Home Opener Blues: Mariners Blow

The Mariners 2011 Home Opener started off promising. We saw a bit of sun, found a bar near the stadium that serves $3 tall boys before the game (The Hawk's Nest Bar & Grill), and had a group of 12 friends together to watch the game. As the roof retracted I was really getting into the spirit.

Seattle Mariners 2011 Home Opener

By the top of the 3rd (I think, it's too depressing to verify) the game was over. The Cleveland Indians were winning 12-0. Instead of watching the rest of the game, I ventured down to the beer garden to check out the new set-up.

The fences that separate the fans from the bull pen have been removed, so you can stand the new area called The 'Pen and watch the game unobstructed. This is great in theory, but it can't be that long before some drunk fan throws a beer on an opposing (or potentially our own) pitcher while he's warming up. Maybe they're betting that throwing an $8 stadium beer just isn't worth it to an angry fan.

Balcony above the Safeco beer garden

Maybe the best (read: worst) change of all is the addition of La Creperie to the beer garden/'Pen area. I mean, crepes are great and all, but it's bad enough Safeco serves the Ichiroll - a sushi roll. Are Seattleites really eating crepes at a baseball game?

La Creperie image from HipsterInMyLatte.com

Ichiroll image from TravelingFeast.net

Clown Car

Question: How do you fit 7 adults, 7 pieces of luggage, 6 ski/snowboard bags, and 1 cooler in a Chevy Traverse for a one hour trip?

No, we're not squeezing together for the picture...

Answer: You pack them in like sardines. You pack them in so tightly that it's difficult to get a good picture of the ordeal. Note: The three people piled into the two seats in the front of the car are not depicted.

After a few minutes of fighting off a claustrophobia-induced anxiety attack (I was in the middle of the back row - no window and no door close at hand), I was ready to ride!

My view for 1 hour

Dueling Rainbows

When the sun decides to grace us with its presence, it's very nice to live in Seattle.

View from my bedroom window

Tahoe, Yo!

Last weekend I went to South Lake Tahoe for March Madness (and skiing) with a group of 7 friends. Oh yeah, it was St. Patrick's Day too. We tried this for the first time last year and the trip was such a success we decided to make it an annual event.

This year's trip started out great before we even left Seattle because we thought we were going to get to fly on the WSU Cougar airplane. Alas, it was just an excellent photo-op.

A proud day for Cory

We were all good boys and girls the first night and went to bed right away. Seriously.

Day 1: The girls (Laura, Melody, Brittany, and I) all got up early to ski Heavenly. It was a blue bird day and parts of the mountain had been closed due to a storm that came through earlier in the week. We found some fantastic snow, especially once Killebrew and Mott Canyons opened just before lunchtime.

Bluebird Day at Heavenly - Lake Tahoe

We also found some tree wells. Laura backed into one accidentally. I had a slightly more dramatic - but equally painless - tumble into one.

Oops! - Have fun getting out

The boys stayed in Harvey's Casino and bet on the basketball games.

It was also St. Patrick's Day and we went to hear a live (and very non-Irish) band play at place called Mc P's Irish Pub. It was crowded and Laura managed to find herself in the middle of a bachelor party for the majority of the night. She was handing out the little plastic babies from the baby shower we helped host the other week. It was the perfect compliment to the golden condoms the leprechaun bachelors were distributing.

I'm pretty sure everyone came out ahead today.

Day 2 - Friday entailed sleeping in, a fabulous bloody mary from the Stateline Brewery, and more basketball. Laura and I called it an early night.

Pickle = Yes!!

Day 3 - Laura's friend from Steamboat Springs, who now lives in the Bay Area, came up to meet us and drove us to Kirkwood on Saturday morning. It had snowed 2 feet overnight and even though only half of the mountain was open due to wind, it was worth it. This is by far the deepest, freshest snow I have ever skied. I had a few minor incidents:

• getting hit by the chair lift while unloading and falling over
• getting stuck in the powder and falling over (this occurred more than once)
• nearly completing my first 180 off a small lip and falling over

Actually the last was a near-triumph.

Here's Andy, Laura's friend, jumping off of a cliff at Kirkwood. It's much more impressive than my almost 180:

Look at all the snow! - Kirkwood

The other group made it up to Heavenly and had an equally awesome day. Powder for all in Tahoe!

The craps tables, however, were not so soft and fluffy.

Day 4 - We contemplated skiing Heavenly on Sunday, but the upper mountain was closed due to winds and it was snowing a lot. We still had to drive to Reno and we weren't sure about the road conditions. After watching UW lose and grabbing a bite to eat, we set off.

We made it to Reno with plenty of time, so we saw the movie Limitless (decent) and ate at In N Out (not to be missed).

Melody found a boyfriend at the movie theater

Then it was time to hit up the airport and say goodbye to the Nevada/California state line...at least until next year.

I attacked a cougar at the airport

Defeated Again

Last Tuesday we played our final flag football game of the season. We won our first playoff game and were hoping to win game #2 and #3 for the championship. We came up short yet again.

Sign Up Digital - Tuesday Night Winter League 2011

We lost by 4 points to a team we hadn't played this season.

Flag football is a "no contact" game, so if you have a decent offense, you should be able to score every drive. Then it just comes down to who has the final possession. We were both able to stop each other once, but we just ran out of time at the end.

One of these days we'll be the champs. Luckily, the Spring season starts in a few weeks, so we'll have another shot at the title!

Frozen Babies

On Sunday I went to my second (I think) baby shower ever. Laura and I were in charge of games. We used two games I had seen before and one that we made up.

Game #1 - Frozen Babies

You take tiny plastic babies and place them in an ice cube tray, fill it with water, and freeze it. At the shower, each person puts a baby-containing ice cube in their drink. Whoever's baby is "birthed" from the ice first wins a prize.

Unfrozen babies - only one per cube

Baby showers are surprisingly competitive. Everyone was trying to beat the system. Immediately following the announcement of the rules, questions were flying. "Can I put it in my coffee?" No. "Can I suck on it?" No. "Can I chew on it?" No. "Can I put it in my tea?" I already said NO to coffee...

The game is supposed to last a while and promote mingling. Instead people were poking their babies, swirling their drinks, and trying their hardest to get these babies out. The winner was the woman who cupped her hands around her drink and constantly swirled and breathed on her water. She won some bath salts for her effort.


Game #2 - How big is Mommy's Belly?

In this traditional baby shower game people guess how big they think the expectant mother's stomach is by cutting a string to a certain length. Then the strings are compared to the mother's belly. One of the little girls won this game. Thankfully Laura thought ahead and got some kids' prizes.


Game #3 - Swaddling Races

After being lulled into a false sense of security by the previous game's lack of competitiveness, Laura and I set up the final game. This is the one that we made up. One of the mothers gave a demonstration of proper swaddling technique, then it was race to see who could correctly swaddle their stuffed animal the fastest.

At first nobody really wanted to play, but we ended up with 6 contests.

Ready, set, swaddle!

This was a disaster. The woman who swaddled the fastest forgot a minor detail, so she technically didn't swaddle correctly. The next woman just wrapped her baby, so she couldn't win. Then the 12-year-old thought she had finished next, when it fact it was a different woman who had swaddled correctly. There was a lot of confusion. Maybe next time we'll just stick to sanctioned baby shower games.

Fortunately we had two prizes left over since a kid had won the previous game. We ended up giving the fastest woman a prize (candle) and the best swaddler a prize (picture frame). It was a little tense as we made this decision since the fastest woman thought she had been screwed and the 12-year-old kept yelling that she had finished first. We quickly distributed the prizes and moved on to presents.

____

Epilogue:

People really seem to like little plastic babies. We gave the expectant mother a giant frozen baby for the first game since she wasn't eligible to win any prizes anyway. She's excited to use it to freak her husband out in some way.

Glass of babies

Another girl was very excited to get her picture taken eating the tiny plastic baby.

A Modest Proposal in action

I go to Lake Tahoe next week. I think the 15 remaining tiny babies will be a great addition to the trip. I'm not sure how they will be used yet, but rest assured - they will be used.

Whistler (Part 3) - Skiing

Oh yeah, we skied at Whistler too.

With the 7ft of new snow they got that week, Friday (2/18) was an amazing bluebird powder day. We skied Saturday and Monday too. Since it didn't snow all weekend, Monday was a day for cruising on the groomers.

I finally rode the Peak 2 Peak gondola!

After skiing for a couple of hours, Laura and Nick decided to race each other down a steep blue groomer. I joined in at the last minute. As we quickly learned, racing is never a good idea when you don't know the mountain.

The three of us were blazing down the hill full speed. Laura and I on skis and Nick on his snowboard. As we got down the first slope Laura and I slowed to navigate the lip announcing the start of the second slope. Apparently Nick missed the memo and went sailing over the lip full speed, launching himself into the air.

After flying about 8ft high for about 10 seconds, Nick crashed hard. Luckily he had the presence of mind to try to land the jump, so he hit board first. But he didn't land it. He was leaning back too far and fell backwards, careening down the hill. His goggles shot off his helmet immediately and he ended up a good 40ft downhill from them after a series of unintentional somersaults and helicopter spins.

We're pretty sure he knocked himself out for a few seconds:

That's a Concussion

His helmet cracked as did its interior Styrofoam padding. Nick had to be tobogganed off the mountain by ski patrol. He got an x-ray at the clinic and everything looked fine so they released him.

A chronic headache (that's just starting to go away 2 weeks later) and $1,300 Canadian dollars later, Nick learned a valuable lesson that Laura and I already knew: it's OK to lose the race if it means avoiding a concussion.

But at least Nick won the race.