Twins Fest Recap

This past weekend your faithful bloggers, Stinky and the Scruffy Rube, joined 31,398 other obsessed fans at Twins Fest. Since neither of us had ever been, we went in with no expectations. I'd heard everything from "It's totally lame" to "IT'S THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!"....I would say our experience leaned somewhat towards the latter.

Before I begin my recap I would like to preface it with this:
We did not meet Justin Hot-Pants Morneau
We did not meet Dread Pirate Nathan
We did not meet LNP
We did bring laminated photoshops printed off of our blog, complete with personalized messages addressed to the Twins player(s) pictured in said photoshps, with the every intention of distributing them to their designated recipients.
We did have an awesome time mostly by wandering aimlessly and making our own fun. The day goes somewhat as follows:

2:30ish pm - Stinky and Rube park in Rube's super-secret free parking spot. Said free spot involves about 5-10 minutes of walking in order to get to the dome. Stinky brought a hat and scarf. Rube did not. I'm sure that was a fun walk for him.

3:00ish pm - as our bloggers are wandering aimlessly, this familiar looking dude walks by. "Hey is that Nick Punto?" It is indeed Nick Punto.

3:30ish pm - Our bloggers come to the conclusion that there are better ways to spend one's time than waiting in line for a bajillion years to get someone's autograph. Especially when you can use zoom on your camera to get a good shot of them signing for someone else.

3:45ish pm - Why do people steal minor league team hats from the wall? Rube answers this question for himself when he contemplates stealing his own Montana team's hat.

4:00ish pm -After a good chunk of pleasurably aimless wandering, Stinky and Rube decide they should go find Gardy. Apparently, Gardy is at autograph station #4, which is upstairs. Thinking we are going to find ridiculously long lines there as well, we walk past his autographing station at least twice before realizing that no, there is in fact nobody in line to see Gardy. SERIOUSLY? NOBODY wants to hang out with a magical garden gnome? TWIN CITIES WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???

4:02ish pm - Conversation with Gardy goes somewhat as follows:
Rube: Hey man, we just wanted to say hi and thanks for your great coaching
Gardy: Hey, you're welcome.
Rube: Actually, we write a blog.....
Gardy: Oh no.....
Stinky: Yeah nobody really reads it. I wouldn't worry.
Rube: We brought these, as tokens of our appreciation. (Whips photoshops out of his coat pocket and hands them to Gardy)
Gardy: (looking at Beatles photoshop) *chuckles* heh heh. (looking at blyleven photoshop) heh heh. That's funny. That's funny stuff. (reads back of beatles photoshop) Dear Mr. Morneau..... (trails off, reads silently. finishes reading) Heh. That's good.
S & R: Um...thanks...

He didn't keep the photoshops, but he did enjoy them.

4:06ish pm: S & R realize they totally blew off Jesse Crain, who was also in the same room with Gardy. Whoops. They then decide that this is OK because Gardy is always awesome, whereas Jesse Crain is occasionally not awesome, such as when he blows our leads.

4:20ish pm: Sometimes, one wonders what autographed photos of Sir Alec Guinness are doing at a baseball festival.

4:40ish pm: During another aimless wander, Stinky and Rube spot Jesse Crain doing photo ops! Rube decides this would be a good opportunity to apologize for acting like assholes and completely ignoring him. JC is very gracious about the situation and doesn't seem to mind too much at the time but he does look a little constipated in his photo with Stinky.

4:45ish pm: Our bloggers purchase cool old-timey photos of Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson. Success!

4:50ish pm: Stinky contemplates buying a grab bag. Decides not.

5:10ish pm: Upon nearly exiting the metrodome, Rube realizes he meant to buy a hat while at, preferably one that would keep his own ears from falling off. Our bloggers return, searching for a hat but are unsuccessful.

6:00ish pm: Upon returning to Stinky's abode, our bloggers proceed to accomplish four important things:
1) pet Merlin.
2) map out a plan for a totally kick-ass Twins road trip that is significantly cheaper than the bus tours offered at the Metrodome. Granted, the meal plan for the bus trips probably involves actual meals at restaurants whereas ours relies mainly on toast and peanut butter.
3) Order pizza
4) Watch another installment of Ken Burns documentary.

Overall, I would say Peanuts from Heaven Inc. gives Twins Fest 2009 a solid two thumbs up. Three if Gardy becomes a regular reader of this blog. Unfortunately, as Gardy did not in fact keep any of our photoshops and therefore does not have the URL, this event is highly unlikely.