Stadium List

I've been to a lot of baseball stadiums over the globe now.. Here is a list of the stadiums I've been to:

MLB
Current National League Parks

AT&T Park - San Fransisco Giants

Citi-Field - New York Mets
Busch Stadium - St. Louis Cardinals
Chase Field - Arizona Diamondbacks
Citizens Bank Park - Philadelphia Phillies
Coors Field - Colorado Rockies
Dodger Stadium aka Chavez Ravine - Los Angeles Dodgers
Great America Ballpark - Cincinatti Reds
Marlins Park - Miami Marlins
Miller Park - Milwaukee Brewers
Nationals Park - Washington Nationals
Petco Park - San Diego Padres
PNC Park - Pittsburgh Pirates
Turner Field - Atlana Braves

Wrigley Field - Chicago Cubs
Closed National League Parks
Shea Stadium - New York Mets
Sun Life Stadium - Florida Marlins
Stade de Olympique - Montreal Expos
Current American League Parks
Angel Stadium aka Edison International Park - Anaheim Angels

Ballpark at Arlington - Texas Rangers
Comerica Park - Detroit Tigers
Fenway Park - Boston Red Sox
Kauffman Stadium - Kansas City Royals

Minute Maid Park - Houston Astros
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum - Oakland A's

Oriole Park at Camden Yards - Baltimore Orioles
Progressive Field aka Jacobs Field - Cleveland Indians

Rogers Center - Toronto Blue Jays
SafeCo Field - Seattle Mariners
Tropicana Field - Tampa Bay Rays
US Cellular Field aka New Comiskey Park - Chicago White Sox
Yankee Stadium - New York Yankees
Closed American League Parks
Yankee Stadium - New York Yankees

Minor Leagues
AAA Parks
Durham Bulls Athletic Park - Durham Bulls
McCoy Stadium - Pawtucket Red Sox
Spring Mobile Ballpark - Salt Lake City Bees
AA Parks
Dodd Stadium - Norwich Navigators & CT Defenders
A Parks
Keyspan Park - Brooklyn Cyclones

Japanese League Parks
Seibu Dome aka Goodwill Dome - Seibu Lions
Tokyo Dome - Yomiuri Giants

All in all I've been to 30 Major League Level ballparks around the world. The only one left is Minnesota.

I will update this blog (and change the post date) as I have more to report.

---Updated 8/26/2016

Denver in Monsoon Season

You may be thinking but Denver does not have a monsoon season, it never really rains there, you're funny.. Unfortunately I'm not kidding, this week has been nothing but massive thunder storms, the kind that light up the sky so bright you would swear it was noon not midnight! Here is the weather recap: Monday - sunny and warm till 3pm, then rain, rain and a shit ton of rain till about 1am. Tuesday - same. Wednesday - same. Thursday - sunny and warm till about 3pm, then massive rain till about 6, then clear and warm till about 11pm before more rain.. It's certainly frustrating when you're teaching and looking out the windows at sunny clear skies and right before you get out of work the skies open up. Everyone tells me that this *never* happens in Denver and that they apparently broke the July rain record in three days (Mon-Wed).

I will not let the rain damper my week, well at least not totally anyway..

Really I guess for me the rain started on Sunday night, I was in Minnesota and they were trying to hurry people on the plane so we could try to take off before rains came, that almost worked.. We got out on the runway and were 7th in line to take off, then 6th, then 5th and then RAIN!! We got to sit on the runway for a long time with the plane getting rocked back and forth before finally taking off, the only good thing about it was I was in first class for that flight so I got all the free drinks I wanted while we got pounded by rain. Got into the hotel WAY to late and had a hard time sleeping because I napped on the plane.

Monday was recovery night, I ended up going to a mall that is near the hotel. It's an old indoor mall that has been added to outside, so there is a outdoor Irvine Spectrum type mall with a normal indoor mall in the middle. It was a pretty neat juxtaposition, they had lots of really good food places and I ended up picking the Fish City Grill where I had blackened catfish and crab bisque. The bisque was amazing and the fish was very well cooked and spiced, the veggies were pretty bland and not really cooked enough. New Belgium Brewery (the guys who do Fat Tire) have a bunch of different beers down here, they are made about 90 mins from Denver. I had their Belgium Dark Ale (don't remember the name) at Fish City and was nicely surprised at how good it was.

Tuesday.. Well, I decided to skip past Denver and drive an hour west to Boulder, why you ask, what's in Boulder?

No, not Pabst, but the feeling was there.. Avery Brewery is in Boulder and was certainly calling my name. I was thinking even if the food sucks at least the beer will be awesome. Imagine my surprise when the food was actually REALLY good, I had a chicken bacon wrap which comes with avocado, greens, tomato and a pesto mayo. They offer tasting size glasses of beer which are $1 for most and $4 for some of the special beers. I got a flight of Dry-Hopped IPA, Eighteen Anniversary and the Reverend. For dessert I had a tasting of the Eremita which is a sour (think the Beast) that is aged in wine casks. I picked up a few shirts and was talking to the manager about getting beer shipped, while talking to the manager he asked which beers I've had and when I was poo-pooing the idea of Joe's Premium American Pilsner as just another pilsner he poured me a free taste and I have to say it was actually good, might be one of the first pilsners I've enjoyed, it had a nice hop finish. Avery cannot ship beer across state lines to a resident, but as expected I was making friends while at the bar and found a girl interested in a micro brew swap, I am going to see about mailing her beer and she will do the same. Gotta check CT/MA/RI beer shipping laws. On the way back the roads were VERY flooded and I ended up getting detoured off 25 onto a side street which was then closed about a block later, had to sit in the car for a while waiting for the rain to slow down and the water level to drop. I have a Kia Soul and the water was about half way up the door, it was window high on some of the other cars sitting on the street with me waiting.

Wednesday I decided to hit the 16th Street Mall in Denver which is a big walking street between Union Station and Broadway (about 15 blocks). I parked on 15th and then the rain hit as I was getting onto 16th. I ran into Rock Bottom and had a beer while I waited for the rain to at least slow down. Once the rain slowed a bit I ventured out and walked up and down the street, it's a nice walking street with lots of restaurants. For dinner I ended up at the Yard House because they had Avery on tap and their mac n cheese2 is amazing (had it before).

Last night I went to the Rockies game, they played the Brewers who apparently were still on the all star break. The Rockies gave them a sound beating 12-3 getting 20 hits in the game. I like to see offense in games but after a while it just gets old, especially if you don't really care about the teams and just want to see good baseball. The Brew Crew certainly did not play good baseball. The stadium however is as nice as everyone says, it's beautiful and the view as the sunsets is breath taking. I got out of work and the sun was shining, got on the train (the wrong way) and then switched trains at the next stop to the correct way, by the time I passed my original stop the sky opened up and before we got two more stops I could see rte 25 completely flooded again and the side streets were rivers. I'm so glad I decided on the train instead of driving. Got to the city and walked around the outside of the ballpark, no rain is going to stop my ritual of walking around the outside of a new ballpark! It maybe should have, I was so wet I could have pissed myself and nobody would have been able to tell. I did not partake in that however as my underwear were probably the only dry thing I had on. Before the gates opened I went to the bar across the street and had New Belgium Brewery's summer ale, it was ok. Gates opened and I headed in. Got a Rockies Dog which is a hot dog with bacon crumbles, blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing! It was so good. Other food highlights (did not eat), a salad place where you start with a base salad and pay per ingredient you put in, a gluten free booth that had brownies as well as gluten free rolls, a gilato place and a rib joint.

Today, I'm going back to Avery for the brewery tour and to try their Double Dry Hopped Maharaja which is a special keg they are tapping today at 5pm.

- Diversion of the Day

PMGA

Did you know there was a Professional Mini Golf Association? I did.. Years ago when I was in Irvine looking for good mini golf I was led to this group, it lists all the professional grade mini golf courses across the US. Anyway, I had some time to kill on Friday before my flight and it was amazingly nice out so I decided on some mini golf, after doing a quick search on the google I found a bunch of local ones. To narrow down the field I checked out the PMGA website, I found one in the Cleveland area which happened to be right near the airport.. Memphis Mini Golf is it's name in case you're every in Cleveland and have a hankering to play some mini golf. I got there and was slightly amazed at the shabby appearance but shouldered on.. It's a Memphis Kiddie Park which has little rides for kids and even a little roller coaster, tucked into the back (have to walk through lots of lame kiddie areas) is the mini golf section. I'm glad I shouldered on because it was a lot of fun! I would say the course was moderate difficulty with a few easy holes and few pretty hard ones. I ended up shooting 2 over par..

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Flight back was pretty quick, I got a call while I was in Cleveland airport telling me my connecting flight (Cin to Hartford) was delayed but when I landed in Cin I found out it was back on schedule.

Got up too early on Saturday and went to the Robin Hood Springtime Festival, the story shows were very good but the overall faire experience was dampened by the cold, damp weather. I was supposed to go back on Sunday but the weather was even worse so I opted to just hang out at home. It's a shame really because I would have loved to spend more time there and see a few of the shows I missed out on but the thought of another day in cold rain was not appealing to me.

Speaking of cold and rain, I went to the Mets game last night. The game was supposed to start at 7:10 but the game had a 90 minute rain delay to start, the annoying thing about that is it was not even really raining. There was a light drizzle and the weather man called for big rain which never came. I'm very happy with my new seats since they are undercover and have a wall behind them which kills most of the wind, I'm not so happy with the guy who sits next to us. He is one of those guys who has no care about others around him, he splayed out with his professional size score book and was constantly tossing his peanut shells on whoever sat next to him. Unfortunately he also has the Sunday plan so I guess we will be dealing with him for the remainder of the season.

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I'm teaching in NYC this week and am debating trying to get tickets to see Book of Mormon tonight, they have a lottery to get cheap seats, you need to get your name in 2 hours before the show so hopefully I can get out of work early enough. If I can't I am not going to pay full price because it's an expensive show to go see alone.

This week I was supposed to be home teaching online but got called last minute to be here in NYC, next week I'm supposed to be off platform but just got a call and am needed in either DC or Dallas next week. I chose DC because I can at least drive there Sunday night as opposed to getting a flight.

PNC

Yesterday I went into Pittsburgh to see a Pirates game at PNC Park, class got out early so I was able to get into town around 4:30. Pittsburgh is a very pretty city, and Hoyle told me I must go up the Duquesne Incline which is a trolley car that runs up the side of a big mountain. I parked at the stadium and walked over the rivers to the incline. The ride up was very fast considering the amount of distance it covers and the age of the trolley. At the top I walked around, grabbed a beer at a tavern and took some great pictures using the Droid X Panarama Assist feature (go over to flickr and check them out). After some time up there I can back and headed over to the stadium. The stadium like the rest of the city is very pretty with lots of sort of meandering paths, the concession stands a bit hidden kinda like stadiums of yesteryear. One thing I really loved about the stadium is that when you walk in they give you a program which includes a map of the stadium with a list of ALL food items and at which gate you can find them, even knowing the section sometimes you had to look around or even ask the locals where the booth was. Also included in the program were the starting lineups and a scorecard!

I ended up getting a gyro for dinner which was great followed by some perogies which were certainly not great.. Whoever heard of steaming perogies? They were a big pile of glop and not at all enjoyable. Grabbed a PNC Dark and headed up to the seat. This was the first stadium in a long time where I got the feeling of awe when walking out to seats, the view of the stadium with the city in the background and the bridges was just an amazing site. If you ever get out to PNC sit in the upper deck, you get a much better view of the city, bridges, river, etc from there. The game was good, 0-0 till late and a final of 2-0 in favor of Dodgers. Met some really awesome people at the game, one older gentleman who was retired after working for the NYC transit authority and a younger couple who had moved from NY a few years ago.

I'm not sure what I'm doing tonight, certainly going to do something outside, it's so warm and sunny out..

Close the door!!

I'm on vacation and on the way to Disney.. We are taking the slow route to Florida.. We left Saturday and got all the way to Brooklyn! Left car at my friend Michelle's house and went into Manhattan for a pre-NY Anime Fest show. My friend's old dance troop was preforming so we went over to check it out. They are a super cute trio who dance to J-Pop and Anime songs.. After them a guy came up and sung a few songs, he was good too so it was a fun time. While we were at the show Jessie's friend Charles showed up and the 4 of us hung out for a while, we went over to the Mets Clubhouse shop because it was close by but didn't buy anything. After that Jessie wondered off with Charles and Me and Michelle went to Perfect Pint in NYC for dinner. I had The Perfect Cheese Steak which is "ny strip steak, applewood bacon guinness barbecued onions with irish cheddar and porter cheese", it was so good but oh so not healthy.. After dinner we went back to Michelle's house and played Mario Party with her room mates.

Went to bed far too late and woke up too early.. Long drive again... This time to NJ.. I know, we are getting real far in our journey towards Florida... Stopped at Matt's house and went over to a Chowderfest. Chowderfest is outdoors, sounds good right? Smeggin' weather didn't want to cooperate, it was cold and windy and if that was not enough it started to rain as soon as we bought our tickets. Was standing in line doubting the intelligence of going but oh well... It actually ended up being a really good time. They have two tents setup, one for "white chowder" and one for "red chowder", because of the rain everyone was staying under the tents and you really had to push your way to the front to get to the chowders. First place we went was a red chowder and it tasted like tomato soup. Left the red tent and me and Jessie waded into the white tent while Matt, Daniel and Sile went to get other food.. Once we got our system of pushing down we actually made it through the tent pretty quickly, most of them were good but the best was Panzone's Pizzza & Pasta which took 3rd place in the White category. This place Stefano's ended up winning both the red and the white but they were both crappy.. They must pay people off because they apparently win almost every year. Honestly I didn't have many of the reds but the one I liked the best won 2nd place in Reds.

After the fest we came back to Matt's house, Sile made home made Fish and Chips for dinner! So good... I took pics of the making process and the end process but my Droid cable is in the car so I won't be uploading any pics today.. Well, at least not yet... Went to bed super early (9:30) and slept for about 12 hours! My body really was in need of that after coming back from CA..

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Speaking of coming back from California.. Wednesday night I went to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the DBacks. I was going to take the train but ended up missing it, I was standing in line to buy my train ticket when the train left... Oh well, at least I didn't buy the ticket yet. Driving to AT&T Park shouldn't be too bad anyway, it's about 40 miles from Santa Clara and it was before rush hour so no problem.. /sigh... It took me almost 2 hours to get there and I got to park in the main A lot for $30!! What a bargain.. The stadium is in a beautiful area, it's right up against the SF Bay, the right field wall is right up against the water. I got in about 15 mins before the game and walked around the stadium, by the time I got to my seat the first batter had already hit a home run and the DBacks were up 1-0. The view from the seats were awesome and the people next to me were really cool. The guy right next to me was a season plan holder and he originally lived in NY and was a fan of the Giants before they moved to CA so we talked a lot about Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds and even Shea when it first opened. In the 4th inning I decided to go eat, the food on the upper level was not very exciting but the food on the field level was.. I got a crab sammich which was on butter toasted bread and served with cheese, it was very tasty! Unfortunately for me, while I was in line for food the Giants rallied and scored 3 runs to take a 3-1 lead. That was the final score which means all the runs were scored while I was not at seat.

Thursday was flight back day, but the flight was not till 10:45pm so I went up to Muir Woods after class and before my flight. The Muir Woods are right above SF and very beautiful! I posted pics on Flickr, go check them out. I don't think pictures can truly capture the amazing awe inspiring brilliance but they are still nice.. I felt very recharged from wondering the woods.. In the back of the parking lot they have a "first amendment area", it was a taped off area of the parking lot with sign saying this area was set aside for freedom of speech...

The flight from SF to Detroit was quick and I slept for most of it. The flight from Detroit to Boston was really annoying... We got on the plane in time for an "on-time departure" but the luggage people took way too long to load the plane to we ended up leaving about 20 mins late. Now the fun starts! Started to rise (got to about 10,000 feet) and they realized the door was not closed correctly. Had to turn around and land back in Detroit to reclose the door! Landed, opened door, closed door, refueled the plane and were ready to go again... Unfortunately now it was an "in-air incident" which means lots of paperwork... Left about 3 hours later than we were supposed to... Once in the air I slept again for a bit of the flight and then watched some Glee.

Ran home, showered and went to meet Becca for lunch.. I didn't even unload the car first because of all the delays in Detroit.. After she went to work I came home and started laundry and the process of getting ready for vacation.. Lynz came over for dinner and finished helping me pack..

And now the story wraps back around... About to leave NJ and head to my Uncle's house in West Virginia..

--Diversion of the Day

A Series of Uppers?

What does Randal know anyway, life is *not* a series of downers, what a depressing thought... I for one can say for sure that life is a series of uppers... Lets take the last week..

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were all great days/nights, each one very different, and each one with a different beautiful lady. :D

Thursday night I went over Becca's house.. Got the tour of her house, met her mom and went to dinner at a local pizza place. I always like my pizza plain (especially when trying a new place for the first time because that's the true test of the pizza), but most people find that to be "not enough" so it was great to find out that she also likes plain pizza.. Not to say I don't like pizza with crazy toppings either but sometimes you just want cheese and sauce, maybe it's because I grew up with plain NY pizza? We also had a spinach croissant like appetizer, it was too much food, lately I've found I'm back to eating smaller portions which is a good thing.. After dinner we mostly watched Shock Treatment (god that movie is bad) and listened to lots of good music while chatting about the life the universe and everything.

Friday night I went over Lynz' house, on the way there I was thinking about how we had not had a true night out in a long time and how we have this great comedy club (Funnybone) close by and never go.. So, after looking up the comedian for the night we decided he was funny enough based on his online clips and went.. Being the smart people we are we knew that getting food in Man-town would be a long and drawn out process so we grabbed some wonderful sushi at the Asian Bistro by her house before going to the club. The headliner was Matt Braunger, I had never heard of him but as I said, his online clips were pretty funny. I'm glad to say he was funnier in person than he was on his clips too! The first two guys (don't remember their names) were also really funny, the MC was a guy with a mustache and he did this whole bit about how having a mustache makes him a "wild card", you never know, he's either the best cop in the world, or he's on to catch a predator. He's either a porn star or a gay porn star, you can never tell.. The second guy was also really funny, he did this whole bit about being metrosexual which was really funny, I had not heard that term really used since Queer Eye and it was cool to see it brought back.. Finally was Matt, he did a whole thing about people throwing up and it was so funny even Lynz was laughing at it. Go check out his site and his bits, I want to get his MP3 CD he was that funny. His taco bell bit and his Easter bit were also top notch.. I left the show and my stomach muscles hurt because I was laughing so hard! Funny Bones has a deal where if you buy a shirt you can get in for free on Thursday nights as long as you wear the shirt. Got a shirt, who wants to go on Thursdays? During the drive there and back we played "new" music for each other, I put new in quotes because it was not really new, just new to each other. How is it that I have dated someone for that long and they never really heard ManOwaR?

Saturday I went to the CT Ren Faire with Jessie. I was walking in and got grabbed by my friend who was in the receiving line so me and Jessie ended up standing in the receiving line with her. It was a little odd to be in the receiving line but also pretty cool too, heck it's not like we aren't dressed well enough and it's not like we don't go there enough.. This years show is an all musical cast show which was awesome, I filmed all the cast shows on my Droid so if you're interested I can show them to you but I will not post them online because you should go see it live. If you can't I will show them and I may post them on youtube after the faire closes for the year. Everytime I started to wander and look at shops I was getting waylaid by friends working different booths, not that I'm complaining because they are people I don't see often and I did eventually look at all the booths I wanted. I just felt bad because I kept getting pulled away from Jessie, mom and Joe. This years faire is also a "choose your own ending" where the faire goers vote on the ending, of course good won. I'm going to go back on Oct 23rd and hopefully I will see evil win. After the faire closed we ended up spending lots of time chatting with a friend of mine and we finally left around 7. We got invited to the after hours party but I had to catch a flight at 5am out of Boston so I needed to get a nap in at least.

One other thing I just wanted to add, Jessie and my mom each bought a dress at Aetas Designs. Great deals and great materials and workmanship. Jessie's dress was off the rack but needs some alterations, total price $65.. My mom is having a dress made from scratch and the price? $115!! For a hand made dress!? Check them out, you won't be disappointed..

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Got up at crazy o'clock and drove to Boston. Wanted to be there for 3:30 because that's 90ish minutes before my flight. Funny thing is that the stupid airport does not actually open till 4 so I spent some time staring at empty booths. Checked in and was the first person through security. Watched a few episodes of Glee while waiting in airports and being on flights. I slept the entire first leg of the flight and most of the second and we landed in SF 40 minutes early! I'm glad we landed early because it was close timing to get into Oakland. The SF airport is actually south of SF, when I got in the car it said it was in the 80s, I drove north through SF and while doing so the temp dropped to the low 60s just to have it rise back up to the 90s by the time I got to the stadium in Oakland. I don't know if I could live in area with this kind of crazy temperature zones. I have to remember to bring a long shirt at least when I go to the Giants game on Wednesday.

Anyway, I got to the Coliseum and found out that parking was cash only so I had to turn around and go find an ATM. Got cash and drove back, while waiting in line to pay a guy came up and handed me a free parking pass! Guess the benefit of going to the last home game of the season is everyone is looking to dump their free parking passes. The outside of the stadium is very run down and the area around the stadium looks like a demilitarized zone. I was expecting the stadium to be a dump so I was not surprised by the area. I am glad to say however that the inside of the stadium is very nice indeed. The seat I had was amazing, right behind home plate and very close to the field. The food was top notch, I'd actually put the food in the top 10 for stadium food. The upper deck had nothing but generic stadium food but the lower level had an irish pub, cheese steaks, a farmers market, etc.. The beer was vast as well, they had booths for Fat Tire, ShockTop, Pyramid, and others. The only place they had American Piss beers was at the generic stadium food booths. I had a cheese steak, fries and a fat tire. I guess it says a lot about the fans and the area that all the booths had glass walls between the customers and workers. The only bad thing about the stadium is it's a 100% non-smoking stadium which means the bathrooms become smoke houses. The first season at Citi-Field the Mets tried to make the stadium 100% non-smoking and they quickly realized that by doing so you create bathroom smoke houses so now they allow smoking on the forever ramp. The game itself was pretty lame, the Rangers crushed the A's and I lost interested in the game itself pretty quick so I wandered the stadium for a while and ended up leaving after the 6th inning.

Yesterday I had a date with a girl I met on OKCupid, we went to a brew house called Fault Line and then hung out at the hotel and hot tub. She is very cool and we are planing to go out again tonight.. :)

I sort of want to go to the Winchester Mystery House, maybe I can convince her to go there tonight. It's about 8 miles from my hotel..

Deep in the Heart of Texas - July 18 - 23

I flew to Dallas on Sunday and met up with my friend Christine, she was a student of mine back in Chicago and we ended up hanging out that week a few times. Anyway she was waiting for me at the hotel when I arrived so I got changed and we went to dinner. Well, actually it was a bit early so we first went to the Stadium Cafe bar for a drink. Dinner ended up being at a micro-brew house that had opened up since last time I was there. The beer was just 'eh' but the food was actually really good. When I say the beer was 'eh' I'm being nice to it.. Christine actually didn't finish hers and I had to "down it" after I finished eating. We were walking back to my hotel room and walked by the comedy club which appeared to have an open showing, last time I was in town the comedy club was closed to the public for a best in texas competition. We went in and found that Jon Lovitz was doing a show that night, actually he was doing a show as we entered. The CC machine was already shut down and the box office was technically closed but they took some cash and brought us to a pretty close seat. The show was awesome!

Monday night I brought Josh to the Magic Time Machine, it was certainly not as cool as the first time. This time we had Wild Bill as our waiter and he might as well have been any generic dude. Not only that we were sat no where near the bathroom so I didn't get to see any cool bathroom heckling. The food was still amazing but the show was lacking...

Speaking of lacking shows, Tuesday night I went out with Josh and a few students to a Tepinyaki place, when the guy said "this one is japanese ketchup" I laughed till I realized it was ACTUALLY ketchup!! Then I was just sad.. The cook was very slow and did almost no tricks, and the ones he did do he did sub-par like the onion volcano. He absolutely killed the sprouts with soy sauce but he did an awesome job on the steak, scallops and shrimp so once again the food was great but the show sucked..

Wednesday we went to a mexican place and I had an amazing portabella mushroom burrito. It was an asian/mexican fusion dish, it had sesame seeds and a oriental style mushroom gravy.. So good! We didn't take advantage of it but when we arrived they had an avocado and some lemon on the table for you to make your guacamole. You could either make it yourself or have them make it at your table. We chose neither.. The chips they gave us were nice and warm and perfectly salted and the salsa was OMG amazing! I tried to buy some but to no avail.

Thursday I went to the Ballpark at Arlington to see the Texas Rangers.. I would rank the stadium pretty high up on the list.. What makes a good stadium? Food, view and ambiance.. The food - how about a bacon wrapped hot dog slow cooked over a bed of onions!? Not feeling that? How about some beef brisket, or a chicken fried steak sammich? The view - eh, I got row 1 in the upper deck and the bar was annoyingly in my view the whole game, I could either lean forward or scrunch down but I could not just sit normally without having the pitchers mound be blocked. If I was not in row 1 this would not have been a problem so I don't want to kill it on that. The ambiance - they have a giant kids play area behind center field complete with batting cages, pitching cages and a whiffle ball park. Unlike Citi-Field the lines were not crazy for the whiffle ball, probably because you had to pay ($1 per kid). They also had a statue of Nolan Ryan with all of his achievements in the middle of the kid play area. They had a Rangers Hall of Fame but it was closed due to a private party which sucked. The field level was very open and as you walked around the concession stands you got a view of the field which is nice, but the upper deck was not. The upper deck was the standard go through a tunnel to the food area behind the seats, I guess they all can't be Citi-Field.. My biggest knock on the stadium was the scoreboards, they looked like they were straight out of the 80s which does not make sense since it's a somewhat new ballpark. Before the game they did a great introduction with a song from each year the club was in existence with highlights playing during each song. Oh, and the awesome (or hysterical) thing was they played Deep in the Heart of Texas during one of the breaks! I laughed, then videoed the scoreboard!

Woke up FAR to early on Friday to get to the airport..

This week was Josh's co-teach for this class so we took turns teaching and watching.. Once he gets qualified it should free me up to do the Symm Config class more which is an online course which means more home time..

--Diversion of the Day

Buck nekkid in Miami!

Whose bright ass idea was it to get a 5am flight out of Boston? Logan airport parking is crazy expensive compared to Hartford and Providence, we look into other options but apparently nobody wants to travel with mass transit in the late night/early morning. The Logan express bus from Framingham and the trains do not run that early, what kind of a city is this anyway? The subway (T) stops from midnight to 4am, the bus is worse. Jessie ended up finding a external parking lot near the airport so we parked there, hopefully the shuttle from the airport to that parking lot will be easy to find when I get in today.

Anyway, we got to the hotel in the late morning and took some time to plan out what we wanted to see and when. Monday we ate lunch at a local brewhouse that Abita Purple Haze on tap! The burger I got was good and Jessie got a fried platter, the highlight was probably the deep fried pickles.. After lunch we went to a real upscale mall so Jessie could go to a designer's (DVF) clothing store. She tried on a few dresses, I think the cheapest one was $300. I really liked the little black dress she tried on but I don't think I could justify the cost, her plan was to find her size and then look for them on eBay or on some other such site.

I've been to the ocean now in a bunch of different locations around the world and one thing remains the same.. The water is smegging cold! We were in Australia and the water was so smegging cold I only stayed in for a few minutes. So naturally I don't change into my bathing suit because I figure I'll just walk in the water and be done. After hitting the water I was shocked by how warm it was, we went and got changed and I spent almost an hour in the water. I loved getting hit by the waves and I even swam across one as it was breaking, when I say across I mean along it on top. Only for a few seconds but it was neat to have the white break under me.. :)

We went to get changed again but the bathroom was closed!? We walked back towards the car and I found a great little set of bushes, there was one big one running along the sidewalk and another two in a V creating a triangle, there was a walkway into the center of the triangle but only viewable from the parking lot and not from the street or sidewalk. If you went into the center of the triangle you can't even be seen from the parking lot so I called it a dressing room.. Nothing like being balls naked in the middle of the city in the middle of the day! :D

We decided to get some rock crabs while in the area since it seems to be a big "to do" thing. We were going to go to Fifi's but it was in a sketchy area and their menu was not impressive so we ended up going to Billy's Crab House. Billy's was impressive but also very expensive.. Apparently "market price" was $40+ a plate.. The rock crabs were served cold over ice, the shells were cracked already so it was just a matter of ripping them apart. I would recommend them if you're in the area and have some extra money to spend on food..

Tuesday we went to the Seminole Indian reservation and did a water tour and a buggy tour of the Everglades at Billie's Swamp Safari. We saw some aligators, one up real close, it was pretty much touching the boat. The buggy tour was more impressive, but only because of the driver. He got out at one point and grabbed some of the bark of a palm tree and then later got off in a recreation of an old Indian house and started a fire with flint and steel and the palm tree bark. All the animals were free range and would walk in front of the buggy, at one point a bunch of animals were blocking the road and he used a horn to make them move, he said it was the first time he used he horn and in the past they would just bump the animals to make them move. We ate lunch at Billie's and I got a ethnic burger which was rolled in dough and then deep fried! It was really good but sorta scary. I posted a video of the burger on youtube.

After the swamp tours we went to a museum and saw an old ball and post game that the Indians used to play. We walked their nature walk for a bit before heading over to Sunlife Stadium to see the Marlins play the Braves. Sunlife stadium would be a great place to see a football game but for baseball most of the bars and stands were closed, they had the entire upper deck closed because they didn't have enough fans to warrent opening it. We sat eight rows from the Marlins dugout and had a great view of the Mermaids when they came out and danced for the 7th inning stretch. The food was nothing special, we ended up getting Boar's Head sammiches which were over priced and not very good. We then got a hot dog from the same kosher place that's at CitiField. I enjoyed the stadium but it certainly felt like the Marlins were playing in an away stadium.

Wednesday we went south to the Fruit and Spice Park and Coral Castle. The Fruit and Spice Park was very cool, they bring in plants and trees from all over the world, before the tour you can eat some of the fruit off the trees. There was one cherry which was star shaped that was amazing, unfortunatly because of the odd winter/spring they had there was not much fruit to be had. The tour guide was very good and kept stopping to show us different plants and explain what they were used for. After the tour we stumbled on a sign for a winery so headed there..

Schnebly winery was very pretty, they had a sitting/party area built out back with native huts and a waterfall. Because grapes in Florida are apparently crappy they use other fruits to make the wine. We got some of the Avocado wine, some of the Mango wine and some of the Guava wine. While we were at the winery it poured but it had stopped by the time we left (gotta love Florida weather)..

Coral Castle was very cool, apparently the guy who built it did so because a girl spurned him. They had an audio tour that was supposedly done by the guy who created it and he was a bit insane. He built chairs, tables, beds, etc all out of coral. They were suprisingly comfortable. I layed down on the bed and was actually comfortable, and the chairs rocked! I think it helps that the guy who made it all was five foot nothing so it all fit us.. :)

For dinner we went on a raw restaurant tour which started in Whole Foods where I got a Monk in the Trunk amber ale. I saw the name and had to get one, it was actually very good. After Whole Foods we went to OMGarden and got a main course. The place was in a run down area of Miami and the owner/waitress was a bit of a bitch but the food was great. Went from there to Green Wave which was closer to our hotel and got dessert. They have a water cooler that requires no water?! It sucks the humidity out of the air and filters it to drinkable water! What an amazing concept, the water tasted like bottled water..

Got back to the hotel on the early side and walked around the plaza across the street looking for somewhere to get a drink, ended up grabbing wine at the grocery store and came back to the hotel so Jessie could do some laundry.

...

Now I'm sitting in the airport in Cleaveland, to be more specific I'm sitting in Great Lakes Brewery having another great Amber ale.

Mclean VA and Camden Yards

Tuesday night I went to the local sports bar. I stress the word local, to say this was Cheers-like would be very accurate, I walked in and the bartender before taking my order asked me my name and where I was from. She then introduced me to the other people around the bar! Ordered some food and she threw the Mets/Dodgers game on the TV over the bar. Shortly after I got there Mike and John asked me if I wouldn't mind if they put the Basketball game on that TV since it's playoff time. I said sure and they moved the baseball game to a side TV. Got included in a free round by Jim, one of the regulars and my burger was really good. Hung out for a bit after the game ended because I was enjoying hanging out with my new friends.. :)

Wednesday night.. Robyn cancelled because she got called into work so I ended up going alone to Gordon Biersch, got lobster bisque and sea bass. After dinner I went back to Neighbors because it was Donna's 50th Birthday and I wanted to stop in and say happy birthday.. Hung out for a few drinks but left somewhat early because I was starting to feel get a sinus cold.

Thursday night.. I got tickets to see the Yankees and Orioles at Camden Yards. Met Matt, Sile and Daniel at McCormick and Schmick's for dinner, I had a Parmesan crusted flounder cooked with capers. It was so good! After dinner me and Matt walked over to Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the game. We got there early and walked around the stadium, when you first enter the stadium you're in the highlight of the park. There is a road past that runs from the CF corner to the LF corner out past the wall, during game days they close that road off and it's part of the stadium. It was very pretty and was full of historical things to look at like the Oriole Hall of Fame, and a great moments in Baltimore sports history section. We had just eaten so we didn't pay too much attention to the food, but they had a bunch of Baltimore local microbrew stands which were very good. Went up to our seats and found that there was two bars in our way of the field view. The seats were very wide but only the first row had cup holders. Around the 7th inning I got hungry so we went in search of something to eat.. Hot dogs, hot dogs, sausages, hot dogs and hot dogs was about all we found. I was very disappointed in the food selection at the stadium, to be fair they also had hamburgers and one place on the right field corner of the field level which sold expensive wraps. We walked the entire stadium and I ended up with a pretzel which they only sold at one location behind home plate on the field level! Maybe I'm spoiled by the food at CitiField but I have come to expect a mix of high end and low end food. In order to get into my top list of stadiums you need some sort of special food and they just didn't cut it.

Friday was drive home day.. Lynz came over but I was probably at the height of my sinus cold so we just ate some dinner and snuggled on the couch..

Saturday I got my bike back and on the road! I didn't ride much because I was coughing and sneezing while trying to ride and not very good when wearing a face shield and helmet.. But, it was the most comfortable I felt on my bike since I've gotten it! That night we went to Foxwoods to eat dinner and to see Mark Knopfler. Ate at the Grill at Two Trees and had Salmon in capers and kalamata olives which was very good. The concert was great, the sound quality at the MGM might be one of the best I've heard in a long time if not ever. It sounded like you were listening to a live recording, everything was very good and no echo or hard to hear instruments/vocals. The concert itself was also very good, it was very "trance" and you could just close your eyes and let the music flow over and through you.. It was odd seeing how old Mark Knopfler is because he's one of those people you don't see, never see videos and he usually has pictures of instruments on his CDs.

Sunday me and Jessie went to see her mom... It was, umm.. Fun? Sure.. Dinner was great! We ate at a little seafood place on the Hudson and I had a prime rib with crab stuffed shrimp.. Yum!

Where I put my attention creates my experience

I went to Cafe Gratitude last night and they have inspirational paintings around the restaurant. They actually sell posters of them, but apparently not all of them.. The one I loved was in the bathroom, it was a big mural and in the middle was a kid drowning in negative words, around him were positive places and the word choose repeated. Around the kid in the center and before the other places were the words "Where I put my attention creates my experience." I thought it was an amazing piece, but it's one of the few they don't sell posters for. I have emailed the artist asking him if there was a poster or print of it available.

So... I got out of class around 4ish and went straight up to SF. I love the fact that in California they let hybrids drive in the carpool lane. Actually the law has been changed, it used to be *any* hyrbid, now it's only select hybrids. I guess they are not allowing those crazy SUV hybrids which still only get 14-15 MPG in the carpool lane, you have to be above a certain MPG to get access as a solo rider. Well, using the carpool lane it took me about 40 mins to get up to SF. When I left work it was something like 82 degrees, as I was driving with the windows down, it started getting real cold. After a bit I rolled the windows up and looked at the temp gauge in the car, it read in the 50s, I looked up and saw signs for "Candlestick Park - this exit". I was pretty shocked actually, I had heard the stadium was built on the side of a mountain but what I didn't realize is that it *was* built into the side of a mountain. It was a beautiful view of the mountain, bay and stadium (didn't get pics because I wasn't ready for it). By the time I got into SF proper it was back up into the 70s.

First stop - AT&T Park. I don't count this as me being at the stadium for my stadium list, but I had to drive by. I actually parked on the side walk by the stadium, I asked the attendant and he said I could park there since I was only going to take some pics. I walked around the stadium and took some pics (uploaded to Flickr). The stadium is right on the bay and the outfield wall is open to the bay so people walking by can look into the stadium, there are signs asking people to please only stand in "viewing areas" for an inning at a time. You can actually see a good portion of the field from these "viewing areas", they were inside setting up for some concert. Anyway, around the front of the stadium there is a nice steak house built into the stadium. There are no doors into the stadium from the restaurant but I imagine it would be packed on game days, I went in to use the bathroom and there were a few people but not a mob.

Second stop - Lombard St.. There a few theories behind why this street is the way it is. Some of the locals say that the people who lived there didn't want the traffic so they convinced the city to screw with the road. Lombard is a short cut from the Eastern section of the city to the Golden Gate Bridge and they were getting tons of cars driving that way. If that's true it backfired because now people come from all over just to drive down the street. Other stories say that they made the road that way because the incline of the road was too steep and was causing problems with cars going up and not being able to and with cars not stopping as they go down. I don't believe that theory because there are steeper roads in SF and even in the surrounding area and they didn't do it to those. Either way this is one crazy fuck road, you really have to see it and drive it to really get the grasp of it. I stopped at the bottom of the road and took some pics, then I drove around and down it, back around and parked at that top. I walked down and back up and took some cool pics and videos. The best pic I found is one that was taken from a nearby building top, I posted it on my Flickr along with my pics. I also posted videos of people driving on it on my YouTube.

Third stop - Golden Gate Bridge.. Nope.. It was getting very foggy and the traffic was out of control going there so I decided I would go after dinner..

Third stop - Cafe Gratitude.. The restaurant was very pretty, as I stated above I loved the paintings they had. The staff was really nice too, the place was mobbed so I ended up sitting at the bar which worked out well because I got to chat with the guys working while I waited for food. All of the menu items are things like "you are wonderful", "you are insightful", etc. I got a White Bean and Kale Soup which was cooked, a raw Bratwurst which was made of nuts, fennel and had kimchi and a mustard seed sauce wrapped in romaine lettuce. For dessert I had a raw chocolate moose which was so good. I really never understand why people insist milk should go with chocolate to dilute the flavor. Nothing like a good strong raw cacao.

Fourth stop - Golden Gate Bridge.. Nope.. The fog was even worse and I didn't feel like going if I wouldn't really appreciate it. Maybe I'll go back on of the other nights I'm here, if not I'll get there eventually because after all it's just another bridge right..

Fourth stop - Candlestick Park.. On the way home I drove up to Candlestick Park. If you think it was cold at 4:45 you don't know cold. The car said it was in the high 30s! I got out and walked around and took some pics but it was too dark and none of them came out. It is a very pretty area, the stadium is generic but the area around it is very pretty.

Drove back to the hotel and relaxed in the hot tub a bit before bed.

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Oh, going back to yesterday's blog.. Rice-A-Roni.. I was going to post a big long thing about how I doubt Rice-A-Roni is the SF treat. I mean seriously, lets think about who lives in SF.. Gays and Asians. Can you possibly imagine an Asian whipping up some Rice-A-Roni? And as for the gays, I certainly can't see it. SF is probably one of the most "hippie" areas of the country (aside from maybe Portland) and I can't see people who care about food eating tons of Rice-A-Roni.. Anyway, so I was going to post this long blog about that and I decided I would post a little video clip of the old commercials. Well, I did a search for "Rice-A-Roni: The San Fransisco Treat" and the first hit was a blog ranting about the exact thing.. A guy answered that blog with a history lesson about why Rice-A-Roni was indeed the San Fransisco Treat..

The DeDomenico family all enjoyed an old Armenian dish consisting of rice, vermicelli pasta and chicken broth. The rice and pasta were sauteed in butter before the liquid was added, giving the dish its distinctive taste.

In 1958, Vince DeDomenico decided to take this recipe and produce it for sale in grocery stores. He placed the rice and pasta in a box, and added a dry seasoning mix in place of the liquid chicken broth. Because this product was made up of half rice and half pasta, he decided to call it RICE-A-RONI®.

Chicken RICE-A-RONI was first introduced in the Northwestern states in 1958. With it came the first RICE-A-RONI commercial, featuring San Francisco's Cable Cars and the now famous jingle. Created in San Francisco, RICE-A-RONI would soon be known to all as "The San Francisco Treat®!"

The RICE-A-RONI jingle, The San Francisco Treat® slogan, "Saute and Simmer" and scenic San Francisco became familiar to every household in America in the 60's as the product was introduced through television advertising.

Well, I guess I've been told..

All in all.. I think SF is a very nice city, it is easy to drive around, easy to park and pretty to look at.

BTW - I'm reading this blog realizing how much of a "gay hater" I sound like.. For those of you who know me you know I'm the furthest thing from that.. For those of you who accidentally stumbled on my blog, first off "welcome, hope you enjoy my tangents" and secondly I can assure you I'm not a gay or Asian or really an anything hater.. :D Well, ok, maybe I'm an Atlanta Braves hater.. :P

Five Fingers? More Like Five Toes!

It's been far too long.. I guess I will start with the list I posted in the last blog...

-DDLC

The guy from DDLC came out (a while ago at this point) to do the yearly cleaning of our oil burner and to fix the door on the chimney. He was a really funny guy who was a lot of fun to talk to. Apparently the lady on the phone told me that he could of course fix the door but they never told him that he was going to do that so he didn't bring the stuff he needed to do it. Luckily he had spare stuff in his van from the last one he did so he was able to take care of it. I was going to post this whole big thing about talking to him but it's been so long now I don't remember most of it. I really need to blog more often.. /sigh

On the same day I had the lady from the town zoning board come out and look at where we want to put the fence, she said as far as zoning was concerned there was nothing stopping me but recommended I talk to the guy in the highway department to make sure it was ok for snow cleaning and walking rights. Talked to him a few days later and he said that as far as he was concerned if nobody complains there is no problem. He did say that the town owns 40ft of road so I need to measure from Elizabeth's yard (back of the sidewalk) to our yard and see how many feet that is.

-Dr Pialtos

Apparently I skipped a year in my yearly exams.. Did that matter? No.. I still have the same vision as I had the day after my surgery in terms of distance. What has changed is my astigmatism, I now have 2 "clicks" of an astigmatism, it was 1 "click" 2 years ago. He said he would not prescribe glasses for anyone under 4 "clicks" so I guess I have a while still before I have to worry about that which is a great thing! When he first put the letters up and asked me to read the lowest line I did without hesitation and he asked if I had memorized the chart.. :)

-Jesse and Marie's Party

This is one of those things that at the time I had lots of cool stuff to write about but now it just seems outdated.. I had a really good time there and met some really awesome people. Their house is great for hosting parties, they have a nice size deck and two fire pits, one close to the house and one far away on the yard. The basement has a built in bar and plenty of room for people to hang out. One of the really good things about going was it was the first time me and Marie really got to talk, which at the time was all exciting but now it's common place.. It took a while to get to know them but I'm really glad that Sara brought them into the Tuesday dinner crowd because they are really cool people..

-Yankees game on Sunday

I went to a Yankee game with Matt, I bought tickets for us to go to a game for his birthday earlier in the year. This was my second time at the new Yankee Stadium and my opinion has of it has really gone up. The first time I sat in the bleachers with my cousins and I was far from impressed with the stadium.. Back then we had walked around the Main and Field levels of the stadium and it was very closed and felt like a mall that happened to have a baseball game. This time I sat in the upper deck and was very impressed at how open it was, the concessions were all done like at CitiField so that you had a view of the stadium no matter where on the upper deck you were. Me and Matt walked around each deck and I think the upper deck is by far the best place to be. It still pissed me off that you had to wait in different lines for different food when the two lines were at the same booth but it wasn't so bad up there because you could still see the field and still felt like you were at a game instead of in a mall.

- http://www.stopbirdporn.org/

Go check it out! I took the train from New Haven directly into Yankee Stadium, on the way I went into the bathroom and saw a sticker for this site. It made me laugh and laugh even harder when I actually looked at the site. Apparently it's a website whose premise is that watching birds is voyeurism and must be stopped!

- Ruca

I met Ruca the other day (again, a while ago now).. We met at a parking lot near Holly's house and ate outside with her (Ruca, not Holly) leashed to the chair. After dinner we went for a walk on a trail in the woods. I even got to walk her for a while which was good. She can certainly pull so when it got to uneven ground I gave control back to Holly because I was afraid of hurting my tendon. Still have not met Brutus, we need to schedule a time for me to do that. Who's Ruca and Brutus? Holly and Louie's dogs..

- Mets game - Ebbet's Club / Cleaning / Air Conditioning / Hornet = wants bats

Dad bought tickets for me and him to sit in the Ebbet's Club for one of the games we had tickets for in our season plan. We gave our tickets away and drove down on Wednesday, unfortunately the game was rained out right at 7pm. I was trying to get the house cleaned for the BBQ and had everything scheduled so that I could go to the game on Wed and still get everything done for Friday night. When they announced the rain out they said that our tickets would be good for the next day at 7pm! So much for my cleaning schedule.. We headed home just to make the trip again the next day. It really is a long ride/day when going to the games because we leave typically at 2pm for a 7pm game so that we can get good parking and eat/relax a bit before the game starts. Got a little cleaning done late Wed night and a little more Thursday morning.

Let me back up a bit, Wednesday morning I got up and mowed the lawn until the batteries ran down on the mower. I really like mowing the lawn and it was the first time this year I got to do that because my legs are finally good enough to push the mower around. My enjoyment of mowing the lawn was really shit on when I got stung by a hornet near the bushes in the front of the house, if getting stung by a hornet was not bad enough I got stung on my left tendon! Let me back up a LONG time.. A few years ago I was cleaning out the area around the stream by our house and stepped on a ground nest and was stung an assload of times in a matter of a few seconds, it hurt for days and apparently left me hyper sensitive to hornet stings! So, back to modern times (well, modern in terms of this dialog), by Thursday morning my leg was REAL swollen. It was to the point where having a sock on was painful because of the compression of the sock. I looked up what eats hornets and found bats being the main animal that eats them. I am seriously looking into getting a bat house or two to put in my yard.

So, back to CitiField with my leg crazy swollen and lots of cleaning not getting done. I was a bit beat up and stressed out going down to the game but I would not have missed sitting in those amazing seats. The Ebbet's Club is at the top of the field level behind home plate, they have a private eating area that has a bar and some really good food. They have some normal food like hot dogs, nachos, and pretzels but they also have hand carved sandwiches which were amazing. You pick pork or turkey and that goes on a nice roll with your choice of toppings. On Wednesday I had pork with horseradish mayo, bbq sauce, an olive spread (think muffaletta) and cheddar cheese. It was $12.00 and came with home made chips. On Thursday I had meatballs on the same bread which was not as good as the pork sandwich. Drinks in the Ebbet's club have FREE refills! The other neat thing about our tickets is that it allows you into all of the other clubs in the stadium, well not all of them. It allows you to go into any club that's considered "lower" than the club you have tickets to. Because of that we walked through the Excelsior level and into the Ceaser's Club, the Ceaser's Club is behind home plate on the Excelsior level.

So, these seats were so close we got a bunch of foul balls into our section. One of them hit about a foot away from dad's head, the second one hit right above my head and I caught it as it bounced down, the third one hit my knee! Why didn't I catch that one? Well, I was texting Ivon (phone in right hand) and drinking a beer with my left hand. Sure, I could have dropped the beer but that would have freed up my left hand I probably would have missed it anyway and I didn't think dropping my phone was a good idea. I will say that was the last text I sent while a batter was up.

Oh, I put air conditioning into this section too.. Why? Well, while I was at the game Wednesday Jessie called me from Walmart to tell me she was buying a air conditioner for the bedroom.. I hates the ac so I am sleeping in the spare room for the summer..

Speaking of my leg/hornet sting, I went to the Urgent Care facility on Friday and got put on all kinds of crappy medication that I'm done with now.. If you ever get put on Prednizone be prepared to be moody and hungry..

- bbq

What to say.. It was great.. Thank you all who made it, screw you all who didn't.. ;)

- Man's night out

Kevin had the idea for us to do a man's night out the other night. Matt, Kevin, Ryan and myself went to JD Poopers and ate some good food and played some pool.. We played best 2 of 3 in team mode with me and Matt winning and playing each other for champion of the day which went to Matt as he crushed me in the final game..

--

Former Giant Brad Benson makes a new marital vow, apparently he now owns a Hyundai dealership in NJ and decided he was not going to have sex until his dealership is the #1 dealership! Don't believe me, check out his youtube page..

While we were driving to and from CitiField we heard an add on the radio in which he asked everyone to please help him out because he wanted to have sex again! Crazy stuff...

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I started tracking my gas usage.. Here is the link to my car.

The site keeps a historical graph and tells you what percentage of the EPA you are getting. If you decide to track your gas usage send me the link..

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That's all the stuff I had in the last blog and in this text document I've working on.. Now on to new stuff...

- Vibram Five Fingers

Jessie went to a raw retreat and some dude there had these on. She told me about them and I went and tried them on with Holly.. I got a pair of brown KSO on the way to Laire and I have to say they ROCK! It's like walking around barefoot but with a sole. The oddest thing was when I stepped in mud and it went up in between my toes. Side note to that is that I had great traction in the mud because I was able to use all my toes.

Speaking of Laire, I played my barbarian shaman character and actually did a little running around. I played from Sat morning till about 11:00. I didn't leave the inn at night because I didn't want to step odd and hurt myself.

- Food Inc.

Monday night me, Jessie, Joe and Badger went to see Food Inc at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence, RI. If you've read the Omnivore's Dilemma you know what this is about. There were a few new things shown and it did a very good job of presenting the case against big factory farms. After the movie we went to Wild Colonial Tavern which is a really old bar on Water St. We hung out and had a few beers while playing pool. We did a tournament style and the final game came down to me and Badger with Badger beating me in the end. I'm sensing a theme here, I keep getting into the final game and falling just short of the victory..

- Tuesday Dinners..

Last week (8/4) we had dinner at our house as a change of pace, the weather was great and we setup the tables outside in the driveway and set the kids to watch Howl's Moving Castle and Totoro in the basement. Ryan brought over a venison roast for the grill, it came out really good. I cut it up into strips and seasoned it with (I don't remember right now) and grilled them for a few mins. How am I supposed to put recipes up if I don't write them down and don't remember.. I suck.. If anyone who watched me season the meat knows what I put on it please post it as a comment.. After dinner we made a fire in our new firepit and got to listen to Lynz & Marie play the Banjo and Dulcimer until Lynz's string broke.

This week (8/11) we were back at Ryan's house. Kevin, James, Fey and Mandy brought Muchkin Booty and we ended up getting a big game going. It's an ok game, I am just not a big fan of card games. Give me a nice long board game any day..

- Bobby's Burger Palace

Last night me and Jessie met Holly and Louie at Mohegan Sun and went to Bobby's Buger Palace.. Bobby as in Bobby Flay, does this mean I can cross him off my Iron Chef list? Nah.. But Bar Americana is opening in Mohegan Sun as well so I will cross him off after I eat there. It was very good but was a little pricey. My burger (Miami Burger) was $7.50 and then you have to buy fries on top of that for $2.50. They said the fries were big enough for two people, they lied.. Holly was the only one of us to get her burger "Crunchified" which just means with chips on it. We tried to get her to say "Chrunchified" but she just said "with chips on it".. After dinner I lost some money on the slots and then wandered the mall and played H2Overdrive in the arcade. It's a kick ass 4 player boat racing game. If you see the machine somewhere you should play it.. :)

---Diversion of the Day 1

---Diversion of the Day 2

---Diversion of the Day 3

Online?!

Lynz came over with Anja last night for dinner..  I went to the store and started getting a bit frustrated trying to buy a salad dressing that was gluten free, I was in a bit of a hurry and after looking at the first few dressings I gave up and decided to make my own.  I decided I would make a chunky sauce and use the chunky bits to cook the tilapia in.  The sauce came out really good so I figured I would post the recipe.

5 tomatillos

1 green pepper

1/4 onion

1 large chunk of garlic (the garlic we have has monstrous cloves, I cut one clove in half twice to put in the sauce..  I would say it's equivalent to 3 normal size cloves)

approx 2 tablespoons of soy sauce

a pinch or two of salt

- Throw all of that into a food processor and get it all ground up (keep pretty chunky) then add oil to make it thinner, I would say about 4 tablespoons of oil.  Blend again but not too much because otherwise it will get less chunky.  Now take it off and put it on low heat till it warms up a bit, once it warms up put a touch of Agave in to sweeten it.  

- Now scoop out some sauce, try to get a bunch of chunks and spread them onto a frying pan.  Put the tilapia on the sauce (fish should not be touching the pan so it stays nice and moist), put more sauce on top and cook on medium heat till the top gets white and flaky.  Meantime the sauce should stay on low heat to continue to meld the flavors.  

- I also made brocolini which I put in a pan with a little bit of oil and salt, cover it so that it steams in the oil.  Cook it until the skin starts to caramelize.

- Carefully take the tilapia out of the pan when it's done and put on more chunks.

- What you have left will be a watery sauce which would be good for salad dressing or, as we did, something to top your rice or quinoa with.

After Lynz left I started folding laundry and, because Luna peed on the bed in the spare bedroom, start more laundry.  While I was folding laundry the oddest thing happened, I logged into gmail and noticed Kaitlyn was online!  I ended up chatting with her on IM while I folded laundry!  It was a little surreal having her on IM and knowing that she is now reading this blog..  Welcome back to the internet world Kaitlyn...  I added her blog link to the random links section..  

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Tuesday night I skipped dinner for the first time, it was not the first dinner I missed but it was the first I missed not due to travel.  Me and Melissa went to the Red Sox game instead.  A co-worker has season tickets in row B of the Right Field Roof Box, they are awesome seats and it was probably the first time I felt I had good seats in Fenway.  The seats still didn't face home plate but at least the pitch of the seats made it so that I could see over the heads of the people sitting in front of me.  I hate sitting on the field level there because if anyone sits in front of you (and at Fenway that means all the time) you can't see the field.  The game was a great pitching duel with the Red Sox coming out on top, the entire game was only 2 hours 15 minutes!  The food choices at Fenway do leave a bit to be desired but the burger I had was really good, probably because they were out when I ordered it so I got a fresh one.  They had signs for a kosher stand and I was going to get a knish but then I saw that their kosher "stand" was a vending machine!  It did have knishes but I didn't feel up for testing out a vending machine knish.

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Laire this weekend..  I am planning on "playing" Daimone for the full weekend, I say playing in quotes because I will be non-combat still.  The Order is staying in the inn which means I can play at night too because I won't have to walk down to the cabin.  Hopefully I'll win lots of gold at night while everyone else is out killing the bad guys.. :)

---Diversion of the Day

Birthday Weekend...

Birthday in Jersey..

Me and Jessie decided to head to Portland Oregon for my birthday this year, why Portland?  Storm Large wrote a one woman musical about her life that she is performing at the Portland Center Stage, the show is running from March till the end of May and I hate missing once in a lifetime shows.  If you don’t know who Storm Large is she is a singer/song writer who is from MA, she moved out west and started a band.  That band had released a few CDs and then she went on Rockstar Supernova which is where we found her and fell in love.  She is a tough, kick ass girl who makes no excuses for her attitude, language and appearance.  Since Rockstar Supernova she has released another CD which not surprisingly was her best selling one to date.  Check out her song Ladylike which she sung on Rockstar Supernova and later recorded for the CD of the same name.

So, using Marriott Rewards points, Continental miles and a travel voucher we got our trip all set for a grand total of $80 + rental car and food.  I may bitch about my job but the travel thing is one part of it I really do love.

Enough background, let’s get to the fun that was this trip…  I mean that in a mostly serious way..  Thursday’s plans: Fly from Hartford to Newark, check.  Fly from Newark to Portland, how ‘bout Friday?  It turns out that Newark was having bad weather so our flight from Hartford was delayed, ironically (or rather unfortunately) the flight to Portland was not delayed by the weather..  Our flight to Portland was supposed to leave at 6:05 (and did) and our flight from Hartford got in around 7:00… No big deal, the hotel will be on the airline right?  Nope…  Because it was the weather that caused us to miss our flight they would not put us up in a hotel for the night.  We were made aware of this while still in Hartford so I started calling/texting a bunch of people from Laire to see who lived near the airport.  Our new flight was at 7am so we decided it would be silly to get picked up by someone local just to have to be back at the airport for 5am.  A few calls later and I cancelled one night in Portland and used the points to get a room in Newark..

After texting, chatting with a bunch of people in the area we decided to have Grifo meet us at the airport and go out with him for dinner/drinks.  He got on a few wrong trains and in the end never made it over (gave up around 9:30).  While waiting for Grifo to show up we met some really cool guys, one of them was from Chicago and visiting his friend in NYC.  His friend apparently hooked him up with a crazy girl, depending on who’s version of the story you believe he was told that the girl was crazy before he went off with her.  Regardless, she was crazy and not the good kind.  She is on medication and once it wore off she got real crazy and the whole experience ended with her hitting him while sitting in the airport waiting for his flight.  I have to give him credit for doing the right thing, he grabbed her hands and restrained her knowing that the cops (or goons as he called them) would show up and break it up.  As it turns out nobody reacted at all and he had to just sit there and take the beating, makes me sick that we pay a so called security force to let that happen.

We finally made it to the hotel and now it was getting late so our food options were very limited, we ended up eating in the hotel restaurant which ended up not being that bad.  I had a steak which was very well prepared, the spices were done very nicely and it was cooked almost perfectly (crispy on outside but still pink in the middle).  The hotel had Yuengling as well which is always a win.  Not the birthday dinner I imagined (eating at a nice restaurant in Portland) but it ended up being really good.

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Crazy Enough

When we got to the airport on Friday we couldn’t use the self check-in because our flight had been changed from the original plan, we went to the elite check in area and the elite security clearance area and were on her flight with plenty of time to spare.  Again, I love this part of my job..  The non elite lanes were out of control and we probably would have missed our flight.

Arrived in Portland, got a car and went to the hotel to shower and change before heading out for the day.  We were going to do a walking tour of Portland so we parked between the tour starting point and the theater but due to my foot we decided not to do the tour.  Instead we did the beer tour, we had lunch at a brewery called Deschutes Brewery, it was very good.  I had a burger with garlic, goats cheese and some mustard.  Jessie had a lamb burger which had tzatziki sauce on it, her burger was ok but mine was better.  We each got a flight of beers which includes six four ounce glasses, my favorites were the Mirror Pond Ale, the Amber Dawn, the Bachelor Bitter and the Gluten Free ESB.

After lunch we went to a book store called Powell’s.  This place is out of control big, they are at least an entire city block and three stories tall, they have different color rooms for what genre you’re looking for (the blue room was Sci-Fi, the red room was games, etc.).  They had some really old out of print books just sitting on the shelves used and some even new, they had autographed copies of some books for sale as well and they had a RPG section that was bigger than most stores entire sci-fi and fantasy section.  They had RPG books from the old West End Star Wars and one book from the Decipher Star Trek as well as almost any Wizards of the Coast book you could ever want.  We wandered around for a while to walk off the buzz we had from lunch.  They had an Ancient Greek section that was an entire isle, some of the books were in Ancient Greek and some were the translated versions we are all used to seeing.

After lunch we went to one of McMenamin’s pubs (the Ringler’s Annex) and I had a their raspberry beer (Ruby) which was very good, Jessie got a coffee with rum and it was super strong.  After our mid day drinks we went for a walk around the city, we didn’t see too much other than pubs and after a while ended up back at Powell’s so Jessie could get a real coffee before the show which we split.

The Portland Center Stage is a nice theater, they are actually two theaters, there is a big one upstairs which has two levels of seating and then there is the small one down stairs.  Crazy Enough was downstairs in the smaller of the two stages.  Before the show I saw Storm come in and walk up to the third floor to get ready, Jessie was standing on the stairs taking a picture of the poster when Storm walked past her.  While we were waiting for the show we saw the announcement that they extended the run to the end of June! 

I don’t know what to say about the show, it was the most personal thing I think I’ve ever seen done on stage.  She talked in depth about everything in her past, her mom had made a lot of attempts to take her own life and when Storm was a little kid she was told by her mom’s psychiatrist that it was hereditary and that she was be crazy like her mom.  She was told it would probably kick in when she was in her 20s or at the latest when she had kids of her own!  What a thing to tell a little girl!  She talked about a few of her mom’s attempts including one in which she put dishwasher detergent in dinner.  She talked about going to see her mom in the hospital and how it was when her mom would come home from these trips.  She talked about her sexuality at school and her bout with heroine when she moved to CA.  There was one really funny point when she was talking about her early sexuality when she had gotten an older lawyer in bed while she was still very young and after hours of sex after all of her makeup had worn off the guy looked down at her and asked “how old are you, really?” and she said 13.  I don’t know if she was 13 at the time or if she just said that to fuck with the guy but his reaction was hysterical.  She went on to talk about how her band and her attempt to get onto the Lilith Fair.  She also was a model for a dildo company and she relayed a really funny story about her time posing with the “product”, the camera man told her that she made their penises look small.  She finally made peace with her mom right before she finally died a few years ago, and she admits that she is indeed crazy, but unlike her mom her crazy works for her.  She’s not too crazy, she’s just crazy enough..  If you have the means I would recommend the trip out to Portland if only to see her show.  Hopefully she will release a live copy when the run is over, it would be awesome if it became a touring show.  We got the soundtrack and it has some truly amazing tracks.

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Speaking of crazy enough…  Did you know that Seattle is only a 3 hour drive from Portland?  Why is that relevant?  Well, the Red Sox were playing the Mariners so Saturday afternoon we drove up to Safeco field and saw the game.  Saturday morning we met Mik (a guy Jessie had been talking to on IM since Australia) and wandered around the city.  We went to the Saturday Market which is an outdoor market with food, drinks, clothes and artwork.  I had a Rogue summer beer and got a few cool things from the market.  We ate breakfast and lunch at the same vegetarian restaurant and then headed off to Seattle.  Safeco is a nice stadium, the view from the seats was very good, we had row 1 in the upper deck so we had a great view.  The only problem I had with the stadium was that when you were not at your seat I felt very away from the game, you could not see the field from any of the concourses.  The food was good, I had an Ichiroll which is a really spicy tuna maki roll, it was so spicy I almost couldn’t eat it.  One really cool thing about this stadium is that they had the ability to order food from your seat, you could do this on your Nintendo DS (Mariners are owned by Nintendo) or your Verizon phone via text messages.  The other nice thing (hope you’re not surprised) is that they serve Starbucks coffee instead of Dunkin Donuts.  I had a few different beers at the stadium including a Pyramid Amber Ale which was really good.  Speaking of Pyramid, they had a brew house across the street from the stadium which we went to after the game.  I had a summer brew from there which was also very good. 

We didn’t get back to the hotel till after 2am and had to get up at 4am so we could get to the airport in time for our 8am flight..  At the airport in Portland we went to the Rogue brew house and had a pre-flight drink and breakfast which included Kobe beef meatballs with blue cheese inside them.  At the Detroit airport I had my mid-day Murphy’s Irish Stout..  Got back to CT and ate at the Japanese restaurant in Willimantic before finally getting home to pass out..

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Portland is a really cool city, it's very laid back and very spread out.  There are no really big sky scrapers and there is a bunch of greenery in the city.  The ride to Seattle was amazing, there was this enormous snow caped mountain off in the horizon and the road was lined with big hills and enormous trees!  I can see why people love it out there, I wish I had more time (and healed feet) so I could go hiking and enjoy the lovely surroundings.  I would like go back there when I have time to just veg in the wilderness for a few days.

April catch up blog

So, the picture that was short-listed for inclusion in the seventh edition of the Schmap Sydney Guide was officially put to use in the guide which I think is pretty rockin'...

Here is the link - http://www.schmap.com/sydney/entertainment_concerts/#p=339954&i=339954_21.jpg

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The other night at dinner John mentioned an article on the Onion that talked about Mr. Met not getting enough sleep at the new stadium. Check it out..

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I've neglected this blog for far too long. I now need to recap almost the entire month of April..

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The week of the 5th - 11th..

Monday the 6th I woke up and decided I was going to try and walk on the cast, I took a few tentative steps before I put the crutches down and everything was great. To compare, I didn't walk on the cast until the beginning of week 4 during the last surgery and even then it was only for very short spans of time. This time I started walking in the beginning of week 3 and I only used the crutches a few since the 6th.

Melissa came over that day and we hung out and watched opening day! The great thing about opening day is no matter what, every team at least thinks they have a chance to make this their big season.. Thursday I went over Nathan's house up in Beverley for the first time. His house is very nice and they did a lot of work on it since they got it, it would have been interesting to really see how it looked before hand. We ended up going to Home Depot and Lowes and it was probably more walking than I should have done, by the end of the day my left knee, back, arms and shoulders were killing me. Luckily for me Lynz came over on Friday night and did a lot of work on my legs, arms, shoulders and back. I can't say how thankful I am that she was able to put everything back in place.

Friday night Melissa went to Alliance (LARP formally known as NERO), Saturday morning she came over to shower and get changed before going to a friend's party in Boston. I'm usually the one coming home from LARPs and being all excited about what happened so it was odd being on the other end of that.. A good odd, but certainly odd. I can't wait till Laire in May... I had to miss the April event because it was too close to me getting my cast off, but I'm ahead of myself..

Saturday night Sara came over and we went to Pho Evergreen in Greenville RI and had really good soup. It's a really nice family run restaurant, Sara told the girl she was allergic to gluten and she made a really good point of checking with her mom about each ingredient. On the way out the youngest boy was sitting in the reception area watching TV and we heard a dog barking from what appeared to be the back room.

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The week of the 12th - 18th..

The 12th was Easter or as a friend called "Zombie Christ Day".. We went to my brother's house which was nice because we had not been there in a while and the food was really good... His kids are getting real big, it's sort of amazing to me to realize that little Lenny is now 16!

Monday I went to dinner with Kaitlyn at our normal restaurant (the People's Pint) and afterwards got to sit and listen to her play the guitar and sing! It was finally nice enough out so that we could sit in her breezeway and just relax. She'll probably yell at me for saying this in my blog, but she has a great voice and I could totally see her playing an acoustic live set in a local bar or club.

Tuesday I got my cast off!!!!! I was supposed to get it off on Thursday but I could not get an appointment early enough to do it and then get to the Mets game in the same day. I really wanted someone to be there with me when I got it off because I was unsure how stable I would be afterwards so I picked Melissa up Monday night and brought her to Putnam so she could go with me on Tuesday to the doctors. The cast came off and the foot actually had strength enough to push the doctor's hand which is way better than last time when I could barely stand. They gave me a soft boot cast and it was really nice out so we went to play Mini-Golf afterwards which Melissa won by one stroke!

Wednesday night I went over to Willimantic and ate dinner with Lynz and Anja, we went to the sushi restaurant in the mall and hung out at her house afterwards. I had not been down to Willi in a while so it was a good change spending some time there.

Thursday was my first game at Citi-Field! I think I am going to write a separate thing about the stadium in general so I'm just going to say that for Thursday nights game is was COLD! I went with Melissa and my dad. Mike, his mom, Amber and Kris met us there. Ivon ended up spending the whole game in the Promenade Club bar and only came to the seats for about 10 minutes towards the end of the game.

Saturday me and Jessie went to lunch with Hoyle and his wife Janine. We met up at Unos by their house and afterwards went back to their place for a while to hangout and chat. She is a very nice girl and I think we may have convinced her to come to Tuesday night dinners. Yes, I have not mentioned anything about Tuesday night dinners in this blog. And Yes, they are still going strong. Trick is I don't remember what everyone brought each week so I will just say that they were fun as always! I will actually talk about this weeks in a bit but I'm not there yet... So... After leaving Hoyle and Janine's house we went home and met up with Ryan and Sara for dinner at Bella's Gourmet Market in Putnam. The just reopened after being closed for a week to put in a kitchen, they now have a full dinner menu and I highly recommend you check them out if you live in the area. They have this amazing Balsamic marinated grilled Watermelon as an appetizer that comes with chocolate goat cheese! I would go there and just eat that! I got a steak which was so tender I was able to cut it with my butter knife!

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The week of the 19th - today..

The 19th saw my 2nd game at Citi-Field, it was still cold but a bit warmer. I went down with Jessie, Sara, Ryan and my dad. We gave Mike's tickets to Amber and Kris but they didn't show up. Ivon sat at his seats this time and once again we lost. Walked less this time but still probably too much.

Monday was my first day back at work, I went in early because of the silly Boston Marathon and ended up lasting till after lunch before my foot was starting to really bother me and I took off. Monday night Amber came over and we went to dinner at Someplace Special. She filled me in on all the goings on at Laire over the weekend while at dinner much to Jessie's boredom.

Tuesday I went to work, then the dentist... I had a cleaning appointment scheduled for 2, I got there a few minutes early and found out that my dentist had retired and given the practice to another dentist. I've never met the dentist so him retiring is really not that big a deal, but.. The dental assistants were very upset over the changes which included having to use new machines. Upset dental assistants + new machines = horrible cleaning! I left there feeling a bit violated and in pain. I hate dentists! Dinner was quiet this week, in attendance was me, Jessie, Melissa, Sara (for most of it), Ryan, Joe, Hoyle, John (for a little while) and Kristen (for a few minutes towards the end). We (me, Jessie, Hoyle and Melissa) got there late and were the first to arrive. Joe showed up a few minutes later and then Sara had to leave because of "mom issues". We ended up going to the table with just the 6 of us. John showed up a little while after and then Sara came back to bring our little group up to 8. Kristen showed up while everyone was eating dessert to drop the kiddies off for Sara to watch for the night.

Yesterday I went to dinner with Sara at Thai Basil while Jessie was at Yoga. We were supposed to go early but we had to wait for Kristen to come get the kiddies before Sara could come out. I got home from dinner around 9 and ended up chatting with Ange and Melissa before heading to bed.

Holy crap - it's today! I am sitting at work with a bunch of pissed off employees, apparently even though my company made record profits last quarter they are giving everyone a pay cut for the rest of 2009! Oh and they stopped 401k matching funds too! I'd hate to see what they would do if they didn't post record profits! I dropped my car off at Patrick Subaru for it's first 3,000 checkup since the new engine. It's been getting very poor gas mileage and running kinda loud and although Kiss may Love it Loud I don't when it comes to my car. They just called a few minutes ago to tell me it's done so now that I'm done with this long ass-blog I'm going to go get it. Tonight I'm going to the movies with Jessie, we are going to see Earth. I'll let you know how it is. If you don't know Disney is planting a tree for every ticket sold this weekend so go..

---Diversions of the Day
It's been long time since I blogged so I will give you two today...
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20090413.html
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2009-04-14/index.html