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PAST ENTRIES
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Baby Luke
Bowling with the Blacks
Curious Kids
A New Addition
Our New Home
Long Week
You Be the Judge
A Great Loss
Happy New Year
Baby Luke, We finally got a couple pictures of our newest nephew to post here for all you family members who haven't seen him yet. So, without further adieu, here is Baby Luke:
Luke was born on January 21 at 9:26 a.m. with Auntie Kelly in attendance. That's Kelly's hand in the photo above (check out that rock!). He came home with my sister Lynn this past Tuesday. Here is Baby Luke with his big sister Maddy:
That's it for now. I just wanted to officially welcome Luke to the World of Blogging. I'm sure he'll be making many posts for years to come! Stay tuned... Posted at 10:32 p.m. Bowling with the Blacks, STILL THE FAMILY CHAMPION
Kelly Bastian Yes, look at that form! I must say that I am NOT worthy. I try and I try and I try and I STILL manage to lose to my loving wife. Her hop-and-a-skip style somehow gives her pinpoint accuracy on the lanes. Well, enough "accuracy" to beat her husband, who isn't about to be joining up with the PBA anytime soon. You would think after taking a bowling class at Michigan State and writing numerous bowling stories for the Lansing State Journal and the Herald-Palladium I would've picked up some skill by now. Nope! I still stink and today my first game was poor as ever. We went bowling with my sister Melissa, her husband Keith, our niece Tricia and our nephew Parker. Here were the scores for today's two games: KELLEY'S LANES - ST. JOSEPH, MICHIGAN GAME 1 Kids with bumpers: GAME 2 Kids with bumpers:
It's easy to see my amazing talents with a bowling ball. Just check out this step-by-step action shot of me firing my Green Bullet down the lane to send the pins exploding in all directions. In my second game, I had strikes in my first two frames (so did Kelly, but that's besides the point). Then I fizzled before finished with a SPARE-STRIKE-NINE in the ninth and tenth frames to pass Kelly for the win. Since we moved to St. Joseph, Kelly has a 5-3 career record against me. The fitness center by our new condo in Toronto is going to have a bowling alley in it. You can bet I'm going to perfect my skills and take over as the family bowling champion again. Before we go again, I'm going to watch The Big Lebowski for some inspiration, too. It's bee a while since I've seen that flick.
Look at the force in my backswing. Watch out pins! (Did I mention I lost?)
Here is Keith showing off his bowling magic. He edged me out in Game 1, but he was no macth for my dominating performance in round 2. He says his problem was A. He didn't bring his own personal bowling shoes, and B. He didn't have a cool nickname on the screen like the rest of us. It was Meepa, Uncle J., K-Dawg and ... Keith. Sorry Keefer.
Here is Melissa strutting her stuff. She said she had no excuses and at one point even proclaimed, "I will make no excuses like the men. That was just a bad throw." She then went on to ask me for a favor: "Make sure to point out on your blog that the kids had bumpers. I don't want anyone thinking Trish and Park actually beat me."
Here is Parker chucking away. After a disheartening one-point loss to his older sister in Game 1, his arms tired out and he struggled through Game 2. He did perfect the art of the longest rolls ever, though. There were a few points when we all actually thought the ball was going to stop rolling before it reached the pins. I was told I had to fetch it if that happened. It didn't. He also was winning fans throughout the bowling alley -- there were like four people there other than us -- with his celebration dances. He'd squeal, collapse to the floor, wave his arms to try and direct the ball, jump up and down when the pins fell, spin in circles, and made Ninja karate chops while running back to his seat to celebrate. It was quite a show.
You'll notice this picture of Tricia is from the other side -- she is a lefty. Towards the end, though, she switched to rolling the ball from the right side and found some success that way, too. She schooled her little bro two games in a row, which could be a sign of a future bowling star in the making. Watch out Auntie Kelly! Tricia isn't far behind. Posted at 9:31 p.m. Curious Kids, We are moving to Toronto next weekend. It's coming faster than we can prepare for. Since we're going to be leaving so soon we asked my sister Melissa if she and her family wanted to come visit us this weekend in St. Joseph. That way we could see our niece Tricia and nephew Parker before we took off for another country. Melissa and Keith came up on Friday night and stayed in a hotel just down the street from our apartment. We went to the hotel and visited with them a bit before deciding to call it a night. Besides, we had a busy day planned for today (Saturday). The first thing on the agenda for the kids was swimming at the hotel. Kell and I didn't want any part of that in the early morning hours, so we waited until the second thing on the agenda to meet up with them. When my other sister, Lynn, came up here with all of her rugrats, we visited the Curious Kids Museum. The problem was that we walked in with only like 20 minutes until they closed. It was such a cool little place that we regretted we couldn't spend more time there. Trish and Park are a little older than Lynn's kids, so we wanted to take them there -- knowing that their attention span was more up to par with the type of science-based exhibits they had at this place. That's where we went first today.
Here is Melissa, Kelly and Parker outside the museum. Take a closer look, though:
Nice face Kelly!
One of the rooms on the first floor is all about dinosaurs. That's where Kelly had this interesting run-in with a T-Rex! Tricia had a blast feeding the dinosaurs. You could shove little stuffed animals into the mouth of the T-Rex and fake plant leaves into the mouth of the plant-eater (Brontosaurus?). The food would fall down a ramp and come out on the floor for the kids to repeat the process. Tricia, who says she wants to be a dinosaur paleontologist when she grows up (she's been saying that since about age 3) was messing with the plant-eater, though. "Can we go back in there? I want to feed meat to the herbivore!" Nice going Trish. I stuck to the rules, but the T-Rex was getting a bit out of hand:
Just look at how he is chewing into this poor smaller, weaker dinosaur. Once he started to really get into his dinner, it was getting too gross for me. It was time to move on to the basement, where the Museum was having career day. Various people from different fields were in attendance to tell kids about their jobs.
Here is the Naturalist and his pet python. This guy said he has five or six pythons that he keeps in steel-barred cages in his home. He had this snake in a little plastic tub. I have no idea how he squeezed him in there.
Here is Keith (front, right) and some other kids holding the python with Kelly (black sweater), Tricia (on Kelly's right), Parker (on Kelly's left) and the Naturalist (far left). Keith made fun of me for not taking part in this activity. Hey, someone has to take the picture! After we were done seeing the snake, we headed to the second floor to see all the science and health exhibits. There was one platform where the kids could stand and have a gigantic bubble pulled around their body! Here is Parker giving it a try with another boy pulling the rope to assist:
Tricia hopped up there next while Melissa pulled the rope to trap her in the bubble:
The it was Uncle Jordan's turn:
It turns out I was a little too big for this activity. The bubble never stood a chance.
In between creating electrity on a bicycle, making our names in brail and sign-language stamps, putting our shadows on a wall with a flashbulb, looking at holograms, building bridges with blocks, testing our reflexes, playing music with a sandal and some pipes, shooting plastic bottles using air pressure and a whole lot of other things, Kelly found time to play dress-up with a firefighter's outfit. My favorite part was she still had on her purse. You know, just in case she had to go shopping on the way to put out the fire. There was one cool exhibit where the kids had to ride in a wheelchair to see what it's like to not have the use of your legs. There is a ramp to go up, a cobblestone road to cross and a basketball hoop for the kids to shoot hoops with -- all while in the wheelchair. Here is Tricia navigating the ramp. Look at her go!
After all of our curiosity had been quenched, we hit the road to go find some lunch. We went to the Pump House Grill in downtown St. Joseph. It was pretty good. Then we went to a shops around town before heading to go bowling. See the post above. Here is me giving Trish a piggy-back ride while walking downtown:
One of the shops we stopped at was a small toy store. Inside, Auntie Kelly and Tricia thought it would be really funny to get Uncle Jordan with a bunch of Chinese Fingertraps! Yeah, thanks a lot! It took me forever to work my way out of that one! Luckily, I got my hands free before we made it to the bowling alley.
After bowling, we all headed back to the downtown area to get some Kilwin's ice cream. Here is Tricia and Kelly enjoying their cones:
I'll spare you the pictures of this next story. Parker had been battling a loose tooth all day and it was in Kilwin's when Auntie Kelly decided to take control of the situation. She reached in Parker's mouth, with his permission of course, and wiggled the tooth until it popped free! It was quite a sight. Melissa asked me if she could be the one posting the pictures on her blog. If you want to see them, the photos of this incredible event should be up on mommymeepa.blogspot.com sometime soon. Kelly's parents also came up today, but only for a minute. Kell's dad got my car started and they drove it back to Illinois, where they're going to try and sell it for us. Anyone want a '96 Cubbie Blue Chevy Cavalier? Let me know if you do! They are coming back again tomorrow to help us pack up a little bit and to spend some time with us before we leave. I'm also planning on taking them to an awesome Mexican restaurant in town, too. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I can't wait. We're going to go home on Friday and go out to dinner with them before doing the finishing packing on Friday/Saturday before we move. Anyways, that's all for now -- and that was a lot! I'll be posting more this week. Stay tuned... Posted at 10:20 p.m. A New Addition, Kelly and I spent this past weekend back in the Chicago area. My sister Lynn asked if we would help watch her pack of rugrats while she was at the hospital bringing our newest nephew, Luke, into the world. So I spent most of Saturday with her kids Maddy, Andy and Ben (twins) and Helena at my sis's house and Kelly accompanied Lynn to the hospital. Kelly did help me out later as I was getting a bit overwhelmed tending to all the munchkins alone. Kelly thought it would be a fun idea to have the kids all help decorate a birthday cake for Luke. We don't have any pictures of the new baby to share yet, but we did snap some shot of the other kids preparing his welcome-home cake.
Kelly baked the cake ahead of time and thought it'd be easier for the kids to help with the toppings. Here is Andy showing his bottle of sprinkles. Believe me, not one sprinkle was forgotten. Each one was accounted for in the end -- whether by landing on the cake, all over the table, strewn across the floor and I'm willing to bet some ended up in the kids pockets.
Here's a birds-eye view of the kids starting to work on the cake. That's Ben hamming it up on the left, Maddy in the middle and Kelly pouring even more sprinkles into Andy's hand on the left. Laney (Helena) was a tad crabby and decided she wanted to take a nap in her mom's bed. She woke up just in time to get a piece of cake when we were done, though.
After the frosting was applied and the sprinkles were, well, sprinkled, Auntie Kelly did the honors by writing "We (heart) Luke" on top of the cake. CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW: To see a short video of the kids singing Happy Birthday and trying to blow out the candles. It's about one minute in length, so it might take some time to download.
Other Updates: Not a whole lot else has been going on. The reality of moving is starting to sink in. We're in the process of trying to figure out all the logistics of the move and the level of stress has been increasing with each passing day. It's about time to start packing up the apartment and I think that's when it's really going to hit us that we're leaving Michigan. Kelly's parents are planning on coming up here this weekend to help us pack and to try to get my Chevy Crapalier running again. The blue bomber has been sitting dorment in the parking lot for more than a month now. Good thing I work at home. Work is going well. I've been keeping with the weekly assignments and gearing up for Spring Training. I've never been to Florida, so I'm looking forward to heading down to Dunedin. Kelly is planning on spending some time down there, too. I also made my first "radio" appearance tonight. It was on MLBRadio on MLB.com, so it's not like I was on a radio station or anything. You can listen to the interview by visiting the MLB Radio archives: CLICK HERE. From there, look in the "Under the Lights" section for Jan. 24 and you will see my name there. It's roughly 12 minutes long. I guess that's all the real updates I have. I can't think of anything else on the top of my head anyways. I'll be blogging more as the move process starts picking up. Stay tuned... Posted at 1:32 a.m. Our New Home, Mission accomplished. Kelly and I left for Toronto after she got off work on Friday, drove through rain for seven hours, went apartment hunting on Saturday, and signed a lease on Sunday before heading back to Michigan. A pair of no-shows at our viewing appointments on Saturday turned out to be a blessing in disguise. This is the building we'll be living in:
It is one of five buildings that share the same property. We had arranged a 10 a.m. appointment in one of the buildings, but the man renting it didn't show up. So we went back to the hotel and killed time until our next viewing at noon. We got a call that the 10 a.m. guy thought we were supposed to meet at 11 and we rescheduled for 2 p.m. I AM going somewhere with this I swear. We took a taxi to the noon viewing, which was about a 15 minute walk west of our hotel (we found that out because we walked back). The lady who was supposed to meet us at noon never showed up. We waited for a half hour before calling back the other guy and planning to meet him an hour earlier at 1 p.m. OK, that's all WAY boring and I'm sure some of you skipped to this paragraph. The moral of that whole build-up is it turns out that we were fortunate to meet up with this guy -- even though our first impression of him wasn't that great after he failed to show. He ended up being a really nice guy and after he could tell his place wasn't really for us, he let us see two other condos that his sister was renting out. We ended up settling on the last one we looked at -- a one-bedroom with a den. The great thing about these condos is they are brand spanking new. The halls aren't completely finished yet, the landscaping is still underway, other towers are still under contruction and the 30,000-foot fitness club hasn't opened yet. That last bit was one of the main selling points for us. The club will include a basketball court, bowling alley, indoor pool, indoor track, workout equipment, squash courts, tennis courts, a small movie theater, and way more stuff I can't even think of right now. And it's all free for us because we live in the complex. All-in-all, we looked at four different units in this complex and we were able to have the price lowered on the one we signed on to the same asking price of one we looked at that was much smaller. Kelly and I are very thrilled. If you would like to see or read more about the complex you can click here to visit the Concord CityPlace Web site. The link there is to the Harbourview towers, which are two of the five buildings. If you look through that site you can get a general feel for the awesome place we just moved in to. We will be renting from a woman who owns the condo. I haven't even mentioned the best part. From the above photo you can't tell where the building is located. Well, our new home is located across the street from my new office -- literally.
That's the Rogers Centre, the home of the Toronto Blue Jays, who I'll be covering for www.bluejays.com -- an extension of MLB.com and MLB Online Services, Inc. Our condo is located in the group of towers you see behind the stadium.
From our living room window, we have a nice view of downtown Toronto and of the Rogers Centre. I told Kelly that the one downside of this place was that I didn't think I'd be able to stand the daily commute. You know, having to take the elevator and then walking across the street. Talk about brutal. Or, talk about the money we'll be saving because I won't have to take the subway, bus or streetcar to work each day. Kell and I are also thinking about leaving both our cars behind if she can find a job relatively close to our new place. That saves on gas money, insurance money and parking. Let's get to showing you the inside of our condo. Now, there still were some things left over from the guy who is currently living there, but in the process of moving out. So just ignore the stuff laying on the floor or counters.
Here I'm standing in the hallway by the door. This is the living room and you can see part of the granite countertop in the kitchen at the bottom there. The countertop creates an illusion of this room being smaller in the photo. The living room is actually pretty big and will comfortably fit all of the things we have now and fit our kitchen table. To my right, is the small den/study area:
Here is the den/study, whatever you want to call it. It isn't a huge space, but it will fit a desk, a book shelf and other storage stuff. The bedroom isn't huge, but having this small area makes up for the lack of living space in the bedroom. We'll turn this into our office area most likely. That'll be easy seeing as we have wireless and all the buildings have a wireless network built in that they claim is the fasted in Canada. We'll see.
Here is the kitchen. All the appliances are brand new -- like the buildings. On of the other units we looked at had stainless steel, but the white doesn't bother us a bit. The building we'll be moving in to was only completed five months or go or so. There is a cool shelf/cabinet piece hanging from the wall/ceiling that you can see above the counter, too. And we love that the kitchen is open to the living room as well.
Here is the bathroom.
Here is as much of the bedroom as I could fit in the photo. There is a nice large closet in here and through the window you can see the balcony. The balcony is small, but in the summer time it will be great for bringing out a folding chair and doing some reading. We did a lot of that when we lived in Toronto this past summer. The door to the balcony is in the living room, on the left wall by the windows if you're looking at the living room from the doorway (as in the photo of that room above).
Here is the door to the balcony. The rent is a little steep compared to what Kelly and I have been used to paying for places, but that's normal for living in a big city. And living right near the lake and right near the baseball stadium in a brand new complex. The cost of the condo is OK with us, though, when we consider what we're not paying for by moving there. All utilities are included, we don't have to pay for having two cars, there is a washer/dryer in the condo so we don't have that monthly cost, my company helps out with other personal expenses, I don't have to pay for public transportation and there are other things that we're cutting out too by making this move. I just can't think of them all right now. So we allowed ourselves to look a bit higher in price range due to the money we'd be saving in other areas. It all balances out. About our actualy time in Toronto, well, it was COLD. As I said earlier, we drove through the night and through the rain. I swear the rain cloud was hovering above us the whole drive up there. And then when we woke up the next day it was freeeeezing out. Here is Kelly on one of our walks around downtown. I was calling her the pink ninja!
We stayed at the Radisson right on the lake and Kelly and I had a good laugh when we looked out our room's window. If any of you remember reading my blog this past summer you'd remember how much I wrote about wanting to go up the CN Tower. We waited until Kell's family came up to visit before we went to the top and that was after we had lived there for a while. The tower is right next to the stadium and so it bugged me that I had to wait to go up until they went with us. I mean, we had a blast when we did, but ever since I was a kid I have been obsessed with tall buildings and structures. So when we opened the curtains of our hotel room, Kelly was like, "Yeah, you WOULD pick this place." She had to hear the bulk of my sarcastic whining all summer about getting to go in the CN Tower.
Here was the view out our room window at the Radisson.
This was the view to the left out our window. As it turns out, You could see our future home from our sixth-floor view. The shorter tower on the right is where our condo is. In the parking lot there, if you look closely at the front row of cars on the right, you can see the huge van -- my sister Lynn's van -- that we borrowed for our trip. We like to refer to the beast as "Big Bertha."
Here is a zoomed in look at the monster. Funny story about driving this van. We got to the Radisson at around 1:30-2 a.m. or so and I had to find a place to park. The hotel had an underground parking garage! Sweet! Well, as you might have guess by the van being in an outside parking lot, that didn't exactly work. I turned into the ramp heading down into the garage and there was a height limit sign that we drove under with ease. It turns out that the actual height of the celing of the garage was a bit lower than that warning sign. I had the van at the bottom of the entrance ramp, which had a sharply curved entrance by the way, and was about to be wedged between the ground and the ceiling when I hit the brakes with Kelly freaking out. Five more feet forward and we'd be jammed in pretty good. But backwards was the steep ramp with a tight turn in at the top. I had to reverse to the top -- keeping my left foot on the brake and right on the gas because of the harsh upward angle of the ramp -- and I couldn't see out the back window because it's a super long van and it was a dark ramp/tunnel. I had to use the side mirrors for navigation and it took about four different pull forward/turn the wheel right/reverse/pull forward/turn wheel farther right/reverse moves before I finally managed to squeeze the beat out of the tunnel. The funny part was there were people from the hotel -- cutomers, not employees -- standing at the top of the tunnel trying to tell me what to do. There were useless, though, and only causing more stress. The moral of the story is that the van is gigantic and I'm never attempting to park it in a garage ever again. Next time I'll let Kelly drive it. So I'm going to yell at my sis for her van being too big and for her not having registration in the van, which almost got us rejected at the Canadian border. But thanks for letting us use it while my car is busted!!! On a final note, I just wanted to add that: "You know you're in Canada when..."
"...you see a sign for 'Wayne Gretzky Parkway.'" We had a blast this weekend and tomorrow (Monday) Kelly gets to tell her work the bad news. It's bad news that she's moving because she really does like her job and is upset she can't take her office to Toronto with her. Kell will be giving two weeks notice, but can realistically work three more weeks if they want her to. We'll be moving to Toronto after Feb. 1-- probably the weekend right after that date or the following week. When we do move, Kelly and I will be sending out messaged with our new address and everything. I know this post was long, but it was an exciting weekend and there was a lot to share with you. Keep praying for us as we continue with this new journey! Stay tuned for more... NOTE: Kelly and I also went and saw Steven Spielberg's new film "Munich" and it was really good. It is pretty graphic for those of you that can't handle violence, but the acting, action, suspense was all very well done. I recommend it to everyone. As far as the Israel/Palestinian conflict goes, I think the movie does a very good job at not placing blame on either side and the film's message is applicable to more than just that one particular struggle. I'd give it four stars on my four-star scale. Posted 12:23 a.m. A Long Week , I'm betting you could tell it's been a rough week for us by the lack of posts. But Kelly and I are back in Michigan and getting ever closer to our trek to Toronto. In fact, we are driving to 'ronto this weekend to look at potential apartments. We lined up five appointments for Saturday. We'll be going up there Friday evening and coming back here Sunday. The plan is to sign on one of the five places so we can have a done deal. And if after a year we aren't happy, we won't renew our lease and we'll go somewhere else. Some of the places are VERY close to the Rogers Centre, where I'll be working half of the time and most of them include a nice fitness center -- so we can work off our winter pounds! As far as last week goes, we were in Chicago with Kell's family for most of the week. I slept on the couch, Kelly in her room and there were relatives trying to sleep elsewhere while I kept them up with a terrible cough. I was coughing all week -- after losing my voice on New Years -- but now the voice is back and I feel better. I think I just needed a good night's sleep in my own bed. The wake/funeral for Kell's grandpa went very well. There were the obvious sad moments, but it was great to get the family together. We all had a tremendous time. We went bowling, watched sports (when I was holding the remote) and just had a great time sitting around telling stories and laughing. One night, we all decided to go out to Harry's -- a small bar in Thornton. We brought 18 people, which meant Harry's was hopping! Here are some pics:
Here is Kelly and I after a few rounds of cards and brews
Here is Kelly and her cousin Dan from Arizona. A bunch of people were playing darts while
Here is Kell's older brother Kevin.
Here is Kell's younger bro Kyle and his girlfriend, Stephanie.
Here is Kell's parents -- Ma and Dad (or Kevin and Joan for you non-kids out there).
Here is the rest of the fam: We we there for quite a while -- having a good time -- when I got a call around 11 p.m. that Toronto had just traded thirdbaseman Corey Koskie to Milwaukee for a pitching prospect. Kell's mom had to give me a ride home and then I had to write up the story about the deal. That was my first lesson in always being on call when news comes up! Luckily, I had only had a couple beers over a few hours -- so I was OK to write. Yesterday was the first time that I spoke with Toronto's GM one-on-one. The lovely Toronto PR staff arranged for him to call me and we had a good five minute chat. I interviewed him in group situations while an intern in Toronto, but never spoke to him one-on-one. I'm looking forward to introducing myself to him when I get to Florida in February. If you would like to see a story I wrote based on our phone interview, click HERE. It wasn't exactly breaking news or anything, but it was a fun one to write. I finally got something on the Hot Stove page. Speaking of Florida, I have my flight and my condo all lined up. I'm roomin' with the Phillies writer in a two-bedroom condo at the Clearwater Cay Club. I have to be down there on Feb. 15-April 2 and Kelly will be coming for part of March. It'll be my first time in Florida, which is kind of cool. A lot of my trips this year will be my first time going there so it's going to be an exciting year for me. A side note from this past week: We got all three of our family's shihtzu's together in the same room again. Sammy (Kell's fam's dog), Barkley (our dog) and Cocoa (Stephanie's dog). Cocoa is still a bit young, he hasn't had a certain surgery yet, and so Sam and Bark spent most of their time running from him. Cocoa actually got to Barkley once and Barkley started growling like I've never heard before. I'd be growling, too! Here are the three troublemakers:
Barkley Bastian, Cocoa Boros, and Sammy Sutton Well, that's it for now -- and that was a lot! But I'll keep you all updated on the apartment hunt and the move to Toronto. We're weeding through all the little logistical stuff right now while trying to keep up with our jobs! Fun stuff. Stay tuned for more... Posted at 2:50 p.m. You Be the Judge, OK, my dad sent me this card and I wanna get some feedback. Just read the front and use your own interpretation to figure out what it is trying to say:
To me, it looks like it's telling me that I am in a crappy field. It says, "You're outstanding in your field," obviously referring to my getting the new job. But the cow is out standing in a pile of poop. What was my dad trying to tell me? All these years I thought he was proud of all I've accomplished and then I get this card. Now it is clear that he thinks I'm an embaressment to the family. I picked a crappy field to work in. And how does he view me? Like a fat cow? Thanks for the self-esteem boost dad. You owe me a big fat apology for this one. And not a crappy one either. Let me know what you think. E-Mail comments to jordan@jordanbastian.com. Posted at 9:33 a.m. A Great Loss, When my sister Melissa was 9 years old, she received word that her mom had given birth to a baby boy the morning of September 21, 1982. His name was Gordon. Melissa went the entire day at school, not entirely loving the name, but coming to terms with the fact that her mom and dad had decided that was who her new lil' bro was. Gordon. Gordon Bastian. Melissa got home from school that day and that was when she learned his name wasn't "Gordon." It was Jordan! I was Jordan for the next 16 years. Then I met Kelly. Her grandpa, referred to as "Pops" by the family, learned his "sweet little girl" Kelly had a new boyfriend. Pops was pleased to meet this young man. The young man named Gordon. No matter how many times Kelly corrected Pops, he called me Gordon for about a year. I always answered to the name and never had the heart to correct him myself. I swear the man was calling me Gordon even after he knew my true name -- his way of keeping the joke alive. Hershel Henson was one of the sweetest men you'll ever meet. He had nothing but love to give and a sense of humor that lasted until the very end. We were all very sad to learn that Pops passed away yesterday at age 79. It is a true loss to our family and we will all miss him dearly. My Grandpa Bastian passed away on Jan. 4, 1990 at age 80, when I was just 8 years old. He was my last grampa left. My mom went to the Lord on Christmas in 1996. I can't believe it's been 16 years since Gramps passed and nearly a decade since I lost my mom. But almost seven years ago I started dating Kelly and was welcomg into the Sutton family. As much as Kell's ma and dad became mine, too, Pops was like the Grampa I had been missing all this time. My only strong memories of my Grampa Bastian are of sitting in his house in Gary, Ind., and watching the Cubs. My favorite memories of Pops are of talking about the White Sox and Bears. Pops was one of the biggest Sox fans I ever met and it was sure a blast to share this last baseball season with him. He saved every Chicago Tribune sports section for me during the playoffs because he knew how much I loved baseball. When the Series was over, I had a huge stack of newspapers and nowhere to put them. I spent time cutting out parts of articles, photos and headlines so I could put a White Sox playoff scrapbook together. One of the main reason I did that project was to share it with Pops when I was done. I loved going over to his house and seeing him study each page and hear his personal recap of each game he watched. While going through the newspapers, one of the sports sections had some numbers writtern on it. I looked a bit closer and figured out that the figures were from Pops calculating how many runs the White Sox had outscored their opponents by. I remember sitting in the kitchen at Kell's house and him telling me that statistic. When I saw the addition scribbled on the newspaper, I couldn't help but wonder if Pops was figuring it out just so he could see if I had heard about that stat or not. He let me store some of my belongings in his garage while I was away at college and when Kell and I were moving here to St. Joe, I went to Pops house to go through my things and find some stuff I needed to take with me. I was missing some of the playoff games while going through my things. Pops went into his house, got an old radio, and brought it out to the garage so that I could listen in on his White Sox. Kelly and her brothers had the unique fortune of living just down the street from Pops and their grandma. Not a lot of people have that and the close proximity made for an extremely close bond between the grandkids and their Pops. Losing him is very sad and a lot of people will take it very hard. He was loved by everyone around him and didn't have a mean bone in his body. Kelly spent a lot of time going to the hospital these last few weeks to spend with him after he had a heart attack. While seeing him go does hurt, it is good to know that he isn't suffering any more. If you would like to send a message to Kelly, feel free to e-mail her at Ferrisbulldawg@aol.com. She has been taking this pretty hard, like everyone, and I'm sure it would mean a lot to her to hear from you. I'm home in St. Joe right now so I can work on some stuff for work. Kelly is coming up here later today and then we may be driving back to Chicago tonight or tomorrow. Thank you to those of you who have been praying for Kell's grampa while he's been in the hospital. He lived a great life and held strong through the holidays, which was a blessing. Keep Kell's family in your prayers as everyone copes with this new adjustment.
Kelly and her grandpa. We'll miss you Pops. Posted at 2:10 p.m. Happy New Year, Goodbye 2005. Hello 2006! Hopefully this coming year is just as great as the last one. I can't believe how many great things happened for Kelly and I in '05 and we know that -- with this new opportunity with MLB.com in Toronto -- the next 12 months are sure to have plenty of fun adventures in store. We went home this past weekend and had plans to celebrate the New Year with some college friends. During my last year at MSU, I lived with a good friend named Justin. He works for IBM just outside New York City now. We met up with him, his girlfriend Kelly, her sister Jill, their friend Dan and Justin's friend Raghu, who I knew in college, too. We decided to head down by Moody Church, where Kell and I got married and where my dad was a pastor when I was a kid, and we went to this Thai restaurant called Flat Top. If any of you have been to Mongolian Barbecue, it is kind of the same principal -- just 100 times better. You make your own stir fry -- rice, noodles, veggies, fruits, spices, sauces and whatever meat you want -- and they cook it on this huge, you guessed it, flat top grill.
Here we all are at our table. FROM LEFT: Kelly #1, Dan, Kelly #2, Jill, Justin, Raghu and me. After dinner -- I'm still stuffed three days later -- we headed to this apartment downtown. One of Dan's friends has the place, but she wasn't there this weekend. We all just hung out and talked, had a few brews and some wine, while waiting to find a nice watering hole to ring in the new year.
Here is Justin telling a fascinating story, while Raghu takes it all in. The glasses "Gu" has on were passed around all night and left glitter on everyone's face. The best was when we told Gu that he looked cool with them on. He busted up laughing and said, "I just winked. I just winked with sunglasses on." You probably had to be there, but it was quite funny.
Here is Justin sporting the shades, too.
To kill some time, we started telling some brain teasers. Here is Dan giving us all a riddle to ponder and Kelly #2 concentrating very hard to try and solve it. Can you figure it out: Fred was found dead, lying in a pool of water and surrounded by broken glass. At around 9 p.m. we decided to catch a taxi and head to the Lincoln Park area, where Raghu lives. He is a day trader in Chicago. Here's another riddle. How do seven people use one cab to get to a destination? Very tightly. We squeezed six of us in the backseat of this taxi, while Justin got to sit in the front seat all stretched out. I was one of the people on the bottom in the back seat and I've had trouble breathing ever since! Well, I'm kind of sick, too. Maybe that explains it. Anyways, some of the bars we found we asking for $90 to get in the door! We finally found a place, Halligans I think, that let us in for $20. Not too bad. It stunk, though, because I had lost by voice and the place was really loud. Whenever anyone asked me something, I had to motion for Kelly to speak for me. Good thing she's my wife and knows all my stories word for word!
Here is Justin and My Kelly at the bar.
We tried to get the girl bartender that Raghu thought was cute to give him a New Years kiss when the clock struck midnight, but she politely declined. So, Kelly felt bad and made Raghu's night. In the background is Kelly #2 on the left, her sis on the right, and Justin looking like a crazy person in the middle. Well, I hope everyone had a great New Year and Kelly and I wish you all the best in the upcoming year as well. I know I'm looking forward to sharing all the stories of my travels around the country in 2006. From Seattle to New York, I'll be following the Blue Jays and getting to see a lot of the stadiums this year. Plus, Kelly is planning on spending some time down in Florida when I'm at Spring Training. Two weekends from now, Kelly and I will be heading to Toronto to find an apartment. Wish us luck. We're planning on signing on a place for Feb. 1. I have to be in Dunedin, Florida by Feb. 15. Anyways, happy holidays and a happy new year to everyone! Stay tuned for more... ANSWER: Fred is a fish. His glass bowl fell and shattered. Posted at 1:31 p.m. |
