Good Times

Had a blast last night with Mrs. Blogger. We had a nice lunch then got to Boston early enough to do some shopping (spent a fortune), pop in a few bars until we eventually ended up at the Cask 'N Flagon wherein we proceeded to drink quite a few beers (Mrs. B was a riot), laugh with some other patrons, learn she really wants another baby (wait! what?) before witnessing the Sox make a nice comeback and end up victorious on what ended as a rather chilly night!

Needless to say, I'm tired this morning but we had so much fun it's well worth it. Can't wait to get up there again.

Fenway or Bust

Fenway Park. Home to the Boston Red Sox. MY Boston Red Sox. Who are currently tearing up the league to the tune of the best record in baseball.

All good news.

However, the downside of having a favorite team in first place and competitive for so many consecutive years is that tickets become more and more scarce. In season's past, I've been able to get tickets to 5, 6, 7 games, no problem at all. Usually free or at face value. Now, though, they basically sell out the season before it even begins. Of course one factor is the park is the smallest in baseball, holding only about 36,100 rabid fans. When they sucked I could go up on the spur of the moment and buy some tickets. Now, I have to either plan months ahead, buy scalper tickets or rely on someone like a company vendor of ours to give me some.

Well I got some! Thanks to an insurance company we deal with.

We arranged overnight Little One care (no small feat) and tonight Mrs. Blogger and I are headed up to see our boys. We will be down the third base line in seats I've had and enjoyed before. Section 31, row 6. They're good seats, so if you have Sattelite and NESN look for us on some camera-panned foul ball. I'll be the one in the Red Sox cap. You can't miss me.

We plan to head up a bit early and have a couple drinks and maybe some dinner and enjoy the Fenway section of Boston. I simply love it up there and the weather looks to be perfect!

Perfect too, is that they've won 5 straight and we'll be cheering like hell for six

I've mentioned that Boston is about ninety minutes from my home despite the fact I live in Connecticut. That ninety minutes may as well be 900 miles, though, when is comes to accents. I've read that Connecticut and Ohio residents speak the closest to the Queen's English. Perhaps Bostonians are the furthest from it. If you've seen Fever Pitch or some skits that Jimmy Fallon has done on Saturday Night Live you've heard it. And he nails it.

So, in my best Boston accent, I'm going to "Drive up to Bahston. Pahk mah cah in a gahrahge. Shuffle into Fenway Pahk and enjoy a dahg and a beah while the Sowx kick some wicked ass".

Boston

Mrs. Blogger and I went for an overnight stay in Boston Saturday night. No, I didn't pogo-stick up there (see prior post). My brother's birthday is coming up next week so we met him and his wife along another brother and his wife for a night in Boston. We stayed at a very nice hotel right in the heart of Boston, had a great dinner and saw Tracy Morgan's stand-up routine at Fanuel Hall. I did drink quite a bit Saturday into Saturday night and Tracy Morgan didn't come on stage until close to 11:30 so I could barely keep my eyes open. Morgan's comedy is very dirty and I found him mildly funny. The warm-up comedian/MC was actually funnier, but a good time was had by all (most of my memory gaps after 10 p.m have been filled in to date).

But the cost! Oh my God. Even though I have the discipline to stay away from the $6 Bud Lite can and $5.75 Nestle Crunch Bars in the mini-bar/fridge, it was still a "holy crap that's expensive" type of weekend. The Hyatt even has sensors on the candy bars in the fridge. Sensors! I hadn't run across that before. Its not gold bullion it a Snicker's Bar for crying out loud. With such stringent candy security, I imagine the Hersheys factory to be surrounded by armed guards in towers and razor wire. Although we dreamt up an Indiana Jones-type swap by replacing the candy bar with a sock full of soap we decided against the caper and let the snacks be.

Its not that I wasn't prepared for it to be an expensive weekend, but damn! Amazing how those fun little ideas can really go into cost overrun. Big City life and the cost of living are out of sight. I'm flying to Vegas and staying for 3 nights for about what I just spent. Don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself cheap or even frugal, but when I got home yesterday I couldn't help but think of the cool stuff I could have bought or done with that much money. AND we got a deal on the hotel and split the room.

Itemization of money that left my pocket for myself in Mrs. Blogger (I might be forgetting something too)......

Gas....1/2 tank....$20 (round trip - I'm exactly 90 miles from Boston)
Tolls....$3.65
Lunch on way up.....$12 (Burger King Rest stop)
Beer for room.....$16
Hotel Room.....$90 (some kind of online deal or something....it was normally a $270 room)
Taxi to dinner.......$10 (including tip)
Dinner and drinks.....$120
Taxi to show......No charge (someone else picked up tab)
Tickets to show......$74
Two rounds of drinks prior to show......$56 (what I paid for - we had more than two rounds total)
Taxi back to hotel....$8 (not sure why it was less - perhaps they took the scenic route on way over)
[the next morning]
Incredibly warm soda machine Gator-Ade and Iced Tea...$3
Room tip.....$7
Breakfast buffet ...... $47 (not at ALL worth that!! $5 for a bagel if ala carte!)
Overnight Parking.....$26

Total......$492.65!!!

Me, retelling a story Sunday morning that I apparently had regaled my companions with the night before and wife reminding me of a few other conversations that had slipped my mind? Priceless!