Photos from 9/11 10th Anniversary : Astros at Nationals & Giants at Redskins

It was a whirlwind uneventful (as in a good way) day and evening. Both of our home teams won, thank goodness.  Both environments were somber, respectful, and thoughtful, then energized, ecstatic, and dynamic.  Congratulations to our Nationals who beat the Astros 8-2 (and for the 3 in a row home runs by Ian Desmond, Rick Ankiel and Ryan Zimmerman).  Amazingly, we made it to the Nats and the Redskins games with virtually no traffic.   The trick we discovered is to wait and not try to get there early.  Kind of like when we went to OBX, we thought leaving “before everyone else got on the road” was the thing to do, when in actuality, we should have waited until all those fools (including us) were off the road, then one can make decent time.  We were even in the FedEx Field Owners Club suite (thank you to my dear friend who generously gave us tickets) with drink in hand before the ceremony started.  Oh and we got to park in the new NRG Energy solar paneled lot, which I immediately thought was some sort of fancy new fangled retro car port. I was like, What is Dan Snyder up to now???  I’m actually quite impressed with the solar panels, which will provide enough energy to run the stadium on non-game days and 20% on game days. More to come on that though.

Singer Ne-Yo gave one of the most beautiful renditions of the National Anthem I’d heard in a long time and ahem, during the moment of silence, some of the crowd kept yelling “USA! USA! USA!” which was horrifying, spirited, but horrifying.  My high light was seeing the unfriendliest sportscaster on television walk by to use the rest room : the one and only Troy Aikman.  But even better was to catch a fast glimpse of the hilarious Joe Buck, who also breezed by during half time from the broadcast booth.

Troy Aikman and me in 2008 : he actually stopped and took the photo with me back then

Enjoy some photos of a beautiful memorable day in Washington, D.C. and Landover, MD.

Ryan Zimmerman warming up

Pitcher Stephen Strasburg

Jason Werth warming up

Wounded veterans

Team owner Mark Lerner watches on

pre-game at FedEx Field

everyone received a flag to wave

view from the Owners Club level

General Colin Powell (doesn't the ref look suspiciously like VP Joe Biden?

surrounding General Colin Powell

Robet De Niro gives a message

Victoria Michael, Larry Michael and Gunnar Jurgensen

me, Victoria Michael, Sharon Bradley, Amy Donnelly, and Cindy Jones in the Owners Club bar/lounge

opening ceremonies