Texas Two-Step

I got to Dallas around 4 PM on Saturday so I looked up “Costco” using my GPS and found one about 10 miles away in Ft. Worth. I filled gas, ate a Chicken Caesar salad and bought a 6-pack of white t-shirts. I was all out of clean shirts and I really needed to change. I got to the ballpark around 6 PM and immediately liked it when I saw it from the freeway. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere and looks really impressive standing alone. Here are some pictures of the exterior:


Ameriquest Field and the Prius' Rear End 


Ameriquest 

The stadium is built so that there is a large void between the stands and the outer walls where the concessions and souvenirs are sold. It’s different from other stadiums because the outer walls are more open and the void is very pretty. I tried to get a picture of the void but I don’t think I did it justice:


The Void 

The field itself was really nice, too. They had enough quirks to be unique but not so many that it felt weird. One of their sponsors is Ozark Drinking Water and every time a Rangers pitcher would get a strikeout, the “K” would flash red. They’re also sponsored bt Southwest Airlines and after the win, the “W” was flashing red. The home bullpen is elevated in right-center and the fans get a great view of who is warming up. Here are some pictures:


Centerfield 


Home Bullpen 


Baseball under the lights 

In center field they have a statue of Nolan Ryan and even though I knew his numbers I was still shocked to see them again: 27 seasons, 5700+ strikeouts in 5300 innings, 7 no-hitters and 25ish one-hitters. Insane:


Nolan 

The game was good and I got to see the Rangers closer, Francisco Cordero, blow a 3-run lead by giving up a 3-run homer to Tye Wigginton. He comes in to “Eye of the Tiger”, one of the worst choices for closer music ever. Rocky is what teams play when they need to rally, not when they need to hold a lead and stop a rally. Anyway, I got to see Michael Young hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth and we all danced to Cotton Eyed Joe.


Fireworks 

After the game I headed to Evin’s new apartment. She landed in the airport at 9 PM and we got to her apartment at about the same time. I helped her bring her luggage inside and met her roommate, Heather. Heather was all stressed out because she had been moving all weekend and I felt like a bit of a burden. I hate that feeling. Luckily, Heather couldn’t figure out how to set up the VCR and DVD players so I felt like I earned my place on the couch with my superior electronics knowledge. We were too tired to go out so we headed to the Conoco across the street, picked up some Shiner Bock beer and drank in her apartment until going to bed around 2 AM.

In the morning we went to brunch at a restaurant called Chuy’s. I’m almost positive that this was a different Chuy’s than the one in Van Horn but I could be wrong. I think that Chuy is just a popular name. Anyway, I had a breakfast burrito that was advertised as “Big as yo’ Face!” but I knew they couldn’t possibly make one as big as my face. Here’s a picture of the smaller than my face burrito:


Breakfast Burrito in Dallas 

After breakfast we went bed shopping for Evin. I had no clue that mattress salesmen were such a slimy group. They’re almost as bad as used-car salesmen or telemarketers. *Shudder* Luckily there were 3 places on the same corner and Evin used them against each other, getting the last place to give her a sweet bed at a good price and throw in a bed frame for free. We ran a few more errands then went back to her place where the girls put the finishing touches on unpacking and straightening up. I left around 7 PM and headed to American Airlines Center for the Mavs game. The game started at 8:30 and was a lot of fun. The crowd was electric and they expect big things this year from Dirk and the boys. Here are a few pics from the game:


Just before tip-off 


Chili Cheese Dog and Beer 


Sponsored by...... 

I spent the night at their apartment again and left at 8 AM on Monday morning. The drive from Dallas to Houston is only 4 hours long and it felt like cake. After driving through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for 10 hours on Friday I think I can drive anywhere. I got to Houston around noon and drove straight to the stadium looking for hotels. I couldn’t find any so I pulled out my laptop, stole a wireless signal from the baseball stadium and found a good deal on the Sheraton in West Houston. The Sheraton is definitely the nicest hotel that I’ll ever stay at on this trip. It feels good every once in a while to see a valet and bellmen and whatnot. I spent a few hours tooling around on the internet and left for the game at 5 PM. Traffic was surprisingly light and I made it across town without much trouble. The street parking was really confusing so I decided to pay $5 and park in a lot about 4 blocks away. Minute Maid is pretty nice but I think it has a few too many crazy quirks. The center-field fence is 436 feet away from home plate and there’s a hill leading up to it and a flagpole on the hill. A flagpole in play? Also, there’s a point in left field where a short porch abruptly juts out and the fence goes from like 340’ to 365’. The game featured some nice defensive plays from the Astro outfielders and Andy Pettitte actually took a no-hitter into the 7th inning. Ultimately I got to see my 2nd blown save in a row as Brad Lidge game up a 9th inning grand slam to Nomar Garciaparra and the Astros blew their 2-1 lead, losing 6-2. Here are the random Minute Maid pictures:


Left Field 


Left Field Gate 


Brat and Beer 


The ridiculous hill in center field. 436' in center. 


The ridiculous Left-Field boxes 

After the game I was really hungry so I hit ate at the steak place here at the Sheraton. Rib-eye never disappoints:


Rib-Eye 

Tomorrow I’m driving to Enterprise, Alabama to see Cliff. It’s about 10 hours away and I need to get my butt to bed. Sorry if the entry feels rushed but it’s 4 AM over here. I’ll get a few updates in from Alabama. Until then, close your eyes, and picture me rollin’.

Still in the Big D

I'm at American Airlines Arena for game 1 of the Mavericks-Grizzlies playoff series. I came down here, not sure what too expect ticketwise. Everyone that I talked to yesterday was ridiculously amped about the Mavs and I thought it might be difficult to get a ticket. When I got down here I found scalpers everywhere and I knew it would be a buyer's market. I ended up buying a $12 ticket for $10 after turning down a $53 seat for $30. There really aren't any bad seats in basketball and unless I'm courtside I could care less where I sit. Tip-off is in 10 minutes or so.

Last night I stayed with my friend Evin and her roommate, Heather. Evin literally moved down here yesterday so they don't have wireless internet set up in their apartment and I can't steal it from anyone. I'm sleeping there tonight but tomorrow I'll be in Houston and I'll make sure that my hotel has wifi so I can post a recap of my time in Dallas. I must say, I like it here and I wouldn't mind coming back again soon.

Until tomorrow, Go Mavs!!!.

Texassss

I made it to Arlington safely. They have a gorgeous stadium here and I like it a lot. Tonight is Girl Scout night, score!

Madden News

Shawn Alexander is on the cover of Madden 2007. Is anyone scared? More on Mr. Madden later in this post.

On Thursday, we ended up staying at the Bellagio for drunken $4/8 hold ‘em. Definitely not as cool as $2/4 HORSE but the tequila was flowing and I had my first hard alcohol of 2006. I definitely drank too much and I’m pretty sure that I like beer better than hard A. In fact, I’m seriously considering giving it up for good after Memorial Day weekend. I’d give it up before that if I could but my friends would never let me. Without fail, drinking alcohol puts me into “Superman” mode where I think I can drink any amount of liquor and I can’t be stopped.. Throw in my competitive one-upping nature and you consistently get a big, binge-drinking Asian if hard A is on the menu. At any rate, I’m 95% sure that I’m going to stick to beer after Memorial Day.

I ended up going to bed at around 6:30 AM and didn’t get on the road until around 2:45 on Friday afternoon. Traffic was god-awful through Vegas so I was even further behind schedule and ended up getting to the Diamondbacks-Giants game in the 3rd inning, with the score already 6-0 Giants. The Diamondbacks rallied to tie the game at 6 then blew it in the top of the ninth. I must say that the NL West is pretty bad. I saw some ugly baseball in most of the NL West games that I watched and I don’t expect any of those teams to do anything, The Giants did improve to 3-0 in games with me in attendance and Tim Worrell is 1-0 with 2 saves despite blowing the save on Thursday. I was definitely underwhelmed by Bank One Ballpark Chase Field. I was really excited to see it because I’ve heard great things about it but it didn’t live up to the hype. They tried to make it feel like a retro-park but they failed miserably. It felt like a cross between Safeco and the Kingdome. It had the green metal sticking out here and there but it felt like a cavernous concrete monstrosity. The 300 level has at least 50 rows and there is no view of the outside. At SBC PacBell AT&T Park they have the opening to McCovey’s Cove in right field and a view of a bridge (Bay Bridge?) in left. At Safeco there’s a sweet view of downtown in left field. At Chase all you can see are seats and walls. It seriously felt like the Kingdome and I don’t mean in the good nostalgic way.

BTW, I guess “underwhelmed” isn’t a word since Word has it underlined in red. It suggests “under whelmed” but is that really correct? Should I say “unimpressed” instead? “Unimpressed” doesn’t really convey the idea of being let down. Anyway, here are some pictures:


The Prius poses in front of a scenic viewpoint 


Look at that 300 level. Kingdome, anyone? 


View of Center Field 


View from Center Field 

I felt like it was time that the Prius got some face time. It’s been running great and I think I’m falling in love with her. I still feel bad that Sky didn’t get to borrow her but I guess he had to get a car at some point. I’m not sure if he has one yet so if anyone in Seattle happens to have an extra one of those, please hook him up.

This morning (well, yesterday morning I guess) Jimmy called me at 8:30 in the morning. While it was good to hear from him, I’d appreciate it if all calls came in later than noon. He was in Vegas one day after I left and we discussed the possibility of him meeting me and Dave in Chicago and me staying with him in Kansas City. I definitely don’t talk to Jimmy enough and I’m looking forward to seeing him next month.

The one positive that came from the early wake-up call is that I got on the road earlier than expected and I was able to drive further than I thought I would. At 9 AM I hit the Days Inn continental breakfast and again was severely “underwhelmed”. No pastries, no meat, no waffles. They had a loaf of bread, margarine and hard-boiled eggs. That’s it. I ate two hard-boiled eggs and a piece of bread and vowed to never stay at the Days Inn again. Today was a good day of driving and I made it all the way to Midland, TX, driving 736 miles in about 10 hours. I never felt tired and felt like I might be able to drive more if I wanted. I decided to stop in Midland and watch the M’s game on my computer. Yuck is all I have to say. I want to talk about the Mariners but I’ll wait for another day, when it’s not 2:40 AM.

The highlight of today was definitely dinner. I started to get hungry in the middle of nowhere so I asked my GPS for directions to the closest restaurant and it directed me to a restaurant called “Chuy’s Place” in a town called Van Horn about 20 minutes away. As I got off the freeway I saw a big billboard that said “Chuy’s Place: John Madden’s ‘Haul’ of Fame”. Well if you ever want me to go to a restaurant, tell me John Madden liked it and I’m there in a heartbeat. Apparently, Madden was driving through Texas in ’89 or something and wanted to watch the MNF game so he stopped at Chuy’s for dinner. He liked the place so much that he returns every year for their Chicken Picado. Picado is a fajita-like dish and obviously that’s what I had, even though it was like $3 more than anything else on the menu. It was definitely the bomb:


Yum Yum 

The way they describe the story on their menu, they see Madden coming as an act of god, sending Madden to Chuy’s so that he could spread the word about how good their food is. I found it pretty funny, especially after seeing the mural on the wall:


The Mural 

It’s a picture of Jesus blessing Chuy’s restaurant as the Madden Cruiser pulls up. Nothing short of awesome if you ask me. They had a director chair with Madden’s name on it and it was positioned right in front of the TV. I almost asked to sit in it but then I saw that instead of a game or Sportscenter they had the TV tuned to Fox News and the O’Reilly Factor. Ah, Texas. I decided to sit in the back, facing the Madden/Jesus mural.

I think that’s all for now. I only have ~320 miles to drive tomorrow so I should make it to Arlington in about 4 hours. I’m going to the game tomorrow night then hanging out with my friend, Evin, after the game and all day Sunday. The Mavericks are in town, playing Memphis and I might try to scalp a ticket for the NBA Playoffs. I’d love to see Mr. Cuban go crazy and watch Mr. Gasol and Mr. Nowitzki do what they do. Have a nice weekend, everyone.

Back by Popular Demand

I've never had so many requests for a new blog entry in the history of my blog. I guess a lot of people like baseball.

I left my apartment in San Diego last Thursday and drove up to Seal Beach to hang out with my friends, Amanda and Matthew. They're into skim-boarding so we headed to the beach and tried it out. I spent most of the time falling on my ass but I had a great time. We tried to get a good action shot but they were too embarassing so here's an artistic one that makes it look like I might know what I'm doing:


Skim-Boarding 

After skim-boarding we hit a local burrito stand then went back to their apartment to watch Cool Hand Luke and drink beer. I thought the movie was well done but ran a little too long. There were some heavy religous messages and I got the feeling that Luke was supposed to be a Christ-like character. I thought it was definitely worth watching and I recommend it to anyone. There's a line he says, after bluffing in a poker hand, that goes, "sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand." It's now my dream to utter those words during a televised poker tournament.

On Friday morning I headed up to L.A. to pick up the Dodgers tickets from my friend Chris. He works for Ticketmaster and was able to score me 3 tickets to their suite. I took him out for lunch at a cheap Thai place and we were both happy. I had about 5 hours before gametime so I got a haircut and ate a Beef Bowl from Yoshinoya. Beef bowls come highly recommended:


Yoshinoya Beef Bowl 

It rained all day and I was worried that the game might be rained out. On the way to the parking lot the rain stopped for a bit and gave us a sweet rainbow over Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately, the traffic was thick and I couldn't find the pot of gold.


Rainbow 

Once I got to the stadium, I left 2 tickets at will call for my ex-roommate Kele and our friend, Bill, who were driving up from Carlsbad. Once inside, the suite was everything that I hoped for. The view was fantastic, they brought food to you, AND it was dry. I sat outside for a while and watched the grounds crew unroll and re-roll the tarp three different times. It looked like it was a pain in the arse but they were pretty efficient and definitely very professional:


Tarp 

The game was scheduled to start at 7:40 but the first pitch was at 9:37. There weren't a ton of people left in the stands but the few remaining let loose some great "Bonds Sucks" chants. He got one good swing on a ball and the left fielder ran it down on the warning track. I love nothing more than watching Barry hit a ball hard, start his little homerun strut, then watch the ball get caught at the warning track. It looks like he really misses his juice, the poor guy. It ended up being a great game that the Giants won 2-1. Kele isn't a baseball fan and was bored as hell but I love pitchers' duels. Here's a picture of the game from our suite. God, I love baseball:


I love Baseball 

I definitely tried to take more pictures this time around and did my best crazy Japanese tourist impersonation. Actually, I am a tourist, I am Japanese and I'm a little crazy so I guess I was made for the role. Here are a few more random shots from the game:


Dodger Dog and a Beer 


Bullpen Car 

The game was pretty quick and ended around 12:10. I wanted to stay in L.A. but my L.A. friends weren't answering their phones so I decided to drive directly to Vegas. I called my friend John and told him that I'd be showing up around 4:30 AM. With most people, in most cities, I would feel bad but it's perfectly acceptable in Vegas.

Over the past few days I've watched a lot of poker on TV and played a bit of poker at the Bellagio. The first day I played in a great $5/10 NL game and lost about $1K. I think the definition of a "good game" is one you get stuck at least a rack. Last night I played in a $40/80 mixed game. The rotation was stud hi-low regular, Omaha/8, and 2-7 triple draw. I have no clue how to play the stud game, suck at O/8 and feel like I'm pretty good at triple draw. I sat with Carl and Justin and we had a ball, discussing the nuances of each game and trying to get better. It's funny because even though the rest of the players were locals and play in the game all the time they played so bad at certain games that I think we had to be +EV as a whole. I was probably a loser in the game but the educational opportunity made it worth my time. Carl played really well but the locals definitely thought he was a lucky fish. When he cashed out, one guy offered to pay his rake if he stayed and another guy asked him if he ever lost a pot in his life. Those are some of the highest compliments you can get from weak nits and I was pretty jealous. I cashed out up exactly $100 and had a great time. I'd much rather lose $5K playing that game than grind it out at a $30/60 hold 'em game. I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy but I'm also lazy when my brain isn't challenged. I think learning new games is a good way to get my mind thinking about poker again and I'm definitely going to try to get better at all forms. The local nits played a pretty good O/8 game but were horrible at 2-7 and stud hi-low regular. If I could get competent at O/8 and stud I think I could crush that game. I'll definitely give it another whirl next time I'm in town.

Tonight we're going to go get loaded and play some donkey poker at the MGM. We're going to try to get them to spread a $2/4 HORSE game for us and they've been very accomodating in the past. I'm leaving tomorrow morning for the Diamondbacks-Giants game. I doubt the boos will be as loud as they were at Dodger Stadium but it should sill be fun. I wonder how many warning track bombs Barry will hit.

I want to give a shout out to my friend, Steve Day, for winning $88K in the big Sunday tourney on Stars. Congrats, Steve!

Dodger Stadium

I'm at Dodger Stadium for game 6 of the road trip, blogging on my Treo. My friend, Chris, hooked me up with suite tickets so I'm in the lap of luxury tonight. It's raining intermittently but I think they're going to get the game in. The Dodgers were my favorite team during the 12 years that I lived on Kauai because they were my Grandpa's favorite. He even took me to two games in the mid-90's during they heyday of Piazza and Karros. The stadium is just as beautiful as I remember it and my seats are much better. This is the second time that I get to see one of my fantasy pitchers start a game. Jake Peavy gave up 7 earned in 4 innings the first time, so let's hope Brad Penny does a little better. He's facing the hated Giants and their left fielder, He Who Must Not Be Named. I'll definitely have my booing shoes on. The game starts at 7:40 and I'll try to write about it in a timely manner. Go Dodgers!!!

I'm Alive

Wow, what a first week: 5 stadiums down, 25 to go. Dave flew home from San Diego on Sunday night, and I'm really going to miss having him with me. I don't know if I could have made it last week, being so sick and having to drive so much. It's been a lot harder than I thought it would be and I really appreciated having someone to help me. Hopefully things will be easier from now on and I won't get as sick again. I’ve spent the last few days sleeping a lot and watching a lot of baseball. I bought the MLB.tv package and I can watch every single MLB game over the Internet. It costs $15 per month and I’m going to have it for the 2 moths of road trippin’. I got to watch Felix last Friday and I got to watch a nice M’s win today. I also get to watch all my fantasy pitchers when they’re in games and I can decide who to keep and who to cut based on personal observation. It’s really awesome.


Safeco 

Monday, of course, was the Mariners' opener. I didn't write much about Safeco because it's my home park and I didn't really think about it. I can say with confidence that Safeco is one of the top two stadiums in the league. The fans aren’t the greatest but the stadium is absolutely gorgeous. I really like the fact that you can walk around the entire field and still see the game at all times. The bullpen is fully accessible to fans and you can watch you favorite relievers warm up while standing about 5 feet away. The stadium is built right next to the Seattle Amtrak station so trains cruise by and blow their horns a few times each game. I think it’s kinda cool. Lastly, Safeco has a retractable roof so we never have rainouts. I like it a lot.

At the game on Monday I bought garlic fries and requested extra garlic. “I don’t want to see any fries” is what I told the lady behind the counter. Well, as you can see, she definitely hooked it up:


Extra Garlic 

I generally like a little less than that but I made my own bed so I had to sleep in it. The fries were still delicious.

After the game I shopped around for minivans a bit more but never found one that I really liked. Now, on the trip, I get extreme minivan envy whenever I pass by a Honda Odyssey on the road. The Prius gets about 2x as much MPG so although I’m in a smaller car, I’m saving more money. On Tuesday, I picked Dave up from work around 1 PM and we hit the road. The opening stretch was exciting because I was finally getting the road trip underway but boring because I’ve driven that stretch of I-5 so many frikkin times. I was really excited when we got onto Highway 199 at Grant’s Pass, Oregon, and headed West toward the Redwoods. Sadly, it was 8 PM already and I didn’t get to enjoy the windy roads and tall trees. Honestly, it was pretty damn scary and I drove really slowly the whole time. We got to Crescent City around 9 PM and check-in time at the hostel ended at 10 PM. We decided to stop at Burger King for dinner and I had a chicken tender sandwich with more mayo than any sandwich I’ve ever had. It was pretty disgusting but I was starving and slammed it down. We got to the hostel right around 10 PM and got our room. The hostel is right on the coast and cost $20 per bed. They had a “private room” for couples with just one double bed for $49 but Dave and I passed. We were both tired and I was starting to feel pretty sick so we crashed pretty early.

Most people that know me won’t believe this but Dave and I woke up on Wednesday at 7 AM. 7 AM!!! There was a loop trail that started and ended at the hostel so we took that to wake us up.


Hiking 

It ended up being about 4 miles long and wound through the forest and onto the beach. It was pretty overcast but never really rained on us. The views were pretty nice and we even saw a banana slug:


Banana Slug 

Right as the hike doubled back toward the hostel we saw a Paul Bunyan so I took a picture with him. Check out Babe's massive testicles:


Paul Bunyan and Me 

After the hike we started the drive down to Oakland. I decided to take a detour and we drove on a 10 mile road that was parallel to the 101 but took you through the Redwoods at a slower pace. We oohed and aahed at the big trees then saw a sign that simply said “Big Tree (”. We couldn’t pass that up so we pulled over, found “Big Tree” and took some pictures.


Big Tree 

After the detour we pretty much drove straight to Oakland. We were craving a lunch buffet so we looked up Round Table Pizza on the Magellan GPS and after a few slip-ups found one on our way. I don’t know if it was just this Round Table but it was like $9 for the salad bar and a pop so we decided to split a $20 pepperoni and bacon pizza. It was the most expensive Round Table we’d ever encountered and we both swore never to return to that city again. I don’t even remember the name so I might accidentally go there someday. We got into Oakland around 5:30 and parked in the Network Associates McAfee Coliseum parking lot. We remembered the stadium as Network Associates and it was programmed in the GPS as Network Associates so we were both one year off. When I search for directions to stadiums I’m going to have to remember last year’s names. It might prove to be difficult. Anyway, the lot cost $14, which we thought was cheap compared to Seattle, and there were a ton of people tailgating. It looked like a fun crowd but I wanted to head into the game. We bought $10 seats because they were the cheapest offered for the Yankee series and ended up wandering around for most of the game. In Oakland, they covered the entire upper deck with tarps and decreased the capacity to 35,000 or so, making them the smallest stadium in baseball. I think it definitely was a good idea because they were selling less than 20,000 tickets anyway and it definitely feels more special when the stadium is at least half-full. The crowd was half-Yankee fans and half-A’s fans so there was a lot of good trash talk and if you heard a cheer while walking through the concourse you couldn’t tell which team did something good. I must say that the A’s fans were definitely loud and rowdy and I was treated to one of the best “YANKEES SUCK” chants that I’ve ever heard. The A’s run a promotion called “Dollar Dog Wednesdays” and they were selling hot dogs for $1. I was planning on trying something unique at every park but I couldn’t pass up on dollar dogs. McAfee Coliseum had the greatest selection of beers I’ve ever seen, from Sierra Nevada to Mendicino Brewery. It was awesome. They also have Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo booths. Maybe that explains the rowdiness of the crowd. We were treated to a good game and the A’s won, breaking a 4-4 tie with 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th.


A's-Yankees 

After the game we drove to my Dad’s house. He lives about 20 minutes south of San Francisco in a city called Foster City and was nice enough to let us use his room while he was out of town. We found tickets on Craigslist to the Giant’s game on Thursday and arranged to pick them up in the city at 9 AM. At this point, my sickness was full blown and I was congested as hell and getting the fever chills at night. I tried to cuddle with Dave but he would have none of it. We ended up getting a good amount of sleep but I still felt like crap. We got to the guy’s house at about 9:15, bought the tickets, and boarded the N-line train which ran right by his house and ran right to the stadium. We got off the train at the Embarcadero stop and decided to walk up to fisherman’s wharf and check out the seals and other touristy things. After about 20 minutes we realized that we didn’t really have time to walk all the way up there and get back to the stadium so we turned around and headed back toward SBC Pac Bell AT&T Park. On the way we stopped at Safeway and shared a lunch of chicken strips and jojos. We also picked up some sour straws and apples to eat later. So much for eating healthy on the trip. We got to the stadium around 11:30 or noon and walked around the entire thing. A few kayak guys were already in McCovey Cove and there was excitement in the air. This was the Giant’s home opener and all the yuppies came out. I have to say that AT&T is right up there with Safeco and I might be persuaded that it is the best park in baseball. It’s pretty like Safeco and quirky like Safeco but it has so many extra things that Safeco doesn’t have. In left field there’s a big coke bottle that they converted into a slide for kids and somehow it didn’t seem overly cheesy. In right field there’s an open area, under the stands, where fans can watch the game for free through a chain-link fence. The fact that the stadium is RIGHT on the water is pretty cool and the kayakers definitely add a lot to the experience. Our seats were pretty good and we again saw another good game. The Giants rallied from 4 down to win 6-4. Barry was intentionally walked twice and the crowd booed and waved rubber chickens like terrible towels. It was pretty entertaining.

Afterward we were planning on hanging out for a while but we were too tired and caught the N-line back to the car. Dave convinced me to go to Lombard Street and drive down the super windy road so I obliged but that was the extent of our touristy experience in San Fran. We got back to my dad’s place around 7 PM and decided to drive to LA that night. The original plan was to spend one more night in Foster City and drive in the morning but because of traffic concerns we decided to hit the road at night. I was exhausted and couldn’t really think straight but I drove about 30 minutes before we stopped at Applebee’s to watch the M’s-A’s game that was in Seattle that night. The M’s won and leapt into first place at 3-1. I had the riblets and they gave me so many that Dave had to help me finish. That never happens. We were both scared by my driving from my Dad’s to the restaurant so Dave drove the first 2 hours toward L.A. He woke me up around midnight and I felt 8 million times better so I drove the rest of the way. We got to Chris’ apartment at 3 AM and he was still up, working on his taxes. Apparently he stayed up until 5:30 AM and went to work at 8:30 the next day. Ridiculous. Anyway, we crashed HARD that night and apparently I snored my brains out. Good times for all involved. At noon I had to move my car because of street sweeping so I stumbled out and found a spot that I thought was legal. At 1:30 we went for some teriyaki and I had a $45 ticket on the Prius. I parked on the end of a block and there were signs up and down the block but not on this particular strip. There were 3 other cars there, too, and we all got tickets. I think I’m going to try to contest this one. After teriyaki I parked at a meter on Wilshire until 3 PM when the street parking opened back up. At 3 I went to get my car and had left the lights on so the battery was dead. I called my friend Mariel but she was getting a manicure/pedicure and couldn’t meet me until 4 PM. I called some other friends but she was the only one with jumper cables so I met her at 4. We drove out to Wilshire and got my car jumped right before a meter maid gave me another ticket. Apparently they tow all cars there at 4 PM because of the rush hour traffic. Whew.

Friday night we headed down to Huntington Beach to meet some other friends and hit the bars. I still felt like ass so I only had 2 or 3 beers and acted as DD. The bar was quite the sausage fest and there was a huge line for the guy’s bathroom and no line for the women’s. Never a good sign. We got home around 2 AM and watched Anchorman until about 3:30. Dave is a working man so he got up at 8 AM and had to wait for everyone else to get up. They headed to Wendy’s for lunch but I refused to go and slept in until around 1:30. It definitely felt good to rest. I would have slept later but Dave and company decided it was time to wake up and called my phone repeatedly until I answered. I met them around 2:30 and we headed to Huntington Beach. It’s a pretty nice beach and they have 10-12 volleyball nets set up and five of us played a game on one of them. If you know me, you can probably imagine what a horrific beach volleyball player I am and we definitely stunk up the joint. We hit this Asian lady on the other court in the head a few times and she finally moved to the other side. The professional chicks two courts over doubled over in laughter on more than one occasion. Oh well. My chest felt like it was going to collapse and I was having fun. We quit after an hour or so and my body was pretty sore from diving on the sand.

Saturday night was the Angels-Yankees game so Dave and I left Adam’s around 5:30 and got to Angels Stadium around 6. Traffic was light and the parking lot was only $8. Score! Again, our tickets weren’t bad, on the 3rd deck, 3rd base extended and not too high up. A few people commented on my Johjima jersey but no one really talked too much crap. I think the Mariners are so bad now that no one yells, “Mariners Suck!” because it’s just too mean. I didn’t really like the stadium that much but they put together some killer video montages. Before the game they ran every Angels highlight in franchise history with “Calling all Angels” in the background and I almost got goosebumps watching highlights of a team that I despise. I didn’t realize that the Angels had so many highlights over the years. For some reason the 1995 season wasn’t on the montage. Muahahahaha. AGAIN, we saw a good game that the Angels won 3-2. So far on the trip, we had seen two Angels wins, two Yankees losses and two saves from K-Rod. After the game we headed to Newport Beach and a bar called Malarkey’s and it was a lot better than the bar in Huntington. There were a ton of hot women and the bar was huge. They played some old rap music and we had fun. Again, I only had 2 beers and aced as DD because I felt like crap. Here’s a pic from the place:


Newport Beach 

After the bar we drove to my old apartment in Carlsbad, about 30 minutes north of San Diego. We got in around 2:30 and crashed. I let Dave have the love sack and I slept on the couch. My old roommate has one of the huge love sacks and it’s wicked comfortable to sleep on. Dave owes me.
Sunday morning, we showered and headed down to the game. Petco is my second home park since I lived down here last summer so we found free street parking and walked to the game. The cheapest tickets they had were $12 and we sat in almost the same spot as we did in Angels Stadium. It was Mexican Opening Day so they sang the Mexican National Anthem before the game and introduced both line-ups in Spanish and English. It was pretty weird. I think Petco is really nice but it really doesn’t compare to Safeco or AT&T. They have a cool beach area in right-center and they sell a “Park Pass” for $5 where you sit on a grassy hill and watch the game on a big screen as their main quirky attractions. It’s nice and retro-new but a pretty high bar has been set and they weren’t quite there. We finally saw a crappy game as the Rockies pounded the Padres 10-4. I have Jake Peavy on my fantasy team and he gave up 8 runs in 4 innings so I was doubly pissed. After the game we went to Hooters in Mission Valley because one of Dave’s friends from high school works there. She wasn’t working but our waitress was Shavonda from Real World: Philadelphia. I had no clue who she was but Dave freaked out and had no one to share it with. It reminded me of the time I saw Peter North in Huntington and everyone thought I was weird for getting excited. I had a pretty good BBQ Beef sandwich and we headed to Dave & Buster’s. Dave has a dog named Buster so he bought some t-shirts for himself and his wife. It actually looked like a cool place, like an adult Funtasia, but Dave and I are both too cheap to pay money for those kinds of games. I took him to the airport around 7 PM and drove back to the apartment. We watched the Sopranos at 9 PM and I crashed early.

The past few days I’ve been sleeping and watching baseball. I feel a lot better and now I’m just hacking up phlegm and blowing my nose a lot. The dizziness is gone and the congestion will be gone soon. I think I’m going to see some friends in Seal Beach tomorrow and I’m headed to the Dodger’s game on Friday night. This weekend I’m going to Vegas and I’ll be there for about 5 days before heading to Phoenix. I’ll try to post more often so I don’t need to drop a mega-rambling nonsensical post on everyone next time. I also didn’t take any cool pictures because I wasn’t exactly in an inspired state so I’ll try to fix that for future games and future travels. Bless you if you made it this far. Go Mariners!!

Game 4

Sorry for the lack of updates. We've been pretty busy and I've gotten as sick as I've been in the last five years. What timing, what a bad beat. When we aren't driving or watching games, I'm trying to get sleep and drink fluids. Hopefully the congestion and lightheadedness will go away soon.

Right now we're in Angels Stadium for a Yankees-Angels game. We were hoping for Randy vs Bartolo but sadly the Angels are running Ervin Santana out there. At least I'll still get to boo Randy.

I'll get a full recap up soon, I promise. Right now I can hardly think so it's difficult to write anything of substance. Later.

Game 2!

Just arrived in beautiful Oakland, CA and drove directly to the beautiful McAfee Coliseum. It looks like an ungodly concrete monstrosity from the outside but it's actually not terrible once you're inside. I think that covering the upper bowl was a stroke of genius. This morning we hiked a bit in Redwood National Forest and along the coast. I'll write more about everything tonight, once I can use my laptop.

They have the M's game on TV right now and we're clinging to a 5-4 lead. I got to watch Mateo give up a 2-run bomb the minute I got here. Nice to see that they got a win last night, let's hope they hold on here. Later.

Mariners and Safeco

"1st inning highlights: Vlady hits a dinger off of Moyer for the 6495619th time and Colon strikes out the side. Your 2006 Seattle Mariners!

signs of life. Colon is on tilt. Moyer's pumped up. I heard this Johjima kid was good. I'll take an oppo dong and a nice assist as a pretty good MLB debut. And the game's not over....."

Those were the Treo updates from the game. Sadly this will be the only Mariners' game on my roadtrip. I had a lot of fun, even in defeat. The Mariners could be good in a few years, it all depends on how Future(Felix) holds up and whether Reed can ever learn to hit. I don't need a ton of production from my middle infield but I can't live with .250, 10 dingers and 50 Ribbies from an outfield spot, no matter how well he plays in center. Johjima looked real good, making a heady assist at 2nd and stroking a bomb the other way. My favorite moment though was when he battled Colon, fouling off pitch after pitch until Bartolo ended up hitting him to load the bases with none out and chasing lst year's Cy Young winner. It was a real, quality, MLB at-bat. It's just too bad that the Angels' bullpen is unbelievably sick and they slammed the door on us. God I'd love to trot Romero, Shields and K-Rod out there in the late innings. The only question in my head about Johjima is that it looked like the ump was squeezing Putz on the Figgins at-bat and that may be because of poor framing by Kenji? I hope someone reading this can chime in on that since I didn't have the greatest view from deep in left field. All told, it was better than getting our butts kicked but effectively showed us why we aren't in the Angels' class. It's definitely weird rooting to finish .500 but it's nice that we're doing it with youth and there's some hope for the future. Go M's!

I'm hoping to start the trip tomorrow but I don't have the van yet. I'm a little leery about buying it from a used car dealership on Highway 99 that has signs all over stating, "No Credito? No Hay Problema!" The van they have definitely feels like it might be stolen. I ran a carfax report and it came up clean but who knows. Buying a used car is so scary, especially when you have to immediately take the car on a 11,000 mile roadtrip. Bleh. I'm going u tomorrow to take one last look but the worst case scenario will be that I take my Prius. I feel badly for Kenny "Bones" because I told him he could borrow the car for the time I was on the roadtrip. Bones is coming up with me tomorrow to look at the van and help me drive it back down here if I decide that I want it. God I'm such a procrastinator.

I'm off to bed. Hopefully I'll be at Redwood National Park by this time tomorrow, in a used minivan.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Well I had chips in 2 out of 3 tournies today and managed a 12th place finish in the Paradise $200 rebuy and a 151st place finish in the Stars $1 million guaranteed. The day was good for a $3K profit, nothing to scoff at but nothing to get too excited about. Here are 2 fun hands from Dise:

Blinds have just gone up to 10K/20K and we're on a pay-bubble with 16 left, 15th will get $680 more than 16th. I have 193K in the CO and the button has 52K, SB has 149K and the Big blind has 93K. I'm usually going to jam any 2 here but I've been wondering if it's a mistake when they're like life support low. Usually my FE is huge if there's a smaller stack at the table but in this case, the button was the short stack. Anyway, I push 3h5h and the button calls all in with KsQs. The flop is Kd6c4h giving me an open-ender but the turn is the Jh and the river is the 9h giving me a beautiful backdoor flush. I started to think that this was going to be my day.

The second hand occurs just 7 hands later, we're 12-handed and I'm on the button with 280K after stealing a few blinds. MP with 192K pushes for the second straight hand and I repush with AQo. I type to my friend Damon, "AJ pls" and don't realize that the BB, with 276K total chips calls my overpush with KK. The original pusher does indeed have AJ and we flop an Ace, only to lose to a rivered King. The pot had over 700K chips in it and I would have been chipleader by about 200K with 10 left. Oy. I have 4K chips left and call all in on the next hand after posting my 1K ante. I had Q3 and I'm wondering if I can wait any longer. It seems like once the ante is 25% of your stack you should just put your chips in the middle. I know I got it in with 2 outs but it's still painful to lose to a rivered set. 3K for 12th is nice but 84K for 1st just sounds so much sweeter.

This weekend we celebrated Renee's birthday for the third time. Why do girls get a birthday week? We went to our friend CJ's house to play poker and I decided to push on every hand. The very first hand I got AT and got it in against AhJh. We flopped ATx with 2 hearts but a T on the turn meant he was drawing dead. Everyone was super pissed and started complaining about my pushing every hand technique so I decided to abort that mission. I limp in the very next hand with Ah3h and flop the nut flush against a set of 5s and a set of Js. Renee pushed and I overpushed and convinced the girl with the set of Jacks to fold. They play tournament style with rebuys for the first two levels and Renee and I found ourselves heads up at the end. She wanted to chop but I was ruthless and took home the $110 for first place. Muahahahahaha.

After the poker we went to Pesos and I consumed a lot of beer. Last night Duane, EJ, Davis and I went to see Thursday at a small venue called "El Corazon". The concert was awesome and I consumed a lot of beer. Renee and Erica came to meet us at Joey's after the concert and they were nice enough to give my drunk ass a ride home. I had a wicked hangover today and had horrible beershits during the big poker tournies. Believe me, it's not fun.

Tomorrow is a really busy day. I have to take the Prius in to the Toyota dealership because they have a recall on the 2003s, something about having to check the battery connections. I'm dropping the car off at 7:15 AM then using Renee's car to drive to a few dealerships in my final attempts to buy a stupid minivan. I have to get everything done by noon because we're going down to Mariner's Opening Day which starts at 2 PM. Hopefully the sun will be out and I can consume a lot of beer. After the M's game is the NCAA Championship. I'm not sure where I'll watch the game but odds are, I'll consume a lot of beer. Finally, Taking Back Sunday is performing at the Showbox tomorrow night but I think I might have to skip the show. I'm leaving for 2 months on Tuesday and it would be nice to have some clean laundry and some kind of plan. I can't believe the roadtrip is finally here. I'm insanely amped for baseball and can't wait to see the States. I'm going to try to hit up as many National Parks and historical sites as possible, starting with Redwood National Park on the way fro Seattle to San Fran. Please please please can I have the discipline to post here every day during this trip. If I were a betting man, and I am, I'd say odds are pretty long that I'll have a post up daily.

Talk to you tomorrow. Will I have a new minivan? Will I consume a lot of beers? Tune in tomorrow to find out, right here on the Life of Brandon.

Gooooooo Carl

I forgot to put this in my post yesterday but Carl was 13th in chips with 27 left in the Reno WPT event. The winner of this event gets just over one million dollars. There are now only 20 left and he's somewhere in the middle of the pack. Barry Greenstein is a frikkin cardrack and he's knocking people out left and right but Carl is surviving so far. If he makes the final 6 I think I'm going to fly to Reno to watch the taping of the final table. My favorite sites for updates are PokerWire and Cardplayer.

GOOOOOOO CARL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE------1 PM:

From Cardplayer:
"Barry Greenstein raises to $25,000 preflop and both Jason Stern and Carl Olson call. The flop comes Kh-10d-4s and Olson checks. Greenstein bets $50,000 and Stern folds. Olson moves all in and Greenstein calls. Greenstein shows Ks-9s and Olson has Ad-Jd. Olson catches his gutshot straight on the turn in the form of the Qh. The river is the 8d and Carl "colson10" Olson doubles up."

He's so good it's scary. Hahahaha.

New chipcount:

Place Poker Player Chip Count
1 Barry Greenstein $ 1,140,000
2 Tom Schneider $ 600,000
3 Carl Olson $ 530,000
4 Burt Boutin $ 360,000


UPDATE------------1:50 PM

15 left, Cardplayer says that Carl has $430K and is in 6th place but he called during the break and told me $330K which would also be good for 6th place right now. Something tells me that Cardplayer is wrong but let's hope he forgot about a 100K stack somewhere.

UPDATE------------2:35 PM

PokerWire has Carl in 9th place out of 14 left. He has 260K chips with blinds at 6/12K. Plenty of time to find a hand and suck out on Barry. Thanks Sarah and Daliman for the comments. Gooooooooooooo Carl!

UPDATE------------2:36 PM

Whoops. Now he's 14/14 with 139K chips. Still enough time to suck out on barryg1.

UPDATE------------3 PM

Barry is gross. Must really be painful sitting at that table. Here are the updated chipcounts from Pokerwire:

Place Poker Player Chip Count
1 Barry Greenstein $ 1,400,000
2 Kevin Song $ 770,000
3 Jonas Norrman $ 530,000
4 Tom Schneider $ 510,000
5 Gary Jacobi $ 505,000
6 Greg 'FBT' Mueller $ 350,000
7 Burt Boutin $ 327,000
8 Michael Simon $ 315,000
9 Jason Stern $ 290,000
10 Fang Tian $ 250,000
11 Fabrice Soulier $ 175,000
12 Carl Olson $ 111,000
13 Dan Schmiech $ 110,000
14 Paramjit Gill $ 80,000

Sweating Carl online is extremely painful so I can only imagine how much it sucks sitting at work and sweating my sweat. Suck. Out. On. Barry.

UPDATE---------------3:40 PM

From Cardplayer:

Carl "colson10" Olson moves all in preflop for his last $98,000. Burt Boutin moves all in behind him for about $45,000 more. Everyone folds and Olson shows Ac-9d. Boutin flips over Kc-Jd and will have to improve. The board comes 9h-5c-2h-7c-4h and Carl Olson doubles up.

Fun times. The other guy looks crippled and might go out soon in 13th. That would mean Carl makes about $5700 more. I don't think he's too worried about that right now but ya know, $5700 is $5700.

UPDATE----------------3:47 PM

11 left. Here are the chipcounts:

1 Barry Greenstein $ 1,775,000
2 Kevin Song $ 760,000
3 Gary Jacobi $ 690,000
4 Tom Schneider $ 640,000
5 Fang Tian $ 530,000
6 Jonas Norrman $ 435,000
7 Jason Stern $ 350,000
8 Greg 'FBT' Mueller $ 310,000
9 Michael Simon $ 265,000
10 Carl Olson $ 120,000
11 Paramjit Gill $ 65,000

Here is the payout structure:

1 $1,052,890
2 $529,300
3 $256,115
4 $142,285
5 $113,830
6 $85,370
7 $71,145
8 $56,915
9 $42,685
10-12 $28,455

As I'm writing this, Carl doubled up again. Details to come.

UPDATE--------------3:52

This is why we call him "Coinflip Carl"
From Cardplayer:

"Barry Greenstein raises to $50,000 preflop and Carl Olson moves all in for $149,000. Greenstein calls and shows 7d-7c. Olson flips over Ac-8d and the board comes 8h-3h-3c-5h-10s. Carl "colson10" Olson doubles up to over $300,000 chips."

Barry still has all the chips. I'd love to see him give $500K to charity and let Carl take home the Mil ticket.

Update---------------4:02 PM

Pokerwire has the following chipcounts:

Place Poker Player Chip Count
1 Barry Greenstein $ 1,600,000
2 Gary Jacobi $ 780,000
3 Kevin Song $ 710,000
4 Fang Tian $ 680,000
5 Carl Olson $ 430,000
6 Jonas Norrman $ 400,000
7 Tom Schneider $ 385,000
8 Greg 'FBT' Mueller $ 365,000
9 Jason Stern $ 310,000
10 Michael Simon $ 275,000
11 Paramjit Gill $ 40,000

This event is over, they just don't know it yet. I have to run and get Renee a birthday present before we meet at 5:30 for dinner. I'll wait for one more update then I'm outtie. Let's go Coiner.

UPDATE------------4:19 PM

Carl just called. They're down to the final table of 10 and they're going on dinner break. here are the chip counts, courtesy of Pokerwire:

Place Poker Player Chip Count
1 Barry Greenstein $ 1,264,000
2 Gary Jacobi $ 790,000
3 Tom Schneider $ 600,000
4 Kevin Song $ 570,000
5 Jason Stern $ 560,000
6 Michael Simon $ 486,000
7 Fang Tian $ 428,000
8 Jonas Norrman $ 406,000
9 Greg 'FBT' Mueller $ 400,000
10 Carl Olson $ 390,000

Cardplayer has him with a few more chips but this looks more reasonable given the fact that Barry just doubled up 2 people. He said on the phone that he hasn't seen any big hands the entire tournament so let's hope he's due. They're probably close to hitting 10/20K so some big hands soon would be clutch. I have my friend Nordberg texting me if anything big goes down while I'm at dinner. Gogogogogogo Carl.

UPDATE-------------7:50 PM

Can you say chipleader? 9 left and he just had a huge doubleup with KK vs KQ. Here's Cardplayer:

"Gary Jacobi raised from late position and Carl Olson reraised $150,000 more the small blind. Jacobi pushed all in and Olson called. Jacobi flipped over Ks-Qc while Olson showed Kd-Kh. The board came 9d-2d-4d-8h-7d and Carl Olson doubles up.

"Colson10" is now the chip leader with over $1,100,000."

Carl just called, I guess they're on break but he said that the guy in the SB was a major donk and he was positive that the guy was pushing the whole way. Awesome awesome awesome. Apparently the guy just crippled himself by limping with KTo then insta-calling a decent sized push so apparently the donk may be gone soon. I think he has enough chips now to bust Barry. Let's find AA vs KK and let the AA hold up, OK?

Wow. I'm so damn excited right now.

BTW, dinner was fantastic. We went to Etta's instead of Campagne because Campagne's wasn't taking reservations and Etta's was higly recommended on the 25 for $25 website. They had this cornbread pudding that would have made me cry if I wasn't such a badass. BOMB.

FINAL UPDATE--------------11:30

Well I'm done crying so I can report that Carl went out in 7th, taking home $71,145. It's a weird day when that kind of money is a disappointment but such is the world of tournament poker. Good job Carl. As a silver lining, you saved me from having to buy a $350 plane ticket.