3/28/2014

4 Obvious Reminders For MLB Opening Day

MLB Opening Day. My favorite day of the year <3
There’s a few different “Opening Day” celebrations happening this year. The first is the officially official Opening Day of 2014 which actually happened a week ago when the DBacks played against the Dodgers in Australia. The second is Opening Night which is this Sunday, March 30th, Padres v. Dodgers at Petco Park…the game I’ll be attending :] The third is Opening Day which is Monday, March 31st. The last "Opening Day" is your respective team’s Home Opener which might happen Opening Night/Day orrrr you might have to wait at least 3 games for their away series to finish up before they head home and have their Home Opener. Regardless of what Opening Day you’ll be attending, baseball season is starting and that’s a wonderful thing. So there’s some things you should know for that first home game of the year…
BUT FIRST! Let’s start with a small font disclaimer. I might not be totally qualified on advising of things to know for Opening Day. Even though my friends and I have been to first home game of the season at Petco Park for the last (at least) 4 years…I wasn’t totally “there” ifyouknowwhatimean. #toodrunktofunction. Also...these suggestions are based on opening day and busy games at Petco Park. Some suggestions might totally apply to your local stadium, others won’t. Sorry ‘bout it.

Tickets. 
Do you have any? If you’re planning on going to the game, I’d suggest getting some. At this point, it might be a little too late for some of you because Opening Day might be sold out. That’s the case with the Padres…Opening Night sold out about a month ago, so anyone looking for face value tickets is kind of SOL. The remaining options are overpriced Stubhub, unknown third party ticket sites, sketchy Craigslist, or scalpers. If you find a sweet deal, awesome! You can totally keep reading. If not, and you don’t have tickets, bookmark this for next year when you plan ahead! If you don't have tickets but still want in on the action, head to a bar near the stadium and watch it on tv! You'll most likely be among others who failed in getting a ticket having just as much fun! 










Parking. 
I haven’t had much trouble with this, but I know how much of a pain in the ass it can be. For starters, consider traffic. Leave with enough time to either totally avoid traffic altogether, or budget enough time to be okay with be moving at a crawl…or slower and maybe miss some of the game. Everyone and their mom goes to Opening Day, and since everyone is headed to the same area, the roads are gonna get backed up. Also, because everyone is going to the same area, everyone is probably going to be parking in the same area too. Don't get stuck without a parking spot! If you can, buy parking passes in advance. That way you know you've got a guaranteed spot no matter how late you leave and how much traffic you sit in. You don't want to spend 40 minutes looking for parking half a mile away and pay $40.  

Transportation. 
How are you getting to the game? And home from the game? Alive? I hope so! The most important point with this is to make sure you've got a sober driver. To and from the game. If everyone wants to party, look into public transportation or hiring a driver! 3 years ago my friends and I took the train and trolley to Opening Day. From what I can remember, it was kind of a blast. We were able to bring booze on the train, party on the way down, and had reliable transportation! If you gave your limo driver the night off, download an app (Uber/Lyft...whatever) and have someone pick you up! Or book a night at a hotel in the area and walk/cab it. The other thing to keep in mind with transportation is to make sure you think about traffic. If you're anything like me, you'd rather be an hour early than 5 minutes late! You don't want to leave home/work too late, get stuck in backed up rush hour and game day traffic, and miss the first pitch!




Pregame. 
Load up a truck with some tailgate necessities: booze, food, bbq, tables, corn hole, etc. Head to the stadium early and party before game time. Why? A) Getting to the area early enough to tailgate means you've most likely avoided backed up traffic and have a better chance at being on time to the game! B) If you're there early, that means parking lots aren't crowded yet and you've got a better shot at getting a spot! C) $15 bottle of Fireball for everyoneeee beats 2 $8 shots of Fireball at the stadium/bars. D) PARTY! Just make sure to drink responsibly. And if you don't, hopefully someone is keeping an eye out for you making sure you're safe! Thanks friends for helping me with that last year!)

Our Plan.
Season Ticket Crew+1 are headed to Opening Night. The game is at 5:00-ish, but we're headed down at 10:00 for some brunch. Followed by some bar hopping for sangria!. Followed by some tailgating. Followed by the game. Followed by...work Monday morning. Hopefully we make it out alive!

Is anyone going to Opening Night/Day or your Home Opener? What are your plans for the day? Let me know!

Also, can I just mention how excited I am to be co-hosting Fan Friday this week? Other than my love for baseball,  I'm kind of obsessed with Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars. I kind of love sports a lot. So when I started blogging, and reading blogs, my main search was for other bloggers like me who love sports too...with no luck. Until my friend Kayyyyyy did a guest post for Sarah and the rest is history! Because of her Fan Friday link up, I've been able to find so many other sports loving bloggers like myself! And I love it! 

TL;DR: I love sports. I'm obsessed with Sarah, her blog, and Fan Friday. Thanks for letting me co-host!

If you're sharing anything baseball related today, make sure you link-up!

Marty With The Party

3/26/2014

This City I Live In: San Diego, Part 1

"Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means 'a whale's vagina.'" -Ron Burgundy

San Diego is a place I consider to be heaven on Earth. I am a born and raised San Diegan (San Diegoan?) and could never imagine leaving this wonderful city permanently. Erin at Two Thirds Hazel mentions in THIS POST that even though she's lived in NYC for a few years, she has yet to visit a lot of the great tourist attractions that surround her and she plans on changing that. I will too, in regards to San Diego. I've seen a good part of the beautiful city that is San Diego, but when it comes to the actual tourist attractions...I fail. 

Why? San Diego is big. And the town I grew up in is kind of far from anything worth seeing in San Diego...according to those all these different "must see" lists. Other than that, life and other priorities like school, going to baseball games, concerts, and bars got in the way. So I've been inspired to create a (multi-part...because it's kind of late and I want to go to sleep) San Diego To Do List for myself of places or things I have heard so much about an never visited or done, or I visited/did these things wayyyy back when.

Petco Park Tour
Yep. I've been to Petco Park at least 60 times since it opened back in 2004. What I've never done is an official tour of the park. Other than my own drunken wandering, I have sort of gotten to do mini unofficial tours when we've been invited to the park for season ticket stuff and seen the club house, dug out, press box, underground restaurant, batting cages, super secret Sony (I think?) Club. It seems like a lot, but I feel like they're hiding a lot more stuff that I need to see! My friends and I have talked about doing a tour, but we've just never been able to make it happen. Hopefully it happens this season!


Balboa Park
This place is incredibly beautiful. And so big. It's a park, has museums, theaters, gardens...the list goes on and on. I've made quick stops to the outside parts of Balboa Park and driven by plenty of times, but never made it my sole destination. I really need to make some trips to see all the great things this place has to offer. 
via, edited.
San Diego Zoo
It's world famous. I visited as a kid and haven't been back since. The pandas are kind of a big deal and I know nothing about them. The San Diego Zoo is actually part of Balboa Park but I felt like it deserved its own bullet on my to do list. The great thing about adding this to my list is that now that I'm working at the Safari Park...I'm pretty sure I can get into the San Diego Zoo for free :] This visit is most def. happening this summer.
via, edited.
Old Town 
This is a place I've definitely been recently. Did some Day Of The Dead volunteering and have had dinner and drinks at a few of the restaurants here, but they've also got a park, museums, a haunted house, and a bunch of other points of interest worth seeing but never really spent time at. According to the internet, Old Town is supposedly the birthplace of California and what it was like back in 1850. A visit needs to happen ASAP since I'm kind of obsessed with California. 
via, edited.





















USS Midway
A super dope aircraft carrier. Or at least I think it's super dope. I've seen it from afar while driving around downtown San Diego but I've never visited it. The USS Midway is a museum where you can see military sleeping quarters, the engine room, jail, and so much more. Having not visited the USS Midway is kind of unAmerican. Oops.
via, edited.

Have you been to San Diego as a tourist? Any must see places I should add to part 2 of my list? Let me know! 

----------------------------------

In other super exciting news...This Friday, I'm co-hosting a special MLB Opening Day edition of Fan Friday with pretty much my favorite blogger ever and baseball soulmate, Sarah over at Venus Trapped In Mars. Soooooo, if you're just as excited as we are for baseball to (un)officially start MAKE SURE YOU GRAB THE BUTTON AND LINK UP FRIDAY! [Ignore the fact that the button says April. This is happening March 28th!]



Marty with the Party

3/10/2014

Weekend Update: Crazy Cray

This weekend came and went! I feel like I did a lot and nothing, all at the same time. Anyone else ever get that feeling? Here's the breakdown...

Friday: Worked late. Got my CSET subtest I results...I PASSED! Cried. Gym. Padres season tix info came in the mail. Was a little underwhelmed with the package so I kind of complained to our rep. Stalked my mug swap partner Bekah and found the perfect mug for her! Anxiously read (non)updates about the missing Malaysian Airlines plane. Sleep.


Saturday: 1st day of real training at the Safari Park! Lots of walking in the heat! Got home and took a longggg nap. Opened more Padres mail with some missing contents from first package. Sent apology letter to our rep, but told him I still had questions.  Studied for the CSET subtest II...to be taken 3/17! A week from today!  Couldn't sleep. Watched The Other Guys. Had half a bag of goldfish crackers as a midnight snack. Dozed off.

Sunday: Early wakeup thanks to Bettis and her 5am FB messages. Hahaha. Slept. Tutored Spanish. Tried to sweat at the gym. Ran 2.3 miles at the gym! More CSET subtest II studying. Cosmos. Bloggy blog. Sleep.


What's ahead? 

Monday: Work. Gym. Watch Ellen. Study. Sleep. 
Tuesday: Gym. Study. Finish my supplemental apps. Gym. Watch Ellen. Watch PLL. Sleep. 
Wednesday: Work. Gym. Watch Ellen. Study. Sleep. 
Thursday: Gym. Submit supplemental applications! Study. Gym. Watch Ellen. Sleep. 
Friday: Work. Gym. Watch Ellen. Study. Sleep.

I. Can't. Wait.

How was your weekend? Anything you're looking forward to in the near future?  

3/06/2014

Show Me Your City: San Diego Bars

So when I first read that Jess over at Living On Sweet Tea was thinking about doing this link-up, I was super excited. Hopefully it spreads across the blog world and she does this like once a month...there's so much about San Diego that I'd love to share.

But for starters, let's talk about my 5 favorite bars (with specialty drinks) in San Diego. Because for the year and a half that I've been reading blogs, I've learned that bloggers love booze, so I'm hoping this is a good read for everyone :]

Better known as Bub's. This place rocks. It's mine and my friends favorite bar to go to before and after Padres games in Downtown San Diego. There are so many things we love about this place but what won me over is Mama's Peach Tea. It's a personal pitcher filled with honey jack, peach schnapps, iced tea, and pink lemonade. SO GOOD. Kind of looks like the drink on the right in that bottom left photo...but it doesn't have a beer can floating in it. I had to hunt on the internets to find an actual Mama's Peach Tea from this place, but didn't succeed. I'm a litte disappointed I didn't have a picture of my own showing off its amazingness. Regardless. It's great, and my favorite.



































Barleymash
I had heard so many great things about this place, and couldn't wait to try it. The opportunity arose during the Yankees series that started off our 5 stop barhop pre-game before game 2 of the series. Went out for brunch with friends and just as we were finishing up, a server walked past our table carrying what looked like heaven in a glass. It's called the St. Germaine Champagne Sangria Carafe, which has St. Germaine elderflower liquor, white wine, peach liqueur, fresh fruit, and a hibiscus flower. Caroline and I both saw it, decided it'd be a great idea to split between the two of us, and boom...it was ordered. I have no regrets, it was soooo good. Again, I'm super lame and don't have pictures of my own of heaven in a glass, but the good people running barelymash's facebook have me covered...
























I've only been to this place a handful of times, but it's a good one. There's a fire station around the corner and every time engine no. 4 wails by, the bartender rings a bell...and that means $4 fireball shots. It's a lot of fun. But I'm not here to talk about fireball, we're talking specialty drinks. And the one that tickles my fancy at this place is called Broken Butterfly, a glass full of goodness that is rum, lime juice, strawberry, and basil. So. Much. Yum. Blah, blah, blah...these aren't my pics. Thanks Yelp and FB.



































On The Border
I've been old enough to drink booze for 4 years. At least 60% of my drinking has taken place at OTB. It started off as being the place to put some down before and after slow pitch softball. Then Caroline and I picked up the third amigo of our trio, Chelsea durning an NBA playoff run...and life has never been the same. This is where I started drinking margaritas and never looked back. My favorite off their lineup is a watermelon margarita. I'm assuming it's tequila, margarita mix, and watermelon. Either way, it had changed my life. Significantly enough, that I once created a "summer of watermelon margaritas" FB photo album. I've met so many great people because of OTB, there's no way it couldn't be on my list. Honorable beverage mention goes out to the Mexican candy shot!



































PB Cantina
I've only been to this place twice, and had less than great experiences with the service each time, but the margaritas the size of your head made up for it...a little. They're called the mega margaritas and have a menu dedicated to mixings that you can fill this giant 32 oz. cup up with. My drink of choice each time was the Rosarito Pink Lemonade that's got tequila, triple sec, pink lemonade, orange juice, sweet and sour, and lime juice. Good stuff! I think a visit to this place in the near future needs to happen. 


















And...that's all I've got. My 5 favorite bars in San Diego whose specialty drinks I love. I'm not claiming to own any of the photos, or recipes, or whatever, but they were all too good not to share. Happy Thirsty Thursday all!

Living On Sweet Tea

3/05/2014

From A Crawl To A Step...Err, 10K Steps

Weigh In Wednesday! It’s been a while since I’ve done this! Life's been a bit crazy, but I'm still crawling in this weight loss thing. I'm down 22.7 lbs, and back in the gym for the first time in a long time. I’ve got this crazy surge of motivation and feel like I’m focusing more thanks to two different things...

The first is this #grinderglamchallenge on instagram. It’s one of those photo a day challenges that focuses on fitness and health instead of random stuff like coffee cups and flowers. I think having to check into this thing and posting daily reminds me of my goals and motivates me. Also, being able to click on the hashtag and see others working towards a similar goal, and their progress, and adding a like for some motivation is great! 


Today’s post was “in those jeans” and I posted a picture of me in leggings. I’m totally feeling like Regina George…  


The second thing motivating me is a FitBit. I was running errands last Friday night and stopped at my local Dicks Sporting Goods. On my way out I spotted the FitBit display case and it piqued my interest because I knew I had other friends who use it and love it! I read up on it a little, talked to people about it, and was convinced I needed to get one. I purchased the FitBit Flex Sunday night, and so far I’m liking it. It syncs with My Fitness Pal, you can see your friends progress and their steps, as well as obviously seeing my own step count, rate of activity throughout the day, and how I'm sleeping! I'm obsessing over the step count more than I should, last night I found myself pacing for 5 minutes before bed trying to get closer to 10K. I still had about 2K to get there so I called it a night. 







That’s about it for today. Anything you’re using as motivation lately to meet goals? Let me know! Happy Wednesday!

Weigh In Wednesday

3/03/2014

Liebster

I was nominated by a Liebster award a couple of weeks ago by Ashley over at Baseball-Diamonds and Hairspray. She has the greatest wedding posts and lives a sweet ranch style life with her baseball playing/coaching husband. I kind of want her life. If you read her blog, you’ll understand why. So after a couple of weeks of sitting on the nomination, it only makes sense to recognize this Liebster by doing the post the day after the Oscars!
Here are the details:

The Liebster Award is a way for bloggers to celebrate other bloggers. It's passed down from one blogger to another, as long as the blogger has less than 200 followers. If you choose to accept the nomination, here are a few rules to follow:

1.  Answer the questions from the person who nominated you.
2. List 10 facts about yourself.
3. Create 10 new questions.
4. Nominate 5-10 bloggers with less than 200 followers.

Her questions:
1. What TV show are you addicted to right now? 
The Ellen Show and Pretty Little Liars are at the top of my list. I record Ellen and watch her every night when I get home from work.  I love that Twitch is a guest DJ at least once a week. PLL…well I started like 2 years ago, and the mystery isn’t solved. Just waiting for it to end.

2. Tell us about your favorite moment in life ever. 
That one time I met Zac Efron was wonderful <3

3. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? 
I’m working on changing my body at the moment with clean-ish eating and exercise. This gut and flab I’ve got everywhere isn’t pleasant to deal with.

4. What is your favorite season out of the year and why? 
Baseball season :] Because I love baseball <3 Haha.

5. Who is your favorite author? 
How pathetic is it that I haven’t read enough in my life to have a favorite author?

6. What book would you recommend to read by he/she? 
N/A based on my answer to number 5. Any suggestions?

7. Where do you want to take your next vacation? 
Hawaii. My good friend Tara has lived there for almost 10 years and I haven’t visited once! I need to make it happen. And if I could, at the drop of a hat, that’s where it’d be!

8. What is your favorite meal? 
Hmm. Brunch. Mimosas. Anddd…it’s still early enough to eat my favorite breakfast foods like pancakes, omelettes, breakfast burritos, but late enough for it to not be weird that I’m grubbing on sandwiches, salad, pizza, etc.

9. What was the last movie you watched? 
Blades of Glory. I watched it twice yesterday, in the morning and after the Oscars.

10. If you could meet one celebrity who would it be? 
Derek Jeter.

10 Facts about me:
  • I write with my left hand…but when I played sports, I hit righty and my stronger leg in soccer was my right leg.
  • I love country music, but that wasn’t the case from the get go. I avoided listening to it by any means. Not sure why.
  • I never have and never will go on a boat that travels into the deep ocean. I’m terrified of the sea because I suck at swimming.
  • Whales are one of my biggest fears. The fact that they’re so large and can take out a boat with a slight movement is terrifying.
  • I have never broken a bone, or been to the hospital for any kind of injury.
  • I’m love my penmanship. It has changed about 5 times in the last 15 years, in an attempt to perfect it.
  • I want to learn calligraphy.
  • I’m working on becoming a teacher. The closer I get, the more real it becomes, and I get a little bit terrified.
  • I hate the (non)taste of water. But to be able to change my body, I need to drink a lot of it. The way I get it done is by chugging large amounts of it at different periods of time. It probably isn’t healthy, but it’s the only way I can get it done. Or by infusing it with fruit.
  • I’m on the fence about having kids of my own. I love kids, and the idea of them is great…but to bring them into the nasty world we live in with so much hate and crime and injustice terrifies me. Hopefully society takes a turn for the positive in the near future.


My questions:
What do you do for a living?
What is your dream job?
If the first two questions aren’t the same answer, why aren’t you doing your dream job now?
What is your favorite type of food?
Did you ever play sports? If so, what?
If you could have season tickets to anything, what would it be for?
What is your favorite competition television show?
Where in the United States haven’t you been that you’d like to travel to?
Blue or black ink pen? Or other?
Favorite social media platform? Why?

My Nominees:
Ladies I follow who I’d like to learn more about :]