Friday, April 25, 2008

On the way to St. Pete

Well, I'm at the airport, waiting for my flight to Philly which will take me down to Tampa. I just talked to Beth and she's all settled in down there already (I dropped her off before school this morning). I'll be meeting Beth's parents at the Tampa airport and we'll head over to the hotel together. It's going to be a fun weekend. I'm looking forward to Beth's race on Sunday. I think she's ready for a great day!

I don't know where the week went. Well, I guess I do but here's a recap:

MONDAY

Both Monday and Tuesday were in-service days where we teachers get to meet together and learn about new technologies and strategies. Sometimes they're dull, but I went to some good ones this time.

TUESDAY

We had our section championship quadrangular and the girls ended up being back to back undefeated section champs. That hasn't happened since the mid-80's. On the jumping end, I was pumped to see a PR for a senior in the LJ (15'10") and other solid efforts by a few freshmen. The team playoff semifinals is next Wednesday

The guys ended up 3rd, but it's a tough section. They don't lose too many seniors, so they should be strong next year.

The rest of the week was a blur getting ready for the trip. I got a run on Monday and a swim on Tuesday (10x100yd - kept all under 2:00)with Beth before school and a run with Roxy the dog on Thursday. I notice that when Beth's tapering my training goes down also. Oops!

The Pirates ended up losing 6 in a row before coming back to win two before losing again. The starting pitching needs to get going. Not to mention Sanchez, Bay, and LaRoche. This team has the potential to be okay, but the problem is everybody needs to be doing their best to have a chance to contend.

Before I get on the plane, I'm going to grab some dinner. I'm a big fan of Qdoba and the closest one to our house is about 20 minutes away, so I'm going to take advantage of that here in a few minutes.

I hope everybody enjoys their weekend and I hope I get to meet some of Beth's fellow triathlon bloggers this weekend. Good luck to all who are competing!!!!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Packet possiblitites

Per Beth's blog, I posted our "packet" of maps and other preparations for the St. Anthony's trip here. Enjoy!!

Restful (sort of) Sunday

After a crazy couple of days, Sunday isn't going to be too bad. Friday night was two invitationals (I'll explain) and yesterday was another invitational. Lots of good stuff to share from those. The Pirates haven't won since that 8-7 record on Monday, and training's going well. Also, Beth's first race is this weekend in St. Petersburg, FL.

But, before I get to all that, I want to say that I really look forward to Sunday mornings. Beth and I have now gotten into a routine with her training that most Sunday mornings we have an hour-plus run (1:20 today) to start the day. While it stinks that we have to get up around 6am to get it in before church, it's a great start to the day (especially now that it's warm out). Then after that, we have about 90 minutes to get ready and leave for church. While Beth uses that time to stretch and eat breakfast, it gives me a chance to plop down on my computer and get ready in a really slow manner. Eat cereal, catch on the news/sports of the week, and not rush.

What makes this different than other mornings is that, with my 45+ minute commute and fitting in training in the morning, I usually rush in the morning. It's usually walk dog, workout swim or run (with dog instead of walk), come back, pack lunch, shower, read online devotional (sometimes saved for when I get to school), then drive to school and eat my bagel or cereal bar with OJ on the way down.

The other great thing about Sundays is just the chance to be at church with a large group and sing some great praise songs and do some reading and learning. Beth and I are big fans of praise & worship music. We also found out that Beth's fellow triathlon blogger Bree is big on it also. We exchanged some CD's through the mail found we have similar music tastes. I love listening to this Mega church in Oklahoma that records podcasts of their praise & worship. They have multiple sites and my favorites come from the Oklahoma City and South OKC sites. Some of my favorites are the ones from Dec 7 07 and Feb 17 08 from SOKC and March 22 08 from OKC.

Then, when we get home from church we usually eat lunch and read the newspaper and then take an hour (or more) long nap. That just sets the stage for the week! You feel well-rested then.

PREPARATION FOR ST. ANTHONY'S

On top of that, we're getting ready to leave on Friday for St. Anthony's. I started putting together my map packet last night. I'm a map nerd, so I make all of my own maps from yahoo and google, so they are of exactly what I want and they're only 8.5"x11" so they fit well in my pocket when I'm out on the course cheering on Beth. I'm sure I'll have more to share on that and hope to meet some of Beth's blogging friends there.


TRACK MEETS

On Friday there was a JV meet that our girls went to and a varsity Boys meet about 15 miles apart. I ended up going to parts of both of them, but spent most of the time at the JV meet. It's fun watching 9th and 10th graders beginning to develop confidence in themselves and see glimpses of the future team leaders they may become. There were lots of decent performances, but to pick one a 10 grade boy who ran (long story why he and another ran at this meet....) ran a 4:38 mile by himself with even splits (69-70-70-69). He also did this all by himself for the final 1400 meters, so very impressive.

Saturday, at the girls meet, the jumpers had a pretty good day. The freshman long jumper medaled with a 15'8" and the two triple jumpers were around 32 feet.

TRAINING

Friday, I went to the pool with Beth. She had a (relative for her) short swim of 1500yds, so I needed to be quick if I wanted to get a workout in since I'm about half her speed. So, I decided to just do a continuous 1000yd after 100 yd warmup and see if I could hold 2:00/100 yd pace. It didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. I think my shoulder was a little tired from doing my first softball fastpitch pitching practice the day before. But, I ended up 21:02 (2:06) pace and finished with a 2:04 on my last 100.

Saturday, I didn't get anything training-wise with the meet, but got a good two hours of yard work in when I got home from the meet. That's got to count for something--especially since my lawnmower isn't one of those self-propelled mowers....

This morning, 80 minutes on the trail at 7:50 or so pace.

PIRATES

They've lost 4 in a row. Maybe they can pull out the last one in Chicago and then they play Florida (only $25 million payroll) at home. But, at 7-10 it's starting to head downhill. Nate McLouth is still hitting great, though. Hopefully he can keep it up.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Math Geek

That was the label given to me by my dear wife in an email today. More about that in a minute.

-Congrats to the Pens for sweeping their first round series against an out manned Ottawa team. We'll see if they can keep up the aggressive play in the 2nd round. Opponent TBD.

-The Buccos sure didn't handle being above .500 very well (7-6). Since that feat on Monday they got crushed twice. In Tuesday's game Matt Morris looked awesome and crisp the first three innings, but came back to earth in the 4th and 5th. Wednesday night was another lopsided loss with some pretty shoddy defense. They need to pick it up defensively. They're off today and are in Chicago for a weekend series.

Workout-wise, I took Wednesday off and did a 25 minute run with Roxy this morning before school. Tomorrow, it's off to the pool with Beth.

This is the big weekend of invitationals. I'll give some updates later this weekend.

Okay, on to why I'm a "Math geek." This was an email exchange between me and a fellow calculus teacher today:

She sent out an email to the entire high school:

Dear All,

I left my second period calculus class out one or two minutes late. We were right in the middle of an extremely difficult intense inverse trig integral. :)


Please excuse the following students if they arrived to your 3rd period class a little late.

So, I sent back an email to her and the other calc teachers:

do you think the general teaching population knows what an intense inverse trig integral looks like?

She emailed back to me:

no... that's why I put it there? :) i seem smart now.

Ah, math humor......

I was also making jokes in my other class about an amateur-tractor vs a protractor (for measuring angles) and how 2:30 is the best time to go to the dentist (tooth-hurty!!!!)

I've got a million of those types of jokes. I'll try to remember to sprinkle them in from time to time as Beth rolls her eyes!!!!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

West Coast Swing

Monday night was one of the probably 10-20 Pirate games (out of 162) that I will miss in its entirety this season. I had a long weekend, watched the Penguin game (awesome to be up 3-0)and was out cold before the first pitch in LA against the Dodgers around 10:15. But, those battlin' Bucs came through again with a McLouth homerun in the 9th inning to go to 7-6 overall for the year.

As far as workouts, Beth, Roxy the dog, and I went to the trail on Sunday for a 90 minute run. Fortunately, she wasn't sick this week, so we had a really solid run averaging under 8:00 pace for the 11+ miles.

Monday, we went to the pool in the morning and I did 5x200 with descending rest again. My 200's were all around 4:00, so I was happy about that. Then, watched said Penguin game after school and practice. Boy, those Pens can score in a hurry. Crosby put in the goal pretty much off of the 3rd period faceoff and then Staal put one in about a minute after that. That changed the game from 1-1 and the Sens having a chance to only be down 2 games to 1 going in to game 4 to Pens up 3-0 in the series and just about wrapping it up. The Pens look MUCH more confident than last year.

This morning, 55 minute run with Beth & Roxy. It was a little chilly out which was disappointing since it's going to be such a nice rest of the week. But, I figured there won't be too many more of those mornings.

We had a track meet today against a section school and did pretty well. The jumpers had a solid day. Lots of PR's including two guys over 19 feet in the LJ and 3 girls over 15'. In the triple and high we had some solid performances as well. Beth always asks me how the mile went or how the 4x400 was, but at home dual meets I have no clue. My job is to get through boys & girls long & triple jump. It's a constant _____ up, _________ on deck, and ______ in the hole for three hours. I honestly don't really know how the high jump went, but heard we had some good heights.

This now starts the crazy schedule over the next month that goes something like this:
This weekend: Fri - Boys invite & girls JV invite; Sat - girls invite
Tues: Quad dual meet with section title implications
Fri-Mon: Florida for Beth's first triathlon of the year.

In the following weeks: Team playoffs (hopefully), individual qualifiers, team finals, individual finals, 2 jv meets, and one more invitational between now and mid-May. Then, hopefully, we'll get a bunch of kids going to states. That would be exciting. But, we'll see how things go.

Well, time to get some shut eye for the big day tomorrow.....but maybe I'll sneak a few innings of the Pirate game before I go to bed (they're up 1-0 in the 2nd inning!!!!!).

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Two in a row(?), Lost Dog, & Triathlon party

Well, the Buccos made the Jason Bay solo HR stand amid the hailstorm and lightning to win 1-0. Also the Pens went up 3-0 and held on to win 5-3 with an empty netter at the end. Tonight, the Pirates are up 4-3 in the 7th inning. We'll see what happens if they can put together their first win streak of the year. One interesting note is that Doug Mientkiewicz is starting at 3B tonight. He's a former gold glove 1st baseman, so we'll see what he does in his first major league start at third. Also, Nate McLouth is still doing great. He's 2 for 4 so far tonight and hitting .404 so far this year.

Other than that, pretty nice day. Roxy the dog and I went on an hour run this morning. On our run, we saw this little Beagle roaming the street. Roxy and the other dog exchanged sniffs, but then I wasn't sure what to do. The dog fortunately had a collar and it said 805 Horner st. We were in the next town over, so I didn't recognize the street name (I only know the major streets we run on). So I walked down a block with Roxy and the other dog followed, but couldn't find the street.

Fortunately, a lady was leaving her house and out to her minivan around this time and I asked her where Horner st was. She didn't know off the top of her head either (so, I didn't feel too bad about not knowing). She took the dog and loaded it in the minivan and said she'd drop the dog off. I offered to help, but she said she was fine. Roxy and I ran down the street and saw the location of the address a few blocks down. I went up to the house, but didn't see anybody. I assumed that the dog would be okay, though with the lady eventually dropping the dog off.

Next was track practice and then home for a triple decker PB & J to prepare for our Triathlon party. We ended up having two other couples over. One was Beth's triathlon friend Chad and his wife. He completed Kona last year. The other was my fellow math teacher and his fiancee (also a teacher). He's one of the math department crew who's going to do a triathlon this summer. In fact, he's going full in and has four triathlons scheduled!!! That's exciting to see him jump in.

It was fun watching the race that Beth competed in last November. I recognized some of the course and it was fun watching the finishes since I was out on the course cheering Beth on about two miles from the finish line. We also had some good triathlon talk and wedding preparation talk while eating Papa John's pizza!!!

Tomorrow, we've got a 90 minute run scheduled, church, and then we're going to pick up Beth's bike from the bike shop. They've taken care of us pretty well since we're not very mechanicaly inclined. Other than doing some grading and cleaning of the house, that's about it.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Pirate Loss = No Blogging

Not really....just a busy week with track and school and stuff. Here's a quick recap:

TUESDAY

Did a 60 minute run with Beth (Roxy the dog joined us, too). Normal day at school. Track practice was solid--a rotation of bleacher work, finding your "mark" on the runway board, and pop-ups into the sand.

No Pirate game (they keep the day after the opener free just in case the opener gets rained out so they save themselves ticket headaches)

Pizza night (DiGiorno style), so that was good. Grocery shopping and bed.

WEDNESDAY

Beth and I did a track workout: 800-1600-800-800-200-200. You can read details about it in her blog. It was a toughie!!!!! At track, it was a pre-meet day, so we got out of there kind of quick.

The Pirates went extra innings (again) and this time Phil Dumatrait gave up a few runs in the 13th after two scoreless innings. That was tough. I wish the offense would get it going a little more so it didn't come to the 13th inning. JBay and LaRoche finally homered, but they're still not hitting that great (especially LaRoche .129)

Also, the Pens were pretty physical against Ottawa and beat them up 4-0. Gary Roberts (42 years old) was a MONSTER!!!! We'll see how it goes tonight in game 2.

THURSDAY

I took the AM off from workouts because I knew I had a long day ahead with the away track meet. We couldn't have asked for a much better week of practice, so I was looking for good things. The jumpers didn't disappoint. Just about everybody had a 2008 PR. There were two guys over 18' in the LJ. Also, that freshman jumper who had the "down" on Saturday, had a BIG UP in this meet. She jumped 15'8" and had another that was further, but she fell back. HJ tied & set PR's on the girls side and TJ had a solid day.

The Pirates were the same old Pirates. Matt Morris had 5 solid innings, but got into trouble in the 6th inning. But, what is manager John Russell to do? The bullpen was SPENT from the last two extra inning games. So, out goes Morris in the 6th and with some hard luck and some hard hit balls the score changed from 3-2 Bucs to 7-3 Cubs. On a positive note, Evan Meek pitched two scoreless innings and struck out Derek Lee on this nasty 97mph ball in on his hands. Maybe there's hope for Meek yet......maybe.

FRIDAY

The end to a brilliant weather week. It's supposed to get a little chillier this weekend, but hopefully nothing too bad. No meet this weekend, but practice is still on albeit altered due to a 10k run at the high school.

I swam with Beth this morning and did 10x100yd with decreasing intervals 2:45 (2), 2:40 (2), 2:35 (2), 2:30 (2), 2:25 (2). I kept all of them around 1:58-2:00, so the rest was the remaining. I wasn't sure what type of results I would have since I didn't go swimming yet this week.

Tomorrow, we're having a few friends over to watch the TV coverage of the Ford Ironman 70.3 World Championship, which Beth competed in last November. It will be neat to see how the do the coverage even though we know who won. I wonder if they'll sneak a shot of Beth at some point?

Well, off to take care of some odds and ends and to see if the Pirates can finally win and if the Pens can go up 2-0 on the Senators.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Back under .500

Blogging two days in a row. Hmm, two days in a row....the Pirates haven't won consecutive games yet. It's been W-L-W-L-L-W-L to put them back below .500.

Giving up 7 runs in the first three innings is not a good way to win a home opener. 7-0 Cubbies was the score when I went down for track practice. In spite of this, somehow the Pirates managed to battle back and make it 8-8 in the bottom of the ninth when I got in my car to come home from practice. Jose Bautista inexplicably tried to bunt home Bixler from third base with one out in the bottom of the 9th to no avail. So, the game went on to the 10th, 11th, and 12th. Capps pitched solid in the 10th and 11th, but he couldn't go a third inning.

So, cue the last pitcher remaining in the bullpen. Rule 5 pickup Evan Meek. This guy has promise (about two years from now), but per the rules the Pirates must keep him on the Major League roster for the whole year or else they give him back to Tampa Bay. So, in he comes and the results were predictable - walk and stolen base, walk, wild pitch, intentional walk and before you know it it's 10-8. You feel bad for the kid since he's never pitched above AA before, but he just needs to relax and throw some strikes. Oh well. We'll see what happens Wednesday. At least the weather was beautiful and they fought back.

Beth told me tonight she's glad when we get to the point that I throw in the towel on the season (usually betwen Memorial Day and Father's Day, maybe to the 4th of July) so I don't get so emotionally involved with the game every single night.

In the NCAA finals tonight, I hope Kansas wins big, so Davidson can say that they gave the Jayhawks their toughest game.

Also, the Pens start their hockey playoff run on Wednesday against Ottawa. I'm not a big hockey fan, but I love watching playoff hockey when it's tied or a 1 goal lead in the third period in the playoffs. The guys just lay it all out on the line. We'll see if the Pens can get past the first round.

We got some good work in at track today. I set up a 100 yd relay on the turf with some vertical jumping exercises. They ended up going 10x100yd with about a minute or so of recovery between each one. They also needed to go to the soccer goal and do 10 jumps where they touch the cross bar. Tomorrow will be jumping power day and run throughs, Wednesday pre-meet with pop-ups and run throughs and Thursday a meet on the road.

Beth's feeling better, we may try to go running tomorrow morning if she feels well enough.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Buccos come home .500

(Note: If you're not a baseball fan, skip past Pirates report to read about my workouts and the track invitational Saturday)

After Friday night's walk-off HR by Mike Jacobs and his Saturday Grand Slam to put the game out of reach, I had feared that the 2-3 Pirates may not see .500 again this year. Consider they've failed to reach the .500 mark at year's end SINCE 1992, I have reason for my concern. But, they came through today with 6 strong innings from Ian Snell (10 K's, 0 BB's) and timely hitting from the entire order to win 9-2.

Now about that batting order, Jon Russel did the right thing by sitting Bay and LaRoche. After last night, I thought for sure Morgan would be in there for Bay with a righty on the mound (McLouth moving over to LF). But, when I heard that LaRoche has been battling a bad thumb, it made sense to sit him down, too. He sure looked ugly and frustrated flailing at some pitches on Saturday night.

So, despite not having Bay, LaRoche, Sanchez, and Wilson in the starting lineup, they managed to get some timely hits and ended up scoring 9 runs. The game wasn't on TV here, but the radio announcers hypothesized that had CF Amezaga not made an amazing catch, Sanchez could have possibly had an inside the park pinch hit GRAND SLAM (giving the Bucs 13 runs). Overall, they were pretty solid today and Florida again was striking out a lot (double digit K's in the last two games).

So, coming back to the 'Burgh for the home opener at 3-3 isn't all that bad, I guess. They'll be facing the Cubs and Reds, so we'll see where they stand relative to their division foes.

So, some of the highs and lows from week 1:
Lo: Bay & LaRoche combining for 0 RBI's
Hi: Nady & McLouth had great weeks and carried the offense

Lo: Matt Morris, Maholm, and the bullpen giving up crooked numbers
Hi: Snell, Duke (yipee!!!), and Maholm (other than the grand slam) looking solid and the bullpen (especially Yates and Capps) is coming around

Lo: Jack Wilson on the DL and Sanchez's shoulder is still bugging him.
Hi: We'll get to see what Brian Bixler (2nd round pick from 2004) can do and Rivas and Gomez have been solid with the bat (although not really with the glove).

So, we'll see what week 2 has in store. It's supposed to be in the 60's here all this week, so hopefully it will allow for some good baseball. Gorzo will be pitching the home opener against Ted Lilly and the Cubs.

WORKOUTS
As far as workouts, Beth took off Friday, so I did too. Saturday, I was bad and didn't get up early enough before leaving for the track invitational and only walked Roxy. Today, Beth, Roxy the dog, and I set out for an 85 minute run on a trail by our house, but Beth wasn't feeling good and we stopped at mile 3 to turn back. On the way back, we walked a mile, jogged the 2nd, and then walked the third. I felt bad that Beth wasn't feeling well, but was really hoping to get a good workout in since I had been lazy the last few days.

So, when we got back to the car, I told Beth that Roxy and I would run home so I could get in more mileage and because Roxy's paws/legs/underbelly were muddy & dirty. It's about a 4 mile trip, but with a HUGE and LONG upgrade to start out (I just clocked it on a map program and it was about 1.3 miles up). It took Roxy and I about 10 or 12 minutes to get to the top. But, once we got there, it's a steady gentle downgrade just about the entire way home. So, if you're keeping track of the exercise, it was:

3 mile run, 1 mile walk, 1 mile jog, 1 mile walk, 4 mile run with a CRAZY uphill to start out.

TRACK MEET
At the track meet Saturday, all the big dogs were out. A kid from my alma mater jumped 46' in the triple jump!!! My jumpers had a decent day. My TJ guy PR'ed by a foot. My two girl TJ's were right around 31' (good for them this time of year) and the one HJ got in the top 8. The fremshman LJ had an off day, but she's a freshman and I told her there would be ups and down and to just make the meet on Thursday an "up." We've got a dual meet against a team in our section. We should do pretty good and I'm looking forward to getting numbers on all of the jumpers in the various events.

So, that's about it. It's off to the pool tomorrow morning, so I had better get to bed.

Have a great start to the week!

Friday, April 4, 2008

PB & J Bagels; Pirates are 2-1!!!

First of all, I'm hooked on a new food--peanut butter and jelly on a bagel. I don't know what it is about that combination, but I LIKE IT!!!! Also, on the weekends, I like to make Triple-decker PB&J's. On two of the slices, I put the PB. Then, on the third slice I put the jelly (strawberry or grape). Place the jelly slice jelly-down on a PB side and then place the jelly on the exposed side. Place the top PB slice on and voila!!!

Also, the Pirates won last night. The bullpen looked MUCH better. X Nady keeps on hitting (including tonight, too), so maybe he can be traded for prospects.

Tomorrow, we've got our 2nd invitational of the year. This one was only enter 2 per event. I was conflicted because I've got multiple triple jumpers on the girls side I would have liked to take, but I went with the veterans.

Tomorrow's supposed to be a little warmer than last Saturday. Beth's pumped to get outside and ride her bike tomorrow.

We got the Butler YMCA triathlon application in the mail today. I'm excited about that and I'll be sure to make copies of it for my fellow teachers.

Okay, back to the Pirates. It's 4-4 in the 8th inning. J Bay and LaRoche have stranded a combined 6 runners and struck out four times. They need to get it going. Good thing Nady and Doumit are hitting well to begin the year. Also, McLouth keeps playing great defense and solid hitting.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Swim/School/Track/Dinner/Pirates/Bed

This sequence above summarizes my basic schedule for most of the school year. You can substitute in run instead of swim or XC instead of track, or some other sport other than Pirates. The other thing that tightens the schedule is that I have a 45 minute commute to and from work that is > 1 hour commute on the way home right now due to construction. There's just not enough hours in the day!!!

But, I'm home and relaxed and doing a little blogging while I watch the Pirates.

As far as workout today, I went to the pool solo. Beth had her Masters swim down at Pitt. Keep in mind that before November, I had never seriously swam. I never had goggles. I was scared of the deep end of the pool until 9th grade swim class. I'm terrible!!! But, I'm slowly improving (albeit very slowly).

Also, not coming from a swimming background (mostly running) I don't really subcribe to the traditional training all the time--especially since I'm training specifically for a triathlon swim and never plan on doing a swim meet. So, no pull buoys, paddles, kickboards and the like. Since I'm tight on time with my commute, my swims are usually only 1000-1500 yds. Also, I probably give myself too long of rest intervals. One other thing I like to do is continuous swimming instead of repeats. I like to have the confidence that I can go longer distances in a respectable (at least for me) pace.

So, today, I did a 150 yd warm up and then my goal was 1000yd as close to 2:00/100yd pace as possible. I did a decent job on my splits:

1:55, 2:01, 1:57, 2:00, 2:01, 2:04, 2:09, 2:10, 2:09, 2:06, for overall 20:35 (or 2:03 pace). I set PR's in the 600 through 1000, so I guess that's good. I'm definitely a work in progress.

The triathlon I'm doing this summer is the Butler YMCA triathlon. Beth won it a few years back. It's 400 yd lake swim, 12 miles on the bike (I like the short bike since I don't currently have a true road bike--just a walmart 10 speed), and a 5k. I'm hoping to go pretty low on the run, but I'm fearing what it's going to feel like after swimming and biking. I've also enlisted some of my fellow math department members at school to join me. I think there are 4 or 5 out of the 15 in the department planning on doing it (plus a guidance counselor and maybe a science teacher). That's pretty cool.

Well, that's about it. The Pirates are up 2-0 in the 5th. Zach Duke's looking pretty solid so far. He's had some great defense behind him from McLouth and up the middle with Wilson & Sanchez. Time to go watch some more of that.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

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.