Profile of a Longhorn: Big Jake

When my sister was in town, we (of course) headed over to the Fort Worth Stockyards, because I insist on taking ALL of my visitors there.

We made it just in time to see the mini cattle drive with the longhorns....here's one of the cowboys 'holding 'em back' before their big performance!

And here are the geriatric longhorns on parade!

For some reason, I never get tired of seeing this little longhorn extravaganza.......

So quintessential Texas - LOVE IT!

And of course, we saw Big Jake - the longhorn that has a saddle on him and you can jump on and take pictures. This time, I decided to get up close and personal and get some fun shots of Jake.....

Jake doesn't look too happy, but I'm honestly not sure how a longhorn would look if they WERE happy!

Their horns are so cool and I love Jake's little white 'star' on his forehead. And those big brown eyes are so cute!

Haha - caught him blinking in one of my pictures!

He looks a little curious in this one - is he hitting on me?! heehee

We did a little shopping while we were there and I never noticed the name of this shop in all of my previous trips down there......Sassy Pantz! (Lindsay, that was for you!)

Here's Kristi going for a trail ride......

Yep - I made her pose for these. If my Mom agreed to pose on the saddle, Kristi can do it too!

Thankful Thursday

1. Surprises (well, GOOD ones)

My birthday surprise from Laura was so much fun and I forgot how exciting a surprise can be! Now I am ONLY talking about GOOD surprises - I've had my share of BAD surprises and they are awful. But I just loved my mystery birthday outing at the gun range!

2. Being able to shut my brain off for a few hours

I have had a lot on my mind last week and my heart was kind of heavy for a number of reasons, so my natural instinct when I'm upset is to isolate and to not want socialize. However, I had plans for Friday night, Saturday morning and Saturday night last weekend, so I had to just suck it up and go.

I thought I would have to put on a game face and trudge through each of those, but actually, I am SO glad that I went to all three events because I had a GREAT time at each and was able to SHUT OFF my brain during them. That is very hard for me to do, but it happened very naturally and easily this weekend. God must have been listening to my million prayers this week and given me a little mercy......

3. Feeling empowered

There are many ways that a person can feel empowered - some of them by physical things (martial arts, walking tall, a firm handshake) and some emotional (sticking up for yourself in an argument, not accepting bad behavior, etc.), but last weekend, I got to feel the 'firearm in your hands' empowerment. It wasn't a huge monumentus feeling, but it did make me feel very empowered to have that firearm in my hands and I pretended that I was defending myself and it felt good!

4. Good advice from friends

Plain and simple - it is just priceless when a true friend sits across the table from you, lets you pour your heart out, maybe cry a little, reserves judgement, encourages you, and gives you great advice that you KNOW is coming from a genuine place of love and understanding.

5. Good live music

I had forgotten how much I like live music! Radio, CDs, iPOD - all of those things are great and I very much love music of all varieties, but there's just something about watching LIVE music being played. My friends and I went to see our co-worker's band last weekend at Little Pete's and they were phenomenal - the talent in that band was astounding! I really need to make a point of seeing live music more often.....

Packin' Heat

So, 'new friend Laura' (as she is known by my work friends) planned a surprise last weekend to celebrate my upcoming birthday and she wouldn't tell me what it was - just to keep the date open.

A couple days before the 'event', she told me to meet her at her apartment at 9:30, the event goes from 10am to 12noon, bring a notebook/pen, wear closed-toe shoes and pants, it will be inside and outside and that we want to get there early to get a good seat. Hmmmmm.......And when I met her and jumped in the car, she STILL wouldn't tell me what the surprise was! But when we pulled in the gun range, then I knew.....we were going to be shooting guns!!

Signs like these were a little unnerving and foreign to me, but I suppose 'when in Rome.....'

I don't want to perpetuate too many stereotypes here, but there were a LOT of pickup trucks there and I saw this bumper sticker - LOVE IT! I love me some Texans!!

Here is a picture of their 'promotional' vehicle for the gun range - and on the passenger door, it says "Riding Shotgun" - SO FUNNY!

The first thing we did when we arrived was take a handgun class that lasted about an hour in this classroom. The place was called Elm Fork Shotgun Sports - right on the freeway in corporate America (near the border of Las Colinas and Dallas)!

Laura and I thought this sign was really funny - it was on the door of the clubhouse where we took our gun class.....Notice the TINY TINY "with" on the sign. HAHAHA! At least they have a sense of humor.....

After we took our class (they taught us about ear protection, eye protection, safety rules, the parts of a gun, how to handle a gun, the correct stance, types of bullets and guns, gun laws, etc.), we all headed down to the shooting gallery place outside with our instructor, Jeff.

There were 6 of us in the class, so he brought down 3 guns and we took turns - 3 at a time shooting. Here is Jeff putting up our 3 targets (with our sweet guns in the foreground)!

We were shooting with Beretta 9mm handguns - here are our bullets! We each got our own box of 50 bullets.

Laura and I were in the second group, so here's the first group firing their first shot from 'the 7-yard line', as Jeff called it!

And after the first shot or two, then Jeff started to teach us how to load our 'magazine'. I put my own bullets in the magazine and got to hear that 'click' when I loaded the magazine in the gun! I felt like Jack Bauer!

It was all so much fun! My first two shots were kind of high - I aimed for the X on the chest, but hit the target in the head.....but he showed me how to aim better and then I was going for the heart after that. My only complaint was that I kept getting hit with the shell casings from the guy shooting next to me. They hit my sunglasses, went in my hair, and I swear that one of them went down my shirt!

I felt like I was in the military - Jeff would call out commands and then we would do them. Things like "get in your stance", "insert your magazine", "resting position", "firing position", "take aim", "FIRE WHEN READY!" I like that last one the best.

It was such a fun time - we were sweating our brains out in 100 degree heat at 12noon, but it was still AWESOME!!! Thanks, Laura - I loved my birthday surprise!!!

Behind The Dugout - Part 2

On our Rangers ballpark tour, we got to go down into the "bowels" - underground! When you take the elevator from ground level down, you come out in this circular track underneath the stadium. It has a 'road' that can accomodate the team's buses, semis, and other delivery vehicles. CRAZY! And the players' parking garage is down there too, so there's really no area where fans can go to watch players go to their cars after the game.

Here's the underground 'road'.......

And our first stop underground was the press room!

Here are their batting cages. They have 2 areas that are side-by-side. One of them is for batting practice using an automatic pitching machine and then there's this one - it's basically an old-school 'tee-ball' style area. You just put the ball on the stick thing and swing away! It seems crazy to me that they are paid millions to play 'tee-ball'! LOL

The media rooms.....

And here are the 'textbooks' for the media to study and reference while they are working a game.....

The view from the media rooms.....On the field there is a yoga class going on! The day we took the tour was some sort of "appreciation day" for season ticket holders and apparently they show their appreciation by letting you do yoga in the outfield....Weird!

Here's the bullpen. I guess that phone from the dugout and the bullpen is 'hot' - meaning you don't actually pick up the phone and "call" one another. When the dugout calls the bullpen, it's connected live with the bullpen - and the indicator that the dugout is calling is just a shrill sound - like crickets. Apparently you can hear it as a fan in the stands, if you know what to listen for!

No astroturf here - the grounds crew was watering that pretty grass during our tour!

George W. Bush owned the Rangers prior to his presidency, so they have his Owner's Suite looking all pretty. We didn't get to go in that one, but we got to go into the City of Arlington's suite - they are pretty nice!

Lots of watering and prep for that night's game.....

Here is the concourse.....It was a fantastic tour! I want to bring Maggie sometime - they have 2 games per year when you can bring your dog!

Behind The Dugout

A couple weeks ago, Laura emailed me and asked if I wanted to tour the Rangers baseball stadium on a Saturday morning.....she knows me very well - of course I was game! It's a great park and so we embarked on our tour!

Here is the field from the Rangers' dugout....

Here we are in the Rangers dugout.....

One of these phones calls the bullpen and the other one can talk to the media (give specifics on an injury, etc.).

They played Baltimore on this particular weekend....And this little bench on the left of this picture is where the manager would sit.

Haha - bug spray in the dugout! I guess they are human......

Things are still done old-school, I guess.....this is a list of the umpires from the previous night's game. And then the sheet on the bottom shows all of the opposing team's lineup and their hitting tendencies.

So cool - it shows how they hit, if they bunt/steal, etc. Very interesting!

This ballpark was built starting in 1992 and finished in 1994 - view from the dugout.

Here's a camera near the dugout - gets all of the angles during the game.

And I saw this horseshoe above the drinking fountain right behind the dugout where the players enter. I wonder if they rub it on their way down for the game!