Lunch Thread: Party Like It's 1997

End of 2nd grade which sucked
Started 3rd grade which was badass.

Staying out all night, wasting my life.

Started my first semester at Long Beach City.

Mooching all I could off my parents. Playing excessive amounts of Playstation. Figuring out how to get alcohol on a Friday night. Not working. Waiting for school to start at Cal Poly Pomona in September.

Met my wife in January. Married a little over 2 1/2 yearsa later. 2 kids later, and still going strong

My father had major surgery for an Abdominal Aoritc Anerysm, other wise known as a AAA in the medical field. It is one of those things that they normally don’t find out about until you die from it.

Since it was a Sunday.

In August 1997, in general, I was at work, developing computer systems for the Army.

Managing an Edwards Cinema, making barely over minimum wage. I was dating a girl who I eventually married, who almost ruined my life.

dating a girl with multiple personalities, buying lots of CDs at Cheap Thrills, working way too much at a little law firm, and driving a white Miata. Last year that I practiced law, so it was a watershed year for me. My best friend was diagnosed with cancer [he died in March of 98], I remember watching baseball on the tube with him in the summer of 97 when he was in the hospital in Long Beach, we ate take out pizza. Baseball was one thing we always shared, we had some great times watching games in New York, Anaheim, and Palm Springs. He was a big Mets and Angels fan. This one’s for you, Dennis.

I had only been Angels fan for a couple of years at that point (my family moved to So Cal in ’94). That day sucked, the finish to that season was painful.

I’m not an old timer, I don’t remember ’86 let alone the early years of the franchise. You guys who have been around forever have my respect. But the strike, ’95, ’97 and ’98 was a brutal way to begin my Angel fanhood.

It could be worse. I could’ve become a Dodgers fan.

…First shared flat in The Smoke with 5 other guys, flogging drugs in South London*, got stabbed in the arm with a fork in an Italian restaurant by a crotchety ex-girlfriend who I’d clearly driven insane, 1st trip to Ibiza, had my wardrobe stolen by fans of Chelsea FC when moving house on a Sunday after a game… I had the world’s worst motor – a red Fiat Punto that I stuck in a bush off a small bridge in rural Northamptonshire. Happy days – lots going on that year.

(* – to primary care physicians, for the newly formed Novartis pharma – it was all legit)

I remember distinctly the whole Tony Phillips saga, and my dad explaining to me why he was a bad role model, and what he had done, etc.

I remember attending a game maybe a week after it happened. Top deck of the stadium behind home plate, I think against the Yankees. And I think we won pretty handily. Then I remember the rest of the season being a slide down hill.

Of course I didn’t know it at the time but I was just a few months away from losing my dad. That’s all 1997 is know for in my world.

Im drawing a blank.

but the first year I started traveling a lot (mostly UK, Ireland and Brazil). That August I got back together with my ex-wife (we divorced in 1991) and my three kids. It was a three year adventure which finally turned south in 1999. All-in-all a good year.

I was probably smoking crack too

I was married with a newborn son, working a shitty job while going back to school to get my teaching credential in secondary mathematics at CSUF (which I never completed) to complement (yeah right) my degree in management from Cal Poly Pomona. Life was a real struggle at the time. Truly don’t miss it at all.

before heading back to UCI for my sophomore year.

o0o0o fun

Highest Paid Players on team were Chuck Finley and Mark Langston @ 4 Million a season. WTF Happened?

wth, something messed up there ^

Isn’t being white trash fun?

I didn’t pay much attention to baseball in the late-nineties. The ‘95 season killed my youthful exuberance, and baseball was boring in those years anyways. The Steroid Dynasty won the World Series every year, big deal. College football was more interesting (anyone remember Cade McNown?). Baseball didn’t get any more exciting until Gene Autry finally died and the Angels hired Mike Scioscia.

I actually thought he was the next big thing. Boy was I wrong!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMtMTxLIASY

Playing water polo in the mornings, then spending the rest of the day with my friends, playing video games or going into AOL chat rooms and trying to talk dirty with girls (who were probably really 53-year-old guys).

and I was probably right at the beginning of college football hell week and three-a-day practices. Three practices with summer school classes in between, it was probably the hardest week of my life now that I think of it. Stayed in a dorm that looked like juvenile hall, and wondered every night what the hell I got myself into.

One week later I was enjoying every minute of it.

I remember being super bummed because I thought Tony was the best player on the team (hey i was 13). He still was the only one to score a run in that 8-1 rout in ’95 one-game playoff. Shot to center.

What was I doing at 13? Hm….probably figuring out how to masturbate. I also played baseball on an All-Star team that year. We went to some tournament. I remember I had family in town so while it was usually only my mother in the stands, this time I had over 5 people rooting for me. We got eliminating in three games but I remember doing really well and leading off every game…good times…

my first season as a true Angel fan…
as the son of two Europeans I had to find the love of baseball on my own and i explicitly remember that season with those ugly Disney uniforms…
I can’t remember if it was this season but around that time I was at a game that went extras, I stayed in the stadium as my sister and Dad went back to the car to watch Tim Salmon hit a walk-off homerun

that’s what i was doing in ’97

GO HALOS!

Summer of ‘97, I was one year out of law school, going on job interviews and trying to figure out if I really wanted to be a lawyer. I can’t remember where I was watching TV when the story hit the news (probably my apartment…it was a really nice apartment), but I remember being bitterly disappointed yet (sadly) not completely shocked.

I was a championshipless 20-something (except for my 1980’s Lakers). 2000 (Rams) and 2002 (Angels) been very, very good to me! I am set for life.

And the Rev is the one who rekindled my Angels fandom after I clocked out for most of the ’90s. Thank you, 1997!

allowed to tell the young’uns to “GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!!!”???

is now a White Sox player. They picked him up off waivers for nobody.

My younger daughter had graduated 8th grade, the older one had graduated HS, still two months away from heading off to UCI, and I don’t remember which place we went that year.

Had just returned from my 1st trip to the US and my love affair with baseball began

I was still teaching Kindergarten and dating my ex-wife. Other than that, not much else.

if it was a sunday, i was probably dreading going back to work on monday. back then, i had a 2 hour drive in traffic (which means, 35 miles or so)…

good money, but sucked BIGTIME

watching the naked babes in Starship Troopers

Had gotten married two weeks previous. Was either in London, staying with an ex-girlfriend (awkward!), or back home in Budapest, adjusting to a placeholder job (had previously been a managing editor) to tide me over before our dramatic (and, it turned out, dramatically failed), move to Cuba.

Graduated High School. Started, stopped and started again dating my future wife. Discovered Mickey’s wide mouth grenades and PBR. Started sleeping days and watching the baseball card/knife show all night long (who doesn’t want a 40 piece pocket knife set). Learned to live on nearly nothing. But most of all I remember the Angels falling apart.

with a certain recently-deceased king of pop’s cousin. just a garden-variety psychobitch with a father for a lawyer, more family money than should be legal and finally a rap sheet for filing false po-po reports.

Had retired from the airline first of the year, and on that Sunday decided to expand my startup business international. Worked well the next four years, all went into the crapper in the aftermath of 9-11. Followed baseball, but nothing like I do today. Was a transition month and year for all four of the family.

Started Seventh grade after finishing Sixth grade that June. Cousin from Florida came to stay. Turned thirteen in December and got my very first (and only, come to think of it, unless you count the iHome) full home stereo system. Wanted an N64 but did not get one (still had that SNES, which lasted until roughly 2007-2008). Was into Chumbawumba and No Doubt. Somewhat inexplicably did not give a shit about the Angels.