After a 9-5 day at work, the Grandpas played a solid game of softball, winning 9-5 on respectable hitting, pitching, and defense. My line: 2-3, R, RBI.

There's not a lot to report about tonight's softball game... nothing went right for us, everything went right for them, our 7 game win streak was ended with a 15-run mercy rule loss. But we live on to play another day!

My line: 1-3, R, two balls out of the infield after not hitting any that far for three games!

I've experienced a lot of ups and downs with the Grandpas softball team over the years. We've been in winners brackets and losers brackets, seasons of 12-4 and 4-12, walk-off wins and losses in bunches. But there's one thing I've never experienced with them: beating Upper Deck.

There's no shame in losing to Upper Deck. In one three-year span, they did not lose a single game. They've won our league multiple times. They've fifteen-runned us a few times. They've beaten us the last six times I played against them, and ten times in a row since 2004. Last year they were also strong, although in the championship game they were upset by Big Blue Sox (who we managed to beat this year. This season we also beat last year's C-league champions in their first year promoted to our league). Could the Grandpas be giant-killers again? Enough history ... let's get to the game!

We started out with a lights-out pitching performance from Bill, who retired the first nine batters in order. Offensively we had loads of base runners but only managed to convert a handful into runs. We steadily increased our lead, from 3-0 in the first, to 5-0 in the second, 6-0 and 7-1 after three and four innings respectively.

In the fifth inning came Bill's only mistake: a pitch too low that was converted to a three-run homer. At the end of the inning the score was 7-5, but Upper Deck was coming alive.

The sixth inning was routine, with the Grandpas tacking on one more run and Upper Deck not responding. In the seventh inning, we started a rally but were stopped by a Gold-Glove caliber double play, limiting us to only one run. Now 9-5 and Upper Deck has the last chance at the plate.

Upper Deck started off with two base hits, giving them runners at first and third. A line-out to short gave them one out, and an error at shortstop gave them one run, and runners at first and second, with the tying run and big slugger at the plate. Bill stops to lecture the outfielders: "Outfielders! Stop the runners on fly balls!" Quick-witted Grandpa responds "Hey pitcher, keep the ball in the park!" On the first pitch, the big Upper Deck slugger takes a giant hack. The ball goes back, back, back, back.... CAUGHT at the warning track by Grandpa! It's now 9-6, two outs, and history is in the making. A weak ground ball to second base becomes the game-ending fielder's choice. Grandpa's Last Stand? is victorious!

My line: 1-3, BB, R, first time in seven tries that I've beaten Upper Deck!

We take a lot of aspects of our software for granted. But it is interesting to be reminded that a spellchecker used to be a major feat of software engineering, even though it's somewhat trivial now.

Coming off our last game where we dethroned the defending champs, "Grandpa's Last Stand?" felt pretty good about themselves. Our opponent was one of the weaker teams in the league. We scored five quick runs in the first, and another five in the second. However 10-0 became 10-3 became 10-7, and eventually became 11-12 before the last inning. Finally our bats came alive as we scored four runs, providing us a three run cushion. We got the first batter out, gave up a run, got another out, and then made a key error that put the tying run on third base and the winning run on first. The final batter hit a deep ball to left field. Grandpa ran back, back, back, and snared it over his head. Game over -- phew!

My line: 3-4, 3RBI, R, despite not ever actually hitting the ball out of the infield.

There's an organization I am involved in called Mentorplace. It matches people from industry with local middle school students. Two of my mentees, Christian and Jhovanny, were in a class that produced this video of some of their Mentorplace experiences. I think they did a great job!

Our softball team knocked off last year's champs with a strong defensive effort. The final score was about 10-5. My line: 2-4, 2RBI.

In this case I'm talking about knee rehab! I'm still on my quest to get back into running shape, hoping to do at least half marathons. I did a bit of a "brick" workout (triathlon term meaning biking and running) this morning. First about three miles running with Scout, who thoroughly enjoyed it, then a nine mile bike ride. It went pretty well and I'm hoping to keep increasing the time and distance I can go.

How many people on the Internet signed up at Facebook AFTER their mom did? She's pretty savvy, I'll give her that! Good work Mom :-)

I discovered the wonders of Facebook this weekend, and posted some pictures from my anniversary trip for all to see. Click here for the anniversary trip photos. Make sure you click through or hover over the images to see the descriptions I've added.