Foot Update
Posted by nedster in Home Improvement, Injuries, Personal on 2009/05/22
As I mentioned on Twitter earlier, I am both relieved and slightly disappointed this morning.
My foot is slightly sore, only mildly swollen, and it has not turned any funky colors.
So it’s good that my injury doesn’t appear to be anything close to serious nor long term, I was kind of looking forward to a really funky colored foot this morning.
Even better, it appears as though this won’t have any effect on me being able to play in the double header on Sunday. One thing that does slightly scare me is that I might actually be called in to pitch part of the double header, not sure how that’s gonna go though. I’m just glad I won’t be in the batters box!
Ouch…
Posted by nedster in Home Improvement, Injuries, Personal on 2009/05/21
So this is a photo of my foot…
If you look closely you can see a nice big bump forming about halfway up the top of my foot… it’s light blue with some dark red specks all over it… but that is tough to see on a photo taken with a blackberry.
How it happened.
As many people who know me are aware, I am in the process of some major work being done in my yard in a massive landscaping project I took on last year that started out just as me widening my driveway and it has expanded so much further.
I built a wall out of used railroad ties, however the city had some issues with it and I have had some permit problems and had received a stop work order from the town.
Yadda Yadda Yadda… I now have a permit and can continue building my wall.
Well I decided to change the design of my wall through the process, so I have to take down the wall I had partially built in order to put in the new wall that was approved by the city to be built.
My roommate is going to help me, but tonight I was alone and went out to do some demolition of the wall. I am using the new 5ft pry bar I bought to separate the ties from one another. They are about 9 inches thick, 8 feet long, and are attached to one another with 12 inch galvanized steel nails, they weigh variably from about 300-350 pounds each.
I pry a few off no problem, then I go to pry off another one, and this is where it got interesting, I got 2 of the nails out and was down the end with one final push to get the last nail out and have the tie come down.
Well the tie rolled towards me, so I stepped back out of the way so that it it wouldn’t land on my feet. One problem however was the pry bar, it was in my hand and the tie fell and hit it. When it hit the pry bar it knocked it out of my hand.
Pry bar then managed to hit my foot, normally not a problem, except that the railroad tie was still on top of it, and was falling. While the tie was not on my foot, we can all remember physics class from high school and how all that stuff works.
So the accelerated weight of the railroad tie, was distributed along the length of the whole pry bar, but the problem was that my foot created only 1 of 2 points of contact for the pry bar. One end on my foot, and one end on the ground, unfortunately for me, my foot hurts more than the ground does.
So it hurt, and it hurt a lot. I yelled out a string of profanity that would probably make Quentin Tarantino blush.
Oh a light hearted note, my middle aged neighbor was standing at his garage, drinking his Busch Light after blowing any debris off his driveway. He looked at me, I looked at him and he raised his can as a hello and then pushed his electric garage door opener to close his garage, with him inside. So much for helpful neighbors, glad I didn’t cut a hand off or something with the chainsaw!
I am currently using the 2 sock and duct tape method to keep ice on it. One light weight sock to keep the bag of ice off my direct skin, and then a second larger sock to hold the ice in place, with the duct tape around it to put a little pressure to keep the ice firmly in place and applying cold to the foot.
I’ll repost a photo later if I get some nice funky colors that appear later.
I will be out working on my wall this weekend either way, only thing this really does is put my double header baseball games on Sunday in question… I hope I can play!
Welcome Back Youk and the Large Father!
Last night was a great game by the Red Sox.
The night started against the Blue Jays with the Red Sox sitting in 2nd place behind the Blue Jays by 2.5 games after a win the night before 2-1.
The rookie Cecil was pitching for the Jays and he was doing pretty well until the 3rd inning when Jason Varitek leads off the inning with a Home Run. Then Julio Lugo hits a double, gets to third on a bunt single by Jacoby and then scored when Pedroia hits into a double play. Followed up by Big Papi Ortiz striking out, the pit that is 3rd in the order continues to grow deeper.
It was a scary moment for Cecil though who laid himself out trying to catch the bunt popup by Jacoby. He landed really awkwardly and it was thought he might have injured his shoulder. As Eck said on the broadcast, it wasn’t a smart thing for a pitcher to try and do, but it was instinct to try to catch the ball and get the out. Fortunately he was alright and stayed in the game.
Boopie doopie doo… 4th inning was boring and then we come to the 5th inning. Jason Varitek is up at the plate to lead off the inning. POW, home run to lead off the inning for number 7 on the year.
Wait, What? Who? Jason Varitek just hit another home run? Jason Varitek is tied for 2nd on the team with 7 home runs for the season and it’s only May? Who is this guy and where was he last year?
So then things really started rolling after that. Lugo grounded out to 3rd, followed by a walk to Ellsbury. Pedroia steps into the box and drives a nice hard shot into right center for an easy stand up double while ellsbury tries to go first to home for the score. I am pretty sure he actually scored because I think the tag missed him, but with the angle for home plate umpire Marty Foster put him at a disadvantage, so it looked like Ellsbury was out. Pedroia then advanced to 3rd on the throw home.
So now Papi is at the plate and every stands up and gives him a standing ovation to show their support for him in this eternal slump that he appears to be in. Then… BOOM! He hits a home run into straight away center field!! The ball went over at about 370 feet! It may have barely made it over the fence, but who cares? It made it over the fence!! His first home run on 150 at bats dating back all the way to last year!! His teammates gave him the “rookie cold shoulder” when he went back to the dugout after trotting around the bases, but then surrounded him with hugs, high fives, and pats ont he head and back for the hit. He then took a moment to step to the top of the dugout stairs to wave his hat in thanks to the fans who were cheering him, even in the home run drought.
Why stop the train from rolling, right? Jason Bay followed him 2 batters later after a Kevin Youkilis single for his team leading 12th home run which sailed well over the Green Monster and bounced off cars in the garage accross the street. Then Mike Lowell followed up with a back to back shot over the left field fence as well which put the Red Sox in a comfortable 8-0 situation. Rocco Baldelli managed to hit a triple to left center but was stranded on base by Varitek who struck out to end the inning.
The game was a good one and the Red Sox have taken the first 2 games in a 3 game series with the Jays, I have high hopes for tonight in hopes of a clean sweep of the first series of the year. That would put the Red Sox 1/2 game off the Jays with 2 fewer wins, and 1 fewer loss.
Youk was back last night, went 3/5, and Lugo went 1/4 and is still above .300 with his average. Now if Lugo can keep this up and stop with all the on the field errors, then I might not mind him hanging around. I think he’s a good #9 hitter, so if he gets on base we don’t have a slow poke sitting in front of Jacoby who leads off the order.
I’m a Sucker For Woot
Posted by nedster in Entertainment, Purchases on 2009/05/19
I am a sucker when it comes to Woot.com, things are usually cheap and there are things I want on there way too often. My most recent suckering in was the Turbo Air Rechargeable Blower System by WD-40.
To be honest, I think this is going to be useful because I am sick and tired of buying canned air, and while I own an air compressor and such, it’s kind of a hassle every time I want to clean out a keyboard or the equipment in the livingroom or even out in the car cleaning up.
Also though, over the weekend prior to heading up to Vermont, I was successful in acquiring a Bag Of Crap from Woot and I am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival to see what I get in this fun and surprising package. There will be a post with pictures of all the fun stuff in the BoC when it arrives.
So I Setup and Tested the Wii
Posted by nedster in Entertainment, Fun, Opinion, Sports on 2009/05/19
Well, the Wii is definitely just as much fun as I have heard it is supposed to be. I got home last night, actually read the directions, and then setup my Wii in the livingroom.
My initial setup had the sensor put on the top of the TV, but then after I played with it a little bit I realized this was a poor placement for the sensor. I have my TV mounted above the mantle of my fireplace, and having the sensor on the top makes it a little tough to aim the controller and get a good reaction from it’s field of view. I moved it down and put it on my mantle and the action and responsiveness became much much better.
So I played each of the games in the Wii Sports once I had things setup.
First was bowling since it was the simplest. It was a little tricky the first couple throws, but then I started to get a hang of it. I scored a 132 my first game, and then a 143 my second game. I definitely have a slight hook to my throws, but the funny thing is that I have the same when I bowl for real. Easy to compensate for and even helped me a little for scoring to have the hook.
Next up… Tennis!
I didn’t explore all the options but I played 1 player tennis doubles. First match was just 1 game and I lost scoring only once. However, once I was done with that, I played a 3 game and a 5 game match and won 3-1 and 3-0 in those, so I think I have a handle on it.
Next up… Boxing!
This was fun, I only did 2 fights, but they were fun. I definitely move faster than the controllers can react, but it’s not too bad, the real trick was figuring out how to do different punches instead of just a jab. I won both fights by knock outs, one in the second round on the 2nd knock down(3rd overall) and one in the 3rd round(4th overall), I still don’t know how he got up so many times in those first two rounds.
Next up… Golf!
This was hard… I think it was probably harder for me because I play real golf than it would be for someone else. I played 3 holes(pars 4, 3, 5) and scored a 6, 5, and 6 respectively. It was fun but I also need more room for it to be a lot of fun.
Last up… Baseball!
Pitching was easy, but not til the end of the 3rd inning did I discover how to throw a curveball, and I know I need to read up a little more on what is what to get that down better. Hitting was a little weird because of the bat position, that may have been my fault though. Another quirk was fielding, that’s all automatic, and the fact that everyone in the field looks like a weeble is weird too, NO LEGS!! That game ended after 3 innings, with a score of 0-0. I almost hit a home run 3 times though, only to have it caught on the warning track.
Late Note/Edit: One thing that would make this a whole lot better to play would be having higher ceilings in my house, I think I only have a 7-7.5 foot ceiling, so it makes it pretty hard if I am playing tennis and go to swing with the overhand to slam it through to try to win the point.
2 Thumbs Up!
I’d like to give 2 solid thumbs up to the Sekonda Watch Company. I purchased a watch made by them in 2006 on my way home from Ireland with my leftover Euros that I just needed to get rid of instead of trying to get them exchanged back.
I love the watch and it treated me well for a couple years, but the band began to crack after about 2.5 years, so I stopped wearing it all the time for fear of it breaking completely.
Turns out the bands are made special for each model watch they make, they don’t use a standard band so I can’t just go into a store and buy a new band to put on it. On top of that, there are no dealers for Sekonda here in the US, which makes it even tougher to get a new band, or so I thought.
Last Tuesday I sent an email to their “info” email address and included a photo of the front and back of my watch, asking if they carried and sold the replacement bands for them still. I got an email back the next day with some contact information from the manager of the materials department who had identified which watch I had, and checked inventory and told me he had bands in stock, and how much they would be to have them shipped to me.
One 10 minute phone call later, I had purchased 2 bands from them via credit card over the phone, and then I followed it up with an email with my billing and shipping addresses, just in case there was a misunderstanding on the phone. They mailed them out that day(Wednesday 5/13) and I recieved them today(Monday 5/18).
I am impressed, like, really impressed! and it only cost me 23 Euros including shipping… which is somewhere right around $30 US. So $15 a band, which to me is totally acceptable considering I love the watch, and the bands were shipped all the way from England to get to me.
Now here’s the real question… Do I see how long it takes me to figure out how to install the new bands, or do I take it somewhere to be installed for me? I am guessing I will give it a hour before I give up and take it somewhere…
I Am Pretty Excited About This
Posted by nedster in Entertainment, Fun on 2009/05/18
I decided to cash in a whole bunch of my frequent flyer miles when I discovered I could get some cool things like a Nintendo Wii!! So I cashed in 45,000 of them last week and put in my order for a Nintendo Wii with the Sports Pack, and it arrived to my office today.
I expect that my night tonight will be consumed with Wii setup and exploration of the games it comes with.
Hello world!
Posted by nedster in Annoucements, Personal on 2009/05/15
Welcome to my blog and it’s first post. Does anyone have the Vegas odds on how long I keep this updated or how often I update it? I am putting the over under on 2 times a week for the first month, and then maybe once every other week after that. Then, after a year I probably won’t touch it except every 2 months at best, until I go nuts and do it daily for a short time and then go back into nothingness.
Personally, I am kind of shocked if you or anyone actually reads this… We’ll see though!
Game One Against the Pros
Posted by nedster in Baseball, Fantasy Camp 2009, Fun, Sports on 2009/02/08
So the games against the Pros go in order of the Championship team first, and then follow it down the line from there.
Gedman’s Bombers were the lead off team, they played well but managed to lose 1-0.
We then played the second game and lost 4-0. We pitched ok, and we fielded ok but the Pros are just that much better. We were lucky with the first inning we kept them to only 1 run. Butch Hobson scored on a bloop fly into right that I stumbled slightly while running in to get it before throwing it in, I think if I hadn’t stumbled I might have been able to throw him out at home.
That was when I felt the first twinge of pain in the elbow again.
Next batter was Chad Epperson, he never played in the major leagues but he is one big guy with a lot of power. He launched a high fly into right field where I was playing, I had to back up about 15 feet or so but I managed to reel in the hit to get the 3rd out of the inning.
I am not sure if it was being tired or sore or being dehydrated, which I still am even a couple days later, but my depth perception was all kinds of screwy on that catch, there were no clouds in the sky at all and the ball was kinda shimmying as it sailed through the air, I kinda prayed I would catch it and I was fortunate to do so and make the out.
Second inning came along and I was back in right field, they had a couple guys on base and U.L. Washington came up to the plate. So I shifted to closer to the line since he is a lefty hitter(toothpick and all). I then thought to myself, “Maybe I should be 10-15 feet back from here” but then as soon as I finished that thought there was a crack of the bat and I was right, I should have been about 15 feet back from where I was.
I took off running as best i could and with an outstretched arm I missed the ball by about 2 feet, it then bounced and rolled to the wall in right field. I ran, got the ball and chucked it in to the cutoff man and then let out a scream, both because I was annoyed for not being in the right position, but also because the pain I felt in my elbow radiated all the way up my arm and it made me wish I could just cut my arm right off to kill the pain.
They scored their 3 run maximum and the inning was over.
I was the lead off guy for the 3rd inning and I was in so much pain I had an absolutely horrible at bat against Walter Miranda who was pitching for the Pros. I swung 3 times and missed 3 times. Fortunately for me, all 3 were actually strikes so I didn’t feel too bad, but I just couldn’t get the bat around fast enough because of the pains in my elbow, hips, and groin.
I am 30 but I felt like I was a 90 year old guy who could barely walk.
Joe then grounded out, and then so did Steve to end the game.
I then went up into the visitors clubhouse and changed into street clothes after getting a nice big ice wrap for my elbow which was throbbing, unfortunately it wasn’t doing the complete job of soothing the pain, so I popped 2 advil, and then Phil was kind enough to give me 6 tylenal with codine. I took 2 and saved the rest for later if I needed them.
I watchehd a few of the following games because there were no shuttles back to the hotel until after noon, so me and some of the guys sat down on the first base line and watched the games while snapping some photos and meeting some of the wives and kids of our teammates. I also met Bill Lee’s wife at that point, a very nice woman.
It was at this point that the gift shop was opened and I thought about going to buy something for the players to sign, but I realized I left my wallet back at the hotel. Joe had already gone and gotten an oversized Red Sox License Plate, and he was having the players all sign it. I liked the idea and he was nice enough to spot me the money to go get one, and then I had the players sign it. I managed to walk through the dugout to get them all, and then got Joe Castiglione’s signature as well as Joe Morgan’s on my way out.
When I was getting Joe C’s he complimented my team again on the job we did in the Championship game even though we did not win. He couldn’t stop talking about how we made 4 double plays during the 7 inning game, and how we just missed making 2 more.
I don’t think it is a stat they track, but they might start to next year, we averaged almost 3 double plays per game for the week, we ended up the week with at least 20, probably closer to 25 by my estimates.
So then it got to be about 1, and I headed out to the shuttle and went back to the hotel, I was tired…
Camp is Over….
Posted by nedster in Baseball, Fantasy Camp 2009, Fun, Sports on 2009/02/08
Well, camp is now over. I was so busy that past couple days that I just haven’t had time to update this at all.
We spent a better part of the morning on Saturday over at City of Palms Park. When Joe and I woke up, we didn’t realize the schedule of the shuttles to get us over to the PDC and then to CPP, so we went downstairs and found out that shuttles were going over at 7:00, 9:00 & 11:00.
It was now 8:00 and our game was approximated to be at 9:30, but we are supposed to be at the park an hour before the game.
Hmmm, Are we going to get there on time? lemme shake the magic 8 ball…. “Outlook not so good”
Fortunately, while Joe called Bryan about the shuttle, I talked to the hotel shuttle and he said he could squeeze a trip directly over to CPP for us, which is good because me and Joe cleaned out our lockers at the PDC the night before and did not have to go back there at all. The other two guys in the lobby did though, but there were shuttles running from the PDC to CPP constantly, just not to the hotel.
So we get over to the game and get ready.
More to come later…