So there I was, curled up in the back of a rental Nissan Pulsar (trust me, you can't stretch out in the back of a Pulsar), trying to get some sleep, when I discovered Cyn was live-blogging the Sox-Giants game. Exhibition/MLB promo game not withstanding, I couldn't resist and followed the quirky narrative  until my iPAQ's and my batteries nearly gave out.

How, you may ask, had a man of my advanced years come to be sleeping in a rental car in a seaport car park in New Plymouth on Easter Sunday night? Thereby, as they say, hangs a tale.

It sort of started three or so years ago when Ben (my younger son) dragged me in front of his stereo and virtually instructed me to listen to In Between Dreams, Jack Johnson's first (?) album. I was suitably impressed, became a fan and have bought all his output since, including the not-so-wonderful Curious George soundtrack.

Anyway, when tickets went on sale for his three-show NZ tour, I opted for the New Plymouth date, on the grounds that it was reasonably accessible compared to Christchurch or Napier and it was on a Sunday. I barely noticed it was Easter Sunday - mistake, as we shall see.

Baulking at the idea of a 10 hour roundtrip drive, I booked a flight with Air NZ and a local rental car to get to the venue from New Plymouth airport. I planned to get into town four hours ahead of the concert to find a motel for the night (there are literally thousands of motels in NZ). Mistakes numbers two and three as it turned out.

The flight from Wellington was cancelled and I was offered a 'reroute' up to Auckland and back down to NP, with, by the way, a four hour layover in Auckland. So I would get into NP as the venue gates opened, with no time to look for a room.

The TSB Brooklands Arena is truly magical: a covered stage built on an island at one end of a small lake with the viewing area a grassy slope just across a small stretch of water. I found a good spot and sat down to wait as the large (by NZ standards) crowd gathered and the sun set.

The gig began around 7:30 with a too-long warm up set from a guy called Matt Costas and Jack Johnson appeared around 8:45.

I watched for around an hour and decided to leave. Not having somewhere to stay was getting me twitchy and sitting on the ground was doing nothing for my back spasms.

As it turned out, I didn't miss too much more music. Around 10 p.m. some of the crowd decided they'd rather be nearer the stage and piled into the lake where dancing and cavorting ensued. The set was stopped while the water was cleared, Jack played a couple more songs and finished with hundreds of kids in the water again.

I. meanwhile, was engaged in a short and fruitless search for a room. A nice lady in the Plymouth Hotel gently reminded me it was the Easter weekend (a four-day holiday in NZ) and "there's the Jack Johnson concert at Brooklands".

Every hotel, motel and B&B for miles around had been booked for weeks. I stood no chance. Everyone and his brother was in town on holiday and all his brother's mates and their girlfriends were here for the Jack Johnson gig.

So it was, dear reader, that I ended up parked at the water's edge in the port area of New Plymouth, gazing at a sky filled with more stars than I've seen in ages, with a full moon lighting the waves, curled up in the back of the Nissan, following the first live blog of the season.

Bliss.

After two meaningless and mildly embarrassing workouts against the kids of Boston College and Northeastern University, ST games got underway today, or yesterday depending where the dateline is, with a big boys' game against the Twins

Matsuzaka pitched two innings for two hits and no runs, with the defence turning two double plays behind him. The offence later came through with back to back homers from Youk and Tek. In the end, 8-3 was good day's work although by the end, most of the guys on the field were unknowns, probably to each other as well as to most of the fans.

Meanwhile, Coco Crisp was hitting and running the bases like a man possessed, or more likely, a man putting together a highlight reel. I'm getting ambiguous about centre field. After September and the postseason, I wanted Ellsbury to start this year because I thought Crisp's offence wasn't outweighed by his D. Now, somehow, I think there might be room for both.

Joshua Patrick had the day off today, so I thought I'd post his street sign. I've driven past this sign at RNZPC every day for more than a year but I only got around to taking this picture last week. No. 19 pitches at 1 p.m. Sunday I think, which is 5 a.m. Monday for me. I suspect he'll be starting  without me.