Fenway

I just got back from a week at a customer site outside of Boston. The highlight of my trip was going to Fenway park to see a Red Sox game. While it does not have the same modern features of some of the newer stadiums, Fenway has so much history and character - it is just a great place to see a game. And they have the green monster - a huge wall in left field. In most stadiums, it would be covered with advertisements but here they just have a red sox symbol and a display about a charity that they support. The best part of course was that the Red Sox won on a home run in the bottom of the 10th. The game was just a great experience. The atmosphere there is incredible - much more like a Buckye's football game t han any baseball game I have ever been to. The crowd is into the game, the streets are packed, and everyone seems to be paying attention. And this was with the Red Sox 9 games behind the Yankees. I would love to see it when they are in a close race.

Now getting there was another story. I have heard that Boston is difficult to drive around, and that is true. Especially now that they have shut down part of the big dig, even I90 goes through busy city streets. And enough of the streets are one way or have dividers in them that it makes it tough to get turned around if you head the wrong direction (which I did frequently). Luckily I did manage to find both the staium and my customer site, so my driving in Boston experience had a happy ending. And they don't seem to mind you making U-turns. I am not sure if they are legal or not, but i saw other people doing it so I ended up making a bunch of u-turns and I never got pulled over. The directions to get to the car rental lot even include making a u-turn at a certain light. I had a rental Dodge Stratus which i somehow avoided wrecking. It would be a nice car if they gave it a little more power. I think the sport version would be great, but this one was a bit slow. Maybe they gave me the pedal yourself car because they were mad that I did not buy the special rental car insurance.

I had heard that Boston was full of rude people, but I did not find that to be the case. I really though that everyone I encountered was polite and friendly. Maybe that was becaue I had a big sign on my forehead that said "I am not from here so please be nice to me" or maybe the whole population of Boston just won free all you can eat Taco Bell for life so they were in a really good mood, but either way I was pleasantly surprised.

I even bought Jenna a Red Sox shirt. She may not know it yet, but she will grow up to be a Red Sox fan, even in the middle of Ohio. Jenna will be required to root for the Red Sox, Patriots, and Buckeyes. I hope she does not become an Indians fan, because I would really feel bad if I had to ship her off to military boarding school at age 5. What can we do as parents? We do the best to teach our kids, but in the long run it is up to them to make the right decisions (or live in boarding school in the middle of Montana).

Even with all the fun in Boston, I am glad to be back. Travelling can be fun but coming home is ever better. Gina had made me a great dinner with crab legs and shrimp linguini - it was wonderful. That makes up for eating all of those boring sandwiches at the office deli.