Membership has its Privileges
On Saturday, I took a trip to New York with Karen, Sean, and Vince. We left here at 8am, intent on catching the Raptors - Nets game at 1pm. Karen dropped us off in Soho while she ran an errand, so we moseyed on over to Cafe Habana. After a great, cheap breakfast, we cruised around the city, eventually making our way to Union Square, where Karen and her buddy Adler met up with us to hit the game.
We got to the game a little late, and aside from some nice dunks by Vince Carter, and a sound one-point thrashing handed to Karen's Nets, it was largely unremarkable.
After a stop at McDonald's to grab our free meals (yea McFamily Plan!) and a stop at the ESPN office at Midtown to show Sean and Vince the digs, we headed to the ESPN Zone to watch some games.
The second floor of the ESPNZone is called the "Screening Room". It is a room with a wall on one side, consisting of 12 large TVs and two HUGE TVs, showing a multitude of games. The room is filled with tables where patrons can eat, drink and watch said games. Some tables even have a personal TV so the people sitting at those tables can choose which game they want to watch if it is not on the of the TVs on the wall.
Needless to say, a very sweet set up. Waiting lines for these tables can be two to three hours long.
Luckily, our status as ESPN employees rocketed us to the top of the list. After playing video games for 45 mins, our table was ready. At that point, Sean and Karen left to pull off "the double"--they followed up the Raptors-Nets game with the Knicks-76ers tilt at Madison Square Gaden. Vince and I settled in at our table for a solid four hours of watching sports and shooting the shit. We took in the outdoor hockey game in Edmonton (the 'Zone got the CBC feed because it was not being carried by any network in the US), along with some good college football games and NBA games. We arrived back in West Hartford at about 1:30am, with one more eventful day of my life spent worshipping to the God of Sports in the books.
On another note, it was great being in a city again. It is very easy to forget how different the lifestyle is, with all the people and the energy and the money flying out of your wallet. I really should get back there more often.