Blocked.

“I hid the clouded wrath of the crowd,

But when they said, “Sit down,” I stood up,

Ooh, ooh, growin’ up.”

Last night I was at the Bulls v. Wizards basketball game in Washington D.C. This week our company had what we call, “quarterly sales kick-offs” and sure enough, we had an open night; my beloved Chicago Bulls were in town to play against another below .500 team. One of my associates said, “You want to go?” He didn’t even have to get the words out before I said, “Yes.”

Now, for some reason, the seats in D.C. are a lot less expensive than the same ones would be in Chicago. Probably two-thirds less. So, I really was “IN”… as were five of my other teammates. Of no great shock, I wanted to bring my camera; I checked the website, downloaded the restrictions, went to the front desk of my hotel, measured the size of my lens, and off we went.

Getting into a stadium is not as easy as it used to be. You walk through a metal detector, unzip your jacket, smile (I always do) and walk through to the other side. That’s when I heard, “You can’t bring that in here!”  

I asked a very astute question, “Why?” 

I was told, “The lens is too long.”  I stood my ground, because what was I going to do, go back to my hotel? The guard called over one of her associates who said, “The camera is fine but the lens is not.” Once again, I stood my ground, and he said, “I know the rules.” He then called over another guard who must have said, “Let him through and off I went…there was no way I was looking back!”

The seats my associate purchased were amazing. They were 7 rows from the court, along the baseline and had a clear view of the court. I was as close to basketball heaven as I could be without putting on my Nike’s.

One of the best things about Capital One stadium is how the seats are positioned to provide a very good vantage point. The person in front of me didn’t stand a chance of blocking me unless they stood up. Which, they didn’t. I was sitting next to some Wizard’s fans, one had never been to a game before and commented, “For a first game, it does not get much better than this for seats.”

Then it happened, it was in the 2nd quarter, the Bulls were on the end of the court where I was sitting. I heard laughter and rustling of people moving to let this creature come down the stairs. Sure enough, “G-Wiz” the mascot was coming our way. He not only came our way, he sat two rows in front of us. I guess he, I assume it’s a he, knows that there are people in the stands who come to watch the game. Or in my case, watch and take pictures at the game.

So…

He stood up about a minute later and went on to distract others in the stands away from where we were sitting. So what was a distraction, turned into a photo opportunity…and in some crazy way, I am glad he came by.

The photo above is of “G-Wiz” sitting next to some other Bulls fans who had even better seats than we did. They were vocal about their allegiance to the Bulls, and some Wizards fans behind them were not real happy how they were acting. So I watched, kept my mouth shut and kept taking pictures…I already avoided having my camera confiscated, this was not going to be the next one.

Thanks for stopping by.