Coast 2 Coast Mom

Having a Ball Playing Atari's New Sandlot Sluggers

Last week we were treated to an amazing baseball wonderland at Atari's headquarters in celebration of the upcoming launch of their Backyard Sports Sandlot Sluggers video game. They really outdid themselves bringing in Astroturf, a hot dog vendor, popcorn stand, t-ball equipment - thanks to Franklin for the backstop tents that saved me from spending my entire time chasing down baseballs to keep placing atop the t-ball stand for Li'l Boo to hit ;-) Oh yes, there were lots of video game systems set up for us and the kiddos to play Sandlot Sluggers.

Li'l Boo had a fantastic time (they had baseball pinatas! He got to play with @SelfishMom's kids!), and all of the kids appeared to pick up on the game quickly. The game feels like a diverse neighborhood gathering of kids playing baseball. Li'l Boo played it on the XBox and the Wii systems, and told me that he likes the mini games best. "Dingers" is his fave, and it's similar to playing a home-run derby with continuous power batting. Of course, this morning he awoke asking to play a "The Cube" mini game of pitching skills. ;-)

Raising a Baseball Super Fan, or a Sports Diplomat?

It's a dreary day today, but yesterday was near perfect for the Run for the Wild: Save the Tigers 5K at The Bronx Zoo. Li'l Boo insisted on wearing his Detroit Tigers shirt for the Tiger run. (Thanks to his aunts for sending it to him.) He covered it up in the chilly morning with his zip-up Yankees hoodie, which was a great choice as we learned upon arrival for the race that the Yankees World Series trophy would be on display for photos at the end of the race.

Feed Your Spring Fever With 2 Baseball Video Games

We've come down with fevers this week. Spring fever. Baseball fever.

With the sun shining these past two days and gimpses of blue sky, we're finding reasons to get outside - walking to school or the train yesterday. Egging our fevers on is the b-roll shown during the sports segments of the local news featuring the Yankee and Mets spring training camps down south. Sunshine? Baseball? We're wishing spring would get here already!

Which brings me to today's launch of Major League Baseball 2K10 (and a giveaway: scroll below).

Learning Values That Define A Lifetime From the Olympics

Watching the 2010 Winter Olympic closing ceremonies last night amid all of the pomp and circumstance, it seemed to me that the crowd and the athletes were walking a little lighter and smiling a bit wider. It was as though the entire stadium took a collective deep breath and began to relax, celebrate being there, and truly soak up the history, spirit and honor that is the Olympic games.

As we watched in awe of the young men and women athletes making their marks on the world stages of their sports, I couldn't help but notice how many teachable moments occured while watching the Olympics and I wondered what the future holds for Li'l Boo. Where will his athletic interests and strengths lie? Will he take to hockey? Or skiing?

Blog the Olympics! Enter To Win a Trip to Vancouver #blogathlete

One cool opportunity I learned about from the Office team at the Microsoft Open House in NYC earlier this month, is that they're running a blogger contest "Office Winter Games," where one female blogger and one blogging college student will win a trip to Vancouver, BC to cover the 2010 Winter Olympic Games (Feb 11-17 or Feb 23-March 1st) as a credentialed member of the press. Woo-hoo! As if that's not cool enough, the winner will ALSO win a trip to Las Vegas

to attend and cover the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show! (Jan 7-10th; Ahem, I'll be there!) Think this prize can't get any better? It DOES! They're giving both winners an Acer Aspire 4810 laptop with Office software. (Which I'm sure will work well with the LifeCam Cinema HD video webcam I'm testing out and absolutely LOVE!) Do I have you practicing your crowd chanting skills already? (USA! USA!)

All you have to do to enter is fill out an online form and post up to 250 words explaining why you deserve the opportunity to attend the 2010 Winter Games as a blogger. Oh, and did I mention that five-time Olympic Gold medalist Bonnie Blair is one of the judges? I'll have to work on an entry myself as I'd love to have my CES trip paid for, and I'd LOVE to attend the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver! But I promise I won't be bitter - I'll still read the posts of whomever wins. Maybe ;-)

For more information, and to enter: https://www.officewintergames.com

Take Me Out To The Ball Game thisMoment

Like to take photos of your family, events, daily life, travels, or pets and post them to share with family and friends? Then have I got a new site for you to check out! I was on a call Friday with Vince Broady, founder of thisMoment, to learn more about the recently launched company. In their own words, thisMoment is “an inventive new place for people to save and share their life’s moments.” In my words, it’s a pretty cool site for packaging all of the photos, video, links, etc. that tell the story of your life. For free. thisMoment incorporates your own photos and videos with elements from FaceBook, flickr, Photobucket, or YouTube, and presents them with an interactive timeline, for you to post on FaceBook, Twitter, Kirtsy, your blog or on the thisMoment website. It’s like an “umbrella” sharing site.

Let me just say before I go any further that I have not been compensated by thisMoment for sitting on the call or exploring their free offering, and I do not have a family member or friend who works for the company.

I was so impressed listening to Vince describe what you can do with their offering, and thought that it seemed like such an easy way to gain some organization across all of the sites I use, that I started creating my own “life moment” that night. Li’l Boo’s first baseball game. It was easy to use because you can access it via email, iPhone, Facebook or thisMoment. I’ve already experimented with using the website, and with using the iPhone app. The only downside I experienced was that the website gave me an error message when loading some of the photos (but the uploading worked fine when I reloaded them a second time), and the iPhone app used a good amount of battery power during the Yankees vs Tigers game we attended today – but that was expected. (I gave my iPhone a good workout at the game creating a second mobile “moment.” ;-) ) I really like thisMoment, and I can see us using it all the time. In fact, we’re heading out on our “Midwest Summer Roadtrip ‘09” next week on our way to BlogHer, and it seems like another perfect excuse to use thisMoment to share our adventure with family and friends. Which has me thinking that I may use it to save and share some of my BlogHer experiences as well. Did I mention that thisMoment offers collaboration, so I could post a story and someone else can add their photos, video or comments to it too? (There's a hierarchy of privacy offerings too, don't fret!) How cool is that?

I was so excited about all that thisMoment had to offer, that I’m actually now co-hosting a Twitter party Monday night (July 20th - complete with prizes!) with KeepItClassyJen to show others how easy and cool it really is. Join us and check it out!

First Sunburn

Okay, so I had a bad mom day this weekend, but I don’t think I could have avoided it.

 

We woke up Sunday and checked the weather forecast to learn that it would be a high of 56 degrees in the NY area, and we dressed accordingly for our trip to Giants Stadium to watch the NY Giants take on the SF 49ers. Not knowing for sure if our seats would be in the sun or the shade, we wore long sleeves (Li’l Boo wore the requisite white mock turtleneck and Eli Manning jersey) and carried our coats should it be cold and windy. We lucked out and basked in the sun where it was nice and warm with a clear blue sky and felt like it was 68 degrees! (I seriously felt badly about putting Li’l Boo in a mock turtle as we were very warm the entire game.) By the end of the third quarter, I noticed Li’l Boo’s cheeks were majorly pink. I initially thought that it was due to him being warm, but I realized that it was the result of sitting in the sunshine for three hours. Aack!

 

 

So Li’l Boo got his first sunburn yesterday . . .

At a football game. . .

In the middle of October. . .

In 52 degrees. . .

In New Jersey. . .

Looking back, though I honestly don't think I would have possibly thought to bring sunscreen with us, but it’s one more thing that I have to feel guilty about for not being a good enough mom to have prepared for it. And it’s one more small lesson in learning flexibility, of letting go of my expectations as a mom, and learning that I can’t control everything despite my best intentions. That all I can do is the best I can at the time.