Frozen Pizza

I consider myself somewhat of an aficionado on pizza.  It is, after all, my favorite food.  I can tell you where to get the best type of pie in either St. Louis or Chicago, and I am working on Ft. Myers Beach the next time I go there.  I mean, where else can you get all 4 food groups in one bite (except maybe a cheeseburger)??

So I was watching TV this morning and I saw a commercial for DiGirono... you know, that pizza that's not delivery but it tastes so good that it fools everyone and in the commercial something tragic happens to the person offering the DiGiorno because the recipient thinks that they spent all this money on delivery... that's the one!  A couple things were interesting to me in this commercial.  First off, there was a guy pretending to be a pizza delivery boy so he could get into this awesome house party.  Of course he wasn't gonna spend the bucks on real delivery, so he arrives with an already piping hot DiGiorno.  The huge black guy that answers the door says something like, "So, you're the delivery guy?" and the little white pip-squeak kid says something emphatically like, "Yep!"  Well of course the kid is immediately invited in to join the party - considering he delivered this super-awesome pizza.  A few things I have a problem with here...  First, who is fooled by this?  The kid had on some generic outfit with "PIZZA" written on it, reminiscent of an old TMNT cartoon - don't you remember what pizza joint you called, fella?  I would have told the guy to fuck off and wait for the real pizza... and what happens when the real pizza arrives?  The skinny kid gets his ass beat by the 300 huge black dudes at the party.  Second, this party was jumping!  Who wants to slow down in the middle of all that moving and shaking to eat a pizza?  Who has that kind of a party anyway?  Actors in pizza commercials, that's who!  Lastly, the kid showed up with one pizza....  wtf!?  Who orders one pizza for 300 people!  Anyway, enough about this commercial, you now realize how stupid it is.

So DiGiorno, despite its dumb advertising, is a good frozen pizza.  I prefer Jack's because of the harmonious balance of value to tastiness.  Freschetta is good too, but too damn expensive for frozen pizza... might as well get delivery.  I felt like my ability to select good frozen pizza was validated in Tahoe.  When we were on our group shopping trip, someone said we should get Totino's and I immediately through the fucking brakes on that plan.  Totino's is cheap, but it is horrible!  We settled for an off-brand that closely resembles Jack's and Mama Lucia's, which is a local delicacy in the world of frozen pizza.  Everyone devoured these pizzas with grins from ear to ear.

Although this article is titled "Frozen Pizza", I am not solely committed to eating only pizza from my own oven.  I love all pizza and I have two favorites in two cities known for their pizza.  Imo's in St. Louis and Giordano's in Chicago.  The former is thin crust squares and the latter is deep dish (stuffed, actually) in the more traditional triangular slices.  I am looking forward to visiting New York and trying one of their famous monster slices - maybe I'll try the real original Ray's...

MUving on

Okay, so Mizzou blew it... hands down.  UConn played bad enough to be beaten, and MU couldn't hit their shots... I'm sorry but 39% shooting is just not showing up, no matter how close the game was.

That said, I'm over it.  UConn will go on to get smoked by Louisville (after they beat Mich. St. today) and justice will be served.  My brackets are busted so I am almost disinterested in the rest of this tourney (Kristen sitting at #1 in the standings keeps me watching).  Personally, I am looking onto the remainder of the Blues regular season and the impending baseball season-opener.  In case anyone has missed it, the Blues are still in the hunt for a playoff spot with 7 games left on the schedule... they've done all of this with barely anyone noticing (until now).  Down the stretch, they have been on such a great run with their record and have played some great  and physical hockey.  It will be exciting to see how they can overcome adversity and make a run for that 8th seed playoff spot... or better!

Enter the Cardinals' season.  I love baseball with a passion... it is easily my favorite sport, both to watch (live and TV) and to play (softball counts, right?).  I am excited to see some changes to this ball club.  With the exception of the staple at 1st base that is Albert Pujols, we are looking at a completely overhauled infield - until Troy Glaus returns to the hot corner.  The outfield will look almost the same, but it was a decent looking (and young!) outfield, so wasn't in need of much improvement.  The hitting will once again be the highlight of the team as we have a majority of power and contact hitters.  But the pitching staff has seen some minor tweaking.  Izzy is gone, so we hopefully no longer have to hold our collective breath when defending a lead in the ninth.  Chris Perez is getting lit up this spring, so the closer-by-committee will have to suffice.  We'll see who rises above to assume the role that Duncan and LaRussa invented.   Not a lot of changes in the starting rotation, except Carp is back and looks sharp.  I don't want to leave out Molina -  Yadi is Yadi.  This year's mission: beat the Cubs.  I don't want to see those clowns win another division title just to blow it in a first-round sweep.

All in all this is an exciting time to be a sports fan with hockey and basketball closing at the same time that baseball is starting.  The flowers are ablooom and the birds are chirping... oh and we had snow last night (wtf?!).  But nevermind that, I am excited still for the change in "season".  Also, I got on my bicycle yesterday for the first time this year - granted it was inside my house on the trainer because it was pouring rain, but nonetheless I rode.  I just got some new pedals and shoes so I was super excited to use them.  I love this time of year.

M-I-Z-

This is going to be a story, as usual.  It will not be a recap, play-by-play, or boxscore as I am sure most of you either watched the game last night, or at least know the outcome.  If not, Mizzou killed it.

Anyway, so the plan was to meet up with my bro-in-law, some Tuccis, and Weltig.  We were gonna go to B-Dubs in South County (Buffalo Wild Wings).  Me being as forward thinking as I am, I warned that this would probably be a mistake as B-Dubs would be packed much as it was last week and for the Football National Championship earlier int he year, neither times which Mizzou was playing and the Blues were fighting for a playoff spot all at the same time...  This warning fell on deaf ears and my two other suggestions - Hot Shots in Fenton or All-American's bar - went over the crowd like a lead balloon.  

So its about an hour to gametime and Weltig calls me to tell me that he just talked to another friend of ours, Joe, (a KU guy by the way) and he checked out B-Dubs and said it was a "zoo".  I immediately went into panic mode and called bro-in-law to let him know the scoop and that I would be trying Hot Shots to see what it was like.  His mission was to check out All-American - the respective proximities making that the only logical/rational delegation of reconnaissance duties.  I went into Hot Shots and did a turn around the bar.  It was not crowded, but this did not look like the welcoming basketball audience with which we wanted to enjoy our viewing experience.  It was bikers and off-duty construction workers and other dudes that couldn't give a shit about watching the Mizzou OR the Blues games.  I got on the phone and let everyone know this wasn't happening.  I headed in the direction of South County because I knew we'd end up around there if not at any of the places that were suggested.

Meanwhile, Steve was carrying out his mission at the bar over All-American.  He called and said they'd have the game on (this was at about 8pm) and he had one table reserved and it was right by another vacant table.  I made my why there and let Weltig know the scoop in the process.  While I'm driving, my buddy Jimi calls me and says he's at Helen's and it blows because the beer is expensive, so he asks where we are.  I tell him and after I go inside, find Steve, pull the two tables together, and find out the beer prices, Jimi is on his way.  Its just Steve and I for a few minutes until Weltig and Joe join us.  This is after I already have two cold buckets waiting for them...  The Tucci brothers follow in shortly after.  Jimi calls and says he's on his way and he's bringing his girlfriend Mo and her friend.  I jokingly tell him women are not allowed, but he insists.  He arrives sans-Mo (she arrived about a half hour later), but with her friend (who is an actual Mizzou student).  We all enjoy a basketball game, a cold beer, and, some of us, a pizza (okay, two pizzas - extra larges).

The bar was newer than the last time I had seen it... it was also about the 4th iteration of bar design I'd seen in this place, one of which I did some drawings for.  This version was very nice though... They used one of the old bar setups, but put nice finishes in and A LOT of TVs.   The seating arrangements were quite conducive to enjoying any number of aired games, and they even had a couple spots with plush leather couches!  They also had some bar games, to complete the sports bar atmosphere I suppose.  They were kinda superfluous to me as I would only go there to see a game...  At any rate, we will be going back.

So all in all it was a fun and successful night.  We had a blast with a bunch of friends and the Tigers won (which was bound to happen since both teams are named Tigers).  Bring on UConn tomorrow - its gonna be another thriller!

-Z-O-U

What's in a name?

On my way into work this morning I was listening to one of my favorite CDs, as I do most mornings.  The CD is the latest release by Fall Out Boy called Folie a Deux.  Now, I do not claim to be a musician, a great music critic, nor a guy who is greatly influenced or inspired by music.  However, I love this band for some reason.  There music is really good, despite their celebrity.  Which, if you ask me, doesn't hurt them.  Just because a lot of people like them doesn't mean they suck - it actually means they're probably doing something right.  And this band didn't have to sell out to make money, they're doing the same stuff they've always been doing that made them famous, just like all the others before them.  Conversely, just because there are bands that no one has ever heard of, that doesn't make them good.  If people wanted to listen to them, they'd be marketable and thus, on the radio and accessible.  So as you read this, spare me your crap about my taste in music... I don't care (no pun intended... you'll see below).  I like this group and their pseudo-punk/emo style or whatever you want to call it - it is unique and it sounds good.  Plus, I can sing to it.

Having said all that - I really do get into this music.  I like music a lot because of the way it makes me want to move, scream, or break shit.  Invoking those emotions, for better or worse, is the greatest thing about music in general.  When I flip on this CD, I can't help but really get into it.  I am in a zone and don't want to listen to anything else.  My body quakes violently, emulating some distant resemblance to a dance.  My head nods to the beat - whether it be the drumline, the guitar riff, or the bass line.  My ears pick something out each time, and tell my brain to move my muscles in time with the music (which is a feat in and of itself, considering I don't keep very good time).  I should note that this isn't the only band that does it for me, just the one that invoked today's blog as I experienced it this morning.

The point of the article isn't for me to salivate over this band's music and lyrics.  It is actually to criticize their song and album titles.  There is a fine line between being artistic and being pretentious and trying too hard to be artistic.  Their first major-label album was called "From Under the Cork Tree", which such debut hit singles as "Dance Dance" and "Sugar We're Goin' Down".  Let's first examine the album title:  my only thought is that the first letters of each word are to supposed to form the acronym FUCT.  Hmmm, wow...  that can't be right.  Other than that, what kind of title is that?  Now, the two aforementioned songs are the ones that made the airwaves the fastest and most popularly.  Notice that those words in the titles are actual lyrics from the songs' choruses.  Aside from maybe one more, these are the only two songs sharing this attribute - the rest are very odd and quite long, having nothing really to do with the lyrics whatsoever.... just an "artsy" statement from the songwriter and title-maker, Pete Wentz.  I don't like it, mostly because I have to refer to these others as, "that one song that goes..." or, "number xx on the CD".  I pride myself on knowing song lyrics, names and artists, so having to describe songs in this matter annoys me greatly.

Second album:  Infinity on High.  This one doesn't bother me as much.  It's just a fun thing to say, I suppose.  Let me pick out a few songs for you: "This Ain't a Scene" and "Thnks fr th mmrs".  Again, these two are the most popular and the most played on the radio... see a pattern here?  You do if you know the song... Those words, too, appear in the lyrics to the choruses of the respective song.  There are plenty more great songs on the album that you may have heard, but you don't know what they're called... I don't count "Me & You" because that is a subtitle (and an awesome song).

Third album: Folie a Deux which is French for: 'a madness shared by two'.  I'll give them this one also... besides, album titles are supposed to be ambiguous, encompassing the nature and flavor (or theme?) of the album, right?  This disc is a coming-of-age for the group, capped off by Pete's high-profile knocking-up of and subsequent marriage to Ashlee Simpson.  The writing and musical style are really "grown up" in this one.  But don't let me get off task here, let's criticize some song titles.  Of course, in following with what can now be construed as thematic, "I Don't Care" and "America's Suitehearts" are the big singles and as you may know or could have guessed, contain the songs' lyrics in the choruses.... which makes me wonder if the label doesn't make them change the names of what they consider the most marketable songs (???).  Whatevs, the songs kick ass.  The rest of the song titles are again ambiguous, with the exception of one, that is so close, yet still mysterious.  

This is arguably the best song on the album (it IS IMO) and is called, "What a Catch, Donnie".  Now, they sing 'what a catch' throughout the song, but never mention who is Donnie...  I personally love this song so much, that I will let it go.  This one is also like a balled, which I will take this time to compare to the likes of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", "Sister Christian", or "Home Sweet Home" - a great band's sentimental surprise.  This particular ballad features cameos from Elvis Costello; the lead singers of Cobra Starship, Panic at the Disco, and Gym Class Heroes; and a couple other dudes no one knows.   It's a great mash-up of its own song and some old Fall Out Boy songs as sung by these other guys (catch it on youtube).  

I'm not gonna dig on this song, but it'd be nice if I at least knew which Donnie...

Divorce

I recently found out that the parents of a good friend I had growing up are getting a divorce.  I guess this kind of shocked me because we were good friends and I was at his house almost everyday and I did so much stuff with his family that I never even could have imagined that they would end up in this position.  Then I started thinking about how the children must feel about this and how weird it is for them...  besides my old friend, they have another child - a daughter about 3 years younger.  These kids are all grown up and even the guy my age has a family, complete with a few kids of his own.  So, this couple are grandparents, making the whole thing even stranger and I'm sure harder to fathom for the immediate family.

My parents were divorced when I was two and I never saw my father again after I was four years old, so my parents' actual act of divorce had no real immediate effect on me (I resented my situation a few times growing up, but became a man myself too soon to care).  Now, since I was accustomed to a single-parent household most of my life, at least through the developmental years, I was effected in a much different way than I'm sure my old friend and his sister are going through with their situation.  For me, my mom being "it" was all I knew and I just dealt with "not having" a "dad".  When he died, about 3 years ago, I refused to go to the funeral.  I don't really make a habit out of attending funerals of people I don't know.  This really wasn't a chapter closing for me (although it was for my sister) because, and I'm not going to keep beating this drum, there was no basis on which to turn the page.

Flip back to my old friend.  All his life, his parents were happy.  And this wasn't a facade - these people truly loved and cared for each other.  Trust me, I was around a lot (his dad used to jokingly ask my mom for my SSN so he could claim me as a dependent).  So contrary to my situation where my parents just rushed themselves into a senseless marriage because they were young and horny, these two recently (or not-so-recently depending on who you ask) just fell out of love (?!?!).  Worst of all, their lost love is going to have an effect on a third generation of themselves in their grandchildren.  Imagine first of all being a person whose parents get divorced - devastating enough at any age (unless you're me, I guess).  Then imagine being a person whose grandparents get divorced while you are alive... this is almost unheard of!!!!  To have a relationship and marriage make it so far and accomplish so much, then get shattered while you're around to see it (see, I make this point because my children will technically have divorced grandparents, which isn't so odd, but it is if they were already born when it happened, see?).  

Anyway, my heart does go out to my old friend, his children, his sister, and the parent that didn't see this coming.  My guess is that the parent who initiated this disaster is going through some strange psychological period, such as a mid-life crisis.  It is inexcusable behavior and a damn shame, when you consider all of the lives that will be torn apart by the tragedy.  I only wish, for their sake, they'd have done it 25 years ago so maybe the "victims" would have some time to recover from the pain, and time enough to go on with their lives after it.

Tahoe - coming home

Since I picked Ray and Ali up from the airport on Friday, Ray wanted to treat me to a half-day pass on Sunday before we headed out. The conversation went something like this:

Ray: I want to buy you a half-day pass for driving all the way back to the airport.
Me: I appreciate that most generous token of your appreciation...
Ray: ...and you'll accept.

We were the first people up in either house and contemplated back and forth whether we should go or not. We thought about the timing aspect, if we were just gonna pack up and have the girls pick us up and leave from there, how pissed would everyone be if we were gone, etc. As it turned out, we made the right call by NOT going.

At about 7:30am (we lost an hour due to Daylight Savings) we just went ahead and started cleaning, packing, and cleaning some more. Slowly, everyone else starting waking up and pitching in... Dishes kept appearing out of nowhere, but we just kept cleaning. Finally, it seemed that all the housework had been done and all the bags had been packed - it was 10am - it took us nearly the whole time to get the house and ourselves ship-shape. I wanted to leave at 10:30am - I had the trip back to Reno all timed out. We efficiently packed the Rogue and watched as everyone else packed their cars. We took a group picture, said goodbye to everyone, and headed on our course. We were the first car to leave.

We drove back to Reno and stopped at In-n-Out Burger for lunch....DELICIOUS!!! I had this stop scheduled into the trip - and knew the restaurant was pretty close to the airport. Our cars were due back at 1pm and I knew we had a little more than an hour drive from Tahoe to Reno, so this gave us just under an hour for lunch. The other two cars didn't follow right behind and really weren't adhering to our plan. They wanted to stop on the way and get a few souvenirs, plus they had to return Maddie's skis from the day before because no one would take her... bummer. As I was finishing my Double-Double and fresh-cut French fries, the other crew rolled in. We stayed long enough to say hi to them and give over our seats to them (this place gets crowded!), but we were on this well-calculated mission, so we had to bounce. On a sidenote, I feel like George Costanza when I plan a trip like this, because I am so meticulous about the departure and arrival details and I want to make good time on the road. We had to get some gas, which was another adventure in and of itself.

We pulled into a local gas station (forgot the name) because Kristen had won a gas card at the Safe-way grocery store, worth about 7 dollars - couldn't let that go unused. Ray went to pump the gas and realized you have to prepay at this particular filling station - no biggie, or was it? He went inside and I followed. He offered the clerk the gas card and his debit card. The clerk, who was Indian, couldn't process in his brain that Ray was trying to prepay with two methods of payment and just wanted to fill the tank, so he couldn't tell the man how much he wanted on the card.... not to mention that the clerk did not want to take Ray's debit card because he said, "No credit, only cash." To which Ray replied, "This is debit," and the clerk said, "Yes, we take debit" and stared blankly at Ray until Ray motioned the card closer to the clerk, waving it as if to suggest that the man take it from him and hold it to swipe, thus completing the transaction upon Ray's successful dispensing of the gasoline. This was a funny exchange, worthy of conversing about in the car on the rest of the short drive to the airport.

We pulled up to the Southwest airlines curbside check-in, unloaded, and I pulled the car into the rental return at 12:57pm - three minutes to spare! The other two cars were nowhere to be found and we later learned that they were charged an extra 20-something dollars for not returning by 1pm.... should have stuck with us! After being rejected for standby we made our way to the terminal for our long wait for the flight to Phoenix. This allowed me to catch up on some much-needed reading. We connected in Phoenix, literally running through the terminal to get to our next gate.... it was THAT close!! We had no incidents on the flight home and I caught up on more reading, which coincidentally hurt my back from being bent over because it has been achy ever since - I'm getting too old for this.

We got our bags, got to our car, and said our goodbyes. Kristen and I got home and enjoyed Jake's company for a little while before heading to bed - it was about 2am. I slept until 11am and went in for a half day at work, knowing that everyone lese had taken full days off.

That was the trip in a 4-post nutshell. I had a blast and can't wait to do a group trip again! I know I left some stuff out and that is bound to happen.... anyone who wants to add something can feel free.

I hope the stories were entertaining!

Tahoe - Day 3

If you haven't read about days 1 and 2, may I suggest doing so before reading on...

So after another hearty breakfast, those of us who wanted to ski on Saturday decided how we were all gonna get there.   Some people didn't want to go until later, so there were seven of us that wanted to go: me, Kristen, Ray, Ali, Joel, Zack, and Maddie.  The first four on that list were sharing a vehicle and the other three didn't have their own transportation.  We decided that I'd drop the girls off first back at the side of the mountain where we were on Friday, then the four of us boys would head over and ride the gondola up and check out the other side of the mountain.   So that's just what we did.

We loaded up into the Rogue with all of our gear.  It was so full that Zach had to ride in the hatchback portion of the undersized SUV.  As we're pulling down to the edge of the driveway, a car on the road stops right in front of us and the driver starts fumbling around in the backseat.  (WARNING:  this is one of my stories that should be told in person so I can do sounds and movements, but I implore you to keep reading).  Being that we are in a huge hurry and already a little behind of where we wanted to be at that time in the day, I calmly glanced over at Ray, said "what the fuck?", glanced back at the stopped car before us, and proceeded to lay on my horn repeatedly.  The guy in the car (all by himself) looks up, startled, gives me the "what's your problem" shoulder shrug and mozies his way up the road - in the same direction we were headed.  At the light, another car got in between us, but we were still on the same course.  I thought I had forgotten all about our previous incident until the guy ended up in front of us again.  I was going to leave him alone (even though we had a good laugh at his expense the first time and this activity only eggs me on).  But then he motioned as if he was going to make a left turn out of our single lane, complete with turn signal, and pretty much fakes the left and gets back into our lane right in front of me.  Frustrated at this point, I lay on my horn once again and he responds with a middle finger perched high above a flailing arm - I guess he was pissed at this point, but I was the annoyed party here.  We made our final turn behind this guy and I was going to hammer him again because he was not going right on a red when there were clearly no cars coming, but he made the turn in time and I decided we were on a bigger mission.

We pulled into this unsuspecting strip mall where the gondola picked people up and took them up the mountain.  It was mainly for sight-seers, so it took you to this look-out and, of course, we had to ski to the next lift to take us the rest of the way to the top of the mountain.  The gondola ride was a lot of fun because we could face each other and jump around as opposed to sitting perfectly still in a row like on the chairs...  We got to the top and did our thing on the other side of the mountain for a few hours.  This new side was so much better - not only could we snowboard from California into Nevada and vice-versa, but the runs were much longer, smoother, and less crowded.  After a while, Ray wanted to bring Ali over there so she could check it out.  I went with him to get her so I could check on Kristen.  getting from where we were back to them ended up being the longest run we did that weekend, and the longest run I'd ever done in my life.  It took us a while to get down.  Ali went back up with us to the other side while Kristen took Maddie home so she could eat.   At the top we ran into Bryan, Brian, and Drew.  We all rode around on these hills for a while (I expereinced my one and only fall of the trip) and then we had to go back.  At this point, Ali was looking like Picaboo Street.  I'm not too sure, but at one point I think I saw her pull a 1080 off a big-air ramp.  Seriously, she was looking very comfortable on the mountain and by the time the lifts were shutting down, we all came down the mountain as a group - and it was awesome!  We had to take a few breaks because some of those flat runs are exhausting on a snowboard.  Kristen came to pick us up and we headed back to the house.

The rest of the evening was pretty anti-climactic.  Half of the crew went out to dinner at a restaurant and then some of them on to the casino.  The rest of us stayed in and, after a dinner consisting of the five remaining pizzas and eight of the remaining hot dogs, we watched a couple movies.  By the time some of the other guys got back from dinner (those who didn't go to the casino) we were all vegged out and some of us had dozed off.  By the time the others got back from the casino the houses were quiet as a churchmouse and everyone had gone to bed.  Couldn't tell you what happened after that.

To be concluded...

Happy St. Pat's

I decided to embrace my Irish-Catholic roots and wear green today.  I have on a striped green long-sleeve tee.. woo hoo.  I am pissed though that I forgot o put on my shamrock boxers...  I'll have to throw those bad boys on as soon as I get home.  

Not going to the Hibernian parade because I have to work - which as you can see I am doing a great job.  My plan is to leave around 4pm, go get a haircut, and go shopping for new biking gear!  As excited as I am to be Irish and have a green beer and get my reddish-blondish-brown hair shortened, I am more excited about this weather!  I can't wait to get back on the bicycle and feel the breeze.  I even bought new pedals last night...  I'm jealous of all those paraders today enjoying the outdoors with a beer and a corned beef sandwich.

So Happy St. Patrick's Day to all and enjoy it however you feel.  Just be safe and be kind.

P.S.  That picture to the right is of me at Cheers in Boston.  I imagine that town is going freaking crazy today with all of those Celts.  We went there in August and it was a blast, but again, I'm sure they're tearing the gold dome off of the capitol building on Beacon Street right about now!!!!

Tahoe - Day 2

I guess this is how this story is gonna go (by day). If you haven't read part I yet, scroll down and read it first.

So a couple times during night #1 Ray and I were talking back and forth about them possibly getting a rental car in Reno and driving down on the morning of day 2. He was not having luck getting the same deal we got through the hook-up, so I agreed to pick them up. Kristen and I woke up early, not even requiring an alarm clock (when on vacation, I always feel that I can sleep when I get home, so this isn't much of an issue for me). We made ourselves breakfast - I had a hearty bacon and eggs... hey, gotta get that protein for a wicked day on the slopes! While I was cooking I noticed that a bedroom door down the hall cracked open... I didn't think much of it because I didn't see anyone come out. The floor plan of this house was pretty open, so from the kitchen I could see directly down the hall to the bedroom door. This was Tony and Anna's room. I came to find out later from Tony that it was him who got up, to go to the bathroom, but it was the smell of bacon that awoke him. He was jokingly upset with me for not making him any, so I explained to him that I gladly would have had he shown his face in that instance.

So Kristen and I left to head back to Reno. We successfully found Ray and Ali at the airport and immediately congratulated them in person on their engagement. We packed up the Rogue and were off to Tahoe.. again. We arrived back at the house and everyone was already gone :(. Thanks for waiting for us to hit the slopes, guys. Funny thing is, I didn't even tell anyone we were leaving to go pick them up since Ray and I had made the decision so late at night, so they really weren't 100% sure where I was.. haha. It was all good though and after unpacking their luggage we quickly got ready and headed to the ski shop to get some rentals for Kristen and Ali. This was a pretty smooth adventure.

We made it to the mountain at about 11:30am, got our lift tickets and hit the bunny slopes. I have been snowboarding for 10 years, but since this was my first time at this big of a place, I decided to get my footing (or boarding) to a comfortable level by hitting the easy slopes.... "greens" they're called in the industry. It was just as I expected, like riding a bike. I quickly got into my rhythm and decided to help Kristen learn how to ski, which is ironic considering I have never snow skied a day in my life. She was catching on rather quickly, really. A few minor falls, no big collisions. She did almost hit a tree which I documented in a photograph that can be found in my facebook album. Ray and I felt pretty comfortable about leaving the girls on the bunny hill, so that's exactly what we did. This was after I took off half my clothes because I was so damn hot - it was 45 degrees there and I was dressed as if embarking on an arctic adventure!

It was at this point that we met up with some of the other guys and headed up the 4-person chair lift to the first stop up the mountain. The cool thing about the mountains is that there are many slopes and levels at all altitudes, so we would ride up a lift to about 1/3 the way up, ski down a minute or so to another lift and ride that up even further and repeat this process until we made it to the summit. We cruised around one side of the mountain the majority of the day. Some of the girls (not Kristen :)) joined us at the top and we proceeded to make our way down. We had to leave Zach behind because he decided he'd be a gentleman and walk with Maddie down the mountain because she was too afraid to ski - yes, they WALKED 3,500 feet vertical drop and god knows how much laterally to get down this damn mountain. All of this when Zach is one of the better snowboarders I've seen - he was kinda pissed. The day on the slopes ended with everyone slowly heading back to the house except me, Ray and Ali. Kristen caught a ride with the rest of the group. Ray wanted to give Ali a taste of the whole enchilada by taking her to the top and riding down beside her. Well, they didn't walk down but they came down really slowly and it took about an hour for them to get down.... all while I was waiting at the bottom contemplating whether or not to call ski patrol because the resort had stopped operating the lifts and those two were the absolute LAST people on that mountain. They finally arrived and we headed back to the house.

I was dying for some grub so I had them throw me in a pizza while they were already preparing a pasta dinner. Everyone chipped in and we cleaned out some food. It was now onto game time! We started with a fun board-less trivia board game called "Catchphrase". Look it up if you don't know what it is. We split into teams and the hilarity ensued. It was fun, but then someone went to bed so the teams were uneven and we had to move on to drinking games - damn the luck! We played circle-of-death and the most fun part about this game is when someone draws a specific couple of cards they get to create rules and whoever breaks that rule has to drink. The most laughter (and me subsequently losing my voice) came from Shannon who could not grasp the rules concept and was forced to drink repeatedly. You see, the rule usually involved a ritual you had to perform after taking a drink... well, Drew and I got to the point where we would wait like we were stalking prey for Shannon to take a drink and not observe the ritual. As soon as she broke the rule, we screamed "DRINK!!!" When she took that drink she failed again to perform the ritual and so this vicious cycle went on and on and we laughed and drank and carried on until the wee hours of the morning.

It is worthy of note before you hear it from someone else that while we were all playing, Maddie and Zach were in the hot tub getting annihilated and at one point Maddie came inside and was SO drunk and obnoxious that Shannon actually locked her back outside for a few minutes... haha! It's all good though because she was on vacation and that is what you're supposed to do, so there was really no harm done.

Then we all went to bed (at least I did).

To be continued...

Tahoe-my-God! (Part I)

Okay, so in deciding how to write this one, I determined that there was WAY too much info to cover in just one post - given the attention span of my audience...  just kidding.

So we wake up super early in the morning two Thursdays ago and meet at the airport.  Ray and Ali, being punctual as they are, were already there and through security.  The other 9 of us, who randomly ran into one another at the SuperPark lot, were running behind and thought we would never make it through that security line on a busy business travel day.  Nonetheless, we were on the flight headed to Reno Intl.

The flight was going well and the anticipation was mounting, when all of a sudden Kristen, Maddie, and I noticed that something was happening in the seats in front of us - Ray and Ali's seats.  As it turns out Ali had some head trauma in the past and has had three seisures in her life, including the one she was having in the plane right before our astonished eyes.  Luckily, this was the second one that she had with Ray, so he was able to handle the situation calmly.  Also luckily, there was an MD on the flight (and nurse Shannon) who were able to mobilize her into a pronated position and get her blood pumping back at regular levels.  

She was feeling better after that and we got off the plane and had some food at the Tequileria in the airport in Vegas, where we had to make a connection to our flight to Reno (flights out of StL only go to like 3 cities - it is SO frustrating!).  After eating, Ali was still feeling a little apprehensive about the hour-long flight to Reno, so after some duscussion she and Ray decided to hang back and stay the night in Vegas - I could think of worse places to spend a night...  With the help of the airline, they were given new flight reservations for early Friday morning and a 100$ option on a room at the Bellagio - pretty sweet deal!!

At the airport, before they decided to stay, Ray told me in private (while the girls were in the bathroom) that he had planned to propose to Alison that night in Tahoe.  There was a place that offered sleigh rides, so he was going to set up a romantic evening complete with the sleigh ride and then propose.  He said he would need my help to bait her into doing it so that she wouldn't suspect anything - like the four of us would go just as a fun thing to do and he'd wisk her off somewhere and ask for her hand in marriage.  Obviously the whole seisure thing threw a wrench into this plan.  His other problem was that since he had properly asked her parents' permission to take her hand, her father took the night off work to be at home with her mother when she called to share the good news.  With this kind of pressure, Ray had to think quickly on his feet.  Given the very fortunate gift of an affordable room at the Bellagio and a romantic dinner at the same hotel restaurant overlooking the famous fountain and lit by the lights of the strip, Ray popped the question.  From what he told me, she accepted through a waterfall of tears and her open palms which were covering her mouth.  It actually could not have worked out better for him and I am extremely happy and love both of them.  I cannot wait for the wedding.

So, this is supposed to be a post about Tahoe, so here goes...  The rest of us arrived in Reno and proceeded to the car rental counter.  It was here that I noticed that I had secured my snowboard bag with a luggage lock and left the key on Kristen's key ring, which was sitting on our console table in our living room, about 1100 miles from where we were standing.  I was rightfully pissed off.  Luckily TSA had a matching key and I was able to get it unlocked.  We got the cars reserved from Brian Stiles through priceline.com at an insane price, so it was with little-to-no resisitance that we upgraded from front-wheel drive Pontiac G-6s to AWD cross-over SUV Nissan Rogues - all three of us in different colors.  That had to be a sight if you were driving down the road next to us.  We did all this with no help from the pregnant sales lady at the counter whose advise (before we asked about the upgrade) was to put snow chains on the tires - physically doing the labor and incurring all the costs ourselves of course.  She was useless.

After waiting for the cars to get ready, our caravan hit the road headed for South Lake Tahoe, CA.  With the help of my Garmin GPS (braggin'!!) we were at the house in just over an hour.  After actually missing the address and pulling into a couple wrong driveways, we pulled into our rented mini-mansion.  This place was cool!  From the outside it had the typically architecture of a mountain ski town.  Wood siding, large windows, steep-sloped roofs for shedding all that snow!  Not to mention it was really two houses - the 5ish-bedroom main and the 2-bedroom, 2-pullout sofa guest house.  I say 5ish because one of the bedrooms was converted from an old laundry room, meaning the only place to do laundry was at the stackable unit in the guest house - somewhat inconvenient.  Kristen and I secured a nice quiet bedroom downstairs right next to the bathroom.  Drew of course claimed the master bedroom - encompassing the entire top floor - because he was the organizer that spearheaded the trip.

When we arrived, Tony, Anna, Drew, Stacy and Zach were already there.  We had to explain to them why Ray and Ali were not with us.  If you're unfamiliar with who all went on the trip, it was some frineds of ours:  Tony, Anna, Drew, Stacy, Zach, Joel, me, Kristen, Bryan, Shannon, Danielle, Melissa, Brian Stiles, Maddie, Ken Stroot, and of course Ray and Ali - 17 in total.... a full house.

The first order of business was to create a shopping list and to get some common staples of food and beer.  This was a clusterfuck, as you could imagine.  So we went to the store and just kind of winged it.  I was in charge of one cart and Anna the other.  We were throwing shit in left and right.  Even Blandford had an extra cart that was getting some action.  We stood around and debated many options, including how the fuck we were going to pay for all of it.  Before we left, I collected 25$ from everyone thinking that 400$ would be plenty to cover the groceries for the weekend.  We even accounted for the absent persons.  There was some second-guessing but we hit the checkout line with our three carts anyway.  Luckily we were at a Safe-way which they have all over California so Drew had a member card.  Our final bill would have been over 400, but after using Drew's card we got a 90$ savings, making our final final bill about 350$ - we had extra left over for beer the next night!  Which we needed that extra dough since we drank all of our first 90 beers (3-30 packs!) in the first night.  We actaully ran out but it was too late and we were too drunk to get more.

When we got back from the store, we unloaded the groceries and started in on those 90 beers.  I grilled some dogs and brats and we ate and played beer pong.  Zach Brda and I fucking dominated that pong table.  Poor Tony kept taking new partners to try to beat us, but to no avail.  The giant was finally taken down by Ken and Danielle because we were getting shit-faced.  Oh, and while playing I attempted to fling a ping-pong ball at Tony but slipped and fell on my ass - socks and hardwood floors do not match.  The aftermath can be seen in a picture of me tagged on facebook.

After a few hours of Rock Band 2 on PS3 and some drunken debauchery in the hot tub we all hit the sack in anticipation of our first day on the slopes.

I will get to the rest of the story in following post(s).  I've rambled enough here and fear that I may lose some of you if I haven't already :).

To be continued...

Tough doggie

I love how dogs are so resilient.  I was walking Jake today (my 3-year-old Lab/Chow mix) and noticed that not much seems to phase him.  He can run into stuff, get hit by stuff, run across rocks (barefoot of course! or barepaw?) and he doesn't yelp, cry, or complain.    He's got an incredibly high threshold for pain.  Even before we went outside for the walk, I poked my head out the door to see what the weather was like and so in his anticipation to get outside (he is otherwise an "indoor" dog) he tried to run out the door and instead ran his head square into the edge of the cracked-open door.  This act would have caused a lesser species - like humans - to reel in pain and yell things like "Fuck!" and "Shit that hurt!".  Not Jake... he took it in stride, backed up, and realigned himself to poke his tiny little head out the crack of the very door I was in the process of closing.  He didn't knock his noggin a second time, but it was a close call.  I would have expected the same reaction if he had done it again... and again.

These events - coupled with his ever-resilient attitude on a day-to-day basis when put it similar situations - reminded me of a viral video going around the interwebs...  perhaps you've heard of or seen it:  "Bizkit the Sleepwalking Dog".  If you haven't seen it, type those words into the YouTube search bar right now!  If you are like 99% of the people in the free world and have seen this video, than you know what I'm talking about.  The yellow lab in this video (who bears a striking resemblence to my Jake) is sleeping on the floor, starts dreaming (apparently that he is running in an endless field), shuffles his legs as if running in said dream field, gets up, and.... runs straight into the wall in front of him!  

Hilarious, right?  Well, this is what I mean.  What an amazing threshold for pain!!  I mean, can you imagine how much that would have hurt.  Had I been the victim, directly after the assault I would have - probably while bleeding - jumped up and down and cursed and kicked and punched things to generate new pain, you know... to take help me forget about the pain I was feeling from running into the wall...

Anyway, Jake is a super-pup and I just wanted to present some backup to prove it.  Any funny doggie stories?

Marketing 101

I love how the off-brand products' marketing departments create their brand to resemble so closely the products that they are ripping off.  For example, while walking into work today I noticed a soda can and thought, "Hey, someone enjoyed a yummy Diet Dr. Pepper!"  Upon closer inspection I could  see that the label in question was not for Diet Dr. Pepper, but for Diet Dr. Pop!  Genius!  It's so close....  get it?  Dr. Pop because it tastes like Dr. Pepper and is a pop!!!! Wow!

I noticed the graphic design out of my peripheral vision because it looked like one of my favorite soft drink confections:  Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.  Mmmmm - I could go for one of those right about now.  Anyway, the point is that these guys probably have it right, but are they trying too hard to doop people into buying their product?  Are they just copycats?  What if they just made an original and called it whatever they wanted?  Would it sell?  Maybe this is why I am not in advertising....

Of course this made me think of a St. Louis original that had been doing the same thing for many many years - Vess.  Anyone who grew up in St. Louis in the 70s 80s and/or 90s knows Vess.  I don't know if they make soda anymore, but they had the same marketing approach: make a drink that tastes just like Dr. Pepper and name it something that borders dangerously on copyright infringement.  They called it Dr. Vess....  Classic!

While we're on the subject.  Why is it that coloquial dialogue dictates what we call soft drinks?  Here in St. Louis it is 'soda', but up north and west it is 'pop' (is Dr. Pop made up north or out west???)... Wonder what they call it out east and down south?

If you've got any more good product naming ripoffs or any more terms meaning "soft drink", throw them in the comments.  I promise, guys, this blog will get better, but this is the kind of material to expect most of the time.  The next blog will be the story of my recent trip to Lake Tahoe, and it will be a geed wan!

Stay Tuned...

Welcome

Hello, readers!

Some of you regulars may remember my blogs from MySpace.  Things there got a little hectic for me not only simply because their interface sucks (!), but also because I just got married at the end of October.

Well I have really had the itch to start writing again and I feel that I have a lot to write about these days.  If you're new, than sit back and enjoy the ride.  The premise of this blog is for me to keep my friends and family up to speed on my day-to-day life, for me to rant about the goings on in the world, for me to tell other stories, or for me to just put down my usual pointless drivel into online literary form for all to experience!

I will try to update as often as possible.  If I don't get to it for a few days - no worries!  I will be back soon.

I guess that's all for now.  Until next time...

...see you later!!