I got up at 4:30 AM because I would need to come back home early to pick up my son to go to Centurylink Field to watch Argentina taking Bolivia in the evening. Though I could have taken a day off, I had something to complete. In addition, I still planned to buy the tickets for USMNT facing Ecuador on Thursday evening, then I would take at least half a day off.
Before driving out, I watched CNBC for several minutes. It might be too early, the guest was talking about more politics than financial markets. However, I did notice the major index futures being down again. Twitter's price jumped two-day-in-row. That Google might be acquiring it surfaced again.
When I started my van's engine, the sound was abnormally low, which indicated the gas might not be fully circulated. I parked my car outside the garage last night and the temperature was low. As I shared, my van had been 16 years old and I had noticed somewhere from gas tank to pipeline must be congested especially after it was parked in cold weather. Fortunately, it didn't cause any problem on my way to work, so I started working on the stuff at my desk even before 6 AM.
The issue came back to haunt me in the afternoon. After backwarding my van, I wasn't able to drive the car going forward for a minute. Even after driving on freeway for a mile, my van was suddenly turned off to force me having it sliding to the shoulder. Pumping the gas harshly for several times, I drove it back onto freeway. The problem would never recur. Coming back home, I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since last night. Telling my son to hold for 10 minutes, I ate a piece of sweet bread and two eggs. Assuming the van should work effectively, we left home for Centurylink Field. The road had been pretty wide open until we reached Northgate. It took us almost 45 minutes to get out off the freeway at the exit of James Street.
Not getting through the security and ticket checkpoint first, we went to ticket office at Northwest side because I had planned to buy the tickets for USA facing Ecuador in quarterfinal at Centurylink Field on Thursday night there. I had checked on ticketmaster earlier to look for two tickets in Club but asked the sales lady if she could find a better deal for me. However, she couldn't do anything about the price but located two seats in Club 237 closer to the middle of the field where the views of the match should be great. Anyway, I already saved almost 40 bucks in service charges on two tickets if I had ordered online. Taking the advantage of coming to watch this match was the purpose to buy the tickets at ticket office because we needed to drive through heavy traffic to downtown and spent 20 bucks parking fee no matter if or not.
Buying pizza and Italian Grinder at the counter in the club, I told the lady that I was the father, so should be old enough when she checked my Driver's license for buying the beer. She was a very nice lady and laughed. I always bought the tickets for the seats in the club because it had a better view and atmosphere was great. The ticket price was more expensive but I only came to watch three or four matches a year. I had probably overspent my budget on sports events after watching these two Copa Centenario matches. My son generally didn't come with me in the past but he was bored staying at home during the summer break, so our cost would be doubled. Anyway, I am glad he enjoys the events and Copa Centenario is not held every year and next time to having it coming back to Seattle may be a decade later.
Beautiful DJ led pre-match show got fans warming up, I could tell so many fans were on the stands despite this was a Tuesday evening match and irrelevant given Argentina's advancement and Bolivia's elimination. Later on, I would learn 45,000+ fans coming to support the match. You couldn't deny most of fans buying the tickets for watching Messi, but even he wouldn't play, we would still be able to appreciate other talented stars' performance, such as Aguero, Di Maria, Lamela and Higuain. Later, I would recognize that PSG's forward as well but can't recall his name.
It's such an easy match for Argentines. They had led 3 to 0 in the first half. Di Maria didn't play and fans kept chanting Messi's name. We did see him walking across the field before the match kicked off. Messi did give the fans in Seattle a warm response, he was subbed in the very beginning of the 2nd half and tried very hard to please the fans on the pitch. However, Bolivians played their final match for their pride, so didn't work with the arguably best player in the world. Though Messi dribbled ball skillfully and made a free kick a yard away from the post, he wasn't able to score as he had made a hat trick within 20 minutes in the match against Panama last week. Once upon a time, he even argued with No. 10 of Bolivian team, which triggered both teams crowding together for a minute. Obviously he wasn't happy that Bolivians didn't give him a chance to show his skills in front of so many fans in an irrelevant match. However, I guessed fans had been satisfied that we could watch him on the field for the entire second half and this was a competitive match.
During the match, the weather worked pretty favorably despite it became a little bit windy in the last 15 minutes. On our way home, the harsh rains came down for a while. My son wanted to eat something after the earlier meal 4 hours ago. I drove to Kong Tofu House next to Ranch 99 we hadn't gone for almost a year. The foods were always tasty and we closed the night so joyfully.
Now, it's Wednesday morning, I can tell it may be a day with more sunshines. Hopefully, the sky will be kept clear tomorrow night even the weather report said it would be raining. USA will take Ecuador then and we all hope they can advance to semifinal.
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