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??!