Partying Like It’s 1999

This weekend I felt a young spry 26 again so instead of staying in like I normally do on a Friday night, J and I actually left the apartment for a change. Chappy was having people over by him so we decided to venture the block. Adam and Stacey were there along with a couple of their friends. The night was a lot of fun but we really didn’t do anything “crazy”. We sat around most of the night just telling stories and acting crude. There was a little dice shaking by the others but I avoid those games at all cost. We were planning on going out to the bars but we were having so much fun that the time melted away. I remember seeing ten o’clock and the next thing I knew it was 3:30. Club Jim shut down and walked out with everyone. They were on there way to Mykano’s but I had pizza oven quesadilla on my mind so I skipped out. I had a bunch of fun, a cheap night, and was able to stay up late just like the days of old.

Saturday was another football game. I called up the troops from the night before to see if they were up for some festivities at Apt. 54. They were all surprisingly up for it so I had a gathering for the Badger v. Minnesota game. Todd, Steph, Adam, Stacey and Chappy all came over. The ending to the Badger game was pretty amazing. They got their butts kicked all game but somehow stayed with the Gophers. Then during a punt with thirty seconds left the Badgers blocked it and recovered the kick in the end zone. It shocked the Badger fans as much as it did the Gophers fans. Craziness ensured in Apt. 54 and we celebrated with some tequila. After that game we watched USC v Notre Dame and Michigan v. Penn State. They too were awesome games that ended on the final plays of the game. After the games we DID NOT go to Brothers, amen. Instead we all went to Joey Buona’s for some family style Italian dinning. Oh, did we eat too much! I have never felt so unbelievably stuffed in my entire life; I was drunk on food, delicious food. Everyone at the table was in the same overstuffed boat after the 2 salads, 2 appetizers, 2 pastas, 2 entrees, and 2 desserts. It really is the definition of gluttony but the food is so good! I struggled to stay upright during the walk home. It felt so late when we arrived back at the apartment and it was only 10. There was no way anybody was gong to be able to go out so we all went our separate ways. I was up for about another half hour when the food coma set in and I passed out cold.

Sunday Luedke and I went to Germantown and I helped him set up his company’s new network. It’s a lot of fun doing network setup. I wish I could find a full time job doing that. No Packers this Sunday so nothing to worry about.

Badgers Lose, I Lose, Packers Win

Friday I made some jambalaya. Now that I have free time on the weekends I will start cooking more again. My jambalaya turned out good but it was hot because I accidentally added too much hot sauce. J and I watched a movie about the real school of rock out in Philly. The kids that were in this school were amazing and the twelve year old guitar player was unbelievable. Rock School was a great movie.

On Saturday we invited Adam, Stacey and Schwenker over for the Badger game. We watched the Badger defense get run over by Northwestern in a 51-48 loss. We were pretty bummed after that but we pulled it together. Ham was in town for a wedding so we went down to Water St. and met him at the Water Street Brewery for a couple beers. After that we headed over to brothers for their two for one happy hour. That was a bad mistake again! I had way too much to drink which is my fault. No more Brother’s happy hour for this guy. We were home and sleeping before midnight. Not the relaxing weekend I was hoping for.

Packers finally got a win this Sunday. They beat New Orleans 52-3. They should have banked some of those points for the rest of the season. Let’s hope they can pull it together and put some wins together.

The Marathon That Wasn’t

This weekend was low key for me. Friday we stayed in and watched a couple movies. Nothing exciting, but relaxing.

Saturday I woke up and made some waffles with my new waffle iron that I got from Amazon.com for $7. The waffles I made turned out great and making waffles is a lot easier than pancakes. I had some extras waffles left over and froze them so I can have toasted waffles later. After breakfast we watched the Badgers destroy Indiana. It was a great game and it was enjoyable to see the Badgers steamroll a team. After that Jocelyn’s dad and her sister came up from Illinois. Jocelyn and her dad were doing half of the Milwaukee marathon. We watched TV until dinner time and then but we really couldn’t determine where we wanted to go eat at night. We ended up going to Edwardo’s. My meal was pretty bad. I had some pasta with sausage and the sausage tasted rancid. It was very disappointing. After dinner we just went back to our apartment and watched some TV and Saturday Night Live and called it a night.

Sunday I had to wake up at 6:30 to take Jocelyn and her dad to Grafton where the starting line of the marathon was. It was kind of a downer taking them to the start because this was the day that I was supposed to run the marathon but my dumb hamstring prevented that. Oh well. They had a great day to do the marathon. I dropped them off and picked them up about three hours later at the halfway point. After that we went back to the apartment, got cleaned up and went to Rock Bottom for lunch. Jocelyn’s dad headed home after that and we spent the rest of the day watching the tube.

Monday after work I brewed a batch of beer. The Packers played on Monday night and lost again! 0-4, sigh.

Free At Last

No wedding and no anything to do this weekend! What a relief. Friday J and I stayed in and watched some TV and had a nice dinner. I made seafood marinara with scallops and shrimp that we had over some angel hair pasta. We had a little wine and some French bread with the pasta. I love scallops and the marinara turned out very good. I had forgotten how great a quiet dinner at home could be. Friday was just what the doctor ordered.

I woke up and had a weird feeling. A feeling of being unfettered and free. I didn’t have ANYTHING on my schedule! I spent most of the morning getting caught up with my side jobs. Once I finished that I plopped down on the couch and watched some college football. I think being out and about every weekend has really affected me because I started to get a little stir crazy. I called up Luedke and Adam to see if they wanted to go on the Lakefront brewery tour. They wanted to go so Luedke, Anna, Adam, Greg, Jocelyn and I went on the tour. We skipped the tour all together and just had some beers. We sat on the boardwalk area outside and enjoyed the early Fall weather. After the brewery we went to the new Brothers on Water Street to watch the Badger game. Brothers had a two for one special until seven and we all took full advantage of it. We watched the Badgers win and stayed at Brothers until 10. After that we split up. J, Adam and I went to the Metro. I had one very unnecessary appletini. After our one drink we headed to Mykano’s for a late night gyro as a night cap.

The Packers lost to the Browns at Lambeau?!?!? We’re 0-2 and our season is over. Are we really the worst team in the league? Why is Sherman still on the sideline?

O’ Canada

VACATION! I had a full week of vacation last week and to say I had been looking forward to it would have been an understatement. After work on Friday we drove to Chicago to spend the night at Jocelyn’s mom’s house so we could get going in the early morning. Friday night we had some Chicago stuffed crust pizza and the cheesy deliciousness was a great way to start my vacation. We went to bed pretty early so we could get up early and head to Canada.

We woke up at about three on Saturday morning. We had already packed the car so all we had to do was wake up and drag ourselves to the car. Marissa and Chad (Jocelyn’s sister and her boyfriend), Arianne (the other sister), J, me and Jocelyn’s mom slept walked to the car and started our journey. Jocelyn’s mom took the first shift and we were off. The first part of the trip was fairly uneventful. I have a problem sleeping in cars so while everyone was snoozing I was taking in the night scenery in such beautiful places as Gary, IN and Kalamazoo, MI. The ride from Chicago to the Canadian border seemed very short and before I knew it we were in Canada. From there we cruised by Toronto and headed straight North to Port Loring which is by North Bay. On our way we stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast and a roadside hamburger stand for some delicious burgers. One thing that is different in Canada is the way they eat French fries. They put brown gravy and vinegar on their fries. The hamburger stand was my first exposure to the gravy fries which are called poutine. They were pretty good but my burger was delicious. After that we finished our trip and we made it to the Port Loring in about fourteen hours for the whole trip. As soon as we got into town we stopped at a little grocery store to pick up some food and a liquor store to pick up large amounts of vital Canadian lager. We had to drive the last miles down a gravel road in a car that was now packed tighter than a sardine can. At the end of the gravel road was a boat that we took to our final destination, Little Pine Isle. It took two trips to get us and our equipment and groceries over to the island. We immediately started up a fire, turned on the music and started unpacking. Once we got unpacked we some dinner. After dinner we decided to go into town for the big corn roast. I felt very at home at the corn roast. It could have been any of the summer picnics or brat frys in the Sheboygan area. The only thing that made this different is that the money we used to buy our beer was multicolored. The beer cooler behind the sawhorse bar was actually a canoe that was filled with ice and the Canadian lager. I thought it was a pretty ingenious setup. The corn roast was held at the local resort/campground and had a little lodge and a band playing on a flatbed truck trailer. Like I said, I felt right at home and felt like I was in high school again at a field party with my buddies. There were plenty of intoxicated Canadians that could have easily been mistaken for a number of my friends. After the corn roast we head into town for what was supposed to be a big closing party for a bar called Simp’s. “Closing Sept. 5th” the sign in front read. Well when we got to Simp’s there was not to be a soul to be found. Since it was closed we went to another bar that looked a lot like a basement. I think it was one of those places where the guy was sick of having his friends come over and drink all his beer so he just started charging them. We walked in and the local card sharks were having a Texas Hold ’em tournament. When we walked in we got stares like we had a third eye on our heads or something. We sat down and ordered some beers. They also had pickled eggs so I got one of those. We sat and drank our beers and low and behold Simp from Simp’s came walking over. We asked him what was going on with the big closing party. Turns out the closing party was last September and they just hadn’t gotten around to taking down the sign yet. I guess he was now a part owner of the fine basement we were in and this was his new establishment. We started laughing out loud in disbelief of what just happened. After our beers we went over to the local assembly hall where the other big event was going on, the hockey dance. Yes that is what it was called. We got there a little too early because there were only a couple drunk Canadians in there and the rest were still at the corn roast. Some guy said it was a $5 cover and told us the fun was going to be starting soon. Well $5 Canadian or American was too much for that so we packed it up and headed back to the island. On our way back we saw some drunken guys with full coolers on the front of the quads on their way to the hockey dance, very northwoodsish. Once back at the island we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

On Sunday we started the day with a little breakfast. Everyone had the normal cereal breakfast but my Canadian breakfast was a couple cans of Canada Dry ginger ale. I did try this stuff called peameal. It’s essentially a small piece of ham that you cut up to make Canadian bacon or sliced ham. The texture of the stuff was awful though. It was very slimy and besides the stuff is rolled in cornmeal to give it a grittiness. I could do without the stuff. After breakfast we headed into town so Chad and Marissa could get fishing licenses. I didn’t need one. I was planning on going fishing but you only need a license to catch fish and I knew I wasn’t going to catch anything so I kept my twenty bucks. From there we went to anther little grocery/general store to pick up some food items we had forgotten. After that we head back to the island. Once we got back we took the pontoon boat out to do some fishing. I fished for about two seconds and then got bored and enjoyed the scenery and drank some beers. Once we got back it was time for dinner. I had made some spaghetti sauce that had been simmering away so we ate that with some salad. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

Monday was labor day and I spent the day pretty much lounging. I woke up and had my ginger ale breakfast. We then took the boat to the mainland and went to for a walk. We walked the gravel road that leads to the dock which is 2.5 hilly miles each way. I worked up a pretty good sweat but I prepared and wore my swim trunks so I could swim back to the island. Unlike the water mammal Picl family I stink at swimming. I was so tired and almost drowned during the hundred or so yards I had to swim to get to the island. I made it but it was quite the chore. After that I spent most of the day in the cabin with the windows open, reading my book on the couch. It was a day of naps and reading “The Old Man in the Sea”. That is how I spent my entire day. I got up and had a couple hot dogs for lunch but that was my only movement. When the evening rolled around we took the pontoon out for a booze cruise. We saw some of the lakes and had some beers while taking in the beauty of nature. When we got back we were going to grill out but we weren’t able to find any charcoal. Luckily there is a small fire pit on the edge of the island where we could make a wood fire. So we took the grill and put it on the pit and grilled our burgers and hot dogs over some wood. It was good and everything had a nice smoky taste. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

Tuesday was actually our first true day off. Everyone had Monday off for Labor Day but those suckers all had to go back to work while we basked in the Canadian sun. There is no rest for the weary, even when vacationing in Canada. During the day we did a lot of island maintenance. We moved the old outhouse on the island to a different location. The outhouse was big, heavy and rotted so moving it wasn’t easy. So everyone pitched in and we finally got it moved to where we wanted it. After that task was complete we cleared some brush and chopped some firewood. I got stung three times by some wasps. Twice in the leg and once in the pinky. My hand swelled up but it wasn’t too bad. After the hard work we had lunch at a restaurant called Jake’s. It’s just a regular little diner with booths and a counter. The place also sells beer and booze which is always nice. For lunch I had a ‘Banquet Burger’ which was essentially a burger with everything. But it came with my new favorite food, poutine. I explained it early (fries w/ gravy and cheese) but this place actually did it right with thick brown gravy, yummy. So after lunch we headed back to the island for my afternoon nap. After my nap Chad and I went fishing. There are some high rock areas that have buoys marking their location. We figured we go to one of these areas to see if we can coax the fish out. On my second cast I managed to hook one of the ropes holding the buoys in place. So I pulled the boat over toward the buoy and saw that my lure was really stuck in the rope. So I started yanking on the lure and in the process slipped and drove the hook all the way into my hand. It went in just above my fingernail and under my cuticle. The thing went in all the way and the barb of the hook was no where to be seen. We were now in a bad predicament. I had a hook stuck in my hand which was tangled in the buoy rope so any drifting of the boat would tear my finger open because the only tether between me and the buoy was my hooked finger. I was trying to untangle the lure but I couldn’t because my finger was bleeding and I was using my other hand to hold on to the buoy rope so we wouldn’t drift away and tear my finger open. So Chad came over and got out the razor knife and started slashing at the rope. The razor by my hand made me nervous and I told him to stop. Something had to give here so I gritted my teeth and pulled the hook out. The barb pretty much tore up the inside of my finger and I started bleeding even more. After I got the hook out of my finger I got the other barbs untangled from the rope and we were free at last. That was only my second cast and I knew Chad wanted to fish so I just put my hand in the water and kept fishing and bleeding with Chad. I did get a bite but the fish jumped off the hook. So I took my wasp stung, finger mangled self back to shore where it belonged. For dinner we had some delicious black bean soup that Marissa made. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

On Wednesday we had a couple more chores. We had to take our garbage to the dump. So we loaded up the boat and took the garbage to the local dump. I was hoping to see a bear there but I saw nothing more than a French speaking dump keeper. After the dump we went to a pottery place about twenty minutes away. We got there and as our luck would have it this was the first week they had their off season hours in affect so they were closed. After snapping some pictures and looking around the grounds of the pottery we hopped in the car and drove to another crafts store. We all picked up some souvenirs and headed back to the island. We had lunch and then I had my daily nap. After my nap I did a little fishing off the dock and got some sun. Then we took the pontoon to a really cool waterfall area on the lake’s corner. We walked around the rocks and took some pictures and just enjoyed nature. Once we were finished we headed back to a beautiful sunset. For dinner we had Italian beef in a crock pot and some salad. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

Thursday morning we went on a canoe ride to another beautiful area that was very quiet because it was only accessible by canoe. We took two canoes and paddled for about twenty minutes to get to a small lake. Jocelyn and I had Arianne in our canoe. Once we got to the lake through the reeds and lily pads we arrived at a lake that was unbelievably still and smooth as glass. It was very quiet and beautiful. Chad did some fishing and caught a fish. We just sat in our canoe and took in the scenery and nature. We then headed back. I took a picture of some lily flowers on the way. When we got back we lounged on the doc for a while and took in some sun. It ended up being a pretty hot day so I jumped in the lake and we had some fun frolicking in the water. I was able to get in my afternoon nap right before dinner so I was rested for the evening ahead. We went on a little booze cruise before dinner. We saw some loons as well as a beaver. We had some homemade pizzas for dinner. After dinner Chad and I were getting a little sick of just watching TV so we sat in the kitchen, listened to some music, drank some rum drinks and played chess. I was awful and lost all three games. I got sick of losing so we ended the games and called it a night.

Our last day in Canada we went on a hike. We took the power boat over to a hunting lodge that looked a like a Unabomber shack. We docked in front of the shack and hiked through the woods to get to a couple hidden lakes. There were no paths of any type so there were a couple branch face whips and stumbles but we all got to the lake in one piece. Once at the hidden lake we sat on the rocks and enjoyed the scenery and Chad did some fishing with his survival knife. He actually caught two rock bass with nothing more than some line and a baitless hook. After some time in the sun we hiked back to the boat and headed back to the cabin. We had some lunch of random leftover groceries. After lunch I took my afternoon nap and then started to pack up my gear. Friday night we went back to Jake’s in town and had our last meal in Canada. I ordered ‘Da Clubhouse’ which was pretty much a BLT with turkey on it. It was very good because you could tell the tomatoes were fresh and in season. I also had a couple Labotts and a large plate of poutine. Once dinner was over we headed back to the island and finished packing things up for the head home. I drank a couple more Canadian beers and we hit the hay and prepared for the long ride home.

We left at about four in the morning to beat the Port Loring traffic. Once we got everything loaded I crammed into the back of the car and was actually able to sleep the first three hours of trip. That took us to just outside of Toronto where we stopped at an Oasis and got some gas and food. From there we were able to get all the way to the border where we stopped at a McDonalds and then hit the duty free shop. There was some sort of protest going on outside the shop but that didn’t stop me from getting my discounted booze. I picked up some Crown Royal even though I really don’t drink whiskey. I can easily pawn the stuff off on my friends. After the duty free store we piled in for our trip across the border. The border guard and customs was pretty painless and he let us right through. After we were back in the US we found some good ol’ American football. We put on the Michigan v. Notre Dame game, checked our voicemail and continued our journey. Our last stop was a Subway/gas station where we got our last road meal and refueled for the last push. We arrived in Chicago about six and our journey was technically complete. Jocelyn’s dad came up from Peoria and we ate at a German restaurant that was right down the street. I had a patty melt and some Oktoberfest which was satisfying. We returned to the house, watched some football and fell asleep about ten.

We woke up Sunday morning and took Marissa and Chad to the airport and continued home. Sunday we watched the Packers lose to the Detroit Lions,  this is going to be a long season. It was back to work on Monday but it was a great vacation. It was too fast and not long enough but what vacation ever is long enough.