Thank You Rays

  As I watched the Philadelphia Phillies close things out in the World Series I felt sad. I was sad that my home town team didn't win the game and bring the Series back home to win it.

  That sadness was short lived. You see my Rays gave me a season that every fan will look back on with great admiration. Kind of like the '79 Bucs who turned things around after going 0-20 went to the NFC Championship. 

  The Rays to this point were looked upon as all of MLB's farm team. It was the team that aging players went to to finish careers and the team up-and-comers played for before hitting it big somewhere else.

  This season I shot more games at the Trop since then their 1998 inaugural season. I shot 15 games in St. Pete which included a great end of the season series against the Red Sox. I spent two nights covered in Champagne inside the Rays lockeroom. I shot an incredible Game 7 and saw my Rays win the Pennant.

  And finally my Rays allowed me to shoot my very first World Series.  Thank you Rays!

Introduction to Democracy

  Today Benjamin learned about what makes this country great. Today he watched Daddy vote in the 2008 Presidential Elections. In Florida we started early voting last Monday and ever since the news has talked about the record turnout at the polls.

  This morning I gave Benjamin a very brief Civics 101 course while he drank his first bottle. I told him about term lengths for our elected officials and why it was important for citizens to participate in the democratic process. He just looked at me and probably wondered why Daddy still had a piece of oatmeal stuck on his cheek.

  I told him how his mother got her undergraduate degree in political science and that she was fascinated with how the U.S. and state governments worked. I also informed him that if he ever had any questions with regards to names of certain Congressmen or Presidents in our nations history he'd better block out a couple weeks if he ever asked Uncle Ron. (It may take a while. TRUST ME!! We all speak from experience.)

  I chose to early vote at the West Oaks Library a few miles from our house. Luckily our neighbor Kelly had decided to take Bella to vote at the same time. This came in handy as it took an hour and a half to make it to a voting booth.

  Once we made it from the parking lot inside the library Benjamin wanted to run around. He couldn't stand being in my arms any longer. So off he went screaming down the stacks. (Apparently the librarians waived the whole no talking policy.)

  So here I was in our little voting booth holding Benjamin in one arm and making sure to bubble in my votes correctly (Let's not revisit the whole hanging chad portion of Florida's history.) with my other arm. He could've cared less who I was voting for in the hotly contested Orange County Soil Conservation race. In fact, he kept grabbing for the partition between us and the gentleman voting next to us.

  We turned in my ballot and got our "I Voted" stickers and headed for the door. I held great pride in showing my son one of our country's highest responsibilities. I can remember going with my mother to the Temple Terrace City Hall and watching her vote. It was a very cool feeling to now be doing it with my son... oh crap he just spit up in the library. Now what did I do with those wipes?

Monkey Business

  Last night was the unveiling of Benjamin's Halloween costume at his Gymboree Halloween Party. Cathy found a great monkey costume for our little monkey on the internet. It's so cute and he looks adorable in it.

  Growing up in Florida I can remember Halloweens were painful if you had a hot costume in which to go Trick-or-Treating. I can remember one particular Halloween going as Casper the Friendly Ghost and sweat pouring down my face underneath that plastic mask.

  So you can imagine my horror putting my son in a thick monkey outfit when it's 78 degrees. Once we got him in the car and blasted the AC he was fine. Plus they won't remember a lot of this stuff later on unless a therapist drags it out of them.

  He had a great time at the party. It was a lot like his regular Gymboree class. They had games and exercises along with a costume parade. His friends were there but I think it throw him off a bit. Benjamin could sense that this wasn't the usual. 

  For starters he must've thought, "What a minute it's not Tuesday. And second why are we here at night?" 

  He played along for most of the hour before finally running out of gas. By the time it parachute time he was ready to check out. He reached for Cathy and wanted just a bottle before falling asleep in his car seat.

  It was nice that we could use his monkey costume more than once on his first Halloween. I just can't wait to see what he'll do Friday night.

PS- Happy 8th Wedding Anniversary, Z! I Love You!!!

Doing Something Else For a Change

  It felt so good yesterday to go out and do something other than shooting a game for a change. I've been looking forward to the Florida Land Rover Club's annual Fall Rally for weeks now. Ever since I did it last year I've been telling Cathy how fun the event is and how she'd like to see what her truck could do while on a trail ride. 

  So we decided to send Benjamin off for the day with Mimi (my mom) while we drove to Lake City and went trail riding with other Rover lovers. Besides Benjamin had a very busy social calendar and I didn't have the energy to keep up with him.

  I did all the driving through the Osceola National Forrest and Cathy watched. She said she found the rally to be very relaxing. We actually had the whole day to just catch up with one another while we climbed over fallen trees, ran up dirt hills and forded waist-deep mud waters. It's the little things that bring romance back into a marriage.

Now We're Even

  Well I have to say that I'm more pleased with the result of last night's game as opposed to how Game 1 ended. The bad part of it was that I spent more time in the workroom than I did out shooting on the field. We just had more images coming in that needed to be uploaded to our editors due to the fact that there was more action during Game 2 than the previous night.

  As for my cold, I felt better than I sounded. A friend of mine told me that if the photography thing didn't work out I could go in to radio with my new, cool voice. It sounded like I had smoked three packs a day for 20 years. And yes I had my hot tea with lemon last night.

  At the end of the game I grabbed a few images of the Rays players celebrating the franchise's first World Series win and scrambled through the crowd to file the jubilation images on the wire before grabbing my two remotes.

  Finally I got something worthwhile on my remotes. A play at the plate involving Tampa Bay's Rocco Baldelli and Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz got me the above image on both my remote cameras. I like how Rocco flew up in the air and decked Ruiz hoping to pop the ball loose and score a run. Ruiz held on but it's still a nice frame.

  My feeling is that they'll come back and play a game 6 where the Rays will win it. (I'm knocking on wood right now like you wouldn't believe.) But for now I have the weekend off for a change and I'm really looking forward to not shooting baseball.

A Night of Running and Hot Tea

  Ugh!! I feel horrible this morning. I got this cold during the ALCS and have been fighting it all week. Well it won last night. I lost my voice right before the start of the World Series which made it difficult for my editors to hear my voice annotations on key images during the game.

  I got to Tropicana Field around 3 pm yesterday and set up my remotes. Once those were locked into place I decided to go find some hot tea in the Press box upstairs. I think I squeezed a whole lemon into that cup but boy did it help. I couldn't talk but it helped sooth my throat.

  During the World Series I drew that up position which meant I was responsible for running back to the photographers' workroom throughout the game to dump cards to our editors in San Francisco and Boston. So after the first inning I began my game-long relationship with the Trop's stairwell. Once back in the workroom I dumped my card and three others from my two shooting mates. Ran over to AP to grab the "pool" card of the pitchers, dumped them and ran back up to the Whitney Bank Suite.

  Stayed there during the third inning to run back to dump more cards. This continued about three more times during Game 1. I will say that the seared ahi tuna was exceptionally good last night.

  By the end of the game I was drained. I forgot how many images I dumped to the editors but for just three shooters I think we held our own against AP, Reuters and Getty who always overstaff these events.

  After packing up our gear Rhona, Matt and I headed to the post game party inside the Batter's Eye Box which is a restaurant in centerfield that gives patrons a great view of the game. We talked about the game over drinks and what the shooting situations were like. I grabbed my commemorative shirt and headed to my car to drive back to my hotel room.

  And now I get to do it all over again. Game 2 here we go!

Ready to Go

  While I'm fighting this cold I picked up during the ALCS (I think it was from the night Cathy had the AC cranked at the hotel after Game 6.) I'm packed and ready to go. I spent this morning thinking about how I wanted to shoot my first World Series and where I wanted my remotes. Last night our staffer in charge of baseball sent out the shooting assignments and I drew the up position which is good and bad. The good is that I like being the up shooter and have a little flexibility to move around during the game. The bad news that I'm responsible for dumping all the card the three of us shoot. 

  I'll try and explain what I'll be doing during the next two nights. We have three photographers, including myself, that'll be covering the games in St. Pete. After the first inning I'll head back to the workroom under the stands to download the compact flash cards to my laptop and then drop them in a FTP folder to our editor in LA. (For those unsure what a FTP folder is it's where I connect to a remote computer and drop and drag the pictures from my laptop to the remote computer.)

  After doing that I have to obtain the "pool" images of the starting pitchers. Usually one of the wire photographers is allowed behind home plate during the first inning to get straight on shots of each team's starting pitcher and then make them available to everyone. (Look for it tonight in the first if you're watching the game.) After transmitting those images I'll have to check to see if the our photogs sent any more cards back and move those. 

  Then if there's time I'll go back to my position and shoot for another inning only to return to the workroom and continue making the donuts (and by that I don't mean Dunkin' Donuts I mean taking disks and dumping them to the editor.).

  Around the 8th inning I'll head back out to the up position and finish shooting the game. Then all three of us will return to the workroom and move a few images each from the end of the game.

  I plan to stretch before the game so I don't pull anything. I'm very anxious about shooting my first World Series. I shot my first National Championship a few years ago down at the Orange Bowl when USC won the BCS but this is a pro championship. A little different but in the end it's still just a baseball game.  Go Rays!!