A 'lil HooHaa

Well today’s the day I’ve been dreading.

192 freakin’ miles to Brooklyn and I’m leaving soon. I finally got ahold of someone in media relations down there. He’s going to make sure I have credentials. Said players will be available a bunch. But a 15-minute cooling down period after the game? That might mess with my deadline for sure. Fun times. Thank you sweet quotes before the game.

So I’m going to do my best to get in there ASAP and get chatty with the guys. So I can hope anyway.

The guy said it will be pretty packed so it’s going to be tight in the press box. I just hope I have no problems filing my story or it’s going to get pretty ugly.

Crossing fingers for good traffic, not getting lost, a clean and quick game, and an easy way out of Brooklyn.

Oy!

Ugh.

There’s something about our industry (newspapers, media, etc) that kind of sucks at times. Travel.

Now I don’t mind traveling for the most part. It’s part of the job, I enjoy seeing different places and all.

However, it’s when I have to go to a place like Brooklyn where I get all queezy.

I hate driving in NYC. I hate going somewhere I’ve never been and know it’s easy as hell to get lost. What’s more, I hate going somewhere to cover something where the media relations people haven’t gotten back to me.

That’s correct.

A week and change ago, I call down there for credentials. The guy tells me to e-mail him. So a couple of days later when I know for sure I’m going, I e-mail. Nothing back. I’ve left messages (two today) and nothing back. I’m supposed to leave Tuesday AM and I’ve heard no confirmation and haven’t been told how things are being done. That’s not a good thing.

So I’ll be trying to get him early Tuesday before I leave. Nothing like crossing my fingers and hoping for the best when I’m heading to a league All-Star game. Good times!

Add to that, here’s my deal. Driving to Brooklyn. Which is the most confusing part of NYC, so I’m told. I’ve got some hopefully easier directions. But either way, I’m not looking forward to it. It ain’t driving in upstate New York. Hell, it’s not even driving in Syracuse or Albany, which I can deal. But NYC? Ugh.

Getting there, I’m confident in doing. But leaving? Oy. I’m going to be leaving KeySpan at like 11-1130 to head home. And I have to hope I can find my way out of there in the middle of the night and hope I don’t end up in Harlem. Just what I’m not looking forward to.

So cross your fingers. Maybe I’ll make it down and back without getting lost.

Ok, I’ve procrastinated long enough. Time to finish the story of my trip to Montreal. I’m going to do the final three days here, in a shorter version, all as one. Just a lot easier that way.

Anyhoo, you’ve all see Wednesday by now, I’d imagine.

Onto Thursday, we actually got up rather early. Had breakfast at a place we usually do (Peel Pub, if you get a chance to be in Montreal, eat breakfast there. Cheap and a big-ass serving.)

Some of us walked around the city a little, caught some sights. Problem is, we have a situation where we’ve seen most of the tourist spots by now. And we were pretty far away from the other side of the city to see new stuff, so it was basically a walk around the city to have some fun and all. Nothing major.

Thursday night we went to a Montreal Alouettes game. Good times. Let me see if I can capture this well enough. First, we walked from the hotel. It was a bit of a hike, but not too bad. We got there and got in and I have to say this… some D-III college stadiums are better than this joint. It’s a nice place and all, but not what I would envision for a professional team. We were in one of the endzones and the bleachers were like you’d see at a high school game. Six rows off the field and all, not too bad overall.

Before I get to the game, we were in sections where they give shit away. Guys get you all wound up and throw shit to you. It’s a shame where we were, because the other couple of sections had hotties winding those fans up. We had some dude.

Balls. (to quote Hustle).

The game, well, it’s different. It’s a lot of fun (Montreal whooped some ass) and it seems like the game is second to the people there. Don’t get me wrong, they pay attention and really go nuts when needed, but they pay attention to everything. During TV timeouts, they do stuff (such as setting things up on the field and having people go for prizes). We left after three quarters cause it was such an ass-whipping, but it was fun.

That night, one of the guys went to the casino, two opted to eat and stay in, and me and one other went out. We went to Hatters, then to a place called Grumpy’s. Not many were there, but a hottie singing, so we stuck for a while. Had a good conversation with the bartender, then went to Cheers, but nobody was there, so back to Hatters.

Had some shots, some drinks and I got left by myself (like I have a problem making friends). Met a guy named John, who is an American Indian. it was his birthday and did a bunch of shots and drinks with him and got hammered (for the second straight night). Found my way back to the hotel and called it good.

Up Friday whenever we woke up, went and at breakfast at another good place (Chez Coras), then didn’t do much. Two of us walked into the city and just peek around some shops etc. Made reservations for dinner at a steak house, back to the hotel and watched some Motocross dudes do some crazy-ass jumps. So glad we had a balcony and we could see where they had Crescent St. closed off.

Now, for dinner, if you are in Montreal, go to Alouettes. Well worth the trip. Prices are good, food is even better. You’ll enjoy. The dude cooks steak out in the open and we were sitting right next to him, so we got to chat it up a little.

We then went out to, you guessed it, Mad Hatters again. Stayed there for the night, got blitzed, met some great people and had a good time.

Saturday was quick (being the last day). Two of us went to the port, walked around some, I got a chair massage on the port and we ended up eating at Dundees again. After that, we watched some of the live music on Crescent St, watched the Motocross crazies from the ground and then went to the hotel for a few before heading back out to Mad Hatters.

This is where it got crazy.

Now remember, me and one other had been there all four nights. The other three had been there three. We had made friends with the bartenders, shot girls, bouncers and manager. Saturday we felt like VIPs.

It was simply amazing.

They treated us so well. Allowed us to stay about 45 minutes after hours and drink a little extra. They even bought us some shots. That’s a night never in my life will I forget. They treated us like we were one of their own. And I know I can’t wait to go back. Now given, we spent a lot of money there over four nights, but these people were great.

We met a bunch of people over our four nights and a bunch were out Saturday with us, too.

Oh, and a quick story. One of the groups we hung out with. Apparently on Friday, in a drunken state of mind, I popped out some French on them. And was decent, so they said. They came up to us Saturday and I had no clue who they were (the others did). And they were telling me about me talking French. Tell me, how the hell do I do it drunk but can’t speak a lick of it sober?

It’s what a vacation is all about. And what a vacation should be. I met people I hope to keep in touch with for years to come. And hopefully, I hope anyway, it won’t be the last time all of us venture to that city together.

Montreal ‘05

“For memories to last forever, they must first be created.”

It was something I said at some point during the weekend and it came true fully. I’ve made nine trips to Montreal and this one was the best I’ve made. We had a great group, went for four nights, had a lot of laughs and drinks and really did things up well.

Five of us went up. Of them, it was my ninth as I’ve said. One had made it eight, one seven and the other two were making the second.

However, because I’m not a fan of writing really long-ass blog entries, here’s what I’m going to do. For the next three-four days, I’m going to write up each day and night as a separate entry. This way I don’t lose what I was writing again.

So here it is: day one of the trip. Aug. 3, 2005.

We leave Delhi around 10:30 and make our way toward Canada. About an hour into the trip, it seems to get warm in the van we have. Remember, this is after leaving my Jetta home. Oy! Eventually, the AC is blowing out warm air and it’s apparently the compressor. So down go the windows and we do it the old-fashioned way. Good times! But the worst part of all this is that we can’t hear the people in the back, so talking is hard. Even hearing music is hard.

So we get through Albany and the Lake George area and then it starts. If you have ever been on 87 up through this you’ll know what we’re dealing with. Rolling mountains, green _ a really pretty drive.

So where’s the problem, you might ask? Well, allow me to tell you.

It never ends. Seriously. The exits are barely near one another, the mountains get bigger, and you wonder if it will ever come to an end. For you outdoorsy people, this must be pretty solid of a drive. But when you’ve made it eight other times, it gets kind of boring. And it’s about 190 miles through all of it, give or take. Crazy.

Either way, we get through it all and know that because it starts to get flatter up around Plattsburgh. We stopped for lunch, made it up to the border and through in about two minutes. People should really make sure they have birth certificates or passports _ it makes life a lot easier.

Anyway, we exchange money (the rate was only 1.19, which kind of sucked) and get to our hotel, check in and hang out. We visited a place we usually like a bit, Dundees, ate dinner and grabbed a couple of cabs to the Casino. What sucked was MY cab was slow and chicken-shit, and we got smoked by the other taxi. Bastards.

Or to quote Hustle: Balls.

I did win about 50 bucks at the casino, betting at the OTB. Good times. That was OK. Made it back to the hotel, two of us went to a strip club and the others went to a bar. The guys should have joined us at a strip club. We only made one the whole weekend and the one we picked was well worth it. Some great looking women and pretty good talent, for the most part!

We were set to meet at midnight at one place we usually go to. An hour and half later, we head out (11:30), and go to the one bar. A phone call is placed and it turns out these other guys are in a packed bar with a huge line, so we’re not going there to meet them.

Instead, we meet a table of three girls. Sit down and had a wonderful evening chatting. The others eventually joined us for the rest of the night. However, we got pretty bombed, which was a blast.

In fact, it was just the start of four nights of many beers. I’m sure this wasn’t that exciting, but I’ll try and spice it up as I explain each night. More later at some point…

Unless you’ve been living in a hole here on HooHaa, you know I’m leaving for Montreal on Wednesday.

The weather looks OK, pending where the hell you look. But the Canadian weather places make it look decent. Only a chance of rain on Friday, so hopefully that holds (or changes to no rain) and we’ll have a good weekend up there. All I need is to get rained on. That would suck.

This vacation of mine couldn’t come at a better time.

Just seems like things haven’t been awesome on this end. Or that I just need to get the hell out of dodge and hopefully get recharged. I’ve found myself to be getting annoyed a lot more easily lately. Whether it be work, softball shit, or anything else, I just get annoyed. And the blood pressure goes up. Not good stuff.

So I venture off to a place north of the border and hope it can get me back to being less annoyed. I have six days off from work, with Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday spent in Canada. We head back sometime Sunday and I’m off Monday to just veg. Then back to the grind, but I’ll be covering baseball most of the week I come back. Which is fine.

Eventually we’ll be shifting into fall sports again and I’ll be roaming the sidelines for football season.

Seems like the cycle has once again gone full circle.

But until then, all I’m thinking about is the trip to Montreal. And how much fun and relaxation I’m going to have up there. No worries or cares in the world. And nobody to worry about, that’s for sure.

Oh, and the car kicks ass. I’m glad I went with the lease and the VW. It’s absolutley the bomb. It’s so fun to drive it. For those that understand driving stick, I had it up around 80, in third gear. And I was only at about 4,500-4,700. Crazy. If I don’t watch it, I’ll get a ticket. I’ve been smarter the second week I’ve owned it and actually know how to drive it so I’m not in jeopardy of a ticket.

Anyway, just some ramblings. I’m bringing the laptop with me and might do some early morning updates here or at least try and upload some photos while up in Montreal.

Two more days. That saying will be enough to get me through the night. Wednesday, at this time, I’m hoping to be approaching the border.