Adventures in Anachronistic Consumerism # 42,985

After waffling most of the summer, I finally committed to going back for my high school reunion in Minnesota, crossing a pair of time zones and spending too much time in airports (Phoenix, really??) to get there — but that was the price of delaying, which is my own fault. And while there, why not go see a Twins game at new Target Field? So I made arrangements with a friend, N, to go see a game,  and hoped to be able to buy tickets online but simply mail them to her home in a suburb of Minneapolis.

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Boston Red Sox Buying a World Series Championship – Is George Steinbrenner Grinning in His Grave?

 I e-mailed my friend who brews with me about the next beers we are going to make. “What,” he replied. “no huzzahs and hosannas for the World Champion Red Sox?!”

 He’s from Connecticut. I don’t blame him for being a Red Sox fan. But I do note that he’s singing a new tune.

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We Change Planes in Albuquerque

It’s morning in our Caribbean Beach resort hotel room, a gray day outside, which somewhat fits the mood as we pack and prepare for shuttle buses, airports, metal detectors, and long flights inside fancy aluminum tubes.

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Sports Break!

Aside from seeing friends, the impetus for this trip had been to see the Twins’ new baseball park, Target Field. Which of course doesn’t preclude some of the recurring rituals of my trips back to Minnesota. 

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Forehead Slap: Whups!

My friend and former roommate John emailed me in July. He’s now a professor at the University of Chicago, and was coming to the Bay Area for a conference. Did I have time to get together? Sure! We made arrangements for me to pick him up at the airport and for him to stay with us that Friday night, and we both went on with our lives. 

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Media, media, me media, mine!

I’ve got the Giants/Dodgers game on TV. But it’s not our usual local television announcers (Jon Miller and Dave Fleming), it’s some national guys, Kenny Albert and ex-Dodger Eric Karros, whom I don’t care for. So I’ve got the local radio team on KNBR (Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, with Jon Miller visiting!) with the sound turned down on the TV.

I’m amazed at how un-synchronized they are. The radio is about two pitches ahead of the TV! Which could be dis-orienting, but actually it’s okay, because:

I’ve got my computer on, too. Can’t you tell? I’m writing to you, after all. So I can bang away here at my keyboard, listen to the radio and, when something good happens, glance up and have plenty of time to see it on TV.

And hey, presto — there it is! Pat Burrell just hit a two-run home run to put the Giants ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th.  I love all my media!

I’m going to have to hit publish and go use another appliance, the microwave, to warm my tea before the ninth inning begins.

Here I go!

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American League, 12-0-1

In European soccer, teams that do poorly are often relegated from the higher league down to a lower league. Perhaps this explains what happened to baseball’s Milwaukee Brewers in 1998.

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The Phone Call with StubHub

 I spoke to Ms. Norberg, of StubHub.

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StubHub follows up

I’ve heard back from a senior supervisor of executive customer care at StubHub. Those who stop by frequently might remember we had three spring training tickets stolen a week before we left town.

And now, two months after we began e-mailing and calling StubHub to try and replace the stolen tickets before we got to Florida, this comment was made to my March 14th post about getting into the ballgame, with no help from StubHub:

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The large and small of spring training

You know how planning a vacation together can be stressful?

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