Bastian's Blog

December 22, 2006

Goodbye 2006,

This will officially be my last entry of 2006. So, here's so long to another year. Kelly and I are heading home to Chicago today to spend Christmas and New Years with family. We won't be back in Toronto until after the new year. Kell's bro Kyle was kind enough to drive up to Toronto to pick us up so we didn't have to fork over a pile of cash on another rental car.

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. There just hasn't been a whole heckuva lot going on. Kelly and I put up our Christmas tree, have been finishing up all the shopping and we've both been busy with work. Now I'll just cross my fingers and hope the Jays don't pull any big moves over the holiday break.

Here I am by our first Canadian Christmas tree

In other news, Kelly and I have continued our crazy workout regimine. For those of you who have read previous posts, I've been dropping pounds so I can head to Spring Training in better shape. I put on some weight during the season -- it's inevitable with all those road trips -- and wanted to lose the pounds I gained. That way, if I gain a little in season two, I won't be adding on to weight I've already gained.

Long story short, I started on Oct. 4 at a little over 200 pounds and now, on Dec. 22, an weighing in at around 175. My goal is 170 -- I haven't been down that low since my first year of college in 2001. The trick is to watch your portions, don't snack when it's not necessary, cut out all fast food and regular pop, and workout six times a week (at least that's what's done it for me). I run 3 miles, do situps and lift some weights every time to the gym. It's been fun getting back in shape. It didn't used to be a problem when I was playing sports. But covering sports is a whole different story.

Anyway, Kelly and I also went and saw the new Rocky movie -- Rocky Balboa -- on Wednesday night. If you are a fan of the Rocky series, I would very much reccomend you seeing the sixth installment. It is chalk full of your typical Rocky corniness, but it finally gives Rocky a proper send off. Rocky V was a horrible movie and was no way for that awesome series to end. It was a lot of fun seeing the movie on opening night, too. It was fun to be one of the hundreds of grown men acting like a bunch of 12-year-olds, cheering during the opening credits and clapping at the end of the final boxing match.

That's all for now, I need to finish packing and cleaning up around the house before Kell gets home from work and her bro gets here. Stay tuned for more...next year.

Posted at 12:28 p.m.

November 18, 2006

New York,

I received a call from my dad today, asking why I hadn't posted any pictures from Kell's and my vacation in New York yet. Believe it or not -- I know it's the offseason and this seems unthinkable -- I've been pretty busy with work and other things. But now that Toronto has officially signed Frank Thomas, I have some more down time.

There's no way I can post all the photos Kelly and I took in NYC. We took about 200 pictures and I know you're not going to be interested in seeing every single picture we took (Even if you are, I don't want to sit here and post them all!). So I'll pick out some of my favorites. Before I post some of them right into the blog, I'll put some of my personal favorites that I took, and then converted to black and white like I like to do, in this first part. Just click on the thumbnail images below to see each photo:

Those give you a little glimpse into some of the things we did while we were in the Big Apple. We went and saw the Broadway play Wicked, went to a Knicks-Spurs game at Madison Square Garden, went to the top of the Empire State Building, took the ferries out to Liberty and Ellis islands, visited Ground Zero, spent plenty of time in Times Square, strolled through Central Park, went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Modern Museum of Art, got together with some friends from college, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, went and saw the Flatiron Building (claimed to be the first "skyscraper" in the U.S.), saw The Bodies exhibit at the South Street Seaport, went to a taping of the David Letterman Show, saw actor Hugh Jackman in his trailor a few blocks away from where he was shooting a new movies, and we ate and ate and ate...

Here's some photos from our trip:

Our first day in NYC, we headed out from our hotel and went to find some lunch. We just wanted something quick, so we saw a nice little diner and decided to get some burgers. We didn't know what we were in for. The menu said 7 ounces, but I think our burgers were 8-10 ounces. They were by far the thickest burgers we've ever had and they were awwwwesome. I highly reccommen Jackson Hole, located somewhere around 86th and 2nd on the Upper East Side. Here is Kell about to dive into her burger.

After lunch we headed to Central Park -- where this pic was taken.

Here is another shot from Central Park.

Here is Kelly in Times Square, where she discovered...

...her favorite ice cream joint!

Before we saw Wicked, we won free tickets to go see the Letterman Show.

Also while in NYC, we went to a pretty cool wax museum. Here I am talking with Dubya.

Here is Kelly by the bull statue near Wall Street.

Here's another shot of the Atlas statue by Rockefeller Center.

Here's the famous Flatiron Building at 23rd and Broadway.

Here's our friends Justin and Kelly. I lived with Justin all throughout college and now he lives in New York. We hit up a few of the museums with them while we were there.

Here we are with Lady Liberty...

...and a ferry-ride later, we're on Ellis Island.

This is the Registration Room at Ellis Island. It's was interesting to think that some of my ancestors might have come through here to America. My grandma once told me she thought her parents came through Castle Garden, but I found their names in an Ellis Island record.

Here's a shot of Madison Square Garden: home of the Knicks and our former high school classmate, Eddy Curry, who is now their center.

Here I am with Eddy!

Kelly and I weren't friends with Curry in high school, but it's still cool to see "Thornwood High School" lit up on an NBA jumbotron. We spent the game rooting for him -- after all, he's representing our stompin' grounds.

As a Seinfeld fan, a trip to New York isn't complete without a black and white cookie. "Look to the cookie!" I bought this one at Bloomingdale's on one of the days Kell and I walked around the city and did a lot of shopping. That's not all, though...

We found a pet store that sold little black and white cookies for dogs! So that was Barkley's present when we got home. He stayed with a neighbor/friend in Toronto for the week that we were gone.

So there you have it. That's about 30 pictures from our New York trip. I'm sure we'll print others out and bring them home at Christmas time for all you family to see. It was nice to take a week off and not have to think about baseball or monitor news throughout the day. And the good news is I have one more week of vacation to use from this year. Woo hoo! I'm sure that one we'll involve staying home and relaxing.

Stay tuned for more...

Posted at 2:57 p.m.

October 31, 2006

Going on Holiday,

Why did I repost this photo of New York City that I took during the spring, you ask? (like any of you actually remembered I posted this picture before) Well, Kelly and I are about to take a week off. I cashed in my air miles and hotel points and we decided it'd be fun to spend a week in the Big Apple. We leave tomorrow morning and won't be back until next Tuesday. And, no, Barkley isn't coming with us -- he'll be spending time with our friend Tammy in Toronto and her dog A.J.

New York should be fun. I've been there a few times this year, but I never got to go see a lot of things I wanted to. I saw Ground Zero and walked around the city, but I didn't ever really play tourist in order to visit places I hadn't been since I was a kid. But now I know my way around the city pretty well, which will come in handy this week. Kell hasn't been to NYC since she was a kid, either, so she's looking forward to it. We're going to see the play Wicked on Broadway on Thursday night and I scored us two tickets to see the Knicks play the Spurs on Monday night at Madison Square Garden. We'll also be seeing our friends, Justin and Kelly, from college.

Anway, back in Toronto, I did end up climbing the CN Tower two Saturdays ago. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Not knowing what to expect being a first-time CN climber, I just went at it with a nice steady pace and my goal was not to stop and rest. I never had to stop and I finished it in 23 minutes. If I do it again, I know I can go harder and my goal would be to do it under 20 minutes. As far as my workout update, I'm down to about 182 pounds now from 200 on Oct. 4. We've been going to the gym six days a week. We're definitely going to be eating out a lot in NYC, but we plan on being reasonable and eating healthy. I don't want to cancel out all my hard work!

Here is the wimpy tower that couldn't stop me from getting to the top!

This is a nice picture of Toronto's downtown that I took on one of my walk's to Kelly's work. She works about a half-mile from home and the offseason has allowed me to meet her up for her hour lunch frequently.

That's all for now. I'll post plenty of NYC pictures when we get back to Toronto next week. It's going to feel odd not monitoring all the daily baseball news for a whole week. I'm sure I'll be itching to get back to my laptop when I'm back home (it's coming with on the vacation, but not for work unless something catastrophic happens and they need me to write). Stay tuned for more...

Oh! Happy Halloween!

Posted at 9:21 a.m.

October 20, 2006

Shaping Up,

It's been a little more than two weeks now, but I've stuck to it -- working out six days a week and watching what I eat. I know reading about my latest fitness phase isn't terribly interesting, but writing about it only helps me continue to work hard at it.

When I started, I was in full-fledged journalist shape, weighing in at around 200 thanks to those long road trips, which consisted of lots of eating out and little to no working out. Now, 16 days later, I'm at 188 and counting. What's my secret, you ask? No, it's not starving myself -- as everyone first assumes. I'm running 3 miles per day, plus some upper body workouts, I've fallen in love with the rowing machine, doing daily situps, swimming laps in the pool once a week, and limiting myself to fewer than 1,000 calories eating-wise every day. Thanks to our awesome rec center across the street, losing weight in time for next year's round of road trips is very doable.

THIS JUST IN: I just checked when the next CN Tower climb was in Toronto and the public climb is tomorrow! I think I might just have to do it. That's right -- about 1,700 steps up to the top. The other day, I walked the stair to the top of my condo building (but that was probably only around 500 or so).

Here is the CN Tower with the dome of the Rogers Centre on the left.

I just printed out the pledge form for the climb and I think I'm seriously going to do it. Call me crazy, but it sounds like fun. Anyway, if I'm going to be ready for that tomorrow, I better hit the gym here in a bit. I have nothing else to do -- Kelly works until 11 p.m. or so tonight.

I'll leave you all with another photo. If you read Kell's blog, then you've already seen it. Our dog Barkley is afraid of our digital camera, so we have to keep a disposable camera around to take pics of him (the quick flash works fast enough before he runs away from the camera). Anyway, we just had a whole role developed that was started around Spring Training and finished recently. Here is the best photo of the bunch:

Posted at 4:01 p.m.

October 11, 2006

Over Already?

It's hard to believe the baseball season is over. Well, MY season anyway. The playoffs are still going on, but I didn't have to work during the postseason this year. I completed my tour of the American League parks and took my standard photo in each stadium. Now, I can work on getting a custom-made frame to put all the black and white photos in. The only picture that is outdated is the one taken in Chicago. I personally like that it was taken when it was still called Comiskey Park, though.

Click on the thumbnails below to see each A.L. picture I took. All are from this season -- minus the White Sox photo:

I still have tasks each week during the offseason, but it's slower in October than the following months. Once November comes around, I'll start getting busier with free agent rumors and all that jazz. For now, I've been enjoying the extra sleep, extra time hanging out with Barkley, and extra hours in the gym. I've already dropped seven pounds in the last week.

I'm going to keep this post short, but now that I'm at home most of the time, I'll try to update this blog more frequently than I did during the season. Until then, stay tuned for more...

Posted at 5:11 p.m.