HellaMike.com!

I am working on a super secret Christmas video, and I need the perfect song to open it with. As I was going through classical Christmas songs on the piano on iTunes, Beethoven’s Fur Elise came on, and Ali sang along to it from a McDonald’s commercial from 1986.

That was almost 23 years ago! I have no idea how these things stick with her. Anyway, here is the commercial.

My website(s) have gotten a bit of a facelift in recent days. One site is HellaMike.com, it was the main site before Sunday. Now it is the portal to everything I have online. It links to my blogs (more on this in a minute), YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter.

HellaMike.com has been updated to version 3.  Version 1 (December, 2004 via http://web.archive.org’s Way Back Machine) was a place holder. I needed web space, but not a site, so I put that up as a joke, and it stayed until the winter/spring of 2006 when version 2 went live. It was a portfolio site, used to host samples of my video and graphic work. Web Archive’s Way Back Machine doesn’t have anything of version 2 which kind of sucks, but version 2 sucked.

Yeah, version 2 sucked. It was up from February-ish 2006 until last Sunday (November 16th, 2008).

Long live version 3! This update has been a long time coming. My portfolio site needed to be updated for a long time and I was either lazy or lazy so it never got updated.

The blogs (yes plural), there is the Danger Blog (this blog, dir) which is my personal blog, but for a while I’ve had a professional blog set up at http://www.hellamike.com/blog that I have hidden from most of you. Well, that’s not true, I just never told anyone about it. But that is where I post the things that I have created, whether they are videos, graphics, or whatever I am working on, that is the place to see it.

It is much easier for me to update my portfolio using a blog then when the site was HTML. You can subscribe to it if you want, but there really isn’t a need to unless you want to see my stuff.

I also want to give a shout out to Raymond Krause at CSS Tinderbox who created the template I used for the main page. I’ve edited it to suit my needs, and I think it looks awesome. He has a number of other templates on his site if you need one.

I’ve never been that much into politics, but I can’t help it this election season. This upcoming election will be the third election that I will be able to vote in (actually, I already voted during the early voting period here in Texas) and I can’t think of a time in my life were there has been this much excitement about a candidate. Or ever.

The amount of people that show up to Barack's rallies are astounding. He really has given people hope.

And we need hope. Our country is a mess. As is the economy and we’re taking the world down with us.

Four more years of the same policies or similar policies isn’t going to help us. We need change. We need some new thoughts, some fresh blood in the Oval Office.

Tonight Ali and I watched Obama’s political informercial tonight and it was reinforced to me the differences between Obama and McCain. Obama speaks of his plans and ideas in such a way where you know he believes in them, and that they can help fix America. Every time I’ve seen McCain speak, he’s never given off that feeling.

I hope all of you are registered to vote, and I hope that you do vote. This is the first election in my lifetime, and quite possibly in yours to that has had this level of magnitude.

I’m not telling you who to vote for, but I really hope you’ve thought long and hard about the choices we have.

Now Ali and I are off to watch Obama on The Daily Show.

(Also, congrats to Philly.)

So I never got around to my Yankee Stadium blog.

I’m sure most of you know that the tickets we bought on eBay were counterfeit. Luckily there were tickets available at the Stadium and we were able to get into the game with better seats and for $100 cheaper than the counterfeit tickets. Our money was refunded to us by the person we bought them from on eBay, so we’re all good there.

Needless to say I was pretty upset when they put that big “COUNTERFEIT” stamp on the tickets, but Ali was calm, cool and collected this time, bought us new tickets, calmed me down, and we then went to enjoy the game.

Now. Enough of that.

Yankee Stadium. It’s called the The House That Ruth Built, the Cathedral of Baseball. It was built in 1923 in The Bronx, New York for the low cost (by today’s standards) of 2.5 million. By contrast, New Yankee Stadium is estimated at 1.3 billion dollars.

Yankee Stadium has seen 37 World Series (with the Yankees winning 26 of them), hosted 4 All Star games, and many other special events such as major boxing events, 3 papal masses, the “greatest game of the century” Army vs Norte Dame college football in 1946 (“Win one for the Gipper”) amongst others.

Opening Day capacity was 58,000 and a ticket for the grandstands cost $1.10. The average salary in 1923 was $1,293.

If you would like to read more about the history of Yankee Stadium, go here: http://www.nydailynews.com/features/thestadium

66 years after opening day in 1989 I went to my first ever game at Yankee Stadium.

My parents gave me tickets for a game in August around my 8th birthday.

I remember when I was really young we had a black AM radio (it may have had FM, I dunno) and my Dad and I used to listen to games on it while I helped him work around the house. I was 3 or 4.

After that, I remember watching the Yankees on TV with my dad on WPIX. Phil “The Scooter” Rizzuto was the play by play announcer for the Yankees back then, and I can still hear Scooter yell “HOLY COW” after each amazing play or hit to this day. Scooter sadly died earlier this year.

Back to my first game. I don’t remember who they played (if I had to guess it was the Cleveland Indians or the California Angels, and according to The Baseball Almanac, they were both in New York around my birthday), I don’t even remember if they won.

What I do remember is parking in a lot underneath the Major Degan highway that runs right by Yankee Stadium, and crossing the highway in a tunnel and seeing the baseball bat smokestack.

I was wearing my new Don Mattingly t-shirt, and I had my blue baseball glove, I believe my Dad had his glove (the beloved Rosebud which I now have).

After walking around the stadium, and getting a program we made our way to our seats. I remember vividly walking through the dark tunnel out into the box seats. The tunnel was so dark, and as soon as I walked out of it, the sun smacked you in the face it was so bright, the grass so green, the sky so blue.

Our seats for my first game at Yankee Stadium in 1989

It was batting practice for the visiting team, and the crack of the bat was so loud that it echoed in the stadium. I could smell the grass, the beer, the hot dogs and that outdoor summer smell.

I was in awe. Players at batting practice were sending the balls long into the outfield stands, outfielders were snagging the balls that didn’t make it over the fence.

After the batting practice was cleaned up, the voice came.

“The voice of God.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Yankee Stadium.”

Bob Sheppard is the voice of Yankee Stadium and has been since 1951. The 2008 season is the last season Bob Sheppard will be the announcer of Yankee Stadium. Due to poor health, Bob hasn’t been very active this year. Luckily he was at the game Ali and I went to.

I don’t remember much other from my first game at Yankee Stadium, except that at some point, a vender came by selling hot dogs. My Dad asked if I wanted one. I didn’t. But he got one. He handed it to me to hold so he could pay the vender and as he turned back to get it he saw me finish eating the hot dog that I didn’t want.

That’s all I remember from my first trip to Yankee Stadium.

It would be a little more than 10 years before I went back. And I went back a whole lot. In the course of 2 or 3 years I must have seen 30 or 40 games (or more) and every time I walked through the tunnel into the stands, I was an 8 year old again, and the same feeling washed over me.

I’ve seen games in Shea Stadium (Mets), Comiskey Park (White Sox), Miller Park (Brewers) and Minute Maid Park (Astros) and not one lives up to Yankee Stadium. Not even close.

Ali loved the Yankee Stadium experience. She’s been hearing me talk about it for over three years now. She could sense my excitement, but I don’t think she understood it until she was there to see the sights, and experience it first hand, and see me at probably my most favorite place on Earth.

The drama with the tickets notwithstanding, it was an amazing time, and a great way to end our personal era of Yankee Stadium.

It was really hard for me to leave the stands, I would have stayed there all night if I could, just to soak in every last possible sight.

I don’t know how New Yankee Stadium will compare, but from what I saw on the outside, it is simply gorgeous. They worked off the original 1923 plans of Yankee Stadium and modernized it. I hope we can go to a game there next year, it would be a great bookend for our last game (and Ali’s first game) at Yankee Stadium.

Tomorrow (Sunday, September 21, 2008) is the last game at Yankee Stadium. ESPN is doing seven hours of Yankee Stadium coverage, plus the game, so I will be planted firmly in front of the television for at least 10 hours tomorrow.

Video on YouTube

Ali and Mike at Yankee Stadium - August 29, 2008

Ali rocks more than anyone could ever hope to.  She treats me like gold, puts up with my crap and spoils me rotten.

I couldn’t be luckier.

Love you, Ali!

(Yankee Stadium blog to come soon)

Here come the YANKEES
Let’s get behind and cheer the YANKEES
They’re gonna learn to fear the YANKEES
Everyone knows they play to win, cause

They’re the New York YANKEES
Show them today why you’re the YANKEES
No other way when you’re the YANKEES
Wadda ya say we win a brand, new, ballgame

We’re gonna shout when ya powder the ball
We’re gonna scream, “put it over the wall”
The other teams gonna know what it means to play the Y.A.N.K.E.E.S
We love the Yankees

Shout it out loud , We Love The YANKEES
We’re really proud of our YANKEES
And we’re gonna win today
2, 3, 4, Hit, Run, Fight, Score, Go! Go! Go!

We’re gonna shout when ya powder the ball
We’re gonna scream “put it over the wall yo”
The other teams gonna know what it means to play the Y.A.N.K.E.E.S
We love the Yankees

Shout it out loud, We Love The YANKEES
We’re really proud of our YANKEES
And we’re gonna win today

Y.A.N.K.E.E.S. Yes
Y.A.N.K.E.E.S. Yes

I entered a radio contest to try and win Yankees/Astros tickets this weekend in Houston, and I was one of the five selected! This morning I was #1 with almost 60% of the vote! I just fell to second place to some blonde with a crush on Jeter. Help me beat her so a real fan can go see the Yankees!

(Click for full size)

Name – Mike Rastiello

Birth Date – August 9, 1981

Where you’re from – New Jersey originally, but I have been living in Houston for 2+ years

Why You’re The Biggest Fan – Since birth I’ve been a Yankees fan, passed down to me from my father. I can remember watching games on television and listening to them on the radio. On my eighth birthday, my parents gave me tickets to my first game at Yankee Stadium ever.

Every game I went to since that game, I got the same feeling as the first time I walked out of the tunnel into the box seats. The bright sun, the green grass, the sounds of the ball cracking off the bat during batting practice. That experience has stayed with me for 20 years. I’ve lived and died with every playoff and World Series game in the mid to late ’90′s, I even put up banners outside my parents house during the playoffs. Well, not so much a banner as it was a spray painted bed sheet. It also tears me up that the Red Sox have won 2 World Series in the past 4 years.

When I found out that the Yankees were coming to Houston, I immediately logged on to the Astro’s site to get tickets but learned I needed to enter a raffle to buy tickets, which I missed by a long time. I was crushed to say the least. I haven’t seen the Yankees play in 5 years, and now that they are playing in my own backyard and I am going to miss it? That kills me. (Unless I win, that is)

In case you can’t tell from the picture, there are:

-17 Yankee hats (most get worn on a regular basis)

-3 jerseys (1 authentic home Mickey Mantle jersey, 1 retro jersey, and one hockey style jersey).

-2 floor mats for my car

-2 Yankee flags

-2 Yankee street signs

-2 framed photographs, (1 of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the other kids standing outside of old Yankee Stadium)

-2 books, Chasing The Dream: My Lifelong Journey by Joe Torre and and 101 Reasons to Love the Yankees (Like I need 101 reasons)

-1 autographed ball signed by Roger Clemens (pre Mitchell Report)

-1 Derek Jeter bobblehead doll

-1 set of Russian nesting dolls (actually from Russia) The players are from smallest to largest: Bernie Williams, Jason Giambi, Mike, Mussina, Roger Clemens and Derek Jeter

-1 promotional banner listing all of the Yankees 26 championship years

-1 ceramic replica Yankee Stadium

-1 ceramic Yankee “Fan Shop”

-1 promotional baseball “signed” by the championship 2000 Yankees

-1 mug with an interlocking NY

-1 oversized Charlie Brown Pez dispenser that plays “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” when you lift the head to get a pack of Pez

-1 mini baseball bat with the Yankees logo on it

-The desktop picture on my laptop is an interlocking NY

And probably my favorite piece I own, a ticket to the Yankees game the night of September 11, 2001. I could never bring myself to trade it in for another game.

Sadly, not everything I own is pictured here. There is still some stuff, books, DVDs, and more hats that are in boxes in my parent’s basement in Jersey. Also, my girlfriend sleeps in all my old Yankee t-shirts, which also aren’t pictured.

Please pass this on to your friends!

I need your votes!! Vote for Mike Rastiello! http://tinyurl.com/5mr3m5

You can see the full size pics of all the entrants here: http://rodryan.thebuzz.com/cc-common/gallery/display.html?album_id=120339

And vote here, for me: http://rodryan.thebuzz.com/pages/yankeesfan.html