Category: Baseball

Nana Sitting Again

My sister isn’t available this week so it’s just me and my brother alternating nights. I have tonight and Saturday night to go before she comes back and we return to the once every third night rotation. Hopefully not for much longer, but I still don’t know.

My brother, John, said last night was really bad. It sounded like it was as bad as it gets. I’ve only been here for an hour and so far so good. Not that that matters. When it goes bad it always comes out of the blue. Wish me luck.

I’m hoping to mix a song or two tonight while pretending to watch the Red Sox and the Yankees. No score in the second. I just gave my mother her dinner, and the meds come in about half an hour. Hopefully I’ll get some work done after that.

Fingers crossed for a night that is quiet health wise, yet noisy and rocking (in headphones) 50/90 wise, and victorious Red Sox-wise.

Stanley Cup Finals – Game Four – First Intermission

The nightmare is coming true. After one period, Montreal has a 1-0 lead. Granted it’s one period and they are down three games to none in the series, but speaking as a Boston fan who saw a team come back from down 3-0 in 2004 and saw another team lose after being up 3-0… Let’s just say any inkling of positivity for The Canadiens hurts my soul.

Let’s get it back, Lightning.

Thursday Night

I’m Nana sitting tonight. She seems okay, but she’s up and about and usually when she’s up an about around 10:00 it’s because she’s having a rough time. We’ll see.

I’ve watched two episodes of Black Summer. So far season two holds with the better episodes from season one. No clue what’s going on. Characters have names but I have no idea what they are. Zero character development, zero actual story, just segment after segment of super intensity. It’s stressful. I wish the episodes were shorter. You need a break from the tension, you know?

Tonight is game six of the Montreal vs Vegas playoff series. The Canadiens are up 3-2 in the series and up 2-1 in the game. If ever there was a time for Vegas to morph into the greatest hockey team ever, now is the time. The Canadiens cannot advance. They. Cannot. Advance. Come on, Vegas. Get your shit together.

I’ve been flipping back and forth between the hockey game and the Red Sox vs Rays game. No score in the bottom of the seventh and the Rays are threatening. I am not sure what the story was, but Nick Pivetta had a no hitter going in the bottom of the sixth and they relieved him with two outs and one on (via an error). What was the deal with that? Was he hurt? Was he on a pitch count? What the hell, bro?

So Far So Good

Tonight’s a parents’ house night. My 24 hour shift started about an hour and a half ago. My brother was here when I got here and he said it was a pretty quiet day. Yesterday was a nightmare and I wasn’t here for any of it. Will the universe give me a shit day tomorrow to even things out? Goodness, I hope not.

I got them leftovers for dinner and I got them their 8:00pm pills. Apparently my father is supposed to have eye drops with his pills. I didn’t know that, and I didn’t give them when I was here on Sunday night/Monday. I guess now I know, and knowing is half the battle, right?

Dad is watching the Red Sox. They are losing to the Astros. So Major League Baseball seems to have a new cheating scandal brewing? Spider Tack? You heard it here last, just remember that.

I’ve got the Bruins radio coverage on my phone. Like a shit head I forgot my AirPods again. I have a set of ear buds that have a lightning cable and I have a pair of Bose over the ear, noise cancelling cans to use with my computer. I’m going with the ear buds with one ear open. I don’t want to use the Bose because I want to be able to hear if one of my parents calls me. The Bruins and the Islanders are tied at one in the second period. I need, need, need a Bruins win.

Shit… the Islanders just scored. We’re losing 2-1. Shit.

I had something else I wanted to write about. What the hell was it?

Don’t get old, kids. It blows. It’s better than the alternative, but sometimes it just blows.

Go Bruins.

The MLB App Pisses Me Off

When I’m working at home I like to stream audio from my iPad to the HomePods in my bedroom office via AirPlay. Podcasts, music, sometimes radio, whatever.

The exception is baseball games. The MLB app for iOS lets you stream radio broadcasts for every game from every team’s local broadcast. If I use the speakers in my iPad it generally works all right. If I stream it to the HomePods… Not so much.

I set the iPad to AirPlay to the HomePods, then I open the app and connect to the Red Sox, WEEI broadcast and it doesn’t stream. It plays through the iPad speakers. Why? It also screws up the user interface so that switching back to the iPad (even though it’s actually coming through the iPad speakers) isn’t easy to do. You have to do a couple of extra swipes and taps before you can reconnect to the actual device that is already working.

A few process kills and a reboot and some magic tricks and eventually I get the app playing through the HomePods. Except that it isn’t. Instead of the live radio broadcast, which was streaming fine a second ago, it is playing television highlights from NESN. When I switch to the Boston Spanish broadcast it’s fine. When I switch to the opposing team’s radio broadcast it seems fine, when I switch back to the WEEI stream it’s NESN again.

I switch from my iPad to my iPhone and everything works fine. Thanks a pant load, MLB.

Pre Game

Is everyone psyched up for the Bruins game #2 with the Islanders tonight? The NHL iOS app says that game time is 7:30pm so… 7:50ish maybe? I’m not sure how much, if any, of the game I’m going to be able to catch tonight, but guaranteed I’ll be keeping an eye on things.

I’m wearing one of my Bruins t-shirts. I wore it on the last two game days (yes, I washed it, sheesh) and they won both games. I’m not sure if that qualifies it as a “good luck shirt” but I ain’t taking any chances. I also haven’t shaved since before game five of the first round series. I don’t know if the idea of a playoff beard being good luck extends beyond the locker room, but why take the chance? Granted, there is no way in hell that I’ll keep the fascial hair as far out as game three. It’s doubtful that I’ll shave first thing in the morning tomorrow, but it’s also very likely that I will shave at some point tomorrow. The itchy… it’s just starting to drive me nuts. I’ll fight the urge tonight, purely in the interest of hanging on to the home ice advantage, but after that the team is very much on its own.

The plan tonight is to get out of Mom’s and get home as fast as humanly possible, thought I may not have enough gas to get there. We’ll have to see. Then once I am home we spark up the grill and sneak a Memorial Day cookout in at the last minute. Sunset is 8:15 and I don’t think it’s raining anymore. After that it’s time to start loading up the Mazda for the drive up and over to Vermont tomorrow. Tentatively, Jen will go up with Bellana in Bellana’s car, and I will follow by myself. Once we’re up there and the car is unloaded, we’ll head over to Target (the nearest big store) and pick up some last minute apartment supplies. When that’s all set Jen and I will head home together and I will see my depression level increase from “alarmingly depressed” to “fuck it, I’m not getting out of bed depressed.”

Go back to all of my posts from August 2019. Bellana going away to college messed me up. This is effectively the same scenario, but for some reason it is soooo much worse this time. I think part of it is just the word “apartment.” It’s an “apartment” instead of a “dorm room” and that makes a world of difference. The other part is that August 2019 will be literally repeated in August 2021 when Harry goes away to school. That’s not a partially empty nest, that’s the full boat.

Don’t get me wrong, I am prouder of both of them than I could ever express. I love them so much. I can’t imagine any parent loving their kids as much as I love my step kids, mostly because I love them so much I feel like I could explode and I can’t fathom someone actually surviving while feeling something more than that. I want the best for them, I want them to have it all, I want them to succeed, I want them to have the time of their lives in the prime of their lives. There’s just a part of me that selfishly wants them to stay home with us forever, that’s all.

Okay, calm down. It’s going to be okay, Rob. It’s going to be all right. Let’s just distract ourselves from the near future by watching the Red Sox. They are losing 4-0 to the Astros. Hey look, both teams that cheated their way to a recent world series are playing each other. Hardy har har. If the Red Sox lose today, does that mean that cosmically there is space available for the Bruins to win? The universe is so screwy.

Game One Loss

I listened to the first period on the radio and I watched the overtime. The Bruins lost to the Capitals in game one of their best of seven first round play off series.

I fear that the reason they lost a game where the higher seed’s goalie left injured in the first period might have had something to do with me wearing a Red Sox t-shirt instead of a Bruins t-shirt. It’s possible on some cosmic level that I messed things up. The Red Sox beat the Angels 9-0 so maybe I accidentally sent all of my super powerful red head vibes to the Red Sox when I meant to send them to the Bruins?

I’ll do better for game #2 tomorrow night.

Go Bruins.

Lunch Break

I’m a little late with my lunch time musings today. I’ll keep it shortish.

My step daughter is heading into final exams soon. I remember college finals. I don’t remember them as happy experiences. Good luck, Bellana. We’re going up to Vermont next week to help her move out of the dorm. I should exercise before we go. I’m going to need all the prep I can get.

My step son is taking an Advanced Placement (AP) test today. I never took an AP class in high school. You know what AP is, right? You take an advanced class in high school, then at the end of the year you take a standardized test on the subject. If you score high enough, the class credits count toward your college degree. Cool. He took an AP Physics test last week that lasted four hours. Can you imagine? I think he has three more, counting today’s. Here’s hoping it’s less grueling than last week. Yikes. He graduates from high school in a month. That sound you hear is me bursting with pride.

My mother has had the TV on all day. She watched a little of the Red Sox game on NESN last night and hasn’t changed the channel. They just aired a documentary on my first baseball hero, Carl Yastrzemski. Triple Crown in 1967… three batting titles… 400 career home runs… 3,000 career hits… first ballot hall of famer… and zero World Series titles. He had two cracks at it and lost in seven games each time. 1967 against the Cardinals. 1975 against the Reds. If only we could turn back the clock and get him that ring. Of course, if we could do that we would have to do it for Ted Williams too. Sometimes the universe just drops the ball.

Okay. It’s 2:00. I just gave my mother her meds. Time to wrap this up. Talk to you later, folks.

Good Things

The Bruins are beating the Devils

The Red Sox are smoking the Tigers

There’s a new Star Wars show on Disney+

There are new episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale

I get to see my father tomorrow

I closed all three activity app rings

All good things. Looking for bright sides everywhere.

Sunday Morning Thoughts

I’m up and showered and ready to face the day and all that. I went to sleep at about quarter to one am. I woke up a couple of times before waking up for good at about quarter to five am. My AppleWatch tells me I failed to reach four hours of sleep. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t do it. Early to bed tonight, I guess.

Two WordPress.com items of note:

  1. I have recently gained a handful of new followers here. That’s nice, right? They all have the same profile image. Well… that’s not good. It doesn’t appear to be porn spam, which is nice, but it does appear to be spam of some kind, which isn’t good.
  2. What’s up with stats? WordPress.com has a stats page that keeps all sorts of information, including page view counts and unique visitors, sorted by days, weeks, months, and years. There is also a page called insights which is supposed to be like a summary page. I noticed last month that the view counts on the insight page were off. Not just for that month, but for a whole bunch of random months over the life of this account. I found this off putting because the analyst side of my programmer/analyst brain likes digging through the stats. I was hoping it was just a bug in the calculation and WordPress.com would fix it. Nope. It seems to have gotten worse. Yesterday I checked the stats just before midnight. I had a healthy number of views for the day (thank, folks!) and given that it was the first of the month the day and month counts matched. I went to insight, which defaults to monthly counts, and it gave me a big goose egg of a zero. Huh? Sometimes it takes a few seconds to update, but it never did. I checked the stats again just before starting to write this post and I had one view for the day. I checked insight and it showed one view for the month. It basically skipped yesterday. What the hell, bro?

What else is going on? The Bruins won yesterday, They are a point away from clinching a playoff spot (I think) with five or six games left to go (I think). Color me cautiously optimistic. The Red Sox lost last night. They play in Texas again this afternoon. I thought the Rangers avoided day games at home, but I guess it’s still early enough in the spring that they won’t bake the players and the fans in the afternoon heat. Speaking of fans, the stadium was full for last night’s game. I guess Covid’s over, right? Texas says so. I hope they have contact tracing available for the thousands of folks who went to the game as an outbreak is pretty much inevitable.

Dad called a few minutes ago. He’s hooked up to an IV. Antibiotics, I’m sure. He said he thought he was going to have physical therapy this morning, but how can he do that when they have him plugged in? The hospital has limited visiting hours and you have to make an appointment ahead of time and you can only make one appointment per week. I’m going Wednesday. I haven’t seen him since January. I’m looking forward to a visit. Once again let me put my vaccination to work.

Happy Sunday, everyone. Can’t wait to go home and see Jen and Harry. Until then, I’m trying to make the best of it by writing really long, boring, uninformative blog posts. Cheerio, all.