Done and Done

The shows packed up and heading home (for better or worse). It's been a fun month, now you have to put up with me in person.

The Finish is in Sight

I've gotten lazy (or been out drinking til 2 the last 4 days and couldn't write, you decide) and haven't updated on my regular schedule. So again I'll go with the lump summary.

I was going to title this post 3rd times the charm, but the only thing more consistent than our work schedule is Dan's utter failure to summit Squaw Peak. That's right he tried for a 3rd time Monday and once again failed miserably. He has all kinds of excuses: the 18 beers the night before, the non-working xm radio, the only shape he's in is round, etc. Whatever gets you through the day I guess. I'm surprised he had the energy to get on the bench in the parking lot.


The polar opposite of Dan is Brad Adam. That's right, Brad gets his first blog shout out! But I'm going to take some of the credit for Brad's success. Using my Ipod and his newly named life philosophy WWAD (What Would Axl Do) Brad listened to Appetite for Destruction and powered up the peak in a record breaking 22 minutes and change. Brad was so quick in fact he complained back in the parking lot that he only got half his daily Axl fix.

Monday I actually got to see some baseball. Normally I'm not a look at that sunset kind of guy, but it was pretty impressive.



Rees, Dan, and I took in the game (and a few adult beverages) from the berm. Luckily for Dan you walk down the hill from the walkway to seating area so he was able to make it that far, of course after the game was a struggle and we had to stop a couple times to let him catch his breath as we walked the 20 feet up the gentle slope. It was a great night for baseball and got better with the last out of the sixth. Adam Jones caught a fly ball and turned and threw it into the crowd. Not only was it coming into the crowd it was heading right towards me. Being the great "athlete" I am I prepared to make the catch by switching my beer from my left hand to my right hand. I then reached up and grabbed it without even having to so much as stand up and more importantly didn't spill a drop of beer. After thoroughly impressing everyone on the berm with my superior athleticism I then displayed my heart of gold by giving the souvenir to the 3-year-old girl sitting behind us. It made her night and mine as well, as it was the first girl to give me a smile down here. Only took a whole month to get that!!

We all came from somewhere

Occasionally you stumble onto something that is to good to be true. Well, that was certainly the case in Sedona.

Sedona is definitely interesting. The natural beauty of the red rocks are offset by the nutso's that call it home and claim the land has healing powers. These people are literally insane, I mean if you think I've gone insane from this month (and I probably have a little) you should see these freaks. There was a lady crying because of the reading she got from her aura reading, I couldn't make this up if I tried. We tried to get Jen to have her aura read but she was having none of it. Later we went up in the hills to visit a vortex and have our "equinimity" restored. Well despite visiting the "vortex" my "equinimity" still feels out of whack. Maybe I just don't believe enough.

What does this have to do with anything. Well, nothing really, but there is a business in Sedona with perhaps the greatest name ever.



Proving our collective maturity is that of your typical 6th grader Jen and I giggled about this for the next 10 minutes and in perhaps the only moment that could be classified as weird near the vortex we looked at each other and said "Grandma Horr's" causing another laughing fit. Those people in Sedona sure have a strange sense of humor.

I have to admit I'm pretty proud of myself, I made it through this whole post without making a Jamie O'neal joke, finally I think it's time I retired it.

Sweet Redemption!

Alright, a week ago all the FSN viewers got to see it well documented as I failed to summit Squaw Peak. Well Tuesday night I got the chance to make amends. This time I fueled up by editing 3 shows and eating In-N-Out before attempting this daunting feat (I know, the training regimen of champions).

There were 8 people in our party hoping to reach the peak. Jussero, Jen, Dan, and Dan's girlfriend (Rebecca, yes she has a name) got the jumpstart on everyone (thanks to the Wong missing the exit on the freeway). That left Phil, Wong, Curtis, and myself stretching in the parking lot. Phil immediately started running up the hill (yes, he's insane and yes he finished in 22 minutes). I started next but was quickly passed by Curtis and the Wong. But slow and steady gets the job done even if that means swallowing your pride as you get passed by grandmothers while trying to catch your breath without falling over. So I plodded along with my knees feeling like they were about to explode with each step stopping to catch my breath seemingly every 100 yards. Finally I got to the mile mark and looked up and saw 2 things. 1) Curtis taking pictures at the summit and 2) the most daunting stretch of hill I ever want to see again. However, seeing Curtis at the top gave me the motivation I needed to get to the top (with only 4 or 5 stops). Finally I reached the top in what for me was a good 39 minutes. Woohoo!!


In case you're wondering it was Mariah Carey in the ipod... HA just kidding. AC/DC helped power me to the top. Oh and to show that's not just a random shot anywhere here is the peak. A smart guy would have taken a picture earlier to show just how steep the trail is, but no one's ever accused me of being a genius.


Yes, that is TV's own Jen Mueller in the white hat, she only beat me by 10 minutes. Unfortunately the best picture of the 6 people to make the summit is on Phil's camera and we have to wait for him to be able to download it from his camera. Of course, if only 6 people made it to the summit that leaves 2 people who fell short. Dan and Rebecca didn't quite make it. Better luck next time, at least he didn't leave his dessert on the hill this time.

Would you like your beverage chilled?

As should be obvious I don't like to steal other people's stories and post them, this blog is about ME, dammit!! Well occasionally a story has to be told. Or in this case Curtis has asked me to relay a story and I can't deny him as he is the boss after all. Hopefully I don't screw it up too bad.

One thing to keep in my mind while reading this is you must take into account the cheapness of Cameron Wong. Ok, on to the story.

So apparently there is an issue with kitchen appliances in the other condo. First it was Matty Mo's battle with the dishwasher earlier in the trip, well Sunday the Wonger took on the freezer. In a surprise to everyone there were no cold drinks in the fridge, so Cameron decided to go for the quick solution and threw a beer in the freezer. Of course he completely forgot about his master plan. The next morning when getting ice for the cooler Curtis opened the freezer to find a beersicle. So Curtis being the good roommate he is cleaned up the mess. When Phil and Cameron finally arose he asked "Which one of you geniuses* placed the beer in the freezer last night?". The Wonger sheepishly admitted his mistake (to his credit he offered to clean it up) but Curtis had already finished cleaning the freezer and placed the offending beer in the sink.
It's at this point that the Wonger asked "Do you think it's still good to drink? Does beer lose it's carbonation when frozen?" Curtis' response you ask? "Dude, I'll give you the 80 cents it costs to buy another beer, just forget about that one." I guess it took another 5 minutes of convincing to get the Wong to finally give up on salvaging the beer, you'd think it was made of gold or something.


* May not have used this exact term, but this is a family friendly blog after all.

It's been a while

Wow, I had no idea I hadn't posted since Wednesday. Time flies when you're having, well, a time. I have no real excuses so I won't even try and to make any up.

Let's see what I can remember from the last 5 days. Wednesday we put together the "Best of Mariners Nightly" show. Other than being unable to tell time the show worked out great. Oh yeah, we also picked up our new reporter Jen Mueller. I seem to recall some sort of show meeting that night and a Mavs/Suns double-OT thriller but I can't confirm either really occurred.

Thursday was our first live game broadcast from spring training. For some of us the day started with a trip to Mesa and HoHoCam park for the start of the Mariners/Cubs game. The rest of us, those that actually work down here, stayed in Peoria to get the show ready for that night. I don't think I missed out on much, other than a golden chance to make fun of Dan with a bunch of gay Cubs jokes with some extra Taco Time jokes on the side. Since our show served as the pre-game show we had a chance to watch the game that night versus the Giants. Despite sitting in the press box facing the field I don't remember any of it. I might have watched some but apparently there was more on my mind. What? I have no freakin' clue, but I honestly don't remember a thing.

Friday is a similar blur. If you can't tell the days all seem to run together into one big confusing mess. All I know is I'm a horrible gambler even at $1 a bet. The only consolation to losing my life savings one dollar at a time is that later I had the best conversation I've had in years. Guess you have to take victories where you can find them.

Saturday proved history repeats itself. I got a rather unexpected visitor when my brother and his wife came over from L.A. for the weekend. It was nice to see him even if only for a few hours. A few beers after the show I got back to the condo and for the 2nd time passed out mid-text. This time, however, I was unable to power through and finish the text when I awoke at 3:30 am. I've really got to work on my stamina.

That finally brings us to Sunday and our first visit to Maryvale. Other than the 90+ degree temps it reminded me of Renton. Cars were on blocks, liquor stores had bars over the windows, and mullets ran rampant (ok, maybe that's because the Mariners were facing the Brewers and Milwaukee hasn't quite progressed past 1985 yet). Despite the surroundings it's a nice stadium, the highlight of the day (since I've proven I don't actually watch any of the games) was the interview with Bob Uecker. Comedy Gold!

Alright, this has lasted long enough. Since I don't want to pass out mid-blog I'm going to end it here so I can get some sleep and be at my forgetting details sharpest Monday. Tomorrow is Monday, right?!

Thrown Under the Bus

For the record there are a couple things I have to point out about the hike and the resulting package. Dan made it about 5 minutes of hiking before pulling over to the side of the trail and puking. He then went on to blame it on everything from being out of shape, to a phone call that afternoon, to the brownies he ate in the press box. I made it about a mile up the hill before giving up to retreat to base camp before darkness settled in making the trail impassable. Yes, there was a lot of hands on knees gasping for air as seen in the package but I didn't blame it on anything other than being horribly out of shape. The line in the package about having too much dessert that was over me gasping for air was meant to cover Dan but there wasn't enough footage of him hiking. Whew, I feel much better now.

The Big Debut

I know you have all been holding your collective breath with anticipation for this news, but tonight's the night. My big FSN debut. In fact it will be my first television appearance since a young and innocent John interviewed the Hanson Brothers. Once again, I'll come off looking like an idiot (except a little more red in the face gasping for air), but really isn't that the case normally?

There's not a whole lot to report from a work standpoint. I spend my afternoons glued to the John Jacobson Editing Suite, the only burn I'm close to getting is one from the glow of the monitors. Good Times.

Alright, I've got to go get pretty for my big moment!

Getting Revenge

I may not have beaten the Wonger up Squaw Peak (footage of which will be in a pkg Tuesday, hopefully if Matt edits it) but I did kick his and Dan's asses at darts. Twice!!! I'm just that good.

Sunday's show was interesting given the earlier feed time and the decision to put a minute long music video in the A block. Making it even more fun was the back seat editing advice I was getting while trying to put it together.

Sorry for getting hopes up that I'd be in the show Sunday, look for me Tuesday. Alright I've gotta work or something.

Losing Mo-mentum

If you picked day 10 as the first day I'd get tired of someone consider yourself a winner. With an early feed time fast approaching and a general lack of sleep, Matty Mo and I clashed heads. While he's done a great job getting interviews and has even edited some of his own pieces, his insistance to cover his own vo as I was trying to crash out a show didn't sit well. I stormed out down the hall and nearly barreled over Bud Selig on my way to a calming chocolate chip cookie.
Rattlesnake Patrol...

After the game 7 of us attempted to hike Squaw Peak. Sadly only 3 made the summit. I was not among them. My old diet consisting of Coke and Twinkies has left me slightly out of shape. I made it about a mile before sunset and I sure as hell wasn't coming down in the dark so I was forced to turn around. The stubborn competitor in me says I'll take another shot at it later, my body says you're an idiot. I believe our expedition will be part of a package sunday. As for the winner, that would be Jon Jussero.

Alright I'm already so sore I should be asleep.

Hardest working men in television?

Another game another loss credited to the Mariners bullpen. The Rockies took advantage of the Mariners hospitality and left with a big extra inning win, no, I'm not being sarcastic at all. Unfortunately there was no Camden Kelly sighting, though strangely enough we ran into a friend and former college teammate of his Thursday in Surprise.

I know you get to post the shows so there is some proof that we are doing some work down here, but I thought I'd send a picture to prove it. Although I'm not entirely certain of what is going on in this picture, I'll attempt to give my best educated guess. Dan is clearly blocking someone's view of the game, and since this person is probably 75-years-old he is probably also burning their retinas with the light disc. The Wong I'm sure is drowning out the PA system yelling about something, there was a sudden rush to the souvenir stand for earplugs just after I snapped this photo. Jussero is of course thinking what am I doing with these two dorks? As you can tell the dress code is relaxed as the Wonger is sporting shorts and sandals despite this being shot during business hours.


Why I'm still up typing this I don't know. Tomorrow we go to Tempe for the Angels bright and early. Alright, time to go to bed and get some sleep after drowning my Cougar sorrows.

Making a pass (out)

Due to circumstances beyond my control the last two days will be lumped into 1 post.

That's not really the truth, but I'm going with it anyway. Wednesday was a mixed bag of events. It started off of fairly normal then things hit the bricks in the afternoon. For the 2nd time in 8 shows the John Jacobson Memorial Editing Suite decided to malfunction. This time with much elbow grease we were able to pop the top of the deck open and release our tape. Jussero lent his hand by taping the whole ordeal, thank for the support pal. Somehow we managed to feed even earlier than our feed time, who knows how that works.

After dinner at a restaurant who's mascot is an owl and motto is: "Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined", Curtis, Dan, and I went out for a few drinks. Speaking of unrefined that would describe the dives Curtis took us to, and I'm a proud resident of Renton, UKC (unincorporated King County) where we prefer our cars on blocks and mullets on our women. Needless to say it was a long night, I got home and tried to text a friend (after failing to be able to work the phonebook to make a call). The reason I say tried is I passed out mid text (mind you it was 11 pm) and when I awoke at 2 am my phone was laying next to me still opened and mid-sentence. Being the trooper I am, I finished the text and went to bed.

Thursday saw our 2nd trip to Surprise in 3 days. This time to see the always exciting Kansas City Royals. Of course the Royals didn't disappoint laying an 11-3 beating on the hapless Mariners bullpen. The turning point was in the 4th inning when Jorge Campillo pulled off an almost impossible feat giving up 5 runs in 50 seconds. First a bases loaded triple then on the next pitch a 2-run homer. The Royals hit two moon shots that cleared the berm in the outfield, seriously how do you give up those to the Royals? About the only positive, for me at least, was seeing fellow Lindbergh High School Alumnus (UKC Represent!) David Riske throw a scoreless inning of relief for the Royals. As for my over/under prediction from Tuesday, well it was technically the over. The announced "crowd" was 3,800 and change. There clearly weren't as many people there as there were Tuesday, I just don't think they wanted the Mariners and Royals to feel bad.

Friday brings Camden Kelly* and the Rockies to Peoria to knock around Jeff Weaver and our beloved** Mariners.

*Not actually scheduled to appear

**By beloved, I mean I love that I get a paycheck following this team.

A Bad Surprise

The traveling road show made it's 2nd stop on the March world tour Tuesday in Surprise. Apparently no one got the memo that there was a game as only 3,900 brave souls showed up to watch some cactus league baseball. For the record that was 600 under the 4,500 over/under attendance number set by Dan before the game. The average age of the crowd was 68 and that's generous as it was probably even higher than that. Can't wait for the return trip Thursday to see the Royals, I'm setting the over/under at 2,500.
Since my back was to field most of the game as I edited the show the most exciting part of the day was batting practice. Specifically Sammy Sosa's cuts. He put one ball out by that red sign on the left side of the picture. More impressive was the ball he put into the parking lot just to the left of the scoreboard.

We're back in Peoria tomorrow. I don't know who's creating more buzz. Barry Bonds possibly playing for the Giants or the Wonger hosting his first Mariners Nightly, it's really too close to call.

Time Well Wasted

The Mariners finally found some offense, too bad they still lost. It's going to be a long spring, oh wait, there's a whole regular season after that?! Sorry.

5 days in and most of us have completely lost our minds. Everything makes us laugh, it's like being awake at 4 am permanently. I've gotten to the point that I'm now making packages out of the bloopers during my infrequent down time. It keeps me sane, and drives Dan crazy because most are at his expense.

Speaking of Dan, I was going to show him working but this was all I could find.

Yes, that's Dan hard at work "producing" something. I think he's just staring admiringly at Lou Piniella, but you never know what those Cubs fans are actually thinking. Standing next to him is Mr. Mentink supervising. As you can see we are always hard at work down here in the desert.

Great Scott...sdale

Sunday was our first venture out onto the road with this traveling circus.

Surprisingly enough everything went smoothly. I don't have much else to add, I'm about to pass out. I need to sleep, and cut down on my beer consumption.

The Padres again?

Seriously, are there no other teams in spring training? 3 games all against the same opponent, fun.

Saturday's show was a dream compared to Friday's nightmare despite having to feed an hour earlier. Of course one person's ease means likely someone has to suffer, and for that I'm sorry Lacey. I knew going in it was going to be a disaster for you and all I can hope is that you don't hate me more than you already did ;)

Of course the real fun for us was when we were a couple beers into the USC/WSU game as it went to overtime and then double overtime. Just the surreal phone conversations of Amy and Curt alone were worth the tab.

Alright, I've got to cut this short so I can get some sleep before taking this traveling gong show on the road Sunday in Scottsdale.

Porcine Fornication

No need to worry, I'm still alive and kicking. This is a day late due to technical difficulties which pretty much sums up Friday, but look pictures!

First, here is the view I wish I could enjoy more of from my "office" in Peoria.But here is really what I spend more time staring at...On to the fun that was Friday. Things started on a strange note when I awoke and was convinced after a particularly vivid dream that Jimmy and Ali were married. It took 20 minutes and a cold shower to finally realize it wasn't true. If only I knew the fun to follow. Upon arriving at the ballpark I was hassled by "the man" or as is the case in Arizona "the old man". Apparently my Gatorade was contraband but Dan's bottled water was ok. Yeah, made sense to me too.

After talking to Dave Niehaus in his sweet fishing hat I basically sat around for a couple hours waiting for "talent" to do something. Anything, really. Slowly things trickled in at a snails pace. Being the only damn editor, I was slammed. So we rushed through segments 2 and 3, then things got interesting.

Midway through the first segment a tape got stuck in the playback deck rendering the John Jacobson Memorial Edit Suite temporarily out of order with about 8 edits in the 1st segment left and the entire 4th segment. So we placed a call to Rich Hoyt, his first response "oh, that's not good", how Curt refrained from launching into a profanity laced tirade I'll never know. After using the typical engineering solution (turn it off and try again) to no avail, we rigged up another deck to the editor. So if you refer to the edit suite picture, envision another deck laying to the side with wires all over the place to get video and audio into the record deck, or as Curt referred to it our "mickey mouse" editing solution. Best part of all, no control over the other deck meaning all the edits had to be crashed onto the master tape. Somehow we managed to bang out the end of the first segment. For the fourth segment we stole the one from the night before and fixed the audio. We sent Allard down to feed while we got segment times and ran them down 1 by 1. I got to run the final one, and as I left the room what happened? Of course the stuck tape ejected.

As we walked back up to our booth after just getting the feed out in our allotted time Curt turned to us and uttered "Now that was a 'Pig Fuck'!"

Charity Case

Day 1 down, if only I could put in Willie Bloomquist's 4 inning effort for a similar paycheck. No such luck though, he doesn't have to edit an entire 30 minute show himself. Though the John Jacobson memorial edit suite sits in the TV booth behind home plate, I saw maybe 5 minutes of todays charity game. Occasionally I heard a cheer from the crowd and looked up to see someone cross the plate, otherwise I was busy trying to pick out the usable Matty Mo take from the 6 attempts.

I'd write more, but after watching the Cougars game I'm wiped out for today. Hopefully pics tomorrow.

One final note, because I forgot yesterday, due to my superior skill calling coin flips (or pure luck, you decide) I got the master bedroom. Not only is it the biggest, it has its own bathroom meaning I don't have to share with Kuehner or Jussero, take that suckers!

Lost in the Desert

After a day and a half in the desert I've already lost track of time, it's going to be a long month. Add to that my general lack of direction around here, assume that if this blog doesn't get updated I'm lost crawling through the desert looking for water.

Our flight down was non-eventful. Angie was the next to last person on the flight to show at the boarding gate and she blamed her tardiness on the fifth member of our traveling group, Jaxen, apparently he was playing in the nursery. Likely excuse, but since she didn't actually hold up the plane I'll let it slide. With Jaxen there were 3 children on the plane, which is still 1 fewer than the number of dogs on the plane. One of which resided under the seat next to me, awesome.

It wasn't the greatest day to travel for me. How can you expect me to be away from internet access on NHL trade deadline day? Next to Hockey Day in Michigan it's my 2nd favorite day of the year! My number 1 priority upon arrival was to get to the condo and get internet access. But Jimmy ruined it all. Literally, less than a minute after the pilot cleared us to turn on our phones in Phoenix I got a text from Jimmy saying Todd Bertuzzi was a Red Wing. So much for the anticipation of getting to the condo. Thanks, alot!

We didn't even make it to the condo before our first trip to In 'n Out. Angie was hungry and I'm certainly not arguing with Angie let alone with child. It was the first of what I'm sure will be many trips in the next 5 weeks.

Finally got to see the Peoria Sports Complex today. After all the years of seeing the spring training video it's interesting to see how things are really laid out in person. The highlight of the day was doing my Rider impression setting up 2 editing stations, the only difference is ours work.

That's it for now, gotta run to a production meeting for the first show, good times. Hopefully I'll be update regularly and even post photos!