Photo Journal Entry #4

Hey everyone, here are a few highlights from the weeks gone by...


This is me (albeit blurry) in my racing gear at the company kart race on Sunday.



...and this is my co-worker Claire cozying up to the camera...



Me, Marisa and Dave after a good day of karting. I came in 15th out of 27.



A view from seats at Vale Park on our away trip this weekend.


And from the archives...


Justin's photo for his NRA application from Failor's cabin.

On the Banks of the River Trent...

A photo taken Saturday of Nottingham Forest's stadium, the City Ground


Well, amazingly, another two weeks has passed already. Today marks only one month until Michelle arrives here in England to kick off my two weeks as a tourist, which I am very much looking forward to. I have mentioned previously that we will be heading up to Edinburgh for a few days to see the 'homeland' and see the battle site of Bannockburn, where 'gramps' Robert the Bruce defeated the English in the quest for Scottish freedom, which they won.

That also means that I'm down to only four weeks left in the office here, so I am also now into the job search. I've already applied to a few different places, most of them small college athletic departments, but am open to pretty much anywhere and any sport environment. The work experience here has been extremely interesting, and I'm very glad that this is something that I actually followed through on, even though it meant leaving everything behind (including Lucy, who I miss very much!).

I travelled with the Southend supporters to see the Blues play Nottingham Forest yesterday, hence the photo above. That was the one I was really looking forward to when I got here because Forest were up in the Premier League just a few years ago and they have a stadium that seats about 30,000 compared to Southend's which is around 11,000, so massive. It was a great experience, although temps hovered around freezing and the Blues lost 2-0, but they're still in 3rd place overall, so doing very well!

I'm disappointed that I won't be home for Thanksgiving this year. Thursday will be just another work day for me here, no good food or good company, but I guess that's part of the cultural experience. Maybe I'll try and get a turkey sub for lunch. Until next time...

Photo Journal Entry #3

Hey everyone, here's the third edition of my photo journal. Enjoy!!



The Southend terrace faithful at the first round FA Cup match last weekend at Barnet. Terracing is basically standing room only, no seats, and most stadiums here do not have them anymore because terracing is more conducive to fighting.



This is Southend High Street, about 2 miles from my guest house. I walk up there every weekend, have lunch, and browse through the stores. You can see it has been closed to cars so people can walk and shop freely. It was my mom's favourite part of being in England!



A "shrimper"; an actual shrimp fishing boat anchored just off of Southend pier (before it burned down obviously).



Me in front of a statue of Bobby Moore, England's World Cup Hero. He played his club ball for West Ham, which is where this statue is, on the night I met Milan Baros and John Motson.


And from the archives...


This is my car after my accident on July 20, 2004. I rear ended a yellow school bus on my way home from work at the Mud Hens. I still to this day do not know why this Maumee bus came to a complete stop in the middle of a residential block in South Toledo...

If It's Nae Scottish...

Things are exciting here in merry England because I finally got around to planning the mini-trip that Michelle and I will be taking when she arrives here. She arrives on Tuesday morning, December 20 and we leave at 9:00am on December 21 for our bullet-train trip up to beautiful Scotland. We'll be staying in Edinburgh for three nights, literally less than a 10 minute walk from the Edinburgh Castle, pictured above, and the Royal Mile. We're also figuring out if we have time to ride up to Stirling to see the battleground at Bannochburn, where my 20-greats grandfather Robert the Bruce defeated the English in the early 1300's. It doesn't matter what we end up doing, just the chance to experience Scotland after a decade of wanting to go there will be amazing, even if it's cold and raining (which it very likely will be).

In work news, Ross Hill left the club last week for his new job at Arsenal, meaning that I was the man in charge. I will also be doing the same thing this week as Ross' full-time replacement doesn't start until a week from tomorrow. It was a good thing for me because it has given me more responsibility and has forced me to do things that I haven't had a chance to do here yet, such as organizing a small presentation of the team's youth team bus to the youth team by the bus' sponsor, Essex Ford. Making sure that everyone was there at the right time and went off without a hitch was up to me and I'm proud to say that it went very smoothly. Be on the lookout for an article on that showing up on the Blues official site this week.

As I mentioned on the blog on Thursday, I got the experience of watching a photo shoot with our new PA announcer, the lovely model Kelly Burgess. That also was a great experience, but for reasons I won't go into!

On the pitch, Southend beat lower league opponents Barnet to advance in the world's oldest knockout tournament, the FA Cup. They will have a home match on the first weekend of December in the second round, with almost 20,000 pounds in cash up for grabs for the winner. Not to mention that in Round 3 all of the big clubs are entered into the pool as well, so the chance of drawing a home match against Manchester United looms as well. So here's hoping round two goes well, even though I'll be gone by the time the match is played.

Well, I'm down to about 5 or 6 weeks left on the job before I finish here in England, and I've already begun the job search, but nothing has materialized just yet. That's all for now, looking to hearing from everyone!

Perks

This is a photo from the shoot I stopped by at

A special mid-week post to all of you bloggers out there. This one I just couldn't keep quiet as I had an interesting little side trip while out on errands today with Dave Scriven, media manager. We dropped by for a photo shoot of our new PA announcer for home matches at Roots Hall, former Sun Page 3 topless model Kelly Burgess. It was a great experience to say the least as I got to see her wearing only a football shirt, and hopefully I'll be able to post that soon, but in the meantime, above is a sample.

For you mature readers out there, here's what you really wanted to see.

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