2010, what a year! Thank you Twins!!

Though our season came to a screeching halt last night (or the minute it was the yankees we had to play in the playoffs)... I wanted to take a minute to go thru my year at Target field.  What an amazing inaugural season the boys had, and I had.  After 21 years of metrodome baseball, I was introduced to outdoor baseball at Turner Field in Atlanta... I still remember the chills I got walking through the gates (not revolving doors...) into the stadium.  Love at first sight.  I'm so glad we FINALLY have outdoor baseball in MN again.  Though in my life it's the second time we've been there, but the Twins went from the Met to the Dome in 1982, so I was much to young to remember...
Today I'm going back through all my photos to bring in memories of my/the twins first year at our brand new and beautiful stadium... Let's take a journey! Going to do two or three photos for each game... first up will be a photo of me and the person I attended the game with... the second will be my favorite shot of the game... and one that's just showing off the view from our seats!
It's no secret that Baseball and the Twins are some of my favorite things... so here we go!

April 20, 2010
Minnesota Twins vs Cleveland Indians
MN Pitcher: (my) Kevin Slowey
Twins win 5-1
Attendance: 38,985
Seats: section 318 row 8 seat 4 $22

Here is the view from my first seats at Target Field!

 Jeremy, Jesse, me and Jason spent the game in the Twins Pub... Jason and I sat in our seats for about two minutes before we decided we'd go looking around at all we could see...then met up with Jeremy and Jesse at the Twins Pub, stayed there the whole game! Great view!

And for my favorite photo, well, it's gotta be the one with fireworks...couldn't do that in the dome!!  Way to go Kevin :)

May 23, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Milwaukee Brewers

MN Pitcher: Carl Pavano

Brewers win 4-3

Attendance: 38,952

Seats: section 120 row 24 seat 7 $62

 Mary's first game at Target Field... the most expensive seats that I've got this year.

 I can't believe I got this shot... Denard Span takes one off his back, and I somehow managed to be taking a photo just then!

And the view from our seats... Too bad Jim Thome didn't take advantage of the men on base to make it a first walk off win in the new stadium... We got close, just couldn't get one more run...

June 9, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Kansas City Royals

MN Pitcher: Carl Pavano

Twins win 6-2

Attendance: 40,323

Seats: section G row 7 seat 5 $55 (won these tix:)

I got extremely lucky in wining tickets to this game... I'd wanted to go into the Legend's club since Jason and I found it, and were told we couldn't go in without tickets to that area... I was so excited that I'd get to be a part of this area today!!  That's me and Jen just a few rows down from where we were sitting... In awesome wooden back chairs with cushions on the seat!

Here's a view of beautiful Downtown Minneapolis from our seats. soooo pretty.  

 There were soooo many photos I loved from this visit to target field... but this one has to be my favorite...some of the best quotes in Twins history...

June 12, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Atlanta Braves

MN Pitcher: Nick Blackburn

Braves win 3-2

Attendance: 40,001

Seats: section 131 row 6 seat 12 $24 (Mathias' season tickets)

This is the view from our seats!! We were right next to the bullpen, it was great!!  We got to see Nicky and Joe throw some practice pitches before the game!

 and Joe makes it in as my favorite shot of the day! Little did I know I'd be rubbing elbows with him not 24 hours later!! :)

This is the first game for me and Kel at the new stadium... Kelly and I've been going to Twins games for years at the dome...this place is much better for our baseball watching pleasure!

 I had to have two photos to show the view from our seats.... Thought I'd show one of the actual field rather than the guys in the bullpen!

June 13, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Christy & Ryan

Justin Morneau's Casino Night

MN Pitcher: Christy

Christy wins 10-0

Attendance: 2010 Minnesota Twins

Seats: Legend's Club.

Okay you couldn't expect me to go thru my year at Target Field without putting photos from the best night of my life(to this point)!!! Me and my Justin Morneau. He must have thought I was craaazy... Who meets someone new and says "Hi Justin Morneau, nice to meet you"  and then after the photo "thanks Justin Morneau"  

The love of my life on the Twins pitching staff.... Kevin Slowey. He's so darn cute...so stinking sweet... and he couldn't keep his hands off me ;)  You know he's a good guy, grounded guy because he'd just had a horrible outing against the Braves just 3 hours before.... and he was in a great mood, you'd have never known that he had such a bad game.  Had Dan not been in my life, Kevin would have been in big BIG trouble :)

And the Prince of the Diamond, mr Joe Mauer.  He's just as gorgeous in person as he is in this photo.  soft spoken... and I could have sniffed him in all night!!

July 15th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Kevin Slowey

Sux win 8-7 

Attendance: 40,697

 

So I was invited by Jason to this game... His boss was kicked out of Target Field for the season, until he purchased a sh!t ton of tickets....buying his way back in... and Jason was nice enough to invite me along...and since I was with him and his work folk, I can only tell you that the blonde girls name is Dinah (or something..) then it's me and Jason.. Don't have a clue who that girl on the left is... You can also see more co-workers waving in the background.

My boyfriend Kevin was pitching again tonight :)  Love this shot of him and the skyline!

and this is the beautiful view we had this evening...what a stunning stadium we've got.  This is the only game I ended up leaving early.... It was the longest game ever. okay not ever, but it was long.... I think I left at 10:00 and they were in the 7th or something redonk like that. 

July 16th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Fransico Liriano

Twins win 7-4

Attendance: 40,427

Seats: section 302 row 14 seat 15 $13

 Cassie was my guest tonight at Target Field, it was great hanging out with her... Since she's a mom of two toddlers... we don't get to hang out much... Here we are at the gold glove

Our tickets were in the most top row in the stadium..... but we still had such a beautiful view... I thought the view would not be very good from this far away... then we sat down... I'm pretty much sold to the fact that there are no bad seats in this place!

  and for my favorite shot... not sure why I like it so much, but I do... it's the Budweiser Roof Deck... A place I haven't watched a game from yet!

August 16th, 2010

Tour of Target Field

MN Pitcher: Danny boy

Christy wins 8-7

Attendance: 40

Seats: wherever we want

 here are two beautiful shots of my favorite stadium!

 

and a photo of my favorite boy and myself on my favorite field :)

August 17th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Scott Baker

Twins win 7-6

Attendance: 40,714

Seats: section 216 row 6 seat 1 $34

 

Here is where we sat for today's game.. Right behind us was the Twins Pub.

 TWINS WIN in WALK OFF fashion thanks to Jim Thome :) way to welcome your former team to MN, and way to welcome Dan too! :)  perfect game for Dan's first! I was much too excited to be taking photos when I saw that ball sail out of the park...this was the first one I took after jumping up and down for like 5 minutes..

 Here is me and my Danny boy up close to the field. auuhhh :)

August 18th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Fansisco Liriano

Twins win 7-6

Attendance: 40,702
Seats: section 326 row 14 seat 18 $15

 So I didn't take any photos of Dan and myself today...but I'll still put up three photos.. Here is another shot of Budweiser Roof Deck from where we sat!

 As if last nights first walk off home run wasn't enough... Dan and I saw Joe Mauer's first home run at Target Field the next night!  you can see Minne and Paul sparkling here!

and here is a view from our seats. second to last row in Target Field.

September 17, 2010
Minnesota Twins vs Oakland Athletics
MN Pitcher: Nick Blackburn
A's win: 3-1
Attendance: 40,681
Seats: section 136 row 2, seat 8 $24

 IMHO these are the best seats in the house... LOVED it out here in the overhang!!  there is Jason out here in right field. 

 Saw this game with Brian, a friend I haven't seen in like 5 years, good times. lots of vodka.

the vodka probably explains this photo... surprised i didn't end up in right field...

October 2, 2010
Minnesota Twins vs Toronto Blue Jays
MN Pitcher: Brian Duensing
Twins win: 5-4

Attendance: 40,235

Seats: section 235 row 1, seat 8 $24

 First game in years that Stef and I hit up. good times with me sista

 a view from our seats in the front row

 my man Kevin came in for an inning... sooo happy he did, it could be the last time I see him pitch with my Twins :(

  and I've got to have a 4th just because I had another walk off win :)  go twins!

I had a wonderful year, and so many memories thanks to you boys! thanks for a great year, and hopefully next year someone else can take out the yankees for us!

photography

something near and dear to my heart.  i love taking photos. i love being in photos. i love looking at photos.  well. most photos.  i've been into photography since before i remember. back in 7th grade i had a camera, and i brought it to school. i have lots of random photos of my friends and life starting way back then. everyone asked me "christy why do you take so many pictures"  and i told them i just loved it.  now they look at my photo albums and say 'man i wish i would have taken photos back then too, you are lucky to have these memories'
i took every photography class available through high school and even did a self study for a semester with our photography teacher.  i loved it and everything about photography.  i remember our teacher using my photos as examples of great photography. i've got this one shot of my sister and our dog snowball and another one of the nativity scene in our basement, both of which i used back lighting... i remember my teacher telling the class "you can't teach this kind of photography"

The dark room was my favorite place to be.. i enjoyed so much working in there, manipulating the image into exactly what i wanted it to be.
i even had a part time job at moto photo, a small one hour photo store where i got to do what i loved doing...developing peoples pictures, and helping them capture their own memories into beautiful photographs (even if i did have to manipulate them to get them to look good:)
fast forward to my sophomore year of college(1998).  i'm in school for graphic design.  our assignment is to take a photo of these cute little harley davidson shoes for babies with this brand new digital camera. i took a couple pictures with this digital camera... i HATED it. this thing was huge, you had to hold it with both hands.  it had a small 1x1 inch screen to see what it was you were taking a photo of, and i think it was maybe 1.1 mega pixels. this had to have been one of the first digital cameras to roll out to the public.  it was ugly, and it produced ugly things.  i swore to my classmates, i will never, ever buy a digital camera.  i said film is the way to go, you can blow your photo up to any size you want with out losing quality (with a 100 speed film or less obviously). 
fast forward another few years to 2003.  i was still sporting my Olympus film camera. i loved that camera. i also had dads SLR... which i was totally in love with.  for christmas my boyfriend at the time decided it was time i join the digital age, and bought me a gateway camera.  we played around with it for maybe 15 minutes when the batteries died on us.  we put in new batteries, and again they died right away. i said to him, this is why i don't want to go digital.  we went to the gateway store the next day to replace this camera...we ended up getting a canon powershot... a camera which wormed its way into my heart after a few weeks of use. it took forever to make the battery run out... i took a bunch of photos around the house, and went to get them developed. i was so nervous that they'd look as horrid as the photos of those harley davidson shoes for kids...but they weren't half bad! 
in early 2003 we learned the fate of the state farm regional office, and it wasn't good. they were closing down to move operations to lincoln ne. i decided it was time to get back into doing something i loved, something i'm passionate about.  photography. brown college was offering a digital photography bachelors degree... i thought, this is it. this is what i will do after  the office closes.  i signed up and was well on my way to $75,000 of debt to get this degree.  first quarter was straight up generals.  they didn't offer photography classes at night until my second quarter.  i lasted just the first two quarters in class.  since i've been taking photos my whole life, and with an SLR for at least 10 years, i was very in touch with how a camera works...
first day of class we each got a film SLR, and i shit you not, we learned how to load film. we learned how to change the aperture and speed of the shutter. i thought to myself 'what am i doing here?'  these people just like taking pictures, so they signed up to take this route in photography.
It drove me crazy sitting there listening to people not know how to do these things. how do you think you are going to just pick up a career like this through a 4 year degree when you've never picked up a SLR camera before?!?  I knew one thing, I wouldn't walk out with a degree in photography with a $75,000 bill and be able to make the monthly school loan payments... no photographer could!  if you want to be a photographer, it's about knowing people and building up a clientele.... you aren't going to make that kind of money right away to start paying of those student loans! 
After one quarter, i was done.  the two instructors i had (i use that term very loosely) were horse shit. the woman gave all the boys A's and all the girls B's. she flirted with the boys, she made sure to have any group projects boys vs girls so she could grade more easily! it was the most irritating thing in the world. after getting B's on all of my projects, i somehow ended up with a final grade of A after not getting any A's thru the class... how does that work?!  she drove me up a wall.  neither instructor knew how to be a teacher, it was both instructors first time teaching.  and i'm supposed to go $75,000 in debt for that?!
okay, so i've gone way off topic here.  we ended up with Canon Rebels as our digital camera for class.  i fell in love with it, this is how photography should be.  i used that camera everywhere i went.  and quite honestly i used every last shot of it before i blew the shutter on it. 
now i've got another canon rebel that replaced my first one. again, totally in love with this camera.  it takes amazing photos. 
i've noticed while looking around at peoples photos on facebook that everyone thinks they can be a photographer.  i've seen random people who tag my friends in photos on their online 'photography class' album....as i said i love looking at photos, but not all photos... some are just a picture. and i see a lot of these on people's online photo albums. it's sad to me that photography isn't an art anymore... and i'm not claiming all the photos i take are any more than a picture either... but if you are going to have an online 'photography class album' you should choose your photos wisely!  put up photos with dimension. put photos up with a clear subject.  photos with interest. don't stand over a garden and take a photo...get in and take a photo of that one, perfect flower.  don't take a photo of your kids from your height, get down to their eye level, this makes for a waaaay more interesting photo of your kids (you can take photos from different vantage points that are good, but again, it's an art, not just a photo).
anyone can pick up a camera, but it takes a special eye to be a photographer... and i'm sad that everyone who can point and click their little $100 camera thinks they are a photographer. it fills me with joy to find great photographers... the ones who take the kind of photography that 'you can't teach'.

more on favorite things

I haven't forgotten about this new segment that I want to start on my favorite things... I have been thinking and thinking of some of my favorite things and writing them down in a notebook.... I just haven't had time to go thru my photos and post them here :) In a way I'm hoping life calms down a bit for me this fall, but that sounds boring. so it's not going to be easy to do this, but I'm going to do my best to make it happen.
I've decided that this week on my project365 (version 2010) I'm taking a photo of one of my favorite things every day this week. I'm hoping to get that 365 caught up tonight.  Last night I worked on putting my photos onto discs... I haven't since June, so thought it's about time I do before I lose them!!  I free'd up 7.5GB of space doing so!!!!!! and ran out of discs!  (i've updated my project 365)
Now that I've done that, it's time to focus on my 365, I'm just what, 15 days behind.. I've been more than that in the past...
And since I'm talking about favorite things... i must bring up the fact that my Twins clinched the Central Division Championship last night!! thanks to a come behind win (with a bunch of our normal starters sitting out) and a white sux loss to the Oakland A's!  way to go Twins, and way to lose Sux!! :)  I'm super excited, and hoping to win the chance to buy tickets to a play off game.  Twins aren't done playing this year, we've got to keep winning, we want to have a better record than the Spankees in order to have home field advantage thru the playoffs. The National League has home field advantage during the world series, which sucks.. specially b/c they haven't beat the American league in FOREVER, why THIS YEAR?!
Anyway, I've got ticket to one final game in the regular season, October 2nd, this time going to sit in the first row right in front of Minne and Paul.  I'm looking forward to hitting up the stadium with my SIIIIIIISTER!
With the Twins clinching, they've unveiled their new homer hanky.... and guess who's going to make a quilt out of said homer hanky??? that's right, me.  I've got a pattern all laid out, now I've just gotta wait till I can buy 8 of them to get er going! :)

favorite things...

rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens....
okay these aren't my favorite things... but... i'm gonna start something new here... i'm going to start sharing my favorite things with you... I haven't decided how i want to do this..once a week or something?? not sure... but you are going to find out more about me than you probably want to know :) ha! 
I've been really good at sharing those things that drive me crazy so i figured it's time to start sharing those things that really make me happy!!!  I'll probably start this up this coming weekend so keep your eyes peeled!!