A Birthday and Dartball Finals

Looks to be 44 or so for the next couple of days....before the bottom starts to fall out come Thursday, and we get another few days of winter. My torn right calf muscle is still in the healing stage, and hopefully it will heal before baseball season starts. Speaking of which, local meetings start tomorrow night, and Sam and I still have to get our State Rules Meetings in....usually we go to Lima or Piqua but due to basketball committments, we have missed those...we had planned on driving to Springfield on Sunday to catch a meeting there, but the Dartball Tournament draw has put those plans on hold. So, we will try to make the 90 mile drive to Dublin(northwest corner of Columbus) next Tuesday...hopefully the weather will cooperate, otherwise we will have to pay out $50 each for a make-up meeting in Columbus on March 2nd.

Speaking of Dartball...we finished off our regular season last night on the road at Hopewell Lutheran Church....dropping the first game, before coming back to win the final 2. We finish the second half of the season with 11 wins and 10 loses, the same record as the first half...so 22-20 overall, considering the youth we have on the team, combined with some really old guys{even older than me :0 } I can't complain...finishing 2nd(tied in the first half) in both halves. The tournament begins Sunday{thus the change in plans on the state baseball rules meeting}, with us against our division rivals, Mount Carmel....even though they won both south division titles this season, we did manage to split the season series with them 3 games a piece.

Despite having two bad{for me} seasons in a row, I did finish well the past 2 weeks...ending a season where I missed many at bats due to basketball officiating, with a .362 batting average, and 20 RBIs....thus giving me a .402 all-star average, good for first on the team{ended up with top average and 3rd in RBIs}....Sam finished up in second with a .339 average and 15 RBIs for a .369 total, and along with me and our RBI leader "Cowboy" Gene make the all-star team....the league All-Star game is slated at Schumm in early March. In 15 season this is the 4th and second straight that I have failed to bat over .400.....but when your body starts to shutdown on certain nights, things become more uncertain, in life and Dartball.

Today is February 17th....Happy Birthday to our oldest child Anissa. As I have written before, Anissa is our special needs adult, who was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, 30 years ago today, February 17, 1979. I remember that day well, typical northern Wisconsin winter day...snow flurries and cold as it gets...windy to boot. Patricia refusing to admit she was going into labor, until early afternoon. Then we jumped into the Jeep Cherokee hauled the 17 miles to Wausau from the farm we lived on...and then having to wait for the doctor. Anissa arrived at 6:59PM. Despite her handicaps, Anissa has been a large part of our lives these past 30 years...and kept us focused on what is really important. She splits her time between us, her and our lifelong friends, the Schillings, who provide her with an alternative setting....plus she works at the local MRDD Workshops...she is by all accounts a happy person, who loves Allen Jackson and Jimmy Buffett Music, and has several movies on DVD that she can name each line before it comes up....HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY ANISSA!!!!

My brother-in-law, Pat{yes another Pat in the family} is in Dayton today, after having issues with congestive heart problems yesterday. Our prayers are with him and my sister Marty and their daughters...Pat and Marty are scheduled to become grandparents next month, and hopefully he will be back to full strength for that event...at 57 he is way to young for this stuff.

So errands to run today...tomorrow we will look at Barack The Messiah wasting 20,000 gallons of jet fuel so he can sign his stinking stimu-less package in front of a Solar Panel factory in Denver....if the sonabitch wanted to go green he should be keeping his sorry Marxist ass near Washington DC, and not wasting Jet Fuel. More on this BS tomorrow.

back later>>>>>>>>>>

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photos-Me and Anissa on February 18, 1979, at Wausau South Hospital....dartball board and darts...and finally Anissa and her "little" brothers Sam and Hal.