Raincharm’s Weblog

Carl has returned from the land of sunshine and cool weather.
He and his buddies saw the first two games of the Mariner season, in Oakland.
A few pics from the trip

(This will save me from trying to figure out if any interesting happened today, after the trafic nightmare that was this morning. 2 bridges, 1 completely blocked, 2 big accident, so we tried the northern route around the lake. It may have been faster. Maybe not.)

The folks that grace these pictures are Mark – bushy beard, Dennis – suit coat frequently, Dan – funny hat and always smiling, Kirk – Mark’s brother, Patty – Kirk’s wife, and the Roel’s family = Chris, Mika, Soichiro and Momoka,

Field where Babe Ruth once hit 

Dreaming of Willie Mays 

to put a bicycle into a trunk.

As it turns out, it takes 2, about 5 minutes and consulting the owner’s manual.

The Prius, with its easy flip down seats, was on vacation.
So the Corolla has been my chariot.

My carpooler has been trying to add a bike ride into the commute.
Spring weather, weight loss competition. It just all came together.

The idea was to put the bike into my car, I drive to work.
I drive home, and he bicycles home.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Until this week we had it down with the Prius.
This week he upped the ante by bicycling from home to the coffee shop where we meet when he does not bicycle.
I arrived and we quickly determined that a trunk has different dimensions than a hatchback. The body of the bike was just not slipping in easily.

So, lets flip down the seats.
That is after moving the car seat and its stuffed and plastic denizens.
The car seat had its own set of issues. Issues that Carl is completely familiar with, but that knowledge does not transfer by osmosis.
I think the issues are called tether and latches.
The upper tether was easy to deal with.
The lower latches were hidden and took a minute or two to figure.

So, let’s flip down the seats.
The only question is how.
No button on the back seat’s shoulder where I have found them before.
They don’t just pull forward.

So – while Jim explored the back seat, I explored the owner’s manual.

Who puts a back seat latch in the trunk?

Apparently Toyota does.

I am sure our dance around the car may have amused a few in the coffee shop.
We made it to work, even on time.
I made it home, about 13-1/2 hours later.
I hope Jim made it home.
I guess we will find out tomorrow when we expect to meet up again.
[The seats are still down, so it should be a faster bike load.]

Game 1 of 162 is in the books. (Regular season count that is.)

But the Mariner’s playing was only a small part of our evening.
[It was a large part of Carl’s evening, because he was in Oakland – where the game was being played.]

Up here in Seattle the Mariner’s opened up Safeco Field for anybody that wanted to show up.
Admission = $0
Parking cost = $0
T-Shirt = $0
And for Season Ticket holders – all the food you can eat = $0

Good crowd for the game

More than 15,000 showed up.
It helped that it was a beautiful night, and this was a chance to watch the game on the big screen. And I do mean BIG.

Biggest screen in a Sports Stadium in the USA

During the off-season, the Mariner’s played with the outfield dimensions. While they were at it they changed some other bits of the field – removing many left field seats and adding Edgar’s Cantina.

Reconfigured left field

One of the other fun things at the field was allowing 6 contestants to try and hit a home run.
This was a radio call in winner thing. Carl called and signed up our friend Kevin (since Carl would be in Oakland).

Ready to go onto the field

Getting into the zone

Kevin and Richard, and the unsuspecting ball on a tee

So it turns out that each contestant got 5 swings, and the ball was on a tee, set in the outfield just past 2nd base.
This was just like the setup we used to use for the RUG Home Run Derby, except we had a pitching machine.
The first contestant, Richard, hit two rollers, a bouncer to the wall, one to the top of the wall ……. and finally hit one out.
Kevin strode up to the plate tee and gave the ball a mighty wallop. It sailed out of the field.
(If he had held back he would have been able to get a few more swings in.)

Spoils of winning are two front row tickets to a future game (not in right field), and getting to meet a Mariner alumnus.
Of course since the Mariner alumni were just wandering about the 2nd deck were the Season Ticket holders were hanging out, we could have seen them anyway. None-the-less, it was pretty cool. The chosen Mariner was Dave Henderson.

Jay, Kevin (the HR hitter) and Dave Henderson (a real HR hitter, sporting a World Series ring)

(This was a little different from the time he came and sat with our little group in the outfield.
Ashlan had gone up to get something and when she arrived back at the seats – there was Hendu.)

Just to note, none of the other four contestants got a ball over the wall.

Oh yeah, there was a game going on at the same time as all of these other shenanigans.
Felix was Felix, the game got tight in the 8th and 9th inning, but the Mariner’s prevailed over the A’s.
And Wilhelmsen was finally able to close out the game.

Wilhelmsen closes

It was a great, really fun evening.
Spring is here, and baseball is back.