One of these photos is present-day (I'll let you guess). I had several pictures to choose from, but I like the contrast in this shot. "I'll look at the camera and smile" vs. "I'm going to take a bite of this and totally cool kid you..." Again, Happy Birthday Superstars!
Speaking of superstars, if I was kind and considerate, and I had any respect for doing things in a timely manner, I would have posted this next photo about a month ago. My friend and former softball player Leanne had another fight on Labor Day Weekend, and who knows, she may be World Champion by now. :) I already had an outline written for my previous blog entry, which I published on September 6th, so I didn't include Leanne's fight, which took place on September 2nd (good plan, I know). I was 100% sure (lol) that I'd write tonight's post sooner, and then life got in the way, and guess what? LEANNE WON HER FIGHT!!!
Is this a great photo or what?! Leanne is the superstar throwing the punch, if you hadn't guessed. From where I'm sitting, the ABSOLUTE BEST THING about this fight was that she had friends who RECORDED this, and I was able to watch Leanne's whole fight on Facebook. Okay, I guess that Leanne winning the fight would have to run a really close second, but I was THRILLED that I got to view the whole fight. Leanne decided to become a professional fighter and bodybuilder after I moved away from Central Texas, so I take what I can get... ;) Congratulations Leanne, and I'm sorry that this took so long. :) SO proud of you!!! :D
Now I'm just gonna freelance, since I don't have an outline for tonight. :) I have had 'Leanne' written on a piece of paper for almost four weeks, and then I realized that I HAD to write an entry tonight once I remembered that today is the blog's birthday. So I heard some of you ask a little while ago, "Why in the hell are you waking up at 5:30 a.m. Coach?" When I moved from Las Vegas to Biloxi, my life changed in a lot of ways. Most of you are familiar with Las Vegas to some extent: Casinos, nightlife, lots of people, desert, HOT... Biloxi, Mississippi has hot, but we also have WATER, life is more laid back here on the Gulf Coast, you RARELY find a traffic jam, and our casinos don't dominate the skyline. Another difference: When I worked for our company in Las Vegas, I was the "closer" in the sportsbook. This meant that I'd normally sleep til noon or 1:00 P.M., and my shift at work would begin at 2 or 3 p.m. Here, I am the "opener." For several weeks now, I have set my alarms for 7:30 a.m. to begin work at 9:30 a.m. on the weekdays, and have woke up at 5:30 A.M. to clock-in at 7:30 a.m. on the weekend (football season, ya know?)... As with everything in life, you can always find positives and negatives in every situation (well, I guess allegedly). I'm going to point out a really funny positive first, and then we'll backtrack. I live fairly close to the casino, and my walk to work is pretty pleasant. On the first Saturday morning that I was scheduled to be at work by 7:30, I had a very difficult time sleeping. This was like trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. We had a full weekend of football ahead of us, and because I woke up before my alarms went off, I also left for work while it was still dark outside. It was dark outside, and there are several trees strewn along my walk to work. Evidently bugs like hanging out around trees. Guess what likes bugs??? BATS!!! I'm pretty sure that if you go find any bat literature, it will say that bats don't attack humans, and that they're awesome because they eat bugs, etc, etc..., but I'll tell ya, when those LIGHTNING QUICK FLYING RATS are SWOOPING DOWN for the low-flying bugs, you start ducking down and crouching like an idiot who thinks that's gonna do any good if they're targeting you... :) So yeah, not having to walk home at night and having to dodge bats the whole way home is probably a positive.
What else is different, and positive??? A positive to making this transfer to Mississippi is that for basically the same amount in monthly rent and bills, I'm now living in a house as opposed to a weekly/monthly apartment complex. If you've been to Las Vegas (or several other cities across our nation), I was living in a Siegel Suites in the desert. The price was right (the place was furnished, all bills were included), but I wasn't in the best of neighborhoods. I was watching t.v. here a few nights ago, and when I heard a siren, I soon realized that it was part of the t.v. show. In Las Vegas, the siren was ALWAYS outside, about 100% of the time (you know, that 'always' that is like 99.9999972% of the time). I miss my three-minute, door-to-door walk to McDonald's, but that's also probably another positive of living here... :D As I glance over to the t.v., one negative of living in the Central Time Zone and waking up early is that I can't watch very many Pac-12 (late) college football games. The Pac-12 is like the Big 12 in that teams habitually go up and down the field and score for days, but it's getting hard for this old man to operate on 5-6 hours of sleep. I would love to get into better shape and have more energy, but I am already thinking about eating a big plate of spaghetti after I publish this post... ;) Currently UCLA 10 Colorado 7, if you're wondering...
Like I said, I feel like I'm within inches of being adjusted to this cross-country move, having caught up on missed sleep and gotten my sleep right with my new schedule, adjusted to my new casino, and also to my new living environment, mastered the art of the run-on sentence, and I think that I'll be able to get some positive things done in my life soon, which includes writing more for y'all.
I'm going to end right here, with the hope that I'll see you again on Tuesday or Wednesday. Those have been my days off, and I'm almost to the point where I feel confident that I'll be able to carve some time out for you on one of those days (or I may see you four months from now)... ;) Have a great weekend and I'll see you soon!
