The Day's News

Last night was the OSSAA state baseball rules meeting in the OKC area. It was great and really got me stoked for baseball to start. (Well, as Heidi said, I was already stoked, but that got me double-stoked.) As some background for those of you who didn't know me then, I already have 7 years' baseball umpiring experience from my college days. I started the season after I graduated high school and continued right up until I moved to Colorado in 1996. Then I did some in Colorado...though the quality of play was quite a bit lower than I was accustomed to. I had many, many umpiring friends that I worked lots of games with over the course of that time, and I got to reconnect with one last night at the meeting, my best umpiring friend Paul Wright, after 14 years away. That was a wonderful fringe benefit. The meeting itself was good, too...strange to see a lot of the technical changes in the rules that have come about while I was away. Nothing substantial...the strike zone is the same, interference calls, live ball-dead ball, all that...but the game management and player/coach conduct stuff has evolved a bit and will take some getting used to.

I also wanted to mention a not-so-guilty pleasure I've been enjoying the past few months. For you car fanatics out there, you probably already know of the Barrett-Jackson auto auctions. Heidi and I found these several months back on Speed TV, and we usually try to catch some. Heidi likes them because they regularly have her favored 1968 or 1969 Camaros available for sale, so she can drool over her own dream cars like I drool over mine. Plus, the B-J auctions don't only focus on the standard 60s models like the Chevelles, GTOs, Impalas, Mustangs, Firebirds, Super Birds, Super Bees, and Camaros. They also do some very interesting restored oddities, like last night's restored 1951 fire engine that held 30 kids on its benches (and sold for $110,000!!!), or the 1936 school bus of two nights ago. They also routinely have restored NASCAR cars, specialty cars, exotic imports, trucks of all eras, and even VERY old horseless carriages like last night's 1907 model. If you just like looking at well-restored old cars, then the Barrett-Jackson auctions are for you. Heidi and I are going to try to head out to Vegas for the auction scheduled out there during our birthday week in September. (Don't get any ideas. Since it's rare to see any of these cars go for less than $20K and the average price range falls around $40-50K, we won't be buying. Yet.)

Thanks for reading along.