A 'lil HooHaa

Well, got back from the New York State 10-Man B State Tournament for modified-pitch softball on Sunday.

Unfortunately, it was without any hardware.

We went 2-2 and had to play all our games Saturday. And this is where I’ll go into a slight rant and if you’re not into softball, you might be like “What the hell?”

The tournament was 27 teams, which is the biggest I’ve ever seen for this tournament. And I’ve been going for probably 12 years. I love the fact the tournament has grown because it shows softball is doing well. At the same time, it hasn’t grown with true “B” teams, rather “A” teams finding ways to slip through and drop down to have a better chance at winning. This will all make sense later.

We open the tournament with an ass-whipping. We get up 11-0 on this team, our pitcher had a no-hitter going through four innings, and we were all set to end this in five with the run-rule. Instead, one of our players mentions the no-no, it ends with two outs in the fifth, they score three and we move on. We ended up winning like 12-3 or some crap like that.

Then we have to play right away. In the winners bracket. Unreal. AND we have to travel to another field, which is BS. We get there and who do I see? This A pitcher I know. And his team isn’t B by any means. We get lambasted, they hit a shitload of homers off us and we’re knocked in the losers bracket. We basically had no chance after the second inning or so.

We then have to play right away _ again. At the same field at least. It’s against a team we have played a bunch before up at this tournament. And we haven’t ever lost to them.

You know, when you play sports, there are teams you just can’t seem to lose to? They are that way to us.

It didn’t look good, however. We’re down 5-1, they are owning us and then one inning went crazy. We scored seven, took the lead and rolled from there. I think the final was 13-5 or something along those lines.

But, turnabout is fair play, I guess. See, we also have those teams we can’t ever seem to beat at this tournament. And next up was them. We led, 6-5, entering the seventh. Got tight, gave up two, didn’t score in the bottom, and lost, 7-6, and got eliminated from the tournament.

All in all, I guess it’s OK. We’ve had some good strides at the tournament the last year. And we haven’t played great the whole season, but here we played pretty decent. I would have liked to have placed a lot higher, but you can’t do anything about it.

The only thing that sucks is we had a deep team there this year. We had a total of 17 who went up and everyone got at least one at-bat and got into most games, which was pretty sweet.

For those that actually know us, the team shot will likely be up in the gallery soon under my random shots.

Next up is to finish the regular season, move into playoffs, and plan for nationals.

I got the new car and it kicks ass. I’m going to really get to try it out en route to Cortland today for states. I’m leaving in about an hour and can’t wait. The car is comfortable, roomy and a fun drive. I think I made the right decision in going with the new car and the lease.

The dealership even called me today with a follow-up call to see how I liked it. Awesome!

And now, it’s off to states. A 27-team tournament with a lot of good teams. Just hoping we can play well and place. And if all goes well, maybe we can get on a roll and win the damn thing. But, to win that tournament, you need to play a flawless weekend, hit well, and have some luck riding with you. Hopefully we get all three and good pitching.

Anyhoo, I’ll try and post more photos of the car in my gallery at the end of the weekend. Hopefully I’ll get some good shots!

Well, today’s the day. The new Jetta. At least all the paper work. I’m hoping they’ll be able to prep the car in time to indeed hook me up with it by this afternoon. I won’t be able to stand to wait another day knowing all the paper work is done and the car is supposed to be mine!

This will also be my first “new” car. Although it’s actually not being owned by me, it’s still my first new car and I’m pretty pumped about it.

I actually slept decent last night, which shocked me. But I woke up around 6 a.m. and was like “Oh damn, I’m never going to be able to get back to sleep.” But I did, thankfully.

If I get the vehicle tonight, I’ll take some shots and post them in the gallery and maybe one here. Hopefully all goes well!

Ha. Get it? End of the road? I’m getting a car. Road. Ha! Nevermind…

Well, I’ve given a lot of thought to all this and finally came up with a decision. And I went in a total different direction.

I sat down and discussed the car situation with my mother today. Good advice giver those parents can be. And usually, when I can’t make any sense _ AND _ no matter how old I get, parents still are good ones to turn to. Anyway, after realizing I needed to weigh my options and the pros and cons to the Integra, I opted to call around to see if any local dealers had any 5-speeds.

Oh, backing up a bit, I found out for sure the lemon law doesn’t cover private sales. And I didn’t want to get hosed.

So I’m calling around and the second place I call is the VW dealership here. They have some audis, some VWs, all high miles and a little over my range. But they had a Dodge Dakota. Whooopie.

Off the cuff, I ask about leasing. They have the $199 per month deal going for a 2005 Jetta. I say I need more than 12,000 miles though and he says we can do whatever. So he prices 15,000 per year _ 209 per month. Sweet. The one I drove was 212 cause it had a couple other options. No moon roof, but it is a 5-speed.

So I go try one out. I love it. Drives nice, it’s sweet. I’m in like flint, so to speak. On Thursday, I go back to do all the paper work. Hopefully by the time I head to work Thursday, I’ll have some new wheels.

And so ends my journey. Seems like it all happened for a reason. I drove out of the VW dealer with a big-ass smile today. First time I’ve been like that when thinking about cars in a long time.

I’m going to get this all going by talking about some changes you may have noticed to hoohaaDOTcom.

First, what I’m posting in. The blogging system. A while back, I talked to several members of the message board about doing a blogging system. A bunch offered to get in, do different days and topics, and to do it on a regular basis. However, I set it up and then got a little busy and never got to fill everyone in on how the things work and all. One person posted, but, again, I never got going on my end.

So when I had the chance to add this to the message board, I opted to. This way, the people who were originally going to blog for the site still can. And now, others can get involved and have their own as well. Some people might choose to do something weekly, maybe daily, maybe different time frames. Maybe one topic, maybe more, etc. Who knows. But, it gives members a chance to have one if wanted.

For me, I’m going to basically go with a inside my world sort of thing. I might talk about baseball. I might talk about personal shit. I might just talk in a random sort of way, kind of like I’m doing now.

One thing. If you create a blog, please use it. If it goes for too long and nothing is done to it, I’ll delete it as it’s taking up space for nothing.

Now then, you’ll also hopefully note the gallery. This is where you’ll be able to post your own photos. Please nothing crazy, sick, perverted, etc. Just make it a normal photo album. Big thing is this _ keep the photos where they belong. Your random photos, people, stuff like that go under the second “member’s gallery.” The first one is an overall one which shows everything that is posted. The other category is travel photos. Please keep them to travel shots and shots of where you’ve visited etc. If there are shots with you/others with something in the background, feel free to put them there. If they are party shots while traveling, please put them in the normal one.

Anyway, hope all the members really enjoy the new add-ons and will take advantage of them. Any questions, feel free to PM me on here.