Baltimore, MD

9:51 AM

It’s a rainy day in Baltimore. I pulled into town at about 4:00 yesterday. In Philly, I finished off my laundry, had a bit of lunch, did some bills and emails and hit the road. It’s a 2 hour drive. It was nothing spectacular, other than more tolls, a lot of congestion, and me staring at a scrap paper trying to figure out where to go.

As I came in on I95 South, the harbor appeared. I got off at the Boston St. exit and proceeded towards john’s apartment. He is a friend of the family’s. We’ve known each other maybe since we were born. I pulled into town, the water was to my left. Big warehouse buildings were all over the place. Brick row houses and apartments were also spread throughout. I was early (believe it or not), so I drove around the area. John lives in a place called Canton. From what I’m told, a lot of young professionals are moving to this area. I found my way and then made my back out to Boston St. to explore. Within a mile are a Safeway (grocery store) and all sorts of bars and restaurants. Baltimore likes to eat and drink. I saw where Ray Lewis is opening a BBQ joint.

I hadn’t seen John too often. He and his mother have been coming over for Thanksgiving dinner the last few years and that’s been great. She’s a real nice lady and even sent me a gas donation when I first started. Thanks to her.

John and I picked up like it was Thanksgiving. He’s a big sports guy and we talked about a lot of items. We decided to venture out to get some crabs and a beer. If the weather held, we were headed to Camden Yards, to see the Orioles play the Red Sox. We found a place to start. The name, nor the decor, nor the location brought us in; it was $2 drafts, half price appetizers, and 20 cent wings that did it. It turned out to be a great place. As I looked at the menu, I saw their specials. For tomorrow (today) they have $2 crabs and $5 pitchers. I think the crab price is pretty good, so I decided to wait on the crab, and ordered some apps. We ate, talked with some of the people in the bar, mainly about Ricky Williams. The sky looked decent, so off we walked to the stadium.

I was excited to be going to the game. It’s funny how I cannot stand to watch baseball on TV, unless it’s the playoffs, and here I am pumped to go sit at one without any commercials, remote control, or nap site. There was a long line for tickets, so we went to a smaller one that had Upper Deck seats for $15, cash only. On the way we in we had each grabbed a bag of peanuts for a dollar, you couldn’t pass that up. We entered Camden after passing a statue of the Babe. We grabbed a beer ($6 for 16 oz.) and found our seats. They were in between first base and the foul pole, about 20 rows up from the railing, top deck. For the price they worked just fine. We sat down and focused our eyes on Pedro Martinez, the starter for the Sox. He’s been a great pitcher, but this year he’s struggled a bit.

In front of us were two guys that were all smiles. The game carried on and we learned why they were all smiles. They were in front of us. Behind us were unseen guys who had been hitting the booze a bit too hard. One guy must have had Javy Lopez in fantasy baseball, because he yelled for him all of the time, “Go, Javy!” “Yeah, Lopez!” Of course Javy did not yell back, “Thanks, dude. I’ll hit one for your stupid drunk ass!” The unseen guys kept yelling and yelling. Slurred speech was part of their vocabulary, along with a lot of f bombs and s heads. We would have moved, but as luck had it, we were seated in between a group of four girls, next to John on my left, and then two younger girls on my right. I have broken out of my shell a little, so I did what I could to strike up a conversation. But that is why we didn’t move, ladies. They weren’t beautiful or out of the pages of a magazine, but they are girls and we are guys so the magnetism is there.

The game carried on and in the third inning the Sox caught fire and scored 6 runs, all without a home run. They were hitting this guy over and over but the manager left him in and never started the pen. We must have been in the circus section for just in front of us, to my right, was a group who had somehow brought in a cooler with Pepsi and one bottle that wasn’t Pepsi. They kept pouring and eventually made friends with the guys behind us. As the game wore on, it turned out that we grew immune to it. And at the end it worked out pretty good. It had started to rain and these guys had joined forces trying to get the wave started. You do the wave when it’s 10-2. It was a sight. This way drunk older guy running down all sections trying to get it going. We got into it and all did it. The wave would start and then break maybe 5 sections down. We tried to start a tsunami maybe 10 times but it never made it around. It was fun though.

The game was over (10-2 in the seventh) and the rain was coming down. We decided to scoot so we could get a cab. Lucky for us, the cheap seats were also the only ones that were covered. We made our way outside and got wet, but found a cab back to the car. We hit a bar for one more. I was tired and said we should call it.

I feel much better today. Sunday night was one of those toss and turn and think about way too much stuff nights. I did not sleep well at all. It’s funny how reoccurring things cause that. But I crashed out hard on the couch here. It’s a nice apartment right in the middle of things. I’ll be here for a couple of days as I have some interviews set. It sounds like I have one at NASA as well. That will be cool. I’ll also go check out DC.

Onward.