Crumpled Notebook

So in a couple weeks, I will have been to 10 baseball parks this season. I was at Oakland yesterday. It was handsdown the worst ballpark I’ve seen so far. Nearly everything about it was not good, but I’ll elaborate more on that later. Right now, you fine people get to vote on which stadiums I go to next year. I don’t know that I’ll listen to you, but we’ll see. Here is the entire list, starting with AL. The ones I’ve been to, or will have been to by the end of this season at struck through. I’ve been to a couple more of these, but not this season, and they were in those teams old stadiums, so I didn’t count them.

1. Angels Stadium–LA Angels of Anaheim  (if they go playoffs, I’m gonna try for tickets in Anaheim)
2. Camden Yards–Baltimore
3. Comerica–Detroit
4. Fenway–Boston
5. Kauffman–Kansas City
6. McAfee–Oakland
7. Metrodome–Minnesota
8. Progressive–Cleveland
9. Rogers Centre–Toronto
10. Safeco–Seattle
11. Tropicana–Tampa Bay
12. US Celluar–Chicago W. Sox
13. Yankee Stadium–Yankees
14. Ranger–Texas
15. AT&T Park–SF
16. Busch–St. Louis
17. Chase–Arizona
18. Citizens Bank–Philly
19. Coors–Colorado
20. Dodger Stadium–LA Dodgers
21. Dophin–Fl. Marlins
22. Great American Ballpark–Cincy
23. Mller–Milwaukee
24. Minute Maid–Houston
25. Nationals–D.C.
26. Petco–San Diego
27. PNC–Pitt
28. Shea Stadium–Mets
29. Turner Field–Atlanta Braves
30. Wrigley Field–Chicago Cubs

So, where am I going next year?

So, I’ve decided I don’t want to be lugging a lot of luggage on my trip to NY. Sure, I can store it in a locker at the hostel, but to be honest, I don’t even want to deal with it, or deal with the fact that it could get stolen.

So here is my plan. I’m taking one single backpack. That’s it. Just one. I figure I can take a couple changes of clothes. Hopefully do laundry before I leave Seattle and if I have to wear something twice in NY, so be it. Besides, I’ll probably buy a shirt or something somewhere.

I’m also not taking my laptop gasp! Yep. I don’t want to lug that thing around either, especially in the city, and I sure don’t want to leave it in my room. But I think with the Blackberry, I’ll be fine. Access to email and facebook should tide me over. It’s not like I’ll be sitting around twiddling my thumbs anyway. As for getting pictures off my memory card (which is normally a big use of my laptop), I’m just gonna buy another 2-4 GB card, so I can change out cards. So here it is, my packing list:

• Backpack
• 2 changes of clothes (well, minus undies…they get full week change), 1 pair shoes
• hairbrush, toothpaste, toothbrush, lotion, make-up
• blackberry and charger
• camera (not taking the video camera), memory cards and battery charger
• towel (if it fits okay…otherwise I’ll buy one in NY and dispose of it there too)

That’s all I can come up with. Might of forgotten something, but that’ll just barely even fill my backpack, so I’ll be good.

I just purchased tickets for my next 3 baseball games (well, after Oakland next weekend). I got my expensive as crap Yankees ticket tonight, as well as Seattle and Mets tickets. Plane tickets are bought, lodging is reserved, so all the major details are taken care of as of now. Just food and transportation.

So I was talking to a friend last night about my job. I joked that I didn’t do my job because I enjoyed working with kids but because I like annoying parents (complete joke of course). I was saying how frequently, I will feed the kids from any of the programs I do a big sugary snack, but I always wait until the end, when it’s near time for them to go home. Now truthfully, I don’t always feed them right before they go home, but you can bet on a few occassions that I pull out something like chocolate cake or [insert yummy sugar filled snack], I purposely wait until I’m done with my lesson or whatever I’m doing. Then I feed them above referenced cake and send them home, full of energy (and a sugar high).

Here is my method. When I have kids coming, I purposely drink a bunch of Coke (bunch being more than I normally drink, which is already a bunch to most people) so that by the time the kids get there, I am the one on the sugar high. You have to time this carefully though because if you do it too early, or quit with the sugar too early, then by the time the kids get there, you are on the sugar-low and your body is crashing. That sucks when you have to spend between one and two hours with kids.

So, I’m hyped up. That gets the kids hyped up of course. At the very least, they think I’m crazy and it’s fun for them to watch and aren’t complaining about how bored they are (which also sucks when that happens). So I’m hyper. The kids are getting hyper because I’m hyper, and then, when I’m done and satisfied they soaked up something, I pull out the big guns…chocolate cake.

Feed children cake. Send them outside to run around and throw balls. Send children home with parents…hyper and full of energy. Now, here is where the love/hate thing with the parents come in. I’m sure they hate that they pick up their kids (or I drop them off) all hyper, but with all the energy, the tell their parents how funny Ms. Melissa was tonight (you know, if they are under 6th grade). The also hopefully tell their parents something they learned. And lastly, they tell their parents how much they loved “Sonday’s Cool” “chapel” “youth group”, etc…. So then, despite the fact that they have hyper kids, the parents are glad they kids are happy and they keep sending them back to me.

For the teenagers, the parents opinion is less involved, but I guarentee, if you feed the kids chocolate cake (or anything for that matter), they’ll probably want to come back. Getting them to soak in information is a little more difficult, but apparently they sometimes think about it.

Therefore, chocolate cake=my job security.

“Ms. Melissa, is it a sin to have a BB gun?”

The teen drop-offs after church are always interesting. But hey, at least the kids are thinking about sinning versus not sinning.