A bed and a little poker

Very little poker this weekend for me. Yesterday, it finally stopped raining so we got a bunch of baseball in for the kids. I did play a peep for a token on Saturday night before my wife and I had some friends over. Smokkee was in already too so I figured I would see if anyone else might want to join so I hit up Kat. She jumped in and away we went. Unfortunately, Smokkee got beat down early by a donk but Kat and I ended up the last 2 standing. It is easy with Aces as they say. I think I had them 3 times in this one and got me lots of cheeps each time. It was fun but I was sufficiently buzzed by the end of it and our friends were already there as I finished to my wife calling me a degenerate. Luckily, they were good friends and my buddy that I went to Vegas with, so they didn’t mind.

I had little time yesterday to play. I decided to build a bed for my oldest son. My 9 yr old and 5 yr old have been sharing a room for 3 years. They have a huge room so it isn’t really an issue but we have decided to finish off the walk up attic and put another bedroom up there for the oldest. On the other side of the attic, we will have an office. We have been in the house for 6 years and haven’t really needed the room yet, but we know they won’t to share forever so now is the best time to get it done. I think my wife wants to get it done now so I won’t lose all our money at poker ;)

Anyway, we have been looking around for furniture for him and nothing has really struck us yet. Last week, she mentioned that it would be cool if I could build a bat out of baseball bats. I laughed it off but while I was at work on Friday I did a little google search and came across this.

I showed it to wifey and it was all over. I was off to find the materials. Baseball season up here in the northeast is pretty short really. Wooden baseball bats don’t have a long shelf life so I knew I needed to act fast if I was going to find 8 wooden bats of the same size. None of the stores are ordering any more this year so what you can find is what you get.

I checked Sports Authority on Saturday morning and found exactly 7 size 30 wooden Louisville Sluggers. Wow, that was easy huh! Oh, wait a minute, one slight problem. The player’s signatures. There were 4 Manny Ramirez. The other 3 were of a shortshop from a certain New York team, who’s middle name (in my house anyway) if “fuckin”. I called my wife from the store to explain. Uh uh. Get the 4 and keep looking.

I went to about 4 other stores and came up completely empty. Nothing at all anywhere. Sunday morning I went out to Home Depot to get the other materials I needed. Since I found everything I needed, I had to give in and buy the bats I had left behind the day before. Hey, that is what sandpaper is for right?

After we got the younger 2 down to bed, I started. My oldest was at his friend’s house and didn’t even know I was doing this. He came home and my wife brought him down so I could tell him. He was all excited and grabbed a bat and started swinging it. I kept working until he says, “hey, who’s on the bat?” Now DFJ has a pretty illegible scribble for a signature so he couldn’t really make it out. I told him that 4 of them were Manny. He said cool, so who is this? My wife and I looked at each other as he tried to figure it out. Looks like a D, but that’s not Big Papi he says. I started stuttered about it and finally told him.

“Uh uh. No way, I am not sleeping in a bed with those bats” he says, kinda kidding, kinda ready to use it on me. It was a great moment. One where I knew I had done something right with this 9 year old kid. I told him that was a good answer, but I would sand it off if he wanted.

He went up to bed and after messing with my frickin drill, bits, screwdriver bits, and splintering oak, we finished. I say we because I needed my wife to hold this and that, etc. For a 10 thumbs like me, it was a lot harder to do than the short little instructions made it. Anyway, the handiwork is below. Rather than sand, we decided to just turn the DFJ bats toward the back, which will be up against the wall anyway. All I have to do is attach a frame to it.

Ok, that’s it for me today. Don’t forget the Monday at Hoy’s tonight. I hope to make it since I won’t be at my live game tonight. My son has a game that will go until about 8. He might even be pitching an inning or 2. It could get interesting.

Until tomorrow.