Another March Madness trip in the books. This one started a bit unconventionally for me - flew into LGA from Canada after two days of work meetings at Shopify HQ. I had to get a shuttle at 3am from Waterloo to the Toronto airport. Landed 40 minutes early in LGA (!), so no issues getting up to the Bronx to meet Mark and my brother Gary for Opening Day at Yankee Stadium! Yanks beat the Orioles 7-2. Mariano Rivera threw out the first pitch. It got pretty cold, but we didn’t care. Definitely a good one to knock off the bucket list!

After the game Mark and I left Gary and headed to Philly to meet Ezra. It took us an hour plus just to get out of the Bronx, but otherwise smooth sailing. Met Ezra at Sugarhouse Casino and jumped right in with bets on Gonzaga (over Florida St) and Tennessee (over Purdue). Split those, but did better with Texas Tech (over Michigan) and Oregon (over Virginia).

Went back to the AirBnB Mark booked which turned out to be a short walk from the casino in the Fishtown neighborhood. It was a nice, big place with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. We just got settled and crashed.

Woke up early-ish on Friday, so I went to Amrita Yoga just up the street. It was a nice place; good (hot) class. I met Mark and Ezra at Milk Crate Cafe for breakfast. Cool spot - record store/cafe.

Ben arrived shortly after that (he was supposed to take a train, but decided to drive straight through). We rented bikes in the Fairmount neighborhood and took them down into the city - past the Rocky statue, ran the steps, down around Independence Hall/Liberty Bell. Stopped at Terminal Market for some awesome cheesesteak and a brisket sandwich.

Went back to the place and cleaned up for another night of basketball. Michigan St handled LSU and Virginia Tech nearly beat Duke on a last second tip-in play. Wanted Duke to lose, but good enough to cover the spread. We split the later games as Auburn throttled UNC, but Houston couldn’t beat Kentucky. I lost a quick few hands of blackjack. Ben seemed to do pretty well at video poker (we established a safe word - “Jeff Calhoun” - just in case he got carried away. I used it several times without much luck). We also made good use of Mark’s “grapes” or “Valparaiso” or…

Saturday was a gorgeous day. Ben, Mark and I went to Front Street Cafe for breakfast while Ezra went to CrossFit. We then rallied on our bikes and found a baseball field. After a quick beer at Fishtown Brewery, we hit grounders, shagged flies, took some swings. It felt great (except for Ben who pulled his groin). After that we drove our bikes all over the city and through several cool neighborhoods. We landed back in Fishtown for lunch after I got a flat tire and had to take it to Bikes-n-Beans to get it fixed. We had more smoked meat sandwiches at a place called “Fette Sau” which Mark google-translated to “Fuck” in French, but it means “Fat Pig” in German. Delicious.

Forgot to mention that each day included a well-deserved afternoon nap. Ben didn’t sleep on Saturday so he hit the casino early. He left some Adderall behind to help us “focus.” Seems to work pretty well :).

Another great night of basketball didn’t translate to big wins as Texas Tech surprised Gonzaga and Purdue blew a lead and lost to Virginia in OT despite an amazing performance by Carson Edwards.

The sportsbook is pretty nice and we struck up a good rapport with the least likely “Dorothy” ever as our waitress. Although the staff had some issues getting games on the big screen. At one point Mark insisted they ask for a show of hands to see if more people wanted to watch March Madness over the Phillies/Braves game. We won out.

Saturday night ended with my usual futile 20-40 minutes at a blackjack table, then back home.

Slept in Sunday morning, so we rode our bikes straight back to the rental shop in a driving rain. We ate nearby at a promising place called Tela’s. Ezra found a couple of very suggestive carrots while Mark was off doing something “clandestine” at a nearby CVS. Turns out he had 8x10 prints made of the group picture we took at the baseball field. Very cool! The breakfast wasn’t so great - cold food and confusion.

Rain continued so we Ubered back to Frankford Lofts - changed out of our soggy clothes and made it back to the casino for the final two games. Ben and Ezra left after Auburn surprised Kentucky, so Mark and I stuck it out alone for Michigan St/Duke. It was an epic battle and MSU beat Duke by 2. Always nice to see Duke lose, but better still when there’s money on the line!

I ended up spending/betting/losing about $300, which is what I left with. Only downside of Philly was later games, so no chance for a nice group dinner - of which I was hoping to pick up the tab for all this crew has done for me these last few months…and 20+ years.