In just over two weeks from now, I am off work for 24 days.  I don’t think I’ve ever taken three weeks in a row off before, not that I can remember anyway.

The first week of my vacation, I will be umpiring in a Babe Ruth Regional Tournament that Babe Ruth Calgary is hosting.  There are 4 games per day, I will have to umpire 1 or 2 of those games per day, so it will likely work out to 8 games or so over the course of the tournament.  We are working the 3-man system for umpiring and in the play-off round, we go to the 4-man system which will be good practice as I normally work the 2-man system.

I have a few days off before heading to Missouri for the Cal Ripken 70/Major (12u) World Series in Branson.  The flight leaves @ 6am so that means a very early start to the day.  I guess I will get up around 3am to head to the airport for 4am.  This likely means I won’t sleep much, if any that night but that’s ok.  I have a proven record of not sleeping on planes so it will be a long day.  Not quite travelling to Mauritius though.

I will be in Missouri until August 12.  It will be hot and humid, I am sure, and there will be some good baseball as well.  I don’t have a schedule as yet, but I can’t imagine that we’d have to do any more than 2 games a day.  I am looking forward to the experience.

A friend of mine is looking after the dogs while I am gone.  They will be much more comfortable at home and it will save me some money as well.

Between now and the start of my vacation, Stampede comes to town.  I doubt I will visit this year.  It seems to be more of a 14-late twenties thing, unless you have people coming in from out of town.  That’s OK though, it’s pricy, you can’t get away without spending at least a hundred bucks, I am sure.

OK, so the countdown is on – 2 weeks to go.  🙂