I Might Move to Las Vegas
The title of this post explains it all, really. I may be moving to Las Vegas in the spring of 2010.
I’ve always wanted to spend my life in Katy. My family is here, my friends are here and my life is here. But my new job with Heavy.com, where I cover MMA full time, is an amazing opportunity. The UFC is located in Las Vegas and most major fight camps/gyms are there. It makes a lot of sense for me to be local there, because I can get ingrained in the camps and make relationships that will help me succeed.
The truth is that I can probably do this job from Katy. I’m doing just fine now. But I think I can take it to the next level in Las Vegas. If it’s something that helps my career, I need to consider it as a viable option.
Upcoming Travel Plans
Here’s what I’ve got coming up in the next month or so:
Nov. 18-22 — Las Vegas: I’m heading here for WEC 44, UFC 106 and all the festivities surrounding both cards. I’m very much looking forward to 106, even without Lesnar/Carwin on the card. I’ve also got a bunch of camp visits planned and will be doing video interviews with a bunch of fighters. Hopefully I’ll have the will power to stay away from the slot machines for most of this trip. I think I can. I think I can.
Dec. 4-6 — Las Vegas: Back to Las Vegas for the Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale, featuring Kimbo Slice vs. Houston Alexander. I normally wouldn’t cover smaller events like this one, but Kimbo fighting automatically makes it a big event for our readers and thus a big event for me.
Dec. 11-13 — Memphis: Heading here for UFC 107, with a main event of BJ Penn against Diego Sanchez. This card will be fun, despite the fact that the one fighter I really wanted to see (Todd Duffee) is off the card with an injury. Still, I’ve never been to Memphis, so this will be exciting.
Dec. 18-20 — San Jose: Going to northern California is always fun. This will be for the Strikeforce event featuring a Cung Le/Scott Smith main event. I covered my first Strikeforce show last weekend (Fedor/Rogers in Chicago) and had a good time. The Strikeforce folks are first-class people and they run a good operation.
Dec. 30-Jan 3 — Las Vegas: Yes, another Vegas trip. I’ll be attending the World MMA Awards and UFC 108. There may be a family vacation to Vegas mixed in here somewhere, which means I could ultimately end up being there for 10 days. Not really looking forward to that prospect, I must say.
Horrible Turn
Horrible Turn, the fan-made prequel to Dr. Horrible, is now available for your viewing pleasure. This flick was made by a few friends of mine, but it looks as professional as anything that comes out of Hollywood. I even wrote the first tune, “Australia”,” so check it out!
Recently Traveled
Here’s where I’ve been recently:
Dallas: Made this road trip for UFC 103 in September. I was busy the entire weekend and wasn’t able to do or see much. Besides, what is there to do in Dallas? Dallas sucks.
San Antonio: Another road trip, this time for a WEC event. I ended up doing a “Man vs. Food” tour, where I tried a 4 pound cinnamon roll and the Four Horsemen burger. The burger is covered with Ghost Chile peppers, the hottest pepper in the world, and it was ridiculous. Just a bad decision all around and one that I immediately regretted. There was a silver lining, however. My dad loves hot sauces. LOVES hot sauce, the hotter the better. I got home from San Antonio and immediately ordered him a bottle of Dave’s Private Reserve 2009, a limited-edition hot sauce made with pure ghost chile pepper extract.
The girls and I gave him the hot sauce the day before his birthday. Knowing my Dad like we do, we just KNEW he would take the hot sauce and pour a few drops on a cracker or chip to test it out. Sure enough, he did just that, despite our warnings. Everything looked fine for about five seconds, and then the heat kicked in. He turned red, started sweating and immediately went to the fridge to pour himself a large glass of milk. We finally found something hot enough to bother my dad, which I consider mission accomplished.
Los Angeles: Went here for UFC 104 in September. I met up with Anthony and had a great weekend. I’m not really a big fan of Los Angeles, but it’s certainly an interesting place. I stayed at a small (but really nice) hotel in Beverly Hills. Also saw Johnny Depp walking around by the Staples Center. Oh, and I saw the world’s largest “Thriller” dance, with thousands of people all made up like characters from the Michael Jackson video. That was fun.
Chicago: Just got back from this trip for Strikeforce. I like Chicago. It’s a nice town. I ate some great pizza, but didn’t do much else as I was busy all weekend.
Upcoming trips: Las Vegas (four times between now and January), Memphis, Virginia and San Jose.
Welcome Back
After a year at another domain, I’ve decided to move my personal blog back here to WordPress.com. For some reason, I’ve always been more active when writing on this WordPress.com blog than at my own domain, and I’m hoping a move back here will make me write more often (something I’m trying to do lately). There’s also the fact that I never could get a good, full copy of my archives from here. That’s pretty important, since all of my blog postings from Iraq are included in those archives.
So stick around. If you’re a reader who never left, thanks for sticking around. I’m going to be doing some cleanup on the site today, so you’ll see plenty of changes.
And Now, I Bid Goodbye To WordPress.com
WordPress.com has served me faithfully over the years. It’s easy, it’s free and stable.
But recently, I’ve decided that I need more control over every aspect of my site. If I want to run advertising on my blog, I need to be able to do so. If I want to change some stylesheet stuff, I need to be able to. And since I already have a Media Temple server, I figured I might as well find a good domain name (since jeremybotter.com and jbotter.com are currently owned by squatters).
So, without any drama or tears whatsoever, I’d like to ask you to follow me over to my new home: thatjeremyguy.com.
You’ll get more of the same stuff you find here. I’m not re-inventing the wheel. But I do think that I’ll be able to present everything to you in a pleasing manner, not that 95% of you care about design. After all, most of you are looking for Brock Lesnar/Randy Couture fight information, MySpace codes, and OneRepublic, and two of those three things haven’t been seen around these parts in months.
Jumping Into Mixed Martial Arts
As any regular reader of his blog (or even friends of mine) could tell you, I’m a huge mixed martial arts fan. I’ve recently decided that I actually enjoy the sport enough to try it, and I’ve realized that I’m horribly out of shape and I get very bored running on a treadmill, so I am enrolling at a local mixed martial arts school.
There are actually two schools I am considering: Miletich Fighting Systems and Westside Mixed Martial Arts. MFS is located in Houston, and of course it’s Miletich. Westside is located in Katy, about 5 minutes from my house, and has one of the finest MMA facilities in the United States (supposedly it’s only behind Xtreme Couture, Throwdown and the original MFS school in terms of facilities).
I have an introductory BJJ lesson in the next few days at both schools, and I’ll make my decision. Right now, I’m leaning towards Westside simply because of the incredible facility and the location to my house, plus the dedicated trainers for each art. Either way, I’ll simply be jumping into jiu-jitsu training for a long while before moving on to the other facets of MMA.
I’ll keep you posted. I will probably turn my experiences into a series of columns for Inside Fights, so stay tuned.
