Watch Your Kids…

Ok, so last week my 14-year old brother-in-law was in town.  Thursday night I took him to Dave & Buster’s for some good old fashioned gaming.  We had a lot of fun.  Personally I enjoyed my opportunity to be a good guy and get a slimeball tossed out.

We had been playing for a while and we were kind of walking around to see what we wanted to play next.  I noticed this guy just standing with a small video camera in his hand.  He wasn’t doing and of the normal stuff you would see from a guy filming his buddies, you know, laughing, telling them to goof off, anything like that.  He was just standing there, filming in one way without moving or saying anything.

Needless to say, I thought it was kinda weird.  So, as I walked past him, I looked over his shoulder at the screen.  He was filming some girls backside.  Nothing else.  Just booty.  Not cool.  If it had been my daughter I would have confronted him right there.  But, since it wasn’t, and I am not that confrontational to begin with, I instead walked over to an employee and told her what this guy was doing.  She was quite disgusted and got on the walkie-talkie to security pretty quick.

A few minutes later this big, big dude with an earpiece in his ear starts walking through obviously looking for someone.  I asked him if he was looking for the dude with the camera and pointed him out when he said he was.  He thanked me and walked over to the guy.  After a minute of talking, the slimeball pulled out his camera that he had put away, and just a minute later he was heading to the door.

It was the high point of my evening.  I just hope the security guy erased his tape before he led him to the door.

So parents, you are very right to want to protect your kiddos.  These pervs are everywhere.  Even somewhere as family friendly as D&B’s.

The End is Near…

Well, that may be the case but for what I am really talking about, the end is here.  The final game of our softball season tournament was this past Saturday.  As I mentioned in the last update, it was against the annoying team.  And they thoroughly stomped us, like I predicted.

It would have been helpful I think if my team had shown up to play.  Several guys bailed on the weekend for various reasons leaving me hanging at only 9 players.  Then one of them slept through his alarm.  Not blaming him, I sleep through mine every morning, but it was just an extra kick in the butt.

He made it to the game in for the bottom of the second inning.  Unfortunately by then the real damage was done.  Playing a man short we dropped our second baseman into a deep 2nd\shallow right field position and shifted our shortstop over toward second base.  I think there were probably 3 or 4 balls that would have been outs had our guys been in their normal positions that went for base hits instead.  But we did what we had to do and gave up 10 runs in the first inning.

I really think that just shot our morale because we did nothing at the plate after that.  I think we had maybe two guys make it as far as third base, and neither of them scored.

On the upside, after last week’s rocky game for Jeremy at short stop, he went out to the lake and broke his toe jumping off a boat.  He played much better this week on that broken toe.  I think next year I am going to bring a hammer to every game and threaten to start breaking toes if he starts giving up errors.

Anyway, we went out the way we spent the majority of the season, getting whipped.  Final score for this one was 17-0 in three and a half innings.  I haven’t talked to Jim yet to find out who won the tourney or what our final place was, so there will be one more update to come.

Hopefully next year I will get a full team worth of committments and we will have better luck.

The Amazing Elephant

After reading Julie’s latest post over at Bugskippy I remembered this story and couldn’t help but have to post it. It’s a wonderful little tale. Enjoy! (oh, and by the way, go read Julie’s post and watch the video clip, it’s pretty sweet despite the cheesy music.)

The Amazing Elephant

In 1986, Dan Harrison (see picture above) was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Dan approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Dan worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.

Dan stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

Dan never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Dan was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenage son.

As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Dan and his son Dan Jr. were standing.

The large bull elephant stared at Dan, lifted its front foot off the ground, and then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Dan couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Dan summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Dan’s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn’t the same elephant.