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I have not updated since I got to Texas, mostly because I have not been taking any pictures. Today is my 25th birthday and I got sick of my camera collecting dust, so I went to a baseball game this afternoon and took photos.

The Round Rock Express vs the Memphis Redbirds. No captions necessary, really. It was just nice to get out there and shoot again.

If you haven’t heard, long story short, I returned to America and thought I was not going to land a baseball job for the season and I was going to relax in Portland. Then I got hired, very unexpectedly and very suddenly. I will be working as a PR & Operations Assistant with the Pacific Coast League through September, which is an amazing opportunity, but it also meant I had to move to Round Rock, Texas very quickly.

Luckily my father was willing to make the trip with me, and before I knew it, I was making a 2,000+ mile road trip with about a week to prepare.

Yeesh.

We left Washington Sunday morning, driving about 800 miles the first day and making it all the way to southern Utah. The majority of the drive looked like this:

Luckily the snow was not on the roads so we did pretty well weather-wise, which was a concern.

On Monday we visited two national parks in Utah. First was Bryce Canyon.

Beautiful, obviously. I have some panoramic photos I need to put together too, but I haven’t gotten to those yet.

After that we went to Zion National Park which was just as cool.

That night we made it to Flagstaff, Arizona and ate at a Waffle House diner, which had really cool character.

On Tuesday we woke up and went down to Peoria to catch a spring training baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and Cincinatti Reds. On the way we stopped at In-N-Out, because… well… we figured we had to.

The park in Peoria was awesome and it was amazing just to watch some big league baseball again. If you know me at all you know how excited I am for the major league season right around the corner.

Keep in mind, these were shot from my seat.

Mat Latos.

“King Felix” Hernandez.

Ichiro.

Hong-Chih Kuo.

Andrew Brackman. 6’10″ Andrew Brackman, that is.

I got a sweet sunburn, but it was worth it in early March.

That night we made it to Tucson so we could wake up in the morning and head across New Mexico towards Texas. New Mexico looked like this:

Yeesh. I did discover a random fake town in the middle of nowhere though:

Crazy.

We arrived in Round Rock on Thursday afternoon and immediately got moved into my apartment. Friday I met up with my bosses and saw the office I’ll be working in. I know this is going to be a great job for the season, and I’m excited for when work starts on Monday. A few weeks ago I thought I was going to be hanging out in Portland for a while, but now I am living in Texas for the summer. Funny.

I arrived back in America about an hour ago. Almost thirty hours of traveling, which of course sucked. What didn’t suck was the Perth Heat winning the 2011-2012 Australian Baseball League Championship over the Melbourne Aces in three games. Just like the All-Star Game, it was on TV to over 50 countries and was an awesome event to be a part of. I took advantage of the opportunity and took lots of photos.

James McOwen in centre field…

… and James McOwen hitting a home run in Game One to give the Heat a 2-1 lead.

Heat starter Virgil Vasquez threw a complete game, allowing just one run.

Vasquez with manager Brooke Knight after the Game One victory.

Vasquez and Yasunori.

Pitching coach and two-time World Series winner Graeme Lloyd.

Perth’s starter in Game Two was Warwick Saupold, winner of the Pitcher of the Year award in the ABL.

Heat catcher Allan de San Miguel, winner of the Gold Glove award.

Mychal Givens called safe.

Trevor Fox, on the right, is a rookie. Hence the pink backpack.

Saupold leaving the game.

Game Two went 13 innings into the night, and despite multiple chances to finish off the series, the Heat dropped the match and the Aces tied the it at one game each, forcing a third game on Sunday.

Game Three also went 13 innings, but the Heat walked off to win the championship for the second year in a row.

The head groundskeeper Rod Drew with Lloyd.

Yasunori being hoisted by the team on the field.

Brooke Knight getting a Gatorade bath after being tricked into “one last interview.”

After the celebrations was a champagne bath in the clubhouse.

“Lick the roof.”

Obviously it was an amazing time and it made the entire season completely worth all the work. I made lots of great friends once again and it was sad to say goodbye.

Now it feels good to be back.

As usual, I’ve been too busy and photographically unproductive to post anything here. The season ends in just a few weeks and we are in the playoffs so things are pretty nuts.

Last week in preparation for our first round series against the Melbourne Aces I made spray charts for their team. This means going through their entire 45-game season and drawing out every hit (and out) that their batters made. The idea is that you can figure out a pattern in ways and places that they hit the ball.

It took a while, so I watched some movies at the same time. Pictured: Scott Pilgrim.

The first game of the postseason started at 2pm on Australia Day, which is (obviously) a huge holiday here. Not only that, but it was about 106 degrees Fahrenheit that day. This means that not only was it way too hot out to play or get people to come watch, but my producer told me an hour before the game that our video production computer was overheating and there was no way we’d be able to do our online stream. This is bad.

I needed a quick solution, so I ran to the canteen and built an ice-cooling rack in about five minutes.

He looked at me like I was crazy, then thought about it for a second, and realized it was worth a shot. Other than having to refill the ice fairly regularly, it worked flawlessly and kept the computer nice and cool. I was pretty proud.

In other news, we ended up winning the series, so we are hosting the championship in two weeks as we look to defend our title from last year. So that’s exciting.

On New Year’s Eve I spent some time downtown with friends, and while it was really crowded, it was good to walk around and see stuff.

We even ran into a ska band doing a show on the street. Spontaneous ska is always a nice surprise, though it just made me miss the shows in Korea.

On New Year’s Day I went to the local aquarium with Kyle and his dad, who was visiting for the holiday.

Shooting in an aquarium is pretty challenging, since it is very dark and there are lots of colors, not to mention glass to shoot through. It’s a fun challenge though, and I hadn’t been to one since October 2010 in Busan. Lots of these photos are shot at ISO 3200, which is camera nerd speak for “attempting to shoot in the dark.” Once again I loved my camera I got a year ago as it did alright.

It was a really cool aquarium and I had a lot of fun hanging out with Kyle and his dad. Soon it is back to work…