Goin' downtown

Me and 17,000 of my best friends went to the K-State v. FAMU basketball exhibition at the Sprint Center last night.

You can read the Star's coverage of the event here.

It was a beautiful night to be downtown. We started our evening with a couple rounds at The Cigar Box just down Grand from the arena. It was a few blocks walk from where I parked in the Town Pavilion lot ($10, no waiting -- so much for the downtown parking doom sayers).

The place was packed when I got there to rendezvous with the rest of the group. Making my way through the bar, chest to back with all of the other patrons, remided me of my college days squeezing through a packed Rusty's Last Chance in Aggieville. But I digress.

The game was a predictable blowout, so that was fun. One of my favorite moments was the K-State fan flashing a poster on the scoreboard jumbotron which read "Bill Walker Pisses Excellence" -- a reference to the call of nature a few weeks ago.

After the game we capped the night at McFadden's across the street -- another packed house which led us to stand outside on the back terrace drinking our beers, reminiscing and making plans for next time.

It was a good night out.

Here are a few more pics.

I really like the way this shot of the exterior of the Sprint Center bowl turned out. It was taken with my kick-ass cell phone camera (2 megapixels, baby!).

Here's a shot of the inside of the glass skin, looking down from the top level concourse.
Here's a (fuzzy) view of the concourse from the escalator going to the top level. The guy we put in charge of buying tickets managed to score us seats FOUR ROWS FROM ETHE ABSOLUTE TOP!!! It was great once my nose stopped bleeding and I became accustomed to the thin air. Still the view was pretty damn good.



tagged: sports, basketball, K-State, KSU, Wildcats, FAMU, Sprint Center, Kansas City, downtown, The Cigar Box, McFadden's