So today is day 2 in Miami...Today we ate breakfast downstairs (38 bucks..what a ripoff...) and then and there i decided that we just cant spend that much money on semi-crappy food. Went and sat by the pool...the sun then peeked out and that was excellent...78 and sunny with an excellent breeze. We took the train and a bus to the stadium (located on Dan Marino Parkway) and went to the NFL Experience. This is a pretty neat event but really i think its geared towards kids aged 8-12. They have a lot of kids workshop type things...Dale and I did try to kick an extra point in the "kick, pass, block" tent...(For the record, Dale was about this close to getting in through, me? I kicked it directly into the arms of the guy shagging balls)...they have a TON of workshops...The coolest one was a bunch of kids doing QB camp with VINCE YOUNG helping them on their footwork.
As I said to Dale, wont this just Fuck these kids for getting QB coached for the rest of their lives? "IM sorry coach, I just cant do that. You see NFL Rookie of theYear Vince Young said that the pro's do it this way." It was nice watching him help the kids. There was also a booth where 4 NFL Player (Clinton Portis, Steven Jackson and 2 DEF guys who i didnt know) would call and talk to your friends for you on your cellphone....! As we stood in line and I called Ryan (cause who else would I call to talk to football players) but then we were told, yeah you gotta have a sprint phone. Bastards...so sorry Ryan, no Clinton Portis for you...I suck as a friend.
We picked up some swag, a picture of dale and I with tiki barber....mini footballs, pencils, magnets, two landyards for our tickets tomorrow...we also got to sit down and let a NFL Ref 9and I dont know his name, but he works with Ed Hochulis crew, talk about what a Ref sees and how they make calls. He had tape of calls that they had to review using instant replay and was having the audience try and make the call based on the 6 seconds or whatever of the play...It was pretty interesting hearing what they look for, how they make decisions, and how the NFL grades them. The coolest thing he said was that in most games when they are under the hood they dont get to see all the angles that the viewer at home sees....he also explained that certain games have more cameras than others...reg season non nationwide games, 6 cameras, national games (sunday nite) about 10, monday night football around 12-14 and superbowl upwards of 24...
It was also cool to hear him and see him show you how they decide if a catch is a "catch" vs incomplete pass, force outs, the tuck rule, fumbles etc.. I got some cool film of him explaining what each 7 man crew does in a game. Post that at home.
The other cool part (besides free doritos and milk) was that the stadium is right next to a super walmart. This means that wife (me) said to husband (dale) hey, why dont we go BUY food vs spending another 100 bucks eating tomorrow.. We hit Walmart and they were selling the exact same crap the stadium was selling except like 50% or more cheeper. I got a long sleeve grey superbowl shirt (more on that later), dale got a bright orange shirt with "one game, one dream" in SPANISH (my idea as irony for white guy winning NFL Latino) and we each got one NFL jersey. I got Manning he got Urlacher (in homage to Dylan not being here with us). Plus food for tonite (noodle bowls, and chips and salsa + a 2 ltr of orange) and breakfast (instant oatmeal) for tomorrow. We figure that the 15 bucks we spent on food was way better than the 200.00 we would have had to spend here at "Gouge um Central" (ie the hotel). So we had dinner in bed watching ESPN classic football on TV.
Back to the walmart, we bailed (and if we wouldnt have went into the garden center to see Tony Siragoosa, Moose and 2 other fox annoucers-we woulda made an earlier bus)...the bus we did catch was over 57 min late (i called the bus co to check) and thus we missed our 4:10 train...the next train after that was 6:10...by this time (4ish) it went from sunny to cold and windy and thank god i bought the long sleeve shirt! I also had a book so the 3 hours we sat outside waiting for various busses and trains was not all wasted.
Miami makes me sad as all we seem to see as we are traveling is run down auto repair, auto salvage, scrap yards, horrible small crappy houses in really poor neighborhoods, or row after row of unidentifiable buildings with tons of graffiti on them. We also seemed to encounter alot of mentally unstable people...like the kid on the bus who tried to explain to Dale that Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg saw him play football one time and he would be playing in the superbowl tomorrow because he was gonna get there with Snoop Doggs help. And the guy who was waiting for a train and kept hitting himself in the head and shooting imaginary "J's" and then hitting imaginary baseballs. Sad.
We also met some really nice people. The guy in the Wilson (official maker of NFL balls) tent who remarked "Green Bay Packers huh?" (me) "yes, Im from wisconsin" (him) "You're wearing that hat to try and get in a flight with a Bears fan arent you?" (me) "yes, yes I am."...the checkout lady at Walmart was super nice and chatty, and the nice cop (and there are about 7000000 cops out everywhere) who got out of her car to stop all traffic so dale and i could cross the street and get to our hotel (there are no cross walks anywhere!)..
Tomorrow is Game day. I think in the morning we may just sit by the pool, relax and eat oatmeal. The game is at 6:30 so i think we may get to the stadium around 3ish? I cant wait to see Billy Joel and Prince.
Mail me!
