I just returned from what was supposed to be my Spring Break '08, five days of embracing my inner 21-year-old, hiking the rainforest and surfing with friends. It was all that, and a seven-hour, horrific trip to the San Juan Presbyterian Emergency Room after stepping on something angry in the ocean.

And so, instead of a picture-fueled trip down memory lane, I give you 10 REASONS THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SHOULD GET THEIR ASSES DOWN TO PUERTO RICO AND START CAMPAIGNING. Platform? I dunno, healthcare reform. Puerto Rico holds the final primary on June 1 and is worth 63 deligates, which could clinch this thing for either candidate. So, a little advice, Hillary: Stop canceling your campaign trips to the region. Like now.

The incredible swelling foot ...

1. My admitting nurse was wearing pink stilettos. And they were only the third-cutest pair of stilettos being worn by an ER nurse.

2. For every medical professional, there was a friend/boyfriend/girlfriend of said medical professional hanging out in the ER.

3. I arrived, carried by my friend Ron, pretty hysterical and in excruciating pain (also in a bikini, board shorts and shoeless). So, obviously, I was told to "please calm down", asked "does anything hurt?" and then left with my friends in a room to wait for a second nurse to finish her personal phone call and take my blood pressure. Here's a shocker: It was high. I was told, upon my release, that I should really have that checked out.

4. I needed drugs. Bad. So I was wheeled to a second holding area and told to wait. Eventually, a nurse appeared. "Levantate!" she said. "She can't stand," my friend Lindsay told her. "Levantate!" she repeated. So Lindsay lifted me and held me upright while the nurse very haphazardly injected me with four shots in my hips. The injection sites bled for hours and I am still bruised.

5. The male nurse who inserted my IV cathetor was wearing a Metallica jean jacket and army boots. It took him four tries to successfully insert the needle into my left hand - left hand - right hand - left arm - bingo!

6. When Lindsay asked if someone could please take me to the restroom, she was told by a nurse to "take her yourself". Lindsay's response: "She's attached to the ceiling by an IV." Nurse's reply: "Then take her down. I'm busy."

7. While I was waiting, a man was admitted with severe trauma to his face and head and bleeding profusely. I later learned he a) was the owner of the second-largest bank in Puerto Rico and b) had fallen off his boat and into its propeller. And yet there he sat, waiting ... waiting ... waiting ... right alongside me.

8. After seven hours in the holding area, I had still not seen a doctor. So I asked to see one, like now. Instead, I was taken for X-Rays (sans lead vest), which was about as counterintuitive a test as they could have ordered. The X-Ray technician told me he thought my foot was broken. Obsurd, considering I stepped on a sharp object in the sea, like an animal or some fire coral. Once the hospital found out I had good U.S. insurance, they started ordering up all sorts of tests. So I left.

9. On the way out, I asked for gauze, or a dressing of some sort. Then my sister asked that my foot be wrapped before we left. "We have nothing," we were told by Metallica jacket nurse guy. So Lindsay and Ron found some and wrapped my foot in the cab.

10. On my discharge paper, a few boxes regarding future care were checked. My personal favorite (and I will translate): "Upon release, please follow up with medical professional in __1__ day." The number 1 had been hand-written in. Shows confidence in my treatment that day.

And, let's remember, I was in America.

Ten years ago, I was a senior journalism student at the University of Florida, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. I knew, if all went well, I would be writing something, somewhere, for someone—and hopefully getting paid to do so. But, just in case, I was taking graduate courses in UF’s first sports-journalism graduate program. You know, should I find out I needed to spend a bit more time in Gatorland.

That year, ESPN The Magazine launched, a hipper, younger, more smart-ass take on something SI’d been doing for years: covering sports. I was an immediate fan. I loved the photography, the design and the vibe of the magazine. I knew I was interested in sports, but not sure I was interested in covering them in the way I had been at the Gainesville Sun and as a stringer for the Ocala Star Banner and St. Pete Times. I wanted to write about people, and loved writing features about the athletes who played the sports I covered. This new magazine, I connected with. Its writers weren’t covering games, or re-hashing yesterday’s events. They were telling stories about people who happened to play sports. I was drawn to it.

Five years later, I was employed by The Mag.

Last night, at a NYC club roughly the size of the Super Dome, we celebrated the magazine's 10th anniversary. I’ve been with the company only half the mag’s lifetime, and quite a lot has changed in those years. Me, included.

It was a fun night. We reconnected with employees who’ve since moved on, listened to Third Eye Blind, a band some genius in party planning thought fulfilled the performance-by-a-band-popular-when the-mag-launched requirement. And we drank our weight in Mouse-funded well drinks. Overall, a fun night.

This issue of The Mag also celebrates our 10th anniversary. It’s a fun stroll down the ticker-tape covered, steroid-fueled streets that are the past 10 years. And a look at sports in the future. You know, when we all just sit around watching our avatars play games for us.

For the next issue of the magazine, we gave athletes an assignment: Write a six-word memoir. What's a six-word memoir, you ask? Well, the story goes like this ... Someone once asked Hemingway to craft a novel in six words. His response—"For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Deep stuff. Building on that idea, Mag writer Larry Smith had the idea to create a book. Ask celebs, politicians and regular folks to sum up their lives in six words. The result, Not Exactly What I Was Planning, is now a NY Times Bestseller. So, with Larry's permission, we borrowed his idea and asked athletes to write their own mini-bios. Some of them were remarkably insightful. And all of us in the office had fun crafting our own.

After writing several drafts of my six-worder ("Life began on a horse farm" ... "All I needed was a pen", "Can't hurt to try it once" ... "Death is being still too long"), I settled on my most recent final draft:

"To make a short story long ..."

This, anyone who knows me would agree, is Alyssa in a nutgraph. I talk too much for anyone's own good, love to tell stories, and can't go for a three-hour drive without arriving at my destination with an empty tank of gas and a full tank of stories. Perhaps you've noticed this if you follow the blogs. (Puerto Rico, anyone?)

Well, this past weekend, I drove to Plattsburgh, NY, with Lindsay and our friend and co-worker Neil/Sid to be a guest speaker at our friend Luke's SUNY Plattsburgh sports journalism class. The next morning, we drove to Killington, VT, for the third and final stop of the U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix. The story was supposed to read like this: "Woke up early, three-hour drive, on the slopes by noon."

That version never made it to print.

Click below for the story of how our day actually turned out. I'll keep it brief. I swear.

I have a confession: I am a half-hearted Pittsburgh fan. Or, better put, a third-hearted fan. Because, while I am about as obsessed a Steelers fan as you'll find, I have never felt a pull to the Pirates or Penguins. Well, aside from a middle-school crush on Pirates outfielder Andy Van Slyke.

My parents were not hockey fans, so they didn't take me to Penguins games as a kid, or teach me the names of players or rules of the game. When I moved to Florida, it was a hockey-less state. We didn't even have an ice skating rink in Cape Coral, let alone a semi-pro team, or a Stanley Cup champion two hours north. My only link to the sport of hockey was a last name one letter from one of Chicago-Philly-Phoenix-LA-San Jose's finest.

But Lindsay sure talks a mean game about this mean game, and it sounds like a sport I could get into. Especially now that the most exciting young player in years is wearing the black and gold. Now is the perfect time to hop on the bandwagon. Why not, right? I did it with the Mets in the 80s, and I still haven't fallen off. Also, where else would I wear the "I Heart Sidney Crosby" T-shirt I just bought?

So, last night I began my journey to become a Penguins fan. Lindsay and I left work at 6, walked west on 34th to Madison Square Garden and I watched my first live Penguins game. It was a fun time. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Sid the Kid play, and Pittsburgh lost 5-2. But I did get to wave my Terrible Towel after each of those goals. Who says you can't mix and match your Allegheny allegiances?

Last night was also Dad's Day for the Penguins. Lindsay wrote a fun piece about it for that other blog. You know, the real one, with actual traffic. Check it out.

(The action wasn't all that hot, but the between-period entertainment wasn't bad. Those are all former Rangers racing ice karts ...)

The NFL draft is creeping up (April 26-27 here in NYC), so naturally, our NFL draft preview issue is creeping up, as well. I'm working on a few stories on soon-to-be pros/very rich 22-year-olds, including a story on five guys whose stock has been steadily rising since the end of the season. On Thursday, The Mag flew all five—Dexter Jackson, Chase Ortiz, Jordan Dizon, Antoine Cason and Jacob Hester—to NYC for our first fashion-infused photo shoot.

If you've ever wondered how many folks it takes to produce one of those glossy, high-concept magazine fashion spreads, I can now answer for you: Many. Many, many, many. Photographer, assistants, stylist, assistant, hair and makeup, assistant, bus driver, video crew, photo editor, video producer, writer. Oh, right, and athletes.

We spent the day trolling around NYC in a fancy tour bus, stopping at four quintessential NY spots for photo shoots. The guys, all of whom had never been to NY, were super cooperative and I think even had fun. They also got a taste of what life will be like very soon: folks staring and asking for autographs (even though they had no idea who they were) and fawning over their every desire. Even desires they didn’t know they had (like free hoodies at location one and free drinks at location four). I can’t tell you how many times they were offered “anything you need."

The most interesting moment, to me, came during our shoot on the Roosevelt Island tram. You know, the one from Spiderman. As our ridiculous entourage was boarding the tram for our first of seven rides across the East River, a bunch of commuters also attempted to board the same tram.

"Wait! Wait. We're letting regular people on too?" our stressed-out photographer barked at the tram operator. "Regular people? We can't have regular people on here."

Then, two things happened at the exact same time.

Dexter Jackson, who was inside the tram, already in full model pose, said: "Hey. I think I'm a pretty regular person. Does that mean I can't be here?"

And a man in an orange jacket, who had already sat down and settled in for his ride, said: "Hey. I don't think I’m a 'regular person'. Who's to say I'm regular?"

I guess it depends on the definition.

After few days in New York (and a couple hours after touring NYC with draftees), it was back to southern Vermont for another snowboard contest. This weekend was the US Open of Snowboarding, the biggest snowboard contest of the season, held each spring at Stratton Mountain. Although it was the latest Open in the five years I’ve attended, it was the first Easter-weekend Open. Which made for fun fashion-watch moments (kids dressed like bunnies, riders dressed like bunnies, adults dressed like bunnies ...)

Every year, the event lucks out with bluebird conditions for the halfpipe contest and at least one day of incredible snowfall. Well, this year, one of those truths stayed true: great contest weather. But no snow. It hadn’t snowed in weeks, and it rained for a few days earlier in the week. Never a good combination. It did snow eight inches Friday night, though … at Killington (see last weekend's blog). Always a day late, I guess.

Instead of doubling up on the blogging—and to save precious time—check out my espnthemag.com blog on the Open.

Sometimes, a day in our Mag office is much like it's portrayed in those SportsCenter commercials. Athletes drop by just to say hi, talk sports and check out the office. Seriously. And lately, I've played a large part in turning 19 East 34th into a parade of action-sports and Olymics athletes.

On Tuesday, snowboarder Jamie Anderson dropped by on her way home to Tahoe from the US Open of Snowboarding. And, now that we have a mag website, I've learned to look nice for the parade. You never know when your photo is going to end up in the mag (as mine did in this issue, measuring Ted Ligety on our athlete wall of fame) or when they'll ask you to sit down and channel your inner Katie Couric, as they asked me to do yesterday when Jamie came by. Check it out. I know. Don't quit my day job.