Game 7

I mentioned something, somewhere back there, about the San Francisco Giants' improbable run through the National League Divison Series (NLDS) and their arrival at the National League Championship Series (NLCS) where they promptly went down 3-1. I lamented that Barry Zito would be pitching Game 5 against the Cardinals. It was an elimination game and Barry? Well, he hasn't had a particularly celebrated history with the Giants.

Still, Zito put on a stellar show and the Giants won Game 5 in St. Louis, 5-0. Because they were not eliminated that night, it meant the series returned to San Francisco. Now, for the uninitiated, those who do not have season tickets for the Giants, but want tickets to a playoff game, have to enter a lottery. If your email address is chosen in said lottery, you have the privilege of paying a lot of money to purchase tickets to the series. I think I put my email address in the lottery a day too late to be chosen for the NLDS. And I wasn't chosen for the NLCS at first either, but then they had what they called a "second chance lottery" and I was chosen. The only options were for "Home Game #3" or "Home Game #4".

Had the Nationals defeated the Cardinals in their NLDS, the Nationals would have gone on to play the Giants. And the Nationals would have had home field advantage. There would not be a "Home Game #4". I found myself some nice tickets in the upper deck for "Home Game #3"...and then I realized, as I sat at my desk at work, that I'd left my wallet in the car. I ran down to get it, but by the time I got back? My browser session had timed out and I could no longer get tickets for "Home Game #3". So...I settled for purchasing two tickets for "Home Game #4".

Now, what that meant is is that my tickets would automatically be no good (and refunded) if the Nationals beat the Cardinals. It also meant that should the Cardinals win, the Giants would have home field advantage, but the series would have to go to seven games if I was to get to go. The chances that all the stars would align for that to happen seemed pretty remote. No worries, I thought. At least I'll get my money back.

But what do you know? Those Giants won Game 6, 6-1, behind Ryan Vogelsong on October 21st. And that meant I had tickets to the tie-breaking game of the series...the game to decide who would go on to the 2012 World Series. Holy cow.

And so it came to pass that I picked up one very happy little boy half an hour early from school on Monday...and we drove to the train station, where we caught the train to AT&T Park.

Now, as parenting moves go, this is an arguable one. The kid had stayed out super late the previous night...when his dad took him to Game 6. It was another school night. I took him out of school early. And then there was the weather forecast. Rain.

When the series was in St. Louis, it had rained. There was a 3.5 hour rain delay in the middle of Game 4 (I think). I was envisioning a real nightmare...a stadium packed with people trying to get out of the rain, sitting there for hours with my bored 10-year-old. What was I thinking?

Fortunately, my imagination was wrong. It was a beautiful day at the ballpark. We arrived just after the rain stopped. There were boats in McCovey Cove, puffy clouds, sunshine, a floating Delorean. (A what?)

Matt Cain was pitching against the Cardinals' ace pitcher, Kyle Lohse.

Cain pitched a perfect game earlier this year and is currently considered the Giants' ace. But he wasn't at his best. The first few innings were a little tense. But the Giants scored against Lohse and they scored again and again. By the end of the third inning, it already felt like the ninth. The score was 7-0, Giants.

The Cardinals had come back from a 6-0 deficit to win the NLDS against the Nationals. It was an awesome feat. So, a seven run lead didn't necessarily seem like a lock either. But it made the crowd...the very, very noisy crowd...a lot less tense. It was just one big party out there.
And with his team winning, Smunch was having a blast.

Sometime around the seventh inning, it started to drizzle. There was enough wet to make both Smunch and me put on our rain ponchos, but a few minutes later, we felt kind of ridiculous and took them off. However, by the end of the eighth, the rain started for real.

New playoff rules say that they can't call a game because of rain. They can delay it, but with just an inning left to play and the score now at 8-0, that seemed silly, so they let the game go on.

And it rained, and rained and rained. Brandon Belt hit a home run that almost made it to the Cove. 9-0. The infield began to flood. It was the top of the ninth. Javier Lopez, the Giant's sidewinding lefty was pitching. He walked Carlos Beltran. From everything I could tell, he walked him because he couldn't keep from sliding down the muddy mound. With two runners on and two out, Bruce Bochy strode into the rain and took the ball from Lopez as the grounds crew ran out to the infield and tried to repair the mound and spread sand on the basepaths. As soon as the crew retreated, you could no longer see the work they'd done. Rain came down in sheets.

We were sitting in the upper deck, so our ponchos provided the only protection from the rain...and our backpacks didn't have ponchos. I hear that if you were under the overhang in the lower decks, you stayed dry, but you couldn't see a thing with the rain cascading off the decks above.

To the giant roar of the soggy crowd, Sergio Romo jogged from the bullpen to the mound and induced a pop fly from Matt Holliday, which was caught by the game's hero, Marco Scutaro. And poetic justice was served. Just days earlier Matt Holiday mowed Scutaro down as he "slid" into second base and Scutaro had to leave the game with an injury to his hip. Now the mostly-healed Scutaro squinted through the heavy rain to make the last out and send his team to the World Series.

As baseball experiences go. This was EPIC. Memorable in every way.

Like most of the crowd, Smunch and I did not leave. We stood in the pouring rain as the team celebrated on the field below. The National League trophy was presented and Marco Scutaro was named MVP of the NLCS.

Couldn't have happened for a nicer guy.
Then we hightailed it toward the train, where a crowd of wet people awaited a happy trip home. We won't be in attendance at the World Series this year, but you can bet we'll be there every step of the way.

Barry Zito is slated to start Game 1...

Epilogue: Less than one week after Smunch and I attended Game 7 of the NLCS, the San Francisco Giants won the 2012 World Series by sweeping the Detroit Tigers. Pablo Sandoval hit three home runs in Game 1 and Barry Zito got the win. Game 4 was the most exciting by far, going 10 innings. And guess who drove in the winning run...Marco Scutaro.

After the Rain

Something about the rain makes me want to go out and take pictures as soon as I know my camera might survive. Prior to that, sitting in a coffee shop sounds awfully nice.And October rain is especially cool around our house because October is spider season and every web in the yard is suddenly gleaming.Perhaps autumn has come at last...

Dizzy World

We left early from the last-night karaoke and dancing shindig at the Friends convention. It would've been fun to stay, but since we'd booked everything long before we knew the agenda for the convention, we had a room booked at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge that night. It took us about an hour to drive from Tampa to our hotel outside Orlando.

The first thing that struck me was just how busy the Animal Kingdom Lodge is. Its gigantic lobby was bustling with people at 9 o'clock at night. This photo was obviously not taken then.Next, the bellman seemed to take us on a long, long journey down a few hallways to our room. The resort is just enormous! So, enormous, in fact, that after going out to play with some night vision goggles at the savannah overlook, we couldn't remember our room number or how to get there and had to stop back by the bell desk and ask. Duh.From the windows along the corridor, I could already see zebras and giraffes roaming around the grounds. This was just what I'd been hoping for. I mean, I don't know if I'll ever get to go on a safari in Africa, but it's fun to pretend at least! It made it super exciting to be there.I sat on the balcony for a while that night. It was fun to watch white shapes in the dark distance and wonder what they must be. Off to the right was a flock of huge white birds roosting by a watering hole. To the left, in the distant trees, I could see huge white branch-like things moving around, but couldn't tell what in the world they might be attached to. Morning cleared everything up.Well...almost everything. I think we were also treated to a rare view of the exotic African bunny wabbit from our window. Hard to know with all those crazy creatures roaming around. After a yummy breakfast, we headed out to Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park.We picked up some FastPasses for the jungle rapids ride, then stood in line for the Safari ride. The safari was fun, but kinda silly...and a little disturbing now that I stop to think about it. It's really just a wild animal park and you ride around in a big safari jeep looking at the animals, which was a lot of fun, but they make it needlessly bumpy and included a silly story line about poachers and a bridge that fakes falling apart as you go over...in the fake savannah with real animals.Still, I enjoyed watching the giraffes walk in front of the jeep and the lion and lioness up on their rock (Pride Rock, no doubt). The Tree of Life, the centerpiece of the park, is really pretty remarkable in all the detail on its trunk.Before getting onto the raft ride, we met up with Scott's college buddy Brian, who was best man at our wedding and moved out to Florida shortly after Scott and I got married. There, he met Jill, who accompanied him to meet the strange creatures from California. Neither of them had ever met the kids, so even though they'd been to the park before, they'd never really seen this particular Animal Kingdom exhibit. Jill has a great facility with them, so it made things comfortable and fun. And as a couple of certified Dis-nuts, they had great information and recommendations about the park.By the time lunch rolled around, the clouds were beginning to roll around too. We'd fortunately picked a covered table to eat at. At least the adults thought that was fortunate. Having gotten fairly moist on the jungle rapids ride, the kids weren't content to leave fairly moist alone. Not ones to let a little torrential thunderstorm ruin their fun, they were barely done with lunch before they were gone from sight. All I could hear was Mam squealing over the noise of the rain and thunder.After the rain let up a little, the kids, Scott and Jill decided to give Expedition Everest a shot. It's the only roller coaster at Animal Kingdom. Not being a big fan of such things, I hung out with Brian while they waited in the hour-long line. Just as it was coming up on an hour, the rain started again. Empty cars started heading up the roller coaster. Thunder rumbled. Brian and I took shelter in the gift shop, texting Jill and Scott about their status. Another 15 minutes later, having been at the front of the line, the would-be riders gave up and we all headed for drier ground.

By that time, the soaked children were getting cold. Not that it was cold out, of course, but being soaked to the skin will do that to you. And all the indoor areas were air conditioned, so we instead opted to head back to the hotel and dry off.

It cleared up again, of course, and we got to enjoy more of our savannah view. Brian and Jill joined us for a yummy dinner at the big buffet restaurant downstairs...where I ran into an acquaintance from home. (It's a small world after all, you know.) Later, the kids talked Scott into taking them to the pool, where there was a great little water slide for them to play on. Ahhh...
We only had two nights here and I was sorry to leave, but on to the Magic Kingdom we went...

A Letterboxing First

It's been pouring rain for the better part of the week. A couple of days, I managed to get the kids out of the house and go letterboxing. I considered it a necessity to get out and they happily obliged with the promise of adventures in new, but not too far, locations. Four new stamps for our book. Nifty.

Today, I decided the time had come to try planting our very own letterbox. So, after much cajoling and time spent in rooms and time eating lunch, we zipped out of the house between downpours. Unfortunately, it was only the zipping that happened between downpours. It rained most of the way to our destination and rained intermittently, but we were prepared with raincoats and the kids in their rain boots. The photos give the entirely wrong impression that we were out on a beautiful sunny day. We weren't.

It took a little time, but we found the perfect spot to hide our very first letterbox.


I could tell you all about the place we hid it, but then I'd have to track you down and kill you. So...you'll just have to find it for yourself! The kids were a lot of help, obviously...

And when you find it, this is what it looks like...

Got it? Excellent.

After a trip to Starbucks to warm ourselves up and one to the library because we're insane and like to be with the huddled masses who live in the library during rainstorms, we went home and I entered our clue on the two letterboxing sites we use. They usefully cross-reference each other, so that was easy.

In case you're up for some introductory letterboxing, clues can be found at Letterboxing North America and at AtlasQuest. You can find our clue (hopefully soon to be more than one) under the trail name WyndRyders. Happy hunting!

Farewell to the Green Geckos

It seems like soccer season just started, but Saturday was Smunch's last game already. The team tied the Green Dragons 6-6...which is the best they'd done all season. They weren't the most talented team out there, but Smuch seemed to have a lot of fun...even when he was more interested in reporting the score to his teammates than he was in where the location of the ball. Of course, the highlight of the entire game was the trophy he got after the pizza party.

Unfortunately, the sky opened up and poured rain on us during the pizza portion of the afternoon. Still didn't spoil the trophy though. Any soccer season is a successful season if there was fun to be had and a trophy to show for it, rain or not. And, Mam? I think she probably considered it successful just because it rained!

Waiting for the flood

Noah built an ark. Mam...she just made sure she'd be dressed for the occasion if it should come about while she was sleeping.