Season Tickets

I have just entered my name into the waiting list for Denver Broncos season tickets. Before you point it out to me, I am already aware that I am not exactly close to Denver:




Never fear though, as there are currently 24,000 people on the waiting list. I figure that over the next few years I can save up some money and when my name actually comes up on the list I will be able to afford to fly out to Denver a few times a year to watch them play, and sell or give away the other tickets to people. Its the perfect plan! It feels nice to be one step closer to being a season ticket holder for an NFL team.

Going back to DC?

Perhaps my question of where I should go next has already been answered for me. I clicked here and found this:

"In just four weeks, Tai Shan, Mei Xiang, and Tian Tian will enjoy two new outdoor areas and lots more indoor space. New features include a water-cooled grotto, pools and streams, a fog grove, and a cooled rock on which a panda and a visitor can sit side by side, separated only by glass. Visitors will have other opportunities for up-close encounters with the bears, see them from more vantage points, learn about them at the fantastic Clint Fields Conservation Plaza, and more."

Ever since I went to DC in the spring I haven't been so panda gung-ho, as Tai was being a little prima donna and not coming out to have his picture taken while I was visiting. Perhaps me reading this is a sign that Tai has come to his senses and is ready to come out and have his picture taken for me.

I heart sports

A lot of people think that I have an addiction to sports. Do I? I really can't say foresure, but I will let you guys decide for me. This day actually did happen about 2 months ago, maybe less.

6:10 am - My TV is set to be my alarm clock so when it turns on, it is automatically on ESPN2 and I get to watch the Mike and Mike Show. I'll usually watch this for a few minutes before getting up. As I'm shaving, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, etc I'll usually watch them, and listen to their funny stories. Mike Golic used to annoy me, but now he is pretty entertaining. Everyone thought his brother Bob would be the real star, after all he was in Saved by the Bell: The College Years, but I digress.

6:50 am - Got in my car to go to work. Turned on 710 AM Radio. That's KSPN the ESPN radio affiliate for Southern California. Listened to the Colin Cowherd Show. He is somewhat entertaining at times, but usually says something stupid that I turn him off. Today was a rare day that I actually agreed with what he said so I listened straight until I got to work.

8:00 am - First thing I do when I get to work, check my fantasy teams from the day before. (At the time I am writing this blog, I want you to know that I am currently in 4 fantasy baseball leagues, 5 fantasy football leagues, 1 fantasy pick 'em NFL league, 1 fantasy golf league and 1 fantasy NASCAR league. That's right, you read correctly, golf and NASCAR...don't judge me). I make the necessary changes for each league, depending on the match up and such, put in the correct starting pitchers and then I’m good to go.

8:20 am - After finishing my fantasy teams, I look to read about the Dodgers, since its baseball season. First I usually check Dodgerblues. This is a great site with a good sense of humor. I also check out the Dodgerdugout. This site is okay, somewhat good during the prime trading and free agent seasons. After reading these two fan sites I head over to the regular Dodgers website.

8:40 am - After reading up on the Dodgers, I decide its time to read the general news. Hmm let me rephrase, my general news, which basically means Sports Illustrated Online and ESPN. These two sites usually have some feature story that I'll want to read, or some picture gallery that has some cool photos. I usually take a good amount of time to read these sites, you know to make sure I know what’s going on?

9:05 am - This day happened to be a really good day, cause my favorite write on espn.com put up one of his entertaining mailbags. For those of you who haven't heard of him before, Bill Simmons is a writing genius. He is able to put together sports, pop culture, movies, TV shows and Las Vegas in virtually everything he writes. I highly recommend that all of you take a few minutes to read him here.

9:30 am - At this point I decide I should probably do some real work, respond to phone calls, check email, work, etc. Never fear though, I have a handy dandy radio on the desk in back of me. Flip it on to hear the last 30 minutes of the Cowherd Show. As I said before, he is okay in short doses, but I usually need a break, 30 minutes is a decent amount of time to listen to him sum up his topics of the day.

10:00 am - This is where my day really kicks into full gear. Every weekday at 10:00 am I get to listen to my favorite sportscaster/sports talk radio host, the one, the only, Dan Patrick. Dan is easily the smartest, funniest, thoughtful and well spoken member of the ESPN TV and Radio family. I will listen to him for all 3 hours that he is on, as he has the best topics, best guests and best insight into pretty much every sport.

10:15 am - This day in particular is extra special because, not only do I get to listen to Dan Patrick, I am also pleasantly surprised to find numerous afternoon baseball games are on the schedule. First thing I do when I see this is turn on the TV (yes there is a TV in my office). Booyahkah! I find the Tigers game is on ESPN2! My lucky day! I mute the sound so I can continue listening to the radio, but have the game going, so when I look up from doing my work I can see the score and what’s going on.

12:30 pm Today is my lucky day because the angels are playing an early game which means I can stop watching the Tigers game, and switch over to Fox Sports to watch the Angel game! Of course I do switch back to make sure the other game is still going along okay.

1:00 pm - The Dan Patrick Show has now come to an end. What awesome show do the programmers have for me now? Why it’s the Gary Miller and Dimarco Farr West Coast Bias Show. I listen to these guys for probably about 20-30 minutes tops. They aren't really that good, and they usually don't know what they are talking about. I can't recommend them to anyone, unless you like crappy radio, then by all means listen!

2:00 pm - The two baseball games I had been watching are now over. Luckily this is when the prime ESPN TV programming kicks in. At 2:00 I watch a show called Around the Horn. The show has journalists from all regions of the country on tv screens to discuss the topics of the day. Most days they have a couple of really annoying columnists.

2:30 pm - Right after Around the Horn, my favorite talk show on ESPN comes on, Pardon the Interruption. The show features hosts Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discussing sporting news of the day. They are usually pretty blunt and honest. If someone is being stupid, arrogant, selfish, they will come out and say so, not having to tip toe around the issues like other shows. This is one of the highest rated shows on ESPN, so it has to be good.

3:00 pm - Sportscenter comes on. This way I get a recap of all the games that happened earlier as well as previews for the later games. It is pretty much the quintessential show in sports.

4:00 pm - At this time I usually turn off my TV and turn the radio back on. Not sure why though cause the only thing I can get in my office sports related is The Big Show, with Mason and Ireland. These two guys together usually make about as much sense as a bear driving a car. There is never any logic too them, yet I listen anyway, go figure.

4:30 pm - East coast night games start around this time. ESPN is currently covering the Red Sox game. They seem to play almost every single Red Sox or Yankee game. It’s kind of annoying, but I guess that’s where most of the fan loyalties lie. I mean no one wants to see the riveting Royals vs. Devil Ray game do they?

5:00 pm - Yes! It's time to go home. Yes in case you forgot I was at work this entire time. At 5:00 pm, I get back in my car and turn on 570 AM for the Good Times Show. I think I would like this show a lot better if it were only Money, but alas he has Joe Grande and Wayne Cook to help him co-host. This show is pretty easy to get through to on the phone. I was lucky enough to win Harlem Globetrotter tickets from the show! Trust me, if you haven't seen the globetrotters, you are missing out. Occasionally I will check what Mason and Ireland are doing, but for the most part the ride home is all 570.

6:30 pm - Get home after a long drive home and the first thing I want to do is relax. Naturally I read the paper. I'll usually do the soduku puzzle and then head for the sports section. I usually read the TJ Simers article first, as he is sarcastic and funny and has even used me in one of his articles (true story I have a copy of it). After that I'll flip over to the Dodger and Angel updates for the game that day, or the upcoming series.

7:00 pm - Sweet, its a Dodger home game today! You know what that means, me sitting and watching them for the next 3 hours. I usually expect the worst when watching a Dodger game, especially during the time period that this game was being played in.

10:00 pm - Go online, read up on any late breaking nightly sports stories on the same websites I read earlier in the day.

11:30 pm - Just about bedtime, set my sleep timer so my tv will automatically turnoff. What do I fall asleep to? That’s a pretty easy question, the ESPN news channel.

So yeah, that was a pretty fun day I think. I don't have an addiction or some sort of illness right? I didn't think so, but I thought I would share this with you all just to prove my point. Some people just don't understand it’s totally normal I guess. Oh well. I hope I have another one of these days soon.

San Francisco and the long ride home

After a few days alone I was ready to be able to talk to real people again. I drove up to Oakland airport really early on Saturday morning. While waiting for their flight I was able to go to harbucks and give my brother directions over the phone for my fantasy draft.

Well at 1 pm, John and Wally landed and we were off to SF. I forgot how much I hated traffic and getting around the city. There are way too many one way streets, hills, and just stupid drivers. Thank you again to John for driving.

After eating a grab linner (yes thats linner, in between lunch and dinner, don't judge) we headed over to have a beer with Tim, Gilbert, Matt, Tezo and Marlene before heading off to the ballpark. We drink a beer and then head over to the stadium and wait for Tim to come bring the tickets...and we wait....and we wait....and the game starts...and we wait. Eventually Tim comes running down the street and we rush in the stadium. Its okay as we only missed the first 1 1/2 innings though right? Well normally yes, but here the Dodgers scored 10 runs in the first 2 innings....lets all thank Tim now....THANKS TIM!!



Anyway the rest of the game was still a blast. Talking smack to Giants fans isn't nearly as intimidating as talking to other fans. Perhaps its cause the Dodgers are in first and the Giants are in last, perhaps its cause the Dodgers were killing the Giants, or perhaps its cause the Giants fans are small weak looking white people, you can decide for yourself. They really had nothing to counter with, it was fun.

Anyway the game ends and naturally the Dodgers win! Go Dodgers, although a Dodgers win just isn't the same without singing "I Love LA".



So after sleeping in our luxorious and spaceous hotel room:



We headed back to Southern California. It was a great ride home, well except for the shredded tired/torn wheel well and bumper incident. Don't worry we are fine and the ride home was only 9 hours, but it pracically flew by...oh wait not so much.



So after two trips in a few weeks where my car has suffered flat/shredded tires I think it is for the best that I don't take my car any further than San Diego. I think its trying to tell me something. Other than that though I had a really good vacation, San Francisco was a lot better than going to Oakland for the Angel's game last year. Now I am looking forward to my next sporting adventure. As of right now I have Arizona in November, but September and October are still open.....any suggestions?

I'm sure you all missed me

After my long awaited and much needed vacation, I am now back in sunny and warm Southern California. It's approximately 85 degrees out right now, but after spending 9 days up north where it reached a high of 76, it feels a bit warmer.

Anywho, my drive up to Santa Cruz wasn't so bad. I did my best to annoy my sister by asking every few minutes, "are we there yet" or "can you drive" or "I think we were supposed to get off in San Miguel, not San Miguel Canyon". All in all she couldn't wait to get out of the car, so mission accomplished.

Here are a few pics of the beach at the end of the street. There are a couple of seals in the water pretty close to the shore.

Spending time reading, sleeping, eating, sleeping, playing games, sleeping, and other random things with my mom, sister and grandparents was pretty cool. It was kinda weird not waking up to check fantasy sports teams and the latest news of the superficial and such. It was nice to wake up around 10:30-11:00 am everyday to find emails waiting for me. Thanks to all of you who were kind enough to remember how bored I could get.

On Wednesday, my family packed up their stuff and headed back to Alhambra, leaving me to do whatever for the next couple days until Wally and John arrived.

Above is a picture of me and the swamp out behind my house as I watch the car roll away. Amy told me to take an emo picture, I guess that's as emo as i get.

So shortly before they left I realized I had forgotten two things, my copy of CIV 2 and my cell phone charger. So that at least gave me something to do.....

......20 bucks though? smart one Brad.

While killing time I did a lot eating and drinking coffee. Here are some shots of things I had:

On Friday, I took a 1 hour cruise of the Santa Cruz section of the Monterey Bay. It was a really nice day out. (note: I was going to take the 3 hour cruise that included dolphin/whale watching but I overslept...hey don't judge me). We started at the Santa Cruz Wharf, and went around over to Seal Rock and then over to the Santa Cruz Marina, passed by the Beach Boardwalk and then back to the wharf. They had promised us otters, but they were no where to be seen.

So yes that was the first part of my trip. Tomorrow I will fill you all in about the remaining portion where I go to San Francisco and the trip home. Trust me its great. I mean how can you not have fun with people like this:

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I hate stupid people who call me at work for no reason other than to bitch...and when I don't give the answer they want to hear they bitch some more. Then they get angry, then they take it out on me personally, but when I say one snide remark back to them they get all in knots about it. Hey buddy lighten up, I gave you some good information, just take it and leave me alone

What to do?

Thank you once again to "New Wave Girl" for being the 1000th viewer to the blog. I will post on your topic when you give me a real one.



Anyway onto more pressing things. As many of you know I am leaving for vacation next Friday. I'm going up to Santa Cruz for a week and then to San Francisco for the weekend. This will be my first trip to Santa Cruz since 2004 and that small speeding ticket.



Lesson learned, don't go 108 mph.

Anyway I'm looking forward to leaving Southern California for a few days, but I am slightly concerned about a few things, actually 3 things: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. You see, my grandparents, mom and sister will be with me from August 11th - August 16, after that I'll have 3 days to kill before John and Wally's flight comes in and we go to SF for the Dodger game. My question to you my loyal readers is, what should I do to kill time in Santa Cruz. Mind you I have no internet, and very limited television. I am bringing up my laptop, but its 5 years old and is still running Microsoft ME, so I won't be doing a lot of hardcore gaming. I have however recently purchased Civilization II on eBay for 5 bucks, and found my copy of Star Wars Rebellion (a game me and Tim spent many pointless hours playing). Do you have any other older game suggestions for me?



I will also be trying to collect as many hippies as I can. Not by interacting with them as they smell bad and are crazy, but by taking pictures. What types of hippies should I be on the lookout for?


Anyway it should be a fun trip. My only contact will be through email/aim on my crackberry. I hope to come back with tons of funny pictures for all or your enjoyment.