Spring Training. Usually just known to me as the end of the "Long, dark, nightmare of the soul" that is that time between the Super Bowl and the beginning of baseball again. This year, however, we went. The eight year old inside of me was jumping around all over the place. And it was glorious.
After a week of travels that involved some great National Parks, some great company, and ended with new tires (heh heh, oops) we headed south to the Sonoran Desert and the land of saguaros. Those things are crazy! They're all over the hills, and as you get closer to the city of Phoenix, they dot the landscape along with Joshua Trees next to the highway. After we arrived in Phoenix, we checked into the motel, went and had some Waffle House (!!) and then stopped to grab some beverages at a gas station. Coming out of that gas station, my car would not start. An hour and a half and a new battery later, we were ready to go.
We went to a night game our first day in town to see the Rockies play the Reds at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale. It was awesome; major league players in a minor league setting, like Lakewood. We spent $8 for lawn seats, bought a beer and walked around the park, finally settling behind the Reds bullpen to watch their starter, Bronson Arroyo, warm up. As he began to throw, we got into a conversation with him. Personable, funny guy. Brock wound up getting a ball tossed his way as Arroyo went to the mound to begin the game. Neat stuff. Since we didn't move our location all night, we were still behind the pen when Arroyo drove a double off the center field wall. This caused another round of conversation about whether or not the relievers would hear the end of his double. As it turns out, it's a good thing it wasn't Mat Latos who got the hit.
The next day was two ball games. The first game was at Hohokam Park in Mesa for the Cubs and Rangers. We spent some time walking around the park before settling into the grass in right field for the duration of the game. They had 24 oz PBR for 10 bucks! What fun. The second game found us in Peoria for the Giants at the Mariners. By this point we were totally exhausted from all of the sunshine from the afternoon and an all-you-can-eat stop at the Waffle House, but it is always awesome to see Major Leaguers giving baseballs to kids at every opportunity, which happened abundantly all week.
Wednesday found us thankful for only one baseball game. Dustin left before we headed to Surprise for the Dodgers at the Royals. Keeping up with this game was a little confusing because both teams chose to wear blue. Perplexing. During this game, we found out via the internets that Dodgers third baseman Hanley Ramirez will miss the first 8 weeks of the season. Go WBC!
Thursday was our final day in Phoenix at the Days Inn. We checked out and went to see the White Sox play the Brewers at Camelback Ranch. During this game, we watched little kids get the best baseball experience they could ask for...baseballs tossed liberally into the crowd, autographs by many established Major Leaguers as they exited the game, a great lawn to roll down.
It was incredible to see Major League players interact with fans, sign autographs, and just generally enjoy their work in such a setting. The weather was perfect, the venues small and cozy, the prices totally reasonable. While I imagine that going to Florida to see the Yankees or Mets would be more exciting (since I'd have a dog in the fight, so to speak) the fact that everything in Phoenix is a half hour from everything else makes it a great opportunity to see many new players, parks, and teams.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
"And I've rambled on about me..."
As 2012 drew to a
close, I found myself (reflective by nature) more reflective than normal. My
life, so different than it was at the end of 2011, stands to change even more
in 2013. I couldn’t help but consider the end of 2011: frustration at the lack
of job prospects, chafing at continuing to live at home and not being able to
stand on my own two feet, the rut of routine.
January 1, 2013 finds me both literally and figuratively in
a different place. No longer a resident of the South Jersey I love so much, I
hang my hat now in Bullhead City. A trade for the different, if there ever was
one. January 1, 2013 finds me teaching 7th graders, but currently on
break, sitting in my parents’ kitchen, the room swimming with the smells of
garlic and soy sauce, comfortable as it ever was. January 1, 2013 finds me
secure and confident that I know where my (professional, at least) life will
take me until the beginning of June. Past that, who knows? I know that school
will end in June and that at some point this summer I will be on the Outer
Banks with the family and in Rhode Island with the youth group. I know that at
some point this summer I will become a squatter in Eric’s home. I know that at
some point this summer, I’ll have a plan for the fall. I am hoping for one long
before then, being who I am, but have begrudgingly accepted the fact that there
is just no way to know where I go from here right now.
2012 saw changes for the good…new job, new friends, new self
confidence and awareness, renewed joy in the holidays and the little things
that make New Jersey my home. 2013 will begin with changes…Colleen coming west
for ? days/weeks/months. The aforementioned challenge of deciding where to be
and what to do next (hoping I have a decision to make, and that I can make the
right one). I’ve made changes for the better, and here’s to hoping that I can
set my sights on bigger and better and continue to sand the rough edges of
change already begun. Here’s to hoping that I can be as positive about the
advancement and adjustments on December 31, 2013 as I am right now about the
way 2012 treated me.
For the second year in a row I begin with questions about
where my future will take me, although this year with more confidence that I
can take whatever it may be in stride, or at least have the strength to bear
myself back on course, or change course. At the dawn of 2012, I felt the weight
of inactivity, the strain of a cloudy future. In 2013, my future is no clearer,
but the experience of driving 2500 miles, setting up a life, and surviving the
first five months tells me I have the strength to pull off whatever it may be.
The unending love and support from friends and family, new and old, tells me I
have the support system, too.
Friday, December 7, 2012
From a Friday Night in Bullhead...
My students tell me I should title my autobiography (a primary source) "How is this my life? A Field Guide to Teaching Middle School on Purpose"
They tell me Chapter One should be "What did I do to deserve this?" and Chapter Two should be "What do you want?"
I am totally ok with this. The students who tell me this have scores of 95%+ in my class.
So I come home in two weeks for Christmas.
I got back to Bullhead from thanksgiving two weeks ago,
roughly. Thanksgiving was great. I love being able to be home and to make a
general nuisance of myself in the kitchen. I even cleaned the bathroom. Yeah,
being home was nice.
There are a lot of things that really make this place
incredible. Red sunrises through my classroom window, making me wonder about
Northeastern Maritime Tradition and Superstition. These absolutely stunning
sunrises reflected in fleeting clouds before the sun crests the top of the
Arizona mountains. It’s pretty great. Being at work so early has the benefit of
allowing some time to reflect on my lesson plans, their effectiveness and the
strategies I can employ to make my class more fun, more effective, and more
relevant to my students. Sunsets, mostly orange and pink, that silhouette the
Nevada mountains and highlight them like a slash across one of my students’
papers. Good friends. Great coworkers.
In a lot of ways, I am truly blessed here.
But it’s difficult, too. Being away is still a daily
struggle for me. Knowing some of the people I care most about are struggling
with things while I’m 2500 miles away is difficult. Not that I think I can
solve these problems, but it would be nice to be able to share them, toss back
a beer or two and talk and just be around.
Feel more effective.
Feel more relevant to the lives of the people I care most
about.
Eric was able to swing by my little apartment in mid-November…that
was nice. It’s always good to see him, good to catch up, good to let him know I
plan to play squatter in his home for some of the short summer. Looking forward
to tossing back a few at Christmas time, by the way.
Colleen will be coming out here with me when I return home
after the holiday. I feel both excited and very nervous. I want to see her
happy…and though this is a TBD (the party goes till ??) amount of time, I am
pulling for her to find the employment she so deeply desires. Weird position to
be in…to want to spend more time with her, but also be pulling for her to land
a job in Nowhere, Arkansas (or any other reasonably named backwoods place in
the middle of nowhere).
Such is my life, and I kind of love it that way.
Incidentally, I recently bought a fake Christmas Tree. While
I am not proud of this, I didn’t want to throw away a real tree before Christmas
(as I’ll be coming home) and didn’t want to come home to five million needles
on the floor…(cue jokes about Needles, California, which is not far from me). I had sent my mom and my sister a picture of
my sad little undecorated tree, and independently of one another they sent me
ornaments.
Blew me away, a little bit. I love stories, and I have more
than a few ornaments, now, that will always have a story attached to them, and
a little bit of love.
Appreciated. Much, much appreciated.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
We roasted pumpkins. Because it's fall.
It was good to be home.
Just arrived back in Arizona after a two week return to New Jersey.
Some highlights (in no particular order):
1. My family and friends
2. The day I subbed. Haha.
3. Bagels
4. Porkroll
5. Pizza
6. Charcoal grill
7. Yeungling
8. I do, in fact, like stout
9. Picking up hours at the store
10. Moe’s Burritos at Mccarren Airport
11. Watching the Gangnam Style video with Colleen
12. Sitting with Colleen while she graded
13. Brewing pumpkin beer
14. Colleen’s pumpkin lasagna
15. Football with Jayden
16. Golf with Dad, Smithbauer and Morgen
17. Falling asleep in Colleen’s office…under her desk
18. Sitting in on her classes. I learned things!
19. Trees with fall foliage
20. Football at Abby’s
21. Delicious Orchards with Colleen and Jay
22. Delicious Orchards Apple Cider. Wow
23. Driving the Jeep.
24. Finding marathons of bad television shows with Colleen
25. Harold’s
26. A cheesesteak in the airport
27. Jayden's picture of a fall tree
28. Pumpkin Ice Cream
Friday was rough. Headed out to the airport early to hang with Katy for a bit, and about 1/3 of the way there realized I’d left my keys at home. So there was an added hour. Colleen dropped me with Katy and headed off, and Katy and I hung out with her roommates for a bit before heading to the airport. My flight had already been delayed an hour. It took almost an hour to get to the airport because of traffic, but I was able to sit in Chickie & Pete’s for a bit and have a cheesesteak and a Yeungling. Or two. Then we boarded, and sat on the tarmac for an hour, then decided we didn’t have enough fuel, and sat for another hour. I got to my car a little after 2 am yesterday morning, slept a few hours, and got back into life as I know it. It was a long, long day. I hate flying. I’m basically anxious the entire time, and I really don’t like not having control of the situation. And sitting. And sitting and sitting and sitting hoping to take off.
4 weeks until I’m home again.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
"It ain't rare to hear the streetlights"
“Call themselves stars”
That about covers Vegas. Wow. But we’ll get there.
Left Flagstaff in the morning and headed to Hoover Dam…and
found a Dunkin Donuts in Kingman! I was thrilled.
“Mmm, perfectly circular eggs…”
Thanks, Colleen.
But it wasn’t terrible, although the NJ bagels are better,
even at Dunkin. Sigh.
On to the Hoover Dam. I’m not a big man-made structures guy…I
prefer woods and mountains and things like that over eleventy billion tons of
concrete, but it was alright. Wasn’t crazy about the charging for everything
part of the Dam experience, but it was ok. Lake Mead is cool.
From the Dam, we headed on to Las Vegas, hitting a Del Taco
on the way. It’s like Taco Bell but less gross…not that that’s a challenge. We
made it to our hotel, Circus Circus, around two in the afternoon and checked
in. It was a far cry from America’s Best Value Inn in Flagstaff…which was a
dive. This place was really, really nice. We took a cab down the Strip and
wandered around the Flamingo, the Mirage, the Bellagio. It was total sensory
overload. Noise, lights, smells…we hit a Mexican place inside the Flamingo, and
the food was good. The waitress was pushy (of course) and tried to give me food
I didn’t order and then charge me for it, but that didn’t end well for her. After
dinner we wandered around and eventually found a brew pub, where I tried my
second stout in as many days…and enjoyed my second stout in as many days. I’m becoming
concerned about my tastes. After that, we watched a couple of the fountain
shows at the Bellagio and then headed back to Circus Circus, totally exhausted.
I cannot accurately describe Las Vegas, like I cannot take
pictures of the Grand Canyon that will do it justice. Suffice to say that for a
guy whose ideal night is a pine forest and a campfire, the constant sensory
bombardment of Las Vegas is overwhelming.
I took Colleen to the airport at 5 this morning and made it
to work by seven. 5 weeks until I’m home.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
"Charismatic Geo-what?"
So there’s this hole in the ground…
Colleen and I went to the Grand Canyon today. We left
Bullhead about 2 AM and headed north east to the Grand Canyon, which put us
there about 5:15. Driving through the park, in the dark, on a road with no
street lights was wild. I turned off my headlights (briefly) and was astounded
at how dark it got, as the sky was covered with a layer of clouds I’ll
reference in a few. But as we were discussing the dark, and the difference
between the Canyon (at 7000ish feet) and Bullhead (at 500), I realized what the
real difference was.
“Colleen…TREES!”
We were both shocked. It’s funny how fast you get used to
scrub brush and rocks and not trees and shrubs. We kept on the lookout for elk,
but were disappointed as we were much too early to really see anything beyond
my headlights. We parked at the main lot, just off of Mather Point, which
Colleen mentioned to me is a great first view of the Canyon.
Boy…was she right. Even before the sun came up, Mather Point
and the Rim Trail on the South Rim were breathtaking. We positioned ourselves
with about fifty to seventy other people to watch the sun come up through the
clouds and illuminate the Canyon, and then all of us snapped away wildly for a
few moments before the sun disappeared behind the clouds again. I’ve seen some
great sunrises…LBI at the lighthouse, the various prairie sunrises on my way
across the nation, Talbot Island State Park in Florida, the Atlantic Ocean from
Smithbauer’s boat…but this one was hard to beat. After the sun came up, we
headed back to the car, had some breakfast and prepared to hike down the Rim
Trail for a bit.
**Before the sun came up, after we had been at the Canyon
edge for roughly five minutes, Colleen uttered my favorite line of the day. My
eyes were glued to the giant hole in the ground, trying to take it in and
understand the scale…and I catch Colleen out of the corner of my eye staring
the opposite direction at a scrubby little juniper. “I love this tree,” she
exclaims. I find her difficult not to like**
Our hike along the Rim Trail was certainly two things…breathtaking
and wet. It rained. A cold, cold rain that was often sideways, so I hid my
camera under my Rowan cap and soldiered on through it. We stopped to identify a
few trees along the way, and check out some little tuft eared squirrels that
were running about, and made it Pipe Creek Vista just in time to realize that
the Canyon was full of fog and the rain wasn’t going to stop. Thankfully, a
shuttle (free inside the park) pulled up just after we snapped a picture and we
were able to ride back the mile rather than hike. This led us to a little café shoppe,
some coffee and tea, and a veggie breakfast burrito that really wasn’t bad at
all.
After breakfast and a foray into the visitor’s center and
bookstore (where I bought a new map for my wall…) we headed the opposite
direction down the Rim Trail. More stunning vistas followed, and we made
friends with a few people from around the world who were amused by the fact
that I was taking several photos of Colleen’s boots on the edge of the Canyon
(including tying them together and hanging them from a scrubby little pine that
was clinging to life) for her. Our ultimate goal was the trailhead of the
Bright Angel Trail…because that’s the place to go to look for the California
Condor, a critically endangered scavenger in the vulture family. And while we
did not get to see one up close, we did see one soaring over the Canyon…and had
to debate for a few moments whether it was a Condor halfway across or an
airplane all the way across. Then it flapped and came close enough for us to be
sure. Very, very cool.
We hiked the Bright Angel Trail just a little…by that point
we’d hiked almost five miles and were more or less exhausted. So we headed up
to the shuttle stop and prepared to head back to the visitor’s center and drive
on to Flagstaff. Except, along the way, the driver spotted a bull elk.
I will repeat that. The driver spotted A BULL ELK.
We hopped off the shuttle and rushed over to see him. Un.
Real. Huge. So huge. Huge rack. He fed along one side of the road, decided he
was done, wandered across the road, fed there, and then knocked some branches
down with his antlers. As he fed he worked his way away from the road, and we
wandered off to leave him in peace as well.
After that it was on to Flagstaff, a great brew pub, and a
questionable motel room. Tomorrow, we strike out for Hoover Dam and Las Vegas,
and I prepare myself to drop Colleen at the airport Tuesday morning and make it
down to MVJH in time for work.
Arizona gets a little more (forced) sunshine
So Colleen has been here for over a week. I take her to the
airport Tuesday...and I’m really not looking forward to it. But that’s another
matter, and another post.
Tonight I’d like to focus on the drive up to Las Vegas to
pick her up. I watched her flight information rather closely, and shot up to
the airport to be there just before she arrived…which turned out to be a half
hour early. This fact did not make me sad.
So at 10:15 on August 24, I was sitting at baggage carousel
fifteen at McCarren airport in Las Vegas when she disembarked. It was very,
very nice to see her face…and it has been very, very nice to have her here.
The drive itself was ridiculous. Just over an hour and a
half from Bullhead, the drive starts with a quick up and down through some
mountains (which were a little surreal at night) and then a long, fairly
straight drive up to the airport through open empty desert. The spread of stars
was absolutely incredible, and I almost stopped more than once just to look at
them. But I pushed on.
The first thing that struck me about the drive was the
little town about halfway to Las Vegas. It appears suddenly, out of nowhere,
slows the speed limit, charges too much for gas, offers casinos, and then
disappears again as rapidly as it appeared.
Then the glow that is Las Vegas appears on the horizon…hidden
behind mountains, there is still no doubt what you’re seeing. The desert is so
dark, and so totally bleak at night, that the glow on the horizon (which couldn’t
even be distinguished in New Jersey, I’m certain) draws you in.
It does not, however, prepare you for the first vista of the
city itself. You pass a casino, then back into desert, then come around a hill
and BAM…the city of Las Vegas and the lights are laid out before and below you.
It’s like looking at the sky upside down. I actually exclaimed something to the
effect of “Woahhhawwooowwww,” and then looked around the empty car to make sure
nobody had heard me. It was wild. A sight that I’ll never forget.
And certainly a good reason to be going up there, as well.
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