So, what is it with tournament and my breasts? Every tournament I seem to go to (certainly for the last 5 years) seems to coincide with my breasts being swollen. I don't get it. Either I'm swollen the weekend before and don't menstruate until a week after the tournament, or they balloon up on Tuesday and hurt hurt hurt on Saturday morning.

Argh!

Why can't I go back to 16 and my first, 21 with my second and 23 for my third? A life without menstruations, swollen breasts, mood swings (not that those ever happen, right?) is a pleasant life indeed.

Of course, losing 20 pounds is one way to get there, but not a pleasant road to travel.

In the meantime, I need to make sure my hucks don't slap my right breast first.

Smack!

On the way up to Quincy for a tournament this weekend, we stopped to eat at an In-n-Out restaurant. At some point, I needed to use the restroom.

In the restroom, where two women had pushed passed me to enter before I did, and where an In-n-Out employee was standing, I overheard them:

Woman #1: I'm so hungry. I'm starving.

Woman #2: Me, too. Where do you want to eat?

Woman #1: Uhn, I don't know. What's around here?

Woman #2: I don't know. There must be somethin'.

And my thoughts? Not kind, to be sure.

I was at the (ASA) gym today. In the slow pitch alley was a gaggle of little kids and a few dads teaching them how to hit.

Now, whenever you have a gaggle of anything, you can rest assured that 90% of your gaggle is not paying a lick of attention to what the leaders of said gaggle wants them to be paying attention to.

At one point, one of the dads pulled a boy aside (and, yes, it was the kid in the back - the one goofing off the most), and starts to coach the kid.

At first I'm thinking, "Dude, he's just spent the last 20 minutes cutting up, what makes you think he's going to pay attention to you now?" But whatever. So the dad was still ccoaching the kid when I walked by a few minutes later. What do I hear?

"It's okay to be afraid of the ball."

What the? It's not okay to be afraid of the ball! If you're afraid of the ball, you can never hit it.

But I did start thinking, maybe I'm wrong. Did I miss something? Is it really okay to be afraid of the ball?

Or maybe it's about choosing what to be afraid of?

It'll be the topic of my next Letter to my Children, to be sure.

I talked to Kris about this later, and he totally agrees with my initial impression, for many reasons.

1. Fear causes you to tense up.
2. Fear causes you to focus in the wrong place.
3. Fear gives your opponent an advantage.

Kris said, "Sure it might hurt, but bruises heal."

And then revealed to me, "At one point, I think I led teams in hit being by the pitch."

"You have to look at what's going on. Is the pitcher trying to hurt you, or is he trying to get you out? If he can get you out with intimidation, that's a huge win. You can't let him have that advantage."

Yeah.

No intimidation! Come on, ball!

So my problem with technology is that not only is it pervasive, it is also disconnected.

Huh?

Okay, so, this site is a nice little collection of things in some way important to me. It complements my "professional" site quite well, hiding my charming personality quirks from the rest of the world in this small space I've carved out.

I can add content to this site by sitting down at a web-enabled computer, calling up the site, navigating to the add-content page and strart typing.

And that happens once in a long while, let me tell you.

In reality, I'm probably anywhere else than in front of a web-enabled computer when I think of something I want to write about.

So, take for example when I'm at the gym, walking on the treadmill, and come up with a brilliant (or not so brilliant) idea for a post. Well, crap, now what do I do?

Yep. What any other geek would do: pull out the Treo and start typing.

You think I'm kidding.

Okay, so, now I have a great post all ready to enter.

Except that it's on my Palm and not where it ultimately needs to be.

And what are the chances I forget to copy this entire rant over to my site?

Pretty high.

I have the same problem with my laptop when I'm working offline, which happens more frequently than I would have predicted.

So, the problem I have is not to get my thoughts out of my head, but rather to get them some place central where I can find them, remember them, laugh at them, enjoy them again.

And even more importantly, many years from now, realize how far we've come in merging technologies.