For Ben’s birthday a few months back I decided that my gift to him would be concert tickets to one of his favorite musicians, Kenny Chesney, at the Staples Center in LA. Unfortunately, at the time of his birthday, they had not yet announced a sale date for the concert, so I had to print out fake tickets for him to let him know what his gift would be when it arrived…..at the end of May.

Last night the concert date finally arrived, so Ben and I headed down in the morning so that we would be nearby when the time came. The concert didn’t start until 7:30pm, but what with LA traffic and the fact that we live about 90 miles away, there was no way we’d make it down in time if we left after work in rush hour traffic. As it was, it took a bit longer than expected to navigate through the traffic, even at 10:30am! Where are all these people going at that time of day?!

I had to drop Ben off at a meeting and then I headed over to the local library for some free wifi and a nice quiet place to get some work done. The nice thing about this library was that they had a coffee shop downstairs, so I was able to walk away real quick to buy some food without having to give up my valuable table real estate over by a power outlet!

At the end of the work day I picked Ben up and we then headed over to the Staples Center for the concert, which was located about 9 miles away. It probably took us almost 75 minutes to go those 9 miles with all the after-work traffic. In that time, we could’ve practically driven from SB to LA during a non-rush hour time! That’s just insanity. We got slightly turned around when we exited the freeway, but it worked out because it scored us $5 parking 2 blocks away, when everywhere else was charging $20 or $25.

We chilled in the car for a bit since we had some time to kill and then stopped for a bite to eat at a place nearby. We entered the concert just as Leann Rimes, the opening act, was finishing her last song. We got a few drinks at the intermission and then kicked some interlopers out of our seats so we could sit. Our seats were high up and off to the side, so the people on stage looked small, but it was still cool. I don’t know most of Kenny Chesney’s songs, but I sang along to the few I did know, and also to the cover songs that he did when Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker came out.

Overall it was a fun concert—it was amusing to watch these giant beach balls be hit by the crowd and come dangerously close to hitting Kenny—although he did purposely kick one that was sitting on stage. There were also A LOT of cowboy hats and mullets to be found last night. Everywhere you looked while walking near the venue, and of course inside—a sea of cowboy hats. I’m sure most of these people never wear those hats any other time, except for maybe dressing up as a cowboy on Halloween. At the end of the concert, Kenny signed his guitar and gave it to some chick in the audience, and then proceeded to sign a few miscellaneous articles that people near the stage held out to him.

After the concert let out, we headed back to the car and made a slow progression to the freeway and headed back to SB. Once we actually got on the freeway, it was smooth sailing luckily, so we got home in about an hour and a half, although that still put our arrival at a little after 1:30am!

So, it was a long day and a lot of driving, but it was fun and Ben said he enjoyed it as well. YEEEHAAAAW!

Posted at 12:29 PM | (1)

Yesterday afternoon Ben and I left SB to drive down to my parents’ house. My sister and her now husband of 5 months finally had a wedding reception for all the friends and family who weren’t able to come to the Vegas wedding. We got into town a little after 2pm, and chilled for a bit before getting all dressed up for the event and heading over to my sister’s house. A giant limo bus thing had been hired for the occasion and immediate family and close friends all came on board since the thing seats over 20 people or something. The bus was pretty cool because it did fit so many people and also because it came equipped with snacks and beer, champagne, and various types of liquor for consumption during the ride down to Orange County, where the reception was being held.

We did some posing for wedding photos, which hopefully turned out ok, since it was a little windy and the sun kept shifting in and out of clouds on what was a pretty overcast day. After pictures there was some mingling and then of course dinner and dancing. There were a few kids in attendance and I spent a good portion of the night dancing with several of them—sometimes together, sometimes separately. Those kids were like dancing machines—they all kept going and going way into the night and were pretty entertaining!

Overall I think the reception turned out quite well and I think Ben had a nice time. We arrived back at my sister’s house some time after 11 I think, and we left a little after midnight. This morning Ben and I headed back up to SB so that he could be back in time for work as well as get in some band practice. We did have a minor setback when I had to have my dad jumpstart my car—it seems that I left my lights on from the drive down! It was daytime when we came down, but it had been raining, so I turned on my lights like you’re supposed to. The trouble with turning on lights in the daytime though is that you can’t really see that they are on! Whoops. The car did start right away after the jumper cables were attached, and I had no problem starting back up when I had to stop and get some gas, so it was all good.

Now I’m back in SB in my apartment and wondering where the long weekend went!

Posted at 6:28 PM | (0)

The other day I went to the library to drop off one book and check out another. At the checkout counter, there was a small line, so I decided to try to use the self checkout. I had never used it before because it’s been out of order every single time I’ve been there. Since it seemed to be functioning and I didn’t have a complicated transaction, I decided to give it a try.

The process was very confusing. There weren’t any signs with steps on what to do, except a little one telling you to scan the library bar code of the book and not the UPC. So, after several attempts, I finally got it to scan (you have to leave the bar code sitting under the laser for a long time) and said I was finished scanning books. It then printed out a receipt telling me when my book was due.

That sounds all fine and dandy except, I had not yet entered my library card number, so I had no idea how it knew who to assign the book to. I found a screen that allows you to list all items checked out and it listed 5. I most certainly did not have 5 books, so I figured it was just messed up somehow, so I left the screen as it was and started to walk to the check out desk. I figured it just didn’t work properly and that it would just be easier to get it sorted out with proper help.

As I walked away some guy called after me “Excuse me, Ma’am? Are you done using that machine?” I said I was, unsure if he was someone waiting to use it, or an employee or what. He then chastized me for not signing out. I tried to explain that I don’t think it checked things out under my account because it didn’t ask me for my library card. He told me it was important to sign out or else someone could check things out under my name. Uhhh, yea, probably like I just did to whoever forgot to log out before! Problem is, the first screen after you log in kinda looks like what you might expect to find if you weren’t logged it—a button that says “check out books”. Since I had never used the machines before (remember, they were always broken!), I had no idea what the start up screen looked like! I had thought it odd that it didn’t ask for my card first, but then I thought that maybe it would just ask at the end.

So, I finally got the guy to understand that someone else had not logged out when I attempted to check out my book. He went behind the check out desk, unchecked out my book, and brought it back. He then proceeded to tell me how to scan the book, as if I was a complete idiot. “First you put the book on the platform, sloooooowly”. Umm, yea, obviously I figured out how to scan the book if I checked it out to someone else! Whatever, dude. So after showing me the steps on the screen, he once again stressed the importance of logging out when done. Thanks!

Overall, my first experience with the self check out was a bit frustrating. There were no clear instructions telling you what steps to take. I had no idea I was logged in already when I started scanning my book. Also, when the receipt printed out, it didn’t have any account or other info on it, so there was no way I could tell whether the book was checked out under anyone’s name. When you look at your books checked out, it also doesn’t list your name or account number, which could be a privacy thing, but it makes it hard to know what’s going on! I also think there should be a time limit, where if you don’t use it for a few minutes, it automatically logs you out—that way you lessen the liklihood that someone else will mistakenly use your account!

Anyway, obviously the system could use some work. It’s obviously got kinks if it was out of order for so long, but you’d think that now that it’s back online that they would have figured out what patrons needed in order to easily use it—things like what I listed above! I also didn’t really appreciate being talked through the process like I was stupid, when there was no way I could’ve known what was going on, and when I had already successfully done some of the steps he was sloooowly showing me. No need to be condescending! And also, what’s up with calling me Ma’am!?! I don’t look THAT old, do I???? He was at least my age, if not early 30’s, so sheesh!

Posted at 2:11 PM | (2)

Last night we played our last preseason kickball game of the season. We were up against a team that won one game (against the last place team) and tied a game against a team in middle standings. So, we knew they were definitely beatable, and we went into it hoping for the best, so that we could go out and celebrate a great end to our season.

The other team was a bit late in having enough people show up to play the game (we were worried they’d have to forfeit, which would’ve sucked. We’d rather lose to a full team than win by a technicality!), but eventually they had enough people and so the game was started. We took the field first and very quickly got 3 outs without them getting someone on base. On our first inning we scored 2 runs in succession, which was a great way to start the game!

We had a bit of a minor blunder when one of our players (who I think did a bit of pre-game “celebrating”) ran from 1st to 2nd, despite the fact that the person on 2nd was not supposed to go. We wound up with 2 people on a base, with neither one showing intentions of moving, so ultimately the guy who ran was out. Whoops, wasted out there.

By the end of the game we beat the team by a margin of 3-0! Not only did we win, but we kept them from scoring at all! We played really well, with our key players making awesome catches, and everyone properly relaying the ball to the pitcher or approrpriate base. No one tried to do any fancy plays that backfired and everything was just very good and consistent. I even got on base on one of my kicks, although by that time there were already 2 outs, so the next kick got the 3rd out before I had a chance to advance to another base.

All in all it was a great game, although we did feel a little bad for beating the other team so totally. We gave them a little cheer in their honor when the game was over. We then headed to the kickball sponsored bar to celebrate. The only problem with this decision was that our game got finished so early that the bar was pretty dead when we got there. It took quite awhile for it to fill up with enough people. Even so, it didn’t have the same buzz of excitement that it’s had in previous weeks. I think this may have been in part due to the fact that one of the other teams had to forfeit for not having enough players—so both teams in that matchup may not have felt like going out in large numbers. Still, it was nice that our team all went out together after the game, and now we shall look forward to the playoffs where many people seem to think we are the team to watch out for!

No kickball next Monday due to the Memorial Day Holiday, but expect an update the following week! :)

Posted at 12:51 PM | (0)

Well, it looks like I’m making progress with this whole Texas Hold ‘Em thing. Last night I had another poker night with a different set of girls who did not have the benefit of playing 2 days earlier as I had. As a result, I was more up on the rules and was the one telling them about strategy and stuff (which I advised them to take for what it was worth, considering I came in 4th out of 5 players last time).

As with Wednesday, there were 5 of us playing last night, and one girl happened to be at the end of her money by the time her husband came to pick her up, so then play continued with just 4 of us. Another girl then lost all her money and took over full responsibility of dealing so that she’d have something to do as the 3 of us with money continued to play.

By about 10:45 the evening was winding down and we figured it was a good time to cash in our chips and call it a night. The 3 of us remaining players all still had decent amount of chips, considering we had all bought in for $10 and there was now $50 worth of chips distributed between us. I walked away with $20, meaning that I had doubled my money for the game, and essentially allowed myself to break even for the week since I had lost all my money on Wednesday!

I had some good hands, including a couple flushes and a full house, so that definitely helped me win some money, along with the fact that there were many times I bet more than usual during some rounds and didn’t wind up having to show my hand, which led the girls to wonder what kind of cards I usually had at such times and whether they should try to pay for the privilege of seeing what I was holding.

It was another good evening of cards, and I know the girl who hosted wants to do it again sometime—as well as possibly have nights where we play other types of games (not necessarily poker or card based). Win or lose, the game nights have been fun, but I will say that doubling your money is a lot more fun! :)

Posted at 10:56 AM | (1)

A poker night to follow up the one we had a month ago or so is scheduled for Friday. However, 2 of the girls aren’t going to be able to make it, so an impromptu session was scheduled last night.

There were initially 4 of us playing—all of us both in bookclub and kickball, so apparently we’ve been seeing quite a bit of each other lately. Another girl showed up later who is the roommate of a coworker, and she actually knows how to play poker, so she helped us out a bit. I again didn’t do too well (although I would’ve done better if we had quit earlier in the night before one girl had to buy back in), but it was still fun.

At the very least, perhaps playing last night will help me to win against the different crowd I will be playing against tomorrow. We shall see. I’m going to end this post now because it is a zillion degrees in my apartment and my laptop is a bit hot to type on. Supposed to be hotter tomorrow…

This week we played another somewhat highly ranked team (of course). We were off to a decent start, scoring 1 run the first inning. As the sun was going down, we had the game tied 2-2.

Unfortunately, with this scenario, once it started getting dark, the lights didn’t turn on over our field (they turned on everywhere else, but I guess we were just lucky like that). We could still see enough to play, but it made it increasingly difficult to see when the ball landed in fair vs. foul territory. Unlike with previous weeks, this team seemed to be missing one of the key concepts of the kickball league—that it’s supposed to be FUN! This team, even before the lights were an issue, was disputing every (and I mean EVERY) call the refs were making, and just weren’t a lot of fun to play against. You can’t even say that the amount of fun we have is based on how well WE do, because having lost every game, we still had fun even when we lost by several runs. But not with this team. They also had an insane pitcher who seemed to chuck the ball super hard at you, which wasn’t terribly fun to kick against.

At any rate, at the end of the 5th inning, we were still tied, and so the other team informed us this meant that we do an extra inning. We wanted to go to a neighboring field that had lights, but the cones had already been taken away, so we had to stay where we were. We weren’t exactly thrilled, since we couldn’t see and we knew they would just keep disputing. But, we had a chance to take the win, so we went for it.

We kicked first and didn’t manage to get any more runs, so it was the other team’s turn. They had a runner on third when the next ball was kicked. We thew the ball home and unfortunately the catcher fumbled a bit with the ball and didn’t quite have a hold on it when the guy from the other team hit the base. And so, the game ended with them beating us 3-2.

If you will recall, last week we won by an equally close margin, but the level of excitement from our team was way different. It’s just not fun when every move is questioned and it’s more about being argumentative than having a good time. However, our co-captain just sent me a text message from the bar, after she talked to the head ref of the division. Apparently one of the rules about extra innings is that BOTH teams have to agree to it. Since we didn’t agree to the extra inning and thought we HAD to play, we contested our loss and got it overturned. End result? We didn’t lose this week! Instead, we tied!!

I’m home early instead of heading to the bar this week, but after the way the game went, almost no one was up for “celebrating”. Perhaps if we had known it would ultimately end in a tie our team would’ve been in better spirits and represented, but no matter. A tie is awesome, and we played a good game—even better when you consider how hard it was to see out there.

Hopefully next week’s team will know what the game is REALLY about, and win or lose we’ll all have a fun time.

Posted at 9:15 PM | (1)

I decided to come down to visit my mom for the first time in years for Mother’s Day. Normally I just send flowers, but this time I graced her with my presence. I drove home yesterday afternoon, and arrived just in time to go over to my aunt’s house for dinner with my grandma. Everyone was surprised and pleased to see me, so that was cool.

Today we are having a BBQ after my sister gets off work. It was originally going to be at her house, but plans changed, and it will now be held here. Hopefully it will turn out well—there are now a few more people coming than originally expected.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

Posted at 12:10 PM | (0)

Yesterday the girl from my kickball team and bookclub sent a message saying she wanted to hit up happy hour. She sent the invite to the entire kickball team, and many of the people actually showed up for at least part of the time, which was pretty cool considering the short notice.

We started right after work, and a few of us stayed pretty late. One of the guys had his fiancee show up after awhile, and then the invitee and I accompanied the couple to another bar where some of their out of town friends joined in. What started out as happy hour didn’t end until like 1am. So, it was a long evening, but it was entertaining. It was also very cool that our team got together on a non kickball night to hang out—shows we have some sort of team spirit and enjoy hanging out together. I’m still hoping that combination will work well for at least one of our few remaining games.

Posted at 8:25 PM | (0)

So yay, it’s Friday yet again! Ben was gone on a business trip this week, getting back yesterday. Last night he came over after hanging out with some friends, which was a nice surprise! :)

Speaking of surprises, looking at my checking account today I saw that my economic stimulus money showed up!! Hooray for being $600 richer (well, once the pending transaction clears anyway)! Although, sorry government, I’m not a crazy spender to begin with, so I’m afraid I’m not going to blow this money on frivolous things I didn’t need or want before I had the extra cash. Instead, I’m most likely going to do something even more exciting—invest in my future. That’s right, this money is probably going into my Roth IRA, woohoo!

So, while I might not be helping to give a false illusion of an economy on a comeback, I suppose I am still banking on the market in general. My IRA has recently come back into the black after being red (along with the rest of the market) since like December or something. It’s not ahead by much, but up is up and considering how long it’s been since that’s happened, I can’t complain—especially when I’m doing better than things like the Dow and NASDAQ.

Happy Friday, everyone! :)

Posted at 12:31 PM | (1)

OMG, last night was like the most awesome kickball game ever!! We played the #1 team in the league, and as I mentioned, I didn’t really expect to win. BUT, we came VERY VERY close!!

We were the first team to kick, and I was the leadoff kicker. I got out on a bunt that the catcher picked up and chased me down the field with. Oh well. By the time we were done kicking in the 4th inning, we were up 4-2!! We had some good plays, including a homerun. In addition, we did some awesome fielding that kept the other team from scoring—one guy kept making these amazing catches while practically doing flips and other crazy moves in an attempt to wrangle the ball. We were pretty much playing super awesome, and I think the other team must’ve been surprised and maybe even a little worried.

In the bottom of the 4th, however, they made a lucky kick into right field which didn’t get caught. By the time the ball was relayed back in, the other team had scored 3 runs, giving them the lead 5-4. We were unable to score any additional runs on our last time “at bat”, and so we lost. But holy crap, we came SO close to beating the best team! This was also the first time that we had any sort of real lead during a game. I would also like to add that this team during the first 5 weeks had only had 4 runs scored against them TOTAL, so in one game we managed to double that number, and there is a possibility that because of it we may have knocked them out of first place.

So, all in all, super exciting, awesome game! It was a loss, but when you look at how well we played, it was pretty much a victory. As a result, pretty much all of us headed over to the bar to celebrate. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, I got a margarita, and somehow when I walked outside for a bit I found myself wrangled into playing flip cup. As I have mentioned, I’m not a beer drinker, but I somehow managed to do it and flip my cup, and our team wound up winning. So, now I can say that I won my first ever flip cup challenge. We got challenged to a rematch, which we lost, but it was a close one.

All in all, it was a pretty fun night, and very exciting for our team. This makes me more hopeful that we might win our next game, or perhaps come from behind to win it all in the playoffs. The team that won last year didn’t win a single game preseason and then wound up winning the playoffs to claim the championship. Who knows, that could be us!

Posted at 8:33 AM | (2)

Hola y bienvenidos!

Today is once again the 5th of May, which means, you guessed it: white people drinking lots of tequila and possibly donning sombreros.

I don’t have any real celebration plans, but tonight is kickball, and I think there will be margaritas involved. Some people might dress up, but I will not be among them, because I do not own any such attire and today is probably not the day to find any. We’re playing the undefeated team in the league tonight so I don’t expect any victories from us, although, how awesome would it be if this was the only game we won?? Maybe there is an correlation between margarita consumption and kickball performance? Guess we’ll find out!

Posted at 4:23 PM | (0)

I don’t know what it is, but lately I’ve been finding little tiny gnats (or gnat-like bugs) flying around my apartment. I don’t know where they are coming from, as I don’t recall having them here before, but I suppose it’s possible they could fit through the screen of my always open window. Also, with the weather being so warm lately, I’ve taken to leaivng my front door open, and although it opens into a hall, there is a window next to it that I have opened to allow a little cross ventilation.

So, it’s entirely possible they are just coming in the front door, but it’s still annoying. I mean, there aren’t like hundreds or enough to form a swarm or anything, more like the occasional one here and there, but when they decide to fly near your face (why, oh why do they insist on flying at my face??), even one is too many! I try to kill them when I can, clapping my hands together in the hopes of smooshing one (totally gross, but I try not to think about that, since they are tiny). I’ve caught a few in this way, but it always seems that shortly after, another is flying around to take its place.

Enough with the gnats!

Posted at 3:18 PM | (2)