Blue Sloth

Saturday Baseball

The Cardinals won today's rematch with the Mets 15-12 who had defeated us earlier in the season. Kelly was 3-4 with a double and two RBI's. In both the first and second inning she came to bat with runners in scoring position and two outs, and each time she delivered: a single and a double. She struck out in her third at bat after smashing several line drives foul down the third base line. Her fourth at bat came in the bottom of the fifth, with the game very tight. She drove the ball into the outfield and scored two batters later.

She made two fantastic plays at second base and had three force outs at second. She was awarded her third game ball of the season, this time by one of her teammates (the coaches award two and a player awards one each game).

With the victory, the Cardinals finished the season 8-3 and it looks like we'll have a very good seed for the tournament which starts Wednesday. I'm very proud of my boys - and my girl - and for the first time I'm nervous and excited about a sport besides soccer.

Giant Chilli Cow

It has been awhile since I've had a chance to post about unusual animals here at the Blue Sloth. Most of you who will remember that I have an affinity for cows and hope to someday own my own mini cow or two, let them roam amongst my sculpture gardens out in the countryside.

Well on the other end of the mini cow spectrum we have Chilli. This black and white Freisan bullock is 1.9m tall and weighs more than a tonne. He dwarfs most horses, is the same height as a small elephant and casts a shadow over his cattle companions.

However, nine-year-old Chilli grazes just on grass and enjoys the occasional swede as a treat at his home at the Ferne Animal Sanctuary in Chard, Somerset, where he was dumped at six days old.

Friday Night Lights

Tonight is our final baseball practice of the season. Tomorrow morning we play the Mets in our final regular season game before the playoffs. The Mets beat us in week one, but we are a different team now. The kids have made amazing progress this season. It's really fun to watch them play.

I'm looking forward to working with the kids on hitting one final night. It's cool and breezy and something tells me that this is where I'm meant to be: working with my kids, welding when I have the time, coaching whenever possible, and living each day to its fullest.

Tonight I am taking everyone to see Prince Caspian.

Sloth Notes

Important safety note: if you are standing on temporary scaffolding with your goggles on, iPod cranked up loud and one hand holding the next steel piece in place, do not scratch your bare leg with the welding torch no matter how badly it itches, especially when the torch is currently spewing flame.

Alex is a few weeks away from a perfect school year of straight A's. So is Kelly. Isabel draws very nice cats. If they were graded, I would give them A's too.

My outdoor soccer team won the Championship.

My left foot is nearly healed. My right foot now has a very similar injury and hurts like hell. Overcompensation i guess. I am playing very good soccer right now, despite the pain.

The angel's location in Davidson should be completed in two weeks. I am to meet with the landscape artist to make sure we're on the same page.

Isabel gets out of school a week from tomorrow. Summer is right around the corner.

Kelly's team won their game tonight which makes five wins in a row. Kelly was 3-4 and made three nice plays at second base. The infield is really playing well together right now. The third baseman and shortstop trust Kelly and fire the ball to second for force outs. Our catcher even pulled off his mask and caught a foul ball tonight. Pretty amazing for an eight-year-old.

I repaired my riding lawn mower yesterday. The drive belt snapped, the fuel line was leaking, and the blades needed repair. I tracked down the spare parts and then Isabel and I fixed everything. Running great again. Grass looks really good.

I pitched to Isabel, Alex and Kelly at the park today. All three of them were whacking the ball. Then I let Kelly pitch to me with the machine and I hit with her little bat. I put Alex and Isabel behind me and took a couple of real swings. Third pitch I put over the two tennis courts, over the ten foot brick wall into someone's backyard in the patio homes.

Kelly watched the ball sail over the courts, waited for it to land, turned back and looked at me with an eye rolling, "Dad-deeeee."

"What?"

She shook her head. "Now you have to go get it."

Game Ball

The baseball season seems to be accelerating as the weeks roll on. We have our fourth game in eight days tonight. We had practice Friday. Also, I have been sure to pitch to Kelly every day in the front yard. Thirty minutes before last night's game I walked up to Kelly and told her to forget everything. Just relax, hold the bat like this do what comes naturally.

Early in the season, she was pounding everything into the dirt right in front of home plate. I got her to drop the barrel of the bat and swing lower. This worked for several games until she began to swing under everything.

I told her, "Just hit the ball," and I tossed some soft ones right at her by hand. She fended the balls off with her bat, deflecting each throw like she was holding a light saber. "See? You can hit it naturally. Now get back in there, relax and hit the ball."

I threw her another 36 pitches, ran out of time and rushed over to the field when my Mom showed up to watch the little ones (Alex was sick).

The game started and Kelly was moved up a notch in the batting order: up to number six. This is relevant in that she started at number eleven out of twelve. Defensively she has already secured the second base position - something that we are both proud of. She gets very excited about every out she makes in the field, almost more than getting a hit. Offensively I have been working very hard with her to move her up into the elite section of boys who get a hit at every at bat.

On this picture perfect night, I watched her walk up to the batter's box and go through her routine. Swing the bat like an elephant's trunk, down low, getting loose. Working on shifting her weight forward and back with the bat.

"Ready?" She tenses, weight on back foot, bat held loosely overhead. "Ball," I declare before I pull the lever that releases the spring-loaded arm.

I have pitched every pitch to every batter on our team for an entire season. I remember every hit. I remember every agonizing foul tip with three strikes (they get seven pitches, four strikes and you're out). I go through the full emotional spectrum with every kid on every at bat. I want them to get a hit so badly each time they come up. And things do not always go smoothly.

Kelly likes to drive me particularly crazy. She will watch the first pitch go by as instructed (to get a sense of being up there, to see where the ball is flying, to get in the groove) then whiff on two pitches, foul off the fourth and as the pressure mounts, foul off pitch after pitch until finally *CRACK*

The ball zooms past my head and she has her first hit of the night.

There is a particular pleasure in watching her succeed at baseball that I cannot quite describe. Soccer is a universally playable sport. I love it completely. I am very proud of her skills as a soccer player, and to be honest, she is a formidable soccer player. Baseball is a curious beast though. It is not the easiest thing in the world to hit a pitched baseball. Some might say it is one of the hardest things to do in sports.

Add to that the notion that it's a "boy's sport." I have taught Kelly that she can do anything and everything her heart desires. I am of a mind that she can engender the best qualities of both boys and girls, and tackle any subject, sport, or passion that she desires.

There is nothing more empowering than whacking a 40 mph fastball into the outfield when you're eight-years-old and the only girl on a team of talented boys. As I've said before, I love her ability to be a great teammate, a good sport, and fit into any situation. But it gives me a particular thrill to see her excel when I have put her in a challenging situation.

Last night she came to bat four times. She got four hits, knocked in three runs, scored three runs and made a great play at second base scooping up a sizzling ground ball and trotting over to first for the force out. She received a game ball for the second time this season.

Not bad for a little girl. Particularly when I suggested she change her swing right before the game.

I am quiet as her coach; I kiss her on the cheek between innings and give her instruction on her last at bat, or her last fielding effort, but mostly I just stand by when the kids are in the field (and I'm not pitching) and call out instructions to the infield, chat with the other coaches, fret over the game situation.

I don't get a chance to go, "Wow." All she gets is a dusty hug and a smile between innings, and I just whisper wow under my breath.

Last night was one big wow.

Cutting

South Main Project: Update 27

I have merged the three basic facets of building the angel into a more seamless routine. Instead of running out of pieces and having the creative process grind to a halt while I shift gears mentally and prepare myself for a week's worth of intense physical labor, I do little bits at a time. Before I would spend days cutting out hundreds of pieces of steel, then several more painstakingly bending them by hand into gently curving triangles before lining them all up in preparation for fabrication.

I now do mini-batches While I do run out of material more quickly, I don't lose the creative thrust that has been propelling me to that point. I pause only long enough to cut out another day's work and then press forward, making sure to resume placing pieces again before retiring for the night so that it is all still fresh in my mind the next morning.

Scale

South Main Project: Update 27

Kelly poses with the angel to provide a sense of scale. Kelly is 52 inches tall. As you can see, I am making tremendous progress on the work.

Sunday

Speed Racer was a disappointment to me. It would have been a nice 20 minute short film. The action scenes were too chaotic to comprehend what was happening, and while I commend the Wachowski brothers for their concept of vivid colors and surreal imagery, they suffer from the same over-indulgence that plagued George Lucas in his prequel: throwing everything and the kitchen sink into every frame. There is no sparse framing, with something to draw the eye from one point to another. No focal point. Just chaotic color and movement. There is a point where less is more. You should build an action scene the same way you build dialogue between characters.

Alas Speed Racer grows quickly tiresome. As it was, I simply thought of what I would have done to pare down each race to show how the track really worked, how I would have developed each race and each scene.

Isabel loved it however. She went on and on about it during the movie.

Kelly won her baseball game on Saturday, drove in a run and scored two. Alex won his soccer game. We got out on the lake for a glorious day of mud castle building and basking in the sun. We had a great dinner on the boat and a long night's sleep listening to rain pound the roof.

Happy Mothers Day to all you wonderful moms out there.