Potter Finally

Well, my wife finished up the Harry Potter book last week, so I am finally able to read it.  I’m about 100 pages in and it has been excellent so far.  I actually haven’t read all the books, but read the first and saw the movies.  I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to follow the story, but I’ve been sucked in. My wife tells me that things only get more stressful with the story.  We shall see.

The only bad part is that I am only to read for about a half hour each night, with helping take care of my daughter (which is a ton of fun lately, reading books, making her stuffed animals chase her, etc.), blogging, and occasional fiction writing taking the rest of my time.

I’ve even avoided most of the spoilers thus far, which is amazing. Let’s just hope I can keep it that way.

I started a short story, in the fantasy genre, last Friday.  I think it will turn out to be a nice little tale.  I’m aiming for around 1000 words. I may even try to submit it places. If so, I might wait to post it here and instead ask for some beta readers.  I have to finish it first, of course.

A Night at the Park

A couple weeks ago, a close friend of mine from home called me up and wanted to know if I wanted to go to a minor league baseball game with him and his wife. I hate saying no to people, so I immediately said yes. Plus, it’s always fun watching a ballgame in person.

Well, the day we picked happened to be last Friday, and I spend most of the day worrying about/dreading the game. Part of me was worried about taking my daughter there, as she has never been to a professional sporting event and being 15 months old, I wasn’t sure how long she would be able to take sitting in one place. Secondly, the game was about an hour drive from my house, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to drive all that way. Finally, my friend had the tickets and I knew it would be almost impossible for me to get there on time, so I worried we somehow wouldn’t get into the game.

It turned out my fears were unfounded. We had a great time. Here is a picture taken of right field. As you can see, there is a roller coaster (a 100+ year old wooden coaster) directly behind the wall.

When we got to the game, we picked up some food and headed to our seats. It turns out we had excellent seats, only three rows from the front on the first base side. I could almost reach down and touch the dirt. Here is a picture of home plate, to give you an idea of our view:

Our team was losing most of the game, but tied the game in the ninth inning to send it to extra innings. They wound up losing by one run, but we still had a good time. After the game they had fireworks:

Anyhow, we had a great time and my daughter really behaved well. She even fell asleep in the seventh inning in my wife’s arms. I hope to get to a few more games before summer is over. We’ll see.