My Weekend in Savannah; Or Why You Shouldn't Send a Text Saying "I'm at a Hospital" after Midnight Part 3
When my cousin Kris got married in September of 2009, it was the first time the whole family had really gotten together when we were all above drinking age. My dad and his brothers and their families and us got together a few times for huge vacations, but the cousins were always younger. I think I was 18 on our last big all-inclusive vacation.
So this wedding was absolutely insane. Best wedding I've ever been to, and I don't anticipate that changing any time soon. They had a live band playing 80s and oldies, and trust me when I say that's the most efficient way to get the maximum amount of bodies on the dance floor.
Well, it was a big family wedding with an open bar. The drinks were flowing, starting at around 3 p.m., ending around 10 p.m.
Let me tell you something else about me. When I get a couple of drinks in me, I have the propensity to dance. As my friends from softball can attest, what happens once we get two or three beers down? I start to jam in my seat.
The wedding was no different, except instead of three or four drinks, it was 13 or 14 drinks. And the band was playing 80s music. I'm sorry, but if they're going to play "Billie Jean" I am compelled to dance. I am, of course, making no claims about being any good at it. It just happens, and I have a hell of a lot of fun.
What does this have to do with Savannah? Uncle Steven apparently began referring to me as the "funky cousin" based on my performance at the wedding. So his girlfriend Kim and Lindsey's friends Nicole and Laura knew me as the funky cousin before I arrived. I believe his exact words were "I've never known a Jew with rhythm until you, but I suppose that's because you're only half Jewish." I mean. I'll take it. Gladly.
Much to Kim's great delight, it took exactly two bourbon sweet teas at Bernie's on Friday before I was jamming gleefully in my seat and saying things like, "This is most definitely my jam," and "I can't dance to this, man, play something else."
So there you go. This guy: funky cousin. Nice to meet you.
Back to the haunted zombie tour! After the guy's camera battery jumped out, the girls and I were all sufficiently creeped out. I'm sure there is a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation for the battery jumping out. Of course there is. But even if the hatch pops open, there's usually something holding the battery in, right? At this point, after all the drinking and ghost stories, and it's close to midnight or after midnight -- the mood had been set, and we were perfectly happy believing in the not-so-logical explanation. It was more fun anyway.
The tour continued to other cemeteries and houses with creepy pasts. And, of course, no haunted tour is complete without a stop by an abandoned hospital. Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside, much to my dismay. They were in the process of "getting clearance" to go inside, whatever that means. But it wouldn't be possible until August, and even then, it would cost $100 to go on that tour. Oh well.
As I mentioned back in part two, Matt and Jeb's constant texting was a theme for the night. Still, I wasn't any less drunk than before, and it wasn't any less dark outside. I got another text from my brother, "Hey where are you? We want to come meet you."
Yes, I understand that. I still don't know where I am, so I gave them the only descriptor I could.
"OK, well I'm at a hospital."
Right. At the time, it didn't occur to me at all what a text saying I was at a hospital would mean, especially with it being nearly 1 a.m. and following 12 hours of drinking.
The texts stopped and the phone calls started picking up at that point. I excused myself around a corner and explained I was not, in fact, injured, suffering from alcohol poisoning or in an actual hospital. Haunted tour. Abandoned hospital. Relax. And no, I still don't know how to tell you to get here.
The tour finally ended at a bar called McDonough's at around 1:30 a.m. One of the girls wanted to keep hanging out, the other admitted they were driving to Chicago at 7 a.m. (where they're from), and it's a 16-hour drive, which meant they'd be waking up in four or five hours. Not really conducive to continued hanging out, unfortunately, so we said our goodbyes.
However, I finally had a legit landmark to give Jeb and Matt. They arrived 15 or 20 minutes later, and we went into the bar for a handful more drinks. I think I had two more drinks in there to bring my total for Friday to the following:
4 bourbon sweet teas
8 beers
2 lemon drop shots
1 Washington apple shot
1 cider
Yikes.
The bars don't close until 4 a.m., but I had no interest at all in closing down the bar. Around 3 or so, I recognized the importance of getting some food in me since we didn't actually eat dinner, and all I'd had to eat all day was a chicken wrap at around 12:30 p.m. Someone in the bar suggested a place across the street called Parker's, which turned out to be a gas station with a breakfast hot bar inside that was open 24 hours. Like you do.
Needless to say, Matt and I went. Jeb stayed behind for a bunch more drinks and closed the bar. I ended up eating two sausage, egg and cheese biscuits, some cheese grits and a little fried chicken. Matt had a similar spread. It was amazing. Well, no. It was gross, I'm sure. But it was exactly what we needed.
We found a table out front of the gas station and hung out for, like, two more hours. Jeb stumbled over around 4:30 and went inside for some food. He came out with two huge take-out boxes of food. Apparently, he asked a rather large man for suggestions, and he ended up just asking for what the big man got.
One of the boxes contained only a foot-long piece of fried fish. I don't know what kind of fish. I had a bite of it, and then we ended up giving the fish to a homeless guy. The other box contained cheese grits, scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage and bacon. And, oh by the way, sitting there in the middle of the cheese grits was a kielbasa. Of course.
We had a great time just sitting out front of the gas station at our table. Talking to all the drunk guys and girls that stumbled by. We had a group of about five girls that sat with us for about 30 or 45 minutes while they ate their drunk food.
I never could have imagined when I woke up to drive to Savannah on Friday morning that the night was going to end nearly nearly 23 hours later with eating breakfast food from a gas station. Luckily, it turned out our hotel was only a few blocks away. We stumbled back and fell into bed around 5:30 a.m.
What. A. Night.
The next day was much more low key. Fortunately, I continued my lifelong streak of waking up without a hangover. GREAT SUCCESS. Once I had some water, I was good to go.
We found a restaurant for lunch that served oysters and margaritas. I had three margaritas, and then we wandered around Savannah in daylight (for a change) for several hours. We managed to stumble across the very first haunted house from the night before -- the one with the camera battery incident. It was less frightening during the day.
We ate some dinner, and then hung out at a dueling piano bar for a few hours. No real crazy stories at that point.
I'd never been to a piano bar before, and I was told this one was a little disappointing. They played a few too many songs I didn't care about at all. But there were a few that got me out of my seat and into my "funky cousin" suit. Faaantastic.
Like I said, it was a more low-key night. We got back to the hotel and into bed around 2:30 a.m. The final tally for Saturday was:
3 margaritas
2 beers (one was a to-go beer, while walking around a park!)
3 jack and cokes at the piano bar
Got up the next day, ate some breakfast and drove back. All the weekend did for me was reinforce the need for drunken cousin debauchery way more often.
I would go back to Savannah tonight for a repeat performance. After everything that has gone on the past several weeks and months, I needed this more than I can even explain. All in all, on a scale of 1 to 10, the weekend in Savannah gets a 73.
Check out part one of the story here and part two of the story here!
So! In other news, tomorrow is my birthday. It's the first birthday I haven't been excited about. I'd like to post again tomorrow because I'm heading back home on Friday and likely won't write anything after spending, what I can only imagine will be, the whole day in the car. And then I'm heading out for a softball friend's birthday on Saturday night! Hey-oh! I'm a busy guy these days.
That's all I've got for now. LET'S GO!
-BG
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Ohhhh Savannah Part 2
My Weekend in Savannah; Or Why You Shouldn't Send a Text Saying "I'm at a Hospital" after Midnight Part 2
Here's the thing about me. I'm not a heavy drinker. At all. Every once in a while, I throw a ridiculous night in there. But for the most part, if I'm out drinking with friends, I feel a pretty good buzz after maybe four drinks. It doesn't take much.
By the time we got back to the hotel after the second bar on Friday afternoon to prepare for our haunted pub crawl, I was at least 10 or 11 drinks deep. So it's around 7:30 p.m. I think, and I'm gone.
I remember getting into a cab to get to the starting point of the pub crawl, a bar called Moon River. I have absolutely no recollection of the cab ride there. Apparently, my brother, my cousin Lindsey and Lindsey's two friends joined me in the cab, and there was a lively discussion about tattoos and possibly getting some later on? (We didn't, apparently.)
I don't know.
My memory catches back up when I'm standing at the bar with Lindsey's two friends (Laura and Nicole), ordering a water before we head down to the basement for the start of the haunted tour. The water definitely helped, as I remember everything else the rest of the night.
On the whole, the haunted pub crawl was only OK. It was pretty cool to walk around downtown Savannah and near River Street and just kind of hang out.
The first stop was the best, with some pretty cool stories of people seeing things and strange happenings. I'm afraid the alcohol has robbed me of the details of the stories. So we're downstairs in the basement of the first bar, and I'm talking to Jeb and we notice these two girls standing reasonably near us.
I start chatting them up as we're going through the tour, just talking and hanging out. We go upstairs to the bar to get a to-go drink (no open container laws for the win! We brought drinks from the previous bar to each new bar all weekend).
The girls and I walk outside because the tour is getting ready to leave. We get to the next bar when I look around and see Uncle Steven, his girlfriend Kim and...none of the rest of our party.
Matt, Jeb, Lindsey, Nicole and Laura are just gone. We couldn't even make it past the first bar without losing 60 percent of our party. Sigh.
I start getting texts from Matt and Jeb, which ends up being a theme of the night, except I'm in the middle of a city I've never been and, oh yeah, drunk. I have no idea where I am, which also ends up being a theme of the night.
As I said, the tour was unremarkable, but the bars were pretty cool. We're in the second bar on the couch just relaxing before we leave for the next stop when the tour guide gathers everyone outside to leave. Uncle Steven came up to me to say he and Kim were calling it a night because it was like 9:30ish at that point. I, obviously, was not ready to head back just yet.
So the party of eight we left the hotel with to go on the tour was now down to just me after only the second stop on the haunted pub crawl.
There were two more stops on the tour. I bought the girls a drink at the third stop, some kind of cider. Pretty tasty, I think. But I have to be honest, I don't really remember what anything tasted like at that point.
Matt and Jeb kept texting me to find out where I was, but I had nothing. My only directions were "we turned left at a light, and then right down an alley." So, yeah. Not very helpful.
At the last stop on the tour, the three of us get one more round of drinks, and the girls ask me if I want to join them on the midnight zombie tour they have next. Yes I do. Yes. I do. The tour actually did sound pretty awesome -- going around cemeteries and haunted houses, etc.
One small problem. They didn't know where the tour was supposed to start. Obviously I did not either. So we just kind of wandered around Savannah, trying to find a group of people on a tour. We walked and walked. Turned down this street and that street. They called their hotel (where they booked the tour), and the hotel said it was starting at some bar called Cleary's I think? We finally find Cleary's, and we get there right at the meeting time for the tour. There are no people. Of course there aren't. We do the only thing we can do and keep wandering.
There are squares all over the city with parks in them. We turned a corner and saw there was a square with a cemetery in it. This looked promising. We made our way to the other side of the cemetery, and there's the tour! We'd somehow only missed the introductions.
The wandering around, however, did nothing to help my bearings or sense of where I was in the city. So Matt and Jeb kept texting, and I kept saying things like:
"I don't know where I am."
"I've never been to this city before. I'm drunk. It's pitch black. It's after midnight. What makes you think I can answer these questions?"
"There are houses around. Does that help?"
"You keep asking for locations, but I don't know what to tell you. Houses don't have signs."
So on the tour we go.
There's a house in Savannah that no one wants to own. Hasn't been lived in for more than a hundred years. The house has no electricity -- it doesn't even have a power box to make it capable of having electricity. Allegedly, a girl was found tied up in a chair in the window in the late 1800s. Dead, naturally. If you take a picture of the window, you're supposed to be able to see funny green orb-like lights in the window where she was found.
Of course, I forgot my camera. Like you do. But! One guy tried to take a picture, but the battery jumped out of his camera and hit the ground as he tried to snap the photo. So. That happened.
This is getting pretty long again. Part three coming soon, with the exciting conclusion and why my family refers to me as the funky cousin. Yes, really. Holla.
Here's the thing about me. I'm not a heavy drinker. At all. Every once in a while, I throw a ridiculous night in there. But for the most part, if I'm out drinking with friends, I feel a pretty good buzz after maybe four drinks. It doesn't take much.
By the time we got back to the hotel after the second bar on Friday afternoon to prepare for our haunted pub crawl, I was at least 10 or 11 drinks deep. So it's around 7:30 p.m. I think, and I'm gone.
I remember getting into a cab to get to the starting point of the pub crawl, a bar called Moon River. I have absolutely no recollection of the cab ride there. Apparently, my brother, my cousin Lindsey and Lindsey's two friends joined me in the cab, and there was a lively discussion about tattoos and possibly getting some later on? (We didn't, apparently.)
I don't know.
My memory catches back up when I'm standing at the bar with Lindsey's two friends (Laura and Nicole), ordering a water before we head down to the basement for the start of the haunted tour. The water definitely helped, as I remember everything else the rest of the night.
On the whole, the haunted pub crawl was only OK. It was pretty cool to walk around downtown Savannah and near River Street and just kind of hang out.
The first stop was the best, with some pretty cool stories of people seeing things and strange happenings. I'm afraid the alcohol has robbed me of the details of the stories. So we're downstairs in the basement of the first bar, and I'm talking to Jeb and we notice these two girls standing reasonably near us.
I start chatting them up as we're going through the tour, just talking and hanging out. We go upstairs to the bar to get a to-go drink (no open container laws for the win! We brought drinks from the previous bar to each new bar all weekend).
The girls and I walk outside because the tour is getting ready to leave. We get to the next bar when I look around and see Uncle Steven, his girlfriend Kim and...none of the rest of our party.
Matt, Jeb, Lindsey, Nicole and Laura are just gone. We couldn't even make it past the first bar without losing 60 percent of our party. Sigh.
I start getting texts from Matt and Jeb, which ends up being a theme of the night, except I'm in the middle of a city I've never been and, oh yeah, drunk. I have no idea where I am, which also ends up being a theme of the night.
As I said, the tour was unremarkable, but the bars were pretty cool. We're in the second bar on the couch just relaxing before we leave for the next stop when the tour guide gathers everyone outside to leave. Uncle Steven came up to me to say he and Kim were calling it a night because it was like 9:30ish at that point. I, obviously, was not ready to head back just yet.
So the party of eight we left the hotel with to go on the tour was now down to just me after only the second stop on the haunted pub crawl.
There were two more stops on the tour. I bought the girls a drink at the third stop, some kind of cider. Pretty tasty, I think. But I have to be honest, I don't really remember what anything tasted like at that point.
Matt and Jeb kept texting me to find out where I was, but I had nothing. My only directions were "we turned left at a light, and then right down an alley." So, yeah. Not very helpful.
At the last stop on the tour, the three of us get one more round of drinks, and the girls ask me if I want to join them on the midnight zombie tour they have next. Yes I do. Yes. I do. The tour actually did sound pretty awesome -- going around cemeteries and haunted houses, etc.
One small problem. They didn't know where the tour was supposed to start. Obviously I did not either. So we just kind of wandered around Savannah, trying to find a group of people on a tour. We walked and walked. Turned down this street and that street. They called their hotel (where they booked the tour), and the hotel said it was starting at some bar called Cleary's I think? We finally find Cleary's, and we get there right at the meeting time for the tour. There are no people. Of course there aren't. We do the only thing we can do and keep wandering.
There are squares all over the city with parks in them. We turned a corner and saw there was a square with a cemetery in it. This looked promising. We made our way to the other side of the cemetery, and there's the tour! We'd somehow only missed the introductions.
The wandering around, however, did nothing to help my bearings or sense of where I was in the city. So Matt and Jeb kept texting, and I kept saying things like:
"I don't know where I am."
"I've never been to this city before. I'm drunk. It's pitch black. It's after midnight. What makes you think I can answer these questions?"
"There are houses around. Does that help?"
"You keep asking for locations, but I don't know what to tell you. Houses don't have signs."
So on the tour we go.
There's a house in Savannah that no one wants to own. Hasn't been lived in for more than a hundred years. The house has no electricity -- it doesn't even have a power box to make it capable of having electricity. Allegedly, a girl was found tied up in a chair in the window in the late 1800s. Dead, naturally. If you take a picture of the window, you're supposed to be able to see funny green orb-like lights in the window where she was found.
Of course, I forgot my camera. Like you do. But! One guy tried to take a picture, but the battery jumped out of his camera and hit the ground as he tried to snap the photo. So. That happened.
This is getting pretty long again. Part three coming soon, with the exciting conclusion and why my family refers to me as the funky cousin. Yes, really. Holla.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Ohhhh Savannah Part 1
Sorry for missing my Wednesday and Friday posts last week. This whole driving to Charlotte and then to Savannah thing really threw me off. Anyway, I've got some stories from the weekend, and I'll share them here. I'll probably break it up into at least two parts so you aren't faced with too much of a ridiculous post. Anyway, here's part one!
My Weekend in Savannah; Or Why You Shouldn't Send a Text Saying "I'm at a Hospital" after Midnight Part 1
Let me tell you something about Savannah: It is awesome. Like, for real.
As you know, I drove from DC to Charlotte on Wednesday, and then from Charlotte to Savannah on Friday morning.
Two of my cousins had been planning this trip for a couple months, and they were trying to get everyone down there to have a little fun together. We always have such a ridiculously great time together, and we absolutely need to do this more often than just weddings. Yearly, etc. And the great thing, as observed by my uncle, is it doesn't matter how long we've been apart, or how long it's been since we've seen each other. We get together, and it's like we hang out and talk to each other every day. It's never awkward; it's never weird or strained. We just get together, and we know we're having a great time.
I really wanted to do this trip from the first I heard about it, but I always just kind of figured I wouldn't be able to go because of everything going on with the job thing, and it's an insane drive from DC to Savannah, etc. Just seemed like it wouldn't work out. Well, things have changed over the past several weeks, and I suddenly was overwhelmed with the desire to go out and drink and participate in general debauchery (the sorts of things at which my cousins are quite good).
My cousin Jeb messaged me on Facebook chat on Tuesday in a last ditch effort to get me to come. I'd already resigned myself to missing it. With the dog, it just was a lot of logistics to work out.
Then I started thinking. Matty is in Charlotte. Charlotte ended up being less than a four-hour drive from Savannah. My dad travels around a lot for work, and I knew my mom was going to be in Florida watching my sister's dog because she was going to be in Chicago hanging out alone for back-to-back NKOTBSB concerts. I know. Long story. But! It turned out my dad was coming back to Charlotte early on Friday. If I could get myself to Charlotte, the logistics behind the drive became much more palatable.
So I just said, in so many words, "fuck it." I told Jeb I was in. I called home and told them I was driving home the next day, and we were going to do it. Spontaneity has never been a strength of mine. I've always been a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Take it as it comes. Just kind of hanging out and seeing what happens. Well I figured I would change it up a little, stop thinking and planning and just do it.
I packed a bag and left the next day.
My brother and I left at 8 a.m. on Friday. I knew we'd have to come home on Sunday, so I wanted to get there as early as possible to maximize our time in Savannah.
I should have known how things would go when I called my cousin Jeb around noon to let him know we were close, and he was still in bed because of the night out before. Turns out he, his sister Lindsey and Lindsey's two friends were out until 5:30 a.m.
We grabbed some lunch at a cafe around the corner and walked down to River Street. The car stayed parked at the hotel the whole weekend, which was fantastic. We were close enough to walk everywhere we needed to go.
Once we got to River Street, Jeb was complaining because we'd been there for an hour and hadn't had a drink yet. So Jeb, Lindsey, my brother and I found a place called Bernie's Oyster House. I was drawn in by a sign promising sweet tea with bourbon in it. As I said on Facebook that afternoon, it's like they knew I was coming.
Oh boy were they fantastic. It was just after 1 p.m., and things went progressively downhill from there.
The bourbon sweet teas were like silk. I told the bartender it didn't even taste like there was any alcohol in it, and he responded by saying he put in a lot more the usual because he liked our group. Great success.
Well I had four of those bourbon sweet teas. And, as I recorded on Facebook, the first shot of the weekend occurred at 2:34 p.m. I believe it was a Washington apple. Two lemon drops followed not too long after.
We ended up staying at Bernie's until around 5 p.m., just hanging out and drinking a lot. One of Lindsey's friends met up with us there, and so did my uncle and his girlfriend. From there, we went to another bar, but I was most definitely drunk by that point -- along with my cousins and brother -- and have no idea what that bar was. It was pretty wide open, with some pool tables and bottles of Sweetwater Blue -- a great beer that tastes like blueberry muffins. If you've been to the World Beer Festival in Raleigh (well I'm sure it's in many place, but I went to the Raleigh beer fest), you may have tasted this beer. So good.
I think I had two or three. Honestly, this is the point in the evening where things get a little fuzzy. We walked back to our hotel, and Jeb and I hung out in the courtyard area outside with another beer or two while we waited for everyone to get ready to go to our haunted pub crawl.
The pub crawl is where things really got interesting. Part 2 to come!
My Weekend in Savannah; Or Why You Shouldn't Send a Text Saying "I'm at a Hospital" after Midnight Part 1
Let me tell you something about Savannah: It is awesome. Like, for real.
As you know, I drove from DC to Charlotte on Wednesday, and then from Charlotte to Savannah on Friday morning.
Two of my cousins had been planning this trip for a couple months, and they were trying to get everyone down there to have a little fun together. We always have such a ridiculously great time together, and we absolutely need to do this more often than just weddings. Yearly, etc. And the great thing, as observed by my uncle, is it doesn't matter how long we've been apart, or how long it's been since we've seen each other. We get together, and it's like we hang out and talk to each other every day. It's never awkward; it's never weird or strained. We just get together, and we know we're having a great time.
I really wanted to do this trip from the first I heard about it, but I always just kind of figured I wouldn't be able to go because of everything going on with the job thing, and it's an insane drive from DC to Savannah, etc. Just seemed like it wouldn't work out. Well, things have changed over the past several weeks, and I suddenly was overwhelmed with the desire to go out and drink and participate in general debauchery (the sorts of things at which my cousins are quite good).
My cousin Jeb messaged me on Facebook chat on Tuesday in a last ditch effort to get me to come. I'd already resigned myself to missing it. With the dog, it just was a lot of logistics to work out.
Then I started thinking. Matty is in Charlotte. Charlotte ended up being less than a four-hour drive from Savannah. My dad travels around a lot for work, and I knew my mom was going to be in Florida watching my sister's dog because she was going to be in Chicago hanging out alone for back-to-back NKOTBSB concerts. I know. Long story. But! It turned out my dad was coming back to Charlotte early on Friday. If I could get myself to Charlotte, the logistics behind the drive became much more palatable.
So I just said, in so many words, "fuck it." I told Jeb I was in. I called home and told them I was driving home the next day, and we were going to do it. Spontaneity has never been a strength of mine. I've always been a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Take it as it comes. Just kind of hanging out and seeing what happens. Well I figured I would change it up a little, stop thinking and planning and just do it.
I packed a bag and left the next day.
My brother and I left at 8 a.m. on Friday. I knew we'd have to come home on Sunday, so I wanted to get there as early as possible to maximize our time in Savannah.
I should have known how things would go when I called my cousin Jeb around noon to let him know we were close, and he was still in bed because of the night out before. Turns out he, his sister Lindsey and Lindsey's two friends were out until 5:30 a.m.
We grabbed some lunch at a cafe around the corner and walked down to River Street. The car stayed parked at the hotel the whole weekend, which was fantastic. We were close enough to walk everywhere we needed to go.
Once we got to River Street, Jeb was complaining because we'd been there for an hour and hadn't had a drink yet. So Jeb, Lindsey, my brother and I found a place called Bernie's Oyster House. I was drawn in by a sign promising sweet tea with bourbon in it. As I said on Facebook that afternoon, it's like they knew I was coming.
Oh boy were they fantastic. It was just after 1 p.m., and things went progressively downhill from there.
The bourbon sweet teas were like silk. I told the bartender it didn't even taste like there was any alcohol in it, and he responded by saying he put in a lot more the usual because he liked our group. Great success.
Well I had four of those bourbon sweet teas. And, as I recorded on Facebook, the first shot of the weekend occurred at 2:34 p.m. I believe it was a Washington apple. Two lemon drops followed not too long after.
We ended up staying at Bernie's until around 5 p.m., just hanging out and drinking a lot. One of Lindsey's friends met up with us there, and so did my uncle and his girlfriend. From there, we went to another bar, but I was most definitely drunk by that point -- along with my cousins and brother -- and have no idea what that bar was. It was pretty wide open, with some pool tables and bottles of Sweetwater Blue -- a great beer that tastes like blueberry muffins. If you've been to the World Beer Festival in Raleigh (well I'm sure it's in many place, but I went to the Raleigh beer fest), you may have tasted this beer. So good.
I think I had two or three. Honestly, this is the point in the evening where things get a little fuzzy. We walked back to our hotel, and Jeb and I hung out in the courtyard area outside with another beer or two while we waited for everyone to get ready to go to our haunted pub crawl.
The pub crawl is where things really got interesting. Part 2 to come!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Doin' the bull dance; feelin' the flow. Workin' it; workin' it.
It's been a good several weeks for me. As such, here are a few things I'm pretty pumped about.
1. Hockey is fun: I went to my first Washington Capitals game yesterday. A guy at work had four tickets and gave me two of them. So Rachel and I happily attended. Man, hockey is SO much more fun in person than on TV. I enjoy hockey on TV, don't get me wrong. But it's a completely different experience in person.
The crowd was NUTS, and the Caps are actually, ya know, good. So that helps. And I gotta say, Ovechkin is just unbelievable to watch. The things he does -- he just makes everything look so easy. The Caps won 5-3. When the Caps score five goals in a home game, everyone in attendance gets 10 free wings at a restaurant in the area.
Here's the best part: the fifth goal was scored by Ovechkin on a penalty shot. Co-worker Conor (the guy who got the tickets) said it best: "It was like being in the Roman Coliseum with 18,000 people all standing, all knowing what was going to happen and all screaming for blood. It was AWESOME."
And it WAS. He scored on a sick backhanded move, and the place went berserk. Really, really excellent. I will be going to more Caps games, for SURE.
2. I have a huge TV now! I keep forgetting to take pictures of my set-up. Here's what I've got:
-55" Samsung HDTV, 1080p, 120Hz, 100,000-to-1 dynamic contrast (hollaaaa)
-1,000-watt Samsung surround sound system with built-in bluray player and wireless rear speakers
YES. SIR. I still need to get an HD cable box from Comcast (we'd just been running it from the wall downstairs) to really take advantage of the HD capabilities, but my God bluray is excellent. Fire and explosions are bordering on life-changing experiences on bluray high-def.
I now have five bluray movies: Star Trek, Terminator, Terminator 2, Gladiator and Goodfellas. Very cool. I also got a Wii just so I could get the new Super Mario game. And it is also excellent.
Xbox360 games look unbelievable when you actually take advantage of everything the system can do. I am a FAN.
3. Skiing! Sometime in the next few weeks, I'll be going skiing for the first time ever! I'm so excited. Someone at work is organizing a day-trip on a Saturday for co-workers and significant others. Rachel has been skiing before, so hopefully I can get a few pointers.
Basically, I'm planning on spending most of the day on my ass and/or back. I feel like that's really the best-case scenario for me. I'm not exactly known for my coordination to begin with, so adding skis, snow and mountain to the mix isn't likely to improve matters. Whatevs. It'll be excellent.
4. CHICAGO!!! So here's the deal: Rachel's sister lives in Chicago and goes to DePaul. Technician sports editor emeritus Tanner is living in Chicago while he works with Americorps. Yeah, they live like four blocks away from each other. Crazy.
I don't know that it's ever taken LESS to convince me to do something, but Tanner goes, "Whoa come visit!" And I thought to myself, "Well why the hell not? What exactly is stopping me from doing this?" I asked Rachel if she'd like to go to Chicago (of course she did, she loves the city), and we booked our flights last night!
We'll be flying to Chicago on April 9 and coming back April 11 -- a nice little three-day weekend. I've never been to Chicago, so I'm extra pumped about it. HOLLA.
Like I said, doin' the bull dance; feelin' the flow. Workin' it; workin' it.
1. Hockey is fun: I went to my first Washington Capitals game yesterday. A guy at work had four tickets and gave me two of them. So Rachel and I happily attended. Man, hockey is SO much more fun in person than on TV. I enjoy hockey on TV, don't get me wrong. But it's a completely different experience in person.
The crowd was NUTS, and the Caps are actually, ya know, good. So that helps. And I gotta say, Ovechkin is just unbelievable to watch. The things he does -- he just makes everything look so easy. The Caps won 5-3. When the Caps score five goals in a home game, everyone in attendance gets 10 free wings at a restaurant in the area.
Here's the best part: the fifth goal was scored by Ovechkin on a penalty shot. Co-worker Conor (the guy who got the tickets) said it best: "It was like being in the Roman Coliseum with 18,000 people all standing, all knowing what was going to happen and all screaming for blood. It was AWESOME."
And it WAS. He scored on a sick backhanded move, and the place went berserk. Really, really excellent. I will be going to more Caps games, for SURE.
2. I have a huge TV now! I keep forgetting to take pictures of my set-up. Here's what I've got:
-55" Samsung HDTV, 1080p, 120Hz, 100,000-to-1 dynamic contrast (hollaaaa)
-1,000-watt Samsung surround sound system with built-in bluray player and wireless rear speakers
YES. SIR. I still need to get an HD cable box from Comcast (we'd just been running it from the wall downstairs) to really take advantage of the HD capabilities, but my God bluray is excellent. Fire and explosions are bordering on life-changing experiences on bluray high-def.
I now have five bluray movies: Star Trek, Terminator, Terminator 2, Gladiator and Goodfellas. Very cool. I also got a Wii just so I could get the new Super Mario game. And it is also excellent.
Xbox360 games look unbelievable when you actually take advantage of everything the system can do. I am a FAN.
3. Skiing! Sometime in the next few weeks, I'll be going skiing for the first time ever! I'm so excited. Someone at work is organizing a day-trip on a Saturday for co-workers and significant others. Rachel has been skiing before, so hopefully I can get a few pointers.
Basically, I'm planning on spending most of the day on my ass and/or back. I feel like that's really the best-case scenario for me. I'm not exactly known for my coordination to begin with, so adding skis, snow and mountain to the mix isn't likely to improve matters. Whatevs. It'll be excellent.
4. CHICAGO!!! So here's the deal: Rachel's sister lives in Chicago and goes to DePaul. Technician sports editor emeritus Tanner is living in Chicago while he works with Americorps. Yeah, they live like four blocks away from each other. Crazy.
I don't know that it's ever taken LESS to convince me to do something, but Tanner goes, "Whoa come visit!" And I thought to myself, "Well why the hell not? What exactly is stopping me from doing this?" I asked Rachel if she'd like to go to Chicago (of course she did, she loves the city), and we booked our flights last night!
We'll be flying to Chicago on April 9 and coming back April 11 -- a nice little three-day weekend. I've never been to Chicago, so I'm extra pumped about it. HOLLA.
Like I said, doin' the bull dance; feelin' the flow. Workin' it; workin' it.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Cruuuuuuuuuising.
It's been far too long since the last update. My bad, once again. I always do that. I get really into the idea of a blog, I update fairly regularly for a few weeks and then who the hell knows...I just fade off it.
Well, much has happened in the past month. As a way of encouraging more updates by me, I'm not going to write a novel of an entry. I'm going to try to keep them short, and maybe I'll do this more often. I'll only tell you a bit of what's happened right now, and then in a day or so I'll write another entry, and so on.
First of all, I went on a cruise with Anne and my family and the Goldsteins (family friends). Would you like to see some pictures I took? If so, click here.
Faaantastic. I really love cruises. We weren't really sure what to expect from the cruise, to be honest. We've never gone on a Carnival cruise before, and, frankly, we hadn't heard good things about it going into our vacation. All in all, I have no real complaints. It wasn't as good as Celebrity or Princess, but that's to be expected.
I have nothing bad to say about Carnival, per se. I actually rather enjoyed the water slide, as did my dad and brother, so that was fun. This was also the first time we really tried to take advantage of the entertainment put on by the ship's crew (other than just playing bingo). We went to an 80s revue, the Newlywed, Not-so-Newlywed game, a couple comedy shows and some karaoke.
Lots of fun. I actually sang karaoke for the first time in my life. Stacy, Matt and I sang "Bohemian Rhapsody." It only took three or four drinks to get me up there. The original plan was for Matt and I to wow the crowd with our falsetto voices in "More Than a Feeling," but, sadly (or maybe not-so-sadly?), the song wasn't available.
I won $15 playing the penny machines in the Casino. Good times there. No small feat either -- betting a penny at a time and winning $15.
Whew, that was close! You almost baited me into writing a novel for you anyway! I'll cut myself off here. You have to know your limits, and if you get me started, I'll go on for days and days.
Adios!
-BG
Well, much has happened in the past month. As a way of encouraging more updates by me, I'm not going to write a novel of an entry. I'm going to try to keep them short, and maybe I'll do this more often. I'll only tell you a bit of what's happened right now, and then in a day or so I'll write another entry, and so on.
First of all, I went on a cruise with Anne and my family and the Goldsteins (family friends). Would you like to see some pictures I took? If so, click here.
Faaantastic. I really love cruises. We weren't really sure what to expect from the cruise, to be honest. We've never gone on a Carnival cruise before, and, frankly, we hadn't heard good things about it going into our vacation. All in all, I have no real complaints. It wasn't as good as Celebrity or Princess, but that's to be expected.
I have nothing bad to say about Carnival, per se. I actually rather enjoyed the water slide, as did my dad and brother, so that was fun. This was also the first time we really tried to take advantage of the entertainment put on by the ship's crew (other than just playing bingo). We went to an 80s revue, the Newlywed, Not-so-Newlywed game, a couple comedy shows and some karaoke.
Lots of fun. I actually sang karaoke for the first time in my life. Stacy, Matt and I sang "Bohemian Rhapsody." It only took three or four drinks to get me up there. The original plan was for Matt and I to wow the crowd with our falsetto voices in "More Than a Feeling," but, sadly (or maybe not-so-sadly?), the song wasn't available.
I won $15 playing the penny machines in the Casino. Good times there. No small feat either -- betting a penny at a time and winning $15.
Whew, that was close! You almost baited me into writing a novel for you anyway! I'll cut myself off here. You have to know your limits, and if you get me started, I'll go on for days and days.
Adios!
-BG
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Vacation!
Vacation next week! Woohoo!
On Friday after work, I'll be traveling down to Raleigh because Anne and I will be driving to Jacksonville on Sunday to head out on a five-day, five-night cruise to Key West and the Bahamas! For. The. Win.
It was a long and winding road even to get to the cruise at all. My mom had hip surgery in June, and doctors weren't sure if she'd be able to go, so they canceled the cruise. But on July 2, she went to the doctor and was cleared to go on the cruise. My parents went from the doctor's office to the travel agent and reinstated the cruise, so off we'll go on Monday morning!
It's going to be a good time.
In the meantime, a few awesome things I'm really loving about my new job:
1. They're getting me a Blackberry!
So a few people were in the hall, talking about smart phones and what they can do, etc. Afterward, one of the partners came into my office and asked why I didn't partake in the conversation.
I pulled out my Razr and explain how my phone is anything but smart, so I didn't have anything to add. He said, "Well you're a program manager here, are you not?" "I am indeed," I replied.
"Well, anyone here who's a manager or higher gets a Blackberry, so let's set you up."
Sign me up! I'm choosing between a Curve, Storm or Tour. I'm leaning away from the Storm because I haven't heard good things about the touchscreen Blackberries.
Thumbs UP. I will let you know when I have more information. I can tell how excited you are about it.
2. Happy Hours at work
Last week, we all gathered in the conference room at 4 p.m. to have wine, beer, champagne and some light snacks. Why? Why not? Just because we can, and we hadn't done it yet this month.
One of the partners traveled to Africa and brought back a ton of pictures, so we drank a bit and looked at pictures of Africa. Hard to argue with that as a way to spend an afternoon at work.
Anyway, this job is still FTW -- for other reasons too of course. I actually do enjoy the work. Learning about nuclear energy is more fun than, say, learning about corn. And I'm enjoying the increase in responsibilities here as well.
It's a good time. A little over a month into the job, and so far, so good. Still a good decision.
Laaater,
BG
On Friday after work, I'll be traveling down to Raleigh because Anne and I will be driving to Jacksonville on Sunday to head out on a five-day, five-night cruise to Key West and the Bahamas! For. The. Win.
It was a long and winding road even to get to the cruise at all. My mom had hip surgery in June, and doctors weren't sure if she'd be able to go, so they canceled the cruise. But on July 2, she went to the doctor and was cleared to go on the cruise. My parents went from the doctor's office to the travel agent and reinstated the cruise, so off we'll go on Monday morning!
It's going to be a good time.
In the meantime, a few awesome things I'm really loving about my new job:
1. They're getting me a Blackberry!
So a few people were in the hall, talking about smart phones and what they can do, etc. Afterward, one of the partners came into my office and asked why I didn't partake in the conversation.
I pulled out my Razr and explain how my phone is anything but smart, so I didn't have anything to add. He said, "Well you're a program manager here, are you not?" "I am indeed," I replied.
"Well, anyone here who's a manager or higher gets a Blackberry, so let's set you up."
Sign me up! I'm choosing between a Curve, Storm or Tour. I'm leaning away from the Storm because I haven't heard good things about the touchscreen Blackberries.
Thumbs UP. I will let you know when I have more information. I can tell how excited you are about it.
2. Happy Hours at work
Last week, we all gathered in the conference room at 4 p.m. to have wine, beer, champagne and some light snacks. Why? Why not? Just because we can, and we hadn't done it yet this month.
One of the partners traveled to Africa and brought back a ton of pictures, so we drank a bit and looked at pictures of Africa. Hard to argue with that as a way to spend an afternoon at work.
Anyway, this job is still FTW -- for other reasons too of course. I actually do enjoy the work. Learning about nuclear energy is more fun than, say, learning about corn. And I'm enjoying the increase in responsibilities here as well.
It's a good time. A little over a month into the job, and so far, so good. Still a good decision.
Laaater,
BG
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