Coliseum Secrets? and My Intro

Count me among the now-ex-lurkers.  I sat at the game on Eck-Day-Saturday in section 325 looking longingly at all of you ANers and wishing I could go say hi, but how could I since I hadn't even registered yet?!  I've been reading AN all season long (um, almost obsessively one might say) and often felt that I didn't have enough to add to register but seeing all of you today at AN day changed my mind because I want to be a part of the next one!

Brief background:  I grew up a California Angels fan (Wait!  Don't count me out just yet!) and living in the OC with my mom taking my brother and I to many, many Angels games in the mid-'70's where we had a blast learning baseball and watching Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana pitch but rarely saw an actual win.  We moved up to Northern California in '77 and began going to the Coliseum where we first went just to see baseball again but were soon won over by the A's.  Fast forward to today and I now have a husband and three sons (ages 11, 9, and 7) who bleed green and gold (OK, hubby still maintains his childhood Detroit Tigers allegiance to some degree).

On to my question....we are all HUGE A's fans now living in Pleasanton but are somewhat Coliseum newbies even though we go to progressively more and more A's games each season.  For the most part we buy tickets online or walk-up at the game on the spur of the moment ("The game's not on TV?!?  OK then!  We're going!").  We're slowly figuring out some of the secrets (kids in the kid's club=player signatures and photos ops (I'll post pics later)), but what are others?  Where are the good/best seats (both in terms of game and value)?  Where do you not want to sit (e.g. rows 1 and 2 on the second and third decks)?  Good food/concession secrets?  Parking secrets?  Other insider tips?  I think I've learned that season tickets are the way to go in the future (not this year as we have one of those discount cards we bought at Little League that is servicing us pretty well for now).  Anything else??  

Thank you for the advice and I'm glad and honored to join all of you.  This is an amazing site due both to the great leadership and the awesome participation of everyone else.