New Schedule

"Time is wasting, time is walking
You ain't no friend of mine
I don't know where I'm goin'
I think I'm out of my mind
Thinking about time"
--Time, Hootie & the Blowfish

My apologies for a sparse period of writing last week, due in large part to a new shooting schedule which has our first meeting of the day commencing precisely at 8:00 a.m. I'm exempt this morning because of a piece I'm working on stemming from a shoot over the weekend, so now that my tapes are logged, I have a moment to write. Other than the death of blogging time (which is no small effect), the new schedule has been great, providing far more manageable days and more enjoyable showtimes.
Here's to another lovely weekend, which did include the aforementioned shoot, something I'll describe in a bit of detail presently. Took a camera crew to a dinner and auction event called "In the Spirit of the Game," benefiting the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation. Tom Arnold was one of the scheduled speakers, so we were assigned a short piece based on the events of the night. It was at the Beverly Hilton, which looks like a pretty nice hotel, though I wasn't necessarily able to experience it to its fullest. The only negative of the night was having to miss the Charger game, though I assumed I'd be able to see another one next weekend--and yes, I know what happens when one assumes (that is the first and last mention of the Charger game in my blog this morning--it never happened).
So Tommy Lasorda is the MC for the event, Tom does a short monologue, and then several awards are given out: Willie Mays presents one to Frank Robinson, Curt Schilling gets one and then presents one to the Boone family (Bob, Bret and Aaron F-in) to posthumously honor Bob's father Ray, the scout who originally signed Schill like 20 years ago. Reggie Jackson also presented, and a bunch of other people were there as well: Jennie Finch (wow), Bret Saberhagen, Barry Zito (accompanied by the much-shorter-than-I-thought Alyssa Milano), and a ton of baseball execs (including former Dodger GM Dan Evans, with whom I had a very nice conversation).
The rest of the weekend included a Friday evening drive up to Hollywood to see Brian Z's college buddy play at Highland Grounds. Good music and a nice chance to see Charlie, Becky, Jenny, Amber, Ryan and Vanessa made driving through the rain a worthwhile endeavor.
Saturday (before the dinner) was a very relaxing day, consisting of setting up my new Powerbook and goofing around with some possibilities for a big project I'm going to be undertaking soon. Watched a little of the early football game (nice win for the Mad Scientist and his Rams) before departing.
Sunday morning brought with it no work for the first time in 17 weeks, so I definitely made sure to sleep in before beginning a very productive day. Got a ton of work done in my room, clearing space for the new computer and dumping a bunch of stuff that had accumulated in the corners, got to have a nice lunch with Stu, and got some grocery shopping done, which included the ingredients for some of Mom's macaroni and cheese, something I had decided to make for Ashley's birthday. The last item on the agenda before dinner's creation was the Bel Air evening service, but Stu and I got stuck in ridiculous traffic and didn't get to the exit (normally a half-hour drive) until about 6:50 p.m., meaning we would have been able to enjoy a whole ten minutes of church. Depressingly, we got back on the freeway and drove right back home.
Dinner went much better than expected--it's Ashley's birthday today, so I said I'd cook for her last night, and Phil and Ale (I think that's a better spelling than "Ollie," but the pronunciation isn't as clear--"Ale" implies pale ale or ginger ale, so in order for it to sound right, I might have to go with Ollie instead) joined us as well--Charlie showed up late having already eaten, so I'll sort of count him in. Mom's mac and cheese, some broccoli and some applesauce--a standard meal from the Riddell household--and it actually turned out to be quite tasty. I've even got a little bit left over to enjoy tonight when I get home. Nice.
I'm sure the minute-by-minute from the weekend was incredibly engrossing, so to alleviate the boredom somewhat, I shall stray from the previous form and offer up a few sporting observations from the past week (my Bolts excepted--when the mourning period is over, I'll be able to assess the past season and the future, but not a day sooner).
Randy Moss is good. On a bad wheel, he's still amazing. Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown had better be ready, and Brian Dawkins needs to start shading Randy's way already.
Peyton Manning has the game of his life coming up this weekend. He's put up ridiculous numbers all season long (including a video-game style 457 and four TD's yesterday--I need to clarify "video-game style": that's me playing with Drew Olson on NCAA Football with the difficulty level set to junior varsity, not Suss playing with Jake Martin on Madden 2005 with the difficulty level at All-Pro), but he had a great year last season and tanked at Foxboro in the conference championship game. If he can overcome Belichick and Crennel and nemesis Ty Law, the Colts could very well be headed to the Super Bowl, but it's going to be a much different scenario next weekend than it was on the turf against the terrible Broncos yesterday.
Ben Howland's Bruins could very well be the real deal. With only two seniors who do anything important (Dijon Thompson is very important, Brian Morrison can be), they've got a very young squad, but one that's obviously capable of some very good things. Working Saturday night, I didn't get to see the come-from-behind victory over the University of Dub, but those boys fought back in a big way. I love that backcourt--Farmar and Afflalo--because they do everything: they shoot, they pass, handle and play d. Shipp is a better shooting version of his brother, Dijon can play two, three or four, and Hollins and Fey are starting to contribute a little bit. Since SC has a corner on the football market (and will as long as Carroll's there), we've got to take some pride in the hoops end of things, and Big Ben has given us a reason to do just that. If we can pull another upset this weekend at 'Zona--never mind, I can't get too far ahead of myself.
Okay, so it's time to get to work. Hopefully the schedule won't be too unfriendly, but if this does end up being the sole entry this week, don't hate. Peace.