Insults

The people didn't accept my offer on the house.  That is in no way a bad thing though.  I had intentionally low balled them.  The only problem is that I went so low that I insulted them and they didn't come back with a counter offer.  I feel like it is such a buyer's market right now though that they should have at least come back with an offer.  Meh, there's a bunch of homes in that area with similar, if not the same, layouts.  In fact, my plan was that if I couldn't get this home I would go for a short sell home across the street.  I would have gone for the short sale first except it take about 3-6 months to finally close on a short sale.  Stupid banks.

I made the trip out to Evanston yesterday with a couple of my buddies.  We met Andre there and "tailgated" in the parking garage we were at before the Michigan/Northwestern game.  We weren't exactly being social butterflies but we were having a good time.  Evanston (I was born in a hospital there) was a lot different than what I would have expected.  I knew it was relatively close to Chicago, so I could expect a strong bar scene.  This turned out not to be the case.  That apparently have 3 bars there, 2 of which we went to.  The first one, Bar Louie, you all know is actually a chain.  It was closed to the public that day with a $35 cover charge for 2 hours of unlimited drinks.  We opted out of that but we had to stop by there to pick up our tickets.  The other bar was called Delvin's (?) and it really wasn't anything special, they some outdoor seating I guess...So it was basically similar to my experience at U of I where I just kind of compared everything to AA and probably prematurely passed judgement on a lot of the campus life.  Next place I visit I need to make sure I have a tour guide that knows the area.  I imagine that if I never had been to AA and went to a football game I would probably end up at Packard Pub or something, not a true reflection of what we really have to offer.  Side note, did any of you read the article that everyone on FB was posting about 36 hours in AA?  I can't believe the writer said to avoid South U and State St, I mean, we're Alums and we still go there, haha.  So the game was cool, we got to meet and talk with David Terrell (former #1 Michigan jersey wearer and mediocre Bears receiver).  Here's the picture Moran and I got with him (check out the new kind of Mich colored Oakley's by the way):

So I am sensing that some of us are getting the itch to reunite or something, I can count 3 events that some of us have thought of:

1. Late October - Stev has hinted that he will be coming through to AA and Chicago.
2. Late November - Sweeney was thinking of having a reunion for the Mich/OSU game.
3. New Year's Eve - I think we should do NYE in Chicago.

Now, 2 of those occur in Chicago, at least partially, and I am probably down for driving out for the OSU weekend.  So I will go ahead and say that I am in for all 3 (don't hold me to it though).  However, I do propose that perhaps we consolidate and go for maybe just one event that all of us can do.  Example, Stev in Chicago will probably just be Stev and me.  OSU weekend might just be Cassie, Mike O, Sweeney and I (I can imagine Stev might not be too keen on spending all that time travelling to AA after having roadtripped there a month ago). NYE, weather pending, could have promise, but if there snow it might make the commute out from AA a little difficult.  I'm just laying these thoughts out here now as I type and I think it would be great if we could all make all 3 events, but that would be extremely unlikely.  I will let you guys think about it and please feel free to comment on what you think, as long as these reunions occur on weekends or major holidays (days where I will probably not have work, extended weekends would be best) I am down for anything.

Last thought, today I went to my company's new building where I helped strip carpet.  The previous owners of the building used the wrong glue (ceramic instead of carpet glue) so it was extremely difficult to remove.  I did have to laugh at the fact that the machine we used to remove the carpet was called "The Stripper" and when powered on, it vibrated incredibly fast and you really needed to lay into it with your hips to keep it under control and make it effective.  Should have taken a picture...next time.

Here's to a Bear's win tomorrow night,

Chin

High Ball or Sling

A Manhattan Cocktail is either a High Ball or a Sling if it does not contain bitters.  It's kind of funny how with drinks, there's a new name for it if one thing is changed, left out or added.  When you order an Italian sub with no tomatoes, it's still an Italian.  Imagine if you had to come up with a new name for that.  Thoughts of a software engineer, alright!

This weekend was pretty good, I can't say I went to any predominantly Asian parties, I can't say I would ever have an interest in that, save for family reunions.  I also can't say that I went to McDonald's while hungover and ordered a McChicken while watching daytime programming.

Nope, this weekend was very very low key.  A great change of pace for all of you who have been thinking about doing it.  Friday I just went to Muldoon's and hung out with some of my buddies, my friend John Ryan was in town for a little.  Now, John is a good friend of Ebbert's, or as Stev would call him, Evert's.  When I got into that fight with Ebbert in Milwaukee (did I write about that?), John had Ebbert's back and it left me wondering if I still enjoyed hanging out with John.  Well, as it is, time heals all wounds and John and I were able to still have a good time.  Then last night was Muldoon's again, but I'll spare you any of the details, nothing too interesting there.  Oh actually one thing.  A bunch of my buddies and I were drinking in my basement with Ron and Maya's new dog, "Yoda".  I completely abhor the name.  In fact, his name before they adopted him was "Bo".  Yes, as in Schembechler.  I wanted to keep that name but they changed it.  Anyways, we were hanging with the dog and we were all calling him Bo and I think he was loving it.  We also were letting him jump on the furniture, something Ron doesn't want him to do.  So Bo is going to be pretty confused as long as I'm still living at home.  He won't know his name or right from wrong, demn!

I got a wedding invite in the mail the other day.  It was for Nicole's wedding.  Nicole is that Taylor girl who I really liked in the past.  I always told Drabik that I was not going to go to the wedding, but when I got that invite I couldn't help but think that I actually do want to go.  The problem is, I would not be going to be happy for her, on the surface I would appear that way, but I would be going to critique everything about her fiance.  So before I could get the chance to second guess myself, I marked "No" on the RSVP.  Now, I don't have to buy a wedding gift either, and a penny saved is a penny earned.

Speaking of saving, I'm thinking I'm going to make an offer on my first home this week.  I found some nice town homes in Bartlett.  They will be very close to where my company is moving and they are extremely affordable right now.  Basically, the place is a 2 story, 2 bedroom, and 2.5 bathroom unit.  There's a big loft that could fit a third person, too.  I have a few friends who seem interested in moving in, but I made sure that I can afford this place on my own too.  So big week for me on that front!

For another thought, I was wondering the other day, which of the following is better?  First, here's the scenario:  You hang out with some girl for a night, be it with a group of friends or one on one.  You end up exchanging numbers because you see interest in this girl, sober or drunk.  She sends the follow up text in the following days but you find that your attraction to them has faded and it was really just a one night kind of thing.  So here's the options. a) Do you respond to the texts but continue with excuses as to why you can't hang out again? Or, b) do you ignore the texts completely and wait out the storm?  I ask this because I have had a girl do 'b' to me and I was pretty pissed off about it.  Granted, she did respond, but usually it was days later.  However, I have come to agree and think that 'b' is the better choice.  I mean, with my case, it took me about two texts until I realized that it wasn't going anywhere.  In my most recent case, I was the other member of the party, I was the one that they were interested in.  I actually took the 'a' approach, thinking "well, it'd be mean if I just ignored her".  So I responded with excuse after excuse.  Eventually, I did just stop and I think it probably pissed her off more than it would have if I just ignored her in the first place.  Hopefully I don't find myself in situations like these anymore though because I'm really wanting to not even have to think about things like this.

Here's to them accepting my offer,

Chin

Thoughts of a Software Engineer

Another week down.  It's really starting to get dark early, I hate that.  I've got a pretty big week ahead of me at work because we are having a lot of important guests at the company, so I have to make sure that I look presentable and keep myself occupied.  As they say, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

This weekend was another great time.  Sadly, T-Raz got into an accident on the way home from work on Friday, so his car is pretty messed up.  That being said, Friday night I committed to making sure he didn't get to down about the accident.  We played some pong in my basement, went into quintuple overtime on our last game.  We then went out to Muldoon's and walked to Rosie's.  On our way to Rosie's, we got into a good conversation about religion and Christianity.  I essentially played the devil's advocate while Todd formulated responses.  By the time we actually decided to walk into Rosie's, last call had already finished up so we just called it a night.

Last night was a night that Sweeney would have been proud of.  I went downtown with Anderson and a few of his Purdue buddies.  We dressed nicely and did the River North bars.  Found this great bar called Fleming's (like Ricky!) that has drink and food specials on Saturday nights, which is a rarity for the city, especially River North.  Barnes met up with us and got up to speed pretty quickly.  A lot of the night blurs along but of course we all got split up.  Dre and I stuck together for the most part though.  I just talked to Anderson and apparently we wanted to go to this salsa club but there was $10 cover.  I remember I was getting extremely tired out at the bars, to the point where if I sat down I would have passed out.  Dre and I took a cab back to Anderson's condo (passed out in the cab), then we went to McDonald's and the Redhead Piano Bar.  Somehow we all got reunited by the end of the night and headed back to the condo, I think.

All in all, nothing too crazy this weekend.  Today was all recovery.  Watched the Bears lose, Lions are looking good.  I saw Moneyball tonight.  It's a really good movie, it kind of feels like an ESPN 30 for 30 only it's an 2.5 hours long and it's acting, not a documentary.

I hope that I start getting some good thoughts to harp on, kind of how Cass does in her blogs.  Sometimes recapping the week can get tedious and I think you guys probably get tired of hearing the same old stories.  Let me know what you guys think, is there anything specifically I should write about? Does this get repetitive?

Here's to a reunion in October,

Chin

Hello Old Friend(s)

If not mandated by Sweeney, there's a good chance this blog wouldn't be updated tonight.  So thank you David for getting me back on track, hopefully.

I guess the main reason for my absence from blogging has been a lifestyle change.  No, it's nothing huge, there's no "Craig" in my life, just little things that affect my nightly routines.  I have been working out in the mornings with Todd so I have to wake up pretty early and I usually am in bed before 10:30.  I'm also in a softball league that starts games as late as 9:30, so no time on those night either.  Either way, I'm upset I went so long without writing (or reading).  It will be cool to someday go back on blogs from months, even years, from now and remember, "Oh yeah! That was a great weekend" or "I can't believe I felt that way" or whatever.

So what have I been up to?  Reverse chronological order would probably be easiest.  This weekend I went to U of Illinois to watch the U of I vs. Arizona State game with Todd and Fabian.  We had a great tailgate, something we really didn't get to do too much of our last years at Michigan, so it was fun seeing all the festivities.  Going to Champaign, I new I was going to have this "Oh, Ann Arbor does this way better!"  I tried to keep my comments to a minimum because it would have gotten annoying to my buddies.  Seriously though, it's out in the middle of cornfields and smells like manure (they have a great agriculture program).  I was hoping the bar scene (Green St.) would be fun but it really just seems like the student body there drinks to get drunk (not to socialize) and then tries to get in fights (not say hello, literally and 1502-ally).  Alas, I digress.

I guess some of the bigger news in my life comes the the form of my future living situation.  Since my last post, I have moved back home with Ron and Maya.  Originally, I was looking at some apartments, but I have since been convinced that purchasing a town home is the smarted route in today's market.  Basically, the gamble is that to turn a profit on a town home, you have to live there for at least 7 years.  I'm pretty happy working at Delta Mobile, and I think they like me there, so 7 years seems very doable for me now.  The cost is a little higher than an apartment, but the money goes towards something that will help me in the future.  So far, I have looked at some great places, I'm hoping to have made a decision within a month then be moved in before the first snowfall (not looking forward to that)

Last weekend, I stayed in Wheaton, mostly, and hung out with Todd and a few of his Calvin buddies.  It was kind of their first reunion since they graduated, so I was glad they wanted to include me.  On Saturday night, we watched that epic Michigan v ND game. I was so pumped after that, my night could've have easily ended there and I would have been happy.  We went to Naperville and went to a few bars, had a few drinks, danced a little and mostly talked.  Good weekend.  Oh, I also went to a nearby horse racing track with my mom to watch some races and do a wine tasting.  Definitely a good time, I would suggest it as a date kind of thing, very affordable.

I don't want to harp too much on the weekend before that because I have talked to most of you about how that trip to AA went.  It was a ton of fun, I'm glad we didn't follow the itinerary very much and just kind of had a weekend that would have been similar to if we were still in school.  No outrageous shenanigans or anything, even though Wheeler doing trust falls was hilarious.  Just a good weekend of catching up with 1502 and the rest of the crew.  I was glad that I got to see Uzi a lot because we hadn't been able to meet up during my previous few visits.  I was also glad that Traz came with because I think he had a good time and it's nice to have someone to talk to on the long ride.

The weekends before that start to blur together.  There were a couple weekends when I went downtown to hang out with Barnes and his friends then others where I just hung out with my Wheaton friends.  David and I got to catch up before he left for DC, it was a bittersweet moment, I thought he would be around Illinois a little bit longer but he has that great opportunity now.  Plus, it's 2011, we can text or call anytime, so it's not so bad.  He will be missed though.

These coming weekends I plan to do a lot because it is starting to get cold and I want to irk out as many activities as I can.  This includes heading downtown with Anderson, he's back in Wheaton, and going to the Michigan vs. Northwester game on Oct. 8. Anyone who is in the midwest and with some time should come visit in Chicago before it gets too cold, could be fun.  I'm sure I will have things to write about from those weekends, but I am going to try to update every Sunday night, maybe even once over the work week too.

Another reason I haven't written is that I have been watching a lot of Modern Family, that show is awesome.  Season 3 starts on Wednesday and I suggest you all watch and maybe even try to watch the first 2 seasons. I'll have to keep up with House and the Office too.

I will read all your guys' posts tomorrow, during a break at work.  I already see a picture on Sweeney's so I look forward to reading all the posts.

Here's to gettin' back on the wagon,

Chin

Taylor Made

Get cozy, this is a long one...

Collin mentioned that maybe if I do get caught up with the events, I will feel more inclined to write more often.  So here’s the Sparknotes version of what I had done up until last weekend.

June 11 – My birthday.  Free beer at Duffy’s.  I tried to get everyone in our group to go to Lion’s Head Pub with me.  I was unsuccessful and left alone but just headed back to my sister’s apartment.  I realized that I didn’t grab enough keys and couldn’t get in.  So I hailed a cab and headed south to a party that Barnes was at.  It was a penthouse party, really cool actually.  Someone gave me a drink of just straight Effen, gross.  I promptly headed back north because I realized I ditched my whole group.  Unfortunately, a bunch of them got worried I ditched them for good so they took the 10:40 train back.  Jake was in Wrigleyville with a couple other friends.  We hung out for awhile, then Jake and I walked back to my sister’s and I had to climb the side of the building and break in through a window that led to the stairway, thank goodness it was unlocked.  Overall, pretty dysfunctional night, spent about $60 in cab fares and lost all my friends.  I’ve learned and it won’t happen again.  Plus, Sweeney missed his train so he couldn’t get there either.  Moral of the story: Stay with the group.

Late June – I met one of Jake’s friends, Sarah H.  Really cute girl, 25% Korean, doesn’t look it though.  I met her at a fire she was having at her place.  Jake and I went over there.  Sarah and I kind of hit it off, there was interest at least.  The next night, I had a bonfire at my new house.  I didn’t get Sarah’s number the night before so I was relying on Jake to get her over to my house.  Around 10:30 or so I had kind of given up on her making it over.  I got to “chocolate” status, figuring why not.  Around 11, Sarah and her friend showed up.  Dangit.  Sarah and I went on a walk to a local playground which was also the elementary school she went to.  I told her about 3 times that I wanted to kiss her.  Foolish.  I was a complete pig, but we did have a good talk once we got back to my house.  Apparently I did well enough to get her number, not a complete waste.

A few days later we went on a date.  I hadn’t been on one of those since probably Mexico.  I hadn’t been on one with a girl that seriously like since probably Alexa, dang.  Anyways, I was nervous the whole day.  I couldn’t eat lunch and I was freaking out that I was going to seem like a real dork.  I picked her Sarah up at 7 and we went and got sushi at this place called Ra.  It’s a trendy kind of hip restaurant and the conversation was actually really good, I think.  Afterwards, we went back to her place to watch a movie.  Little Fockers is a terrible movie.  Her basement is really cool though, she has that Lay-Z-Boy theater style seating with the huge flatscreen, Nice!  Afterwards, we said out good-byes, not 1502 style, but that was ok with me because she seemed like she could be more than just a hook up.  The weird thing was that while driving back I was kind of bummed, not because of how the date went or that I didn’t get a good-bye kiss, it was more that we didn’t seem to have too much in common.  I woke up the next morning and decided it actually was a good date, I was just bummed because I got used to the Whitney’s and Sandra’s who gave more instantaneous results.  I sent the polite, “Hey, I had a good time yesterday.  We should definitely hang out again sometime”. text the next day.  Her response came about 24 hours later.  Bad sign.  A few days later I just texted her to see how she was doing. No response.  That’s really where it’s at and probably where it will stay.  Moral of the story: Sarah is a Taylor girl, which I am learning is the shady cousin of the Wheaton girl.  Stev, I know you don’t like to hear of these misadventures, but they happened to me and I know you’ll have some good insight.

Even Later June – Sweeney came out to Wheaton for a weekend!  We went to the beach on Saturday.  I tried to get a bunch of my friends to come out but they were all busy.  It ended up being just Sweeney, Squires and me.  We actually had a great time.  We went to North Ave beach, had some drinks then played some Frisbee.  Squires brought a friend, really funny girl, great personality.  We spent a good 3 hours in the city then headed home.

Still in our bathing suits, we went to Tasting DeVine, Wheaton’s local wine shop and did a tasting.  Squires left after that and Sweeney and I made our way to Muldoon’s.  This random kid, Ari, befriended us.  He bought us car bombs so we felt kind of obligated to hang out with him.  As the night wore on, some more friends showed up and entertaining Ari became quite a chore.  He came with us to Rosie’s where he started getting pretty rowdy with some of us.  We managed to keep him quiet until last call at which point he walked back to my house with Sweeney and I.  Sweeney ditched me and I had to walk Ari all the way back to the train station, about a mile out.  I told Ari he has to stop insulting people who he becomes friends with because he’s going to get beat up.  After I dropped him off, I ran back to my house.  Sweeney’s and my car were still in the street so I parked Sweeney’s in the driveway.  There was no room for my car at that point so I drove is back to my home home, about a mile away.  Then I ran (again) back to my new home.  I was pretty exhausted after all that.

Overall, great weekend with Sweeney.  Moral of the story: I still like mixing my different groups of friends together.

July 4 Weekend – Sweeney persuaded me to go to AA with him to help him move a desk chair back to Oswego.  Would it have been of equal or lesser cost to just buy a new chair?  Most likely.  That just shows how little of an excuse I need to go back there haha.  Cassie was at her cottage and Uzi wasn’t around either.  Luckily, Mike O came out so the 3 of us plus Saint.  We went light on Friday night, chilled with some longest islands and got prepped for a good Saturday of festivities.

Saturday started with breakfast at the Broken Egg on Main.  Good food.  Around noon, we cracked open the bucket o’ Margarita.  That got us going.  Around the bottom of the bucket, Saint got home and we headed to Café Habana for the happy hour of Mojitos.  I felt pretty well composed, but Saint still commented that he didn’t realize that we were already as drunk as we were.  I think it was one of those where the first thing to lose its sobriety is your gauge of how drunk you are.  I remember I kept stepping back and thinking, “Oh, I’m not too bad”.  After making fools of ourselves at Habana (Mike O was literally barking at the waitresses) we headed to The Arena for some food.  After that I think we made our way to Charlie’s.  I think we had a few pitchers or something then went to Rick’s to get our stamps for later.  No one was there but we stuck around, Sweeney has a great supplementary video for that part of the weekend.  We went back to Charlie’s where Adriana found us.  She’s 21 now, yay!  We couldn’t have been there for too long.  On our way out Sweeney got flagged down by a car full of 4 black people, 1 guy (Corey) and 3 girls (girl A, B, and C).  They asked Sweeney, “How do we get to Necto?”  Sweeney said something along the lines of, “Oh you go this way that way and um…Ah, I’ll just come with and show you”.  At this point Sweeney and I hopped in the car and they drove us to Necto.  We kind of ditched the rest of the group, just a terrible habit that I’ve gotten into.  To be honest, Necto was not half bad.  They have that stage thing which is a good 3 feet above the rest of the place, so you get that feeling when you look out over Rick’s only you’re even higher up.  I ended up saying hello to girl A, B, or C.  That went on until last call, when I realized that Sweeney had left.  I jetted out of there and called Sweeney.  He was in the Diag for goodness knows what reason.  I ran over there in my new and uncomfortable Sperry’s.  We found each other and walked back to NYPD, just for old time’s sake.  We went to Benny’s the next morning then packed up and headed home.  Sweeney and I stopped and picked up firework in IN for the Fourth of July festivities.  We both dropped a cool $80 at Krazy Kaplan’s(!!!).

That night, July 3, was a great because I didn’t have to work on Monday.  I went to Todd’s older bro’s house where he had tons of drinks and food.  We watched the Wheaton fireworks and then lit off some of the ones I bought.  It was a pretty low key night and we headed back to my house afterwards.  We watched the first half of The Big Lebowski until everyone passed out.

On the fourth we went fishing all day at a local lake.  I caught 2 fish!  Really tiny fish though.  That night we went and watched the Glen Ellyn fireworks.  Way better than the Wheaton ones.  Jake has this one friend who I’m really starting to despise, on a Cadence level.  This girl, Heather, she’s just very selfish and says some really stupid things mostly because she doesn’t seem to have a filter on her mouth.  She has this boyfriend that she always talks about marrying; meanwhile, she’s in the backseat feeling my buddies inner thigh.  I nicknamed her buzzkill, but I don’t think that does it justice.  There’s a bunch of other things she’s done that I just don’t feel like mentioning.  The fireworks were impressive though.  Moral of the story:  You can do a lot with a 3 day weekend.

They were really small...

Now, finally, I can talk about this past weekend.

I left work around 5:50 because I was way too excited for the weekend.  Jake and I had been invited to Detroit for a Party Bus with some friends that Saturday.  I figured that it only made sense to head out on Friday and spend the night in AA.  I swung Jake’s and picked him up.  Heather (buzzkill) was supposed to come with us because she know our friends who were having the party bus but she bailed earlier that day.  Pretty selfish of her because the party bus came out to $34/person so when she decided not to come, everyone had to pay a few more bucks, basically.  AND, it turns out she didn’t even have any other plans, she just decided last minute that she didn’t want to go.  Aggravating, but back to the story.  I picked Jake up and we headed to Ann Arbor.  We got in just before midnight.  Saint, Ethan, Jake and I headed to Charlie’s to get some longest islands.  I was going for a carbon copy of the weekend before.  You know, low key night, rest up for the party bus.  

Somehow, Rick’s got into the equation and we ended up there until last call.  By the way, Ethan only ALMOST got his ID taken, maybe I am starting to shed this curse of the under-21ers getting their IDs taken.  Jake and I picked up some food on the way back to hotel Arch and ate what could very well be my last meal in that house.  Jake and I got into this great conversation of our goals for the party bus so we decided to take a walk to further discuss the plan.  We walked all the way down to 1502, where I took the picture and sent it to some of you, then walked back to Arch.  We got to bed probably around 3:30 that night.

We woke up around 11 on Saturday morning.  We didn’t have to be in Farmington Hills, where the party bus was starting, until 7 that night.  Cassie came by around 11:30 and we went to Benny’s.  

When we got back, Jake and I got ready to play some sand volleyball and meet Uncle Craig, Cassie’s newest, and first, boyfriend.  He’s a pretty cool guy, really good at volleyball.  Him and Cassie definitely don’t seem to be the lovey dovey type when in public, although I guess he did send her flowers at work.  I guess grew up near Chicago too, nice!  Hopefully that’ll get Cass to come visit more often.  Anyways, Cass and Uncle Craig didn’t even play on the say doubles team, in fact, you wouldn’t guess they were dating from the vball interactions, honestly.  And Cassie, that’s not a bad thing, it shows that you’re not one of those couples that gives up their entire social life for one another.  I approve and I think he’s definitely a great guy, even though you don’t like to hear that you have a boyfriend still.  Plus, you smile every time anyone says it, soooo.  After vball we showered up then Cassie came and picked us up to go to Dominick’s.  I got a half pint of their sangria, delicious.  We talked with Uncle Craig and Co. where I learned most of the aforementioned things about him.  After a bit, Jake and I excused ourselves and headed back to hotel Arch.  We finished watching Hall Pass, a pretty funny movie, said our good-byes and headed to Farmington Hills.

When we got to Mel(issa) and Sarah’s apartment, we were greeted by a pretty buzzed version of them.  If they weren’t buzzed, they were certainly very happy that we got there safely.  I presented them with my gift of Pear Grey Goose, idea compliments of Uzi, which was well received, even though we didn’t need to open it quite then.  We walked around to the porch of their apartment, as they live on the first floor so it opens up to the lawn.  Our buddy, Chey, was there already and he brought two growlers of some delicious beer.  We began our pregame and eventually the rest of the group of about 20 arrived.  Out on the porch you could see the complex’s outdoor pool.  I turned to Sarah (not the same Sarah that I went on the date with) and said to her, “You know, there is about a 90% chance I am going to be swimming in there when we get back from the party bus”.  Long story short, Dobs and Luginbill were there and the three of us held down the kitchen area.  After we finished the growlers I grabbed the Goose from the fridge.  We couldn’t find a shot glass but I found this weird round metal cap thing that was exactly the right size for a shot.  Because it was round on the bottom, it became “The shot glass that can’t be put down” for the night.  After a bit of doing shots of Goose and Freezee Pops (I think I’m onto something there) someone alerted us that the party bus had arrived.

Let me start by saying that party buses are awesome.  This isn’t your BTB party bus or anything, it has stretch limo seating then, because of its height (and just because), it has a pole towards the back.  Our bus driver, Chuck, was really cool.  Dobs and I asked him the craziest thing he has seen on his bus and he claimed that he was carting a bachelorette party around and they requested he pull over so they could pick up three random guys and perform oral favors on them.  Risky…Anyways, I hopped on with the Goose in one hand the shot glass that can’t be put down in the other.  A few things about party buses:  They are like portals that lead to random places.  They make you feel more inebriated than you actually are because of the movement. Also, they are very conducive to dancing of all flavors.  I gave, did not receive, a couple lap dances and the pole was usually too packed to get to.  The first stop, surprisingly, was a McDonald’s parking lot.  I guess some of the girls had to use the bathrooms.  People in our group felt that because they could drink on the bus, they could just wander into the McD’s with beers and stuff.  They all got yelled at, haha.  I was in a responsible mood at the time and tried to keep count of those getting off and on the bus.  Getting stuck at a McD’s parking lot at 9, drunk, would be terrible.  Chey and I befriended these two kids on bikes.  They weren’t even asking for money, but Chey gave them a $10 and told them to buy themselves some hamburgers and fries.  They immediately turned their bikes around and headed to the gas station across the street, Chey you idiot.  We got everyone back on the bus and headed off again.

The next stop was Royal Oaks, MI.  Pretty big bar scene there and when Chuck dropped us off at around 10 he told us he would be returning at 1:30 to pick us up.  Ok, I guess.  My time in Royal Oaks was relatively uneventful, I spent a lot of it at this cool bar called Woody’s.  Dobs, Lugi and I were together most of the night.  The first floor of Woody’s is kind of like a BDubs, then you have to pay $5 to get to the 2^nd and 3^rd floors.  We weren’t about to pay, so fortunately as we were sitting trying to think of a way in a girl came up to us, licked the backs of our hands and pressed her hand against it.  When she removed it, her stamp had come off onto ours, nice!  Sometimes things just work out.  My stamp looked terrible but the bouncer didn’t seem to care at all and he restamped us all and let us up.  Had we decided to pay, it would have been worth it.  There were tons of bachelorette parties on the 2^nd floor, or maybe just one huge one or something.  2^nd floor was where we danced and everything.  Then the 3^rd floor was actually this huge rooftop that opened up to the skyline, very cool.  Like I said though, relatively uneventful.  I spent the night floating between these two floors, dancing, cooling off and repeating.  We left around 1 to meet up with some of Dobs friends at another bar then headed to the corner where the party bus was picking us up.  We eventually got everyone together and headed out.

Chuck told us we couldn’t dance on the way back because he had blown an air suspension or something, we could only dance at the stop lights, bummer.  Then we only hit about 2 stop lights on the way back.  I still had some Goose left and was handing out some of those too.

When we got back to Sarah and Mel’s apartment, a lot of the group went back to another friend’s to sleep.  Not being able to dance on the bus kind of killed the party mentality.  The only ones who stuck around Sarah and Mel’s were Jake, Chey, this guy Jamon, Sarah, Mel, and me.  Eventually Sarah and I found ourselves back out on the porch where we had a nice talk.  I turned to her and said, “You know I said I was going to want to jump into the pool”.  I was pleasantly surprised when she agreed that she wanted to so we walked over and jumped the fence.  Starting to get a sense of where the night was headed, I stripped down to my draws and jumped in just next to where Sarah was dipping her feet.  Shortly thereafter, she jumped in too. I guess the real kicker here is that Sarah is a Taylor girl.  To my delight, the 1502 routine proceeded, proceeded lightly, but still. Then that Jamon kid came up to the pool fence, playing coy asking things like who we were and what we were doing.  Oh Jamon, apparently he thought he had Sarah “in the bag”.  We shooed him away only to have him and Jake return to the fence 10 minutes later.  I began yelling muskrat to Jake, the code word for get the mess out of here.  So they wandered off.  Some more hellos.  We eventually got pretty cold so we got out, walked back to the apartment, and put on some dry clothes.  I wasn’t quite ready for bed so Sarah and I walked around the area for a good hour or so.  When we got back I passed out pretty quickly, turns out it was about 5 AM.  I guess Sarah, Chey and Jake stayed up to watch the sunrise while Mel and I were just passed out.

I woke up around 10, grabbed some eggs and coffee that Chey made.  Jake woke up around 11 then we freshened up and headed back to Wheaton.  I had a disposable camera with me that night so hopefully those pictures can get up sometime soon, shed some light on the night’s occurrences.   Overall, awesome weekend.  Got some good Cassie time and learned about party buses.

Here’s to mini summer vacations,

Chin

P.S. Stev it was the lower left girl :/ Upper right was a bartender in Wrigleyville...

Un-In-June-E-Us

It's getting to be way too long between posts for my.  The older these memories get, the harder it is to remember the details.  Maybe I can gloss over some of the details and try to get a little more current.



So, my buddy Jake's birthday was June 5th.  On the night of the 4th, we went out to Muldoon's where it seemed like it would be just another Saturday night.  I began chatting it up with this girl, think of maybe on the low side of kind of cute, nothing to write home about (just to blog about).  We were talking and she had clearly had too much and she seemed like she wanted to have an "adventure" of sorts that night.  Here's a quick game, try to guess which girl it is...(I'm in this habit of staying out past sundown and sometimes I have my sunglasses on me all night.  Really, I don't find the Frogskins to be very attractive on girls, agreed?)(Also, is it weird that I'm taking these pictures and posting them, is a line being crossed here?)

When midnight came, I bought Jake a shot of Jack, I think, and told my new friend to go ahead and give him a little lap dance.  Surprisingly, she obliged and Jake had a great time.  I took notice of his enjoyment and decided I would try to set him up with this girl tonight, that's a good birthday gift, right?  Anyways, we went to a house party after Muldoon's was closing.

This party was a little weird, the kind where you lose the desire to drink.  Lots of guys, and aside from the two girls we brought, there were maybe two others.  I guess a lot of guys shared my mentality because more and more of us began congregating outside, where there was little to do but better than being in a house of dudes.  There were two guys there, classmates from high school, we brought them there and they really didn't know anyone.  My buddy, Jeff, was good friends with the guy hosting the party, and then for some reason the two kids started jawing at Jeff.  Eventually, Jeff was telling them, "Hey, no one is making you guys stay...so you can just leave if you don't want to be here".  They started giving attitude and said they would leave as soon as someone brought them their 30 of PBR they brought.  Jeff went downstairs to get it (he didn't want them back in the house) and came back up with no PRB.  There was no left, they didn't believe that so they started getting mad.  Eventually, one of the guys swung at Jeff.  Now, Jeff is pretty jacked, he played football at Taylor, and the man can definitely be a fighter if called upon.  One of the kids was so drunk he was probably more of a hindrance than a help in the fight.  Needless to say, Jeff won the brief fight, all of 3-4 minutes, before it got broken up.  As Jake walked one of the guys out of the garage, he broke free and blindsided Jeff with a right hook.  Jeff was facing the other way, so he didn't see it.  He took it fine, turned around and tackled the kid into this ceramic pot and then just started wailing away at his face, it was crazy! The kid couldn't stand after that.  There's something about hearing fists land on flesh and skulls that I am just not comfortable with.  I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with the situation so you can imagine that someone announced they were calling the cops, I wanted to leave.  Jeff was my ride there and I know he wasn't about to leave.

So I quietly walked off into the night, didn't say goodbye to anyone, just left.  Now, I've run to the general location of where this party was before, a good 2 miles from home if I take the Prairie Path.  The Prairie Path is this path in DuPage county that goes through the woods and it is very inviting during the day.  At around 3 in the morning however, it's one of those creepy sights where if you saw the entrance you could probably see about 5 feet in until it enveloped in darkness.  I started walking through the Prairie Path and when my eyes finally started to adjust, I made sure to note the closest climable tree wherever I was.  There is a history of coyotes on the path.   I always thought coyotes looked like wolves until I saw one about 2 months ago while on the way back from work. The ones in Wheaton also have mange, this disease that makes the really ugly and kind of creepy...(kind of like this)

Anyway, if I wasn't still a little drunk, I probably would have not made that walk.  The whole walk I was just thinking of how messed up the fight was.  I realized that I really hope I never get into a fight, I just don't think it'd be a good look on me.  I'm a lover, not a fighter.

I got home fine where finally I slept and began to look forward to my birthday, again...

Here's to drunk walks home,

Chin

P.S.  That girl I tried to gift Jake passed out on a couch at the party where he left her when the party ended, alone.  Haha, poor thing.

P.P.S.  I know I was going to try to write more, but I just watched 127 Hours with T-Raz so now it's late...

May Days, Chapter 3: The Spiritual Wedding

I did eventually persuade Squires to make the drive out to Austin's wedding with me on Friday.  I picked up a neck pillow and downloaded "The Very Best of Enya" for her, she appreciated it I think.  The drive was really uneventful, of course the Enya album is some 20 odd songs, so I was starting to feel a little drowsy during the drive, I did fine though.  We did make a stop in AA to grab dinner with Cassie and Sweeney and I also went to Uzi's to get my hair cut.  He lined me up super nicely!  It was really weird just 'passing through' Ann Arbor.  I kept wanting to ask about what we were going to do after dinner.

We got to the hotel around 9ish.  The only other people who were there for the wedding at that point were Austin and Brittney and some close relatives.  Squires and I ran out to Wal-Mart, got some cards and beer and enjoyed an evening playing speed and a bunch of other card game, we even tried to do screw the dealer.

Most of Saturday we just chilled in the hotel room because the wedding didn't start until 5ish.  We ran out and got some SoCo, an old wedding favorite of mine.  The wedding building was about 10 minutes away so we opted to take a cab there.  They have some very janky cabs out in east MI.

The ceremony itself was very short because they had actually already been legally wed in Mexico a few months before.  Shortly after getting my food from the buffet style arrangement they setup, I checked my phone because it had been on silent.  3 missed calls and 2 missed texts from Mike O.

Him: "I'm here I think, nos sure where2 park""Bruh come2 the door"
(20 minutes)
Me: "Ok, u here?"
Him: "Yes!"

I went to the door and sure enough, Mike O was standing outside with his helmet and a red backpack.  I had him put his helmet on his bike and he followed me in.  Now, before Mike O walked in I think I was the only minority there, so it was going to be pretty hard to blend in, it didn't really matter though.  The bride and groom were still going through the rounds of saying hi to all the guests, so I wondered how Austin would handle seeing Mike O.  Austin is a cool guy though so he said hi and took it in stride, as if he was expecting to see Mike O there.  Austin is a pretty cool guy.  After eating, we went over to the open bar and enjoyed the "wedding special" which was very similar to an sea breeze(?), fruity and they were stingy with the vodka.  We migrated outside where there was a gazebo overlooking a river and a little tiki bar.

The bartender was making margaritas, that's all there really was to drink out there.  As it got later, more people joined us and we made a lot of friends, mostly parents.  With Mike O there, it quickly turned to a 1502 sort of atmosphere, lots of sexual conversation and tons of jokes.  Everyone seemed to be in a good place like us, so people were loving it.  It only seemed appropriate that Mike O found a roll of caution tape and decided to add flare to his style. (The headband was still on when he woke up the next morning haha)

As the reception started to wind down, we stuck around and were actually some of the last guests to leave.  It only seemed appropriate that before we went back inside we take the following pictures to compare to the orginals.

Back inside we actually helped take some stuff out to Austin's mom's car.  We got our belongings from the table and noticed one of those disposable cameras that get handed out for picture taking at weddings.  In our state, it only seemed like a good idea to take some pictures.  We posed and took a bunch of silly pictures then I told Mike O he should take a picture of his dick.  OK! He took the camera, unzipped his pants and shot a flash down there.  I haven't heard anything from Austin, so he must REALLY be a cool guy.  Mike O was the only black guy there after all.

Squires was the most functional out of us so she arranged for a cab to pick us up.  We had him drive us through the Taco Bell then back to the hotel.  Our room had access to the roof so we went out there to eat, I learned that Mike O is afraid of heights haha.  The rest of the night kind of fell apart, I wandered off into a bunch of rooms that were unlocked, not too exciting.  I went back up to the room and fell asleep.  When we woke up, Squires was asleep on the ground, I was in two chairs and Mike O had one of the beds.  As mentioned, he still had his headband on haha.  We enjoyed some continental breakfast and checked out.

It was weird driving past the Ann Arbor exits and not checking into hotel arch, really weird actually.

To say that the last two weeks of May were awesome would be an understatement.  The wedding was a perfect was to cap off what was a great few weeks.  The next thing I had to look forward to was my June 11 birthday, or so I thought, there was a little fiasco that occurred before that...

Here's to the next wedding we can find to crash,

Chin