Well, I had my first item stolen in Calgary.

I was just outside with my cup of coffee having a morning smoke.  OK, I know, I need to quit.  It is bad for my health, that’s for sure.  It is also bad for the pocketbook.  Cigarettes are about $2.50 more per pack in Alberta than they were in Ontario.  A good reason there, on top of them being bad…

Anyway, I went to dispose of my butt in a jar that I had sitting beside my step and the jar was gone.  I presume that someone coming through (a bum most likely) decided to take it to smoke the used buts, even though a lot of them would be wet as there was water in the jar from rain (and snow this past weekend).

Not the theft of the week I am sure, but I was surprised.  Maybe this is another sign that I should quit.  I am feeling that it is the time to quit anyway – seeing as I quit cold-turkey, I need to have that correct feeling otherwise the quitting will be too hard.  I get cranky (crankier than usual) when I quit, but the benefits outweigh anything else.  So, it will either be at the end of this pack (tomorrow I would guess) or perhaps one more pack.

On the baseball front, I received an email from the Supervisor of Umpires for Little League in Calgary – he passed my name along to the Scheduler for Southern Alberta.  About 1 minute after the email comes to me, I get a phone call.

I am sent a bunch of stuff with information, etc., and I fill in the required information and send it back.  He asks about my equipment which I sold before I left.  Well, I didn’t actually sell it, I left it with AD and he will try to sell it for me.  I need to follow-up with him to see what’s become of it.  Anyway, he offers to lend me a sent of gear, very nice of him.

I called Baseball Alberta to get some information on getting certified since all of their clinics have already taken place.  I need to contact the Supervisor of Umpires for Alberta and see if he will allow me to get certified without going to a clinic.  I emailed the Supervisor in Ontario to see if he will email me a letter outlining my experience so that I can pass it along.

The gentleman that I spoke with at Baseball Alberta also passed me onto a contact for a baseball organization just outside of Calgary to see if they need any experienced coaches.  All in all, very helpful.  I have found everyone that I have spoken with here to be very friendly and welcoming – it is quite nice.

So, I am waiting to hear back – the town is called Strathmore and it is about 1/2 hour east of Calgary.  No worse than when I coached in Hamilton with the Thunderbirds for sure.

It looks like I will either be umpiring or coaching – likely not both though.  If I coach, I doubt that I will want to umpire much at the same time.  My passion is still coaching, I do enjoy being an umpire as well though and the extra money always comes in handy.  Since I will need to replace my equipment and uniforms, the money that I make this season will likely go towards paying for that stuff anyway so it will work itself out.

Either way, I plan on taking Zeus and Blondie out with me.  They enjoy it and typically are pretty good at ball parks.