Well, we tried, and the end result was the best I’ve ever experienced on a kickball team (of course, I really have very little to do with the winning or losing). Yesterday was the all-day playoffs and we did not quite make it to the finals.

We played the first game, although it was already marked as a forfeit on the part of the other team because they were not able to get enough girls to show up. Despite them having a few extra guys on the field over us, we did still manage to beat them, so that was cool.

Up next we played the team that won the Tuesday league last season, so we knew we were in for a challenge. We beat them earlier in the season, but the number 1 team lost to them. They are a team full of people who kick the ball far—there was pretty much not a single bunter among them, which meant we had to change our defensive strategy. Most teams are predominately bunters, with a few solid kickers interspersed. It’s a different game when your outfield is doing all the plays.

We only managed to score one run, although we thought we might have a chance to come from behind and at least tie it up in the final inning, except that one of our players mistakenly stepped up to the plate out of turn. He was pitched to before the correct player realized and commented that it was actually his turn. Despite the fact that the incorrect player did not actually kick, and that the correct player wanted to play his turn and thus it was not done maliciously to help us have an advantage, we were given an automatic out. So that sucked. We were at the top of our lineup, with all of our good players, and we needed everything we could get, so starting out with one out did not help us. The end result was that we were unable to score any additional runs at all.

The number one team this season also wound up with a kicking out of order dispute as well, as the team they were playing apparently kept track of the kicking order, although they had not exchanged rosters. As a result, instead of names, they were just using written descriptions. Since the top team had a lineup with names crossed out, the refs decided they couldn’t prove whether the team had changed the lineup later to reflect the change in kickers late in the game. The ruling was made to either forfeit the game or redo the play with the kicker that the other team thought should be up to the plate. This was of course the last play of the game, with 2 outs, and was what had them winning the game before the kicker was disputed. So, they redid the play and the end result was that they got out and the other team won.

Who knew kickball could be so controversial and that neither of the top 2 teams would even advance to the finals??

Posted at 10:45 AM | (0)

Last night several of us went over to the Camino Real theater to go see Up, the latest Pixar film. It was also playing at the Arlington, which is quite a bit closer, but no one is really a fan of the sound or uncomfortable seats there.

The movie was really good—the story was touching, including like a 5 minute montage of the guy’s life with his wife, which if it doesn’t leave you teary-eyed there is probably something wrong with you. There were plenty of light-hearted moments, especially those involving the dogs with the talking collars, but it definitely wasn’t as light in tone as say, Toy Story. How is it possible that Pixar always makes awesome movies??

Posted at 8:29 AM | (0)

This week, I have had not one, not two, but THREE free lunches! That is totally awesome.

The first lunch was on Tuesday at Shoreline Cafe, when I met with the guy I work for and one of my friends. Our company needs another programmer type person, and my friend did that sort of stuff at her old job before they closed their office here in town, leaving her in need of more work. So of course, if it works out, that would be quite win/win. Regardless though, I won, because I was asked if I wanted to join in the meeting. Of course I did!

On Thursday I had lunch with a friend with whom I had been trying to lunch with for ages. We always meant to set something up, but would forget to follow through. Then we finally set a date only to have the fire rage through town and potentially close all the places we might have eaten. So, it finally got rescheduled and it even actually happened this time! We went to Bucatini, because I like Italian food, and this is one of the places that I have somehow never tried. Another plus is that it has patio seating on State Street, so you can people watch, although with the gloom lately, there weren’t very many people out and about, so that was slightly disappointing.

Today I lunched with Kristen at Marmalade Cafe, which was cool because I had never dined there and had been wanting to. The reason for this lunch was because she is going out of town for the weekend and wanted me to look after her cat. Of course, I would’ve done it even without the bribe, but it sure didn’t hurt!

So, there you go, for various reasons, I had a lot of lunch dates that just happened to coincide on the same week. And who doesn’t love a free lunch with good company?

Posted at 2:10 PM | (0)

Last night, Kristen invited us over to eat home-made lasagna and watch the Godfather. The plan is to eventually watch all of them, each of course while consuming Italian food. So, we drank some Coppola wine (fitting since he is the director of the films and all) and ate the aforementioned lasagna, which was quite good.

For dessert, we ate home-made chocolate mousse which was also fabulous. As far as the movie goes, I suppose I’m not the hugest fan, but I’ve only seen the first one (twice now, as I had seen it once previously). I guess I’ll have to see how I like the second one, although I know that most people deny the existence of the third.

Posted at 1:01 PM | (0)

Last night Dave and I met up with Kristen and one of her new coworkers to grab some dinner at Natural Cafe. After that, we came back to our place to hang out a bit, before decided to show this coworker, who is new to town, a bit of downtown at night.

So,we headed downtown and ended up at O’Malleys, where we ran into a bunch of kickball people, some from our team, and others that are friends of ours. We stayed there talking to everyone until the bar closed, and it was a fun evening, although a lot of us spent a better part of today trying to recover from it.

Posted at 11:55 PM | (0)

Last night Kristen and I went to the Bowl to see Flight of the Conchords! I’ve seen all the episodes of the show and love them—my favorite is Bret, although Kristen prefers Jemaine. It is super cool that one of their stops was the Bowl, since it is a smaller venue, and obviously way convenient for us.

They came out on stage in robot helmets to go with one of their songs, and disco ball pants that went with another. Awesome. They sang a lot of songs, and did funny banter in between. There were one or two songs I wish they would’ve done (like my favorite, If That’s What You’re Into), but it was a great performance. It was really cold last night, and the duo even commented on how cold they were and how they didn’t expect it. At that declaration, someone from the audience threw them a blanket, and Bret even wore it around his shoulders for a bit, before giving it to some poor guy in the audience wearing short sleeves.

The best part about the night too was that initially our seats were center floor section, but 13 rows back. But then it turned out that the people next to us had friends in the 7th row who wanted to sit next to them, so we swapped seats and sat in the 7th row! The show was great, and afterwards we met up with some people at the Joyce, although we left after one drink because it was ridiculously crowded and just hung out at Joe’s for the rest of the evening.

Posted at 12:17 PM | (0)

Yesterday was our last pre-season kickball game. We played a team that has been well established, and given our loss the previous week, we weren’t taking anything for granted.

It was a close game, and it basically came down to the last inning when we were tied and then had bases loaded with 2 outs. Obviously this final kick was crucial to the outcome of the game, and it turned out that it was kicked perfectly into the outfield so that they did not catch it. Our player on 3rd ran for home and scored and that was enough to stop the game with us as victors.

The 2 teams that were tied for first place both lost last night, whereas at least 2 of the 3 teams tied for 3rd place won (we being one of them), so this means that we should now be in first place, which is awesome because it means we get better positioning in the playoff bracket. It also means that we get to skip the first round of playoffs! This season the final playoff rounds will be held on a Saturday, which will be interesting. We shall see how that works, but I can’t wait to see how it all plays out!

Posted at 12:11 PM | (0)

This weekend a few of us went to Vegas to celebrate Kristen’s birthday. We got a decent deal on rooms at the Luxor, and so stayed there.

We had a pretty eventful drive, not really hitting any major traffic or accidents, thank goodness. Unfortunately, when we arrived, it turned out that Kristen was not really feeling all that great, and so we took it easy, gambling a little, but not really going out. In fact, she did not even join us for dinner the first evening.

The second day she seemed to feel a little better, and we did some walking around the strip. She recovered enough to eat her birthday dinner at Mon Ami Gabi (which was super good), but walking around a bit more after dinner, she felt worse and parted ways with us early so that she could lay down.

It sucks that the weekend was supposed to be to celebrate Kristen’s birthday and then she wound up not even being able to enjoy it. While it was more mellow than it may have been otherwise, it was still fun for the most part. Got to gamble a little and win a few bucks, which is always a good thing.

Posted at 12:06 PM | (0)

Last night at kickball we played our big rivals—the team on which we have many friends and who also won last season’s championships. We went in with the same win-loss record, having each lost one game, so we were excited to see how it would play out.

In the first inning, the other team quickly got lots of people on base, eventually scoring 1 run. In the 3rd inning, they scored another run. We, on the other hand, did not get quite as many people on base, and had a scoreless first 4 innings.

That means that the drama came during the last inning with 2 outs when we had a play that resulted in 2 of our teammates making it home—we actually almost got a 3rd home too, but it didn’t end up happening. Still with 2 outs, one of our girls was up to kick. The pitcher threw some balls that were a bit too outside, but the refs called them as strikes, and eventually she struck out and we ended the game on a tie. But hey, we ended on a tie, meaning that we still both have the same record! I’m not yet sure of the standings for the rest of the league, but this should hopefully cement our place as one of the top 4 in the championships!

Posted at 7:19 AM | (0)

We got to do pub quiz again tonight, which is nice, since Kristen has been crazy busy with work recently. She just finished some large projects, however, which means that she has actually been getting off work at a decent hour this week! So, since she once again got home early enough, we got to quiz is up. Since some of the people we asked couldn’t make it, we had the new addition of one of her new coworkers.

The guy seemed nice, and he did know some answers, which is always good. This week was actually the best we have done since the disbanding of our old team. In fact, we almost tied one of the rounds (we had the right answer that would’ve resulted in a tie, but changed it at the last minute), and if we had, we would’ve won drinks because we had the closest song time.

We even managed to do pretty well in Round 3, the category round (for which we didn’t study), getting a 7 out of 10. It was good to get to do it again, especially since last week’s was canceled due to the fire and the bar being in the evacuation zone. Here’s hoping we get to participate a bit more often.

Posted at 11:15 PM | (0)

Well, it’s no surprise that there was no kickball game tonight. It was to be our anticipated matchup against the team that won the division last season. With all the smoke, ash, evacuation zones, and the field being used as a landing pad for fire fighting helicopters, there is really no way it could happen.

It is crazy how big this fire has gotten and how close it has come to downtown. For the first time that I can remember since I’ve lived here, the evacuation area has actually extended to State Street—the street was even in the mandatory evacuation zone yesterday! As well, a few friends I know who live just off of State were put in the mandatory zone for a bit, which of course sucks. As it is, my apartment is only a mere 2 1/2 blocks away from the edge of the evacuation warning area—nowhere near being dire just yet, but still quite shocking to think about.

Yesterday a bunch of us, including those who were displaced in the evacuation, went up to the house of some friends who live in the hills by the mesa. From there, we went to the nearby park to look at the destruction the fire was causing. With binoculars you could see how big the flames were, how many little fires there were, and how many houses were burning. You could also see fires very, very close to homes, which is scary. We all stayed there until late in the night, watching the fire, watching the fire on the news, and hanging out wondering how bad it might get.

In addition to the record-high 100 degree temps, there have also been the sundowner winds in effect, which has not helped the situation, so containment hasn’t really happened (and in fact, the fires have now jumped over to parts of Goleta!). Hopefully this will not result in the loss of more homes than have already burned, and the winds and weather will cooperate.

There are so many homes in this small area, and so many historical buildings, I really hope that the fire doesn’t hit the heart of this town.

Posted at 10:57 PM | (0)

This morning I received a call to come in to the company I work for in order to have a strategy meeting. It was a beautiful day, and so we conducted the meeting outdoors. After the meeting, my boss took me and his wife to lunch, where we sat beachside at the Shoreline Cafe. All in all it was nice sitting outside and enjoying the day, something I don’t do often enough.

Unfortunately, however, since I didn’t know that I would be outside for hours during the peak UV time, I did not apply any sunscreen. The end result, of course, is that my face, area of chest exposed by v-neck shirt, and my arms, got quite burned. Well, actually, my arms are not too bad, but they do look a bit ridiculous in a farmer tan sort of way.

To top off the burning, when we left the parking lot after lunch, we were informed by the guy working the kiosk that a fire had started in the San Roque Canyon area. When we got back to the office we watched the news for awhile, not believing that this town could really have another fire so soon.

This evening, it being Cinco de Mayo and all, Dave and I went to meet up with a bunch of my friends at El Torito. They were all congregated at tables outdoors, which may or may not have been the best thing. By the time we got there, the air was already super smokey and ashy. The benefit to being outside, though, was that we didn’t have to worry about power going out, which happened at our apartment for a little bit early in the evening.

Fires suck. :(

Posted at 9:40 PM | (0)

This weekend didn’t involve anything too strenuous—on Saturday Kristen came over and we made Red Velvet Cupcakes. She is having a cocktail party this coming Friday for her birthday, and we wanted to try out the recipe beforehand to see how they would turn out.

We had to procure some of the ingredients, such as buttermilk, and then we baked! We of course made the cupcakes from scratch, as well as the frosting. Instead of a more traditionally paired cream cheese frosting, we opted for a buttercream, which I was totally down for as I LOOOOVE buttercream and am not a huge fan of cream cheese. I would eat a cream cheese frosting, but it is definitely never my first choice.

All in all, I think the cupcakes turned out quite tasty, and indeed they did not last the weekend. Last night we had people over to play Settlers of Catan and we offered them the cupcakes, of which there were still like 10 left, and by the end of the night there were none. This is probably a good thing, as one person probably does not need to eat 5 cupcakes a day!

Even better is the fact that I actually won the game last night! I was totally behind the entire time, but then I drew some Victory Point cards and after I converted one of my last settlements into a city, I was able to be close enough to play the points in my hand and win! I think I took everyone by surprise, as they were busy focusing on the people who visibly had more points than me, so that was pretty awesome. I got pretty close to winning the first time I played, but things of course do not always turn out the way you hope! Hooray for cupcake and board game successes! :)

Posted at 10:53 AM | (0)

Last night a bunch of us met up for Happy Hour at Dargan’s and then went to a showing of Wolverine. The movie was leaked before release and the consensus was that it wasn’t very good, but people tried to blame it on the fact that it wasn’t quite a finished copy. However, it seems that the movie just wasn’t that stellar after all. I mean, it wasn’t the worst movie I’ve seen, but there was some cheesiness involved, and all in all, I wouldn’t consider it in the running for winning any awards.

Still, it was fun to see a movie in a large group, so in that aspect, I suppose it was a winning situation. I don’t always see many movies in the theater, so the fact that I’ve seen a few recently is nice.

Posted at 2:49 PM | (0)

Last night we experienced our first kickball defeat, at the feet of the only other team that was still undefeated. I think we psyched ourselves out a little too much or something, and we also changed our kicking lineup, which may have had something to do with it. What also played a huge factor, however, was the inexperienced refs we received.

The refs were on a brand-new team, so they weren’t 100% familiar with the rules. I admire them for sticking to their calls, which is sometimes a good thing when teams want to dispute—if a call is close, you need to call it with conviction to avoid having people gang up on you. However, they made calls at 1st base that they remarked were “too close to call” by giving the tie to the fielding team—when the rules clearly state that tie goes to the runner. As a result of many bad calls, we never got a runner past 2nd base.

Normally we have a few really good kickers that sometimes get home runs, but they all wound up kicking pop flys that got caught. We also fumbled the ball a bit, and made other mistakes just because of the tension, I think. It also didn’t help that with each bad call, we were more and more demoralized, which makes it even harder to come back.

We played a good team, and it’s just a shame that they didn’t get a really evenly matched game, due to the circumstances. Next week we play our other big rival team, so hopefully that outcome will be a bit different!

Posted at 12:44 PM | (0)