Hoops Tour Northwest Day 4: Conference Call

All I had to do today was participate in a 67-minute conference call at 11 AM this morning, so not much to report. I do have some pictures from yesterday though.
Huskies on the floor before the game at their "shootaround".


One of our Utilities, Max Wilson, wires a backboard for a microphone.


My third TD of the week, Doug Wetz. Doug likes to buy me off by bringing me home made liquor, and it works every time.

Hoops Tour Northwest Day 3: I'm Golden

Just finished buttoning up after the long day at UW. Overall the productions went well, but we had one camera that kept blinking out on us, so that kept us hopping a little. The big news is that while the crew was on lunch I took the opportunity to call my friends at Alaska Airlines to explain my challenge with my MVP Gold status. Amazingly, the nice lady I talked to was able to take care of my concerns quickly. She warned me that this would only work once and that next year, I'd have to get there for real, but for some reason I don't think I'll have any problem doing that. Later on I checked my account online and saw that I had already been upgraded!

Thanks Alaska, you made a happy customer.
Tomorrow is my first off day, so I'll try to post some of the other pictures I took today. For now, I'm going to bed!

Hoops Tour Northwest Day 3: Smoother Sailing

Back to Seattle this morning on a nice Horizon jet. Smooth through security, and an on time departure. I'm at the UW now getting ready for our big double header. Things are going well, we're in a different truck today but the one I'm most familiar with: M1.
Oh yeah, the second game between Morgan State and UW. If you had Baltimore as the town Morgan State is from, you can pat yourself on the back. I have a feeling it's not going to be a great game, but with the Huskes being so shaky, you never know.
I'm going to try calling Alaska later about my MVP status; I'll let you know if I get an answer.

Hoops Tour Northwest Day 2: Overnight at PDX

I realized I should try to put a picture of myself at some point on this journey, so here I am, on the right, staging a photo with one of the great TD's of the northwest, Scott Pelot. We're not actually on the air here, but it looks like we're really working, huh?
Famed basketball producer Jon Bradford and I reached the Sheraton at PDX tonight about midnight, after a nice easy drive from Corvallis. The game was more exciting then we predicted it would be, Seattle U really hung in with OSU. They should do better in our game Thursday at KeyArena against Loyola Marymount. For now though, it's off to bed. I'm on another airplane in the morning at 9, then hopefully we're on time so we can get to the UW by 11 for our Tuesday crew call.
Before we left the truck in Corvallis we attempted to check in for our flight Tuesday using Alaska's website, but there was a message saying there was a problem with our reservation and that we'd need to call in. A quick call to the MVP desk and all was sorted out. Since we didn't make our plane earlier from Portland to Eugene, they had continued to put us on the standby list for later flights in case we eventually showed up. That was nice of them, but unneccesary. We got it all straightened out on the phone, and we were able to get checked in.
Our first game Tuesday is a women's matchup between Kansas State and the Huskies at 5, then at 7:30 the Husky men take on a team from somewhere called Morgan State. Hopefully by then I can figure out what state Morgan is. See you then.

Hoops Tour Northwest Day 2: Trouble On The Horizon

It's been a rough start to the day. The alarm went off a full hour later today then yesterday, at 5:45. I was out the door by 7, but it wasn't the last time I saw my house. I ran over to Starbucks to pick up famed basketball producer Jon Bradford, and realized that I had forgotten my wallet. It turns out that you need ID to travel on airplanes these days, so we had to run back to the house. Unfortunately, I completely forgot that I had paid for pizza delivery last night, and my wallet was by the front door. After a frantic search of the couch and the laundry, Heidi remembered, and I found my wallet right where I left it.
We finally were off for the airport. Sea-Tac was still a little like a refuge camp after last week's storms, but we breezed through security with little hassle. Our travel plans for today were to include a flight to Portland, then another flight to Eugene, then a rental car to Corvallis. There was a good reason for not taking a direct flight to Eugene, but I'll explain that later.
Anyway, we were supposed to take the 9 AM flight to PDX, but when we got to the gate we found out it was going to be delayed. Fortunately we were there early enough that we could move up to the 8:30 am flight and get to Portland a little early. I figured I could do some work on the laptop then have plenty of time to catch the flight to Eugene at 10:30.
Well, no reason to think things would go right in Portland. When we got to PDX we found that our flight to Eugene wouldn't be leaving until at least 11:30 because it was in the maintenance hanger. That wouldn't get us to Eugene until 12:30, which would put us in Corvallis too late to make our crew call, so we had to abandon the second leg of the flight and drive from Portland.
A quick trip the PDX Hertz Gold counter and we had our car. This sweet Mercury Grand Marquis was ours for the day. It's a surprisingly spry car, considering that it feels like it's about 3 times bigger than the car I normally drive.
An uneventful trip down I-205 and I-5 led us to Corvallis by noon, letting us have a great meal at McMenamin's on Monroe. I say great, because as much as I love all things McMenamin, they've never been particularly impressive in the service department. Today they took our order quickly, brought our food in record time, and got us out the door in 40 minutes. Impressive!
So now we're at Gill Coliseum, back in M2, and the game between the upstart Seattle Universty and Pac-10 rising star Oregon State is four hours away. Tonight we drive back to Portland, and tomorrow we'll be on an early flight back to Seattle so we can do the big double-header day at Washington.
I'm also going to have to try to find some time on Wednesday to make a call to my friends at Alaska Airlines. You see, before this trip I was 3 flight segments away from the 60 total flights in one year they require in order to qualify as an MVP Gold, their highest level of frequent flyer. MVP Gold status gets me free upgrades to first class, along with access to high-speed security lines at the airport, among other perks. My plan to fly to Portland then Eugene would have gotten me two segments, then tomorrow's flight home would have gotten me number 60, and Gold status. Now I'm going to be stuck at 59, unless I can convice a nice Alaska/Horizon customer service rep to help me out and give me credit for a flight I booked but didn't actually fly.
I'll update this story if I hear more later this week. In the meantime, I may post tonight when I get to Portland, or it may be tomorrow at UW.

Hoops Tour Northwest Day 1: Kickoff

It's 5:22 AM on Sunday December 28th, and I'm about to leave my house begin a crazy stretch of basketball games. Today's game between the University of Montana and the University of Washington kicks off a stretch of seven games in eight days. Today I drove from home to the UW, where I'm working in a truck called Mira M2. I'll be in this truck today and tomorrow, but in two different cities and with two completely different crews. In fact, I'll going to Corvallis twice this week, and Pullman once while working several games in Seattle at UW and KeyArena. I'll see a total of 10 different teams.
Most of the games I'll be working with famed basketball producer Jon Bradford. I'll be spending a lot more time with him then with my family this week, so hopefully we'll get along well (we usually do, Heidi calls him my "boyfriend").

Anyway, back to today's game, tipoff is in just over an hour. I'll be trying to update the blog with lots of fun stories of travelling around the Great Northwest this week. Tomorrow I'll be up early for a flight to Eugene, then driving to Corvallis for an OSU game. Stay Tuned!

Toy Box Explosion

A minor toy box explosion marks Christmas 2008 with Charlotte. Merry Christmas!

The Frozen Tundra of Renton

The view out our garage.
It's been an interesting week since we returned from California last week. I'm not sure that's been over 32 degrees here in the Seattle area. I'm sure our Spokane freinds are laughing, since they've been slammed with more snow and lower temps then us every day. Anyway, people on this side of the state aren't used to living with this kind of weather for such a prolonged amount of time. Last night's snow dump was the biggest so far, adding a couple inches to what we already had along with heavy winds. The snow is so fine and powdery that it really drifts around.
Anyway, so today we tried going out in the snow with Charlotte, and she won't have anything to do with it. She has a panic attack everytime we try to get her to stand in the stuff, and don't even think about trying to get her to walk in it!
I tried half-heartedly to make a snowman, but the snow is so dry it's not very good for packing. So we went back inside to drink hot chocolate, eat popcorn, and watch Elf.

Fun with gingerbread house

While Pat was at work today, Charlotte and I made a gingerbread house. While she was napping, I baked the house and got everything ready, I used this recipe and instructions. After she woke up, we began our assembly. Charlotte 'helped', and I mean that term in the loosest way possible! You'll notice her face has traces of candy, she was helping eat most of the decorations.

We then watched the classic and one my favorites, the Sound of Music. She especially loved "So Long, Farewell" song when everyone says "Cuckoo".

Now, I'm just hoping Pat gets home safe and sound, a storm is rolling in.
Happy holidays everyone!

Disney Day

On Saturday we spent the afternoon at the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland. Charlotte was predictably overwhelmed by the whole thing, but she seemed to have a good time. Heidi and I spent most of our time wondering how so many people can fit into a space that seems so small. We only visited about 20 percent of the park (Main Street, Fantasyland, and Toon Town). Charlotte went on two rides with mixed reactions, and we got front row seats on Main Street for the Christmas parade. Another long day for the girl, but we all had a great time.
The weather Saturday was starting to turn, and the wind was really blowing!
The first ride Charlotte went on was King Arthur's Carrousel. This ride was mostly selected for it's relatively short line, and the fact that Charlotte has previous experience on Carrousels. She was kind of freaked out about the whole thing, but liked riding on a horse.
Our second ride for the day was on "its a small world" which was totally decked out for Christmas. Charlotte's reaction to this one was definitely not fear, but she seemed totally overwhelmed by the sights and sounds. This ride is the subject of one of the most vivid Disneyland memories of my childhood, because the ride broke and our family got stuck inside for about 45 minutes. Fortunately that didn't happen this time!
The biggest event of the day by far for Charlotte was getting to meet Minnie Mouse. Charlotte has never shown any interest in costumed characters (see Butch the Cougar, or Zoe from Sesame Street, or even Santa). Anyway, after checking out Toon Town for a while Minnie Mouse came walking by and setup shop for people to get in line to have their picture taken with her.
We got in line thinking that if Charlotte freaked out we'd just walk away. Instead, she was mesmerized by Minnie, and we got a couple of great pictures!
We ended the day with the "Christmas Fantasy" Parade. We got to Main Street about an hour and a half before the parade and managed to snag front row seats along the parade route. At one point during the build up they even had snow machines blow snow on the street!
Charlotte LOVED the parade. All the characters came by and she got to see them all from a safe distance. Santa ended the parade and we made a quick retreat to the car. Charlotte was asleep within 5 minutes of leaving the park, and she slept well as we got ready to fly home on Sunday. (Note the new plush Minnie with Charlotte!)

The Wedding

I had planned to update the blog more during the trip, but since our hotel had limited internet access I had to wait until we got home. The wedding was a great event, held at the Tivoli Terrace in Laguna Beach. Charlotte did a great job of staying up late, outlasting the four-year-old flower girl by a few hours. If the party is any indication, Jon and Erin are off to a tremendous future together. After staying for a few dances, we had to leave the reception with a very tired girl, so she could get her rest for her big next day at Disneyland.
The happy couple during toasts after the wedding.
Charlotte and "Nana" before the ceremony.

Goodbye Nasty Weather

We left cooling Seattle on Thursday to travel to my brother Jon's wedding in Californa. Charlotte was loving the whole air travel thing, and still managed to get a decent nap on the plane. We had one of the most pleasant and uneventful days of travel we've ever had together as a family as we flew into Orange County Airport. By the time the sun was going down we were soaking up the last few moments of daylight on the boardwalk at Laguna Beach, and enjoying the unique Chrismas dolphin lights. The wedding is Friday night, then on Saturday we're going to go spend the day at Disneyland. Not too bad, considering the forecast for Seattle is for snow. Too bad we have to go back on Sunday. More pictures soon.

Charlotte gleams over our Playdoh Snowman

Happy holidays! Charlotte and I were making a snowman and a baby snowman earlier this evening.