As a baseball fan growing up, I told myself that I would extremely happy if I could see baseball's Holy Grail, as I call it, by the time I was 25. To me, baseball's Holy Grail are the three greatest baseball stadium still standing (at least when I decided upon this): Wrigley, Old Yankee Stadium and Fenway.

Wrigley was scratched off the list when I was a little kid (and then kept getting scratched off as I got older and found out how cheap it was to fly from Omaha to Chicago) and Christi and I were lucky enough to see a great rivalry at the Old Yankee Stadium.

So the day after we closed on our house, we drove up to Boston to meet up with Jess and Dan to watch the Braves take on the Red Sox. After we got to the field early to watch some BP, we were greeted with a nice surprise. Jair Jurrjens and Buddy Carlyle were shagging fly balls in right field ... about 20 feet in front of us. Jess, being a lifetime Red Sox fan, tells us that one of her life goals is to get a major league baseball at a game (BP or live, it really doesn't matter). Seeing Buddy as close as possible, I thought this would be the absolute best time to do it. Heck, thanks to my sister-in-law, I know the name of the place where his son is learning to swim. I figured I had more leverage on him than anyone standing out there.

After yelling, "Omaha rules" to let him know we were from the area, we got no response. After waiting for another left handed hitter to get up to spray balls in the general area, we started to move towards a more drastic approach of, "Hey Buddy red shoes, you're awesome." Ponec once saw a picture of me playing high school ball wearing red shoes with a blue jersey and told me that's what people called Buddy. Not knowing if Buddy took to the nickname or not, we will never know as there was no response. Then, the very last hit of BP was a ball hit oppo landing at the base of the wall right were we were standing ...

Out of the nearly 10,000 or so people on hand for batting practice, we had to assume that we were the only ones who knew anything about him. With this, we thought just the smallest thing would let him look up and toss us a ball. So, there was Buddy, kneeling over and picking up our last chance, so I gave him mine, "Bellevue East rules! Go Chieftains!" He picked the ball up, turned in our general direction, spun back around to look at 2nd base and fired an absolute rocket back to the infield. If that doesn't get Buddy (or anyone for that matter) to throw a ball at you, I'm not sure what will.

Why did I spend this entire post talking about what happened in BP? Because only two other things happened that day.

1) When we were walking around downtown Boston, a hostess at a restaurant yelled something at me. "Hey you ... you look like that guy in that movie."

Wanted to just play the part, I didn't and said, "Me? What movie are you talking about?"

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall. You're look like that main guy."

"You mean Jason Segel? You've got to be kidding me. I look nothing like him. He's a lot taller than me."

"Yeah, and he has a fatter face."

"Thanks?"

(Up until that point, a handful of times I've gotten "You look like that guy from Empire Records," but I still haven't re-watched the movie to see who they are talking about.)

2) The Braves lost. Beckett shoved and shutout my team. Why spend an entire blog post talking about them losing when there were greater stories from the day?

When you don't post in about a month, there are always two things that happen:

1. People start to yell at you to get your act together
2. There's a lot to talk about

I'll focus on the latter instead of calling people out (although I do apologize it's been a while).



The biggest news is that we closed on a house this morning. We'll officially be permanent residents of West Hartford, Connecticut. We were just passively house hunting for a few months until we switch real estate agents. Our new one showed us five or six houses on the first day, and one of them was the picture you see above.

Instead of popping champagne and going out to celebrate, we figured it's our second house in as many years and we just got right down to business moving stuff in. For those of you out there worrying if we staked our claim in the neighborhood, the answer is yes. And to keep in our mood of, "oh, this is just another house to us," we actually won't be in town tomorrow.

A few months ago, I wrote about our upcoming trip to Fenway. It just worked out that it will be the day after we close on our house. Christi thought it would be best to use that day to pre-move before everyone helps on Sunday, but I told her there's no way we're passing up the opportunity to watch the Braves play during our first trip to Fenway. Plus, it completes my quest of historic stadiums to visit (Wrigley and Old Yankee Stadium being the other two), so we really can't stay at home.

Hopefully in a week or so after we're all settled, I can put up some pictures for those that don't live in the near vicinity (which is almost everyone).

There's just something about having to actually pull out our credit card and pay for a meal that Christi and I hate. Don't get me wrong, we're not going to dine and dash or anything ... we're just lazy. With this, we started to play a game every time that we go out to eat. Before the bill comes we will both come up with what we think the total will be. Whoever comes closest does not have to pay.

This has been going on since we lived in Colorado and neither one of us has every guessed a total down to the correct cent. Christi is much better and is usually within fifty cents or so. When you think about guessing prices for drinks, tax, etc., that's pretty amazing. I even had a time where I guessed it perfectly, and then changed my answer at the last second and was kicking myself for being wrong (and actually letting Christi win that one).

So why all the build up? You guessed it ... or I guessed it, rather. We went down to Ikea to buy a kitchen island over the weekend and decided to explore and find a place on the beach to have lunch. We found a nice little cozy place and after a few beers and a few plates of fish and chips, our destiny was staring us in the face. There it was. The same leather folder bulging with a stolen pen in the middle awaiting our signature.

Christi shot low, $32.93, trying to secure the "Price is Right" tiebreaker. I decided to go for it and just shoot out a number: $39.20. I can't say the anticipation was killing us since we usually just want to get it over with and get out of the restaurant, but we opened it up and I couldn't believe it. $39.20. It's such a small thing to get excited about, but the odds of guessing the exact price is pretty tough. Really, it is. Try it out sometime.

The greatest video game that my generation had growing up is finally coming back. In my opinion, there are three video games that everyone needs to play at some point of their life. Punch-Out for NES (either Mike Tyson or Mr. Dream version, I had the latter), Finally Fantasy VII and Goldeneye (multiplayer version only, duh).

This commercial alone is making me want to go out and a buy a Wii just to see if they brought back all of the great fighters like Don Flamenco, King Hippo, Soda Popinski and Super Macho Man.

By "lottery" I mean the lottery to get tickets for the 2010 first round NCAA games in Providence, RI.
By "we" I mean the Wife™, myself, Ben and Steph (obviously Ben has to be there so he doesn't break his streak).
By "won" I mean we have to pay for.
By "finally" I mean that Ben and I got rejected in the intial round and we both qualified for tickets after a few people passed them up.

Here's hoping UCONN is not a #1 seed next year so that it doesn't take us five hours to get to the game.

For the second year in a row, Christi humored the little kid in me as we went to a hibachi restaurant for my birthday. We tried a new place that I see on a billboard every time I travel on I-91 S and decided to give it a shot. It's a half-sushi half-hibachi restaurant and the sushi part is packed while the hibachi section is absolutely dead.

We sit down at a table for eight with only one other person. He apologizes right away saying that he asked to sit on the other end and didn't want to disturb our dinner. We tell him it's no big deal and strike up a quick conversation. After giving him our story of why we're living in Connecticut, he lets us know that he's a huge sports fan and that he's originally from San Diego. So to test the waters, I ask him if he knows of Stephen Strasburg, and the smile on his face grew with the knowledge that I have a background in baseball. The reason he was happy, is because he knew a lot more than me.

We find out that he went to school, and played, with Tony Gwinn. He said he was just recently at a Padres game and sat in front of the announcers, and Tony sat there and spoke to him for a while. Between the clanking of the utensils and setting volcanoes of onions on fire, Christi was pretty sure she heard that he used to date Gwinn's sister. Throughout the night we find out that he's met people like Joe Torre and Pete Rose (letting us know the latter is "dumber than a sack of rocks").

Before the night's over, we find out that he's from Cape Cod, a place we've been meaning to go, and that he told us the best time to visit is right after Labor Day weekend since everyone is back in school and the place is pretty much empty. However, being a huge baseball fan, he said there is nothing like catching the Cape Code league in the summer.

We have his number and his address, so we'll probably take advantage of some insight that we received. The birthday wasn't as crazy as last year, but it was nice to not have to worry about Stan ingesting chocolate again.

Usually the job of an incoming phone operator is considered great ... when comparing it to an external phone operator. However, in these tough times, it's probably not fun when you get the incoming call to cancel a subscription. Now it turns into a bargaining race to see how much free stuff they can give you to keep you on board.

Tough times or not, Christi and were both planning on canceling our XM subscriptions. It was great in western Colorado where we originally bought them because we only had a handful of radio stations that we could hear clearly. Regardless of the situation, I found it humorous to see what lengths someone would go through to keep me on as a customer. Here's the event as it transpired:

Brian: (After being on hold for five minutes). Can I speak to someone about canceling my two subscriptions.
Operator: Sure, I can help you with this (even when she knew she couldn't).
B: I have [radioId 1] and [radioId 2] that I need to cancel. That's all I'm going to need today.
O: Is there something wrong with the service you are receiving?
B: Nothing is wrong. We needed them when we had no reception in Colorado, and now we have no use for them.
O: I see that you enjoy listening to [favorite preset channel1]. What if we could give you a few more free channels that corresponded with this?
B: As I mentioned earlier. I like XM, but I just don't need it anymore. I just need to cancel.
O: Have you thought about the times when you drive to places where you can't get good reception where you are now? You might need it for times like that.
B: I'll be fine with CDs. Plus, my wife drives her car every other month, so we definitely don't need that account.
O: Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?
B: Yes, I just need to cancel.
O: I'm going to transfer you to my manager so that she can get your cancellation started.
*After five to ten more minutes of elevator music, I get transferred to the manager. You'd think they would have a cool way to select an XM station to listen to why you're on hold, but maybe that's why they are losing their customers.
Manager: Hi, my name is [so and so], how can I help you today.
B: I need to cancel my two radio accounts.
M: Can I ask why you are canceling these?
*I go through my entire story saying I don't need them.
M: Well, it says you have been a member since 2007. This makes you eligible for premier account status (I'm sure she just made this up on the spot). With this, we can lock you for next year at 50% of the cost that you paid for the previous year.
B: To be brutally honest with you, if I knew I could have received a deal like this, I would call to cancel every year. However, I just need this transaction to end quickly and I don't need service (How many times can you beat a dead horse?)
M: I'm sorry to hear that. I can make a special exception for you and let you have both of your subscriptions at 50% so you only pay for one of them.
B: Thanks again, but I just need to cancel. Can we move along with this?
M: I have an idea (which obviously has nothing to do with canceling). What if I gave you three free months and then you could decide after that?
B: There have been multiple talks about XM/Sirius going under in the next few months. I don't want to lock in a contract with a company that can't continue giving me service in the future.
M: We do not know the immediate future for XM, we are just focused on keeping our clients happy right now.
B: You didn't know? Come on. Your stock is trading under half a cent.
M: Sir, I don't keep track of our company's stock portfolio.
B: Please cancel my service or send me to someone who can.
M: What if we gave you six free months to try our products to see if you would like to stay?
B: Can I please speak with your manager?

From there she immediately canceled my contract and we both moved on with our days. There's a part of me that was trying to egg them on to see how much more free stuff I could get, but it got to a point where it was pretty sad to see the lengths they would go through. All in all, I'll be sad to not see scores like this in my car in the future.

After being to the Wick Alumni Center and seeing the wall of license plates with the exact same text on them, I was completely shocked that this was available. The original thought was to do "HUSKERS", but Connecticut caps their vanity plates at six characters.

The next thought was to get "POWER" or "NATION" for Christi, but those were already taken. If anyone has any ideas for HUSKER ______ or ______ HUSKER, be sure to let us know as we're getting her plates in the very near future.

First off, this is not the stellar blog I spoke of a few days ago. That's still coming before we head back home.

Christi and I decided to switch up our realtor and focus on someone who had extensive knowledge in the West Hartford area. After a few short hours of seeing some new places, we absolutely loved two of the houses we saw. We told her about the house that we used to have back home, and she said that could have easily sold for $600,000 - $700,000 out here. It's amazing what a few thousand miles can do the real estate market. The good news though is that the house search seems to be in full swing again and hopefully we can get motivated and find a place to move into this summer.

Before searching this time around, I went to a lender to make sure my credit rating was still hovering above 400 and to see how much we could get approved for. After I received our amount, I knew instantly why our country is in an economic down spiral right now. They told us we were approved for a $500,000 loan. If we bought a house for that much, we would be looking for the next available box to live in before Christmas.

On a brighter economic note, Fenway is in no trouble of going under any time soon. We just bought four tickets (so we could meet up with some friends in Mass) and catch a Braves game in June. Just like when we saw the Red Sox the first time we went to the original Yankee stadium, this will be the ultimate way to break in my final field on my Holy Grail list (the other two being the original Yankee stadium and Wrigley). Smoltz is on pace to be back on the mound sometime in mid June, and we could only be so lucky to watch that game.

Twelve years ago I was lucky enough to be at the Nebraska vs. Missouri game where one of the greatest plays in college football history took place. For those reading outside of Nebraska, or Missouri, you can catch up here and here.

Ever since that game, I've carried my ticket around in my wallet (still to this day, I have no clue why). So I came up with the idea to have mom and dad get Matt to sign it since they sit behind him at the basketball games. I'm sure his ego didn't need any more boosting, but there goes that.

In other random news I've been playing a lot of golf this year. And by a lot I mean that I've been out four or five times so far, and it's not even May. So far I have more 300+ yard drives (2) than I do birdies (1). In efforts to focus more on the short game, I went out and bought new golf clubs. Why? Because I joined a golf league at work. Personally, for someone who swore off golf because I thought it would ruin my baseball swing, I never thought this day would come.

So with giving up baseball, I had a "tryout", if you will, for a more competitive softball league at work last night. In my first time playing in three years I went 3-4 with my only out caught on the warning track. Maybe my goal for the rest of the year will be to hit over three times my weight.

I know the blog postings have been sparse so far this year, but they are going to be even more rare as Christi and I are heading back to Nebraska next week. I'll make up for it by posting a stellar blog right before we leave ...