Raincharm’s Weblog

I can’t believe it has been a week.
And a rather busy week at that, at least now and again.

I am going to look through my pictures, and see if I can figure out what I/we was/were doing

• The Dixons came to visit
• Helmets in general
• Carl had a birthday
• We got to see films ala Nyback
• There was a Bucket Brigade in honor Beckett (Chicken & Beer?)
• Mariner and Sounder and Islander games
• Work – with grown-ups and with more grown-up kids
• A little bit of house work.

The Dixon’s visit – Dan, Parker & Maggie.
Several baseball games and some sight-seeing.

The Dixons at Kerry Park

Kerry Park

Maggie

And what trip can happen without the Space Needle

And the new Seattle Center Chihuly Museum

A glimpse of Chihuly – from the outside

Helmets – This tradition started for Tom Wilhelmsen, Mariner pitcher. It was during last season when the center front row of Section 106 decided that Wilhelmsen must be a Viking. They started out just pretending to blow the Viking horn, but it soon morphed into wearing cheap Viking hats. (Conical with horns out the side.) [Rey noted that the real Viking hats did not have horns, and probably had a nasal. But nevermind reality.]

Chief Sealth plus some Scandinavian Emigrants

Then there was the bit about whether Wilhelmsen was potentially a Viking. The only way to figure this out was to actually ask him. Which Carl did. Guess what? They were right! He (Wilhelmsen) said the name was German, but his family was of Norwegian descent. AND he allowed that it would be fun to have them wear the helmets. At a much later time – this year, he told Carl that his father gets quite a kick that they wear helmets for him. And note, Wilhelmsen was working as a bartender before joining the Mariners.

Carl had a birthday. See the previous post for a picture. And I am still older.

Dennis Nyback made his annual pilgrimage to Seattle for the 4th of July. Since Carl’s birthday is close to that holiday, Dennis put on an outdoor showing for a small crowd gathered in the Shannon’s yard. The fare included a baseball tutorial film, and a full length 1-hour Twilight Zone episode, The Bard, written by Rod Serling himself. This particular episode included a bit with a book store owner who is enamored of baseball players. It also includes Burt Reynolds doing a Brando immitation.

Buckets, or is it Beckett’s, of Baseball.
Carl + the Dixon’s hatched a plot to poke a little fun at Beckett. For the back-story link here.
First we went to Kentucky Fried Chicken. This had not happened for several years. Secondly they talked a few buckets out from the server behind the counter. They did have to buy some chicken, but she put it into a box. (There were cameras, so just handing over the buckets could have gotten her in trouble. At least that is what she implied.)

Bucket Anonymous Parker

Parker may have been a bit reticent, but Maggie was ready to go.

Bucket Maggie

One of the ring-leaders

Dan the Man

Where did this one come from?

The most famous Bucket of them all

And the heckling did take place. Beckett did not really acknowledge the joke, but a few of the fans got the point.

Birthday Bucket Carl

As noted above, there have been several Mariner baseball games.

And a Sounder soccer game. A great Sounder game. We had been watching the UEFA Cup (European Cup) over the past few weeks, and marvelling at the passing and shots. And at how many fewer hard tackling fouls seemed to be present in the game. I put this down to what the referees choose to call, as well as how the players play. The first 2 minutes of the Sounder’s game seemed just like the UEFA Cup. Passing, movement, and no fouls! The remainder of the game was above par as well, but not quite as pristine as the first 2 minutes. And the Sounders won 2-1 (over the Colorado Rapids).

This was one game we did not walk down to watch, and bus home. Instead we drove down early, parked and went out to dinner. We tried Mike’s Noodle House. It was good soup, with uncontrollable noodles. (Chopsticks and a soup spoon.) At one point I looked around and realized we were the only non-aisian folks in attendance. I took that to be a good sign.

The little brace

The other reason we drove was that Carl had a baseball game of his own the next day. This was the first game back after the attack of the right-ankle tendon. This attack was beaten back by a month or so in a boot, and now into the little brace.

He was able to pitch 5 innings the next day for the Islanders.

Much of the rest of the time has been work.
My work with the normal work folks. Carl has been working/playing with Lillian and Eve. This has been a fun interlude. They are both a bit older, play well together, and love to read.

The helmets make you angry

The house project has started to move along a bit. A structural review has changed a bit of the project – but not for the worse. It actually made a decision for us it would appear. Our own efforts have been a bit limited in our time at home. We are measuring windows.

All for now.

This entry was posted on July 10, 2012 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.