The most frustrating day of the year is nearing... Feb. 18

That's right folks, the most frustrating day of the year was announced this week and that day is February 18. The good news about that frustrating day is that it has big rewards if you can survive it.

February 18 is the day that opening day baseball tickets go on sale for the Cincinnati Reds. Opening day is Cincy is a happening. The kids get are out of school, they have a parade and everyone gathers downtown at the square to hang out and get free stuff and prepare for the game.

I generally don't like big cities, but there is something about being in Cincy for a ballgame. We usually stay at one of the nice hotels that are just a few blocks from the ballpark. Last year I woke up and opened the curtains of my 14th floor hotel room and looking out I could see window washers on a skyscraper about another 25 floors up across the street. They were probably working fast to get everything done so they could get to the game.

For some reason it's just kind of cool to messing around the downtown area for a little while. I just wish they would get some better restaurants down there. We might be eating chili cheese coneys this year the night before the game.

Anyway, last year we just got enough tickets so that everyone could go and that is what makes it frustrating. Piccu's head explodes every year. Somehow he regenerates a new one shortly thereafter. Having a couple of computers, a land-line telephone, cell phone and 3 or 4 other people doing the same thing and you only get 6 tickets... That's the epitomy of frustration. One year we got 24 tickets.

And the more tickets the better. If you can get enough tickets, you can get your tickets for the game and finance the rest of the trip with the other tickets by selling them before you get into the game.

Well, that's not correct. One could finance the entire trip on the extra tickets if one engaged in such activities.

This year the Reds are facing the Chicago Cubs again and hopefully we can get some really good seats. The seats we had last year were pretty good. We had a couple of homerun balls land around us including the game tying homer by Adam Dunn in the bottom of the 9th. The we got to witness the first ever walk-off homer by Joe Randa. It was unreal.

To me opening day is way better than the Derby and now we have the little ones to worry about. Every year on the scoreboard they list all of the names of people at the game who have an opening day streak of 10 or more in a row. Some of them are way up into the 60s or more. Right now Piccu and I are at 3 and a couple of our friends are pushing 8, but two of our friends started bringing their little girl to opening day and she had two under her belt before she was 2 years old and this year could be her third.

That is a streak of epic proportion if we can keep it up. So now it's a quest to keep her streak alive at all costs. Word.