Good Seats, Bad Food

I got a call from my good friend, Dustin, at 3:30 yesterday afternoon.  I couldn’t take the call at the time so he left a message that basically said that he had just had some ACC Tournament tickets made availabe to him for the games that night.  He knew it was a long shot for me to make it but he knows I’m a big ACC fan.  I’m not usually one to do things spur of the moment, but for some reason I thought I’d at least make the attempt.  Since I’m a sequential thinker I’ll provide a recap to the events in step by step order.

Step one: talk to Michelle.  Yesterday was one of the two days this week that Michelle is nannying and sometimes the end result of those days is a worn-out and annoyed Michelle.  Fortunately, it wasn’t that bad yesterday.

Step two: actually get to Atlanta so that we don’t miss most of the first game.  I pushed my 1999 Mazda Protege with 168,000 miles to the limit, but I made it to the rendezvous point in decent time.

Step three: get to the Georgia Dome with Dustin and Nathan and park.  A little interesting since Dustin, who I might add has lived in the Atlanta area for six years, didn’t really know how to get there.  I had to point out that there actually was a Georgia Dome exit on the interstate.  Then we had to navigate the downtown Atlanta streets in search of the 70,000 seat monstrosity known as the Georgia Dome.  After some meandering we found it and found good parking for $10.  10 FREAKING DOLLARS!

Step four: get the tickets left for Dustin at Will Call.  This proved to be a little more dramatic then it should have been.  When we got to Will Call all the logos of the 12 schools were on different windows and, since tickets are distributed by the schools, you have to get your tickets from that school’s representative.  When we arrived at the UNC logo (I won’t say exactly who Dustin got the tickets from, but they are immediate family of one legendary UNC basketball coach) the shade had been pulled down.  Oh crap.  We talked to the NC State rep who said he would try to contact the UNC rep.  After a few anxious minutes of wondering whether this impromptu 2 hour trip would actually yield getting to watch the games, the UNC rep showed up and handed us the tickets.

Step five: finding our seats.  Again the Georgia Dome seats 70,000.  It’s a big place.  We knew we had decent seats due to our ticket source, but we didn’t know how good.  Our row was row K.  As we stepped down from the concourse the rows were all numbered.  Interesting.  We kept walking down and got to the end of the numbered rows.  All that were left were seats even closer that are used only for basketball.  At this section, there is an event staff person checking your tickets to make sure you’re supposed to be there.  We showed the young lady our tickets and she pointed to the back row of these seats.  Here’s a picture of where we were sitting.

Needless to say, these were ridiculous seats.  I spoke to my mom and she said she could see me on TV.  Nice.

Step six: enjoy the games.  Not hard to do when you’re in these seats and you’re hanging out with good friends.  We did get a celebrity sighting during the Boston College game.

What?  You can’t recognize the guy in the green shirt sideways taken from 30 feet away with a phone camera?  Fine.  It’s Atlanta Falcons QB, and former Boston College player, Matt Ryan.  Watched him interact with some of the fans and he seems like a really nice guy.  Signed every autograph request and was extremely courteous to everyone.  Dang.  I kind of wanted him to be a jerk.  That way I could pull against him even harder seeing as how I’m a Panthers fan.

Step seven: wake up at 6 AM, put in a full day of work, go through the previous six steps and then drive home without falling asleep at the wheel.  We had met at a gas station, so I filled up with gas and went inside to purchase the necessary items for me to stay awake.  If you read my previous post, I spoke about the Lent commitments I had made as they related to food.  Folks, I decided that my need to stay alive was greater than my need to strictly adhere to my Lent commitments.  I purchased a big grab bag of Honey BBQ Fritos Twists and a can of Starbucks Double Shot with Energy and hit the road at 12:30 AM.  I had traveled about 1/4 of a mile and got pulled over by the Gwinnett County Police.  I had pulled out of the gas station and hadn’t turned on my head lights until after I had been on the street for 0.00004 seconds.  Something tells me they were a little overagressive since I saw three other people get pulled as I waited on him to check my license.  After that, I had a couple of bad spots, but overall it was an uneventful and alert trip.  I got home at around 2:30 with heavy legs and an unhappy stomach.

I woke up at 6 because I had to be at work at 7.  I found myself back in bed at 6:30 due to the Fritos and Double Shot getting into a bit of a fracas with my stomach.  My stomach lost.