a guy and a bee

a collection of random thoughts and ideas from me, her, and sometimes us

Tag Archives: beach

My ‘Grand’ Adventure

Leave a comment Posted by on September 10, 2011

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.

image

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

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summer time

1 Comment Posted by on July 10, 2011

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!

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well that was a fun vacation

Leave a comment Posted by on June 15, 2011

from atop the great smokeys!

so for the last year or so, my wife and i have been talking about a cross country trip this year and we had settled on a 3 week adventure and she had all the plans put together. after 3 days into the trip, i was having bad anxiety issues and we decided to turn around. we had made it from maryland to elon, nc and then to just out of knoxville, tn where we stayed in seiverville, which is just a few minutes from the great smokey mountains. our next destination was memphis.

weird! wonder works in seiverville

it was a frustrating experience because i thought i had gotten past my anxiety issues and would be fine. apparently not. as i have explained it others, it’s like walking on one leg when you are having anxiety flare ups and for me, the nausea related to it. you can limp around, but you know you aren’t right and you can’t fix it like you hope you would be able to. had i really wanted to lose 10 or 15 pounds by not eating properly, it would have been a good way to do it, but would have only gotten worse and me being miserable wouldn’t been enjoyable for the wife either. so we decided to turn around and went to the Outer Banks instead. having vacationed there all my life and a free place to stay allowed us to get to a place we knew would be okay. after a few days, i was feeling better and we enjoyed a week and a half at the beach. since it was a joint decision to not continue, i don’t feel like it was the wrong decision, but disappointed it’s how it ended.

sunset at the OBX

when we started out, we said we were going to go as far as we could go and that was what we did. ultimately, i am annoyed, frustrated, sad, disappointed, upset, and happy that we tried. i am disappointed for her more than anything because we were supposed to visit her dad in nebraska over this coming weekend for father’s day and that would have been a great time for her to see him since we last saw him in october. he will be out here july so we will at least get to see him soon.

pass and stow

upon returning to maryland from the beach, we took a couple day trips to annapolis and philadelphia to see America’s first Zoo as well as the Liberty Bell. if you haven’t seen the Liberty Bell, it’s smaller than you might expect but still worth a visit!

unfortunately, it’s back to work and telling them the same story. at least someone told me they were happy i was back.

i will post some more pictures of our trip and the fun adventure in the great smokey mountains, the Appalachian trail, gambling in Cherokee country, the weird towns of seiverville and gaitlinburg and more.

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