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Brucey's Semi Private Thoughts
  
Just random ramblings.
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Omaha Is the Place to Be in Mid June. :) Jun 14, 2007 8:53 am
Mood: excited, 455 Views
Well some who are not baseball fans might not know it but in mid June every Summer people flock to Omaha, Nebraska to take part in the NCAA College World Series which is held right next to our world class zoo for 10-11 days. This event has been an Omaha tradition for over 50 years. Colleges all over the country that have baseball programs compete hard for the chance of a lifetime to make it to Omaha where only 8 teams out of over 100 qualify.

It is amateur baseball but it is amateur baseball at the highest level. The games are exciting and often high scoring, but there is also good pitching and good defense too. No one goes home too fast as it is double elimination. There are two brackets with 4 teams in each bracket. The teams are seeded by record over the season. Bracket A plays one day and then Bracket B plays the following day. If you win you get an extra day of rest. If you lose you have to play sooner. Still losing doesn't put you out as last year the champions lost their first game and came back to sweep through the rest of the tournament undefeated. At the end of the event the winner of Bracket A, plays the winner of Bracket B in a double elimination playoff to determine the champion. Over the years the exact days and the exact format of the event have varied some. The tournament used to be right after Memorial Day but a few years ago was moved to mid June instead so that it would be in the Summer and not when some schools were still in session. Also a few years ago they experimented with having the final A vs B be a single game instead of the best of three like it is now.

The fans are fantastic. There is a huge block party held on 13th street near the stadium every night. There are restaurants, bars, and even beer gardens and live music to entertain the fans who come from all over the country. I have spoken to some people that come here every year just for the tournament, regardless of which colleges send teams.

The University of Nebraska in Lincoln and Creighton University here in Omaha have both made it to the series at least once, but of course have never won it. In some ways the event is cooler when there is no local favorite but even the years that a Nebraska team was here there were huge sellout crowds at all the games and not just the games that the local teams were in. Omaha is a great college baseball town and the people here love the event and are gracious to all teams fortunate enough to come here.

Kevin Costner will probably be here because he usually comes if his alma mater Cal State Fullerton makes it in, and they did. This year there are two teams in the field that have never been here before which is exciting.

Last year my son and I went down to 13th street and partied on Friday night, the opening night of the tournament. This year he is in St. Louis, so I am going to go down there without him. I wish I had someone to hang out with. Anyone planning on being here? Give me a call Are ya ready for some baseball? If you are interested the games are shown on ESPN.
0 Comments
Coasting into Mid-Month on Fumes. :) Jun 13, 2007 8:51 am
Mood: restless, 543 Views
Wow, this month seems realllllllly long in terms of budgeting. I am really coasting into the 15th on fumes here.

One of the wonderful things about not having any credit cards is it teaches you to budget your money and it forces you to be self-disciplined. If I had credit cards like I did in the bad old days I would just "charge" my way into payday. But without credit cards I have to be patient and wait for payday before I can spend on things. Not only that but when I do buy, I buy intelligently. If I can't afford to go out, I stay home. If I need something I look for the best price rather than buy it at the most convenient place for a higher price.

This month was a budget buster for a couple reasons. One is that a bunch of people came to town in early June for a memorial service for my brother. I wanted to do something special for them so I decided to have a party at the house. Well 20 people came, probably the second biggest gathering at my house ever, but it cost a lot of money for food, supplies and beverages.

Gas went skyrocketing out of sight this past month rising at one point all the way to $3.59 a gallon here. I had to do a lot of driving for the afforementioned memorial service for my brother which was up in Lincoln.

Then to make matters worse, I had a flat tire about a week ago and that cost me $80.00. Plus the end of the school year had me going out to dinner three times with colleagues which cost me about $35.00.

Then there was the clothing expense. I needed some new clothes for the Summer. I bought two pairs of jeans, a new pair of tennis shoes, 6 pairs of socks and also had to buy my son a new pair of dress pants when he came for the memorial service. Oh I also lost 8 hours of work for the two days to attend the service. Plus I didn't work on Memorial Day so that was another 3 hours.

I think when I total all of this up it made this month about $500.00 more expensive than a typical month in my life.

All in all it was an expensive month, but I am almost there now. I just have to make it to Friday on fumes and I get paid

Hahaha now bring on July with the 4th and my trip to Yellowstone LOL!
2 Comments
Brucey's Cursed Phones :) Jun 12, 2007 10:00 am
Mood: annoyed, 498 Views
hahaha those who have been my friend for years and have talked to me on my cell will know that I am notorious for having a phone that is a POS.

A young lady that I spent quite some time with once joked that I should send my old phone to her ex's family as payback. LOL

In November of 2005, I sprang for a new Sprint LG camera phone that had internet capability and of course for the most part I have really enjoyed the phone, but lately it has been acting up when I try to use my internet services.

When I go to the internet, it only takes a minute or less before the phone logs me out and either shuts off completely or goes back to the main screensaver screen and I have to start all over.

Today I decided to take it over to Sprint to see if they could tell me what's wrong with it? There are a couple possibilities, one is that the battery is just too old and decrepit to any longer provide the juice needed to use the internet. Even though I have it plugged into a power cord the battery may be so discharged that it just can't handle it anymore. Batteries are selling for about $45.00-$55.00 for new ones.

A second possibility is that I somehow downloaded a virus on my phone and it is causing it to shut off everytime I try to log on.

A third possibility is that some little microchip in the phone is acting up and needs to be repaired or replaced.

I have to wait a couple days before repairing it because it's not payday until the end of the week.

Fortunately, in the meantime, the actual phone itself works fine, because I don't like not being in touch if people are trying to call me.
1 comment
What Drives Me Crazy? Jun 11, 2007 7:47 am
434 Views
hahaha, okay it's Monday the first week of Summer where I don't have a bunch of stuff to do. The NCAA College World Series starts here this week. It has been held here in Omaha for more than 50 years.

There's a lot of atmosphere. Okay, so the theme of my blog today is, what drives me crazy? So partly to amuse myself I am going to list a few of the things that drive me crazy. Your mileage may vary or you may agree with some or all of my list:

10) People who speed to get around you and then slow down once they have passed you.

9) Leaders who never accept responsibility or blame for their mistakes or never admit that they made any mistakes. There hasn't been a buck stop with a leader since Harry Truman left office. I'm not just talking politicians I'm also talking leaders of charities, government departments, companies, even athletes.

Instructions that are almost impossible to understand even with two advanced educational degrees. LOL !

7) Women LMAO! Sometimes, I swear. I am swearing them off. For at least 5 minutes. I love women, it's their passive aggressive behaviors that I can't stand.

6) People who are rude or inconsiderate of others. I get really tired of it.

5) Celebrities who can't stand not to be at the center of attention all the time.

4) People who talk on their cellphone no matter where they are, driving, in line, at work, even when they are trying to talk to you at the same time.

3) Totally anal retentive people LOL! Can't they just lighten up a little?

2) Arrogant people who think they are god's gift to the world. I'm not just talking famous people, there are ordinary people who are arrogant as well.

1) People who are never satisfied no matter what they have, or how well they are doing they always find some reason to be unhappy, discontented or displeased. If they won a million dollars they would complain about the taxes on it.
0 Comments
Careful What You Wish For. Jun 9, 2007 7:01 pm
Mood: aggravated, 513 Views
Earlier I was complaining about not having anything to do, so beware the power of sloth-kaarma . Sloth-kaarma is the payback you get for complaining about doing nothing but sitting around bored.

What is Brucey talking about you ask? Well I decided about 6:00 PM to go make some pancakes for myself for dinner. I had just purchased a brand new bottle of cooking oil yesterday and I had bisquick, milk, eggs, butter and syrup so all was set, right? Uhhhh guess again, when I opened up my cabinet and pulled out the bisquick I noticed the box was soaked with oil. Then I noticed oil all over the stove top and oil dripping off the hood of my eletric range above the stove.

My first thought was my new bottle of oil had tipped and was leaking because of that but it was not a full bottle of oil anymore, it was now 1/2 a bottle of oil. The other half of the bottle had leaked out all over my cabinet, all over my range top and had made a huge mess.

First thing was to take back the leaking bottle of oil to the store and exchange it because it had made such a mess. When I got back I spent the last 2 hours cleaning up the mess.

I even took off my burner element, reflecting pan and rim and cleaned those (which needed to be done anyway). Then I took out all the stuff in that cabinet and set the boxes on paper towels to get the oil off of the boxes. I thoroughly wiped down the range hood and the stove top. I made sure the oil up in the cabinet was all soaked up by putting paper towels down and periodically changing them. It's amazing to me how much of a mess a half bottle of Crisco oil can make in a short amount of time, because I don't think the bottle was leaking this morning when I opened it. I don't know what caused the leak, but once it started it was a doozy.

The good news is that I found something to occupy two hours of my Saturday night . Also I did finally make pancakes and they turned out good. I'm just glad I decided to make pancakes because if I hadn't that bottle might have leaked for several more hours and made an even bigger mess.

So the moral of the story is, if you don't want sloth-kaarma to strike you, don't complain about being bored because you have nothing to do on a Saturday night. Instead count your blessings.
2 Comments
Saturday Potpourri :) Jun 9, 2007 3:55 pm
Mood: contemplative, 518 Views
Well it's Saturday early evening and what a weird day. Everyone I know seems to be gone. I have a total of 69 friends on one of my messenger networks and only one of them is showing as being online all day today.

It's warm today here in the 80's. They filled the pool up but I haven't had the nerve to go swimming yet.

I found a place to karaoke last night although I only stayed until 11:00 pm or so. It's the same place I just started going on Thursdays, because my friend from work now works there.

I am ahead on my work hours at my other job for a change because it is my only job right now with school being out.

Geez I can tell it's the last week before I get paid because I feel like Old Mother Hubbard when I look in my own cupboard

Today I made homemade fried rice, and broccoli beef. I had some pot roast left over from a couple days ago so I shredded it up and fried it and added rice and scrambled egg, broccoli and soy sauce. It turned out pretty good although now I'm out of soy sauce too.

I am kind of bored tonight, but I don't want to go out and spend money so I'll probably sit at home and chat and watch movies. Wow!!! There's a switch from normal .

Not sure what I'm having for dinner tonight. I've got SO many wonderful choices . I could have a pot pie or I could make scrambled eggs or I could have a salad or I could have pancakes. Actually I am not very hungry at the moment but I will be probably before the end of the night.

I do have beer, woohoo I've got a bunch of beer left over from the party last weekend. A lot of the guests didn't drink because they had to drive back home so I have plenty of beer.

Boy I can hardly wait to see myself in a swimming suit this year. I will probably make Edgar Winter look tan Just call me Brucey the friendly ghost LOL!

Hmmmm, having a big get together ended up costing quite a bit of money but it was still worth it and the get together was nice. One of the ladies who attended took some great pictures and I downloaded a bunch of them today.

I found out I've earned enough points to buy a one month Silver membership here on FF, so I'm probably going to do that but not until I am able to use the entire month.

My son and I have more or less finalized our plans to go to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We are going to leave July 5th. We went in 2005 and are looking forward to a return trip. Anyone who wants to meet us for a marshmallow roast or whatever contact me. LOL
No bears allowed

This blog was like reading a person who is ADHD LOL! That's why I called it potpourri
4 Comments
Fridays Without Karaoke :( Jun 8, 2007 1:13 pm
Mood: contemplative, 450 Views
You know I didn't realize how much going to Friday night karaoke meant to me until about 3 weeks ago when the place where I went basically fired the DJ that I've known for 3 years.

The past two weeks have been busy enough that I found other things to do or worry about, but now that Summer is here I am sitting here wondering what I'm doing tonight after work?

I got so used to working and then heading to karaoke for the rest of the night until about 1:00 am that I am now feeling like a hole was created in my life and my routine and there hasn't been anything adequate materialize to fill that hole.

I think if Chris the DJ had a place that he was going to on Fridays that I would probably go there but he's currently not got a place on Friday nights either.

One thing would be to go out on Friday but that kind of requires a person to go out with and I don't have anyone to go out with, plus it's expensive to go out to eat or to go to movies every week.

So probably tonight I will just come back home and chat with my friends like I do on most other nights I have been watching lots of videos at home now too and especially with the Summers off it helps make the day more interesting.

Another problem is the old bugaboo that it's a week away from payday and of course money gets a little tight at these times. Karaoke is basically fairly inexpensive and one can have fun for a reasonable price. Now I could go to karaoke some place but none of the places I could really go on Friday night are places where I know anyone including bartenders, owners or DJ's. I could go back to the Landslide but there were some bad feelings created by the way all of this was handled, and I don't think most of the people that I know or were friends with even go there anymore.
0 Comments
Summer Time and..... Jun 7, 2007 10:55 pm
Mood: devious, 483 Views
it's time for another Brucey Thursday Numerology the first one of the Summer.

1-week since school got out.
2-women that like me a lot right now and I really like a lot too.
3-other women that like me quite a bit and I like quite a bit.
4-Number of days this week I've gotten to sleep late woo hoo
5-Number of songs I sang at Tuesday night karaoke.
6-Number of people I think paged me at the same time yesterday on IM.
7-of June today, woo hoo
8-Approximate number of hours I need to get in at my other job by Sunday night.
9-people I think I IMed yesterday
10-weeks of Summer Vacation.
20-Number of people that showed up for my party this past weekend.
25-My age still in case anyone asks.
119-Current population of Spudville, Idaho after two ferrets moved into the field near the potato factory.
178-Number of members of my Omaha Friends Regional discussion group here on FF.
198-Number of members of my Omaha Friends Part II 2006 romance discussion group.
651-Number of blogs I've written here on FF.
2,721-Number of comments on my blogs here on FF.
32,578-Number of posts I've made to FF discussion groups since Feb. 2004.
2 Comments
Geographically Challenged? :) Jun 6, 2007 10:11 am
Mood: devious, 461 Views
Okay, now not that I want to pick on our friendly host site here or anything but frankly speaking someone in the home office in California needs to take some geography lessons or something.

I spend a lot of time on the FF instant messenger system but there is definitely something wrong with the distance apart feature on the people you can page to chat with on their instant messenger.

Problem #1

The maximum circumference of the earth at the equator is approximately 23,900 miles. This at least means to me that you can be no further away from anyone in one direction or another by 1/2 of that figure which means that 11,950 miles should be the furthest you can be.

Yet when I look Filipina women are always listed about 12,000 miles away and so are Chinese women mostly. Thai and Malaysian women about 13,000-14,000 and New Zealand and Australian women about 14,000-15,000. How can you be 15,000 miles away from someone on the surface of an earth that's only about 24,000 miles around and it's widest point? Wouldn't you be more like about 9,000 miles away the other direction?

Problem #2

How can women in South Africa be further away from me here in the United States than women in New Zealand? Yet when I look South African women list at being over 14,000 miles away and New Zealand women sometimes only about 13,900.

Here's a concept, women from east Africa list at the same distance away from me as women from the Philippines even though east Africa is thousands of miles closer to me than the Philippine islands are.

So I guess I'm wondering if anyone can explain to me FF geography? Cause I'm just not getting it.
1 comment
75 Cents for Air :) Jun 5, 2007 11:51 am
Mood: devious, 503 Views
Hahahaha I am sure you're thinking what the heck is HE talking about? Well I am telling you they are charging 75 cents for air now. You thought you only got charged for food? Guess again, now you must even pay for air. Feel like you're listening to Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell? Well, let me just explain.

On Sunday night I get in my car to head down to work at about 9:00 PM to fill out some papers. Well as soon as I turn onto the main street nearby I know something is wrong with my tire. It is making that dreaded "plop, plop, plop" sound that only a flat tire makes.

Now I will confess that there a few things in the world that I dislike. One is dentists, another is shopping and a third is trying to change a flat tire in the dark. Actually let me just make that changing a flat tire period.

So my main goal is to put air in the tire so I can get to where I'm going and then get the tire fixed at a garage the next day since it's going to have to be fixed anyway. So I limp into a convenience store right nearby and I pull up to the air compressor and it costs 75 cents to use to get it to work for 3 minutes. Seventy five cents just for air. Well at this point (in between a few choice words, such as "darn, dagnabbit, and shucks")it didn't really matter because there was no other gas station close enough to limp to with a flat tire, so I wasted my three quarters to try and pump up this flat tire. Of course had I known what had caused the tire to go flat I would have saved my 75 cents because I had to change the tire anyway and when I took the tire off it had a hole in it the size of a half dollar on the inside.

I put on one of those standard spare tires which is almost scarier than the flat is . Yesterday I drove over to a place where I've gotten reasonably priced tires before and had them put on a new tire for me. It only cost me $80.00, but that's still a better price than 75 cents for three minutes of air. LOL!
So next time you go out and take a deep breath, count your blessings. At least it didn't cost you 75 cents to do that for three minutes.
4 Comments
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