Mischievous Ramblings II

Baseball Season is Over!

Kiernan's Little League season ended yesterday with the second loss of the playoffs. Frankly, I think we're just as glad. Fewer full evenings and weekend days. We have a team dinner next week and then we're done with this level of ball. Kiernan says he wants to play Juniors next year (that's for 13-14 year olds, and 14 year olds have the option of playing up in the Senior league instead).

So today I finished up all the pictures I'd taken and not processed or not uploaded, plus I did a few of the better ones more carefully (my usual procedure is to let Photoshop process images for the gallery, because hand-tweaking 150 pictures per game just isn't possible for me) and put them up. I thought I'd include thumbnails and pointers to them here:

You Know You’re A Redneck If…

You Know You're A Redneck If... from Lady Bunny Blog is just incredible. Besides the pictures, notice Lady Bunny's self-description: "I'm a Southern transvestite showgirl and I love pudding and owls!" The mental imagery is just frightening!

Thanks, Lady Bunny, and thanks to Sara for sending me this.

Friday Sugar Glider Blogging

Houdy snuggles down into the cushions of the couch and watches Sara use her aluminium Powerbook. Apparently the light on the power plug fascinates him.

I Think This Is Good

I'm probably not the best judge of my own work, but I like this photo. I like the dirt caught in the air, I like the catcher's expression (you gotta hold your mouth right), and I like that my kid's teammate was safe!

I wish the parent in the background were a little darker (I can do that with Photoshop, but I'm just talking aesthetically) or not there at all, but parents come to Little League games, after all, and I don't have completely free roam over the field -- I have to make sure I'm not in people's view and not interfering with play. So this is still pretty good.

Friday Sugar Glider Blogging

Houdy tries to figure out what this strange shiny hard "tree" is, and how he can grab ahold of it if his claws won't sink in. :-)

Friday Sugar Glider Blogging

We have several of these green fleece pouches. Houdy sleeps in them (they hang from the side or top of his cage) and seems most comfortable when one is nearby -- in fact, Sara has coaxed him out from under bookcases and the media wall by placing a pouch nearby.

This is a pretty typical early evening (morning for him, of course, since gliders are nocturnal) emergence: slow and cautious, unless food is involved. :-)

Friday Sugar Glider Blogging

Occasionally we take Houdy into a closed, reasonably safe environment (like a washroom), make sure he can't fit under the door, and just let him run as wild as he will. Eventually he crawled up from Sara's shoulder to the top of her hair. We've seen him "fly" a couple of time under these conditions, so we know that he can.

Allegedly, once a glider has bonded to you, you can do things like toss them up into the air in a large room and they'll "fly" (glide) to the ground (or other suitable landing point) and come back to you for more. We haven't gotten that brave, yet.

Heron Photograph Sequence

I've finally gotten around to adding a few photos to the gallery again. In particular, I've got a 4-image sequence of a heron eating a fish.

Kiernan Pitches

Kiernan had his first Little League game Wednesday night. He pitched, despite saying earlier that he never wanted to pitch again.

It's funny, because he wears number 37 ("Nuke" Laloosh's number from Bull Durham), and he has the whole schtick down: he was doing exaggerated nods and headshakes to (completely imaginary) signals, rolling his head back to "use his parietal eye, just like Fernando", and pumping his arm when he threw a strike or got an out at first.

The first inning he pitched was the fourth, and he threw 11 pitches: struck out one, and the other two grounded directly to him for easy throws to first. Three up, three down!

Of course, like hitting a great shot off the first tee, it was all downhill from there. He got tired, he got wild, he got hammered, and eventually he got pulled (entirely appropriately, I might add -- he was too tired to pitch well). But he was still up and swinging this morning, talking about pitching again.

Friday Sugar Glider Blogging

Seconds after this picture was taken, Houdy grabbed hold of the round bathbomb and flipped forward off the pile into the bathtub, which did have a little bit of water in it. I conclude that Sugar Gliders are not naturally aquatic -- he didn't seem to like it.