Glad that it's Friday. 

It's going to be an interesting weekend for me.  We are supposed to get heavy rains, thanks to Hurricane Ernesto.  I was supposed to go to a ballgame at Citibank Park tomorrow with some of my neighbors.  What made this one special is that we’d be sitting in a luxury suite to watch the game.  There is a good chance that it will be rained out.  The only consolation is that if the weather clears up on Sunday I may be able to go then, as a rain date.  We’ll see.

 I also will be going to the funeral service for the New York City Fire Department lieutenant who was killed at the Bronx file a few days ago.  While he lived in Yaphank, he grew up in East Islip, the adjacent town to mine.  He had also been a member of the East Islip Fire Department

At least the New York Mets are doing well, winning two out of three from the Rockies.

The sun is out for the first time in a week here in New York.  I was supposed to go to a Long Island Ducks minor league baseball game yesterday evening, but it was postponed to tomorrow evening due to the high winds.  I stayed home and watched the Mets beat the Astros.

I also ordered a new home computer from Dell yesterday.  It’s a model E310, and should be arriving in about 2 weeks.  We will donate the old hardware to the Christina Foundation.

On Friday evening I went to the wake for the FDNY lieutenant killed in a fire near Yankee Stadium.  The volunteer firefighters assembled outside the funeral home and then filed into the viewing room and walked past the casket and saluted him.  We walked past a gauntlet of other New York City firefighters who stretched from the funeral home’s entrance to the casket.  Yesterday morning was the funeral at the Episcopal church in Islip.

We went to the Long Island Ducks’ makeup game yesterday evening.  While I have been going to games at Citibank Park since 2000, this was our first time in the luxury suites.  Since it was pleasant outside, we sat in the seats that overlook the grandstand, instead of indoors.  The promotion was actually awareness of breast cancer.  The Ducks gave away pink team tee shirts (the players even wore pink team jerseys on the field), as well as a book by an author named Ray Negron, titled The Boy of Steel.  Judging from the cover (the boy and a grownup are wearing Yankee caps), it involves the New York Yankees.  We picked up tee shirts and a copy of the book when we entered the park, and up in the suite there were more copies  and more tee shirts.  We decided to keep a copy for ourselves, as well as one tee shirt, and give the others to my cousin who got me the tickets to the game.  He has two sons, a daughter, and his wife’ niece now lives with them (they adopted her).  The breast cancer awareness commemoration is appropriate, since his aunt (another cousin of mine) dies of breast cancer 2½ years ago.  The five families who went all had a great time, even if the Ducks lost to the Somerset Patriots 4-3.

On September 2 (Saturday) was the funeral for the FDNY lieutenant who was killed in a fire near Yankee Stadium.  While I did not go to the funeral (I felt that the wake was sufficient, and I had to watch my daughter for part of the morning) the Episcopal church in Islip, St. Mark’s, was packed and they had to close down Main Street (the high street) and half of the village to accommodate all of the firefighters.  There is going to be some fall out in my department, since on of the commissioners ordered the Chief to close our fire headquarters to non Islip firefighters.   I fail to see the logic, since he is a member of FDNY too.  If he was afraid of rowdiness, I don’t think that it is likely.  If I was invited as a guest to another firehouse to have coffee and perhaps watch some television, I know that I would be on my best behavior.  Most of the other Islip firefighters who I associate would do the same.

Since Monday night’s ballgame it’s been a bit interesting here, to say the least.  On the baseball front, the Mets and also the Ducks were winning doubleheaders after losing on Monday night. 
I will be going to work on Saturday since October 31 is the end of our fiscal year and the Executive  Committee wants to get all of the client invoices out by the end of next week.  That also means working hard today and tomorrow too.

It’s been a bit hectic the last several days.  On Thursday and Friday evenings I attended the wake of my “cousin in law’s” closest friend.  This morning I was at the funeral, held at St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre.  After the funeral I hopped the Long Island Railroad to go to work so that I could prepare invoices for as many of my clients as possible.  When it was time to leave I headed to Citibank Park to watch the QSAC Charity Baseball Game.  The downer was that I arrived at 7 PM, and the game started at 6.  I missed the autograph session, but managed to take pictures of several of the players.  In the end the National League All Stars defeated the American League All Stars 11-9.  But the game was for fun, and the players were either retired major leaguers, or amateurs.  The main thing was that funds were raised for QSAC (Quality Services for the Autism Community) and everyone had a great time.  Among the veterans present were George Foster, Bud Harrelson, Tony Balsamo, Jerry Grote, Ron Swoboda, and Ross Mosschitto.  Some of the non-veterans included Jim Watkins of the WB 11 News (whose has a son with autism), wrestler Mick Foley, and presenters from News 12 Long Island, and radio stations.  When the pictures are developed I will post them here or on my existing QSAC game web pages.

It’s been quite a week so far.  Since our fiscal year ends on October 31^st, the Executive Committee has been pushing the partners (and therefore their staff, including me) to bill the clients by this weekend so that the firm will get paid by the fiscal year end.  With some overtime, I managed to get nearly all of my clients billed.  

On Wednesday evening I went to the Firematic service for a 50 year member who passed away on Monday.  Nearly all of the members of the Islip Fire Department showed up, and we filed into the room at the funeral home where the chiefs and chaplains gave eulogies and then the members filed past the casket to salute him.  We also stopped to offer condolences to the family members.

For the past few days it has been raining most of the time.  The Yankees Red Sox game for this evening has been postponed until Sunday.  I have tickets to a game at Yankee Stadium that begins at 1:00 PM tomorrow.  My brother in law could not use them as he is taking my nephew to Chicago as it’s move in day at the University of Chicago.

The Mets lost tonight in Pittsburgh and unless the Phillies lose to the Astros, the Mets will have to wait until tomorrow to clinch the National League East.
This Sunday is week one of our fall softball season.  We will be playing at a field near an airport off the William Floyd Parkway.  From what the coach had told me, I will be in the outfield.  As with the summer season, I will update the two softball web pages with the scores.