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A night out in Hartford


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I was at the Meadows last night. Good times.

But I'm not here for concert reviews, unless anyone wants it. Not too happy about something else. Get off I-84 east and there's a sign for parking. Right turn and there's a solid line of cars barely moving to get into $20 lots up Market St. I wanted to go to City Steam anyway, so turned left for downtown towards one the designated parking garages.

12:10-ish in the morning, I reach the parking garage to find three New Yorkers opening the door to bust their car out. Apparently this company closed the garage at 10 pm, and left dozens at the Meadows (including myself) potentially stranded. The garage was full, and yet closed up. Do people have brains? Can't someone think of putting a person out there to take 5-10 bucks from people once the concert ends? Didn't someone expect this happening?

I have a brilliant idea for future times. If this parking garage is not going to be used for concert parking - how about not putting it on the signs coming off I-84 and I-91? Who the hell, gah this blows my mind.

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part of your problem was that besides the 35,000 at the meadows, there were 16,000 at the civic center last night too. the city was absolutely packed and therefore parking was a crap show.

I will be leaving for citysteam right now actually to go to DMB later etc, but I am a monthly parker in that garage that closes at 10. all you gotta do is go ro the automated ticket paying machine and it will open the gates up for you(i have been told) I have a swipey card and a sensor on my windshield. but I see how its a pain if you do know the "tricks".

on the other hand dont you think the city did pretty well for having 50,000 more people in it that are usualy there :)

anyways its off to visit my mug at citysteam

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Well, I presume the rap show drew a lot from Hartford. So say 10k at the Civic Center, and 20-24k at the Meadows for out of towners - not too bad.

Just too bad not many of them were doing things in downtown Hartford before hand. The Meadows was bustling in the parking lot, but well... I don't think they sell picnic tables, big red plastic cups, cigarettes, and 30 packs of cheap "beer" anywhere near there. Probably all from the Wal-Mart and mini-marts outside Hartford.

I was just frustrated with that garage - Talcott St. I believe it is. It's across the side street from the back side of 960 Main. Near I-84, so I liked that. You figure with two big concerts in town, at least someone would be there a couple extra hours to take from all the out of towners. Figure some/most of the people parking there are for the concerts.

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I really enjoyed it. It was my first time at the meadows, so I guess it was cool to see the place completely packed to the rafters.

I further realized something. I am old

also Dave is getting old.

I dont know how DMB could ever put on a bad show because he is not a "showman" he is a musician, and he has so many incredibly good songs, so all he has to do is play that little ditty at the start of Ants Marching and I am completely satisfied :)

I thought the cops could have done a better job with traffic. I mean this is not the first time there has been a big concert in Hartford. We had VIP parking and they said they discourage tailgating in VIP. no problemo, we were just gonna have a few beers in the lot, so we headed to the venue at like 615. as we pulled out of State House Square parking garage the cops said we could not dive on the closed roads because there was no more parking. we showed VIP parking pass he said it was closed. he said you needed to get here on time to get in there... he said that would have been 4 hours ago.

on time?

he was actually rude about it. I mean its 2 hours before the concert, and he said on time. that was kind of stupid.

anyways we knew he was wrong so we managed to work our way through some stupid traffic to get back around to central row then onto Main street and up to another cop who was way better and said he could not let us through because it was his orders, but that we could go up around the N side and give it a shot. he let us head N up Windsor street.

Windsor street is a charmer

anyways we get back into traffic and creep towards Weston St. After a nice long week we eventually were allowed to move forward. It was a mission, and since we drank all the beer we had brought(2 city steam growlers) with us stuck in traffic, we went inside.

all in all it was not a problem, and life was good once in side.

except do you think they could sell st least one premium beer? VIP only had crap, I had to walk around looking and I found buds American ale. not exactly premium. but 12 bones. ehh whatever its a business. i honestly have no complaints, and did not hesitate a moment because the tickets were a hook up. but I dont know how people can afford to do that unless they get the hook up.

anyways, you know whats the most impressive thing about hartford this weekend?

Thursday:Blackeyed and Blues festival

Friday: DMB and 93.7 Concert.

Saturday Morning: Race for the cure @ bushnall park

Saturday day: Gay pride parade

Saturday Night: DMB

busiest weekend in Hartford in a long damn time I would guess

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Yeah, it was like 8 dollars for Bud Light. And so many people drink Bud Light, it is a bit disappointing. Why sell premium stuff when about 90 percent of people don't care.

Along with the beer, 4 dollars for bottled water. I generally eat and drink before going to these things, so I don't get the temptation inside. Well, the Little Caesars was tempting but I stopped at the Quiznos across from City Steam before.

I would say this would be a good weekend for Hartford.

In another thought: Tiesto isn't having an American tour this summer. Bummer. Last couple years he had a show out on Constitution Plaza and drew a few thousand from all around the northeast. Was there in 07, would have liked to have gone last year, was hoping there'd be one this year.

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I'm pretty sure Talcott Street is a 24-hour garage. What entrance did you use? Sometimes it makes sense to ask questions when you leave your car somewhere. Of course, I'm sure people will end blaming the city and Mayor Perez.

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Well I guess thats true. with anything like this once it happens its over. maybe not for the victims, and thats why there are often revenge killings and such, but they cought a shooter right away so its not like they have to go out and find the guy.

So, the waiter from city steam died as you may have read. he also worked at chillies in Farmington.

apparently he is the same guy that was arrested a few years back trying to steal some electronic equipment from UCONN and had since gotten himself in check and was a hard working decent guy holding down 2 jobs. He clearly was not the target either.

on a semi related note, have you noticed that the police are catching a much higher % of the killers this year? last year it was about 50% this year it is much much higher and they have cought several killers from past years. I am guessing that the city police department is running better than it was in the past. still could use an additional 100 cops, but thats another story.

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The courant online puts every murder stabbing and shooting in a very prominent location actually. I do not think there is a murder I didnt know about so far this year, and I dont even check the paper every day. on the courant homepage its always its always in the center top of the page just to the right of the picture.

today there is no murder action, but they not only put the Hartford ones there, but some of the prominent New Haven murders and random other cities. sometimes shootings are in the ct section lower down as well

I can check the HPD web site for an accurate count, but the murder map the courant maintains shows 13. not all are mapped, but all are listed. It is included in every news blurb about a murder.

http://www.courant.com/community/news/hfd/...04464.framedurl

if we end up with 26 for the year that would not be too bad, but you can tell its getting warmer out with all the activity in the last few weeks

since 5-22, there have been 5 murders. thats a rough 3 weeks

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