Rest, Rest, and ...more Rest...

Checking in with everyone. Got off the bus on Friday morning and have been on a 48 hour shutdown. My Cubs are playing their nasty rivals the Cardinals, and three of the four games this weekend have been on TV here in Chico. Watching game one of a doubleheader right now (Sunday afternoon).

Got to go to a ballpark as a fan last night. Went to see the Yuba-Sutter Gold Sox. Lots of fun being just a fan in the bleachers. Good baseball game and a nice lakeside setting. They are a well run summer collegiate team, and of course, summer college woodbat baseball is where I got my start broadcasting baseball in Ohio last year.

Gearing up for the second-half. It's nice we've got an even 38 and 38 split, games-wise. Multiple trips to Canada in the second half, and that's exciting. I've been canoeing in the Boundary Waters of Canada (across the border from Minnesota), but never been to a Canadian city. Airplanes instead of buses, wa-hoo!

Lots of loose ends to tie up the next two and a half days before we hit the road for the San Francisco airport Wednesday morning. We're going to have our commercials back, along with player voicers, and bumper music. New computer, new half of the season, new ballparks...and a broadcast that'll strive to improve on all the first-half lessons learned.

So to close...some first-half one-liner highlights: Seeing my immediate family in Long Beach...Breakfast stops in Palm Springs...Walking through the campus and my old neighborhood in Tucson...Cadaret arguing after our bus was parked-in during a final stop of a return trip...Border Patrol boarding bus beyond Brawley...waiting on a slow train to cross 22nd Ave. en route to the ballpark, Tucson...late night burrito run in St. George...driving through Vegas with Gailen as tour guide...Best Movie: "Anchorman"...Worst Movie: whatever Katt Williams stand-up DVD we watched on the final leg of a Tucson marathon trip...Yuma was too hot...lightning storm in St. George, our only delay all season long...