Baseball is like Beer

  For me baseball is like beer; it's an acquired taste. I now know more about baseball than I had ever previously cared to know and found truth in the statement that people who work in baseball drink more than any other sport.

Archie 

 So it unfortunately has been quite some time since I have sat down and written about my life out here in Reno; despite my good intentions. Several things have changed and most of the changes are good if not great. I am now officially Assistant Director of Merchandise, my job title is essential the only thing that has changed really. My responsibilities at work has steadily grown and expanded throughout the season and for right now reached a peak. Reflecting back on the season, 72 regular season home games and 2 play off home games I find that I am once asking myself; why do I always end up in customer service jobs?

Archie ringing up a customer one game.

 
  Working in the store during every game has its pros and cons. In the early part of the season the games were freezing cold, windy, and miserable, we even had a game snowed out Memorial Day weekend! (So as I read about my friends and family enjoying the Keys all I could think about was that I was wearing a parka and how wrong that was.) Although when the weather is miserable, hot or cold, it makes for a store crowded with non-buying customers, huddled around our TVs and watching the game. Which eventually leads to me turning off the TVs, seeing as I can only have so many people in the store at once. You can imagine how much the fans love that, I don't have to imagine they tell me. We have a one sided relationship the fans and I, they are very honest about how I should/could be doing my job and I smile and nod. As everyone knows the bad experiences very rarely outnumber the good, but the bad are more fun to talk about and usually funnier.

This is the Triple Play mentioned in the Commercial.

  So the only real con about being in the Team Store all game is that I do not get to watch the game. I watch as much as I can on out TVs in the store but its not the same especially when the game is all of 30 feet away. I only got to sit down as a spectator to one Aces game, and I had to drive to Sacramento to do it, haha. The real kicker about that though is that as a full-time employee I have season tickets, two really sweet seats that I never get to enjoy.
  Check out this video that the Aces put out; commercial for 2011 season. The Aces do a good job of keeping the crowd entertained with Archie and Ball on the Wall. Speaking of Archie, if you think you recognize him and you watch ESPN you might have seen him here. It made the 'Not Top10' in 2010. Of course we also do things to involve the fans, this is from the first year and they happen to be two of my co-workers. We have things like .50 hot dog nights, $1 rib nights, promotional nights of course. My favorite thing we did this year was Johnny Cash Weekend. The players had special black jerseys, the full-time staff was offered the chance to purchase our own which I did. Cash's son and daughter-in-law/former band member were in attendance. His son threw out the first pitch on Saturday and she sang the National Anthem. It was a really awesome weekend and very busy one too.  

My Johnny Cash jersey.

  For those of you who don't know, or didn't catch the '72 home games and 2 playoff games' earlier, the Aces made it to the playoffs this year for the first time in franchise history. Winning the title of Pacific Northern Division Champions of the Pacific Coast League, quite a mouthful right? Try putting it on a hat. We did end up losing the 5 game series for the Conference Champs against Sacramento.

  Now that the season is over I have much easier weeks ahead of me, and a lot more time on my hands. I have made some really good friends out here

First Visitor!

   OK so this is again for two weeks worth, last blog was on March 15th soooo lets think back. I made a trip out to David's Bridal and ordered my shoes for the Thornsbury wedding, I can't wait to be home again! I had a very good and fun St. Patricks Day. I spent it upstairs at the Freight House with some co-workers, played some shuffle board. I can't decide if I am good at shuffle board or not, it's all about finesse and I have a hard time deciding if a slide is too hard or too soft. Drank some green beer, which I will probably stay away from in the years to come. The dye made the next day awful.

   I got the opportunity to go see Trace Adkins in concert at the PepperMill. I went with Christmas (my quarter sister), her boyfriend Tony, his friend Andy and then some other girls. I had a really good time at the concert but get this, to any of you who have ever gone to a country concert; is everyone in their seats? I am talking that I was the ONLY person that stood up for any song and I know because I was in the back and at some points felt like a fool. It was the strangest country concert, let alone concert, I have ever been to. There were no fights, everyone stayed in their seats, and it didn't sound like the crowd was singing along. The only constant was people were drunk. But I am mean come on! In their seats?!?!

   I ended up going to a Bridal convention(don't get any ideas) because I have so many weddings coming up this year. I am a bridesmaid in some of them and I just wanted to glance around and see what I should expect. It was fun, I took advantage of the samples of catered food that's for sure, haha.

  Work has been picking up as we get closer and closer to opening day, on Saturday March 20th the single-game tickets went on sale! Everyone upstairs is working really hard to pull off a great and successful season, at least on the business side, can't do anything about the players haha. More and more people come in every day to check out what we have a gear up for the new season. The new Away hat is selling like crack, a lot of fans are asking that the new logo (grey with R) become the official logo of Aces, as fans are tired of our 'A' getting confused for the Atlanta Braves 'A' .

  The Bighorns won their 6th straight game last night and we only have one last regular season game this Friday before the playoffs begin. Which also happens to be Aunt Pat's Birthday!!!!

Friday came rather quickly with both excitement and mourning, Lauren finally got here! As Friday also marked the official 3 years of Jeremy's passing away. Although I couldn't be home to honor him with my friends and family as well as his friends and family, Lauren and I did a

pretty good job. Saturday at work was even worse than the day after St. Patricks Day but well worth it. We took a nap, some of us with our sunglasses on, haha.

We entered a beer pong tournament at Harrahs, they play by officially Beer Pong rules, which is honestly just funny to me. So for those of you who play or know the idea of house beer pong, no swatting bounces, bounces only count for one cup, and all of those things. OK I'm fine with that, but they don't care of your elbow is over the table!! That just blows my mind, follow all those rules but not that one. Regardless we did well and came in 4th place, being the only girls left in the tournament.

We went snowboarding on Sunday which was in my opinion awesome. We got up early, too early, caught a bus, for free I might add, out to Squaw Valley. Lauren has been doing it since she was 6, so I decided to take a lesson since I only skied once when I was in elementary school. It was 2 1/2 hours long and totally worth by the end of that very long day I felt pretty comfortable. I am lucky that Sean lent me his snow things, I had gloves, goggles, a neck warmer, and his ski jacket. All I had to pay for was renting the board and boots ($54) and the lesson ($61). I had acquired two free all-day lift passes. Squaw Valley had gotten 12 inches of snow the day before we got there (crazy!)

As tired as we were, we made a trip out the El Dorado, a casino, Lauren played Craps for the first time, put in $20 and walked away with $60, in about 45 minutes. We slept in until 1PM on Monday, thankfully, although we didn't get home until 3AM or so. We devoured some delicious all you can eat sushi, and Lauren got her cartilage double pierced. Walked around downtown a bit until it was time for us to head to the airport. It was an awesome weekend, I had a blast, I am still sore from snowboarding haha, as I am also still trying to recover from one crazy weekend.

For the record, I of course had to edit and be vague about some parts of the weekend. Some of the people who read my blog, which I am so pleased and happy that you do! But some of you are our bosses, family, athletic directors, head of majors, etc. hahaha.

Love and miss you all!

Meet Ty..

So my place is officially all done, minus a few photo's that I would like to get frames for. So my first week of working without Tonya went normal. I am getting more and more responsibility, and with the beginning of the season right around the corner its crunch time. The store has been getting busier and busier and single-game tickets go on sale this Saturday, so I am expecting a lot of traffic in the store, and hoping for a lot of spenders. 

I have a new friend Ty. As you can see he is big and fuzzy right now with his winter coat. He is 7 years old, and has had maybe a years worth of training throughout his life but none of it has ever been consistent. He loves to snuggle and nuzzle my face, which I don't really mind. I have ridden him but I am taking it slow and doing a lot of ground work and games,Pat Parelli's 7 Games I like how he whinnies at me when I leave and always watches me go, even watched my truck drive off the other day. Granted it probably all has to do with whether I give him snacks or not.

I know that this past week was Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, so no meat which means that I tried my skills at fish and again, I was extremely happy with the results. I tried some green beans(canned, not as good as fresh) with some sliced green, red, and yellow peppers, garlic and onion. Pretty decent for veggies I have to say, I even ate the left overs. Daylight savings just passed as well and did you know that the Cayman Islands doesn't recognize it? Sean found that out the hard way when he was at work an hour early, haha. So although most of you are still 3 hours later than me, Sean is now only 2 hours later than me. Which is good for us, now I don't feel so bad talking to him until 9PM my time, which is 12PM your time, but now 11PM his time! I'm still on my 30 miles in 30 days, I am doing a variation of it at least, which is better than nothing.

We had two Bighorn Basketball games this past week and the team is going to the playoffs. Our first playoff game I just heard will be April 8th or 9th, which is good that it doesn't overlap with the Aces games, at least not yet. On Saturday night the Bighorns had a gathering for the employees at Sapphire, which is live music joint inside Harrah's. The music was awesome and the drink specials were even better. I love living downtown purely because I can walk to any of the places, and walk home and its no more that 5 blocks. The cold is the most annoying thing about walking anywhere though.

Got a card from Aunt Lela and Uncle Perry, and a package from Mom & Dad always nice to get mail, that isn't bills. I'm doing my best to keep in touch with people, call them back, or call them and write back to e-mails. The time difference for us is pretty rough though. I have a busy two weeks coming up, my boss Jessica, is going home for 10 days. I will be running the store by myself and working the Wednesday night Bighorn game solo. Going to the Trace Adkins concert on Saturday night, scored a free ticket, sweet! Riding Ty. St. Patricks Day celebrations whatever they maybe. Then next week Lauren will be here as well as the 3 year anniversary of Jeremy. The next two blogs will have much more exciting and interesting stories promise!!

Love you and miss you all!

Settling In..

I didn't get a chance to post last week so this is for the past two weeks.

So I have come to the conclusion that I love it out here in Reno, even the weather. Reno's only vice(in my opinion) so far is ice. I hate the ice. When me and my dad made it out here we asked several people who have lived here for years even the mechanic that changed the oil about getting snow tires or chains. We were told we it might snow but it wouldn't stick and there was no need for snow tires or chains. So as I have showed on Facebook and in this blog is that the snow in fact has come and stayed. So I went to leave my parking garage two weekends ago, on the North side of the building that the sun does not shine on ever. What do you know, I am spinning my wheels on 3 inches of ice. Stuck like Chuck, Curious where the phrase 'Stuck like Chuck' came from? , I then try backing up, going forward, rocking and nothing is working for me. Completely desperate and I am sure looking like a fool I call up my co-worker Bart, who also lives downtown, and ask for help. He and my boss Jessica come to my rescue, and we rock my truck right off the ice. Thanks guys! Not only that but the night before I was out with both Jessica and Bart, get out of the car step on a patch of ice in my cowboy boots.  Totally eat it, Jessica said that I was higher than the hood of the car when I was horizontal in the air, landing on my butt, and hands. I had my phone in one hand face down and was concerned that I may have broken it but thanks to my Terminator phone case, all that was bruised was my butt, hand and pride. That is the back story of mine and the ice's un-salvageable relationship.

 At work in the past two weeks we have received over 1,500 hats and most recently our St. Patty's Day T-ShirtCheck out our St. Patrick's Day Shirts here. We are getting ready for the season, which kicks off on April 5th vs the UNR Wolf-Pack and then really gets rolling April 15th vs Salt Lake. I have seen a large increase of traffic in the store, even having one guy spend $400.00 in hats in 2-days because he knew how fast they were going to sell once word got out about them and wanted to have extra just in case, crazy. 

Here are pictures of all the new hats that we have, we haven't put them on the website yet, if we even will.


My co-worker Tonya who is pregnant, I think I may have mentioned that previously, but if not now you know. Was scheduled to have her baby girl Emily on March 14th. Well it didn't quite happen that way, her Mom came into town on Tuesday night and Thursday was supposed to be her last day of work. She had a doctors appointment scheduled for that morning, the doctor noticed a dip on the baby's heart rate. Next thing I know I am getting a text saying she is probably having Emily that night. It was really fast, she was born at 4:50PM. I went to go see her in the hospital last night and got to hold 26 hour old Emily Grace, who is adorable. I am also pretty sure that she is the youngest smallest child that I have ever held. My dad says maybe Theresa but there are no solid facts to back that up, besides at the age of 3 I am not really responsible for not dropping the baby. I broke out in a cold sweat and had clammy skin for like 20 minutes after handing her off. Whew, in case anyone was wondering, this is pushing any plans of me having a baby back even further. Can everyone hear my mom and dad cheering? ha-ha


So I have a new love and his name is George Foreman, I have discovered after all the years of watching my dad cook and grill, and my mom cook and grill. Enjoying their amazing pork chops, fish, steak, burgers, chicken. I have learned a thing or two, thankfully. I am a master at cooking in a pan with vegetables, and it doesn't hurt that I probably put more seasoning on than anyone. Cooking the meat nice and slow, having rice and black beans as sides. Yum, yum. I told my dad that I am going to have to grill for them when I come home. I've added some pictures of my pork chops from the other night, amazing!

 I have started a new challenge, 30 miles in 30 days. I started just yesterday, with a 1.4 mile run. It's killing me running in the cold I have to say I am not adjusting well, my ears and nose feel like they are going to fall off after only 5 minutes.
I bought my plane ticket home for both May, for Gloria and Randy's wedding. Also in June for my friend Alexa's wedding! Yay, my friend Lauren is coming out to visit me coming in March 25th, which as a lot of you know is the 3 year anniversary of Jeremy's death. I'm glad she will be here to help me celebrate his life and that I won't be alone out here. I guess thats all for now, miss you all!

Moving Day..

So the week, the day, the moment that I have been waiting for since before I even turned 18(you can ask my parents) finally came, I moved into my own place! I found a small but sufficient studio apartment, which I had added pictures of in my first blog.

I worked all day Monday, which I would typically have off because the store is closed. Seeing as it was Valentine's Day, Archie and I had a very busy day of delivering Valentine's Archie Grams. We delivered 15 different grams, to 15 very surprised and embarrassed people. Here's a photo of one of our lucky people. Check out Archie's home page;  http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/fans/page.jsp?ymd=20090803&content_id=6231266&vkey=fans_t2310&fext=.jsp&sid=t2310

Touching back on Valentines Day, Sean sent me some gorgeous flowers for Valentine's Day! I was totally surprised and I really appreciated it, especially because I had spent all day giving out flowers to other people, while my Valentine is in the Cayman Islands.

Seeing as I can only work 40hrs a week, I got Tuesday off instead of Monday. I began my moving day as early as I could, which was only11AM because I needed to get my keys from the office and that's when they open. I could not have picked a more windy day to move I will tell you. Driving I was concerned about something being blown out of truck but the first load went smoothly. I loaded and unloaded the first two loads all by myself. I did have one small mishap when I was driving my second load, one of my plastic bins got blown open and it just so happened to be the one with loose papers on top. So I lost about 25 papers, not entirely sure of what yet. I went back and started walking alongside the road to see what I could find, as I realized I had lost one of my W-2 forms. I found 5 sheets of paper that I had lost, but not the W-2, the rest is gone as for whatever else may have been lost it's hopefully not in the wrong hands. Round three I got help from Royle, Kenny's brother, to help me with moving my recently purchased used bed and my packed bookshelf. Once that load was done all I had left was a floor lamp and  my shoe rack. Now the real fun begins, I added some pictures to give you a visual of amount of stuff versus space, and I think space is losing. Its amazing how much stuff I never knew I had, haha.


I should really thank my mom for the extra surprise she packed for me, as I was unpacking my dishes I opened the cardboard fully intact box which has been plastic wrapped and not opened or touched for four weeks at least. I was on the phone with Sean and noticed that there was brown specks on my dishes, I told him that I was pretty sure they were turds. Also that I was afraid that a cockroach had been packed with the dishes and packed for four weeks. I got to the bottom of the box and the last two cups guess what I found hiding, now I should mention that I haven't seen or even heard of any cockroaches since I moved here. Turns out, they don't live here, go figure I bring one out to Nevada. I start yelling to Sean that I told him I thought there would be on in the box, run as far away from the box as I can and take a moment to collect myself. While silently reflecting to myself I am acting like my sister when it comes to matters involving cockroaches. He says get some OFF or Raid something, I then tell him all I have is Fantastic and that I am going to Fantastic this thing to death. I gingerly take the box in one hand and my Fantastic in another, hurry out to the parking garage, tip the contents of the box out, not sure if he is dead or alive. He's ALIVE! He stumbles out makes me think of someone drunk or getting their sea-legs, after a few seconds he starts getting momentum and I go crazy spraying him at least 8 times grabbing my two dishes and the box and book it. I have no idea if he survived the Fantastic, I am half afraid that I just infected Nevada with cockroaches. So thanks Mom! haha


I am so glad I moved in on Tuesday because on Wednesday it started snowing and it didn't stop until Saturday morning we probably got 10 inches of snow, I saw kids having snowball fights etc. I drove the few blocks to work the first two days because the roads were just wet but I have been walking to work and home(only 6 blocks) in 28 degree weather and snow. Its a nice change, thankfully I have one of Sean's ski jackets that he lent me(that he obviously has no use for in the Cayman Islands, lucky) and it keeps me warm and keeps the wind out, so thanks babe! Today walking to work the roads downtown apparently never get plowed and a lot of them are in the shade so I am either walking in dirty slush or ice, but not driving, no way. I have been splashed by passing by vehicles which caused my to learn the valuable lesson of sticking close to the buildings. It's really pretty here when its white the ballpark looks amazing covered in snow.

Front View of the Ballpark

So far things are going well I miss everyone back home of course, but Christmas, Royle, Tony as well as my co-workers have been great and I am having fun. I get my wire-less Internet installed tomorrow morning! Possibly going sledding tomorrow to which would be awesome! Until next week. 

My truck after work on Wednesday

First Pay Check..

So this past week has been beyond hectic. Lets start with Saturday night I suppose, went out, had a great time, got home at 5am. Woke up at 9 drove an hour south of Reno to Minden to look at a full size bed, bought said bed and drove it home, storing it in Tony's garage. Sat back and enjoyed the food (way too much food) and the parts of the Super Bowl that I did catch. I was wiped out and feel asleep by 8 and didn't wake up until 10 the next morning. Yay, Green Bay!

So now starts the real week, its the week before Valentines Day and the Reno Aces mascot Archie has advertised that he will be delivering Archie Valentine Grams. Online orders begin pouring in and I become Archie's driver/helper on deliveries. We had a single delivery on Monday, easy as pie except we had to drive to downtown Fallon, an hours drive each way to get there. It was fun because the guy worked at the police station, so Archie and I got to surprise him with a dozen red roses and a gift card to the Team Store. Tuesday only held two different deliveries, Wednesday had three. Thursday had four but we got to drive out to Squaw Valley, CA. The drive is so pretty, I sent Sean some pictures that I took and he was amazed he wants to go there. Friday comes along and we had six deliveries to make, we did five between 9 am and 11am all over town. Archie and I did it in record time and not because I was driving crazy. Valentines Day we have 15 deliveries all over town, yikes! I move into my new place this Tuesday and I don't think I have ever been so excited about anything. That may be an overstatement but right now it doesn't feel like it. I have experienced a place called Mustangs along with several others but Mustangs is looking like it may become the surrogate Round Up for me. I bought my plane ticket home for Gloria and Randy's wedding the first weekend in May, yay! So I'll be home again before anyone knows it. This week has flown by between working theBighorn games and driving Archie all around. Hopefully going hiking tomorrow at Lake Tahoe! I'm on my phone now so I will add pictures on Monday of Squaw Valley and Archie. Hope that everyone is doing ok I miss you and I love you all, until next week!

One Week Down..

How to start, how to start, well I've been out in Reno for a grand total of nine days. The weather is a lot different than back home, it starts out in the high 20's low 30's when I get up and go for my run before work. These hills are kicking my butt! I went from running 4 miles pretty easily to maybe a mile that I couldn't even finish, until yesterday I finally pushed through, yay! Had to buy some real sweaters out here, the wind cuts through my cotton sweaters like you wouldn't believe. I have actual reasons to wear scarves, gloves and ski caps, which is kind of cool.
So down to the things everyone really wants to read about, my job. I started work on my first Saturday here, working a Reno Bighorns game (D-League Basketball team owned by the same people). Working the game was pretty familiar to me, it did give me a chance to get somewhat acquainted with my boss Jessica and co-workers Tonya and Bart. Also the merchandise that we carry for the Bighorns, who won the game and actually haven't lost since I've been in town. A fact a few of the people from the Bighorns have pointed out to me a few times. The Team Store is where I have put in most of my hours in my first week, the store is closed on Sundays and Mondays. But we ended up coming in to do inventory, fun way to start my job. We do inventory once a month, something to look forward to. On the days were open, its a matter of getting ready for opening day, April 15th first home game. I have been busy learning the system and trying to learn the inventory and store. They had interviews yesterday for part-time seasonal employees. Everyone they have hired so far has a great amount of experience, and is a middle-aged woman. Nothing wrong with that, but it just adds to the fact that I have only met one person my age here so far, Bart. Anyways, I am actually running the store by myself today, as we are so far away from the season, its pretty laid back during store hours. Just re-folding shirts, I am now an expert folder a trait that I am hoping will become a habit when folding my own clothes.

Everyone that I met has been really nice, I found an studio apartment and signed my lease on Thursday, pretty exciting! Well for me it was, I move in the 16th of this month, I've added pictures of the place so everyone can see what I have to work with. Once I've moved in and put my mark on it, I'll post pictures again. Well I guess this was a good start to blogging. Hope everyone enjoyed and don't worry I'll have more interesting things to write about soon I hope!