Best Weekend Ever Pt. 1

So Brandi is the best woman a man could want. My birthday is in about a month, however I am celebrating it this weekend compliments of Brandi McBride. She has decided to foot the bill for a weekend in the DFW Metroplex for myself and Benjamin Suderman. Now if you are wondering WTF!?... why didn't Brandi go with him? In response I revert to the first sentence of this post. I would love to have her here with me, but there is nothing like a boys' weekend. The ride down was rather uneventful (except I noticed that DW's updated their sign). I "decided" to take the scenic route through Euless, Hearst, Fort Worth and Arlington before we got to the hotel. We stayed at the Days Inn which is right across the street from the ball park. The tickets were in the Lexus Field Box area... FANTASTIC! The great thing about the seats, aside from the great vantage point, was the access to the Cuervo Club Box before the game. We got the the stadium a couple hours early to watch the A's take bp. Frank "Big Hurt" Thomas was especially entertaining. After taking plenty of pictures and watching the long ball we went to the Cuervo Club to have a few drinks over equity options talk. Game time was about fifteen minutes away, so we grabbed our drinks and started to head out of the Cuervo Club when we were halted by a rather frumpy looking woman with bad news. "Can't take your drinks outside boys." So we did the rational thing and downed the full cups of beer so we could go to our seats for the opening pitch. After our transformation into human beer bongs we looked at each other somewhat nonplussed. "We have five minutes to make it to our seats before we can't walk" (we had been drinking for an hour). Immediately after, Ben decided that we should go half way around the damn stadium to the gift store. My objections were thwarted like so many parisian declarations of superiority. So what did I do? I surrendered of course... and I bitched the whole way. I mean, c'mon! We're going to miss the opening pitch so Benjamin can get a damn hat. So he got his damn hat and we started to head back. But what's this? Is that Barry Zito warming up in the bullpen? Unbelievable! However reticent I may be to do so, I must give credit where credit is due. I must thank the hat for allowing me to watch Zito up close and personal. It was a great pre-game treat to watch Barry Zito warm up in the pen. He was certainly the high point of the game (8.1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER). He had a one hit shutout going into the bottom of the ninth, but ended up getting the hook for Gaudin to close it out. Nevertheless is was Zito's 100th career win. It's always nice to be in attendance for a small part of individual history. The score ended up 9-3 A's, but it wasn't quite as close as the score would lead you to believe. It was a great evening at Ameriquest Field at Arlington. Tomorrow... to Irving and Texas Stadium for my first professional football game. The Dallas Cowboys will be kicking the hell out of the 49ers in this preseason version of the great rivalry. More to come...