My Dinner with Big Al

  So last night was the BIG night. The night started with a nice setup of appetizers. I honestly could have been done after that. Once everyone was there the Jazz Marketing guy came and talked to everyone and of course gave us the big DISCLAIMER...no talking about what happened earlier in the day(Sloan retiring). No surprise there. So then we were set free to go get our picture with Al. After that it was time for dinner.
    We were put at tables of six. The seats were assigned but I scored, my spot was next to where Al would sit. So this was the part I was nervous about. I mean we had to eat with a bunch of strangers. But it turned out alright. Ok so the gourmet dinner was out of control. First the soup, never had anything like it before but it was good. Then they brought around Lion House rolls with Honey butter. Yum!  Then of course a salad. After they cleared our salads Al came and sat with us.
   So this was the best part of the night we just got to ask him questions. So I found out that of course he has one of those awesome stories. The 8 yr old who decides he wants to play in the NBA. No one believes him but he worked hard...he was the 'Jimmer' of his high school, he was known to score 42 points a game. Definitely crazy for a high schooler. So he made it to the "big arena in front of scouts" and the rest is history. And if you are wondering which NBA player he dreads playing against the most..it's Kendrick Perkins. No wonder the Jazz did so bad in Boston. Anyway he says Perkins knows all his moves, being teammates for three years does that. He loves it in Utah, "dream come true". And yes he enjoyed being part of the domination on Boozer the other night. He even went as far to say that "Boozer was only good because DWilliams got him the ball."

We were sad to see Al have to switch tables but they did bring us our dinner right after. I had the chicken wellington and Dave the salmon. I was so stuffed that even though this was sooo good I only got about 2/3rds of the way through. Then of course there was dessert, some form of death by chocolate cake. Yeah I ate about half.

So the night was awesome. Great dinner and a great basketball player. Oh and Al was nice enough to sign Landon's hat while he was at our table. Pretty nice since when Boozer left Landon decided Big Al was his new favorite.