Unexpectedly feeling the Heat, Mighty Messenger, SSR set

So mid-morning yesterday my buddy Matt was chatting to me.  He asked what plans I had for last night.  Since I was already pooped from going to the bar Wednesday night I told him I was just going to be hanging at home, probably working on housework.

Matt told me he had a spare ticket for the Heat/Bulls game last night and asked if I was interested in going.  A bunch of his co-workers were doing a bachelor party thing and going to the game was part of it.  Evidently one of the guys had a personal issue come up last minute and wasn’t able to go.

Well there were a a couple reasons I would have normally said thanks but not thanks.  Like I said, my ass was dragging already.  The idea of spending 4 + hours behind the wheel last night to get to Miami and back seemed pretty silly.  Plus I am not a Heats fan in the least, hell I am not really an NBA fan anymore for that matter. The jaunt would also cost a few bucks between the ticket, parking, gas and food.

Despite those negatives I saw it s an opportunity to do something different, something out of the ordinary.  These days these type of things are very appealing to me.

I told Matt that if he had any other co-workers that would want to go he should offer it to them first however if there were no takers I would step in.  Matt said there weren’t any other candidates.  So shortly after our virtual conversation he swung by the office and dropped off the ticket.  I told him I would meet him at the venue.

Even with leaving the office a little early, by the time I got home, changed and back out the door it was maybe 5:45.  With a tip off of 8 PM I knew I would be hard pressed to get there before the game started.

I grabbed an extra large DD coffee on the way home and then supplemented it with rest stop coffee along the way.  It was absolutely necessary. Without coffee I would have been either in a ditch or sound asleep in a parking lot somewhere.

The drive over to Miami was fine until I hit the logjam of vehicles as I approached the stadium area.  I circled the arena bit looking for a reasonably priced place to park.  I saw some places charging as much as $25.

I found a place maybe 4 or 5 blocks away that was only $12 so that was my spot.  By the time I parked and actually got into the building it was probably 8:20 or so.  My lack of passion for NBA basketball meant missing the first few minutes of the game didn’t bother me in the least.

I had not eaten any dinner so the first thing I did before finding my seat was grab some stadium food.  My personal pizza and souvenir soda clocked in right under $20, sheesh.

My seat was in the 400 level which is the upper deck.  My seat was in row 17.  I found out that section 405 has exactly 17 rows.  Yep I was at the top of the arena.

Even being up that high I could see the court well enough, at least well enough for me.  Matt had actually bought two blocks of tickets, he was in a different block that was in the 2nd row of the adjacent section.  I figured he would come find me so I sat down and enjoyed my pizza.

Matt did eventually spot me and come up.  We watched the game from that high vantage point until halftime.  When the seats emptied out we moved his entire group to the better seats.  By that time enough people had started shifting around that there were open seats available.  Knocking 16 rows off definitely brought the game action significantly closer.

Speaking of the game, it was a good one.  The Heat and the Bulls are the top two teams in the Eastern Conference right now.  The game was a physical, low scoring variety with lots of pushing and shoving.  I think there were three or four technical fouls called during the game.  Lebron James and Dwayne Wade both made some unbelievable plays.

Well late into the fourth quarter the Heat had around a 10 point lead.  Matt, knowing I had to work today, said he asked their limo driver if there was a trick to beating the traffic after the game.  He said the only trick was to leave early. Well that  is exactly what I did, thanking Matt and sneaking out with about 4:30 left on the game clock.

The walk back to the parking lot was a bit scary.  There wasn’t the huge wave of humanity that I rode into the stadium with. Instead I was quick walking it back to the lot mostly solo.  Some of the walk included poorly lit sidewalks with plenty of dark corners.  I was quite aware of my surroundings, ready to react if need be.

It was about 10:45 so the people that live on the streets were already starting to lay down in “bed”.  I passed one inlet that had a few guys already in sleeping bags.  The smell of urine as I walked by was quite evident.

Luckily I made it to my truck without being assailed.  I fired it up and headed out pronto, I knew the tsunami of humanity was going to be spilling from the arena at any moment.  I JUST made it out onto the main road that lead to 95 before the crowds engulfed the streets, I felt quite fortunate.

The drive back across the state went well.  I didn’t feel as dangerously drowsy as I expected.  Maybe the coffee, two large diet sodas and the excitement of the game (the Heat won), helped me along.  I pulled into the driveway right around 1AM.

Again my lack of exhaustion surprised me.  I actually checked my email on my pc before heading back to take a shower and go to bed.  Waking up this morning was painful however on less than four hours sleep.

Despite all the driving, the costly gas, dealing with congestion in the city and the day after exhaustion, I chalked up my Thursday night excursion to the Heat game as worth it.

Has anyone else seen the latest version of Microsoft Messenger that is included in Windows Live?  Wow it pretty much does it all.  It ties into almost any popular site/social media you can imagine and aggregates it all into one UI.  I like it, a lot.

I have all my ducks lined up now for the SSR work, including confirming next Thursday as when Sinister Kustoms is going to do the clutch/flywheel work.  I just hope I am able to make the roughly 3 hour drive to his shop without whatever is making noise in the flywheel area blowing apart.

This will be a laborious weekend.  At the house I need to mow and whack the grass, do cleaning, replace the ripped screen and hopefully get the oil changed in the Tacoma.  It would be nice if I got the new plugs in the truck as well.

I also will be heading over to Ali’s place on Saturday to attend to a few more items and bring over some stuff she needs.  I’d like to help her get the majority of her boxes emptied since I know having them around is stressing her out.

I was planning on also doing the hella early GCR run Saturday morning. Busy, busy, busy.