Saturday May 20th, 2006
12:05pmOur San Antonio Trip
We got home from San Antonio on Thursday evening and had a change in plans. Jennifer needed to work so she's going to go up to Dallas tomorrow and come back on Tuesday while I start my internship.
We had a great time and the weather was simply incredible. The hotel was right on the Riverwalk so we got to spend a lot of time walking around down there and around the city.
I love the city of San Antonio. I love the architecture, the feel, the weather....It's just a great place.
When we first arrived (Tuesday) we had some difficulties with the parking as our hotel would only offer valet (for $25/day). We decided to park at a parking garage a block over but once we got into the garage we were told that we were only allowed to stay in there until 8am the next day. Needless to say this didn't go over well with two people on vacation who like to sleep in....and they wouldn't give us our money back and just let us leave.
Once we got into the hotel room and fidgeted with all the gadgets in there we headed out in search for food. We went to The Original Mexican Restaurant, which was alright. Not the best Mexican food I've eaten but not the worst either. By the time we left it was after 10pm. We walked around a little longer on the Riverwalk and then headed back to the room for the evening.
At the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning I begrudgingly got up and went to move the car. There was a different lady there this time and she said all I had to do was pull the ticket for their hour-by-hour parking rate and I could leave it in there for as long as I wanted. That was exactly what we had asked for the previous day but the idiot working apparently couldn't grasp the concept. I was mad but at the same time I was glad that I didn't have to get up early again the next morning.
Instead of going back to bed I decided to walk around the city. I know that Jennifer isn't really into walking around looking at buildings so I just let her sleep. It's really weird to see the city before all the hustle and bustle starts up, especially at the Alamo. As you can see from the picture above, it was just me and the maintenance guy at 7:50am (that guy wouldn't get out of the way so I have like 4 pictures of the Alamo with him doing his thing). As you can see, the Alamo itself is almost surprisingly small.
I grabbed some donuts on the way back to the hotel, dropped them off in the room, and went upstairs to the roof pool and over the next couple of hours I plowed through Game of Shadows.
When Jennifer got up she hopped right into her second home, the bathtub, and then we headed out for the Alamo again.
When I was younger I hated doing the sightseeing thing but now I don't mind it as much, up to a point. My mother would always stop at every single sign and read all the details about whatever it was we were visiting (she'd even take pictures of the signs) or we'd get into every possible tour to hear all about what happened where we were. I swore that I'd never go to D.C. with her because I don't think I could make it without my head exploding. No, I don't read too much of the signage but I like to look at the stuff and move on. I have no clue what that Alamo-talker-guy in the picture is talking about. We weren't on the tour but felt that everyone needs to have at least one photo of a historic-talker-guy when they come home from a trip.
They do have a beautiful lawn/garden-area at the Alamo which was quite nice. I also found out that Jennifer is a Daughter of the Republic of Texas, which to my understanding basically means her family lineage goes back to the Texas pioneer days. That's pretty cool, I thought. The organization itself is in charge of running the operations of the Alamo.
After the excitement at the Alamo we went to The County Line for lunch. Mmmmm, that was some great BBQ and our waitress was great to the point where she was toeing the line of being a tad bit over-the-top. But man, good eats.
After that we went back to the hotel where Jennifer bathed (again) and napped while I went back up to the roof pool to read some more.
We ended up watching some really strange show on Showtime about people with major psychological disorders, which was kind of a downer but then we went out to the Riverwalk again in search of dinner. I honestly don't know the name of the place we ended up at but it was Italian food. I had a fresh made pizza and Jennifer had calamari. The weather was perfect, with a warm breeze blowing, and it was just a really nice relaxed evening.
The next morning we slept in. I enjoyed that. I got up around 11ish and went upstairs to finish my book before we had to check out at noon. After checkout we drove to La Fogata which is apparently a really popular Mexican restaurant in San Antonio. They didn't have any indoor seating so we sat outside in the sun (it was in the mid-90s on Thursday). When a table in the shade opened up we got our waitress to move us over there, this was considerably more pleasant. I had the green enchiladas and they were pretty good.
The Alamodome: I shall return in 4 months for the A&M/Army gameAfter that we headed home.
Friday Jennifer had to work all day so I did the lawn and relaxed a bit. In the afternoon I remembered that I had heard that Bo Jackson was going to be signing autographs for the Tri-Star collector’s show this weekend. I looked to see when he would be signing and what it would cost....my thinking was that I would get the famous goal line stand photo from the '86 Cotton Bowl signed if he wasn't too expensive.
After looking at the list of athletes who were going to be there I realized that, in addition to Bo, fellow Heisman winners Andre Ware and Ty Detmer were signing this weekend as well. All three had some rough meetings with the Wrecking Crew. I thought, wow, how funny would it be to get all three of them to sign my A&M helmet? Bo cost $70 (on Sunday), Ty was $30 (on Saturday), and Andre was signing for free (Friday night). Jennifer said she'd give it to me for our anniversary in July so I headed downtown to the George R. Brown Convention Center to meet Andre Ware.
When I got down there I discovered that it cost $10/day to get into the show and that the little mini A&M football helmet I have is considered a "premium item" and therefore requires a premium price (for Bo it was an additional $20 and for Ty it was an additional $10). That bumped the price from the original $100 I thought it would cost to $160.
I decided it was too much money so I ate the $1.25 in parking, $10 in gas and 2 hours of my afternoon and just came home. It would have been cool but that was just too much. Had I thought about it earlier and taken a 12th Man Towel I wouldn't have had to pay the "premium fees" so it would have dropped down to $130 but that was still a little too much and my enthusiasm for the entire idea had already fizzled out.
Oh well.
I didn't get to listen to the A&M baseball game but Jennifer and I did go see The Davinci Code, which came out yesterday. I thought it was a pretty good movie but that the book, which I read a couple summers ago, was better. Jennifer hasn't read the book yet and thought the movie was incredible. I'm curious to find out what she thinks of the book.
A very busy week for me when you consider that none of it has anything to do with watching/going to games. Oh wait, the Cubs are on in 15 minutes....
Tuesday May 16th, 2006
12:05pmBlogpoll Roundtable: Post-Spring Edition
Hey, what is this? Football?
Stephen McGee v. OU in 2005Yeah, I warned you that football was starting to creep back into my mind. On Monday I even took MVP 06 NCAA Baseball out of my PS2 for the first time since I bought it and stuck in NCAA 06 Football.
I think that this year I'm going to start writing my Ag Football Season Preview earlier than in past years. I'll still post it just before the season starts but I want to write it earlier. Mainly I want to be sure and get all my thoughts down before I get the CFB itch really bad because I think I'm fairly level-headed at this point but I'm afraid that by August I, like 95% of the rest of college football fans, might lose a little bit of objectivity.
For the last 3 or 4 weeks I've been jotting Ag football notes down in the margins of my mid-April 12th Man Magazine (the one with the Stephen McGee interview). It's to the point where it is getting difficult to read all of what I've written.
Oh, I did want to mention that while I have quasi-neglected football here I did write a piece for Matt over at My Opinion on Sports back on April 10th. If you need a little more of a fix, feel free to go back and check that out.
Anyways, the reason that I'm writing about football right now is because I got an email late last week letting me know that there was a new BlogPoll Roundtable over at Burnt Orange Nation....a Post-Spring Edition. I also discovered that I apparently missed the Spring Edition that was hosted by Shembechlerhall so I'll take care of them both right now (for the sake of thoroughness).
BlogPoll Roundtable Spring EditionAnd now for the newest one....Q1. It's early, but thus far, which off-season change or changes in college football are you most excited about?
A1. I, along with a lot of others, am glad that the USC dynasty is seemingly over. Next I'm looking forward to seeing die is the Yankees/Red Sox....
I'm also glad Vince Young is gone at texas. They were good before Vince and they'll be good after Vince, but I don't think Mac will be great without Vince.
I am not particularly pleased about all the new BCS changes. They're ruining the game.
Q2. With spring practice underway, what are the three concerns about your team that are causing you the most anxiety? (USC fans can't just list the departures of Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, and LenDale White.)
A2. Defense. Defense. Stephen McGee getting hurt while being Superman.
Q3. Care to take a stab at a preseason top five?
A3. Not really. I'll say, without reading up on any of them since the 2005 season ended: ND, OU, tOSU, LSU, VT (in no particular order)
BlogPoll Roundtable Post-Spring EditionI want to leave you with a fairly interesting article from Stadium & Main discussing how irrelevant preseason college football magazines are/have become/ing. I pretty much agree. Unexplainably though, I'm sure I'll still fork out for Dave Campbell's mag when it comes out.Q1. Which off-season story are you most tired of, and on the flip side, interested in? (e.g. Reggie Bush's house, Jimmy Claussen, etc.)
A1. I don't know if this totally qualifies but I'm going with Vince Young. I'm an Aggie who is a sports radio junkie living in Houston that spends ~2.5 hours/day on the road. From January 5th until....well, it's still a topic of discussion....all I've heard about is Vince Young. Seriously, 8 out of 10 calls into Houston sports radio for 5 solid months have been about Vince Young. It got to the point where I could not listen to 610am anymore in the afternoon because one of the hosts talked about him even more than the callers.
[shiver]Uuuugh[/shiver]
I'm glad it's finally starting to die down.
On the flip side, as a Big 12 follower, I think I'm most interested in the Adrian Peterson/Lexus deal and the current Ramonce Taylor/5LBSofpot deal. While it seems the Peterson story has died down, I'm quite interested in how each of those schools can get out of trouble year in and year out.
Q2. Your head coach comes down with a mystery illness and has to step aside. You get to hand pick the replacement for the 2006 season. Who gets your vote?
A2. No question in my mind here. Frank Beamer. I think the guy is great. He has turned V-Tech into a perennial Top 10 team, he has run a clean program, and his defenses are filthy. I think the most amazing thing is that he does it without kids from Florida, Texas or California. Their roster is chalked full of Virginia-bred kids.
Q3. Lastly, we'll mix the football and the blogging together here. If you could have anyone switch allegiances and start covering your team, who you gonna pick?
A3. To be totally honest, I haven't really been keeping up with CFB blogs too much this off-season with the exception of FanBlogs, which I see as more of a news site than a true blog, and RJYH. During the year I love reading MGoBlog, EDSBS, & My Opinion On Sports. I suppose I'll go with Warren St. John at RJYH. Even though there is a lot of European soccer, I always laugh when I go over there.
Jennifer and I are going out of town for the next several days now that our semesters are over. We're going to San Antonio for a couple of nights to relax and enjoy ourselves then we're going up to Dallas to visit her folks. On Monday I start my internship for the summer. I'm pumped.
Don’t forget about the baseball team’s final series of the season this weekend up in Kansas. Again here is what we need to go down for us to make the Big 12 Tournament: We must sweep KU and texas must sweep Mizzou. If there is a rainout or a tie elsewhere in the conference it will likely screw all that up but that’s the basics.
Monday May 15th, 2006
12:01pmBaseball Sunday: Astros Win, Cubs Lose & Ags Tie?
My afternoon started with a Sunday baseball game at Minute Maid Park as the Astros took on the Rockies. It was part III of the Sunday ticket package Jennifer bought me for our anniversary. Jennifer couldn't make it because she has her last final tomorrow evening so I invited my brother. He couldn't come. So I invited my old man for back-to-back baseball adventures.
Andy Pettitte threw an incredible ballgame with a rare complete game allowing only 3 hits while he pumped 9 zeros up on the scoreboard. Lance Berkman hit a HR with his pink breast cancer awareness bat and Craig Biggio made two fairly superb defensive plays at second base.
5/14/06 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E Kansas State 0 0 1 0 0 0 - - - - 1 5 0 TAMU 0 0 0 0 0 1 - - - - 1 6 1 As soon as I got home from MMP I ran upstairs gave Jennifer a kiss and words of encouragement and then checked my computer to see how A&M did.
Turns out they had a 3 hour rain delay in the middle of the second inning so I got to watch the rest of the game, which resumed about 20 minutes after I got home. Tip of the cap to Leo and the rest of the grounds crew for getting the field into shape to play this one.
It wasn't a full game, however. Because it was Sunday the Big 12's 72-hour rule applied (you have to complete all your games within 72 hours of the visiting team arriving in town) so no inning could start after 5:30pm. In the end they ended up playing 6 innings.
We were actually down 1-0 going into the bottom of the 6th inning, which we knew would be the last inning because it was already 5:30. With two outs and Johnny Infante on first base Austin Boggs hit a PH double (keep in mind he jacked up his knee on Friday) that scored Infante to tie the ballgame up. A little mini-Olsen Magic. We weren't able to score Boggs (actually his PRer, Jason Meyer) but by tying the ballgame we saved ourselves from 100% elimination from the Big 12 Tournament.
In order for us to make it we have to sweep Kansas and the hated longhorns have to sweep Mizzou. It's certainly a long shot but crazier things have happened.
I do want to point out some frustrations. We should have won the ballgame but cost ourselves the win. KSU's run was unearned. Ueckert gave up a bloop single (that should have been caught behind first base by someone -- 1B, 2B or RF), then a bunt single, then Sa;azar muffed a tailor made double play ball. Then in the bottom half of the third inning Parker didn't execute a sac bunt. He got it down but the lead runner (Spencer Jackson) was thrown out because the ball was bunted too hard right back to the pitcher. Parker was safe at first on the fielder's choice. Spencer would have scored on a Blake Stouffer double but instead, Parker wound up on third base where he was stranded.
Coach Childress was not a happy camper. Just listen to the post game audio.
No weeknight game this week so all everyone should be thinking about is Kansas.
The Cubs....well, they're flat out horrible right now. They lost today 9-0. They've lost 13 of their last 14....and Dusty Baker is still the manager. The highlight of the afternoon in Chicago was that Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, a life long Cubs fan, threw out the first pitch and did the 7th inning stretch. I suppose I could get excited about Kerry Wood making his season debut on Tuesday night....but even that is kinda bleh right now.
You might start seeing some more Aggie football posts in the near future.
Oh, one more thing. I just want to point out that my Northwest side of Houston continues to represent VERY well in the highschool state playoffs. Seven of the remaining 32 teams are all from the NW side (Klein, Klein Collins, The Woodlands, Humble, Cy Fair, Langham Creek, & Tomball). Someday I'm going to figure out how much talent the NW side of Houston puts into DI college baseball and into minor league systems (and even the MLB). I know it's a ridiculous number.
Sunday May 14th, 2006
5:09pmAgs Going For Sunday Sweep
5/12/06 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E Kansas State 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 - 3 8 1 TAMU 1 0 2 0 3 0 1 1 x - 8 12 0 I'm going to admit something. I actually fell asleep before the game started. I was going to watch it on AUA but after a long day working in the sun on our Earthshack I accidentally fell asleep about 15 minutes before the games started. I woke up in time to see Thebeau pick up the last couple of outs.
I missed a great ballgame out of Jose Salazar who was a double shy of hitting for the cycle (3-for-5 with 4 runs and an RBI). 8 of our 9 starters picked up a hit in the ballgame.
Austin Boggs left the game early after getting his cleat caught and hurting his knee. His replacement, Blake Stouffer, hit a 3-R HR to give us a little comfort with our lead.
It was a big win for us.
5/13/06 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 R H E Kansas State 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 - 3 8 3 TAMU 0 2 0 0 0 3 0 1 x - 6 3 4 Saturday evening my old man and I made the drive up for what will be my last game at Olsen field this season. Wow, now that I think about it that was my last game at Olsen Field as a student (I finish my masters degree in December). Huh.
It was our third win in a row thanks in part to Kyle Nicholson's solid ballgame. He went 8 innings and only gave up 1 earned run and 8 hits (all singles and 4 or 5 of those never left the infield). Interestingly, the runs that scored unearned were because of a throwing error by Nicholson so he helped his ERA out by throwing the ball down the RF line. Isn't that kooky how that works?
Kyle Colligan had a great night hitting a 3-R bomb in the 6th to give us the lead. It would appear that my old man is Kyle's good luck charm because all 3 of his HRs this year have been with my dad in the stands. I think my dad has only been to 4 games since Kyle's red-shirt was pulled.
With that HR Kyle moved into a tie for the team lead in RBIs even though he didn't play a game until our 21st game of the year.
Todd Sebek played quite well off the bench going 2-for-2 with a run and a double. I was kind of surprised to see Jose Salazar drop down to the 7-hole after his big night on Friday.
Our defense was fairly shoddy. I mentioned Nicholson's error, Spencer Jackson had an error on a throw from Ryan Hill and Hill himself made two more errors.
The thing about Hill is that he has made some errors but he tends to make up for them, as he did last night with his RBI double in 8th. After not seeing the field for quite some time he has started the last 5 games and hit the tar out of the ball. He is 8-for-19 (.421) with 1 SO, 3 BBs, 2 runs, 4 XBH, & 4 RBIs.
Today's game is currently underway. We need the W in a bad way.
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