What A Ride ... !!!!

[GoZips]

Its Saturday morning and I finally got past sleep depravation.I arrived back in Cleveland last night around ten PM from Seattle. Yes, I blew off two days of work.I do not get paid for time I do not work. I changed plans so many times it would make a greatcomedy film short. Even met a professional short film maker on the plane. What a co-inky-dink.It all began with the Tuesday night game against Toledo. Sad to say, but I lost my faith. I left the"Q" at 5:05 to play and the Zips down 62-50. I was seeing red. The poor play, the lack of drive, grit,you name it, had me fuming. I was so upset that I only turned the radio on for a few seconds to hear the score was 67-63. My feeble, crusted brain failed to make the obvious connection that theZips were in a dog fight.Waking the next morning after a poor night of sleep I was delightfully surprised to learn that the kidshad pulled it out in overtime. I vowed to myself to stick with the Zips no matter what the rest of theway. Even willing to travel to any post season game they could snag. Thursday, back in the "Q" after another fitful night of semi-sleep, I was delighted with the strongperformance the Zips laid on a good Miami team. Win number twenty-one meant that in all likelihood the NIT was a strong possibility. A berth in the NIT and a twenty plus win seasonclearly meant that the young Zips had over-achieved.Bowling Green Friday night in the real game for the MAC championship. Both the Zips and BGSU were pre-game betting odds favorites to defeat Buffalo. It took a while, but the Falcons eventuallysurrendered. Euphoric and adrenalin charged led to another semi-sleep night.Saturday night was mellow. I knew the Zips had a post season game locked up. If not the NCAAprize, surely the NIT. Yes, yes, I know that only one MAC school played in the NIT this year.Neither Buffalo or Cant had Akron's resume. If they had lost the MAC the NIT was a sure betto come calling. The Zips won easily and the dancing began.Sunday, after another adrenalin driven sleepless night found me at the packed Ohio Brewing Company.What an eruption when they announced the Zips opponent. Could there have been a better opponentfor the Zips than the Zags? The old man sitting at the table with me thought so. I wanted a "name"opponent. Heck, I thought the Zags were thee name opponent. No sleep Sunday night either. Frantic phone calls looking for a way to get to Portland. Up half thenight trying to find an affordable way. Settled on a rape job. Northworst, ala, skank Delta airline,gouged me for fifty thousand frequent flyer miles (there goes a sweet trip for two to Hawai'i).Fifty thousand is double the regular amount. Delta dogs were not done gouging. They laid a $130redemption fee on top of the double mileage rip off. I was not pleased. Worse, the trip only tookme to Seattle. That meant driving to Portland.Next came getting a rental car. A sweet lady on the phone found me a nice weekend package for $55 that would later blow up in my face. A call to hotels.com found me a cheap room over in Vancouver, WA for $45. Clean, with cable TV (which never left ESPN), shampoo, etc. Nicedeal. Fifteen minutes from the arena. It was one of the better points of the trip as neither hotels.com or the motel ripped me off like Delta and later Alamo would.On ZipsNation I sort of learned that Portland was only 120-130 miles from Seattle. WRONG.Try 168 miles airport to the Rose Garden. Did you know that Portland is the "Rose City"?I did not see any roses. There were lots of rose bushes planted around the arena. As we stoodoutside the arena there were plenty of flowers. Dandelions, daffodils, snow drops, crocuses, andeven freshly planted pansy's were in bloom all over the place. Driving in the rain (it rained 90 percent of the time out there) in heavy, rush hour traffic for a hundredand sixty eight miles is a genuine treat. If, you have nerves of steel. Washington has its own peculiar type of driver, and I saw lots of them. This was verified for me by an Akron grad who nowlives in Seattle. The drivers literally "park" in the high speed lane. They drive right around thespeed limit, sometimes a couple of MPH faster or slower. And neither heaven or hell can get themto switch lanes. The traffic backs up for a mile behind them. Frustrating. I learned four new swearwords.The game ... the kids played their hearts out. I will criticize none of them. For the most part even the refs were tolerable. Except for the favoritism constantly given to "mushroom man", Higher-than-a-kite-felt. Our kids were mauled by him and then whistled for a foul. That annoyed me.Fifty-one all with 8:32 to play. The Zips hung tough. The future looks promising. Now, if we canonly get some opponents. Had to chuckle. When the Zags began to pull away a couple of theirfans taunted us a bit. I responded, "we have a 99 RPI, what's yours?" (its four)I saw more Prisius (don't kare if eye spell it right) than you can shake a stick at. A lot of them withobama bumper stickers. California has moved north. Every time I saw one I thought of Jeff Dunhamand Achmed the dead terrorist. I thought of Achmed a lot.One last thing .. one of player's sister, niece, friend had a great sign that she held up and none of youever saw on TV. In a salute to her, the Zips, our wonderful traveling fans .. it read "I'm Rather Be A Zip Than A Zag"

[Zip Watcher]

Nice post. Thanks for taking the time.

[Blue & Gold]

Thanks for the stories! That sure is a week you'll never forget!

[WinZip]

Live Akron basketball. Wish I coulda been there, thanks for the stories!

[MDZip]

So don't keep us in suspense, what the heck happend with Alamo? I, on the other hand felt like I'd hit a minor lottery for the week. Happened to find an $89 dollar flight to Portland (man, I love Southwest) but took a risk because it only landed two hours before the game started, but it was the only flight I could find for less than $400. I found one out of Seattle (also Southwest) the next day at noon for $110. Got a rental car for $79 (including the one way dropoff fee) and after I got through all of the planning my sister called and told me she was going (plus her niece lived in Portland so we stayed with her). We called the Akron ticket office and they got us two seats together (thank you). Met Mike Bardo's mom and aunts in line waiting to get in (very nice folks) and in general it could not have gone better (I even got off the plane first in Portland, the rental car bus was waiting for me and it took maybe five minutes to get the rental car). I should have bought a lottery ticket that day. Since I saved a whole bunch of money and had so much fun, I think it's time for me to pay back. I am sending in another sizable chunk to the athletic department to futher what they need to do. This whole athletic program looks like it's about to bust through. I hope my donation is the tipping point.

[WinZip]

flight to Portland...$89 flight out of Seattle the next day...$110 rental car...$79 witnessing the birth of something great to come..priceless

[zip37]

GOZIP-- THX FOR THE DONATION: RE THE PRIUS REMEMBER WE CALL IT THE LEFT COAST FOR A REASON

[zippy5]

good work on the donation MDzip. it makes me happy to see people supporting the program, and I can't wait till I graduate so I can give back too. I wish more people would be proud to say they went to Akron and gave back...that will change though.

[ksu sucks]

good work on the donation MDzip. it makes me happy to see people supporting the program, and I can't wait till I graduate so I can give back too. I wish more people would be proud to say they went to Akron and gave back...that will change though.

I think the 345 mill the school has raised already contradicts that statement. I know when I make some big dough I'll be giving back Can't forget where you came from, right? Well, sort of.

[Zipsrifle]

Portland must be similar to Michigan.....drive in the fast lane no matter what speed you are going. I've literally driven by myself in the right lane for an entire mile, passing 100+ cars before. On the Prius, I have a humorous story there. I saw a gigantic mobile home pulling out of Wal-Mart the other day. You know, the kind that maybe gets 7 mpg on diesel. Yep, and it was towing a trailer that had a Prius loaded onto the back. Hey, look at me, I'm saving the earth!!!! Back to the Zips. I admire how you stuck to your promise. I'm just too damn cheap. I too turned the Toledo game off with about 5 minutes left. Hopefully next year we will get our regional games somewhere within driving distance.

[Zipmeister]

Sure sign that things are getting back to normal. This board isn't clogged up with posts from the 50 bandwagon jumpers who chimed in the last couple of weeks.

[bandzip]

Sure sign that things are getting back to normal. This board isn't clogged up with posts from the 50 bandwagon jumpers who chimed in the last couple of weeks.

I was just thinking the same thing. There were so many new members online for the past week or so and now they're all gone.

[RootforRoo44]

Sure sign that things are getting back to normal. This board isn't clogged up with posts from the 50 bandwagon jumpers who chimed in the last couple of weeks.

I was just thinking the same thing. There were so many new members online for the past week or so and now they're all gone.

i think 2/3 of them were Zags fans.

[Captain Kangaroo]

flight to Portland...$89

If you got a flight to Portland for $89.00 you have missed your calling as a travel agent.

[bandzip]

Sure sign that things are getting back to normal. This board isn't clogged up with posts from the 50 bandwagon jumpers who chimed in the last couple of weeks.

I was just thinking the same thing. There were so many new members online for the past week or so and now they're all gone.

i think 2/3 of them were Zags fans.

There were quite a few Gonzaga faithful, but there were a ton of new akron usernames popping up, though most of them never even made a post.

[RootforRoo44]

Sure sign that things are getting back to normal. This board isn't clogged up with posts from the 50 bandwagon jumpers who chimed in the last couple of weeks.

I was just thinking the same thing. There were so many new members online for the past week or so and now they're all gone.

i think 2/3 of them were Zags fans.

There were quite a few Gonzaga faithful, but there were a ton of new akron usernames popping up, though most of them never even made a post.

oh well that explains why i didnt notice as much. That's good news though, i think the nation is about to explode once we run the table this fall in football.

[Dave in Green]

..... Frantic phone calls looking for a way to get to Portland. Up half thenight trying to find an affordable way. Settled on a rape job. Northworst, ala, skank Delta airline,gouged me for fifty thousand frequent flyer miles (there goes a sweet trip for two to Hawai'i).Fifty thousand is double the regular amount. Delta dogs were not done gouging. They laid a $130redemption fee on top of the double mileage rip off. I was not pleased. Worse, the trip only tookme to Seattle. That meant driving to Portland.Next came getting a rental car. A sweet lady on the phone found me a nice weekend package for $55 that would later blow up in my face. A call to hotels.com found me a cheap room over in Vancouver, WA for $45. Clean, with cable TV (which never left ESPN), shampoo, etc. Nicedeal. Fifteen minutes from the arena. It was one of the better points of the trip as neither hotels.com or the motel ripped me off like Delta and later Alamo would.On ZipsNation I sort of learned that Portland was only 120-130 miles from Seattle. WRONG.Try 168 miles airport to the Rose Garden. Did you know that Portland is the "Rose City"?I did not see any roses. There were lots of rose bushes planted around the arena. As we stoodoutside the arena there were plenty of flowers. Dandelions, daffodils, snow drops, crocuses, andeven freshly planted pansy's were in bloom all over the place. Driving in the rain (it rained 90 percent of the time out there) in heavy, rush hour traffic for a hundredand sixty eight miles is a genuine treat. If, you have nerves of steel. Washington has its own peculiar type of driver, and I saw lots of them. This was verified for me by an Akron grad who nowlives in Seattle. The drivers literally "park" in the high speed lane. They drive right around thespeed limit, sometimes a couple of MPH faster or slower. And neither heaven or hell can get themto switch lanes. The traffic backs up for a mile behind them. Frustrating. I learned four new swearwords. .....

Hilltopper and I got raped by Northwest for lots of frequent flyer miles plus a healthy amount of cash to fly direct from Detroit to Seattle.Then we got raped by Budget for a rental car deal that turned out to be no deal at all once all the added charges were included.The one thing you left off about the slower drivers camped out in the left lane is that they speeded up when you tried to pass on the right. Then I recalled this is how California drivers operated when I lived out there in the '70s, so it must be a West Coast thing. You basically have to hammer the throttle and drag race them. Once you get ahead of them and slow back down to the speed at which you came up on them from behind, they speed up and tailgate you for awhile as if to let you know that you didn't really need to pass them. Cruise control is a wonderful thing to maintain a steady speed. But apparently they aren't aware of this modern automotive feature.But those were really the only bad parts of the trip to Portland. It was great being there with the team, band, cheerleaders, etc. It was really special being with such a small group of Zips fans sending the team off from the hotel to the arena on their bus, and then being able to walk to the arena and watch the Zips play the #10 team in the country dead even for 30 minutes. If I had a chance to do it all over, I'd do exactly the same. Well, I'd probably see if there was a better rental car deal.

[BirdZip]

It was really special being with such a small group of Zips fans sending the team off from the hotel to the arena on their bus...

...except for the "lady" from the convention registration that started screaming "GO AWAY" in the cheerleaders' faces shortly after the pep rally started. Was that not one of the most classless things you've ever seen out of a "professional"? I wonder if she's been fired yet..."Lady"--> <--MeOf course, it did make for a bit of extra fun when the band purposefully directed their horns toward the doors from outside.