Binoculars or maybe Kenny Chesney

The plot or the subplot? Where to spend the time?

So, OK, we had tickets to go see Kenny Chesney's Flip Flop Summer Tour last weekend. This was good, because they had five acts, and both my wife and I had a favorite in the mix. I'm a a big Brooks and Dunn fan and she is in love with Kenny Chesney and may also know one or two of his songs. Anyway, this was a stadium concert so since I live near Cleveland, we were a-goin' to Browns stadium.

Now, we jumped on-line for tickets the day and time they went on sale. Does this get us in the front row? No. Does it get us in the first ten rows? No. if we go by lots of ten rows, this will be my longest blog ever, so let's safely assume that we did not get seats very close. Since it was clear we were not going to get up close, we went for "Club Level" seats. There are actually much nicer seats, with actual seat cushions, cup holders, and an entrance that the usual riff-raff can't get through. I have sat in the Club section for Browns games, and it generally rocks. You have your own concession stands which serve fare much nicer than the usual dogs and nachos (although you can get those too). They have a full bar available. They have people who will go get your stuff for you if you want them too and are willing to wait for that.

They are also, obviously, more expensive seats. But, having sat in the Club before, I assured my wife they were awesome seats are worth the dough. And, had we been going to a football game, I would have been absolutely right. But, this wasn't a football game. First off, our seats were on right about the 45 yard line. Unfortunately, the stage was in the opposite end zone. So, we weren't too close. This isn't noticeable when watching a football game because there is a whole field of action to keep up on, and the height and angle from the 45 yard line club section is a great boon to following the game. However, when your wife's primary goal in going to the show is to see how good Kenny looks in his tight jeans, 45 yard line club seats aren't exactly ideal.

Anyway, I knew that Club level seats wouldn't be right on top of the stage, so I told my wife I'd go out and buy some small binoculars. Now, I have some really nice, really heavy binoculars, but I wanted something small and light that we could wear around our necks for 6 hours without feeling the weight too much. So, I go to my local Dick's Sporting Goods store and I try out about 5 pairs of smaller binoculars. The salesman is patient considering all of them are locked up and I take each pair to the front of the store to look out at the parking lot so I can really see how well they work.

Well, I have it narrowed down to the ones I think are right - a nice 12X Simmons folding model. But, I want to compare the field of vision to my big, nice binoculars which I have in the trunk. So, I tell the salesman I'll be back (in my best Arnold impression which he thankfully laughs at) and I go out to my car and get my binoculars and start looking around the parking lot. This turns out to garner a lot of attention from people in and around the parking lot. This may be because I find a number of interesting sites around the area and end up looking around with high powered binoculars for maybe 7 or 8 minutes. Yep, when I put them down, I notice I have people from maybe 6 stores all looking out their windows right at me, as well as a number of people who are walking to their cars.

I go back inside Dick's sporting Goods, but, now I have a dilemma. I know the best ones to get are the 12X Simmons, but, they only have them in camo. I also know my wife will wear something in camo for 6 hours right about the same time hell freezes over. So, I call her and tell her that the best ones are 12X but camo, or they have some 10X that are in black. Well, since she is wearing pink to the show, you more fashion-conscious folks (I'm looking at you, tait) will recognize that the only possible response she can give is for me to get her the black ones. So, I do.

The binoculars prove to be very good ones, although you have probably guessed that my wife swapped with me once Kenny got on stage so that she could get 2X closer to Kenny's jeans.

The show was really, really good. Brooks and Dunn were awesome, Sara Evans and Sugarland both put on good shows, and Kenny's jeans did not disappoint all the drunk ladies. About 8:15 a water main burst at the stadium and so all the bathrooms and all the concessions were closed. This proved to be a bit of an issue, since much of the crowd was comprised of rowdy, hard-drinking country fans and women who were getting drunk hoping to make their way onto Kenny's Tour bus. The stadium had to bust out the port-o-potties, the lines were very long, and there were none in the Club section at all, so not only did we have to mix with the common folk, and the common folk's wastes, we also had to walk a long way to get there. So, we only made THAT trip once and then held it the rest of the night. From what I hear, there were quite a few "ladies and gentlemen" who came up with their own solutions. I will be forever grateful that I did not sit near any of them.