I sing the praises of Blazers' President & CEO Chris McGowan and the Moda Center Maintenance Crew!

Back story: This season in 32 home games, the average attendance is 19,695 for our Portland Trail Blazers. Lots of those people are women who flock to the ladies' restrooms at half time. Creature of habit that I am, I usually luck out and get to go to the same stall that I always go to before the games.

At least three nights in February, I ended up in a different stall. Imagine my surprise when the door came open before I put my hand on the latch to open it! What? I knew that I had closed the latch as far as it would go! Then, at the next game, I heard women on each side of me saying, "What? Why did the door just open? I know I had locked it!"

Curious person that I am, I decided to investigate my idea that the latch wasn't catching properly because it was not going far enough into the slot, so on purpose on February 26, after our State of the United season ticket holder event when we heard all about the business side of the operation (Chris McGowan, Blazers' President and CEO) as well as the basketball side (Neil Olshey, Blazers' General Manager), I decided to take a closer look at the latch. Lo and behold, the latch barely touched the slot that was supposed to keep the door locked!

There wasn't enough time left to take a photo or two that night, so it wasn't until last Monday that I got to do that. Then last Wednesday, I e-mailed them to President & CEO Chris McGowan. In the first e-mail, I explained what I had noticed, what I figured was causing the stall doors to randomly come unlatched--lots of vibration caused by the vast numbers of women opening and shutting nearby doors--and that I would be sending one more photo to him. I didn't hear anything back, so I figured if I saw him at Dr. Jack's, the newly renovated restaurant space across the courtyard from the Moda Center, I just ask him if he'd had any e-mails from me that day, not that expected to run into him since I already done that on Monday when I had a few minutes to take a look at Dr. Jack's.

Once I found somewhere to sit, I ordered some food and people watched and waited for my order. After a few minutes, I saw him walking towards me--I called his name and he walked over to where I sat. When I asked if he'd gotten two e-mails from me, he said he had and that he'd replied that the maintenance crew had checked out each stall and had made the necessary repairs. Shocked and pleased, I stood up and asked if I could give him a hug. He agreed, and we smiled at each other as he continued on his way.

I ate my supper and went straight to the bathroom stall once I was inside the arena. Yep, as you can see from photo 3, all is now functioning properly. I checked out several stalls, too, all fixed. The game started late because we were on ESPN, I think, so I e-mailed Chris and asked his permission to sing the praises of the Moda Center Maintenance Crew and him on my blog; he e-mailed back, "Awesome. Yes please. Go for it on the blog." Oh, he had e-mailed me earlier--I finally found them in the iCloud inbox on my iPhone. I don't understand having two places to get Gmail, but thank goodness I realized that I ought to look there.
      

Photo 1, shows the lack of latch functionality.
 

Photo 2, shows the depth of the slot, along with the way the latch barely goes into the slot.
   

Photo 3, shows how the latch fits properly into the slot. Hooray!
 

Blurry cell phone photo taken at the State of the United, one of three meetings for season ticket holders held each season. We meet with members of the Trail Blazers' management who make statements and answer our questions--I really like getting the chance to attend these. On the left, Chris McGowan, President & CEO; on the right, Neil Olshey, General Manager. This one was on February 26, the night Chris gave us his e-mail address.