Todd Bosma is the Assistant Director of Game Operations for the Portland Trail Blazers. Todd is letting Blazers fans take a peek into the BCB New York trip through his personal journal entries.
November 11, 2001 - 8:00 am PST
November 11, 2001 - 10:30 pm EST
November 12, 2001 - 8:00 am EST
November 13, 2001 - 9:45am EST
November 13, 2001 - 5:45pm EST
November 14, 2001 - 8:45am EST
Sunday – November 11, 2001
7:00am (PST)
Time to get up already? It can’t be. I only went to sleep three hours ago! But out of bed we go to finish the last minute packing we all do right before we leave for a trip. Our plane leaves at 6:25am, but “get to the airports early” has been drummed into our heads, so my ride (thanks to Jeff Moss for taking Jerry and me to the airport) arrives at the awful hour of 4:00am. We get to the airport to find a decent line of about 100 people waiting to get to the ticket counters. The line moves quickly and soon we have our seat assignments. After getting through the line, we turned the corner to see another HUGE line of travelers waiting their turn to pass through the metal detectors. Forty minutes, a quick bag search and a wave of the “magic wand,” and we are through the detectors and on our way to our gate.
Once at the gate, we meet up with the rest or our traveling party. Flying with us today are:
The before mentioned Director of Special Events – Jerry Moss
Vice President of Broadcasting – Dick Vardanega
Computer Support Specialist (and personal Help Desk this trip) – Melinda Merrick
Blazers Community Ambassador – Nick Jones
Housekeeping Event Supervisor – Beverly Ross
Suite & Preferred Services Manager – Angie Unruh
Art Director – John Jendritza
Blazers Excecutive Vice President, Erin Hubert, Blazers Vice President of Marketing, Marta Monetti, and Blazers Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer – Jim Kotchik are traveling on their own and later today. Blazers Director of Corporate & Community Affairs, Melinda Gable, and Blazers Assistant Director of PR, Theressa Davis left yesterday to “set-up shop” and make the final arrangements for our arrival.
Well, now that you know who is here, let’s get back to the trip. When we finally got to our gate and saw our crew; there were immediate smiles all around. We began joking with one another and had a good time. All the other passengers started to roll their eyes as they figured they were in for a long flight with this motley crew on board. We talked anxiously about our trip ahead and couldn’t wait to reach our destination.
For some, this is their first trip to New York City. To many this is a chance to make another visit to the Big Apple - and for a few of us “east-coast transplants” (including myself), this is a chance to come back home. Either way, we will all take something special back with us from this trip. We are looking forward to the things to come while we are back east, but now is a time to rest up. I have a feeling that we are going to be pushed to our limits both physically and emotionally in the upcoming days. So with a few hours of plane travel ahead, it's time to catch some zz’s. I’ll write more when we land in NYC.
