Today, I taught my business English students about baseball, which is no easy feat when you only have an hour and a half to cover everything from 1846 in Hoboken, New Jersey to the Atlanta Braves stumbling out of the gates like fools in 2012. I covered as much as I could, but I clearly could see they were a little confused when I asked if they had any questions when I was finished.

To me, baseball makes perfect sense, but I’m a second generation (Atlanta Braves) baseball fan, and the knowledge and know-how comes rather natural to me. Teaching a sport to a nation versed mainly in basketball(thank you, Yao Ming) and soccer(football – thank you FIFA) is kinda like teaching a young child how to tie his shoe. You understand the motions and the outcome and why it happened the way it did, but the description of how it all happens turns the pretty bow into a jumbled disaster of ugly knots . . . if you are even that lucky.

Hopefully, I taught them more than I confused them, but god only knows. Their brains are probably knotted spaghetti strings.

Next week, I am going to teach them “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, which is always fun. Maybe I will record them and post it for you guys to enjoy! Also, I downloaded the “Who’s on First” skit by Abbott and Costello. I hope that they will understand the humor. I’ve printed out the script to help them understand what is being said because let’s be honest, it can be confusing, especially to ESL learners. And finally, I have nine clips of “Field of Dreams” for them to watch. I love that movie!!

If they can describe in a nutshell what baseball is and tell me sorta how it is played by the end of next Wednesday, I’ll be a happy teacher.

I start off each class with what I call “Gabe’s Random Thoughts of the Day”. These thoughts are truly random and can be spurred by the weather, a song, an expression, a sport, a random news article or even by one of the random thoughts I just wrote on the white board. I usually have no idea what my random thought of the day will be until I start writing it. Some of my thoughts are pretty awesome, and I really should have taken a picture of some of them, but oh well. I think my random thoughts engage the students and make them think and ask questions because usually my random thoughts are about stuff they have never heard of before.

Today’s random thought was titled, “My Baseball Bucket List” and this is how it went.

1. Attend a World Series game, more specifically an Atlanta Braves vs ??? World Series game, preferably with my father.
2. Own the Atlanta Braves(Highly unlikely, but hey, I can dream, right?)
3. Get remarried to Phil on home plate at Turner Field(Again with the dreaming)
4. Sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at a MLB game(Not as part of the crowd, but the person leading it)
5. Have a son who grows up to be the best baseball player EVER(first I need to have children)
6. Convince Phil to allow me to name a daughter Atlanta(Probably no amount of begging will make this happen)
7. Watch all 162 games(plus post season games) in person(I’ll need to win or inherit a lot of money first)
8. Own season tickets to the Atlanta Braves(probably the most likely of all to actually happen)
9. Catch a foul ball or home run(the batting practice homer that hit me in the head does not count)

I am sure there are more, but that is all I can think of right now.

Do you have a baseball bucket list?

Once upon time, Phil woke up early.  If you don’t know Phil quite like I do, know this: ‘early’ and ‘Phil’ do not usually find themselves in the same sentence.  Phil’s a vampire, at least, that is what I have concluded in the 8 years that I have known him.  He sleeps all day and starts to stir as the sun goes down.  How he has ever held a 9 to 5 job is a miracle in and of itself.  I am forever grateful that he doesn’t glitter in day light.  I can only imagine how embarrassing that would be.

So, you can imagine how startled I was to be woken up and then told not that he was bringing me breakfast in bed, but that I was to get up and get dressed because we were taking a road trip to Atlanta.  This confused me even more because it was a cold February morning, and the only thing I ever really go to Atlanta for is to watch a Braves game.  Turner Field is a ghost town in February.  All the baseball players are either taking it easy or playing winter ball somewhere warm.  If he had told me to guess what we were going to buy, I would have never guessed it in a million years.  Phil woke up with a wild craving for Chinese lamb.  Thankfully, Atlanta has its own little China town and a massive Asian grocery store, H-Mart, where you can get your random Chinese cravings.

After a quick stop at Burger King for some delicious Cini Minnies – I would kill for one right about now – we were on our way. Instead of taking the route I’ve almost always taken, Phil decided to drive up through Clemson.  It’s take a little bit longer but it’s a prettier drive. Not long after we crossed the border into Georgia, we started seeing signs for the Pendergrass Flea Market. There were just a few at first and then a few more and then then entire side of the interstate was littered with signs urging us to stop by and browse. Since we were in no big hurry, we decided to oblige the signs. I guess their advertising scheme worked.

Once there, we weren’t overly impressed. I mean, it was just a flea market after all, albeit a large one. We walked around for a little, but didn’t see anything that caught our fancy.  We were just about to leave and carry on with our Chinese lamb mission when I asked Phil if we could try and find the pet section – you know, just to look. I expected to see kittens, puppies, and birds – the flea market norm, and I did, but the first thing my eyes saw was a cute little baby Sugar Glider.

I have always liked Sugar Gliders, and ever since I was in high school I have wanted one as a pet, but I just want to state for the record that I was not the one who suggested we buy the adorable little fuzzy. No, it was not I, the lover of all things small, cute, and furry who decided it was a good idea to add a four legged creature to our family. It was Phil who looked at me and said, “Gabe, do you want it?”

Believe me, I wanted to say yes right then and there, but I was trying to be responsible. I’ve had pets before, and even though they’re cute and fun to have around, pets are a huge responsibility. I didn’t want the two of us buying on impulse. Impulse buying is bad. Impulse buying leads to regret and regret turns into neglect.

We debated it for a while. We weighed the pros and cons. We even took a walk around the flea market one more time before we made our decision. And, well, you surely know what happened or else you wouldn’t be reading this now.

Luckily, the flea market had an ATM. Impulse buyers need ATMs . . . and well, people who don’t normally carry big bills around on them for buying exotic animals.

On the way home, we tossed names back and forth trying to figure out which one fit our new little guy the best and finally decided upon the name Quantum. It was Phil’s idea. Phil liked it because it sounded cool and science-like. I liked it because it reminded me of the show Quantum Leap.  Plus, I thought it would be really cool to train him to jump on command by saying, “Quantum, leap!”  Yeah, I’m cheesy.

Oh, and we never made it to H-Mart.  Instead of Chinese lamb, we got a Sugar Glider.

At first we were afraid we had made a mistake in buying him.   Our six inch bundle of joy weighing in at 1 ounce was a bit terrifying.  His crabbing scared the crap out of me, but later it just made me laugh.  He was a quick little devil, too.  I was constantly afraid he was going to slip under something and get lost or run out the front door.  Phil and I eventually Sugar Glider proofed the house so that he was less likely to disappear.  And like most baby animals snatched away from their mom and dad, he wanted nothing to do with us for the longest time.  For awhile, I thought he was never going to bond with us.   As time passed, he learned to trust us, and eventually, he came to love us.  In the end, we were a part of his colony.  He never wanted to leave our side . . . unless of course he spied a piece of corn somewhere.  Quantum loved his corn and he loved us even more because we fed it to him.

Cute baby Quantum.

Quantum thinking about eating a grape.

“Get that camera out of my face, woman!”

I cannot express in words how much Quantum hated our tent bonding sessions.

After a lot of research, we learned that Quantum needed a pal.  A lonely Sugar Glider is a sad Sugar Glider.  We looked and looked, but could not find a female that was the appropriate age, price, and within a reasonable distance.   Yeah, you guessed it.  I wanted Sugar Glider babies.  🙂

By chance one day, I came across a Craig’s List ad that met all of our requirements.  That afternoon we had Quantum a girlfriend.  Quantum, it turned out, was a complete saint and we never ever should have complained about his odd behavior.  Countess, as she came to be called, was completely insane and hated the fact that we even breathed.  If she could have held a gun, she would have held us at gun point and demanded that we release her back into the Australian forest that she came from because that is exactly what she was – a wild animal.   Two days after we got her, Phil was threatening to sell her.  I begged for him to give her a chance.  After months of being ravaged by her tiny teeth of death and running around for hours trying to catch her to put her back in her cage, she finally came around and decided that she would tolerate us.  After the birth of her two beautiful baby boys, she calmed down a lot.  She even thought I was decent enough to babysit while her and Quantum ran around causing havoc in the living room.  When she got comfortable enough to jump on me and began allowing me to pick her up without making me look like I had been in a fight with a thorny rose bush, I knew that she finally trusted me and that maybe, just maybe she even loved me.

One night, like many nights, Countess vanished.  It was only when I heard a slight scratching sound that I was able to find her.  She loved hiding. I think she must have been a pro at Hide N’ Go Seek in a past life.

Here is Countess with one of her baby boys.

Here she is hiding in a bag full of plastic Cowboys and Indians.  It took Leigh and I an hour to find her.  Silly girl.

Like I said, Quantum and Countess had two beautiful baby boys.  After watching them grow up, I am a firm believer that genes play a large roll in who you become.  One of the boys acted and looked a lot like Quantum and the other had the same temperament as Countess.  We were reluctant to give them names at first, as we didn’t want to get to attached to them before my good friend, Jody, adopted them, but it was a bit annoying calling them Baby 1 and Baby two all the time.  So, we gave them temporary names.  The one that was lazy and sweet like Quantum was called Corn Husk, since he too loved corn like you wouldn’t believe.  And the one that complained a lot and didn’t like being handled, we called him Nick.  His right ear had a tiny piece missing.  I am not sure if he was born that way or if parents or his brother slapped him around for being a jerk.   It was probably the latter. Jody ended up renaming them Codo and Podo after the ferrets in The Beastmaster.

Codo and Podo loving on each other.

Quantum never enjoyed spending too much time with his boys.  I guess he thought that was Countess’ job.  He had no idea what to do with them when they crawled on his back.

“Piggy back, bro?”  “Nah, man, get off!”

I think baby Sugar Gliders look like baby opossums, just cuter.

One day, Phil and I decided it would be a good idea to go back to China.  Okay, it was my idea more than anything, but Phil agreed.  The worst thing about deciding to go was that we couldn’t take our babies with us.  Thankfully, we had a good friend, Leigh, who said she would watch them for us until we decided to come to our senses and come home.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans.  On April 1, 2010, Countess passed away.  She developed a uterus infection and the vets were unable to save her.  On July 25th, 2010, Quantum followed her to Sugar Glider heaven.  His death was an accident, but tragic nonetheless.

I can only imagine  Quantum’s glee when he was shown the never ending pile of corn kernels  reaching  like a spire into the sky.  He’s probably so fat now that he can’t even move.  But I’m sure he is happy that way.  Fat and happy.

And Countess . . . well, I’m sure the Sugar Glider God is having a hell of a time finding her in His great big house.  I hope he knows to look in the Cowboy and Indian bag made in China.

A few more pictures . . .

Quantum and his peanut.

Quantum the bat – eating upside down.

Quantum’s hideout.

Quantum and Countess taking a rest in a t-shirt.

Quantum and his hammock.

Quantum eating a piece of fruit in my hoody.

The last picture I ever took of the two of them.  It was the last night I saw them before I left for China.

We miss them so much.  We’ll never forget them and the ways they made us laugh.

It isn’t written in stone yet or anything, so I can’t go into detail about it,  and I have been specifically told not to get excited, but I can be completely vague by giving some strange countdown until the event in question occurs or doesn’t.  Hehe.

T-minus 13 months!

In other news, life is pretty normal.  Phil and I have been looking for houses, made a couple offers, but still haven’t found the house that truly speaks to us.  If we made more money or won the lottery, which of course we would need to play in order to win, there are plenty of houses out there that would be glad to have full fledged conversations with us.  Perhaps one of these days we will find what we’re looking for.  Did you just hear that song in your head, too?  🙂

The furbutts(Sugar Gliders) are doing fine.  Quantum is as sweet as pie and has bonded to us, but his girlfriend, Countess, is a complete whore bag.  She is always trying to bite us and run into places she isn’t supposed to go, ie the stove.  I will give her some credit though.  She has gotten a little better than when we first got her.  I’m hoping that in time that she becomes more like Quantum, but I’m not going to hold my breath or anything.

Work is work.  I’m now in the Benefits Office if I haven’t mentioned it already.  I was moved out of the Employment Office due to budget cuts and lack of work. I’m just glad I still have a job.  It is going to take some time to learn everything, but I guess that is how all new jobs are.

Our garden attempt this year has more or less failed.  We still have some plants in the spare bedroom, but I have a feeling we are never going to get around to planting them outside.  If we do, it will be too late and they will never produce anything worth eating.  Oh, well.  There is always next year.

Speaking of next year, the Braves are sorta sucking it up.  I know it isn’t even the second half of the season yet, and that anything can happen, but if they continue to play the way that they are (of course, they would blank out the NY Yankees as I write this), then I don’t expect an extended October.

Okay, well, I promised I would blog again one day, so here it is.  I’ll start looking for old videos and pictures, as well as trying to write more about my present life.  I used to have time to blog more, so I know the time exists.  I guess I just have to try harder.

I wish there were more things to take pictures of at a baseball game. The Braves have tried to make the stadium interactive, but it’s more so for the kids than anything. And don’t you dare say, “That’s what the beer is for, Gabe!” For some reason, my German blood disagrees with it.

The one thing I noticed as we sat in bumper to bumper traffic for what must have been an hour or so after the game, was how run down the area is around the stadium. I was pretty shocked. I can’t count the number of buildings I saw marked by spray paint. Several buildings were boarded up and looked like they hadn’t been occupied in many years. I know Atlanta isn’t the best city in the world, but I guess I just expected it to look more sophisticated than it did. Those few blocks looked down right slummy. This is not to say that the people living in those areas are bad people. I just wish they cared more about the appearance of their neighborhood. I’m sure it’s been like that for many years and that I’ve seen it before, but I only truly noticed it this time around because we were going so slow.

I wonder if other MLB stadiums are in similar areas? If so, I wonder why.

And now for a few pictures.

You wouldn’t know it from this picture, but I was sitting very close to the left field foul poll when I snapped this.

I was very disappointed in the firework show at Turner Field. It may partially be because of my firework experience in China, but I really felt it lacked the “WOW” factor.

As the fireworks were going off, some guy next to me told his buddy that now would be a good time to shoot someone.

I had a friend who once taped a roach to some sort of firework. He wanted to to see if it would survive the blast. I was very surprised to find the roach alive and well after the pretty show.

Looks sorta like the sky is reigning down some serious lighting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jn0PW4Cz58[/youtube]

And here is a video of the less than spectacular firework display put on at Turner Field in Atlanta, Georgia.

My trip to Atlanta was a good one. Everything went pretty much as planned.  We had good weather despite the threat of showers pretty much all weekend.  It rained once for about 20 minutes right before we went to Stone Mountain, but then the skies cleared up.  An hour later, you never would have known that it had rained. The temperatures were even reasonable for July.  Well, at least for me.  Sometimes I think 100 degrees is cold.  Yeah, I’m crazy, I know.

The only slight downside of our entire trip was the Econo Lodge we stayed at for two nights.  It wasn’t anything fancy, but I didn’t expect it to be, so I wasn’t disappointed that our room felt like a shoe box and looked 30 years old.  Yeah, I know, I’m livin’ large.  Next time though, Phil and I are going to upgrade our hotel and stay at one that is right by the stadium so we don’t have to deal with the rotten traffic after the game.  I think the extra 50 or so bucks a night that we’ll spend will be worth it.

The best thing all weekend besides watching the Braves beat the Astros was finding thinly sliced lamb at the Super H Mart.  It’s an Asian grocery store that Phil and I go to everytime we go to Atlanta.  We never thought we would ever find lamb like that in America after we left China, so you can imagine our surprise.  I think we may have done a dance of joy.  🙂  It was fairly priced, too – $5.99 a pound.  We were so excited about our find that we bought about 6 meals worth and put it in a cooler to take home with us.

Okay, and now some pictures.

Odd picture, I know, but I really like it.  I think it would look really good in black and white for some reason.

Driving 75 mph made it a bit difficult to snap this picture.  The first one I took was even worse, though.  That one had a big, stupid speed limit sign smack dab in the center of the shot.

There was nothing else to take a picture of at the rest stop, so I figured I would make use of my macro setting.

I think they call this character Homer or something like that.  I’ve never walked on stilts.  I imagine that I would fall flat on my face if I tried.  I mean, I can barely walk down the hall in my bare feet without banging into the wall or door frame.  I’m such a klutz.

Hey, check it out, Bloo is an Atlanta Braves fan! Sweet!

I must say, this is the biggest American flag I have ever seen.  I wonder how many shirts you could make out of it?

I thought this was pretty funny.  The Astros were portrayed as British soldiers.  I guess they were doing this because it was 4th of July.

And here is Chipper Jones defending his country with his bat.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2K5VftaByU[/youtube]

Here we have the Chic-fil-a cow doing the chop.  How cute.