My niece is graduating high school next week. Congrats on that by the way! There has been plans for about the past year on the family traveling down for the festivities. Graduation, beach, video games. My wife was making plans to get on the beach in all her mermaid glory, along with a photo shoot in which I wouldn't have to be the photographer. That's a big selling point for me! I'm not a huge fan of being a photographer. But, life happens and it sucks. This years hospital visit took away my collection of PTO I had saved for the summer, and took away a chunk of our income for a month, leaving us to catch up. Unfortunately, we had to choose between which state we would be traveling to this summer. In fact, I'm not even sure if I'll be able to do any of the short distance traveling for concerts. Should be able to get one in, but unsure past that.
Even though I tried to work whatever I could out to make the trip to California a possibility, in the end it just wasn't manageable. It was a bummer with just that in itself. I threw on more reasons to be bummed when I woke up this morning.
Now, a little disclaimer... I'm not a band wagoner. I don't become a fan of a sports team just because a star player emerges or they suddenly start being awesome. All-Stars, MVP's, that sort of stuff... I don't buy into it. So for basketball: I have been a die hard Utah Jazz fan for as long as I remember following basketball. As a fan seeing Stockton to Malone, and now still with the young group with potential. I'm not afraid to admit that they are "my team". I'm not afraid to say "my team" isn't in the playoffs, wasn't going to make it, etc. I try to remain realistic. Enjoy the game without an arrogance for the squad I support. But, I enjoy watching the success of other teams. Especially teams that have struggled. I have respect for a team that plays well. So, even though I have actively called Golden State a terrible team a few years back and talked smack, it was all in fun and quite honestly, yeah, they were terrible a few years back. So were the Clippers. I wasn't a fan of any California or Texan team. Now I have respect. They are fun to watch. Well... except for the Lakers..... scratch that..... Just Kobe...... Nat don't like Kobe....... So being a fan of the game, I'd like to clarify that it's been enjoyable to watch teams develop and to be humbled by my former arrogance. Why do I need to bring his out?
I believe where we were going to go was a town called Redding. That's a 3 hour drive from San Francisco from the looks of Google Maps. So when I woke up and saw the Warriors were going to the finals, realized the geographical location, and realized the NBA FINALS would be taking place the same time I was going to be in that same geographical location. So I say, "Oh! Why not make the effort to experience this opportunity?" So, revisited the idea, looked up ticket price for a.................... neeeever mind. Starting ticket prices for 1 ticket is $600...... So $1200 would get my wife in... I don't even have money for gas and dog sitters to get there in the first place! But... now I'm prepared for the future.
I will one day watch the NBA finals. If I start saving my monies and PTO now, I'll have plenty to stay in the city for the whole series and get tickets to each game... maybe even lower bowl! That is, this is saving for when my Jazz make it to the finals again. So I'm a ways out.
