First Blogger App Post

I've been trying a lot of new mobile apps recently. Evernote, LinkedIn, and now Blogger. This seems to be okay for quick, short posts about where I am and what I'm doing, but I'm not sure this will be very useful for longer, in-depth posts. Anyhoo, I hope you're all doing well.

Choot It!

I think that phrase may be copywrite protected, but SOPA isn't in effect just yet, and it's also what Keith and I yell every Saturday morning to our 5K Upward basketball team.  If we get a rebound, we just SHOOT IT AGAIN!

Upward is fun. Everyone plays, everyone plays the same amount of time, and there is a science to the starting lineup so that everyone starts the same amount of games. It takes the pressure off of winning - which is all 5 year-old baseball was about - and allows the opportunity for all the kids to learn the game, correctly, and participate.  We don't hide the players that aren't as good.  We don't practice 4 days a week for 2 hours at a time - we have one 1-hour practice a week and a game on Saturday morning. We don't keep score - but that doesn't mean that we don't play hard and try to play good defense. There is, however, only so much that you can cover in one hour of practice.

Jack wasn't interested in playing baseball this spring. He had a really bad coach last year (that would be me), so he wanted to try something different.  Trussville has a youth track league in the spring and Jack wants to do that.  I'm happy and excited that he wants to give track a try.  The track is probably where old hippies like me belong.

See you soon.

Out of Retirement

Well, not really, but I did swing a golf club for the first time since October of 2010 this past weekend.  I played in a FBC scramble tournament with some guys from Sunday school.  We finished 8 under, well off the 14 under pace that won the tournament.  Our team was not selected for a random team prize, nor did any of our team members win a door prize.  The gift bags did contain a nice Nike golf shirt and a Verizon huggie.

I don't suspect the golf to become a habit, although it was fun to be out there.  I did play the same ball all day long. Quite remarkable, actually.

That's really about it.  Hope all is well.

Season Over

We were ousted in the first round of the 5 year old post season tournament last night.  The Pirates took it to us pretty good, defeating us 16-9.  None of our players, however, should hang their heads.  We made a couple of plays in the field and everyone got a hit - which is huge given that two and half month ago I didn't know if some of them would ever get the chance to run to first base.  I'm not sure how many times we struck out last night, but we went through the order three times (30 at bats) in four innings. By comparison, we only sent 23 batters to the plate in our four innings last Saturday.  We struck out 13 times in our first game (out of 15 outs) over the course of about 25 at bats.  I bet we didn't strike out more than 5 times last night.

I'm proud of all the kids, but since this is my blog, I'll brag on Jack a little. He absolutely CRUSHED the ball last night.  This from a kid who only swung a 'real' bat for the first time in January and spent the first two-thirds of the season just 'dropping' the bat through the zone, not really 'swinging' the bat.  Well, we had a come to Jesus talk about effort and desire and WANT TO on Easter Sunday and, since he decided that he was tired of striking out and tired of the pitcher picking up all of his 'hits' and tagging him out on the way to first, he has been swinging the bat as well as anyone in the league.  He hit a grounder in the hole between third and short that went to the fence and drove in two runs, then he hit a line drive that almost knocked the shortstop's glove off.  I was proud of him, and I told him so.  I told him so many times that he asked, "Why do you keep telling me how proud you are?"

Good job, son.  We'll get 'em next year.

Little Papi

Here's Jack.  He's five now and playing his first season of baseball.  I thought we would start with tee ball, but in Trussville only four year olds play tee ball.  Five year olds thru 8 year olds play coach pitch (and we keep score, we're 2-8).  It's very difficult for a 5 year old to hit a pitched ball - it's very difficult for a 30 year old to hit a pitched ball, which is why you can fail 7 times out of 10 in the major leagues and be considered one of the best players ever.

Jack made me super proud last night.  He struck out three times and may have let a ball get to the fence, but he swung the bat the best that he has all year and he hussled after the ball when it got by him.  What made me proudest, though, was when I asked him if he would catch for me because one of our regular catchers was not at the game.  He said, "Yeah, sure daddy. I'll do whatever you need me to do. I'll play where ever."

Thank you, Jack.

Hey Hey Hey!

Hey, look who's back!  Well, since the boys kicked me out of the Kiva Cup, took away my other blog, and the twitter account I created to promote the event (well, to entertain myself, same thing really), I decided to open The Conch Shack back up!

Step right up. Don't push, there's plenty for every one.

Has it really been three years since I shut this place down? Wow. This site needs some updatin'. Looking at the sidebar, Jack is now 5 and still likes Cars - although Mario now beats Lightning McQueen in any race.  Things change, things stay the same, I guess.  Now we're going through some of the same stuff with Layne, our sweet little 15 month old.

Well, we'll see how this goes.  It feels good to be back.  It really does.  See you soon.  I hope to have the comments feature activate soon, as I know you all want to send me your own special 'welcome back' message. [UPDATE: See, fixed it. I'm going to have to get back in the groove with this.]

100 and Done

It occurred to me today that I had created 99 posts for The Conch Shack. The first one was on August 31, 2006. The last on will be today. 100 is enough. There's no since in staying in it like Mike Huckabee.

When I started More of Less, the predecessor to The Conch Shack, KBF and PromKingsWife were staff writers. Now they have their own successful blogs, and several others have spawned from there. That's fun to see.

In truth, I don't have time to be a good employee, father, or husband. I know that's not the order those are supposed to be in, but on any given day, that's the order that the majority of my time is spent. I certainly don't have time to be an employee, a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a grandson, an uncle, a blogger, a runner, a golfer, a yard boy, president of the homeowners association, webmaster of some dorky insurance association, or any of the other things that I either try to be or have agreed to be that I can't even think of right now. It's time to let some of it go.

Looking back through some of the older posts...Jack's first Christmas.....the Sleep Lady Shuffle, the Ferber Method...hey, some television shows that I used to watch...Mike Shula's firing....the trip to NASA with PawPaw...it's been fun.

Thanks for sharing. Take care and good luck.