Well, it’s over. The autographed balls are stored with all my other ones. The suitcase is unpacked. The souvenir t-shirts have been handed out to the kids. And I’m back at work.

Monday’s game was really good. Usually the games in spring training aren’t high-stress because teams are worried about their pitcher’s pitch count, how many plate appearances the players get, how a young prospect does in a certain game situation, etc. The score is the last thing they worry about. Monday’s game was really good.

We sat in the second row back, just to the 1st base side of home plate. The Braves on-deck circle was 15 feet away. Yeah, great seats. There were a lot of great defensive plays that added to the excitement as well.

Autographs on Monday were good. Dad stayed over on the Braves side of the park during batting practice and got several prospects’ autographs as well as Ryan Langerhans, Terry Pendleton, and a couple other starters whose names escape me.

I stayed over on the Astros side, hoping to catch Craig Biggio. He walked by, and I asked, but he said he had some things to do. He was really polite though, and he came back to sign later, but I wasn’t lucky enough to get to the front of the crowd in time to catch him. I was able to get Woody Williams, Mike Lamb, and Brad Ausmus to sign.

We really enjoyed the stadium there in Kissimmee.  The ushers were courteous, they checked our bags before the gates opened, they weren’t trying to keep fans from getting autographs (like that idiot usher at the Phillies’ stadium the night before).  We’re going to make Kissimmee a regular stop in our annual trip.  We enjoyed the visit there, and we felt like the Astros were glad to have us there to watch a game.

I’ve got a bunch of photos to upload.  Those will come when I can get to them…probably a couple of days.

This post will be short because it’s late and I am seriously in need of a shower.

Today we saw the Yankees play the Tigers.  Giambi and Torre signed autographs, and I got some decent pictures.  I’ll upload to Flickr later.

Tonight was the Baseball For Kids Legends Game.  It’s a relaxed, for-charity event that’s really a lot of fun.  I got to chat with Goose Gossage for a minute, which was pretty cool, and got some autographs of a few has-been players as well.

Oh, and I got yelled at by a rude usher at the Phillies’ stadium.  I’ll be posting more about him (and a picture, muwahaha) later.  That’s right, people; you don’t mess with Ronzilla, or you just might get called an idiot and have your picture posted to my web site.

So it’s after 1:00 a.m. now, so I’ll close for tonight.  We are in Kissimmee tonight, and we’ll see the Braves and Astros here tomorrow.  Then we’ll be making the drive back to SC.  I’ll post again from there.

Are we already 3 days into this?  Wow.  Time flies when you’re having fun.

Today we were in St. Petersburg to watch the Red Sox and the Devil Rays.  It ended in a tie (they play no more than 10 innings in exhibition ball), which was ok with me because 1)it was hot, and 2)the Sox didn’t win.

Red Sox fans are the most obnoxious people on the planet.  Especially that guy with the big logo tattooed onto his back.  (Yes, really.)

It was a fun day.  We saw Don Zimmer, got interviewed (sort of) by the local ESPN radio station because we were 2 Yankee fans watching a Red Sox game.  That was interesting.

This was a new park for us.  We try to add a new stadium each year so we can eventually watch a game in each of them.  This stadium is really pretty, but it’s not the greatest spring park (by far) in the Grapefruit League.  Our seats were about 25 rows up from 1st base.  I imagine you could get better seats if you saw someone other than the Red Sox playing there.  Still, the seats were pretty good…there aren’t really any bad seats at these games.

I’ve got more photos up on Flickr.  Check out the one with the view of the horizon behind the stadium.  It’s pretty awesome.

Tomorrow morning we’re up early and on the road to Lakeland where we’ll watch our beloved Yankees play the Tigers.  It’s going to be a zoo up there.  That is a fairly small stadium and, as you may suspect, the Yankees draw a pretty decent crowd.

Tomorrow night we’re going to be in Clearwater to watch an old timers game.  Players scheduled to be on hand include Wade Boggs, Bob Feller, Jim Palmer, Gary Carter, Ken Griffey Sr., and Goose Gossage.  It’s a charity event to benefit some children’s hospital.  That’s one of the highlights of my year, so there will definitely be some updates posted tomorrow night.

I don’t know what you did today, but today I met Bob Feller.

This morning we left my parents’ house at 8:00. After a long drive (which really wasn’t all that bad), we parked at Chain of Lakes Park in Winter Haven, Florida. This is where the Cleveland Indians have their training camp.

We watched the 7pm game between the Indians and Astros. I got a foul ball (with the help of Dad) by leaning over the wall on the 3rd base line and having him hold my legs to keep me from falling. I got a couple Astros to sign the ball (read: “not Biggio”), and then we went to find Bob Feller.

For a $5 donation to his museum, you can get Feller to sign just about anything. Bats and shirts are a little more, but all I wanted was a ball and a picture. I got both. He was actually a pretty nice man.

Now for those of you who have lived under a rock for the entire span of your existence, Bob Feller was quite possibly the best right handed pitcher to play baseball. (If not the best, he is very close to the top of the list.) Feller pitched 16 out of 20 seasons from 1936 - 1956. Four of those years (the prime of his career), he was serving his country in the U.S. Navy. Stats here.

I don’t usually have a lot of pictures to share, but since I’ll have a good number this week, I decided to try out flickr. Geof does it, so it must be cool. Right? I’ve got a thing or two more to figure out (perhaps tomorrow), but I uploaded a few pictures here.

We’ve got a long day ahead tomorrow, so I’m going to get some sleep. We watch the Devil Rays (hopefully) beat the Red Sox, then we’ll be heading into Clearwater for some awesome pizza. More on that tomorrow.

Tonight I leave for SC where I’ll pick up Dad and head to Florida for our 2007 trip.  For those of you who may not know, we drive down to Florida every year to watch Spring Training baseball.  I’ll be posting from the road as I’m able.

Tomorrow morning we leave South Carolina for Winter Haven, Florida.  We’ll see a game tomorrow night at the Indians complex there.  It’s a really nice place.  We’ve only been to that stadium once, and it’s an older, smaller park with crazy women who won’t let you take bottled water into the park.  Stupid women.

Bob Feller was there last time we were, and I’ve been told he’s at most Indians home games.  I’m also told that he’s regularly got a table setup where you can get his autograph for like a $5-10 donation to his charity.  I’m not usually one to pay for autographs, but if any autograph would ever be worth $10 to get, it’d be Feller’s.

More tonight (probably) from SC.

I hate Sam’s Club.  I had to go tonight, and I was reminded of these reasons why:

• Nobody works there.  84 million square feet of warehouse space and there’s not an employee to be found.
• 2 registers.  2.  Only 2.  They have about 15 registers in the store, but only 2 are ever open at once.  If I’m going to pay you to be allowed to shop in your store, I shouldn’t be waiting in line.  Ever.
• Visa? HA!  You want to buy that with a Visa card?  Good luck!
• Checking receipts.  The fat woman at the door who won’t let you leave without counting how many items are in your cart…I wish somebody would just run her over with one of those carts.
• Bulk.  Yeah, bulk is the reason you pay to shop at Sam’s Club, but come on…who really needs to buy a case of gum?  Impulse buy at Wal-Mart: $1.  Impulse buy at Sam’s Club: $37.  (This is why you shouldn’t let your wife shop at Sam’s Club.)

Why do you hate Sam’s Club?

About a week ago I thought it would be a while before I got to another concert.  This weekend, I got to see 2 concerts featuring 3 of my favorite musicians.  And the concerts were free.

Last week I got an email from Katy Bowser letting me know she was playing in Atlanta on Saturday.  The Spine Doctor and his wife were gracious enough to babysit for us, so we had a date night listening to some music.  Katy and crew did a fabulous job.

Katy’s husband, Kenny Hutson, is an amazing musician.  He’s from the Atlanta area, so his family was all at the show.  That also means that they played a lot of stuff that featured him working his magic with his guitar.

Then last night I drove down to Lagrange to see Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken play a concert for a few hundred college kids.  Sandra played a new song that (if I heard right) will be sung by Danielle on the next Caedmon’s Call CD.  Derek played some new stuff as well, and he mentioned that his next release will be May 1.

Another bit of wisdom from Wulfgar’s Snapple lid:

“The life span of a taste bud is ten days.”

So I guess if you don’t like the taste of broccoli today, wait a week and a half and try it again.

So I played with the Google Apps stuff, and it’s pretty cool.  It makes online collaboration for small groups very easy.  Very easy.  A small company with few technical resources can host mail, documents, calendars, and more for nothing.  There are paid options as well, but I didn’t fool with those.

I was hoping to kill a couple birds with this stone (figuratively, of course).  First, I would have liked to have my wife’s email all web based and in a Gmail interface so that I wouldn’t have to deal with her Outlook .pst file.  Second, I was hoping to get a system where her calendar and mine could work together.

The first goal can be done, but I don’t need Google Apps for it.  Gmail will let you send mail from your non-Gmail address, and it will POP your email for you, so you can get all of your mail in their interface.

The second goal won’t work for what I need (as far as I could tell).  I can get a calendar we can share…that’s not the problem.  The problem is that my laptop syncs my Outlook calendar with Verizon, which syncs with my PDA phone.  I can’t go without that.  If there’s a way that I can get a Google Calendar to either replicate to Outlook (preferred) or to get it to sync with Verizon’s wireless sync service, I could possibly make the move.

I could go back and kill bird #1, but my wife uses her calendar too, and she’d be mad if I took it away just so I won’t have to deal with .pst files.

So we didn’t solve any problems, but I learned a little bit from it.  And I’m even more amazed at the awesomeness that is Google.

I’ve read recently about how Google will host your domain and give you certain services (for small groups) for free.  They’ll make your email work in the Gmail interface, give you calendar sharing between users with Google Calendar, online document collaboration through Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and even more stuff.  And apparently it’s free.

I’m going to check it out over the next few days, but I was wondering if any of you have used Google for this.  I haven’t heard many reviews about it, just the fact that it’s there, so if you’ve used it, let me know.  I’d love to hear thoughts on it.

I’ll post later with thoughts about how awesome (or not) I think it is.