Sun, 20 May 2012 19:18:47 -0800WeeblyMon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800http://30ballparks-in-1season.com/41/post/2010/03/first-post.html Monday, March 29, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - T Minus 6 Days

 



Sorry for the lack of blogs lately – I have been in a funk. Lot going on but fate and an Earth Bound Angel snapped me out of it over the weekend!!!

One week and counting until the baseball season begins and my love affair with hockey will have to go on the back burner. Yes I admit – I have been cheating on baseball with hockey over the winter but it’s not cheating, more like occupying my time with something else fun. Which I guess is what cheating is – right Jesse? I know – very bad and I wonder if that will be the plot for the Blind Side 2.

Over the course of the hockey season I have gotten Harley hooked on hockey to the point she is watching games not involving her favorite team – the Tampa Bay Lightning. Aaron and Alex are getting hooked as well. I had gotten Shawn hooked on hockey when we started dating. Shawn even wanted a 4th dog and would have named him Brody after Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils though I wanted an Akita and would have named him after Stan Mikita – how cool of a name, Mikita the Akita. Well I think it’s cool and that’s all that counts. Again my website – my rules.

So this season I have been to 11 hockey games with 3 more scheduled – 8 in Tampa at the St. Pete Times Forum. That messes me up that the arena in Tampa is named the St. Pete Times Forum but yet the Tampa Bay Rays play at the Tropicana Field in St. Pete and have a section in the upper deck called the Tampa Bay Times Pavilion. I have been to 3 games here in Boston at the TD Garden. When they renamed the arena here in Boston for the 4th time in 5 years they picked the name – the TD Garden. Now say TD Garden 5 times fast – doesn’t it sound more like a name for a Gentlemen’s Club than an indoor arena.

Sorry I got off track not that this blog was ever on track. I actually have enjoyed going to Lightning games this season. They make the games fun with stuff to do in a plaza outside of the arena with a band stage for concerts before and after games. They set up a tailgate tent that is all you can eat and drink (beer) for $25. The Lightning Girls – yes hockey cheerleaders – roam around the plaza and take pictures with the fans. All in all a very festive atmosphere.

Harley and I had been on a 4 game Lightning winning streak before a few weeks ago. I was in Tampa for work for a week and the Lightning happened to be home for 4 games in 7 days. Of course we took in all 4 games and they promptly lost all 4 to the Penguins, Coyotes, Sabres and Capitals. Poor Harley thought she was the good luck charm of the Lightning and like any true fan she had come up with her superstitions. They range from not wearing more than 1 Lightning thing at a time to making me wear my hat backwards for the 2nd period of the game – nothing worked that week but we tried. I think it was more about the Lightning playing really good teams then it was about us not doing our superstition stuff correctly.

I got the Lightning back to their winning ways this past Thursday as I saw them play at the TD Garden (said slowly). The Lightning spanked the Bruins 5 to 3 with budding superstar Steven Stamkos scoring 2 goals to move into a share of the league lead in goals with Sid the Kid Crosby and Alex “I hate your friggin guts you piece of dog poo” Ovechkin. Sorry – I am still a bit peeved at the check that Ovechkin had on Brian Campbell of the Hawks that ended his season.

This Friday I will head down to NJ to see the Hawks play the Devils. Kind of cool how the weekend that this season’s Mission starts I get to see my favorite team the Black Hawks play Shawn’s favorite team the Devils. Then on Sunday I see the Yankee season opener here in Boston. Last year I saw the Cubs play at Yankee Stadium for 2 preseason games prior to starting the Quest. I don’t question these things anymore – I just go with them.

Since the goal of this summer is to raise awareness and some money for the SADS Foundation I could use your help. This Sunday I will be at Fenway Park here in Boston and on Monday at Turner Field in Atlanta. To assist with getting the word out about SADS and what we are doing this summer - any help you can offer in contacting various media outlets in these 2 cities would be much appreciated.

That about does it – oh yeah one small little detail I left out. I am moving to Columbus, OH in the middle of May. I will save a whole blog about that one in the future. So for now this is good bye and so long where this Black Hawk fan is trying to figure out what that shinny thing is that Harley is standing next to in the picture. Some sort of Cup thingy with writing on it – still not sure though…

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Friday, March 19, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - T Minus 16 Days

 



I just realized I hate the Yankees. Not the players but the franchise – I hate the New York Yankees.

But not Yankee fans ok Aaron, Harley and Alex. I didn’t mean the fans. Trust me – I don’t hate the fans.

Yankee single game tickets go on sale today so I am ready at noon. I have my game picked out and choose my price range for 3 tickets. I hit enter and the wait time is only 1 minute. Well 2 minutes later the system comes back and tells me no tickets are available at the price I chose. But what it doesn’t do is move me up or down to the next price range that is available – it has me choose another price level and then puts me in a virtual wait room again that is now 15 minutes long.

OK – 15 minutes are up and I got main level standing room only for the June 19th game against the Mets. This is pretty good as I need 3 tickets to the Saturday Subway Series game at Yankee Stadium and was afraid I was going to have to go the Stubhub route. I have tickets now but still hate the Yankees and what sucks is that I am happy to have paid $48 a ticket to stand for a game.

Now I am back in the wait room trying to get Sunday June 20th tickets. I feel like Kevin Bacon in Animal House – yes sir, may I have another. Buying tickets to Yankee games at Yankee Stadium is like the scene where all the pledges are bent over and Neidermeyer is spanking them with the pledge paddle. Only here we stand with our wallets open while getting smacked by the Spankees.

That’s it – the Yankees are that fraternity in college that you hated because well – you just hated everything about it. There were some cool guys in that fraternity but overall you hated everything about it. That’s how I feel about the Yankees now. There are some cool guys on the team, Jeter for one and the rest of the core four (Jeter, Posada, Petite and Rivera) but after that it’s Neidermeyer and the rest of the Hitler Youth. Wow I can’t believe I have done over 70 blogs and this is my first Animal House reference.

I know for a fact that the Yankees only release very few cheaper tickets this early in the season for sale and only release for sale the expensive seats. Us plebs are just happy to get a ticket to a game that we pay much more than we would normally would. Heck I paid $48 a ticket to stand. In Kansas City this season I paid $50 a ticket to see the Yankees and our seats are only 24 rows behind the Yankee on deck circle. Yes I know Kansas City is no New York – my buddy Forest is saying thank God – but what a difference.

The Cubs did something different this year with the release of their single game tickets for sale. They offered tickets for a 20% premium 4 days prior to general sale. I actually like this idea – why let the Stubhubs of the world make money on Cub fans for games we want to see. Have the Cubs charge a premium and if you really want to go to that St. Louis Saturday game in August then pay the Cubs 20% more and you get the tickets. It’s better than paying 2 to 3 times of face value on Stubhub. I will be honest I took this deal and got my tickets for July 3rd and 4th to see the Reds at Wrigley. Why did I do this? Well I needed 6 tickets per game and I wanted better seats and didn’t want to chance the general sale.

The Red Sox hold back the Yankee games from general sale and have a random drawing choosing who gets to buy tickets. This is somewhat fair – well really fair since 2 years in a row I have been picked in the random drawing and was able to get tickets at face value for Yankee games at Fenway. By having this drawing the Red Sox now have names galore in their database for marketing. You can never have too many names in your database. The Red Sox also do this thing where they release tickets to games a little at a time. One week before Christmas they release the crappy games for sale – you know the midweek games in April and May when it is still winter in New England. People grab these tickets as the perfect Christmas gift and the Red Sox get revenue on the crappy games. In January they release some more tickets and then the best games go on general sale at the end of January.

Speaking of Stubhub – how did scalping tickets become legal? I actually buy tickets off of Stubhub quite a bit but mostly way below face value for games like the Pirates vs. the A’s in Oakland. Trust me many really good seats available from season ticket holders’ way below face value. What I don’t get though is why it is illegal for Vinny Bagadonuts to sell tickets on the street in front of Yankee Stadium but he can go online and sell them for the same price? Then Stubhub charges a 10% handling charge and then charge $16.95 for overnight shipping. I would much rather haggle with Mr. Bagadonuts and not pay the up charge or shipping costs.

My friends and I came up with a facebook drinking game. You pick a friend or 2 on your list and if they start repeating over and over on their status something then on Friday you have to do a shot for each time they mentioned that thing. An example would be if one of your friend’s daughter’s cheerleading team made the national finals and she kept going on and on about it. Well each time there was a status about it that would be a drink. We played this a few weeks ago when someone on one of our lists was skiing in Colorado and then mentioned Breckenridge so many times. It was actually 11 times over 4 days. Well we decided we had to break up the shots over a few days and with each shot we would toast to Breckenridge. I think it was funny, after 4 shots anything is funny.

Well I think that’s it for now. Harley is now screaming – “UNCLE BOB!!!! what about the hockey games, you promised a blog about the hockey games.” Yes Harley I know I owe a blog about all the Lightning games we have gone to this month and I promise it will be the next blog. So for now this is so long and good bye from Lakeland, FL and check back in a few days as I explain why all the Sabre fans were chanting Let’s Go Bump a Hoe the other night. Or was it Let’s Go Buff a Lo? Alex, which was it? I can’t ask Aaron because I know what he was chanting.

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Thursday, March 11, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - T Minus 24 Days

 



It’s 3:43 am and I am typing up my 3rd blog in 3 days – “what, are you doing man?!?!” That was done in my best James T. Kirk, BTW. I am becoming more and more youthfully challenged each day and I had to get up to take a tinkle at 3:25 am. My apartment is set up that my living room, kitchen and BATHROOM are on the 2nd floor and my BEDROOM is on the 3rd floor. So after laying in bed for a few minutes debating whether or not I could make it until 6:00 am I decided the best course of action was to go. I checked my email during the journey to the bathroom and I had one from Charlie that asked if I knew where the bowling hall of fame was? I do not. So I got back in bed and my mind was racing trying to figure out where is the bowling hall of fame. Why not Google it Bob? Great question, I didn’t want to cheat – Googling is like eating only oatmeal for the week leading up to your cholesterol test. There are now a bunch of people nodding their heads, yup your honor – guilty as charged. So after laying here for 10 minutes and I know I am not getting back to sleep I might as blog. So fair warning, not sure where this one is going.

So bowling has a hall of fame – I wonder what else does? The four major sports have them, rock and roll does (in Cleveland BTW) and college football does in South Bend - but does TV? If they don’t we could put it in Secaucus, NJ. I like saying Secaucus plus how cool would it be to hear a television critic say – “last night Jennifer Love Hewitt gave a Secaucian performance in the Ghost Whisperer – this performance will ensure that her bust will be on display in Secaucus for years to come.”

Come on Andy and Kathy, mind…gutter…out. Her bust – you know the head statue thingy. Cousin Jim is now doing that bobble head thing he does when he doesn’t quite get it or his mind hasn’t made it out of the last paragraph. I’m about to get a text from Alex – “we have a Cousin Jim?”

I just oatmealed the TV hall of fame and there is one – but it’s for people who made contributions to television. My hall of fame would be for shows and the characters, not the actor. We might have something here – see Chuck, I am an idea guy. Sorry it’s 4:10 am now and I had to throw a little Michael Keaton from Night Shift in here. Back then Michael Keaton was Bruce Willis Moonlighting funny. Yep Kim – “the mall has it all.” Sorry - a little brother/sister inside joke there. Since this is my idea - here are my inaugural (thank you spell check) 5 shows for induction into the TV Hall of Fame:

1. Seinfeld – try going a day without a Seinfeld moment. Close talker, low talker, can you spare a square and let us not forget the Contest. There was the second spitter, the face painter, the nip, the marine biologist and every entrance that Kramer made into Jerry’s apartment. The list of classic episodes and moments go and on.

2. M*A*S*H – kind of cool how I did that. Big whoop Bob, it’s just the letter and the star thingy. Hey it’s now 4:30 am and I am kind of impressed that I did that. Until this year’s Super Bowl the finale of Mash was the most watched television show in the history of TV. That alone gets it into Bobby D’s TV Hall of Fame.

3. Friends – I know kind of an iffy pick here. But every hall of fame class needs that “what were they thinking!” inductee. For me the “That’s how they do pants” episode is what cemented this pick. Also all of Chandler Bing’s one liners were classic. But for this induction only 5 of the Friends get in – I am leaving Ross out because I didn’t like his character much. Sorry Ross – no hall of fame for you, come back - one year! See even a Seinfeld moment during Friends induction paragraph.

4. West Wing – I loved the West Wing. The writing and acting were first rate. But here is what earned the West Wing HOF status – the final season pitted Jimmy Smits against Alan Alda for President. It was the young democratic minority candidate with little political background against the older republican experienced candidate. Jimmy Smits won the election – hopefully his first year and 2 months in office were a bit better than, well I think you get my drift.

5. Twin Peaks – yes, Twin Peaks. I think that Twin Peaks was the first ever water cooler show. It had all strange characters and you never knew where the show was going. It had the cool music, Lara Flynn Boyle before she stopped eating and Kyle Maclachlan as ultra cool FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. Each week I couldn’t wait for Twin Peaks to be on – kind of like the first 5 seasons of 24 and the first 2 seasons of Lost.

6. That 70’s Show – ok so I put in 6 when I said I would only have 5. It is now 5:08 am so who is counting. Boy Bob, it took you 38 minutes to type 3 whole paragraphs. Well I have had 2 cups of coffee and that whole nature thing. I feel That 70’s Show was the most underrated comedy of all time. Being it was on Fox it didn’t get the audience that it would have if it would have been on NBC between Friends and Seinfeld. The classic was the way they ended the show in the finale, December 31st 1979 and counted down to midnight for the final scene.

The only rule I had for my HOF was that a show had to be off the air for 4 years (well 3 years and 10 months to be exact) before it could be in the HOF.

So now you are screaming at your computer – yo doofus, what about Cheers, Dallas, Dukes of Hazard, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners??? Well maybe not Dukes of Hazard but the Daisy Dukes would make the HOF. So here is your chance to list your nominees’ to the TV HOF. Click on Questions and Comments page to the left. I put a thread in there for you to list your nominees.

It is now 5:35 AM and time for me to start thinking about getting ready for work. Harley is now screaming “Uncle Bob – what about the blog from the Thrasher – Lightning game?” Good point there Hammer – I will be flying down to Tampa this Saturday and I have a 2 hour layover in Charlotte so between the flights and the layover that will give me ample time to type of up a really, really long blog about the game and you will have Harley to thank for it.

So for now this is so long and good bye from my living room which is only 8 steps to my bathroom (I know I counted on the last trip) and I still haven’t oatmealed where the bowling hall of fame is? But it is killing me not to know…

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - T Minus 25 Days

 



So the other day my niece Harley sends me a text and says she has a joke for me. I say let me have it. Here is her joke – A young son is on the witness stand during his parents divorce trial. The judge asks the boy would he want to live with his dad and the boy replies no, he sometimes beats me. Then the judge asks the boy would he want to live with his mom and the boy replies no, she sometimes beats me as well. The judge was shocked and then asks the boy whom he would like to live with and he replies with a smile the Chicago Cubs, they don’t beat anybody. Seems their family is Cardinal Fans and wanted to play a little joke on the judge. Very funny Harley luckily you are 13 and I will chalk this up to youth.

The last we chatted I went on and on about my trip to Daytona for Biker Week. I am happy to report my friend Charlie did not fall asleep while reading the blog. Hopefully she stays awake as I report on the Blue Jay – Yankee game as part 2 of what will be my first ever 3 part blog. Part 1 of the blog is just below this one encase you missed it.

March 6 was a special day to mark Shawn’s birthday. As it turned out I was able to get tickets to the Yankee spring training game against the Blue Jays in Tampa. Since my family basically are all Yankee fans (how did that happen, aren’t we from Chicago?!?!) I knew going to the game with them would make this day extra special. So without further ado – here are the highlights and lowlights from the game:

• Highlight – very cool 9/11 memorial on the outer concourse of the ballpark made from actual steel from the World Trade Towers.

• Lowlight – the memorial is on the outside of the ballpark so if you enter the ballpark from the right field entrance you do not get to see the memorial as you have to leave the ballpark to see it. We entered from the right field entrance as do most people as that’s where the bridge from the parking lot leads you to.

• Highlight – the Yankees had last year’s World Series Trophy on display which my nieces Alex and Harley and nephew Aaron all got pictures with the trophy.

• Lowlight – When I went to get my picture with the trophy the flash on my camera didn’t work. It did work when Alex took a picture of the trophy without me in it. I guess the Billy Goat Curse is even in effect in Tampa.

• Highlight – The gates opened as the Blue Jays were taking batting practice

• Lowlight – The Yankees took batting practice on an auxiliary field next to the ballpark where nobody could really watch.

• Highlight – our seats were down the left line with a nice view of the ballpark, Raymond James Stadium and the Tampa skyline

• Lowlight – our seats were down the left line and in the shade which on a 60 degree day with a breeze made us all freeze our butts off

• Highlight – I had bought 2 extra tickets 6 rows off the field just past 3rd base which Alex and Aaron sat in for the first 4 innings (in the sun no less)

• Lowlight – Alex and Aaron traded seats with my mom and sister Kim in the 5th inning after Jeter and A-Rod were out of the game so all they got to see were the minor league players up close and personal

• Highlight – beer was only $6.00 a bottle which isn’t bad for a ballpark

• Lowlight – since nobody traded seats with me I froze my butt off and didn’t get to enjoy any $6.00 beers for fear of hypothermia

• Highlight – (for Red Sox Fans) AJ Burnett was in post season form only pitching 1 2/3 inning while giving up 2 runs on 5 hits

• Lowlight – (for Yankee Fans) AJ Burnett was in post season form only pitching 1 2/3 inning while giving up 2 runs on 5 hits

• Highlight – 10 runs were scored

• Lowlight – 9 of them by the Blue Jays

Overall I really didn’t care for the “Big Stein” and here is why:

• Cheapest ticket was $21 which is very high for a game basically played by guys who you don’t know nor maybe never will. The Cubs spring training in Mesa, AZ offers a cheap ticket at $8 for the lawn

• This is another thing I did not like about the “Big Stein” – no lawn. Sitting on the lawn is one of the things that make spring training fun for families and affordable. Family of 4 can go to a Cub spring training game for $32, bring a blanket and have fun. Huge miss by the Yankees on this one

• Player accessibility was very limited. I didn’t see many players signing autographs from either team and unless you have a dugout field level ticket you are not allowed in that section. Last season in Mesa I got 13 autographs and I didn’t even try hard to get them.

• I have heard that spring training in Arizona is a much more relaxed atmosphere. Now I have only been to 1 game in Florida but several in Arizona and for now I agree with that assessment.

• Now don’t get me wrong – I had an enjoyable time at the game but I guess from my experiences last spring in Arizona I was expecting the same from the Yankees.

• Next week when I am in Florida for a week I will try to make it to Tiger Town in Lakeland and see how that compares.

Lastly when I got home on Saturday I went to get some water out of the fridge and found the cake that is in the picture attached to this blog. I would like to thank my family for sharing this very special day with me and making it even more special with the cake.

So for now this is so long and good bye from The Port where I would like to thank the nice people who have recently added messages to my guestbook or emailed me. I haven’t even started the Mission yet and I am already getting wonderful messages from folks who are living everyday with SADS. These messages are very inspiring for me and give me the added energy needed to complete this Mission.

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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - T Minus 26 Days

 



WOW! For you Opie and Anthony fans it is not Wednesday – well it could be depending on which day you are reading this blog, but no - this WOW doesn’t involve whipping anything out. Well I guess it did since this past week so many of you were generous to support the Shawn M DeVries Memorial Fund and whipped out your wallet and donated to the tune of $810 in one week. With my 100% match for last week’s donations plus the donations taken in February the memorial fund total has surpassed $2,000. WOW!

I also would like to thank AT&T for their unknowingly sponsoring of last week’s match program. It’s a long story on how they unknowingly sponsored last week’s match program – I will leave it at that since my blogs are usually too long anyway and no need to bore you with the details. My friend Charlie is now saying “please bore us some more Bob; I sleep so much better while reading your blogs”. Sorry Charlie (good use of the sorry Charlie line here I must say) – no dice on this one, you will just have to doze off while reading the rest of this senseless dribble.

I would like to point out that the monthly poll is back for a second season. Last season it fizzled out because yours truly here got lazy and didn’t post them after a few months. So this season I will give it another try. Up to the left is the link to the poll page – this month’s revolves around the song that best fits my Mission this summer.

This past weekend I moseyed on down to Tampa for a few days. We decided to pack the weekend full of fun stuff. On Friday my dad and I drove over to Biker Week in Daytona, Saturday afternoon my family and I hit the “Big Stein” for the Blue Jay – Yankee spring training game and Saturday night my niece Harley and I took in the Thrasher – Lightning game at the Tampa Bay Times Forum. I doubt I will be able to get all of these events into one blog so this will be my first 2 part blog of the season. Yes Charlie – I know you are now happy – 2 good nights of sleep.

On Friday I headed over to Biker Week in Daytona. I am not much into bikes but after being in Daytona on Friday I became a bit more enthusiastic (wow I just spelled enthusiastic without the help of spell check) about bikes. There were bikes everywhere and you name the brand – they were there. My dad told me that the estimate was 600,000 bikes there at Bike Week. So here in the bullet format (I really like the bullet format) are the highlights of my Bike Week experience:

• This was the 69th Annual Daytona Bike Week. Not sure why I shared that tidbit but I thought it might be relevant to some.

• Alamo had upgraded me to a Volvo C70 hardtop convertible for the weekend. It is a really cool car that in most places would fit right in – not at Bike Week; I quickly learned no Benz’s, Beemers or Volvo’s should be in Daytona for Bike Week.

• Wear leather if you go, not your Cub Tee with Ralph Lauren Cargo shorts. Trust me the Cub Tee would be much more accepted at Cellsky (my name for US Cellular Field for you new readers) on a Friday night in about the 8th inning out in the bleachers. Everyone wears black leather at Biker Week – and their leather was wearing leather. Add to the outift cowboy boots (not the boot scooting kind) but the dirty, scuffed up, I have been in 100 bar fights cowboy boot kind and those were just the ones the women were wearing. My Bass loafers just didn’t fit in.

• On the ride in on I-4 – interesting tidbit about Interstate 4, it only goes thru Florida – no other states. Doesn’t that make it an Intrastate. I know – more useless knowledge but as Shawn used to say “My hubby is the king of useless knowledge”. Ok back to the ride in – we saw a bunch of people towing their bikes. Now as you can tell I am no biker, but shouldn’t you have to earn the right to ride IN Daytona only if you rode TO Daytona. I am sure these same people changed out of their Ralph Lauren Cargo shorts into their leather on the outskirts of town.

• The weather was kind of cool for Florida – only in the low 60’s so that kept some of the women shall we say more covered up. We didn’t see any of the rumored biker babes WOW’ing the crowd as they rode down Main St.

• What we did see was plenty of girls working at the various bars in not much clothing. They all worked at a beer tub and for a tip you could get a photo with them. To say the least – the girls with the least clothing got the largest amount of tips. As you can see in the picture my dad had to tip double.

• Beer at the various bars was pretty cheap – only $3.00 for a can, no bottles served here in Daytona – so you have to bring your own weapons. Food though was very expensive. There was this big tent with vendors selling Gyros for $20 a piece, hot dogs for $5.00 and hamburgers for $8.00. So fill up on beer and bring your own sandwich tucked away in your leather vest.

• A few of the bars did have the obligatory wet tee shirt contests and yes we did take one in – but I only went because I am a journalist now and you, my faithful readers would expect me to go. So on behalf of you, my faithful readers, I took in a wet tee shirt contest. Since we were only there for the afternoon the contest we went to was at 3 pm so the talent was not quite at the level one would expect. Also since it was cold out they used warm water for the contest – kind of defeats the purpose. I know you will find this hard to believe but this was my first ever wet tee shirt contest so I have no point of reference. So since you, my faithful readers demand a detailed rating of the contest I will make it a point to take in more contests and report back later, but only because you, my faithful readers demand me do so.

• Parking in Daytona gets more expensive as the day goes on. We got there about 2 pm and the cost for parking was $20 when we left at 4:30 pm the same lot was charging $30 and I have a feeling as the night went on the cost would become higher.

• The final tidbit is I didn’t see one cop on Main St. I guess they figure the bikers can police themselves which makes it survival of the fittest or that they save money as the afternoon crowd is people like my dad and I but the night crowd is when the bikers come out to play. Or is it the cops are just as afraid of the bikers as this Cub Tee wearing geek.

Well I guess that is it for today. Charlie – WAKE UP. Check back in a few days for the blog about spring training and the story of the flash on the camera that wouldn’t work when a Cub fan stood next to the World Series trophy. So for now this is so long and good bye from The Port where I would like to thank everyone who donated to Shawn’s Memorial Fund and made it a very special birthday celebration for her!!!

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Monday, March 1, 2010

 

Bobby D's Blog - T Minus 34 Days

 



Tickets glorious tickets. Remember the “That 70’s Show” episode where Donna found a pair of panties in Eric’s Vista Cruiser and then she had a dream sequence of finding panties all over Eric’s bedroom. The scene ends with Eric sitting in bed throwing all the panties in the air and says “panties glorious panties”. Well that’s how I am becoming with all the tickets to the games I have already bought for this summer. Each day another envelope shows up in my mail box with more tickets. At some point I will reenact the panty scene from “That 70’s Show” with the tickets.

See you later February – don’t let the door hit you in the butt. We are in March – boy I love March. Spring training games start in a few days, the NCAA basketball tournament starts in a few weeks, NBA and NHL games take on more meaning as teams jockey for playoff position and for those of us in New England it means only 3 more months of having to use heat in our homes. Actually in New England we only have 3 months when we don’t use heat. So why do I live here? I ask myself that every morning but then I get to work and it all makes sense.

Big week coming up – I travel back to Tampa Thursday evening. My dad and I will be heading to Daytona on Friday for Bike Fest – I promise dad, what happens in Daytona will stay in Daytona. Hopefully my mom forgets to read this blog this week. Alex and Harley – don’t you dare remind her. On Saturday my first baseball game this season – spring training game at the Stein. I don’t think they call Steinbrenner Field in Tampa that but they should. Actually it should be called the “Big Stein” and they should sell calzones there. Costanza – where’s my calzone? Ahhh – my first Seinfeld reference of the season. See what March brings – a reference to Seinfeld and That 70’s Show in the same blog.

Saturday night my niece Harley and I are going to see the Lightning play the Thrashers at the Tampa Bay Forum. I was able to get tickets 6 rows behind the Lightning bench for only $49 a ticket on Stubhub. I am preparing myself to hear all game long how cute Steven Stamkos and Vinny Lacavalier are. Luckily the Lightning has cheerleaders – the Ice Girls, so I will have some of my own comebacks for Harley.

Today we are 34 days until opening night at Fenway Park. Whenever I see the number 34 I immediately think of Walter Payton. Growing up as a Bears’ fan we didn’t have much to root for. Bob Avelini was our QB; our defense was not fearsome at that time so all we had was Walter and the Honey Bears, the Honey Bears were disbanded after a few of them appeared in a Playboy photo shoot. As kids we were always out doing stuff on Sunday afternoons instead of watching the Bears. When I would get home the first question was always – how many yards did Walter get? Then a few other questions followed by – did the Bears win? That answer we usually knew.

Over the years I paid homage to Walter by naming one of my dogs after him. I tried to get Shawn to allow me to name one dog Walter and the other Payton but she said no – that was corny. Yeah like naming all your cats after hotels in Vegas isn’t. Yes Shawn did that – a bunch of outdoor cats adopted us and she named them after hotels in Vegas. Recently my friends Jeff and Sarah got a dog and named her Payton. Us Bears’ fans will always remember Walter – the greatest football player ever. It is fitting that the NFL named the man of the year award the Walter Payton Man of the Year award.

Three months after Shawn passed I got a call from a local memorabilia dealer. He asked for Shawn and I told him what had happened. He said that she ordered and paid in full something that she was going to give me for Christmas. He asked if I still wanted it and he would refund the money under the circumstances. I said I would come by and pick it up. I never asked what it was – I guess because Shawn went to so much work to get it that I wanted it to be a surprise. I went to the store a few days before Christmas and the guy handed me the framed photo collage that is attached to this blog. He told me Shawn wanted the ultimate Walter Payton collectable for me and they both searched until they found the perfect thing. Well let me tell you – it is beyond perfect.

This Saturday is Shawn’s birthday. I was struggling to figure out what to get her this year. Then it came to me – we always used to celebrate our birthdays that fell on a Saturday or Sunday the whole weekend. We would call it our birthday weekend. We would give gifts each of the 2 days. So for Shawn’s birthday weekend I will match all donations made to the Shawn M DeVries Memorial Fund that are made on Saturday and Sunday. The link to the fund is to the upper left of this page. Also check back this Saturday for a very special blog.

I guess that’s it for today. Time to start getting ready for the big weekend. So for now this is so long and good bye and if you were wondering if it is a coincidence that I will be at a Yankee game this Saturday – no, it is not.

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