Joe and Jamie's Blog

Last Thursday Jamie and I headed down to Harrison, NJ to the new Red Bull Arena, new home of the MLS New York Red Bulls. Construction is not complete, but all the concrete for the stadium seats were in, even some seats themselves were installed. Jamie and I were part of their seat relocation event for people buying season tickets. Last season we only went to 5 games but loved it enough to fork over the money for season tickets.

For weeks I kept using their online 3D seat locater that gave you computerized images of approximately what your view may be. This just wasn’t enough for me since I am spending anywhere from $300-$600 a seat. I even said, “Boy it would be cool if we got to see the views from the new stadium before buying seats”. With that comment came the notice in the mail of a seat relocation date. Pretty cool, wish other things came that simple.

So after leaving work early to battle rush hour traffic in NJ, ugh, we made it to the new stadium. There we met some of the sales department who took us out into the stadium to pick out our seats, but not before we were given hard hats, safety goggles, construction vests, and watched a safety video. I was curious how the views from the second deck were since our biggest complaint at the old stadium was people in front of us standing up or walking down the isle blocking our view. Since the stadium is brand new, obviously it has awesome seating views and space, no more of that just cram them in mentality.

We ultimately chose seats on the endline of the field in the second deck, front row, isle seats, directly above the goal. This gives us a view of the entire field without even having to move our head. Best of all there is no one in front of us and an elephant could be in the isle and it wouldn’t block our view!

After picking the seats we had to wait our turn to make the seat selection official. This made me nervous since they went in priority order which was based on longevity of accounts, and I only had an account since the 2009 season. Luckily no one chose our seats and we got to go to the board and mark off our seats with our little stickers. After that they enticed us with merchandise that was deeply discounted, so we folded and got the stuff we have been meaning to buy. You can’t go wrong with a $70 half-zip pull-over for $20.

Even though Jamie called me a nerd I took some pictures, so enjoy! They will be up on the picture gallery as well. More info on the stadium at www.redbullarena.us

First let me just say wow,  It’s been an entire month since I made a post, and I’m even late with this one.

Last Tuesday my parents wanted to go walk the Walkway Over the Hudson after work so I joined them. It was a nice day out, sunny and cool. Luckily we found a parking spot on the street right near the entrance and didn’t have to walk a few blocks before walking the bridge.

I really cannot describe the sites I saw while I was up there. I have never walked the Mid-Hudson bridge before, and even that has a crappy view because of the cars on one side and the high fences on the other. I rowed in high school on the river so I was used to the nice sites off in the distance, but the vantage point you have of being all the way up there is amazing.

We sucked it up and walked the entire bridge back and forth.  The bridge spans approximately 1.25 miles, so it made for a nice 2.5 mile walk. The wind picked up as the sun set behind the mountains on the Ulster County side so it was a bit chilly on the way back, but we didn’t mind.

It was fun walking across, I have always like to walk around when the scenery was right. Now all I need to do it motivate myself to jog across it weekly for exercise, maybe even hit the store and get bikes for Jamie and I so we can ride across.

If you haven’t done it yet, go do it. You can’t miss out on this. Enjoy some of the pictures I took while I was up there. You can view all of my pictures at our photo gallery. For more information on the bridge or the project go to www.walkway.org.