-so softball begins!-

tonight was the softball season opener! and a heartfelt woo hoo to that. im so excited. good ole softball.

i had today off of work to once again take my dad to the U of M clinic. get this kids...there were snow flurries in the air up there. all i could think was "i have to play softball tonight. knock it off!" apparently god wasnt keen on the deal i tried to make with him...so i will not be keeping my end of said deal. i will continue to say and do nasty things to every neely i come in contact with. it may even be threefold now. that depends on how nice the neelys are to me. if they keep beating me in poker...it may be fourfold.

anyways...on to softball. we had a practice yesterday over in peter town. when i left kato it was mostly to partly sunny and almost 50. in the middle of the drive to peter land it started to rain...and hard. got to the fields...the rain let up a little so we started our practice, only to get hit hard in the face by raining ice pellets. it was very refreshing. i should add to that this was our first and only practice due to the wonderful weather this year. only 4 of us showed up...and it was cold and wet. good times? good times!...good times. (wheres all the global warming talk now al? im starting to think another ice age is coming. (how come they never scare us with the ozone hole anymore?..oh thats right, they were lying to us...remember in the 70's when they were saying we WERE on our way to another ice age? hmmm...maybe, just maybe weather patterns just vary?...just an idea.)

church league started tonight. we lost 17-9. i was 2 for 3 with a home run, a single and a fly out, 2 rbi's and 2 runs scored. (sadly yes, i am going to use my blog to track my stats for the year) it felt so good to be out playing ball. again...woo hoo for softball. next game? thursday night at 6:15 at caswell field number 2. commercial league starts than and there. im playing for the wine cafe again.

anyways. ive been playing softball since high school. so about 14 years now. argh, im old. in my first 13 seasons i probably hit a total of 50 home runs. total. ive always been more of a singles, doubles and triples hitter. id mix in the occasional inside the park home run and the occasional over the fence home run...but they were pretty rare. i always used a 20 or 30 dollar bat and never believed a bat made much of a difference. early last season i was asked to sub for a team in st peter (oops...peterville). a guy on the team had just bought a brand new 300 dollar bat. he talked me into trying it my first at bat. i did. i popped out to the 1st baseman. "nice bat". he demanded i try it again my 2nd at bat. i did. i hit the deepest home run ive ever hit in my life. it was a monster. high and deep. im guessing it cleared the fence by about 50 feet...which would put it roughly at 325. it went so far that people on the opposing team were staring at me in amazement..i was horribly embarrassed circling the bases. (i dont like attention). this may sound like im stroking my own ego. im not. im praising the bat. the bat is worthy. needless to say i bought one of my own the very next day. i used it for about 3/4 of the season. i played 3 nights a week...and 3 tourneys...so, for ABOUT 35 games or so. i hit about 40 home runs with it...i dont remember the exact number. (which is why i want to start tracking my stats here on my blog) kids...the bat DOES make a difference. a huge difference. i wish i would have realized that when i was 18. what fun i wouldve had.

heres the deal...(all this lead up to get to this) i named the bat. this bat has turned me, a guy who rarely hit home runs, into someone who averages over one per game. thats insane...and as i said...im not praising myself. im praising the bat. what did i name the bat?...i named it wonderboy. "why wonderboy?" you ask. well heres why. the classic baseball movie "the natural". robert redford made a bat from a tree that was struck by lightning. he carved the name "wonderboy" into it. god, what a great cheesy movie "the natural" was. havent seen it? shame on you...see it. also theres a tenacious d song called wonderboy. "wonderboy. what is the secret of your power?" goes the chorus. anyways...im realizing the name wonderboy may be fitting, but not all that original. so readers...what should i name my bat? im looking for suggestions as comments. i will than pick some of my own ideas and mix them with your ideas. i will take 5 or so of the ideas and create a poll...the winner will become wonderboys new official name. friends, this may be the most important decision we ever make together. please, think about it. be creative. be original. for gods sake, be passionate. lets come up with the best name we can...and lets name this thing. im waiting patiently for ideas.

-new stuff (updated)-

kleigh stayed at mandras tonight. so i passed some time here online. imagine that, i know. i spent about 3 hours playing some online poker, which i havent had the chance to do in months. i played in 3 sit and go tournaments. i played well in the 1st one and took 1st. i played better in the 2nd but took a couple really bad beats and finished in 5th. i played ok for most of the 3rd, but i was on the better end of 5 bad beats, and ended up taking an undeserved 1st (i played well enough to take 2nd or 3rd...but god, not 1st) long story short...im up 150 bucks for the day. i decided i should quit before my luck runs out.

online project #2: i do not like photobucket. i have all of my pics of me and the family...and the pics ive taken stored in photobucket. i decided to set up a flickr account. from now on my "pictures of me and the family" link will take you to flickr, where you can even comment on pics. ive added (photobucket) to the photobucket page. make sense? youre smart, youll figure it out. filter, you can call me if you need help.

flickr also has a cool feature that automatically adds thumbnails of my last 5 uploads to my blog here. im making use of that on the right there. no, not there. closer. closer. there you go right there.

-the simpsons-

with all the steve guttenberg talk around here lately i cant help but laugh every time i hear his name. i was just flipping through the channels one night and i saw him on "dancing with the stars". dancing with "the stars"?? is steve guttenberg really considered a star? for those of you who dont know....(uh hum...laurie) steve starred in classics such as "short circuit" and "police academy"...all 87 of them. anyways...the thing that really makes me laugh is that there is a reference to him in the stonecutters episode of the simpsons. homer joins a secret society (a parody of the masons, illuminati, etc) heres the lyrics to their song:

Stonecutter’s song
Who controls the British Crown?

Who keeps the metric system down?

We do. We do.

Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?

Who keeps the Martians under wraps?

We do. We do.

Who holds back the electric car?

Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?

We do. We do.

Who robs cave fish of their sight?

Who rigs every Oscar night?

We do. We do.

-no stache-

ive had some requests to post some new pics of myself. i have gotten rid of the beard and have changed to the "chin curtain". which according to beards.org is the official name of this disaster i carry around on my 15 year old looking face. so to all who wanted a new pic. here it is.

-a letter-

dear god-

who am i to tell you how to do your job? but heres the deal. softball starts on monday already. its softball season. so...ummm...this snow business...yeah, it may be pretty and all from up above, but it...ahhhh....well....it really kinda sucks down here. so if you could just kindly knock it off i would greatly appreciate it. how about we make a deal???..you knock off this snow business, and ill stop saying and doing all those nasty things to the neelys? sound fair? good.

amen,
paul

ps..you did hear my prayer about steve guttenburg winning on dancing with the stars right?..yeah, cause he didnt. whats up with that?

-"but its a false sense of accomplishment everytime i quit"-

yesterday was a tough day. its always tough for me to get back into the routine when i get a break from it. yesterday was back to work, and back to the routine. if time machines are ever invented im going back in time and finding the guy who came up with the idea of working 40-60 hours a week and punching him square in the neck. twice even. good idea, idiot.

it doesnt help either that this cold still seems to have my head in a vise. its harder to walk through the routine when all you can think about is sleep. all through my work day i was just out of it and in an all around blah mood. i stopped home quick on my lunch break and kleigh came running out the front door and down the sidewalk with her arms open wide yelling "daddy, daddy"...id have to be completely brain dead to not be at least a little moved by that. so thanks to kleigh for once again brightening my day in those great little ways.

after work kleigh talked me into a quick trip down to sibley. she played on the new toys and we checked out the animals. ive done all i can to teach her to be polite...to share and take turns. it was cool to sit and watch her put a lot of that into practice. she was waiting her turn...sharing slides and toys and saying excuse me and all. it was really cute to watch, until a few kids started just taking advantage of her politeness by cutting in front of her and taking the shared toys away from her. how do you explain to a 3 year old that "the moral code" isnt followed by everyone but she still needs to follow it even if means being walked on from time to time? get back to me on that one. it was a nice display of human nature either way. it still hit me really hard though to see 'that' look on her face and to hear "daddy, why they not sharing?" i wish i could tell her that only "some" kids are like that and that they all grow out of it.

i feel like im doing a complete inventory this week. where am i? where am i going? what do i want? what do i need? and an important one...what do i believe? i feel like im holding too tightly onto "what i used to be" before the last 2 years of life hit me in the face over and over again. the truth is that im just not that guy anymore. i am what i am now after the storm, and i may never be what i was before it. i have new fears. new ways of protecting myself. new priorites. and some new doubts. the storm has calmed. im done with screaming for help. im done with the desperate attempts at silencing the storm myself. now my boat is floating aimlessly in the sea and im looking around at the rubble...relearning how to live in my new surroundings. (a scary thought...im even getting used to this mess) lately my eyes have been just looking around trying to find my One true companion. the One who was close through everything. my greatest pain through all of this is that i feel that He too has abandoned me. im looking around and finding that i am alone in my storm battered boat. this book is a long list of conditions to the claimed unconditional. the One who does not leave has left. and He's done it even quicker than others. maybe hes no different? fathers leave. lovers leave. friends betray. maybe my god is just as eager to up and leave as so many others have been? the question mark is intentional. im not making a statement. i am not one to say things are great when theyre not. i am not one to claim great faith and than hide in my closet alone with my doubts. i am what i am...and now i am what i am after the storm.

-sleeping the day away-

its monday. i should be at work right now. instead i am just waking up. i feel like poop. i got up at 5:30 this morning and decided there was no way i was getting through the work day. so i went back to sleep. 8 hours later im getting up and feeling like i should lay back down.

anyways...enough boo hooing. friday we drove up to lutsen. its a 5 to 6 hour drive depending on how fast you drive and all. we of couse nailed rush hour through the cities. it took us over 2 hours just to get through the cities, which makes for a long drive. we stopped in duluth for some sammys pizza. sammys is honestly the best pizza i have ever had...sorry pagliais, youre still very good.

friday night we hung out in our room...it was a ski in/ski out room so its right on the side of the hill. we had a hot tub, a fireplace, and a full kitchen. and all for very cheap.

saturday i woke up feeling like crap. but...i had already paid for the lift ticket so i had to snowboard a little bit right? i lasted about 2 hours and that was enough. i skipped the snowboarding on sunday. i just wasnt feeling up to it. other than that we did the touristy stuff. went to some of the local waterfalls and all. they were all huge due to all the snow melt up there. ive never seen them that big. i added some pictures to the "pictures of me and the family" link and the "pictures taken by me link". check them out, wont you?

sunday we left at about 11 am...stopped in duluth to eat at grandmas. walked the pier a bit (man was it freezing cold) we got home about 7, unpacked a little and went to bed.

a funny side note...i ordered the largest sammys pizza i could. a five cheeser with pepperoni...Mmmm five cheeser! i ate half of it and brought the rest back to the room to eat later. the next morning i woke up to find our refrigerator or something in it was leaking...all over my pizza! my delicious sammys pizza was ruined! argh. but i did find out that they have opened 2 new locations near the cities...so my odds of getting their pizza again are much better than when they only had locations near duluth.

oh and a ps...im sick of the smell of vick's vaporub..and sick of taking cold medicine. can someone please just heal me? im looking at you filter.

-back at it-

just got back not too long ago from lutsen. it was a great weekend away. i am far beyond exhausted. so for tonight just one picture from duluth. more soon.

-lutsen-

leaving any minute now for an end of the season lutsen weekend! i dont know how much im going to be able to snowboard. ive been sick for a few days. feeling crappy now. but at the least, it will be a weekend away with a hot tub in the room. have a good weekend all!

-loserville, USA-

the twins are getting really good at blowing big leads. theyve done it 2 games in a row against the tigers...those games are really fun to watch as a twins fan.

the wild went into complete self destruct mode last night. i do not watch every single wild game, but ive seen my share, last night may have been the worst game i have ever seen them play.

i am completely disillusioned with minnesota sports right now. losers, every one of them. help cheer me up. if you live in minnesota and you won in some sort of game or sport yesterday or last night, let me know about it. i dont care if you beat your grandma in scrabble. i want to hear about it. there has to be someone in minnesota who is capable of winning.

-hockey part 2-

this series is getting nuts. another overtime game! another 3 to 2 game. all three games have been 3-2 in OT. insane. its way too much stress for my fragile paul heart. wild lead the series 2-1. and argh, i need some sleep.

-hockey-

im usually not one to make excuses for sporting teams...or to claim games are rigged...but my god, through 2 periods the wild are getting screwed by the officiating. for the entire 2nd period i almost quit watching because it HONESTLY seems like the officials are trying to help colorado. i would like to think that these games are played and officiated fairly, but tonight is not looking good for my faith in the major sporting leagues. the 3rd period is starting now...im back at it.

-pronunciation-

i just thought this was funny...you kinda have to hear it to appreciate it, but this will just have to do. kleigh has been under pronouncing dylans name ever since she first learned to say it. she has always called him "den"...recently ive been working with her more on her pronunciation and shes getting much better with a lot of words. for the last week or so she is drastically over pronouncing dylans name and its hilarious to listen to. it honeslty takes her about 2 to 3 seconds to say his name. she now calls him "dyllllll LAN". both dylan and i laugh everytime she says it.

anyways...its sunday. mid 40's and sunny today. 50's tomorrow. 60's for the rest of the week! woo frickin hoo!! i hope you all had a great weekend...im gonna go enjoy the little thats left of it.

-hockey stress-

mark had us over to watch the wild game tonight. we ordered pizza from godfathers and watched the wild win 3 to 2 in OT. again, it was too stressful. but it was a fun game to watch...why does a small town godfathers take 1 1/2 hours to deliver pizza?

we got exactly no snow out of this huge storm. a ton of rain and wind, but no snow. woo hoo is all i have to say about that. now lets get into softball weather real quick like.

thank god its friday. i dont have much more to say than that. its friday...and again...woo hoo!!!!!

-the results are in-

the facial hair poll ended at some point today. the winner is...(insert 20 minute drum roll here)...the thinner omish beard! keeping the beard lost by a single vote. so...at some point this weekend or next week i will be getting a haircut...and getting rid of most of the beard. just dont be surprised by all the ugly that was at one point covered by beard. thanks to all who participated in this very important vote.

i heard a stat today. and it blew my brain. ive heard dollar amounts on the iraq war before...but someone on the radio today said that the iraq war is costing tax payers $5000.00 per second. are you kidding me? we cant feed and shelter the homeless in this country? we cant feed the starving kids in africa? but we can raise $5000 a second to drop bombs on a country who had NOTHING to do with 9/11. and we still have not been given a real honest reason for this war. unbelievable.

"you are far across the ocean, in a war thats not your own. and while youre winning theirs youre going to lose the one at home. do you really think the only way to bring about the peace is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies?" -larry norman-

today was one of "those" days at work. just a long day. mandra had the kids this evening...so i sat down on the couch to watch some baseball...bad idea. i found myself waking up from an accidental nap about 2 hours later. way to waste your little bit of paul time. oh well, i must have needed it.

its raining so hard today. last i heard we had already gotten over an inch...and its still pouring. but luckily it hasnt switched over to snow yet. we would be getting a ton of snow if i was only a few degrees colder. theyre still talking 4 to 8 inches for tomorrow...hopefully it just rains...i dont want any more snow..

-disappointment!-

the wild game has just ended. what a game. i think i had about 14 heart attacks. the wild were down 2-0 going into the 3rd period but they managed to score twice to get the game into overtime...where they lost! argh. so much stress for a loss. its now 11:30 and im not going to be able to sleep. im too worked up.

we are in a winter storm watch tomorrow through saturday morning. blah to that. its the 2nd week of april...were supposed to be talking spring, not more snow. i was sick of it a month ago. now im...ummm...really sick of it.

i have a friend who ive been unable to get a hold of for a few days. im getting worried. its not like him to not return phone calls, emails, myspace and facebook messages, text messages...god, ive tried everything but smoke signals and havent heard back. today it hit me that something could have happened to him and his parents wouldnt know how to get a hold of me to tell me...so...im worried. its probably nothing...well, i hope its nothing.

argh. its getting late...im winding down. i need to get to sleep. im going to be over tired tomorrow. goodnight all.

-clean up days-

twice a year my lovely town of north kato has a fancy little thing called clean up days. what are these clean up days?...well reader, clean up days are times where the city allows us to throw just about anything out by the curb and they come around, pick it up and properly dispose of it. so for a few days the town looks like a garbage dump. everyone throws everything out by the curb. its great though because it allows you to clean out your basement, your garage, etc and you dont have to worry about what youre going to do with everything.

the downside to clean up days?..after all the junk has been put out on the curb and before theyve come around to pick it all up, people come from all over to go through and take other peoples stuff. it just becomes a city wide yard sale and everything is free! honestly at times its just a parade of traffic driving slowly by your house to see if any of your junk is worth taking. i hate it. its always annoyed me. maybe it shouldnt annoy me, but it does. saturday i spent part of the day getting stuff out to the curb...only to come outside a little later to find that people had dug through my stuff and left it laying in the road and on my sidewalk. so i reorganized it all again. only to find sunday morning that some of it was again in the road and on the sidewalk. yesterday i came home from work to find a couple women looking at one of the yard toys i had thrown out. why did i throw it out?...because it was cracked and could no longer safely support the weight of a child on it. so...its garbage. these 2 women are commenting on how much their daughters would love a yard toy like that...than they noticed the crack. "its cracked...its no good", one of them said...than get this, they both looked at me like they were mad about it and said "well thats a shame". its frickin garbage ladies. thats why im throwing it out. that event brought my annoyance up a little more . but heres what peaked it...last night at about 3 am i woke up to the sound of a vehicle idling loudly and some loud crashing noises. i looked out my window to see what was going on...someone in a van was driving slowly down the road going through everyones stuff and throwing some of it in the back of their van. they had stopped outside of my house and were just sitting there talking. all this at about 3 am.

anyways, today the city came around and picked everything up. the town is clean, the parade of treasure seekers is over and 3 am should be quiet. and for that i am happy. and a little tired.

-spring!-

today was a perfect day as far as weather goes. 60 some degrees with plenty of sunshine. we ran out to minneopa again to see if all the ice had melted yet. it had. theres a lot of water running over the falls right now so it was nice to see.

the hammock is all set up for some backyard nappin...and the back yard ponds/waterfalls are turned back on for the year.

the twins won their 2nd game in a row today. hopefully they can make it 3 tomorrow. i need to go to bed early tonight. i played poker until very late last night and didnt get to bed until about 3. tonight...i go to bed at 9.

-wild-

i went to BW3's tonight with andy and watched the wild win their division. woo hoo. at least theres one minnesota team doing something good. and now i need to go to sleep.

oh, and my cheeseburger...delicious.

-before it gets easy-

ive had some passing thoughts lately. i dont like them, but i cant ignore them. so im going to talk about them.

the last year and a half...ive talked about it too much. im sick of talking about it...youre sick of hearing about it. so i wont dissect it the way i have in prior posts. i will just say it has been a really hard time. circumstantially, the hardest of my life by far.

in the middle of the really dark times i remember laying in bed at night...exhausted, confused, scared, hurt, etc and just praying. "god, i cant do this". "god, i cant handle this." and every time i said that prayer there was an instant thought. (and i am not claiming it was god) but the thought was "you can do this. you are doing it. and you can handle more". and i did handle more. and when more weight was added...i prayed "god i cant do this..."...the following thought?.."you can do this. you are doing it. and you can handle more." after months of that cycle i quit praying that prayer. something bad or heavy would happen and my thoughts would just go straight into "i can do this. i am doing it. i can handle more"...

so heres my recent fear. and i need to quote here to set it up. "its gonna get harder still, before it gets easy." (-jim atkins-) what if things are going to get even harder before they get better? for the last 5 or 6 months or so i FINALLY feel like im on the way up. things just feel and seem better. ive hit bottom in this situation and now im on my way back. what if, and god i hope this isnt a possibility, what if the hardest part is yet to come? my expectations now are so different. im expecting good things again. a year ago i would literally wake up expecting my day to be hard and thankless. now...i wake up and believe that good things are going to happen. they may be mixed in with bad...but theyll be there. with these new expectations come a new fear that i may not handle it as well if some sort of tragedy strikes again.