Feb. 1st
We traded in the Jeep for the "Big Kahuna" as we have
affectionally(?!?) named our van. This thing is going
to take some getting used to. The ride is actually very
nice, but I can't imagine trying to parallel park. We will
be spending lots of time in the BK so we better get used to it.
Last Tuesday as I was driving the BK (Fred made me do it) over
to Millersville to meet Bob Houck for lunch, I asked Fred, "Who
do you think will put the first scratch on this thing". Well we
didn't have to wait long to find out. As I was trying to back
out of the parking space, I heard a "cruuuunch, scrape" and
immediately felt like I was going to throw up and it wasn't
from the lunch. Of course, Fred started laughing.. Fortunately,
all I did was back up over the curb slightly scraping the running board.
I'm sure that won't be the last bruise the "Big Kahuna" gets.
The planning for this trip has been heaven for Fred,
but would be a nightmare for anyone else. Fred is in
his glory with his maps, charts and spreadsheets.
People think he doesn't have enough to do, but the
amazing thing is that he really doesn't spend that much time on it.
As sick as it seems to most "normal" people, organization is
Fred's hobby and he's so good at it that he can get more done
in an hour than most people can in half a day. Thank goodness
for me, the procrastinator, that I'm married to Fred the organizer.
Back to Journal Index
February 13th -Pre Trip
Can you begin to imagine the planning involved in a trip like this?
We can't just take a leisurely trip across the country.
Oh no, not us, we have to hit all 48 states and every baseball stadium.
The first and foremost project of scheduling the baseball games
is taken care of thanks to the internet.
Fred started pulling off schedules as soon
as the teams posted them and he has refigured
the route about 1,000 times (Billism) to make sure we get into every state.
Our next major project will be getting tickets
to all the games. We wrote letters to all the stadiums,
thinking that what we were doing was a little unusual and
they might want to help us out with some good seats.
FORGET IT. We heard back from about 1/3 so far and
all most of them did was send a ticket application.
The one bright spot was the Oakland A's. Their public relations guy
called and after talking with Fred for about 10 minutes about the trip,
said he would fix us up with seats along the 1st base line. They are
our new favorite American League team.
We got our tickets for Safeco field thanks to Rogers' sister
(that girls got connections!). For those of you going huuh-- Safeco
Field is the new stadium in Seattle. It opens the day we roll into
town and we were afraid it would be an impossible ticket. Phyl convinced
a friend of hers in Seattle to stand in line and get us tickets the day
they went on sale. Thanks Phyl!
Fred purchased the tickets for Pittsburgh over the internet asking
for best available, but they turned out to be crappy seats. Oh well.
We need to do some quick and productive research to come up with a
way to get tickets. We still have 28 games to go. Any ideas?
We are faring much better with where we are going to sleep at night.
We spent this morning firming up a few more of the many hotel
reservations we are going to be making. We found this great
site on the web called Priceline.com. As a promotion, they
offer a free room with a two night stay so we have been able
to pick up some great bargains. Between using priceline.com,
our library of AAA Tour Books and RCI for timeshares, we have
the first two months pretty well scheduled and we the best part
is we are under budget.
We have lists upon lists: what do we need to take, what items
do we need to buy, what do we have to do before we leave, what are we
going to do with the house, how are we going to pay our bills, what are
we going to do with the cats, how are we going to get our mail, how are
we going to stay in touch, how are we going to get our pictures developed
, etc., etc., etc.
Once again, I have to give kudos to Fred, Mr. Organization seems
to have it all under control. Now you know why he puts up with me,
I stroke his ego. (no x-rated comments on that one please).
Back to Journal Index
Feb 26th -Pre Trip
Today was my last day at work. Gee, I'm sure going to miss it (NOT!).
The goodby cake was awesome. It was decorated like a baseball
diamond with icing grass and baseball players and umm umm good.
Everyone in the department penned their words of wisdom on a card
and Deb and Connie had everyone sign a golf tee. What a great idea!
Deb, Connie and Deb made a great card and gave me a disposal camera
to use to take pictures. The catch is that I have to send the pictures
back to them this summer. However, they were so creative and thoughful,
they even supplied the self addressed, stamped envelope
and said I could just send the camera back and they would get the pictures developed.
Now, I'll have to be creative in the pictures I take.
Happy Hour was at Rookies. Thanks everyone for coming out and for
all the goofy gifts. Those that I will call Ollie's Army, spent quite
a bit of time shopping at good old Ollie's and judging from the stories
had just a little bit of fun. I swear the Controllers department should
get a discount over there. Hey maybe the president of Ollies Army can set that up.
Craig Baron for president.
Back to Journal Index
March 22nd
March 22, 1999
Well only two weeks minus one day to go til we leave.
All the tickets have been ordered and 90% of the reservations are made.
We are going to spend this week packing, finalizing our affairs and getting the house in order.
The goal is to be ready to go by this weekend, so we can spend next week playing. Sometimes, it's still
hard to believe we are actually doing this. The process of making the reservations and planning for all the
places we will be going has been tremendously fun.
Last Sunday, the article came out in the paper.
Quite a few people have called and wanted our web site.
Speaking of web site, Fred has been working like a dog on it.
He now has it set up so we can put pictures on for each area we visit.
We broke down and purchased a digital camera, and it seems like it will
work well.
March 29th
Only six more days to go before we leave. Yesterday we were on
12:30 LIVE with Lori Burkholder. The fun part was meeting Lori,
visiting the control room, and talking to the other guests.
We met Brian from MTV Road Rules, who was very engaging and completely
comfortable in front of the camera. Of course he should be since he
spent two months on the road with a camera in his face. I don't think
either of us will have a career in television as we were extremely
nervous and it showed! However, our performances gave us new
material to make fun of each other and we have shared more than a
few laughs.
We went for our last breakfast at the Pantry Deli this morning.
I sure am going to miss my family. I love having a deadline.
This trip has prompted me to get everything in order and I want
to have everything done by Wednesday.
Back to Journal Index
Thursday April 1st
Today WGAL came out to our house to film a segment for the news.
It was fun and a lot less pressure than doing live TV. They were
here for about an hour and it will be interesting to see which parts
they use for the segment. It will be airing Friday during our party at
Hot Z. Pat Principe from WGAL got a list of where our seats are in all
their sister stations -- Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cinncinatti, Boston.
He is going to try to get those stations to do a piece and send it back
to air on WGAL.
Back to Journal Index
Friday April 2nd
Going Away Party at Hot Z
Thank you to everyone who came to our going away party. We feel very
fortunate to have the love and support of our family and friends.
There were about 45 of you there—from my 82 year old Pappy to 1-1/2 year
old John Peterson. You rocked the place when our segment came on Channel
8. When something good happens in your life it's wonderful to be able
to share it. We are going to miss everyone.
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