Beer-A-Mids Softball

Two weeks ago I joined a Pearland softball league, the Beer-A-Mids. Back in May I played in a tournament with Dannenbaum Engineering (you can find the old post) and met some folks that set me up with this team. We play down in Independence Park in the heart of Pearland. It’s where Debbie and I play tennis (when the weather isn’t 100+!!!!). Each week we play two games, anywhere between 6:30PM and 10:30PM… One of the funnier elements of our league is the beer fines, something none of the other teams I have played on have. If you strikeout it’s $3, if you pop out its $2…other fines for double plays, last outs of the inning, etc. It’s pretty funny…striving NOT to make the last out for instance!

Anyways, the first week we split the two games. I went 2 for 7 overall, with one hit in each game and a pair of RBI’s. I blame the heat, my recovering ankle (from the sprain), and well, the layoff! Ha…no excuses, it’s beer league softball, I just didn't do so hot! Not to mention, I ended so many innings and such, I raked up $8 in fines from the first week! What a crock! Carrying a 0.286 batting average into the second week was cool and all, but I had my redemption. I went 7 for 9 with 6 RBI’s last week, capping off the night with a HR, two doubles and a 5 for 5 second game. Again we split the night…winning and losing one. Playing .500 ball right now, but I think over the course of the eight week season, we will compete for the title. Maybe…

All in all, the new softball league is a lot of fun, with a great group of guys. Plus, I am really enjoying getting out there and playing. Since my baseball career never happened, this is as close as I’ll ever get…beer league softball! I’ll update later today or tomorrow how tonight goes!

I PASSED!!!

Last night I found out that I PASSED my Professional Engineering Licensing exam! It has been a long and hard process, but I was able to pull it together and finally achieve a passing score! I owe so much gratitude to Debbie for helping me stay focused and study even more than I had in the past. We curtailed so many things, it was not only hard on me, but hard on her. She played such a big role, with her support and belief for so many months!

We went to The Melting Pot, our celebratory restaurant, to celebrate her birthday and my exam.

All in all, it was a great day...and long awaited!

Happy 25th Birthday Debbie!!!

Today is Debbie's 25th Birthday!

I don't know why the calendar has to go screw things up this year...usually it falls on a weekend for her. With the wedding and all, there's no trip this year to Atlantic City or Vegas with friends or family...oddly enough we've hit two gambling spots for her birthday. That's a funny coincidence. Instead it'll be home with me and kitty. Hmmm...looks like the short stick this year. :-)

Aside from work and the heat and Texas (and all that comes with it...no offense Texans or those that are fans of the state), it'll be a great day! Dinner out, then cake. I made my best attempt at a birthday cake, which upon further review may not make it up on the blog. It surely was built (baked) with less art and class than those the birthday girl produces! I don't know why Duff (Ace of Cakes) makes it look so easy. It's anything but!

Let's all wish Debbie a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy 8th Gracie Lou!

Tomorrow, Gracie Lou turns 8!


Gracie is my pug that lives with my parents, or as they call themselves, her "adoptive parents." My mom always sends me these funny pug articles, clippings, etc...and yesterday we received a box with all sorts of goodies (including Debbie's birthday presents...hint, hint...her bday is MONDAY!) Anyways, back to Gracie...and pugs in general. So check out this clipping she sent (I cropped it out to only the pug)...


Notice anything? Okay...how about another crop and flip:


Ha! Nearly 60 pound pug! Hahaha.. Anyways this is for all those who think Gracie (and Robo for that matter) are a little chunky! They are a mere fraction of this!

On another note, "The Proposal" comes out in the movies tomorrow. Fitting for Gracie's birthday, considering she was named after a Sandra Bullock character. (Not sure if I should admit that...but oh well!)

Yes...this was a brainless post...but I thought I'd share anyways!

Phoebers

My cat in St. Louis has always had a vengeance against men in general, but over the years Terence seems to have worked his way into Phoebe's heart. He is so proud of this he wanted me to post the cutest pic of her...

Doesn't she look so fluffy!

Party planning crazy!

So besides planning our Wedding and festivities for October, I have also been planning my mom's 50th birthday party!

My mom turns 50 this year, so we are celebrating her birthday by throwing her and my Aunt Connie a big birthday party in St. Louis on July 11th. My mom and aunt are twins and they share a lot of friends, so it only makes sense to throw a birthday party for the both of them!

My sister, grandma, uncle, and I started planning this surprise party, but with Christine and I coming in from out of town it would just be too much to make it a surprise, so we told them. I think they are really excited to get to see everyone so much this year! This week I have been finalizing the guest list for the party and tonight I am working on the invitations. I used left over card-stock from wedding/sorority crafts and cut them into 4.25 x 5.5 using my paper slicer. I had left over envelopes from ordering the save-the-dates so I got to use those up. Overall I think the are pretty cute, especially for making them practically free!

It was my sister's idea to send out extra cards with some fun questions. The idea is that everyone can think of funny stories and we can share them at the party, then put the cards in a scrapbook with pictures from the party!

I liked the idea of a golden 50th birthday party, so I bought all these gold plates, cups, decorations, candles, etc. Now I am on the hunt for some classic 60's and 70's music to play during the party. My uncle said he can get out some of his old lps, but didn't have anything to play them on...too funny Anyone own any oldies, not on records?

And of course I practiced a little calligraphy skills on the invitations, hopefully by the time I have to address the wedding invitations my skills will have picked up a bit!

P-O's

We finally booked out rehearsal dinner for the wedding! I have been struggling with this picture I had of the rehearsal dinner and we just couldn't find anything that fit. We wanted something really casual for all of our family and out of town friends to join, like a clubhouse with a taco bar and margaritas. It turns out you definitely need to live somewhere to rent a clubhouse! We checked out my mom's old work caterer at Bellabrations, but it was just a little too much like our wedding and no taco bar.

So after realizing we had to go to a restaurant. We thought about some of the restaurants in downtown St. Charles and one of the best options was Pio's, an italian restaurant only 10 blocks from the church. We love italian! After bothering their catering manager with hundreds of questions, we came up with our guest list, wedding party and out-of-town family, and booked it! I think I started freaking out that we won't be able to find anything because they told us they were booked every Saturday and most Friday's in October already. AND it turns out there is a major event going out in St. Charles this weekend (you'll hear in an upcoming post) and I didn't want to end up a long ways away from the church! 

I am relieved that we booked it, thanks Terence. I think it will turn out to be a great night, you know that looks good!

Busy weekend...started by a lot of smoke!

It was a busy weekend that started off quite eventful. Friday night Deb and I were making Pad Thai when the nonstick coating on our wok decided to burn up. It was a borderline fire full of smoke throughout our place! Some hot oil even spilled on the kitchen floor, courtesy of my evasive (and stupid), maneuvering of the wok. After an hour or so of fanning the place out, cleaning, etc...Deb and I went up to BJ's for dinner...we came home to an interior temp in the 80s and a lot of cleaning to do. I don't need to go into all the details, but we have eliminated (mostly) any hint of the smoke...except in some of the cabinets....

Saturday and Sunday were boring as Debbie had to work. In her words, "stupid shuttle," as it didn't launch. Had it launched, she would have only worked Saturday, but she ended up working both days...capped off by a 7am to 6pm day today. How great... I took care of wedding stuff (yup, me!) and honeymoon reservations yesterday and today. It was actually a lot of fun...Aaron let me borrow the first 4 seasons of The Office so I could watch them all again. I am into the third season as of now. It is soooo funny! I recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it!

Lastly, earlier in the week I emailed Hills Science Diet about Midnight's infamous stardom in their Feeding is Believing campaign. Well, they sent us the actual document! She is featured on two pages in the Oral Care pamphlet!!! Everywhere we go we are going to look for it and find more...that was pretty exciting!

All in all, it was a productive and funny (due to The Office), weekend. Had Deb been around it would have been even better...stupid shuttle. :-)

Hold up gas prices...for a few more months at least!

With the price of oil steadily rising, it is good for the oil industry (and subsequently my work), but not for our pockets. Gas is up to $2.35 here, which I definitely won't complain about considering it was up towards $4.00 last year. However, now that crude is above $65 per barrel, we may end up not being so lucky on our honeymoon cruise. As of now, they say that because of the economic crisis and market the surcharge won't be reinstated. That's for now...let's keep our fingers crossed through October!

Saw this on a cruise message board (cruisecritic.com) and thought I'd post also...

Here's to throwing Tamara under the bus! :-)

In searching through my computer I found another video for the "memories" series... It's of my sister, Tamara, taken back in 2007 during a visit to New York. Of course the Kadlec's have such awesome dance skills, which is shown in the video while YMCA played during a Yankee game...


But even though I have thrown her under the bus, I must thank her for sending new photos of Cesilie and my mom.


Here's a better shot of Cesilie sporting her Mickey ears...how adorable!

Birthday Friday...a success!

It was a fun night that started over dinner...and extended into the early morning hours of Saturday. I am going to have to get my hands on the pics from the night...Chris was hilarious mocking nearly everyone dancing. But aside from that, we celebrated 6 birthdays with some good fun! Today Debbie and I are dragging, but we have accomplished much...watching three movies and getting ready to head out to the movies...

Funniest part was in The Day the Earth Stood Still. The movie...crap. But there was a part in the movie when all these scientists are gathered and are finding out what they all have in common..."I'm a Astrobiologist, Chemist, Geologist..." etc etc. I made the joke to Debbie, "what about a civil engineer?" Literally two seconds later the last guy goes, "I'm not a scientist...I'm a civil engineer." It was too funny. So far, it's been a great Saturday...plus Deb is making cookies right now...yay!

Ten Cent Beer Night! (A great idea 35 years ago in Cleveland) (& More)

Yesterday marked the 35th anniversary of the genius marketing folks with the Cleveland Indians. With the promotion double the people showed up to see the awesome Indians (to put it in perspective, the tribe hasn't won a World Series since 1948...so you can imagine they were just as bad as they are this year!). Cheap drinks led to everyone getting drunk, getting violent, and eventually a forfeit! Oye. You can read about it at:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=beernight/080604

Anyways, tonight Debbie and I are headed out for a "Six" party (not quite the real name), as we are celebrating six birthdays in June...Debbie, Carol, Jenn, JR, Hilary, and Will. After dinner at Chuey's we are headed over to The Ginger Man, in Rice Village, for some good beer and fun.

Lastly, today I did some refresher training at the Houston Area Contractor's Safety Council. In the course, they say, just after a slide about what forklifts are, "this training does not qualify you to operate a forklift." Really...what kind of idiot thinks one slide makes them qualified...wow.

Scrabble Scores...

So, I was a little off in my blog yesterday regarding Scrabble scores. I was cleaning out my padfololio and found all of them. Looks like my mom only beat me by 27 overall...not bad considering. Not sure what our overall, all-time record and scores would look like...but I'd imagine we are about even on both!

Game 1:
Mom 280, Ter 251. Mom by 29
Game 2:
Mom 299, Ter 185. Mom by 114 (ouch!!!)
Game 3:
Mom 287, Ter 277. Mom by 10
Game 4:
Mom 303, Ter 292. Mom by 11
Game 5:
Ter 242, Mom 176. Ter by 66
Game 6:
Mom 191, Ter 190. Mom by 1 (Are you kidding me!!!)
Game 7:
Ter 182, Mom 145. Ter by 37
Game 8
Ter 326, Mom 311. Ter by 15
Game 9 (we played this game with a mere 15 minutes until we had to head to the airport)
Ter 290, Mom 270. Ter by 20.
Overall:
Mom 2262, Ter 2235. Mom by 27...oh so close!

Thought I'd share the scores...

(I have ommitted the two scorecards that were left in the box...they were from Debbie when we last played. She beat me twice! But for some reason, she doesn't want to play just me. Perhaps it's my competitiveness...?)

Back from St Louis...but pics from my parents visit...

Back home now...what a busy weekend!

Last weekend we had my parents here and I said I'd post some pics, so here we go:

Here is kitty and all the toys (8 balls) that my parents brought her...they are all over the place...under the couch, the table, the bed...thanks mom and dad!


My parents sporting their dairy hats at Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham, Texas. Following the tour we went to downtown Brenham for lunch and some shopping...


On Friday night we went out to Cafe Red Onion up in Houston. Debbie and I found it by recommendation and have never been let down. They are a latin fusion restaurant...the chef is from Honduras. Our Honduran guru, Leslie, is a big fan too!


And of course there was Scrabble. Mom and I played 9 games. She won the first 4! Then I was able to win 4 of the next 5. Unfortunately, I fell short for the weekend series winning 4 of 9. Good job, mom!


I won't use excuses, but come on! Check out these letters I had! Funny thing is over 9 games only 35 points separated us when you total up all the scores. That's a mere 4 points separation per game! Mom beat me by 1 point once, too. Totally love my Scrabble time with mom...we both look so forward to it!


Lastly was dad and kitty...they became buddies. Dad always seems to find himself on the floor, whether laying with Gracie at home or Cesilie...for some reason he's always on the ground in photos. Kind of funny. Anyways, after my parents left, kitty was super whiny...pushing around her toys waiting for us to play with her. Not that we don't, but she definitely received a lot of bonus from my dad!


All in all, it was a great visit!