On Tuesday night, we decided to head out for the annual Everitz Consulting Christmas Party. What’s that? You think just because I’m a Movable Type Consultant, I can’t have a Christmas Party? Think again.
Anyway, we decided that we’d take in a Charlotte Checkers game, which thanks to the North Carolina Zoo was just $49 for a family four-pack of tickets to get into the game, four hot dogs and four sodas. Pretty sweet deal all around, especially when you consider that the dogs and sodas by themselves would cost thirty bucks!
Outside of the family four-pack, the cheapest seat to be had was $10, which means if we bought four normal-price tickets, plus the aforementioned food, we would have been in for $70, rather than $49, which was a nice $21 savings off the top. To make things even better, they offered up sample packs of Hamburger Helper on the way out. Had we thought of it like the guys who got out just before us, we could have made off with an entire box of the single-serve microwave items, rather than just one each. But still, it’s a nice bonus.
The Checkers also scored during a particular stretch in the first period, which means we were rewarded with a voucher for a free Vault Energy Drink at a local Circle K, but frankly I’m not sure if we’re going to use it or not. I’m not a huge fan of the energy drinks, so I don’t know that we’ll go out of our way to pick one up.
As to the crowd, there were a few folks there. Not many though. I think there were probably only a tenth of the people that attended the Monster Jam back in February, but this was a school night (at least for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools), so you can understand to some degree. Add to that the fact that this was ice hockey and not Monster Trucks and it’s no real surprise that they would draw a larger crowd.
We also took the light rail to the arena, and encountered four new experiences. Our first delay, which happened between the Scaleybark and New Bern stations on our way uptown, as it seems there was a problem with the arms, means that we had to sit for five minutes or so, and we missed the face off. This also resulted in a switch in train operator – while we weren’t even at a station! Amazingly, it was conducted rather quickly.
Then on the way back to the park and ride, we were asked for our ticket by the inspector. He was nice, and we had ours (as did everyone else it seemed), but it looks like they are stepping up enforcement now that the machines are supposedly working.
The final experience was our second delay, on the outbound leg, as there was a crew working on the track where we had stopped earlier, and we actually ended up riding on the other track for a while – it looks like repairs are already underway. Nice. Good thing we didn’t spend a lot of money on the rail line or anything. Oh yeah, I guess we did.