Criminey

Now that Mark is getting close to Spring Training, he's been throwing bullpens 2x a week and going to the gym 2x a day... I've been going with him at night but I'm going to start going in the morning with him too. I'm not really into lifting... more conditioning.... but it's not gonna hurt to tighten up a bit more....

Between working out twice a day and working so much I'm gonna need to double up on the caffiene too... good thing Luigi taught me how to make a wicked espresso at the Cafe in Otto at work... I now have double shots at my fingertips whenever I need a pick-me-up at work which is a LOT.

Mark was really sweet tonight on the way from his bullpen to the gym today-- he said he had to be selfish because he only had a few weeks before ST and needed to concentrate solely on baseball...which convienently for him I fully support anything and everything baseball 100% of the time... I even enjoy going to his bullpens... I know he's my boyfriend but getting to watch him throw the way hes been throwing is awesome. I love seeing his pitches break up close like that. His coach is Teddy Concepcion and he's awesome.... The first thing he did when he met me and found out I was a White Sox fan was show me that he had Joey Cora's phone number... hes a really awesome guy.

Anyways... I thought it was sweet that Mark thought he was being selfish by concentrating all his time on baseball... Theres nothing I want more than for him to succeed and I really love being a part of his pre-season training.

Anyways--- this weekend is convention week... I got notes from my boss that we're at full capacity and it's gonna be nuts this week. There's a shoe convention and a motorola convention too so work's gonna be friggin nuts this week. That's good though because I'll be making my first visit to California next week for Kathy's (mark's sister) Senior game at Santa Clara. I for sure wanna throw back some money in the savings before the game and before we go to Cali because Mark and I really want to go to San Francisco so I can see the town. For those of you who forgot, Full House was filmed there and I WILL be riding a trolly.

Today I was in a pissy mood though. I own money on the electric bill back home and I was wanting to pay it on Saturday but Bank of America apparently wont process my check until tonight and it wont be in my account until tomorrow. The problem is that I cashed my check there on FRIDAY. I couldn't be more pissed about that whole situation... it also effed up Mark and I's date night... we were gonna go to dinner and a movie but we only have like $12 in our account so there goes THAT on my only day off. Then on top of it I couldn't find anything to eat (granted I was being picky just because I was in a bitchy mood) so I downed coffee all day long... by 6pm I was going stir crazy and after going to Mark's bullpen we went to the gym.... the only thing available for me to work out on was a bike that was far too tall for me and hurt my crotch and made my pants ride up my ass. On top of it, there were eleventy billion girls in the locker room at LVAC walking around naked. WTF?

Anyways before I call it a night--- I wanna put a challenge to everyone.... name the reference forthe new name of my blog.. "Whats a Crop?" ...... :)

Melissa's Book of the Week: The Devil Wears Pinstripes

I read this book on my way to Spring Training in 2007 and fell in love with it. I let a co-worker barrow it a while back and never got it back and have just placed an order for it through Amazon as that's the only place I can find it now.

It might be the most hilarious book about the Yankee's that I've ever read in my life.. Jim Caple I believe is still an avid columnist on ESPN's Page 2 and is always a good read... I learned the majority of my information about the Yankees and went on to actually make an attempt to fall in love with the history of the team quickly after reading the book and understanding who the real "villians" of the franchise are based on this book alone.

Pick it up. At $3.41 for a new copy on Amazon you simply can't afford NOT to.

Direct link here

Welcome Back, Welcome Back, Welcome Back

Well, I feel as though I owe everyone some sort of explanation. Most of you know that I moved this site to it's own domain (which I hope to restart whenever I learn how to do that) of www.whitesoxdiaries.com. About 4 months ago I was told that my website had been suspended and after a rather controversial 2010 season for my blogging, my (and others) immediate thoughts were that it had been shut down by *perhaps* white sox media relations.

I'm rather glad to report that's NOT the case :)

Instead, the domain that was supporting it was shut down (at least I think... Im rather technologically retarded, but thats what I got out of the explanation), so until then I'm going to start reposting on this website.

So, before the questions roll in, which I'm sure they will, I'll explain my absence.

In the last 8 months that I haven't been posting, I've been diagnosed with ADD (that alone should explain it, haha), started dating my future husband, lost 30 lbs, moved out of my roommates house, and then made the move to the FABULOUS Las Vegas where I am now working for Iron Chef, Mario Batali at Otto Enoteca at The Venetian on the strip. Oh, and I adopted a stray cat. Her name is Chelsea.

I feel as though some of you think I have "given up" on baseball, but thats highly not the case. I just haven't had time or access to the constant White Sox chatter as I did last season. Also, for those of you keeping track, this is about the time last year when I started this blog, so we'll look at this as my own Spring Training after a rather long and eventful offseason.

As I will be blogging about the White Sox, Baseball, etc, I've also come to the conclusion that baseball is not my WHOLE life, it is only a really really large part of it. I now live in Las Vegas and will be blogging about my life as an avid baseball fan, who has moved far away from her family and all of her friends, is working in a job she NEVER thought she'd have, and who's boyfriend is moving away for 7 months in about 30 days.....

There's only so many characters that facebook status updates can hold.

So without further ado, let the blogging commence.

I'd like to leave you after this first post with a small story of something that happened to me yesterday.

While I was at work, a man I was waiting on saw my Sox tattoo on my wrist and immediately started flirting with me. You know how you tell a lie and you think you're really cool because you don't think anyone else will call you out on the lie?

Well, this guy starts to tell me that his best friend owns the majority of the stock in the White Sox, and then asks me to meet him to go out after work. I'm assuming he saw some special on the Packers and how they were a publicly traded company, and then just assumed that ALL pro teams were publicly traded or something.... because he was straight up trying to tell me that his best friend owned ALL this stock in the Chicago White Sox and basically owned the team.

So I simply told him that the White Sox weren't a publicly traded company. He looked at me slightly confused and responded with "Yes they are." I calmly said "no sir, they aren't like the Packers. The Packers are publicly traded but the White Sox aren't. In fact, I don't believe ANY Major League teams are traded, and I know for a fact that the Packers are the only NFL team that are."

I kind of expected the guy to put his tail behind his legs and say something like "oh well, I must be confused" or something to the effect but this guy WOULDNT STOP. He responded with "Well, my best friend owns the majority of the team, I know that. He's like the guy that works right above their GM."

Of course I responded with "Oh, so your best friend is Jerry Reinsdorf?" "No, it's ____(insert guys name that I've NEVER heard of before in my life). He lives in Florida, and he owns the White Sox."

At this point I was getting slightly annoyed. I mean who the hell doesn't just back down when they're wrong? Luckily his friend cut in with "I don't think you need to be drinking this early in the morning anymore" and brushed him off allowing me to leave the table without decking the guy in the face. Something about morons trying to talk baseball when they know nothing about it just totally irks me.

By the way, 12 days til pitchers and catchers report :)