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.