Wednesday, January 27, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - Happy Birthday Jeff!!

 



Today mark’s one year since I started this website and we have close to 4,000 hits on here. Not bad considering I thought when I started I would be happy if we hit triple digits.

But more importantly today would have been my Brother Jeff’s 39th birthday. My buddy DJ and I nicknamed Jeff - the Moose way back when we were in high school. We had been calling him a name that rhythms with Moose but my mom yelled at us – so he became the Moose. When I think of Jeff I always remember his smile and how happy he was each time we were together. I would say the best memory was when I coached his Senior League baseball team to a championship. It was a best of 3 series and we were tied 1 game a piece. In the deciding game 3 the Moose had 2 key hits and made a great catch in left to save 2 runs. We won game three 9 to 8. Recently my nephew Aaron got a tattoo of Jeff and I have attached the photo of the tat to this blog.

This week the planning stages for this season’s Mission have kicked into full gear. I booked my first 2 flights which is the time that I have to put some skin in the game – up until hitting the purchase airfare button on AA.com this touring the country stuff is all talk, not now – I am invested in it.

This past weekend while watching the football games I started tweaking the schedule. Atlanta is one of the tougher ballparks to schedule since it really can’t be linked to any other ballparks without some serious travel. So with most of the parks I look to see when the Cubs play there and low and behold the Cubs open their season on April 5th in Atlanta. Fate has just said – Bob you have to go. Since I am trying to keep using vacation days from work to a minimum – I will fly into Atlanta in the morning, catch the 4:10 pm game and then fly back to Boston that night after the game. My good friend David Quinn lives in Atlanta and like with last year’s trip to the TED, the Mighty Quinn will attend this game with me.

The Texas ballparks also present a challenge to the schedule. I had originally decided to squeeze them in when I was doing my west coast swing in June. After playing around with airfare costs it just didn’t make sense to fly into Texas twice during the west coast swing. So now option 2 – check to see if both the Rangers and Astros are home on the same weekend? Last season only 2 times the Astros and Rangers were home on the same weekend and that didn’t fit into the schedule. Well 2 times in April they were home the same weekend and then fate strikes again – I start checking May and to my surprise the Cubs play the Rangers the weekend of May 21 – 23. Now time to check the Astros schedule – there is no way they can be home that weekend, but they are against the Padres. Now the fly in the ointment – how much is airfare? Only $195 non-stop round trip on American – book it Dano we are going to Texas the weekend of May 21.

So why round trip to Dallas – why not fly into or out of Houston? Great questions my readers have. Here is what I learned last summer – rental cars in Houston are much more expensive than in Dallas. So that makes it easy to decide to fly into Dallas. Airfare and the one way rental drop off fee in Houston is outrageous so I plan to see the Cubs/Rangers on Friday May 21st – drive the 240 miles to Houston on the 22nd, see the Astros/Padres and then drive the 240 miles back to Dallas the morning of the 23rd in time to catch the Cubs/Rangers game. All that driving will save me about $300.

In the coming weeks I will be changing the look and some of the pages on this site – new season demands some tweaks. For my own sanity I am going to add a travel page to the site that will list my booked flights. Last summer I lost track and almost missed a flight and in one case didn’t have a flight. Also next week I will have a very special posting on here that will tie this summer’s Mission to a cause.

So for now this is so long and good bye. Happy Birthday Moose – I love and miss you!!! Please let Shawn Marie know I miss and love her as well – though I have a sneaky suspicion she knows. Also have you guys taught the Jetes how to sit yet?

Posted by , 12:32 PM, Permalink

 

Comment (0)

 



 

Monday, January 25, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - Mission Date T-Minus 69 Days

 



Where has the time gone? Here we are at the end of January already and so much has happened since we last talked that I will just have to do a quick bullet recap. So here goes in warp speed:

- Holidays were great, got to spend time with my family in Lakeland, FL

- Always cool when you can make people cry with a Christmas present

- Spent 2 days at Universal Studios Orlando with my nieces Alex (the A Bomb) and Harley (the Hammer)

- The A Bomb is in the yellow and the Hammer in the black in the picture. The guy in the picture is just some dork they met there

- Best ride at Universal for me - hands down Spiderman

- Got to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot in the same day – it was like speed dating only the dates were the rides

- Disney better start upgrading their rides, I hadn’t been to the Magic Kingdom since 1994 and all of the big rides were still the same

- That damn ‘It’s a Small World” song is still stuck in my head

- Got the Hammer addicted to hockey by taking her to see the Lightning play the Bruins and the Penguins. The Lightning won both games – go figure

- The Hammer is now in love with Vinny Lacavalier, though if she has to she will settle for Steven Stamkos

- Got to see the Blackhawks spank the Bruins here in Boston, always great when your team is the spankers not the spankees

- Bought my first spring training tickets – March 6th Blue Jays at Steinbrenner Field to see the World Champs and the A Bomb’s future husband – A Rod of course.

- Got a hole in one on Tiger Woods Golf on Wii – I know there are a million Tiger Woods hole in one jokes I could insert here but by now who cares

- NFL playoffs have been ok – then again the Bears weren’t in it so who really cares

- Don’t know which I loved better, The Patriots losing in the first round to the Ravens or the Saints pounding on Brett Favre for 4 quarters

- 6 months now start of will he or won’t he (he being Brett Favre). Note to ESPN and every other sports reporter in the world – WE DON”T CARE

- Had dinner at the A Bomb’s college – Florida Southern College where the Mocs football team had another undefeated season – also an unvictoryed season as they don’t have a football team

- Had 7 straight strikes on Wii bowling to start my game – ended up with a 274

- Beat up some girl with glasses on Wii boxing – kind of felt bad about it then again it was only a cartoon character so I am sure she is over it

I am sure I have messed many other exciting things but as you can see at the end of the list the pickins have gotten slim. I have posted revision 6 to the schedule for this upcoming baseball Quest/Mission. The schedule is on the 2010 Quest Schedule page. The key to this schedule is to maximize holiday weekends while keeping the amount of vacation days used to a minimum. Currently I have to use only 7 vacation days to get to all 30 ballparks. I am excited by the start of the schedule that has me at the opening game of the baseball season here in Boston and then flying down to Atlanta the next morning to see the Cubs opener against the Braves.

Check back next week as the blogs will start to be more regular as the season is only a little over 2 months away. As you can see the blog date is now in a t-minus countdown to the season opener on April 4th.

I will leave you now with a joke that I can not take credit or blame for – this one is all the A Bombs fault. A Japanese lady is visiting the US and goes to the bank for the second day in a row to covert yen into US dollars. The teller gives her $180 dollars. The lady says yesterday you gave me $200 for the same amount of yen – why the difference? The teller says will it’s fluctuations. The lady thinks for a bit and says “Well fluct you Americans too.”

I don’t write them – I only pass them along. So for now this is so long and good bye from rain soaked Newburyport, MA where just the thought of April 4th is getting me thru the doldrums of a Boston winter. Then again an April 4th night game in Boston will still feel like winter.

Posted by , 3:34 PM, Permalink

 

Comment (1)