thank you, canon!

last night i got to see my first NBA game, live and in person, as a guest of canon canada in their private box at the air canada center. mountains of food, rivers of booze, a great view of the game, and a great group of guys to be hangin' with - one of my fellow henry's managers hooked this up with our canon rep and about 8 or so of us, along with our staff development crew of 2, and a "warehouse guy" went along to live it up for a night, get shitfaced, and see the raps lose.

once we had everyone in tow, the headcount in the caravan stood at 8. with a combined weight of Lord Only Knows, but i'll say this: half of the guys in the van were 4 of the biggest dudes i know. im the smallest of the crew and somehow i lucked out with shotgun. sorry bout your luck in the back, boys - hilarious ride up.

got there and walked into a cozy little suite all decked out with sushi trays, cheese platters, and someone waiting to take my order. i ate so much i had to go puke to make room for the rest of the rye and beer. if you're in a gut wrenching situation and there is ice cream involved, you can take comfort in the fact that cherry garcia ice cream bars taste about half as good coming up as they do going down - not bad. FYI. keep that in your back pocket. i think the ribs were the clear winner on the night, though. meat just driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipping off the bone. aaaahhhhhhhggglgglllrrrrssshhhhhhhhooohhhhhhhhyeah. .

the game itself was pretty good, i thought. bosh was out with the sprained thumb, alonzo was out for the heat, and shaq wasnt dressed. but mo'pete stole the show and played an amazing game - unfortunately it wasnt enough, as dwayne wade lead the charge for the heat and put 'em to bed late in the 4th. the raps played a great game and at times lead by 15, only to run out of steam in the end. they started taking it to the outside way too much as the game wore on and they werent having much success - but they were having great success on the inside for most of the game. oh well, 98-94 finish for the heat, and an exciting game right down to the last basket (which was an over/under deal breaker for some of our crew - someone owes someone some chicken wings, i think. in the "$11 range").

and lemme tell ya, fellas out there, the scenery at a basketball game is unreal. all i've gotta say about that is "smirnoff". scanning the crowd and other boxes with the binos was a lot of fun. saw chewie from london sitting a few rows below us, that was hilarious - nice to chat with him... and, as luck would have it, we also spotted pretty much all of our bosses and head office folk about a dozen or so boxes away from ours - so much for keepin' our little boys night out a secret. hahah. funny scenarios all over the place all night.

the bill at the end of the night was ridiculous - glad that wasnt my credit card. we gave a hundred dollar pizza to a homeless guy on the street instead of change. probably the biggest score he's ever gotten.

cant wait for the retreat.