Thursday, August 30, 2007

US Open

I love tennis. I enjoy watching it as much as playing. The US Open is one of my favorite tournaments because they have coverage from 11:00-5:00 and then a night session at 7:00pm. The first day of the tournement my youngest daughter asked me "Are you going to watch tennis all day?" My unabashed reply was "yes and at night too, for the next two weeks."

There have been several really great moments so far in the tournement:

Donald Young, 18 won his first match and now is into the third round because his last opponent had to withdraw.

John Isner, 22 and 6' 9" is into the third round with 2 impressive wins. He will play Roger Federer next. When asked about his next opponent he replied " I don't know that much about him. Is he good?" HAHA!!

Justin Gimelstob played his last US open singles match against his friend Andy Roddick. The post game interview was hilarious. I think Justin will have a good broadcasting future.

Andy Roddick won his second round match on his 25th birthday.

James Blake won is first 5 set match against a tricky and entertaining player, Fabrice Santoro.

The Williams sisters are both playing really well.

Newcomer Ahsha Rolle was a surprise winner and now is also in the third round. This has to be a dream-come-true for the young American.

Maria Sharapova has been wearing a beautiful red dress.

If you don't hear from me much over the next 2 weeks you now know why.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Anniversary

My husband and I celebrated our anniversary this week-end. We spent friday night at a Holiday Inn Express on the south-side. ( we are feeling sooo smart now) We had a great dinner at a seafood restaurant and then went out to different bars and watched my Buccos win an exciting 15 inning game.

We noticed a lot of 20-somethings order drinks with Red Bull and other "energy" drinks. We were asked if we wanted to try it but declined. I really felt no inclination to stay up to 2 AM or beyond. Those days are long passed. Still it was fun hanging out and people watching.

I have seen several times this new show on VH1 called "The Pick-up Artist". It has this guy called "Mystery" and his two wing-men helping socially challenged men try to learn to pick-up girls. The contestants all struggled even with the most basic conversation skills. I liked the one piece of advise, "try to be interesting." Yeah, if it were only that easy. As if they were trying to be boring on purpose. Oh, I get it I have to be interesting!! Can I be good looking too? "Mystery" has a book out too, so if you need more in depth help, check it out.

So, since I was people watching I tried to notice how the guys in the bar were doing. Some seemed to be doing fine ,but I noticed a lot of guys just sitting at the bar making no attempts. There was one guy hanging out with a very offensive t-shirt on. It had a girl bent over with very little clothing on. I can't remember what the phrase on it was, but I told my husband that it was the most girl-repelling shirt I had ever seen. And to think that he had chosen to go out in public wearing it. Ugh!

Although it was fun, I am so happy that I am married and don't have to be a part of the singles scene. I guess that is what is best about celebrating an anniversary, realizing how good you have it.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Wild Things

A group from my church went on our second annual baseball outing to see the Washington Wild Things, a farm league team in Washington PA. We had a really nice tailgate party before the game and I brought my famous taco dip. Someone said that it was "infamous" but I said "no way 'cause its really good". The dip was completely finished before we went in to the game.

My family's seats were not particularly good because they were behind the metal rail which was exactly at my level of vision. I had to either sit up really high or slouch down to see, so I moved up one row to sit beside a freshman in high school named Dylan who went on the mission trip with Laurel and I to Mississippi last year. (check Laurel's blog for details) I don't typically have a lot of interaction with teenage boys and I always think it is interesting how girl crazy they are.

Since Dylan's mom was not at the game I did my best to embarrass him. (which is a mother's job) I picked a favorite player to cheer for (Jarod Rine, who had a nice hit his first time at bat), I cheered for all the contestants in the between inning contests, I danced to "YMCA"and did the chicken dance (in my seat so not too bad). Dylan was pretty unflappable and took my antics in stride. Of course, I wasn't the only one in our group acting crazy. Things can get pretty funny when we get going.

You see you really have to make an effort to have fun at these games because otherwise they can be very boring. After seeing pro games the minor league players just don't measure up. Dylan and I agreed that several times the player at second base should have made it home and they stopped at third. Ugh, it was so frustrating . Even so the Wild Things were victorious ,yay.

They have a lot of give aways at these games. We each were given a 20% off coupon for Ponderosa, an opportunity to get a free gallon of washer fluid from Auto Zone, a discount of $10.00 off a $50.00 purchase at Dick's Sporting goods and the kids received a Wild Things gym bag. Last year everyone in our section won free fish bites from Long John Silvers. We all cheered like it was the best prize ever and even hoped that we could be so lucky this time around. Unfortunately they didn't give fish bites this year. :-( I asked around and found out that no one used the certificate last year so perhaps it wasn't deemed a very successful promotion. We all joked about the common prize of 2 free tickets to a future Wild Things game. The cost of our tickets were $8.00 each. Okay, its better than a stick-in-your-eye. (but most things are)

One of the highlights was fireworks after the game!! There were some really cool ones. A perfect cap-off to a great evening.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Civic Duty

My husband has been called to serve on jury duty many times. He was actually feeling rather harassed by the number of times and called about it once and they said he was summoned by error. You are only supposed to be summoned once every three years. There are federal and county cases , so it could be slightly more often.

I have always upheld my duties and have voted in every election. Yes, even the boring ones where you only are voting on judges. Have I ever been asked to serve on jury duty? No!! I am one of the few people that would love to do it and you even get paid , although not very much.

I am so excited because I have finally received a summons. Yes!! I am supposed to appear in mid-September and I can't wait. Knowing my luck they probably won't need me or I won't be chosen. Do you think that my views for the death sentence on all crimes will be a problem? ;-)

I am interested in hearing from all of you about your jury duty experiences.