The original plan on June 3rd was for me to attend a Reds game with a co-worker. He volunteered to be a solicitor for ArtsWave, which is a charity organization dedicated to local artistic events and causes, and this was GE's demonstration of appreciation for his participation (say that three times fast). It was supposed to be for GE employees only, since they were providing the tickets, which is why he invited me to go instead of his wife.
The game was at 7pm, so I brought a change of clothes to work and was looking forward to going straight there after my workday was done. However, at around 4:30pm, my co-worker informed me that he wasn't feeling well and was going to have to skip the game. He was going to give me the tickets so I could still attend with someone else though. I tried to find someone at work to go with me, but most everyone I knew was either gone for the day or unavailable, especially since it was so last minute. So I called Amanda to see if she wanted to go and whether she could arrange for a babysitter.
Her mom didn't want to give up taking her class at the gym, so Amanda called a few kids in our neighborhood. Meanwhile, I drove to John's house to get the tickets from him. He was kind enough to meet me at Kroger to reduce the drive time, but now it was 6:30pm. I had the tickets in hand, but no sitter and no plans to actually attend the game. I headed home to enjoy a normal night with my family.
About halfway home, Amanda called my cell phone to inform me that someone just returned her call saying they were able to watch the kids. We ended up getting to the game around 1/2 hour after it started, but we had free entrance, drink tickets, and great company.
A couple of bonuses for the evening were (1) the team we played against was The San Francisco Giants, which was one of the closest teams to Sacramento (where we moved here from), and (2) the Reds won 8 to 3.
