Opening Day!

Yesterday marked the opening day for the 2008 baseball season! It was a sad day at Comerica Park as the Tigers started off the season with a loss to the KC Royals. Can’t say much for the cubbies either because they also lost yesterday to the Brewers.

It should be a good season for the Tigers so hopefully I will make it to a few games. I also need to attend a Cubs game this year.

Braves Game - ATL
My company held an outing for the Braves opener. It was a little chilly in ATL but I was still pumped to go to a game on opening day (even if it was a National League team). We tailgated in the parking lot. The stadium is nice and the it has a great view of the city.

Some of my co-workers from a different project decided to come along b/c we had some extra tickets. They drove their rental car and were a little late to the game but they found a spot in a what was a shady area. They parked on someone’s lawn for $10 and finally made it by the 3rd inning. About the bottom of the 7th we were ready to go home. I decided to hitch a ride back with them. We walked to the place where the car was parked and it was gone! We saw the tracks. So we thought well the car was stolen. Then this lady came from across the street and told us she saw the car get towed and she would give us a ride to the towing company for $10. (wow how nice of her…lol) By the grace of god (and to my belief that everything happens for a reason) there was one of my co-workers on my team who was walking behind us (she lives around the area) and she took us to the towing company. So, once we got to the towing company (at this time its about 10:00PM we waited an additional hour to have Avis Rental fax a release. It turned into a big mess and well we couldn’t get the car back. (Additional manager approval was needed from AVIS) So, we had to call my co-worker AGAIN to have her come and pick us up to take us downtown. The car was eventually picked up today at 3PM. By the way, during the wait time at the towing company Andrew managed to get a free sign from the towing company as seen in the pictures.

Side note: The co-worker with the rented car is from Ireland. This was his first baseball game. He said by the end of the night that he would rather watch hockey.

So based on the situation we realized it was a scam that involved 3 parties. 1) owner of the house where the car was parked on the lawn, 2) lady across the street who “happened” to see the car getting towed and 3) the tow company. Based on the economics this was a good scam 1) $10 to park 2) $10 to get a ride from random lady (btw, she gave 3 other people rides that night) and 2) $125 to get the car back.

The night definitely made for a story:
o Tickets to the Braves game: $0
o Parking on random lawn: $10
o Sign from the towing company: $10
o Getting the car out of the towing lot: $125
o The look on our faces when we realized the car was gone and we had to wait at this random place in a shady area: Priceless!