Bedtimes?

The other night, I was shopping at the HEB supermarket to buy things for Bay’s Birthday party. It was about 10pm, and I thought it was strange that there were lots of kids there with their parents. It was a Friday night, but still, isn’t that a little late for keeping the kids out? I figured that it on the borderline, shrugged to myself, and didn’t think further about it.

Then after buying most of the food, I went across the freeway to the Super Walmart to finish up my shopping. It was now about 11pm. And there I was amazed at the number of kids, of all ages, that were there with their parents! I can understand going to the market with a sleeping baby in the carseat, but there were toddlers, young kids, pre-teens and teens running around the store, trying on clothes, playing with toys, etc. It was wild. I don’t know, maybe I am a little conservative about this, but 11pm is just too late to be out and about with the kids. I left the store a half hour later, and I could still see more families arriving in the parking lot.

Dodgers vs. Astros

On Saturday, my friend Mikey and I made the trek down highway 290 from Austin to Houston to watch the Dodgers take on the Astros at Minute Maid park. The stadium is really awesome! The roof was closed, so we weren’t affected by the outside heat, which was probably close to 100°. Our seats were on the first base side, between first base and the foul pole, six rows back. The view was great, and when I bought the tickets online at stubhub.com, the seller said, “Great seats for foul balls”. I always bring, my glove to a game, but this time I almost didn’t, thinking that since I always bring my glove, but never even come close to getting a foul ball, I’d reverse it and not bring the glove in hopes that a foul ball would come my way. Anyways, I am glad I brought it, because in the top of the 4th inning, Jayson Werth hit a foul that came our way. It was a pretty high pop-up, not a liner by any means, and it looked at first like it was headed to the rows behind us, but then it started curving towards our seats. I stood up, kept my eye on the ball, stuck out my glove, and “Bam!”. I reached in the glove and pulled out the ball! It was totally awesome!!! Then I raised the ball in the air in triumph. 🙂 I was so stoked, and when Mikey took my picture holding the ball, my hand was shaking like crazy.

Minute Maid park is a great place to see a game. There is tons of food, at reasonable prices. We each got super-astro dogs, which were huge, and I later got a bbq beef sandwich, while Mikey got a big bowl of nachos. We also had plenty of beer, peanuts and cracker jack. I was surprised by the large number of Dodger fans there. It was pretty cool. But it was kind of lame because the Astros fans had a lot to cheer about since they won the game… But, it was an awesome day at the ballpark, nonetheless!

You can read Mikey’s account of the day here at webmikey.com, and check out his photo-set at flickr.com.