And now, a word from reality

I realize I haven't posted in about a week, but in all honesty, nothing really noteworthy (blog-worthy, I guess?) has happened. I've been writing bios for the players on the Thunder, playing lots of Xbox 360, and seeing some people before I left.

Ah, yeah, leaving; at this moment, it's 12:15 AM, now Wednesday morning. My plane to Tampa, Florida, leaves in 7 hours and 10 minutes.

Just to be clear, here's how the traveling will work in the near future: NFL Europe has their training camp down in Tampa. I'm not flying to Berlin quite yet. I'll be in Tampa for about a month, starting tomorrow. I leave the States for Germany on April 2. So I'll be stateside for the next few weeks.

So, my flight. Yup, it's pretty early. I leave for LaGuardia at 5:45 AM. That's awesome. I get to Tampa around 10:30 AM. (The flight is direct, which, from talking to some of the other PR interns, I should feel lucky for.) My first meeting is at 7 PM tomorrow, when I meet the rest of the interns (along with the two I worked with at the Super Bowl), and Maik Matischak, the Director of Communications for NFL Europa.

That means that, if everything goes swimmingly, I should have a good 8 hours to nap and explore the surroundings of the Mainsail Suites, where I'll be staying, at least for a few days. You see, once the American players arrive on Thursday and Saturday, they relocate the teams to other hotels, which become the team HQ for their time in Tampa. One team stays at Mainsail, which, from he 360-degree tour on the website, looks like a nice place.

We'll have our practices at the Ed Radice Sports Complex, for any Tampa natives (or rabid Berlin Thunder fans).

Not a bad move: This morning, when I woke up, the temperature read, 9 degrees. That was a complete lie to anyone who walked outside and was greeted with nipple-hardening winds. It couldn't have gotten any higher than 30 degrees today, and looking at my little weather reader here on FireFox, tomorrow's forecast calls for some kind of flurries, and 24 degrees.

At this very moment, in the dead of the night in Tampa, it's 55 degrees. Tomorrow's forecast? 78 and sunny. The 10-day forecast is a lot of the same, with one day of possible scattered showers. I'll take February humidity in Florida, in exchange for arthritic agony in New York. So much for global warming, huh?

As for Berlin: And right now, in Berlin, it's 46 degrees. It looks like they're having a bit of a rainy spell over there, as the high for the next few days teeters between the 40's and 50's with showers.

According to weather.com, the average high for April (I won't see Berlin in March) is 55 degrees, with an average low of 39. May ranks at 65/46, and June at 71/52. From the averages, it doesn't get much warmer than that in Berlin, as June and July's average highs are 73, which are the highest of any month, and their lows are 55 and 54, respectively.

Moving, are we?: So, what does one pack for a 1-month stay in balmy Tampa, Florida in the early springtime, immediately followed by a 3-month stay in chilly-then-springlike Berlin? Well, I charted down what I packed in my bags (partly so I know where everything is, partly because I'm a big ol' nerd): 5 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of khakis (2 tan, 2 black, 1 olive), 5 sweaters, 4 polo shirts, 9 various t-shirts, 11 pairs of boxers, 11 pairs of dress socks, 9 undershirts, 15 button-up shirts, sweatpants to sleep in, a suit, 1 blazer, 1 sportscoat, a bathing suit, 2 pairs of shorts, a fleece, a leather jacket, a brown belt, a black belt, a brown watch, a black watch, flip flops, 2 US to European power converters, 2 pairs of mesh shorts, the various chargers that go to the various electronics, my new camera, a LOT of Claratin, soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, the various other toiletries, my passport, an external hard drive, headphones, and, of course, this very laptop and the accessories that apply.

I tried to pack light. I really did. And, in some ways, I think I did. The 15 button-up shirts is absolutely excessive. By the fifth week, I'll probably be in a 5 or 6-shirt rotation. 10 pairs of pants is also a waste. But, I could have gone a lot more, and this all fits in my bags, so I consider it a victory.

Quick hits:

• Well, that was great timing: not a week after I wonder what Linkin Park is up to, they announce the details of their new CD, titled "Minutes to Midnight."
  
  
• Daylight Savings Time has now officially moved up three weeks. Now, at 2 AM on Sunday, March 11 (this Sunday), you'll need to "spring ahead." Huh? From the article: "The change was caused by the passage of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005. The U.S. Department of Energy will study the effects of the change and Congress has the right to revert to the original Daylight Savings Time schedule once the study is completed. Since 1986, the U.S. has observed Daylight Savings Time from 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in April until 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October."
  
  Very interesting. Unfortunately, the effects of the change may be more widespread than energy usage, as a great deal of the software on our computers and other devices (phones, iPods, etc.) aren't equipped to deal with the change in the time change. It's not Y2K, but those of you who depend on your computer to alert your times, beware. If you're going to manually change the time on Sunday (as most of your devices won't change on their own), be mindful that many of them, like cell phones and laptops, will automatically jump another hour back three weeks from Sunday. And, in October, when all those devices try to "fall ahead," you'll need to take the hour back off, as DST has also been extended by one week on the back end. "Fall ahead" doesn't happen now until the first week in November.
  

Maybe this is all a dream: For the last week and a half or so, I'd been wondering when it would hit me that this was happening. I thought it would hit me when the draft happened, and I got my rosters; not really. Maybe when I started writing the bios for all of the guys; nope. It sure didn't sink in during the week when I was playing Xbox. As I started to run final errands and pack, I began to realize that my time was running short, but not that I was moving, if that makes any sense. The last meal with my family seemed normal. Finalizing packing just seemed like, well, finishing up packing.

It really hit me twice, in two different ways, today: I got really excited about it when I was talking about European plugs with one of the other interns (go figure, way to nerd it up, Andy). The prospect of going off and doing something unknown is just a pretty exciting concept to me.

I got really sentimental when I said goodbye to my friends tonight. I'm a people person. That's just how I roll.

And I'm sure it will hit me more and more times tomorrow and will continue to do so, until it's a 100 percent reality.

Next update: from Tampa Bay, Florida.