July 9th & 16th, pt 1

After winning 11-7 on July 2nd, I held a postgame meeting.  I congratulated everyone on doing their job of shut-down defense.  The pitcher was shaky that night, having walked 8 batters total and he apologized for that.  I told him not to worry - he would do better next week.

"Uhm, about that..."

Uh-oh. 

He proceeded to let me know he would be on vacation for 2 weeks.  Okay.  I asked the team if anyone would be willing to pitch next week.  I was immediately nominated for that.  Uhh...  I repeated my question and they all stared back at me.

The problem was I hadn't pitched in a game for 12 months and I figured with so many available players, I would not need to stay sharp.  After all, I was doing practice with two different teams at least once a week which helped keep me fit.  I consented and then sent everyone off with a rousing victory speech.

Before I knew it, Monday the 9th was here and...I never got around to practice on my pitching.  Crap.  I knew the exact distance because I have the measuring tape...but can I do it again, hitting the target consistently after all that time?  Only way to find out.  I went to the park an hour early, measured off the distance, placed a faux home plate at the end of the tape, and took my spot on the other end. 

I positioned myself, took one step back, took a breath, and went into the motion.  I was short by two full plates.  Tried harder...*thud!*  The ball had hit the plate.  I tried harder and I cleared the plate, but a bit off to the right.  Took a breath, centered myself, focused on the area above the plate, and let it fly.  Landed perfectly.  Threw another...almost same result.  A slight hiccup in my throwing mechanism and the ball veered off.  Centered myself and I found the area once again.

15 minutes later, I felt good about my arm.  Then the game started 10 minutes later.

First inning - we scored a run and then it was my turn.  I was a bit off and walked the first batter (since this was a male batter, he automatically advanced to second base).  The next batter tried to wait on my pitches in order to draw a walk.  The shortstop (one of the fixtures) came over to tell me how to pitch.  I told him to back off, do his job, and I will do mine.  The batter then grounded out, advancing the runner to third.  I walked third batter, putting him on 2nd base.  The fourth batter flied out to outfield, scoring the runner.  The 6th batter grounded out, tying the score at 1-1.

Second inning - we didn't score a run.  First batter grounded out, 2nd batter singled, 3rd batter singled, 4th got on by shortstop's error, 5th lined out, 6th lined right at me which almost took me out, scoring 2 runners, before shutting down the next two batters through flyouts.  I became very vocal on the field and that fired the team up.  I didn't walk a batter and gave up just three hits.  Down 3-1.

Third inning - we scored a run to cut the deficit to 3-2.  Got first batter to ground out.  Second batter singled, third batter grounded out, and fourth batter struck out.  Score remained unchanged, but I underwent a transformation on the mound.  I found my zone and nothing was getting to me at all.

Fourth inning - no score from us.  Struck out first batter, gave up a single to next batter, third flied out to outfield (outfielder thought it was three outs and never bothered to throw the ball back so the runner advanced on no throw), fourth singled to score the runner home, fifth singled, and sixth batter lined out at second baseman.  Score 4-2.  Everyone could hear me and I told the shortstop off again for not being in his position.

We scored 2 more runs over the next 2 innings...but gave up one more run in the final inning to seal our fate.  The funny thing was that shortstop singled before I told him to back off and do his job.  He floundered, going 0-4 and committing two errors.  I felt good about myself despite having pitched 7 innings, giving up 5 runs and walking two batters.  I wanted more out of myself and others...and I knew the team wanted me back on the mound next week. 

The problem with next week was...  Come back next week to find out!  ;)

I didn't get the job. Again.

Five weeks ago, I discovered through an old friend that a company was looking for someone with certain set of skills and experience which I happen to have. I applied and went in for two rounds of interviews. The vibe felt good all around. They were impressed with how easily I handled the "obstacles" they threw at me to confirm that I knew how to do the job.

I found out early last week that I didn't get the job I really wanted. It didn't matter that it was only part-time because I already had another part-time job and I would've easily tailored my day around both.

I tried to ask someone deep inside the company to check my resume to make sure I had no cause for concern in future interviews three weeks earlier, but got the "I didn't check, but I doubt it's the resume" brush-off.

I have connections and my network is huge. It didn't take long to learn who was hired instead of me and it was someone I have known since '98. My wife, upon discovery, angrily said something about the new hire not having any degree or experience. I told her the company probably had their reason for not hiring me. That didn't please my wife at all.

When she told a friend about what had happened, he responded with "Well, he is Donald Trump among his peers and the new hire? She is just commonfolk. That's why they got her cheap." Whether or not that was true, that made me feel good for a little while.

The point is why don't companies want the best possible candidates? When I started working for the black hole of a county government center in '00, it was seller's market for the people seeking jobs. Not anymore.

When I told a blogger friend by the name of Shelle BlokThoughts about who got hired instead and what a friend said about me, she told me "It's the economy. They will take someone who is average, okay enough that they can teach the rest of the skills to."

Sighs. At least Shelle was honest with me and with the help of her candor, I'm grounded in the reality now and ready to move on with my life. Let me end this post with a great quote...

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody." -by Henry Wadsworth.

Update on my life's new direction

Editor's note: Whoops! Forgot to set this to publish this at midnight. I was wondering why I wasn't getting my comments. ;)

Boy, talk about being caught off-guard...I got to a major event a bit early to help set up a booth so we could showcase the community center and how it can help the deaf community. The problem was I had not thought of trying out the display stand prior to that event, let alone know how to put one up.

The woman who brought it was stumped as well. She had not put one up before and had no experience. She shoved the manual into my hand so I knew I had to decipher it and have the display up in minutes. The manual did not use words, just pictures. No problem...except the layout of the pictures was confusing. LOL

I had to re-read the manual before I figured out the order of the layout and then I got it fully assembled in 5 seconds. What I didn't count on was the sheer size of the display. It was HUGE! It took up 90% of the booth table (you know, the standard plastic buffet-style table which is about 5 feet long). The display stand was 4.5' by 4.5' and there was no way we could sit behind the table - we would be completely obscured by the display. That meant we had to stand in front of the booth the whole time.

Grr.

Why? Because there were 6 hours of booth time scheduled and only three people volunteered for 3 shifts (1 shift = 1 hour) total. Others didn't bother to reply or had excuses. That meant I was responsible for minimum of 3 hours and that turned into 5 hours total because of the sheer number of people who wanted to know more about the center.

I was able to convince a whole bunch of people to sign up for the announcements of open-captioned theater movies. Let me explain about the OC movies...the movies are shown in a normal way with one exception - the words are either shown ON the screen (one theater does this) or on the special smoked glass on flexible necks to reflect the words (3 other theaters do this).

The special smoked glass style is called Rear Window Captioning and how the system uses those refractors (as they're called). There is a LED display case near the projector window that shows the words backwards and is shown in correct order on the refractors. The system looks like this...

(The words say "Welcome to Rear Window. Please adjust your reflectors.")

Yesterday, the board president sent an e-mail to the board and the center's management team congratulating those who were at the booth. He even said people had nothing but praise for me. They liked how visible I was at the booth and how willing I was to talk with everyone instead of handing them off to someone else at the booth. Hey, that's my job - I have to be there for everyone. :)

Story series - art imitates life...sorta

Saw a very comical Big Bang Theory episode related to Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj waiting at a theater to see a re-release of a movie. That episode reminded me of the time I went to see Star Wars at the base theater back in 1978.

What I meant by "the base theater", it was at an Air Force base. I lived in and around Air Force bases all of my childhood and I was an Air Force brat, thanks to my dad.

When the news got out that Star Wars was being shown at that base theater months after it no longer ran in the theaters, my friend and I immediately made plans to see it. After some delay (we were young and unable to drive so we had to wait for his dad to take us), we arrived at the theater only to see a MASSIVE line at the theater. Stretched around to behind the theater.

Sighs.

We got in the line and waited. His dad left. Hey, this was 1978 and we were on the base. We were secure at that time.

Took us about 20 minutes just to get to the ticket window...and as we stepped up to purchase the tickets... Yep...as you guessed it...

The employee put up a sign that indicated the show was sold out. We WERE the cutoff line. If only...hid dad had gotten going a bit sooner...if only...he had driven faster...if only we had asked him earlier...if only if only if onlyifonlyif...

Argh!

Yes, it really happened. Just as we were ready to buy tickets. I'd tell people about this story and then to see art imitating life...sorta. ;)

Whew, now that the Silent Weekend retreat is over...part 2

Editor's note: please see the post below for part one if you haven't read that yet.

I woke up Saturday morning and it was still dark out. I went to check on my campers and I was tickled, really tickled to see my thieves had taken their mattresses down and placed them in front of the fireplace (the mandated spot for each cabin's mascot) and they slept on the floor to make sure nobody could get to our mascot. I looked over to the fireplace and was shocked to see our mascot wasn't alone.

My boys. My cabin. I felt that familiar surge of pride again.

I got my pager out and I took a picture. The older thief woke up from the flash and when he saw who I was, he grinned at me. I signed, "how many mascots?" and he signed "Four". I signed "Four? Proud you!" The original picture was way off-center so I took another picture. The older thief grinned and held his thumb up as I re-snapped the picture. The younger thief had accidentally covered up the other mascots while he slept - you can barely make out the blue dog peeking out from under. Take a look. LOL

You can see the hen now, just behind our mascot.

At the mandatory 7:45 am staff meeting, I found out that my campers had won the Dutch Auction game. That boosted my sense of pride for my campers, which is no easy feat.

After the meeting, I joined my campers at their table for breakfast and they told me other campers were grumbling about the two thieves being too good at the mascot game. Then the staffer in charge came over and told my campers to give back the mascots. They protested that they had followed the rules cleanly this time. They looked at me and I nodded my head slightly; they promptly turned the mascots over to her.

After she left with the 4 mascots, the younger one signed to me, "Why punish us? We follow rules!" I leaned in and signed, "(it's) Okay, you punish because you too good". They laughed at that and calmed down. I was curious about how they managed to steal 4 mascots after the cabins had learned how sneaky they were and were undoubtedly on high alert.

Me: "How four?"
Older thief: "We went their cabins, take"
Me: "Time?"
Younger thief: "3 morning"
Me: "Wow"

Then it was time for the outdoor games. Friday night had dipped into the 30's and the sun was warming the field up to the high 40's when we streamed out of the mess hall. We headed out to play a regular Silent Weekend game and a favorite of mine, "Clusters". It's a great game that anyone can play.

Here's how it works - someone holds up a number and the participants must "cluster" themselves into a group of people matching the sign. If the sign comes up as "6", each group must have 6 people in it. The "refs" rush in and count the members of each group to ensure accuracy. The others who couldn't find enough members are out of the game. Then everyone breaks apart and mingles...waiting for the next number. The last two remaining in the game are the winners. The last two left in the game that morning were each given a clue to share with their cabins.

After playing a relay game (each camper had to "read" what was fingerspelled and either fingerspell or sign it) and "Guess Who?" (each camper had to guess the identity on a card taped to their backs, using "yes/no" questions), we went back for lunch. My co-counselor informed me that he managed to get another clue. My mental computation told me that any other cabin had, at best, 2 clues while ours had 4.

After lunch, I left to lead a workshop for the beginners. I decided on the "7 W's of ASL" (who, what, where, when, why, which, & how) as the building block approach, supplemented with time reference (yesterday, tomorrow, day, week, month, etc.), emotions, and gender line for sex-specific signs (mother, father, boy, girl, etc.).

When I wrapped the workshop up 1.5 hours later, the participants were able to follow everything so much better and they felt good about that. Some came over and praised me for that. Even the staffers who attended were impressed by my style of teaching. I had gotten everyone involved, even the staffers and counselors. This was officially my first time leading a workshop. Two years ago, a presentator got sick and I took over at the last minute.

Then it was craft time, where the campers were allowed to unwind and get creative. That always recharges the batteries. Then the announcement came - each cabin must use the line "Guess What?" and use the gloves as prop in their skit. What skit, you may be thinking? Every year, each cabin comes up with a skit involving signing, deaf culture, and any relevant aspect of the deaf world and we all compete for the best skit. It's one of the best things about the whole weekend...and the most stressful!

I herded my campers back to our cabin to brainstorm for our skit. I came up with a great ending line...the problem was we had nothing to build around that. We had 1.5 hours to brainstorm before dinner and then 2 hours before we had to go to the rec hall and perform our skit.

Nothing. NOTHING. We went back and forth. We came up with three different ideas, but none of them were interchangeable with each other. Nobody could agree on a single idea. Suddenly, it was time for dinner. I signed to the campers, "Eat fast, come here. 5 minutes eat. Go". After I scarfed down my meal, I biked back and laid myself down to rest my brain.

The co-counselor woke me up few minutes later and after deliberating for 15 minutes, we eliminated one idea. We ultimately decided that the idea of murder was not doable and focused on the idea of a bad dream. This happened 50 minutes BEFORE everyone had to go to the rec hall. Argh!

The younger thief had a talent for performance and was the logical choice as "the kid" in the skit...but...he had never seen the movie we based the skit on and had no idea exactly how the line worked or the impact of the line. He was only 7 at the time the movie came out. After struggling through the explanation for 4th time, someone suggested that I be the kid. Before I could protest, every camper jumped in and unanimously agreed on that.

Sighs. Okay. We rehearsed everything at the speed of light. Well, we had to - only 30 minutes to get it all down before going. I reminded everyone to not worry about flubbing their lines...the audience does not know what we are doing and would not know if someone messed up. We rushed off for the rec hall 5 minutes until 8 pm.

The skit took place on Planet Eyeth (as opposed to EARth, where most of us are deaf and we sign everywhere). At the beginning of the skit, I was ordered to bed by my "parents". As I dreamt, I "woke up" in the dream and I tried to sign to my uncle and aunt but they were wearing gloves so they no longer spoke sign language and were "speaking" like Earthlings.

I panicked and ran to my sisters doing pedicures on each other. They had gloves on and "spoke" to me, not understanding what I was signing to them. I freaked out when I saw my brother speaking on a phone with gloves on. Why is he using a phone if he is deaf?!? I saw my parents and tried to sign frantically to them. They did not understand and thought I was flailing my hands around. I saw they had gloves on. (I ran to my bed to wake up from the dream) As I woke up, I cried for my parents and they rushed in.

Mother signed "What's wrong?" I pulled my blanket up and around my head and I signed "I see...hearing people". (That's when the audience roared with laughter as they realized we had done the deaf version of "The Sixth Sense"). Mother signed "Guess what" and I signed "What?" and she signed "Hearing people not real." I sighed with relief and signed "Whew, bad dream".

Judges traditionally razz each skit. I loved what they said about our skit.

After every skit was performed, we had the option of going to a bonfire or the mess hall or cabins because we all were done for Saturday. I hung out at the bonfire for a while before checking in on the mess hall prior to going to bed.

Around 5 am Sunday, I was awakened with a sudden cramp in my right calf. I got out to stand on my foot to unkink it...and saw something dart across my room. I crept out or my room, looked around, and caught someone trying to steal our mascot. Whew! I checked around the cabin and boom, caught another one lurking in the shadows. He was obviously the back-up. Perfect timing to have a cramp. LOL

At the mandatory staff meeting, the counselors all agreed that my skit was the best and funniest. After discussing the candidates for awards, we joined the campers for breakfast while the judges deliberated everything.

We all went to the rec hall for the last time. The staffers let the campers know that they were once again allowed to use their voices. Then the awards were given out. My cabin won The Devil (the older thief), The Clown (the younger thief), The Biggest Sweetheart, and The Balancing Act.

Sadly, the judges did not think our skit was the best and I was told there was a collective gasp when another cabin won instead. At least we won their minds and hearts. ;)

Whew, now that the Silent Weekend retreat is over...

Some of us met up at a restaurant near the retreat so we all could just hang out for the last time. The retreat each year keeps us so busy that we really don't get to do much together. That's okay - what we gain each year is the new memories and the bonds developed.

The theme this year was murder mystery, done in the style of the board game Clue. Sounds like fun, right? It sure was!

Knowing how massive the locale is, I brought my bike (third year in a row now) and so did another counselor. A third one had his bike on his mind but he forgot and wasn't happy about it. Despite the weekend forecast in the 30's overnight, we used our bikes all over the place. A few campers were very curious about my Trek 7300 bike and asked to use it. Of course, they had to ask me for permission...in sign language. ;)

After getting everything set up and decorated, everyone gathered in the mess hall to kick the weekend off. The staffer in charge explained, through voicing and signing, what the theme was and how it would go down. Each cabin would get a clue to get started on the game and everyone had to work for extra clues to help solve the mystery.

The winning cabin with the most points scored in the Dutch Auction game at the rec hall (after dinner) would get a clue. Admittedly, I had never heard of Dutch Auction and I had to listen to the rules. You had to put things in a bag that you thought would be called out by the emcee and you'd get points for that. Sorta like a reverse scavenger hunt, where you don't KNOW what you'd need in order to win.

Then with an added twist, the staffer said few minutes before she had secretly placed a mascot in each cabin (not related to the theme) and the cabins were charged with protecting their mascots from abduction at all times. This had never happened before. New territory. Hm.

I headed back to my cabin with the co-counselor so we could change into our characters for the night's main event where we would interact with the campers. Right as I was aboout to finish dressing up, the co-counselor left our room to wash up. He rushed back in and excitedly told me to, "come look now".

I followed him into the center of the cabin and I was amazed to discover that two male campers of my cabin had stolen ALL of the other cabins' mascots (see pic below; our mascot is the tan dog). I felt my chest swell up with pride when I realized that I would've liked to have thought of this first. These two campers had illegally abducted the mascots - they were supposed to wait until after the main event. I knew I would get heat for what they did...and I didn't mind that. Not one bit at all.

Faces blacked out to protect the guilty ones ;)

Not seen clearly is the fabric hen, between large blue

dog & pink pig - which will be visible in the next post

The other members came in and saw what had occurred. They loved it...suddenly we had that instant bonding. The younger thief signed to me, "What if mascots on list? We can 8x points!" Irrefutable logic. I signed back, "Me fine, put mascots in my sleeping bag...mine biggest." Let me explain the weird wording when we speak in sign language...we are signing and there is no need to sign each and every word since we mentally "fill in the blanks".

We went to the rec hall and one counselor approached me in an agitated manner, "Mascot gone! Don't know what mascot look like!" and another chimed in with "My mascot gone too!". I feigned my surprise at that. Hehe. When other campers and counselors saw the looted mascots on display, some of them went after me. After some accusations and arguing, I shrugged at them and signed, "Wish I thought that. "

The counselors went to the lead staffer to protest and she signed, "Sorry, game starts now." Ohh, I could feel the heat/glare from the counselors. I stuck to my guns...hey, I was (and still am) proud of those sneaky buggers! LOL

The first item called out was a toothbrush, which every cabin easily produced. The emcee signed, "Toothbrush, one point. RED toothbrush, two points". I knew I'd like the game and I stayed in the background so the campers would be more involved. The emcee was funny and creative with his "calls".

At one point, he signed "10 points, any 'I Love You' sign or symbol" and I watched my campers search frantically in vain for anything that resembled the famous "ILY" icon. As time dwindled down on that item, I suddenly remembered something. I rushed out to the emcee and I showed him my ILY tattoo. He signed, "Real tattoo? Not pen?" and I signed "Yes, real" and I showed him my other tattoo. He was so impressed by that he gave my cabin 20 points. A counselor saw what I did and ran over to show him her tattoo of a cartoonish hand in the "ILY" pose, holding a heart (on the right side of her lower back). He promptly rewarded her 25 points. LOL

Then...the emcee signed "5 points, cabin mascot". I grinned at that call and looked at the thieves. They looked at me with a mischievious look in their eyes. Other cabins protested "loudly" and the emcee signed, "30 seconds left!" Instant stampede to our spot for the looted mascots. Bedlam. Chaos. I saw both thieves were refusing to give up their preferred mascot, feeding the frenzy. I ordered both to give theirs up in order to restore the peace.

Then the game ended and the scores were tallied up secretly to determine the winning cabin to reward another clue. Meanwhile, the counselors were ordered to take their posts at their assigned tables and play games like blackjack (campers had to sign numbers), mirror relay (fingerspell a word back to a counselor), tactile fingerspell (campers had to put their hands inside a box and "feel" a counselor spell a word), etc.

That...was...just...Friday. LOL I'll publish part two (about Saturday and Sunday) tomorrow. :)