While Ellen toils this week in Toronto I'm in Latin America, a guest of the Costa Rica Tourist Board. Three American journalists and I were invited to do a familiarization trip focusing on extreme sports. I could have written about what it's like to rappel down a seventeen metre waterfall, get tossed out of an inner tube in class IV rapids, or whitewater raft down the treacherous Pacuare River. Instead though, today's lesson will focus on flora and fa...

The sign posted in the lobby of our Oakland, California hotel read: "Proposition 65 - Detectable amounts of chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm may be found in and around this facility." What one will do in their quest to visit all of the Major League baseball parks in America never ceases to amaze Ellen. But it wasn't sleeping in this toxic wasteland that scared me. The game was well under way ...

Ellen and I have arrived in San Diego. We've got a car and are going to drive up to San Francisco. Last night we went to see a game at San Diego's new ballpark. There's a fabulous spot behind the left-field foul pole. It's an old building of some sort that's been converted into a restaurant and high-end seating area. Beyond the outfield fences there are old-style condos that are, it seems, part of the stadium property. What could be better tha...