September 9, 2000

Ugghh!! Mornings! By now you know that I don't really deal with mornings. The best that can be said about the entire mess is that I tolerate mornings. The best way for me to be up in the mornings is to stay away through the night, which is mostly what I did, since I had plans this morning.

Scott was picking me up today. He would be giving me a ride to the Hurricane game. I purposely feel asleep on my futon, so that I wouldn't sleep very soundly. He was allegedly picking me up at 10am. Allegedly because, he was running a few minutes late.

Ironically, I wouldn't be watching the game with him. I was going to be sitting with Ted and some of his friends from work, but Scott was kind enough to swing by and pick me up. He's a good friend to have, despite the fact that he's a Husky fan. Notice that I say a Husky fan. I say that because he is not actually a Husky, which is to say that he didn't attend the school. I, for one, am a Hurricane. The one recurring discussion that we get into, is whether or not one should identify with a school team which she/he didn't attend. To me, happen to disagree, but then again, I look upon life with a rather skewed lens.

I don't typically talk trash and today was no exception. I generally don't like to become vested in things that I don't personally control. I wasn't going to be out there in the field, so despite the fact that my alma matter was, I wasn't doing much trash talking. Incidentally, the Hurricanes were favored to win. I did ask Scott what he thought the odds were, and he thought it looked pretty dim for the Huskies. Or maybe it is that I don't like to eat crow; that's probably closer to the truth.

The plan was for me to meet Ted near gate 6 at Husky stadium. This was slightly complicated by the fact that neither he nor I had been at Husky stadium before, and 74,000+ people were going to be attending the game. This would make it just a little tougher than normal to find each other. That's okay. I like a challenge.

Scott routinely goes to Huskies games; in fact, he's got season tickets. It is somewhat of a routine for him. He too is one person who typically does not do mornings, with some notable exceptions… spending time with his kids, and going to sporting events much like today's.

He even has the standard spot where he parks. All I really remember about the place is that it is near a gray building. He pointed it out a number of times but never really mentioned what building it was. He parked in one of his typical spots where the old man only charges $5 for parking. Today it would be a kid, perhaps a teenager, collecting the parking fee and it would be $7. When Scott asked, "What happened to the old man?" The boy replied that the old man had passed. Though I never met this man, it saddened me a little.

We wandered to a spot near the water where there were having a tailgate party. This is same one that Scott attends each week. He introduced me to a number of people whose name I can't remember anymore. I'm pretty good at remembering most things; names are not among these. There were extremely hospitable, particularly if you consider I was the competition. They even offered me a hot link and a beer. Isn't that wonderful?

This is also where I met Scott's sister, Kristin (I think, you know me and names…). She's very similar to Scott, and has a similar wit. I'm sure her wit wasn't as sharp as it could've been, since she was still recouperating from the effects of alcohol from the night before. I suppose that's where she and Scott are different; Scott doesn't drink.

Scott continued to point people out among the group and tell me precisely the relationship they had. Many of them were friends of the family that date back to his early childhood. I've never had that kind of stability, with the exception of my immediate family, I can't think of anyone who I still see from my early childhood. I was a little jealous.

We were getting close to the time when I had to meet Ted, so we headed off to the stadium. We had to stop in one of the nearby buildings to pick up the tickets, and I also got a chance to meet their father. He certainly seemed like a nice man, though I only spoke to him for a few seconds.

Otherwise, we made it to the stadium uneventfully. Scott went through some lengths to describe one of the recent games he attended where he studied a young and very attractive woman (by his description) who was also very inebriated, so much so that she didn't make it to the second half. I suppose that I find it a bit disquieting that these are the kinds of events that he remembers, although to be fair, I wasn't there and really don't know how truly noteworthy this was.

Once we got there, I had the daunting task of finding Ted… among a sea of seventy-four thousand people, not to mention that I was about fifteen minutes late. We were supposed to meet at Gate 6. That was simple enough, the only problem was that Gate 6 was behind the admission gates, almost precisely between two sets of admission gates. Nothing is ever easy, is it?

I was afraid that maybe Ted had gone in without me. I would've called him, but he didn't have a cell phone. Some people simply resist accessability. Scott was amusing himself by actually talking to one of the local political candidates, Maria Cantwell. I say he was amusing himself because that's precisely what he was doing. I don't think he is as concerned with the issues as he is about putting them up on the spot. Scott was kind enough to stay with me until I tracked Ted down… or more accurately, until he tracked me down.

Ted arrived with some of his friends from work and was also running late. We wandered to the Hurricanes' booth a couple of minutes too late. They were giving away souvenirs… just those big foam hands in the school colors. All of his friends were either Huskies or Huskies fans.

We went up to our seats. It was a little overcast and there was the chance of rain. I was wearing my Hurricanes sweat shirt that Ted had gotten me a few years ago. We all found our seats and started to get settled in. Ted, in typical Ted fashion, was trash talking quite a bit in fact. The Hurricanes were favored to win, by three points. Many folks thought that the margin should be even wider. I, myself, have never been much of a trash talker.

I won't go into the details of the game. I'm not one to do play by play. Well, at least not in football. Suffice it to say, that the Hurricanes were trailing the Huskies 21 to 3 by halftime. I still had hope. I had watched a number of the Hurricanes games on television when I was in college, our football team simply had a gift for late fourth quarter heroics. They had pulled something like a 19 point comebacks versus good teams like Michigan or Florida State. In fact, you may still see some of the players and fans from that era wave their hands while holding up four fingers. This signifies that, "The fourth quarter belongs to the Miami Hurricanes." And yes, I say that with pride.

I don't usually attend ballgames, so I haven't had the opportunity to watch many halftime shows. It was fairly elaborate and similarly impressive. They had a collection of high school bands from around the state. I'm sure all of the band members were thrilled to be there. I was a band member in middle school, though I never participated in the marching band. I was a percussionist. Surprised?

The Hurricanes fared considerably better in the second half. Our football team outscored the Huskies by thirteen points in the third quarter. The fourth quarter started with our Hurricanes trailing by five points. Both players and a number of the Hurricane fans in the stands were holding up the four fingers. I miss my college days. However, it turned out to be too little too late. The Hurricanes had possession of the ball trailing by five points with mere seconds on the clock and too many yards to go. Naturally, we passed downfield hoping for the lucky catch, but it was not to be. The final score was Hurricanes 29, Huskies 34.

Ted's friends were naturally giving us much grief, though I think it was mostly directed at Ted. I'm sure this had much to do with the fact that they knew him better and he was the one doing most of the trash talking. We filed out of the stadium. Most of the crowd was happy, some of us were sad and even a little shocked.

We talked about getting something to eat afterwards. Originally the idea was to get chicken wings at Hooters. As we rode the bus back to Brian's house, where Ted had parked his car, we had decided to go to a local bar. The name of the place was Murphy's.

The place had a classy Irish feel to it. I wish I could tell you the food was good, but it wasn't. To be fair, one of the cooks had a mishap and burned himself and they had to call the other cook in to work. That certainly accounted for the food taking considerably longer than we originally expected. What we didn't account for was the food being so poor. I'm a fairly big fan of onion rings, in fact is is typically one of the things I notice from different restaurants. I'm also not a fussy eater. However these onion rings were easily the greasiest food item I have ever had… if you can picture a sponge of oil. Sorry to paint such a vivid picture.

Ted and his friends spent most of the meal talking about Everquest. If you're not familiar with this computer game is an online fantasy role playing game. It is very popular among the folks who have tried it, which is precisely the reason why I have chosen to stay away from it for the time being. Not to say that I disapprove of their playing the game, but it's just time I don't really have the time right now.

We walked back to Brian's house after dinner. It was allegedly five blocks away, and it was about five blocks away… It was about five blocks west and about five blocks south… Uphill Actually, it didn't bother me that much. However, there were smokers among us. You know what they say about smoking and diminished lung capacity? Well, it's true. I won't tell you that I'm in great physical shape because I'm not. However, it was a bit funny to see that the ones who smoked were precisely the ones who were struggling. I'm glad that I never picked up the habit.

Ted drove me back to my place after that. I felt a little guilty since I was the one sitting in the front seat with three of them in the back. However, the trip to my place would only take about twenty minutes. I didn't feel that guilty.

September 9, 2000