Peter, Naoko and Zen Hoflich in Singapore

Great Sunday… sort of. I had set the alarm for 6:15 AM, and that is when I woke up – to do the work I couldn’t finish on Saturday night because the internet was slow and I just didn’t feel like working on a Saturday night… again! So… the solution was to skip sleeping in. I worked, ate another great breakfast of Naoko’s cinnamon rolls, and four hours later it was all done. Sheesh.

I had a nap, played guitar, did some more work, and then we went off to softball. Good stuff, today I had new athletic shorts that Naoko had bought for me on Saturday (one for softball, one for around the house). It was quickly soaked through with sweat. We had a great, fun practice – the team is really coming together, and the kids are getting good at softball – and I think I’m even improving my throwing and catching skills (I was certainly never a good player when I played t-ball and baseball when I was a kid, but now I’m catching on). Zen is practicing to be the catcher, and I think he’ll do a great job. The sky turned dark and gloomy, but it didn’t rain – we got our cab quickly, got home, I went to buy beer for dinner, then went for a very quick swim with Zen, and then it finally stated raining and got windy… it’s a cool evening.

Cool!

Sunday, November 17, 2010 – today we got up at 5:30 so that we could prepare food and be at the baseball field at Turf City at 6:30 for a softball tournament for Zen’s team, The Coconuts junior division. Their first game was from 8:00 to 8:50. I was the third base umpire.  Since they allowed stealing, usually if a kid could get to first base, he or she could easily get to third base, and probably also score a point.  Unfortunately, though, Zen’s team was outgunned, and they got creamed.  But mostly everyone had a good time, and Zen was in good spirits.

I had to umpire another game, so it was 9:30 before I got to eat my breakfast. Zen’s team then had another game. This time they did much better, and the pitcher had many strikeouts. The team was ahead in the first inning; they were ahead in the second inning; we were all hopeful that they’d win, but everything fell apart in the third inning, and they lost a lot of runs.  But there was some interesting action – they got a kid out at third base, and another one out at home. So their pitching, batting, and fielding is all getting better.

We had a not-so-great bento for lunch and chilled out.  There was an “all-star game”, then I umpired another game, my final commitment for the tournament. After that we watched The Coconuts senior division play – they were ahead in points after the first half of the last inning, then in the second half the other team was at bat and they had to defend their lead; at first it was looking bad, as the team got a few runs, but then the kids got two out at third, and a final, daring attempt to get a kid out at home – they did it, they won!  It was very exciting. We got home at 3:00 after eight hours in the (mostly) baking sun. It felt good to feel the sun and wind on the face, and we made sure to get plenty of fluids and wear lots of sun protection, so we still feel great and not-so-pooped.  What a fun day!
Tonight we’re going to eat in and drink beer; I’ll do some work, and hopefully have time to watch the “Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970″ concert DVD.

Recent days – Saturday was a chillout day for me where I did some chores, some errands, and some work for the company; I also listened to a lot of Spitz and Leonard Cohen, reviewing them for the spot below.  Last week was an interesting one – I was off work still Monday and Tuesday, but not doing anything interesting, mostly resting to recover from my cold, doing chores, and reading; I also went to band practice on Monday.  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, my first days in the office were okay, but not overly busy – I took off at 6:00 on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday morning Oma and Opa went to Thailand for six days, they got a good deal on a nice hotel. Friday morning I talked on the BBC about banking events.

The first week of the year was not too eventful, but I did go to the launch of the new Rolls Royce, and had an informal meeting with a banker. Mostly it was spent nursing my cold.  Yuck.  I also had to solve a few problems: the CD and DVD drive on the computer went on the fritz and I had to take care of it.  Also, my internet and phone were down for 72 hours, which was really crap!  What a waste of time trying to solve that problem.  Then there was also the stuff I needed to do for my employment pass.  Errands, errands, errands, errands, errands, errands.

Naoko and Zen came back from Japan on January 3rd, I went to the airport to pick them up; unfortunately, Naoko had a terrible cold (which she quickly gave to me – I had it from January 5th until about January 15th), but we went home, reunited with Oma and Opa, had a nice dinner, and opened up presents.  Zen got a whole bunch of Tintin comics, a Millenium Falcon Lego set, a calendar, and a photo album of our photos from 2009. I got some Spitz CDs, the Leonard Cohen live at the Isle of Wight CD and DVD set, as well as the Big Star discography and rarities box set “Keep An Eye On The Sky.”  Great stuff.