i went to my fifth red sox game and these are the best seats i've ever sat in! 45 J, right behind the visiting team's dugout, down the 3rd base line. the face value cost per ticket was $55. i went with alex (my godmother's son), who got our tickets from his brother jack who originally won them in some sort of high school raffle but because he couldn't go (he's in taipei right now) he gave them to us. what's it like sitting so close to the action? every flyball is a potential health risk! sitting in the bleachers there's almost no chance of getting hit by a ball, but sitting at 45 J, you have to pay attention otherwise you could get seriously hurt!

sitting so close, i got some great photos with the 24x monocular setup of the nikon 950. i just wished i could be on the right field as well, so i could shoot right handed batters like manny ramirez or dante bichette. i was able to get good photos of right handed pitcher nomo from left field.

we sat in front of these two middle aged couples who just wouldn't stop talking and asking the dumbest questions. the men talked baseball but it was obvious from the critical way they talked about the team that they're not true fans. sure enough, end of the 7th inning with the red sox trailing, they left. their women talked stupid stuff that only white suburban couples would talk about, like property values and sending their kids to private school. i wanted to turn around and shout a few choice obscenities in their face. luckily, those anger management classes are really helping me through life's little crisises.

even behind nomo's pitching the red sox lost tonight, their first lost against the devil rays in many games (14 games?). tampa bay deserved to win, it was getting downright embarassing the number of times they lost against the red sox! normally i'd be devastated over a red sox loss, but for some reason tonight i feel very at peace. maybe it was due to those good seats we got! with seats like those, who's got time to be depressed?

i met a bunch of people today that i haven't seen in a while. these are what i call small world days:

1) mark hickey (former screen house coworker) came by again to the office to interview for a freelance design gig.

2) stephanie boutin (former srm project manager) makes an appearance at the office, apparently to lunch with the design ladies.

3) while running this afternoon (a seriously asterisked 3 miles run i might add, a minor setback in the master plan to become mr. rock hard abs), i ran into joel oliveira (former screen house coworker) sitting on the banks of the charles river listening to music alongside his bike. we chatted at the base of the longfellow bridge while i waited for amanda and james to catch up.

4) after work i went to a red sox game with alex huang, whom i haven't seen since the day his brother jack graduated from high school earlier this month.