Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
State of the Brewers
It seems like the Brewers are finished with their offseason signings -- at least until spring training. This is what we got.
1st Base - Prince Fielder
2nd Base - Ricky Weeks*
3rd Base - Bill Hall/ Mike Lamb
Shortstop - JJ Hardy
Catcher - Jason Kendall
Left Field - Ryan Braun
Center Field - Mike Cameron
Right Field - Corey Hart*
*assuming they'll be signed soon.
Our rotation is looking like
Yovani Gallardo
Manny Parra
Dave Bush
Jeff $uppan
Seth McClung
Key Bullpen players
Trevor Hoffman, random crap.
Nothing pisses me off more than reading various brewer fans on blogs who say, "Spend some money Attanasio." I'm sure Mark A. loves hearing Chuck from Sheboygan's financial advice. Fact of the matter is before Mark Attanasio, the brewers had a payroll of 27 Million. So shut up Chuck. Appreciate what we got.
Most fans seem to agree that we need one more quality starting pitcher to sure up this team. Although I do agree, I'm going to argue otherwise. Who's to say Yovani Gallardo isn't a number one starter? He has been great everytime I've seen him throw. Last year he had the freak LEG injury, by no means injury prone... Came back in the playoffs and proved why we shouldn't have started $uppan. Remember $uppan? He'll be back again for another 10 mil. What were we thinking when we signed this guy?..... Exactly what we're thinking now -- We need to sign some random over priced veteran 3rd starter to sure up our rotation. Look how that worked out. God, we have this guy for 4 years. That is a mistake I don't want to repeat. Manny Parra. Last year everyone said he was young. You can't over pitch him or his arm will get tired. Yost over pitched him. His arm got tired and he sucked at the end of the year. He's got a full major league season under his belt and that usually brings more stamina for the following year. Look for him to be just fine. Dave Bush? Eh he's Dave Bush, sometimes he's good, sometimes he sucks. $uppan... we've already delt with that waste of space. McClung? I guess. I actually really liked this guy out of the bullpen at the end of the year. He was pitching with some anger. Fun to watch. A 5 starter just isn't the right role for him but I guess it's what we got. We also have a very reliable closer. The most experienced closer to ever play the game. I think Torres was an absolute fluke last year and I thank god we don't have to continue on with that experiment. If we're ahead in the 9th, 95% of the time we should get the win. That will be comforting.
Now there's the lineup. Nothing has changed at all. This is the lineup I'd like to see on opening day.
Hart
Cameron
Braun
Fielder
Weeks
Hall
Hardy
Kendall
Gallardo
Now everyone is going to say I'm retarded but I'll explain. We need someone to act like a lead off hitter. It is not Weeks. He has showed us that for 2 years yet we never learned. So I say we toss in Hart. Hopefully his end of the year collapse is behind him and he can start making some contact. When he gets on base he creates havoc for the opposing pitchers. He's probably one of the best baserunners I've ever watched. Then we follow it up with Cameron. Yes he's a high strike out guy but he's patient. This should allow Hart time to do what he does best. He'll also get some good pitches to look at with Braun and Prince coming in behind him. He also runs the bases with the best of them. If he strikes out, there's still a good chance he leaves the plate with a man on second, one out, braun and prince to follow. Having Braun bat 3rd and Prince bat 4th is a no brainer that doesn't need to be explained. Then I put Weeks 5th. I want to totally change this guy's role in the lineup. I think weeks should be considered a double/power guy. Lets let him go out there swinging. None of this bunt the ball and get on base crap. That's not his style. Don't go for the single Weeks, go long. Bill Hall batting 6th. He got Lasik eye surgery. Look what happened when Rick Vaughn when they fixed his vision. MVP candidate for sure. JJ Hardy. I forget, does he bat really well at the bottom of the order or at the top? I think it's the bottom. Good spot for a .250 power hitter. Kendall is batting 8th, where else you gonna put him? Then there's the pitcher spot.
Finally, we have to take into account the absense of the Yost effect. Lets see what the new management can do with these guys. Think about it... a well managed team. Total relief. That's the big X factor this year. That and the possible impact of some young players -- Iraberren, Escobar, and Gamel. I guess Gwynn Jr too?
I'd love to hear people's opinions on this one. Why am I wrong? With that said, GO BREWERS!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Our Honeymoon
Alright, I'm gonna try to write about everything that happened on our honeymoon. This post could go on for an incredibly long time so it's not for the weak attention span. So here we go.
Day 1: Travel Day. Miraculously, everything was on time. Crisco was nice enough to pick us up at 5:00 AM and drop us off at the airport. One hell of a favor. Our original flight plan was to fly from milwaukee to cincinnatti... Have a 3 hour layer in cincinnatti... allowing us 3 hours for some chili. Got a call about a month ago saying delta changed our flight plan for our convenience and forced us to accept a transfer in Atlanta. I judge my airports on one criteria -- what food they serve. Atlanta is one of the worst. I sucked it up and grabbed a cold sbarro while katie ate a banana and some yogurt or something. Well we fly out on time and land in Miami. We have an hour to find our bags and locate our hotel shuttle... thank god we were given a full hour. Miami has two seperate baggage claim areas. 1-10 is in one part of the airport and 11-20 is in another. Here's the fun part. The signs just say baggage claim this way! So you follow those all the way to some basement corner only to realize "how come there's only baggage claim 11-20? Where's number 4?" Then you go upstairs thinking you must of made some mistake. You go back up and check the signs... they say baggage claim this way. No mention of numbers? We look at maps posted around the airport. They only tell you where food and shops are. So we back track about 15 miles and find another sign for some other bagge claim... that one works. Now we go try to find our shuttle. No signs for this thing, just a family of about 12 arabs sitting ont he sidewalk next to their 75 bags. We ask them if they are waiting for the same shuttle we are, they say yes. YAY! We see the shuttle, the guy pulls up and goes, I leave in 20 minutes. Sit here, I'll be back. This is an incredibly small shuttle, and I'm sitting next to 12 people who are very intent on making this trip. Everyone is looking for the thing to pull up so we can sprint ahead and hop on, otherwise we got to wait 2 hours for the next one. While we wait, 2 gigantic senior tour busses pull in front of us... making it impossible to see anything else. They take about 20 minutes to unload while everyone is lobbying for a better position so they can beat these arabs onto the bus. The bus pulls up, everyone comes running... screaming, pushing in front of people. Whining about how long each person has been waiting and who deserves to go first. Long story short, we all fit on the damn thing anyways. Lets go!
Our hotel is called the chesterfield, looks like a total dive from the outside but then it shocks you when you go in. It was some art deco hotel that looked way too trendy for Katie and I but whatever. Katie and I check out south beach, eat at their finest johnny rockets. South beach is kinda cool. They had signs for happy hours that included 5 dollar beer specials! Fun people watching and you see some pretty incredible cars. Walked around a bit, saw shops that we wouldn't be allowed in, looked at the beach, headed back to the hotel. They had a free happy hour from 7-8. Drank some rum and pineapples in little plastic cups. Karoake started, so we went to bed.
Day 2: We grab a cab to our cruise ship. We wanted to get there early so we could change our dining time and possibly use the honeymoon to grab a room upgrade. We get in line with our fellow cruisers and start to notice something. Everyone here is old. Not just old, I mean incredibly old. Everyone. We try to be optimitic. I say, oh well we're here really early. That's probably when all the old people like to check in. Things should look better once we start filling up... NOPE! This was the geriatric party express. Loads of old people who get hilariously upset when things aren't set up exactly how they want. We're checking in and we ask to be switched from the early dining time to the later one. he tells us the Maitre D will be able to help us once we get on the boat. Two old ladies hear this and latch onto us for dear life. They were given the late dining time and they just weren't having it. We stay by their side for the next hour as we eat lunch and find the maitre D. There's already a line of upset old people trying to switch their dining times too. When it's our turn to talk to him, the ladies say they found us and would like to switch tables with us. Maitre D says things are crazy right now and asks if we will eat at our scheduled time today and switch tomorrow. We agree and leave. We head to our state room, pretty nice. We enjoyed the bottle of champagne that my dad and Jean had set up for us. Then we headed to dinner. That dinner was a fiasco. Old people are screaming at these maitred Ds who seem to have an impossible task. One was driven to tears. We sit down and think, thank god we're not at this table for the entire cruise. Very weird people. We check out the ship, then head to bed.
Day 3: Cruising day to Labadee, Haiti. We walk around and figure out the boat. We're told they'll switch our dinner time but we strike out with the room upgrade. Hang out on the top deck, read books and sit in the sun. Order a couple fruity drinks. 8 bucks a peice. No alcohol what so ever. Not doing that again for the rest of the trip. Fun relaxing day. We check out the lunch buffet where I got accustomed to eating some sort of stew, and some sort of pasta with a mini sandwich every day for lunch. We grab a couple drinks and get ready to head to our first formal dinner. We're about to walk in and I have a total deja vu. There's a line of old people just waiting for those doors to open. I couldn't help but be reminded of the days where I'd visit my grandparents when they used to manage a retirement home in cincinnatti -- sem villa. Total blast from the past. We sit down, the new tablemates also suck. We try to make forced conversation. For example, two people sit down and they order some fruity blue cocktail to have with their dinner. They tell the couple across from them how good it is. The couple across orders the same thing. well kinda, they order one and split the thing by pouring it into a water glass. They say to us, "they make a really good summer breeze." I reply, "they make an excellent crown royal on the rocks too." They nod... 20 seconds later they say, "well you can't really screw that one up can you." Welcome aboard buddy. Maybe in the next few minutes you might realize it was a joke. After dinner we watched a comedian and some introductory show deal. Ordered room service, because we could. Then went to bed.
Day 4: Labadee, Haiti. Stopped at some private beach owned by Royal carribbean. We watch some local fire eating/ acrobat show where they pass a hat around every 5 minutes asking for tips. Of course and I didn't bring any cash to the island so we sit there being awkwardly cheap everytime that hat goes by. We hung out on a pretty incredible beach. Dumped some drink all over my lap. Went swimming, headed back to the ship. food. bed.
Day 5: Cruising to Cartagena, Columbia. Another day just hanging out on the ship. Katie checks out some books from the library. We sit on the pool deck that has signs saying do not reserve deck chairs. About 50 chairs are reserved with towels. 5 fully clothed old people actually sitting in the things. If I was in charge I would have picked up all the towels and books from the unused chairs and tossed them in a bucket. But no. Katie finally finds us a spot, right next to the european speedo party. She's a total pervert. I think we saw a comedian this night, maybe it was day 3 but whatever. Good stuff, enjoyed the show then went to bed.
Day 6: Cartagena, Columbia. We were only given till noon to check out Cartagena but Katie and I were pretty interested so we got up right away and jumped off the ship right into a cab and headed downtown. I'm guessing things are more entertaining there in the afternoon than at 8AM. We walked around the city. Interesting town. The roads were very narrow and confusing and the buildings seemed to be built around the 1700s. We later learned that the roads were intentionally designed that way to make the town harder to invade. They were successful in fending off a couple British attacks way back when. Katie and I walk around a bit, get bored, decide to try to find an authentic columbian lunch at 10 in the morning. We were successful. Ate at a cool little spot in the middle of the city. Drank some columbian beers, forget what they were called and ordered some meat dish... forget what it was called. Food was awesome. Then it started getting really hot out. Dan gets cranky when it's really hot out. We grabbed a cab back to the ship and cooled off. I think this night we played some game called"quest." Not a family game. You pair up in teams and basically do whatever the game show host tells you for points. Example... the host will be like, I need a guy up here with his pants on inside out and backwards. So one member of every team has to take off his pants and turn them inside out and run up there with your team's number to get the point. I unfortunatly was that guy. But at least I wasn't the guy who had to wear a bra and lipstick. Our team didn't place but good times were had by all.
Day 7: Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is actually a man made lake that is around 10 stories above sea level. Your boat goes through a series of water filled locks that raise it up to the appropriate level so you can pass on through. Apparently these locks are incredible. So incredible that you have to get up at 6 in the morning to look at them. So we went ahead and did that. I guess they were cool? Katie was really interested but could really care less. That and the fact that it took like 20 hours to get through the damn things. I could of woken up at 8 and checked them out. That or waited till we left the canal and checked them out then. There was one bonus, we were up in time for the breakfast buffet. Pounded some eggs sausage and cornbeef hash then took a nap. (By the way I'm pretty sure I put on at least 10 pounds on this trip. I'm heading to the gym this afternoon. I'll find out then.) Woke up again, we left the canal and docked at some city a few miles away. It was pretty much just a flee market in a warehouse. BUT, this flee market had $1.50 beers! Score! Katie and I put down a bunch of those before heading back to the ship. We got dressed for dinner and I think this was the night we discovered the champagne bar. Every night before dinner you could head to this little place and order a cocktail/champagne and you'd get access to their free caviar buffet. We thought this was pretty cool so for the rest of the trip we went to this spot before dinner. I guess we like caviar.
Day 8: Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. This was one of the best days of my life. We went ahead and booked an excursion here before boarding the ship. Just some lazy river tubing thing we thought would be interesting. We had to get up early to hop on a bus. We get there and we notice that everyone who's boarding seems to have a ticket. We didn't get any tickets. We felt retarded. Apparently at the beginning of the cruise they leave these tickets in your room. They weren't kind enough to do that for us. Pretty funny in hindsight. Katie and I are sitting watching everyone join their excursion groups thinking, "wow, they aren't checking anyone off a checklist of anything. You could totally just hop in one of these groups and act like you were supposed to be there!" Not so much. After about ten minutes of confusion and calling supervisors we hop on the bus. No problems. We get a pretty informative lesson from our tour guide Javier about the history of Costa Rica. Interesting country to say the least. This bus ride was insane. We drive over bridges I'm pretty sure aren't meant to be driven over. One bridge had no more than an inch of clearance on the left right and top. Another bridge was like 6 inches under water in a river. we just drove over it. We went passed the Dole banana farm which was more interesting than you'd think then parked in the middle of nowhere. We got off the bus and walked across a not so sturdy bridge over to a tractor trailer. We put on our suits, hop in this trailer, and the tractor drives us through an indigenous community in the middle of the rainforest. We picked up two kids no older than 8 and gave them a lift up a hill. Apparently these little guys walk two hours up this hill to go to school every day. This is no easy walk, it's in the rainforest so it's constantly raining and they had to go through knee high mud. Anyways, the tractor takes us into the middle of the rainforest to the most beautiful river I have ever seen. This was no relaxing little tubing adventure either. They were like little whitewater rafts for two people. We took some pictures of this with a waterproof disposable camera, we'll see how they show up but I guarantee the pictures don't do that river and scenery any justice. It was the coolest place i have ever been. The river guides were some of the most friendly people I've been around. I noticed that Costa Ricans are incredibly proud of their country. Our guide even said on the bus ride back that the best thing you can do for conservation in Costa Rica is to go and book these eco friendly tours. The guides we had used to have no choice but to grab a machete and work in the banana farms for the rest of their lives. If they start to realize it's more profitable to keep these forests than to destroy them, then things should work themselves out. Oh, and we saw monkeys.
Day 9: Cruising to Grand Cayman. Just another day on the ship. More sun. More reading. Oh, and another Formal Night.
Day 10: Grand Cayman. I hate Grand Cayman. I think it is the most boring stop ever. There is nothing there but duty free shops. You can find those in airports. We booked some snorkling deal. Not impressed. It was funny when the guides chucked bread at Katie causing her to be swarmed by hundreds of hungry flapping fish. I've done some dives in grand cayman that I really enjoyed but this was not too exciting.
Day 11: Cruising to Miami. If you can't beat em join em. Katie and I wake up early to throw some stuff on a couple deck chairs. It's 8 am, they're all reserved. GOD! eventually find a spot, sit in the sun until it gets cloudy. We went upstairs and played UNO for 5 hours. We actually planned to find somewhere where we could play and smoke a couple cigars but they only have a couple designated smoking areas on the ship. People in the smoking areas scared me. No cigars that day. We ate our final dinner. Packed up. Went to bed. Kinda sad the trip was over.
Day 12: Day at South beach. Got off the ship too early to check into our hotel. They did take our bags though. We grabbed our suits and headed to the beach. Spent about 30 minutes arguing over where the hell we should change. Katie found a disgusting port-o-john to change in but when she was done, some guy came in a truck and took it away. So I had nowhere to change. We then argue for the next few minutes as to where I should change. Katie said I should ask one of the south beach restaurants or hotels if I could use their bathrooms. I said no, they'd hate that. Then we debated trying to change while she held up a towel around me at the beach. Not gonna do that. Finally like 300 yards down we spotted one of the most disgusting public bathrooms I've ever seen. I changed in that. Sat on the beach for a few hours then it got cloudy. Went to the hotel. Played some more UNO. Ordered one of the best pizzas I've ever had and drank some heinekens. Excellent end to an excellent trip.
That literally took me an hour to type. We got a bunch of pictures I'd like to add to this post but right now the camera's being stupid. I'll see if Katie can fix it now.
Day 1: Travel Day. Miraculously, everything was on time. Crisco was nice enough to pick us up at 5:00 AM and drop us off at the airport. One hell of a favor. Our original flight plan was to fly from milwaukee to cincinnatti... Have a 3 hour layer in cincinnatti... allowing us 3 hours for some chili. Got a call about a month ago saying delta changed our flight plan for our convenience and forced us to accept a transfer in Atlanta. I judge my airports on one criteria -- what food they serve. Atlanta is one of the worst. I sucked it up and grabbed a cold sbarro while katie ate a banana and some yogurt or something. Well we fly out on time and land in Miami. We have an hour to find our bags and locate our hotel shuttle... thank god we were given a full hour. Miami has two seperate baggage claim areas. 1-10 is in one part of the airport and 11-20 is in another. Here's the fun part. The signs just say baggage claim this way! So you follow those all the way to some basement corner only to realize "how come there's only baggage claim 11-20? Where's number 4?" Then you go upstairs thinking you must of made some mistake. You go back up and check the signs... they say baggage claim this way. No mention of numbers? We look at maps posted around the airport. They only tell you where food and shops are. So we back track about 15 miles and find another sign for some other bagge claim... that one works. Now we go try to find our shuttle. No signs for this thing, just a family of about 12 arabs sitting ont he sidewalk next to their 75 bags. We ask them if they are waiting for the same shuttle we are, they say yes. YAY! We see the shuttle, the guy pulls up and goes, I leave in 20 minutes. Sit here, I'll be back. This is an incredibly small shuttle, and I'm sitting next to 12 people who are very intent on making this trip. Everyone is looking for the thing to pull up so we can sprint ahead and hop on, otherwise we got to wait 2 hours for the next one. While we wait, 2 gigantic senior tour busses pull in front of us... making it impossible to see anything else. They take about 20 minutes to unload while everyone is lobbying for a better position so they can beat these arabs onto the bus. The bus pulls up, everyone comes running... screaming, pushing in front of people. Whining about how long each person has been waiting and who deserves to go first. Long story short, we all fit on the damn thing anyways. Lets go!
Our hotel is called the chesterfield, looks like a total dive from the outside but then it shocks you when you go in. It was some art deco hotel that looked way too trendy for Katie and I but whatever. Katie and I check out south beach, eat at their finest johnny rockets. South beach is kinda cool. They had signs for happy hours that included 5 dollar beer specials! Fun people watching and you see some pretty incredible cars. Walked around a bit, saw shops that we wouldn't be allowed in, looked at the beach, headed back to the hotel. They had a free happy hour from 7-8. Drank some rum and pineapples in little plastic cups. Karoake started, so we went to bed.
Day 2: We grab a cab to our cruise ship. We wanted to get there early so we could change our dining time and possibly use the honeymoon to grab a room upgrade. We get in line with our fellow cruisers and start to notice something. Everyone here is old. Not just old, I mean incredibly old. Everyone. We try to be optimitic. I say, oh well we're here really early. That's probably when all the old people like to check in. Things should look better once we start filling up... NOPE! This was the geriatric party express. Loads of old people who get hilariously upset when things aren't set up exactly how they want. We're checking in and we ask to be switched from the early dining time to the later one. he tells us the Maitre D will be able to help us once we get on the boat. Two old ladies hear this and latch onto us for dear life. They were given the late dining time and they just weren't having it. We stay by their side for the next hour as we eat lunch and find the maitre D. There's already a line of upset old people trying to switch their dining times too. When it's our turn to talk to him, the ladies say they found us and would like to switch tables with us. Maitre D says things are crazy right now and asks if we will eat at our scheduled time today and switch tomorrow. We agree and leave. We head to our state room, pretty nice. We enjoyed the bottle of champagne that my dad and Jean had set up for us. Then we headed to dinner. That dinner was a fiasco. Old people are screaming at these maitred Ds who seem to have an impossible task. One was driven to tears. We sit down and think, thank god we're not at this table for the entire cruise. Very weird people. We check out the ship, then head to bed.
Day 3: Cruising day to Labadee, Haiti. We walk around and figure out the boat. We're told they'll switch our dinner time but we strike out with the room upgrade. Hang out on the top deck, read books and sit in the sun. Order a couple fruity drinks. 8 bucks a peice. No alcohol what so ever. Not doing that again for the rest of the trip. Fun relaxing day. We check out the lunch buffet where I got accustomed to eating some sort of stew, and some sort of pasta with a mini sandwich every day for lunch. We grab a couple drinks and get ready to head to our first formal dinner. We're about to walk in and I have a total deja vu. There's a line of old people just waiting for those doors to open. I couldn't help but be reminded of the days where I'd visit my grandparents when they used to manage a retirement home in cincinnatti -- sem villa. Total blast from the past. We sit down, the new tablemates also suck. We try to make forced conversation. For example, two people sit down and they order some fruity blue cocktail to have with their dinner. They tell the couple across from them how good it is. The couple across orders the same thing. well kinda, they order one and split the thing by pouring it into a water glass. They say to us, "they make a really good summer breeze." I reply, "they make an excellent crown royal on the rocks too." They nod... 20 seconds later they say, "well you can't really screw that one up can you." Welcome aboard buddy. Maybe in the next few minutes you might realize it was a joke. After dinner we watched a comedian and some introductory show deal. Ordered room service, because we could. Then went to bed.
Day 4: Labadee, Haiti. Stopped at some private beach owned by Royal carribbean. We watch some local fire eating/ acrobat show where they pass a hat around every 5 minutes asking for tips. Of course and I didn't bring any cash to the island so we sit there being awkwardly cheap everytime that hat goes by. We hung out on a pretty incredible beach. Dumped some drink all over my lap. Went swimming, headed back to the ship. food. bed.
Day 5: Cruising to Cartagena, Columbia. Another day just hanging out on the ship. Katie checks out some books from the library. We sit on the pool deck that has signs saying do not reserve deck chairs. About 50 chairs are reserved with towels. 5 fully clothed old people actually sitting in the things. If I was in charge I would have picked up all the towels and books from the unused chairs and tossed them in a bucket. But no. Katie finally finds us a spot, right next to the european speedo party. She's a total pervert. I think we saw a comedian this night, maybe it was day 3 but whatever. Good stuff, enjoyed the show then went to bed.
Day 6: Cartagena, Columbia. We were only given till noon to check out Cartagena but Katie and I were pretty interested so we got up right away and jumped off the ship right into a cab and headed downtown. I'm guessing things are more entertaining there in the afternoon than at 8AM. We walked around the city. Interesting town. The roads were very narrow and confusing and the buildings seemed to be built around the 1700s. We later learned that the roads were intentionally designed that way to make the town harder to invade. They were successful in fending off a couple British attacks way back when. Katie and I walk around a bit, get bored, decide to try to find an authentic columbian lunch at 10 in the morning. We were successful. Ate at a cool little spot in the middle of the city. Drank some columbian beers, forget what they were called and ordered some meat dish... forget what it was called. Food was awesome. Then it started getting really hot out. Dan gets cranky when it's really hot out. We grabbed a cab back to the ship and cooled off. I think this night we played some game called"quest." Not a family game. You pair up in teams and basically do whatever the game show host tells you for points. Example... the host will be like, I need a guy up here with his pants on inside out and backwards. So one member of every team has to take off his pants and turn them inside out and run up there with your team's number to get the point. I unfortunatly was that guy. But at least I wasn't the guy who had to wear a bra and lipstick. Our team didn't place but good times were had by all.
Day 7: Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is actually a man made lake that is around 10 stories above sea level. Your boat goes through a series of water filled locks that raise it up to the appropriate level so you can pass on through. Apparently these locks are incredible. So incredible that you have to get up at 6 in the morning to look at them. So we went ahead and did that. I guess they were cool? Katie was really interested but could really care less. That and the fact that it took like 20 hours to get through the damn things. I could of woken up at 8 and checked them out. That or waited till we left the canal and checked them out then. There was one bonus, we were up in time for the breakfast buffet. Pounded some eggs sausage and cornbeef hash then took a nap. (By the way I'm pretty sure I put on at least 10 pounds on this trip. I'm heading to the gym this afternoon. I'll find out then.) Woke up again, we left the canal and docked at some city a few miles away. It was pretty much just a flee market in a warehouse. BUT, this flee market had $1.50 beers! Score! Katie and I put down a bunch of those before heading back to the ship. We got dressed for dinner and I think this was the night we discovered the champagne bar. Every night before dinner you could head to this little place and order a cocktail/champagne and you'd get access to their free caviar buffet. We thought this was pretty cool so for the rest of the trip we went to this spot before dinner. I guess we like caviar.
Day 8: Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. This was one of the best days of my life. We went ahead and booked an excursion here before boarding the ship. Just some lazy river tubing thing we thought would be interesting. We had to get up early to hop on a bus. We get there and we notice that everyone who's boarding seems to have a ticket. We didn't get any tickets. We felt retarded. Apparently at the beginning of the cruise they leave these tickets in your room. They weren't kind enough to do that for us. Pretty funny in hindsight. Katie and I are sitting watching everyone join their excursion groups thinking, "wow, they aren't checking anyone off a checklist of anything. You could totally just hop in one of these groups and act like you were supposed to be there!" Not so much. After about ten minutes of confusion and calling supervisors we hop on the bus. No problems. We get a pretty informative lesson from our tour guide Javier about the history of Costa Rica. Interesting country to say the least. This bus ride was insane. We drive over bridges I'm pretty sure aren't meant to be driven over. One bridge had no more than an inch of clearance on the left right and top. Another bridge was like 6 inches under water in a river. we just drove over it. We went passed the Dole banana farm which was more interesting than you'd think then parked in the middle of nowhere. We got off the bus and walked across a not so sturdy bridge over to a tractor trailer. We put on our suits, hop in this trailer, and the tractor drives us through an indigenous community in the middle of the rainforest. We picked up two kids no older than 8 and gave them a lift up a hill. Apparently these little guys walk two hours up this hill to go to school every day. This is no easy walk, it's in the rainforest so it's constantly raining and they had to go through knee high mud. Anyways, the tractor takes us into the middle of the rainforest to the most beautiful river I have ever seen. This was no relaxing little tubing adventure either. They were like little whitewater rafts for two people. We took some pictures of this with a waterproof disposable camera, we'll see how they show up but I guarantee the pictures don't do that river and scenery any justice. It was the coolest place i have ever been. The river guides were some of the most friendly people I've been around. I noticed that Costa Ricans are incredibly proud of their country. Our guide even said on the bus ride back that the best thing you can do for conservation in Costa Rica is to go and book these eco friendly tours. The guides we had used to have no choice but to grab a machete and work in the banana farms for the rest of their lives. If they start to realize it's more profitable to keep these forests than to destroy them, then things should work themselves out. Oh, and we saw monkeys.
Day 9: Cruising to Grand Cayman. Just another day on the ship. More sun. More reading. Oh, and another Formal Night.
Day 10: Grand Cayman. I hate Grand Cayman. I think it is the most boring stop ever. There is nothing there but duty free shops. You can find those in airports. We booked some snorkling deal. Not impressed. It was funny when the guides chucked bread at Katie causing her to be swarmed by hundreds of hungry flapping fish. I've done some dives in grand cayman that I really enjoyed but this was not too exciting.
Day 11: Cruising to Miami. If you can't beat em join em. Katie and I wake up early to throw some stuff on a couple deck chairs. It's 8 am, they're all reserved. GOD! eventually find a spot, sit in the sun until it gets cloudy. We went upstairs and played UNO for 5 hours. We actually planned to find somewhere where we could play and smoke a couple cigars but they only have a couple designated smoking areas on the ship. People in the smoking areas scared me. No cigars that day. We ate our final dinner. Packed up. Went to bed. Kinda sad the trip was over.
Day 12: Day at South beach. Got off the ship too early to check into our hotel. They did take our bags though. We grabbed our suits and headed to the beach. Spent about 30 minutes arguing over where the hell we should change. Katie found a disgusting port-o-john to change in but when she was done, some guy came in a truck and took it away. So I had nowhere to change. We then argue for the next few minutes as to where I should change. Katie said I should ask one of the south beach restaurants or hotels if I could use their bathrooms. I said no, they'd hate that. Then we debated trying to change while she held up a towel around me at the beach. Not gonna do that. Finally like 300 yards down we spotted one of the most disgusting public bathrooms I've ever seen. I changed in that. Sat on the beach for a few hours then it got cloudy. Went to the hotel. Played some more UNO. Ordered one of the best pizzas I've ever had and drank some heinekens. Excellent end to an excellent trip.
That literally took me an hour to type. We got a bunch of pictures I'd like to add to this post but right now the camera's being stupid. I'll see if Katie can fix it now.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Honeymoon is over
The honeymoon is over. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a blog post describing everything but for now... conejitos.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Random Thoughts
Back when I was in High School I had the amazing ability to do an inverted pushup against a wall. That's that thing where you do a handstand and then touch your head to the ground and go back up. I wonder if I still have the ability to do this but I'm terrified to find out what the results would be if I failed.
A lot of people make the new years resolution to work out more. Then they start the first day of the year incredibly hungover. I think that is why most resolutions fail. The goal is subconsciously linked to the horrible memories of that new years day hangover. With that said, I went to the gym today... but was pretty lazy. I was able to drive home without stopping at one of ben's favorite restaurants. In the 10 minute drive home ben suggested we go to Rocky's, Qdoba, dairy queen, kopps, and culvers. We did have a very interesting discussion about how I've eaten at a ton of burrito places yet I've never gone to chipotle. Ben said that was ok because chipotle is like a qdoba with a crappy selection. So that's good to know.
Grape juice should come in gallon containers.
More and more houses are for sale in the northshore, yet none of them seem to be selling, and the prices aren't going down yet.
Katie is pretty good at cutting my hair.
A salary cap isn't needed in baseball. I thought that post leftmuch more room for comments than the previous packers post but only one guy had something to say. I thought his argument sucked but I do thank him for posting.
I think I got ringworm but how come it doesn't look anything like the webmd photos of ringworm. I guess I should be happy because the webmd photos of ringworm are pretty gross.
That's all i got for now, happy new year.
A lot of people make the new years resolution to work out more. Then they start the first day of the year incredibly hungover. I think that is why most resolutions fail. The goal is subconsciously linked to the horrible memories of that new years day hangover. With that said, I went to the gym today... but was pretty lazy. I was able to drive home without stopping at one of ben's favorite restaurants. In the 10 minute drive home ben suggested we go to Rocky's, Qdoba, dairy queen, kopps, and culvers. We did have a very interesting discussion about how I've eaten at a ton of burrito places yet I've never gone to chipotle. Ben said that was ok because chipotle is like a qdoba with a crappy selection. So that's good to know.
Grape juice should come in gallon containers.
More and more houses are for sale in the northshore, yet none of them seem to be selling, and the prices aren't going down yet.
Katie is pretty good at cutting my hair.
A salary cap isn't needed in baseball. I thought that post leftmuch more room for comments than the previous packers post but only one guy had something to say. I thought his argument sucked but I do thank him for posting.
I think I got ringworm but how come it doesn't look anything like the webmd photos of ringworm. I guess I should be happy because the webmd photos of ringworm are pretty gross.
That's all i got for now, happy new year.
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