I had these grandiose plans of posting a few entries in a row... That didn't happen so I'm going to write long ass post covering nearly the last month.
January. I went to Vancouver BC at the end of January with some friends from Seattle for a weekend. Scott is from the Twin Cities and a pretty big hockey fan and on January 31st, the MN Wild were playing the Vancouver Canucks in a Northwest Division matchup. Crossing the border proved to be anti-climactic and I was following a Marquette game on the internet so it was a quick trip up. I was riding with people so I wasn't even driving - it was nice.
The highlights are:
Eating 2 steaks in one day, one for lunch and one for dinner. That's over a pound of red meat folks... I think I could feel my cholesterol going up.
A really excellent hockey game with a last second goal by the Canucks to send the game into OT, followed by a Wild goal in OT for the win.
Getting a beer tossed on me. Yep, you read that right, I got a beer tossed on me because I was cheering for the victorious Wild.
Coming home just in time to watch a pretty decent Super Bowl.
The story surrounding the beer toss isn't even all that good. I've gone to more than enough sporting events as both a home fan and as a road fan to know that I didn't deserve a beer getting tossed on me. They were annoyed the Canucks lost and people decided to chuck a beer at the guy in the Yellow Northstars hat. Whoever threw the beer got me in the hat, no worries, but also managed to hit everybody around and several rows in front of me. That angered LOTS of people and nearly resulted in a brawl amongst Vancouver fans. They weren't mad someone was a D-Bag and chucked a beer at me - they were just mad they got hit as well. And people think all Canadians are nice...
On Monday I got on a plane and went to Scranton PA for work. There aren't really a lot of highlights from a work trip but I did eat Chicken Wings two nights in a row, and I've remembered why I don't eat chicken wings in Seattle. They can't compare to wings on the East Coast. Shenanigans and Bottlenecks have some pretty decent wings. MMMmmmmmmm chicken wings.
I decided this trip was a perfect chance for me to spend the weekend in Chicago. I decided to miss my connection and buy a one way ticket home on Sunday. It worked pretty well and this was a great weekend. I stayed and David and Emily's for the weekend even though Emily was out of town and it was pretty fun. We went out on Friday for the MU game - they lost - and a birthday party for one of David's Flag Football teammate who also went to MU. Saturday we went up to Mundelein to my friend Drew's place to make beer. Drew is an aspiring brewer and Bill, David, Ron, Drew, John, me, and Drew's dad stood around for a few hours drinking beer, making beer, and grilling out. It was excellent! We headed down to Goose Island and drank more beer.
After we left Goose Island went over to my friend Rachel's 30th Birthday party. My snowboard post is in honor of her 30th birthday and I know she'll learn someday. It was a long day but very fun and I got to see Jay and Mary as well. Good Times.
We met Emily at the airport and I left for Seattle on Sunday. For Valentines Day I went over to a joint birthday party and lost money on Poker and won at Euchre. It was a really enjoyable alternative to most weekends. I need more card nights in my life.
The next night, Sunday, my friend Fletch had a going away party at an authentic German bar. There were many boots of beer being consumed. A boot is two liters of beer and that's a lot of beer and it's a communal thing and it's delicious.
Sooner or later I'm going to have photo's of a lot of these events posted. Again going back to lazy.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
My 30 Things
Ok, I’ve been away for a while so there will be several posts detailing the past few weeks because there are a few things worth mentioning including Vancouver and more. The first installment will be about my snowboard lessons last week.
You may have noticed on my links there is a blog called 30 Things To Do Before I Turn 30. Rachel is a friend from college and her birthday snuck up on her this year. One of Rachel’s 30 things was “Learn to Snowboard” but that isn’t going to happen before her birthday but she has sworn it will happen.
I happen to have some recent firsthand experience so I’m going to write about my experiences in as she would. I’m going to do my best to channel her voice and tone so bear with me. I’ve been reading Rachel for a while but I can’t say I have the entire style down yet so this is going to constitute my best efforts.
****************************
In case nobody noticed I have this list of things I wanted to do before I was thirty. I figured with my summer off and family in the mountains learning to snowboard would be one of the easier options. Well I had to make a special effort to do this because my birthday is coming up really soon and you know what is awesome about a new sport? I get to go SHOPPING! I went shopping because I needed to look the part of a snowboarder and also not to freeze but that was secondary. If I’m going to meet a cutie on the mountain I need to look the part of a snowbunny.
I’m going to detail my thought process on picking out snowboard gear.
Step 1 – I asked around to figure out what I needed to buy versus what I could rent once I got there. Result – lots of conflicting advice. Go figure. Step 2 – go to the store to shop around. Result – I didn’t buy anything but there was a cute guy who offered to help me. I’m going back tomorrow to flirt with him some more. Step 3 – return to the store to buy essentials because I was a little overwhelmed. Result – I spent way too much money buying gloves, snowpants, a jacket, and goggles. Secondary result – cute guy is dating someone. Suckage! But he wasn’t that cute on second glance anyway or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
You might not know this about me but I don’t like to embarrass myself all that much so rather than go on a busy weekend I decided to take a day off of work. The kids won’t even know I’m gone – I’m just going to give them some crayons and leave to snowboard and be back in time to hand them back to the parents. Actually, I used a vacation day and a Sub came in to handle the kids but seriously some days I think the kiddies would have no idea if I left for a few hours. On top of the clothes I decided to take lessons with my learning to snowboard experience because, well, I figured I would rather spend the money and fall intelligently to make up ground on people who I know already snowboard.
What the hell!? I have the day off I might as well kill two birds with one stone and see the Dr. before I head out to the mountain right? Well I’m not going to die so don’t ask me all worried like. That did give me a little bit later start than I wanted because you know really, who wants to fall in the afternoon when you can fall in the morning. And because I figured the earlier I went the sooner I would be going down the mountain in no time.
So I get there and it’s an awesome day – like 30 and sunny and I’m thinking how lucky it is that I randomly picked a good day. That got me thinking about how I spent an hour driving uphill the entire time because the hill I chose is on the backside of Mt. Rainier. How bad ass is that? I mean seriously there is a glacier at the top year around! Take that garbage piles in the Midwest! You suck you know that!? You’re made of garbage piled really high – ugh – how gross is that? Seriously how did they decide that making ski hills out of garbage was a good idea, I mean couldn’t you come up with something else to do with the garbage or a different substance to pile up and make a ski hill out of?
I spent money to rent a board and get two hours of instruction and it was awesome. The first they teach you is how to put on the gear – which is ironic because I had the clothes and looked like I knew what I was doing – ha – little did they know. Anyway, I had a young guy assigned to me, heretofore referred to as cute snowboard guy or CSG for short. CSG was great; he taught me all the basics of getting on the board, starting, stopping, turning, and most importantly looking good on my board in my awesome snow garb. I picked out some awesome stuff as it turns out. CSG was jealous but he also turned out to be a complete ski (snowboard bum) – he was 21, lived with his parents during the winter, moves to Alaska during the spring, lives on a glacier and takes gives sled dog tours to cruise ship patrons during the summer. After all that is over he takes all his money and travels overseas until he runs out of money of snowboard seasons starts again, whichever comes first. Actually, now that I think of it, I want to be him. He has no responsibilities and gets to see the world. If CSG wasn’t so young I think I would have tried to eat his face off but he also has a girlfriend of some sort. Silly Cute Snowboard Guy.
I went up and down the disco run, which is the Discovery Run, which is a green bunny hill, all day and got pretty good at some turns but the faster you go the harder you fall as well. I was a little sore in lots of places the next day but I loved it I’m totally going to back. I don’t know if I’ll take more lessons but there were some really cute guys hanging out there so it might be worthwhile to really know what I’m doing so I can chat up people on the longer chair rides. I'm going to call it the Disco run because that sounds cooler.
SOTD: is Falling In Love by Aerosmith. Because, like snowboarding, it's hard on the knees.
You may have noticed on my links there is a blog called 30 Things To Do Before I Turn 30. Rachel is a friend from college and her birthday snuck up on her this year. One of Rachel’s 30 things was “Learn to Snowboard” but that isn’t going to happen before her birthday but she has sworn it will happen.
I happen to have some recent firsthand experience so I’m going to write about my experiences in as she would. I’m going to do my best to channel her voice and tone so bear with me. I’ve been reading Rachel for a while but I can’t say I have the entire style down yet so this is going to constitute my best efforts.
****************************
In case nobody noticed I have this list of things I wanted to do before I was thirty. I figured with my summer off and family in the mountains learning to snowboard would be one of the easier options. Well I had to make a special effort to do this because my birthday is coming up really soon and you know what is awesome about a new sport? I get to go SHOPPING! I went shopping because I needed to look the part of a snowboarder and also not to freeze but that was secondary. If I’m going to meet a cutie on the mountain I need to look the part of a snowbunny.
I’m going to detail my thought process on picking out snowboard gear.
Step 1 – I asked around to figure out what I needed to buy versus what I could rent once I got there. Result – lots of conflicting advice. Go figure. Step 2 – go to the store to shop around. Result – I didn’t buy anything but there was a cute guy who offered to help me. I’m going back tomorrow to flirt with him some more. Step 3 – return to the store to buy essentials because I was a little overwhelmed. Result – I spent way too much money buying gloves, snowpants, a jacket, and goggles. Secondary result – cute guy is dating someone. Suckage! But he wasn’t that cute on second glance anyway or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
You might not know this about me but I don’t like to embarrass myself all that much so rather than go on a busy weekend I decided to take a day off of work. The kids won’t even know I’m gone – I’m just going to give them some crayons and leave to snowboard and be back in time to hand them back to the parents. Actually, I used a vacation day and a Sub came in to handle the kids but seriously some days I think the kiddies would have no idea if I left for a few hours. On top of the clothes I decided to take lessons with my learning to snowboard experience because, well, I figured I would rather spend the money and fall intelligently to make up ground on people who I know already snowboard.
What the hell!? I have the day off I might as well kill two birds with one stone and see the Dr. before I head out to the mountain right? Well I’m not going to die so don’t ask me all worried like. That did give me a little bit later start than I wanted because you know really, who wants to fall in the afternoon when you can fall in the morning. And because I figured the earlier I went the sooner I would be going down the mountain in no time.
So I get there and it’s an awesome day – like 30 and sunny and I’m thinking how lucky it is that I randomly picked a good day. That got me thinking about how I spent an hour driving uphill the entire time because the hill I chose is on the backside of Mt. Rainier. How bad ass is that? I mean seriously there is a glacier at the top year around! Take that garbage piles in the Midwest! You suck you know that!? You’re made of garbage piled really high – ugh – how gross is that? Seriously how did they decide that making ski hills out of garbage was a good idea, I mean couldn’t you come up with something else to do with the garbage or a different substance to pile up and make a ski hill out of?
I spent money to rent a board and get two hours of instruction and it was awesome. The first they teach you is how to put on the gear – which is ironic because I had the clothes and looked like I knew what I was doing – ha – little did they know. Anyway, I had a young guy assigned to me, heretofore referred to as cute snowboard guy or CSG for short. CSG was great; he taught me all the basics of getting on the board, starting, stopping, turning, and most importantly looking good on my board in my awesome snow garb. I picked out some awesome stuff as it turns out. CSG was jealous but he also turned out to be a complete ski (snowboard bum) – he was 21, lived with his parents during the winter, moves to Alaska during the spring, lives on a glacier and takes gives sled dog tours to cruise ship patrons during the summer. After all that is over he takes all his money and travels overseas until he runs out of money of snowboard seasons starts again, whichever comes first. Actually, now that I think of it, I want to be him. He has no responsibilities and gets to see the world. If CSG wasn’t so young I think I would have tried to eat his face off but he also has a girlfriend of some sort. Silly Cute Snowboard Guy.
I went up and down the disco run, which is the Discovery Run, which is a green bunny hill, all day and got pretty good at some turns but the faster you go the harder you fall as well. I was a little sore in lots of places the next day but I loved it I’m totally going to back. I don’t know if I’ll take more lessons but there were some really cute guys hanging out there so it might be worthwhile to really know what I’m doing so I can chat up people on the longer chair rides. I'm going to call it the Disco run because that sounds cooler.
SOTD: is Falling In Love by Aerosmith. Because, like snowboarding, it's hard on the knees.
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