Jay B. Rising is my mortal enemy

So, thanks to some delayed W2 forms, I had to postpone doing my taxes until I was here in Tampa. Since today was just my second day off in the 17 or so that I've been here, I thought this was a good time to dive in.

Now, I've done my own taxes since I was about 18, so I pretty much know what's what by now. Or at least I can wade through everything and figure it out eventually.

Since I've rarely just lived and worked in one state these last few years, I always have the joy of completing tax forms for Federal, Michigan, Grand Rapids and another state. It used to be Maryland. This year, obviously, it was Ohio.

Now, here's the inconceivable part. To complete all four forms took me roughly two hours. Well over half of that was spent on the Michigan State form. That means, for those of you scoring at home, that I was able to complete the Federal, Grand Rapids and Ohio returns in less time--combined!--than I needed just for the Michigan form.

This has been a trend in recent years, so I don't think this is an isolated incident. What will it take to simplify the Michigan state tax return?!?

I certainly didn't expect to use my travel blog to call for Michigan to simplify its tax returns, but we all surprise ourselves sometimes, I suppose.

Anyways, I'm eight days away from departing for Germany. Our travel schedule roughly looks like this:

4 hour bus ride to Miami
8-9 hour flight to Frankfurt
1 hour flight to Berlin

Throw in the 6-hour time difference, and we'll be leaving Tampa sometime Monday morning and arriving in Berlin sometime Tuesday morning. Hurrah, jetlag!

By the way, the NFL Europe is a whole different world than the NFL was. It's definitely had a "Welcome back to the minor leagues, Denver" feel so far. My boss from Germany pointed out that he thinks the "E" in NFLE stands not for "Europe," but for "Economy." I'm in full agreement.

I realize I'm pointing out all these negatives, but I am having a good time and meeting some interesting people, if not seeing many sights (or beaches) in Tampa. Just seeing my work on the league's website, fully credited to me, is very nice. It'll be very useful in building my portfolio.

All the best.

24 hours and 8 germans

Last night at 6 p.m., I stood in the Tampa International Airport and awaited the arrival of seven members of the Berlin media. Mind you, I'd never met a single one of them and had only seen some of their pictures. So it was a crapshoot.

Luckily, their fashion was European enough that they were not hard to spot. The super-tight jeans and quasi-spiky-mullet hairdos were enough to tip me off. Later, the eighth, my boss Maik, also arrived. We all shared drinks in the hotel lounge, where I understood nothing that was said.

Today, they came out to practice. A few of them don't know a whole lot about football, so that keeps things interesting. Today, I had to recruit some of our linemen to participate in a Whopper-eating contest against some Frankfurt players. One wouldn't think it'd be difficult to convince 300 lb. + guys to eat burgers, but some of them really were whiny little babies about it. But I got some guys, and Berlin won handily.

This afternoon, all of the talking and me not understanding started getting a little frustrating. I guess it was a bit of culture shock before I even leave the country. A free preview, if you will. After awhile, I got over it. But all the wild gesturing followed by hearty laughter about who knows what is still a little disconcerting. Every so often, my boss will translate/summarize for me, which is nice of him.

Later tonight, we all went to a nice Chinese buffet. Germans drink beer pretty much all the time. My favorite outfit of the night: black and purple diagonal stripted shirt tucked into magenta pants. The nice black blazer with the screen printed white tee was a close second. I'm positive this is how Justin will dress in about a year from now.

So at this point I've written quite a lot. Congrats if you actually made it this far. I'll update the chronicles of Berlin's media until they depart on Monday.

Cheers.

no incredibly witty title this time

Things are going considerably better today than when I ranted the other day. Tomorrow will be our first scrimmage against another team--the Amsterdam Admirals, in this case. It'll be nice because it means just one practice plus an extra hour of sleep.

We're really in the dog days of camp right now. The days are kind of running together as we have basically the same schedule every day. So tomorrow will be a nice change of pace.

Tonight, I went out into the jacuzzi and pool in the courtyard and just hung out for about two hours. It was super nice out and the pool was fantastic! One of the equipment guys who's from Germany was also out there, too. It was cool just chatting and hearing his perspective on lots of different things. This is his first trip to the USA. I'm definitely meeting some interesting people here--in both the good and bad senses of "interesting." I would expound, but I don't want to write about someone and have them stumble across it. That would be awkward.

Peace, friends.

on having four bosses in three different countries and the ensuing frustration when communication is less than effective

This is like one of those old poems where the title tells you what it's about, so you don't really feel the need to read any further. There's a Billy Collins poem about that, too. Anyways, I have four bosses--three with NFL Europe and one with the Berlin Thunder. Currently, two are in Tampa, one in London and one in Berlin.

I spend 7:15-1:30 every day out at practice. It's nice and sunny, but there's not a whole lot to do for me there aside from just being there to make sure everything's OK for everyone. In the meantime, emails from all my bosses pile up for me to spend the rest of the day addressing. Sometimes, they contain such messages as "I need this story written by 5:00." As mentioned above, I don't get these until 1:30, so then I get to frantically track down players and coaches for interviews and write like mad. It's not the most fun part of my job.

So there's my first blog rant.

Everything is still going well. I'm still sunburned and glad about it. I won't bother posting a link every time I get a story on the website because it'll be about four times a week (at least) from here on out.

So here's the team page:
http://www.nfleurope.com/teams/BER
Basically, everything posted on here for the next few months will be my work. I'm even the ghostwriter for the player diary (Shhhh...). So enjoy it if you want to. I won't go link crazy posting these things, even though I know everyone is super-interested in NFL Europe.

This is a very scattered post, appropriately, as that's the state I'm in right now. I miss everyone!

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i'm sunburned!

That's right, folks. It's February, and I've got a red, toasty face. That's what standing out in the Florida sun from 7:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. will do to you. Perhaps I'll put a smidge of sunscreen on my nose tomorrow.

Anyways, my first story is up on the website.

http://www.nfleurope.com/teams/story/BER/9236741

here we go

Tomorrow kicks off full-fledged training camp for the Thunder. Yesterday and today were passing camp with most of the offense out there running drills and plays. Both days have been rather long for me. I attend practice and spend the rest of the day writing furiously to try to keep up with everything. Hopefully I'll be able to give a more interesting summary of my duties soon, but we'll see. Soon I'll be able to start including links to my stories for your reading enjoyment.

So the lovely Florida weather I've been craving and anticipating? Not quite happening this week. It's struggled to reach 60 degrees. I know that's better than all you snow-laden midwesterners, so I won't complain too much. But, seriously, folks. This is Florida. I was expecting shorts and a t-shirt with sweat rolling down my back (you don't have to picture that part).

Anyways, hopefully that will change soon. If it doesn't, I'm going to think Florida's pretty much the biggest fraud ever.

Anyways, it's Valentine's Day and I spent it with a bunch of dudes. Right on.

which will it be?

This weekend has been alternatingly super-busy and insanely dull. On Saturday, I got moved into the Doubletree Hotel, where the rest of the Berlin Thunder and I will live until March 6. It's a decent place, and I have my own room with a king-size bed. This is very exciting to me because it means I can sleep without my feet hanging off the end of the bed.

Once I got to my hotel, I had to facilitate a phot shoot with one of our players. That ended at about 3:30 and was my last reponsibility for almost 24 hours. That would be nice, except that I have no car and (thanks to some botched planning--not by me) no internet. With some internet, I could've gotten much important and time-sensitve work done. Alas, that was not the case.

Today, we had hundreds of players arriving, so I spent about 3-9 p.m. meeting and greeting them, during which time the internet dilemma was solved. So, now that I have internet, I'm not doing research... I'm doing this.

At any rate, tomorrow begins passing camp, which will last two days. In the meantime, I'll also be finishing the research I ought to be doing right now. On Wednesday, the full-fledged, two-a-day training camp starts. So that means two hard-hitting practices each day in which I'll be required to stand there and watch other guys do all the hard hitting. No wonder they're the ones making the good money.

Anyways, we'll be flying to Berlin March 6-7, so I'll have about three weeks left here in Tampa.

barely coherent

After diving straight in for two very full days, I'm feeling a bit out of sorts. Nothing bad, just a lot to take in and do. It might be "training camp" for the players, but the PR guys have nothing resembling training--it's more like "thrown in off the deep end camp" for us. Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as nicely. Oh well.

Yesterday, I mentioned I met some of the German players. What I didn't mention was that I met them because I was furiously trying to gather them all for a photo shoot. All I had was a list of four names--no pictures, not even their daily schedule, nothing to help me find or recognize them. At any rate, after getting as stressed as I get, I finally got them all together. The result is a short story on the Thunder website with a photo from the shoot. Here's the link: http://www.berlin-thunder.de/home.asp?nid=411
Let me know if you can read it because I sure can't.

We began welcoming American players today, and most were pretty friendly. They're much easier to deal with than many NFL players, so that's a bonus.

I'm tired.

i had to look this up

sun - n.
the luminous celestial body around which the earth and other planets revolve, from which they receive heat and light, and which has a mean distance from earth of 93,000,000 miles (150,000,000 kilometers), a linear diameter of 864,000 miles (1,390,000 kilometers), a mass 332,000 times greater than earth, and a mean density about one fourth that of earth

For the first time in what seems like years (but was more like a month), I was out in the sun today. I responded by putting on a pair of flip-flops and walking outside for about 10 minutes. That was about the only break I had in an 11+ hour day.

It's good to be back at work. I love the buzz in the air just as the season's about to begin. I met four of our German players and the head coach today. The coach is an old school guy, so I think we'll get along well. The players were really down to earth and laid back, too.

Staff meetings and the first American players' arrival are on the docket for tomorrow, so it should be good.

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i'm not wearing a coat

Temperature in GR this morning when I left: 22 degrees

Temperature in Tampa upon touching down at 6:25 p.m.: 64 degrees

For those of you keeping score at home, that's a 42-degree increase. I'll take it, thank you.

So let me quickly recap the trip down here. The GR to Detroit leg came off without a hitch--on time and uneventful. The treat started when, about 20 minutes before my scheduled takeoff, I noticed it was spitting snow outside. Now, when I say spitting, I mean you had to pay close attention to even notice any snow was coming down. More on that in a moment...

After everyone was boarded, our captain informed us that the aircraft needed some "maintenance" work done. After flaunting his ability to freak out the passengers, he explained it was merely a navigational light bulb that needed changing. It would set us back about 15 minutes.

However, thanks to the aforementioned snow, he also had to de-ice the aircraft. So in all, the 3:20 takeoff was more like 4:00.

Oh, by the by, did I mention that, for the entire time we were waiting on the tarmac, a 2-year-old sitting two rows behind me was apparently having his fingernails slowly removed?

At least that's the only explanation I can think of for his maniacal screaming/crying. What a joy children are... He mercifully stopped once we got flying, but again serenaded us for our 30-minute descent. The bloke to my right dealt with it by pulling his tray down, leaning forward, resting his elbows on said tray and inserting his forefingers into his ears.

So, thanks to my delayed flight, I missed dinner at Hooters with the rest of the US PR Assistants from around the league. On the bright side, I met Detroit Lions TE Marcus Pollard as we both stood in line to check into our hotel rooms. He seemed like a nice chap.

At any rate, the hotel is fantastic, the weather is ever-so-bearable, and I get started with work first thing tomorrow morning.

Cheers.

six days to sun

My time in Grand Rapids is now about half over. It's been relaxing and productive. I've seen several friends and whatnot.

How many times can I say I'm excited for Tampa? It feels like I've said that about 100 times over the last few days (because everyone I talk to asks).

One of the highlights of being in GR has been watching the State of the Union address with the Hatch and the Dod... nothing can substitute being around like-minded friends for such an event.

I think my second favorite part of the address was when the Democrats gave a standing ovation to W's comment that Senate hadn't acted on his Social Security proposal. My favorite part was the expression on Hillary's face just after W's quip about two of his dad's favorite people: "Me and President Clinton." Pure comedy gold.

That's all for now.