Phoenix AKA Paradise

Hubby and I took a vacation a few weeks ago to Phoenix. We went to a Rockies game (they lost), another Diamondbacks game, went hiking, ate lots of food, drove around and generally had a friggin' kick-ass time. I decided I love Phoenix and the surrounding areas, especially Tempe and Glendale. I've pretty much decided we need to move there...now what to do with that pesky little thing called a mortgage...hmmm.

Anywho, for those of you who have been asking, here are some pictures :)





Welcome to Chase Field! Woohoo!







This is a picture of the World Series trophy the Diamondbacks won in 2001. So THAT'S what it looks like. Living in Colorado means I wouldn't know except if I caught a glimpse of when the Red Sox won it on our home field. But I'm not bitter :)







This is the score board with the roof closed. Yes. There is an open and closed position and it's the coolest thing I've witnessed. Seriously.







These are pictures of the roof in various stages of opening. It only takes about two minutes and they play music you'd expect in "2001: A Space Odyssey". It's amazing. Even the walls/bilboards fold open to expose the sky and the downtown skyline like in the last picture.

FYI, I'm in absolute awe of this ball park. Let me give you a comparison. At Chase Field the ushers welcome you in, there are food vendors and apparel vendors and people giving stuff away in raffles and all sorts of things all over the place. At Coors Field there are a few food vendors and one or two apparel stores.

At Chase Field they want you to have a genuinely great baseball experience. At Coors Field they basically dont care if you show up just as long as your ticket got paid for.

At Chase Field fans cheer and shout and yell for their favorite players. At Coors Field drunk women whistle at the good looking baseball playesr (their words, not mine), no one pays attention and Hubby and I end up being the only ones cheering....at our own stadium!

Chase Field is awesome and you feel the pulse of baseball fans. Coors Field has the aura of "sit down, shut up and buy something".



They also have a live organist. How freakin' cool is that?!



This is me and a lifesize cutout of "The Big Unit" AKA Randy Johnson. And yes, that's really how tall he is and how small I am.





Hi From Chase Field!!








Anywhere with palm trees and cactus (is it cacti?) is fine with me!!










We hiked Camelback Mountain. Here's a few of us on the mountain, a view from the top and then a view of the actual, whole, mountain. And us being lame with a cactus :)

Well that's it for now. There's a ton more but I really don't have the patience for that ;)

Prayers

I'll update on our trip to Phoenix soon, I promise. But right now I need people's prayers. Although I work in Downtown Denver, I live in northern Colorado. This afternoon northern Colorado was devastated by at least 8 small tornados and one F4 tornado that was at least a mile wide. It devastated Windsor which is only a few miles away from where I live. Some people's houses just have wind damage, some have been completely destroyed. Homes right next to each other, one was untouched the other is gone.

Please keep northern Colorado in your prayers. I'm still in Denver for another 30 minutes and then me and my carpool head up to northern Colorado to lord knows what.

My home is, as far as I know, fine. There was some minor flooding in our yard, a lot of hail and wind damage but considering it's still standing, that's great.

Stranger....

So, it's obviously been a little while since I wrote last. What can I say...it's been a busy few weeks. I PROMISE I will update everyone when I get back. Yes that's right, back. Steve and I are going on a trip...to Phoenix! We are so very excited. We haven't been on a vacation in so long!

And in true Gaffney fashion we are going to a Rockies game while we are out there. It's an away game for them (obviously) and we're also going to a Detroit Lions game as well.

Updates and pictures to follow when I get back :)

xoxo

Happy Earth Day!

It's strange how some people can be so consumed with going green yet others spend $100,000 on a hummer that eats diesel and just makes you look like you're overcompensating for "other areas". Happy recycling!!

You've Been Rick Rolled

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just google Rick Roll. :)

Happy Day of Your Wedding Three Years Ago!

I just want to say Happy Anniversary to Miss Megan June and Brandon. Today is their three-year anniversary and are happy as ever. Three down, a lifetime to go. Love you and miss you Meggie!

It's Tax Day. Are You Ready??

If You Don't Like It, Don't Watch It

I get that people think baseball is boring, I do. There's not constant stimulation for your eyes for 9 innings. Guys aren't clotheslining each other, laying on top of each other, checking each other into the boards, slam-dunking, grunting, and yelling. It's a thinking man's game. What pitch to throw next, whether or not to throw the double play. It's tactical.

If you don't like baseball that's your prerogative. But I do. I love it. You might even say it's my favorite sport. But just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean you can trash it all the time in front of me. I understand you don't like baseball but respect the fact that I do.

You say "It's not a sport if you can stand around eating sunflower seeds while participating."

Well, you have a ball be hurled at you going 95 miles an hour, swing with a bat and see if you can even come close to not only hitting the ball, but even try to catch-up with it and not swing yourself into the ground. Try throwing a baseball from deep right field to third base with no hop. Actually, just try getting it halfway to the infield!

Maybe I should start slower. This is a baseball. This is a bat. Right field is the right-hand side of the field when looking out from home plate.

Don't be a jerk. You don't like it, I do. End of story and shut it!

Are you telling me Babe Ruth wasn't an athlete? Are you telling me Joe DiMaggio just "sat around eating sunflower seeds?" Yea, okay.

Yup, Pretty Much!

Say What, Now?

STOP! Grammar Time!

I understand that not everyone can be a word-nazi like I am. I understand that not everyone has taken writing classes or majored in journalism. What I do not understand is people who have graduated high school who still do not know the difference between there, their and they're.

There's also a difference between your and you're. One is YOUR bike the other is YOU ARE going to ride the bike. YOU ARE going to ride YOUR bike.

Here is not prounounced HER and not spelled "herr". It's especially not spelled like that if you're not 50 Cent and you're from Wheat Ridge.

There's also this lovely new invention out there. Maybe you've heard of it; it's called spell-check. Look into it.

There's a difference between affect and effect and no, they aren't used interchangeably. There's no such word as "oblivital". It's oblivious and apparently you are.

If I hear the phrase "He don't work here" one more time I'm going to cringe myself to death.

Don't end every sentence with "..." in a blog, on myspace or anywhere. Every so often is fine if the sentence merits the three dots, but how annoying is this to read?... I mean seriously... It gets annoying, right... Because I'm pretty damn annoyed... Wow...

Don't use a "z" where an "s" should be. It's words not wordz or plez or waz. K?

ETC. is said "et cetera" not eccetera.
It's nu-clee-er, NOT nu-Q-ler.
It's voila, not walla.
There is no "T" at the end of across. It's not acrosst.
It's not pronouned "excaped" or "expecially".

Long Time, No Write

So I admit, it's been a little while since I've written. What can I say? I'm a busy girl!

Blast on Friday was really fun. The show was a tad different because the stage at the Cheyenne Civic center is about the size of my desk at work, but they worked it out. It was a little distracting, however, that pretty much everyone at the theatre seemed to
1) Know each other. "Tell your wife I'll see her at knitting on Tuesday." Mind you, these are like 35 year old women.
2) Be about 2 decades behind the Colorado. I saw more florals, shoulder pads and Farrah Fawcett hair than I knew what to do with. It was like going over the border and back in time.

Now that the writers strike is over it's back to new episodes of everything. CSI started up again last week and The Office is starting back on Thursday!!! Woohoo for Dunder Mifflin!






It's finally baseball season again and tonight will be my and Steve's second game. We went last night and the Rocks beat the Braves. It was finally a good game to make up for the 5 in a row they'd lost previously. Way to find your bats, guys.

The weather is looking particularly nasty for tonights game so hopefully I won't freeze my patootie off or won't get rained out. Cross your fingers!

No Whammy, no whammy, STOP!

Come on tax rebate! (NOT refund, I already got that!) Mama needs a new pair of shoes!......and to pay off debt :) Ya know, details, details.

Blast!

I posted on March 4th that Steve got me tickets to a show called "Blast!". It's hard to explain what it is. Basically it's indoor marching band but with a theatrical/stage flare. It's dorky, yes I know. But you must understand something, I'm a little dorky :) I've been playing instruments since i was in 4th grade and I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty good. I've done marching band, symphonic band, concert band, played with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, marched in parades, played in college. You name it, I've probably done it. And yes, I've been to numerous band camps. But get your mind out of the gutter!!

SO, I went to "Blast!" my senior year of high school and was absolutely mesmerized. I'm not sure if everyone who sees it is as enthralled as I was, but I was in love with that show! Sadly, it hasn't been back through colorado in 7 years. But can you believe my fortune that tonight, not only is it in Colorado but in NORTHERN Colorado!! I don't even have to drive to Denver.

Steve and I are going tonight. Bless his heart, he's excited to go as well even though it's not something he'd EVER go to on his own. He said he wouldn't pass it up because he's never seen anyone so excited about INDOOR marching band, let alone marching band in general.

I don't think people realize how hard marching band really is. People don't just march around aimlessly, playing memorized music. No, No. It's much harder than that. Not only do you have to memorize (and play PERFECTLY) 15 minutes worth of music but the places you march to, from above, make shapes that correspond to what's going on in the music. And the entire time you have to look at the drum major (not down at your feet or at the people marching just inches from you), you can't run into anyone, half the time your feet are going one direction while you have to keep your upper body towards the front of the field, AND you're playing the whole time while roll-stepping so the crowd can't hear your footsteps in your sound. It's extremely hard!!! When I was in high school, we would practice every day after school until 5:30 and ALL day on Saturdays, every Saturday for 4 months. We had a band camp every year during the last week or two of summer and an overnight stay sometime during the season and do nothing but practice for 48 hours.

Rent Drumline and you'll get a glimpse of what it's really like to be in marching band.

ANYWHO!! Watch the videos below. They're just a minor glimpse into the awesomeness that is "Blast!".

The Earth Has a Fever

I'm not saying I don't agree with Al Gore. I'm not saying I do. But the following video was made by my favorite morning show "BJ Howie And Jennifer" on Alice 105.9 in Denver. It's HIGH-larious. Enjoy!!

Can You Hear Me Now??

Why don't you answer your phone or call back?!

Tribute to My Rockies

I know it's probably lame to most of you that this gives me shivers. I love my Rockies!

A Bone to Pick with the Post Office

I have a letter being held hostage at the Fort Collins post office. I believe it's an invitation to my cousin's wedding shower but I can't be positive. Whatever it is doesn't have enough postage on it so instead of weighing it at the post office it came from, it got ALL the way to Fun Collins and then stopped. If I don't go down to the post office and pay them 17 cents it's getting sent back to the sender.

Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn't to me. It gets all the way to it's destination without enough postage and then gets sent all the way back without enough postage. Just give me the damn envelope!

It says to come get it during post office hours. Oh yea, that should work. Let's see; the post office is opened in Ft. Collins 8-5. Seeing as how I leave Ft. Collins at 6:30 and don't get home until 6:30, I think there's a conflict there.

But, you say, I can go on Saturday. Yes that would work...if I remember to!

Stupid USPS

PLAY BALL!

That's right, folks. Today is Opening Day for baseball and I'm so extremely excited. Nothing says spring time quite like grown men in matching outfits, swinging bats and touching each others butts. I love baseball :)

Pet Peeves

I realized today I have a few pet peeves. One is office supply related. It bugs me to bits when people use the wrong size binder clip or paper clip to keep things together. For example, if you have 6 pieces of paper, use a paper clip. If you MUST use a binder clip use the smallest possible size. Or if you're clipping 15 pieces of paper together do NOT use a binder clip capable of holding quadruple that amount. Please. Stop.

This picture is a little blurry but this is what it looks like when six pieces of paper are in a binder clip made for 50 pieces of paper.

The other thing that just kills me is people who are too stupid to figure out how to put license plate stickers on a license plate correctly. I don't understand how this happens. The registration paper that comes with the stickers even has a diagram of where to put the stickers. Yet people continue to be blissfully unaware that they're idiots.

I MAY let it slide for the year and the month to be on the wrong sides. However it is completely unacceptable for the stickers to be at the TOP of the license plate, in the middle of the license plate, each year on a different corner (instead of on top of last years' sticker), etc. etc.

However, I will cut you some slack if this is your license plate. Steve and I saw this on a Dodge Magnum on The Strip in Vegas on our honeymoon. This guy is awesome. More awesome than you. Just ask him.

I Feel Old

Enough Said.