Sunday, 11/12/06

The day started when the alarm on my cell starting beeping at 7:30 a.m. Shivani and I had planned on going hiking by 9:00. There was only one problem. I was extremely hungover. I could possibly still be drunk. I couldn't be sure so I decided to stand up. I was good until I got into the bathroom and almost fell into the shower. I was still a little tipsy. I decided to suck it up so I took some ibuprofin and turned on ESPN. This was going to be my only chance to watch football all day. Around 8:00 I called Shivani and told her to come over by 9:00. After that I made a couple phone calls and then I showered. I was ready to go when Shivani arrived shortly after 9:00.

First event: We went hiking at South Mountain. Neither of us had ever hiked there so we weren't real sure what trail to hike. We decided to start at the closest trailhead off the highway. The hike was pretty mild. We must have picked one of the easier trials on the mountain. I think we actually crossed over on to one or two different trails during the hike. Shivani will readily admit that she has a horrible sense of direction and I was next day dumb so it could have gotten dicey. Fortunately, Shivani made up for my lack of brainpower and guided us back to the car at the end of the hike. We probably hiked for a good hour and a half. This is when the argument started. I wanted to go home and change before we went to get lunch. Shivani didn't because she didn't bring any clothes to change into. She won the argument and we headed downtown for lunch.

Second event: We stopped by my work to pick up a DVD that I forgot to take home on Friday. We were both very excited to watch this DVD. A co-worker of mine had recorded Iconoclasts from the Sundance Channel featuring Eddie Vedder and Laird Hamilton. Those of you that know Shivani and I know that we're huge fans of Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam. We were both looking forward to watching this. After I grabbed the DVD we headed to Willow House. It's an art/coffee/culture spot that also has great sandwiches. I had never heard of it but Shivani really wanted to go. I was glad we did because the sandwich was great. I had a turkey club with potato salad and Shivani had some sort of veggie sandwich with a lot of sprouts on it.

DISCLAIMER: Some of you may want to stop reading here. Especially my male friends. Some of you may hate me after reading the rest. You will definitely laugh. Some of you may cry and wonder what happened to your 12 hours on the couch - beer drinking - junkfood eating - yelling at the TV- NFL watching maniac - friend. Continue at your own risk.

Third event: I finally got to change my clothes. We headed back to my apartment so I could change and so we could look up some stores that we wanted to go to. When we got back I turned on football while I changed and Shivani did some internetting. Once I changed and got caught up on the scores we headed back out. Our first stop was Babies R Us. No, we're not making babies. Shivani's brother and sister-in-law have a baby due in January and Shivani is organizing the baby shower. One of the activities at the shower is to have the attendees decorate a onesie for the child. We were in search of cheap onesies. We found them on sale 5 for $10. That seemed like a good deal. On the way into the parking lot we spotted a Wendy's. Shivani suggested we go get vanilla frosties. I had mentioned a while ago that I would actually break my sugar boycott to try the vanilla frosty. So that's exactly what we did. We each got a small frosty and headed outside to eat them. I threw mine out after a few bites. It was good but way to sweet for me. Shivani ate all of hers.

Fourth event: What would any self-respecting man do at this point? That's right! He'd go to the Fountain Festival of Arts & Crafts in Fountain Hills. Yeah, that's right! This is the point where I wondered how I was ever going to explain to my friends what I did on NFL Sunday. It's also the moment that I thought a blog about my day might be a good idea. Anyway, this turned out to be the best thing we did all day because Shivani bought a picture that she really liked. We had actually seen these pictures at Costco several months ago and Shivani had regretted not buying the one she liked ever since. By total luck we ended up walking past the booth of the artist and finding the exact picture she had wanted at Costco. I wish I had a picture of the picture to show you. It's really cool. Anyway, the price was usually $299 but it was on sale that day for $189. I should probably mention that it's a huge picture and it's framed. That totally made Shivani's day. We looked around for a while and then walked at least a mile and a half back to car. Yes, I carried the large framed photo all the way back. I guess I should mention that there was a gigantic TV at the craft show that had the Cardinals game on. That was the highlight for me.

Fifth event: We have to decorate the onesies! Therefore, a trip to Michaels was in order. We bought fabric markers and a bunch of iron-on patches. We also found some 2007 calendars for $1 each. You can't beat that. I bought the "Bridges" calendar.

That pretty much ended our day. We were excited to drive back home, get some dinner and watch the Iconoclasts DVD. We ordered and extra large mushroom pizza with ranch flavored crust and Howie Bread from Hungry Howie's. We sat down to watch the DVD and it didn't work! ARRRRGH! I guess my DVD player does not play DVD-R discs. I know it plays DVD+R discs. Damn the multiple formats! We decided to watch Amazing Race at that point. That was after we caught about 10 minutes of the Bears vs. Giants game. Shivani left after Amazing Race to get home for Desperate Housewives. I watched a little bit more of the football game and went to bed. I was worn out from our long day of running around. It was almost 12 hours of activities. As you can see I watched far less football this Sunday than the previous. Recognize!

Tune in again on 11/19 or 11/20 for the next installment. I currently have no plans lined up for Sunday. My Cardinals vs. Lions tickets are on ebay as I write this. I'm thinking of going shopping for some "winter wardrobe". I need to go to Costco. I know that I'll go for a long hike. Other than that I don't know what I'll do. You'll have to check back to find out.

Sunday, 11/5/06

My Mom and Grandma were in town at the time. I would write about the highlights of their whole visit but I'm sticking to blogging about Sunday only. This was the first Sunday of my vacation from the NFL. It all started out with breakfast at IHOP. I was going to tell you the exact name of the meal I had but I didn't see it on IHOP's online menu. That's right, I just looked at their online menu. What? Anyway, I had two eggs (scrambled), two strips of bacon, hash browns, white toast, coffee and water. I was quite upset by their breakfast meal choices. Everything comes with pancakes. What if you don't want pancakes? I guess you don't go to IHOP.

After breakfast we headed to downtown Phoenix. I drove past the building I work at just so my Mom and Grandma could see it. If you don't know, I work for the Arizona Republic. More specifically, azcentral.com. After that we went to South Mountain in South Phoenix and drove to the top. The drive to the top is a little over 5 miles. The road has to be shared with walkers, runners and bikers. The road is very windy so it makes for a pretty slow trip. Once you get to the top it's all worth it. I don't have many pictures to share since my batteries in my camera died after only a few shots.



After South Mountain we headed out to Glendale, AZ to take a look at University of Phoenix Stadium. Sadly, the best stadium in the NFL is home to worst team in the NFL... the Arizona Cardinals. It's really cool to drive up the 101 into Glendale and come up on the stadium. It's a really cool looking building. After that, we continued all the way around the 101 which takes you around North Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe. I must add to this that we were listening to ESPN Radio while we were driving around. The Redskins were playing the Cowboys and my Mom and I couldn't bear to not know what was going on. After the drive we headed back to my apartment because Shivani was coming over to hang out for a little while. This is where I hit the first snag of my NFL free Sunday. We got home just in time to watch the second half of the Broncos vs. Steelers game. While my Mom and Grandma talked with Shivani I pretended to listen but I really watched the game. After Shivani left my Mom and I went over to IN-N-OUT to pick up some burgers and fries for dinner. I swear what happened next is true. My Mom talked to me in to watching the Colts vs. Patriots game. I told her that we had to watch Amazing Race first. I refused to sit and watch the whole game since I had vowed not to watch any NFL until the playoffs.

Well, that was our day. As you can see I did watch some football. I didn't watch a complete game and I was out doing stuff all day. I can't remember the last time I did that on an NFL Sunday. There was a much less successful boycott a couple years ago I tried to pull off but it only lasted a couple weeks. You'll see from my next post that I did much better on my second Sunday of not watching the NFL. I will add that post on Thursday or Friday.

I'm back after a very long hiatus

Those of you who know me will laugh when I say what I'm about to say but I swear it's true... I've given up on the NFL until the playoffs start in January. To understand how I got to this point I must back up and give you some history. WARNING: The next few paragraphs are a rant from a big Broncos fan that will only be appreciated by football fans.

2003: The Broncos play the Colts in Week 16 in Denver and crush them 31-17. Denver was the first team to blow out the Colts that season. They met two weeks later in Indy for a Wildcard playoff game. Indy embarassed Denver 41-10. The glaring weakness for Denver was their secondary. In the offseason they trade Clinton Portis to Washington for Champ Bailey and they receive a third round draft pick which they use to draft Tatum Bell.

2004: The Broncos finish with an identical 10-6 record just as they did in 2003. The defense is much stronger and they feel like they can beat Indy in the playoffs. Who do the get in the first round of the playoffs? That's right, Indy at Indy again. They lose 33-14 this time. Once again, the pass defense lets them down even with Champ Bailey in the secondary. For those of you that don't know he is widely considered the best cornerback in football.

2005: The Broncos finish 13-3 and are once again on a collision course with Indy in the playoffs. They beat the Patriots in the divisional round ending their dynasty. This was Denver's first playoff win since John Elway retired. The football gods smiled on them and the Steelers knock off Indy to set up the AFC Championship game in Denver. The Broncos defense has never been better under Shanahan. The Super Bowl is within reach since Indy is out of the way. The Steelers destroy Denver 34-17 and go on to win the Super Bowl. Once again, the pass defense lets them down.

2006: Week 8 of the season. Indy at Denver. This could be Denver's best defense of all time. They have only allowed two touchdowns in their first six games. Indy comes into town with a 6-0 record. Denver was 5-1. Denver only allows two field goals to Indy in the first half and leads 14-6 at halftime. The second half was a different story. Indy scores on all five possessions and wins the game 34-31. Once again, the pass defense let them down. Bad play calling by Mike Shanahan played a large part on the final drive as well.

NOW: The loss to Indy in Week 8 is what brought me to my current position. I will no longer waste my Sunday's watching Denver put together a good or great regular season only to screw it up in the end. I will watch the playoffs and see how it all ends even though I already know how it ends. Go ahead, call me a fair weather fan. I don't care! I live in Arizona now where you can actually do stuff outside in the "winter" as opposed to sitting inside and being miserable because it's so damn cold outside. I don't have to waste my time drinking beer and complaining about how bad Mike Shanahan's last play call was. I can be outside enjoying perfect weather in one of the most beautiful states in the country.

That brings me to the new topic of my blog. It's going to be a log of what I did each Sunday instead of watching the NFL. I'll have to go back a couple weeks since this started two weeks ago. My next post will be about what I did on November 5th. The following post will be about what I did yesterday. Each Sunday or Monday after that I will update the blog with my Sunday activities. Come back tomorrow for details from November 5th.

Do you have a view like this?

This is the view from my parking space at work. I know, you're jealous. The mountain you see right in the middle is Piestewa Peak (formerly Squaw Peak). I hiked that a week ago. It's 1.2 miles to the top and you gain 1,200 feet in elevation. It was a grueling hike but totally worth it. The view from the top is amazing. I didn't have my camera with me on the hike though. I'll take it next time.

The trip concludes...

It took me a month longer to write about my trip than took me to drive it. I'm finally going to finish it even though most of you aren't even looking at my blog anymore.

So we start the second day driving through the rest of Missouri and into...

Oklahoma

We weren't in Oklahoma for a long time. The state didn't do much to distinguish itself in our short trek though. The only thing that jumped out at me was Oklahoma City. Thinking that a terrorist attack actually happened there was crazy. This is a midsize city in the heart of America. It didn't look like the sort of place that a terrorist attack could happen. It made me think about how shocking it must have been for the people that live there. Oh, Oklahoma also has tolls on its highways. That took us by surprise.

Texas

Texas is big. We mostly drove through portions that had nothing but farms... gigantic farms. These things went on for miles and as far as the eye could see. I saw my first oil rig in person. By the time we left the state they were no longer a novelty. In Amarillo we saw the self proclaimed second largest cross in the western hemisphere. You could see it from miles away. It's a gigantic white cross. From the time we entered the state we kept seeing billboards for a Free 64 oz. Steak*. The * stated that you had to eat the steak in one hour for it to be free. Louie and I decided to pass on the challenge.

New Mexico

We weren't in the state for 1/10 of mile when we stopped at the first rest stop right across the border. The first thing I saw when I walked up to the restrooms was a sign warning us about snakes and scorpions. I knew I was getting close to home. This was one of the most interesting states that we passed through. We didn't realize it on the first day in the state because it got dark pretty soon after we entered and we couldn't see much. We ended up stopping in Albuquerque for the night. The second day tally was 900 miles. We woke up Monday morning for the third and final day of the trip and took off around 9 a.m. It was great knowing this was the last day and it was also baseball's Opening Day. New Mexico has to be one of the most undeveloped states in the country. There was nothing but desert and mountains most of the way. Gas stations came every 40 miles or so. People live out in the middle of nowhere. Literally! They'll just stick a trailer in the desert 10 to 20 miles away from anything. Phone and electic wires are run from the highway out to the house or trailer. I can't imagine living like that. I recommend that everyone drive through New Mexico at some point in their life. It's beautiful. The mountains, the miles of nothingness, and the sunsets are amazing.

Arizona

I'm home! It was very exciting to enter the last state in our journey. Once again, we stopped at a rest stop just over the border and saw another sign warning us about critters. We put the Diamondbacks game on the radio on kept on driving. I can't tell you how different Northern Arizona is from the southern portion of the state. It's a lot of forest and snow capped mountains. We could see a huge snow capped mountain in Flagstaff when we were still 60 miles away. It was so cool to see the mountain get bigger and bigger as we got closer. We made our way down the mountain and kept driving to Tempe. You could just feel it getting hotter and hotter as we decended down the mountain. We finally arrived in Tempe a little after 2 p.m. Louie and busted our asses to unload the truck and get the TV set up in time for the NCAA Championship game at 5 p.m. We were in front of the TV with beer and Boston Market in time for the tip-off.

It was a long trip but I'm glad that I did it. Driving across the county isn't something most people get a chance to do in their lives. Granted, we did it so fast that we didn't get to stop and check out anything. That's OK though. There weren't too many times during the trip that I thought I wanted to stop. The lasting impression for me will be the remote areas where you can drive for 20-30 miles and see nothing. That's totally opposite of what I was used to in Northern Virginia. It's amazing to see how big the county is and think about what people's lives are like in different parts. We're all Americans in this county but people are so different from state to state.

In my next post I'll update you on what I've been up to since I got out here.

The trip continues...

I'm back for another installment of the cross county trip. We'll travel through four more states in this post.

Ohio

TRIVIA! What is John's least favorite state? This one is easy, it's Ohio! I don't have one good thing to say about this state. I already knew what a shithole it was from my previous job. I was in charge of websites for 8 Ohio Newspapers . I got to read news from these various cities in Ohio every day. It's some of the most depressing news you'll ever read. Not only do they lead the nation in suicides but I would be shocked based on what I've read if they didn't lead the nation in child molestation as well. We stopped a couple times on our way through the state. The first stop was at a gas station, the second was at Wendy's (I was convinced I was going to get some rare fungus or infection after eating there). Louie and I couldn't believe the people we were looking at each time we stopped. It looked like it was still the 80's. You talk about white trash! Holy crap! It was so depressing to sit amongst these people and wonder what their lives must be like. I don't know where we were when I said this to Louie but I said "these people don't know any other way of life so maybe they're happy." You just think about how much they miss out on living where they do. I'm done with Ohio. I never want to go back. And yes, I have been to major cities in Ohio too. I've been to Cincinnati twice and spent several days there. It sucks! Ohio sucks! ANIMALS!

Indiana

Oh thank god! We're out of Ohio. OK, I'm really done with Ohio now. Indiana doesn't have much to offer as far as I can tell. This is point in the trip when every state started to look similar. A lot of nothing with small towns mixed in. Tons of farms. This was probably the most interesting state we passed through though for a couple of reasons. We're driving down the highway, it's getting close to 6 p.m. on Saturday night. We notice traffic slowing down up ahead and then we see tons of flashing lights everywhere. As we get closer I notice a lot of county vehicles, phone company trucks, police, and EMT. Then, all of a sudden we see houses torn apart. Some ripped right off of their foundations. I realized that I was witnessing the aftermath of a tornado for the first time in my life. It was one of the most shocking things I've ever seen. It's totally different seeing it in person versus on TV. Needless to say, it really put a damper on the mood for a while. Seeing that just makes me glad that I vowed to lived natural disaster free a long time ago. I would never live in a state where you're constantly under the threat of a natural disaster. After we got through the tornado traffic we realized that the Final Four was starting and we were within 10 minutes of Indianapolis. Had we not committed to such an aggressive driving schedule I'm sure we would have been tempted to stay the night there and tried to score tickets to the games. That's all I've got for Indiana.

Illinois

Come on feel the Illinois! Sadly, I have absolutely nothing to say about our time spent driving through Illinois. Farm... lots of nothing... small city... farm... nothing...

Missouri

Did Missouri show me? You'll have to keep reading to find out. Please remember, it's still Saturday! This is where I started to wear down. I drove for a little while in Missouri and then Louie took over as I passed out in the passenger seat. I remember waking up at point as Louie commented on fireworks going off everywhere. I don't know what is so special about April 1st in Missouri or the part of Missouri we were in but they love some fireworks. Our Saturday trip finally ended in Springfield around 11:00 p.m. with over 1,100 miles behind us. I honestly don't remember what hotel we stayed in. We weren't there long, I know that. We got up on Sunday around 8 a.m. and checked out. We ate breakfast at Shoney's (one of my fav's) before we hit the road. BREAKFAST BAR! I was wearing my Fugazi t-shirt. Our waitress walked up, looked at it, and said "I don't even know how to prounounce that." It was funny. I felt much more comfortable here than I did in that Wendy's back in Ohio.

Next episode: We start back up in Missouri and then hit Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Did you buy the new Pearl Jam CD?

I would write the next installment of my cross-country trip series but Pearl Jam takes precedence. Their new self-titled CD came out today. I must say my initial reaction is that it's not one of their best albums. That could change as I listen to it more. Either way, they are still one of the best live bands I have ever seen. They start their US tour next month so go see them if you have the chance. I never really liked them that much until I saw them live for the first time. I was hooked after that.

It's the same everyday and the wave won't break
Tell you to pray, while the devil's on thieir shoulder

Laying claim to the take our soldiers save
Does not equate, and the truth's already out there

- Eddie Vedder, Worldwide Suicide