[renodoc]

Cal-Arizona Trip Report:

Arrived Emeryville Sheraton (best I could find on short notice.) Drove to southside and consumed top dog. Did short telegraph stroll (what a dead zone) and ended up at Kips for a beer. Talked my young campanions (step-son, son-in-law and friend of his) into going to the Oaks to play some cards. They play $1-$2 hold em and I get in a $30-$60 game- we play till 3 or so.

Sleep till 11. Hit 4th street in West Berkeley- my things have changed. Its a mini-yuppieville with coffee shops, cafes, boutiques, etc. Try to get breakfast at Bette's but the wait is 90 min. meh. Settle for bagels and Peets.

Off to the stadium and find that the tickets I procured on ebay come with parking at I-house. This is bascially 10 yards from the stadium gates. Nice. We are without proper tailgating materials though and head back into town on foot. Grab a couple beers and walk into campus. The band is finishing their pep ralley at Sproul plaza and we follow them up the hill back to the stadium.

Cal's band is one reason why we can't beat USC. Picture the SC game each year. The Cal band comes on the field, does all their goofy class-clown type stuff. Looks like a bunch of idiots really. Then USC comes on. The [censored] army of Troy, playing "Conquest." Marching out on the field like they are going to kill everyone in their way. And then they do.

Outside the stadium, there are people living in the trees. They have about 6-8 tree shanties set up with walkways between them. At the bottom there are people who look like they fell asleep in 1968 and just woke up. Probably haven't showered since then either. They are handing out flyers on saving the trees. Funny thing, the flyers are printed on paper. Lol.

Back to the game. We have donor seats on the 40 yard line. Old school type metal benches. We pay $5 each for some rented seat backs that we leave at the end. The seats are pretty tight though. The people in front of us almost use our knees as armrests, and its pretty easy to get kicked in the back several times.

The concessions suck. They don't sell alcohol, except in some hidden beer gardens that aren't advertised. They are leaving a lot of money on the table. All the stands are bascially the same crap, except behind the student section there are some stands selling bar b que and pizza.

Oh yeah, Cal scores 28 pts in the first quarter. Arizona got some mojo working with short screen passes in the second half, but the game was never really in doubt. When they got within 11, Cal scored again quickly.

We left with 5 min to go in order to try to get out of our spot. It was challenging not to run over liberals on the way out, but we managed.


Thinking about going up to Oregon next week, and already have plans for the UCLA game. (This should increase my NFI, right?)