15 Items or less

I usually go grocery shopping in the evenings. The reason being: I like to avoid the senior citizens who tend to crowd the isles looking for specials. They like to do things early, thats fine, more power to them.

Today, I went in the morning...big mistake! So I'm shopping like a regular customer but in a bit of a hurry. The lines were pretty long so I picked the emptiest one, but I had not noticed I was in the "15 items or less" line. As I stood in line at Kroger (Amigo de aca) with a People magazine in hand this very unpolite senior citizen comes up and yells at me in a very Souther accent>> "now mam you sure DON'T have 15 items in that cart!!". Tragame tierra! Of course everyone looked at me like I was the worst person on earth. I proceeded to apologize and move to another line. Needless to say, when I got home, I counted and I only had 17 items.

What the heck? That was so unfair, just becasue he was alive during WWII dosen't mean he can treat people that way. I am usually the person letting people with less items than me get in front. Sometimes I'm even the person helping others get the last jar of Prego from the top shelf. While other times I try to be a good citizen by bringing the shopping carts lazy people leave around the parking lot back to their rack. I have replaced plastic bags with highly efficient green bags! I would consider myself as being supermarket friendly. Gimme a break dude!

I learned my lesson, keep going in the evenings and back away from the express lane. See you next week Kroger.

LD

Lo que se quedo...

Warning to non-golfers: This one might get boring, it's one of those "you had to be there to understand", but I encourage you to Read On!

My grrrreat memory failed a bit last night and I forgot to give a shout out to Danny Colson, MVP at East Lake this past weekend. Mr. Colson, who has Tiger's back inside and outside the ropes, hooked up his "PR Mafia" big time with the photo pass and access to the players parking lot. <<<-----There's Danny in the light blue shirt, I think he was looking out for "red flags".

Little did he know that one of the members of the mafia would rise some red flags and another would be stalking that parking lot like it was his job. I won't mention any names but there was only one HE in our group. That He also managed to console Tiger after a bad shot and remind Kenny of sad times at Augusta. "It's oka buddy"...Priceless! Meanwhile, KTC's face managed to reach a level of redness which can only be attained by a Calvesbert. La pobre Karen, se abochornaba de nosotros.

Here we are stalking the parking lot and posing with the big boss. Somehow Bones (Phil Mickelson's caddie) got in this picture as well. I guess he was making room in the trunk for the the $4 million dollar check. Must be nice.

While we stood there, Tim Finchem (PGA Tour Commissioner) rolled around the corner and he also got some kind words from our He. We are assuming Tiger left through an underground tunnel because one minute his Buick was there, the other, it disappeared. Wonder what his next stop is? Maybe "World Disney World" with Elin and the kids. Who knows.

I think I've covered just about everything...gotta love reminiscing! Until next time.

Peace out,

LD

Final Round Recap

Se nos acabo el gusito, but thats oka, all good things must come to an end. The four of us made it back home safely, some faster than others, but we're all back to reality, that's for damn sure. Before I start getting into the golf, as I was dropping my peeps off at the airport this morning I saw Dwight from the Real Housewives of ATL!!! He was checking in curbside though, who does that anymore? I don't think he has Delta Medallion Platinum status. Anyways, here's us with the EL clubhouse in the background. Inside, the clubhouse was filled with Bobby Jones memorabilia, including a display of each of the trophies presented to him after he won the Grand Slam as an amateur in 1930.

The final two rounds of the Tour Championship were loads of fun, the weather gods were with us throughout the weekend and everything ran smoothly. Tournament directors moved the tee times up a few hours on Saturday to prevent from getting hit by the storm which set in as the last putt dropped. Rain, that's one thing that's a nightmare for any tournament director, why? because you can't control it. But I guess these PGA Tour people are so good at organizing events they even control the weather these days, geeeezz. There's Karen and Christine with Mark, one of the officials at the event and a good friend. He does the advance for the PR OPEN, he was glad to see us there. I would have liked to be in that picture but that's okay, someone has to take it for the team.

Every day was filled with new anecdotes, happenings and characters. "Tiger Woods, Ya'll!" was my personal favorite, with "Tiger Woods for second black president" coming in second. As you can see our weekend revolved around Tiger, but nothing compared to this guy's shirt. <<<----Check it out. You can't really see it, but on the bottom it says "Tiger Woods, Ya'll". The poor guy wanted Tiger's autograph so bad but what he almost got was a black eye from the security guard who kicked him out of the players parking lot where that picture was taken. For the record, we did not get kick out because we were authorized to be there.

By the way, on Sunday we saw the dude following Tiger's group wearing the same shirt. Pretty funny.

We did get kicked out, actually no, I rephrase, were were kindly asked to move away from the press room door where Tiger was being interviewed. This picture can give you an idea of why we were kindly asked to move away. ------------------>>>>>>>>>

The cop behind us was very serious about his job, as it should be.

Spectating was a challenge on Sunday but we were fortunate enough to get some clean looks at the leaders. Our man Kenny Perry's tires fell off early and Tiger couldn't make a putt to save his life, but he was probably singing"chiching!!$$$" all the way back to Windermere, Fl in his Buick. Three days following the guy around and I didn't get to see a fist pump. That was the only downside. Lefty shook that snowman away and took it to the house on Sunday afternoon beating the field fair and square. Karen and I made it to the awards presentation, we positioned ourselves behind the 18th green. We had a pretty good look. I don't even remember how we go there, it all happened so fast. Something else happened fast, my running, it was by far the fastest I've ever run in my life (cojimos par de chinos en la soga pero valio la pena). Seeing TW and Lefty side by side, one with the FedEx cup in hand and 10 million in his back pocket, priceless!

After everything was over, we reunited with the Beauchamps who found a few empty chairs at the entrance and served as a temporary information booth. This was a good move because I got to keep the chairs for tailgating. Or as Christine said, I should mark my territory and set them at the 18th green at Augusta National. Until then, you can find them here in Athens. That evening, after we stalked the players parking lot for a while the munchies started kicking in and we grabbed a bite at Twist in Phips Plaza. Good food, cool atmosphere. In the end, good times we had, lots of laughs and crazy sayings. We learned plenty from the good people in the volunteer department who took the time to meet and tour us around. Looking forward to another one of these impromptu trips in the near future. In the meantime, it's time to hit the books. Ciao for now.

In the words of my good friend Fito Paez: Colorin colorado, este cuento ha terminao.

LD

PS: Don't miss the photos below!

No cell phones, no cameras! Well, not for long.

Tiger is god! Tigre te amo... "vamos a comprar otra beer"... "mira ese/a se parece a"...Yes, those are the kind of phrases coming out of the mouths of the die hard, golf aficionado people I'm hanging out with this weekend at the Tour Championship. My combo corillo is here from PR and we are having a blast, watching some good golf, observing tournament ops and achieving a very high level of VIP status in a matter of minutes. This is how we roll. Oh yeah and we also had lunch with Arthur Blanks who is apparently the owner of the Atlanta Falcons (NFL team) and Home Depot, but we didn't even know who he was.

We were all very pumped to see Tiger, since it was a first for all...we were starstruck, the dude has something about him, perhaps an aura of greatness? Who knows, all I know is he's human like the rest of us because he flubbed a chip shot to make bogey on 18 and drop to 5-under, he leads by one shot over Paddy Haddy and Sean O'hair.

Thats enough golf jargon for today...When we arrived at Turner Field this morning (parking) CRB's sole came off her tennis shoe, so she had to walk with a soleless shoe for a while, until the one on the other sneaker came off a few hours later. It's a good thing she found a prime spot in the grandstands (aunque la calocha ahi estaba fuerrrte) because I don't think the soleless Nike's would have lasted much longer.

The weather was very favorable today, however that doesn't seem like the case for tomorrow. But its oka, we're prepared, we have rainsuits, ponchos, umbrellas and an evac plan. On the other hand, if it starts raining you will probably find us in the clubhouse watching it on TV.

I almost forgot, for those of you wondering, we stopped at TJ Maxx and got CRB some new sneakers with soles on them.

Well gotta go, early day tomorrow and it seems my peeps got a head start!

Signing out, this is Laura Diaz reporting live from the right side of the bed I'm sharing with my roommie at Spring Hill Suites.

LD

PS:C'mon Dawgs sack 'em Sundevils tomorrow!

La real lengua espa~ola, excuse my spanglish

"They don't know that you don't know." Best advice ever!

Mis estudiantes no saben que yo no se la diferencia entre un complemento directo y uno indirecto, o mejor dicho en las primeras sesiones yo (su Spanish guru) no sabia que caramba era un complemento. Semanas despues llego el capitulo del preterito perfecto, ahi si que me jodi. La pobre nena estaba estresica y frustrada porque tenia un examen y no le hacia sentido el material. Me llamaron para una sesion de emergencia, normalmente no le doy tutoria a la chica y fueron 75 minutos agonizantes para ambas.

Esta vaina me afecto al principio pero despues cai en cuenta y dije "Laura hellooo ella no sabe que tu no sabes y pues nada just go with the flow". Con ese mismo flow use las ultra neuronas en reserva y me saque unos ejemplos de la manga. Aparentemente le hicieron sentido, hoy me paro en el pasillo y me dijo (en una voz super emocionada) "I just wanted you to know that I got a 73% on my test". Y yo como q oh shit esta me va a reportar y va a decir q no sirvo pa na y se me va acabar el guiso, porque pues normalmente un 73 no es la mejor nota del mundo. Al contrario, parece que el "they dont know that I don't know" funciono tan bien que se apunto para las tutorias semanales conmigo. Comenzamos manana! Ahora incremento el numero a cinco los que estamos mas perdidos que un juey bisco.

Moraleja: Go with the flow, siempre.

LD

Intro

Week 6 at UGA is in the books! Wow can't believe it's been that long...time flies and as those t-shirts say, life is good. I guess it's the perfect week to being by blogging career since i've had enough time to get acquainted with Athens, which I must say I absolutely love, could not have picked a better town or school for that matter.

UGA is great! Classes are going well, I have a few projects which i'm working on but it's been hard to keep up with all these groups, especially when you can't put a name with a face. But i'm getting better at it. Something i'm also getting better at is: college football. These people are serious about their football, but it's oka...gotta be passionate about something in this life. Even better when it's passion for a sport.

As for the social aspect of the move, week 6 was good to me. I got my netbook, met some new peeps, had some random encounters with the opposite sex, saw some townies, danced to 80's music with a gringo who had rythm, walked in the rain (y no se me paro el pelo), saw some old friends and watched golf...overall, my best weekend so far. Hopefully, next weekend will up to par since KTC, PJ and CRB are all coming to the ATL for the Tour Championship and to top it off, we get to see Tiger and I got a photo pass...Ahh the joy.

Today, i'll be cliche and leave you with a quote. I don't usually do this but this one kind of explains my whole purpose of being here.

"Sport has the power to change the world, the power to inspire and the power to unite in a way little else can - it is an instrument of PEACE."

-Nelson Mandela

LD