It was much more than a huge win, for me. Thought I'd share, since I have time and jellyman isn't making insanely long posts anymore, lol.
So, the day started off very nicely, as I met up with @rutgersfandan (the famous Danny Breslauer, who most of you know from his work announcing RU games and the Scarlet Spotlight podcast, the best RU sports podcast around) and his younger brother Jordan for lunch before yesterday's game at Pithari Taverna, the awesome Greek restaurant in Highland Park, where they grew up and where I've lived a few times (and where my wife is from).
In the thread, below, from my trip to Indy, I talked about how I met up with them serendipitously at the RU-Clemson NCAA game in Indy and then had a great meal with them before the Houston game and then watched us almost make the Sweet 16, only to crash and burn at the end. Just great kids, truly (anyone under 35 is a kid to me, lol), and immense RU fans and in some future post I'll tell the story of how our son's job search intersected cosmically with my trip to Indy and running into these guys. But this thread is about yesterday.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ches-on-a-great-2-seasons.214518/post-5030420
So, after an awesome lunch talking about RU sports, mostly - by the way, if you ever go to Pithari, their pita and olives are superb, the saganaki app (flaming, honey infused graviera cheese prepared tableside) is off-the-charts-good, and so many entrees are fantastic, but I'm very partial to their lamb chops, which are as good as any I've ever had - I made it over to the RAC, where my ticket-mate for the MSU game was our own @silentwillie and his wife and a longtime friend of mine from Metuchen, who hadn't been to a game in a couple of years (he was my partner for the NIT games at MSG years ago and had been to a game or two per year at the RAC for many years).
However, my friend hadn't been to a game with us since we moved from 205 to the 3rd row in 102 few years ago and he was floored by the seats (still can't believe it took us this long to move down, lol). And of course the game was amazing and we were all drained afterwards from screaming our heads off, but I think the game has been well-covered elsewhere, including my two cents in many posts, so no need to rehash here...other than to reiterate the thoughts from my thread on how maybe, just maybe, things might not be so bad next year after Ron and Geo leave - we'll see of course.
After the game, my buddy and I went to Clydz for drinks, since we hadn't had a chance to catch up yet and celebrating the win certainly seemed like a good idea, too. We went to Clydz, since that has been one of our group's favorite places for many years to have a few drinks and hang at the bar (as it's just a cool bar and they always play great tunes) and sometimes grab a bite to eat. And we had the added bonus of Clydz just having been purchased by my good friend @InGregITrust (who also owns the Olive Branch and Tavern on George, two of my other favorite places in NB).
So, we had a couple of drinks and my buddy's friends from HP were there (he got divorced about 5 years ago and moved to HP), which was cool and in chatting with these folks, in a very weird twist of fate, it turns out that one of his friends was the guy who bought the house my wife grew up in in HP, when her dad decided to sell it in 2004 and move to a retirement community. Texted my wife who was at home (not a sports fan) and she absolutely is going to take him up on his offer to go back and see what they've done to fix up the house. Small world.
And then in walks @InGregITrust and his wife, who were also at the game with their kids and extended family, so they were also out to celebrate. After chatting with them for a bit, they went to eat in the dining room and about 10 minutes later a woman walked up to us and introduced herself as the chef and asked if we wanted a couple of apps on the house - that was a very nice surprise and just like Doug to do. We went with a dozen oysters, which were superb and the pork belly tacos, as we wanted something kind of unique neither of us had had before and they just blew us away - I want to go back and get more now, lol.
Now being old folks, lol, and having wives/SO's to get back to, we left around 9 pm after having a real blast at Clydz - yes Doug, we tipped well, lol. Seemed like the perfect Rutgers Day to me, but there was one more small surprise: I drove back to Metuchen on 27 and once I was through HP, I caught every single light green from there to our house, reminding me of the David Gray song, Babylon. And then once at home I got to share the highlights of the great day with my wife and son. We don't always get such good days, so I think it's important to savor them.
Saturday I'm running wild
And all the lights are changing red to green...
So, the day started off very nicely, as I met up with @rutgersfandan (the famous Danny Breslauer, who most of you know from his work announcing RU games and the Scarlet Spotlight podcast, the best RU sports podcast around) and his younger brother Jordan for lunch before yesterday's game at Pithari Taverna, the awesome Greek restaurant in Highland Park, where they grew up and where I've lived a few times (and where my wife is from).
In the thread, below, from my trip to Indy, I talked about how I met up with them serendipitously at the RU-Clemson NCAA game in Indy and then had a great meal with them before the Houston game and then watched us almost make the Sweet 16, only to crash and burn at the end. Just great kids, truly (anyone under 35 is a kid to me, lol), and immense RU fans and in some future post I'll tell the story of how our son's job search intersected cosmically with my trip to Indy and running into these guys. But this thread is about yesterday.
https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ches-on-a-great-2-seasons.214518/post-5030420
So, after an awesome lunch talking about RU sports, mostly - by the way, if you ever go to Pithari, their pita and olives are superb, the saganaki app (flaming, honey infused graviera cheese prepared tableside) is off-the-charts-good, and so many entrees are fantastic, but I'm very partial to their lamb chops, which are as good as any I've ever had - I made it over to the RAC, where my ticket-mate for the MSU game was our own @silentwillie and his wife and a longtime friend of mine from Metuchen, who hadn't been to a game in a couple of years (he was my partner for the NIT games at MSG years ago and had been to a game or two per year at the RAC for many years).
However, my friend hadn't been to a game with us since we moved from 205 to the 3rd row in 102 few years ago and he was floored by the seats (still can't believe it took us this long to move down, lol). And of course the game was amazing and we were all drained afterwards from screaming our heads off, but I think the game has been well-covered elsewhere, including my two cents in many posts, so no need to rehash here...other than to reiterate the thoughts from my thread on how maybe, just maybe, things might not be so bad next year after Ron and Geo leave - we'll see of course.
After the game, my buddy and I went to Clydz for drinks, since we hadn't had a chance to catch up yet and celebrating the win certainly seemed like a good idea, too. We went to Clydz, since that has been one of our group's favorite places for many years to have a few drinks and hang at the bar (as it's just a cool bar and they always play great tunes) and sometimes grab a bite to eat. And we had the added bonus of Clydz just having been purchased by my good friend @InGregITrust (who also owns the Olive Branch and Tavern on George, two of my other favorite places in NB).
So, we had a couple of drinks and my buddy's friends from HP were there (he got divorced about 5 years ago and moved to HP), which was cool and in chatting with these folks, in a very weird twist of fate, it turns out that one of his friends was the guy who bought the house my wife grew up in in HP, when her dad decided to sell it in 2004 and move to a retirement community. Texted my wife who was at home (not a sports fan) and she absolutely is going to take him up on his offer to go back and see what they've done to fix up the house. Small world.
And then in walks @InGregITrust and his wife, who were also at the game with their kids and extended family, so they were also out to celebrate. After chatting with them for a bit, they went to eat in the dining room and about 10 minutes later a woman walked up to us and introduced herself as the chef and asked if we wanted a couple of apps on the house - that was a very nice surprise and just like Doug to do. We went with a dozen oysters, which were superb and the pork belly tacos, as we wanted something kind of unique neither of us had had before and they just blew us away - I want to go back and get more now, lol.
Now being old folks, lol, and having wives/SO's to get back to, we left around 9 pm after having a real blast at Clydz - yes Doug, we tipped well, lol. Seemed like the perfect Rutgers Day to me, but there was one more small surprise: I drove back to Metuchen on 27 and once I was through HP, I caught every single light green from there to our house, reminding me of the David Gray song, Babylon. And then once at home I got to share the highlights of the great day with my wife and son. We don't always get such good days, so I think it's important to savor them.
Saturday I'm running wild
And all the lights are changing red to green...
