Blog Has Moved!

Attention! To all three of my readers! hahahaha!!!!!! I will no longer be blogging here because I have issues with this site. Please go to suziecups.com if you want to read the latest in Cuppie Cakes life! Excitement awaits! Well, more like useless rants await... ;0)

An Observation...

So I went to Beaver Creek last weekend. Its a posh-ish place in the Rockies, known for its skiing and luxurious accommodations. No, I wasn't there on my own bill, but on Bon Appetit magazines tab. Otherwise, I would have never seen the beauty that IS Colorado in the winter.
I was a little scared of the cold, fully forgetting the fact that I loved being in cold weather, especially snow. But it had been so long since I had, the hype surrounding it was far worse than the actual temperature was.
So, it got down to about 12 degrees...peh! Its all good when you have a super-warm-knitted-hat-made-just-for-snowboarding on your head...oh and a good scarf helps too.
Anyway, as I said this was a Bon Appetit event in which chefs came to strut their stuff, do some networking and have a little fun. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be the pastry bee-otch and accompany my boss/co-worker/celebrity chef who had been invited.
There were lots of activities planned including dinners, cocktail parties, ski races, Iron Chef battles, wine seminars etc. It was a kind of "convention" if you will.
All these activities lead up to Saturday night where all of the guest chefs set up booths where they prepared small portions of food, to hand out to the paying guests who came specifically for this event. Everything went well. Thank God.
I always have a bit of a problem mixing buisness with pleasure. I suppose it stems from my desire for control over the situation, the fact that I am high strung when it comes to work and my desire to not look like a jack-ass, especially in front of my peers.
The ideal situation would be to stay one day AFTER the work is done, so that it is all behind you and you can chill out for a bit, maybe take in a half day of snow shoeing. Unfortunately, because of a knee injury I was not able to partake in the downhill action, but I did ice skate at the outdoor rink. Although I didn't last long when the temperatures started going into the 10's.
I have to say though, that I loved it. I absolutley LOVED being in the snow!! I felt like a kid again and went outside with my arms out in front of me, waiting for a large flake to land on my sleeve. You know, the kind that are big and dry and really look like the kind of snowflakes you cut out of paper! That is the best, really...the detail of a snowflake that you can see with the naked eye...
Also I realized how into snow sports the residents and visitors really are. Some people see the weather as an inconvenience. Its cold, its a bitch to shovel, it destroys your car, your skin, your toes, its dirty, its wet and its cold. It makes you want to move to California.
Others move to Vail BECAUSE it snows so much! The quality of the "powder" is superior to anywhere else in the U.S. People come from all over the world to ski these slopes. People get boring service jobs just to support their snowboarding habit! Its so awesome! To feel so strongly about something that can be so harsh and wild that you cannot bear to be away from it because its conducive to the happiness of your very soul. Wow! What a lifestyle. That is some intense shiz!
It is always nice to see intense passion in someone, whatever their passion is. It makes you feel alive and that anything is possible, really.
Sometimes passions need to be reignited. Sometimes you need a push back into the right direction, when you may have been detoured by something that appeared to be easier, only to leave you wanting more.
Moral of the story: If you have a passion, whatever it is, do what you can to stay focused. Sometimes the things that make us the happiest get pushed aside in the daily grind. Then we wonder why we are so unhappy with life. These things that we love, need to be practiced so that we can have peace of mind. Even if that means skiing in single-digit weather.

Scratch That...

...about the next entry. I stand corrected. My all-knowing-baseball friend, Mike told me I was wrong about the A's being responsible for the success of Jermaine Dye and Johnny Damon. Dye was on the Braves before the A's and Damon on Kansas City. My bad. But weren't they partially responsible for what they became? I think so.

GODDAMAH!*

At Oakland A's games, frequently you see shirts that say "In Billy We Trust". The meaning lies in the fact that we must have faith in the GM of the team because of his incredible knack for choosing up-and-coming players and turning them into stars (i.e. Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Jermaine Dye). Beane is also known for making educated trades and creating a team that quite often makes it to the playoffs, while maintaining one of the lowest payrolls in the Majors.
The release of the best seller "Moneyball"(2003) gave some insight into Billy Beane's philosophy and even talked about current Major Leaguers while they were still on AAA teams. One of those guys was Nick Swisher.
Nick came to the A's and brought such a GREAT attitude to the clubhouse. The fans LOVED him. He had a special handshake/dance for each individual player on the A's, and he loved being an Oakland Athletic. He was signed through 2011 which gave a sigh of relief to many fans, especially because he really didn't settle for "that much money".

Today he was traded to the Chicago White Sox.
How horrendously sucky.

I remained faithful during the trades of Mulder, Hudson, Byrnes, and so many others.
I stood by them when they began talking about moving to God forbidden
Fremont, making them the Oakland Athletics of Fremont (?!?!?) Still
scared of that thought...
While they are talking about acquiring Barry Bonds, whom I dislike intensely, I am still holding fast.
I was even hanging on to a glimmer of hope after the trades of Scutaro and Haren, two of the best guys out there.
But now Swish?

That completely BLOWS.

It seems that it is next to impossible to be be a fan of a team with ANY of the same players remaining there for any extended period of time. I guess the solution is you must be a fan of a specific player, then follow that player through the 15 teams that he plays on through the years. Am I just an idiot for realizing this now?

In a world that is so chaotic and uncertain, it would be ideal if we could look to a
baseball team and know that once spring comes, our boys would be back. That long awaited cold winter would pass and we would be at the ballpark with our extended family once again. Not so. Instead, there is a new group of guys to get to know EVERY year and this year, the familiar faces will be few and far between.

Swisher will continue to kick ass. Mark my words. I will continue to follow his career wherever it may take him. I just hope that as an A's fan, I can "trust Billy" even though he seems like he is making some ridiculous choices. Goddamah!!!

* Goddamah is a word created by a Mr. Jia Ming. Jia Ming was a Chinese man who I worked with and was curious to learn "bad words" in English, to coincide with the English classes he was attending at SF City College. Upon introducing the word "goddammit", he pronounced it god-dam-ah and so it was adopted by all who worked with him at the time. It has stuck ever since. :0)