The old woman at the park

Today 2,923 people attended the Padres vs. Dodgers spring training game at the Peoria sports complex, but one woman stood above the rest. I made the decision to attend another game around 11:45 a.m and am glad I did for multiple reasons. First, this was the beginning of going out on my own to events often known for attending with others. If I can't do it in Arizona, a land of friendly old people, it's just going to get more difficult in Boulder, Lisbon, Madrid and so on. I took the car and trekked 35 minutes to a different ballpark than the one I attended yesterday. It was a much different atmosphere as the Padres and Dodgers are not nearly as popular as the Cubs and hometown Dbacks were. This led to a more relaxing atmosphere and the ability to choose my seat in the house. I bought my ticket and entered the stadium. For those unaware I have a sick obsession with burritos, so I decided that would be my ballgame food of choice. The day before I had a chili, cheese, jalapeño and fritos hot dog or Mesa dog so I figured I'd find a different way to clog the arteries today. The weather was much better, 80 and cloudy (of course it still helped burn my skin a little worse) as I took my seat 3 rows behind the right side of home plate, next to the Padres dugout. In front of me sat a little old lady all by herself, she attends most Dodgers spring training games as well as many others around the Arizona area. Her uniqueness isn't the fact she attends so many games, but that she hand writes the scorecard to every single game she attends. Most times I would think that's one of the sickest things I've ever seen, but for some reason this woman grabbed my attention. Every concession worker, usher, and most fans around the seats knew her well. We spoke about her hobby and the hundreds of baby notepads with meaningless Spring Training stats that she had collected over the years. She didn't mind being at the ballpark alone quickly engaging any passerby in conversation whether she knew them or not. The rest of the people in the section were just as kind, knowledgeable, and led to quite a relaxing atmosphere. This includes the heckler who would scream at San Diego Padres player Jody Gerut each time he would come to bat sayings like "Jodie Foster!" and "You were in the movie Contact!" For the first time in a while I began a slight enjoyment of baseball again. It was a good experience to get out on my own; I feel like I'm in a video game, level one was to attend an event solo with kind old people as the challenge.

Tomorrow I leave for Boulder, Colorado. I won't have computer access for a couple days there, thus why I decided to add another brief entry tonight. I'll arrive in the afternoon, rent my first car, and head to Boulder around 2 p.m. I'm not sure what I am actually going to do there, but I'm looking forward to exploring the city on my own. The hotel is supposedly a block from campus, so I'm thinking I'm going to become alone at the bar guy tomorrow night and see if I can actually pull it off. When that doesn't work, I have my eyes set on attending the Nuggets vs. Blazers game to keep myself busy.

According to Wisconsin they email their decision tomorrow to all applicants. I feel like at some point they should text applicants that "it's just not going to work out" or offer the rejection hotline. I guess it saves money and paper on the people who aren't worthy enough as is for these universities, but I feel if I'm spending $50 to apply to your school, you can spend 15 cents to reject (or accept) me. The MSU email held the subject of "acceptance to the MSU masters program" and the ASU rejection stated "ASU deny letter." I like how they both get right to the point. The MSU was personalized from a professor while the denial was an automated letter. I look forward to seeing if an acceptance is always by a faculty member and rejection automated or if schools mix it up a bit. Throw in an erectile dysfunction ad at the bottom of a rejection, it'd be a fantastic money maker for universities.

For now though, I must continue on my trek. Thanks for stopping by and give yourself a treat today, maybe an old WWF wrestling ice cream bar or some fruit by the foot.

-BK