.: bistan.net :.

I took a little heat, on Facebook and at work for the last post. I certainly wouldn’t have posted that video on YouTube if Tristan had been injured.  So to make amends, here is a typical Saturday in the life of Tristan.

10:00 AM: T-ball game.  Tristan batted twice, scoring once.

5:00 PM: After riding 1.5 hours in the car, then sitting through a long country wedding, Tristan dances with his sister at the reception.

7:30 PM: After eating a fabulous amish dinner at Yoder’s, but right before feeding a goat, Tristan kisses the goat.

Don’t worry, Sunday will be just as busy. We’ll relax next weekend.

Last night, Tristan and I went “mountain biking” on some vacant land in our neighborhood.  Half of the land is county-owned and the other half is the remnants of a defunct subdivision, thanks to the economic crisis.

We had a great time, until Tristan had a spectacular wipeout, as seen in the video below.  It was his first time on the “hills” on a big bike.

This is one of those things that he will laugh about later.

Every Easter morning as a child, my mother made my sister and I stand in front of the house in our fancy clothes for a picture. I used to hate it. Eventually I refused and I always swore that I would never subject my kids to such foolishness. But then, apparently, I got old.

Easter 2010

Easter 2009

Easter 2008

My kids, unlike their parents, love to get dressed up.  Maybe it’s because we don’t force it on them like it was forced on us.  This year, we didn’t even buy “Easter clothes”.  In 2008 and 2009 Tristan wore the same pair of shoes and in 2009 and 2010 Mackenzie wore the same pair.  No rosy background this year.  We pruned them to promote new growth.  And look in those pictures at how much weight Monk has lost in the last two years. (I’ll save a Monk update for a later post when I’m in more of a creative zone.)

Now I see why my mother did this to me!

I hope you had a Happy Easter as well!

Tristan had the first two t-ball games this week.  The games are SO much better than the practices.  They are shorter and more interesting.  In the first game, his team lost but in the second game they won.  Tristan scored twice.  We are so proud of him.

Below are a few photos from the two games:

To my loyal reader(s), don’t worry.  This blog will not become a play-by-play of the t-ball season.  I’m just not that interested in it.  I have, however, included a short clip of one of his hits below.

I think I sent Tristan’s t-ball schedule to most people who might be interested, but let me know if I missed you and I’ll send it along.

I temporarily removed the previous post (Why I Hate T-ball) until I had the chance to add this one. I was a little harsh on the coaches and other parents.  Not all of them are like I described.  Many of them are very nice and giving people, unlike me.  After all, they are putting in several hours a week to make the experience for my child.  They should be commended for that.

I was just mad about having to fundraise for the little league organization because I don’t like asking people for money and I don’t like being asked for money.  I was also mad about the fact that we still haven’t received a schedule and the games start in 2 days.  I also exagerated some Lizella stereotypes to add humor to the post. Again, there is nothing wrong with the coaches or other parents.  They are just different than me.

I’m not making this apology post out of fear that one of them has read or will read my blog.  That’s very doubtful.  I just felt I needed to right a wrong.

Hopefully the next post will be more positive (and therefore not about t-ball). It’s also been a good while since I’ve included pictures and/or video.  Let’s see if I can change that.

About a month ago, I blogged about Tristan trying out for t-ball.  Let’s just say that the whole experience has been less than fun.  Here is why:

T-ball should be a learning experience for kids who are interested in trying out a team sport or learning the game of baseball.  Unfortunately, it is not.

When it is 40 degrees outside and the wind in blowing 30 miles an hour, practices should be cancelled. Unfortunately, they are not.

There is no praise for the kids.  No “Good Job, Tristan”.  Nothing.  Just screaming non-stop at kids who don’t even understand the game.  One kid ran off of the field when told to “Run home”.  Tristan walked around in circles when told to play shortshop because he was never told where or what that was.  No explanations, just expectations.

The “coach” coaches a “kid-pitch” team as well, so he’s at the field at least twice as much as we are.  That’s how much these folks love little league.  For me, it’s just one of the “balls” that I juggle.

Speaking of balls, Kimberlie and I are the oddballs at practices. To fit in better with the other t-ball parents, I would need to do at least a few of the following:

• Get a blue-collar job.  So blue-collar that it would borderline red-neck.
• Trade my CR-V for something that consumes much more gas and has much bigger wheels.
• Get a trophy-wife who is a stay-at-home-mom or who works a dead-end job.
• Give up grocery shopping. Apparently all necessary food can be found in the woods.
• Preserve the unetible portions of said food and display them in my home.
• Grow facial hair and a beer-belly and get lots of tattoos.
• Start smoking and communicate using more colorful language.

I’ve discovered that little league system has been designed to nickle-and-dime you.  We paid $110.00 for registration, thinking that would be it.  It included the hat, shirt, and socks and I was to provide the pants, cleats, etc.  No problem.  Then they decided that they needed an additional $5.00 to have the letter put on the back of the shirt.  If every kid is required to pay that, why not just include it in the registration fees?

Yesterday, we were handed ten BBQ plate tickets and told that if we didn’t sell them all, our name would go on a list for everyone at the ball park to see. What???  If it truly costs $150.00 per kid to run the ballpark (for the entire 3 months of the year that it is operational), then charge us $150.00 up front.  Or give us an option to pay more instead of sell BBQ plates.

I told Kimberlie we should consider quitting now and we would only be out $35.00.  We paid $115.00 but we could then sell the $80.00 worth of BBQ plates and pocket the cash. She wouldn’t go for it.

Thankfully, I never had dreams of retiring early thanks to a professional-baseball-playing-son.

Two weeks ago, we signed Tristan up for t-ball.  Then we bought him a glove and a ball.  Basically, we dropped $130 on baseball, but my child can’t throw, can’t catch, and can’t hit.  It really was stepping out for me to sign Tristan up for something like this.  I hate committments, so I’m not looking forward to sitting at practice or the ball field several nights a week.  But I also thought it might be good for him to be part of a team.

Yesterday was tryout day. We were concerned that we wouldn’t know anyone, but we ended up knowing four others:

Tristan’s best friend from his old day care (who he hardly sees anymore)
Tristan’s best friend from his current day care (who no longer goes there)
A classmate from Tristan’s preschool
A classmate from Tristan’s current kindergarten class

And to make it even better, we know (or have met) their parents as well.  Let’s just hope he ends up with one or more of them on his team!

Here we go again. I blog about how I resolve to blog more. Then I make about 3 blog posts. Then you don’t hear from me for a few weeks. Then I make an excuse about why I haven’t been blogging and then I resolve to blog more.

I guess that means this is the excuse post. Let’s see . . . I’m swamped at work, swamped with class, and swamped in my personal life.

Work: I won’t bore you with the work stuff.  I doubt you care about Windows 7 imaging and Drupal modules anyway.

School: It was stupid to commit to doing this masters degree in the first place. My first masters degree didn’t get me anywhere, yet I sign up for another one. My classes this semester are Object Oriented Programming II and Advanced Graphic Design. “Advanced Graphic Design” is what Mercer calls a video game programming class when they want employers to pay for it.  Since my language of choice for the program is C#, I’m developing a game in XNA Game Studio 3.1.  I have a project in OOP2 due next week on secure code and wikis and a project in the game class due the following week on 2D game programming.  My game is pretty sweet and when I compile it, I’ll publish it here and you can download and play it too!

Running: My heel is still freaking killing me.  I can barely walk when I get out of bed in the mornings. I only ran 7 miles this week, but I need to knock out at least 5 tomorrow to exceed 70 miles for the month.

Personal life: We signed Tristan up for T-ball.  That should be interesting. I’m not particularly looking to spend 3 nights a week at a ballpark, but we want to get him involved in something.  Kimberlie is now up to 60 – 70 hour weeks so I have the kids by myself in the evenings for a while.  She works with two other Occupational Therapists.  One is in Africa for a month and the other just went out of maternity leave.  And then on Monday, as if we didn’t have enough going on, her mother died.  After this week, we are both certainly looking forward to a new week.

Pictured above is the Star Student from Mrs. Hiland’s kindergarten class at Heard Elementary School. Finally!

I’m so proud, that I’m completely overlooking the fact that there are 20 students in the class and it is week 19 of school.  And I’m overlooking the fact that the teacher likes me right now because I did photos of all of the kids during Cookie Day.  And I’m overlooking the fact that this is a short week of school (and even shorter for Tristan).

No family blog is complete without a photo of the kids with Santa, so here we go.

I’m not exactly sure how the birth of Christ translates into Santa or Black Friday Sales or the Jonas Brothers or messy cookie-making kids, but it sure is fun, so we’ll take it!