So I got my hands on some new pictures of the BMW M1. It’s been 30 years since this car revolutionized the BMW and started the “M” or Motorsport division in the every day lives of the driver. All I can say is that’s it’s on sexy car!

Before I go one lets look at a little history behind the new M1. It debuted as a production car in 1978 and was the production of years of BMW racing. It came with a 3.5L 6 Cylinder engine which was known as the M88. This amazing car which started the whole M revolution was hand built all the way up to 1981 by the Motorsports division of BMW hence the “M” on such amazing cars as the M3, M5, M6 and hopefully with the rebirth of the M1.  The original M1 is one of the rarest of BMW’s since they only produced about 456 of them but the very powerful and amazing hand built engine was also used in the first generation M5.

Then

Original BMW M1

Now

New BMW M1

So flash forward to the present and it’s clear to see that the new concept M1 is true to it’s historic roots. You can see a lot of the original M1’s sleek lines in the new version. They have done an amazing job of keeping a bit of the original and incorporating a lot of new lines and futuristic features to give the amazing M1 a make over.

Of course everyone is drooling for this car to become a reality and we can all hold our collective breaths until we here just a little bit more information about what is going to be under that beautiful hood. Until then we have to sit back and and window shop at the beautifully redesigned M1 by Giorgio Giugiaro.

I was looking everywhere for tickets leading up to Tuesday but didn’t pull the trigger becuase the weather was getting bad and it had rained the past two days and didn’t feel like paying the going price for tickets and have it rained out and not be able to get my money back or attend the make up game since I leave today.

So I am at the convention we are there for and one of our clients comes up and starts small talking with us and mentions how another client we send a lot of business too gave him a ticket and he is going to the game. So my boss and I quickly go over there to talk to them and they tell us they only had 28 tickets and they gave them away and they had no clue that I would have gone and apologized. I told her that if by the off chance someone dropped out I would love to go.

She told me there is probably slim to no chance she can but she will try because everyone confirmed for the most part. She called me about an hour and a half later telling me she hasn’t had anyone drop out and she is really sorry. At the same time one new client we worked with came by and said I have an extra ticket if you want to go and i jumped at it and said “HELL YEAH”

So I call her back and say thanks for trying but I found a ticket. I start walking back to my hotel to get ready and I get a call from her saying that a spot opened up and I could come alone. I got excited and said I’ll be right there and ran back to their hotel because the shuttle was leaving. The reason I took their ticket is because they are one of the biggest companies in the industry and they know how to take out their clients. Today was no exception.

So we get to the field and I’m expecting maybe a happy hour or something before the game with food but we walk into Fenway, they hand us our passes and then a blue band. We start following an employee of the RedSox and he takes us to the stands and then down the stairs onto the field for Batting Practice. I was in shock at this point. So I took a few pictures there and watched batting practice. Towards the end of batting practice one of the other people with us kept calling Papi’s name and he ended up rolling a ball to her. I didn’t notice that part because I saw the ball rolling and just picked it up. She started telling me how she asked for it and it was hers and I had no problem giving the ball right back to her since i just didn’t know that had happened. She was really grateful and I was already enjoying myself at this game being the sports nut that I am. (This part of the story comes back at the end.) We take a group picture at the park and we are on our way from there.

From there we take a tour of Fenway park and stop off for a Happy hour in a specific area of the park. Then go towards our seats. We end up having seats on the Famous green monster in dead center field. The view of the game was amazing. Not only did we sit there but they had a 5 course meal setup that they brought out every few innings. They also had all you can eat hot dogs, etc, etc. Not to mention anything we wanted to drink as well.

So we are watching what ended up being in amazing game to begin with and Im just soaking it all up when they come around and hand us Authentic game jerseys and the picture that we took on the field. I got Josh Beckett for the jersey.

So It’s the bottom of the fifth inning some of the guys in our row have gone to the bar and are drinking and I’m just chilling there with a couple of other guys talking and checking out my fantasy team on my phone when I hear the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd. I look up and see Youkalis has hit a mamoth shot into dead center and it is coming our way. I did not think anyone could have it that far. I follow the path of the ball as it comes closer to us and hits in the corner of our section on top of the wall as one of the other guys reaches to catch it with his hat. The ball hits the top of the wall through his hat and bounces at like a 45 degree angle right back towards me and literally comes straight into my left has as I was still holding my phone with my left. For a section I was in shock and was like what the hell? Then I did the normal holy crap I caught a ball and held it up and everyone was going crazy.

20 years of going to baseball games in Houston I have never caught a ball in my life and the 1 game in Boston that I luckily got into I caught not only a ball but a home run ball. That just topped off an already amazing day for me at Fenway.

The lady that I had given the ball back to turned to me and said that is Karma, you gave up the other ball and got returned an even better one and I was like “I guess so!” Everyone was telling me how they don’t know how I even caught it cause I didn’t look until the last minute and the ball seemed to just come straight in my hands and stick there.

Came back to the hotel later that night and got a chance to see the replay of the game on NESN and saw the homerum and I clearly saw myself catch the ball as well they showed me on TV for a while as i was showing off the ball to the rest of the section.

All in all this had to be one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had as a sports fan. Something I will never forget. It just seemed everything happened like it was supposed to.

Now I have to see if I can find a place to download a copy of the game or contact NESN so I can have a copy of it for safe keeping because I doubt this will ever happen the way it did again.

I’ll post some pictures when I get back to Houston, but i just had to share with my friends.

PS. The game was amazing…19-17 Boston comes back ….

The Video of My Catch and Replays showing me

Click on the pictures to get a nice larger resolution version of the pictures so you can see the details.

Minute Maid Park - Original

Minute Maid Park - HDR

Lance Berkman - Original

Lance Berkman - HDR

Miguel Tejada - Original

Miguel Tejada - HDR

Berkman & Pujols - Original

Berkman & Pujols - HDR

Wandy Rodriguez - Original

Wandy Rodriguez - HDR

Geoff Blum - Original

Geoff Blum - HDR

The atmosphere was great, the fans were out in their jersey’s and hats, and overall it was a perfect afternoon for baseball. Wandy Rodriguez was on the mound for the Astros against our Central Division rival the St. Louis Cardinals.  This game turned out to be an amazing pitchers duel between Wandy “Jeckyl & Hyde” Rodriguez and Todd Wellemeyer. 

Wellemeyer pitched into the 6th inning striking out 7 Astros batters in the process. The 7th inning however was a different ball game. Lance Berkman came up to bad and drove a rocket into right center field for the first score of the night by any team. Immediatly following that rocket shot, Carlos Lee not to be outdone, Hit a moon shot into the Crawford boxesto give the Astros a 2-0 Lead.

K. Jiminez came in for Wellemeyer in the 8th inning only to give up a lead off Home run to J.R Towles giving the Astros the 3-0 advantage after 8. Doug Brocail came in and pitched a beautiful 2/3 rd of an inning spelling Wandy who had an amazing day.

Fast forward to the top of the 9th and closer Jose Valverde was brought on to put the red birds away. Unfortunately he did his best Brad Lidge impression and gave up 3 runs and was bailed out by Miguel Tejada on a diving play to end the inning and control the damage.

In the bottom of the 9th Carlos Lee led off with a single and was subbed out for a pinch runner with Miguel Tejada coming up to bat. The runner wouldn’t be needed as Tejada followed up his great glove work with a towering game winning homerun to give the Astros the win in amazing fashion.

This year by far was the best opening day game in all the years I can remember. It had all the excitement you could ask for in the first game at home.

I made sure to take the SLR with me and get some great pictures to do some HDR work with. I took a 300mm lens with me as well to get those great close up shots during the game. I went ahead and posted a few of the pictures from the game below and when I get all of them done I will put them in here as well. All the pictures were taken in RAW format and edited with Photomatix Pro to create the stunning HDR images you see below. 

League 1 - Head to Head

This league started out as a group of friends and now some other friends that were in the league took it from just a basic free league and turned it into a more competitive league.

League 2 - Rotisserie

Jeremy Botter a co worker started this league and recruited me after I played a few weeks of fantasy football after taking over another team.

League 3 - Head to Head Points Based

I was referred into this league by my fiance’s brother. It was a friend of his league and they needed one more so I naturally joined being the fantasy sports junky that I am.

So now we got that squared away here is a wrap up of how things went this week for me.

League 1

After starting off really slow I managed to take the lead for a few days only to have my hopes crushed by a freight train known as my opponent going into today. With pitching minimums in place and a few of my guys on the DL I had to do some roster moves and get any available pitcher towards the end of the week just to get the minimums in there.

His team was on fire led by his amazing hitting and the fact that Jake Peavy has been lights out the last 2 games. I was down 18 - 7 going into today ( We have a total of like 30 categories in this one) but my hitters managed to put together a decent run and got me back to only losing 11-12 which isn’t so bad considering where I was just 24 hours ago.

Key Observations - Jose Reyes and Carl Crawford are killing me right now. Josh Hamilton is a stud and I was lucky enough to get Jonny Cueto off waivers.

League 2

I haven’t played in a Roto league and a while and I know this is going to be a challenge for me this year. Going into the draft I might have taken some risks but I took them becuase I wanted guys who filled up the stat sheets not just 1 category. This week started off quick for me and I managed to have the lead for a while only to drop down to 9th for the rest of the week until Saturday. My guys went on a nice little run and my pitchers really came through, especially Jake Peavy and Jarred Weaver. They were amazing for me. I still haven’t got the type of production that I expected out of some big guns on my team but I’m sure they will turn it around. So after week 1 I find myself in first place in the league.

Key Observations - Carl Crawford and stuf Matt Holliday are really sucking it up for me right now. My Waiver move to pick up Xavier Nady has proven to be a good one for now but he is known to cool down after a few months. Hopefully he can break that trend this year, if not he will be sent packing.

League 3

This league definitly has a few quirks as far as scoring goes but I am going to have to suck it up and adapt if I want to win any money in it. For instance they give you 2 points for K’s as a pitcher but only remove -1 if you give up an ER which is pretty weird but whatever. I was basically getting my butt handed to this whole week but made a nice run towards the end but I still came up short. I do have some big boppers that really haven’t stepped up yet so I am not too worried. Baseball is a long season and I will make up my ground. I’m going to be 0-1 after this week and will look to rebound.

Key Observations - One thing I will not forget it how the whole league laughed at me for taking Rick Ankiel in like the 14th round. He only happens to be one of the top point producers in the league. I will make sure they will eat their words on that one. I have Holliday on this team as well and he really stunk it up for me this week but not as much as Robinson Cano. Talk about getting nothing out of a guy. I managed to pick up Cueto in this league as well and it should help me since he has a 2 start week coming up which can really help me if he puts up numbers like he did last time.

Anyways I had ordered her ring back in January but since it was custom made in Europe it took them nearly 7 weeks to complete it. I managed to keep it from her this whole time. Recently a few slips ups here and there and Detective Sabz was starting to put things together so I had to think fast on how to throw her off.

We had to drop off her brothers car at a body shop to get some work done so she had to come to my house so we could go together. Little did she know that she was in for a nice surprise.

I had gotten up early in the morning and arrange different colored rose petals in the shape of a heart on the tile with plenty of petals around it as well. In the middle of this giant heart were candles that spelled out the words “WILL YOU MARRY ME”. At the bottom of the heart I had printed pictures of us as well as some blank sheets of photo paper mixed in.

As she called me to tell me she is almost there my heart started to beat like crazy. It felt as if it wanted to just jump out of my chest. I waited by the window and when I saw her car coming I thought I was going to lose it.

I managed to talk her into coming in the house by saying I have to take care of something before we left. She walked in and the initial shock after seeing the layout had her in such a state of shock that she began to walk backwards as if to leave. She kept asking me what is this? What’s going on. I literally had to tell her to come and and hold her so she would stay near me.

At this point I was shaking from being so nervous and I could barely talk. Everything that I planned in my head to say was not coming out the way I wanted to. Just looking into her eyes just made me more and more nervous because of the love and desire I had for her.

I began telling her how she is my life, my world, honestly she is my everything. I pointed to the pictures on the floor and told her that they represent some of the greatest memories we have created together. Then I pointed to the blank sheets and told her that those are for the memories I want to create with you as my wife.

I began to choke up and have trouble breathing. Why is it so hard? I went through this a million times in my head. But when you look into the eyes of the woman you can’t wait to marry everything is thrown out the door and you have no chance in concentrating. It’s a feeling that no one can understand until they are right there doing the same thing you just did.

I reached for the ring box and pulled it out in front of her while on one knee. I opened it up to show her an empty box to which she looked a bit dumbfounded and curious. I said to her that I do not believe that a ring should not be given to the person that you love and want to marry in a meaningless box.

The ring should be given with love, devotion and commitment from the heart. At this point I slowly unbuttoned the top few buttons of my shirt to reveal her ring hanging from a necklace far enough down that it was touching my heart. I removed the necklace placed the stunning ring on her finger and asked her if she would marry me.

The answer?

Yes!

It was nearly 10 years ago when it all started. Every year persians get out of the house and go to the park the sunday right after the 13th day following the Persian New Year. I was there with my family and friends and so was she. She spotted me from far away and I apparently caught her eye but we never talked that day. I was in a relationship at the time and she was a bit on the young side.

A few weeks later with the help of the ever popular AOL, Kimi, her sister, Donna, and I became chat buddies. Little did I know they knew exactly who I was but I had no clue as to who they were. So little by little the friendship grew, they came around my work a couple times and that was really it. As time progressed we all became closer and closer and the friendships grew.

We always had a playful and fun nature in our relationship that made us just get a long better than any other friend I had. Everyone used to tease us and say we should just get married all the time but we both just shrugged it off and said “OKAY”.

As the days and years past we both went through a period of liking each other at the wrong time. But everything happens for a reason. We might not know why things are happening but I firmly believe that they really do happen for a reason. Cutting to the chase the timing eventually found it’s way into both of our lives and we realized we had to give this relationship a try. We both were just too curious to not let it happen and see where it would go. We both understood that this relationship would not be a normal one if we started and we came in with a bit of fear.

It wasn’t always the smoothest ride at the beginning, but when you take the hardest roads then there is nothing that can stand in your way. At that point you realize that together you can accomplish anything. The bond only grew stronger and stronger which only gave us more confidence.

This leads me to where I stand today, engaged to the woman that makes me a better person in every way. She has been my eyes when I can’t see, the person that guides me when I am lost, and most importantly she is my companion when I am alone. There is nothing that I don’t think I can do when she is by my side. She is the one that makes me want to conquer the world and continue to grow as a person to be better each and every day for her.

If I look back on my past I would have never imagined I would be in this situation with this woman today. This situation that has made me feel so good inside each and every day that she is with me.

So I am sitting here today filled with so many emotions I can’t even describe how ecstatic I am about getting to start my life with the woman that I love. On April 1t, the holiday that everyone celebrates as a fool’s day, died in my eyes and will be only remembered for the day that my girlfriend Kimi became my fiance.

You wonder why I talk about full circle? Well April 1st is the 13th day after new years this year and this Sunday is the very festival at the park that we originally crossed paths. When you least expect it life takes you on a journey that will forever change your life. That journey has only started for me with my one true love. I have only started the engine, put it in first gear and have slowly started driving on the most amazing path with the best co-pilot in the world.

Of course this is cliff notes version of everything!