Rubbin' is Racin'

Anyone who has worked for a big corporation has inevitably had to attend some sort of "team building" workshop before. They are terrible...but at least they get the job done. Everybody is usually united in their loathing for the "trust exercises" and fun "problem solving activities."

Today the Postgame crew decided to take matters into our own hands and actually build some camaraderie in a productive way...by trying to run each other off the road in Go-Carts. To be fair it wasn't a sanctioned "team building" activity...more of party really, but it got the job done. So we all headed out to the Miramar Speed Circuit to prove once and for all that ladies are bad drivers and NASCAR isn't a real sport.

Turns out we failed on both accounts.

Producer Missy ended up winning the whole thing with the fastest time around the track and she proved to be a pretty crafty driver. It wasn't totally fair though because she's from the South and is a NASCAR fan, so she kind of had an advantage over us Southern California natives. Still it was impressive.

As far as NASCAR not being a real sport, I take that back too. Post race I was sweating, my legs felt like jello and I had a huge endorphin rush. I don't know if that qualifies it for a sport in everyone's book, but it does in mine. Let's just say I never fell that way after bowling...well almost never.

As for how the rest of us finished...that's not really important, but I will tell you this. I beat Cavnar.

Colbie Caillat

There are a lot of cool perks that come with my job...not the least of which is getting paid to watch baseball. That of course is not the only perk, there are also things like getting to meet famous entertainers. That part is okay too.

I remember a few years ago "Hootie and the Blowfish" were performing the national anthem at PETCO Park and I got to meet Darius Rucker. Well not so much meet, but I did ask him if we could take a picture together.

That day was nothing like today...today was way cooler.

For the Padres home opener this afternoon they got two-time Grammy Award winning singer Colbie Caillat to sing the national anthem with her guitarist. For the record the guitarist didn't sing...but Colbie did, and she sang the crap out of the Star Spangled Banner. It was easily one of the best performances I have ever heard, and I have heard a lot. It wasn't good like Whitney Houston's 1990 Super Bowl National Anthem, it was good in a whole other way.

She sang it like Colbie Caillat would sing it, but still stayed true to the song. I don't even know if that makes sense. All I know is that I hate when people sing their own "rendition" of the Nation Anthem, because that's the one song I think you should sing as it was written. Yet somehow Colbie managed to put her spin on it without pissing me off.

Apparently I wasn't the only one moved by it because the Padres promptly went out and scored the most runs in the history of PETCO Park after Colbie's performance, beating the Braves 17-2 to cap a wild first day at the ballpark.

Hopefully she'll sing again Wednesday.

A Park with a Bar

So at the risk of sounding totally pretentious, I spent a lot of time at the yacht club when I was growing up. I remember as a kid going down there all the time with my parents for dinner out on the lawn during the summer. There were always a ton of kids running around and it was a total blast.

Well now that a lot of my friends have kids, I finally get it. The yacht club is essentially a park with a bar. Brilliant right?! The kids have a great time and the parents get to pretend like...well like they're not parents for a few minutes.

This afternoon Megan and I met the Farley's and the Pierre's at the club for a late lunch and a buttery chardonnay or two. And guess what, we had a blast...all 9 of us.

To think, this whole time I thought the yacht club was all about boating. What an idiot.

Bonus Baseball

The Padres played in 17 extra inning games last year. Two years ago they played in a 22 inning game (which they lost to the Rockies), so I am used to sitting at the Postgame desk waiting for them to finish games.

We're only 5 contests into the 2010 season and the Padres have already logged their first extra inning game. For the record, it lasted 14 innings over 4:27 and the Padres won. I mean if you're going to play for 4 and half hours...you may as well win the game, right?

The thing is, I knew it was going to be a long game tonight. Yesterday the Padres and Rockies played a 2 and half game...at Coors Field. That never happens. The law of averages was against us tonight...and we paid for it. In the grand scheme of things though, it wasn't that bad. It was an early start tonight (5:10 PM) so even though it went long we still got out of there by 10:15.

We didn't wrap up postgame on the 22 inning game until 1:50 AM. Like I said...tonight wasn't that bad.

Guess Who?

So is there anyone who hasn't figured out who my mystery guest is today? If you're not from San Diego or have never watched Discovery Health, you're off the hook. As for the rest of you...any guesses?

Good call, it's Sam the Cooking Guy.

When I asked Sam to be in my "picture of the day" today he came up with this wild idea to mimic the "Glamor Don'ts" pictures you see at the end of Glamor Magazine. I informed him that I had no idea what he was talking about, but agreed to the photo shot.

Good idea, but at the end of the day I liked this picture better. My thanks to Producer Michelle for taking the picture and of course to Sam, who in my opinion is the most entertaining guy on TV. Serious, if you haven't seen it before, do yourself a favor and check out his show. It's on Channel 4 all the time here in SD, and for my friends who live elsewhere...buy the DVD.

P.S. I'm buying a pair of fake glasses tomorrow.

Travel Day

The Padres had a day off today as they traveled from Phoenix to Denver, which means I had a day off too...and I didn't waist it. I had lunch with my sister, I spent some time with my Dad, I ran some errands, I did yard worked and I went surfing.

There are a lot of things I like about surfing (it's athletic, it gets you outside, it gets you in the water, it's super fun), but the thing I like the best is when you get to surf with friends. That's why I love surfing in my hometown, Coronado. True, it doesn't always have the best waves, but it definitely has the best people.

For some reason when you surf in a place like Pacific Beach, everyone in the water is super aggressive and mean. People drop in on you, everyone is sizing each other up and in general there is just an ugly vibe in the line up.

To me that's missing the point entirely.

Surfing is about community and nature and having fun. The word surfers use most often to describe that feeling is "stoak". I know it sounds cheesy and that this whole entry has a bit of "hippy" feel to it, but it's true. Surfing, at it's core, is all about finding that stoak.

For me that's easier when I'm surrounded by friends...or if I've been drinking.

Doppelgangers

The problem with being told that you look like someone is that you don't always get George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Sometime you get Peyton Manning and Pauly Shore.

Nothing against those two but the last time I checked neither of them was racking up many "People's Sexiest Man Alive" awards. To be fair, it's not like I've garnered a ton of modeling contracts in my day, it's just that when you get compared to someone famous you always kind of hope they're good looking.

At least one of the guys is pretty funny...and then there's Pauly Shore.