One of the few names that I know (Day 18)

The excitement continues.

I got as many more copies of the upcoming Baseball America magazine as I could today so that I could start sending them to people at home. I sent a few today and will definitely be sending more tomorrow. I am excited for people to see what I have been doing here!

The first couple of copies went to my parents and the program director at school. But after those ones I ran out of envelopes so I will be headed back to UPS tomorrow, with more mail to send. I might be overeager, but I don’t think my contentment is overwhelming.

When I got to work this morning I started back on the bat story. I contacted some coaches in a conference that already uses wood bats and probably have enough to start on the article. I would like to get an interview with a scout though, so the search for more information and some extra quotes continues.

I kept going with my research on the bats and tried to start the Idaho Falls Chukars story but was still waiting for my second interview so that didn’t happen.

The morning went by really quickly and then most of the people in the office that I’ve met all went to lunch together for one of the guys’ birthdays. His name is Nathan, and it is one of the few names that I know. He is one of the people that cover high school and I will be headed to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park with him and Conor on Thursday, so it’s a good thing I have their names under wraps.

We all had lunch at a burrito place, and it ended up being right across from the mall that I am so familiar with so I felt right at home. The people on one end of the table were talking about the top 30 prospects for some organization or another and the people on the other end were discussing college football and all of the bowl games that are associated with that. My knowledge is limited (to essentially nothing) on both topics, so I was stuck in the middle with nothing to say. My food ran out quickly because I had nothing to do but chew and then it was just awkward. No one else noticed though, as far as I know.

After lunch I received a new task from Editor 1. It was another tedious bundle of fun, and I have more of it to look forward to tomorrow. I have to go through all of the colleges in Division I and find the names and email addresses of their Sports Information Directors and update the contact information that Baseball America already has, because it is outdated. Of the 323 names on the list, I got through only 100 of them before the day was done, and that was because I stayed over an hour-and-a-half past the time I am designated to leave.

I’m not really looking forward to continuing tomorrow, but the faster I get it done, the more helpful I will be to the person who couldn’t do it because of their time constraints.

After work the GPS sent me on a twisty journey to a UPS, and it ended up being the same one I had been to once before. It was nowhere near where I thought I was going, but it was near a place I have wanted to go for awhile.

Every time I end up in a new place, due to the GPS’s mistakes, or just because I have been trying to find something, I look up the nearest Ihop on my navigational wonder to see how far away the closest location is. I really enjoy the restaurant and figured that if I were ever near one, I could go for breakfast or dinner or whatever the next meal of the day happened to be.

And, from the UPS I wound up at, there was an Ihop just down the street. I went for dinner and it was great. I am beginning to think my confidence is growing because not only do I go to movies alone, now I go to dinner alone.

From there I came back to the apartment. I am still sore from taking a spill on Sunday so the gym didn’t really seem like a very good option. I might try again tomorrow, if I don’t think I will reinjure myself.

I got a lot accomplished at home tonight though, so I might have been better off. I painted more of the Christmas presents for my cousins, cleaned up my room, wrote letters to people at home who I am going to send the magazine to, and even started to put together some of the things I have for the Chukars story because the league president finally got back to me.

Throughout my night of productivity, there was another marathon of Law and Orders, so all in all, it was a great evening.