I have 200+ kids to manage this weekend, including about 60+ T-ball players! It's going to be a busy day. I just got done processing 100+ in one other town.

I shot 2 teams last night, and ended up with 2 little boys by my table, in filthy uniforms, telling me all about their game.

Godson2 got his diploma a few days late; short 18 hours in computer class time, and they refused to allow him in to graduation. But is he official now.

Nephew2 will turn 18 next month, and is headed to Alternative School next year. He's also doing cash farm work, and getting a taste of "pay your own way." But he wants his own truck, so I say "work, boy, work!"

Godson3 is having a typical boy's summer - playing ball and doing little else. He'll be a teenager this fall, and I couldn't talk him into doing anything last night after the shoot. He didn't come over to the park, and was home alone...I think I know what he was doing when I walked in...first time he's refused an evening out. I think it's time for Androcur in his Cheerios.

My cousin's team (11-12 yo's) won the county title for their age division in the sanctioned league. (The county has other small town leagues still in session). Then again, half the kids on that league are related to me somehow.

My fat beagle has also taken to a nasty habit of rolling in animal poop. I think it's an opossum having diarrhea in my yard. If sales are good at baseball, Daddy's buyin' a new shotgun.

As for the "Grand", he's about 2. What can you say other than "terrible 2?". He's getting an early start.

And of course, the rain continues with more tonight. Nothing like playing ball in a swamp.

On the diabetes front, my AM readings are still below 100. My last A1C was 5.3. I'm hitting the Paleo plan hard this week, trying to drop it further. That means ditching anything sweet (artificial stuff). Not going to be easy.

No, Jesus, I haven't gained any weight, nor lost any more.

And on a last note, the new Nikon D90 is performing splendidly, just as Slammr said it would.

Wish me luck on Saturday. I'm up to my ears in kids...

I'll send you 10 women to help you out.

Now, how do I meet a woman?

I can well imagine the pain that you’re suffering this weekend! Surrounded by an unruly herd of 200 screaming, muddy, smelly little kids, all of whom want to talk with you and/or be as close to you as possible. Half the T-ball players will probably want to sit in your lap every time you need to rest. Kids can perceive who really cares for them and is ready to help them.

Your local weather-guesser is predicting that it will “only” be 86° and cloudy (meaning high humidity) so, while the kids (and you) may be soaking wet, it will come from inside not from outside.

You’ll be absolutely exhausted by all energy bouncing around you, but I expect that you’ll enjoy the time. Just remember to check your glucose levels in all the chaos and excitement.

I’m glad to hear that G-2 will actually get his diploma before the end of the summer. I guess that means that I’ll need to send him my congratulations on a job well done.

I still think of G-3 as a little kid bouncing around the yard and/or playing video games in the living room. It’s hard to imagine him growing up so fast. At least there’s GG-1 who will provide excitement as he navigates the “terrible 2s.” It’s an important and exciting time as little kids develop a sense of boundary between self and other. You get to drop by, spoil him, and hand him back to the parents. That’s one of the great things about grands….

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Started at noon, got home around 11. Burned up 3 sets of batteries in the flash.

Blood sugar made it down to 84, last time I checked it. It stays pretty stable around 85-90 without much maintenance.

As for kids climbing all over me, yeah, you saw that one coming. I still have no idea who the T-ball player was that was attached to my left leg while I was doing another team. I'm sure there's some parent(s) who hate me when they find out where their kid got the candy from the concession stand. I had one mother check with me twice - "Where's the munchkin?" I just point and tell her "That way," or "Back lot near the cow barn." Needless to say, I have several followers.

Pictures were done by about 8PM when G3's game started.

G3 pitched a tight game. Regular season isn't his travel team, and he gets disgusted with some of the other kids who aren't as good. We talk about this a LOT - you can't expect a first year kid-pitch kid who's 3 ft. tall to catch what G3 throws at him when he tries to pick of a leading runner. He also smacked one over the fence, but it drifted a bit right and was a foul ball.

The cap of the game was when little T. hit a "inside the fence" home run and pretty much sealed the game. T's 8.5, and already dangerous. He can chuck a ball from deep center all the way to home plate, in a 190 ft. field.

Tomorrow is G2's graduation party, so I am headed to bed.

Paolo,

Does all this picture taking activity mean business is picking up? I sure hope so!

Standard procedure is to shoot every team and kid in the league, and then print what's ordered. Orders are down, again; so, no, things aren't picking up. Most of the orders are a print of the group shot, or the group shot with the individual's picture, and then they stop. Packages aren't selling well at all this year.

Today I had to cave in and hit the 12-hour Mucinex-D. One of those 200+ kids must have been carrying the plague. Probably my unknown little T-Ball buddy that was attached to me for one entire shoot.

My Noritsu has blown it's green laser controller again. $1k part. We are not impressed.

(It's the size of tuna fish can, btw.)

For the past few days, and I did not know this, Grandpa has been feeding a stray dog living under the bridge down the road. Today, he brought it home and put it in the empty dog pen outside. It looks like a black wolf with a white patch on the chest. It has shaggy black fur, a collie head, and huge feet. I am greatly concerned it is part wolfhound. The obese indoor beagle is NOT impressed. He comes in and goes under the bed in a huff.

Progress is slow but sure on the prepping of baseball images to print. Today, I put in a missing coach into the group shot, switched a mouth with tongue sticking out (MY KID!), and put a new head on a body-double for a kid who was missing. Then I had to do digital laundry - repairing shirts for the sponsor pictures. At least the shirts were the right color to start with.

On another note, sales were better than I expected, but still down. Just 3 years ago, a league of 100 kids would gross $2k. I didn't expect 200 kids to hit $2k, either. But one kid's mom ordered over $100 in pics. That's 5 high-end packages, which start at $18 each.

A peaceful day at work - I didn't even have to go next door and tend to the baby boy in residence there. They call ME when starts screaming...

The aggravating critter digging up my sedum and seedling tiger lilies has been caught. It was a chipmunk. The neighbors' cat ate well tonight. Maybe he'll get the idea now.

Beagle and I had fried chicken livers and spaghetti squash for dinner. Made the nut flour low-carb brownies that Jesus sent, along with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting. 1 carb to a 2x2 square. Thank you very much...goes well with that hard red wine.

Now if tomorrow is half as peaceful, I'll have it made.

Another one of the boys on the travel team turns 13 this weekend. Another teenager. Yeeeesh. It's beginning to get depressing.

I got all my strays from the league shoot corralled the other night, digitized one of them into his group shot (only took me 10 minutes). Bought him and his brother and cousin candy at the concession stand to bribe the little one into it. He didn't want pictures, and I didn't want to refund his mom's $40 either. So for a $3 investment, I got the order filled.

Her parting words?

"I hate you now."

hehehe

I told her I was a 'professional uncle' by trade - I get the boy sugared up, then send him home.

Everyone is complaining about the heat.

60 lbs. ago, I would have been suffering.

Now I want to go out and lay on a large rock like a lizard. I find the office so cold that you can hang meat in there!

Recent happenings include a new dog, which Jesus A. has seen a video of.

He looks like a black collie. Very friendly. The neighbor kids love him. The beagle hates him. There are now nine (9) dogs in this immediate area.

G3 has one more Babe Ruth League game to play, then that's done. I haven't had time to get to his away games.

If anyone out there has any good connections to parts suppliers for Noritsu printers, please let me know. I'm DONE with the last one, and Noritsu has raised their prices to the point of insanity.

I am beginning to believe that a crazy woman with a bicolor hound mix dog is stalking me in town. I run into her everywhere. She bums a smoke and my phone, and makes a call to mother or "Sis" for a ride. I babysat the dog the other day while she went into the grocery store. If she hadn't come back, I'd have kept the dog and canceled the phone! Nice lady, older, but she's beginning to scare me.

And to top it off, I had ANOTHER kid following me around the grocery store last week. Observant little stalker for a five year old. He noticed the keychain photo of G3 and the dog hair on my clothes and decided he was coming with me. I offered to trade her for a high-mileage 17 year old. She declined.

I think one should be able to trade in kids like cars. When they get uppity, you should be able to trade them for a newer model! At least the last one wasn't jumping out of a cart like the toddler at the deli case the week before that. That one, I had to almost catch, dropping my dead "mini-Ferris wheel chicken" in the process. Love those things!

At least things will slow down in August, then I've got football leagues to keep me entertained as the seniors start coming in for photos. But at this rate, if things keep up like they are, we're going to have to start selling food or something, which seems to be the only thing that sells anymore!

Kids Kids Kids I see Paolo is living the good life.

Hey Paolo, how many of the 200 are actually yours?