Something I enjoy

I love to explore cities. OK, I also like to explore towns, suburbs, rural areas, and places in general, but since I've lived my life and spent most of my time in cities, that's where I tend to ramble around. When I was in college, some of my favorite classes were in urban geography. Whenever I see a road, I want to know where it goes, and see what things look like along the way. Why do they put stores where they do? My urban geography professor was often hired as a consultant by companies trying to decide where to expand. I'm always interested to see what businesses end up where.

One of the things I do when I have time is drive around different parts of Tucson. It's certainly not the most interesting city I've visited, but I'm constantly amazed at the neighborhoods that I see in this town. The diversity can be quite striking. I find myself wondering how so many people can afford the really expensive houses, and then I'm sad about how many people live in depressing, dingy trailer parks & run-down neighborhoods. Inevitably after one of my drives around town I'm really glad to get home, and thankful for all that I have.

Preggers

Almost as beautiful as my gorgeous niece Dani:

What a game!

Mr. Beisbolfan and I watched part of the Rockies game last night, then went outside to enjoy a beautiful cloudy, breezy August evening. When we came back inside, the game was still going, tied 1-1 in the 9th. I can't resist an extra inning game, because you never know what you might see. This time we saw last year's Cy Young award winning pitcher, Tim Lincecum, used as a pinch runner. Then we saw the Giants (boo) go ahead 4-1 in the top of the 14th. Things didn't look so good for our Rockies, until Ryan Spillborghs came up with 1 out in the bottom of the 14th, and the bases loaded. I wouldn't be writing this post if he hadn't hit a walk-off grand slam home run. That's my boy!

Minor rant

I try to be positive, but I have to get a couple of gripes off my chest.

I'm really tired of walking into a store, and having somebody yell "Hi! Howya doing today?" the second I set foot inside the door. Usually I'm fumbling to get my clip-on sunglasses off & safely into my purse without dropping or scratching them, and on more than one occasion I've jumped when I'm startled by overeager store clerks. They don't make me want to shop and spend in their stores -- in fact, quite the opposite. I feel like telling them what I tell our overenthusiastic puppy -- dial it down a notch.

And why is it when people give out a web address, they insist on pronouncing "/" as "backslash"? / is a regular slash, or forward slash. \ is a backslash, and is not used in web addresses. Get it straight, people!

Perfection

Mr. Beisbolfan thought this box score was pretty cool -- a whole lotta 0 for 3s. We saw most of Randy Johnson's perfect game on May 18, 2004 on TV. Actually, I missed the first part, but heard it on the radio driving home from chemotherapy with my mom. Then we stopped at Diana Madaras' gallery to get a wedding gift for Ann & Spike. I got home to see the end of Randy's perfecto, along with Mr. Beisbolfan. Conga-rats to Mark Buehrle. He's in an elite group of 18.

Vote for Mark!

We have a chance to vote for the final baseball all-star in each league. Mark Reynolds of the Arizona Diamondbacks is deserving of your vote! His 24 home runs are 2nd in the National League, and his 61 RBI put him 3rd in the NL. Sounds like an all-star to me.

Vote early and often!

http://tinyurl.com/voteformarkreynolds

You can also vote for Tucson boy Ian Kinsler (CDO High School) to be an American League all-star.

Proud to be a Husky

Familia

The last few days we've had the opportunity to spend lots of time with my family. We've had several gatherings, since some cousins were in town for my Uncle Travis's memorial service. I'm very lucky to have such a neat family. I constantly marvel at how much fun we can have just hanging out together talking & enjoying food and / or music. I'm already looking forward to the next gathering, in a few months, when we remember "the four brothers", or "los hnos" -- my dad and his 3 brothers. It's hard to believe that they're all gone now.


We met for dinner at Midway Molina, one of my Aunt Patty's favorite Mexican restaurants. When we got there, Steven said "Patty's in the emergency room. She's not going to make it." Matt said "At all?? Or just for dinner?" Pretty funny. Not funny that she broke her ankle, though. At least Steven & Judy took some food home for her.

Neil & Debbie were so nice to offer their house for 2 impromptu gatherings. Muchas gracias to the hosts with the most!

Judy taking the picture instead of Matt this time. Bummer that Cody & Tori left before we got around to taking a group photo. And Happy 4th Anniversary to Dani & Josh! They were excused from the gathering to celebrate their day.

Unplugged

We recently had a wonderful vacation in New Orleans. We got to spend lots of time with family, eat too much good food, listen to music, smell the flowers, and generally soak up all the good things about New Orleans. What we didn't do was watch TV, surf the web, blog, twitter, text, or any of those things that seem to consume so much time these days. It was great. I'm having a hard time getting back to those things, and I'm not sure that I even want to.

Customer service

We've all had lots of recent experiences with declining customer "service". But every now and then, good service really does exist.

During my recent trip to Seattle, I realized that I needed a good waterproof jacket. After a bit of online shopping, I found just what I wanted at REI. I last visited REI (at its original and back then, possibly only store) in 1975 or 1976, and bought things I needed for my backpacking trip around Europe; specifically, a down jacket and a warm sleeping bag. Now I wanted to buy a new jacket. I went to the same Seattle "flagship" store, which is now much larger and glitzier than it was 3 decades ago. Since I have no idea where my old membership card is, I was resigned to paying $20 to sign up as a new member. After trying on my jacket, I took it to the cashier, and told her that I was a member in '75 or '76, but that was pre-computer, and I didn't have my card. She said that about that time they were starting into computers, and she'd see what she could find. I gave her my maiden name, and she asked what state I would have been living in. I told her that it was probably Washington at that time. She didn't find me, but then she removed the state, and found two N. Edmonsons, one at 1810 E. Silver St. Wow! That was me! I told her that was my Arizona address at that time. She oohed and aahed over my low membership number, had me fill out a change of address (and name) card, and gave me a temporary sticker with my membership number. I didn't have to pay $20 to sign up. Woo hoo! I was glad to get my new jacket (which was soon proven to be quite wind and waterproof), but having my old membership found in the REI database really made my day.

Where's Waldo?

We sometimes have a nice view of the Space Needle from our hotel room. Can you find it?

almost...

There it is!

Oh yeah

In case I'd forgotten, days like today are why I no longer live in Seattle. It is a beautiful city, though, and I've already seen lots of pink and white (dogwood?) trees in bloom. Nice view from our hotel room.

Four months until July 17!

Door to nowhere

A recent picture of a door in Mexico reminded me of this. Then I also realized that I never posted pictures of my trip to Greece last year. I ended up making an album on Shutterfly, and posting pictures seemed like a duplication of effort. If anyone is interested, I'll be glad to e-mail access to the Shutterfly album.

Anyway, this door is a good example of similarities between Greece and Mexico. See Slug Trails for the door that inspired this post.

Global Baseball

Last night Mr. Beisbolfan and I went to see the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Mexican national team in a spring training game. The game was a warm-up for the World Baseball Classic, which the Mexican team will play in along with teams from 15 other countries, including the U.S. The WBC is a relatively new event, which has been embraced by baseball fans worldwide, but not so much in our country. I had recently heard some comments on the radio about how passionately worldwide fans root for their countries, especially Latin Americans. Last night we got to experience that passion firsthand. It struck me that most of us in the U.S. are typically rather quiet and reserved, while Mexicans, for example, wear their emotions on their sleeves, and aren't afraid to express themselves. Last night's crowd was split between Diamondbacks fans and fans of the Mexican team, many of whom had come from Sonora for the game. It's hard to say how many were rooting for each team, but the Mexican fans were definitely loudest and most enthusiastic. Lots of them were wearing green shirts & hats, to match the color of their team. There were also some people wearing Venezuelan hats and jerseys. They were among the 8 people sitting in the 4 seats in front of us. On one side of us were a man and his 6 or 7 year old son from Mexico. They sat quietly at first, then the son started yelling at the game in Spanish, only breaking into English once to shout "You suck!". The atmosphere in the stadium was electric, and felt more like a playoff game than just the first week of Spring Training. The Diamondbacks were just working on stretching and working out kinks & improving swings, but the game meant a lot more to the Mexican team and their fans. I'm sure there were lots of happy people when the Mexican team finally won, 19-4, but by then Mr. Beisbolfan and I were home with our hungry dogs.


former Cy Young award winner Brandon Webb heading to the mound

game action

2 flags over TEP

D'backs béisbol

Spring Training

Today I took myself to watch my first spring training practice of the year. I've been slightly down on baseball lately, and my team in particular. The problem is the business (i.e. money) part of the game. Two of my favorite players from last year's Diamondbacks, Randy Johnson and Orlando Hudson, didn't re-sign with the team because of money. I do understand that, even though I don't like it. But what makes it extra hard to take is that both players signed with other teams in the same division as the D'backs. Talk about adding insult to injury! It's going to take me a while to get over it.

All that aside, today was an absolutely perfect day to be watching (or playing) baseball. The sun was shining, and while I was watching, the temperature was probably between 65 and 72. It was great to watch players working on fundamentals like fielding, baserunning, and bunting. Batting practice was the most boring part of the day, in my opinion. The D'backs have some great coaches and former players, and it was fun to watch people like Jay Bell, Matt Williams, Chip Hale, Brett Butler, and Kirk Gibson in action. There's definitely a different (nicer) feel to spring training as opposed to the regular season. Ahhh... baseball in Tucson... Life is good.

Newspapers

We've been hearing for some time that print newspapers are becoming extinct. I grew up reading and enjoying the Seattle Times. When I moved to Tucson, I subscribed to the morning paper, the Arizona Daily Star, but soon became annoyed because it wasn't delivered to me by the time I left for work in the morning. So I switched to the evening Tucson Citizen, so that I could have "fresher" news when I got home from work. In recent years, especially when I was working, I never seemed to find time to read the paper, except on Sundays, but it's still nice to have a paper you can sit down & read when you want to. Mr. Beisbolfan is a great newspaper reader. On vacations, we enjoy the Rocky Mountain News while we're in Colorado, and the Times Picayune in New Orleans.

But now newspaper obsolescence has really hit home. The Tucson Citizen has announced that they will cease publication on March 21, unless they find a buyer (highly unlikely). In the same sad boat are the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Rocky Mountain News. The fact that we'd been told this day was coming doesn't make it any easier to take. I know I'm part of the problem, because I'm more likely to get my news from the Internet than any other source, but still, I want to have it both ways.

Words

The mister and I were settling in to watch a movie, and the dogs were running in and out through the doggie door, chewing on each other, making funny noises, and generally having a good old time. Mr. Beisbolfan suggested that we hold off on starting the movie, because it was a little too "hubbubish" in the house.

Sisters

Happy 2009

It's great to start a new year with family and friends. Happy New Year from Sand3aye and Lucy!