Arn's Blog: The Red Sox Series

The game was at 2pm but I had to work in the morning. It was pretty important work and around 9am, I predicted around 40% chance to make the game. While I could ditch everything and come up with an excuse, well, I don’t do things like that. 12 noon came and I was monitoring a batch run. There were 8 jobs that need to be completed and I could only leave if and only if all those complete in time.

For an hour, I waited and waited for this progress bar and at 1pm, it was finally done. The moment I saw the word “success”, I took a bath and from the bathroom, my clothes were waiting for me in front of the door since I laid them down on the floor in the proper order so I can literally jump into my clothes.

I still had my gear from last night but I dumped the umbrella (it wasn't raining anymore) and I brought my trusty Nikon DSLR camera. The same blur came out of the backdoors but instead of the red line, it made a turn and dropped by Popeyes. I was hungry. I run fast but I need to eat something first.

This weekend was about facing plenty of problems but lady luck has really supported me big time. I ate three pieces of chicken tenders and while eating, a chunk of ranch dressing fell on my shirt. IT made a mess and I didn’t have time to go home and chance. I cleaned it with a tissue paper and suddenly, I didn’t realize the shirt I was wearing.

I had it on backwards. I flipped it inside out and the stain was gone.

From Popeyes, I walked to the red line (sorry, I can’t “blur” with a tummy full of chicken tenders) and faced the same Red Sox crowd, heard the same Red Sox cheer, took the train but ended up in a different seat as I was now near right field.

I took tons of pictures using my camera and my 200mm zoom lens. I didn’t take plenty of videos and I was able to observe the game and the place more.

- On TV, after innings, we end up with commercials making me think, what do they do in between inning?. The players play catch. Videos are played on the screen and the fans get food (except those who had a big chicken meal on the way to the park).
- I had a good view of the Red Sox bullpen (the bench for pitchers). One inning they came out and were stretching together like those aerobics shows in the morning.
- I was sitting by White Sox fans who were extremely frustrated because the home team was making plenty of stupid mistakes.

After the game, I stayed longer to take pictures of the park – the diamond, the empty seats, the view of Chicago downtown. It was another great day however I had to run back for work since I had a conference call setup. :-S The perfect timeout on a busy weekend =)