Final days of Spring Training

Today I joined the Corvette Club members and attended a final Spring Training game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays. The game was held at Ed Smith stadium in Sarasota, the former home of the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds went West to the Cactus League. For a while a flirtation between the Sarasota town fathers and the Boston Red Sox was held, but it was not to be. So we got Baltimore, lots of civic debt in the form of bonds, and a team that is ho hum at best. Fortunately, Tampa Bay was their opponent, and I suppose if I'm forced to watch American League ball, may as well be the local team I support.

The game was a good one, with a final score of 8 to 5, in favor of Tampa Bay Rays. Several years ago, they were the "Devil Rays" but apparently they felt this might be more objected to than inspiring. Today, the Rays certainly acquitted themselves well, scoring most runs with homers - one of them a grand slam, which ultimately was the difference between a win and a loss. The Orioles also generated several home runs, I had intended to take my camera, but managed to forget it and took these shots with my cell phone.

By the way, I hate my cell phone, but my contract runs for another four months before I can trade for something easier to operate. Without realizing, I managed to reset the camera function to take pictures in the "blue tint" - clearly the phone is more complicated than I and wearing sunglasses I didn't notice till I got home and transferred them to my iPhoto function. My wife was impatient, and wanted to be able to "Face Time" with our children, both of whom have iPhones. She was on my plan, costing an additional $9.99 to be a second Verizon line. She paid $150 to get out early, went across the street and signed up with AT&T and now has an iPhone, and pays over $100 a month out of her account. AT&T isn't worth crap on Longboat Key, and where we live the signal doesn't have enough strength to "punch through" cinder block walls. She spends a whole lot of time talking from the screened lanai out back, or the courtyard in front of the house. I can get rid of my Android phone in October and stay with Verizon. Verizon has iPhones and signal strength. I suppose I could also just drop Verizon, get an AT&T iPhone and join her plan come October, but I don't know if the courtyard is big enough for both of us.

Of course, I could always vote on the P&Z board for the threatened 150 foot tower, which would really punch through on the north end of the island,............if I still lived on the north end of the island. Six more months of my third generation CDMA phone can be tolerated. I mean, anybody who can last four years in the AIr Force and forty years in marriage can do six months standing on his head while gargling razor blades. In six months, I'll write about my 4G phone with hopefully a camera function I understand. I hope so, since I keep leaving my digital camera at home or in the car at the ball park.