Day 8 - Unbelievable!

A few important numbers to remember from Saturday:

1,990=pages in the Pelosi Heath Care Bill

$1.2 Trillion=Cost of Pelosi Health Care

220-215=Margin of victory

359=days until Mid Term elections

1094=days until 2012 Presidential election

A few different media stories:

Fox News

Politico

Star Tribune

CNN

Google News

Remember Peggy Joseph from last year? I wonder what she thinks tonight?!

Day 7 - Contest #27

Another day, another contest. Where am I?

Day 6 - Spring Training 2009

As I have mentioned, I went to Florida in March both to see my Mom and Step-Dad and to go to a few Twins Spring Training games. I was able to get to three games in the week that I spent in Sarasota. This is the second year that I have been able to go to Spring Training and certainly seems to be on the path to becoming a tradition. Don't ask what would happen if the Twins moved to Arizona like so many other teams have, Mom did not like my answer when she asked.

For the first game of the weekend Mom and I made the 30 minute drive up to Bradenton to McKechnie Field the Spring Training home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Jerry was working and unable to join us for the first game. This was the first trip for both of us to McKechnie Field, it is a much different setting than Hammond Field in Ft Myers. It is right in the middle of the city with parking in private lots and on the streets in the area. From talking to others at the game we learned that the stadium is only used for the Pirates and then sits empty for the rest of the year. It is an older stadium (built in 1923) but has obviously seen some more recent renovations.

One thing I enjoy about Spring Training games is how relaxed most people seem. By the middle of March when I was there most players have a good idea of wether they will make the Major League team or be heading for a Minor League team. The players that know they will likely be sent down still play as hard as anyone hoping for that chance to go North with the team in a couple weeks.

The mascots have a lot of fun interacting with the smaller crowds. The attendance at this game was only 5,215, compared to around 25,000 at an average Twins game at the Metrodome. Here the Pirates mascot "Pirate Parrot" makes a phone call on a giant mascot sized cell phone.

A view of the game and field. I honestly did not remember who won the game but found it online, the Pirates won 6-4.
On Friday afternoon all three of us made the drive South to Ft Myers. The plan was a game on Friday night followed by a Saturday afternoon game.

Hammond Stadium was packed as the Twins hosted the Cincinnati Reds in front of 8,076 mostly Minnesota fans. It probably did not hurt that fireworks were planned after the game ended.

Francisco Liriano took the loss in a close 1-0 loss for the Twins. The fireworks made it a little better, but just a little. Unfortunately I did not get any photos even close to acceptable of them.

On Saturday we arrived at Hammond Field early so that we could walk around the training fields that surround the stadium. The Twins have built a wonderful facility that they use year round for both Spring Training as well as the Class A Ft Myers Miracle. Before the games start hundreds of fans are free to roam the outer fields and watch the lower level players get in daily practice. I never thought it would be all that entertaining to watch people take fielding practice but it gives you a good sense of how much work they are putting in.

Here pitchers are practicing pickoff moves to first base and doing pitchers fielding drills.


After going into the stadium we were quickly greeted by Twins Mascot TC Bear entertaining the crowd before the game started.

Joe Nathan getting an inning of work in as the Twins suffered another loss on Saturday, this time to the Florida Marlins 9-5.
Saturday would be the last game we would go to this year. We had a wedding anniversary to celebrate on Sunday back in Sarasota. But that is a story for another post.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot . . . What was my answer when Mom asked what would happen if the Twins moved to Arizona for Spring Training? I don't remember exactly what I said but I know it consisted of me suggesting they consider relocating to Arizona if they would like to continue to see me in the Spring. I tried to save myself by claiming I was only partially kidding. Not sure if that worked or not, but I have already been invited to come back next Spring.

Day 5 - Contest #26

I am quickly running out of time for getting a post done today and I am not done with the one that I was planning. Therefore I am returning to a contest post. This one will not be hard at all for at least one person I know, and no I am not talking about Bill (aka: The Contest Champ).

Where am I? GPS coordinates required to be right.

I should have time to tomorrow to finish off the post I had planned for today.

Day 4 - Trying Something New

In an effort to make this month of blogging easier I am trying
something new today. Today's post is being written on my iPhone and
sent in as an e-mail to blogger. It is then auto posted as a new entry
(at least that is the idea). I am not sure how well this works but if
it does this could make future blogging much easier.

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Update at 11:35pm: Turns out this system may not work so well after all. Part of the text in the original e-mail was cut off below the picture which was already supposed to be below the text. So let me explain the picture a little more.

The picture was taken on my trip to Florida for Twins Spring Training earlier this year. This particular photo is of the Friday night game that I attended at Hammond Stadium in Ft Myers which is the year round home to the Twins and the Class A Ft Myers Miracle. I will have some more pictures from this game as well as from the other two games I attended this year in a future post.

Day 3 - One Year Later

Fair Warning: This turned into more of a rant than I had intended, I won't be offended if you skip it all together. I promise a lighter topic for tomorrow.

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You might remember that on Election Day a year ago I posted a reminder to go vote. At that time we were choosing the next President of The United States as well as the next Senator from Minnesota. If you know me, you know that I was not exactly pleased with the results of either of those races.

I am going to avoid going on a long political rant about all of the ridiculous policies that have been implemented under the Obama administration and the Congressional leadership. As you can imagine I am not overly impressed. That being said I am equally unimpressed by the current crop of leadership on the right side of the aisle in Washington.

Maybe Obama was right... we need a change in leadership. I certainly do not think he is the person to bring us "change we can believe in" but he is on the right track. It is time for a change, time to kick out long serving politicians from both political parties and bring in fresh faces with new ideas. While people have been saying this for years with little to show for it I think there are signs that people are waking up. Everyday people are attending Tea Parties, going to town hall meetings about health care reform and just plain paying attention to what is going on. I am not sure what the ground swell will look like or what the results will be. Obviously I would prefer the results to be lower taxes and less government, but I'll settle for more involvement in the short term.

While I was not pleased with the returns on Election Night 2008 I am very pleased by the awakening I have seen in the last year. For those of us hoping for a different kind of change just remember that Mid-Term elections are just 364 days away and the 2012 Presidential Election is 1099 days from today!

Day 2 - Myakka River State Park

Like I mentioned yesterday I have not been out taking photos as much lately as I would like. Until I have a chance to get out for some new pictures I am going to get the blog caught up with some of the photos I have taken since last November. I'm starting out with some pictures from my trip to Florida this past March. This was the second year that I have gone to Florida during March. The first year was centered around my Mom's Wedding, this year was centered around Twins Spring Training.

Since my time in Florida last year was mainly helping get ready for the wedding I did not do much sightseeing so that was a goal this year. My Mom and I went to Myakka River State Park in Sarasota County. The main focus of this park is the alligators that live in the river that runs right through the middle of the park. However before we drove towards the alligator infested waters we stopped off at the Myakka Canopy Walk. The Canopy Walk is a combination of two towers connected by a 85 foot suspension bridge. The walk was built as a way to study tree tops but is mainly used by tourists looking to get a view from the top of the taller 74 foot tower. The view from the top is expansive, I am not even sure how many miles you can see but it feels like hundreds. While I enjoyed climbing to the top the favorite part for me was the interesting lines of the tower itself.

After climbing the towers of the Canopy Walk we drove deeper into the park to find some alligators. I was told that there were a couple options to choose from for viewing, you could either walk paths towards the river and find them sunning or you could rent a canoe and paddle towards them. Well I am not an idiot so I chose the walking path viewing method this time around (and will choose that again if I ever return to the park). We walked a few hundred feet from the nearest parking lot towards a man made damn to find the gators sunning. There were about 6 gators in the area between the shore and water. For the most part they did not seem to mind the people watching them and you could actually walk to within about 50 feet of them and still feel like you were safe.
This guy however chose to get a LOT closer than that. The splash you see in the water is a gator that this idiot walked up to in an attempt to get a picture with it. He got within about 10 feet before the alligator decided it was being threatened and bolted back to the water. He was just lucky the gator chose retreating to the water instead of attacking.

The park also has a very nice boardwalk/dock that leads out into a lake to watch birds from. When I was there Florida was in the middle of a severe draught and this section of the lake was basically dried up. Because of that most of the birds had moved further away towards the deeper water sections that we did not have a great view of.
The dry lake bed did have one benefit though, the wild pigs had moved into the area. Here you can see an adult pig and two younger pigs. This picture was taken right before the adult pig decided she did not like the people standing around looking at her and her piglets.
This was the next picture that I took as I retreated back into the car and out of the path of the angry wild pig. After she started running in our direction everyone in the area got back into cars and the pig turned around and returned to her piglets again.

That pretty much wraps up our day at Myakka River State Park. If you ever find yourself in the Sarasota area it is certainly worth a couple hours of your time. Tomorrow we will continue catching up on some photos from Florida.

Oh yeah, I meant to include this last photo too. I don't often post pictures that I am in - maybe never - but thought I could handle posting this one. I'll probably use it as a new profile picture for awhile too.