Last weekend we trucked it down to Nashville for my friend Matt’s bachelor party. I didn’t really know what to expect since Nashville had gone through some really bad flooding the week before. Also I hadn’t seen Matt get super drunk since our trip to Austin in early 2009 so I wasn’t sure if he would survive.
On Friday we loaded up the family truckster (in this case a rented Jeep Commander) and braved bad storms and traffic for the 5 hour drive to Nashville. Once we got there it seemed the flooding had virtually disappeared. There was some dirt on a few buildings and Hooters was closed but beyond that there wasn’t really any noticeable damage. We were ready to party.
Our first stop: Layla’s Bluegrass Inn to see my favorite local band Jypsi. After watching their set and swilling some $1 PBR we went to Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge which was fairly insane. There was a competing bachelor party full of fratboy douche which I was sure would cause a fist fight. Luckily it didn’t happen. We closed the night out dancing to some country jams at The Stage.
On Saturday morning I woke up feeling like I had been kicked in the head by a mule. The room was destroyed from a late night White Castle run that I barely remember. I didn’t get out of bed until after noon then stumbled to a bar for some greasy food and little hair of the dog. That evening was more of the same: a mediocre Stout at Big River Brewing, dancing/shuffling at Decades, the Skynyrd/Nugent cover band at Big Shotz, then closing it out at The Stage. We waited until 5am for a pizza delivery then woke up 4 hours later for the drive home. Awesome.
Overall it was a successful weekend. Nobody died and nobody pulled a Mario Lopez.
May 17th, 2010
Wow I haven’t written a post since Nov 17th. Definitely not meeting the Project 52 challenge. At least I finally have something interesting enough to write about: This weekend I’m making my 6th trip to Las Vegas.
It’s hard to explain why but Vegas has always been my favorite place to visit. Maybe it’s because out of all the times I’ve been there this is the only photo that even approaches work safe:
That picture was taken in The Centrifuge at MGM. She was our bartender and in a quote I’ll always remember stated: “You guys need to move your beers; I’m going to dance up here.” Talk about awesome.
But that’s not my favorite Vegas moment. Oh no. How could it be? With stories like this to choose from:
- The time my brother was picked up by a Hooker at Tao
- The time I saw the Pledgemaster from Sorority Life at New York, New York (yes, this was a very popular MTV show at the time).
- After a night of drinking meeting two coeds at Studio 54 and coining the phrase “Two 4′s equals an 8!” (I had to wash my balls in boiling water the next day)
- Winning $250 in the Pleasure Pit with half a rod on.
- The time my brother and I spent 6 hours sitting drinking Everclear punch just because the bartender was hot. We passed out watching Everybody Loves Raymond at 11pm that night.
- The helicopter ride with the drunken redneck. The next morning – some 11 hours later – we saw him wandering the floor of the Rio with the same denim Austin jumpsuit he was wearing the night before.
- Spending some amount of money – $40/$60? – at an O2 bar with the Oldanis. Seriously who does that?
Sure I’ve gotten into plenty of ridiculous situations here at home but nothing like Vegas. And that’s why I love it.
This will be my first Super Bowl weekend in Vegas so we’re looking for a good place to party. Maybe all you can eat buffet/drinks. Anybody have any good places?
February 2nd, 2010
Well I’ve been back in town for 2 weeks now and I still haven’t written about my trip to California. I’ll get to covering the whole trip next week but first I want to address something specific – the toast I gave to Laef and Allison at their wedding.
I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily bad at public speaking. I mean I give presentations all the time but this was different. This one involved me saying something nice about people. I’m pretty much dead inside so that makes it difficult for me. I was actually nervous. That was surprising. I haven’t felt like that since college and I had to give a presentation on Strategic Management and Lean Operations after not cracking the book for an entire semester.
I think these pictures speak volumes.
Before the toast:
Rocking the mic:
After the toast:
I followed the basic template — introduce yourself, say something funny, tell a story about the groom, thank everyone, and wish the couple well. It went over OK I think. I managed to get through it without any F-bombs or tales of binge drinking and promiscuity (and that was just about the bride!).
Reflecting on my toast there are I few things I meant to say that I didn’t remember to. I think the next time I give a toast I’ll be better prepared and maybe not write it in the limo ride before the ceremony!
August 7th, 2009
This weekend I was tasked with hosting a bachelor party for my friend Laef. Now I’ve attended many bachelor parties in my time with varying degrees of debauchery but I’ve never had to plan one myself. I can have fun doing anything but making sure somebody is doing something they enjoy is not something I’m used to (I’m selfish like that). Laef opted for a chilled out weekend at Lake Tahoe – a place I’d never been but was looking forward to.
The trip to Reno took about 6 hours. This was complicated by the fact that I was seated next to a giant who needed a seat belt extension just to fit into his seat. He was ON me all flight. Awful. By the time I got a rental, drove the hour to Tahoe, and checked into the cabin I was ready for a beer. In fact it’s safe to say I’ve never been more ready for a beer in my entire life.
The first night we stayed in the Cabin. Drinking, playing Wii, smoking cigars, and relaxing in the hot tub. It was great.
The next day was even better. After waking with a blistering headache I still managed to drink a few beers with my eggs (Blue Moon truly is a breakfast beer). We played some Hold ‘em, BBQ’d lunch, smoked more cigars, and hit the Tub again before getting ready to head out.
We hit the Montbleau casino in Stateline first. This was based on a recommendation by our cab driver (who was either a millionaire or a compulsive liar). We hit the sportsbook and for the first time in my life every bet I placed came in. I took the Lakers and the Under and also bet on the Padres to beat the Cubs which they did. My winnings went a long way since they had drink specials of $7 pitchers and $3 Jäger Bombs.
Later that night Mike was DEALT this hand (there’s a reason this picture is blurry):
which paid for dinner and a round of beers.
…Skipping over some things for privacy/survival reasons (there’s a reason there aren’t more pictures)…..
Then we played blackjack until 4am. We headed back to the cabin played a little Wii and tried to choke down some Jalapeno Poppers (which were Nast!) then crashed out. Because I was with a few dipshits we had to wake up at 7am and drive the hour to Reno to catch their flight. 2 hours of sleep was not good times. I spent an additional 3 hours in the airport waiting for my flight then spent 6 hours on a plane until I made it home safely to STL.
All in all a good weekend. Fun was had, beer was consumed, and Laef had a good time. Now I’ll be spending the next week drinking water and eating vegetables.
May 26th, 2009
After staying out late last night talking about code and meeting tons of people I had no desire to talk to anyone. Matt and I pretty much kept to ourselves today. We saw a panel on Natural User Interfaces and apparently Minority Report is coming. After that we saw a pretty cool Silverlight demo. I have to say after seeing that, playing around with a Surface, and seeing what WPF can do I think Microsoft is up to some really cool things. About time.
We also took in some Stubbs BBQ which was freaking delicious. Then we walked roughly 50 miles on an abortive quest for some Dublin Dr. Pepper. It was quite unsuccessful. I think I’ve gained about 17 lbs after all the beer and food this week but I’ve worked off about 12 lbs walking around Austin.
It’s cool here and I’d love to come back.
March 17th, 2009
Well we survived another day. On Monday I saw panels on The Browser Wars, Entrepreneurship, Freelancing, and Idea Generation. We also swung by the Microsoft Bizspark Accelerator where startups demo their product and a panel lead by Guy Kawasaki pokes holes in their ideas. It could be a little brutal at times. I didn’t get to see all of them but Gigotron (a music discovery engine) and Ringlight (a file sharing service) both looked cool. We also got copious amounts of swag. I think I’m setup on Microsoft t-shirts for life.
Later we walked around the University of Texas campus and had a pint at the awesome Dog & Duck Pub. We went down to The Speakeasy to see Them Terribles. They were good. After trying to figure out why an army of scantily clad hot chicks showed up in a sea of nerds with ironic t-shirts on we found out that the band was shooting a video and had hired models. That explained a lot. But the band played a good show and I got to act like I was really into it as they lip synched their single 5 times. After that we went to The Geek Party at the Iron Works and did some networking. Matt managed to harass Dan Rubin for 30 minutes.
Our cab got poached on the way home so we ended up walking the 2 miles back to the hotel. All in all a good night.
March 17th, 2009
Well we’ve been in Austin for 2 days now and SXSW has been as exhausting as I expected it would. We got in Saturday and managed to check in and walk through the trade show (mega lame) before hitting the parties. We swung by the Mobile Social BBQ (they ran out of plates right before we got in line), Dorkbot (I can’t even describe how awesomely weird some of things I saw there were – this will get it’s own post), Live/Create (we sipped on the free vodka and waited for the band to play. After a seemingly endless setup time they never did. We booked outta there), The Bigg Digg Shindigg (way overcrowded and a little too cold to stand outside), Happy Cog’ake (very crowded and kinda lame), and then we went off the schedule and hit some (or all) of the bars on 6th street. Getting up today was not pleasant.
Today was more about the content. I managed to see panels on Gestural UI, CSS3, iPhone Development, and How to Fund a Startup. They were all pretty interesting although I didn’t necessarily “learn” anything in all of them. We also stopped by Screenburn which was totally awesome. We played some old school NES and drank some free Mountain Dew. We’re avoiding the parties tonight so tomorrow should be even better.
March 15th, 2009
On Saturday Matt and I are (finally) heading down to Austin, TX for the SXSW Interactive Festival . I’m trying to plan the week but so far I’ve found it all to be pretty overwhelming. With all the talks , trade show , Screenburn , and bookstore getting a plan together is becoming difficult. There’s just too much I want to do. Oh and did I mention the parties? Oh god the parties!
This will be my first trip to Austin so I somehow want to incorporate a couple sidetrips into the week, like checking out UT and having a little Man vs. Food adventure to Juan in a Million and Big Top Candy Shop for some chocolate covered bacon. Not to mention Bar Camp Austin is going on this weekend as well and I might want to swing by there for a bit. It’d be like 2 conferences in one!
Obviously we can’t do everything but I’m following SXSW is Easy and SXSW Baby to make sure we hit the hot spots.
Matt insists on going low tech and bringing his Moleskin Notebook but I’ll be lugging along the Macbook, iPhone, and Canon PowerShot SD-1100 so I plan to be a blogging, tweeting fool all weekend. You can follow me on twitter or subscribe to my blog feed .
It’s going to be a fun but exhausting week!
March 12th, 2009
I’m getting to an age when many of my friends and family are getting married. In a given year I can expect to go to (or at least be invited to) 5-10 weddings in various locations around the country. This summer I’m going to LA for my friends Laef and Allison’s wedding and last weekend I was in Nashville for my cousin Chris’s wedding.
With all this Wedding Crashing I’ve noticed quite a trend. Everyone seems to play the same songs, have the same food, and have the same ceremony. Honestly I feel like I’ve been to the same wedding 40 times. While I usually have fun at these things mark me down for supporting originality.
Here are some observations and tips for those of you planning a wedding in the future.
- Lou Bega was born solely for the purpose of writing one song to be played at every white person’s wedding. Unfortunately it is the worst song ever written.
- Songs like the Chicken Dance, Electric Slide, American Pie, and others have to be eliminated from the wedding reception playlist. Be an individual. Don’t worry about making everyone else happy. You like rap? Play some rap songs. Like Nickelback? Well, you’re dumb but if it makes you happy play that too.
- Catholic weddings are the longest, Luthern is in the middle, and secular is the fastest. You really speed things up when you cut out all the God stuff.
- Bachelor parties have evolved from one night of debauchery to an entire 3 days of partying. I’ve been to or am scheduled to go to the following locations for bachelor parties: Lake of the Ozarks, Memphis, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Lake Tahoe. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it does leave a lot of room for getting in trouble and maintaining an extended hangover.
- An open bar should be mandatory. And not just beer and wine. I’m talking top shelf hard booze. Honestly it’s the reason everyone is attending this reception anyway.
- Speaking of drinking plan on getting belligerent. Wait until after 10pm to get super belligerent so as not to scare the children and elderly. But hey the alcohol is free right? Enjoy it!
- Regardless of religion most church ceremonies seem to be nearly identical. This is fine if you’re into tradition but don’t expect me to pay attention. Do something different. Have your wedding on a beach, on a boat, underwater, drop a disco ball in there. Just something different!
- If you’re in St. Louis please don’t serve mostaccioli for dinner. I’ve literally had this dish at EVERY St. Louis wedding I’ve ever been too. Fish and chicken are fine but skip the rehashed pasta dish.
- Consider having your reception in a hotel or somewhere that’s easy to catch a cab home. You’re serving unlimited alcohol to your drunk Uncle Teddy you don’t want him to end up dead!
- If I’m going to be forced to dance allow me to get a few cocktails in first. Play some low key music during dinner and then give a little time for drinks. If I’m going to bust it to Mike Jones I’m going to need a little lubrication.
- DO NOT hire the “wild and wacky DJ guy”. Nothing is more annoying than having a DJ screaming at me to get on the dance floor while I’ve got a mouth full of shrimp puffs.
- In fact do you know who the best DJ would be? You! Just create a playlist on your iPod and have one of your friends run it. That way you’ll have 100% control over the music and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
- Have at least one single person in the bridal party. This way it’s much more likely she’ll hook up with some random family member and you can gossip about it for years to come!
February 10th, 2009
The Lost Weekend is the annual man trip to Chicago to see the Cards-Cubs series, drink cheap beer, and bet on who’s most likely to die that weekend. For the 3 years that I’ve been a part of it we’ve spent most of our time drinking and dancing at Sluggers and the Cubby Bear. This year was a little different. At the urging of Oldangerous to go check out “the country bar” we found ourselves at the Houndstooth Saloon. After a few cocktails I looked up and saw this:
A sign supporting my favorite team – the University of Alabama!
I looked around again and saw various flags, signs, and tshirts hanging around the bar. After grilling the bartender it was determined that this was the official bar of the Chicago Area University of Alabama Alumni Association. At that time I knew I would never leave. We spent about 2 hours there Friday and what must’ve been 6 hours there Saturday. The place was filled with screaming, dancing Alabama fans, warm 40′s of Bud Light, and the best country DJ I’ve ever heard. I’ll be back. In fact I might just have to buy the place and run it myself.
The rest of the weekend was fairly typical – calling each other gay, eating disgusting Chicago Pizza, staying in a dumpy motel, and reenacting West Side Story. Nobody died, there was very little vomiting, and we all successfully caught the plane and made it back to St. Louis in one piece. Until next year!
September 22nd, 2008
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