September 2010 Archives

Took some vacation time and had a 4 day weekend with the family.

We went down to Corpus Christi and stayed in a condo I found from the interwebs. It was actually pretty decent, and the location was great.

We went over to the USS Lexington, the Texas State Aquarium, and then the Padre Island National Seashore.

The mosquitoes were brutal just about everywhere we went except for the seashore. You could get a half-dozen bites in seconds.

The beaches and water had a lot of trash.

A tropical storm came through the week before, so I'm not sure how much that had to do with the mosquitoes and trash, or if it's always like that.

All in all, we had a pretty good time.

My wife and I signed our boys up for tee ball, and my neighbors signed up their boy too.

My neighbor agreed to be the coach, but Tropical Storm Hermine canceled our first practice and he couldn't make this week's practice.

So, I had to coach our first practice.

I have to confess that I'm a big uncoordinated guy. I never played baseball or any sport requiring more than strength. Football, hell yeah (lineman). Tennis, forget it. So, I really don't know much about baseball other than what you can pick up from watching it as I've never played it.

Coaching was actually pretty fun, but somewhat futile. The kids range from 3-5 years old and you have to repeat yourself 10 times and even after getting their attention they don't do what you say. Even if they do "get" what you are trying to tell them, well, they're little kids, not elite athletes.

I'm not the most talkative, or authoritative person, so it was kind of interesting being in that role.

Given that I had no experience, no plan, and didn't even know who my players were, I think things went as well as could be expected.

I kind of enjoyed it actually, maybe someday I can coach football or a shooting sport, something I know about.

Loaded up the family and went to Schlitterbahn this weekend.

Traffic on I-35 is nuts. Actually, the traffic moves pretty well. It's the drivers that are nuts. If I put on my signal, I'm trying to get out of your way. Flipping me off and acting like an idiot doesn't help your case any.

Anyway, I was impressed with my boys. They rode some of the "scarier" stuff and kept wanting to go again and again. It was fun, but my poor feet aren't used to all that walking on hot concrete though.

They have this tube ride where you ride around a circular path with some waves occasionally. I kept thinking it would be better with some umbrellas and pina coladas. I could stay in that thing all day like that.

I guess you could call the trip the family truckster's shakedown run for our upcoming trip to the coast. It rides great. The phrase "rides like a Cadillac" gets thrown out way too much, but it does ride nice and smooth with just a little sing from the all-terrain tires. It appears to be getting better mileage on the highway too.

Spent the majority of the weekend working on the family truckster again. Replaced a number of things that were wearing out and made it a little less soccer mom looking.

Then I spent a few hours at the dealership having some maintenance done.

Anyway, I'm sore and sunburned from all that work. I did manage to sneak in a dove hunt though. I got 2. Yay.

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