tracker7 | Entries tagged with baseball

Got into three of the 21 events I had wishlisted for GenCon. DCC Weird Frontiers on Thursday, Eclipse Phase on Friday, Modern AGE on Saturday. I'm already waffling on the Thursday night game, since that's our company dinner, but the chances of getting to play Weird Frontiers are awfully small. I'll put it in the background and decide in a couple of months.

Spent the day with Dad yesterday. Replaced the Impala's air filter, gave Kaiser many many treats, watched a couple of UFL games. Should have stopped by my brother's on the way home and picked up the Mossberg, but I was good and ready to be home when I left Dad's.

The Dodgers put up 15 on the Angels last night, and I'd almost feel bad except it was against the Angels. Bottom of the fourth right now, and the Dodgers are up 7-0. Some hot bats in the top of the inning.

Joke's on me - not going to talk about the job tonight.

I love big anthologies of genre fiction. I used to get the "Year's Best" SF and fantasy collections on a, well, yearly basis. By their very nature, anthologies can be hit-or-miss, but I was never disappointed with the collections and if there was one story that I didn't like, there were at least three that worked for me.

I'm currently a few stories into 21st Century Science Fiction: The New Science Fiction Writers of the New Century. It's a good mix so far, two authors I'm familiar with and one new to me.

The Louisville Kings got a terrific upset win over the D.C. Defenders today. The Kings were moribund through most of the first half, but after their QB took a bad, borderline targeted, hit, they lit up, scoring 27 unanswered points and winning 30-13. Heck of a game.

Had a fun little moment walking into Meijer this morning. I was wearing one of my Dodgers tees and a fellow walking out had a Blue Jays cap on. Looks were exchanged.

GenCon planning is underway. Signed this year's team contract just now, and some Battletech games are in the offing, and the latter should give me some initiative to get some paint on the Gray Plastic Regiment. A little over a hundred days until Indy. Crazy.

Went to another Bats game last night. Took my brother and his family to the game. Bats were playing as the Mashers - yay for Minor League baseball - and they got whupped by the Mud Hens. I guess some payback was in order - Louisville had put up 27 runs on Toledo in the first two games of the series, so a 5-10 loss didn't sting as badly as it could have. We had a good time, and will probably do this again sometime this season.

Tomorrow is Thunder Over Louisville. I saw a few planes making practice runs over downtown today, and that is about as close to the event as I'm going to get. I will happily plant myself on the couch and watch WLKY's coverage and not deal with 600K people packing downtown.

I'm getting up too early and doing too many things on weekend mornings. Breakfast dates and shopping trips and things like that, and I tend to stay up later on Friday and Saturday nights and I'm just not getting enough rest.

Yesterday was Easter, and that did not break the streak. Got up a little before sunrise and could not get back to sleep. Went to Dad's, later than I had planned, actually, but still plenty early. He went to church, I stayed at his home with a couple of books and the Doberman and enjoyed the quiet.

Got out to my first Bats game of the season Friday night. The Bats had gotten off to a good start to the season, winning all four games against Omaha, but the Iowa Cubs were a damned buzzsaw and won all five games here in Louisville. Still, it was a good evening at Slugger Field and I'm looking forward to the next home stand against the Toledo Mudhens.

My beloved Dodgers are now the Repeat Defending World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The Series went seven games, two in extra innings, with Game Seven ending with local guy and former Louisville Cardinal Will Smith getting a solo home run and a game-ending defensive play. Toronto played some incredible baseball and while I'm obviously happy with the outcome, losing to the Blue Jays would have been no shame at all.

Our new/renewed convention went well. We hit the attendance goal and there was plenty to do. Two of my three scheduled games went off, both more-or-less successfully. Had some frustration with a player's decision paralysis, enough so that I started skipping his actions when he was taking too much time and cutting into other players' time. Didn't get to play anything because of my GM and staff scheduling, sadly. Going to rectify that in January - not GMing anything at that one.

The Dodgers have gone 10-1 so far in the postseason. Swept the Reds in the Wild Card, went 3-1 against the Phillies in the NLDS, and swept the Brewers in the NLCS. The team has been playing terrific baseball following the September slump. Shohei Ohtani in particular has been just incredible. Beyond incredible. He's damned near redefining the game.

Ran a DCC game for a buddy from the Outer Rim Heroes days and some of his friends last night. It was a good time, lots of cat-herding and chainsaw-juggling. Got paid for it, to my surprise.

I have a mighty need to get back to GMing regularly. It's been my chief creative outlet for years and not doing it has beat on my mental health.

The MLB regular season is over. LA took the NL West for the 12th time in 14 seasons, but finished with the worst record of the division champs, so they're hosting the NL Wild Card series against Cincinnati. Of course, I want the Dodgers to win another World Series, especially with this being Clayton Kershaw's final season. The postseason field looks good, overall. Let's see how the next week goes at the parks.

Helped out with a DCC Day bonus round at a new store in Versailles yesterday. Good turnout, some folks new to DCC. Ben P came in and it's always good to see him. Had a good post-game chat with the owner and the other Judge and we're going to coordinate some monthly-or-so game days there. I'm taking my NFL season break from SYR, and if we can set things up for Saturdays, that'll work out nicely.

After far, far too long, I got myself out to a baseball game Thursday evening. The Bats are not doing well this season (again), so I wasn't expecting much beyond just having a good night at the park. Low expectations paid off, I guess, because I had an absolute blast. Norfolk put up four runs pretty quickly - four solo homers in the first two innings; the Bats fought back, tying the game, but lost 5-6. Disappointing, a little, but the experience was good for the soul. Slugger Field is a great park, the small crowd was enthused, and the hot dogs were delicious. I gotta do this more often.

In other Louisville baseball news, the UofL Cardinals are going to the College World Series! They won the Super Regional this afternoon against Miami, getting hot when it mattered most. They ended the regular season badly and were knocked out of the ACC tournament in the first round. Swept the Regional, beating host and top-seed Vanderbilt, got the host slot for the Super, and went 2-1 over Miami.

Things aren't all sunshine and rainbows. Protests against ICE's bullshit out in LA have been declared "unrest" by that orange bastard and federalized National Guard troops were deployed early this morning. LAPD and LCSD declined to escort ICE operatives out of their raid in Paramount and that caused some drama - but, really, if LAPD is declining the opportunity to beat up on people, things are definitely off.

And at the moment, I'm watching the last few episodes of The Handmaid's Tale, so, yeah.

The Dodgers are the 2024 World Series champs! They won Game 5 last night, a banger of a come-from-behind win, final score of 7-6 after spending four innings down 0-5. I would have liked to have seen the win at Dodgers Stadium, but winning at the opponent's park is just fine.

The Trail game was not good. Had two players more interested in their Noo Yawk accents than pursuing the investigation that others were there for. It happens, I guess. Sometimes even Han Solo got boarded, sometimes even I run a bad game. On to Eclipse Phase in a couple of weeks.

Tried to vote around 9:30 this morning. Traffic around my first choice of sites was quite heavy, backed up a quarter-mile. I opted to run a couple of errands and try again elsewhere and had better luck. In and out in about 15 minutes. Poll workers said the site had been busy all day.

The site was the hotel convention space that used to host Conglomeration. I hadn't been in there since the last Conglom in '19. The mind's eye saw the registration table in the main hallway and the vendors' tables in the room where I cast my ballot. Sic transit.

Got the books. The Buick started acting up around Bardstown - lost power, as the dashboard helpfully let me know. Towed it back to Liberty and drove the Frontier back to Louisville early Tuesday. Swapped it out for the backup Impala Wednesday after work. Impala is behaving and will hopefully continue to do so.

The Dodgers are up two games to zero in the World Series. Freddy Freeman hit a walk-off grand slam in the tenth to win the first game. Game Two wasn't as dramatic, but Shohei Ohtani injured his shoulder trying to steal second and that's concerning. Ice Cube performed a version of "Today was a Good Day" to open the game, paying respect to Fernando Valenzeula at the mound.

Running a Trail of Cthulhu game at Slur tonight. Got three players so far, and that's enough to make things work. If people bail, no worries, I'll just go home and watch the evening NFL game.

Taking Halloween and November 1 off. Voting on Halloween, hopefully not for the last time. Going to Virginia on Friday to see folks and a museum and other stuff. I think this is the first vacation trip I've taken since late 2020 - conventions are working vacations, so I'm not counting them. I'm looking forward to the trip, and very much looking forward to not seeing clients and not being at work for those two days.

Sent out a couple of resumes last night. I've given the job the best shot I can, and it's just not working out for me. Time to move on. Again.

Got the Buick back yesterday. No cooling issues and with the hub replaced, it is so quiet at speed. I probably would still be using the Impala, but the shift cable started going out, so I rigged it well enough to get it to Liberty and dropped it off.

Had a couple of those moments during the round-trip yesterday when I thought Holy cow, I am driving through what's left of a hurricane. Helene has done a number southeast of here. Asheville is isolated, only reachable by air. NCDOT said to consider all roads in the western third of the state to be closed - I-40 washed out at the Tennessee-NC line. I don't know if this will directly affect my nebulous plans to go to Spencer in November, but I'm looking at a visit to Roanoke instead.

The Dodgers locked up the NL West again, and have home field advantage throughout the National League playoffs. Hopefully that'll mean more than it did last year, when the NLCS started and they just forgot how to play baseball. On the other end of the spectrum, the White Sox are finishing the season with 121 losses, maybe 122 depending on how today's season closer goes.

Gave Alien: Romulus another viewing. My complaints stand, but it's a much better movie than I gave it credit for on the first watch.

No-excuse early voting started today, and I exercised that right late this morning. I was darned close to going for a straight-ticket vote, but did cast my vote to re-elect our secretary of state. He's done a stellar job in the office, including promoting and expanding voting options, and he's pushed back against some of his party's excesses in the legislature. Those are good enough reasons to give him another term.

On the other hand, my vote for governor was about 75% for the incumbent and 25% against a useless AG whose campaign has been consistently dishonest and has relied heavily on the endorsement of Donald Trump and fucking fuck that sideways with a cactus. I'm hopeful that we'll be ride of Daniel Cameron come Tuesday evening.

I'm about as prepared as I can be for the little convention this weekend. Characters are printed and filed, as are the modules. I'd like to play something, too, and there are some good candidates. I'm looking forward to seeing some friends and getting some plans in place for 2024 events. Gods, I miss my friends.

The Rangers won the World Series last night. After 62 years and two World Series losses, I guess they were due. I didn't follow the Series closely this year, or baseball as a whole. Just a lull in my usual fervor for the sport. Football's got my interest for the next couple of months, then the long dead time of waiting for the next Opening Day.

I am enjoying Netflix's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners series to a surprising degree. The music, the characters, the attitude - it's hitting on all cylinders for me. My gods, there is just so much good stuff to watch now.

We only got a half-dozen or so sessions in, but our Cyberpunk Red game was going so well. I miss it. I want to spend time in Night City every now and then. I've seen postings for online games, but ... work schedule. Sigh. I've got to get into a better place.

Archon's coming up. Two weeks! I have to reprint some character sheets and make better versions of some handouts, but that side of prep is otherwise complete. I have no plans aside from hanging out with people I don't see enough and hitting up some panels here and there. I'm too old for abusing myself with tours of room parties, so that's out. Whatever. Except for the drive across the verdant desolation of southern Indiana and Illinois, it's going to be a good weekend.

The Dodgers are 99-44, won the division a couple of nights ago. Getting the season's hundredth win tonight would be nice, since that would start off a stand at San Francisco. There's a real chance of beating last season's 106-win mark.

Disney+ offered a month for $2, so, what the heck, I reupped for a couple of months. First thing I watched was Thor: Love & Thunder. My expectations were pretty low, and I really didn't enjoy it all that much. Tessa Thompson was great, and I liked Natalie Portman; the narration was unnecessary and distracting, just the director inserting further into the movie. Liked the soundtrack.

Now I'm watching Ms. Marvel. I only watched the first episode back in the early summer. Found it okay, but it didn't hook me enough to keep the subscription going. Second episode is much the same. It's good work, I mean; I guess superhero fatigue has hit.

Over on AppleTV+, I'm enjoying the heck out of For All Mankind and Tehran.

The front door lock stuck last night. Housemate spent several minutes standing out on the porch turning his key over and over again, expecting a different result somehow. I dove into locksmith YouTube this morning, found something relevant, and I think I managed to repair the lock! Let's see how things look in a couple of days.

The Dodgers are 95-43 this morning, comfortably leading the NL West. Best record in the Majors. Feels pretty good, with the acknowledgment that the postseason is very much its own thing. It would sure be good to see 'em win another World Series for Vin Scully.

NFL's regular season starts this afternoon. Still on the Ravens wagon, and I think I can catch part of their game before bedtime this afternoon. One more thing to dislike about the job - can't watch Sunday games. Or Thursday night games.

I had forgotten how very very naked and very very violent the first season of Altered Carbon is. It's darned enjoyable, though, and the first episode of the second season got things off to a good start.

MLB's owners and players came to an initial agreement today, so there's going to be a season after all. The well has been poisoned for me, though. I decided last week that I wouldn't renew my MLBtv subscription for the 2022 season; I have a very good NCAA baseball program and an adequate MiLB team here, so that's going to be my main courses of the game this time around.

After a Goodreads recommendation, I'm reading 36 Streets, by T. R. Napper. So far, a decent cyberpunk story set in a Hanoi dealing with climate collapse and Chinese occupation. So far, so good.

Job-hunting remains very nearly a job itself. I hate writing and rewriting and tuning resumes, and worse than those are the pointless cover letters or letters of interest or whatever they are. I'm not good at selling myself on paper, and it frustrates me trying to do it.

Weather heading our way tomorrow night. A few inches of snow, high winds.

Ryan B wanted some Armada time before Adepticon, so I put together a Rebel fleet for Friday night. I played reasonably well, had a good time with a fleet built around a MC75. I want to play that one more - it has a terrific set of firing arcs and hits hard when you get it into position. The escorting CR90s did good work, too; a pair of them worked over the opposing MC80 pretty well.

MLB can't get things together, so Opening Day is pushed back until whenever. NCAA and Minor League Baseball are moving forward, and I guess that's going to be my religious devotions this year. I'm not signing up for MLBtv this season - hoping that I'll be living somewhere else for most of the season, anyway.

I dropped Amazon Prime, too. I have enough to watch, more than enough, if I'm being honest.

I started watching Netflix's Cowboy Bebop. I never watched the anime - back when I could have, it would have meant watching with those kinds of fans, and, like I said when watching Evangelion via Netflix, even my self-loathing only goes so far. John Cho is terrific, and the rest of the cast enjoyable, but ... it's not very good otherwise.

Dad's selling the little plot in Logan County. He's going over there this week to close the deal, and then we can leave that place to the hearts and minds that live in those mountains, and those that serve or oppose them.

(Old Gods of Appalachia, y'all. If you're not listening to it, you're missing out.)

OGoA released a family meeting audio clip today, giving us a heads-up on the next season, some live shows, and the TTRPG. Details to come on the twelfth.

Houston roared back and won Game 5 last night. Games 6 and 7 are in Houston, and it is sure enough going to be a hostile environment for Atlanta.

Had a really good Friday evening at the game shop. Nine people there for X-Wing, the most we've had in a long time. I got in four matches, lots of chatting, just a good time.

Saturday, though. Wow. Couldn't get the energy to do anything. Barely left the couch. Didn't leave the house at all. Read, some PS4 time, got back into a Shadow of the Beanstalk project. Turned down a couple of invitations to go out, watched some movies.

Our GM's putting the MCC game on hiatus for a while, so that frees me up to put a 7th Sea one-shot together for a friend and her group. I haven't looked at the game for a long while, so let's see how this works out.

Atlanta is really giving it to Houston. They lead the World Series 3-1, and could win the whole thing tonight.

The Mariner had been making loud hole-in-the-exhaust noises for a while, and I kept telling myself to get it to a shop soon. Should have when I was in Liberty early last week, but didn't, and oh heck you know where this is going. Flex pipe let go just as I got onto I-64 Friday afternoon. Couldn't field-fix it, so called for a tow and got back to the house. Trailered him to Liberty Saturday afternoon, dropped him off at the shop Monday morning, and then Dad and I headed to West Virginia.

Lousy rainy drive, but worth making. We have a buyer for the plot. The deed has an assessed value, of course, Dad had a figure X in mind, the buyer offered 4/5 X and will have his attorney handle the details. Dad and I talked it over, and I think he's going to accept that offer. The buyer clearly wants it - he called Dad once on our drive back to Liberty after talking with his wife, and again Tuesday morning after talking with his attorney. Here's hoping!

Picked up the Mariner, he's quiet again, hooray!

LA lost to the Braves, 4 games to 2. Atlanta and Houston are tied 1-all, with the World Series going back to Atlanta for three games starting tomorrow night. Go Braves.

Made my first visit to a movie theater since the Before Times to see No Time to Die. Heck of a good movie, and I am really going to miss Daniel Craig's version of James Bond. Solid story, a callback to Dalton's Bond, and just good work all around.

Halloween's coming up this weekend! No plans, so I think I'll default to some good supernatural movies/TV and just enjoying the time.

LA beat the Cardinals in the Wild Card game, then the Giants in the NL Division Series. Things looked good, because Atlanta was a weaker team in the regular season. But, playoffs are very much their own thing, and tonight, the Braves are up two games to one.

As executor of a will, I now have an IRS employer number. Monday, I went back to Liberty to take care of some details on that front. Changed Mom's bank account to Estate of Mom, and moved the remaining money from her retirement account into Dad's. Dad and I talked about me moving back home for a while, and I'm giving it real thought. He can use some help, and gods know I'm not doing anything worthwhile up here. And there's an ongoing problem with my housemate's girlfriend that I am just fucking done with. There's something deeply, and I'm starting to believe dangerously, wrong with her, and I'm sick of being in the blast radius of her poison.

Dad, BTW, is on the road tonight. A short hop to South Carolina. I'm glad that he's working again; I'd rather it was under different circumstance, but life is what it is.

I think we have a buyer for the little plot of land that's caused outsized drama. If things sort themselves out, Dad and I will go over to Logan County sometime next week and close the deal, and then we will be done with that miserable place for good.

Roadside Picnic

Bright Ideas, Dark Futures

Cloud of Smoke

Day Job

A Million & One Things to Do

Nobody But You

Don't Listen to the Wind

East City Blues

I'll Need Someone to Hold Me

Wichita Lineman

Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man

Get Back

About Time

All I Ever Wonder

Danny's All-Star Joint

Crushed

Filtered Life

Cowboy Gospel

Persona Non Grata

Clearest Blue

Weird Science

Fast and Slow

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May 2026

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