One more for the day, then I'm out.

I've got a half day going at work today.... and this is what I've been up to:

2010 Baseball Media Guide Covers!!

Thanks to my good friend, Meghan for the photos! The season starts in less than three months, which means I've got about two months to tackle this project. All the player/coach biographies have been done for about a month now and I've made my design for the interior. At the end of last season I also updated all the records, etc.

So it shouldn't take me too much longer :) Just have to wait and see how big the final roster is going to be and then lay it all out.

Is it spring yet?! (P.S. Obviously it's not, because I found CHRISTMAS RADIO STATIONS AT WORK ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

This is my FAVORITE time of year!

Preparing to head home for the Thanksgiving break tonight, I had nearly an hour-long conversation with one of my good friends from home last night, as she and I were looking to plan an evening out before the holiday.

But in talking with her, I found out she's planning to move to Sydney, Australia in July 2010!!!!!

Kat visited me when I was living in France, so whatever's in store for me career-wise in July, I WILL be taking a two week vacation to go see her.... at the VERY least!

I'm super excited and am going to try with all I've got to make sure this happens.

Ah.

Running over 6.5 miles is a good solution for feelings of uselessness.

Note: Pangs of feeling useless generally arise from accompanying athletic teams on long weekend roadtrips, while they practice/compete over two hours per day. And since they're so active, food options are generally limited to large portions and high in carbs/calories.

I feel better now. A little sore, but overall better.

Waiting for the water to come back!

As I sit here in my hotel, waiting the water to be turned back on I almost regret working out for the past hour.

But then again, I wouldn't have been able to experience this:

The Life Fitness 95T Inspire treadmill.

I totally want to own one of these badboys one day! It's a treadmill with an iPod attachment that syncs to your workout, or gives you the option of watching TV right on the treadmill's touch screen console.

But the best part was the interactive console. You can choose what kind of run you prefer based on scenery (i.e. a rigorous mountain run shows you ascending Mount Kilimanjaro, where as a low-incline scenic run is a 5K map of running in the foothills, much like my old cross country days). Or you always have the standard high school track option, which shows marks at every 100 meters to aid in interval training, etc.

There is also an option of a cartoon personal trainer, male or female, which I imagine is very similar to the "trainer" in WiiFit.

Anyways, it was awesome. Whatever gets me motivated to get back into running.... I'll take it!

P.S. I've recently discovered through online browsing, that it's nearly $6,500..... yikes. Maybe I'll settle for a car, or an international vacation along with a trip to Hawai'i instead...

Nostalgia, cont.

Then again, maybe that's why I love Paris so much. Perhaps it's just my displaced nostalgia for travel and international living.

Also, blogging via iPhone app is quite difficult. My apologies for the double post. Anyone know of a decent free app whith which one can post blog entries?

Nostalgia

I forgot how much I liked the East Coast since my two-year absence on this side of the county.

There's a sort of serenity sitting in a bus, overlooking traffic, soft and heavy raindrops dripping down the sides of the windows as the city's bright lights glisten across the horizon refracting in the water pouring from the sky. Traffic hums noisily outside and blaring horns are just as common as birds chirping outside the window in this urban jungle.

I forgot about the road rage all New Yorkers have in common, along with their borderline-obsession with the Yankees.

As I sit here we're halfway to Times Square. Halfway to white might possibly be the most multiculturally rich city in the country. The landing spot for thousands of immigrants hoping to delve into their fair share of the American dream.

What I look forward to most is tasting their various cuisines brought back from "home," another corner of the world.

I can't wait to bask in Times Squares' abundant light, glitter and overall insanity.

I really do love New York. Being the city girl that I am, I could certainly live here. I recognized that the moment I felt a tinge of jealousy for the students at Iona College, dressed in their heavy pea coats, trendy coffees in hand, As the autum leaves danced down from the treetops and onto the sidewalk.

Now I remember why I wanted to move out here when I was in high school.

2,833 Miles Later....

I made it to New York, in case you were curious.

And boy what a trip it's already been. Have I mentioned that we've only been here for just under four hours?

As I mentioned earlier (or Tweeted, I can't remember anymore) our women's basketball team hosted Southern Utah last night. I did my radio broadcast of the event and then stayed after the game's conclusion to write up my story and update stats on the website. At about 10:45, I was ready to leave my office, until a number I didn't recognize called my work phone. Normally, I would have ignored it since I don't like taking calls from numbers I don't recognize on my cell phone, or after 5 p.m. at the office. If it's important enough, someone will leave me a message.

Well that person did. And I decided to check it instead of going home to pack. Lucky for him, it was the media contact at Southern Utah with desperation in his voice, asking if I'd go into our gym and get his computer charged and bring it to their hotel since he'd forgotten to pack it.

Oh yeah, they also left at 7 a.m. this morning. Apprehensively, I called him back and said I'd go search for it, but as I made my way down to the arena at 11 p.m., the lights were all off and it was locked. So I had a coworker come let me in, who generously agreed to take the charger himself. I owe ya, Ben.... :)

Then I get home just after 11 p.m. and frantically try to finish my packing for our East Coast road trip. I take a shower at 11:20ish and realize I'm starving. So J.D. made me some food while he was watching TV downstairs. After eating, we finish watching Chopped and for the life of me, I can't fall asleep. Every hour it felt like I was fruitlessly rolling around in bed, only to find another one of my four precious hours of sleep has disappeared.

When my alarm finally sounded at 3:35 THIS MORNING, I was already laying in bed, dreading its noise. Having no other choice, I gathered my belongings and made it to the athletics department.

We had about an hour and a half drive to the Oakland Airport, but I couldn't sleep and felt ill from my less than two hours of sleep and lack of food. But we finally made it. And I had to pay for my second checked bag, but I'm hoping for reimburstment.

With less than 30 minutes to go, I scurry through security and conveniently find a Chili's right in front of my gate serving breakfast. I order a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes and wheat toast to go as to make our 7 a.m. departure. However, I become a nervous wreck as the preparation takes nearly 10 minutes. And cost me $12!!! But as soon as I grabbed my meal, my seating group was called to board. Lucky me.

Once we take off, I open up my breakfast box and quickly consume it all, only to feel slightly ill from the poor quality of ingredients. As is my usual reaction, I tried to sleep it off. But my head kept falling down the aisle pillow waking me up. And my foot fell asleep.

So I finished my notes on during the three hours my battery lasted me. For the final hour and a half, I tried a combination of reading and watching DirecTV (I <3 Jet Blue!) before I started feeling motion sickness. I really have the world's worst stomach.

When we land, we board our charter bus to take us to the hotel (aptly named Luck of the Irish Lines), before one of the freshmen players finds $20 on the seat near her, shrieking "It's the Luck 'o' the Irish!" Well, turns out it wasn't, our trainer had lost $20 from his pocket. Or so he claims. Our associate head coach caught on and said the staff would be sharing that money for an evening out. $20 in New York for seven people.... good luck :)

All is well and fine to set forth, except our driver had awesome road rage. And I became enraged because he kept giving us spiel after spiel about why the "New York Yankees are the greatest team in the world, from the greatest city in the world." Whatever, dude. If they're so great, where have they been the past nine years?? I guess money can't buy you everything, afterall.

However, it was a pleasant trip, because this crotchety driver was a riot. And I was quite impressed how in tune he is with current events, sports, politics, history and local tourism. Needless to say, we got a mini tour on our way up to White Plains, N.Y., where our hotel is located. Apparently he'll be taking us on a bus tour of New York City on Monday, so I'm certainly looking forward to that.

Close to 5 p.m. EST, we arrived at the hotel and within seconds of spotting the name, I shouted out, "I've stayed here before! They give you free cookies!"

Turns out, this is exactly where we camped when I worked with the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour and had a weekend tournament on Coney Island. Kind of an inconvenient commute, but fun nonetheless. I got to spend two days in the City with my mom two years ago.

But back to the present stay.... I seemed to impress some of the other coaches, because as we made our grand entrance (how do 13 college girls in matching Pacific Tiger sweats, along with five similarly-clad coaches not make a grand entrance?), what should appear other than a large, inviting plate of warm chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies.

And a free "social hour" complete with booze, salad bar, hot wings, fries and my personal favorite, hot chocolate and marshmallows.

Awesome! I think it's going to be a good trip. Now about getting some sleep....

Life keeps getting in the way

Despite my efforts, for the life of me I can't commit to blogging/writing each day. At least the intention's there....

In the upcoming weeks, I've got a lot on my plate. Tonight marks our athletic department's fourth game in a row. Friday and Saturday night we had women's volleyball, yesterday I did a (sub-par) radio broadcast for our women's basketball game, tonight is men's basketball and we close out the "weekend" with women's basketball on Tuesday night. Generally I'm needed to be at as many home games as possible since I'm one of only three or four people who know how to run the stats program on our official computer. If I'm not running stats, then I'm calling for someone else who is or, better yet - on air.

But that's just the start. After the rush of this five-straight, I get to hit the road with women's basketball (WBB from here on out) for the first time this season. We're headed towards Oakland to board a non-stop JetBlue flight to NYC at.... get this.... 4:30 a.m. Need I remind you that we have a WBB game the night before that probably will wrap up entirely around 10 p.m.?

I get the feeling that I'm going to attempt to stay up all night and sleep on the plane. Otherwise, I might not wake up from a three/four-hour "nap" at 3:30 a.m.

But after our New York/New Jersey trip this weekend, we arrive back in California Monday night-Tuesday morning. Wednesday night I'm headed back home for the ENTIRE Thanksgiving weekend off - free - no work. It's amazing.

However, once I return to Stockton, I get to turn right back around and trek out to Portland, Ore., with WBB.

Then maybe I can take a breather! ...Or write on all my plane trips. At the very least, I hope to catch up on some reading/sleep.

Well, with all said and done, I realized I won't have much time to start decorating for Christmas.

So, J.D. and I put up our tree last night. It's still fairly bare, just has three strands of lights. The ornaments can be hung later, but for now, at least we got the labor-intensive part out of the way.

Does that mean I'm allowed to start listening to Christmas music now?!? :)

Close Encounters of the Fuzzy Kind

My boss is gone on a road trip to Pepperdine with our men's basketball team. Usually this time of year when he's on the road doing radio, he asks me to watch his two dogs. Since I'm a dog person, I don't mind. His dogs have somewhat grown on me.

The bus took off yesterday, so my boss drove to work and his car remained in the parking lot all afternoon. As soon as J.D. got off work, I promised him we'd come by and take his car back the half mile to his house, so it didn't look like he was gone for a few days.

Driving back from Sacramento adds on another hour and a half to J.D.'s commute than mine, so we decided to feed the dogs and return his car after dinner. I drove him back to my school lot where he picked up my boss' car, but I arrived at his house first.

Let me set the scene, it's dark and sort of misty on his block and the only light in front of me was the security light coming off the roof of his neighbor's house. As I pulled up to an empty spot on the sidewalk, I see a cat running across the grass and towards my car. Upon turning off my headlights, I realized that it wasn't a cat, but instead what appeared to be a domestic bunny.

Poor little guy, I thought to myself. It's escaped from some miserable kid and is wandering through the street!

Determined to get it and knock on a few of the neighbors' doors, I squatted down low and made clicking noises in efforts to usher the bunny towards me. Hearing my calls, it crouched low and began to hop towards me. Within arm's length, I felt confident that if I moved slowly enough, I could grab the little fur ball and keep it safely while looking for an owner. Even if I had to put up posters or post on craigslist.

It was at this point that J.D. drove my boss' car into his driveway. Making the sharp turn, his headlights shone into the hedges between my boss and his neighbor's yard. The light scared out at least three other rabbits from the bushes. These rabbits, I convinced myself, looked wild. They were dingy little gray rabbits, while the white one seemed to be big and had well-maintained fur.

With the white rabbit still inching closer to me, doubts began to fill my head.

Maybe this isn't a tame rabbit? What if it's a really friendly wild bunny with rabies who's hoping to be fed? Oh my gosh, what if it bites me and I get rabies?

Frozen in my tracks, J.D. tries to call me into the house to go feed the dogs, but all I can do is stare at these cute, evil little bunnies who are curiously staring at me.

At this point, the white one speeds up his pace and starts feverishly hopping after me. He must have said something to his fuzzy little friends, because the other three then joined him and all four bunnies hopped towards me.

Freaking out, I had convinced myself that they were wild and rabid.

Shrieking, "I don't want to get rabies!" like a crazy person, I ran through the grass and towards the front door. But slipped in several piles of rabbit turd.

After the door safely shut behind me, I texted my boss, "WTF?!?! You have rabbits living in your yard?!"

To which he replies, "Yeah, they are to get Rocky (his dog) in shape. ... They are my neighbors'."

Once I was done recounting the tale via text, he called me laughing. Explaining that the parents bought bunnies as pets for their kids, but one day the bunnies doubled. And then there were more, so they decided to rid of the males and keep all the females loose in the backyard.

Lately the bunnies have been burrowing and have dug holes under the fence and into my boss' backyard. He has since blocked off his yard from the curious rabbits and so their next move has been to run loose in the streets. And it's been this way for quite a few weeks.

Crazy, tame wild bunnies roaming the streets.

I think my boss summed it up best when he said, "The visual of you being chased by rabid bunnies is quite funny."

FML.

Back at it

Lately, I've fallen back into my former aspirations of becoming a published author. Short stories, fiction, travel writing, pick your poison.

So instead of only dreaming about writing professionally, I've started doing something about it. I'm going to be compiling short stories in my free time now.

While I still aim to blog daily, these entries will be posted to my other account which I've created solely for the purpose of (this is figuratively speaking since I haven't done such deed) putting pen to paper.

Here's my most recent story. Amazingly enough, it's the first time I've actually completed a thought. Most of my last works were expected snippets of a much larger piece. This time, I'm opting for short stories and am thoroughly enjoying the process.

Just Kidding

Just kidding about the whole blogging each day thing. I guess my life got in the way of that.

Well, partially. Work is getting busy, especially with basketball season starting up and me getting to travel every other weekend!

But because of that, in addition to crappy daylight savings time making it dark by the time I get to my car at night, I've decided to flip-flop my schedule. I've been trying to run for at least 30 minutes every day, but with it being so dark by 5 p.m., this morning I decided to do it in the morning.

So I woke up at 7:20 this morning, did a bit of yoga stretching before I left then made my way out to the Delta levy for a good 2.75-mile run. Some of it was street running, under the freeway, past schools, but half of it was on the Delta levy that comes in from the ocean!

So I got back at 8ish this morning and had breakfast at home for the first time in a very long while. Usually, I'll grab something quickly and bring it to work with me once I stumble in the door around 9:30 a.m. But this whole waking up early thing is wonderful! I feel so refreshed and busy this morning and the day seems to be flying.

Maybe it's because I bought this new peppermint syrup and have been making peppermint mochas or peppermint soy lattes each morning :)


I ♥ fall/winter!

(Oh and I already want to put up my tree this weekend!! Is that wrong? I mean, I'll be in New York/New Jersey next weekend and home for Thanksgiving the weekend after. Then the first week of December, I'll be in Portland, so really, the only time to decorate before December is this weekend. It's not worth it to put a tree up a couple of days before Christmas. So now or never!)

Second Post of the Day.... Wow.

I just can't get over this women's soccer play off game between BYU and New Mexico..... the best part is we had a redshirt transfer from this school on our women's soccer team this year.

Even though this Big West Conference is extremely dirty, I saw NOTHING like this while I was working with our women's soccer team. Brings the game to a whole new level.

But with soccer season under my belt, it's now time for women's basketball. First home game is this weekend, and I travel to New Jersey and New York to do some radio broadcasts on Nov. 20th!

Bring it on!

More wishes!

Here are some amendments to my holiday wish list! (Even if no one's getting me this stuff, it's so fun to make wishlists and look up fun big kid toys online).

Oh it's also National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) so I'm trying to be proactive and post every day this month. Whether or not that happens is a different story, but it's worth a shot!

So things I'm really liking/wanting right now:

-New flat iron, since mine broke, RIP buddy. Preferably of the brands Solia, Hana or CHI.

-Learn language tapes/books/aids! I'm still trying to listen to French podcasts and watch the news online on a regular basis, but now I'm ready to dive into another language. I'm really interested in both Spanish and German right now. Though, I still have my study book and exercise book from my one quarter of Spanish at UC Santa Barbara my senior year.

Though I've not yet used them, I like the initial look of the Teach Yourself and Living Languages programs, from what I saw at Barnes & Noble earlier this week.


-And finally, Mitch Albom's (author of Tuesdays With Morrie) new book, Have A Little Faith. He's such a talented writer. I may actually purchase this book on my Sony eReader later this week.... We'll see :)

-I would also be open to money to insert into my savings account, for future travel plans! :)

"You must be so excited"

Nervously sitting in the waiting room at Kaiser, I desperately tried not to make eye contact with anyone else sitting in the small, stuffy room with me. The problem about living in the Central Valley is the hospitals are so overrun with poor, sick immigrant families. I feel so terrible about that entire situation, because I have always had accessible medical coverage to me, and the money to take care of whatever arises. Twice, I've been stuck in line behind a woman or young mother who doesn't have coverage and is extremely sick and needs to be seen ASAP. The red tape surrounding that entire process is thicker than anything I've ever dealt with in my entire life.

But this time, it was a young expecting mother in front of me who needed an H1N1 vaccination. I believe they're free to Kaiser members, but clearly, she wasn't one. When she sat down coughing up a storm, I was finally called up to the front window.

After handing the receptionist my card, we did the usual back-and-forth. Do you still live at this address? How old are you?....

But her last question threw me off guard.

"And the reason for your visit today is a prenatal appointment? Oh wow, congratulations! You must be so excited!" she proclaimed, excitedly looking at my stomach (which, by the way, would not mislead one to think I am pregnant!)

Embarrassed, I could feel the stares of all the other, older women, and the younger pregnant girl with two rings on a certain finger on her left hand. As my cheeks continued to flush, I heard a woman make a disapproving clicking sound with her tongue.

It only was a couple of seconds, but it felt like eternity before the receptionist said, "Ma'am...?"

Snapping out of it, I shook my head in disbelief, "No, I'm just here for my annual check up. I'm, I'm not pregnant," I stammered.

"Oh, well it doesn't say the reason for your appointment online, so we checked prenatal," she said looking back at her computer screen, unfriendly as she was before she thought I was expecting.

Knowing that I clearly checked the correct button when I made my appointment online, I still felt a little nervous at all the women in the room staring at me. I guess they're just used to pregnant women under 25 in this area...... I can't tell you how many pregnant girls I've seen walking the streets without rings on their hands.

When the nurse finally admitted me into my examination room, I once again sat on the bench, uncomfortable in my thin paper robe. Browsing the travel magazine that sat underneath the heaps of health magazines for new mothers and pregnant women, my doctor finally entered.

"Well, we have something to look forward to in a few months, don't we!" she said all bubbly and excited for me. "I didn't even know you were trying to have a baby?"

"I wasn't," I said, short of temper. They must not have notified her that this was not a prenatal exam.

"Oh," her voice trailed off. "Then do we need to discuss your options?"

"No, no," I replied in disgust. "I'm not pregnant. I'm just here for my annual check up."

And with that, she put back on her professional face and continued her job. And I no longer had people tormenting me with how excited they are/were for my new little bundle of joy.

God, I'm not ready for that. Not for a long time.

Self promise

Maybe I should stop reading friends'/acquaintances' travel blogs... Maybe I should stop buying travel literature... Maybe I should stop watching the Travel Chanel and traveling culinary shows on the Food Network.

There are a lot of things I should stop doing to indulge my fantasy to continue traveling in the next phase of my life. But I can't.

I made a promise to myself that I'm going to live abroad again within the next five years. And I fully intend on following through.