Since the last entry it’s been busy time at work, since we are at the month end.  Not much has happened at the firehouse, as we had no meetings, fire schools, or even any interesting calls.  All I have been doing there is having coffee and using the computer in the evenings when Eileen is using our home computer.  It gives me a chance to check my e/mails on Yahoo and Hotmail, since I am not able to do that at work because of the firewall.  It also lets me listen to radio broadcasts of my favorite minor league baseball teams’ games.

On Tuesday when I was at the firehouse I was re-typing the minutes of a prior meeting of my fire company (it must have been deleted by accident earlier) and listening to a game.  I must have been enjoying the game too much since I did not hear my cell phone ring.  When I got home I checked the missed calls screen and saw that Ellen had called me around 9:30 PM.  It turns out that my mom called her to say that my dad is in the hospital (New York Hospital Queens) with a possible inflamed pancreas.  Naturally Ellen had tried to contact me but I did not hear the tones (it’s possible that I also muted it by accident).  Anyway, since Tuesday my dad has been moved out of the intensive care unit (ICU) and into a regular room.  But regular room or not, we are not out of the woods yet.

On a happier note, last night the Bees play the first round of the Yorkville Sports Associate’s playoffs.  Our rival was Interactive Corporation (IAC) who we played a couple of weeks ago in the makeup game at Central park.  This time we played at a field in Morningside Park, at 110^th Street near Manhattan Avenue.  Our field was actually in line with 112^th Street, and up on the hill above us on Morningside Drive sat the eastern end of the massive Saint John the Divine Cathedral, the largest church in the Western Hemisphere.  We could plainly seen the chapels that extended from the main building (some as large as some free standing churches, and the bronze angel on the easternmost end.  When the game got underway, IAC eventually led us by a score of 8-2 after three innings.  We were a little bit dejected, but most of us remembered what Yogi said years ago about outcomes.  So, over the next few innings the bees started the pile on the runs (but so did IAC), and the lead started to see-saw.  Finally, by the end of the 6^th inning we led 13-10, and even though IAC scored two more in the top of the 7^th, the final score was 13-12 and the Bees are going to the next round of the play-offs, which will be on August 5^th at Dewitt Clinton Park.  So it looks as if the bronze angel on the top of St. John the Divine was really looking out for us!!! After the game we walked to Amsterdam Avenue to an Italian restaurant named V&T, between 110^th and 11^th Streets.  I enjoyed some Italian beer, pizza, and shrimp parmagiana.  We also talked about some of the blockbuster trades that occurred in Major League baseball over the last few days: Ivan Rodriguez to the Yankees; Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers; and Jason Bay to the Red Sox.

Then it was a walk to Broadway to get the #1 train to Penn Station and the Long Island Railroad to go home.   

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In the pictures below we have a view of the front on St. john the Divine, on Amsterdam Avenue; the bottom picture shows Morningside Park, with the field that the Bees played on, with the eatern end of St. John on the hill above.