So my nightmare of getting everything ready to move out the apartment is over…the place is clean, the carpet is steamed, and we’re all checked out. Now I’m feeling pretty relaxed since all I have to do is get up in the morning and fly out to Miami. The flying to Miami was quick…or at least I thought so since I slept basically the entire time, but when I arrive my luggage is no where to be found. Normally I would be upset, but since this is about the 5th time it has happened to me when flying to Miami with a connection in between (this time L.A.), I am not too surprised. However, the next morning…I guess that was today…I call up to see where my baggage is and they say it never got taken off the plane from L.A., and it is currently in Buenes Aires. How in the world do you forget to take a piece of luggage of the flight? I can understand missing a connection b/c of time constraints, but to not take a piece of luggage of the plane is ridiculous.
Now most of you would say to switch airlines since it has happened so much, but when I flew to Europe to surprise Barbie, I remembered why I always fly American Airlines…LEG ROOM. I know you’ve all heard the slogan, “American has more room throughout coach”, but it is the truth, and well worth a little heartache…especially since they give me $50 to buy some new clothes. So that was my ordeal, and now I’m in Miami soaking up the 80 degree weather and enjoying all the warmth.

ps. American has $450 roundtrip flights to London Heathrow for anyone that wants to come visit…hint hint parents.

So…I’m almost done with the apartment. The cleaning service I used, “
Irma’s House Cleaning“, is exeptional. Two very nice ladies have done a tremendous job getting this place cleaned up…not to say it was all that bad, but it did need some TLC now that Barbie has been gone for a couple of weeks. Anyways, they are not too expensive and do great work. Now I have to wait for the carpet cleaners to get here this afternoon to finish off the place, then go back to the hotel and arrange the things that need to go to Miami, and those that are going to stay in CA until I head to London. I’m thinking Barbie owes me big for this

Moving is bad for everyone involved. Here I was thinking that today would be no problem since the movers have to move everything, but I am bored out of mind and can’t do anything. I’m forced to sit on the floor (since the chairs are packed) and try to find something to do on the net. I’m exhausted, and I haven’t lifted a finger. It’s amazing how much stuff a person(s) can accumulate in such a short amount of time. You would think Barbie and I had been married for 10 years with all the junk we have. Anyways, hope you all had a better day.

So Lebron finished off the regular season a few days ago with something like a 22 point game and 12 boards. Is this kid going to be the next Kobe…doubt it, but is he worth the first pick in the draft? Unfortunately I haven’t been keeping up with College ball too much this year, so I don’t know who the superstars are….so help me out and let me know who could be a better draft choice. Also, below are his career high school stats, along with the odds on which team will draft Lebron James. The media hype on this guy is out of control, and I’m not helping by talking about him…then again who cares.

Lebron James High School Stats
                      PTS.         REB.      AST.   ST.   FG%
2002-03           22.3        14.3      6.3      3.3      43.3   
2001-02            28.0         8.9      6.0      3.0      56.5
2000-01            25.3          7.4      5.5      3.7      58.4
1999-2000        18.0          6.2       3.6      3.1      51.6   
(2002-03 statistics through Thursday)

NBA Draft 2003: Odds on Team to draft LeBron James
Cleveland Cavaliers 3.0
Denver Nuggets 4.0
Toronto Raptors 6.0
Memphis Grizzles 6.0
Atlanta Hawks 7.0
Chicago Bulls 8.0
Miami Heat 9.0
Los Angeles Clippers 10.0
Seattle Supersonics 17.0
New York Knicks 18.0
Golden State Warriors 23.0
Milwaukee Bucks 26.0
Washington Wizards 31.0
Los Angeles Lakers 51.0
Houston Rockets 51.0
Minnesota Timberwolves 51.0
Philadelphia 76ers 51.0
Orlando Magic 51.0
New Orleans Hornets 51.0

So I came across a couple Kodak floppy disks while getting the apartment ready for the movers…who are going to be here on the 25th. The first has some pictures from a Disney trip that we took back in 2000 and some pics from when Jon, Jan and Erick visited us. The second has pictures of my skydiving adventure from back in 2000 (I think). The quality of the pictures are pretty poor, but thre good enough to share. I’m pretty embarrassed about the skydiving pictures…mainly because I am wearing a pink jump shoot and there is a big guy strapped behind me. Thank goodness I’m married…otherwise some people might question things. Anyways, here are the links:

• Disney and Visiting trip
• Skydiving

Barbie recently informed me that the 5th largest religion in England is Jedi. That’s right! I’m talking Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader. Apparantely the Jedi religion is seen around the world, and is called Jediism. The funny thing about this is that the UK refuses to recognize it as an official religion. What will Lucas come up with next? Here is the link to Jediism.org.

Well…as some, if not all, of you already know, I flew out to London this past weekend to surprise Barbie for Valentine’s day. However, what most of you don’t know is the all the key components of how I pulled it off. Here is a chronological list of how it all happened…kinda long, but worth the read if you are bored.

1. Monday afternoon: I begin to think it would be a nice gesture to surprise Barbie in London for the weekend
2. Monday evening: I check the mail to see if my passport has come in early…originally due on March 3rd, but you never know. First I get a package delivered to my door step, and I’m thinking this has to be my passport(I’m excited), however it ends up being something from Cisco telling me everything I need to do once I get the passport (I’m bummed). I then am going through the mail and see a letter from the passport center (I’m excited…again), only to be let down because it is a letter telling me my passport is being denied unless I can provide more evidence I am who I say I am. (bummed…again)
3. Tuesday morning: If I am to fly out on Thursday afternoon, I have to overnight Fedex proof of myself overnight to the passport center…and have them overnight my passport back by Thursday… morning. So I write a little note on all the extra stuff I sent saying to give me a call when they receive it because I want to fly out Thursday…now it is time to pray (thanks mom).
4. Wednesday morning: I oversleep, but it is a good thing because the passport center ends up calling and agreeing to overnight my passport to me by the following morning
5. Wednesday afternoon: Now that I am pretty confident my passport will get here in time, I have to book a reasonably priced flight, figure out how to surprise Barbie once I get there, and finally figure out if she needs anything from here without letting her know I am coming. The flight was no problem…got a $400 roundtrip on United from SFO to London Heathrow. The second part of the problem ends up being the toughest because I don’t know her work address and I have no idea, once I do get it, where that it is in relationship to the airport. Luckily for me there was a massive build up of troops at Heathrow, so when talking to her I was able to ask how far she was from the airport…but that still didn’t give me her address. Nick comes through with that the following day. The third part, determining if she needs anything from San Jose, was also difficult, but she had a friend arriving in town on Saturday, so I asked if I could give him anything to bring her. Her response was he was already out of town, so it would be of no use anyways. I then have to ask her what was it that she would have wanted…and hope she doesn’t get suspicious. All is well and she gives me the info.
6. Thursday morning: This is officially my last day at Lockheed Martin, so things are pretty hectic already with closing up shop and going to a “going away lunch” in my honor. I still have no idea what her work address is, what her work phone number is, how I am going to get to her office, and I don’t have a passport!! The morning comes and goes and I check FedEx to make sure the passport is at the Fedex location, and sure enough it has arrived. After closing up shop I head to the luncheon, followed by heading to Fedex office to pickup my passport right before getting on a plane to Europe. Once I get to the airport I have to get Nick and my mom to do some investigative research to get her work info…and they both came through. The final piece of the puzzle was having Cassidy send an email to Barbie saying I was going out with the fellas that night…but the email had to be sent when I was on the plane, so she would think I was home. This kind of backfired on me though because Barbie could not get in touch with me (remember…I’m on a plane) via email, home phone or cell phone. So she begins to get pissed because it is Valentines day her time, and I am no where to be found (if only she knew)
7. Friday morning: I arrive in London after a long 10 hour flight, with address in hand and that is it (although I did manage to pick up a Rose for her at the airport). After talking with a few people they say I should take the 285 bus, located in spot 20 to Hatton Cross, and catch the H26 bus to her work…this may sound easy, but try figuring out when to get off the bus and when to stay on. Luckily the drivers were both helpful and got me there. As I enter her building and the security guard is beginning to call her desk, she ends up coming down the elevator (which is glass) and is completely shocked to see me. It was great…you can check Barbie’s site to hear about what we did that weekend.

So I forgot to mention in my post regarding the FSU vs. Stanford game the story of the FSU bat boy (who’s about 9 years old) and the kid in the stands (about 12 years old). Since Stanford’s stadium goes right down to the field, a lot of fans try to reach over and grab foul balls. Anyways, during one of the middle innings a ball had rolled near the stands and a kid was trying to reach out and grab it…however, it was just to far away so he started to use his camera bag’s strap to get the ball. It started to work, but the FSU bat boy came over and got the ball because the inning was about to start…but he wouldn’t give it to the kid in the stands. We were too far away to hear what they were saying, but he just kept the ball. Now the kid in the stands seems upset and decides to sit down and start taking pictures of the bat boy. However, the bat boy doesn’t want his picture to be taken and is basically scared of the other kid since he is bigger….so he hides out in the dugout but continuously pops his head out every now and then to see if the other kid is still around. This goes on until FSU comes up to bat in the next inning…now the bat boy is forced to leave the dugout to get the players bats. As soon as he steps out of the dugout he looks over at the kid in the stands and darts toward the bat, but the other kid has his camera ready and taking picture after picture everytime he steps onto the field. Eventually the kid puts away his camera, so the bat boy decides to sit outside the dugout and taunt the kid in the stands by tossing a baseball up and down…basically saying, I have it and you don’t. The staring that went on between the two kids was hilarious. Not sure if it is funny to read about, but the entire seen was something out of a movie.

Looks like the forty-whiners are going to try their luck with Dennis Erickson as the head coach. Erickson = good college coach, but a pretty bad NFL coach…then again that is what happens when you can pay players in college .

• 49ers New Coach

Trewin (crazy guy smiling) and I went to the FSU vs. Stanford baseball game this afternoon and what a treat it was. First of all, we were supposed to get free tickets through my cousin Torri who knew one of the players, but that fell through because the player gave the tickets to his parents…DOH! So I got in line to buy the general admission seats, and a guy comes over and hands me two free tickets to the RESERVED section…which means we were guaranteed seats instead of a spot on the lawn. When I get into the stadium, I am shocked to find out they are quite possibly the two best seats in the house…first row (which field level at Stanford), slightly off to the side behind homeplate so that we don’t have the protective netting in front of us. These seats were primo, and I’ll have pictures from our seats available shortly.
Anyways, the game did not disappoint either since FSU ended up getting the win after 12 long innings, which included multiple lead changes, 3 homeruns, 18 runs scored, a 9th inning 3-run comeback by the Noles to send it into extra innings, and a crazy call by the first base umpire in the bottom of the 12th to end the game. I won’t go into all the details since you can read it from Drew Hankin who writes about FSU baseball for SectionB.com. His article is posted in the extended text of this entry. Anyways, the game was great and it is always a good feeling walking out of visitors stadium wearing your school colors knowing they can’t talk trash since they just lost.
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