ACC Tourney Day # 1

Characters Involved in the trip:
Da King – my friend’s dad (his phone says so… I swear).
MP – my friend’s dad’s friend (make sense?)
Barbie – my friend.

On Monday, Barbie called me and asked me if I wanted to go to the ACC Tournament.  Really how do you say no to that?  The only problem was that we would be leaving early on Thursday morning.  Since I had already Friday off for what was going to be a trip to Boston with the Ex (sad face), I struck a deal with my manager where if I could work 40 hours by Wednesday, he would try to get me Thursday off.  So I spent all the first days of the week at work.  I think there was a cot underneath my desk.  I got the 40 hours in (actually 38.5, but who is counting) and off to ACC Tourney I was.... I did bring the laptop just in case something needed to be done in between games and (hotel) bar hoping.
Wednesday night after watching the Constant Gardner (good movie but I got beefs with it.  Another entry for another day), I packed, got a hair cut and stayed up till 5 am watching cheesy movies and sportcenter.

The drive down (for some reason I thought there was a plane involved at first) was pretty cool.  The necessary road trip nap was awesome not because I was tired and going on 2 hours of sleep but because I’ve extensive experience sleeping on leather.  So I felt right at home (except it was moving at about 70mph).  We stop at Denis for a brunch, where a retired Marine (not with us) felt the need to remind that I was black and too old for Armed services (believe it or not it was not a racist comment, just a little weird).  We also stopped at a gas station to fill and get some drinks (non-alcoholic ones unfortunately).  The people in the gas station were so country it was unbelievable.  It was so shocking to me that I was like “Whoa… they do extist!” (like in the M&M Christmas commercials where they meet Santa Clause). The rest of the drive was pretty chill and relaxing, couple of conference calls, talking about cars, sport and making fun of Barbie (easy target).

Once we got down to NC, we checked in a ridiculously nice resort; a bit intimidating actually. After drop our stuff in our respective rooms (we each have a separate room with some sick view of the golf course… which is equally as sick), we made our way to the hotel bar.  There were four hot girls sitting at the bar, clearly Barbie and I were trying to figure their deal what there deal was.  Da King took a look at them once and suggested that they were “working girls.”   I protested, hot girls likes sports too. Sure enough when the bar filled up, the ladies were hitting on every guy in place.  I felt like such a Rookie (rookie moment # 1). 

We eventually made our way to MD vs. GTECH game.   Barbie and I first try to get media passes so we can meet up with a friend of ours who works for a news station down here.  That was not a successful endeavor, but we stumbled on a VIP area where they served alcohol (they didn’t serve any in the rest of the coliseum… stupid NCAA rules).  We tried to bribe our way into the VIP area, but the man with missing teeth was having none of it.  After we got back to our seats, some guys came to schmooze Da King (he is part of the M club), and ten minutes later we are in VIP area boozing (rookie moment # 2). We finished boozing and went back to our sits to watch the game.  GTECH fans really didn’t show up.  They must have been expecting to lose.  Terps Fans on the other hand travel really well.  I was impressed.  Clearly Terps Dominated…. Mike Jones (who?) and   Nik Caner-Scrappy both played really well.  After the game, we headed back to the hotel bar.  And yes they ladies were still working (rookie moment # 3).  After Da King and MP headed to bed… we hit the town with our friend that resides here.  We got a round of beer, got in a mandatory fan scuffle (the other guys got kicked out).  Last call is at 1:30 around here… Seriously? I was really disappointed.  And since I’m rookie around… there was no after party spot that I knew of. So we called it a night.  Overall first good day.