Again, why I love San Diego..

I always have San Diego set on the weather and to compare it to Minneapolis, where my friend Jeremy lives, University Park, Pennsylvania, where my sister is, and home. And it's always just nice and refreshing to see 55 when most everyone else is in single digits. Brrrrrrr!

CNN/YouTube Live Debate on Climate Change

CNN and YouTube are teaming up to present another live YouTube debate like they did for the Elections. This time around they will be focusing on the topic of climate change in honor of the COP15 conference, the United Nations Climate Change Conference going from Dec 7 to Dec 18 this month.

YouTube has created a channel page for the COP15 conference where you can submit your own questions for the chance to have them aired during the debate on December 15. According to the site, during the debate "leaders and activists at COP15 will come together to answer your top-ranked questions."

http://www.youtube.com/Cop15

Possible topics range from the "economics of climate change" to "personal responsibility." You can submit video questions and vote for your favorites between now and December 14.

El Paso Texas Trip

Ok so it's been far too long since I've written on here, most likely due to my crazy schedule lately! In just the past 30 days I've been to Kansas City, Baton Rouge/New Orleans, Minneapolis, Austin, and El Paso. And now I'm FINALLY home! Needless to say I've tallied up some frequent flier miles, and had some great times! Even including El Paso, which was primarily work related, but still made a good time out of it.

So since I haven't received photo's from Thanksgiving in Austin Texas yet, I'm going to start with my experience in El Paso Texas.

Initially as a Training trip, it turned more into a internet troubleshooting and maintenance trip, with some training inter mixed in. I flew out of Austin Texas, toward El Paso Monday November 30th, short little flight, on Southwest. They give us the standard, we will be making our initial decent into El Paso yadda yadda. Little bit later we're heading down, and I'm looking out the window seeing snow! Snow, in El Paso Texas, thinking wow, this can't happen to often. So we start descending for landing, wheels tap the ground, and then we lift back off! So we start to make a loop around for another take at the landing, come down some more then go back up! Captain comes over the PA system and says I apologize, couldn't see the runway that time, we're going to take another loop around. Finally, third time around, we land safely and softly. Everyone starts giving a standing ovation after we finally stuck the landing. It was pretty crazy. Needless to say, I feel like Southwest pilots, or at least the ones doing the Austin to El Paso route, most likely aren't too familiar with snow, so it was pretty frightening. Loved the hotel and the people in El Paso, really had a great time, got some things straightened up for them, and left them with a working internet, which seemed to make them pretty happy. All-in-all it was a pretty good trip, short, and lots of work, and the inital entry was crazy, but had fun!

Walrus is Awesome

With all the Twilight buzz these days, this thing just really cracked me up.

BYU vs. New Mexico Soccer, WOW

Ok just saw this "high"light on SportsCenter.
Unreal...

Minneapolis Trip Album Part I

So, an awesome weekend in Minneapolis with the good old buddies from college, and as always it was another great time. This time celebrated over Halloween weekend to really mix in the crazy. And for added emphasis, Jeremy and Justyne were married recently and we hadn't had the chance to celebrate their wedding! So the whole weekend was dedicated to our happy couple.

Jeremy lives in the "Warehouse District" which is really a pretty cool area, and close enough to the light rail that we basically road the rail all the way in from the airport.

The trip got off to a rough start, as EVERYONE had flight delays because Minneapolis airport decided to do construction on their runways and only had one runway open, so flights were all delayed getting in. Which meant our flight which was supposed to get in at midnight was delayed, the Salt Lake crews flight was delayed at their layover destination in Denver, and the Phoenix friends flight was delayed also. Conveniently, we all arrived almost at the exact same time! Unfortunately it was at 2 AM, but we were all just glad we made it.

Day 1 Consisted primarily of catching up, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

The good old college buddies, left to right, Jeremy, Me, Riley and Nick. On the steps of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. A really cool museum which I highly recommend, makes me wonder why I don't visit museums more often! A very nicely put together place with a nice variety of art.
http://www.artsmia.org/

The Significant others on the trip, looking lovely pre-entering the museum. Left to Right, Robbie, Justyne, Ashley and Heather.

Again, me and Nick on the outside of MIA, posing by the giant lions by the doors we came in.

So of course here I am mocking it.. Couldn't help but think this statue was doing a pretty good Heisman pose.

More Kansas City

Ok so just posting a few more pictures from Kansas City now that I am finally home from my 2 week escapade to Kansas City, Baton Rouge, New Orleans then Minneapolis!

Ok so above here we have us tailgating at the Kansas City Chiefs, San Diego Chargers game, a little group shot before we headed in to the game. Left to Right (Carol, Rick, Ashley)
I kept trying to tell the cheerleader, please sweetheart can you focus on the camera for just a few seconds so that we could get a good picture. But she just kept staring, I couldn't help it. With a little more research I now know this is Eliza who happens to "love to dress up sometimes in my jeans and heels, but I have always been a t-shirt and sweatpants kind of girl. I am most comfortable that way!" Sounds like my kinda girl.

With the Budweiser Horses outside of the stadium.

We also went to WaterFire. "Designed by award-winning artist Barnaby Evans, WaterFire Kansas City is a unique, multi-sensory experience of music, fire and water. Now in its third year, the moving art installation features more than 55 floating bonfires on Brush Creek. The event begins with a series of boats that travel along Brush Creek through the darkness. They make their way with torches a flame in an enchanting display to ignite the braziers and bring all 55 pieces to life. Throughout the evening, boats return to the braziers, constantly feeding them with new wood and keeping the sculpture in its original form for the duration of the evening. "


Ok so I know you can't really see our faces in this because the flash was a little high in the picture, but it was still a cute shot. We also went to this great City Market in Kansas City, which was absolutely amazing, I had a "Shawerma" which is like a variation on a Gyro and it was absolutely fantastic. If you are in the area be sure and check out the Habashi House which was deeelicious!

Chargers Chiefs 10.25.09

After a lonng week of work in Kansas City, we were fortunate enough to get tickets to the Chiefs and Chargers game in Kansas City. I jumped at the opportunity since I've never been to a NFL Football game before in my life, and Ashley had flown out on Friday to go to the game with our friends Rick and Carol.
Kansas City was an absolutely awesome place to watch a football game, we had a noon kickoff time and got to the stadium around 9 am to find it entirely packed full of people tailgating. We were sporting our Chargers gear and in a sea of Red jersey's everywhere. Pretty awesome scene really, fortunately the Chargers whooped them pretty good and quickly.


Walking into the stadium! Note that bus on the left up front, there seemed to be a surplus of "Short buses" in the Kansas City tailgating lots... I'm just saying.

From our seats, which turned out to be absolutely great as it started to really pour down some rain at about half-time (A Kansas City 30% chance of rain is like a San Diego 95% chance of rain.) Anyhow, we were fortunate as the overhang from the bleachers above covered us so we stayed completely dry the whole game as everyone below just got completely soaked. Many of the Chiefs fans had left the stadium by the end of the 3rd quarter as the game was really getting out of hand.

9 Year Old Hockey Player's shot makes me almost care about Hockey

Ok so I'm one of the first people to change the channel when SportsCenter starts showing Hockey Highlights and scores... But this just happened to catch my eye.
It's a little 9 year old kid doing some Magic trick shot.



From Yahoo "Wahlstrom plays for the Portland Junior Pirate Pee-Wee Major 97s, a team of 12-year-old players based in Maine. The team told us this morning that Wahlstrom is just 9 years old, playing up with older competition. One look at this goal, and you can see why."

Softball Season in Full Swing

Soo, in the past 3 weeks I think I've played over 20 softball games. Makes life fun!
I have been thoroughly contemplating my all time slow pitch softball team, but have had the pleasure of playing with so many great players that one lineup is tough.
Anyhow.. Tuesday night is my Men's league team, which is one of the best teams I've ever been on, and we played this poor team today, we started off the game with 5 homeruns in the first inning. And a 9-0 lead going into the 2nd inning after they went 3 up and 3 down.

Game ended up being 30-4. Unfortunately there aren't mercy rules and this 30 comes at the expense at our final last 2 innings of our guys just stepping on the plate and getting automatic outs. This picture pretty much summed up their evening.

Baseball Playoffs Time!

Matt Holiday! Ohhh no!
Dear Dodgers here's a gift for a win. Poor guy!

We were on a Boat in Chicago!

Took an awesome cruise around Lake Michigan, and thankfully for Ashley I didn't bust out into singing, but couldn't help but have this in my head... (Edited version for you mom.)

Chicago Photo Reel Pt. 2

At the Giant Bean!

See! :)

Aww, and a Happy Birthday to me!

A few more shots, in true Utah fashion I had to get one by the Tractor to remind me of home.

Ashley posing with her Grandma's favorite animal the Cow, following some precise directions from the wall behind here.

Chicago Photo Reel 1

On the Cab ride to Museum of Science and Industry, cab driver pretty much thought we were a bunch of dorks, but it was fun :)
Ashley looking cute on the other side of the cab
We took a dinner cruise around Lake Michigan and watched the fireworks over Navy Pier, it was AMAZING, we had so much fun it was great.
At the Museum of Science and Industry in the Trolley.

Again at the Museum of Science and Industry, really loved this place, and I'm not ashamed at all to say we went to the Harry Potter exhibit and it was worth every penny.

Life Like a Nomad

Sooo, since we have left you, I have been in the following:
Flew to Utah on Sept 3, went hiking up at Kings Peak for the next few days, then came back to Lehi for a couple nights to see the family. Went up to Salt Lake to work at the hotel for a week, then that weekend headed up to Snowbird. Finally flew back to San Diego on the 13th of Sept, worked on the 14th of Sept, then packed up and flew to Chicago the next day on the 15th. Stayed in Chicago through my birthday on Sept. 20th, then flew home. Worked that week in San Diego, then on Friday drove to Vegas with all of our buddies for the weekend and home late on Sunday. So this will basically be the first weekend home in over a month!

Some great times were had and memories made!
Will follow up with some more pictures shortly, but it's nice to be home for a weekend.

Considering the upcoming plans include flying to Kansas City on October 19th, staying that weekend, hopefully catching the Chargers Chiefs game that weekend. Then flying down to Baton Rouge, LA for another few days. Then for Halloween weekend I'll be spending it in Minneapolis with "The Entourage" celebrating our friend Jeremy's wedding!

Kings Peak - 2009 Hike

Well the time came again for another trip home to Salt Lake for my now second Annual hike to Kings Peak.
For who and what, please see the previous hike from last year.
http://willsinsandiego.blogspot.com/2008/09/kings-peak-day-1.html

Unfortunatly Tyler was unable to attend with us this year, but we did add Ryan, so it ended up being me, Ryan and Dylan.

This trip started off well, got off to a great start on Day 1, we hiked up to the exact same spot we camped at last year, but got there really quick as we were all pretty motivated. Throughout the night unfortunately though, Dylan was a little restless in the tent next to me, and I could tell he wasn't getting much sleep.
When we got up the next morning his hip was really killing him, (an old biking accident) but nonetheless we started up and going to summit and peak. Dylan made it about a mile, and then just couldn't go on and unfortunately had to turn back. So it was to me and Ryan to Peak the mountain. As much as I really wanted to just go with Dylan at this moment, I felt bad as Ryan got the time to come with us, and I thought I could make it.
Anyhow, Ryan is a Hiking BEAST, he seriously was amazing, and my poor little Sea Level Lungs just had to slow down and take their time to get up the mountain, so I held him up, but we ultimately made it.
After we hit the peak we took a look to our South, and saw some huge clouds rolling in, so we tried to get out of there quick. We start coming down, and it starts Hailing and Snowing while we're still well above 12,000 feet. It was brutal, not to mention a slip I had off a nice rock which resulted in a half twisted ankle and a nasty cut from my ankle to near my knee.

So me and Ryan hoof it back through the treacherous weather and get back to camp with Dyl, we talk about how it's only going to get worse, so we warm up by the fire, have a quick bite to eat, pack up and hike out. So basically me and Ryan did one day of 20 miles on the second day to just get out of there. Tough 2 days out of a normally 3 day hike, but it was well worth it once we got home and had a nice warm shower and beds.
Another great time and great trip though!

California is Burning

(Photo from Huffington Post) - www.huffingtonpost.com , don't hate me Republicans...

Sooo, California is on Fire again, it happens about every year this time, but these ones are pretty north of me. But it never ceases to amaze me how huge these fires are, when they're talking about thousands of acres burning.


Note, I live wayyy, down south there, by those Little League World Series champions, (ok not that far down there, but closer to them than the fires.) It's about an hour and a half north up burning LA.

Another Softball Season comes to an End

And another championship is in the books!

(Left to Right starting in the Back Row)
Me, Marcus, Mark, D-Ron, Steve, Jamey (crouched), Plato.
-Front Row Heather, Ashley, E-Fong and Kim.

Coach Jamey accepting his Coach of the Year trophy, only to be upstaged by some non-sense from Heather and E-Fong on our team!

More great times with some great friends, and in the mean time we were winning some softball games. Didn't start the day off well, as we needed to win 2 of 3 to pull it out, and we lost our first game, so we made a long day of it out there, but eventually pulled out the victory!

Cubs Padres Game

Ok so last Tuesday we got to catch the Cubs and Padres game, not only was it against my Cubbies which makes the Padres almost bearable(haha pun..) but we had PHENOMENAL seats. For getting MVP of my softball league last year, we got Box/Field level seats to any game I picked. So of course I picked this game against the Cubs. Little did I know, these seats were going to be First Row! We were right up front, literally steps from the Cubs Bullpen.

Here is the view from our seats, literally right next to the Bullpen, watching Aaron Heilman and Sean Marshall warm up in the pen as Dempster was busy blowing the game out on the field.

Here is how close I was to the bane of my existence and of my fantasy team this year, Milton Bradley. Literally he is everything that I hate about baseball, immense talent, but just a big fat contract, doesn't hustle, doesn't back up a play and just doesn't even seem to care about the game. Case and point, and I really wish I could find the Kyle Blanks inside the park homerun YouTube video, but anyhow he could have easily been stuck at least at third if Milton would have backed up the play. It was horrible. Except I saw my first Inside The Park Home Run.

Me and Ash, posing in front of our seats.
Great times at the ball park except that the Cubbies lost to the lowly Padres!

The Weather Here is Sweet!

I can't help it, I find myself amused by these Peyton Manning Commercials! Combines my hotel background, and a San Diego comment, he just cracks me up.

Perspective

Just read this little quote in an article today which really makes you put into perspective when you're pressing for that 3 dollar an hour raise to make sure you don't go without HBO this year!

Multiply the population of the US by three. That’s how many people around the world live on about a dollar a day.

Do it again and now you have the number closer to $2. About forty percent of the world lives on $2 or less a day.

What’s that like? What happens to you when you have two dollars a day to live on. It’s almost impossible to imagine. I mean, $2 is the rent on your apartment for about 35 seconds. $2 buys you one bite of lunch at a local restaurant...

And yet, two billion people survive on that sort of income.

Congrats Lil Blue

So Lil Blue, driven off the lot with 7 miles on him, has now officially reached 77,777 miles. Just a little shout out to my Honda Civic and the good times we've had. Multiple trips from San Diego to Salt Lake, countless episodes with friends, dozens of moves. Dings, dents, scratches full on accidents. We've been through quite a bit, but it is still getting 30ish Miles Per Gallon and keeps on truckin day in and day out with no problems. (Knocks on Wood.) Just a happy little milestone for a good friend!

A Quick Thank You

A quick thank you to my parents for having a Dart Board in our basement and thus making me not entirely inept at all bar games. I was at least able to hold my own in a game of darts against some friends last night... Pool on the other hand, we have a whole different story there, I'm going to need some practice!

Pat Green Concert HoB

Last night we had the pleasure of going to see Pat Green at House of Blues downtown. Me, Ashley, Jamey and Andrea all headed down to see the show. Such a great venue down there it's a smaller area, but everywhere you are is close to the stage. We were upstairs, but front-row of the upstairs so it seemed like we were right next to him.

No Camera's were allowed in, so didn't get any photo's out of the deal. He played a great set, including all of his hits except for Country Star.
He wrapped of with "Wave on Wave"
And included, "Baby Doll", "Feels just like it should", "What I'm For" and "3 Days" are some of the songs that you may recognize.

Also, toward the end he gave a shout-out to Jake Peavy former pitcher for the Padres, and on the DL, but was traded to the Chicago White Sox, who was in the crowd (I didn't see him, he was downstairs in a VIP booth somewhere.) But Pat gave him a farewell from San Diego, and everyone went nuts.

Farewell Honkey Tonk

So the other weekend we had a party where we bid a good friend of ours farewell, or at least, an until later.

Adam is the one sporting the Pistol Pete jersey, our Right-Center Fielder, 3 hitter and all around great guy. Adam is from Alabama, and is now moving to South Carolina with his girlfriend who is going to head to Law School out there.

Adam is literally one of the best hitting softball players I have ever had the pleasure of playing with, he has a natural inside out swing which could just crush the ball to Right Center field, and always kept the ball on a line and didn't pop-up despite being 6'3'' 250.

Anyhow, we had a little shindig for him the other weekend, at Kate Sessions Park in San Diego which was pretty amazing.
A new game I learned at this party is called "Ladder Ball".
Or, from Wikipedia -
Ladder toss (also called hillbilly horseshoes, hillbilly golf, redneck golf, ladder ball, testicle toss and many other names) is a lawn game played by throwing a bolo of two golf balls connected with a rope at a ladder. Different rungs of the ladder are worth different point values, with the goal of the game being to get exactly (and not over) 21 points.

Points per rung can vary, but all three rungs will uniquely be assigned a value of 1, 2, or 3 points. In one variety the top is worth 1, middle is 2, and bottom is 3.

Couple of action shots here of me and Steve displaying some great form, and Ashley and Mark at the other end observing our tosses. I was a little rough in learning this game, takes a bit of touch, some luck in the bounce, and rotation of the balls to get hooked on the ladder. But nonetheless a really good time!

We followed that up with a tournament of wiffle-ball, but overall some really good times with some really good friends and we'll miss Adam.

OB Street Fair Festivities

So the annual OB Street Fair was the other weekend, for those not in the "in". OB is Ocean Beach is a section of San Diego, Primarily inhabited by Pot-heads, surfers, and Gypsies, but I repeat myself. Anyhow, it was a pretty good old time, and here are some pictures to remember the party. Looks like above here we are doing our SunGlass modeling photo-shoot, Jamey on the left, Andrea up front and Mark to the right.

Looks like we now expanded our group and got a little more of everyone's attention. We've got Dan in the back talking to me, then lining the front we've got Anne, Kim, Jamey, Andrea and Mark. Or Softballically speaking you have SS in the back, lining the front is Pitcher, 2B, Right Field, 1B, and Left Field.

Now you may be wondering a few things about this picture, well I can answer only a few of the many things happening in this photo.

First off, no I did not purchase those Sunglasses I am wearing, I "Inherited" them from the Lazy River at MGM Grand in Vegas.

Second, the left lens is a little slippery and tended to fall out quite frequently.

Third, I don't know, I grab my chin to do the thinker even though I don't have a beard, I can't grow one, I've learned to accept this.

Airplane Rants: Holiday Travel

Ok so after a few long flights lately, I have to rant.
First, a majority of people just suck, yeah, I said it, they do, they're out for themselves, only themselves and that's it, end of story.

Now, I have to admit, it is partially my own fault as I waited 3 days before my actual cross country flight to book my own travel. But I can't help it, airlines are so shifty with their flight costs and I'd procrastinated long enough at that point that I needed to wait even longer to get the price to come down. So, for that much I'll take the blame. But we're all in this together people how come we can't just try and make this work for everyone.
So, the result of my procrastinating, was a middle seat on my flights to and from Cincinnati. (Not final destination, but Cincy to Indianapolis was ez)
Ok, so first off, airlines, get your act together if you guys operated more efficiently, effectively and didn't have to pay for your own mistakes so frequently you wouldn't be nearly as bankrupt as you're all becoming.
Leaving San Diego to Cincy on July 2 at noon, now this flight wasn't operated too poorly, other than all of the TV's were broken. Which really turned out to be a pain, as its much harder to sleep in the middle seat, though I managed for a couple hours. And they're now charging that damn fee for checking luggage. They should be charging for people bringing on ridculously large "Carry-On" luggage which ultimately ends up over-filling the overhead compartments so they have to put it below anyhow... Ridiculous. Oh that and they also overbooked our flight by 5 passengers, so those poor 5 people were just stranded for the night in San Diego. Another flaw by the airlines, so there go 5 free flights to some people for your potential greed by overbooking your airline on a holiday weekend, brilliant.

True rant comes on Flight home, with Indian gentlemen in the Window Seat, me in Middle Seat and French gentlemen holding baby in aisle seat.
With a middle seat I like to time my boarding appropriately so that ideally the window guy has had time to sit down(Side note: Why is it that in the random picking of a Middle seat that I never end up between the two Swedish blond girls, it's always between two bigger gentlemen. ALWAYS, anyhow) So I try and wait for that window guy to get there by waiting till like the last 1/3 or so to board. So he of course gets my hopes up because we're mostly all boarded and he comes in like half sweating and is the like last of 5 people getting on the plane. So he butts past us, and takes his seat with his huge luggage because there's no overhead room for him anymore and he'd be damned before paying that $15 to check his bag. So as I'm getting settled back in, these guys on either side of me both already have their elbows on the Middle Arm rests. Now this is just WRONG, you guys each have one arm rest for yourselves and much nicer better space, and you have to go and intrude on my tiny little space already. Anyhow Indian gentlemen continues to throw peanuts into his mouth half the flight, French guy and his French baby continue to kick and claim arm space the whole flight and I lean forward elbows tucked in for 4 hours. I hate you Selfish people.

Happy 4th of July!

RIP Michael Jackson

A sad day yesterday as Michael Jackson passed away, despite all the drama he had you can't help but respect the fact he was a great performer.
I remember listening to him as a young young kid with "the dudes" back in Salt Lake. I remember Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer quickly taking him over, but really you couldn't top Jacko.
Still disappointed that I heard about him dying first from TMZ.com, and unfortunately knew that was probably true, assuming they most likely got to the house before the Ambulances themselves did.

RIP Mike.

Vegas Trip June

Mid June, about 7 of us decided to mosey a little more inland to make another visit to the city of Sin. Had a great time the past couple times at Treasure Island, but we got a great rate at MGM Grand this time so we gave it a shot.
One car left at noon, we got there about 5ish and just in time to catch the end of the Magic and Lakers game. Other car rolled in about midnight and found us just kinda hanging out by then. The nice thing we had about our room was we got 2 free buffet's each day, and since the buffet's cost $30 it was a pretty big deal so that was really nice! Anyhow, some gambling some pool, some mischief and 4 days later we all made it back out in one piece, so it was a great trip.


Hanging out in my Tube on the Lazy River at the MGM Grand, having a great time, look how happy I am to be there!














Taking a quick break from dancing at Studio 54 to pose for a picture! I feel like I started with that shirt more buttoned up at the beginning of that evening!








Here we are outside of the pool, enjoying some of the beeeautiful Las Vegas weather! From left to right, Steve, me(back), Marcus, Mark, and Jamey













Here we are VIP at Club Tabu in MGM Grand after we lucked out in Roulette and won some money decided to donate just a touch back to the MGM and spoiled ourselves with a booth and had a great time!







And here I am, just smiling it off in Vegas, had a great time with some great friends and made some new ones, and left the city of Sin with more money than we took in, what is there not to smile about??!