Super Bowl XXXIX

I realize that this is completely self serving and of no interest to anyone but myself, but I wanted to capture my memories before I forgot them. I'm painfully aware from my experience today that nobody (besides my parents) wants to hear about what a good time we had and what we did, so I need to express my joy electronically. I'm going to post some of the better pictures we took. Maybe those will be a little more interesting.

SuperBowl XXXIX

Thursday - Day 1

Flight time was 10:30am, so I arose early and left the house about 7:15am. I arrived at the airport at 8:30 and had no trouble getting through security. The travel agency booked my flights on Delta, which I've only flown once before. I prefer United or American. I had a connecting flight and the first leg from Chicago O'Hare to Atlanta was short enough and made more bearable as I had nobody sitting else in my row. The layover in Atlanta gave me enough time to visit the restroom and arrive at the next gate just in time to board the 2nd leg from Atlanta to Jacksonville. I wasn't as fortunate with leg 2, as I was seated between two large male individuals who each maximized their crotch spread, putting me in a sissy like and uncomfortable position. The air time from Atlanta to Jacksonville is actually shorter than the amount of time spent taxiing on the runway. 45 minutes of flight time and 50 minutes to taxi.

We were met at the gate by an event planner and escorted to the baggage claim area by a medium height, pleasant looking, perky blonde that immediately struck up a conversation with my partner. I'm not much for chit-chat, so I kind of stood off to the side stared intensely at the circling carousel for my bag. After about 15 minutes of waiting, bags in hand, we struck out of the airport to an awaiting van where we met by a handsome couple from Denver who were part of our group. We quickly learned that our driver was from Houston, had driven his van from Houston earlier in the week, and had never made the trip from the airport to our hotel before. This seemed to be innocent enough, as he had received detailed directions from the event planner, and we figured Jacksonville was small and the ride should be a breeze.

About an hour and a half into the ride we appeared to be driving through some of the more seedy Jacksonville areas, with dilapidated cars adorning the streets, dilapidated people slogging along the streets, and go-go bars at what seemed every corner. The tip-off to our situation came when the driver pulled into a gas station, informed us he had to use the rest room, then proceeded to walk into the attendants area, which was in a completely different building as the bathroom, which was staring us in the face. Now 4:30pm, we could have used some solid and liquid sustenance, but it was not to be. The driver returned to the bus, made a u-turn and re-traced several miles of road we had already covered. The husband of the couple riding with us called the hotel and asked for directions. We weren't encouraged when the hotel replied that they didn't know where we were and couldn’t tell us how to get there. They gave us some general guidelines, the most importantly was, "Stay on the main highway!", advice I wished our driver had been given from the start. With some coaching and prodding, we eventually got back on the main interstate and quickly made progress and arrived at our hotel in just under 3 hours, 2 hours longer than it should have.

Now 6pm, we checked into the hotel, received our keys, checked in with the event planner and received a cool Super Bowl duffel bag containing a souvenir cap and golf shirt. Dinner was scheduled for 7:00pm, so we unpacked, checked email and rumbled back downstairs to dinner.

Oh, but before we could go back down for dinner, we had to figure out the difference between "casual" and "resort casual", two terms that event planners use liberally, but were completely foreign to us. It turns out that casual is what we thought it was; jeans, dockers, shirts, whatever as long as it's clean. Resort casual is Dockers, collared shirts and jackets.

Several of the other guests had arrived and we met a number of them, so we already knew and some we didn't. I immediately met a couple from Wisconsin, who joined our table. There were a few couples, one father/son pair, but mostly work associates from the same companies. Dinner was something of a buffet, a little foo-foo, but nicely done and featured an open bar. Sometime during the evening I received a call about a situation at work and dealt with that. Fortunately it turned out to be nothing serious. I also received a call from my 11 year old son wondering when I’d be home that night. When I told him I was in Florida, he asked why. After informing him of my plans, he simply asked that I bring home candy.

About 10pm we'd had enough chit-chat and beer and hit the sack, eagerly anticipating what tomorrow would bring.

Friday - Day 2

Breakfast was served in the same room as the prior night’s dinner. Like the night before, breakfast was served buffet style and consisted of eggs, bacon, sausage, eggs benedict, waffles, pancakes, fruits, breads, cereals, and a number of other foo-foo choices.

Our schedule for the day was this:

- A downtown Jacksonville lunch at the South End Brewery

- The NFL experience

- Cocktails and dinner at Casa Marina Restaurant

We left by shuttle for downtown Jacksonville at 11am. The bus resembled something you'd see on a Girls Gone Wild video, decked out with a dry bar, a video and sound system, crazy psychedelic lighting, fluorescent tube lighting, mirrors, moon roof, and a pole. Fortunately, there were no incidences of pole dancing although there were threats and solicitations for it later in the evening. Since the downtown streets were closed off, we were dropped of about 3 blocks from our final destination. The crowds were large, as FOX was setting up for the Best Damn Super Bowl Road Show in the center of the shopping mall in which the restaurant was located. Apparently Chris Rock and Burt Reynolds were going to make an appearance.

As would become the norm, the food service was EXTREMELY SLOW. I think we waited about an hour for the food to arrive. They mixed up the appetizer orders, but got the entrees right. We were in a festive mood, so nobody complained, although I was looking forward to the crab fritters. After lunch we had some time to mill around, so I purchased the only digital camera I could find at a Musicland store, and a 256MB memory stick ($160). There were a number of temporary merchandise shops setup in the mall, but I didn't want to be loaded down with stuff for the next stop, so I decided to pass on the purchases and head for mall atrium to take in some people watching and since it was officially after noon, start putting down nearest, coldest light beer I could find. We stood next to the Coors stand for a while and watched the freaks trek by and I got a Pepsi ball keychain for my trouble. By freaks I mean freaks of all shapes and sizes; young, old, fat, skinny, sexy, homely... they were all there. People with blue hair, green hair, and mardi-gras beads. We even saw an Elvis mask with a sign on his head soliciting game tickets.

About 30 minutes of this was all we could take and we wandered back to the meeting place for the bus. While waiting on the designated corner, Snoop dogs diet Pepsi party monster truck rolled by as well as a stretch Hummer, a stretch Suburban, and several stretch limos.

It took a good while to get to the NFL experience. Our tickets called for a 4pm admission, but we were able to get in at about 2:50pm. Sadly, our event planner said we only had until 3:45pm, which really sucked as this was appeared to be one of the more fun places to be. I decided to make a run through some of the exhibits that seemed most interesting; The distance football throw (my mark was 50 yards, apparently the best so far that day), velocity throw (50 MPH after a complete muff which nearly decapitated one of the workers), and accuracy (2 out of 3 through the diving counter-weight balanced receiver holding a 3 foot diameter hoop.) I bought a limited edition Super Bowl XXXIX cap ($32), a Super Bowl logo golf ball and case ($12), and a small Super Bowl football ($20). We had hoped to get hooked up with the a guy in the Wilson booth, as my partner's brother is a big wig designer for Wilson, but it didn't happen. (We will be getting Super Bowl XXXIX game balls at cost though :-)

Like clockwork we were back on the bus at 3:45pm, waited for stragglers, and were back at the hotel by 5:00pm.We actually spent more time on the bus getting to and from NFL experience than we actually got to be in the place.

We left for dinner at 5:30pm and arrived in Jax Beach near 6:30pm. Upon arrival, we were escorted by the restaurant staff to our room. The reason for the escort, it turns out, was that the Nike party was being held in the same building. Actually, it was a tent connected to the same building.

Our dining area had an open bar (of course), and a balcony overlooking the ocean. After about an hour of getting primed at the bar, dinner was served. Again, it came out very slowly, and it was apparent that the hotel staff was stretched beyond their capabilities. It was nice though, consisting of exotic and tastefully arranged salads, bisque, wines, steak, salmon, and the topper; desert (some sort of sorbet) served in an hand-shaped ice sculpture. We had found out during the day that one of the wives had attended Texas A&M and hated the Longhorns. We therefore had her hand custom made in the shape of the "hookem horns". After about 6 beers and 3 wines, this seemed a lot funnier than it does now.

During desert, Boomer Esiason showed up to speak. He started off by babbling on about some issue between him and Dan Marino for calling Peyton Manning the Dan Marino of his era. Apparently Marino took exception to this and I think Boomer was the only one in the room that cared. His stories about his experience in Superbowl XXIII were pretty interesting, as well as his experiences with fans in New York. He called out Jacksonville for being a horrible place for having a Super Bowl, while letting everyone know he had a room at the Ritz and on one of the 5 cruise liners that had been brought in to supplement rooms. He said Michael Vick can't read a defense. I can't remember anything else really. He was pretty good overall, but not stellar. After speaking, everyone lined up for autographs and handshakes. He signed my golf ball and a Super Bowl XXXIX program (Cudos to the event planners).

Our original plan for the remainder of the evening was to roam around Jax beach, bar hopping until about 2am. However, the guy in charge of the group, that we weren't supposed to lose sight of, decided to crash the Nike party. So, we all crashed it. We drank a lot at their open bar, for which I'm sure they would not have been pleased. These parties are mostly people standing around drinking, smoking and trying to figure out who everyone else is. We saw Scott Zolak (former QB), Marshall Faulk (current SL Rams RB), Brian Erlacher (current Chi Bears LB), Jesse Palmer (the Bachelor), Jim Furyk (PGA Golfer), Joe Buck and his extraordinarily hot girlfriend (who knew he had it in him). Somebody said they got their business card signed by New Orleans line backer Terrance Melton. I have my doubts. And as it turns out, Miss Venezuela may have been there. If not, it was her clone.I wondered why she seemed so popular with the fellas.

I think I would have preferred to bar hop, but given the transportation situation in Jacksonville, I couldn't take the risk of missing the shuttle. I don't remember exactly when we left, but I think it was about 11pm. Some of the younger guys stayed and apparently missed the 2am shuttle and had to sweet talk rides from some local girls. At least that's what they claimed. They looked like crap the next morning and someone had puked in the elevator so I suppose... it could have been any number of knuckleheads. I was glad it wasn't me.

We went to the bar next to the hotel for some more drinking. There was a band and it was pretty crowded. I'm guessing some of the Eagles families were in there, but I couldn't figure any of it out. I was so tired that I left half a beer, bought for me by the couple from Wisconsin, plus a pack of cigarettes, on the table (I took the cigarettes with me) and headed up to the room for the night, tired, but mostly sober. I must have fallen asleep within a minute of my head hitting the pillow.

I also heard later that at some point the Nike folks got wise to our party crashers and had them escorted out of the building. I’m particularly glad I wasn’t present for that.

Saturday - Day 3

Saturday's breakfast routine was the same as Friday's, but approached with less vigor given the prior nights activities. We were scheduled to leave for golf at Marsh Landings at 10:45, so I had a light bite and purchased a long sleeved, Super Bowl XXXIX mock turtle neck shirt ($40) to put under the souvenir golf shirt provided us and under the souvenir sweat shirt ($60) I'd bought Friday. It was cold you see.

We got to the club about 11:30 and what do you know; it was time to eat again. Figuring I'd crap hay bales if I ate any more, I nibbled on a few things and headed into the pro shop for another jacket (it was really cold), which I purchased at a refreshing 50% off ($30) and 9 balls to add to the 3 complementary provided us in the carts. Despite practicing for the last 2 weeks, my game sucked. I lost 10 balls. Fortunately, my partner and another in our foursome carried the burden, putting us in 2nd place for the best-ball match and allowing me and my cart buddy to imbibe in several of our favorite libations; several beers and J&B's and water. 5 hours later and half frozen, we returned to the club house for more beer and some blabbering about nothing. After a bit of crap, we returned to the hotel to be hurried into a clothes change and a prodding back onto a shuttle for dinner at the Marriott where the Eagles players were staying.

At the Marriott, we saw a load of Eagles fans gathered around the doors of the hotel armed with cameras, souvenirs, and Sharpies hoping in vain that a player would come out and indulge them with an autograph. As with everywhere else we'd been, the area could have been swarming with celebrities and I wouldn't have been able to tell. However, we did see what looked like players messing around in the upper balconies of the hotel as well as driving motorized scooters through the back halls. The security was thick as a blanket so there was no way to verify any of it. Once again, we ordered some beers and waited, and waited for the food to arrive. After about 8 courses and 3 hours we ended dinner with a chocolate football filled with mouse, a highly decadent, but tasty finale. Already an hour late for our next event, we climbed back upon the bus and headed back to Jax beach; destination the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Party.

Our driver dropped us off about 2 blocks from the party, which was located in a huge tent on the beach directly across a large park from Jacksonville Beach City Hall. We walked through the small downtown area, which was crawling with fans. The bars were hopping and I thought I heard a live performance of Green Day, but it could have been just some random band. Regardless, there were a ton of bands playing all over the area and beer sales were soaring. As we neared the tent entrance we saw that the entrance was separated from a huge crowd of screaming onlookers with security all over. We were corralled into a narrow entry area where there was a red carpet entry for guests, just like the awards shows. I could tell by the look on the onlookers faces that they were struggling to figure out who we were, and appropriately nothing was registering. Inside the tent there were multiple large screen displays on either end showing video of the SI swimsuit models, bikini clad dancers on 3 or 4 small luminescent stages, a total of three women that appeared to be models, and a sea of testosterone burdened schmucks. Almost immediately I started snapping pictures with my recently purchased digital camera when somebody behind me asked if I wanted my picture taken with the only 3 models in sight. I obliged to the generous offer and, embarrassingly the camera seemed to malfunction 4 times, only two of which were actual malfunctions, so I have a nice picture of me, my partner, Roshumba, and two models for which I have no idea who they are.

We bellied up to the bar for another round of beers and did what you do at these things; stand around and look at everyone else standing around. Lynn Swan was spotted in the secure VIP section. Tom Arnold made an appearance, as did MC Hammer. One of the guys in the group snuck into the area and claimed to have been shuffle dancing with Hammer later that night.

The music, played by some dude named DJ Kev E Kev, was loud as hell. At some point a guy slipped onto stage and started bouncing and rapping. Apparently he was/is Kanye West, a Grammy Nominee. I have to admit I wouldn't have known him from the kid down the block, but everyone seemed to think him to be a big deal. This was about the time when an Elvis Costello clone started bumping and grinding with another dude, and to my horror engaged in a tongue lock nearly resulting in an instant hurl on my part. The remainder of the evening consisted of more shuffling around, another 6-8 beers, several bottles of water, multiple trips outside for a smoke, and long waits in line to pee. While smoking I met a guy who claimed to run the IT for Time Inc, a local mother of 2 who just happened on a ticket (which were fetching $2500 outside), and a ad rep for CareerBuilder dot com. I'd had all I could handle of the scene by 2am and we wandered to the shuttle on the other side of the park, where some of the more entertaining moments occurred. We witnessed some inebriated woman dry humping a Chevy Tahoe on display in the park, some dude frantically trying to find a McDonalds, one of the dudes in our group fall out of the bus (I got a picture of this), and some drunken woman stumbling around trying to hug anything that resembled a male. We eventually made it back to the hotel around 3am, and as none of the local bars were open (unbelievable), we went to bed, unbelievably sober. Once again, someone puked in the elevator, and it wasn't me.

Sunday - Day 4

Sunday brunch was held in a new location, the Aqua Grill and was kicked off with more liquor; some sissy drink consisting of orange juice and champagne which was topped with some of the fanciest breakfast food I could imagine. Hell, I don't even know what it was, but it was pretty good. I had a spinach, tomato and cheese omelet, which hit the spot.

We left for the pre-game festivities around noon. Our sponsors had a tent in the corporate club area, where we ate again (good God). There was beer on the bus, and more beer in the tent. By this time, I'd resorted to ingesting water, as I wanted to at least see and remember the game to come.

We milled about in the corporate park area after lunch. There was one merchandise stand, at which the lines were unbearable, so I waited to get into the stadium, hoping that the lines would be better. There was some fairly lame entertainment too. The Florida A&M marching band (good), which apparently was in the movie Drum Line played. There was a 4 peice band (lame) with a dancing cheerleader (on stilts). They had posing football players, painted gold (kind of lame). And my partner's favorite attraction was a chocolate fountain, in which you could dip a number of things including marshmallows, rice crispy treats, apricots, and strawberries. I passed on that one, as I'd had more than enough to eat already. John Travolta and his posse made an appearance on their way to the Cadillac tent too.

At 4pm we headed to the stadium. My first stop after entering was the merchandise stand where I bought a Teddy Bruschi jersey ($80) and two Super Bowl caps for my friend ($64). I figured since I had already chosen to sit on the Patriots side of the field, I should get in the spirit of the game. I donned my Jersey and set out to find our seats. On the way, other Pats fans would yell out in my direction and high-five me. I got another photo opportunity, only instead of models; I posed with three blue muppet-haired, jersey clad Pats fans.

Our seats were in the club level, which turned out to have an actual club house that you had to walk through to get to the seats. Sadly, one of the men's rooms had already broken down before the start of the game, a damning sign of things to come. We made our way to the seats in time to watch some of the players warming up on the field.

Our seats were on about the 25 yard line, on the New England side, about 22 rows up; excellent seats.

We watched Donovan McNabb, Terrell Owens, Tom Brady and the kickers warm up, which was pretty cool. It was more than obvious that Eagles fans largely outnumbered New England fans and they were really loud.

The Pre-Game

It's amazing how fast the grounds crews can move out an enormous amount of equipment onto the field. Gretchen Wilson performed, as did Charlie Daniels, a hell of a fiddler, followed by the Black Eyed Peas and Earth Wind and Fire, who were awesome. We saw Presidents George HW Bush and Clinton come onto the field and the National Anthem sung by the combined Armed Services choir brought a tear to my eye as the fly-overs happened. I had to pee, so I missed Will Smith and most of Alecia Keyes.

The Game

What an amazing experience. The game itself was a little sloppy, but the experience was golden. I don't think I've jumped up and down as much any other time in my life. We had to, as every play seemed to get the people in front of us up, and we had to stand just to see what was happening.

There was a little kid, of about age 12, standing immediately behind us screaming "Go Eagles" piercing our eardrums. Eventually security told him to sit down, but he was a persistent little shit and drifted back two or three times. We also had some Eagles fans directly to our right who were wearing cool caps with plastic eagles that would flap their wings.

It was very cold, about 50 degrees, so I'd come prepared and wore about 5 layers of clothes. My new camera didn't work as well in this environment as I'd hoped, and thankfully my buddy had an excellent camera, so most of the usable photos, about 100, are from him.

Also, amazingly the stadium ran out of burgers before the end of the 1st quarter, so I chose the healthy alternative, a bratwurst with hot peppers and cheese fries.

Halftime

I'm not a big Beatles, or Paul McCartney fan, but the halftime show was excellent too. The music was good, and the pyrotechnics were amazing. Our bodies vibrated with the base and percussion of the explosions and we could feel the heat coming from the flames especially during Live and Let Die, which will forever remind me of Super Bowl XXXIX. The crowd had been given little flashlights, which we all used during Hey Jude. I'm told that the TV didn't show this very well due to the number of flash bulbs going off. I have a decent picture of this that I'll post. Some fans also had colored cards which they held up, which apparently spelled Na Na Na or something like that, but it was impossible to tell from the stands.

The end of the Game

We were pretty juiced when New England went up by 10 in the last quarter. One of the cool things was that the stadium distributed AM receivers, so we could listen to play by play while we watched the game, which made it the best football experience ever. We couldn't figure out why the Eagles seemed to be dragging their feet in the last 5 minutes. They appeared to give up, even after they narrowed the gap to 3 points. Why McNabb threw the pass from the end zone to the 4 yard line I have no idea. And when McNabb’s last pass was intercepted, the Pats fan's went wild.

After time expired the stadium erupted with elation. Confetti and fireworks flooded the field and lit the sky; an awesome sight.

Tom Arnold was sighted once again, slinking onto the sidelines with about 2 minutes left.

We wanted to hang around for the post game activities in the stadium, but we had been told that the bus was leaving at 11pm sharp and it was already near 10:30 so we took off. We wanted to get back to the hospitality tent, but security hustled us out with the crowd where we struggled to get through thousands of extremely dejected Philadelphia fans. We walked about 2 miles completely around the stadium area to reach the bus parking lot where we discovered that the bus wouldn't leave at 11pm, but not until everyone showed up, which turned out to be after midnight. Feeling somewhat slighted, we asked the event planners to call into the tent area and have someone bring out some food. It was cold and kind of crap, but at the end of the day, it served its purpose.

Apparently, the part of our group that sat on the Eagles side of the field was seated next to two Hawaiian Tropic girls, Dennis Quaid, and the Governor of Pennsylvania. One of the goofs was so drunk by this point that he’d already passed out completely in the bus. Nobody knows how he even made it to the bus.

We arrived back at the hotel around 1am. The bars again were closed, but some of the crew wanted to party more, so they headed back out for destinations unknown. We decided not to ruin a good thing so headed up to the room and watched some of the post game analysis; feeling satisfied having had one of the best sports days imaginable.

Monday - Day 5

Sadly my flight wasn't to depart until 6:47pm Monday, so we had an entire day to kill. We skipped breakfast for obvious reasons and took in a light lunch at a near by sandwich shop. I purchased some last minute gifts for the family in the lobby Super Bowl merchandise stand. For my wife, a nice blanket ($50), a cute sleeveless shirt for my daughter ($20), and caps for my 2 boys at home ($40). I should have bought something for my son away from home and his family, but spaced out. I'll have to figure that one out later.

We started hearing horror stories about traffic to the airport and huge lines in security, so we decided not to risk missing our flights and get to the airport early. We left the hotel about 2pm and arrived about 3pm. We rode with 2 other guys in the group; two of them that had missed the shuttles each night partying in Jax Beach. On the way to the airport one of them had the driver pull off the road so he could launch his guts, which was mildly entertaining.

The security line was long but moved quickly and we were at our gate in plenty of time. I downloaded the pictures from my friend’s camera, as well as from mine and settled into a book by Dean Koontz I'd purchased at the gift shop ($12). The wait was pretty long, and the airport was uncomfortably crowded, but we boarded the plane at 6:25pm and departed on time for our layover in Atlanta. The 1st leg worked out nicely as I had the row to myself again. I also sat behind one of the Philadelphia cheerleaders, which seemed strange to me as I figured they flew on some sort of team transportation.

I was a little worried about the connection in Atlanta as I had only 20 minutes to get from one terminal to another, but my 2nd leg turned out to be delayed for an hour and a half due to crap weather in Chicago (what a surprise). We left Atlanta about 10pm Eastern time and reached Chicago at about 10:45pm Central time. The 2nd leg sucked. I hate it when bastards bring on 5 carry on bags, all over sized, leaving schmucks like me, having only one bag, to put the sucker at my feet. To top it off, the overhead reading lamp for my seat lit the seat next to mine, leaving me in the dark, and with a useless paperback novel.

Overall impression

What an awesome time. I could have done without the hobnobbing at the Nike and SI parties, but they were worth trying once. I probably wouldn't seek them out again. They're for younger, single, more attractive, and more important people than me. The transportation in Jacksonville was a nightmare, which cut into a lot of time we could have spent on activities, but it was bearable. The people of Jacksonville were extremely pleasant. There were volunteer greeters and helpers everywhere and without exception, each was polite and helpful. The entertainment value of the game is immense. I realize it's an expensive outing for someone paying their own way, but I can easily see why someone would do it. Today, I feel like I'd be willing to foot my own, less elaborate, trek to another Super Bowl. My highlights in order would be:

- The game

- Half-time show

- Pre-game show

- The crowd and hype in and around the stadium

- NFL experience

- Golf (even though I suck)