Author: Greg

I haven’t been to many basketball games in my time, 2 Hawks games, 4 Bobcats games and now I can add a UNC Tar Heels game to that list.

As I said earlier, I surprisingly won a nice weekend package as part of a competition a client of my work ran, 2 nights hotel, tickets to the North Carolina Tar Heels vs. North Carolina State Wolfpack game last Saturday, a hospitality brunch and a signed UNC jersey. Pretty sweet I thought, so off to Chapel Hill we headed on Friday night, we made pretty good time and arrived around 9pm to check in.

The next morning we went to downtown Chapel Hill to The Carolina Inn for a big, all you can eat brunch before heading to the game. Now I’ve seen college basketball on TV before, I’ve followed the last 3 or so March Madness’ pretty religiously (failing each time) but I had no idea what to expect. What I got was 2 hours of noise the likes I’ve not heard since the days of going to Ibrox to see Rangers play

I think it was a combination of the band in one corner, the very boisterous student section on the other side and us being so far back that noise reverberated off the roof, but my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. Yeah, also, for tickets that was part of a competition, you don’t expect to be in the 3rd row closest to god… But it was all good.

The game it’s self was a blowout in favour of UNC, NC State barely led for the first few minutes before UNC just burned them with defensive rebounds and lights out shooting, proving why they are ranked number 1 in the country. Enjoyable, well as enjoyable as a blowout could be.

While we had no affiliations to the game (Go Dawgs!) we enjoyed the people watching, and the near choreographed routines that everyone, except for us, knew… People watching at it’s best.

I would say you should go see a UNC game if you can, but apparently it’s a loooong wait for tickets, so nevermind.

We spent the rest of the weekend in Chapel Hill, Robyn compares it to Athens, GA. in terms of look and general vibe, you can take that how ever you want. It’s a college town with lots of bars and restaurants, and not a lot of parking. Hopefully this weekend we don’t have to head back to the Chapel Hill area, 3 out of 4 weekends was more than enough…

Tar Heels vs. Wolfpack – January 12th 2007 (set)

Originally uploaded by FLC.

AKA: Days and Days Late, So Many Dollars Short

First up, the pitiful excuse, my mother was in town from December 21st through January 8th, so I tried (tried) to not be anti-social and spend countless hours on the computer doing whatever it is I do to waste time, but that said we didn’t really do much…

As I said, she arrived the Friday before Christmas… In Raleigh… One thing we’ve found out, Charlotte’s airport is close and nice and all that, but no-one flies to or from it bar US Airways, and well, they don’t go many places that helps us. Say what you want about Hartsfield in Atlanta, at least you could go places from there. So yeah, we shuttled up to Marchellina’s outside Chapel Hill to pick her up and to make matters worse, her flight leaving London was delayed… So the next day after breakfast we played Santa to Marchellina’s kids a few days early before heading back to Huntersville.

We had Christmas Dinner at Jill and Ryan’s on Christmas Eve (as Robyn’s parent’s were leaving Christmas Night to head back to Georgia). The following day we opened our presents to each other (we really didn’t get much as we splurged on iPhones barely two months beforehand) before heading back to Jill and Ryan’s to open the rest.

That was pretty much that, uneventful. We were working pretty much every other day, so it was nice to get a day off. Over the weekend John, Marchellina and the kids came down to spend a day in the village which also meant we could get the family picture we missed the weekend before.

The following week was a bit more exciting as first we attended the Charlotte Bobcats exciting overtime win over the Indiana Pacers. Like I said, it was an exciting match, and we had sweet seats courtesy of Lowe’s which made for some cool photo oportunites. As that was on New Years Eve we stayed at home and set off some fireworks, much to neighbourhood kids delight. This started a minor forest fire (seriously) which was quickly doused.

2008 started off with some house hunting in South Charlotte, as our lease is almost up here, we’re looking at our options before deciding if we want to re-up for another year. So we looked at an area called Ayrsley, which was nice, but too far for Robyn to commute to Mooresville. Later we found a new development in nearby Cornelius called Antiquity, and by new I mean it currently has about 30 houses and a whole lotta dirt. This was a much better option, right now it’s the option we’re most likey going to take, but we have to wait for our floorplan to be built, which might take a little longer than we’d really want, so do we wait or keep looking?

The following weekend we drove back to Chapel Hill to drop my mum off at Marchellina’s so she could fly back home early the following week, we thought this would be the last time we’d do that trip for a while but alas no… On Monday I got a call saying I had won tickets from a client for the big UNC/NC State basketball game the following weekend, so that 3 trips to Chapel Hill in 4 weeks for those counting at home. It should be fun, college basketball generally has a better atmosphere than NBA games so I’m really looking forward to it… Look for an update on that sometime in the next year.

Christmas 2007 (set)
Bobcats vs. Pacers – December 31st 2007

Originally uploaded by FLC.