Work hard, play hard

Hey guys

Hope everyone is well


Right then, having not long finished lunch after filming the final part of our Sunday night show 'Off the Pitch' I thought i'd better do another one of these for you lot.

Week 4 - Another packed week passes by despite not having a game at the end of it. Monday and Tuesday was spent answering e-mail and dealing with the publicity side of this whole move to the USA. I've already done quite a few interviews but believe I am still wanted by the local newspaper 'The Kansas City Star' to appear on a podcast and one of the magazines here 'INK' I think its called wants to do a photo shoot. Tuesday, I saw Tottenham get crushed by Real Madrid whilst dealing with an MLS reporter who seemed to have a problem with me being british and working over here. He even had to audacity to more or less put me in the same bracket and lay some sort of blame on me for Stuart Holden's injury. I'm sure you all saw my response, so the less we talk about that, the better.  That evening, Dan and I left the office at the slightly earlier time of 5.30pm and straight away went to grab some pizza. It was a really lovely evening, it was warm out despite it being dark outside, so we sat out with a few beers whilst enjoying the pizza. Brian joined us eventually and as Adam came in from one of his 10,000 mile runs it of course gave us the ammunition to throw things and abuse him. We eventually went to bed and I rather shamefully woke up that Wednesday morning with a bit of a sore head, which I may add, quickly vanished after a strong coffee from Mildreds coffee shop, across the road from our offices. Wednesday we had planned to film part of 'Off the Pitch' but a rather random and late invite to my very first baseball game with one of the owner's son's Mike, could not be turned down. So there I was, my first baseball game in the USA. I'd never even watched a game in my life and there I was, firstly sitting in with the fans with the traditional hot dog and beer before Mike took me up to the broadcasting booth to meet up with some of the guys he knew from Chicago. We sat and talked about broadcasting for a while and then watched the guys call the game on the radio as the Kansas City Royals lost 10-7 to the Chicago White Sox (hope thats right). I later returned to the office to find out that Man Utd had gained the upper hand on Chelsea in the Champions League.

 Dan and I once again left at around 5.30pm (this was becoming a regularity!) but we proceeded in driving for miles to find some soccer gear for our game in the evening. It was a good laugh playing indoor soccer with some of the guys from the front office and at times we looked decent, but its safe to say, we were thoroughly smashed (9-3)! Guess who had to pick the ball out of the net! We did this whilst keeping an eye on Sporting Kansas City's game down in Houston in the Open Cup, which we now know they won 1-0 thanks to a great strike from Superdraft pick up CJ Sapong.

 Thursday saw us begin to shoot some of the show, after recording voice overs and teases for next weeks show in Columbus we began to film Sunday's which this week, due to having no game, would have a little bit of a twist. Our MLS reviewer Josh Whisenhunt (who you will have seen on our show doing the goal round ups) would step in for part of the show as the two of us gave our tactical analysis on the season so far; eventually. With Chris away at the Masters golf tournament and with no real experts around to advise us on how to use the equipment properly, Jake, Justin, Dan, Spence and Emmanuel tried to get their head around how to use the 'Tri Caster'. After several takes and Jake shouting 'F**k' on several occasions due to the equipment malfunctions we eventually got the segment with Josh done. At one stage I completely forgot what I was saying which meant another take and Dan who was talking to us via our earpieces didn't switch his radio on! That meant that Josh and I couldn't here anything he was saying, so we completely guessed our way through the part of the show and had no idea on timings or cues! So, now that you all know that, let us know what you think!

Friday, we got in early as per usual and after a while of going through the scripts and the broadcasting genius that is Jake Yadrich sorted out more technical problems, Sasha and I filmed the rest of the show with a little help from Betsy's dog, who at one stage was chasing Rob Heineman (one of the owners) down one of the isles! That seemed to take up most of the day and after shooting under the heat of the lights wearing a Sporting KC parker jacket I sent out an e-mail to the office begging for deodorant, which I eventually got and literally just this minute, i've had another thrown at me. I believe this evening Dan and I, along with Spencer, Adam and who knows who else are planning on a few beers, just for a chance.

My first proper day off since I got here beckons, no game for Sporting KC this weekend, so, who knows what the weekend will bring, but I suspect i'll be saying that for the rest of the year.

Cal