good to be home...

It seems weird to go to a United match at RFK right before the NCAA tournament starts, but sometimes you gotta go with the weird. United needed a win in order to advance to the semi-finals of the regional club competition. 5 goals later everybody went home happy.

Staying with the number 5, United saw five new players take the field at RFK last night:

Wells in goal
Martinez in central defense
Peralta in central defense
Gallardo in central midfield
Niell up top

Quaranta made his return to the team he started with oh so many years ago as a teenager.

What was new?: Well for the first time in I don't know how long, I had real trouble getting into the parking lot earlier than it officially opened. Yvonne and I (Josh showed up later) ended up doing our best impersonation of that scene from European Vacation where they keep circling around Big Ben and Parliament. Finally I just jumped the curb and went down the hill. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Being late for a tailgate is most definitely a drastic time.

That problem will quickly be solved as I have an actual United pass coming my way before the next game.

We were promised sod in Lot 8, but..... Well I guess beggars can't be choosers but we got some sort of garden type stones. Interesting. For all of you Lot 8 newbies, there used to be grass everywhere. Of course the flip side to that is that the team used to suck. Pick you poison I guess.

Apparently beer vendors don't work the aisles until at least April. What a major inconvenience for the Barra as a whole. Having to walk to get a beer is just inhumane.

United has a player, Niell, that is listed at 5'4 and looks more like 4'11. When he is in the game I can't keep my eyes off of him. I want to just put him in a headlock and give him a nuggie. I can't wait to get on the field to get an actual feel for how short he really is in person.

Some guys used my grill to cook up veggie burgers and other vegan type items. This will be a sign of things to come as some Barra members I can think of said goodbye to meat over the off-season. I could see a lot of shrimp kabobs in our future.

What wasn't new?: At the last minute there was some confusion on who was getting the keg, so I stopped off and got one. Big surprise right? Well at least I didn't have to stop off at RFD and beg them to treat me like an actual human being.

Some guy I have never seen in my life just walked up to me, handed me a bag full of hot dogs and buns, said they were for everybody, and proceeded to just walk out of our lives forever. This happens every week.

The smell of "special" cigarettes was in the air.

We had problems with the tap.

I still don't know Spanish. Not even conversational Spanish.

I said "Hi" to countless people whose name I couldn't come up with if you gave me a thousand tries.

We managed to sneak a few beers inside the stadium.

Baker broke a seat inside the stadium.

Fans threw 7 dollar beers like they were independently wealthy.

Great News: Three home games were added to the schedule in July.

Better News: Two of those games are SATURDAY NIGHT GAMES! Who doesn't love a Saturday Night game??? No seriously tell me so we can stop being friends.