This was one of the rougher weekends I’ve had in a while and it started on Thursday with a little bit of St. Patty’s celebration. After work I met Luedke and we headed to Sweeney’s for some Guinness and Jameson. Neither of us were really feeling the Irish vibe in there so our visit was short lived. From there we went to my Friday lunch spot the Ardor. The Ardor has great food and it didn’t disappoint on St. Pat’s. I had a delicious corned beef, cabbage and potato dinner there. After that was done we sat around and drank some $2.50 Guinni and played some vids. We were minding out business when out of the blue Schwenker shows up. He was wasting time waiting for Brad Mohn’s and randomly stumbled into our neck of the woods. So we sat, drank and played some dice while waiting for Brad. Finally Brad showed up but I was already deep in conversation with some random guy I met sitting at the bar that had a masters degree in art. He had just moved back to Milwaukee to interview to be a professor at a couple area colleges. His specialties were pottery and glass; he was a very interesting person. I was talking to him and everyone else had decided to go to another bar but I had just gotten a fresh beer and was talking to this dude. One beer turned into a couple and I ended up spending almost the whole night at the Ardor. This guy went to Madison too so we had all the college stories to share. Finally it was time to meet up with everyone else. I had gotten a text from Luedke saying he was at My Office so I made my way over there. When I got there there was no Luedke. Not wanting to look like a fool and walk in and walk out I sat down and had a brew. I ran into another character there. A black guy who claimed he was a true to life pimp and was waiting for one of his women. I was interested so I talked to this guy for an hour or so. His woman never showed up but I had had enough of this holiday and headed home a drunken solo Irishman.

Work on Friday was pretty tough and I know now why I don’t drink during the week. I went into work a couple hours late but it was no big deal because two of my three bosses were out and I didn’t have much to do. For lunch I went back to the scene of the crime, the Ardor and talked with the owners about the craziness of the night before. After what felt like sixteen hours of work was over I went home to get ready for the night’s basketball game. Luedke, Adam, Stacey, Chappy, J and I drove to Delahunt’s joint to watch the Badgers game. It was a good time. We ate fish fries, pizza and drank some brew to cure the headache from the night before. The basketball games were great and the Bucky advanced to the next round. There were some great upsets and all the games were close and exciting. One of those upsets was UWM beating Boston College to make it to the Sweet 16. The major highlight and upset of the night was Luedke, Dave O, and I defeating the salty crew of Adam, Chappy and Todd in three straight games of pitcher quarters. I didn’t think I still had it in me but I went three for three and was instrumental in destroying the salty three. Once the games were over we headed home around eleven and called it a night.

After what felt like my first rest in a week I was able to relax Saturday during the day. Marti had picked up Emily from the airport and they stopped over for a couple hours. They’re headed to the Sonoma Valley on a vacation so we shot the breeze about that and did some catching up. They took off and the Badger game started up. Jocelyn had just gotten home and Bucky was ready to kick some butt in the next round of the tourney. Luedke ended up coming over for the game and he helped get rid of some of my duty free rum. We drank some hurricanes, in the process getting 500% of our RDA or vitamin C, and watched the Badgers advance to the Sweet 16 with a victory over Cinderella Bucknell. After the game L went with his girlie to eat and J and I watched the next basketball game. The next game ended up being a double overtime game and L and Anna came back to our place to watch the end. After the games were over we went to the hotel Metro for a couple drinks and caught up with some of our friends there. Post metro we headed to Mykano’s for a gyro and called it a night.