Everything started a few months ago when I noticed a band I liked was coming to Lock 3 in Akron. Great Big Sea, a Newfoundland group that does folk-based songs with energy and attitude, was coming to NE Ohio, and for only $5 per ticket. This was a great opportunity! I called Sonotmu, and mentioned it. I invited him out for the concert, and it turns out that the day of the concert (Saturday the 16th) is Jo’s birthday. In addition, Jo loves ferrets, and Ohio has ferret breeders in Columbus, so the ball got rolling for Shannon and Jo to come out since Jo wanted to get two ferrets. As the time got closer, it turned out that our mutual friend James (aka the Rev) was also able to come along, so we had a merry little party going for Jo’s birthday. This called for something big. Or at least something nice – it is Ohio, after all.

Everyone came out on Friday, getting here much earlier than I had expected – about 1:15. No one was here at the house (I was at work and Mer was out running errands), so the trio went to a local Chinese place for lunch and came back. By the time they got back, Mer was home and so they were able to get in; Jo had a migraine, and so went to lie down, while James and Shannon came with Mer to CVCA to see where Mer and I work.

I was able to join everyone about 3:00 or so, and so we puttered around a bit, with Shannon hooking up his iPod Touch to our TV, so he could show us the online video of Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a very funny online video made by Josh Whedon (of Buffy and Firefly fame). By the time the video was wrapping up, Jo was awake and feeling better, so we headed out to an evening on Akron town.

Shannon and Jo had rented a small six-passenger van thingy, so we all fit comfortably in their car. We got to Akron and found a parking garage with only one slight mis-turn, and we walked downtown to Lock 3, where our restaurant of the evening is located. I had chosen a sort of hole-in-the-wall kind of bar as a good place to eat because they specialized in seven different types of grilled cheese. The Lockview restaurant boasts a patio on the roof, but sadly, this was closed when we went (they were setting up for a party of some kind). Still, I liked the place – our waitress was fun and a bit sassy, and the menu lived up to expectations – Jo, James, and I all ordered various kinds of grilled cheese, while Shannon went with hummus and quesadillas and Mer got some hearty-looking mac-n-cheese. Shannon was also able to get an English imported cider that he likes, and James got a locally brewed beer that he seemed to enjoy.

The meal was fairly leisurely, taking about 45 minutes to an hour or so, and then we made the two-block walk to Canal Park, home of the Akron Aeros, the AA baseball team affiliated with the Cleveland Indians. It was a perfect night for baseball, and my memory had served me well in recalling that the third-base side of the stadium (where we had seats) was in the shade. I love Canal Park – it is a small stadium (it can hold about 10,000), and is clean and well-kept. The experience is fun – there is generally some sort of diversion between each inning. We saw a water-balloon-hitting contest, a race around the bases between a boy and the Aeros mascot (the boy won – the mascot, Orbit, is only 1-60 for the season), a dance competition between two kids from the audience (one had great moves), a race between people dressed as cream sticks (chocolate won, as it should), and more. I love the wacky things that go on between the innings – they make me smile.

I also like watching minor league baseball. It is impressive to watch how good these guys are, and yet they are still a couple of moves away from the big leagues. I couldn’t get over how fast the ball moved. There are a few more errors in minor league games that I have seen, but not so many as to be sloppy. The game we saw on Friday was very good, with a few really good plays made in the infield. Sadly, the visiting team (New Britain) had great pitching, and the Aeros only managed two hits all evening, and lost 6-0.

To wrap up the evening at the park, there were fireworks sponsored by Akron Children’s Hospital (it was cancer survivor day at the park). These fireworks are the best I have ever seen. The were launched from behind the left field wall, so they were only about 300 feet away, and most exploded near the ground. Many times you could feel the impact of the shock wave from the combustion. In fact, the fireworks were close enough that the three sections of seats closest to the fireworks were emptied before the show began, since that was a place where firework fallout could land. In addition to being close, the show was extravagant – there were always fireworks in the air, and often there were 10 or more going on at once. They combined close-to-the-ground streaming fireworks with more traditional ones that exploded higher up, and the entire thing was more or less coordinated with music piped over the loudspeakers of the stadium. It was great. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I figured they would not come out on the camera, and also I wanted to just relax and enjoy the show.

After the show, we walked the three blocks back to the car in the garage and headed home, except that with all the traffic from the game (and probably a concert from Lock 3), it took about 15 minutes just to get out of the garage. Still, that was okay – the company was good.

We got home and turned on the Olympics and I served up Jo’s birthday cake. It was not her birthday yet, but the cake was not going to get any fresher. It was a bakery-made cake, and was very good – white cake with chocolate and peanut butter layer fillings, with a white buttercream frosting.

All in all, I could not have asked for things to go better. The weather had been great, the restaurant worked out, and the baseball game (plus fireworks) was a great way to spend the evening. We all managed to head to sleep around 11:00 or so (we had a busy day planned for Saturday, but that is another post).