Channel 4 Off Day

This month for our "Channel 4 off-day group activity" we went surfing. My buddy Teevan owns the Coronado Surfing Academy and he gave us a smoking deal on a group surf lesson and board and wetsuit rentals.

Admittedly the waves weren't exactly "firing" this afternoon but I think you can tell from all the smiles that we had a blast. And why not, sunny skies, good people and a day off from work...that's a lot to smile about. 3 of the 6 of us had never been on a board before and two others had only surfed a couple of times, and yet everyone did really well.

As a guy who has grown up in and around the water it always makes me happy to see other people enjoying the ocean. My theory is, the more people who get to experience what surfers call "The Stoak", the more people will fall in love with the ocean. The more people that love the water and our beaches, the more people who will fight to keep them clean and do whatever little bit they can to preserve this awesome natural resource.

Sure that may sound a little hippie-ish, but it truly is what I believe. The ocean is like our baby...and who doesn't want the best for the baby?

1998

1998 was a good year.

I graduated college, got my first job in TV (editing news video from 2AM to 9AM) and the Padres won the National League Pennant. I loved that team, not in the same way that I loved the 1984 pennant winning Padres, but it was still love. Tony Gwynn, Trevor Hoffman, Ken Caminiti, Andy Ashby, Kevin Brown, Greg Vaughn, Steve Finley...I could go on and on. That team was blessed with some great players, but not all those players got the headlines.

Two such guys were at the ballpark today. Do you recognize them? Did you read ahead and now are just pretending like you knew who they were all along?

It's Carlos Hernandez and Quilvio Veras. To be honest, it took me a minute to recognize QV but once I did I was stoaked! Neither of those guys got tons of press for the '98 Padres but don't kid yourself, they were crucial to San Diego's pennant run.

Carlos called a great game behind the plate and handled the staff like a true pro and QV was a good lead off hitter and a solid second basemen. With out either one of those guys the Padres wouldn't have made it to the World Series. Were they stars, no...but they were an integral part to one of the best Padres teams to ever play in San Diego.

So yeah, when you see two guys like that at the park you ask them to pose in a picture with you. It's not like I asked for an autograph.

Media Day

The real reason I'm in Vegas this week is this picture...not this one. The Mountain West Conference media day brings all the coaches and a couple of players from each team in the league together so us media types can talk to them about the upcoming season.

It's a lot of interviews in a very short time and it's hard to come up with relevant questions when you consider that most of these interviews won't air for another 2 and half months. It's not ideal, but it's the only time we can get the coaches from the other schools so we have to make it work.

BYU was picked to finish 3rd in the preseason poll this year which is all well and good, but the interesting part about my interview with Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall was the none football talk. Turns out he's a big surfer and I'm big and like to surf...so we kind of had that in common...which was cool.

For the record, TCU was picked to win the league this year and SDSU was picked to finish 6th.

Corner Office

It's no secrete that if you have a corner office, you're important. For instance our station manager at Channel 4 has a corner office. I have a cubical, next to a window that looks directly into another building. That should tell you a little bit about how important I am.

However, corner office or not, my view wins today.

I'm in Vegas for the Mountain West Conference football media day and this is what it looked like while I worked this afternoon. Notice I didn't put worked in quotations, that's because I really was working. Just not that hard, or very consistently.

By the way if anyone asks, that's a virgin mojito.

6-4

While going 6-4 over a 10 game season might not seem all that impressive, you have to consider where we had been. Where we had been was in the cellar...deep in the cellar. After toiling in the top division for months and months, barely able to win one game...let alone multiple games, it finally clicked this season.

I'm not exactly sure why either. Sometimes it just takes awhile for a team to gel...it certainly did with ours. Regardless we have finally found that elusive buzz word that people like me love to talk about in sports..."Chemistry".

Chemistry is a funny thing in when it comes to athletics, you know when a team has it and you know when a team doesn't, but it's a really hard thing to explain. There is also no way to make a team have chemistry, it just sort of happens. But when it does, things get fun...and things are fun again at the soccer pitch.

A Great Night

The great thing about great friends is that you always seem to have a great time when you get together, no matter how long it has been. I am blessed to have that kind of relationship with a lot of my friends...Saturday night's group included.

With Comic-Con in town this weekend and the people watching off the Richter Scale, the stage was set for an epic evening. After grabbing some drinks downtown at Seersucker with the crew, we headed over to Cowboy Star for dinner. It was only the second time I had eaten there...and it was my first dinner at the restaurant and it was great. But if I'm being totally honest (and consistent with the theme), the thing that made it great was the company.

I'm pretty sure that's always the case and I know I'm not the first person to enjoy a dinner out with friends, I'm just saying I get it. After all, the simple recipes are always the best ones anyways, right?

4 O'clock Friday's

Apparently I sold myself a little short in my blog post about Opening Day at the Race Track because I was back there again on Friday with Megan and her work. After all, nothing brings an office together like alcohol and gambling right?

To be fair that is not the only allure to the track. In an effort to get a different type of crowd out to Del Mar, and let's be honest, tap into a different set of wallets, the Race Track moves the post time for their first race of the day to 4 on Friday's and then offers a free concert after the last race. And we're not talking about some local alt rock band either...they get some pretty big names like Common Sense, ZZ Top and Weezer just to name a few.

Last night it was Pinback, and even though we didn't stay for the concert, we were there for the races...and that's just how Del Mar likes it.