WHAT A NIGHT!!! THE GIANTS ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!

As usual, the game was pure torture........but would we want it any other way? These guys are amazing! They came together tonight to eek out a win over one of the best teams in baseball and send them home for the year. There was so much drama and so many players who contributed to this win. If you watched the game, you know exactly what I'm talking about and if you didn't there aren't words to adequately describe it. The Giants are playing the Rangers in the WORLD SERIES beginning on Wednesday! How cool if that?

That alone most definitely qualifies as a great night BUT what really made it a great night for me was sharing it with all of my family. It was shared long distance for the most part. I am in here at my dad's and we watched it together. I was reminded of him taking me to Giants games back in the late 50s when they moved to San Francisco. We would bundle up and take blankets and still freeze our asses off but I remember it as such fun......I wasn't even ten yet but I really loved it.

Lou was home in Sacramento watching. I had put my Rally Hair over a lamp in our house where it has been since the post season started (except for the day I took it to AT&T). Lou scotch taped one of the "It's Torture (but we love it)" signs on the living room wall. We called back and forth several times during the game to comment on something.

My sister and her husband were watching in their home in the foothills and my son and daughter-in-law were watching at their home in Hayward. We are all pretty big sports fans and most definitely Giants fans.

The late innings of the 3-2 victory were spent with everyone on pins and needles, biting their nails and trying hard to keep heart rates at a reasonable speed. I was yelling.......sitting on the edge of my seat.....with knots in my stomach. As the last out was finally made, my dad and I both screamed, "YES!" My phone rang and it was Lou. "I thought I was going to have a heart attack," were the first words out of his mouth. We talked for a minute and did a "virtual high five" before he said he had to call his dad.

Thirty seconds later my phone rang again. It was my sister. I answered and she said, "Have you started breathing yet?" She was excited and yelling and we rehashed some of the most tortuous moments. After checking in for a couple minutes, we hung up to get back to the post game celebration. I told my dad, "I have to call Darrin." There was no hello when he answered but rather "The Giants are going to the World Series!" was his greeting. We chatted excitedly for a couple minutes, too. We were spread out all over northern California but yet we were all sitting right there savoring it together.

When we had all checked it with each other and gone back to watching the post game interviews, my dad and I had a glass of wine and toasted our San Francisco Giants......the 2010 World Series Champions, dare we hope? GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!

I DON'T CARE IF WE EVER GET BACK!

It’s root, root, root for the Giants……if they don’t win it’s a shame……

BUT, wait, they won today, so it’s not a shame!!! It was absolutely wonderful at the ball park and the atmosphere was electric. To quote the now trite credit card advertisement:

Two Giants playoff tickets                            $215.00

Parking near the ball park                                40.00

Two beers and a bag of peanuts                      22.50

Watching your team take a 2-1 lead in the NLCS  -   Priceless!

There is something special about this rag tag bunch of misfits. They all seem to have come together at the right time in the right organization. There’s The Freak, Tim Lincecum; the fabulous rookie catcher with the totally hick name, Buster Posey; the boy who aspired to be a rodeo clown, Cody Ross; Pat “The Bat” Burrell, cut by another team; Aubrey “Huff Daddy” Huff who says he is wearing his lucky red thong underwear for every game; Pablo Sandoval, the slumping Kung Fu Panda; and what can anyone say about Brian Wilson of “Fear the Beard” fame? There are many, many more but these are a few personalities that come to mind right now. They have all endeared themselves to the thousands of fans who love them and cheer for them every game.

We arrived at AT&T Park about 11:15 AM and parked at Pier 30. We discovered this great place to park earlier this year. It’s easy to get out of and at $20 was a bargain – saving us $5 to $10 over the other lots. But, this is a playoff game and, of course, they doubled the price to $40. What the hell, it’s only money.

Knowing the concession prices inside the ball park are outrageous, we had lunch at a little place outside the park. It was the best bargain of the day – two sandwiches with fries and two drinks was only $23.00. As we ate and watched people up and down the Embarcadero, it appeared the entire city was clothed in orange and black!  You could literally feel the excitement in the air.

We were each handed an orange sign that read, “It’s Torture (and we love it)”, the phrase coined by Giant’s announcer Duane Kuiper as he described the close games and near misses that have been common place this year.  Once inside the park everyone received an orange Rally Rag to wave frantically.

Our seats were okay, but not being season ticket holders (or having a fortune to spend) we were relegated to the outfield, upper deck seats. We both had a little trouble picking up the ball off of the bat and were in the sun the entire afternoon. BUT you don’t go to a playoff game to get a better view of the game. You go to be a part of something far bigger than a baseball game. There were 43,000 people, screaming, chanting and high-fiving each other who shared a camaraderie with 25 baseball players and each other that you just don’t get from watching on TV.

The player introductions just before the first pitch

Matt Cain pitched a great game. The batters managed to squeeze out 3 runs with sheer determination and just a few hits. Javier Lopez and Brian Wilson pitched the last two innings respectively and kept the drama to a minimum. Once again Cody Ross was the unlikely hero just like he’s done this entire series.

Matt Cain winding up in the first inning

Brian Wilson (Fear the Beard) getting warm in the bullpen

It was an incredible experience and once again, my sweetie, pulled off a great surprise with our last minute playoff experience. As we were slowly making our way out of the park, Lou commented, “Well, this day cost about $300 and it was worth every penny of it.”  I squeezed his hand and thought, “Amen.”

The scoreboard showing the final score of Giants 3, Phillies 0

Between getting out of parking lots, ball game traffic and normal commute traffic we finally made it back to Sacramento about 7:30 PM. We have almost no food in the house and I have no idea when I’m going to pack for our cruise next week (I work Wed and Thurs then go into my dad’s from Fri-Sun). Today was supposed to be the grocery shopping and packing day, BUT we had far better things to do. Every now and then candy bars for dinner are okay.

I wish that I had a better way with words to describe the magic that seemed to permeate the air at the playoff game today. As we all slowly filed out of the park down the seemingly endless ramps that go down and around, down and around, down and around, the crowd would spontaneously start shouting, “Let’s Go Giants! Let’s Go Giants! Let’s Go Giants!” Oddly enough, it never seemed to get old even after the 25^th time someone revived the chant.

LET’S GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME......

.......buy me some peanuts and $9 beer! While I was out having lunch with the girls today, Lou was busy here at home. He greeted me at the door with just a hint of a cat-who-ate-the-canary look on his face. He asked if I had any plans for Tuesday. I replied, "Nope." And he said, "Good! Because we're going to the Giants/Phillies playoff game tomorrow!" He found a couple of semi-reasonably priced tickets on ebay and won the auction as they say.

We will be there in person (with our Giants shirts and Rally Hair) to cheer on our rag tag bunch of warrior misfits at A T & T Park tomorrow afternoon!

GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You Can’t Always Get What You Want (to quote Mick Jagger)

We headed out this morning on a short trip through the foothills in search of some Northern California fall foliage. We keep hearing what a fantastic year it is for fall color here in our Golden State. Unfortunately, it is still too early in this area but we had a fun day anyway.

We drove east to Auburn where we stopped and toured the museum in the Old Placer County Courthouse. It was a pretty interesting exhibit - and free, too. From there we took Highway 49 through the towns of Cool and Coloma (where gold was first discovered at Sutter’s Mill) then over to Placerville.

A mural on the side of an old building on the main drag of Auburn



Sutter's Mill in Coloma where gold was first discovered

 One of our favorite lunch spots in Placerville is the Buttercup Pantry. In hindsight we should have split one tuna melt between us – but our eyes were much bigger than our stomachs. Both of us were totally stuffed after a tuna melt with cheese on grilled sourdough bread AND onion rings AND a little potato salad.  We got a week’s worth of fat and grease but it sure did taste yummy. There were a couple tomato slices on it and a little celery in the tuna. Does that count as just a tiny bit healthy????


Welcome to Main Street - Downtown Placerville

After our big lunch we decided we needed a stroll down Main Street in Placerville where we checked out a couple of antique shops. It’s pretty bad when the old record albums they are selling are some that you owned – or worse yet, that YOUR SON owned! They had Michael Jackson’s Thriller album in two of the stores and that was one of Darrin’s first record purchases. OMG!

 

Free Stagecoach Rides in Placerville





El Dorado County Courthouse in Placerville

They are having an Art and Wine Festival this evening from 6 - 9 PM in downtown Placerville. It was tempting to consider staying but we had to get back for the Giants/Phillies game this evening. GO GIANTS & TIMMY!!!!!! The Rally Hair is at the ready!

Go Giants!!!!!

OUR SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS DID IT! They have won the National League Divisional Series and now move on to play the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Championship Series (or whatever all those initials stand for). And as usual it was pure "torture" which is their normal method of operation and the fans battle cry. Every game was won or lost by one run. The pitching was spectacular, led by our very own Freak, Tim Lincecum. Now, if the bats can wake up for the next series, do we dare to hope that we'll make it to the World Series?

Our orange "Rally Hair" is perched on a lamp in the living room giving them the extra needed boost. We went to an Orange Friday night game back in June when they gave away the "Rally Hair". We looked just as stupid as everyone else (see above photo) but it had the desired effect - Timmy pitched and won, thanks in part to the thousands of us cheering them on, wearing our orange shirts and looking like bizarre little troll dolls!

AT & T Park is such a beautiful ball park with spectacular views of the bay. We really do need to host a World Series at this incredible venue.

Let's go Giants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Help Desk Hell - Help!

My arrival in San Ramon yesterday afternoon was met with NO internet service! That is not acceptable since the internet is my lifeline during my weekends at my dad’s. He informed me that his caregiver couldn’t get online the night before either and she is a “retired engineer”. Houston, we have a problem.

Only 3 of the 4 lights were lit on the modem so I called the 800 number for AT&T DSL and the nice sounding "recording man" told me to turn it off for 30 seconds then turn it back on. The "recording man" then said if that didn’t fix the problem to call back and we would pick up where we left off. Does anyone else feel just a little bit stupid talking to those recordings on the phone as if they are a real person? As hard as I try, I just can’t sound natural when I answer their questions.

Anyway, that didn’t fix the problem. In fact, it was worse – now there were NO lights lit on the modem AND the cordless phone wouldn’t work. I called the 800 number back from the wired phone in my dad’s bedroom and apparently, my problem was too much for the "recording man" to handle so I was connected to a real person, Ben. My guess is that Ben is not the name given to him by his mother. His accent was fairly thick and I’m pretty sure I was talking to him in India.

First Ben asked if I checked all the plugs and connections. I’m one step ahead of you, Ben. Yes, I checked them and they are fine. Hell, I even brought in a lamp to make sure that worked when plugged into the strip and the outlets. Ben asked me if any of the lights were lit on the modem now. I told him I had to run into the other room to find out. He said to take my time. No, they weren’t lit.

About this time, my dad starts yelling in to me that there is picture on my computer. I asked Ben to hold for a minute and ran in to see if I was connected. The computer had gone to the screen saver so my dad was seeing my travel photos. I apologized to Ben and he said that was okay.

Then Ben asked me to find the brand name and model number of the modem. Hang on again, Ben, while I run back in there. When I gave him the modem info he said that I needed to order a new modem. But, I told Ben, I need it today, not in a few days. He insisted he could connect me to the department to order one. I tried again - Ben, I need it today. At that point he said I could also order one online. Stay with me here, Ben. I have NO functioning internet. How can I order one online????? Besides, I need it TODAY.

Ben really didn’t have any other suggestions for me. My intuition told me that we really didn’t need a new modem so I thanked him for his time and said I would figure something out. I pushed every plug again and jiggled every connection. Once again I unplugged the modem then plugged it in again a minute later. Still no luck so I tried turning it off one more time. Low and behold, the lights all lit up!  The third time must indeed be the charm – that, and the fact that the universal fix for all of these electronic gadgets is to reboot.

I would have been driving all over hell and back looking for modems that I didn’t need if I’d listened to Ben – but fortunately, I didn’t and I am happily typing away on my internet connected blog!  I’m wondering, do I have a second career as a help desk person waiting for me? After all, I solved this problem much better than Ben. And I most definitely have a good command of the English language – without a hint of an Indian accent.