipping a couple of weeks.  No, it’s not because I want to catch up.  It’s because nothing too exciting happened.  I did my taxes.  I worked on getting the last couple of movies off my DVR.  Just thrilling stuff.

However, I did go home for Easter.  Depending on when Easter falls on the calendar, it won’t always be possible with my job (too busy with work), so I had to take advantage of it while I could.  I took Friday and Monday off work, and used those as travel days.

Unfortunately, the long audio book I’d been saving to listen to didn’t work for me.  I had to skip portions of disc 1, and disc 3 wouldn’t play at all, so I gave up.  Fortunately, I was able to snag a digital audio book from my library and listen to that on the way home.  And enjoyed listening to my Easter play list on the way up on Friday.

And what a busy two days it was while I was there.  My friends Donald and Heather were nearby, so I went over and visited them for a couple of hours on Saturday.  And then my uncle and aunt came to town and we all went out to dinner to celebrate their Silver anniversary.  It’s actually next month, but we wanted to celebrate while we were all together.  We went to a nice restaurant, and we wound up having a room to ourselves upstairs, which was wonderful with my niece and nephew.

Sunday was church at my brother’s church before dinner at mom and dad’s.

And my niece and nephew are still so incredibly cute!!!!

It was way too short, and I would have loved to spend more time there, but I had to be back to work.  For one thing, I don’t have that much vacation time saved up these days since I’ve only been here a year and a half.  You go through it very quickly, especially when you use it at holidays (in addition to the holiday time off I get).