Day 7

The day of rest...sort of.

Sundays are off days here. We also got done about 2 hours early on Saturday to give us some extra free time. They put together a cookout for us down at the pool last night. It was okay. I'm sure I would have cared more if I had had any desire to consume any of the free beer.

There isn't much to update on the umpiring school front. We took our 3rd test Saturday. I missed two questions; one because I'm an idiot and one because I thought the question involved a fan reaching out into foul territory, not straight up in dead territory. My field and plate mechanics continue to improve. We've covered almost all of the different runner situations, so it's just a matter of repetition on a lot of the field work with some small differences depending on where your runners are. In fact, they told us that this is the most material they have ever covered in the first week of training in the history of this umpire school. We're supposedly picking up on things faster than any class had before us, so They've added another aspect to the plate stance, so I've got new things to work on there. My voice is holding up a little better now than it did earlier in the week. I was still recovering from a cold and my voice was a little scratchy by the evening, but it's staying strong the whole day now, as long as I'm staying hydrated.

I took the off day as an opportunity to get a run in this morning. I ran a couple miles to a park behind the nearby community college. They had some baseball fields there, but they were locked up. So I used the bullpen plates to practice my plate mechanics and worked on my fielding footwork in the grassy area next to the fields. I got in a solid set of stretches after my workout. They have us do this warmup routine here every day before we do our field work, and I think some of the leg stretches do more harm than good. They should really consult a runner when designing leg stretches, not baseball people. They don't feed us on Sundays, so I'll either be hitting up a Chinese buffet or Cici's pizza for dinner in a bit. I have to maximize my calories per dollar down here with my limited spending funds.

Some other assorted notes about life in Florida:
-The hotel is about what you would expect from a place with "Quality" in the name: decent, but not great. The internet connection has been sketchy, but we do have 2-ply toilet paper so that's something.
-The water here is a little sulfury. It's not quite bad enough for me to go out and buy bottled water, but I do drink the Kool-Aid at the catered meals instead of the water.
-We have 3 HBOs, 5 Spanish channels, but no music video channels. So, while I have not been able to watch any new music videos, I have gotten in some entertaining TV time, including Spanish dubbed versions of a Japanese war movie and Batman (the Tim Burton one).
-1-800-ABOGADO
-The weather has been warm and sunny pretty much every day, resulting in some sweet tan lines. I think this is something I'm not going to be able to avoid for the rest of my life.
-Ben Roethlisburger is apparently left footed.
-I'm getting very tired of all the commercials they show during NFL games.

Our next test is Tuesday, so my next post may be Tuesday night, or maybe later in the week.
Also, if you have any questions for me that you think everyone would want the answer to, go ahead and make comments on posts and I'll answer what I can.