That's right, the Playa del Carmen and Merida post is in the works.
We had a great time. Playa was dead center in the wheel house for the Chris and Paty demographic. There is a still a lot going on, but not the unmitigated perennial spring break that is Cancun.
In the interim I'll leave you with this quote I just came across that kind of resonated with your author:
“I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation.”
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Playa del Carmen
Greetings from Playa del Carmen. It's been a bit since I posted (again). But I should have some stuff from Playa over the next week or so.
Today is Monday night, we got here Friday thus I have some first impressions to share with everyone.
First $1 = 13.7 pesos. A new rule of thumb for choosing a vacation spot: The dollar goes farther if the economy of the country you are visiting is in more trouble than the USA. Now this is becoming a smaller and smaller club worldwide over the last year, but Mexico still definitely qualifies as having more issues than us.
Playa is a lot different than Cancun. At our age and travel prefences, it is actually a lot better option. In Cancun, all the beaches are private. So the hotel/resort you choose is of utmost importance to your beach experience. In Playa it does not work that way. Most of the hotel are much smaller botique operations and not necissarly connected to the beach. Instead there are numerous beach clubs in Playa where people go to hang out at the beach. For 90 pesos you can rent two beach chairs and a shade for the day at a beach club. There are also clean bathrooms and food and beverage service available. So for those of you that are used to going to Hawaii, this is a better deal. Basically it is $7 for a couple for the entire day of beach access and amenities. A beer is about $2.70 at the beach.
I guess my point is that Playa is a good spot. So far we have spent two days at the beach and on Sunday we took the ferry to Cozumel for the day.
At the end of the day in Cozumel we stopped at a tourist bar catering to Americans as we were waiting for our ferry back to Playa del Carmen. They advertised NFL Sunday Ticket 'All Games Available'. So I tried to get them to turn the Seahawks on, but there was a group of four watching the Arizona Cardinals game. I tried to reason with them that I REALLY wanted to see the Seahawks but it turned out that one of the people in the group watching the Cardinals was Neil Rackers mom (the Cardinals kicker). So it is safe to assume that we continued to watch the Cardinals.
I have a lot of pictures, but currently we are stealing a VERY sporadic internet signal at our apartment that fades in and out. I probably won't be able to upload anything until we get to Merida later in the week.
On a side note, I haven't been more excited to see some sporting highlights than I was Satuday. USA 3 @ Honduras 2. Which means that we joined the group already qualified for the World Cup next summer in South Africa. WC 2010, here we come! An away win in a very hostile environment in Central America where historically we NEVER win is a huge step for the US Soccer program. Plus Honduras was on the verge of qualifying if they had won the game, making it even more significant. The US Soccer team might be on the verge of taking the next step that all of us passionate footy fans in the US have been hoping for for a generation.
All from Playa del Carmen for now. Tomorrow we might go to Tulum. Or we might just hang out at the beach again.
Today is Monday night, we got here Friday thus I have some first impressions to share with everyone.
First $1 = 13.7 pesos. A new rule of thumb for choosing a vacation spot: The dollar goes farther if the economy of the country you are visiting is in more trouble than the USA. Now this is becoming a smaller and smaller club worldwide over the last year, but Mexico still definitely qualifies as having more issues than us.
Playa is a lot different than Cancun. At our age and travel prefences, it is actually a lot better option. In Cancun, all the beaches are private. So the hotel/resort you choose is of utmost importance to your beach experience. In Playa it does not work that way. Most of the hotel are much smaller botique operations and not necissarly connected to the beach. Instead there are numerous beach clubs in Playa where people go to hang out at the beach. For 90 pesos you can rent two beach chairs and a shade for the day at a beach club. There are also clean bathrooms and food and beverage service available. So for those of you that are used to going to Hawaii, this is a better deal. Basically it is $7 for a couple for the entire day of beach access and amenities. A beer is about $2.70 at the beach.
I guess my point is that Playa is a good spot. So far we have spent two days at the beach and on Sunday we took the ferry to Cozumel for the day.
At the end of the day in Cozumel we stopped at a tourist bar catering to Americans as we were waiting for our ferry back to Playa del Carmen. They advertised NFL Sunday Ticket 'All Games Available'. So I tried to get them to turn the Seahawks on, but there was a group of four watching the Arizona Cardinals game. I tried to reason with them that I REALLY wanted to see the Seahawks but it turned out that one of the people in the group watching the Cardinals was Neil Rackers mom (the Cardinals kicker). So it is safe to assume that we continued to watch the Cardinals.
I have a lot of pictures, but currently we are stealing a VERY sporadic internet signal at our apartment that fades in and out. I probably won't be able to upload anything until we get to Merida later in the week.
On a side note, I haven't been more excited to see some sporting highlights than I was Satuday. USA 3 @ Honduras 2. Which means that we joined the group already qualified for the World Cup next summer in South Africa. WC 2010, here we come! An away win in a very hostile environment in Central America where historically we NEVER win is a huge step for the US Soccer program. Plus Honduras was on the verge of qualifying if they had won the game, making it even more significant. The US Soccer team might be on the verge of taking the next step that all of us passionate footy fans in the US have been hoping for for a generation.
All from Playa del Carmen for now. Tomorrow we might go to Tulum. Or we might just hang out at the beach again.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
103 degrees
Yeah, you read that right. It was 103 degrees in Seattle yesterday according to the national weather service. The old ALL TIME record high for Seattle since records have been kept starting in 1891 was 100, in 1941 and 1994.
In the past year we have the hottest day on record, the hottest week on record and the most snow in a day, week and month in Seattle history. Who said global warming isn't real?
The main problem is that we, like everyone else, do not have AC. Normally when it gets hot I can play the open house at night and run fans then close house up during day game and deal with it. But the problem here is that the night time temperature didn't drop below 70 degrees (also record low temp in Seattle history) rendering my system relatively useless. Plus my office doesn't have AC either, so the only time I am cool is in the Camry.
Paty and I have moved to the basement until the heat passes and that helped immensely last night. It is strange to sleep on a hide a bed in your own home, but worth it.
I have some pics from the races to put up. I've just been busy devising new systems to stay cool to get around to it. Plus I don't have as many good ones as I thought I did, except the flip which will end up being it's own post.
All for now. Stay Cool!
In the past year we have the hottest day on record, the hottest week on record and the most snow in a day, week and month in Seattle history. Who said global warming isn't real?
The main problem is that we, like everyone else, do not have AC. Normally when it gets hot I can play the open house at night and run fans then close house up during day game and deal with it. But the problem here is that the night time temperature didn't drop below 70 degrees (also record low temp in Seattle history) rendering my system relatively useless. Plus my office doesn't have AC either, so the only time I am cool is in the Camry.
Paty and I have moved to the basement until the heat passes and that helped immensely last night. It is strange to sleep on a hide a bed in your own home, but worth it.
I have some pics from the races to put up. I've just been busy devising new systems to stay cool to get around to it. Plus I don't have as many good ones as I thought I did, except the flip which will end up being it's own post.
All for now. Stay Cool!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Sounders FC v Chelsea
Saturday was the Sounders friendly (read exhibition) game versus Chelsea of the English Premier League at Qwest field. Kickoff was at Noon, so we had to start the pre-game activities earlier than normal. We had a 10 AM rendezvous at the Pyramid Beer Garden. This was also Heather's (Reid's wife, refer to a post about three months ago for details) first ever beer before Noon. I felt so proud! Of course in the picture here she has already switched to water. One beer before Noon was enough for Mrs Jonasson.
As a curious side note, this is the third Saturday out of the last four where I have shared beers with the Klisch's before Noon. Unlike Heather I have no reservations of starting the day early.
This is the first game of the pre-season training for Chelsea. But it was being broadcast live back to London, which most likely explains the Noon kickoff. ESPN was carrying the game. They couldn't have asked for a better day in terms of weather. It is safe to say that Seattle continued to turn heads for how nice of a venue we have for big time footy matches. Here is a picture I found on the web, I wish I took it, that best shows the 65,289 fans in sold out Qwest field:
The crazy's before the game in their traditional South stands seats (photo by Reid):
The Sounders have gotten into the habit of spraying massive amounts of glitter into the air before the game and after every goal. It's kind of hard to get the full effect in a picture but here are a few shots from right before kick off.
Paty and I at halftime:
The final score was Chelsea 2 Sounders 0. But I can safely say that the real winners were the Sounders organization, the city of Seattle and the 65 thousand plus fans lucky enough to have a ticket. According to some friends of mine that watched the game on ESPN, the fans and field showed extremely well on TV.
After the game, we encountered this guy:
For a $5 donation to charity you could throw three water balloons at the police man on the roof of Krispy Kreme. Seeing as we had Natalie and Aaron with us and Aaron is the big baseball star of years gone by, I expected this to produce some excellent photos.
$10 and six balloons later we did get a glancing hip shot. Apparently it is harder than you think to hit a cop with a water balloon, who knew?
After the Chelsea game we went home and then took Natalie's dog Nikko to the dog friendly bar about 2 miles from our house. The USA Men's National soccer team was taking on Panama in the Quarterfinals of the Gold Cup. This is the same tournament we went to on 4th of July from two posts ago.
US 2 Panama 1 in extra time. The summer of soccer rolls on!
Sunday was another chamber of commerce day in Seattle. Natalie and Aaron decided to stay an extra night. So we took the Mercedes down to Alki to check out the scene. We ended up spending about 5 hours at a coffee shop/bar with outside seating called Pioneer Coffee Roasting Company just drinking beers and playing cards in the sun.
Next weekend it's off to the Tri-Cities for the Boat Races. I imagine there will be more TGC (Tobin Generated Content) to post about. The current forecast for Richland over the weekend is highs in the 102-107 degree range. I am already pre-hydrating in anticipation. If the camera doesn't melt I will have some pictures.
As a curious side note, this is the third Saturday out of the last four where I have shared beers with the Klisch's before Noon. Unlike Heather I have no reservations of starting the day early.
This is the first game of the pre-season training for Chelsea. But it was being broadcast live back to London, which most likely explains the Noon kickoff. ESPN was carrying the game. They couldn't have asked for a better day in terms of weather. It is safe to say that Seattle continued to turn heads for how nice of a venue we have for big time footy matches. Here is a picture I found on the web, I wish I took it, that best shows the 65,289 fans in sold out Qwest field:
The crazy's before the game in their traditional South stands seats (photo by Reid):
The Sounders have gotten into the habit of spraying massive amounts of glitter into the air before the game and after every goal. It's kind of hard to get the full effect in a picture but here are a few shots from right before kick off.
Paty and I at halftime:
The final score was Chelsea 2 Sounders 0. But I can safely say that the real winners were the Sounders organization, the city of Seattle and the 65 thousand plus fans lucky enough to have a ticket. According to some friends of mine that watched the game on ESPN, the fans and field showed extremely well on TV.
After the game, we encountered this guy:
For a $5 donation to charity you could throw three water balloons at the police man on the roof of Krispy Kreme. Seeing as we had Natalie and Aaron with us and Aaron is the big baseball star of years gone by, I expected this to produce some excellent photos.
$10 and six balloons later we did get a glancing hip shot. Apparently it is harder than you think to hit a cop with a water balloon, who knew?
After the Chelsea game we went home and then took Natalie's dog Nikko to the dog friendly bar about 2 miles from our house. The USA Men's National soccer team was taking on Panama in the Quarterfinals of the Gold Cup. This is the same tournament we went to on 4th of July from two posts ago.
US 2 Panama 1 in extra time. The summer of soccer rolls on!Sunday was another chamber of commerce day in Seattle. Natalie and Aaron decided to stay an extra night. So we took the Mercedes down to Alki to check out the scene. We ended up spending about 5 hours at a coffee shop/bar with outside seating called Pioneer Coffee Roasting Company just drinking beers and playing cards in the sun.
Next weekend it's off to the Tri-Cities for the Boat Races. I imagine there will be more TGC (Tobin Generated Content) to post about. The current forecast for Richland over the weekend is highs in the 102-107 degree range. I am already pre-hydrating in anticipation. If the camera doesn't melt I will have some pictures.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Cold Play at the Gorge
Time for our annual trip to the Gorge.
2006 Pearl Jam
2007 Pearl Jam
2008 Police
2009 Cold Play
97 degrees in the desert for a huge concert in one of the, if not the, most scenic concert venues in the world. What could be better than a Saturday in July at the Gorge?
This marks our fourth year in a row on or about this weekend heading to a concert in the Gorge. This year, same as last year, we went with the Klisch's and the Fosnick's:
Sorry about the quality of the above pictue, the canopy's shade ruined the contrast. Which is okay as the shade provided by the canopy is the only thing that allows us to survive for seven hours or pre-func in the blazing heat. A fair trade off for a bad picture if I ever heard of one.
Again, we stayed at the Wild Horse Campground and not the Gorge campground. While it is approximately 1.5 miles from the Gorge, I can't recommend it enough in comparison to the normal campground. The Wild Horse has real grass, clean (well as clean as port-a-pottys can get) bathrooms and running water. Plus it is a more normal atmosphere instead of the distilled craziness of the Gorge campground. The campground was sold out this year, thus they really packed us in there compared to last year:
This year we even had a little grill:
We left for the concert around 7 PM. Coldplay were scheduled to start at 9 with some random acts at 7. To our suprise, at 8 o'clock the Gorge was absolutely packed. Not kind of full where you could squish in the middle by just some creative blanket placement, but super packed where there were not any spots to sit. So we ended up over on the side:
This picture does not do justice to how crowded it really was, but it gives you an idea.
Have I mentioned yet how nice and scenic a venue the Gorge is:
That, my friends, is what $27 worth of beer looks like:
Paty was in rare form all night. Apparently she is a big Coldplay fan, or more accurately she is a big Chris Martin fan.
The view from our 'seats':
Overall it was a great show. I can see why Coldplay is such a large draw in concert. They really put it all out there in the performance. If I heard them correctly during the dialogue, this is their 130th show on this tour. And to be that good and add bit specifically for the Gorge after that many shows is something to be applauded.
After the show, back at the campsite a little post concert cool down:
It was another ultra successful trip to the Gorge. This weekend is the Sounders FC versus Chelsea of the English Premier League. I have seats in row 11 for all the Sounders games, including this one, so look for another post commemorating the Sounders first game against a huge international opponent. I can only think of one or two teams (Barcelona & Real Madrid) with more star power than Chelsea has right now so this should be a great event.
2006 Pearl Jam
2007 Pearl Jam
2008 Police
2009 Cold Play
97 degrees in the desert for a huge concert in one of the, if not the, most scenic concert venues in the world. What could be better than a Saturday in July at the Gorge?
This marks our fourth year in a row on or about this weekend heading to a concert in the Gorge. This year, same as last year, we went with the Klisch's and the Fosnick's:
Sorry about the quality of the above pictue, the canopy's shade ruined the contrast. Which is okay as the shade provided by the canopy is the only thing that allows us to survive for seven hours or pre-func in the blazing heat. A fair trade off for a bad picture if I ever heard of one.Again, we stayed at the Wild Horse Campground and not the Gorge campground. While it is approximately 1.5 miles from the Gorge, I can't recommend it enough in comparison to the normal campground. The Wild Horse has real grass, clean (well as clean as port-a-pottys can get) bathrooms and running water. Plus it is a more normal atmosphere instead of the distilled craziness of the Gorge campground. The campground was sold out this year, thus they really packed us in there compared to last year:
This year we even had a little grill:
We left for the concert around 7 PM. Coldplay were scheduled to start at 9 with some random acts at 7. To our suprise, at 8 o'clock the Gorge was absolutely packed. Not kind of full where you could squish in the middle by just some creative blanket placement, but super packed where there were not any spots to sit. So we ended up over on the side:
This picture does not do justice to how crowded it really was, but it gives you an idea.
Have I mentioned yet how nice and scenic a venue the Gorge is:
That, my friends, is what $27 worth of beer looks like:
Paty was in rare form all night. Apparently she is a big Coldplay fan, or more accurately she is a big Chris Martin fan.
The view from our 'seats':
Overall it was a great show. I can see why Coldplay is such a large draw in concert. They really put it all out there in the performance. If I heard them correctly during the dialogue, this is their 130th show on this tour. And to be that good and add bit specifically for the Gorge after that many shows is something to be applauded.
After the show, back at the campsite a little post concert cool down:
It was another ultra successful trip to the Gorge. This weekend is the Sounders FC versus Chelsea of the English Premier League. I have seats in row 11 for all the Sounders games, including this one, so look for another post commemorating the Sounders first game against a huge international opponent. I can only think of one or two teams (Barcelona & Real Madrid) with more star power than Chelsea has right now so this should be a great event.
Pat's 21st Birthday
Well it finally happened. My baby brother, Patrick, turned 21 on Monday. Being the wonderful older brother that I am, I drove down to Vancouver to help with the festivities.
Nothing like a little Beer Pong to get the evening started after they saw The Hangover followed by a late lunch at Red Robin:
After the Beer Pong marathon, we went to McMenamins on the Columbia River for dinner and some brews. It was good to get some food and water into Patrick so he would have the fortitude to make it through the night unlike a couple of my previous siblings 21 runs.
After McMenamins we headed to downtown Portland and Kell's. Pat is a big fan of the Guinness, so what better place to go on a Monday night than Kell's?
By the end of the night I was not 100% sure who was celebrating Pat's birthday more:
All in all, it was a good night. This was my third, and thankfully last, younger sibling to turn 21 and now that I am in my mid-30s I am not sure if I could take any more.
Nothing like a little Beer Pong to get the evening started after they saw The Hangover followed by a late lunch at Red Robin:
After the Beer Pong marathon, we went to McMenamins on the Columbia River for dinner and some brews. It was good to get some food and water into Patrick so he would have the fortitude to make it through the night unlike a couple of my previous siblings 21 runs.
After McMenamins we headed to downtown Portland and Kell's. Pat is a big fan of the Guinness, so what better place to go on a Monday night than Kell's?
By the end of the night I was not 100% sure who was celebrating Pat's birthday more:
All in all, it was a good night. This was my third, and thankfully last, younger sibling to turn 21 and now that I am in my mid-30s I am not sure if I could take any more.
Monday, July 06, 2009
4th of July US Soccer Gold Cup
What could be better than seeing your country play on Independence day? This wasn't exactly the legendary 4th of July game between Brazil and the USA in the round of 16 of World Cup 1994 at Standford Stadium where Brazil, en route to their 4th World Cup title, narrowly knocked out the US 1-0. But it was still US Soccer on a US holiday in my hometown.
The US was taking on Grenada. Considering that Grenada has a total population of 90,000 people I was confident in our chances. They did have to qualify for this tournament, finishing in the top four of the twenty nation Caribbean zone.
The view from our seats, the announced attendance was 15,837. Not exactly a Sounders game, but not as bad as I expected.
This was part of a double header in the Gold Cup. Before the US game Honduras played Haiti, the US's next two opponents in pool play.
Here is Paty and I in our seats. They were in the sun for the finish of the Honduras game and the first 15 minutes or so of the US game. We were super close to the field being in row two by the corner flag. Not exactly the best view, but it gives a vastly different perspective from my uber-excellent Sounders tickets.
Sam's Army made a tentative appearance. Actually this was as much of the entertainment as the game itself, with notable appearances by such famous fans as Mr Mohawk (front right, notice the not so excited girlfriend) and Mount Rushmore shirt with no sleeves guy (dead center front row with headband),
After the 4-0 drubbing, Paty and I headed home to celebrate on the deck. You really couldn't ask for a better day weather wise.
We had a little Bar-B-Q on the Tobin Deck for the 4th. You can see quite a few fireworks from our house. We normally do this same routine every 4th, I'm not a huge fan of wading through the riff raff of people that show up for some of the standard 4th of July shows. So this lets us avoid the traffic and still enjoy the shows from the comfort of our deck.
That was our 4th, I hope the few readers I still have left all had a good holiday as well. I've been posting a lot more lately and I have a sneaky suspicion (plus I have a website tradker) that no one is really reading. This is through all fault of my own as I went quite some time with no posts and fell out of the 'rotation'. Lately I've had a lot more to post about since I have had a lot of TGC (Tobin Generated Content).
I'll continue to post whenever the TGC gives me something mildly entertaining. In the near future you might (or might not if I go back to my lazy ways) see posts on Pat's 21st Birthday, Cold Play at the Gorge, Sounders versus hated Chelsea of the English Premier League and the Boat Races.
And that's just July. It's going to be a busy summer!
The US was taking on Grenada. Considering that Grenada has a total population of 90,000 people I was confident in our chances. They did have to qualify for this tournament, finishing in the top four of the twenty nation Caribbean zone.
The view from our seats, the announced attendance was 15,837. Not exactly a Sounders game, but not as bad as I expected.
This was part of a double header in the Gold Cup. Before the US game Honduras played Haiti, the US's next two opponents in pool play.
Here is Paty and I in our seats. They were in the sun for the finish of the Honduras game and the first 15 minutes or so of the US game. We were super close to the field being in row two by the corner flag. Not exactly the best view, but it gives a vastly different perspective from my uber-excellent Sounders tickets.
Sam's Army made a tentative appearance. Actually this was as much of the entertainment as the game itself, with notable appearances by such famous fans as Mr Mohawk (front right, notice the not so excited girlfriend) and Mount Rushmore shirt with no sleeves guy (dead center front row with headband),
After the 4-0 drubbing, Paty and I headed home to celebrate on the deck. You really couldn't ask for a better day weather wise.
We had a little Bar-B-Q on the Tobin Deck for the 4th. You can see quite a few fireworks from our house. We normally do this same routine every 4th, I'm not a huge fan of wading through the riff raff of people that show up for some of the standard 4th of July shows. So this lets us avoid the traffic and still enjoy the shows from the comfort of our deck.
That was our 4th, I hope the few readers I still have left all had a good holiday as well. I've been posting a lot more lately and I have a sneaky suspicion (plus I have a website tradker) that no one is really reading. This is through all fault of my own as I went quite some time with no posts and fell out of the 'rotation'. Lately I've had a lot more to post about since I have had a lot of TGC (Tobin Generated Content).
I'll continue to post whenever the TGC gives me something mildly entertaining. In the near future you might (or might not if I go back to my lazy ways) see posts on Pat's 21st Birthday, Cold Play at the Gorge, Sounders versus hated Chelsea of the English Premier League and the Boat Races.
And that's just July. It's going to be a busy summer!
Friday, July 03, 2009
US Open Cup: Road Trip to Portland
To start off the month of July I decided to follow my team, the Seattle Sounders FC, down to Portland for my first away match supporting the Sounders.
Before I get into the standard post with my slightly pithy comments and some pictures, I wanted to explain how this game actually falls into the Sounders schedule.
This is the US Open Cup. The Sounders play in the Major League Soccer or MLS. The Portland Timbers play in the United Soccer League or USL. In US Soccer hierarchy MLS > USL. But this game today was outside of the league, it was the US Open Cup.
This is a straight knock out competition; win and you move on, lose and you are out. The closest analogy would be the NCAA basketball tournament. But instead of playing all at once, the games are spread throughout all the teams regular league seasons. The US Open cup has been around since 1914, it is the oldest soccer competition in the United States.
Now that we attempted to clear that up, on with the post. Required pre-game beverages with Natalie:
The game was held at PGE park in Portland. The Sounders had Six full buses of traveling supporters organized by the various groups that follow the team. It was a really impressive showing of away support. We had three entire sections of the stadium.
Self portrait to try to capture the atmosphere in the stands. We stood through the entire match and I was told that you could hear our chanting on the TV broadcast.
Halftime photo with Natalie, her friend Jamie and myself:
Yes, I am now one of 'those guys with the scarves'.
In the end, the Sounders won 2-1. As you can see from the pictures it was a packed house. I really don't think there is a better environment in the US right now for soccer.
The city of Portland have taken to calling themselves 'Soccer City USA'. Where they get this idea is anyone's guess. But the offshoot is they have this big chip on their shoulder when it comes to Seattle's soccer squad. It is very much a little brother/short man complex that Timbers fans are sporting. Thus there was a bit of fan violence, but it was what you would expect of any event with 17,000 people, beer, sun and a competitive sporting evironment. As you can see I sported my Rave Green Sounders jersey all night long. And besides the occasional 'accidental' jostle getting to my seats and then leaving the stadium in glorious victory, I was just fine.
Before I get into the standard post with my slightly pithy comments and some pictures, I wanted to explain how this game actually falls into the Sounders schedule.
This is the US Open Cup. The Sounders play in the Major League Soccer or MLS. The Portland Timbers play in the United Soccer League or USL. In US Soccer hierarchy MLS > USL. But this game today was outside of the league, it was the US Open Cup.
This is a straight knock out competition; win and you move on, lose and you are out. The closest analogy would be the NCAA basketball tournament. But instead of playing all at once, the games are spread throughout all the teams regular league seasons. The US Open cup has been around since 1914, it is the oldest soccer competition in the United States.
Now that we attempted to clear that up, on with the post. Required pre-game beverages with Natalie:
The game was held at PGE park in Portland. The Sounders had Six full buses of traveling supporters organized by the various groups that follow the team. It was a really impressive showing of away support. We had three entire sections of the stadium.
Self portrait to try to capture the atmosphere in the stands. We stood through the entire match and I was told that you could hear our chanting on the TV broadcast.
Halftime photo with Natalie, her friend Jamie and myself:
Yes, I am now one of 'those guys with the scarves'.
In the end, the Sounders won 2-1. As you can see from the pictures it was a packed house. I really don't think there is a better environment in the US right now for soccer.
The city of Portland have taken to calling themselves 'Soccer City USA'. Where they get this idea is anyone's guess. But the offshoot is they have this big chip on their shoulder when it comes to Seattle's soccer squad. It is very much a little brother/short man complex that Timbers fans are sporting. Thus there was a bit of fan violence, but it was what you would expect of any event with 17,000 people, beer, sun and a competitive sporting evironment. As you can see I sported my Rave Green Sounders jersey all night long. And besides the occasional 'accidental' jostle getting to my seats and then leaving the stadium in glorious victory, I was just fine.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Rock N Roll Seattle
Done:
10250 Chris Tobin M 35-39
Half Marathon Start: Gun 7:02:17 Chip 7:21:39
Splits: 5 Km 10 Km 9 Mile Finish O'All Sex Div
Times: 28:16 59:06 1:24:40 2:01:11 3431 1695 357
Pace: 9:06 9:31 9:25 9:15
Basically what that says is I finished the Rock N Roll Seattle Marathon this morning in 2 hours 1 minute and 11 seconds. My goal was 2 hours. But I did have a two minute bathroom break in the middle. So I will call that the asterisks goal met.
We ran right by my buddy Nate's house, I will try to get the photos he took and put them up here. I am not one of those people that carry a camera with them while running, so sadly no action photos.
Other notable times:
Bryan Klisch 1:58:44
Reid Jonasson 2:39:54
Heather Jonasson 4:51:03 (full marathon!)
This was Bryan's first run, so kudos to him.
Time to replenish:
This is a picture of the finish line. There were 25,000 people participating in either the half or full marathon. That is quite a bit for a longer run. This picture is from about 30 minutes after we finished. You can see the amount of people still filtering in to the finish coral:
Now on to more important things: US v Brazil 11:25 AM kickoff in the US's first ever FIFA men's final of any kind. I know it is just the confederation cup, but it would be really nice to follow up the win against Spain with a tourney title and Brazil win. That would really solidify our argument for being seeded in the 2 pot for World Cup 2010.
Nate took a few pictures since we ran right by his house. The pictures of me might have turned out better if I had realized that Nate was going to be standing on the opposite side of the street from his house. (he's a tricky dude) I was trying to get an action photo of me as I was ready with a full glass of water to throw on the Iben's as I passed but the opposite side of the road threw me for a loop. Anyways, this guy here is much faster than I:
There's me, mile post 9. I was hurting here but seeing friends helped me soldier on:
There were 25,000 people running the race. It is a really large race for a marathon and half marathon. The start is staggered out over about 45 minutes. You never really spread out like you would think in a run of this length. This is another picture by Nate. Taken at mile post 9. Notice how packed the race still is:
Being the 'Rock N Roll' race, this is what you got every one to two miles:
10250 Chris Tobin M 35-39
Half Marathon Start: Gun 7:02:17 Chip 7:21:39
Splits: 5 Km 10 Km 9 Mile Finish O'All Sex Div
Times: 28:16 59:06 1:24:40 2:01:11 3431 1695 357
Pace: 9:06 9:31 9:25 9:15
Basically what that says is I finished the Rock N Roll Seattle Marathon this morning in 2 hours 1 minute and 11 seconds. My goal was 2 hours. But I did have a two minute bathroom break in the middle. So I will call that the asterisks goal met.
We ran right by my buddy Nate's house, I will try to get the photos he took and put them up here. I am not one of those people that carry a camera with them while running, so sadly no action photos.
Other notable times:
Bryan Klisch 1:58:44
Reid Jonasson 2:39:54
Heather Jonasson 4:51:03 (full marathon!)
This was Bryan's first run, so kudos to him.
Time to replenish:
This is a picture of the finish line. There were 25,000 people participating in either the half or full marathon. That is quite a bit for a longer run. This picture is from about 30 minutes after we finished. You can see the amount of people still filtering in to the finish coral:
Now on to more important things: US v Brazil 11:25 AM kickoff in the US's first ever FIFA men's final of any kind. I know it is just the confederation cup, but it would be really nice to follow up the win against Spain with a tourney title and Brazil win. That would really solidify our argument for being seeded in the 2 pot for World Cup 2010.
Nate took a few pictures since we ran right by his house. The pictures of me might have turned out better if I had realized that Nate was going to be standing on the opposite side of the street from his house. (he's a tricky dude) I was trying to get an action photo of me as I was ready with a full glass of water to throw on the Iben's as I passed but the opposite side of the road threw me for a loop. Anyways, this guy here is much faster than I:
There's me, mile post 9. I was hurting here but seeing friends helped me soldier on:
There were 25,000 people running the race. It is a really large race for a marathon and half marathon. The start is staggered out over about 45 minutes. You never really spread out like you would think in a run of this length. This is another picture by Nate. Taken at mile post 9. Notice how packed the race still is:
Being the 'Rock N Roll' race, this is what you got every one to two miles:
Monday, June 22, 2009
Memorial Day 2009
Every year we go to Cape Lookout State Park for Memorial Day Weekend. The Tobin's and the Last's and assorted friends soak up around 7 camping spots at the park. Well most years assuming that the correct weekend was reserved, but that's another story. Here's the cape itself:
Every year we pretty much do the same things. Friday night is steak night as we are all filtering in to the campground from locales afar:
Notice the lights and the steaks already on the grill? Because of some strange confluence of events, traffic and vacation availability we all got to the Park around 4 PM. Here is the gang from our side of the family. Notice that everyone already has a drink except me. I had to include this picture because really, what are the odds?
By far the earliest ever arrival. Paty decided to share her Champagne with Natalie:
And Natalie decided to share her lime with Paty.
Saturday is our trip to the Pelican Pub and Brewery. This is my favorite brew pub in the entire world (of which we have sought out and sampled many a brew pub) and it just so happens to be in Pacific City, Oregon. This year our party consisted of 22 people:
It turns out that it is really hard to get 22 people to pay attention at one time, plus we had the issue of the back light in the room. If I was crafty with the camera, you would see that the ocean is just past that window. Here is another attempt to get everyone to pay attention. I had an even better picture where almost everyone was looking at the camera, except one person who was trying to get everyone's attention to look at the camera. And that person happens to be your author, so this is the picture you get instead:
Paty, bonding with Clare. Shannon watching like a hawk in the background (just in case).
Saturday night I am in charge of dinner. We did Salmon along with a lot of sides. Well more me as Paty pretty much just supervises. But she is starting to adapt to this camping thing. As long as it is limited to once or twice a year.
Sunday is crabbing day. We get on a little aluminum boat in Netarts Bay and cruise around the bay chasing Dungeness crab. The last few years it seems that the crabs are winning. All weekend we had about the best weather you could ever ask for on the Oregon Coast. Mid 70's all weekend with little to no wind. And more importantly, NO RAIN. Here is me crabbing:
I was imitating the locals:
And here is our catch:
VICTORY, one crab for the Chris, John, Aaron, Paty and Cupholder boat. Zero for the other boats...combined.
Again, I can't stress how nice the weather was. Paty got back to her Mexican roots and laid out on the beach:
It was a great weekend, we are looking forward to it again. On unrelated blog news, I am running the Seattle Rock and Roll Half Marathon this weekend. But Paty is going on a school retreat. So unless I get someone to take pictures (Chizzy maybe) there will be no photo journal of the event. Just be warned that we START the race at 7 AM. Why these runs start so early is beyond me, but there it is. The last time I ran before Noon also happened to be the Last time I ran a half marathon. In Prague, Czech Republic in March of 2007. You can find all the details here:
Prague Half Marathon Post
It is very safe to say that this race will take me significantly longer as my training has been less than stellar.
Every year we pretty much do the same things. Friday night is steak night as we are all filtering in to the campground from locales afar:
Notice the lights and the steaks already on the grill? Because of some strange confluence of events, traffic and vacation availability we all got to the Park around 4 PM. Here is the gang from our side of the family. Notice that everyone already has a drink except me. I had to include this picture because really, what are the odds?
By far the earliest ever arrival. Paty decided to share her Champagne with Natalie:
And Natalie decided to share her lime with Paty.
Saturday is our trip to the Pelican Pub and Brewery. This is my favorite brew pub in the entire world (of which we have sought out and sampled many a brew pub) and it just so happens to be in Pacific City, Oregon. This year our party consisted of 22 people:
It turns out that it is really hard to get 22 people to pay attention at one time, plus we had the issue of the back light in the room. If I was crafty with the camera, you would see that the ocean is just past that window. Here is another attempt to get everyone to pay attention. I had an even better picture where almost everyone was looking at the camera, except one person who was trying to get everyone's attention to look at the camera. And that person happens to be your author, so this is the picture you get instead:
Paty, bonding with Clare. Shannon watching like a hawk in the background (just in case).
Saturday night I am in charge of dinner. We did Salmon along with a lot of sides. Well more me as Paty pretty much just supervises. But she is starting to adapt to this camping thing. As long as it is limited to once or twice a year.
Sunday is crabbing day. We get on a little aluminum boat in Netarts Bay and cruise around the bay chasing Dungeness crab. The last few years it seems that the crabs are winning. All weekend we had about the best weather you could ever ask for on the Oregon Coast. Mid 70's all weekend with little to no wind. And more importantly, NO RAIN. Here is me crabbing:
I was imitating the locals:
And here is our catch:
VICTORY, one crab for the Chris, John, Aaron, Paty and Cupholder boat. Zero for the other boats...combined.
Again, I can't stress how nice the weather was. Paty got back to her Mexican roots and laid out on the beach:
It was a great weekend, we are looking forward to it again. On unrelated blog news, I am running the Seattle Rock and Roll Half Marathon this weekend. But Paty is going on a school retreat. So unless I get someone to take pictures (Chizzy maybe) there will be no photo journal of the event. Just be warned that we START the race at 7 AM. Why these runs start so early is beyond me, but there it is. The last time I ran before Noon also happened to be the Last time I ran a half marathon. In Prague, Czech Republic in March of 2007. You can find all the details here:
Prague Half Marathon Post
It is very safe to say that this race will take me significantly longer as my training has been less than stellar.
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