A nice meal

When Jeff tells people that he's a sports writer and has to go to football, basketball and baseball games, they usually all say the same thing, "I wish I had a job going to sporting events."

What they don't understand is that he has to get to the stadium or gym two hours before the game starts. Then he has a ton of paperwork to go through — rosters, quotes, notes, etc. Then as he's watching the game, he's constantly taking notes and posting on social media sites. He's not sitting back enjoying the game. He's watching for patterns, standout players, trying to figure out how this game will affect the upcoming ones. It's mentally hard work.

Then after the game, he has to do interviews, often jockeying position with other writers, TV reporters and others. That can take about half an hour. He's also gathering quotes and information for future stories.

Then he finally gets to sit down and start writing.

Depending on how close the print deadlines are, he might have spent the last part of the game writing ahead. Within 5 minutes of the game ending, he posts several paragraphs with just the basics. Then he expands the story for print. Then he adds quotes and other information for the full version, which goes on the website.

Tired yet?

So when we were in Atlanta, the game Jeff had to cover was an all-day thing. Biscuit and I were on our own from 10 a.m. until 8:30 that evening.

Jeff called about 4:30 to say the game was over, and he was going to start writing.

Almost four hours later, he was ready to leave the stadium. Except he realized that he was the last media person there, and he was locked inside. He had to find one of the maintenance crew members to help him get out.

The guy finally showed him a back way out, then Jeff had to walk all the way around the stadium to get to his car.

He called to say he was on his way back to the hotel. After we got off the phone, I said to Biscuit, "We need to take Dad somewhere good for dinner."

I had found an Italian restaurant that was well-known for its pizza. It had started raining again, so we traveled through our newly found inside passageway.

The restaurant was on the second floor of an old warehouse building. You come in off the street, walk through a short hallway with fountains and plants, then up a staircase. They've left a lot of the warehouse-looking features — exposed beams and brick walls, etc.

Don't worry. Biscuit wasn't drinking wine. The blue glasses were for water.

Biscuit hit it off with the server. She asked him how old he was, and when he told her, she said she has a son his same age. And that's all it took to get the two of them chatting.

The kitchen is open, so you can see them making the pizzas. All their ingredients are fresh and local. And you can tell it. It was some of the best pizza I've ever had.

Jeff got the stuffed crust. Each of the points had homemade ricotta in it.

As we talked and laughed and ate, I could see Jeff relaxing. I was really glad that Biscuit and I were there. I would've hated to think he was alone after such a long day.

And if we do go back to do touristy things, we will definitely go back to the pizza place.