Just Killing Time

Play: I haven't posted in awhile because nothing really has been going on, though it was nice to see the nation's eye was momentarily on Memphis as it hosted three of the NCAA Tournament games this past weekend. There was a blimp flying over the city on Friday and Sunday, getting those aerials.

We have visited the National Civil Rights Museum, but only the outside. We have seen Sun Studio, but just the gift shop. Tours are $12 for Sun and $?? for the Civil Rights.

In case you did not know, The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, now functions as the Civil Rights Museum.


The Peabody Hotel is another staple of Memphis. It has ducks that are very well-behaved and walk into the lobby fountain every day at 11:00 on the red carpet. They are trained not to leave the fountain until 5:00 that night, where they are again escorted by Duck-Master 'Don' (short for Donald...get it) to the Duck Palace on the roof.


Here I am on the roof of the Peabody getting my senior picture made. The Duck Palace is not pictured but is in front of me and to my left. Anyone can go to the roof at any time of the day. It has a nice view of downtown.

Work: The Media Guides finally came in last week and they look pretty cool. I'll have one to take home when it is all said and done, available for anyone to see who is interested.

Last week was our first week to really get acquainted with the tarp. It rained just about every other night, which means rolling the big tarp out at sundown and taking it off at sunrise. Imagine exercising in wet jeans painted in field dirt. That's tarp. We will continue to do this throughout the season in order to keep the field dirt dry so that the players are not playing in mud pit. We also got our tarp jackets, which are pretty slick.


This is a picture of the mini-tarps. I'm pulling on the far right. We did a few trial runs with the mini-tarps but could never keep the water out. Thus, to be safe we use the big tarp, which covers the infield all by itself. The advantage of the small tarps is that they could be left on the field during the day because they only covered the dirt. The big tarp covers some grass as well and would smother the grass during the day if left on the field. Basically, big tarp means less sleep.


We had people in the park for the first time on Wednesday for a Fan Appreciation Lunch. Free hot dogs were served and lots of baseball anticipation was had.

Next Week: The start of something special. The season.

Can't Help Falling In Love...with Graceland

So no one ever told me Elvis had such a cool pad. I had to go there myself to find out. Thanks to Wes's camera I can provide to you a photo tour of Graceland. The highlights at least. Let's go!


Right as you walk inside, a very white, very clean living room is on your right. Check out the stain-glass peacock door frames. Awesome. At the bottom right is an all-white couch probably about 25 feet long. I will have one of these. Great for entertaining many guests.


Tucked away is this billiard room. A small room used for the sole purpose of playing pool over a long cigar. Look at the walls, it's folded-over fabric.


A picture of Elvis and the RCA dog 'Nipper'. Two of my dad's favorite things. My dad was such an Elvis fan, I was going to be named 'Presley' if I was a girl. Alex will do, but I'm not sure why 'Elvis' wasn't considered.

The Jungle Room. Though it is not my favorite, I had to include it. And while I approve of most all of Elvis' design decisions in the house, this room is no good. Everyone always talks about it though.


Yes, that is Elvis scuba-diving and holding a knife. This is a cropped picture of one of Elvis's movie posters. Which one? I don't know. I leave that for Mr. Renfro to say.


Here is another Elvis tidbit that I did not know. Elvis was so cool that he had his own personal motto: Taking Care of Business. Or 'TCB'. The TCB logo above, Elvis put on everything, including the tail of his personal jet. Ben was so overcome with TCBness, he bought a static-cling TCB emblem to grace (unavoidable pun) the back window of his VW. Very cool.


This yellow and blue room came to be all of our favorites. This is the TCB Room. Of course. The stairway down to this room was completely mirrored. The ceilings in the room were mirrored. There were TVs on and a little porcelain monkey.


There is a car museum at Graceland and of course the pink Cadi was there. As well as his collection of go-carts / golf carts.


Here is another movie poster taken out of context. Very strange feel to this one. I like it.


And finally, it's all of us on the steps of Graceland! Wes, Ben and me! Wes is ruining the picture.

So those are the highlights of Graceland. If just one room in my future house can have any of the coolness that oozes from Graceland, I'll consider myself very lucky. I hope you enjoyed.

Next Week: I'll talk about tarp or I will take you sight-seeing again.

Earning My Stripes

Well I'm back from a brief hiatus from the blogging world because I've been spending my time with another internet blogging service! That's right, my talent has been required elsewhere and I guess you could say...I've been cheating on you guys. Sorry.

Not to worry though, because I'm going to come clean now and tell you that the Memphis Redbirds, after many years of thought and preparation, have revealed their first blog ever on mlblogs.com. Ben and I helped make this dream come true and are responsible for all the material posted there. I recommend that you read our first entry, simply for the take Ben gives on me and the take I give on Ben. The Redbirds blog, entitled Chirp Chatter can be accessed here.

We also began our own Twitter page, which is basically an online texting service. This isn't as widely used as blogs, thus I don't expect anyone to really be interested in it.

As promised, a picture of me hard at work. I took some more, but only this one tuned out blog-worthy. Our Media Guides are now being printed and we are slowly getting our yearbook put together. I have a feature story in the yearbook that is about the new team in the league, the Reno Aces, and their brand-new ballpark.


A few weeks ago I explained baseball code to you. That was when I was doing it all by hand. Since then, we have moved on to a computer based program called Total Baseball (above). We are still given print-offs of old baseball games to use, but now we enter them (in code form) into the computer. This is the actual program we will be using during real Redbirds games to provide up-to-the-second game updates for fans watching via our website.


Last week I was asked to go out to Vance Middle School to take some pictures of a baseball clinic called STRIPES that is put on by the Redbirds Foundation. Above are the kids being instructed about baseball basics.


The kids from a different angle.


And finally, clean-up.

Next Week: I go to Graceland and it changes my life.