a guy and a bee
a collection of random thoughts and ideas from me, her, and sometimes us
to do lists
Are you a “to do list” person? I am not really a big one myself but know lots of people who are. With the Droid, you have the built in to do list widget and I use it mostly for notes, although it has one thing to do on it. Blog more. That’s my to do list. I am not a person who needs a list to remember to fold the laundry and clean the house. Those are things that I would think that you do on a regular basis.
I don’t even make a list of things I need to do at work unless something is overly important. Maybe it’s too much rigor for me, I don’t know but I don’t feel like it fits for me.
What about you? I am going to work on mine and blog more (assuming I remember).
@@@Hocoblogs
My Year in Sports
21 Orioles Games
1 Shorebirds Game
1 Ironbirds Game
2 Baysox Games
2 Nationals Games
1 Nebraska Football Game
2 Ravens Games
2 Elon BBall Games (at MD and at Navy)
1 Baltimore Grand Prix
From starting about this time last year, it’s been a fun year of attending sporting events. As a big baseball fan, I’ve always enjoyed going to numerous games a year at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, but the variety increased this year. Last October, I attended my first professional football game. Sat on the 50 yard line about 30 rows from the field. Fantastic time and nothing like corporate seats. Shortly after that, we made our way to Nebraska to see my wife’s dad. There we had the opportunity to attend the Nebraska vs. Missouri game, a great rivalry and exciting game. It was their 306th or 309th consecutive sell out. I have a separate blog post on here all about our trip if you are interested.
As the fall turned into winter, Elon’s basketball team travelled for the season to play teams locally and we saw them at Maryland and Navy around the holidays. We had a great alumni attendance at both games and certainly gave Maryland a run for their money. (Should I mention we also went to 1 or 2 Elon football games? They play 1-AA in football in the SoCon.)
At the end of the year, I found out for my birthday, Bee got me/us a partial game season ticket plan for the Orioles. Section 15 if you want to see us out there next year! Between FanFest and the season starting, I laid low with getting some autographs and collectibles. As spring started, I made it to my first opening day, with my buddy Dan, since I was in high school. We had a blast and were ready for what we thought would be a great season. Between season tickets, random Friday or Saturday games, giveaway nights or alumni games, I made it to at least 21 games. In between, we went to the Shorebirds and Baysox games for bobblehead giveaways. I also finally made it out to the Ironbirds stadium after 10 years for a work night at the the game. Hadn’t been to a minor league game in years. I also finally made it to Nationals stadium, once to see the Orioles and once with Bee’s family when they were in town. Nice place but I still enjoy OPaCY! Even wrangled in a batting practice ball at a Orioles game and a foul ball at a Baysox game. The ball hawks weren’t around at the time. Haha.
Once the season wound down, we got to the much anticipated Grand Prix. I made my way down to practice and had a good time. Lots going on and lots of energy. Neat experience but couldn’t go the rest of the weekend since we were going to the beach for the holiday.
And as we end up in October again, I got to go to another Ravens game for the weekend. Another corporate section and hospitality tent event. What a way to tailgate! This time it was Bee’s first professional football game and we won to boot. Talk about a loud, rowdy environment at M&T Bank these days.
I’m not really a fan of professional basketball and only a semi casual fan of hockey so who knows if I attend something like that soon but we shall see what the next year of sports brings. I know it will include lots of Orioles games though!
My ‘Grand’ Adventure
This past (Labor Day) weekend was the Inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. If you follow my tweets regularly, you would have seen my tweets on Friday about all the activities. (sorry it took me awhile to get this posted)
Not being a big race fan, I was going into this experience pretty much as a novice. Both a novice fan and a understanding. Having gotten free tickets for Friday from The Fan, I got to see the practice rounds that day. After the months of hype and prep, getting to the event at on day 1, I was underwhelmed (at first).
I got into Baltimore around 9:30 am and start walking around the venue.
I start walking down to the Budweiser party area 98 Rock still had their morning show going. Took some photos of the area and moved around the steel walkways into the main area. People were still setting up and come to find out, the race course wasn’t ready for racing, which was a real disappointment. The picture to the right was from around 11 am when they were still welding man hole covers shut. As well, they were still cleaning the course with the street sweeps up until at least 12:30 when they were supposed to have started. Practice was supposed to start around 8 or 9 and then got push to noon, and the was delayed to after 1:30 pm. After noon and the opening ceremonies, no updates were giving as far as time changes and I never heard anything as to the original delays when I got on site. Shortly before the street sweepers came by for the third time, workers will still securing the walls in place. One of the pieces of the metal wall even fell on one of the flag guys on the other side of the street.
securing the fence
As the ceremonies got under way, I was disappointed to not see either Mayor Rawlings Blake or Governor O’Malley. The Lt. Governor was on site and gave a few words on behalf of the Governor and State, but with the city being on the national and international stage, I was very surprised, to say the least, that they weren’t there. with all that being said, once racing started, no one was worried
about how they got their and just enjoyed the race. the first lap there was a minor crash right at grandstand 6 where I was sitting. After the first practice race, I shifted locations and moved up closer to the convention center. After that, I walked up through the Paddocks and Camden Yards. From there I saw some of the Le Mans racing which was louder that the Indy races.
Le Mans Race on Lee Street
For a first race experience and that it was only practice it was all in all a neat experience. I would have liked to have been able to take some photos from the walkways, but we were quickly removed through those areas when we tried.
After the race, Bee and I hit the road and went down to the Outer Banks. There was debris and some minor damage, but it was alot less than expected! We enjoyed the rest of the Labor Day weekend with the sun, surf, and sand.
I posted a bunch of photos of my trip to the Grand Prix on my flickr page for you to check out. I tried to capture the essence of Baltimore in among this neat, inaugural event! And I even got to meet @juliemore to boot!
view of the sound from atop jockey's ridge
the baltimore grand prix
ps… remember when you say “grand prix,” you have to emphasis the “gra” portion of grand prix. it sounds more european that way. haha.
one last thing, i saw the UTZ girl and the pickle’s pub custom, LOL.
@@@hocoblogs
favorite pizza in hoco?
lately i’ve been on a pizza binge. i’ve probably had pizza almost once a day for
the past week and a half. and although, i really do enjoy a good slice, it got me thinking, what’s my favorite pizza in HoCo? Most recently, it’s probably the pizza from Coal Fire over off of Rt. 108 near Rt. 100. they have a great selection of pizzas as well options to make your own. you can choose from different sauce and different toppings. we enjoy the sweeter sauce with the ground beef on top. they also have a warm char-grilled warm caesar salad that is tasty too!
it seems like there are a never ending supply of options in howard county though for pizza. there are the standard carry out and delivery places like papa john’s, domino’s, and jerry’s subs and pizza. for a quick pizza, my wife and really enjoy the trattoria e pizzeria da enrico in the king’s contrivance village center. they make a great pizza and is nicely priced. we usually get half sausage and mushroom. that is usually the same we order at three brothers as well, although, we also enjoy the square, thick crust pizza as well. the square pizza was a standard of her childhood.
recently we also tried facci. another wood fire restaurant like coal fire but a little fancier inside and a wider menu variety. even though it’s on the east side of howard county and on the way to fulton/216, it’s worth the drive to it check out for those on the other side of the county.
so my question to you is, what is your favorite pizza in HoCo? with almost at least one pizza shop in each village center and/or shopping center, there are lots of options!
there is even pretty decent pizza at oriole park these days!
hocofood@@@
why should i care about iowa?
and by iowa, i mean the iowa straw poll.
candidates at the ames, iowa straw poll
the next presidential election is over a year away. a year and 3 months away from when we need to decide about the next president. the candidates are going to continue to change until it counts. why don’t we spend some time fixing the things we need in the next year and 3 months. perhaps we could work on the debt situation and actually get a real solution, like not continuously spending more money than we have and just suggesting that we raise taxes to make up for it. that’s not going to work. perhaps we could work on dealing with the multiple wars we are involved in. perhaps we could work on things that are other real issues here at home like, oh say, maybe the economy. come to think of it, weren’t these all the things that president obama said he was going to work on or fix when he became president?
here we are 3 years later and in a worst place than we were before and everyone is just pointing at each other and/or still trying to blame President Bush or the Tea Party. we, the united states of america, haven’t had a budget in probably 850 days or more. just think if in every day of your life you just spent whatever you wanted and had no accountability for it? i really feel bad for all those democrats that got duped into believing in the hope and change because as you and i have both seen, it is just more of the same. let’s fix some of the issues and then decide who should be president because at this point no one in congress or the white house is looking like a good option.
//end rant.// oh and i am a republican.
Length of Ballgames
I don’t know about you guys, but a 4 plus hour game is out of control. And the game went into extra innings around, if not after, the 4 hour mark. The major league umpires have let this thing get out of control and although there aren’t any official timing rules, they need to do something.
Having seen Garcia pitch against the Orioles last week, you know that he took 10-15 seconds between pitches at least. Throws a pitch, gets the ball back, circles the mound, composes himself and then gets the next sign. What a load of junk. I am sure Beckett did the same thing and don’t get me started on Papelbon, who probably took a leisurely trip around the stadium before he came in.
The fact that the umpires continue to let these players and especially these two teams to continuously do this is a real shame.
Things like this are reasons why people are leaving the game, especially kids, and going to other sports. A soccer match is over in 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours without an extra half or period. Same with hockey, non stop action.
It’s time for MLB to start limiting time between innings with pitches, time between pitches, and paying more attention to time spent on visits to the mound. In a game that had a final score of 3-2, there is no way the game should have taken 4 hours and 15 minutes. The Orioles had an hour and 15 minute rain delay and then played a 6-2 game (and they won!) that only lasted just over 2 hours IN THE RAIN for half of the game.
Get it together, MLB!
Living In The Danger Zone
Well it hasn’t just been a song in Top Gun in our house lately. Since the flood, we have been living in 2 to 3 rooms of our house and one of them is half torn up.
The kitchen is missing half the lament (sp?) floor and part of the sub floor. Our stove rocks since one of the legs isn’t on the the main floor but instead its on the old vinyl. Our fridge, which caused the problem to begin with, is in front of our sink and dishwasher. We can’t really move it anywhere because part of the floor is the sub floor.
My movie room/man room has been emptied and all my stuff is in our spare bedroom and office. We can still do laundry, surprisingly. That room is a mess too, but functional for laundry.
Our contractor is coming tomorrow to hopefully fix all the drywall. So at almost two weeks in we are beginning to see some progress. No new floors until the contractor is done though so our kitchen will br rocking until then, pun intended.
And did I mention my wife’s dad and family are in town from Nebraska?!
Ps… I’m sorry to all those that don’t have a dishwasher and after 4 days we got the water back on!
finally some photos
well, i finally got around to downloading the photos and looking threw them. there are a couple from a trip to salisbury to see the shorebirds on july 1st and a great shot of the fireworks at the orioles game last week.
perdue stadium
the fireworks is probably one of my favorite fireworks photos to date and i took some nice ones on the 4th of july as well! maybe i will post them later.
for those who haven’t been to a minor league stadium, and this was my first trip in a long 
time, it is generally a great experience. lots of fan interaction and lots going on at the game. the stadiums are smaller and don’t necessarily have the most comfortable seats, but are still enjoyable.
the other picture on the right is of the delmarva shorebirds first baseman, mike flacco (brother of joe flacco, raven’s QB if you didn’t know). he has been hitting clean up for the shorebirds this season and seems to be making strides on improving his game.
home ownership woes
so last night, almost exactly 2 years after the house flooded for the first time, it happened again. same
plastic pipe broke but in a different spot. the pipe carries the water to the fridge for ice and water dispensing on the door. since the pipe cracked and it’s a compression hose so that when you want water from the fridge, you get it, it keeps running until there is the right amount of pressure on it. it probably ran for 7 or 8 hours at the most and wasn’t as bad as the first time it broke. serv pro is here working on the demolition to get the water out and has set up fans and dehumidifiers to dry the place out.
this is not the type of thing you want to experience once, let alone twice in two years. hopefully state farm won’t drop me! the picture above is from the kitchen where they have pulled up the lament flooring. the water ran downstairs and messed up my man room and the laundry room. hopefully none of the electronics will be messed up either! i think all my dvds have survived thus far.
there are good things about being a home owner, but this is a serious woe! 
summer time
not sure about you guys, but summer time is one of my favorite times of the year. it combines two things i really enjoy, the beach and baseball. and although you can enjoy baseball all year around, there is nothing like sitting in the stands of the stadium.
the beach is a place i’ve enjoyed since being a kid and still enjoy as an adult. i just got back from being there over the 4th of july week. as i spent time at the outer banks, i continue enjoy it as a place that keeps me calm and serene. the sun, the surf, the sand, the salt air, i enjoy it all. and who doesn’t love a good tan?
as many others, when i think of america’s pastime, baseball immediately comes to mine. if there was one sport that is my number one, it is definitely baseball. as some might remember, my wife got us a partial game plan for the orioles this year and although the team hasn’t won in awhile, it’s something we enjoy doing together. and it is something i can teach her all i know. having played and umpired since being a young kid, i can say, i know a lot and have seen a lot. from the days of going to memorial stadium as a young kid and seeing stars of the late ’80s and ’90s to being at camden yards for 10-15 games a summer from being a kid to being an adult. this year i have also made it to nationals park for the first time and experienced my first non-baltimore stadium. nice little stadium they have down there in dc, but it’s no oriole park at camden yards. #justsaying. as well, my buddy and i are making our rounds to some of the minor league affiliates. on july 1st, we rode down and caught the shorebirds game and also got our manny machado bobbleheads. we even met @2131andBeyond finally. later this summer, we are going to make it to a game or two at bowie and next week, my wife and i are going to head to aberdeen to see the ironbirds and ripken stadium. we got tickets through my job so they were easy to get a hold of. i’ve wanted to see it since it was built and have driven around it several times, but this will be my first visit inside the stadium. we even went to an outer banks daredevils game as well. they are a summer wood bat league for college kids and are part of the coastal plain league. it’s really a neat experience and as one friend it’s probably like summer catch with freddie prince jr. haha, that’s almost true!
so any way, that’s what i’ve been up to this summer so far. i have some pretty good pictures from the fireworks on the beach the other day and will share those a few from my first visit to the shorebirds stadium once i get them downloaded. i really intend to blog more so look out!
hey there
a guy and a bee 