Planning Disappointment
September 3, 2007 | by brett | Permalink
Have you ever seen a dad on a family vacation? It looks like punishment. The dad has his head down, frown on his face, objectively leading his family off to the next destination. The two kids with slumped shoulders drag their feet as they’re forced to go along to some attraction they have no interest in. The wife’s eyes deter to the windows of the shops she wishes to go in. But no one wants to detract the purpose driven dad from the path so they continue on.
Nobody is having fun, even though that is the whole objective of the vacation.
It takes a lot of planning to be disappointed. I had been planning our Notre Dame visit for weeks before our Friday night arrival. I had managed to finagle four press passes from the Notre Dame athletic department. I had marked the places on campus I wanted to see before the game. I was determined to park our RV first thing Saturday morning, at 7am, at a lot I had researched. I wanted to go experience the Notre Dame tailgate, see the football game from the press box, and of course, have fun.
On the night of our arrival we decided to go out to Corby’s bar and be a part of the Notre Dame alumni tradition by having a few drinks. As the night went on, the chances of executing my original plan seemed to get slimmer and less likely. Our host Dave and his roommate Lisa discouraged us from parking at the RV lot I had picked out, citing that we should party at their tailgate the next morning and hitch a ride with them.
This last minute idea went against the grain of my perfectly planned day, so when Zach woke me up at 3am to see if I really wanted to leave at 7am to park the RV instead of going with Dave, I said that I still wanted to stick to my plan.
Flash forward four hours and we are parked at the Notre Dame tailgate in between two RV’s adorned in Georgia Tech crap. Jay, Noah, and Zach are asleep, but wake up three hours later with a high priority to shower. Instead, three stinky guys began to cruise around the Notre Dame tailgate, being somewhere in the middle of looking like beggars and being mooches, until I was convinced by the other two that my plan sucked.
Needless to say, the plan that I had perfected in my mind had backfired.
That was until we actually got into the swing of things. Our South Bend host Dave Matthews showed up and invited us to a tailgate with a twenty foot inflatable Frankenstein. We picked up our media passes and picked grass blades off of the fifty yard line. We watched the first quarter of the game eating chicken and hot dogs from the press box. I watched the second half from the south end zone area on the field. We attended a post game press conference that featured Charlie Weis explaining the 33-3 ass whooping his Fighting Irish had just received.
Lesson learned.
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THERE ARE 4 RESPONSES TO THIS INTERVIEW
University Update - Georgia Tech - Planning Disappointment Says:
September 3rd, 2007
[…] Forest University Planning Disappointment » This Summary is from an article posted at Pursue the Passion: The Journey on Monday, September […]
Danielle Says:
September 3rd, 2007
Ain’t it a bitch. Glad it all ended well. I
Steve Says:
September 4th, 2007
Sounds like yet another priceless memory… I can’t believe you were actually on the field… picking blades of grass??? Wow.
Kelly G Says:
September 4th, 2007
How many Dave Matthews can you guys find to interview? Thanks for sharing your experiences at Notre Dame! As the founding father of PTP Brett, I found it fitting that you related your initial let down to one a parent feels after taking great care in planning a family vacation! Glad the kids had fun in the end!
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