We started our day fairly early this morning. By 8:00am we had all our gear ready and waiting at the bus stop for Lu.
We made a quick stop for our usual weekend coffee and pain au chocolat at Renaud's, then proceeded to drive down to Anaheim. The traffic was fairly light, especially by LA standards.
We arrived in Anaheim around 11:00. I dropped Brooke and Lu off at the Hilton conference room for their pre-race overview and instructions. With a couple hours free to myself, I drove around Anaheim and Santa Ana, with the specific intention of finding Little Saigon and getting some good Vietnamese food. When I found Little Saigon, I drove around, peering inside restaurants, trying to determine whether or not the host would give me the embarassing greeting of "Welcome. Table for one?" In the end, all I saw were restaurants full of large family gatherings, so I chickened out and I got no food.
I still had fun driving around despite my hunger. I saw a small parade of people bearing flags. They didn't seem to be protesting or celebrating anything. I guess they just wanted everyone to know that they're proud to be South Vietnamese Americans.
Temple in Little Saigon.
When Brooke and Lu finished with their pre-race meeting, we checked into our "very modest" hotel, The Anaheim Maingate, ate inhumanly large portions of food at the Cheesecake Factory, then went shopping at REI. Of course, everywhere we went people would ask, "what are the numbers for?"
Now for the complaint portion of the post....
I love watching baseball games. I've attended many Seattle Mariners games in my life. I've seen them go through record winning seasons and some very bad seasons, and understandably, fans are always more enthusiastic during the good seasons. Going into tonight's Anaheim Angels vs. Atlanta Braves game, I knew the Angels were playing well. With a record of 41-27, the Angels were leading the AL West and had the third best record in all of MLB. This is going to be a great game I thought to myself. Wrong. The Angels fans suck.
This first picture was taken a couple minutes before the first pitch. Notice how only 20% of the fans are in attendance. Did I already mention all the tickets were sold out for this game? Where are the fans?
By the middle of the 3rd inning, more fans had trickled in, bringing attendance up to about 75%.
Even then, 1/3 of the 75% in attendance couldn't be bothered to look up from their cellphone text messages, leaving only 50% of the seats with fans who are watching the game. Of the final 50%, I think half of them were Atlanta fans. I think Lu's face says it all...
(End of complaint portion)
After the game, before heading back to the hotel, we got some Panda Express. It was hardly a substitute for the good Vietnamese food I could have had this morning. There's always tomorrow....
Van
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