This Starts Now

"Here I am..., talking while you don't hear a word I say, knowing you're watching me from far away, somewhere that I've never been..." -Billy Joel- (State Of Grace)

"I'm sorry that I hurt you..., it's something I must live with every day..., and all the pain I put you through..., I wish that I could take it all away..." -Hoobastank- (The Reason)

"'Cause I can't take anymore of this, I want to come apart, or dig myself a little hole, inside your precious heart..." -Staind- (Epiphany)



Good morning everyone.  Today's post title is the answer to "this stops now," which is what I said when I saw my scale register 240 pounds on May 18th...  :O  "This" actually started a while back, and I don't know if I can pinpoint an exact moment (although if I'm going to be using 'This Starts Now' as a post title, I might want to figure that out) that this started.  Hey, it's Monday..., gimme a break...  ;)  <<<<<  This weekend someone told me that I like the "winky faces" - sue me...  ;) ;) ;)  Anyway, the job hunt will be all-consuming now, as will my upcoming move.  In the past month since leaving Harper's, I have successfully lost over ten pounds and flipped my sleep schedule.  I also said goodbye to my dad as he headed north after a long run on the outskirts of the Alamo City.  Now I have phone calls to make and LOTS of classified ads to read, so let's get to it...  Here we go...

As luck would have it, I probably have almost enough to write about for the whole week, due to the fact that this weekend was more eventful than I would have anticipated.  Yesterday I woke up SUPER EARLY for no reason (if you're new to the blog, "for no reason" means that I didn't have to get up, I didn't set an alarm, etc...), so I went and bought some groceries.  I went back to sleep at about 9:30 a.m. and set my alarm for just before noon, knowing that my friend was going to be calling in the early afternoon.  Shortly after noon, Alvin did indeed call, and said that his group was just entering San Marcos (insert EEEEEEEKKK!!! or YIKES!!! here, both words that I don't normally use)...  I was expecting a call when they were about to DEPART from the ATX, but I'm adaptable...  ;) <<<<< (Obligatory winky face...)  Anyway, I met up with Alvin, Amy, and the two precious youngsters that they had in tow at Grins.  Now Alvin is a high school classmate of mine, and I hadn't seen him in... (c'mon..., take a shot at this..., you know what I'm going to say..., that's right...) one hundred years...  Alvin was nice enough to buy lunch for all of us (which is not near punishment enough for the fact that this whole group lives in... (c'mon, take a shot at it..., you can guess it..., that's right...) Las Vegas...  I better have a REALLY GREAT YEAR up in Austin since it seems that I'm the only one who doesn't live out in Las Vegas or at least visit the desert every other month (I might be exaggerating)...  :)  I really enjoyed catching up with this group as I ate a "light lunch" (half an order of 'Nachomoles' and two of the kids' quesadillas that I managed to steal)...  ;) <<<<< (Gratuitous winky face and NO, I did not really steal their food - it seems that two young ladies had a "pre-lunch" of yogurt on the Square)...  OH, I forgot to tell you, when Alvin called me from the Square, he suggested that we eat at this place called 'Harper's Public House'...  I told him that Harper's doesn't serve food, and that I had worked there until recently (as you know, this was a DEAD GIVEAWAY that he hadn't read the blog before)...  :)

So after a great visit, they dropped me off at my apartment (Grins was like a five-minute walk for me), and I quickly prepared for my trip to..., THE RIVER (which is the reason that I ate the light lunch, after learning how soon we'd be meeting)...  As you probably guessed, I would have written about this reunion today anyway (it really was the first time that we had seen each other in twenty-seven years), but then something happened at the river yesterday that's worth mentioning.  Oh, and by the way, Alvin is my first high school classmate that can testify as to how rough life is on Bikini Hill...  :)  #thestruggle  Anyway, as I hung out at "the ladder," a group of about ten tubers reached the turn by the basketball court where the water gets deeper (it goes from about 3 feet to over 10 feet deep) when a tube with a mother and her young daughter (I would put her on being about 3 years old) flipped over.  The two of them weren't wearing life jackets, and as it turns out, neither of them could swim...  Coincidentally, someone asked me a few days ago if I was a lifeguard when I was escaping the sun in the river...  Well, the bright side of my AC unit having its problems battling the late afternoon heat is that I was there to help save these two.  I was about twenty yards away when I started, and immediately went for the little girl (which almost everyone did as it turns out), and it was only when I got closer that I realized that the mother couldn't swim either.  There was a guy helping to keep the mother afloat when I got to them, but the problem with where she ended up was that she wasn't in the current, so we actually had to pull her to the current, at which point the water helped us in getting her to the ladder.  Afterward the mother said that they didn't realize that the water got that deep...  Needless to say, this was the end of the tubing trip for the father and his family, and he was nice enough to seek me out after all of the commotion has passed to shake my hand and say thank you.

Now in some happier river news, I met a few more Rattlers on Saturday.  The Rattlers are the mascot of the local high school here, where I taught and coached... (c'mon..., you know the answer to this one..., that's right...) one hundred years ago...  Now the first time that Elena and Marissa crossed paths with me, they wouldn't have found their way into the blog, but I did notice that when Marissa reached the ladder, she kind of paused, almost like she had..., choked or something???  The thing was, she wasn't making any choking noises, and when she had composed herself, all she said was, "that was attractive..."  This made me laugh out loud, and my guess was that she was just worried about how her hair looked...  Now the next time that I saw this pair..., ha ha ha...  As these two ladies hit that same spot where the tube flipped yesterday, OUT OF NOWHERE, a snorkel POPPED UP out of the water, right in Marissa's face!!!  The way that she reacted, you'd have thought that it was a snake, and I don't blame her for being alarmed.  NOTE:  In addition to the non-swimmers needing life jackets, the snorkelers need to be aware of their surroundings - one popped up from beneath the surface of the water yesterday and got hit in the head by the paddle of someone passing by in a kayak...  On a related note, maybe in the near future we'll discuss the wisdom of trying to navigate kayaks and canoes through the river at Sewell Park during a predictably busy Fourth of July Weekend...  Okay, so back to Elena and Marissa...  So what clinched me asking their permission to put their adventures in the blog today was their next trip down the river, when one of them (I forget which one) claimed that a fish had swam between their legs, to which the other responded, "WELL GET OUT THEN!"  :)  Now when I asked these two if I could use their story in the blog, they actually made me feel bad for a second when they told me, "yeah, someone put us in their blog last year..."  Knowing that they were local high school students, I asked them if they knew the twins (Victoria and Trinity from last week's 'Sisters' post, which they did), quickly summarized the story that I had written about those two, and then told Elena and Marissa that I coached at the high school a hundred years ago (you already knew that it was coming that time)...  Since these two had already been put in somebody's blog last year when visiting Bikini Hill, I didn't want them to think that it was like some kind of scam of something..., like they were going to be obligated to buy..., I don't know..., ALUMINUM SIDING in the future, or become a part of some devious pyramid scheme...  :)  Thankfully I'll be moving to Austin soon, before TWO THOUSAND San Marcos High School students want to be in the blog...  :)


Weekly fantasy baseball results you ask?  Here ya go...


League 1 (25 entry fee - 1st place/125, 2nd place/25)

1)  DraftDodgers                                        74.50
2)  Neshanic                                             69.00
3)  Buschleaguers                                     62.50
7)  The View From Bikini Hill                      51.00 (7th AND over 50 points?!)  ;)


League 2 (40 entry fee - 1st place/300, 2nd place/50)

1)  Breaking Bats                                      85.00 (PACE YOURSELF dude...)  :)
2)  4troublemakes                                     71.50
3)  Loons XXIV                                          59.00
4)  The Bikini Hill Bobcats                         54.50 (4th - must be a typo...)


League 3 (40 entry fee - 1st place/300, 2nd place/50)

1)  Pittsburg Crawfords                              72.50
2)  jonnylove7                                           64.00
3)  Nappy Heads                                       62.00
5)  Fishing For Trout                                  56.50
5)  The Bikini Hill Nine                               56.50 (there's hope...)


I know that you're all waiting to hear how many pitching victories I got from the Bikini Hill Nine last week, after my pitchers had an uncanny EIGHTEEN starts...  The answer is nine, which I'll take...  :)  My teams are heading in the right direction, so much so that I actually had trouble deciding which player to drop yesterday when I had a player return from the disabled list.  WHAT am I going to do when everyone on The View From Bikini Hill (still six players on the DL) becomes healthy?!

I hope that you have a great day and I'll see you again tomorrow!