Greetings everyone. For those that don't know me, I am Erik Backer. I met Mike in late 1999 at my first job out of college at Arbor. We worked there together for about a year and a half before he left to go to APF in Manhattan. A year after that, he brought me over to work in his department. Mike was my boss, my colleague and my friend.
I'm a little late to the game with the blogs but hopefully everyone out there is checking back periodically. I decided that instead of one all-encompassing post, I will break this up into pieces sharing some memories a few a time. Hopefully I can convey them in a way that everyone can understand what it was like to be there.
The first story I will share is when Mike and I went on a 2-day, 2-night business trip to Atlanta for some pointless conference (aren't they all). Tuesday we attended the first day of the conference and we struggled to stay awake. That night, as luck would have it, the Braves were playing a home game against my beloved Mets so we bought tickets and went to Turner Field. It had monsooned earlier in the day but the rain finally broke and we were gonna get this game in. Or so we thought. I found out a few days after returning that when the monsoon returned in the third inning, that game would turn out to be the first ever rainout in Turner Field history (which was only about 6 years or so at the time). So we walked out in the rain w/out an umbrella and asked where the cabs were. We were directed to a particular street but b/c the game ended earlier than anyone expected, there were no cabs. It was at this piont we were approached by a guy that looked like this:
and was wearing this:
and he says..."yo you guys need a cab?" And we were a little caught off guard and partially desperate and said "yeah" and he said "follow me, I got you a cab." Since he started walking in the same direction as the rest of the crowd exiting the stadium we figured it wouldn't hurt to at least see what this guy was offering.
This is still in the rain, mind you.
We get to an area near a newstand at an intersection and he tells us his cousin is coming, just to wait. Mike and I look at each other and, rather belatedly, conclude this guy is full of shit. There isn't a cab coming. There's a CAR coming, but it ain't no cab. And the only place it was taking us was nowhere. And since we didn't want to be a pair of New Yorkers that fell for this low-budget scam all the way down in Atlanta we decided to leave. So we looked around and there happened to be a yellow cab in the gas station across the street so we made a break for it. It turned out the cab was nearly full and from New York. But we squeezed in anyways and we left the cracked out Emitt Smith standing there waiting on the corner for his "cousin" to come pick us up.
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