About last night

I never get to talk about cricket.

I read about cricket a lot, and I write about it some, and I watch it a bit (though not nearly as much as I would like) but I rarely, very rarely, get to talk about it.

Last night I got to talk about cricket.

I got to talk about it with fellow Minneapolis cricket nuts and long time Twitter pals, Jon and Diane. As well as (drumroll please) my absolute favorite cricket writer, Jarrod Kimber, and a surprise guest, Simon King, the founder of Cricinfo. (They were in town to film a documentary about the site, which as you know was invented in Minneapolis in the early 90s.)  (Simon, who basically invented the god damn Internet, isn’t on Twitter).

We met at a British pub, went to a chain fish joint, and finished the night at an Irish bar – never once leaving Nicollet Mall. And so we were unable to give our guests a good dose of local flavor, but that was neither here nor there, because I got to talk about cricket – with two guys who have watched the game from every corner of the globe – who understand it in ways I never will, who know the game like people know their own hands. Two people who have lived the dream: travel the world and write about cricket.

I will admit that I mostly listened and nodded (and drank beer), but it was still a discussion about an obsession that I never to discuss. And it was grand.

I am not going to tell you what we talked about in any detail, of course, but suffice it to say that this morning I considered myself at least 75% more knowledgable about the game – both on and off the field – and about Cricinfo. And of course we also talked about other things, such as Texas and the West Wing and Seinfeld and how fucking cold Minnesota is and Justin Verlander. But everything always swung back to the cricket, for that was the uniting force that brought us all together.

Me, my favorite cricket writer, the guy who invented Cricinfo, and two local pals.

It was a perfect night.

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In other news, I have a new job. It is a Communications role for One Heartland – a nonprofit that organizes camps for kids with HIV/AIDS, type 2 Diabetes, and social challenges such as homelessness. It is an amazing operation and I am incredibly proud to be a part of it. Plus, hey, I get to write. For a living. And so while it’s not writing about cricket, it’s still writing. For a living. So that’s something.

The days are long and the work challenging, but I still plan on posting here as much as possible.

Especially now that we are getting closer…and closer…and closer…to the Australian summer:

The Ashes start in just 36 days.