Northeastern roots
So I've fallen a bit behind. Missed trips to Colorado (hung out with friends); Columbus (bought StubHub ticket to Ohio State-USC, only to realize it required a student ID I didn't have); and Pachuca, Mexico (some good traveling stories and I got swine flue). All of those games also resulted in losses.
The team has been at home since then, but I took a personal trip to Philadelphia last weekend to visit RBG for the first time since she went off to Penn!
I left the office on a Wednesday afternoon, got to the airport in record time, skipped check-in with only carry-on bags, flew threw security, looked at the monitor, and ... discovered my flight had been delayed roughly 90 minutes. Awesome. Fortunately, my internet card decided to work for about 30 minutes without interruption, a new record, and I was able to kill time until boarding. Once I boarded, however, we got a message from the captain that there had been a security breach in the terminal, and they were not allowing any planes to board passengers. Actually, IAH claims it wasn't a security breach and that the disruption was minimal. Yeah, that's false.
The good news was that once we were airborne, they gave us all free DirecTV on the flight, so I was able to watch the last five innings of the Yankees' playoff opener! The best part was that I kept laughing at errors by the TBS announcers and producers, but the woman next to me had no idea why I was laughing, so she kept looking at me strangely. I almost lost it when the cameraman filming the handshake line dropped his camera, and TBS kept with the shot as the camera showed blades of grass. They cut away JUST as the woman turned to look, so it looked like I was laughing at the handshake line. Bizarre.
Anyway, got to Philly pretty late and needed to catch a $7 train to the train station near RBG's apartment. Well, the night before, I gave $2 to one of our interns to use for bus fare because all she had was a 20. And that left me with $6! So I had to walk to a different terminal to use an ATM and get charged a fee. Good planning, Jon. I eventually made it to the apartment with no further issues.
It was cold in Philly, especially given that the heat index in Houston that day was 109 (it has since cooled in Houston, too), but being a true Northeasterner at heart, I handled it without (too much) complaint.
Obviously, seeing RBG was awesome, and I really like her apartment set-up in walking distance from the Penn campus. I slept late, hung out at the apartment, took advantage of the fully functional internet, and even watched a little baseball on Thursday while she was at class. We had Thai food for dinner, where I tried not to pay too much attention to the Phillies-Rockies game on TV (according to RBG, it's OK to watch playoff baseball if Huston Street is on screen). The Phillies were on everywhere we went in the city, but apparently they weren't on their game, as Huston earned the save to giggles of delight from my dinner companion.
Friday was official Parents & Partners Day, so we went to campus and tried to capitalize on the good things about the day (free food) and avoid the bad things (nametags, boring tours, boring speeches, making small talk).
Went to a law school class on torts with many other parents and partners. I had been warned that the professor was not the best and briefed on the cases, so I was able to - with some level of intellectual authority - concur with RBG and her roommate that maybe this wasn't the finest example of Ivy League professorial duties. For instance, Byrne was spelled Bryne, anesthesiologists were described as anesthetists, the prof wasn't sure of the outcome of some of the assigned cases, and I was assured I was catching her on a good day. At any rate, law school didn't scare me that much. Probably because RBG had already boiled down the cases pretty simply for me. But still.
We walked around the Penn campus some - felt older, more run-down, and less cheery than Rice, but that could be due to the at-times gray weather. It was nice enough, though, and I tried to remember why I didn't look at Penn. I'm assuming it had something to do with a lack of D-I sports and the Greek system. We didn't do a whole lot else on Friday, although we did enjoy some awesome BBQ chicken pizza at a local place. Can't get pizza like that in H-town.
Saturday was to be my triumphant return to Delbarton for my first Homecoming or football game since 2000. It started out well. The (overpriced) Amtrak transportation went just fine, the scenery as we rode through New Jersey was gorgeous (I had forgotten that leaves could change color!), seeing my father and grandmother was awesome, lunch at my family's favorite Indian place was good, Delbarton looked all decked out, etc. But the afternoon didn't turn out perfectly.
Two of my best friends from high school had said they would come, but one canceled (to be fair, he warned me in an email that morning that I didn't get) and the other got stranded in, ironically enough, Philly. So I only talked to two people from my class while studiously avoiding some people from high school I'm not wild about. The new football field (turf, yuck!) looked pretty cool, but the game was terrible.
I realized that, due more to the size of the schools than actual talent, high school football in New Jersey is closer to 4A and 3A Texas football than I had previously cared to admit. Delbarton committed six turnovers (forcing three) and lost 21-7. Six turnovers! And they still should have won the game.
It was a gorgeous (though cold) afternoon to watch a football game in Jersey - rolling hills of multi-colored trees in the background, leaves blowing across the (artificial) field, free food all over the place, good crowd. But six turnovers ...
So we went back to Philadelphia, where we tried to go out for dinner with RBG's roommate and her boyfriend. With everybody very hungry for a late meal, we walked like 15 blocks to the restaurant we were aiming for, passing people who were either way dressed up or way homeless along the way. When we finally got there, the wait was going to be more than an hour. So we kept moving (thankfully headed back toward the apartment), and eventually found a place with only a 20-minute wait.
We went upstairs and stood around in a bar like we were cool people out on the town on Saturday until we were finally called and ate dinner. Then it was back to the apartment, where I watched just enough ESPN to find out that the U.S. had surprisingly won its game (which was not televised) in Honduras and qualified for the World Cup. Then it was off to bed for a 6 a.m. wake-up call, which, of course, is 5 a.m. CT.
Sunday was an unhappy goodbye, a plane back to Houston (first class!), a quick re-charge at the apartment, and a game (thankfully not on radio, since it was an exhibition game) that we won.
Quite a weekend. One I won't get to re-live soon enough. Anyway, that's the update. Thanks for reading. Maybe I'll re-live the Mexico trip one of these days for you.
The team has been at home since then, but I took a personal trip to Philadelphia last weekend to visit RBG for the first time since she went off to Penn!
I left the office on a Wednesday afternoon, got to the airport in record time, skipped check-in with only carry-on bags, flew threw security, looked at the monitor, and ... discovered my flight had been delayed roughly 90 minutes. Awesome. Fortunately, my internet card decided to work for about 30 minutes without interruption, a new record, and I was able to kill time until boarding. Once I boarded, however, we got a message from the captain that there had been a security breach in the terminal, and they were not allowing any planes to board passengers. Actually, IAH claims it wasn't a security breach and that the disruption was minimal. Yeah, that's false.
The good news was that once we were airborne, they gave us all free DirecTV on the flight, so I was able to watch the last five innings of the Yankees' playoff opener! The best part was that I kept laughing at errors by the TBS announcers and producers, but the woman next to me had no idea why I was laughing, so she kept looking at me strangely. I almost lost it when the cameraman filming the handshake line dropped his camera, and TBS kept with the shot as the camera showed blades of grass. They cut away JUST as the woman turned to look, so it looked like I was laughing at the handshake line. Bizarre.
Anyway, got to Philly pretty late and needed to catch a $7 train to the train station near RBG's apartment. Well, the night before, I gave $2 to one of our interns to use for bus fare because all she had was a 20. And that left me with $6! So I had to walk to a different terminal to use an ATM and get charged a fee. Good planning, Jon. I eventually made it to the apartment with no further issues.
It was cold in Philly, especially given that the heat index in Houston that day was 109 (it has since cooled in Houston, too), but being a true Northeasterner at heart, I handled it without (too much) complaint.
Obviously, seeing RBG was awesome, and I really like her apartment set-up in walking distance from the Penn campus. I slept late, hung out at the apartment, took advantage of the fully functional internet, and even watched a little baseball on Thursday while she was at class. We had Thai food for dinner, where I tried not to pay too much attention to the Phillies-Rockies game on TV (according to RBG, it's OK to watch playoff baseball if Huston Street is on screen). The Phillies were on everywhere we went in the city, but apparently they weren't on their game, as Huston earned the save to giggles of delight from my dinner companion.
Friday was official Parents & Partners Day, so we went to campus and tried to capitalize on the good things about the day (free food) and avoid the bad things (nametags, boring tours, boring speeches, making small talk).
Went to a law school class on torts with many other parents and partners. I had been warned that the professor was not the best and briefed on the cases, so I was able to - with some level of intellectual authority - concur with RBG and her roommate that maybe this wasn't the finest example of Ivy League professorial duties. For instance, Byrne was spelled Bryne, anesthesiologists were described as anesthetists, the prof wasn't sure of the outcome of some of the assigned cases, and I was assured I was catching her on a good day. At any rate, law school didn't scare me that much. Probably because RBG had already boiled down the cases pretty simply for me. But still.
We walked around the Penn campus some - felt older, more run-down, and less cheery than Rice, but that could be due to the at-times gray weather. It was nice enough, though, and I tried to remember why I didn't look at Penn. I'm assuming it had something to do with a lack of D-I sports and the Greek system. We didn't do a whole lot else on Friday, although we did enjoy some awesome BBQ chicken pizza at a local place. Can't get pizza like that in H-town.
Saturday was to be my triumphant return to Delbarton for my first Homecoming or football game since 2000. It started out well. The (overpriced) Amtrak transportation went just fine, the scenery as we rode through New Jersey was gorgeous (I had forgotten that leaves could change color!), seeing my father and grandmother was awesome, lunch at my family's favorite Indian place was good, Delbarton looked all decked out, etc. But the afternoon didn't turn out perfectly.
Two of my best friends from high school had said they would come, but one canceled (to be fair, he warned me in an email that morning that I didn't get) and the other got stranded in, ironically enough, Philly. So I only talked to two people from my class while studiously avoiding some people from high school I'm not wild about. The new football field (turf, yuck!) looked pretty cool, but the game was terrible.
I realized that, due more to the size of the schools than actual talent, high school football in New Jersey is closer to 4A and 3A Texas football than I had previously cared to admit. Delbarton committed six turnovers (forcing three) and lost 21-7. Six turnovers! And they still should have won the game.
It was a gorgeous (though cold) afternoon to watch a football game in Jersey - rolling hills of multi-colored trees in the background, leaves blowing across the (artificial) field, free food all over the place, good crowd. But six turnovers ...So we went back to Philadelphia, where we tried to go out for dinner with RBG's roommate and her boyfriend. With everybody very hungry for a late meal, we walked like 15 blocks to the restaurant we were aiming for, passing people who were either way dressed up or way homeless along the way. When we finally got there, the wait was going to be more than an hour. So we kept moving (thankfully headed back toward the apartment), and eventually found a place with only a 20-minute wait.
We went upstairs and stood around in a bar like we were cool people out on the town on Saturday until we were finally called and ate dinner. Then it was back to the apartment, where I watched just enough ESPN to find out that the U.S. had surprisingly won its game (which was not televised) in Honduras and qualified for the World Cup. Then it was off to bed for a 6 a.m. wake-up call, which, of course, is 5 a.m. CT.
Sunday was an unhappy goodbye, a plane back to Houston (first class!), a quick re-charge at the apartment, and a game (thankfully not on radio, since it was an exhibition game) that we won.
Quite a weekend. One I won't get to re-live soon enough. Anyway, that's the update. Thanks for reading. Maybe I'll re-live the Mexico trip one of these days for you.
posted by Jon at
20:02
1 Comments:
You aren't going to write about CO one of these days? :(
By
"Friends", at 12:26 PM
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