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My Perfect Rutgers+ Day...Part Deux

RU848789

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Jul 27, 2001
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Metuchen, NJ
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
...

 
OK so because of you, I hate my dog right now. I had made a reservation for Clydz at 6:30 PM and was planning on taking my wife after the game. Then a few days before, my wife asks when we're leaving for the game and she decides it's not possible to leave my dog alone in the house from 2:30 PM - 9 PM which is what it would have taken for us to go to the game, have dinner at Clydz, and come back home. We moved relatively recently and don't have the collateral with our new neighbors to have one of them manage the dog for us. So being the henpecked jackass that I am, I don't put up a fight and cancel the reservation.
Now I'm super annoyed because I would have loved to run into you and Doug in that setting.
 
OK so because of you, I hate my dog right now. I had made a reservation for Clydz at 6:30 PM and was planning on taking my wife after the game. Then a few days before, my wife asks when we're leaving for the game and she decides it's not possible to leave my dog alone in the house from 2:30 PM - 9 PM which is what it would have taken for us to go to the game, have dinner at Clydz, and come back home. We moved relatively recently and don't have the collateral with our new neighbors to have one of them manage the dog for us. So being the henpecked jackass that I am, I don't put up a fight and cancel the reservation.
Now I'm super annoyed because I would have loved to run into you and Doug in that setting.
Damn that sucks - would've been cool to see you guys. Did you at least get to go to the game? Also another reason I like cats more than dogs, lol...
 
Damn that sucks - would've been cool to see you guys. Did you at least get to go to the game? Also another reason I like cats more than dogs, lol...
Oh yeah, we went to the game. The reason I earmarked my wife for my extra ticket was because it timed out perfectly for a night on the town in New Brunswick afterward. The best laid plans...
 
Gotta love those RU days, a “W” always gets those feeling great spirits up the whole day.

It’s why I love hitting football road games. Nothing better than hanging out with. RU brethren all day, getting a win, partying afterwards, and a happy trip back home.
 
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OK so because of you, I hate my dog right now. I had made a reservation for Clydz at 6:30 PM and was planning on taking my wife after the game. Then a few days before, my wife asks when we're leaving for the game and she decides it's not possible to leave my dog alone in the house from 2:30 PM - 9 PM which is what it would have taken for us to go to the game, have dinner at Clydz, and come back home. We moved relatively recently and don't have the collateral with our new neighbors to have one of them manage the dog for us. So being the henpecked jackass that I am, I don't put up a fight and cancel the reservation.
Now I'm super annoyed because I would have loved to run into you and Doug in that setting.
A dog that can’t be alone for 6 1/2 hours? 🙄
 
While today wasn't anywhere near as awesome of a day as Saturday, overall, it was still pretty damn good. I'll cheat and start with a perfect dinner last night with my wife at Woodstack in Metuchen, as the food was just superb and it was a fun night to eat at the bar.

Then, today, I went down to Manahawkin to play a round of disc golf at Doc Cramer, a really good course, that's heavily wooded/narrow, but not crazy long - have a tourney there on Saturday. The really cool part was I ended up playing with Chris Villa, a world top 100 player, who's probably one of the top 5 players in NJ. Really cool guy and I was actually beating him through 4 holes (I was 3 under and he was 2 under), although he then crushed me most of the rest of the way, as he probably finished at -10 or so and I finished at -2.

Chris also showed me the disc he uses to execute the "hyzer-flip" throw, which was nice - I haven't been able to do that throw with the discs I have, so I bought one on the way home at Bria Disc Golf shop in Brielle. After that, I stopped in at Anthony's Pizza in the strip mall there and had two fantastic slices - most times I stop in at the disc golf store I make sure I get some slices - really great pizza shop.

And then there was the game. I've made tons of comments in other threads about how amazing the comeback was, our fantastic defense, especially during the 10-0 run, Geo dominating at the end, winning despite a subpar RHJ game, Paul continuing to play very well, CO getting another 6-6 game (2 in a row), and Caleb's off the charts defense including that incredible block, and, of course our great fans and the great job by the coaching staff.

I'd also like to repeat something I said in another thread: I think the turning point of the season has been the emergence of Paul Mulcahy the last 3-4 games. The way he's playing completely changes the dynamics for every team defending us and makes every other player on the floor for us better, as defenses can't ignore him any more and his passing is just so good. Hard to overestimate how important that is and it's now possible that we're going to beat some more of these ranked teams and they won't be upsets either - if we continue to play with defensive intensity (which can travel) and continue to share the ball really well, getting great shots.

Lastly, after the game, I got to shake Coach Schiano's hand, as he was sitting 2 rows in front of us and I also joked that he needed to come to more games, so we could get some more huge wins like this. He got a good chuckle out of that and my friend captured his thumbs up in the pic below. A pretty good day.

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