By Jeremy Harness

 

LOS ANGELES – First of all, for those who are reading this, let me wish you a very happy, a prosperous, new year. Hopefully, all of you were able to spend the final day of 2013 with friends and/or loved ones.

 

For myself, that happening for me was up in the air. However, after battling with scheduling issues at her job, my girlfriend, Montsy, was able to join me down here from Napa along with her mother, Bertha, and her 12-year-old daughter, Angelita, in ringing in 2014 in wonderful fashion.

 

Being in LA, an area which Montsy is a native, we were obviously out and about, but I was able to ease into the day itself.

 

After a long night of checking out what LA had to offer – as well as having my phone battery run out – I was thankful that there weren’t any scheduled events in the morning. This allowed me to take in some breakfast without a real time limit, which I found to be extremely refreshing in what has proven to be an all-go, no-stop string of events that I call a life.

 

Not a whole lot wrong with that, but just sayin’.

 

The first stop was the Kickoff Luncheon, which was held in the parking lot outside Rose Bowl Stadium. There was one thing wrong, however, as we got ready to leave the hotel at around 11:30: I had neglected to give myself a chance to go back to my room to grab the pair of gold-and-brown sunglasses and the gray fedora hat that I had purchased the day before (in my infinite wisdom, knowing that I was headed to sunny Southern California and not somewhere like Seattle, I had also failed to bring a hat nor shades for this trip, thus the need to buy those items down here) since I figured the shuttle was leaving later than it actually did.

 

Thankfully, I just so happened to be in the media hospitality room at the time. After polishing off a solid round of the vintage golf video game Golden Tee, I checked with one of the friendly staff members, who informed me that the shuttle was leaving in a few minutes.

 

Needless to say, there was no time to grab any accessories that I might need, but I digress…

 

As the shuttle took us down Orange Grove Blvd. on the way to the stadium, I noticed a long line of people with folding chairs and sweatshirts, with the sole purpose of saving a precious viewing position for Wednesday morning’s Rose Parade. This was something that I was accustomed to seeing with fans camping outside of the stadium/arena in an attempt to snag game tickets.

 

Not only that, but I also noticed a good 30 rows of bleachers on the other side of the street, which made me realize that planning for this parade takes a great deal of advance preparation.

 

As we got to the luncheon site, the social media session began. Since I’m not one to waste memories and to allow my friends and family to share the experiences as much as possible, I spent most of my time there utilizing both Facebook and Instagram to record the various pictures and happenings.

 

One of those happenings was the performance of the marching bands, mascots and cheerleading squads of both Michigan State and Stanford. Since the luncheon crowd was split down the middle with fans of both schools, this had the feel of a pep rally. This was also pretty refreshing, since I had not been to a pep rally since my high school graduation 17 years ago.

 

Before getting back on the shuttle to leave following the luncheon, a buddy of mine by the name of Chance McBride and myself decided to get a sneak peek at the stadium and asked if we could go inside the confines to perhaps snap some photos. However, since neither of us had brought our game-day credential with us, access was effectively denied.

 

Darn! Well, guess we’ll just have to get to the stadium early enough to take said pictures before the game starts. This, however, may or may not allow us time to do the Rose Parade in the morning, a decision on which I am still battling with as this is being written.

 

From there, I walked around and took in downtown LA awaiting the arrival of the rest of my little gang, which arrived at around 9:30 p.m. We took a shuttle back into downtown, and after striking out on a couple of places to take Angelita to eat, we settled in front of the Staples Center, where she spotted a young man cooking and selling hot dogs wrapped in bacon on the side of the street.

 

Cool! Now that that issue was resolved, we caught the shuttle back to the hotel and decided to ring in the new year, safe and sound. As it should be.