Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 52

World Series Victory: Dodgers!

 

"There are only two seasons--Winter and Baseball." ~Bill Veeck

The Dodgers are the World Series champions!

I'm excited! The Dodgers are one of my teams--I have four of them. I know. I get all kinds of crap about this, but I lived most of my life in Minnesota, so of course I have the Twins. Then the Cubs were on cable every day and I watched them whenever I could, so I adopted the Cubs. But then WGN lost the Cubs broadcast, but TBS still had the Braves, so I picked up the Atlanta team.

And that's where I sat until I subscribed to the MLB package that let me watch any game I wanted. I'd start on the east coast because those games came on at noon in Minneapolis, but by around 3 or 4pm, I'd be flipping around, looking for another game.

What did I stumble across? Vin Scully, literally the best announcer in baseball. I started watching the Dodger games because he was so good. And became a Dodgers fan.

It was beginning to feel as if the Dodgers were my second Cubs, because no matter how good they were, they couldn't seem to actually win a World Series. But the Cubs managed one season where they made it across the finish line, and this year, the Dodgers did the same.

I went to bed with the score 1-0, Tampa Bay Rays. Before too long, I was reaching for my phone to check the score. I did it a few times. I saw it become 2-0 Dodgers. I watched Mookie Betts hit a home run to add an insurance run. And when there were two outs in the ninth inning, I turned off my phone and made a mad dash for the family room to flip the TV on!

This was almost as exciting as the Cubs win. Almost. But then it was 108 years between World Series wins for the Cubs and only 32 years for the Dodgers.

Only one thing marred the celebration--Justin Turner, the third baseman tested positive for COVID and was removed from the game. He was supposed to remain in isolation from others, but he went back out on the field to celebrate and frequently had his mask off around other people who weren't wearing their masks either. This action sucked a lot of the enjoyment out of the victory. It was very selfish.

Other interesting things of note from game 6:

The Rays pulling their starting pitcher who had dominant stuff. I was surprised. I know analytics got them to the World Series, but there needs to be a balance between numbers and what's happening right before the manager's eyes.

The fans booed commissioner Rob Manfred. This had a lot to do with how he handled the cheating scandal involving the Astros. There actions were egregious, and while Manfred made a deal not to issue punishment for the players if they told the truth, he certainly could have taken sterner measures with the team in general.

Finally, to close on a happier note, holy cow is Mookie Betts an incredible player or what?

Congratulations, Dodgers!

Phone Tentacles

Once upon a time, I only had a dumb phone. It had a slide up screen with a little mini keyboard. I pretty much never used it because it was annoying and too much of a hassle. Then I got an iPhone from my company and it was love. It didn't take long before the phone became an indispensable part of my day.
I gave up my old dumb phone and used my company phone for everything. I didn't understand why anyone would have a personal phone and a company phone when my employer was so generous with their rules for the mobile device.

Then COVID-19 happened.
I work for an airline and traffic plummeted. I was like I'm either going to lose my job, lose my phone, or both. I need to get my own iPhone. Just in case.
I went with the cheapest plan I could find. I'm almost always hooked to WiFi, so I don't need a lot of data. Ordered my phone and waited. Until my phone order was cancelled because they didn't have a white phone. Seriously I hadn't cared about the color, I just chose one. Since I couldn't update my order, I had to reorder a new one. This time I went with yellow. That one I got.
But as I tried to move everything over to my new phone, I discovered the tentacles of my old phone number were everywhere. In places I didn't even know about. Or it needed to be updated in more than one place. Which is stupid. Companies, do you hear me? If I update my phone number in one place, update it across your entire system. Gah!
Anyway, after months I was still discovering places with my old phone number that I never even thought about. This makes me wonder what other places I've forgotten.
So far, I still have my phone and my job. (Fingers crossed that I at least keep the job after Sep 30.) But I learned a valuable lesson about phones and why people were using personal phones in addition to the company phone. There's never a guarantee that the company will let you keep the phone indefinitely. It's also a major pain to transfer everything to my new phone number. I wish I'd kept things separated from the start.
These tentacles go everywhere!

Yarn Club, Part Deux

Before things went crazy with my job, I signed up for another yarn club. I know, right? I wasn't happy with the other yarn club because (for the most part) the yarns weren't what I would pick, especially the colors. I couldn't resist this one, though. It had a theme.

In addition to the yarn, it also came with a pattern that used that skein, so I wouldn't be stuck with yarn and not have anything to make with it. Of course, hats and cowls aren't hugely exciting, but hey, potential gifts!

I'll be honest, it wasn't the pattern that grabbed me, but the yarn theme: retro travel posters.

Seriously, I love the mid century modern vibe anyway, but throw in travel and yeah, I was hooked. And even better than the yarn and the pattern was the postcard with the travel poster!

That's right, I now have postcard-sized travel posters! Now I need to do something with them, but still, the potential is there. :-)

Have I used the yarn I've received yet? No, but I did wind them up and they're ready to go at a moment's notice. My stress level has been high since March and I've been doing a lot of extra knitting to help relieve it. I like the smaller projects because I feel as if I'm accomplishing something, so I'm guessing these skeins will get knit sooner rather than later.

Generations Huh

I've been thinking about how generations are separated. Why? I don't know. I just have been.
My first thought is how artificial the generational divides are. In fact, the dates are different depending on which source you consult. One place says Gen X starts after Kennedy's assassination, another says 1964, and yet another one cites 1965. If the people labeling the generations can't agree on basic dates, I think it calls the entire construct into question.
Second, the generational stretches are far too long and they're inconsistent. Again, with the caveat that the actual years of a generation are fluid, the Boomer generation is 18 years, Gen X is 14 years wide, another generation is 10 years.
I can see a ten year swath of time for a generation, that seems reasonable, but 18 years? Really? Does someone born in 1964 have anything in common with someone born in 1946? They don't share the same cultural references, they don't share the same growing up experiences, in fact, I'd argue that they have so little in common that it's ridiculous to lump them together.
Maybe back in the 1800s when life changed slowly, an 18 year stretch of time would work for a generation, but in this time of technology, things change too fast to group that many years together. Just look at how life has changed since the advent of the smart phone.
While doing some research, I discovered that Japan does break generations every 10 years. That makes a lot more sense to me.
My third musing point was what it really means. Can a decade (or double that) swath of people really exude the same vibe? Are there that many similarities in behavior at a macro level to validate generation labels?
This one I'm less sure of. People are so individual and a lot depends on where they grew up, on how their parents raised them, on their life experiences.
I grew up in Minnesota, and while I was raised to be polite, using "sir" and "ma'am" are foreign to me. Now I live in Atlanta and I get ma'amed all the time. (I do not like it! Ma'ams in Minnesota would be like 120 years old.) But I keep hearing that it's a southern thing.
Another thing that's interesting is that I was raised by parents who were a generation older than the parents of my peers. (I was adopted.) My dad tells stories of people thinking they were my grandparents. Their style of parenting was definitely different than what my peers experienced. Believe it or not, my parents were more laid back, less strict, although there were definite lines and expectations.
Overall, I think the generations thing is interesting, but as a macro view of a large group of people, mostly useless except--maybe--for the people who are squarely in the middle five years of the generational divides. Still, I'll probably muse over this some more.

Vision Board

The planner I use has a couple of pages to create a vision board. I generally leave this blank and I left it blank in 2020, too. Until July.
In July, I decided it wouldn't hurt to put a few pictures in of what I want to accomplish. Like the picture says to the left: Dream Big. So I set out to print some pictures and tape them onto the vision board pages.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it seems like a waste of time. I always have too much going on and wasting a couple of hours to find, print, and tape down the right photos didn't seem like the best use of my limited resources.
On the other hand, it was actually kind of cool to see my goals visually.
Not all my goals, of course--there was only room for two of them--but I liked being able to look down and see what I did fit on there.
It's funny because every book has a file on OneNote where I save all kinds of pictures. I have pictures of the characters, where they live, sometimes what car/SUV/truck they drive. I have pictures of locations including buildings, restaurants, the rainforest, etc. I have pictures of secondary characters. I have pictures of clothes. Anything, really, that will inspire me.
But I don't do this for myself. Maybe I should.

Review: Scoob

***I received no compensation for this review.******WARNING: There might be spoilers ahead!***

Movie review time! Today's film is Scoob. It's an animated Scooby Doo movie.
I love Scooby Doo and have since I was a small child, so when I saw that there was a new version called Scoob, I was all in. I had no idea what it was about, although with Scooby Doo I was pretty confident there would be a mystery and a bad guy to unmask.
That's kind of what we got here, although not entirely. The movie opens with the origin story of how Scooby and Shaggy became best friends. It was a cute meet story and seemed in keeping with their personalities.
Then we flash forward to when the Mystery Inc. gang are at the ages we're used to seeing them at. They've decided to branch out and get investment funding. Their investor thinks Fred, Daphne, and Velma are a good risk, but that Shaggy and Scooby are not. They go off dejected...and face a robotic threat alone. Until they're beamed up by the Blue Falcon and Dyno Mutt.
I'm going to leave off with the plot summary here.
I really loved this movie! I consider it among the best Scooby Doo movies made and recommend it. I had a lot of fun watching it!
The story has a lot to do with friendship and what it's value is to us as humans, which I thought was a cool message. We see the friendship between Shaggy and Scooby form, and later, get tested. We see the same thing happen with the Shaggy/Scooby pairing and the Velma/Daphne/Fred trio becoming friends and having their friendship tested.
But the underlying message isn't the movie. It has the usual high jinks you'd expect from Scooby Doo and Mystery Inc. It has the laughs and the action. It has a bad guy who needs to be unmasked. And it's definitely an enjoyable ride.
I'm giving this movie two thumbs up with a highly recommend tag. Keeping in mind, of course, that I was predisposed to like this movie from the start.
***Minor Spoiler. Stop here if you don't want the surprise ruined.***
Blue Falcon is actually the Blue Falcon's son who is searching for his own courage, although Dyno Mutt is the original Dyno Mutt. But this isn't the only cartoon character who makes an appearance. We also et to see Captain Caveman! I loved Captain Caveman when I was a kid! I'd love to see more Scooby Doo mashups with other cartoons like this. It was so much fun! Now we need Jabber Jaw.

Morning Panic of My Intro to an iOS 14 Change

Apple released iOS 14 recently. I delayed installing it for about a week, wanting any bugs to get fixed first, and then I put it on my phone. The Operating System worked perfectly as far as I could tell, but I had a different issue.

Bedtime.

I use my iPhone as my alarm clock and rely on Bedtime to wake up in the morning. I'd downloaded it on a Friday and needed to change the alarm for Saturday. Only the Bedtime tab was missing. I'd hoped they hadn't gotten rid of it, did an online search, and discovered it had been moved to Health. Um, okay. Makes more sense in the alarm section, but whatever.

So I adjusted the little round clock thing to wake up at 6:10 for grocery shopping and it was all good.

Monday was fine, too. I went to alarms, saw the wake up time as 6:10 and adjusted it for the work week.

Or so I thought.

I wasn't paying attention, so while I thought I'd changed the Bedtime alarm going forward, it was only for Monday. I found this out on Tuesday when I wok up at 6:08 and panicked! Why hadn't my alarm gone off on time???

I discovered that it was set for 6:10. That it was still on my Saturday schedule. This is not cool.

Hopping online, I did another search and found an Apple article about the new Bedtime. I learned a few things, but the most important one was that I could created different schedules for different days! This is a major win! No more scrolling the clock backward and forward for weekdays versus weekends! I only wish I'd discovered it without the oversleeping.

Because of the late wake up, I had a pajama day and showered at lunch. Good thing I'm still working from home and good thing I never go live on my camera for meetings. I use a still image instead.

I Cheated on the Pilot G2 and Found a New Love

Meet my new love. It's a Pentel EnerGel Needle Tip in 0.7mm. I have this thing about pens and even when I think I've found my perfect writing tool, I keep trying new ones. Yes, I was unfaithful to my Pilot G2. (Although we did have an agreement. I was always allowed to have a side relationship with the Pilot Frixion, which is erasable ink.)

I'd strayed from the G2 a number of times, but I always ended up coming back, repentant that I'd been untrue to the best out there. Then I noticed the EngerGel. I had to try it.
At first, I was like hmm, I don't think I like this. But I had a box of a dozen, so I needed to use them. After a number of months back with the G2, I dug them out and used them for side writing. Nothing long, nothing major. Just quick things. And after doing this for a while, I realized I did like the EnerGel. I started using it more and more.
And then I noticed I wasn't using my G2s any longer. It was always the EnerGel I was reaching for. I had a new love.
The only thing I don't like about the EnerGel is how fragile the plastic barrels are. I have two that broke while I was opening them to check on ink levels. Instead of driving me back to the G2, I did some searching and discovered they sell a metal barrel. I'm going to invest in that and get rid of the plastic ones as they run out or break.
As you see, I prefer purple as my ink color of choice. With the G2, the purple ink would fade on the paper and become too faint. I was forced to use blue ink because that didn't happen with that color. The EnerGel's purple stays dark and legible.
I did try the EnerGel in pink and I don't love that ink. It feels scratchier than the purple and doesn't look as smooth on the paper. I do not recommend the pink. I also haven't tried any other color except the purple and can't speak to the blue, black, red, etc inks. I did discover that they sell a variety pack with 12 different colors (I think) and I'm going to buy one of those to try out at some point, but for now, I'm going to enjoy my purple EnerGel and call it good.

One Phone Does it All

The other week, while I was trying to clean my office (a never-ending struggle), I found my old digital camera and my Flip video camera. I was like, huh. Wow. That's right. I used to need to carry both of these with me if I wanted a picture or a video.
Then I thought about my iPod. It doesn't seem as if it was that long ago that I hauled that with me everywhere I went when I wanted music.
That actually wasn't a bad thing. At that time, all my music was loaded to the iPod and I could wheel to anything I wanted to listen to. I use my phone now and some of my music was purchased at Apple, some at Amazon, but the big problem is all the CDs I own that I ripped to iTunes.
BTW, I still own all those CDs and I only ripped a copy of them for personal use. I'm a big believer in honoring copyright.
But there isn't room on my phone to load all the music, so I usually only listen to what I can hear on Apple Music or Amazon Prime music--in addition to my purchased tunes.
It's kind of amazing how my iPhone replaced everything. It's so much more convenient to have music, camera, and video all in one place. Lighter, too, since I don't have to haul so many devices with me and I don't have to worry about losing multiple devices.
Technology is an amazing thing.

Work In Progress: Wicked Salvation

For my readers wondering what's up next now that Wicked Intention has been released, I thought I'd talk about what I'm working on now.
Wicked Salvation is Griff's story. If you've finished Intention, then you saw Griff meet his heroine near the end of the book. As you know if you've read the Paladin League series, Griff is dealing with some stuff. He was rude and abrupt before what happened in Wicked Obsession, but now he's wounded emotionally, too. You know I love to torture my characters! It's only fair since they make my life so difficult. All the time.
When I envisioned the story, I saw Griff's heroine approach him and ask for help. Nice, I thought. And then I wrote the scene and she didn't ask him for anything. The woman has attitude! I'm going to enjoy watching these two go at it.
I have a small little blurb for the book, this is the same thing that I have on my website and in the back of Wicked Intention , so you might have seen it before.

Cat Jasarevic needs a mercenary. Fast. Her best chance at finding one? El Taller—a seedy soldier-for-hire hang out. Walking into that bar alone? Maybe not the safest choice. But she’s smart. She knows how to use a gun. She can take care of herself. An illusion instantly shattered when a mercenary who’s tall, gorgeous and deadly tosses her over his shoulder and hauls her out the door. Now she’s got two problems—this dangerous stranger who’s attached himself to her hip…and the way her pulse jumps every time he gets too close.