Day in the life of a die hard Celtics fan

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For those who’ve been reading my entries for a while, you’re aware that last year I took a trip to ATL to see my Cowboys. A lotta folks joked on me claiming that married life would put an end to those trips across the country to attend sporting events. Little do folks realize, my wife loves sports just as much (if not more) than I do. On this go round, she accompanied me to Beantown to the Celtics game.

Destination – Wizards @ Celtics game – Home Opener
Location – TD Banknorth Garden, Boston MA
Time – 8:00pm

Friday November 2, 2007

  • 8:15am – Awoke to the wife nudging me in my back, got up, showered, threw on my lucky Celtics basketball shorts and T-shirt and lounged around the house since I didn’t have to go to work.

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  • 10:53am – Got dressed, did the online check-in for our AirTran tickets to Boston, confirmed hotel reservations and made sure that the duffle bag was packed with all necessities.
  • 11:20am – Ran the wife to Modell’s so she could get her Wizards Arenas jersey. You know she wasn’t bout to wear the one that I got for her that Gilbert personalized and autographed.
  • 11:43am – Dropped wife off at her job for a luncheon that she needed to attend. Then ran some errands at Costco and downtown DC in the meantime.
  • 1:51pm – Scooped her up from her office, then headed back home to grab our bags for the trip.
  • 3:18pm – Arrived at BWI airport, parked car at $8 lot and caught shuttle to gate.
  • 4:20pm – Boarded plane en route to Boston. We both snagged the headphones given out my the flight attendant and grooved to the XM Radio stations offered by AirTran.
  • 4:52pm – Flight attendants served soda and juice. The wife got a small cup of Coke. I received an entire can of cranberry apple juice. The male flight attendant was obviously ‘sweet’. I just think he was just being nice since I asked for the juice with no ice.
  • 5:57pm – Arrived in Boston. Logan Airport really sucks! Walked outside and it was freezing. Hopped in a cab, told him our destination and sat in the back for the 30 minute traffic filled ride to our hotel in Copley Square.
  • 6:12pm – Walked down Boylston St to Walgreens, so the wife could get somethin’ (look, I don’t remember what it was). But I do remember the rude cashier that almost made my wife go DC on her young Black tail when she didn’t bag up whatever she had bought. Kids these days I tell ya. Ole girl was too busy making goo goo eyes at some young dudes in the store to properly do her job.

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  • 7:01pm – After relaxing in the room for a sec and each changing up in the gear our our respective teams, we jetted from the hotel via cab en route to TD Banknorth Garden to see my Celtics take on her Wizards.

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  • 7:24pm – Arrived at the arena. It was mad packed trying to get in there. Change the white faces to Black faces and you’ve got a Howard Homecoming event. Yeah, it was that crowded!!! Forgive me, but being from the DC area I’m used to seeing more folks like me. Boston was the complete opposite.
  • 7:41pm – Wife and I stood at the long line at the concessions. You know I’m lookin’ at my watch cuz I’m not tryna miss the opening intros for my squad. After what seemed like an eternity, we grabbed our chicken strips. I got mine laced up with lotsa buffalo wing sauce, but the wife doesn’t like spicy and she got the plain ones. That’s wack.

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  • 8:02pm. The Wizards are introduced and Gilbert Arenas is booed loudly!!! I look over at the wife and laugh at her in her Wizards attire.
  • 8:05pm – My squad is introduced and the energy was incredible. Here’s the clip taken from my digital camera which I YouTube’d


  • 8:09pm – Kevin Garnett throws up his first shot… a BRICK!!!
  • 8:12pm – Celtics score first on a pair of KG free throws.

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  • 8:34pm – Cameras in the arena capture shots of various New England Patriots players in the crowd attending game and show on big multimedia screen.
  • 9:19pm – Halftime. Celtics up 58-36. KG, The Truth and Ray Ray are killin’ the Wiz.
  • 9:47pm – A few players from the Red Sox are up in a suite showcasing the World Series trophy as the crowd goes nuts. I was slightly irritated cuz I was tryna watch the game. All these jokers standing up to see some stupid trophy while the Celtics are running up and down the court. Fools. Celtics are still whoopin’ the Wiz though.

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  • 9:53pm – Kid in the row behind us gets on his cell phone and is excited to tell everyone he knows that he was 15 feet from the World Series trophy. Lyin’ azz. We were close to the suite, but not 15 feet kid. Maybe 1500 feet.
  • 10:12pm – Wizards are still getting mashed. Arenas sits down on the bench. Camera shows him grin sheepishly as the Boston crowd chants “Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiibert sucks!!!”
  • 10:17pm – The wife completely devastated (as you can clearly see) by the Wizards gettin’ their butts kicked on the court, reluctantly agrees to let me take our customary self portrait. Doesn’t she look sad??? LOL.

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  • 10:34pm – Game over. Celtics win 103-83. It’s gonna be a very fun season for me, I can feel it for the first time in 20 years.

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  • 10:43pm – 10:56pm – Walked around TD Banknorth Garden taking random pics. I know my wife was probably tired of me gloating and was ready to go back to hotel, but best believe that I was gonna enjoy every single moment of that victory.

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  • 10:57pm – I convinced the wife to take the second of our customary self portraits that we always take when we go to sporting events. Based on the pic below, you can see how she feels about my love for the Celtics.

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  • 11:09pm-12:16am – We caught a cab back to hotel. Walked through the Copley Square area for a while, but it was boring. I think I can honestly count the number of brothas and sistahs that we saw on one hand. That includes the cat in the 7-Eleven too. No offense Boston folks, but the atmosphere just wasn’t live. Maybe we were on the wrong side of town or came on the wrong weekend or somethin’.

Saturday November 3, 2007

  • 9:50am – Woke up. Went downstairs to get our ‘free’ breakfast. Maaaaaaaaaaan… it was mostly unripe lookin’ fruit and some stale lookin’ donuts. I snagged a banana though cuz I was kinda hungry.
  • 9:54am – We walked to Dunkin’ Donuts and got some breakfast pastries and breakfast sandwiches.
  • 10:26am-12:07pm – Walked around Boston some more. It was cold and rainy and we finally found our way to Starbucks to get our Chai Latte’s.

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  • 1:02pm– Found out our 4:30 flight was canceled due to Hurricane Noel. Started getting worried we’d have to take the train or bus home after looking at more airlines and the large amounts of cancellations.
  • 2:10pm – Received a call from AirTran saying that we were rebooked on the 5:30 flight.
  • 2:47pm Grabbed our stuff from the secure area in the hotel and headed for Logan Airport via public transportation. Yeah, it was much cheaper than a cab and we had the time.
  • 3:36pm – Get to airport after transferring a bunch of times from the green line to blue line due to trains being taken out of service. Did I say that Boston public transportation is kinda wack too?
  • 4:42pm – While going through security I get stopped cuz I had my Bluetooth in my wife’s shoes in the duffle bag. The TSA agent was slow as hell. I thought he was gonna try and strip search me for weapons with the look he had on his face.
  • 5:28pm – Board jam packed plane. Get out the headphones for XM again and groove to music.
  • 5:53pm – Female flight attendants come by with drinks. We each got small cups with our drink orders. No can this go round.
  • 6:46pm – We arrive home safely. Thank the good Lord.

The End……………………………

Peace-N-Love

G. Mo

G. Mo’s Slammin’ Sweet Potato Pies

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***Back By Popular Demand***

I’ve received a ton of requests and emails asking me to repost my sweet potato pie recipe. So for the lazy folks who fail to utilize the search function, here ya go… lol. I’ve done nothing but cut and paste exactly what I posted last year. No variances, except this statement you’re reading right now. All ingredients are the same and the pics are what they were before. Enjoy

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Well, it’s the time of year again folks where I whip out the chef hat and go to work. I mentioned in previous blogs about my love for baking sweet potato pies. I’ve been shocked at them number of emails that I’ve received inquiring about my recipe. Now, a good number of you have used the blog search function and located the blog and recipe that I posted about a year ago. The rest of the folks just want me to make things easier for them. So I’ll be nice and do it… this time. I changed up a few things on the recipe that I experimented with, but nothing major. I found the texture of the pie was better with the small changes. I added a few more eggs and cut back on the butter/margarine slightly. Also, the info on how to do the pie crusts was left out last year, so I included that as well.

I baked a few already last week, but I’ll definitely be in the kitchen for a good part of the next week hooking up more pies. Ladies, don’t be afraid to tell your family and friends that you got this recipe from a man. Brothas can work it out in the kitchen as well. Fellas who shy away from the kitchen, go on and give this one a shot. Trust me when I tell ya, you might earn some cool points if you follow the instructions as I’ve listed. Regardless whether male or female, you’re gonna have folks trying to get at you to find out the recipe for this one. I can honestly say that I’ve never had one person complain or give me a bad review on this. In fact, I have plenty of testimonials over the past few years from those who’ve made pies from this recipe and loved it.

This has always been a hobby of mine. I used to only make pies for myself and that was it. It wasn’t until I brought a pie to work for one of those holiday potlucks that I realized that other people really enjoyed them too. It was actually a chef at the hotel I was engineering at, who told me I could make money selling them. He was right, I’ve done pretty well the past 5 years. But I’m not a stingy person and can’t make all the pies. So I figured I’d share. Anyway, here it is again.

G. Mo’s Slammin’ Sweet Potato Pie

2 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
4 eggs
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon (or more… *wink*) rum or Navan vanilla cognac (or for the non-drinkers, use Rum flavoring or Rum extract)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons melted butter/margarine
1 unbaked deep dish pie crust

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First off, you must boil the potatoes. I didn’t mention that before because it seemed like a no-brainer, but everyone wasn’t able to decipher the fact that this is the FIRST step.

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After the potatoes are cooked and you’ve peeled them, throw them in a bowl and mixed them up, then you go ahead to the next step.

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Pre-heat cha oven to like 400-425 degrees.

Pie crust preparation: take 1/2 cup of brown sugar and stick of margarine/butter and microwave together… layer the pie shell with the melted brown sugary mix and place in oven for 10 minutes at 350 or until crust browns. Do not worry about the crust bubbling, it’s going to do that. Whatever you do, do not pop it!!!!!

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Mix the sweet potatoes, milk, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, eggs, butter/margarine, vanilla, liquor and lemon juice until it gets real smooth. Then pour it into the pie shell.

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Bake for about 15 minutes at 400-425, then reduce heat to 300 and bake for about 45 minutes or until the filling is firm.

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Take it from the oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes

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Grab some Cool Whip, vanilla ice cream or whatever you like to add and get’cha eat on!!!!