This collection of entries is from February 01, 2002.
Well, we left home almost two hours before SoxFest was supposed to begin. We barely got there in time, due to the traffic. We were meeting our friends and season ticket holders Jeff & Doreen, and Janie & Gary at 5pm, when the doors opened. Well, when we got there, we had to go to a different floor because the line was so long. We knew that there was a security bag check before ewe went in, but had no idea what we were in for. We met everyone else while we were standing in line. The line started to move around 5:40pm! We went straight to the first (and only) scheduled seminar - a discussion session with General Manager Kenny Williams and Manager Jerry Manual, hosted by radio broadcaster Ed Farmer. The first thing we hear is something that literally just happened probably minutes before - we get Kenny Lofton as our new Center Fielder!!! Got him as a free agent with a one year deal. This is big deal!
Well, Jeff gets in line to ask a question of Kenny Williams, the General Manager. It's long, involved, loaded with pointed questions. Kenny rolls his eyes and asks Jeff for his cheat-sheet that has the questions on them, so he can answer the whole thing. It was priceless. Kenny signed the questions for Jeff and gave them back. The audience seemed to like it. The thing about SoxFest is that you see management types like this and they don't dodge questions - they answer honestly - how many major league teams of any sport do that???
We went downstairs to the main floor. Jeff & Doreen get into line to get an autograph from Paul Konerko (her favorite), so Carol & I with Janie & Gary go over to the Fox Sports Net stage where they broadcast live from 7-8 tonight. They were interviewing players throughout the show. Pretty cool.
We walked through the exhibitors, picking a few trinkets along the way (hats, pins, signed baseballs, etc).
There was always a White Sox Training Academy clinic going on - we watched a bit of the pitching clinic with pitchers Jim Parque and Jon Garland.
We finally pick up Jeff & Doreen toward the end of the night from their autograph session, take a last walk through the exhibitors and then go to the Hotel lobby (Hyatt Regency Chicago) to hit their coffee shop for dinner. Dinner took almost two fricken hours!!!! Severely understaffed! Kelly Wunsch came in and sat down in a corner by himself for dinner. It was amazing how many people went over to bother him!!! Anyway, it was a great time at SoxFest. It hard to believe that the first pre-season game is 4 weeks from today!
So, I awake this morning and there is still no job on the horizon. I awake to realize that my last full-time position was the end of my contract with divine 8 months ago. 35 weeks ago. Sure, I had some quick contract things in between - one lasted 3 weeks, the other only 2. I don't count those. Those were too short, contract only, through other companies. Then again, my stint at divine was a contract as well. I signed a sixty-day contract on April 12, which actually started April 2 (don't get me started on that...), though I didn't actually start working in Lisle until April 23. So, I guess my last "full-time, permanent" position was my last day at marchFIRST before I was "traded" to divine on April 2, almost 44 weeks ago. That was the weirdest time in my career. marchFIRST was going under, faster than the Titanic. divine shows up as a Lusitania and rescues part of the marchFIRST assets and people, and I was "traded" to divine to assist in the transition for sixty days. It really felt like a "trade". The rest of us all felt this. We weren't welcome there. We were "transients". We knew the systems, we knew the people - they didn't and they didn't care. I have personally heard people tell me so. Rat bastards. They don't know what they lost.
Speaking of "trade", I'm starting to feel it... baseball is coming... tonight Carol & I are going to SoxFest at the Hyatt downtown. I love baseball. No, I loooooooove baseball. It wasn't until the strike year back in 1994 that I realized that when the World Series didn't happen, I felt this hole in my life, like something wasn't complete. That's when I realized that I measure my life along the season of baseball. My year ends not on the calendar, but at the last pitch of the World Series, and my year starts with the first pitch of opening day. SoxFest helps - it's a fan convention with the players and staff before Spring Training starts... it awakens something in me... at least it has in the past. I'm hoping something wakes up, because the no-job thing is just killing me, and the situation with my dad just makes it worse. It was my dad that brought me to my first game. It was my dad that kept bringing me back to Comiskey Park, becoming one of the few White Sox fans on the North Side of Chicago... memories come back and intertwine with everything happening now.