It Was Lights Out At The Old Ballgame

Someone yelling, "Let's play ball," officially announces spring. Springtime and baseball seem to go together, as if God created springtime just for the national pastime.

Something about that first baseball game seems to shake away all the gloomy aspects of the past winter. As soon as Old Man Winter strikes out for the last time, good old springtime steps up to the plate and a new game is afoot.

Of course, baseball is for the young. One downside of growing older is the fact that you grow out of certain things. For example, as you grow older you grow out of wearing short pants.

You can tell an old man is trying to act young when he puts away long pants and dons short pants. Somebody needs to tell these men that knobby knees are not in fashion this year and the less seen the better, I assure you.

As you grow older, you also grow out of a lot of free time. There is nothing like trying to make a living to put a crimp in your lifestyle. Once a man puts on his hat, grabs a lunchbox and walks out the door, he is in for a lifetime of work. Free time as he once knew it now has a price tag.

One final thought about growing older - as you grow older you also grow out of extra cash jingling in your pocket. No matter how much a person makes, there seems to be more outgo than income in the average home today.

I remember getting a raise once and when the first paycheck came, my take-home was less than before the raise. My raise put me in a higher tax bracket and hence a lower income each payday.

Only one thing I know that can put a temporary pause in all this nonsense - simply an afternoon at the ballpark. Nothing like a good old ballgame to take away all the anxiety of trying to make a living. When I was younger, I was out in the field, playing ball. But I have outgrown that part of my life and find myself sitting in the stands, cheering on my favorite team.

One of the benefits of becoming a grandfather is attending your grandchildren's ballgames. Now that my knees creak and my pitching elbow don't work like it used to, I'm way out of shape to play even one inning of a ballgame. Baseball demands younger knees and elbows that are more pliable. Fortunately for grandfathers, God has bestowed upon them grandchildren who play baseball.

Several weeks ago, it was my privilege to watch my granddaughter play her first softball game. With a good hot cup of coffee and a seat where I could survey the whole process, I settled down to watch a relaxed softball game.

Then, the game took on a new status. My granddaughter came up to bat and I was on the edge of my seat. At that point, the whole game changed for me. Sitting next to me, a man began yelling at the pitcher. "Go ahead, pitcher," he screamed, "burn one across the plate, the batter's a bum, she can't hit nothing."

I had been away so long from a good ballgame I completely forgot about this element of the game. I demurely turned to the gentleman next to me and opined, "You shouldn't yell at the kiddies that way. They're just having fun."

Without even looking at me, he shot, "Mind your own business, Buster."

I'm not easily roused, but this man, what should I say, irritated me. Yes, that's the word, "irritated."

Then, still not looking at me, he snipped, "The pitcher's my daughter."

With all the dignity I could muster under the circumstances I retorted with, "But the batter is my granddaughter. And granddaughters out- rank daughters every time."

I noticed the information stunned him a little. Old Bubba was trying to process this and I could see he was having a little bit of trouble. I didn't mind because for a moment he couldn't think of anything to say, which is good no matter which side you're cheering for.

At this point, the situation turned ugly. And when I say ugly, I mean Mrs. Bubba inserted herself into the tête-à-tête. Let me say, I was not afraid of good old Bubba; it was Mrs. Bubba who put the fear of God into me at the time.

This only illustrates the vast difference between men and women. Men can have a loud, obnoxious, chest puffing argument and then when it's all over, go and buy each other a cup of coffee and slap each other on the back celebrating the winning team.

Women are not like that; at least Mrs. Bubba was not like that. As best I recollect the situation, Mrs. Bubba, who was sitting on the other side of Bubba, leaned forward and simply said, "Oh yeah?"

It was not what she said, or even how she said it that bothered me. The last thing I remember was her left hook interfacing with my left eye.

Driving home, I mused on what the Apostle Paul wrote. "I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure." (1 Timothy 5:21-22 KJV.)

Sometimes, one strike and you're out

Jack Johnson - My Opinions

Jack Johnson a surfer from Hawaii turned singer/songwriter. He received his breakthough on one of his friend's albums, Garrett Dutton III of G Love and Special Sauce. Johnson's song Rodeo Clowns appeared on G Love's album Philadelphonic. Then one of his demos made it to J.P Plunier who is also producer for Ben Harper. Plunier went on to produce Jack Johnson's debut album Brushfire Fairytales. Ben Harper does appear on one track off the album. The album managed to reach to the top forty.

His music is best classified as easy listening. Easy to relax to and not pay a lot of attention to. Unfortunately if you pay too close of attention to his music you'll find that he is not very diverse. A majority of his songs all tend to have the same sound and similar feel. That's not what Jack Johnson is all about though. It is nice to have an artist that is relaxing to listen to.

I personally Jack Johnson is at his best with just his guitar where he can sing his happy and mellow tunes. One of his most original albums is Brushfire Fairytales. It combines a lot of his initial recordings of just him and his guitar with the full sound of some accompaniment.
Another great thing about Jack Johnson is that he is accessible to both guy sand girls. Most of his songs are love songs. He manages to do it in a masculine enough way that it is not real sappy. He will probably be around for along time but never really have any critical success with nay top hits. If you like his style you can count on him for some easy fun to listen to stuff.

Some of Jack Johnson albums include Brushfire Fairytales, On and On, Thicker Than Water: Original Soundtrack, and In Between Dreams.

Avant Garde Composer Creates New Piece, Called Making Popcorn

An National auparavant garde musician, who requires his creativity from the most younger composers of latest years, had a item conducted yesterday at Carnegie Area, known as "Making Snacks."

The Birkenstock boston Springs Band, which requested the item, eventually left the level to create way for the efficiency.

Stagehands then rolling out a popcorn-making device and ready it for the efficiency by stuffing it with dry hammer toe, butter, and sodium.

When it was "tuned," the musician joined to perform his own perform. Taking the level, he brought up his baton and it was turned on. When the first kernel jumped, he offered a company downbeat and then ongoing to perform as the popcorn kernels jumped away. The item determined when all the popcorn had provided its audio.

In an appointment before show, the musician informed us, "It's a new item for drums. As you know, there have been more inclusions in the drums of the orchestra than to any other one. Take, for example, the braking system drum and the ratchet, which is really just a noisemaker. My wish is that the good results of my new item will create the popcorn device a conventional component of the concert orchestra."

"Would you consider it to be a updated or an untuned drums guitar," we requested, involving the run fool.

"I'm not sure yet," he informed us. "While the person pops do have different pitch, they're difficult to management."

After savoring the efficiency, this viewer started to long for the once-scandalous structure by Bob Crate, known as 4'33", in which, as you probably know, a guitar player goes into, rests down at the guitar for four moments and thirty-three a few moments,, and does definitely nothing. Then he gets up and leaves.

Who would have though a show would come when one reconsidered Cage's perform an example of ample reticence?

iPod Movies - A Cinema In Your Hands

Did you ever see that film with Sir Anthony Hopkins when he was a primatologist and he was doing perform out in the forest when he befriended a number of silverbacks? Well, what happens is that these bastard gorilla poachers come by and invasion the team. What do you know but, the gorillas and Hopkins(!) deal with and get rid of a number of the poachers. He goes to an crazy asylum and the excellent silverback goes to the zoo. Thoughts you, this thing was intense and preferred independence more than any celebrity and red stripe waving, the apple company pie consuming red-stater could even believe. But, once he's in the zoo for such a lengthy time, when they lastly begin his crate, he's too damaged to effort simply to move out. Well, that's like me. Flashing is sometimes too much effort.

But, just these days I ran across something that has put the shimmer again in my eye. If you like films and you ave an mp3 player device picture, then let's discuss. Ipod devices films are now within the arrive at of us serfs and peasants, at the same time with a little perform. Because, the simple reality is, mp3 player device films are not in the world of mp3 player device picture, no, generally it's for images. But some determination and a wish to look at curiously moving, effort assets segments and you've got yourself a film evening.

You'll need to get yourself set up with quicktime pro, the apple company itunes and your mp3 player device, of course. Now you're going to take your film, I would probably begin with something shorter, like those segments you obtain from the internet. Get it in your pc and move the video. Put the audio in your the apple company itunes, and then (here's the excellent part) put all the a large number of personal supports in your mp3 player device picture. Now you get the amount moving and use the press rim to search through all the frames…and you are looking at mp3 player device films my companion. Technological innovation is wonderful, take benefits, man, take benefits.