I wasn’t planning to go, but I checked the eVite around 9:30 PM, and I saw that Kelli would be there. The whole reason I joined YTB was to meet Kelli. She was in some of the photos on their website, and I had seen her once at the Vienna Inn last season, when YTB played down there. Unfortunately, after I signed up, I found out she wasn’t playing this season. Lucky for me, she still comes to the parties.

I stopped by Food Lion first to pick up some Michelob Ultra. I made it to Springfield in about 40 minutes (I had a hell of a time finding Backlick Rd.). I arrived around 10:30 PM, and everyone was pretty much trashed by then. I didn’t know half the people there, so I stuck by my YTB teammates. Some were playing flip cup downstairs in the basement. I joined them for a while (I was 3-for-3 on my flipping—I got it every time I tried!). But the real action was upstairs.

I went up and stood around for a while, then talked to more and more people. I walked up to Kelli and struck up a conversation. She knew who I was, which is a good sign. She said she saw me on the YTB website and read my profile. I asked her to join the team, but she only committed to coming to one of the games. I discover that she (along with other members of the team) is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I almost asked her to marry me on the spot. She is so my type, it’s scary.

I drank all 6 of my bottles of Michelob Ultra and had one random Miller Lite. They were passing around Jello shooters, but I didn’t want any of it. I got to talk to Allison for a while, which was nice. She’s a sweet girl. I felt bad letting her drive home, though. The poor girl wasn’t quite sober. Neither was I. After the first 3 or 4 beers, I didn’t feel any sort of buzz whatsoever. After the sixth or seventh, the alcohol hit this Atkins man pretty hard. I had to sit down and “conversate” for a while before heading home.

I was pleased with the evening. Things went well. I still look like doofus, but I’m working on it. I’m glad I decided to go.

I had so much fun at kickball practice this morning. At first, it was kinda boring, because the only people who showed up were already decent players and didn’t need to work on anything. We took turns kicking for about 15 minutes each. That was okay experience. It was mostly beneficial for those catching the balls. I took the opportunity to talk more with Jennifer in the outfield.

Rather than let practice end as a downer, I grouped them all into a circle and made one person be in the middle. We then got all three balls and started throwing them at the person in the center. We each took a turn at center and had tons of fun nailing each other and dodging balls. Even though some players were scared to be in the middle, I told them they had to, and they all ended up laughing and having a great time.

We definitely need to end all of our practices this way.

Man, I woke up at 4:44 AM this morning. It felt great getting some stuff done before leaving for work at 7:45 AM. But it’s only 10 AM now, and I feel totally wiped out. I can barely keep my eyes open. An hour IM chat with co-captain Kim helped, but now I’m struggling. …So, that means it’s journal time!

Let’s see here… I was too dead tired on Monday to go to my South Riding tennis class. That’s two of four I’ve missed. My last class is this coming Monday. I will not be renewing the class after next week, so my Mondays will now be free.

Tuesday night was Frontline kickball night. We played the second-best team and lost 10-0. We played great, though—a remarkable improvement from the previous week—so we were excited.

A ton of us went to the Vienna Inn afterwards to drink and socialize. I budgeted my money and carb intake by simply getting a Diet Coke. I drove Jessica home to D.C. afterwards, which meant I got home really late. She lives in a nice area of D.C. I gave her a GRE study book I bought her during my lunch break that afternoon. I’m doing all I can to help her get a job or get accepted to a local college, so she can stay in the D.C. area. Otherwise, she’ll be heading back to Ohio, and I certainly don’t want that.

Wednesday was another wiped out day (this whole week has been). I didn’t play tennis with the Nextel folks after work. Instead, I went home and got some rest. I had my private tennis lesson at 9:30 PM that night, and it went really well. I told my teacher that this Sunday would be my last group class with him, but that I’d continue with the private lessons.

Thursday was a big day for me at work. I showed my manager the new page templates I created for the Intranet. I’m reorganizing all of the content on our pages. She liked the templates a lot. We’re going to show them to the business owners next week.

YTB lost on Thursday, but I did really well. I finally got on base, and I made good use of my speed to take double bases and score. I didn’t hang out afterwards at Carpool, because I’m trying to catch up on as much rest as I can. Plus, I’m avoiding any temptation to cheat on my diet. (I’ve lost almost 10 pounds in two weeks!)

I made an appointment with the orthodontist this morning. I think I may get the slight crowding on my bottom teeth fixed. That could mean braces! Wheeeeeee!

I need to catch up on some Intranet stuff now, so that’s enough fooling around for me.

It was another gorgeous weekend spent outdoors playing tennis & kickball and doing photography.

I got up late on Saturday morning, so I had to call Laurel and cancel our tennis outing at 10 AM. Looks like she was asleep when I called, so the cancellation was probably mutual.

At 1 PM, I headed to GMU to photograph more women’s tennis. Apparently, word got around the team, and everyone knew who I was & why I was there. Some girls teased me for having the “hots” for Andreea, and they kept egging her on to “look pretty” for the camera during her matches. I asked one girl named Melissa why she didn’t play last weekend or this weekend. She told me she was injured and asked why I had asked. “You want to photograph me, because I’m hot, right? You think I’m hot? I have a really great ass. You can photograph my ass.” I couldn’t tell if she was flirting with me or being sarcastic, so I did what I always do and said nothing. I talked with the coach some more & I may make the trip down to Norfolk this week to photograph their matches at the CAA tournament. The coach said they probably wouldn’t make it past the first round, but I’m not sure I can get off work early enough to make the trip on Thursday. I had to leave at 3 PM, so I missed Andreea’s singles match. As I was walking away, Melissa yelled out, “You think I’m hot, right?!” I turned around and gave her a thumbs up. She seemed pleased.

Kickball practice started at 4 PM. We had about 12 people show up from our team, so we were able to place everyone in fielding positions, while one or two people practiced kicking. We did all of the normal drills, then ended practice two hours later. I was glad that about half the people there hadn’t come to a practice before. So, at least we won’t have totally inexperienced players on the field Tuesday night. I’m hoping we won’t need anymore Saturday practices, because I’d really like to take one weekend off to relax & not think about Frontline.

On Sunday morning, I had my normal 9 AM tennis class. They stuck me with the sucky players again, so I decided I wasn’t going to continue with the class after next Sunday (since I’ve paid up ’til then). Laurie, the cute (and married) girl, gave me her contact info, so I’ve added her to the list of tennis friends, who I’m inviting to play on Saturday mornings at Nottoway. After all, the only reason I pay for group tennis classes is to meet people I can get together with to play for free. Now that I have a sizable group of tennis friends, I don’t think I need to take any more classes. I’ll just stick with my private lessons on Wednesday nights.

When I got home, I discovered an e-mail from Maureen, asking if I wanted to play tennis at Wakefield Park at 2 PM. I called her to accept and confirm her invitation, then headed over there. The only problem with playing with Maureen is that she’s really short (like 5 ft.). I had to really concentrate to keep my shots low, so that the tennis ball didn’t bounce over her head. In a way, it was good practice for me. After an hour and a half of playing, we headed to a coffee house down the road and had a couple strawberry/banana smoothies. We sat outside and talked for about 45 minutes. It was weird, because all she talked about was spiritual stuff. Everything was about God’s will—even the mistakes and tragedies in our lives. Which is okay to think so, but at some point you may just be blaming God for everything, rather than taking personal responsibility for the things that happen. I’m much more of a thinker, than a feeler, so I don’t think our personalities would mesh in the long-term. She is a cutie pie, though, and she’s trying to get into modeling. Since I’m a photographer (looking to expand my portfolio), there may be an opportunity for a mutually beneficial collaboration.

When I arrived home, I was exhausted, so I decided not to go to Frontline. I’m not sure what service I’ll be going to anyway, now that they have two services again. I’d rather go to the 5:30 PM service, so I can have some free time at home on Sunday nights.

This week should be pretty busy for me at Nextel. I’m redesigning each of the landing pages, making them uniform with a standard template. My manager is out until Thursday, so I have to be self-motivated. No problem.

Maureen said she’d like to play more tennis tonight, so we’ll see if I can fit it in before my South Riding class at 8 PM.

First of all, I want to say happy birthday to the future Mrs. Michael Tolosa, the very lovely Sarah Michelle Gellar.

I just got back from my second YTB kickball game. We were handily beaten 7-0 by Blacktop All-Stars. Mostly, due to my friend/co-worker Emily’s terrible play at third base. But kickball is about having fun, and we still managed to have fun while getting beaten. I played well at first base. I dove for one ball and, instead of breaking my fall, I tried to throw the ball at the runner. Unfortunately, the ball missed her, and my body got rocked hard when it landed on the solid earth. My jaw felt odd, and the bones in my upper body felt out of place. Afterwards, we went to Carpool. Emily didn’t show up—she must have felt terrible. I was able to mingle a little more with the team this week (although I still didn’t get to talk with Allison). I discovered that one girl actually attended Frontline and The Gathering for a long while. And another girl has friends who do. Coolness.

I’m discovering that my new promotion at work may not have been a good strategic move. I get paid more, but it seems like my position will not exist once Nextel and Sprint merge. It’s likely the Nextel website (where I was) will replace Sprint’s, but Sprint’s intranet will replace Nextel’s (where I am now). My manager has been out a lot recently—and everyone, including myself, thinks she’s going on job interviews. That leaves me alone to do whatever I want with the Intranet. I can either slack off and spend my time working on personal projects (which I can get away with), or I can really do something cool with the Intranet. It’ll be hard to get motivated, but I’m really gonna try to do something great with i-Connect. It can only help me professionally. So, it’s really a no-brainer.

I’m now glad that I had to move upstairs. The contractor room I’m in has been steadily getting full, but the folks who’ve moved in have been really cool designer dudes. We joke around a lot and talk about WoW (World of Warcraft), which they’ve got me playing on my PC at home in my spare time. Aside: If any of you play, let me know what server, etc. Maybe we can play together online. Also, one girl, who’s based in Boston, works at Nextel Mondays through Thursdays. She’s on the “merger team” and is evaluating Nextel’s website and Sprint’s website (to see which one the merged company should keep). I invited her to lunch one day, and we hit it off. She plays kickball in Boston and has done Relay for Life. She doesn’t have a car while she’s here, so we’ve made plans to drive into D.C. together to sight-see after work.

Because of all the sports after work, I’m about two weeks behind on Lost, 24, Survivor, and The Amazing Race. I did have the opportunity to watch a movie called Pavement, which stars Robert Patrick in a very Doggett-esque role. I really like that actor.

I’ve been very strict on my diet (I haven’t even been drinking at kickball this week). With the diet and all the exercising, I’ve lost 6 pounds this week! I’m so excited.