Intro to Umpiring

I started umpiring when I was 13 years old.  After "graduating" out of little league, they recruited kids to umpire their younger age games.  After a single 3 hour training session they threw you on the field.  And pretty much everyone did fine since nobody expected much.  We were supposed to have 2 kids per game, but more often than not I would end up working alone because people wouldn't show up.  Games played from mid-April to mid-June.  Your first year games payed $10 a piece, 2nd year umps made a full $12 a game, and 3rd years kids made a whopping $14.  I had fun with it, it was easy, and I made a little money.  I think in my 3rd year I made like $250, and I was thrilled. 

When I turned 16 and got my driver's license, I joined Northern Virginia Baseball Umpires Association (NVBUA, or NV for short).  The association works everything played on a 90' diamond - 13 year old to 18 year old rec ball, mens leagues, american legion, high school, college, and many more.  We pretty much have a monopoly in Northern Virginia, DC, and large swaths of Maryland, and get a lot of college games throughout the middle atlantic region. New umpires have to go through a 3-month, once a week for 3 hours class room training program with a few additional on-the field training sessions added to that.   Then you do a couple practice games with trainers watching and commenting.  After that you can start working real games, but the training never really ends.

The vast majority of our games are worked in two man crews (although occasionally we'll have 3, 4, or even 6 man games).  In all cases the "senior" umpire is the crew chief, and theoretically is in charge of the game and has the final say on all decisions.  In addition, the crew chief is supposed to evaluate the "junior" umpire, and after the game provides a rating.  Over the course of the year these ratings (along with a few evaluations from official trainer/raters at other times) give an umpire a rating that ultimately decides what level baseball games that umpire gets.  In our contracts (which also decide the rates we get paid for these games) they have limits on what level umpires can umpire what level games, so as umpires get better they start working better and better baseball.

Games go from early march to mid November, and during that time if you told them you wanted to you could pretty much work every day, and get 2 games a weekday, and 4-5 games on a weekend.  Fees range from $54-$90 for most games I work, although College and a few of the higher leagues pay even more.  Add that up over the course of the year you can make some good money.  7 inning games typically go about 2 hours, 9 inning games 2.5-3, but that varies a good bit depending on the level of play and other league rules (such as time limits and slaughter rules). 

So that's what I do.  Just like when I was 13, I still have fun with it, it's relatively easy, and I make a little money.  I mean how can anyone argue with a hobby that not only keeps you active and outdoors, but gets you paid?

The new bike

A few weeks ago I bought a new bike.  I've not had a stellar track record with bikes in my life, particularly new bikes, but perhaps there'll be more on that in another post.  Suffice it to say that the new bike I bought a year ago is no longer in my possession, and the new bike I bought 3 years ago is not in great condition.

In any case, the new bike is a Specialized Cross Trail which is a sort of road bike/mountain bike hybrid.  It's definitely not a mountain bike, but it does have shocks and all in all is a little more rugged than the last bike I had which was a pretty standard road bike.  It rides well without being too heavy/difficult.  Two of the selling points were disc brakes which make it a lot easier to pop a tire and throw it in the back of the car (among other benefits) and a lockout on the shocks for riding on paved surfaces.

It's a good bike for me since for the most part I'm riding on paved trails, but occasionally take a little rougher paths.  There's a few trails around here that are gravel or dirt, plus its nice to be able to go across grass or other ground surfaces without too much trouble.  It's also rugged enough I feel comfortable going over curbs and such without being worried I'm going to bend a wheel.  At 225 lbs that's a real possibility, particularly over time.  I don't do any "real" mountain biking  but if I ever got the inclination I do still have my last mountain bike (the one in poor shape, but it works).

Since I bought it I've put almost 200 miles on it, and it's been running great.  With any luck this bike will last (and not get stolen).  Here's hoping. . .

and How!

Okay, I promise after this I will stop being meta.  Also I have no idea if that was an appropriate use of the term meta, but I think the fact that I'm now writing about that makes it even more meta.  Anyways. . .

The last thing I wanted to say about my new blog is how I plan to do it.  As you may have noticed I write conversationally.  That is likely to continue.  I have a tendency to ramble and end up with lots of really long, run on sentences about things that really don't need to be that long, especially since they can usually be truncated into smaller sentences at the least if not just cut in half entirely without losing any of the real meaning or content of what I as the writer was trying to convey to you as the audience, but hopefully for the most part I'll be self aware enough to notice this and I can edit them down on my own.  I also overly use parentheses to insert a thought (like this one) into an otherwise good sentence.

I also don't plan to update with any regularity.  As previously mentioned this is going to be about whatever I feel like, so it's also going to be whenever I feel like (I guess that's a when, huh?)

Lastly I've noticed from other blogs that there comes a point of diminishing returns when it comes to length.  While blog posts are definitely supposed to be longer than a tweet or facebook status, once things start to get too long it starts to be a chore to read through the entire thing.  Plus who really wants to read that much of what I write?  In any case, I will try to keep most of my posts a reasonable length, and if things drag on I will likely split them into different posts.  Who knows though, I may experiment with longer writings if I find something worth writing about.

Speaking of posts getting long, I think that has about hit it.  You now have an idea of what to expect here, so I hope you enjoy!  Now off to real blogging.

The what

Last post I gave you the why of this new blog.  Lets go through the other questions -

Who: Me
Where: Here
When: Now

What is a little trickier.  Caitlin kept asking me what I'd write about, and I kept not telling her.  In short, I'm going to write about whatever I want. 

But I suppose I can be a little more detailed than that. 

First off, there are two things that I really enjoy doing and spend quite a bit of time at, particularly this time of year - biking and umpiring baseball.  I love being outside and doing something that keeps me active.  However neither of those activities are particularly thought intensive*, and as a result while my body is often energetically occupied, my mind frequently has a lot of contiguous time to run wild.  So while I'll probably write some about both biking and umpiring, I am also curious to see what happens when I start writing down the things the go through my head. 

I will also probably post some about life events, both past and present.  I think writing about the past will be interesting, and I hope some of you will enjoy it.  I will write about the present to keep people up to date on me.  In both cases I'm hoping these posts will help accomplish the goal of connecting with people the other direction.

As I mentioned before, I've been spending more time online.  Since I don't do facebook statuses, I'll probably post some about interesting things I find, either in the news, or from really wherever.  Don't worry though, this won't become a typical facebook news feed.

I've thought about writing reviews of things, particularly movies and or video games.  The trick here is that I've found that review posts on other people's blogs are the ones i tend to skim over if that.  Occasionally if its a review of something I've seen/played/read it'll be more interesting, or if it's something I'm definitely considering seeing/playing/reading.  But that's not usually the case.  Anyways, if I do start putting reviews of things up, I will likely keep them short and sweet.

And as I started all this with, I will continue to post about whatever I want, so who knows what will happen.


*(Umpiring can be thought intensive, but generally only in short bursts with lots of waiting in between)

First Post

Alright, so I'm starting a blog.  And I'm doing it for three reasons -

Everyone else seems to be doing it.
It might be fun, or at least interesting.
Caitlin told me I wouldn't be able to or at least that I wouldn't be very good at it.  So we'll show her.

A possible fourth reason is that I've started spending(/killing) a lot more time online recently.  Part of this has included reading other people's blogs and actually somewhat following my facebook news feed.  What I've found is that there's a lot of random crap out there, even from people I'm "friends" with, that I don't give two shits about. 

But there's also some interesting/thoughtful things out there, particularly from people I actually consider friends.  I feel like some of these posts help me connect with those people who I otherwise don't often connect with.  Most of these more interesting posts are not in 30 character tweets (twits?) or facebook or google status updates, but in actual writing.  The only problem is these connections tend to only be one directional.  Therefore my fourth reason to start a blog is to start writing in order to connect the other direction with people I would like to stay more connected to.    We'll see if it works.