Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Last night I went to Richmond to watch the Richmond Braves, the AAA farm club of Atlanta. I went with my father-in-law and some friends. The game itself wasn't all that great - it wasn't well pitched or high scoring, although Richmond beat the Durham Bulls 2-1. To love baseball is to love the history of the game, and I got to see two great players from my childhood. The first base coach for Durham was Gary Gaetti, who played mostly for the Minnesota Twins, although he did end his career with the Red Sox. Gaetti played in the 1987 World Series, considered one of the greatest ever. Practically next to him, playing first base for Richmond, was none other than Julio Franco. You can't be a baseball fan and not respect Franco. He's 48, and has been playing in the majors since 1982 (I was 7!) He has so much passion for the game, he went to the minors so he could continue playing. Other than that the only real highlight was a runner getting picked off first base. He was nowhere near the bag it was just too funny. It was reminiscent of that scene from Major League where Williw mays Hayes tries to steal and stops a good foot away from the bag. ("Missed it by that much!") Hopefully next time, I'll be able to catch a game when they play the Bisons or Red Wings.

Green Valley Book Fair

In what has become one of my favorite things to do down here, my wife, daughter, and I went to the Green Valley Book Fair, a discount book outlet that has a huge selection of books for cheap. It's only the third time I've gone, but I love it. My goal each time out is usually the same: find one spiritual/religious book I can read during Adoration, and one book to read for fun. This time around, I picked up Pop Goes Religion, a look at spirituality in pop culture, and Spaulding's World Tour, an attempt to spread baseball throughout the world in the late 1800's. For this particular trip, we spent about $30 on 10 books, mostly children's books for Victoria. We also spent another $15 on a stuffed bear and raffle tickets to support the American Cancer Society, which had a table out side the entrance. It was a good trip, and I'm very thankful we had a chance to go again, especially since the place was air conditioned.

Adventures In IT #4: Dinosaur

Some people are very attached to their computers. I understand this, and to a degree I respect it. However, sometimes you need to learn to let go. Recently an older gentleman brought in his computer for repair. It was a Pionex 486. Now the computer geeks among you now what nature of beast I get to deal with when I say "486". He's had this computer since 1993, which makes it ancient in computer years.

To put it in perspective, here's an incomplete list of components that are currently obsolete:
*
5.25" floppy drive

*serial mouse port

*turbo button

*16MB memory sticks

How this thing lasted so long I'll never know. The only reason he brought it in was because the CMOS battery had finally started to go. I hope I can get this running, for no other reason than to see if it's running Windows 3.1

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to my good friends Jen and Chuck! They've been married 8 years, which seemed like a long time to me until it dawned on me that I've known Jen (and by proxy Chuck) for 13 years. Anyway, a happy and blessed day for two great people! Congrats!

Happy Birthday Meredith!

Today is Meredith's birthday! 27 years ago, my wife was born. Victoria and I made her breakfast in bed, and later today we're going out to dinner with her parents. Happy birthday, Dear! I love you!

August 17th Takes A Breather

Few people know this, but August 17th is a special day in the Keppel household. It was August 17, 2005 when I moved to Virginia, months before our wedding. On August 17, 2006, Meredith and I found out we were going to be parents. That's two significant life-altering events occurring on the same day in back-to-back years. I couldn't help but wonder what could possible happen this year.

Absolutely nothing.

Not that I'm complaining. Tomorrow is a much more important day anyway.

An Unexpected Slumber Party

My in-laws are coming over to spend the night. They have well water at their home and they just discovered it has gone dry. Apparently the pump used to give water to the horses wasn't shut off properly, so now they have no water for dishes, showers, etc. Hopefully they won't have to dig a new well, as that would cost a few thousand dollars. Throw in the fact that their AC went bye bye recently, and now they get to spend a luxurious night at the Hotel Keppel. Maybe I should put a mint on the air mattress?

Victoria Update

It's been awhile since I've written about Victoria, and since she just had a checkup yesterday, this seems like an opportune time to catch everyone up.

The doctor said she's right on schedule developmentally. She only gained a pound since last month, but the doctor wasn't too concerned about that. She currently weighs 11.5 lbs and grew to 24.5 inches long. She's doing everything a normal 4 month old should be doing - grabbing things, sitting up, cooing, laughing, etc. She's even started teething already!

The doctor suggested starting her on cereal, so today Victoria was fed her first "real" food - a watery bowl of rice cereal. Yum! She naturally was a bit apprehensive about it, but we managed to get a few spoonfuls in her mouth.

I think I've mentioned this before, but for that past month, she's been sleeping through the night. I cannot tell you how wonderful this is. The trade off, however, is that she fights taking any daytime naps. When she does fall asleep, usually on mommy or daddy, any attempts to move her to her bed result in loud cry. I've started comparing it to diffusing a bomb - one wrong step, the slightest noise and BOOM off she goes. Still, for a solid 8 hours of sleep it's worth it.

Hopefully, in the near future I can get her MySpace updated. I've been so bad with that since she's been born...

Augusta County Fair

Just got back from a evening at the county fair. It was alright, just like every other small county fair I've been too. The outing was actually a part of Meredith's job. The place she works for took some of the teens out for the opening night of the festivities. Everyone got to bring a friend, and I was Meredith's.

The evening started with my wife and I driving in a van with 5 teenage girls. I couldn't help but feel I was getting a glimpse of my life 13+ years from now, when I'll be driving around teen Victoria and her circle of friends. Let me tell you, I do not miss all that high school drama! The girls were well behaved at least.

It was my first trip to this particular county fair, and I was generally unimpressed. It was maybe half the size of my hometown's county fair, and I was never impressed with that one either, to put it in perspective. They had a few rides which were your run-of-the-mill stuff - you spin, you twist, you drop from a safe height, etc. (Although I was rather impressed with this one young lady who was on a ride called the Tornado who proceeded to text on her phone while spinning around at dizzying speeds.)

The food was rather disappointing. The funnel cake, a favorite of mine, seemed bland, and the lemonade was little more than sugar water with half a lemon in it. It's fair food, so you shouldn't expect high quality, but when you shell out $14 for two cups of lemonade (with refills), I prefer not to suck down pulp and seeds.

The highlight for me was the fireworks display, which was pretty good considering everything else. Then again, when it comes to fireworks, I'm easy to please.

If nothing else, it was a nice distraction from the ordinary weekday night. And although it was way to expensive, my wife was on the clock, so we pretty much broke even.

We're Moving To Springfield!

OK, not really. But I can now share with the world what my family and I would look like if we did. Unfortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to see the movie yet. But as many Simpson fans know, you can convert yourself into a Simpsons character. For fun, my wife and I uploaded photos to see what we'd look like.

Here I am! It's a pretty good likeness if I do say so.






Here's Meredith! Again, a pretty good likeness. I can't complain!










And here's little Victoria! Unfortunately, this looks a little too generic. It doesn't capture the cuteness that is my daughter.

Jazz In The Park

One of the great things about Staunton is that there is usually something going on. On Thursdays during the summer, they have free jazz concerts in the park near where I live. Meredith and I had been planning on going for some time now, but something has always come up to change our plans. This week we finally got to go. We met up with one of Meredith's friends and her family and enjoyed a cool night of music by the Jennifer Kirkland/Bert Carlson Quartet. Surprisingly, Victoria was quiet and well behaved. She sat on my lap most of the evening and just took in the music and all that surrounded her. It was a fun night, and hopefully we'll be able to go again before the summer ends.