hawing

We still occasionally get mail for the people who sold us our house, who haven't lived here since 2005. (Maybe that's why they aren't supporting the causes who reach out to them anymore.)

I'd have a hard, hard time rooting for a relocated Brewers franchise.

Apologies first for taking this wayyyyy off track. But this quote above reminds me of September 1995, when (as many of you remember, or at least know) the Brewers' future in Milwaukee was at a bit of a crossroads. I took the step of making a mental short list of teams I would consider rooting for in place of a relocated Brewers team. My S.O., who rooted for CHC as a kid (for reasons that were understandable*), thought he was being helpful when he suggested I change allegiance to CHC. 😬 For those wondering, the teams on my short list of 1995 included Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Seattle, Cleveland, maybe the Twins, and absolutely nothing from Chicago. *He grew up in Kenosha; his grandparents had WGN on all the time; and Milwaukee had no MLB team during his age 9-12 seasons. With my help, he has since turned against the Cubs; and of course, we have always been in agreement on the Cardinals.

It's my turn at what's bugging me. Some of you know I work at a research library that's part of a state agency. We hire work-study student employees to help with many tasks because work-study funding means a portion of wages is covered by federal funds. The hiring process, which peaks at this time every year, requires balancing three different bureaucracies and it's usually a slog even when things go as they should. This year I sent the job ad to the UW-Madison folks who post them, and they notify me that they can't place my ad because they don't have a 2023-2024 contract from our agency yet. Our HR office is supposed to do this by August 1 every year. So okay, HR dropped the ball. I notified HR of the situation and was told "The 2023-2024 signed contract has been sent to UW. It went out in the last week." That wording made me wonder if it was code for "whoops, we forgot, we just did it now." And indeed, UW notified me this morning that the contract arrived yesterday and will be processed in the next few days. (Students are just now moving back to Madison and I need staff in place by the 28th - so even a few days' delay is problematic.) So my suspicion is almost certainly correct and HR forgot about it until they saw my reminder. W H Y not just say "Oh no, we overlooked this, we just got it done, sorry for the delay" ?? I't's annoying enough that I can't advertise for new students or do the forms for returning students for a few days, but I'm frankly more annoyed that HR wouldn't own up to what's most likely a simple mistake. Heck of an example to set for the rest of the agency. 😠

They'd have to get legislative approval, and anyone who even casually follows the current Wisconsin legislative climate knows that would go nowhere. Juneteenth is also not a holiday for (non-UW) state employees, which made me as surprised as NMF to see that Metro is reducing service on Monday. It must be a holiday for city employees, maybe also county. (Googles a bit) Indeed it is! https://www.wortfm.org/juneteenth-has-yet-to-become-a-paid-holiday-in-wisconsin/#:~:text=But Wisconsin is one of,may opt to do so.

Someone I employed as a grad student (going on 20 years ago) won an award at her current library. The reception for it was yesterday and was held just down the street so I stopped by. She gave me a shoutout in her remarks. It felt nice.

I'm not a teacher, but as a librarian my profession is education-adjacent. My SO retired in fall 2021 from his library career, and if I had a dollar for everyone who asks me "so when's it going to be YOUR turn?", I might be able to retire sooner! 😬 For real, though, I have reached the minimum age for retirement without an age penalty from the state (I work for a state agency). However, I'm not as close to being eligible for full federal benefits. Having a partner at home whose time is almost entirely his own certainly makes it tempting to stop sooner. Another temptation is that one of my two closest colleagues at the library retired last fall, and the other just requested a retirement benefit estimate today. I was hoping we could be the three amigos for a little longer and am ambivalent about being the last remaining amiga for super long. Having said all that, I'm not sure I want to go from 60 to zero in terms of work pace. The SO didn't have as abrupt a close to his career since the last 1.5 years was the heart of the pandemic.

A concessions note: on Fridays, the concession stand behind section 204 has a semi-secret fish fry (it's not on the posted menu) which is a surprisingly good value compared to many ballpark options.

I have *thoughts* on national anthem performances. I suspect I'm an outlier on them, so I won't share them here. I agree that some performances of the Star Spangled Banner are cringe inducing.

25 and under? Wouldn't that include a majority of people not old enough to even start college?

We used to hit up the tundra territory once a year or so, just for a different POV. I think it's now reserved for groups. Womp womp. Somewhere in the MLB dot com archives is FSWI footage of a first inning home run hit to just below our seats in the Territory. If you know where to look, you can briefly see us cheering.

Usher Bill IS the best. He at least used to read this site too! *waving*

I'll admit that the hawing household has scaled back how much ballpark food we eat, mostly because my partner is diabetic and a lot of ballpark staples are not diabetic friendly. We have also continued to mask at games, so we are more likely to stop for Cousins subs or the like en route to the park. Having said that, when I do eat at AFF, I enjoy the baked potatoes, the big warm pretzels (greatly improved since they switched to Milwaukee Pretzel Co products) and (betraying my Madisonness) Ian's Pizza. There's a grilled cheese stand by the hot corner team store which I've also enjoyed, but it was frequently closed during our games in 2022. For beverages, I bring in water or a soft drink and Tom gets a designated-driver voucher. We're rarely in the club seats, but when we have that access, we've had success with the taco bar. You choose your fillings and can ask for enough lettuce to basically have a taco salad instead of a taco. For seating (besides first-base side to stay mostly shaded, because I have two skin settings - pasty and crispy), I love love love our seats in the central loge, below the press box. We've become acquainted with several of the press box regulars and some of the announcers, and I like being able to hear the press box announcements. We also have a 20 pack in the terrace box, and I think it's a best kept secret in terms of the view you get for the price. The key is to land in the sections closer to home plate. Having said that, most of our terrace games are weeknights, which tend to not be super rowdy. Terrace boxes are small enough for guest relations staff to actually be able to keep an eye on things and nip unruliness in the bud. The terrace reserved sections are so much larger that there's no way an usher can see everything. Both our loge and terrace seats are in the family sections. We originally got family section seats when they were designated at County Stadium, because it was the only place in the seating bowl where you couldn't smoke - but we got to appreciating the relative lack of rowdiness/fighting/puking. In both of our family sections, the ushers are attentive, which we also appreciate.

Vinny seems like a no-brainer for a fantasy camp coach type of role.

owbc, if you get there and Vinny Rottino is still on the coaching staff, tell him you know me. Vinny'll take care of you. 😀

Nope, Freddy is Mr. April this year!

Hey, I'll start. For the umpteenth consecutive year, I have a Brewers wall calendar - the kind for which the players to spotlight are chosen months in advance of the actual year, which means there's always someone on the new year's calendar who is already off the roster. The 2023 calendar starts off with Kolten Wong for January, Hunter Renfroe for February and Josh Hader for March. ?

Random, pointless, dumb, or any combination thereof!

The year may be new, but the potential for life to bug us is timeless - so have at it!

On December 13 (today as I write this), Dick Van Dyke is now 97 years old.

It's December 12 as I write this, and Bob Barker is now 99 years old.

We've had a Prius since 2007 and have a Prius Prime on order. The length of our ballpark trips (78 miles each way from home to the Molitor Lot!) was why we weren't sure about range - plus we're a one-vehicle household. I rarely look forward to the MLB offseason, but if the car arrives by then, we should go quite a while between gas station visits.

Haha, we used to refer to Bruce Ruffin as "Rough'em Up" Ruffin. ?

I'll admit, after literally two days of my first post-college job, I realized upon leaving that there was nothing I *had* to do at home. I adjusted pretty fast to not having to wonder what course readings or homework I was behind on. Of course, that night I spent time unpacking since I had just moved to Green Bay.

In the first year of my post-college library career, I was fresh out of grad school, so the eldest of my student employees were just two years younger than I. I walked into the office once and two of them were talking and said, "She's back, let's ask her. Once you're out of college, does the stress go away?" Readers, I laughed. Then I told them that some stress does go away, but it's promptly replaced by other stresses.