A little home field advantage...

Play ball.

So far, 2010 has been one weird, strange adventure. Nothing seems to come easy, and there's been quite a bit of heartache along the way. A dear friend wrote on her blog to review the first six months of the year and try to gauge where we'll be six months from now. Well, here goes.

I write to you reader(s) from the sweet comforts of the camper down in Auburn. Today, I spent some time with old friends taking in a Major League Baseball game - something easy enough yet significant from what 2010 has brought me so far.

At times, and a lot of those recently, the frustration level has been heightened due to several measures that I don't care to go into on a public forum. But today, it was just about enjoying being outdoors in wonderful weather and watching baseball - baseball played by professionals, though not void of simple errors.

I had to say goodbye to one of my best friends and closest family members back in February. There are several moments where that phone call I received on Feb. 24 tugs at my heartstrings, but I've done pretty well to look at the positives - she's no longer in pain, and my mom can get on with getting herself better. We had an empty seat with us in the stands at the Ted today, but I know that it was filled with another baseball fan that will forever remain in my life. The one who used to watch the Cubs on WGN and Braves on TBS in the middle of the day during our summers together.

All the coaching and practicing my baseball teams have undergone for the past four months gets the biggest test of the season starting Thursday. We'll be shorthanded in areas, but we'll get what we need from others that are making their return to the lineup after vacations. Of course, these things mattered not as I watched Tommy Hanson mow down the Marlins through 6.2 solid innings before giving way to the surprisingly good Braves bullpen.

I cannot tell you for certain what I will be doing or where I will be six months from now when the calendar turns to 2011. I don't know who will leave and enter my life in that span, but I hope there's significantly more addition than subtraction. For one of the few times in my life, I have very few answers as to what the next day, week, month or year might bring. Until those answers come, I will keep plugging away at my routine and hope it doesn't run me into the ground. But, none of those concerns or thoughts crept through my mind today when we were singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch.

The eighth and ninth innings were pretty much finished in order today. Neither team really threatened to put more runs on the board. I guess, perhaps, months July-December could do the same for me. There are plenty of football games, baseball games, trips here and there to make. Numerous phone calls, text messages, e-mails, chats and even blog posts to be exchanged with interested parties. Early mornings and late evenings posting articles onto CollegeSportsMatchups.com.

I'm going to try to make some double-switches and get a favorable righty-lefty matchup at the plate when the opportunities arise. I'll try to out-think and out-maneuver the opposing manager called life. It may take some roster changes, but I'll try to keep those at a minimum despite the looming trade deadline.

Before I get to doing those things, though, I'd like to go ahead and stretch a little longer and enjoy some peanuts and Cracker Jack. And root for the home team.

All that I'm after is a life full of laughter...

So far in 2010...

Auburn A-Day - April 17, 2010

Gatlinburg Trip - March 2010 - Brad, Josh, Amber and Your's Truly

Yes, the Clemson player's name is Kieboom.

Auburn NCAA Baseball Regional - June 2010

Atlanta Braves vs. Florida Marlins - July 3, 2010

San Diego Padres - Petco Park tour - April 29, 2010

San Diego Padres vs. Milwaukee Brewers - April 29, 2010

Sunset via U.S.S. Midway - San Diego, Calif. - April 28, 2010

Take me out to the ball game...

All right, for the fourth-straight summer, baseball has consumed my life and my time. I apologize for the delay in postings for all one of you that make up my faithful blog reader(s). There's not much to write at 12:30 a.m., but I will get you some pictures of the newest addition to my jersey collection.

My, where has the time flown...

First off, many apologies for the delay in this posting. I know people say this all the time, but there just hasn't been enough hours in the day lately to get everything I need to accomplished. Including writing on here and CollegeSportsMatchups.com. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, enough time will open to bring you faithful reader(s) up to speed.

I wanted to say that San Diego was awesome. From a night out on the U.S.S. Midway to a 9-0 Padres victory over the Brewers, I had a great time in one of the most friendly environments I've ever visited. I'd love to go back, but I could never see myself living somewhere like that. When you're dropping $60 on a dinner for one, it's not exactly friendly on the wallet. (Thankfully, BancorpSouth paid for the week in full.)

Getting back to Birmingham proved to be a chore. I had an 11 a.m. flight out of San Diego with what was supposed to be a three-hour layover in Minneapolis. No offense to any Minnesotans that read this, but I hope it's a long time before I'm ever in that airport again. To no fault of the city, Delta had a plane issue that kept us grounded until 12:30 a.m. when we were finally allowed to get in the air.

Now, I was supposed to take off at 8 p.m. That first got moved to 8:30 p.m., but a gate change rectified the first delay and got us back on time. After a quick dinner at T.G.I.Fridays, I arrived at the gate and watched Arrested Development (thanks, AT&T Wireless card and Netflix Instant Queues) for the next couple of hours. When they announced we were delayed again to 8:30 p.m. thanks to maintenance work on the plane, I didn't think it was that big of a deal.

Then, 8:30 became 9:30 p.m. Still working on the plane. Soon, one old man that did not shut up from the time he sat down in the gate began trying to spread rumors of our flight being canceled. All I could think about at this point was getting back to the South for a certain appointment in Nashville that Saturday night.

Once 9:30 came and went, it was "We'll get you on the plane as soon as the paperwork is wrapped up. Please do not leave this gate while personnel is wrapping up their final inspections." No big deal, we'd be in the air by 10:30 p.m. at the latest. As the ticketing agent promised, we were on the plane at 10:15 p.m. and headed towards the runway.

Now, those of you who know me well know that I can sometimes have a smart mouth when it comes to being around bammers - especially ones that don't have the knowledge radiating through their appearance and actions that they've ever stepped foot inside a college classroom, much less graduated from their beloved universitah. As we were getting into our seats on the plane, one such gentleman sitting behind me said, "It's that there Auburn fan's fault we's having to wait to get out of here. I'll tell you what, at bammer, we don't have silly things like plane maintenance issues."

(No, I'm not exaggerating.)

Then, some of his buddies had obviously been wanting to say something about my Auburn attire all night at the gate and chimed in, "Yea, we should get him off this plane so we can get out of here. He can worry about them Tigers up here." Due to close quarters, I just turned politely and smiled then said, "Hey, you guys got your crystal football. Does it really have to be an Auburn grad's fault that we're still stuck in Minnesota?"

(I emphasized "grad" in that statement, by the way.)

We got to the runway when the plane stopped and the propellers turned off. I thought about how odd this behavior was and then got freaked out when they OPENED THE DOOR AND TOOK SOMETHING UNIDENTIFIED FROM MAINTENANCE. You can't even use your cell phone at this point in the flying process and they've opened the door? I began wondering just how easy it would be to change my flight the next day direct to Nashville.

We were instructed to deplane back at the gate because maintenance did not fix whatever issue they were having before, and we would be notified of any and all further instructions inside the airport. I'm continuously talking to my parents, who were in the process of dropping Jeanie off in Birmingham so she could go to Nashville with Brad, Amber and I the next day.

A funny thing happened, though, at this point: the "amusing" bammer thought aloud how this "always happens to (him) when he's trying to get home from somewhere. (He) ain't never had an easy trip back to Sylacauga since (he) started flying years back." The rest of the plane, including his bammer buddies, turned on him at this point, allowing me only to say, "See, it's not my fault. Blame this guy."

And blame that guy they did. I even had one couple come up and apologize to me in the sitting area while we waited for a new plane. I'd just really like to thank Delta at this point for the additional sky miles they credited my account with for all the hassle of this ordeal.

I was nervous about getting back on that particular plane, but I also did not want to stay at some low-rent hotel when I had a nice room waiting for me in Birmingham if we could ever get there. We took off at 12:30 a.m. and touched down around 2:45 a.m. I got to the Hyatt Place on 150 around 3:30 a.m. and got some more sleep.

Jeanie and I got going around 9:30 a.m. Saturday and headed to Sylvania to meet up with Brad and Amber. We were to head to Nashville to see Jimmy Buffett that evening. It was the highlight of my entire week out of the office. Now, the date for this concert was May 1. If you pay attention to current events, you'd know that this was the day of the 500-year flood that is still plaguing the Music City today.

We left anyway, more afraid of tornadoes and stormy activity than the fear of flooding. On the road, we got texts describing the hysteria the rain was causing in the Nashville area, and we started to get just a bit hesitant about attending the concert.

We stopped off in Manchester, Tenn., and this lovely town has one of two Coconut Cafe's in existence. So, thinking this was like a Jimmy Buffett-themed restaurant, we stopped off for some pre-concert grub and weather tracking. What we found on the Weather Channel and through other meteorologists out there amongst our friends was nothing but bad news.

After waiting things out a few more minutes, we made the smart adult decision and turned back for Sylvania. If we had gone a few more miles up I-24 from that point, we'd have been caught in the water and possibly worse - this is where the mobile home was floating along the road.

So the concert did not happen, but we all got back to our desired locations in one piece and without any damage to any vehicles or bodies. Had we still been in college, I'm pretty sure we'd have kept going but you gotta grow up sometimes...and that's a little sad in a way.

I'll have more stories later when this audit is over. If any of you out there work for the FDIC, please know that we can't be friends right now. Maybe later when the dust has settled, but you have really thrown a wrench into the lives of a lot of people I know here lately and I'm not a big fan at the moment.

Have a good one folks, and we'll talk more soon. As always, War Eagle.

Chris

Live from San Diego...a few Trooper photos

Since I'm missing the little guy so much, I figured I'd put up some pictures for the time being.

By the way, San Diego is awesome. From my hotel room king sized bed, I can see Petco Park, most of the skyline, the marina and the Pacific Ocean. When the fog lifts, it's going to be a superb view. Lunch at Pier Cafe today and dinner tonight with Sarah Suitor.

The Tailgate Plan to Win: A-Day 2010

Ah, spring football. Two things that I love but never seemed to mix very well when I was a student at Auburn. I hated working spring practices and even worse, the A-Day game.

One of my favorite memories, though, was the 2004 A-Day game when pretty much every full-time staffer had schedule conflicts, so the work crew ended up being pretty much Meredith and a bunch of students. Sometime in the first quarter, I got a call on the radio that I would need to stick with Tuberville since Meredith was going home early. Josh and Kim would handle things in the press box, then Josh and I would be in charge of the locker room post-game.

I remember that 31 players were requested for interviews that day. Josh, Matt Jernigan and I got 30 of those 31 in the interview room. I kept knocking guys’ names off the list, but there was one that was missing. That guy was A.T. Williams, someone who never turned down an interview. Matt had missed him in the locker room and refused to go track him down outside. Josh got him back in the room, and we got nothing but praise handed down to us from the writers in the room.

It was a good day.

This Saturday, I get to go back to A-Day with a different perspective and look forward to getting to Auburn and just hanging out with some friends and (hopefully) get a picture with Tracy Rocker, Trooper and Luper. We’ll see, though.

So, this is a fun tailgate plan to write. The guest list isn’t all that long, but it should be filled with great folks. Possible attendees are Trey Eiland and his daughter, Bryan Bowen and his crew and a few other assorted folks from my dad’s group. Brad and Amber Gregg will be there with us every step of the way. I fully expect Andy Shores and Michelle to hang out with us also.

The plan right now is for Super Rita and me to go down to Auburn on Thursday night. It will be a late arrival, so Friday may be a little slow to get started. We have a few new additions to the camper to show off, so that should be a lot of fun. All Auburn, All Orange, All Facebook, All Kirk will get into town Friday night.

It’s going to be low-key and casual. Hopefully, the weather sticks around for awhile too. It’s been absolutely wonderful here the past six days.

If you are coming, let me know by sending an e-mail (rushicw@gmail.com). I’ll have assignments later this week. Right now, the plan is to fry up some wings and thighs in our new propane cooker for post-game. Pre-game will be light with kickoff scheduled for 1 p.m. Those of you not being able to join us in Auburn, you can catch the action on ESPNU with Mike Belotti handling his first ESPN assignment.

It’s time to Do What We Do at our tailgate and get 2010 started right. I’m glad its back, folks. Have a good one.

Til next time, War Eagle.

Chris

New AU football site

I'm not sure who designed this site, but they did a fantastic job. Auburn has been needing something like this for quite some time, and I dare say it blows sites like UrbanMeyer.com out of the water.

http://www.auburnwareagle.com

Make sure not to skip the intro and watch the Auburn Creed. You will not be sorry.