From coast to coast to coast
I left work mid-afternoon yesterday to head over to the new Marlins Ballpark which resides in the location of the old Orange Bowl. I allotted myself roughly two and a half hours for the drive. I probably should have given myself a bit more slack.
As I drove across the alley I came across some storms, some severe enough to knock my speed down to 60 mph or so, adding time to my ETA. As I approached the stadium I expected to be able to swing into one of the multiple parking garages that surround it. Well every garage said it was for prepaid passes only, something I was not given. Damn it.
By this time it was almost 5pm, the scheduled time for the seminar so I was getting desperate. I ALMOST pulled into the front yard of someone holding a $10 parking sign. However before I did I asked a cop if there were any garages that allowed you to pay to park, a novel concept. He said there was one, the center field garage, he said it was just around the corner. I swung in, handed over my $15 and fast stepped it down the stairs and towards the stadium.
Not only did the seminar invite not tell you where to park, it also didn’t tell you what entrance to use in the stadium. I walked up to the first entrance I found and asked a guy where I should go. He wasn’t sure but he suggested I try the Diamond Club entrance which is on the other side of the stadium. Great.
So I fast walked around the perimeter and located the Diamond Club doors. Luckily the people there did not give me strange looks when I showed them my invite. I was directed to follow a woman who took me upstairs to the executive conference room. I stepped in the door about 5:10. I was happy to see that despite being late, nothing had started, they actually didn’t start until 5:40 or so because others arrived late after encountering similar difficulties as I did.
The office area and conference rooms were beautiful and ultra-modern as you would expect of a brand new facility.
The seminar itself was informative with reps from EMC and VMware attending. There were tech acronyms flying left and right. Some I knew, some I acted like I knew.
The main subjects covered were virtualization and the cloud, two things that have the ability to simplify your administration and lower your TCO. (had to throw an acronym in there)
A little before 7 we were taken up to our suite to watch the game. Wow, the suite was just awesome. It was big, beautiful, filled with all you can eat food and drink (including alcohol) and had a great view of the field, just a little off center from home plate.
The field and seating area looked quite nice except for two things. They have this ugly, ugly, ugly animatronic thing in centerfield that comes to life when the Marlins hit a homerun. I don’t know whose idea that was but it was a bad one, they should tear that out asap.
I also am not a big fan of the green color of the walls surrounding the field, it just looks bad. That would be an easy fix as well.
Other than that everything looked great. I love the view of the city in the outfield, the huge video screens, fish tanks behind the batting box and the size of the seating area. It now feels like a real baseball stadium.
I was a bit bummed the roof was closed, I’d like to see what it looks like when it is open. Even cooler would be seeing it open first hand.
I was a bit surprised by the turn out, which was light. There were some legitimate reasons though. The Heat had a home playoff game last night and the Marlins were playing the Rockies, not a team that is going to pull in many non-Marlin fans.
Even though I had no rooting interest in the game I still enjoyed sitting there chowing down on the food. They had no vegetarian choices but I was honestly too hungry to care, my apologies to any animals that went down to satisfy my appetite last night.
The game itself was pretty entertaining with a lot of runs being scored. Around the 5th inning the Suite Street desert cart pulled up outside our area. It was a rolling cart filled with off the chart deserts. Despite already consuming many calories, I chose an oversized chocolate chunk cookie for desert, it was awesome.
After my cookie I decided to take a stroll around the entire concourse to get a better feel for the stadium. As I made my journey I took some pictures to document the trip. I looked at a couple of Marlin souvenir stands, thinking I wouldn’t mind grabbing a Marlins sleeveless T-shirt. However nothing had prices on it, no prices meant prices that were going to be higher than I was willing to spend so I just moved on.
Sprinkled across the concourse were a number of bars near the seating areas that would allow you to grab a beer and stand at high tables while catching the action. As I circled I verified that I really did not see a bad seat in the place.
I eventually made my way back to the suite and hung around until the end of the 7th inning. It was almost 10 at this point. I thanked the hosts of the event for the invite and headed out.
As I was walking outside the left field area I saw the night club that exists in the left field wall, complete with dancing girls on a stage. I had to take a pic of that.
Getting out of the city wasn’t too bad although the traffic was pretty heavy. I made a stop at the first rest stop once I got back on the alley to grab some gross vending machine coffee to help me stay lucid for the drive.
I didn’t get home until a little before 1 am and my eyes didn’t close until after 1:30. Surprisingly, at this moment I don’t feel too awful but I have a feeling the sledgehammer will hit me later this afternoon. My second weeknight coast to coast to coast trip in a little more than a month was worth the effort, once again.
If you want to see all the pics I took from the game look here.