Round 2 for CITY SC: 2024 Season Opener

Late yesterday afternoon (24 February), I picked up Julie at her place and drove us to a reserved parking lot in downtown St. Louis. We then walked about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) to the Schlafly Tap Room for the St. Louligans pre-match party. St. Louis CITY SC was opening its second Major League Soccer season by hosting Real Salt Lake.

(CITY SC actually played its first match the previous Tuesday night, hosting Houston Dynamo in the first leg of the First Round CONCACAF Champions Cup tournament. CITY won 2-1 and the second leg will be in Houston this Tuesday night.)

Julie and I made our way down Louligan Street (21st Street north of Olive) and bought dinner from the Cluck Oink Moo Sliders food truck. I had two pork slides with french fries and they were very tasty. I then bought a Pale Ale from a Schlafly beer tent and Schlaffle tickets from the St. Louligans tent. Julie bought Schlaffle tickets and a t-shirt from the St. Louligans. We were having fun.

Just over an hour before kickoff, Julie and I joined with other supporters to sing and dance for a few minutes on Louligan Street before beginning the march into CITYPARK. It was rather cold and a big windy last night, but we were not going to let that stop us from showing our devotion to CITY SC. 

After entering CITYPARK, we went to look for a standing place in the Supporter Section in the stadium's North End. However, we found it a fruitless search; it seemed every standing place in the section was occupied. We ended up in the area behind some seats in the northwest breezeway facing the pitch. Not the greatest experience, but it worked out for Julie and I.

After a scoreless first half, Real Salt Lake tallied in the 74th minute. Undaunted, CITY SC fought back and leveled it on Sam Adeniran's goal in the 79th minute. That's how the match ended, a 1-1 draw. I'm sure we would have preferred a CITY win on the season opener, but it still was good in that we got a point in MLS play.

After the match, Julie and I walked back to my car. Our legs were tired from all the standing, but we got to my car in the lot safe and sound. I then drove Julie home after yet another great date. 

CITY SC returns home this Saturday to host New York City FC. It should be fun.

Later.

Websites of Entities Mentioned in this Post:

Schlafly Tap Room: Tap Room Brewpub - Schlafly Beer

St. Louligans: Saint Louligans – Supporting Soccer in the St. Louis Area – St. Louligans – Supporting St. Louis Soccer (stlouligans.com)

St. Louis CITY SC: St. Louis CITY SC (stlcitysc.com)

Major League Soccer: MLSsoccer.com - The Official Site of Major League Soccer

Cluck Oink Moo Sliders: (4) Facebook

CITYPARK: CITYPARK | St. Louis CITY SC (stlcitysc.com)

IPMS Gateway February 2024 Meeting

Right after work this past Tuesday (20 February), I headed to Affton Elks Lodge #2635 for this month's Gateway Chapter IPMS meeting. I helped set up some items for the meeting, including flyers for upcoming shows, and prepared to assume my Treasurer's duties taking down the meeting minutes.

I also entered two models in this month's Modeler of the Year (MOY) Contest, the first of four this year. Per custom, the February Contest is all Out of the Box (OOB); that is, no modifications to the kits. Kit instructions were required to be included with each entry. The night before, I just finished two Airfix 1:72 scale armor kits that were packaged together: the Bren Gun Carrier and the 6pdr Anti-Tank Gun. Both kits should have been easy to do, but each had fit issues that made them harder than I bargained for. Nevertheless, I had two kits to enter and to earn MOY points.

I had some pretty tough competition in Armor this night and I did not place. Still, it was good to pick up two points per entry: one each for entering and one for the month's Special Category (OOB). There were 21 total contest entries this night from nine members. That sounds like a good start for the year.

This meeting also had the usual announcements of upcoming events and Show & Tell, where members bring in their latest projects (complete and in progress) and other items of interest.

Our featured program was a demo by Jim Triola on detailing and finishing aircraft bombs. He demonstrated his techniques, which include: assembling bomb halves using tube glue; painting bomb tail fins a darker shade than the bomb bodies; adding jewelry wire to the bombs for arming wires; and weathering bombs using oil paint in a dot filter process. It was quite an informative demo from Jim.

The next IPMS/Gateway meeting is Tuesday, 19 March at 7:00 PM at the Affton Elks Lodge.

Later.

Websites of Entities Mentioned in this Post:

Affton Elks Lodge #2635: Lodge #2635 Welcome (elks.org)

IPMS Gateway Chapter: IPMS Gateway Chapter (google.com)

Airfix: Plastic Model Kits | Hornby Hobbies USA