Dear Philadelphia: You Suck!

Ok, I don't think the entire city of Philadelphia sucks, but I do think a good number of their baseball fans do.

Ran Philadelphia has some nice things - museums, food, rivers, etc. What they don't have are sports fans with any class or manners. And why do I write this? Well, with my favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, scheduled to play the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Championship Series, I just had to go. It's been 20 freaking years since the Dodgers have been in the NLCS. I was not going to miss it!

I bought some overpriced tickets on eBay, booked a train ticket, reserved a hotel room, and tool the afternoon off from work. I've been to Philly before, for work and fun. I've even been to, and survived, and Eagles game. Hell, this couldn't be worse than an Eagles game? Oh how wrong I was!

I expected some (ok, a lot) of heckling from the Phillies faithful. Frankly, they don't have much else to look forward to in life. So the "You suck" and "You really suck" comments didn't bother me at all. And they're not very creative. I loved the "Faggots" and "Homo" comments coming from guys skipping hand-in-hand with their beer buddies. And getting yelled at by some old dude is hilarious. One elderly guy screamed at me and I turned around and just said "Look old man, you spent your whole life in this crap hole. At least I get to leave." He didn't know what to say. Just hurried away with his AARP club card.

Now the best part of the experience was after the Phillies had won. Poor losers? In the word's of Sarah Palin "You bet ya!" This spew came flooding from all corners. Little kids, old ladies, young ladies, and even a police dog barked at me with an attitude. Fine, you won. You still suck!

As we got up to leave, my buddy had to take a stop in the restroom. I was standing outside sending a text message to someone, ignoring the idiots around me. I looked up just in time to see some Phillies fan jump on the shoulders of my buddy and knock him to the ground. Security quickly pulled Einstein off of my dazed friend. They then decided it was a good idea to escort us out of the stadium and into the safey of...the streets of Philadelphia! Brilliant move Kojak! At this point, I was yelling at everyone who dared look at me. I told them they all sucked, their city sucked, their mascot was lame, etc.

Moral of this story? Don't waste your money attending any kind of sports event in Philadelphia. Spend your money in a place where people will appreciate it.

2008, Where Did You Go?

So usually I'm all over the world in a given year. But here it is October, and I've been out of the USA only once. ONCE! Now it was a nice trip to London, but come on! Ok, I guess my near death experience kept me close to home and used up two weeks of my vacation.

So now what? I have to crank in two long haul trips in order to renew my United 1K status. Can I do it? Dubai for a weekend in November and Hong Kong in December? Yeah, those are the tickets!

2007 In Review

Ok, I wasn't as diligent about updating my travel posts in the latter half of 2007. Apologies. I was in fact continuing my travels and just got lazy.

I managed to continue racking up miles and hotel stays in 2007: Over 130,000 miles in air travel (mostly on United) and at least 70 hotel nights (mostly Starwood and Marriott). If I add in meal in restaurants, I guess that would probabably end up in 300 range. Maybe I should just stay home in 2008?

Where did I go in 2007? Within the U.S. I visited (some several times): Los Angeles, San Francisco, Napa Valley, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Nashville, Cleveland, Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, Dallas, Long Island, Philadelphia, Denver, Las Vegas, and of course, continued to explore Washington, DC.

On the worldwide front, I visited India for a month (work), Sweden, Norway, Hong Kong & Macau, Italy, Dominican Republic and Colombia. I will try to back track a bit and write some stories from some of those trips. But I need to find good pictures to accompany the blog, and I'm just too disorganized right now.

Where will 2008 take me? Already been back to Los Angeles/Pasadena, New York City and Chicago. There will be a couple of trips to Las Vegas for sure (since I've already paid for them), plus who knows where else. I do plan to try to make it to Vietnam and New Zealand this year. Why? Because I haven't been to either place. I don't want to repeat too many countries just yet (except for I's: Ireland, Italy and India). If anyone has a suggestion, please share.

For now, how everyone had a nice holiday season and is now well versed in signing dates with 2008 instead of 2007.

Cheers!