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

As some of you may or may not know, I play soccer.  I just recently joined a co-ed soccer league at Golds Gym. The competition is pretty tough, but I ended up being on a great team. There are a lot of talented men and women on my team.

The day before vacation I had a soccer game. The soccer game was going great until the last 15 seconds of the game. I went to kick the ball down the line and heard a crack when I put my foot down. I hopped around for a minute then went to the ground because I was in a lot of pain. My team was very supportive and helpful. They stopped the game and came to my side right away. Unfortunately, I could not walk this one off. I had to be helped off the field and into Joe’s car so he could take me to the emergency room. The referee came over and said “I think we’re just going to call the game because there is 15 seconds left”.  I cannot believe the day before vacation  I injure my ankle with 15 seconds left in the game when I have never broken or sprained anything on my body ever before.

Well as it turned out, my ankle was not broken. I had a sprain. They gave me an ace bandage, crutches, and some medicine for pain. Although it was not broken, it was still really inf lammed; my ankle was 3x the size it was normally. I did not get out the emergency room until 2:00 in the morning.

The next day I had a follow up appointment with the orthopedist. He agreed with the hospital’s opinion on the sprain and gave me a walking boot that he requested I wear for 3 weeks. I did not wear the boot for more then 2 days. After the second day, I took my pain medicine and hobbled around Miami Beach.

I am very happy that my leg was not broken and that I did not need a cast!

I got to go in the pool and the beautiful blue ocean!

We also ended up wining the soccer game!

This past Saturday we went to yet another MLS game, but with Casey and Andrew this time. If you are tired of reading these posts, don’t worry, I don’t have tickets from now until August!

We had a little joke going around that the Red Bulls only win at home when Casey and Andrew come. Why? Well they only did win one game at home and it was the last time they came to the game. Unfortunately that did not hold true as the Red Bulls lost again. It was another upsetting loss as they had many, many changes to score. They dominated the filed and once again had much more possession time then the opposing team, but they just could not put the ball in the net.

Oddly there were two penalty kicks, one for each time. Now if you know the game those are kind of hard to come across since you really must to something bad inside the goalie box for those to happen, and no one wants them to happen since its pretty much a guaranteed goal. Each team scored their penalty kick and it turned out to be the game winning goal for Colorado. The player Conor Casey from the Colorado Rapids scored both his goals with headers. All that guy did is head the ball all game, it was interesting to watch considering he took more shots with his head than his foot.

The Red Bulls lost this match 3-2. I’m going to try and nab some season tickets for next year. I’m trying to figure out where I want to sit in their new stadium. Not sure if I want to go to the second level front row so I have nothing obstructing my view or move down closer. Help me choose my seats by viewing them online in 3d here. I’m thinking dead center, mezzanine level, section 226, first row.

You can watch the highlights of the game here.

On Sunday Jamie and I went to our third MLS game. It wasn’t as hot out as the last time we went there, so we didn’t really come back as lobsters this time which was nice. The NY Red Bulls had possession of the ball for most of the game and had really great opportunities, but they never put the ball in the net. Right at the end of the first half, with only about thirty seconds left, the Chicago Fire scored the only goal of the game. Therefore the NY Red Bulls lost 1-0. So far they are 2-6-3 for the season. You can watch the video highlights from the game here. I remembered to take some pictures this time to share with everyone, so enjoy.

This post is a little late, but this week was actually pretty busy. Sunday 4/26 we went to our second MLS game. I really enjoy going down there and thinking about getting an eight game pack of tickets for next year. The ride is an easy hour and fifteen minutes and the seats I have are really great, midfield-ish on the isle.

The NY Red Bulls faced D.C. United. First half was dull, 1-0 DC at the end. The Red Bulls came out in the second half and scored two goals within twenty minutes, taking the lead. One was a really cool header goal off a corner kick. Unfortunately in the last two minutes of the game DC tied the game up on a stupid goal that should have never went in. The goalie just watched the ball bounce in the goal, it was truely pathetic for a professional. Now we went into three minutes of extra time due to game stoppage, and guess what, DC scored again on another lame goal, winning the game. I couldn’t believe it, it was like they didn’t even try to stop them.

Maybe the next game they will win, they aren’t so hot this year, 1-4-2 so far. Last year they were the conference champions, go figure. You can watch this game’s highlights here.

Saturday night Jamie, her sister Casey and her husband Andrew, and myself drove down to Giants Stadium to watch the NY Red Bulls play against Real Salt Lake in an MLS (Major League Soccer) match. This was the first any of us had seen live, we have watched a few on TV before. The stadium wasn’t really packed, only about 8,500 attended which is apparently normal for soccer in this country. The Red Bulls won 2-0. You can watch the highlights of the game here. There was one amazing play by the Red Bulls defender. He stopped a goal by leaping into the goal and kicking the ball out before he or it touched the ground, negating the goal. Truly amazing talent right there, I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.

Overall the game was a fun experience. Our seats where almost midfield and half way up the section, so we were able to see almost the entire field without having to move our heads much. I was able to nab the isle seats as well so we were a bit more comfortable. Glad I purchased tickets to four more games. If you want to read up on the match you can here.

Today I purchased a four game pack of tickets to the MLS team New York Red Bulls. Jamie and I both like soccer, but we have never been to a real MLS game before, go figure.

Pricing for the MLS is really cheap, well at least compared to other sports. I got seats near the midfield line, end row seats, mid section for all four games. This should give us a good view of the whole field without too much disturbance. I believe they currently play at the Giants stadium, but they are having their own stadium built as we speak, well read I guess. You can check out the new arena’s website here. They have a web cam to watch the progress.

Can’t wait for our first game, I’ll have a bunch of pictures to show everyone. For now, you can visit the team’s website here.

Hello world! Still here.

It has been a very long time since I last posted. Not really that long but too long for my liking. In an ideal world I would post every three days or so, maybe even everyday if I did more exciting things to write about.

Jamie and I have just been very busy lately with school and work, barely finding time to do anything. Besides the boring yard work and soccer that I already wrote about too much, there isn’t anything that I really can write about that anyone (including myself) would want to read. Oh yeah big highlight, cleaned the fish tank the other day; fun, fun. See what I mean, not quite a compelling story. I have been able to accomplish a few more websites and I am in the works to sell some domain names at serious prices. One domain can literally erase half my debt which would be awesome.

Thanksgiving is coming up and I believe we are traveling out to Long Island to our relatives on our father’s side. We haven’t seem them in awhile so it will be nice. Can’t wait for the food! This nice long weekend gives me some time to catch up on things and get squared away before I am bombarded with end of the semester tests over the following two weeks.

I will try and video the next indoor soccer game and see how it comes out, would be fun to watch it online. Now I just need some kind reader to send me a camcorder for Christmas so I can really video tape stuff and play it on the blog.