I'm back!!!

Okay, sorry for the hiatus. I'll run through the last few days to detail my goings on:

FRIDAY
Since my post last Thursday, I had the great fun of watching Davidson DISMANTLE Wisconsin in the 2nd half (remember that it was tied at halftime). I was just speechless as time wound down at the end of the game.

Also, Friday is the day that the Pirates finalized their spring roster. They decided to keep Rule 5 pick Evan Meek and send Sean Burnett down to AAA. It's a bummer because Burnett had arguably the best spring of any Pirates pitcher and his "stuff" is back. But, at the same time, he didn't have to clear wavers, Meek would have been returned to Tampa Bay per Rule 5 guidelines if he didn't make the team, and Burnett was always a starter so it's a good idea to let him try out the scenarios of relieving (pitching on consecutive days, multiple innings, warming up quickly) at AAA instead of the big leagues.

One other thing on Friday is that I had a chance to do a little side work with a company that I've worked with in the summers called Carnegie Learning. I know, insert joke here about teachers don't do anything over the summer. But, they are a math software and curriculum development company based here in the Pittsburgh area and I've used it in the classroom and I love it. With my engineering background, it's nice to have a summer transition job that isn't teaching. Over the last three summers, I've done software usability testing with students, QA testing to find bugs (we used a program called bugzilla!!!), and lately I've been doing correlations. What that entails is lining up the different sections of the computer software with the various state standards. It's a tedious job, but since I know the software pretty well from testing it and understand how standards work, it's a pretty good fit for me. Anyway, I put in almost 10 hours into that over the weekend too.

SATURDAY
We had our first track invitational of the year in the South Hills (called the South Hills Classic). I coach the jumpers (again, I'll have to explain that, but this is getting long already). I was pretty pleased with how things turned out. We had a freshman girl long jump over 15 feet and another freshman triple jump over 31 feet and high jump 4'8". It was cold & windy, but the sun was shining, so a lot of people had red faces by the end of the day.

Also, Beth ran a 5k and kicked some serious butt!!! She was the top female and ran 18:48!!! I better make sure I'm keeping my training going.

SUNDAY
Worked on Carnegie Learning, church, more Carnegie Learning and then Davidson. Boy, they almost did it against Kansas! I could tell my dad was so proud on Friday and today. Only down two at halftime and led part of the 2nd half. They let Kansas go on a mini run and ended up down 5. Steph Curry hit a 3 to cut it to two, but their last possession didn't go too well and Jason Richards ended up heaving a desperation 3 pointer. What a great run, though. And, with the exception of Richards and Sander, the whole team's back. We'll see what they can do next year.

MONDAY
Pirates opener. They won 12-11, but that's a blog of it's own with all the twists and turns in the game. Fortunately, they have off Tuesday, so hopefully I can post about the game later tonight or tomorrow.

Also, I actually did some training. Friday and Saturday I did about 30 minute runs. Sunday, I was busy with the correlations, so I cheated Roxy the dog out of a run and just walked her for 20 minutes. Monday, I went swimming with Beth and had a pretty good workout. I did 3x300 yd and then a 50 yd. The times were 6:11, 6:05, and I let it rip and hit 5:59. My 50 was then 48 seconds. So, my swimming has transitioned from TERRIBLE to just bad. Hopefully, I can acheive mediocre status between now and my first planned triathlon July 12.

Well, that's it for now, but stay tuned for the Pirates bullpen & bench writeup and the game writeup from Opening Day.