Worst vs. First Again Tonight

A nicer day today here in the Baltimore/Washington area....same temperature, but no rain....it's actually warmer in Ottawa today than here...so, for the first time since I entered the US, all you Ottawa people can actually laugh at me for being in the colder place today....I guess 12 out of 13 days ain't bad... :-)

We're just sitting around right now trying to figure out what we want to do because we saw everything we needed to see in Washington yesterday....we walked around for about nine hours yesterday....parked the car at around 2:30 and got back to it just before midnight as we saw absolutely everything....my feet were absolutely pulsing towards the end of the walk, but with the views that we were able to get of all the monuments, I can handle a little bit of a pain for an hour or so...

Talk about a stark contrast from the look of the capital of the United States to the capital of Canada...I don't know how much money is put into the upkeep of the city's look every year, but the city of Washington is just beautiful with momuments and statues at every turn....the three of us were trying to think of statues or monuments in Ottawa and we could only come up with a couple...

However, with the beauty comes the annoyance of security at every turn....Until it got dark and it became more of a positive, the police and security prescence in the city is just unreal and made me feel uneasy for a couple of hours before I got used to it....A perfect example is the security check that we received just at the parking lot downtown....When we drove up to the ramp, the security guard asked for all of our ID's and grazed the metal detector up and down the car....then just to enter the building to get back to the car, we needed to present our ID's again and then had to empty our pockets and go through a metal detector much like you would at an airport....like I said, I got used to it after a couple of hours, but it was a big shock to the system when I first got here...

I have to get this off my chest and I'm assuming that it's not the same back home, but the amount of fear-mongering that occurs on local and national TV here is just insane....everywhere you turn here over the last couple of days, I've seen nothing but news about the swine flu...alerts here and school closings there....there are people walking around with masks now apparently.....I don't want to make light of the situation, but the amount of panic that the media here is forcing upon the residents and viewers is just sickening...

Alright, I can fully breathe again.....Anyways, going to see the Nats again tonight as they take on the St. Louis Cardinals....the Nationals are the worst team in the majors and the Cards are the best team in baseball going into action this afternoon.....poor Nationals, they just can't catch a break....lol

This will be stadium number 6 already....as Chris and I have been saying, the days are starting to become a blur and everything is really just one big day now....it's a great feeling to get up every day and just decide what we want to do without any pressures....Time flies when you're having fun.... :-)

The Farj (Ian Mendes) is in town to cover the Caps/Pens series starting on Saturday, so I'm gonna try to catch up with him before I head off to Pittsburgh for the Pirates game tomorrow night....

Baltimore - Beautiful City/Not So Beautiful Baseball Team

Just sitting in the hotel room in Baltimore as the warm weather has finally gone away and we're seeing what we're supposed to be seeing for April....it's a dreary overcast day with the threat of rain looming every second....I've never done a long trip like this before, so everything I'm experiencing is for the first time....and for the first time, we're at a point where we need to do some major planning as we go along....so the three of us are bunkered down here just going step by step as to what we're gonna do for the next couple of weeks...We all knew it was coming, but we just kept delaying and delaying, but today's the day that we really get into the meat of the trip with longer drives and flights for myself....but as my close friends know, all I normally do is a shrug of the shoulders followed by a "We'll figure it out...."

As for the Baltimore experience, the drive into Baltimore was smooth-sailing until we hit the downtown portion and then it was complete chaos....traffic all over the place and police guiding traffic to where they need to go....at the time, all we could think of was how disorganized the city was....we finally made it back to the hotel room only to find out that a water main broke in one of the most important intersections of downtown and that the one block was a massive sinkhole, hence the chaos....I would compare it to having the intersection of Metcalfe and Albert in Ottawa become unavailable to drivers in the middle of rush-hour....not so pleasant...

As we watched the news, I couldn't help but laugh at one man who had his court date postponed because of the water main break....he was going for a child support case (and decided to wear a Steelers jersey to court in Baltimore)...here's a quick portion of the convo on the news...

Reporter: You had your case postponed today....how do you feel?

Deadbeat: I feel like the luckiest guy in the world!

Reporter: Are you going to send those payments post-dated?

Deadbeat: HELL NO! (laughs)

What a deadbeat......I feel terrible for the kids of that loser, but the fact that they would show that on the local news just makes me laugh....As a viewer, I'm not sure if I'm not supposed to be angry or laughing....I guess I went with option 2 :-)

We went to the game despite the fact that city officials were advising people to avoid the downtown area....We ended up getting there fairly early because we were worried about the advisories....

It's a beautiful ballpark with an old school kind of feel.....Fenway is old-school, but Camden Yards has the feel of seeing a game as you would have in the 50's with all the modern-day amenities....for a park that is now 17 years old, it has held up really well....the idea of being able to come in off the street as well just adds to the great character of the park....

Of course, I had to check out the Eutaw St. walkway and it is beautiful with the warehouse in the background....all the different food options I had made me cringe at the idea that I could have bought an all-you-can-eat ticket for just 10 bucks more! Arrrrgghhh....ah well....

Everything is just soooo fan-friendly....the city itself is so friendly and has now surpassed Philadelphia as the most friendly city on the tour so far....the people at the ballpark were so friendly that the usher directed me to my seat and then wiped it off with a towel....lol

On the negative side, there was hardly anyone at the game and there were numerous sections that were empty....there were a bunch of factors that worked against the Orioles including the water main break, Game 7 for the Caps in Washington only 45 minutes away and the fact that the Orioles have been sooooo terrible for sooo long.....As expected, the Angels were able to beat the Orioles and it killed my streak of seeing the home team win....

As I've written this, we've gotten further along with the plans....but just writing about the food at the game last night has made me hungry.... :-)

Ra-uuuuuuuuul! What a game in Philly!

I'll get to that in a couple of seconds, but by far, the best game I've seen so far....

We did a lot of sightseeing in Philly yesterday and as I was saying yesterday, the fact that Philadelphia has a small downtown core makes it a lot easier to hit all the sights in one day...there's so much history in this city....things like the liberty bell and independence hall that take you back to the 1700's....as Chris was saying yesterday, you can have someone teach you or your children about this kind of stuff in a classroom, but it's just nowhere near the same as experiencing it in the flesh and soaking in the history....

Of course, after all that historic stuff, we had to walk to Philly Art Museum to take a peek at the Rocky statue and run the steps....I decided just to walk up the steps 'cause I figure that the locals would just say, "Oh, there goes another stupid tourist running up the steps and pretending like he's Rocky..." As much as I am a tourist, I don't need to put myself through unnecessary embarassment....

Then we were off to the Phillies game....the stadium is located in what they call the Sports Complex and they have all their various sports stadiums in that area....so in that area, there is Citizens Bank Park (where the Phillies play), Lincoln Financial Field (where the Eagles play), the Wachovia Centre (where the Flyers play) and the Wachovia Spectrum (where the Phantoms play)....

As I said before, the game was an incredible game....a game where the Nationals kept taking a large lead only for the Phillies to rally back with grand-slams....there were 7 homers in the game by both teams, but the grand-slams by Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez were moments in time that I'll remember for the rest of my life....Howard hits the grand-slam when the Phils were down 6-2 at the time....such a clutch hit and for those couple of seconds, it was like time stood still and then the excitement of the crowd just carried for a couple of minutes, even after Howard came out for the curtain call....

But even that pales in comparison to the Ibanez grand-slam....the game was tied at 7 after 7 innings, only for the Nationals to score 4 runs in the eighth inning....quite a few fans looked for the exits, but the Phillies rallied in the bottom half of the eighth to score two runs and to load the bases....then Ibanez comes up and smokes a fastball and right away, I can tell that it's coming right for me! The first second was shock, the second second was a little fear since the baseball is coming at a pretty good clip and I don't have a glove and the third second was trying to gameplan how I can get this ball.....Unfortunately, the ball was just out of my reach and landed a row behind me....I found myself in the rumble for the ball in which a fan jumps from a row behind to get into the pile....I quickly find that I'm not going to get it, but the experience of having it land right behind me is good enough....another story to tell on what has been an amazing trip already and I still have 7 weeks to go!

Alright, off to Baltimore to continue the "Promiscuous" tour....I got wind of it being called that yesterday.... (shaking head).... :-)

Time for a Philly Cheese-Steak!

Just hanging out in the hotel room here in Philly about ready to do some more sightseeing before we head down to Citizens Bank Park for the Phillies game tonight...I get to see the Nationals for the second straight game....hooray! :-) I just had to check to make sure the Nationals are the worst team in the majors and I was right.....and I get to see them again in four days in Washington....awesome! LOL

We're in the middle of a record heatwave here in this area, so walking around to see all the sights today will be even more exercise....it's supposed to be 32 degrees today and then 34 tomorrow afternoon when we head to Baltimore....I'm not complaining at all.....Just didn't think I would see summer-like temperatures when we're still in April....I just wish I had a chance to bring my clubs and work on my non-existant golf game....

We took advantage of the beautiful weather by lying on the beach by the boardwalk in Atlantic City for a few hours yesterday....It was another one of those surreal times where I'm just sitting there on a 30 degree day just staring at the ocean and thinking to myself how crazy this trip really is....when hearing about the trip, people always say how awesome and crazy it is, but I guess I'm sooo out there myself that it doesn't really register to my brain....but then again a lot of things don't register to my brain.... :-) I got a little darker while Tony and Chris looked like tomatoes after a couple of hours of lying there...now they're dealing with sunburns and I'm prefectly fine.....I've never had a sunburn in my life, so I can't understand their pain....I'm pretty bad about that.... LOL

Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch at a cafe and we headed to Philly...all of us were so drained from the beach that when we went into downtown to do some bar-hopping, none of us really had the energy to do too much anymore...we ended up just sitting at a place called Fado and having a couple of drinks on a patio table on the sidewalk....

Having only walked around for a couple of hours, you can instantly tell that the city has a ton of history behind it and that there are a lot of historic stories to hear while walking around, so I'm looking forward to doing that today....we did get a chance to see City Hall at night and wow, it is quite the impressive building....won't see anything like that anywhere....

We're just looking at things we want to hit today and one of the things that we have to do before we go is have a Philly Cheese-Steak....I was telling someone today that with all the fatty food that I'm ingesting with the huge portions....I'm starting to get fat again.....I had done a great job of losing 30 pounds in 4 months before I left, but I'm sure that I'll put on at least half of those 30 pounds back by the time this trip is all said and done.....I'm looking forward to hitting the gym again once I get back to Ottawa....

Enough gym talk.....we're off for another day!

Atlantic City = What a Dump!

Sitting in the hotel room just about to leave for Philadelphia for a couple of days....it is sooooo hot here right now....it's 11 o'clock in the morning and it's 28 degrees Celsius here....unreal! I had to look it up in Ottawa and sure enough, it's 7 degrees....hard to imagine that we're only about 6-7 hours away by driving and there would be a 21 degree difference....but I'm not gonna be one of those people that throws it in a friend's face when it's unbelievably warmer.... :-)

So, hard to add to what I wrote for the title....except for the casinos, there's really not a lot happening here and what is happening here is really shady....we figured it out this morning that the three biggest industries in this town are the casinos, tarot readings and massages.....it's incredible when you walk down the boardwalk 'cause on every block, there's a casino, tarot reader and massage parlor....

The overall shadiness of the city is troubling as well.....there are a ton of dirty arcades/shops and the steel pier, which is the amusement park, was absolutely seedy....you just don't want to take your hands out of your pockets out of fear for getting pickpocketed....

There's about 10 casinos on the boardwalk and they're all pretty much the same....no one casino stands out above the rest, so after a while, there's no point in walking through them anymore because they're all the same....tons of slot machines with a few table games sprinkled in....

My plan was to not play any while I was here because I just don't have the gamble in me to risk a few hundred dollars while I'm on this long trip....If it was normal and I was just down here for a weekend, I would give myself a budget of a grand or so, no problem.....the funny thing is that in the back of my mind, I was hoping that one of the casinos would grab my attention and force me to play, but that wasn't the case....

We decided to be really brave and walk through the neighbourhood to get to the other three casinos that are off the Boardwalk, including the Borgata.....man, what a mistake that was....there was some shady times going through what was the slums of the city....no wonder everyone was taking a cab there instead.....especially when within the city limits, a cab will take up to 5 people and there's a 13 dollar max on cab fare....pretty good deal!

We ended up at this place called "The Irish Pub" and it was a pretty fun place that the locals would go to. Compared to the prices we were seeing at the restaurants and bars in the casinos, we were able to grab dinner for 3 and 9 pints for 53 dollars! That's a great price! A little game for those of you in Ottawa....try and find a place that will sell you just the 9 pints for 53 dollars after taxes! If you can, that just means that I have a new place or places to go to in Ottawa.... :-)

So, like I said, we're off to Philadelphia and I'm glad we're going for a couple of days because there are a lot of things to see and do in that city....but first, it's off to the beach to take advantage of this awesome weather!

All Aboard Atlantic City!

So, we’re just getting ready to take off for Atlantic City by watching a generic Steven Segal movie...if you ever want to watch a brainless action movie and get laughs because of its cheeziness factor...just find a Steven Segal movie and you’ll be fine...

Yesterday was more of a recovery day than anything else because of how late we stayed up until the night before....we really didn’t get much accomplished until about 4 o’clock when we finally made it to Central Park....it was the last thing on the list of things to do in New York, but unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to go around....we were there for an hour and a half and we estimated that we only really explored 20 percent of the park.....it is sooooo beautiful and just so big....

We headed back towards Flushing to see the Mets game, but because of delays on the track, we didn’t make it until the top of the 2nd inning...but what a beautiful stadium....people are greeted to a beautiful veranda when they enter the stadium and the design is just so modern...

Out of the three stadiums I’ve seen so far, it was the best looking stadium and the best baseball experience....on the negative side, it was the stadium with the most hassle from security...a bag-check and a pat-down later, I was in the stadium...

The fans of the Mets are much more boisterous than the fans for the Yankees....it’s almost like the scenario that we always talk about with the Ottawa Senators and their fans...everyone in Ottawa is in agreement that the fans in the 300 levels will be the ones that make 75% of the noise, while the fans in the 100 levels are there more as a status check and will not make nearly as much noise....The Mets fans are the true fans that go and pay good money to go see baseball....meanwhile, the people watching a Yankees game would more likely be guests of business as businesses try to impress potential and existing clients....

After the game, it was basically just heading back to the hotel room to chill and watch some sports....that’s the great thing about this city and this country in general....sports in so much in the forefront that there are sooo many sports channels here....in Boston, we had ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic and ESPNNews...in New York, there’s even more with ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNNews, the Yes Network, SNY (Sports New York)....sports is just such a part of the culture here....

We’re on our way to Atlantic City now....only a 2 hour drive to the Boardwalk, so we’ll make it a night there....apparently Friday and Saturday are big nights, so we’re picking a good night to go....then it’s off to Philly on Sunday for a couple of days...

BTW: Since he’s sitting beside me right now, Tony didn’t make it to the ‘No Pants Party”....he just took off his pants in the hotel room instead....

I'm soooo tired today....

After we vowed that it wouldn’t be another long night, it ended up being an even longer night in NYC, but it was unbelievably fun....I’ll get to that in a bit...

We didn’t get up until about noon and we decided it was going to be a day of walking around the lower end of Manhattan...got a chance to walk around Madison Square Garden, the World Trade Center site, Wall Street, Statue of Liberty and several beautiful parks...everything is sooo beautiful

After I talked to the guys at 5, we had a late lunch at Uncle Jimmy’s BBQ just across the street from Madison Square Garden....we ended up talking to the waitress who asked us to come out with her later that night to a place called the Cake Shop in the Lower East Side...

We walked around Chinatown and Little Italy a little bit before we ended up at the place...it was a college dive bar and the worst part was that she wasn’t even there! Grrrrr....but Tony ended up talking to another girl who told us to follow her and her friend to a place called Pianos...

Another NYU campus bar, but it was such an odd place because there were three places to go dance in....the first was regular club music and was pretty full, the second was hard techno music and no one was in there, but the most popular by far was the room where they played nothing but 60’s and 70’s music....I can’t say that I’ve ever went to a club in Ottawa and did the Twist with Chubby Checker in the background....hahaha

We ended up following the girls to a place further up the street....I can’t remember what the name is but it was the grungiest bar I’ve ever been to, by far! The best example I can think to describe its grunginess is when Chris asked the bartender where the bathroom was....she points to a room that says “Keep out A**holes!” and says “Enter at your own risk...” There was graffiti all over the walls and the place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years....

Last call here was 3:45 in the morning! Unbelievable! And that’s only for a Thursday night....apparently Friday and Saturday nights here are even crazier...Like yesterday, we vowed to take it easy today, but I’m assuming that since it’s a Friday night and it’s our last night here, I think it will be another long night, but I’m going with the mantra of “Go With the Flow” at this point....I’m not going to try and force everything and plan out every single minute of the day...

The Mets are playing the Nationals tonight, so it’s not the most exciting game in the world, but we get a chance to see Johan Santana pitch, so that’s something I’m looking forward to....pretty good luck that I got to see a Yankees game with C.C. pitching and then Johan tonight....

Tony is looking at going to a club here later and tonight is “No Pants Friday” where you get free admission if you take your pants off....hahaha....I think I’ll pass and try and find something else
after the Mets game....

It’s a beautiful day and it’s our last day in New York. The only thing we haven’t done is check out Central Park, so we’re gonna do that today and then come back for the Mets game at 7....but we’re all in agreement that we’re gonna miss this city....

What a day in New York City!

Just one of those days in life that you will never forget....so much that we saw and did yesterday that it’s going to be hard to put it into one entry and not have it be long, but I’ll see what I can do...

We took the 7 train from our spot in Flushing to Times Square and immediately hit sensory overload.....just so much advertising and so many lights hitting me at one time....and the amount of people crammed into one spot is just incredible....

We walked from Times Square to Central Station and took a bunch of pictures....what a glorious building to be able to just walk through.....I caught myself a couple of times just staring aimlessly up towards the ceiling just before bumping into people....I guess the locals get used to it after a while, but words just can’t describe the beauty of this place....

From there, we took the 4 train to Yankee Stadium....The new stadium is directly across the street from the old stadium and they both look virtually the same, with the exception of course that the new one has not had to endure decades of decay, but I get the sense that when the old stadium opened so many years ago, it had the same kind of lustre and look as the new one has right now....I think I remember reading that the building cost close to a billion dollars to build and judging from all the attention to detail, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second....From the three big HD big-screens in centre field to the movie-theatre style seats in the lower levels, the stadium just has spent money written all over it....

I sat with the bleacher creatures in right field yesterday, so I got to be a part of the tradition of acknowledging the 7 fielders by chanting each person’s name in the first inning....for those who don’t know the tradition, the right-field bleacher bums chant the name of a fielder until they are acknowledged by said player, and then they move on to the next....so it started with John-ny Da-mon! Then he saluted the crowd....he was followed by Melky! And he saluted and so on....Nick Swisher is the right-fielder and is unbelievably popular with the fans already because he interacts with them during the game....Throughout the game, I could hear chants of Swisha or Atta boy, Swish!

During the game, we met a couple nice young ladies who helped to give out suggestions on where to go after the game....The highlight though was when they asked about Canada and whether or not we were seal-clubbers....they weren’t joking either....hahahaha

The game went 14 innings before Melky Cabrera hit a walk-off two-run homer....the game lasted 5 hours....so we ended up at the ESPNZone in Times Square after the game....pretty cool place, but there’s almost too many TV’s for me to focus on....it’s another example of sensory overload....I guess I would get used to it after a while, but Times Square is just a zoo....

Then we hit a couple of bars....one called “Muldoon’s”, a nice small Irish pub where they had someone singing drinking songs all night....pretty fun bar, but I wish I knew the words to the songs like everyone else....then we hit a place called “The Perfect Pour”...it looked a little swanky considering we were all in hoodies, but one of the waitresses told us to go to the rooftop if we were worried about being underdressed....we went up and sat outside on the roof-top patio which was on the fourth floor....it was one of those times on the trip where I reflect about where I am....at one point, all I could say to myself was, “I can’t believe I’m sitting on a rooftop having a drink in New York City”....

Luckily, the trains run 24 hours a day here ‘cause we didn’t get back until 4 a.m.
In all, we hit up Central Station, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building and probably a couple other things that I just can’t remember...Today, we’re gonna go to the World Trade Centre site and the Statue of Liberty (you know, that big statue in New York City.....lol)

Let's go Yankees!

I'm sitting in the middle of a lobby in Flushing, NY getting ready to head down to the Bronx to see the Yankees take on Oakland this afternoon....the forecast calls for scattered showers throughout the afternoon, so it looks like it will be hit or miss as to whether the game goes down today or not....let's hope it does because if not, I don't really have a backup plan and I will have only seen 29 stadiums....lol

As for my travels yesterday, it was a little slow getting out of bed after crashing the Boston Marathon after-party, but we finally got on the road around noon....

We had some lunch at a place called FuddRuckers and it was your typical American kind of diner-type place....the portions were huge and the prices were economical....you could buy a 1/3 pound, 1/2 pound, 2/3 pound and 1 pound burger with the 1 pound only costing 8 bucks! Maybe I just have a smaller appetite, but I don't need a pound of meat to start my day....so I went the smallest possible...a 1/3 pound with Fudd Fries and a Coke for 5 dollars.....I just love saying the name FuddRuckers and Fudd Fries....I'm going to start asking for Fudd Fries wherever I go....

We then went around the Harvard campus and it is incredible....such a beautiful campus with so much history....I guess I would be a little proud of myself too if I went to a university as nice as that one...

Then we drove to New York itself....about 12 dollars in tolls later, we made it to our final destination of Flushing, NY (a.k.a. Chinatown)....we picked here since it was cheap and it's only a 10 minute walk to Citifield where we'll be on Friday to see the Mets game....

We walked around Chinatown for a few hours last night....it's just an incredible place to be....so much going on....there's sooooo much signage....I'll try to get a picture for you guys for tomorrow, but for every building, there's four signs at least...confusing as all hell if you don't know where you're going....

We ended up heading to one of seemingly 1000 asian restaurants here and it was the best Chinese food I've ever had.....I had so much food that I passed out at 11 last night and got up at 8:30 this morning....

So, not the most exciting day of the trip, but after the night out in Boston, my body needed a rest day anyways....

Alright, time to get my complementary breakfast and then off to the Bronx! :-)

Crashing the Boston Marthon After-Party....

I'll get to that in a bit, but that was the highlight of the trip so far....lol

Anyways, got into Boston for the game yesterday morning and sure enough, the locals were nicely liquored up at 10 a.m. for the Patriots Day game....Fenway Park is an awesome place to be in! There were a few times during the game that I caught myself just thinking, "I can't believe that a kid from Ottawa is at Fenway Park on Marathon Monday watching the Red Sox"....

For a ballpark that's celebrating it's 97th anniversary, it's still holding up real well, although the seat I sat in looked as though it was from 1912....not the most comfortable seat in the place, but it did the trick....I also had a big pillar between me and my view of home plate, but so be it...






The game itself was a whitewash as the Red Sox destroyed the Orioles 12-1, but watching the traditions of a Red Sox game was enjoyable enough, whether it be the chant of "Yankees Suck!" during the anthem, or the chant of "Youk!" for Kevin Youkilis or the singing of Sweet Caroline at the end of the 8th inning....

After the game, I checked out several bars across from Fenway....went to the Boston Beer Works...everyone recommeded the Watermelon Beer, but it wasn't available until summer, so I had a "Little Rhoady" instead....not bad...

Checked out Cask 'n Flagon since it boasted about being the Number #2 sports bar in America....Once we walked in, we were trying to figure out why....it was alright, but nothing that would blow me away into thinking that it was the Number 2 bar in America....

The best place by far was "Game On!"....had two floors....the top one was for eating and the other was more of a club type atmosphere with a DJ pumping out the music....it was so odd to be in a club atmosphere at 6 o'clock on a Monday, but that's Marathon Monday for you....

Yorkie suggested going to "The Greatest Bar", so we decided to drive towards there....we parked a few blocks away from the place and were on our way there when I decided to make a detour for a market building just so I could use the bathroom.....After I was done, we were on our way out of the building when we heard a huge party going on in the upstairs part of the building, so we went to see what was happening....little did we know that we stumbled upon the Boston Marthon after-party...one of the security guys caught us and asked us where our tickets were....we told them that we didn't have them, but that we came down from Ottawa....they must have just assumed that we were running, so they stamped our hands and we were in....lol

Let's just say I have a pounding headache today and we have a 4 hour drive ahead of us as we head to New York for the next stop.....

We're off to Fenway!

Made it to Boston about 8 p.m. last night.....we actually ended up in Saugus 'cause it was the only hotel that wasn't close to 300+ a night....I only realized a couple weeks ago that the Boston Marathon is being run today here as well, so it will be interesting to see how difficult it is to get downtown today....

I flew into Boston in a twin engine plane...it was by far the smallest plane I've ridden in before....max capacity was 40 people. We landed at Logan International and since it's on an island to itself, we flew over water until about 10 seconds before we landed...luckily I'm not really a white-knuckle kind of guy, but I was starting to wonder where land was.... lol

Didn't really do too much here last night....I thought there would be a lot of people out because of the fact that it's Patriots Day today and it would be a chance to party on a Sunday....but we quickly found out that the holiday doesn't really mean too much to people here and it's just another day...However, today is supposed to be the day that everyone goes out and just parties...

We managed to go to Hooters across the street, but since we're staying at a place off the highway, we had to walk a mile to get to the closest overpass in order to cross the street to get to the place....not the safest thing to do at 10 at night....

On the way back, we past this Chinese restaurant called Kowloon's and were intrigued since there was 60-70 cars there....so we walked in to find that it was the place to be in Saugus....Not only do you eat Chinese food, but you go to drink and play some Keno as well.....The three of us ended up sharing something called the volcano which was rum and a mystery juice that they refused to tell us.... all in all, just an odd night in Saugus...

We're off to Boston today....the game is at 11 and then bar-hopping for the rest of the day :-)

Alright! It's baseball time!

Well, the calm before the storm is over and my time for the UFC in Montreal has come and gone. I'm so torn on how I feel about the event because everything leading up to the main event was soooo good. Most of the fights were good and the crowd was just absolutely insane....but the Anderson Silva/Thales Leites fight was such a letdown that it just about ruined any positive outlook I had....Leites purposefully fell down so many times that I had to leave after the third round....Can you imagine someone going to a fight card only to leave midway through the main event? But this is what I had to do because it was so unwatchable....

But there were some great stories from the event....Eliot Marshall won the first fight of the night and then was nice enough to take pictures with all the fans....Yours truly was able to grab one as well...















I was also sitting with Travis from the Bounce in Halifax and he was telling me about Nova Scotian fighter TJ Grant. He made his UFC debut against ultra-tough Ryo Chonan and Travis was saying that he wanted to win the fight badly because he needed the money to buy a car so he could travel for training....hard to not cheer for someone who is fighting to basically keep putting food on the table and sure enough, all he did was work throughout the fight and got a split decision....the crowd went crazy since he was the first Canadian to win on the night....all Canadians, win or lose, got an incredible ovation from the crowd....

Other quick thoughts:

- Sad to see Chuck lose by KO again to Shogun, but the end is here for him, but he could still just walk around and have the fans going crazy....he has a swagger and a look about him that just draws people to him....
- Most disappointing performance was not the main event....it was David L'Oiseau's return to the octagon against Ed Herman....if that's the kind of effort he brings to a fight in his hometown in front of 21 thousand fans, I'd hate to see the effort he puts in when he's on the road in front of a couple thousand....

Here's a couple more pics from the night....














Alright, I'm off to Boston this afternoon and will get the chance to party it up tonight as Massachusetts celebrate the state holiday, Patriots' Day, tomorrow....but I can't go too hard since I do have to be up for the game at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning!

Talk to you soon! :-)

Media Day was awesome!

Attended UFC Media Day at the Bell Centre in Montreal yesterday and I'm really pumped for the fights tonight.....as I expected, the buzz in this city is incredible right now since you have the UFC combined with the fact that the Habs will look to even the series tonight in Boston....

First event of the day was the sneak preview of UFC 2009: Undisputed from THQ....Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge gamer, so I was really looking forward to trying out one of the most anticipated games to come out this year....and it really didn't disappoint. It's going to be an awesome game....the challenge is to try to turn a sport with so much intricacy and subtlety and put it into the hands of the gamer and they did a good job of that....Plus, the game is sooooo visually pleasing...the attention to detail is incredible and it looks like you're watching a PPV. The game comes out on May 19th.

Gamertag: "showkillah" for XBOX 360 if anyone wants to lose at any EA Sports Game :-)

Then there was the Q and A session with Georges St. Pierre...A couple of the highlights from the questions:

- When asked who the top pound-4-pound fighters in the world would be, Georges mentioned Anderson Silva and Fedor Emelianenko
- When asked about a possible fight with Anderson Silva, he said that he would at least two extra weeks of training to get the extra weight and muscle on....
- One idiot actually challenged Georges to a fight back in Toronto, to which Georges asked him if he was really talking about a fight or just playing chess or cards...and that if he was talking about a fight, it would end bad for him
- Mike Goldberg put another idiot in his place after the fan yelled out that Josh Koscheck was a p***y....to which Goldberg told the fan that if he were to ever fight Koscheck, he would become the p***y

Then the weigh-ins happened and the fans went insane at the Bell Centre...

- Biggest cheers of the night went to Anderson Silva and Chuck Liddell, but Jason McDonald got a huge ovation as well
- David L'Oiseau and Ed Herman is going to be a great war if the pre-fight staredown is any indication

Have a chance to hang out and just watch some NHL/NBA Playoffs before the fights start at 7:30 tonight, so it's the calm before the storm!

I'm off!

So, I'm off on the trip off a lifetime with a stop off in Montreal for the UFC event at the Bell Centre on Saturday night. As most of you have heard by now, I'm ready to hit all 30 baseball stadiums in 60 days...I figured the best way to get everyone up to speed on what I'm doing is to give you the full schedule of games that I'm going to see....so here it is:

1) Boston (Game: April 20th – 11:05 a.m.)
2) New York Yankees (Game: April 22nd – 1:05 p.m.)
3) New York Mets (Game: April 24th – 7:10 p.m.)
4) Philadelphia (Game: April 27th – 7:05 p.m.)
5) Baltimore (Game: April 28th – 7:05 p.m.)
6) Washington (Game: April 30th – 7:05 p.m.)
7) Pittsburgh (Game: May 1st – 7:05 p.m.)
8) Atlanta (Game: May 4 – 7:10 p.m.)
9) Tampa Bay (Game: May 5th – 4:10 p.m.)
10) Florida (Game: May 7th – 12:10 p.m.)
11) Houston (Game: May 10th – 1:00 p.m.)
12) Texas Rangers (Game: May 12th – 7:05 p.m.)
13) St. Louis (Game: May 15th – 7:15 p.m.)
14) Kansas City (Game: May 16th – 6:10 p.m.)
15) Seattle (Game: May 20th – 7:10 p.m.)
16) San Diego (Game: May 23rd – 7:05 p.m.)
17) Los Angeles (Game: May 24th – 1:10 p.m.)
18) Anaheim (Game: May 25th – 6:05 p.m.)
19) Oakland (Game: May 26th – 7:05 p.m.)
20) San Francisco (Game: May 27th – 7:15 p.m.)
21) Arizona (Game: May 29th – 7:40 p.m.)
22) Colorado (Game: May 31st - 1:10 p.m.)
23) Minnesota (Game: June 3rd – 7:10 p.m.)
24) Toronto (Game: June 6th – 1:07 p.m.)
25) Detroit (Game: June 7th – 1:05 p.m.)
26) Chicago White Sox (Game: June 9th – 7:11 p.m.)
27) Milwaukee (Game: June 11th – 1:05 p.m.)
28) Chicago Cubs (Game: June 13th – 12:05 p.m.)
29) Cleveland (Game: June 15th – 7:05 p.m.)
30) Cincinnati (Game: June 17th – 7:10 p.m.)
31) Cincinnati – Ottawa (FINALLY HOME!)

As I said, I'm in Montreal for UFC Media Day...I'll be checking out the sneak preview of the new UFC Undisputed video game (I'm a big XBOX 360 fan on my spare time!), a Q and A with Georges St. Pierre and the weigh-ins for the fights tomorrow night....

I'm interested to hear St. Pierre and see if he will divulge anything about his future plans....I really hope that there isn't a 3rd St. Pierre-Penn fight since the second was such a dominating performance....I can only hope this is paving the way for the St. Pierre-Anderson Silva superfight that has been rumoured for a longtime...

And I know that the Montreal fight fans will make it a raucous atmosphere even only for the weigh-ins....