Not Losing the Camera this Time

            A couple of months ago I intended to bring my camera with me to a New York Giants football game in hopes of capturing glimpses of the game as well the tailgating festivities beforehand, but it didn't make it that far as the camera fell out of my pocket hours earlier on someone's front lawn. On Christmas, one of the presents I received was a ticket to another Giants game scheduled for New Year's Day against the Dallas Cowboys. What made this game important was the winner would move onto the playoffs, the loser's year would be finished. With the type of drama and the certainty of fans being rowdy, I was sure to have my camera with me and wasn't going to lose it this time.

             Instead of the traditional tailgating at the game, we decided to meet at my uncle's house in New Rochelle to eat BBQ food there, and then go over to the game after watching an afternoon of other football games on TV. The game was scheduled for 8:20pm and the weather called for low 40's with a chance of rain. We left my uncle's around 5:45pm and were in the parking lot of Metlife Stadium by 6:30pm, making excellent time traveling into New Jersey. Even though we were quite early, the parking lot was already packed with fans having their tailgating parties and waiting on lines for the portable bathrooms. Two of the people who were with us didn't have tickets, so part of the reason we wanted to be there so early was to find a scalper to buy two extra tickets. As those people went out to seek tickets, the rest of us remained in the car as the rain started falling from the sky. The outlook of the game went from joyful to gloomy as the rain grew heavier and heavier. With football, the game wouldn't have been cancelled as it would have been with baseball, but nobody wants to stand in the rain to watch a game. It turns out that two tickets were available, the only sanfu is they were bogus, and even though they weren't scanning from the ticket person's machine, they were allowed into the stadium regardless.

            The walk from the parking lot to the stadium and to the seats at Metlife Stadium is a long and tiresome process. The stadium and the parking lot is separated by a roadway, so people must cross over using an indoor overpass that was built for people to get on the other side. When thousands of people are crossing over at once, some of which are close to drunk, it gets a little cramped. The stadium doesn't allow ticketholders to enter from any section, people can only enter from the area designated on the ticket. I had the pepsi section which was on the other side of the entire stadium I had to walk around, while its still raining. From there, I had to get on line for the tall escalator ride up to the 300s section, which is as high as it gets. All along Giants fans and Cowboys fans were trading barbs with eachother while in close proximity of the halls and tunnels of the stadium. The Dallas Cowboys have a large fanbase across the country being "America's Team", and many were certainly going to be in attendance for an important game like this. My seats were actually the second from the last row which gave me chilly winds to have to deal with as well. Fans were given free white hand towels to wave in support of the team, but they were needed more to keep the seats dry.

            In addition to the game itself, there was extra interest in the game by means of a $880 pool that was riding on the final score. About a dozen people were involved in it and the person who would guess the final score (or closest to it) of a Giants victory, would win the money. We all picked our scores in the parking lot while it was raining, so since there was a wet field, I anticipated a lower score of 19-14. When the game began fans were pumped up and waiving their towels in the rain. The Giants actually jumped out to a 21-0 lead as the rainfall faded away. Giants fans were sure to remind the Cowboy fans of what the score was, and there was plenty of foul language entering the atmosphere. By halftime Giants fans were in good spirits, forseeing a victory, and although I figured I had no shot at winning the money anymore, thinking the Giants winning the game was good enough to make up for it. Then game the third quarter, both teams seemed to have switched roles and the Cowboys were the more aggressive and crawled back to a 21-7 score, and then made it 21-14 by early fourth quarter. Cowboy fans were the ones who were doing the trash talking and making themselves be heard. Had the score remained 21-14, I would have had the closest guess with 19-14 and the $880 would have been mine!! Instead, the Giants added ten more points to put the game out of reach and the score ended with 31-14. The pool money was secondary to the Giants victory and the fact their season is still alive for the time being, so I didn't dwell on it much.

             As we made our way back to the parking lot, I could see fireworks being shot into the air to celebrate the victory that made the Giants the NFC East Champions that would host the Atlanta Falcons next week for the first round of the playoffs. We didn't leave at once because we had to wait for everyone else in our group to show up so we would know everyone had a ride. Most of us sat in different sections of the stadium and weren't in contact much as all during the game, plus exiting is quite hectic with everyone rushing to get to their cars and beat the traffic. While waiting, I had to go to the bathroom pretty bad from the beers before the game and the hot chocolate during the game to keep me warm. Since there were no portable bathrooms in close sight, I decided to walk over to a lonely section of the parking lot and go there. I noticed other people were doing similar, even using their car doors to shield themselves from an unknowing public, but the crackle of liquid on pavement against the silent air gave them away. Soon enough everyone got together, the pool winner was announced, and we were on our way back home smiling.

            2012 is supposed to be the year the world ends, but I can't think of a year I had a better First Day...

A Hundred and One Dollars the Easy Way

            A few years ago we placed a bowl on our bookcase that was originally to serve as an area to drop off items such as keys, wallets, chap stick, etc. Soon enough it became an area to deposit pocket change, and it kept building and building over the past two years. Very recently, it got to a point where there was so much change in the bowl, things kept falling out and there was no room to leave a wallet or key set without it likely ending up on the floor. It had come time to get rid of the change, and transform it into cold hard cash.

            To transport the change I used empty Chinese soup containers, it had seemed one quart and one pint was just enough to fit everything. My plan was to head over to the nearby Pathmark, which has the coinstar machine that I used many times in the past, and make the exchange in the morning hours before the place gets crowded. Since I was about to come into some wealth and it was early in the morning, I decided to treat myself to breakfast at the newly rennovated Burger King on the way to the Pathmark. Though it was Burger King and not McDonald's, I had a breakfast sandwich which looked conspisciously similar to an Egg McMuffin. The only real snafu with it is they forgot to heat it up properly and it was rather cold (I even easily took the cold cheese off). I guess if it isn't cooked then McDonald's can't complain they're copying the Egg McMuffin concept.  From there it was onto Pathmark and the coinstar machine. I was happy to see no one else was using them at the time, so I had the whole area to myself.

             When I was gathering all the coins into the containers, I estimated that I had about $50 at best worth of change in my possession. The machine started up and I began dumping in the coins. First, I emptied out the small container, all the coins were accepted except a peso from the Dominican Republic that ended up in the pile somehow. Next was the bigger container which took twice as long to empty than the smaller one. I kept peeking at the machine to see how much money was coming in, and it kept rising and rising. It went from $40, to $50, to $70, to $90, and as the final handful of coins were being processed, it slowly inched its way to the grand total of $101.68 and I was estatic at passing the century mark. When done with the coins, the machine prints out a receipt which must be taken over to the customer service desk in Pathmark to receive the cash. The lady behind the desk handed me the hundred and one dollars in cash, but I was so in awe of looking at the cash I forget when she didn't hand me the sixty-eight cents in coins. Not to make a stink over some coins, I let it go and went to use the Pathmark bathroom to wash my hands from all the money handling. I was happy the Pathmark management placed a sign in the bathroom urging customers to report any conditions that aren't deemed satisfactory, but had no interest in knowing what the unsatisfactory would look like.

             I could care less about iPods, iPads, blue-ray DVDs, the real kudos needs to go to the good people who gave us the Coinstar machine. When was the last time your iPod gave you a hundred bucks?...