There's A Party On The Rooftop Top Of The World

Here they are, the 6 coolest things I've done this month:

1) Bought, sold and bought tickets to the MLB All-Star game. Yes, you read that correctly. The All-Star game is down in Phoenix this year. (Side note, I never spell Phoenix right on the first try. I always wait for the red squiggly line to tell me "Hey, numbskull, switch the o and the e. You should know this. You temporarily lived just down the road.") So, a bunch of buddies and I started looking into getting tickets for it. They were going for a minimum of $200 a piece on the secondary market. Then I looked into how much they were face value and noticed there was a large gap between the two. The only catch was you had to be a season ticket holder to get the face value prices.

Did I become a season ticket holder? Yes, yes I did. A half-season ticket holder to be specific. The numbers told me that if I sold out the rest of the season at 80% of the current market prices for the section I was looking out, I could go to the All-Star game for only about $150 a ticket, and sit in the lower bowl. However, I also saw that the tickets in my section for the All-star game were going at 2x face value. So I listed them. Taking out fees and what-not, if they sold, I would turn about $300 profit. I like $300 profit.

I told my dad about this, who told me that he would like to go to the game. I let him know that I listed my tickets and if they sold for 2x what I paid, I'm going to take it and figure out what to do later. My dad, the businessman, said, "Of course you would. $300 profit is great." So that's what happened. Thing is, my dad already booked us airfare to go down for the game. And the tickets sold. So now I have $300 profit, plus my original costs, but no tickets. Not to worry.

I first went to the Diamondbacks directly to see if there was a chance I could get another pair at face value. Not surprisingly, they're sold out, so it was back to the secondary market. I reviewed some prices and realized that there were a set of four that were undervalued by about $100 at the minimum. I know this because they are in the section next to the one I used to hold tickets for, and were listed at $100 less than what mine sold. I only needed 2 to get in to the game, but I figured, "Why not buy all four and capitalize that $100 or so arbitrage?"

So I did. And now I've got two tickets in hand, and have re-listed the other two at the appropriate pricing. That's meals and a souvenir from the trip right there.

Hence, I bought, sold and bought (and hoping to sell) tickets to the All-Star game.

2) Became published. It's not as glamorous as you might think, but I found a way to get my entire blog, comments and all, printed, bound and shipped for under $5. Under $4 if you want to get technical. It took some wizardry and a couple different websites, but now I have this entire blog from the first post in January 2008, to the one right before this one in June 2011 in paperback form. It's 152 pages of awesomeness sitting on my living room table. Be jealous.

3) Shot a video where I danced like Napoleon Dynamite while wearing a Darth Vader mask. I guess I should have started that with a spoiler alert, but oh well. Same buddies I talked about going down to the All-Star game with decided to spoof a number of movie scenes with Star Wars characters. They're the ones that made "Primeday", the "Friday" spoof. If you haven't seen it on youtube, I would recommend. Pro-tip, the director's wife sung the lyrics on it. She's operatically trained, so she actually had to step-down her vocal talents a couple notches to get it as eerily similar as it is.

I'm still not sure how I got nominated to do this, given I physically look nothing like him. He's like 6'3" 160 pounds of flesh and bone. I'm 5'10" and about 180 pounds with occasional muscles lying under my skin (At one point they said to me "You need to look a little more defeated. You're a bit too built so try and look weaker." I already had the mask on, or they would have seen me blush and giggle). Either way, they asked me to do it. Let me tell you this: the choreography makes no sense. You watch it and it looks interesting. Then you try and mimic it, and you notice 2 things. First, no way he did this all in one shot. A couple times he magically transports across the stage. Second, no way someone actually defined the necessary steps for this routine. Not possible. Both of these are troubles for me, because I like to be exact. Needless to say, do not be expecting a mirror image of the actual dance. It didn't happen. I got the main, memorable moves, but the transitions and fillers are nothing like the originals. I have no clue when this will hit the internet, or if it will. I hope they'll let me know, and then I'll post the link here.

4) Won $70 at a golf course. Yep. Sure did. Last Saturday, Mike, his dad, and his brother joined me for a round at Sleepy Ridge. For those of you wondering, yes, I do live on the course, and yes, I did drive over to the clubhouse. I did, however, walk the round.

Back to the main point. They had a game on the 4th hole, a par 3. Wager up to $100. If you hit the green, you win even money. If you miss it, you get a gift certificate to the pro shop of the amount of your initial wager. I knew that the 10-round pass was $140, so I wagered $70 and drilled a 7-iron 165 yards onto the front of the green. Thank you very much for the 50% discount off my pass. Two-putted to make par. I should mention that this came on the heels of a chip in from the fringe for a birdie on the 3rd hole. Anytime I can write down consecutive 3's on my scorecard, things are going well for me. And anytime I can save $70, things are going really well for me.

5) Getting a free back pack. Ok, this one hasn't happened yet, but the gears have been put in motion. For about a month, I had noticed that some of my shirts were getting these red stains on their shoulders. At first I thought it was these dryer balls that I tried. So I threw them out, but was shocked to see the problem recurring. After that, I wasn't sure what the problem was. Then, one day I was walking back from the gym and had my hands under my shoulder straps. I felt something sticky. Turns out that the red plastic that they had used to create a cushion has degraded and melted through the strap cloth and onto about 8 of my dress shirts.

Now, I've had this backpack for at least 7 years now. Maybe longer. Not real sure. Either way, I sent an email to JanSport letting them know that their product has an issue that might need to get looked into. The next morning they sent me an email saying they would be happy to replace the backpack, as well as re-imburse for the damaged shirts. I dug up receipts from three years ago, put everything together, and shipped it all off on Saturday. Needless to say, that company has impressed me. If you're in the market for a backpack, please go with JanSport. They'll treat you right and replace your backpack even if breaks down a decade or so after the purchase.

6) Wrote this blog post.

Word.

Cause I Got A Peaceful Easy Feeling, And I Know You Won't Let Me Down

I was reading an article on ESPN earlier today, and it centered on Ichiro. The author talked about how rooting for a Japanese player, even though he was Korean, helped him feel more assimilated into American culture thanks to the unifying thread of baseball. Well, he didn't say he felt more assimilated because he rejected the term altogether, but the article was about whether he was or wasn't, and whether he could be or couldn't.

Midway through the article, he mentioned the famous laser beam. On a groundball through the right side of the infield, Terrence Long tried to go first to third. This happens all the time, and Long was on the faster side of the speed continuum. This rookie from Japan, who had his first name on the back of his jersey (When your first name is "Ichiro", you can get away with stuff like that. As for Kurt Suzuki, he gets "Suzuki" across the shoulders), fields it cleanly and fires the purest throw you might ever see.

Oh. You say you've never seen it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUD7XRpTpGw

Now you have.

There are a handful of sports clips I can watch over and over again, and each time just sit there grinning like an idiot and half-chuckling because it is so amazing. This one is high on that list. I can not overstate how amazing that throw is. I wish the picture on the internet was clearer, because I remember watching this on Sportscenter for about a week straight, and that crystal clear image is the same one my mind super-imposes on this one. In fact, in my mind, the ball becomes this yellow comet that starts about 14 feet off the ground, and finishes about 4, despite traveling roughly 200 feet laterally.

In my rec-league softball games, people get impressed when I throw from the left side hole to first on a line. That video makes my feat seem childish. For that matter, that video makes me feel child-like. I just giggle at it thinking, "My goodness. How is that even possible?" I know that it is, but I just can't believe it.

It's like watching the Pujols home run off Brad Lidge (http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/ps/y2005/video.jsp?view=hou_stl, Scroll towards the bottom and you'll find the link for it. If I post the link straight, it doesn't turn out well.) from the 2005 NLCS. I can tell you exactly where I was when that happened. I can tell you who was in the room, what furniture was there, where I stood (definitely wasn't sitting for this) and where the others were standing in respect to me. I could probably even tell you the approximate number of inches each of us had our mouths open, grinning as we watched that ball rise and rise and rise. For the record, I still don't believe it has landed. Just like I believe that if the third baseman hadn't caught Ichiro's throw, it would have sailed over the wall and four rows deep into the stands, another 60-70 feet beyond.

These are the giggly moments. The ones where you forget you're an adult and that there are things like rent, or bills, or payments to be made. Where you let go of the sensibility that says, "Grown men don't giggle, or stare slack-jawed at a video they've seen a dozen+ times". Where you close your eyes, and could swear you went back in time to those moments.

Those are the two that always come to mind first for me. There are others, such as "The Jeter Flip" and "Ken Griffey Jr's Home Run Swing", but those two are the most impressive. Take a couple minutes, enjoy the clips, and feel a little younger again.

Word.

I'll Gladly Take Her Place If You'll Let Me, Make This My Last Request

I have this thing. You see, I like new technology. I really like it. However, I temper this with an unwilling desire to pay a high premium for something, simply because it's new. This is because I'm really not a materialistic guy. I have an iPhone sure. But it's the 3gs, and I just got it this week. I have a Mac laptop. But it's from 2007 I believe, and I got it about two months ago. It might be older than that, I'm not sure, and don't really care to check.

That's what I do. I wait until the newest model comes out, and then I buy the preceding model. Besides avoiding the high mark-up, I usually get it after all the bugs have been worked out. I didn't switch from Windows 3.1 to Win95 until Win98 came out and it was preloaded on everything. 3/1 was working fine for me. Saw no need to upgrade when all my programs were running just fine. In some ways, I miss that system because you could still easily go into DOS and edit files that way. There was no such thing as a hidden file or folder. Just something that you needed to know the right DOS command for. And I knew them.

This isn't the main point of this post, but it does lay some groundwork. I generally don't fret over the handful of possessions I have. None of the furniture is my room was purchased by me, or constructed in the past 2 years. I have a row of books, but all of them were purchased second hand for no more than $4 a piece. They could all disappear tomorrow, and mostly, I would wonder if whoever took them enjoyed reading them. There is, however, one possession that I do care for. In fact, I care a lot about it.

That's my car. I love my car. I say that without regard or hesitation. I don't tell her this often enough, but I hope I tell it to her enough that she never doubts my adoration. If there was a draft where I had to give up possessions one by one, The first thing I would give up would be the BYU baseball cup I got attending a game earlier this season. Then, the plastic bowl I use to hold my watches. Somewhere down the list you'd find my TV, and my clothes, and my computer, and my phone. At the very bottom of the list, you'd find my car. (I went back and forth between this and scriptures, but I went with the car because I could then drive it to some missionary apartment and ask for a free copy of the Book of Mormon, and possibly the Bible. They would have to throw it through the window because my clothes were higher up on the list, but still, I could easily get a new set of scriptures.)

Yesterday, I was coming back to my car from a delicious Winger's lunch. And I saw the most horrible thing I've seen in a while. Turns out, someone decided to scrape their car along the back fender of my car. I felt like I had been beaten with a mace. This was my baby, and she had been wounded. I can't be for certain, but I swear, I heard it whimper a little bit. I raced over to it, examining the extent of the damage, and told her things were going to be ok. I was here now, and this would get fixed. Looked around for a note from the offender, and found nothing. Cowards. Drove her back to work gingerly. Figured she had a rough enough day as is, didn't want to give her any other strains. My co-worker comes in and says "Hey, what happened to your car?" "I don't want to talk about it. It gets me too upset."

After work, I took her into the clinic known as O'Reilly's auto parts. Had the clinician take a look, and told me the bad news. Most of it would be able to be buffed out, considered most of it was plastic transferred on to her. Some parts though, some scratched into the paint and those could not be buffed out. It hurts to hear that your baby is likely going to carry a scar. I picked up the healing balm, and took her home. There, I lovingly worked the balm into her wound, trying my best to clear all the foreign debris. After about 45 minutes, I had an appointment I couldn't miss (I do loves me some softball), but after that, I came back home and did my best to fix what was left. Now, she still has some spots left that need a little touch up, but she's almost back to her good old self.

The moral of this story: I love my car. I really love her.

Word.