I woke up at stupid o’clock in the morning on June 5, 2002. Portugal was the stylish pick to win the 2002 World Cup, and the Americans were just hoping to better the 32nd-place finish from France four years earlier. And the Metro didn’t start running early enough for me to go to a bar to watch it live. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t exactly sanguine about the prospects. And then John O’Brien slotted a goal for the US inside of five minutes, and then Portugal gave up an own goal at the half-hour mark, and the riot was on. There would be a goal from the mighty McBride, another own-goal from Jeff Agoos, and by the time the smoke cleared and the closing theme from Independence Day struck up, the USA had won 3-2…and the best World Cup ever was finally on.<\/p>\n
I say best ever because I got to see a ton of games. I went straight to Lucky Bar at the conclusion of the first game so I could be there for the replay and drink heavily (and cast aspersion on the refs). It was the first of many trips. I saw games overnight flying to California on jetBlue. I saw the USA beat Mexico in the round of 16 in a conference room at work, on the clock, after we somehow luck-boxed our way into the second stage. I saw the Americans outplay Germany for 90 minutes and lose anyway, because the incredible Oliver Kahn stood on his head and just bricked off the goal.<\/p>\n
But there was more going on than soccer. I had a vacation in California that month, a week spent stooging around and reading and relaxing. I had my old iBook, which had just been fitted with an AirPort card, and I got to walk down University Avenue in Palo Alto and see open wireless around literally every corner. I had an iPod for the first time, and was able to listen to all my girlfriend’s new wave tracks and a band called Air that I’d just discovered through a Nick Hornby book. I saw a Cingular store where all the phones were GSM-based and marveled at the newer better technology than what I was carrying – better battery life in a smaller phone that you could change out without any input from the phone company. And I was amazed over and over again by the fact that it got cold at night – and really didn’t get that hot during the day, thanks to the morning fog and the lack of humidity otherwise.<\/p>\n
It was amazing. I knew that this was the girl for me and that our future was on the West Coast, but that June was the first time that I really began to absorb what it would genuinely be like to be in California. All the things I would come to rely on – pervasive wireless, fully digital mobile telephony, all my music available all the time, Mediterranean climate – can be traced back to that June. I mention it because here I sit, watching the World Cup streaming at work, waiting eight days for the delivery of my iPhone 4. The circle of life continues to turn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I woke up at stupid o’clock in the morning on June 5, 2002. Portugal was the stylish pick to win the 2002 World Cup, and the Americans were just hoping to better the 32nd-place finish from France four years earlier. And the Metro didn’t start running early enough for me to go to a bar … <\/p>\n