Tampa Trip III; John Daly...

Well, let's see...I'll speed through the rest of this, since I've been told that my account of this trip has been somewhat boring. Thursday (April 14) morning, I had to get up for more class time. Again, the technical classes were OK. They tried to convince me to join their "band" for the night's Rock'n'Roll party thing...Hrm, no thanks. Our classes let out awfully early, so I went back to my room to try to take a nap. Well, I was distracted by the TV and the high-speed Internet until I decided to head out for dinner and to take a few last pictures. Mostly boring pictures, though. Outback for dinner (again). I think my waiter was gay because he was way, way too umm...helpful not too be. I mean, he only charged me for my burger...not the drink, not the cheese fries, not the bacon...just the burger. Maybe he just wanted a big tip, but I'll just leave it at that. Back to the hotel, I had to get everything straightened up for my flight home and whatnot.

I got up the next morning pretty early, filled up the tank in the rental car, and headed off to the airport. When I checked the car in, I noticed that they didn't charge me for the "Under 25 Fee" so I was pleasantly surprised, even though I am getting reimbursed for the rental. Security and the flight back weren't much different. On the plane (another Delta MD-88) I sat right behind the flight attendant's station and had quite a bit of leg room, so it was actually pretty comfortable. I read Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Giant on the flight. It's kind of amazing how quickly you become accustomed to routine airline flights.

Back at CVG, I shuttled out to the long-term parking lot and found the company car, a white Impala. Since I was already in Cincy, I planned to go to that night's Reds game. First, though, I went to Gameworks at Newport on the Levee and got one of their pizzas. I didn't really think about how chilly it was back here, so I wore shorts to the game. I got my customary $5 ticket for sections 536/537, and a magnet schedule. I also bought the first issue of the program, and of course, a scorecard. Call me a relic or a dork for keeping score. I don't care. That's just how I like to enjoy a baseball game.

It was cold up in the nosebleeds, because the wind blows right across the sides of the upper deck. Of course, I moved down to a less windy section around the 2nd inning and got some nachos and cheese. The game was a crushing defeat by the dreaded Houston Astros, 11-2. Houston RF Jason Lane, only 4 years into his MLB career put two homers over the fence against Paul Wilson. Roy Oswalt is something like 13-0 in his career against the Reds, getting another win that night. Oh well...I walked back over to Newport and started on my way back home. On the drive back, I grabbed a milkshake at UDF. Why don't we have UDFs around here? While I'm at it, why don't we have any Penn Stations around here, either? Bleh.

I guess that's all there is to tell about my trip.

Now, I'd like to ask you a question...Isn't John Daly awesome? I like Tiger and Lefty, but don't you just love to see Daly bust out the driver every once in a while? I mean, he's not a guy that I would ever look up to, nor would I ever want to hang out with him. He smokes like a coal plant and drinks like a fish, but it's funny to see him puffing on a cigarette while he's practicing for the first playoff hole against Vijay Singh. Of course he sunk the first shot into the water on the hole, but ain't America grand? What's even funnier is that when I went to Google Image Search for a picture of him smoking while playing golf, "john daly" cigarette turned up only one picture. However, I simply searched for "john daly" and the top two results show him on the golf course with a cancer stick. Then there's this excerpt directly from the news section of his site:

"I'm thrilled to formalize my relationship with the Hooters folks. We have been working together at the local store level for a number of years and it is really a perfect fit for me," stated Mr. Daly.

In other words..."I've been coming down to Hooters every week for the past 20 years, getting wasted, eating, smoking, and ogling these women, AND NOW THEY'RE PAYING ME FOR IT!!!" Anyway, that's all I have to talk about for today, but I leave you with two great Daly pictures:


Seriously, I play better when I'm wasted.



The "Grip it and Rip it" philosophy has never seen a better spokesperson.

Tampa Trip Part II, Reds Outfield...

Today, I'm hoping to finish up on my trip to Tampa, so sit back and enjoy the ride...or something.

So I left off with landing at TPA and getting a Pacifica. One of the things I had planned to do was to drive from Clearwater Beach (the hotel's location) to Orlando for an Orlando Magic game...after driving from the airport to the hotel. I don't especially like basketball, but LeBron James and the Cavaliers were in town, so I decided to go. One thing I really missed was getting to see Jordan play in person. Man, that was a heck of a drive, but traffic wasn't too bad, save for a bit of obligatory construction on the way. I got to the arena just in time to buy a ticket near center-court (but in the nosebleeds--I'm still not rich), and about all I missed was the opening tip-off. I took more pictures here, but most of them are too blurry and dark to make out anything. I think I got a couple with LeBron shooting a free throw or something. The Cavs won that game, but ended up missing the playoffs by a game. Hey, there's always next year. The drive home was marred by DisneyWorld traffic and active construction. I pulled off a couple exits later and scarfed down some breakfast food at a Denny's, since they were just about the only place still open. Soon I was back on the road, getting very tired and knowing that I had to be awake the next morning for the seminar's opening.

The next morning (Tuesday, April 12), I awoke to a beautiful day, then realized that I had to get dressed for an all-day meeting about the company's software. The morning session was filled with mostly stuff that I couldn't easily follow, considering I have very little experience with the package. At lunch I realized that there would be no meals served without seafood, so I grabbed a plate of tortilla chips and skated off to my room to watch SportsCenter. After lunch, some more presentations about the software that didn't really apply to me. Later that evening, there was some sort of "Beach Olympics" team-building event where they also supposedly served dinner. No, thanks; you lost me at "team-building"...actually, you lost me at "Beach Olympics". So I sat in my room and hooked up my laptop to the ($10 per 24-hour period) high-speed Internet connection. Later, I realized that I had not eaten dinner, so I drove up the Sand Key and found an Outback, just before closing. Bacon burger + cheese fries = w00t! Or whatever.

The next day we were scheduled for separate breakout training sessions, and I was in the IT classes. These were actually somewhat interesting, since they focused more on what I will be doing at this job. Again, lunch was some sort of seafood casserole type crap, so I skipped it again.

After the classes were over for Wednesday, I decided I would head over to Tropicana Field to see a Tampa Bay Devil Rays game. They were playing the Orioles, so I would at least get to see Sosa (again--booooooo!) and Miguel Tejada play. Interestingly enough, this was the last game that Alex Sanchez would have to sit out for using steroids. Tropicana Field is sorta hard to describe. It's one of these places that really seems to be a nice, top-of-the-line, new-school type of stadium. You walk into the rotunda and there's a pretty blue/teal/green mural above you. They even have an arcade for those who like to pay for a ticket to go play some video games...odd that they have to divert attention away from the product that they put on the field. I mean, I love me some games, but I'm at a baseball stadium to see baseball.

Anyway, you scratch a bit below the surface, and Tropicana kinda becomes a dump of sorts. Supposedly their capacity is somewhere around 45,000 but I just couldn't see how. But then, there were only 9,226 people at the game I went to. There really aren't any outfield seats, and I was right behind home plate, so maybe I couldn't see the other 20,000 seats behind me or something. That reminds me...when fewer than ten thousand people show up, why do the ushers still hassle me? Was it because I had my hat on backwards, or simply because I walked in from the side of the section? I mean, this old usher in a Hawaiian shirt asked to see my ticket TWICE! "Sir, are you SURE you're in the right section?" What, you mean you didn't really do your job the first time you looked at my ticket? So now you have to hassle me while I'm trying to fill out my scorecard? Jerk. I would honestly say that even the section I was in ($35 seats, mind you) was only 60% full. At least Great American always fills up in the good seats.

Eventually, the game began. No runs scored until the bottom of the fifth...Tampa Bay 2B Jorge Cantu (who?) reached on a fielder's choice, allowing SS Julio Lugo (who?) to score the only Devil Rays run. I only recognized a few guys on the team: Carl Crawford, Aubrey Huff, and Eduardo Perez (Tony Perez's son). The Orioles came back and scored 1 in the sixth and 4 in the seventh to win the game. I fully expected to go see an AL game and see lots of runs piling up, but most of the game was foul balls and singles (21 total hits, 18 singles). This was probably the longest 9-inning game I've ever seen--3 hours, 25 minutes. Kline gets the win, Hendrickson gets the loss.

That made the 5th team's stadium I've been to in my somewhat short life: Reds-Riverfront/Cinergy/Great American, Mets-Shea Stadium, White Sox-New Comiskey/U.S. Cellular Field, Indians-Jacob's Field, Devil Rays-Tropicana Field. I would eventually like to get to Wrigley, Fenway, and Yankee Stadium. Well, back to the trip...I drove back to the hotel, stopping for a quick dinner at Taco Bell. More sleep.

I think that's an OK stopping point for now, as far as the trip is concerned...I'll finish that in my next post.

Now, regarding the Reds outfield. It's hard to watch Wily Mo Peña hit so well and realize that he's not a "starter" for this team. The ballots for the All-Star game were just released, and I HAVE TO WRITE IN the team leader in homeruns. How screwed up is that? Now, I realize Austin Kearns is a pretty good fielder, but Wily Mo is at least serviceable for patrolling right field. And as much as it pains me to say it, perhaps Griffey should be the odd man out? Also, Freel should be the starting second baseman, at least right now, right? It's good to see that the starting pitching is putting in some quality work, but can't we get that to happen on the same night that the hitters are hitting?

Enough rambling...see you next time.

First Entry...Tampa Trip

The other day, I was reading a friend's blog (the venerable Enn-Dee-See, if you must know) and I must admit, my feathers were ruffled a bit at his "I'm lovin' t3h single life" entry, so seeing as how I'm married, I felt I needed to post a reply. Well, as many such arguments go, I suppose it was somewhat of a misunderstanding between myself and Mister Nihiser, and it really sorta blew over. We're all entitled to our opinions, even if they are mostly wrong. :P

Anyway, the point is, after writing this long exposé on the married life, I decided that I should have my own blog--or journal, or something. So, here it is. Nobody will probably ever read it, but I guess it's some form of therapy. I may talk about any number of subjects, including relationships, baseball, video games, movies, cooking, archery, wrasslin', computers, music, staplers, vacations, contact lenses, paper products, and other things that are generally guaranteed to bore my wife to death. Okay, some of those weren't really topics that I will ever discuss, but if there's enough demand for it...who knows?

Today, I will give an account of my first expense-account business trip. On my first day here at my new place of employment, my supervisor asked me--on short notice of roughly a month--if I would care to go to Tampa, Florida for a week-long conference for a piece of software used by our corporation. Considering that I will really be the administrator for this system (and that it was a paid-for trip to Florida in the spring), of course I said I would be glad to attend. So I sat down and planned out the trip...I got flight numbers for my plane trips, set up the hotel stay, and reserved a company car (for the drive to CVG) and a rental car (for the stay in Tampa). Woohoo! I actually CAN do some things on my own. Also, I got a new memory card for my crappy digital camera, so that I could fill it up and not have to worry about deleting a single picture.

Last Monday (April 11, 2005) was my departure date, so I made sure to get up extra early to get through security. Not really a big problem, since I'm getting used to being at work by 8. You hear all these horror stories about how long it takes to get through security and whatnot, but *knock on wood* I got into and out of the line within 20 or 30 minutes--must've squeezed in between the morning and noon crowds. I had to take my shoes off, take my laptop out of my bag, and empty my pockets, but it really wasn't that bad considering the gun that made it through security at that very airport just a couple weeks earlier. I didn't even have to turn on my laptop to prove that it worked or anything. I think I had around an hour and a half to walk around the concourse before my flight even came close to boarding, so I took some really boring pictures of stuff at the airport. At the terminal, I met up with the other person from our company, and she said her security experience was considerably longer.

Of course, I was a bit scared, yet I have faith in technology. The flight itself went pretty smoothly, and I wasn't too uncomfortable, but it wasn't exactly a plush bed or anything. It was a Delta MD-88 direct flight and I was in the right side window seat, behind the wing and right in front of the engine. Most of the flight, I was too busy looking out the window at the ground. I know it made me look like a slack-jawed yokel who has never flown before, but aerial and satellite photography interests me...and well, I never HAD flown before, right? I mean, I took a bunch of pictures--more than was really necessary--and was really the only one seemingly interested in the view. Well, except for that 6-year-old kid a couple rows up, but he doesn't count.

We touched down around 3PM at TPA--right on time--to weather that was only slightly better than in "Da 'Nati". We claimed our luggage and walked over to the Enterprise counter. I had requested a Full-Size car, because I'm pretty tall, and I didn't want to be scrunched up in the dashboard. So I waited in line for a while...The car I got was a bit nicer than I expected. They gave me a Chrysler Pacifica for the week, which is kind of a mix between an SUV and a station wagon. I was pleasantly surprised by the features and ride of the vehicle.

...I just realized that this post is going much, much longer than I expected, so for now, I'm going to stop...

NEXT TIME: Tampa Trip, Part II; Reds Outfield "Logjam"; and More(?)