All the boys are gone (Day 23)

My life is a little less sunny without the boys of summer.

It was a gloomy day today, starting out with grey skies and the threat of rain, and finishing up by following through on that threat.

How perfect for a day when I actually had some time to spend out in the sun. All the boys are gone. The team headed to Sydney first thing in the morning and the office guys took off sometime before noon. I'm the only Bandit left in Brisbane. It's a little sad, right?

I thought I might be able to be useful but it took the better half of the morning for me to accomplish mostly nothing. This is why workplaces are offices and I should never work at home. My first attempt at productivity was to try and get my story on SJ up on the Bandits website. Carl had given me the lesson, I had been through it with him and I thought I could do it on my own.

Surprise, surprise. I could not. But on the positive side, I only had trouble with the picture and it's because we don't have any pictures of SJ of our own and I had to try and crop one from the Internet. So I feel as if the next time I put up a story and it's about someone who we have a picture for, I should be okay. I hope. In the end though, after numerous failed attempts, I had to call Carl and get him to help me out. I told him I was calling just so he didn't start missing me right away while the guys are gone. I'm sure he will be sad to be without me (unlikely).

While I tried to figure things out and then waited for Carl to help me, I got to spend some time on the phone with people from home once again. I finally talked to D'Arcy, one of my two best friends/co-workers/adopted family members from the Blue Jays. It took a few weeks but I finally got in touch with him. It was a good conversation about the quality of baseball here, all the things I've been doing and writing, and a little bit of Jays talk. D'Arcy didn't want to be the bearer of bad news but felt he had to inform me that Jose Molina (JoMo...sound it out) is no longer a Toronto Blue Jay. Fortunately for him I already knew this because I might have been really upset otherwise. It is a big deal though considering my love for the Molina brothers. The memory of Jose will have to live on in my iPod, which happens to hold his walkup music.

I called my mom after I got off the phone with D'Arcy and we had a good talk about some of the Bandits' pitching staff, my job situation and then she also felt the need to fill me in on the loss of Jose Molina. I am glad everyone at home is looking out for me on that one. At least Molina's gone to the Rays, so I will still get to see him in Toronto nine times next season. I'm going to say now that I think it would be appropriate to still play his walkup music when he gets up to bat.

We also talked about the fact that it has been suggested to me that I think about writing a book. Since I write every day anyway, and I am in the unique situation where I am able to work for a team as well as writing about the team, it apparently seems like a good idea to some people. My mom has pretty much suggested to me every day of my life that I should write a book. But since I figured she would be the only reading it or buying it, it didn't seem worthwhile to keep the family budget at par.

I still don't know if this is something I should or would ever pursue, but it's an interesting idea. It would be a huge undertaking and I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of commitment. Story of my life. But it's a thought.

After I was done talking on the phone and hoping that Carl could fix my mistakes, I decided to head out in an attempt to actually be productive. I made more progress throughout the afternoon than I did in the morning. I went to the post office first, to get some Christmas cards and stuff, though if my mom was right (and she usually is), by the time I get them done and send them, it will be too late for them to get home on time. Wishful thinking might speed up the mail process though right?

From the post office I made my way to the bank. Again. This time I had more success, though not right away. I was dealing with the same guy who actually set me up with my account two weeks ago, and lucky for me, he remembered. I told him I hadn't received my card and I thought I would have by now. He said he would go and check again. He returned with an envelope and told me that they had my card, but it was under the wrong name. Super.

He opened up the envelope though and the card on the inside had the right name. It was just the letter that was addressed to some other Brudnicki, for all of us that there are in Australia. He asked if I had my passport and of course I did not because I don't carry it around with me. Then I would just be asking to lose it. I really thought he wasn't going to give me the card, despite my having a billion other things in my wallet with my name on them. But with some hesitation he said he would do it this one time because he remembered me. Phew.

When that whole ordeal was over I went outside to try and deposit money into the account but I couldn't find any envelopes. I looked around for a bit, definitely creeping out the person at the machine next to me, but came up with nothing. Every time something like this happens I wonder if maybe things are different in Australia. Maybe they don't keep envelopes next to their bank machines, despite having the slot to deposit them into. Maybe they keep them somewhere secret or backwards because everything else here seems to be a little backwards. I don't have the answers to my own queries though because I gave up and left.

I went to the Queen Street Mall in an attempt to buy a new bathing suit. I packed in haste which was not extremely efficient. I brought two bathing suits with me but one seems to be falling apart or wearing out or something. So I went to Big W because I've heard it's like a Walmart equivalent and I thought that would be a good place to start. I did in fact find what I needed at Big Dub and relatively inexpensively at that. I continued on to Target and a couple of other stores just to see what was around.

Though I don't usually discuss the girlier parts of my life or my ways I do have to mention that I was looking at bras because I must point out that the sizes here are different. I had no idea what I was looking at and unlike the bank machine incident, this time I knew that things were actually different. There was no possible way I would have been able to figure it out and there was absolutely no chance I was going to ask anyone for help with undergarments so I gave up on that too.

On my way home it happened to start pouring rain. I thought about taking a cab but I was on a street where the traffic was going the wrong way and the further I got, the more pointless it became to try and get a cab. So I got soaked. I think it was the second day of rain since I've been here and it probably only poured for 10s of minutes maximum, but I got caught in it. When I stopped at the grocery store to get some food, a woman there said, "You're a little bit wet." Gee thanks. My response was, "It's a little bit raining."

I made it home with enough time to have a shower, watch an episode of House or two on DVD and return some emails and get some writing done. This was all of course before the Bandits game started. Since Carl is gone for the weekend, I am in charge of writing the game recaps for all five games in the series. I'm a little nervous still, what with having to write them now and send them out to the media and then post them on the website. I really don't want to screw it up. And if I do, I really hope it doesn't reflect poorly on Carl.

To add to my comprehensiveness about the whole thing, I am already slacking in the first night on the job. Erin and I had plans to see Moneyball (again for me), but Carl said it would be fine if I just wrote the game story when I got home. I watched the first two innings of the game via GameCast and the online play-by-play before we had to head out.

As it turns out, those were the only two innings played tonight. I got a text from SJ when Erin and I had met her sister and her boyfriend for dinner, saying that the game was suspended because they had no lights. I guess there was an electrical problem and the game is to be resumed in the morning. So that meant that I didn't have to write a game recap. But it also made me wonder if I needed to post anything on the ordeal. I texted Carl to let him know that there were only two innings of a game but I didn't hear back from him so I decided to just do nothing about it when I got home from the movie.

The four of us had dinner at a restaurant right near the theatre, which happened to be in the Queen Street Mall. Or at least I think that's where I was. I'm still learning. It was good food and good times, though I heard a lot about rugby league and I didn't really understand much of it. I should have made a conscious effort to learn more about that when I was learning about cricket.

Moneyball was pretty much the same movie it was when I saw it a few days ago but I was really disappointed with the audience taking it in. At one point I got up to go to the restroom and the woman on the end of my row was sleeping. Sleeping! Come on. And then close to the end of the movie the two people who were sitting in front of us got up and left. They couldn't even stand to finish taking it in. I was pretty upset about it.

It reminded me of how upset I get at people who come to baseball games late and/or leave them early. Come on people. Stay and watch the whole game. It could change. Leads are blown, extra innings are had, and people are leaving early?! The longest games I've ever been to have only been 14 innings but I have full faith in myself and whoever my game-time companion might be that no matter the length of the game, we would stay for the whole thing. Why buy a ticket if you're going to leave early?

That rant was inspired by the people at Moneyball. You're welcome.