Buckeye Blog

Today I went to the “businessman’s special” noon baseball game between the Indians and Tigers at Progressive Field.  I could not pass up the opportunity to go since I AM a businessman after all haha.  The ticket was only $8 and Deloitte’s building is within a short walk so it all added up to a nice lunchtime event.  I had just gone to Indians-Tigers games the last two nights as well, and I even got to sit in a suite last night.  It’s definitely been a big baseball week.  Good times for sure!

Dark Knight is a REALLY good movie.  I can’t wait to watch it again tonight.

I like that [in Tax] people don’t care as much about what time I come and go.  I enjoy the freedom.  Having to sign in by a certain time at the SJ office was ridiculous. 

Is it so bad to go to Starbucks every day?

“Save Tonight” by Eagle-Eye Cherry is a cool song.

I think it’s about time to start playing tennis again.  I’ve really missed it since I hurt my foot.  But the pain seems to be gone now.

Going to a driving range might be a fun activity for Sunday.  Can’t hurt to be better at golf…

My credit card bills for the past month are crazy high.  I gotta start saving again from here-on-out.  Getting paychecks again will certainly help.  Of course buying display cases for all of my sports memorabilia will not. 

I had no idea until recently that I was such a big collector.  I need a whole room just for souvenirs.

After 51 days off of work, today I resumed my Deloitte career…at the Cleveland office!  Even though I was about to experience my first day in a new office, I felt a certain amount of familiarity as I went to work this morning.  Maybe it was the sight of the Cleveland Stadiums, the Public Square Monument, or Tower City, but I felt like I had been down this road before.  And knowing how welcoming Clevelanders are, I didn’t have any reason to be nervous about today.

The first order of business when I arrived at the Key Tower (Cleveland’s tallest building and DT’s home) was to…order Starbucks haha.  There’s one on the ground floor which I’m sure I will frequent quite often.  I then met the HR/scheduler, who is much nicer than I thought schedulers were allowed to be haha (San Jose people will get what I’m talking about), and she took me to my desk on the 32^nd floor.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that I’m right next to a window with a great view of Downtown Cleveland!  My favorite view is the one from the office kitchen though, as you can see Cleveland Browns Stadium, the Rock Hall, and Lake Erie (above) almost right up close.  :) 

I then proceeded to decorate my desk with my OSU memorabilia.  :)  It’s not yet decorated as elaborately as the desks of some of the other sports fans in the office, but I’m sure I’ll be able to catch up soon!  I’m also fortunate to be sitting right next to someone who was in my graduating class at OSU.  That was a pleasant surprise.  And speaking of surprises, it turns out this office has a “Fun Committee” that brought an air hockey table, a Wii, free ice cream, and a massage chair to the office lounge.  But even that can’t compare to the promise of occasional free Indians baseball tickets! (the Indians are Deloitte’s client).  I also learned that Indians games are shown on the TV in the lounge area, meaning the days of me having to listen discretely on headphones are now over! 

The rest of the day I was mainly doing administrative work—that is, when I wasn’t marveling at the office’s amenities or taking pictures of the view out the window when no one was looking haha.  This role has the potential to be better than my last role for Deloitte.  And I feel like I’m fulfilling a certain destiny to be working in Downtown Cleveland.  Now all I need is to find the work interesting.  We shall see in the coming weeks…

More pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=136485&l=2b7d0&id=705640598

Just want to thank all the great friends that I made in CA for making my time there fun and memorable.  =)  It truly was very difficult to leave you guys, but FOR SURE you haven’t seen the last of me! 

Below is a link to an album that shows off the great friends that I made.  I tried to get everyone in at least once, but I also realize that there are some cool people that I just never took a picture with.  But we can fix that next time I come back to visit!  

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3452&l=0267c&id=705640598 

Hard to believe it, but I’m finally back to Columbus—Home of The Ohio State University and quite possibly my favorite place on earth!  :)  So glad to be back! 

Josh and I arrived here after driving 7.5 hours from St. Louis.  We started the day by going to the Union Station Mall in St. Louis and having lunch at the Hard Rock Café.  On the way to Columbus I had an idea and asked Josh to check the sports page to see if the Cincinnati Reds were playing a home game tonight.  Sure enough they were, so I suggested that we make a quick stop-over in Cincy for the game.  I had already been to the Great American Ball Park in 2005 so I had not planned in advance to go to this stadium.  But we went anyway and it worked out well because it was fireworks night at the ballpark!  We ended up seeing a good game and a great fireworks show.  It doesn’t get much better than baseball and the 4^th of July!    

After we left Cincy we encountered a terrible rain storm, but we still made it to Columbus just after midnight.  In all it took me about 2700 miles and 40.5 driving hours to reach Columbus, OH from San Jose, CA.  We’ve still got to drive 2.5 hours to get to Solon tomorrow, but OSU is my home too so this is effectively the conclusion of the long cross-country journey.  I can’t believe I did it!  At times the trip was hard, but seeing my brother and being able to go to 4 stadiums in 4 cities in 3 days made it all worth it!  But I think I’m going to take a break from road trips for a while now!

Happy 4^th of July everyone!

Today my traveling party increased by one as I met up with my brother, Josh, in St. Louis.  We came from different places and by different means of transportation—he flew in from Ohio and I drove over from Kansas—but now we’re reunited at last.

Earlier in the day, before I arrived in St. Louis, I continued along highway 70 East and passed through Manhattan, Topeka, and Lawrence, Kansas; as well as Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri.  It was great to pass through so many cities that I’ve actually heard of.  I stopped in Lawrence to see the University of Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse and in Kansas City to see the Royals’ Kauffman Stadium—#21 on my list!  It was cool seeing Allen Fieldhouse in the same year in which the Jayhawks won the national championship game (which I witnessed in person).  And seeing Kauffman Stadium turned out to be one of the more exciting stadium visits that I’ve had because I had to sneak past security to get inside haha.

When the day started I had no plan as to how to get into Kauffman Stadium, since the Royals were playing in Baltimore and the ballpark is off limits for tour groups while it is undergoing renovations.  But I still wanted to go to KC and try anyway.  My first attempt to get in involved me pleading with a security guard on the basis that I came all the way from California and didn’t want to leave without a photo.  He ended up letting me inside the left field gate for a distant picture (and was nice enough to give me a batting practice ball that had landed in one of the fountains as a souvenir!), but he did not allow me to go all the way behind home plate like I wanted because he was being watched by a security camera too. 

But I was not about to give up.  I wandered around the perimeter of the ballpark until I found an unlocked gate that was marked as a construction entrance only.  I then proceeded to do what any good baseball stadium enthusiast would do—I made a mad dash through the gate, went behind home plate and snapped a photo, and then ran back to my car lol.  Even though the fountains were not turned on, I still liked what I saw and gave the ballpark a decent ranking of #13.  It does not, however, have the modern stadium amenities necessary to get a higher ranking (the ballpark opened in 1973).

After I picked up Josh at the St. Louis airport we went to the Cardinals-Mets game at Busch Stadium—#22 on my list!  I was VERY impressed with the ballpark and ranked it a strong #4.  The outside is made from beautiful red brick and the backdrop behind center field is highlighted by the Gateway Arch.  The Mississippi River is also visible from certain parks of the ballpark.  More specifics to follow in my facebook album later.  Down to just 8 stadiums remaining now!

And after 8 more hours of driving today, the total for the trip now stands at 33.

After a grueling day of driving yesterday, today was mainly a day to rest and enjoy Denver.  I thought downtown Denver was pretty cool and I hung out there most of the afternoon.  For a big city it sure did have a small town feel.  But of course the highlight of the day was going to the Rockies-Padres game at Coors Field—stadium #20 on my list!  It’s not everyday that I can see a new baseball stadium in person, so when it does happen it’s a very big occasion.  Whatever trepidation I felt about this trip yesterday was gone as soon as I saw the ballpark.  Going to baseball stadiums make it all worth it—it’s what I do (see my blog posts under the category of “Stadiums”).

I went to Coors Field two hours before gametime to see batting practice.  I walked all around the stadium taking pictures from all different angles, which helps me to rank stadiums later on.  Once the game started I drank a Coors Light because…well, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do there haha.  I also found out that stadium employees here allow fans from out-of-state to try out different seats during games for an inning or two if they are persuasive.  ;)  I thought Coors Field was nice, but I have seen better.  Unfortunately the ballpark does not face downtown Denver, so the backdrop is not that great.  I will be ranking the stadium as #14.  I also plan on writing more specifics about the ballpark at my baseball stadium facebook album later in the week.

After I left Coors Field I hit the road again on 70 East to get a little closer to Kansas City, where I will be going in the morning.  I ended up driving 5 hours to Hays, KS, bringing the trip total to 25 hours.  It was pretty obvious that I’m at the Plains states now, as the highways are flat and straight and there’s a lot of farmland.  It sure does make for an easier drive, so I’ll take it.  I also appreciated the fact that there are lots of towns and rest stops along 70 East.  I had cell phone reception the whole way and there were plenty of opportunities to exit the highway for gas and food.  I won’t take that for granted anymore after driving through Nevada and Utah yesterday! 

Tomorrow I’m also going to a Cardinals game in St. Louis after picking up my brother at the airport.  Big day ahead!

Today I realized just how crazy what I’m doing is.  I knew it wouldn’t be easy to pack up my car with everything I own and drive 40+ hours, but [despite the warnings] I didn’t think through how grueling this would be.  But I’m glad I went through with it after all because, well, I always like having a story to tell. 

The plan for today was to reach Denver, one of the main destinations of the trip.  I left the isolated town of Tonopah at 7am PST and again headed east through the Central Nevada desert on Highway 6, a.k.a. The Great Basin Highway.  This time I could see the roads, as it was now light out, but even then there were little signs of life.  For about 100 miles I had no FM radio signal, no cell phone reception, and I saw only a handful of cars—maybe one every 10 minutes.  Interestingly though, I did pass a military weapons testing range.  There were no rest stops and no gas stations until I finally reached the small town of Ely, NV.  I don’t think I was ever so happy to find a McDonald’s.    After leaving Ely, I would then experience the same roughly 100 mile drought again until reaching the town of Delta, UT.  All throughout each remote stretch I just kept hoping that I wouldn’t run out of gas or break-down—because there really wasn’t any way to get help.  But of course everything turned out fine since I’m writing this now.

Highway 6 became Highway 50 (in Utah) and then eventually Highway 70 (in Colorado).  After passing through the small towns of Salina City, UT, Green River, UT, and Parachute, CO every couple hours, eventually I reached a populated city—Aspen, CO—about 11 hours after originally leaving Tonopah.  Up through Aspen I was very fortunate to have encountered great weather and great scenery the entire day.  In fact, I saw [quite literally] nothing but blue skies, white puffy clouds, and the mountain side in each state.  The only difference in each place was the color of the mountains.  In Nevada the setting was desert-like, as the mountains were sandy and barren-looking.  In Utah, however, the mountains were greener and more colorful.  And in Colorado, the setting was the greenest and most beautiful of all—especially at Aspen.                                                                                                                              

After Aspen, though, things got a little rough.  Road construction and lane closures added time to the drive.  And then I encountered a lightning and heavy rain storm.  I pressed on through it, but that was a lot harder to do on the sloping and twisting highways of Colorado.  Then my phone died.  I tried very hard to overcome the problems and still make it to Denver in time for Monday’s Rockies-Padres game (including hitting 100 on the speedometer for the first time haha), but in the end nature and traffic just did not allow for it.  I arrived at the baseball stadium when the game was pretty much over.  But fortunately the same two teams are playing again Tuesday night, so I’ll get another chance.