Today was the third web sprint for the Master Gardener's website. I swear, this is feeling less like a sprint and more like a marathon. We've made fantastic progress, but, good lord, there is a lot of work left to do. I'm really impressed with how far the group has come, and how much several people have learned about web pages and the like.

What's been the biggest eye-opener, however, has been how much I had taken for granted that a process was both usable and (I'm almost embarrassed to say) easy. For someone without web experience, the process was not easy, and much of it did not make sense. Fortunately, everyone has been as patient with me as I have been patient with them (which is to say, I can a heck of a lot more patient with other people than I can be with myself, so I'm making progress in this journey called "life"), and I've been able to fix the workflow processes and update the documentation.

The Master Gardener's group is a far different group than ultimate players (including an age swing of near, oh, half a century) , but the lessons I've learned with them have been just as big and just as interesting as those from ultimate.

The best part of this sprint, other than Abby's blueberry cobbler?

Running water.

So, with the tub repairs complete, I'm now in the process of repairing the wall that was opened up for pipe access. It's in the linen closet, a space that hasn't been painted since the house was first built, as near as I can tell, after looking carefully at the walls. They're all scuffed, dingy, and covered with one coat of paint. Surprisingly, the closet walls are not covered with eight layers of wallpaper, like most every other wall in this house I haven't attacked.

Small miracles. I'll take them.

For some reason I am completely unable to fathom (there have been a lot of these recently, I notice), I've decided to paint the closet pink.

I'll let that statement soak in for a moment, give Mom a chance to recover, give B a chance to wake up from his fainting spell after having reading that sentence.

Pink.

Yes, B, pink.

I must be growing old and soft out here in warm, sunny, California. Oh, wait, that's SOUTHERN California, not NORTHERN (read: cold, wet) California. Right. Chalk it up to changing tastes, and another part of hell freezing over, I guess. Much like the first part did when I chose strawberry ice cream over chocolate for the first time in my life about two months ago.

Some constants in life should never change.

My family understands all of this. My friends understand most of this. For everyone else, here's the part you may have been missing: I hate pink.

My hatred of pink is legendary. My mom painted my room pink when I was two years old. I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried, until she painted it blue. Dark blue. Dark blue and white, with multicolored carpeting and Raggety Ann and Raggety Andy curtains. The perfect room for a little girl.

I rarely had anything pink growing up, and essentially no pink clothing. Except that Cooperation shirt. But that was okay because it had a big yellow Big Bird on the front. Big and yellow? Trumps pink gingham every time.

So, yeah, the closet. It's pink. And not just any pink.

It's girlie pink.

Kris had his last softball game of the season tonight. It might not have been the last of the season, but it was a playoff game. And they were playing the #1 seed in the league.

Because Kris' team was in last place.

They won last week's game, their only win of the season. Know how they won? Yeah, the OTHER team scored a number of their points.

There's a no-homerun rule in the league to prevent players from just hitting the balls over the fence. The first one is a homerun, with all the scoring that entails. The second homerun is an out AND the pitching team scores your run instead. The third homerun is an out AND the pitching team scores TWO homeruns.

You see where this is going.

The other team hit four homeruns. At what would be the final pitch of the game, the player up to bat, who was later defined as "a moron," stood with the count 3-1, two outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd. He had previously hit one of the three earlier homeruns, and an earlier triple, so he was known as a power hitter. The score was tied at 20-20, many of those runs from (recall) previous homeruns for the other team.

All this guy has to do is hit a ground ball between first and second, or second and third. He can run to base and the guy on third can score. Game over.

What does he do?

Hits a homer.

Kris' team wins in exactly the only way possible to win that game. Second game to go to all seven innings, first win.

Update: Ooooooo! An eye-witness/participant account of the night!

So, Kris' team didn't really have a chance at winning tonight.

The make-up of the team has changed considerably throughout the season, though. Whereas it was originally all of Warren's coworkers and two token baseball/softball players, it was now all of Warren's ultimate or athletically inclined friends and two token coworkers. They played much better in the end of the season.

But, there still wasn't much hope.

Until we arrived at the fields.

The fields are always a little windy, because of the proximity to the Bay. Not a lot, but enough that watching the games is always a cold endeavor.

Tonight, however, we had WINDS. Winds that were blowing as near straight into the batter's face as possible. Power hitters were reduced to hitting pop-flies that landed just past second base, and not much past at that.

Wind: sports' great equalizer. Kris' team might have chance.

The first inning was played faster than you can wipe the wind blown sand out of your eyes. A fan for the opponents showed up at the bottom of the second inning, puzzled about why the scoreboard was incorrectly showing the second inning.

Three up, three down. Four up, three down. Four up, three down. Three up, three down. Neither team was scoring, both victims of the wind.

The game remained scoreless until until the fifth inning. I missed the scores in the fifth inning, as I was off tracking down a ball in the next field over. It was hit from our field into their outfield in the third inning, and, for some unfathomable reason, I felt compelled to retrieve it. Someone in the other field's outfield had thrown it in, so I had to convince the umpire that one of the balls wasn't his. I managed to distract him long enough a couple times, asking about the ball, that he didn't watch the game he was supposed to be umping, much to the mockery and ridicule of the outfield.

The final score was 5-0, with Kris' team losing. They played the full seven innings, going the distance instead of being crushed and losing with the slaughter rule. I suspect if the team at the end of the season had been the team at the beginning of the season, none of us fans would have learned what the "slaughter rule" is.

Whenever Kris and I decide to go to the lunch class at Velocity, I'm always a little worried. Work has a way of taking over a day, as I well know, with lunch time as the most vunerable.

So, when Kris wasn't at class at 12:00 noon, nor at 12:05 pm, nor at 12:07 pm, I was (reasonably) concerned. He did show up, and, boy, was I relieved.

Today's workout, on top of yesterday's workout, was:

6 sets of 8 squat throws
6 sets of 6 single leg box squats (each leg, so 12 in a set)
4 sets of 8 dumbbell curl to press
3 sets of 10 deadlifts

The squat throws were as they sound. Start with a medicine ball on the ground, holding it between two hands when standing in squat position. Jump from the squat positing, lifting the ball and throwing it into the air as you jump.

The box squats were regular single leg squats, but done while standing on a jump box, to allow a greater depth in squatting, without causing the knee to go too car over the ankle (an act which puts too much strain on the knee joint).

Dumbbell curls were normal curls, fluidly followed by a press. I used only 10# weights. It was a good weight.

The deadlifts are what taxed my hamstrings. Basically standing with only the bar (but what a heavy bar it was!), bend over at the waist, pick up the bar and, keeping the legs straight, stand up.

We played Calvin ball after the workout. My team lost again, but at least it took us a while to lose, thanks to Kris. He may be short, but at least he knows how to play the game.

Beth came over tonight for a jam session with Kris. It's pretty awesome to see him continuing with the guitar this long. I'm very happy for it.