Update

So the past 6-7 weeks I have been on a business trip, assessing over 70 schools, and now completing the reports for those assessments. I was in Milwaukee, WI, and yes, it was cold. I would get up, go assess 2-3 schools a day, come home, work on reports, then repeat the next day. Most weekends were spent writing reports. I was able to drive home a couple of weekends, once in February, once in March. The grind created stress, and I am a stress eater. No so good on my diet, as I gained 10 pounds. Just what I needed before vacation.

Our trip got changed a bit, thanks to the vagaries of English Premier Football. We bought tickets for the Manchester United v Chelsea match on April 22. The game got moved to the 23rd. No problem. I turn on ESPN to watch Man U in an FA cup game versus Fulham. As I watched, a little blurb on the bottom of the screen said that if Manchester United won, they would play Brighton Hove Albion in the Semi-final at Wembley Stadium on, you guessed it, the weekend of the 22nd!

I found myself in the unenviable position of rooting against my team. By and large, there are no refunds for EPL tickets, and we thought we were going to eat $1,500. Go Fulham go! Fulham did me a solid and went up 1-0. I started feeling a bit better. Then Loki, Norse god of Mischief, decide to have some chuckles.

A Man U player takes a shot, and it goes off a Fulham player. The ref awards a corner kick to Man U. The Fulham player is on the screen pantomiming that the ball went off of his arm while it was tucked into his body, and I had a sinking feeling.

The ref is asked to go over to the on-field Video-Assisted Referee screen to look it over. The replay is showing an intentional hand ball by Fulham. I groan. We’re gonna get a penalty kick! As the ref gets to the screen, the Fulham manager comes over to the ref, ranting and raving. The ref is having none of it and show the manager a red card. He’s gone. He looks over the video, trots out to the field and points to the penalty spot. Penalty kick coming for Manchester United. The ref then shows a red card to the Fulham player for the intentional hand ball, denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. So he’s tossed. A Fulham player loses his mind, runs at the referee to protest, and decides to push him. A third red card is shown.

In soccer, if a player is shown a red card, the team cannot replace them,. So now Fulham is missing their manager, and two of their players. I was busy trying to gather my jaw off of the floor. Bruno Fernandes hits the penalty shot and ties the game. 2 minutes later, Marcus Rashford scores for Manchester United, and a couple more minutes later, Bruno scores again. The final score is 3-1 Manchester United.

Well, shit.

The next day the first thing I check is if I can get tickets to the FA cup match with Brighton on the 22nd at Wembley. Nope. Season ticket holders only. The whole reason for going on this trip was to see a match in Old Trafford. And there was that $1,500 floating above my head like some large, rusty Sword of Damocles. I saw that Manchester was playing Sevilla in the Europa League Round of 8 on the 13th. I checked and they had hospitality tickets. Now, about that $1,500…

The first thing I did was to read up on my original hospitality tickets. A break! If the match was changed due to a cup fixture, we could get a refund! I flipped a fat middle finger at Loki, arranged for the refund, and bought two hospitality tickets for the game on the 13th. My wife and I will get to visit the Victoria Warehouse event center prior to the match. Food trucks, hospitality drinks, etc. We will then walk over to Old Trafford to take our Tier One seats and watch my team smack around a Spanish side. Then we can walk across the street to our hotel.

So the new schedule is to fly in to London on the 12th. We booked two round trip air tickets from London to Manchester for the 13th. Our room at Hotel Football was not refundable, but we were able to get one for the night of the 13th. We will fly back to London on the 14th. We have tickets to see The Play That Goes Wrong in the Duchess Theater on London’s West End Friday night, a re-schedule from the 13th. We will meet a friend of mine for dinner on the nights of the 15th. On the 16th we have train tickets to head back up to Manchester. We’ll pick up our rental car from Manchester airport and drive over to Conwy as originally planned.

On the 22nd, our original night at the Hotel Football, we’ll drive over to Manchester and have a night on the town. We’ll watch the FA cup match in a pub, like regular people, then drive back to Conwy to finish out our vacation.

I hope you were able to follow that, because I just gave myself a headache typing that out! It didn’t help that Manchester United lost to Newcastle United today 2-0.

Robin is definitely getting excited. She’s been trying on outfits and has started to pack. I’ve been turning my brain into oatmeal poring over thousands of photographs and writing reports, all while trying to lose the weight I gained.

And some asshole shot up a school, so at least I’m able to maintain perspective.

Not bad for a grumpy fat guy!