God, I hate 6am flights. Especially when the car service shows up at
3:30 in the morning after a rocky sleep at an address that is more on an alley than a street, and not numbered well.
SuperShuttle sent a white towncar rather than a van. Much nicer. One
other passenger — headed to South Bend on the same Atlanta leg as me. In the airport there are these wonderful restored WPA murals — photos below. Good link to the history of these pieces although it doesn’t go into the restoration process to bring them back to life (see flip chart on that beautiful Deco style stand in the E wing of the Tampa/St. Pete airport).
Greetings from the Delta Crown Room — having a vodka cranberry to
make me sleep on the next leg. Tried to get in to the Crown Room at Tampa since I was their early enough — but apparently on the rooms at the hub cities allow Alaska Board Room members in. Odd. If you are at all interested in the rules, click here.
Slept in fits and starts on the Atlanta/Seattle flight surrounded by babies and children, some happy, some really not happy. Car was at the airport because of the outgoing trip to Tampa/St. Pete oversleeping debacle — and $81.00 later I’m on the road to the city apartment for a nap and a shower before heading to European Vine Selections for an afternoon of wine tasting of Italian wines. Picked up a nice brunello and a cool wine tube made from handmade paper for Darcie’s b-day gift.
An early dinner at Piatti Locali for Darcies’ 50th Birthday, which, of course, I was early, and most were late. Two interesting cocktails — a pommegranet mimosa (made with prosecco) and a Basil Gimlet (lime, basil [muddled] with gin and triple sec) that went well with a salad of fresh greens, tomato, mozzarella, chicken chunks and bacon — sort of insalda caprese meets chef salad.Picture of the birthday girl (the 50th) with Zohe in the foreground.
Side note: I was the only man in the party…. and we were then off to the Roller Derbywith eight woman. I was amazed at a number of things. The numbe of people — it was the championships of a sport I’d never heard of. The make-up and the makeup of the audience, majority pre-35 with a heavy preference for PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon), tatoos, piercings, lots of eye-candy for me. I guess what amazed me the most from this venue is that a gentleman making a silent protest (that would be a raised finger) to the singing of the national anthem (which amazed me for this crowd) was confronted by one of the coaches, and then a security person. My unconfirmed guess was, “lower the finger or take a hike” — and this in a “free” country. Just remember — “free speech” may not be the speech that you want to hear, but you should defend it. FYI, they also serve Jack Daniels and Jagermeister (though not usually in the same glass) for $6 with a chaser of soda. Good stiff pour — thanks boys, and now you know why I tip well.
So — at least they eat well at these events — all the burgers I saw were custom grilled (the reason for the long line) but looked good. We were in “reserved” seating in the “21 and over” section — which basically you were in a fenced off bleacher area. They would make a mint with a skybox — god knows they has the ceiling for that in their space which I think is an old airforce hanger.
So, anyway, back to the event. The Rat City Roller Girls are part of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association which has clubs inVancouver, BC (the Terminal City Roller Girls) who were at the event and worshipped, Boston, Kansas City, Bay Area — seems it’s a subcult of kick-ass woman with a decent following of kick-ass woman (a.k.a. motorcycle babes), lesbians (who love a good woman in spandex and panties that say “suck it, wench”), and boys/men who get off on the previous two, and at least for tonight, me. Two bad shots attached for your amusement — the first is some of the girls on the track and the second is of the Aerialistas — thing cheerleaders, cum acrobats gone way bad (good).
So, the last note is the tickets we got — well. I didn’t get them, Jeanne did… but it’s a service called Brown Ticket which seems to be an alternative to TicketMaster (TicketBastard) and their attempt to also control the after-market ticket business of turning scalping on-line, and of course, taking a fee. So, if you control the tickets, and hold back X percentage of tickets you know are going to scalpers, and sell them yourself for way more than “printed” price, where is the consumer in this mix?
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