Thursday afternoon at the baseball game

I am a bit of a sports fan. If you’ve ever spent any time with me you might know this to be a bit of an understatement. I’m the kind of person who watches ski cross if it’s on television never mind the big name stuff i.e. hockey, baseball, football (either soccer or NFL almost never CFL).  About the only things I cannot watch: basketball, golf, bowling. Even darts and billiards are okay if I’ve got a pint and my knitting to keep me company as well.

I am, with the sole exception of hockey, pretty much a “casual” fan. I kinda sorta know the rules. I might kinda sorta have a team I cheer for (Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto FC/Tottenham Hotspur, Buffalo Bills, anyone Canadian, Latvian, or Danish). But I don’t always “get” it. Nothing is more fun for me than watching an NFL game with my brother. Eventually he just throws something at me. So my plan for this summer is to try and learn more about baseball and soccer – rather than just go to Jays and FC games and have a beer or two, I’d try and pay attention, learn the strategy and so on.

Dad and I have season tickets to the Toronto FC and Mom and I went in on two Toronto Star Blue Jays season passes so that part of the process is taken care of. The Star season passes didn’t include the home opener so Toby and I watched from home – turns out Toby actually likes baseball and was telling me a bunch of stuff about left-handed vs. right-handed pitchers and playing the outfield. So far no one on Twitter or Facebook has offered up anyone good to follow to learn about the game though. I’ve just checked the Chapters/Indigo website and found Baseball for Dummies – in print the last one is from 2004 but there’s an ebook from 2011.  So this is a first, I’m downloading their ebook desktop app. Then I’m gonna buy my first ebook! Sort of like buying stuff from iTunes on my iPhone though – this could get expensive once I figure it out! (yes, although my reading time has vastly diminished, I still get excited enough by books that I need a couple of exclamation points thrown in.)

Toronto's Angry Bird

There have already been six home games for the Toronto Blue Jays, which is a bit crazy if you ask me. There’s such a huge range: 16 in the NFL (and they’re fighting about increasing it to 18), 82 in the NHL and 162 in MLB. The sixth home game was an afternoon game on Thursday April 7, 2011 against the Oakland Athletics. I figured an afternoon game wouldn’t be as busy as a night game and would be good for testing out Q’s attitude to the whole endeavour. I put out a call on facebook and a law school friend whose son switched birthdays with Q said she’d love to come and we had a date. Here are some pictures from the game.

All bundled up

Q wearing his ballgame stripes

Proof my boy can sleep anywhere

Needless to say, there wasn’t a great deal of attention played to the game – more to the boys and each other. Jays lost 2-1 and we both missed the winning run. Maybe a couple of games with my friend’s other half (a big sports fan) and my cousin David (the kind of cousin someone who wants to learn about sports wants, this is the guy who dreams of being on sports radio and should be too!) 

Wednesday morning coffee

Interesting how with a title like drinks like fish my first post is actually about coffee.

I decided today was going to be a “stay in pajamas” day which means making myself coffee as opposed to going out and getting it (which is hard to deny being a good Canadian and all and Roll up the Rim still going). After a few years of buying a monthly/bi-monthly coffee delivery for my brother and sister-in-law I bought one for myself after Q was born.

I can’t remember how I found Birds & Beans (http://www.birdsandbeans.ca/) in the first place but they’ve done a great job with sending coffee out to PEI and now, with some confusion on my part, to BC (to my sister-in-law).  You basically sign up as a customer and then order away. You can order ½ pound, 1 pound and 5 pounds of most beans as one off orders. There’s a great little description of each offering and a bit about it’s pedigree (i.e. “100% Rainforest Alliance Certified”, or “Organic and Bird Friendly Certified”)

There’s two “coffee of the month” options – a bird friendly and a regular. It’s important to note that it doesn’t have to be every month. I LOVE coffee but I’m not a connoisseur, honestly, Tim’s is fine for me most of the time. I drink my coffee black – no flavours, no milk, no sugar. I figured anything “special” would be lost on me. So as an introduction I signed up for a pound of coffee to be delivered but every OTHER month.

I’m just finishing my first pound (which is good ‘cause the second one should be here any day now!) It’s from Costa Rica and called La Amistad.  (https://secure.birdsandbeans.ca/4DAction/wShowCoffee/COS-LA) It’s nice to read a little about where the coffee comes from. Turns out La Amistad is also the name of a national park in Costa Rica. Because I’m a geek of course I’ve now got to go to Google Maps and look up exactly where Costa Rica is (Central America between Nicaragua and Panama). According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica) it’s one of the greenest countries in the world. Hmmm maybe somewhere to visit when Q is older? Have you ever been?

Oh and just as an aside, my brother and sister-in-law used to live in Kensington PEI. The town has a population of about 1300-1400. The high school my brother and I went to in Toronto had about 1500 students. Just so you know. When the coffee arrived at the post office in Kensington, they all knew. Apparently the post office employees loved the way it made the place smell. My sister-in-law commented that she knew the stuff was recently roasted before shipping out because it would still taste great when they were finishing off the pound of beans.

 

Oh and a second aside I guess. I have a decent, okay just barely passable coffee maker. It supposedly makes 8 cups of coffee. Now I know it’s a proper cup of coffee which I think is only 150mL/5 ounces but I make half a pot and I get one mug out of it. Mind you this is my mug:

(and just for completeness sake, you can also buy unroasted beans, chocolate and accessories at Birds and Beans)