I'm not killing myself, mom

I know it LOOKS like I've been on an all BBQ diet the past few posts, but I assure you, I'm eating other things. Green things (and red and orange and brown things). Just wanted to ease my mother's terror at the past few posts...

2011 – Year in Review

Just because a lot of people seem to be doing some sort of Year in Review, I thought I’d put some thoughts down to quickly document some highlights. That way when I’m old and senile (in two years), I’ll be able to recall what happened in 2011.



Here’s how 2011 panned out for me:

The good stuff!...

• Got engaged to a wonderful Italian red-head in my favorite town in the world – Riomaggiore, Italy
• Finished my MBA
• Travelled to Italy, China, Nashville, Denver, Green Bay, Seattle, Indianapolis, and the Quad Cities
• Watched a TON of roller derby
• Ate the best steak in the world (literally) – Chianini beef from Florence, Italy
• Was the Ethics co-chair of the Minnesota Chapter of the Special Libraries Association
• Went to my first LaCrosse match
• Was shirtless in public more times than I can count
• Sang Anthrax songs on stage with a throw-together cover band at Station 4
• Am learning Greek
• Joined a gym, but was raised to keep it quiet, so I have
• Ate some amazing food – I could include sooooo many things here, but some highlights are the Denny’s Super Mega Slamwich of Doom, Bar-B-Quest 2011, ICP Chex Mix, Eli’s Donut Burgers
• Actually found a legit beer I can drink and enjoy – Kwak from Belgium (one step closer to man-hood)
• Had an awesome birthday party at Grand Slam
• Played more disc golf than I have in years
• Went to some killer Demolition Derby to see Derby Dan crash his car up
• Ate bizarre animals – donkey, horse, jellyfish, octopus
• Won a Halloween costume contest (with D.Rough) at a gay bar
• Bought a new Mac laptop
• Found out the house foundation wasn’t cracked and leaking, but was actually a leaky hose in the air conditioner (saving thousands of dollars)
• Shoveled tons of snow
• Bought an awesome grill for the deck
• Went to the best party of the year – the Special Needs Halloween Party
• Saw some amazing films – Trollhunter, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, 13 Assassins, My Afternoons with Margueritte,
• Went to a rained out major league baseball game and ate non-stop
• Went to a minor league baseball game and ate non-stop
• Saw some amazing local bands featuring my friends – All the Way Rider, Rockford Mules, Lesser Known Saint, Earthrise
• Put multiple ads in the Minnesota RollerGirls bout programs, making all of my male friends mad at me for being the best fiancé ever
• Played in the best kickball league ever
• Got to see my nephew and niece's new babies!
• Presented to a Library Science class about what I do for a living
• Helped B.Sweet move into my old house
• Bought Ladder Ball for our yard – it was only a matter of time
• Hosted hours of Wii Big Buck Hunter on the 12-foot screen in the basement
• Went to the St. Paul Farmers Market a TON
• Saw amazing bands – Madball, D.R.I., The Ocean
• Went to some amazing weddings – Michelle and Isaac, Tracey and Carrie, Sam and Citizen Pain, Hüsker Stü and Scarmen Hellectra, and Reney and Smokahontas
• Did the .10K Triathlon
• Got to go to Cooter's Dukes of Hazzard Museum in Nashville, TN
• Went to my first Horserace at Canterbury Park – but only to go to the Food Truck Festival they were hosting
• Did some culinary damage at the Minnesota State Fair
• Helped paint Garrison and Myrna Killer’s fabulous Victorian house
• Went to my high school class reunion and didn’t make an ass of myself
• Got to go back to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving along with my sister from Michigan
• Decorated as much of the house as I could for D.Rough’s birthday
• Went to my first equestrian show (the fancy gate-jumping one, not the rodeo style)
• Bottled multiple bottles of hard cider with TheDoctor
• Grew some amazing facial hair and cut it into anger-inducing patterns

Downsides:

• Said goodbye to one of the most special people in the world – I miss you, Curtis
• Hosted far too few Bad Movie Nights (I’ll try harder this year)
• Racked up even more school loan debt
• Failed every biometric screening required by my insurance
• Didn’t golf a single time this year
• Missed both the World Pork Expo (Des Moines) AND BaconFest (Chicago) this year
• Only went to the Uptown Market a few times
• Missed every soccer game Killsbury Doughboy and A-Wow invited me to
• Missed the annual canoe trip in Mequoketa – my first miss ever
• Missed going to the Christian Homeschool Science Fair at the Har Mar Mall – those brainwashed kids are insane
• Didn’t get to go sledding once in 2011
• Missed out on significant portions of my social life, thanks to school (sorry Kickball, Librarian, and roller derby friends)
• Missed BobaFred’s annual BBQ – again
• Missed out on the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival (MUFF)
• Missed every men’s roller derby bout
• Saw some really terrible movies – Sharktopus, Zombie Strippers, The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi
• Went to an MMA fight - won't do that again

I’d say I had a pretty good year. No wonder I’m so exhausted all the time. For those of you who have been following me for a while, you know that I like to do a theme each year. 2011’s theme was the year of being shirtless in public. I’m down to the wire for 2012, but I’ve got a few ideas. Here’s to 2011 being a better year than 2010. And 2012 should be even better, what with a wedding in April, trip to Greece in April, another wedding in June in Seattle, and roller derby trips to Niagara Falls, Seattle, and Atlanta!

Great Run!

I've had a great run of restaurants that I've been happy with. Let me assure you that I am fully capable of giving places a bad review. That being said, I've been more selective about going to new places based on recommendations. I'm sure there will be a couple of bumps in the road on some upcoming reviews, but for now, I'll consider myself lucky to have enjoyed some awesome food.

If you've got recommendations, please send them my way!

2010 Annual Canoe Trip – Mequoketa, IA

Every year, a group of Quad Citians and I have gone on an awesome canoe trip. Each year, it is awesome, no mater what the weather or who comes along for the ride. This year was no different. In fact, I even tricked a couple of people into coming down from Minnesota with me for the weekend. They loved every second of it.

I can’t even begin to go into details about everything that happened on this trip, but I CAN give you some highlights.

Yes, we ARE putting EZ Cheese on beef sticks and eating them. Delicious idea, Kanoo.

We aren’t sure if Coach is praying for continued good weather, or trying to catch some food-related object.

Minnesota’s own B.Sweet demonstrates the proper veloceraptor claw style of kung-fu. Yes, folks – those sideburns are for real.

This photo makes it look like we’re doing considerable paddling. It’s a total farce. I think I paddled exactly 13 times.

ImposterChao wins the boobie prize. Oh wait, he actually BROUGHT the boobie prize!

Chao partakes in some high-octane beverages… from time to time…

Yes, that is alcohol-infused whipped cream being consumed straight from the tap. Brilliant idea!

Someone didn’t have a sunscreen buddy, did they?

Stop for a quick lunch break.

Coach wants a piece of the dirty boobie prize.


Mr. Burns loves the boobie prize, too!


Don’t mess with D.Rough.

…Or her minions…

Man overboard!!!!

Random stragglers. Cute random stragglers:)

“Train don’t run outta Witchita. Less’n you’re a cattle, or a hog. People train runs outta Stubbville.”

People get upset when you take their photo right after they’ve tipped their canoe and lost various items… Who would have known?!

This year was a super fun trip and we all had a blast. Look at all the smiles in the photos – that ways it all. Only two canoe tips this year! Wait, One canoe, but it tipped TWICE, didn’t it, SecretMeat?....

Seattle Trip 2010 – Seattle, WA

Pul-Chevy, Coach, and I went out to Seattle to visit ChickenLittle this month. It’s mainly a nerd getaway when we do these things and people don’t seem to get that what we do really isn’t all that exciting. Our friends all think we’re out there for porn, hookers, blow and other debauchery, but it’s pretty much us drinking and playing video games. I’ll make this short on text, so you can understand what I mean when I say we play video games and drink.



No, wait! We DID stop to look at porn on Kevin's computer briefly... and then back to video games!



Next day, more video games...


The drive to Portland didn't even slow these guys down. That's why they invented mobile video game devices, right?


And when we got to Portland, we discussed going to strip club and then all decided "Let's go to an ARCADE!!! Where you can drink!!!" Told you we were nerds.

Not only that, but we made Kwang take us back to his place so we could play Wii at his house. He had to actually put batteries in his controllers so we could all play. We're the best friends a guy could have.

Toobing on the Comal River – New Braunfels, TX

Yes, the place actually spells it with 2 “o”s. (It’s going to be painful for me to actually write it that way, but I’ll do it, so you’re as annoyed as I am with it.) My nephew and his wife have been talking about this place in San Antonio where you can go tubing on the Comal River. It’s sort of a natural river where they landscaped the sides and put in some awesome “tube shoots” and you can kill an entire day lounging and drinking on the water.

After lunch, we drove up to New Braunfels and found the park at the start of the toobing place. Bikinis and d-bags as far as the eye can see. DeliveryBoy and Amanda Hugginkiss had been here a few weeks back, so they knew the routine. Fill up a cooler with tasty beverages, go rent toobs and an extra tube for the cooler, and hop in the water. We got all signed up and sunscreened up and carried our toobs towards the drop in point on the river. There are police everywhere. I’m guessing a hundred monitor the start area and all along the river itself, watching for underage drinking, drugs, drowning, etc. A cop stopped us and told us we had an unauthorized cooler. Apparently, the size limit is 16 quarts on the cooler. Ours was in the neighborhood of 40+ qts. Whoops. We didn’t know.

DeliveryBoy and I hopped one of the shuttles back to the rental place. Along the way, the shuttle driver stopped the bus to openly stare at a girl in a bikini. He was hilarious. We got back and made the swap of the cooler – we had to pay an additional $4 to rent one of theirs. Then we watched a girl complaining to the rental staff that she couldn’t swim, oh yeah, and also, she had just had surgery on her arm and it couldn’t get wet. See what kind of morons toobing brings out? We started transferring refreshments and the guy watching us said we couldn’t have glass bottle on the river. Well, our refreshment supply was cut in half due to that. Bummer. But in the long run, probably for the best. We left our cooler, hopped back on the shuttle and went back to meet Coach and Amanda Hugginkiss.

We headed towards the water, made it past the police and began what would amount to christmas morning if it involved almost no clothing whatsoever and NONE of my relatives. There was very little clothing out on the river and most of it was a welcome sight. A few sights were very unwelcome, but a couple of Strongbows would take the bite off of those particular views. We put in our tubs in the chilly water and set off at the slowest pace I’ve ever travelled. I have sat in bathtubs with a stronger current. It took us a while to actually move more than 30 feet since there were soooo many people. But the water was nice and cool without being frigid.

Amanda Hugginkiss was getting annoyed with these high maintenance girls who kept saying, “I don’t want to get wet” and “quit splashing me” and putting on makeup like idiots. We mocked them most of the trip, since why the heck would you get into a tube in the water if you wanted to stay dry? Morons.

The first thing that happens is you see signs above you saying “weak swimmers get out here”. Uh Oh. Then you see signs for the “tube shoots”. I didn’t know what this meant, but DeliveryBoy and Amanda Hugginkiss just smiled and laughed when Coach and I kept asking about it. We found out. There’s a small dam right after the drop off point. It’s all roped off, so you can’t go over the falls. But it funnels you into a man-made concrete chute about 8 feet wide that launches you like a water slide down into the river below. And you have no hope of any part of you or your things staying dry. Remember those high maintenance toobers? Yeah, they were NOT happy. Nor were their cameras or blackberries. Hahahaha

We popped open the Strongbows and commenced a long afternoon of drinking and floating.


Again, the current was almost nonexistent, so we might have travelled a half mile (I have no idea) in about 4 or 5 hours. During this time, coach tried to hop back into his toob before another tube shoot and immediately flipped over. It was classic. Everyone in the area was cracking up as coach watched his feet go over his own head.


Every time I would go through one of the tube shoots, I would get hung up just before the shoot – NO, I wasn’t bottoming out or anything, just got hung up in some weird back current. Then immediately after the shoot, I would get trapped in the current and pinned to the opposite wall of the place. Everyone else would float past me and head down the river and I would have to paddle like mad to get away from the wall and catch up to the group. Apparently the laws of physics don’t’ apply to me in toobing, the same way they don’t apply to my golf game.

I have sooo many stories to tell and I don’t want to write 14 pages for this post, so I’ll try to slim it down to the highlights:

Coach’s limit is 2.5 Strongbows – he had 3. Then things got hilarious.
DeliveryBoy realized Coach was over his limit when Coach proclaimed “I don’t even care anymore. I’m just openly staring”, which was hilarious because I don’t think his eyes were focusing at that point. Plus by that time, it was a floating sausage fest…
Coach doesn’t even need girls around for him to yell “show us yer boobs”
There were multiple tiny Chihuahuas with male owners out on the water
Coach asked a ton of random small boys with fishing poles if they were fishing for people
Whenever any females mentioned they almost lost their tops, my camera became activated


One of the most hilarious moments was when we passed a group of scrawny rednecks who were completely soused. They were arguing over college football. One of them got all bent out of shape when one of the other rednecks smack-talked University of Texas. They tried to get out of the water to fist fight, but neither of them had enough balance to walk up the grass on the bank. Seriously, these guys wouldn’t be driving anywhere soon. Then, when the one belligerent guy gave up, his friend yelled, “Texas loves boys!” and it started a whole other fight. Best comeback ever. Then while all this was going on, the other rednecks were getting loud with random people floating by. “Who’s your team!? WHO IS YOUR TEAM????!!!! F*%k you!!!” You gotta love Amurka.

We got to the end and tried to get out of the water. Coach had had 3, and was reminding us his limit was 2.5. When Amanda Hugginkiss realized she could totally mess with Coach, she’d pretend to help him out of the water, then push him back in. Classic comedy! It took Coach like 10 minutes to actually make it out of the water.

I'm not sure if you had guy friends who loved to play the game "slap your shirtless friend really hard and leave a mark", but I know we did. We saw a kid with the champion of handprints on his back. Seriously, you could draw a beak and legs on it and use it for a Thanksgiving turkey it was so clearly defined (and HAD to have been painful).

Coach hadn’t peed the whole time on the river, so he ran/staggered towards the portapotties. As it turns out, he went into the stall marked women. When we mocked him about it, he got all loud and yelled “if they didn’t want guys to use them, they wouldn’t put urinals in there!”

On the way back to the rental place to pick up our keys and cooler, I witnessed a lovely discussion about areolas from the girls next to me. They were… ummm… comparing them. Best vacation ever.

Walking back to the car, Coach took a little stumble, but played it off by grabbing DeliveryBoy’s shoulder for support and hugging him as if it were intentional. Then he reminded us for the 93rd time that his limit was 2.5 Strongbows and he had had three.


Top 5 things about toobing on the Comal River
1. Perfect weather for tubing
2. Concentrated boobs
3. The fight about college football
4. Seeing high maintenance toobers shaking water out of their blackberries and looking like drowned rats (whorish drowned rats)
5. Hearing Coach’s limit 93 times – it should have been a drinking game for us, not that we needed the help

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd would have loved this ridiculous trip, even though it would have been too hot, too sunny, too wet, too slow, and too many drunk people
2. These people should learn how to spell tube
3. 16 qts is not a very big cooler
4. We didn’t know about the cooler limit NOR the glass restriction (even though both make sense)
5. I apparently missed a swath of my chest with the sunscreen

www.rockinr.com

Kickball Prom – Minneapolis, MN

At the end of the “official” kickball season, the group hosts a kickball prom. Basically, people scrap together whatever outfits they can into some hilarious sense of high school formality. Some people go to Goodwill and get dresses or tuxes. And some people go all out and wear actual suits and bridesmaid dresses. Basically, it’s a chance for a bunch of people to get all juiced up, enjoy themselves, while making innocent drivers and walkers do double takes when they see us on the ball diamond dressed in our finest.

EyeHeartPizza hadn’t been to kickball yet, so she decided weeks ago that she would be my date for kickball prom. Apparently, I had no say in the matter. And similarly to high school prom, I wouldn’t have asked anyone to be my date. We had gone prom shopping while in the Quad Cities last weekend, so we were all set to go.

Some die-hards showed up early and decorated the backstop with balloons and streamers, and one of our local musicians provided a sound system with some sweet 80’s music to rock out to. HotGirlsBrother brought some plastic champagne glasses and all kinds of cheap (and sometimes pink) champagne for people to imbibe.

We split into teams, schoolyard style: two captains are chosen and then those people pick their team one at a time. I’m not ashamed to say I was picked first from the group. I’m also not ashamed to say I smack-talked everyone else for being losers as I walked to my respective (and respected) captain. Somehow we all came up with team names. Tonight’s battle would be the Kings of the Backseat vs. Off Like a Prom Dress!

I took TONS of video (seriously, like 40+ video clips), and crap loads of photos. I won’t put them all up here, due to space constraints, but suffice it to say, the night was well documented. It was totally out of control. I wish I had caught Jefe taking himself out on the first kick and falling on the ground, but I missed the shot. However, I DID catch Cole kicking the ball, losing his shoe, catching the shoe midstride and making it to first base. The best part is NOONE saw it happen!!! Classic.

After the 5th inning, everyone went out to the infield and we had an old fashioned high school dance. It was pure genius. A couple of bystanders walked past and stopped and admired us for a bit. They were interested in joining the league next season based on what they saw here. During the dance, we all voted on prom king and queen.

The game finished and the votes were tallied. RainbowBrite won for queen and the girl dressed in the sky blue Buddy-Holly-esque tux won the king.

It doesn’t matter. We had a blast. In fact, I don’t even remember who won the game. I was doing so much drinking…. I mean camera-work, that I wasn’t really focused on the game. They tried to find someone with one of those vine covered lattice arches to take prom photos under, but we couldn’t find one on short notice. So one of our guys ended up taking photos in front of the backstop. It was classy. I’ll post those photos when we get them back from the guy.

After all the festivities, people headed over to the Country Bar, but since I had 2 to 7 too many drinks already, it would not have been in my (or anyone else’s) best interest to go. Fortunately for me, I had a designated driver/awesome roommate, EyeHeartPizza, and she made sure I got home safe. I do remember her saying something about some of the stupid things I said to various people that I would never have said sober, but I can’t remember any details about who or what she meant. Probably for the best.

Top 5 things about Kickball Prom
1. Kickball + Prom – ‘nuff said
2. Watching Cole kick his shoe off and catch it
3. I made some amazing girly drinks, if I do say so myself
4. Watching people drive past and stop to gawk
5. I continue the years-long streak of my father not being able to look me in the eye

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd loved to play 80’s dress up and would have had an absolute blast going to prom with me. She, of course, would have rubbed it in that she actually went to numerous proms in high school, and I did not. Then she would have critiqued everyone’s outfit. hahaha
2. Seeing RainbowBrite’s thick black leg hair through his white leggings
3. I didn’t catch Jefe on film biting it on the first kick and it was hilarious
4. I wish I knew what hilarious offensive things I said to people later in the evening…or maybe I don’t want to know
5. I got outvoted for prom queen by two votes… sigh…