Out with the Girls (mostly)

yesterday was good. busy. yet strangely relaxing for all its activity. vanessa and deva came over, and we went to o'charleys for lunch with chad. then we dropped him off at our apartment and headed for the mobile museum of art followed by an adventure in the mobile botanical gardens. then it was back to my place to pick up chad again, but not before many music files were shared between me and vanessa (gracias, chica). after all the music sharing, it was off to the mall with all of us to hit the victoria's secret semi-annual sale, with which none of us was all that impressed... but that didn't stop us from making a few purchases. the beauty side of the store actually had a better sale going than the lingerie side. once all purchases were completed, we stopped for pretzels, then made our way over to hank aaron stadium to catch a mobile baybears baseball game. and even after all that, the day was not over yet. a pit stop at steak and shake for a late dinner had to be made before everyone headed home.


the museum was actually pretty cool, even though one floor was closed for the setup of a new exhibit and the local artists section was bare. i was impressed that they have a renoir, but my favorite painting was one i spent a fair amount of time complaining about. it's called "boyboypinguino" (sorry, i don't remember the artist's name), and it's one of the creepiest paintings you will ever see. it's a giant portrait of this little blond boy with blue eyes that seem to follow you everywhere and a killer expression... and he is surrounded by these little fuzzy penguins. it's mega-creepy. anyway, the museum also housed some cool statues and these awesome glass creations... but the thing that stuck with me was the creepy little boy painting.

so, i said that our trip to the botanical gardens was an adventure, and i meant it. we (sort of, kind of, in a way) crashed a wedding. well, there was a wedding being set up when we arrived, and they were still in the setup phase when we left. anyway, we didn't see the little holder thing with maps in it, so we were just sort of wandering through the gardens with no real picture of where we were supposed to go, with me acting as mama duck for the day. anyway, we saw all these seemingly random trails through the woods, and i just picked one and followed it. again, i had no idea where i was going, and there was a real fear of getting lost. but it all turned out fine, and we made our way safely through several unmarked trails and back to the entrance to the gardens. i got some cool photos in there, so i'll give you a peek at a few.



















here's a shot of vanessa and deva in the gardens...


...and here's one of me.


after that grand adventure and some shopping, we ended up at a baseball game. usually, i say that baseball is far too slow, which i still think is true, but i had fun at the game anyway. it's better when you're physically at a game than when you watch one on tv. when my little bro played little league baseball, i always had a blast at his games. but my twelve year old self viewed them as more of a social event than a sporting event. deva told me i talk more during a baseball game than i do during a hockey game. chad told her it's because i was bored. i told her that's because there's always something happening in a hockey game, and if i talked the whole time i'd miss something good. baseball doesn't have that quality. you can talk the entire game and not miss a thing. it lasted longer than most hockey games, too, even though most of the innings sped by pretty quickly. i was hella pissed to find that, not only do the jerseys in the southern league not have the players' names on them, but the programs do not have the players' numbers. so, figuring out who the hell anyone was was a bit of an adventure, too. we still don't know who the second pitcher was. he never came up to bat, so i guess we'll never know. the closers for both the baybears and the west tennessee diamond jaxx (where do they come up with these mascots?) were the best pitchers we saw through the entire game. the other 4 pitchers who played really sucked ass... and they were bad hitters. but there were 6 back-ups in the bullpen looking bored out of their skulls... wonder if any of them were any good. i was amazed at the overabundance of pitchers on mobile's roster, coupled with a shortage of infielders (there were only 4 - guess they're screwed if one gets injured). you know, come to think of it, i actually spent most of the game making fun of the pitcher(s) and rooting for the canadian (his name is luke carlin, i think, but he was the only canadian on the team - a big change from what i'm used to seeing on the ice pilots' roster). i guess he wanted to stand out from his fellow canadians and play a little baseball instead of hockey. or maybe he can't skate. it's ok. i can't skate, either... but i'm from the south, so it's to be expected. so anyway, i enjoyed my second pro (semi-pro?) baseball game ever (the first one was ~7 years ago - i'm telling you, i just don't do baseball well. on top of the hella slow pace of the game, they play too many games - and this is coming from a hockey fan, where my local team plays 72 games a year).

okee. time to go do something else - like some stats on my st. joe data. laytah.