Beginning Again

"We have it in our powers to begin the world again." - Thomas Paine

Yet Another Non-Writing Cycle: Once again, I haven't written anything in over a week, so hopefully I can fill up this little space with some more clever words. I've been working alot more of the morning shifts at the hotel lately and by the time I get home from those I just don't want to be anywhere near the computer; so those of you who hinge on every blog I write can breathe easily, all...um, okay, you can at least be happy I wrote.

The Long Goodbye: The hotel manager announced this week that she has decided to take a job in Rockford, Illinois to stay with the company our hotel was previously owned by. It is hard to see her go, as she was the one who pulled me out of the mess that was my Sears career and gave me an opportunity to move myself up here at the hotel. For that I'll always be grateful.

Now that she's gone, the management positions have opened up and hopefully my awesome boss Shawn will take over the reins of the hotel. Then his job would open up as Assistant General Manager and....well, you get the point. Lets just hope whoever gets it will be the best AGM we could possibly have.

The Struggle Within: So this is two weekends come and gone with Townsend, and it appears that he's having some troubles adjusting to things as a 'here and there' kid. Last weekend was the first weekend that I completely lost my nerves with him. We went down to Pymatuning to a campground where Amanda's mom had set up camp for the weekend. I had off on Saturday, a rare occurence, so we decided to keep Towns from Friday to Sunday afternoon. We went down to the camp on Saturday afternoon, and unfortunately he'd been a little obstreperous the entire weekend up to that point. Screaming and crying when he wouldn't get his way and throwing three year old style fits.

So we're in the car, driving down, and he had this little bat that he'd received the night before. For some reason or another, I can't remember now, Amanda reached back and snatched it from him because he was throwing a fit. Now I'd lost my patience pretty well already with him so I tried to stay out of it. Immediately, he picked up another (and bigger) bat that was in the back seat and started winging it around. He almost hit me in the head with it!

I smashed down on the brakes and pulled off to the side of the road. I turned around, put my finger in his face and was about to start screaming...and saw the fear in his eyes and couldn't bring myself to lose it on him. I tried to explain to him that he can't be swinging something like that around while someone is driving! He cried hard for a while but he finally calmed down.

The rest of the weekend, I won't get into, but by Sunday morning I'd basically completely lost all patience with him entirely. I really need to work on that if I'm gonna be this awesome dad that I think I could possibly be.

Carry yo key: That Sunday night, Amanda had to work laundry late at her hotel and I went home after eleven from my usual Sunday night shift. On the way, our friend Lori called and asked me if I wanted to go to the night club that we had been going to lately, but this time without Amanda. I waffled a bit then decided to go. (Amanda got out semi-early and came down not too long after I got there.)

Anyway, Sunday is one of the two karaoke nights that they have at the club and I decided to break my solo singing cherry and requested to sing "Lyla" by Oasis. I got on stage alone and immediately all the nerves went away and I sang my heart out. Hit every note, stretched out the ones I knew I could, and came off stage to big time cheers and lots of friends saying that I looked like "a rockstar". It was awesome!

So Wednesday we went again and I sang "Round Here" by the Counting Crows and that was a little pitchy but apparently the deejay even liked it, so that was nice. Then I sang "Stand By Me" by Oasis and that totally sucked. I forgot that the chorus never ends, so I was standing on stage singing the same line about ten times in a row and I just didn't enjoy that at all. Sounded like poop again. The last song I did was "My Generation" by The Who, and that was pretty awesome. I still don't think it sounded that great but I heard "great performance" from the deejay and it made me feel pretty cool. Although I did get yelled at by one of the guys who works on the sound system about doing the Roger Daltrey microphone swing... :o)

Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay: The baseball trading deadline has come and gone, and the Pirates decided to unload their star player, Jason Bay, to the Boston Red Sox for a few prospects. At first, I was happy they got some decent sounding players...and then twenty seconds later I was filled with remorse again as I realized they got rid of another good player for nothing again, just like they've been doing for quite a while now.

But now that I've had a couple days to mull it over, I've decided that I really feel the new General Manager, Neal Huntingdon, did a great job shopping Jason, who was invariably headed toward free agency at the end of next season, and why not get a great return for him. Plus, Jason got to go to his self-described "childhood favorite team" too, so here's hoping Jason can pick up a well deserved ring this fall.

The Pirates got a half decent outfielder, Brandon Moss, and he will hopefully turn out to be the next Xavier Nady (was a little known guy in another trade a few years ago).

I know a few months ago I went on a little rant about how I was going to get rid of my fan hood for the Pirates if they didn't reach .500. But for some reason or other I really, truly believe in the current leaders of this club. John Russell has coached this team into respectability, creating an atmosphere that still makes me want to listen to a game in August because they just might pull out a win against anyone (stopped the division leading Cubs' five game winning streak just the other night). Huntingdon's moves had an air of "knowledge", unlike the past GM's moves did, and it even seemed like the ESPN coverage of the Pirates seemed as though they feel the Bucs are only a few years out from another run.

So I'm hereby "re-signing" for another contract as a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, effective today. I'm excited about the new players and the possibilities they bring. Jeff Karstens, from the Nady/Marte trade with the Yankees, pitched a five-hit, eight inning gem in his first game for the Bucs. Moss, from Boston, got two hits in his Pirates debut and scored himself a highlight reel catch in that same game.

....wow, lots of writing!