FallingLEAVes of Sunshine

Dodgers on the ballot: (plus some commentary) First base: James Loney (15 game hitting streak to begin the season!!!) Second base: Jeff Kent (umm going for the record of "oldest all-star") Shortstop: Rafael Furcal Third Base: Nomar Garciaparra (guess the ballot was made BEFORE he went back on the DL. Even though he started the season on the DL. And was off the DL for like nine days before he went back on it. Wonder if Blake's name would be there if Nomar hadn't come off the DL) Outfielders: Andruw Jones (HAH! Is anyone seriously going to vote from him?), Juan Pierre (he got a lot of votes last year ... but that was last year), and ANDRE ETHIER (HOORAY!!!! I'M SO EXCITED THAT ANDRE IS ON THE BALLOT THIS YEAR. I AM SOOO VOTING FOR ANDRE. COME EVERYONE!!! ETHIER FOR ALL-STAR!!! LET'S GET BEHIND HIM LIKE WE GOT BEHIND RUSSELL LAST YEAR) Catcher: Russell Martin (DUH! Who else would be on the ballot? Umm... do we have another catcher? J/k I know ... Bennett ... what...

Dave Grohl singing the acoustic version. Not the greatest quality. But I like this version better. Here's the whole band. Funniest thing was ... I heard the acoustic version by Dave Grohl at work all the time. It was on one of the CD mixes. Didn't know it was Dave Grohl. Didn't know it was an acoustic version of the Foo Fighters song. Didn't know Dave Grohl was the lead singer for the Foo Fighters. Why the sudden interest? I googled the song and got both the full band and acoustic copies of it. Why? Because Randy Wolf is a big Foo Fighters fan. He mentions it in his interview with Scott and BR. This is for you Randy! BTW ... Scott and BR (and Boomer) ... when are you going to have Randy on your show again?? Come on. After his nearly no-hit bit and his great first couple of outings (except for the last one)... WE WANT RANDY!!!

Last year ... I wore sandals for work a lot. And after awhile ... I developed this line across my feet. It was almost like a constant bruise. I didn't know how to explain it. The picture shows the bruise-like line going across. You see it right? Anyone have an explanation? I haven't worn sandals for work this year. I bought a new pair, but they were too casual to wear for work. So I won't have that line again this year ... until I find an appropriate sandal for work. Right now, ballet flats are it. Trust me ... I'm on the look out for a new comfortable shoe for work.

Another crazy game to end a crazy week. First inning. Rockies take the lead with a 2-run homer. How do the Dodgers respond? With a homer of their on in the bottom of the first inning. Not just ANY homer. A grand slam. A GRAND SLAM! What a crazy game tonight's was. I knew we should've gotten tickets. But it was fun to watch this one on TV and hear Vin throughout the whole thing. Bottom of the first inning. Not only do the Dodgers go through the lineup ... they also go through the first four batters of the lineup again. That's thirteen batters in the bottom of the first inning. All nine Dodger starters came home to score. Pierre was the only one who scored twice in the first inning. He singled in his first at-bat, and got hit in his second at-bat. Wonder if Ethier sympathized with him. After all, Ethier did get drilled like in the last two or three games. He didn't play at all today. When the bases were loaded the first time, "grand slam" didn't come to mind...

11:43 Russell gets walked! 11:47 Nomar has a strained calf muscle. So, who's getting called up and who's getting sent down? 11:48 Russ is thrown out at second. End of eleventh. 11:52 Park gives up a lead-off walk to Helton. Uh oh ... you know what happens with lead off walks. They come back to get you. That's what happened with Saito in the ninth. Holliday just singled, now men on first and second with no outs. LOl there's a good enough delay from the radiocast to the tv that I can hear what's going to happen in my room (where the radio and computer is), run to my brother's room which is across the hall, and see what happens, even though it already happened. It's midnight. I want to take a shower, go to bed. BUT not before the game is over. 12:11 AM 379 pitches have been thrown. It is now the bottom of the 13th inning. 12:12 AM Kemp is safely on first on an error by ... Barmas. Park is batting for himself. Guess Torre didn't want Penny or Lowe to pinch-h...

This is what happens once you've gotten some sleep and aren't rushed to remember everything that happened in the past four/five hours. I wrote some things down after I turned off the computer. Then I wrote some more things down when I was at work. Last Night's Game Kids taking the field In the beginning of every game, there are nine youngsters who take the field with the Dodgers, each one gets a personally autographed baseball. Russell had a really little kid ... who ran right past him. It looked like Russell had to call out to him. It was so cute. The kid was really little and super cute. The kid Loney had stood at first base for a little bit after his ball got signed. It looked like he wasn't sure where to go from there. Again, super cute. The Bullpen Deer Nina pointed out the deer to me. She was looking through the binoculars to see who was warming up in the bullpen. That's when she noticed the deer. Russell Pregame Stuff I was watching Russell in the dug out bef...

At least there was some action! And it wasn't just the bats or the gloves doing all the work. The highlights Billingsley struck out a career high 12 batters tonight. It was pretty cool to watch him strike out batter, after batter. He struck out Hudson and Reynolds in the first inning (Jackson singled in between), Gonzalez and Young in the second, struck out the side in order in the third (Hudson, Jackson, and Reynolds), Upton (fourth strikeout in a row) and Salazar (after Montero flied out) in the fourth, Gonzalez and Reynolds again in the fifth, and Montero in the sixth. After Chad left the game, the next three Dodger pitchers each got only one strike out each. Not bad, considering Chad faced 26 batters, and he struck out almost half of them. Proctor faced seven, Beimel two, and Wade three. Bottom of the seventh inning. This has got to be blooper real material or something. Furcal got walked, reached second when Jones grounded out. It looked like Furcal got a good lead, or else it...

This one was early in my shift. My manager was off the floor, having her lunch. This customer, and elderly lady, wanted to try a pair of shoes on. She said it fit, she'd get it. When I rang her up, the total was more than she expected. The pointed out that there was another shoe JUST like it, but in a different color, and a much lower price. Well, the two shoes weren't EXACTLY the same shoes. One was metallic suede (black) and the other was metallic leather. Not only were they different colors, difference prices ... but they were actually different shoes. But she kept saying they were the same shoes. But they weren't. They had different item numbers, same shoe name, different shoe style number. I told her they weren't the same according to the computer. She asked me if I could give her the shoe she was buying for the lower price that the other shoe was going for. I said I couldn't because according to the system, they weren't the same shoes. So, she asks me to g...

Did anyone see David Wright on the David Letterman show last Monday night (April 14 to be exact)? I was at the game, and I usually don't stay up late watching late night shows anyway. Usually when I get home from a game, I spend a few hours winding down: uploading the pictures from my camera, blogging about the game, uploading the pictures onto my flickr and a blog entry... but I wish I had a TiVo or DVR so I could've recorded it. The annoying part was that you didn't see David till like the last seven minutes of the show. David Letterman spent most of the show with Al Pacino. And of course, he talks for how long in the beginning of the show? That's one of the things that I don't like about late night talk shows. I want to see the guest stars. I guess that's why I like TiVo or DVR ... I can fast forward through the talking part and get right to the good part... like seeing David Wright. David Wright, btw, got his 100th career home run before he showed on the sho...

Today when I got to work, I discovered not only was the escalator going down not working, but they had also closed off the entrance to the mall on our level. The escalator thing, no problem. I just did what the guy in front of me did. I went around the little thing they put up and walked down the non-moving escalator. The door thing however turned our store into a walk way for the mall. Sure we get a handful of people who use our store as a mall entrance. But today was ridiculous! It was well into the afternoon when they finished working on the doors. Once the doors were fixed, our foot traffic definitely slowed down. And then, later on, some girl was standing in different parts of our store, just talking on her cell phone. Somebody explain this to me. This lady comes into our store to do a return. She pulls two things out of some sort of tote bag that is COVERED in animal hair. It was either cat hair or dog hair. Who knows, it might've been her hair! Anyway, neither item has a tic...

The Padres-Colorado game last night started with Jake Peavy throwing the first pitch at 7:05 PM Thursday night. It ended at 1:21 AM Friday morning when Glendon Rusch struck out. It went 22 innings ! I was driving to the DMV and turned on XX sports radio because that way I can hear some baseball talk instead of just talk radio. They were talking about what time the Padres arrived in Arizona (about 3:30, 4:30). One fan called in and mentioned when he was in the sixth grade, he went to a double header. The first one was like eleven innings, and the second one ... I forgot how much but he saw a lot of innings that day. This I saw when I was checking MLB news on my phone. A 36-year-old man fell to his death at Shea Stadium . Looks like he wasn't the only one. There appears to have been another incident, where a fan fell in Camden Yards . Sending in the Wolf. Former Dodger/Philies pitcher, Randy Wolf pitched seven innings, allowing only ONE hit. That hit that spoiled his no-hit bid cam...

The one good ting about Sherisse running late yesterday was ... while I was waiting for her, I realized I dropped cheese on my shirt. Not like a slice of cheese. Melted cheese. Melted cheese that hardened. So, I had to go back home and change my shirt. No big deal. We live like four blocks away from each other. I could've parked my car on her street, walked home, changed my shirt, and walked back to her house. Sherisse got up to get garlic fries, must've been around the fourth inning or so. When she came back in the sixth inning, she noticed there were two people sitting to my right who weren't there when she left. In fact, they arrived some time during the fifth inning. What time did they leave? Right after the seventh inning stretch of course. When else would they leave? Hmmm how about when the game ended? Sure, they already missed all the action ... like four runs in the first, two more in the second. Oh yeah ... the guy behind us bought a bag of peanuts. Guess the peanu...

Tonight was blanket night. Originally, it was supposed to be me, Sherisse, Kevin, and James going to the game. Last week, I kept asking both Sherisse and Kevin when should I get the tickets. Originally, we were going to give Kevin the money to get the vouchers' from Costco. But his parents weren't able to go. Then he wasn't going to go to the game. So, I started looking for tickets online. I came THIS CLOSE to winning some sweet tickets on Ebay. Till the last minute. Grrr. And by then, James wasn't going to the game either. So it was going to be me and Sherisse. When Sherisse and I talked about what time we should leave for the game, she said it was okay with her if we left early to go to batting practice. Today comes and we didn't leave till around six. AMAZING. INCREDIBLE. That's what comes to mind with tonight's game. First, when the players took the field to warm up ... guess who caught my attention first? No, not Russell. NOMAR. As in, the guy who has b...

No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference. ~Tommy Lasorda Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead. ~Jackie Robinson Back then, my idol was Bugs Bunny, because I saw a cartoon of him playing ball - you know, the one where he plays every position himself with nobody else on the field but him? Now that I think of it, Bugs is still my idol. You have to love a ballplayer like that. ~Nomar Garciaparra Well, boys, it's a round ball and a round bat and you got to hit the ball square. ~Joe Schultz, 1969 It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and...

So close. It was 3 - 4, Dodgers winning, with one out to go in the top of the ninth. Saito had come into the close out the game. It went: one out, one single, one strike-out, another single. Then comes Nate McLouth. He hadn't gotten a hit yet, and his hitting streak was in danger. Well, it wasn't in danger anymore. He homered to the right, driving in not only the tying run, but two more insurance runs. With Furcal, Ethier, and Kemp up to bat in the bottom of the ninth, you'd think we might have small chance, right? If anyone followed the game, you saw them go out 1 ... 2 ... and Matt Kemp swinging at the third strike for the final out of the game. And what a game it was. Now that I told you how it ended, I'm going to backtrack and tell you the beginning of my third game of the year. Nina and I got there for batting practice. We hung out in the left field corner for a bit. Then I thought I spotted Steve, and we made our way to where he was. By the time we got there, he w...

Hooray! I for one am happy that they have changed the rules back on the batting practice rules! I knew the Sons of Steve Garvey would have the low down on it. From T.J. Simers at the LA Times: Dodgers drop rule, will give all autograph seekers access Club bows to wishes of fans and will give them field-level access before games. The Dodgers, surrendering to the wishes of irate fans, announced Friday they have dropped a new rule and will allow all youngsters to seek autographs in Dodger Stadium in much the same way they have done for years. No comment yet from the rich kids, but now everyone in the stadium will be given the same opportunity to stand on the dirt strip at the end of the Dodgers dugout and be ignored by the players while trying to get an autograph. [...] But despite the Dodgers' efforts to improve the situation, only a few players took notice. Andre Ethier, Delwyn Young and Matt Kemp were seen obliging some of the kids; Andruw Jones was obviously in the batting c...

I'm listening to the pregame show for the Padres (don't shoot me). And they're talking about the autograph argument. Guess who they're siding with?

I was reading the new guidelines about batting practice. Does that mean if I have a top deck ticket, I can't enter during the field level during batting practice, seeing as the Left Field Box gates now open 1 1/2 hours prior to the game instead of 2 hours prior? It's changed from last year. I'm going to a game on Monday and I had intended on getting there early to attend batting practice in the left field box area. But if centerfield is all that is available, I may not arrive that early after all. I really enjoyed being able to enter the field level seats during batting practice last year. My favorite memory was being able to talk to Steve Lyons during one particular batting practice.

When our sale started, the sign said "save up to 50%". Now if you saw that, do you automatically assume that everything on the rack is 50% off ... or some percentage up to 50% off? I can't tell you how many times we got that question. Now, the sign says "further markdowns up to 60%" and we get the same question! Someone help me understand. Is that really difficult to understand? Now, when I go to other stores and I look at the sales, I look at the sale sign very carefully. Maybe it's because I'm a salesperson now. And I have been confused by sale signs before. But I think if it says "Save up to 50%" then the prices should be marked already, UNLESS it says "further reductions taken at register" or "Take and extra % off". Because I know we sometimes have an extra 25% that's taken at the register. And then, of course, we get the question, "how much is this with the 25%?" Today, someone asked me, how much is 39 out...

So, last Christmas, I decided to take advantage of one of the holiday packages the Dodgers were offering. It was 12 games, for $48 if I chose to sit in the top deck. Since I didn't want to go to 12 games alone, I asked some of my friends if I got two tickets, would one of them go with me? They said yes, one or the other. Actually, one friend wanted to pay for the other ticket plan. Her parents were supposed to give her the money for it, but they never did. And they even forgot to actually get her a Christmas gift. Well, here comes the first game of our ticket plan and guess what? Neither of them know if one of them is going to the game with me! Grrr. I told them that if no one will go with me, I'll just go by myself. My friend (the girl - the other's a guy) said that it would be a waste of a ticket. Duh. I know that. Hello. It's her ticket that I'm wasting. But I can't not go. Hello. I have two tickets. So. Here I am. Two tickets to Monday's game. Can't...

Okay, so we're done with the first week of baseball. Any news of any autograph signings? I remember last year, there were two autograph signings in April. Russell Martin at Earl Scheib's and Andre Ethier at Living Spaces. Does anyone know anything yet? Also, when it comes to the radio stations... I think I preferred it when it was on KFWB. First of all, I haven't heard much of a pregame show on KABC. Maybe I just haven't tuned in yet. But on KFWB, the pregame stuff started about an hour before the game. Then about half hour before the game, AMartinez (whatever happened to him? I heard him once on ESPN radio) would have a player profile. Granted, after awhile, you heard the same old player profile over and over again. I don't really listen to the postgame stuff (other than the player/coach interview) so I don't know how different that is. And yes, the two (okay three) autograph signings I went to last year were hosted by KFWB. That was one of the things I wondere...

As you may know, I just started another photo blog (FallingLEAVes Photography) to post my pictures on another blog. Well, I just got an e-mail about my blog being blocked! Why? Because it's been flagged as a spam blog . What in the world is a spam blog? I read their info about it, and I'm still confused. And this is what is shown on my dashboard: This blog has been locked and unpublished due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations. You may not publish new posts until your blog is reviewed and unlocked. This blog will be deleted within 20 days unless you request a review. Hmph. Anyone else have this happen to them? No wonder. When I first posted photos on my new blog, I had like 18 hits immediately. And the info for the hits were weird. Interesting.

Great way to start the season, right? Two wins, no losses. I got off work, picked up Kevin, got food, and went to Nina's. We got there just as Angelina got there. Angelina got two pairs of tickets through 76. She and Nina took the seats in section 51. Kevin and I took the seats in section 59. That put us at the very end of the reserve level in the left field side. The day before the game, I looked in the box score and guess who's part of the umpire crew? Jim Wolf! The older brother of Randy Wolf! He was the third base umpire for the Opening Day game. Since I didn't know which way they rotated, I guessed he was either the home plate umpire or second base. They rotate clockwise (? depending on which way you look at it) so he was the second base umpire. Jim - first base umpire Randy - starting pitcher for the Padres Jim Wolf Randy Wolf Back to the game. From our seats, it was very hard to see the DodgerVision screen. I did like the angle I got of the bullpen. However, my child...