Keener cavalcade

I took off the Friday and Monday since my good buddy Troy was flying down for a visit.  His flight didn’t arrive until 1 pm so during the morning I cleaned up around the house, prepared the guest bedroom and bathroom.  Ali has been working a lot of hours recently so she hadn’t had a chance to do her normal hotel level prep.

I decided to take the van complete with my canine co-pilots to pick up Troy.  Troy had last been down at least 5 years ago so he knew Nicki but never met Sadie before.  I expected the dogs to carry on a bit when Troy entered the van but it was surprisingly calm.  Nicki, who typically always barks at any face other than Ali our mine initially, didn’t make a peep.

Troy said he had a decent flight.  Even though the air temps in the upper 60’s felt cool to me they felt good to him.  On the drive home we caught up a bit on things.  Since Troy doesn’t have his instant messenger client up very often and doesn’t get a chance to read my blog on a regular basis, most of our communication are via the occasional email normally.

We had no big plans for Friday night.  Ali stopped and grabbed pizza on the way home.  It didn’t take long for me to pull my Xbox 360 out into the great room and hook it up to the 73 inch Mitsubishi.  I loaded up Madden Arcade football to take on Troy.  Early on in our relationship Troy and I would have many epic Madden football games at my house in Wernersville.  During that time the balance of power swung back and forth between us pretty evenly.

Well in 2010 Troy got the nod.  After the first game which he won barely he continued on winning two more games by pretty lopsided scores.  As you would expect, I didn’t suggest we play that game any more during the weekend. We enjoyed our pizza and drank beer the rest of the evening.

We hadn’t made any definitive plans for Saturday.  We threw several ideas around on Friday night but couldn’t really decide on any.  Saturday morning we couldn’t make up our minds either so we spent a couple hours watching  my new favorite show, “Hoarders”.

Earlier in the morning I upgraded my Xbox Live membership from the limited free version to the full blown $60 variety.  Doing so turned on several things for me like real time online play against other people. It also enabled Netflix on the 360.  I have used Netflix in many ways since I got it including through a regular web browser, the Wii, the Ipad, the Iphone and my Tivo.  The 360 interaction is the best by far.

Many of the other display methods only allow you to browse your existing Instant Queue but you can’t find anything new.  The 360 interface is fully functional and is backed up by a rich, vibrant UI that makes the experience really shine.  Anything I streamed loaded quick and looked great.

So anyway I just happened to stumble across the show first season of Hoarders,  a series that runs on A&E about people that have allowed their lives to become destroyed by their uncontrollable need to have stuff.  Well let me tell you, this show is just unbelievable.  I have many thoughts on it which I plan to cover in a future entry.  It really is shocking and telling about the world we live in at the same time.

Finally I came up with an idea for the day.  I asked Troy if he would want to go up to the off leash dog beach with the dogs.  He said that sounded good.  Ali originally planned to nap instead since she was tired from her run but she later decided to join us for the fun.

It was indeed a good time.  The cooler temps may have kept some away as I don’t think there was ever more than 10 dogs on the beach at a time.  Nicki had been there a few times, we never took Sadie.  After some initial trepidation, Sadie jumped into the fun, engaging both dogs and their owners in her normal friendly style.  Nicki, who in the past spent most of her time at the dog beach with her tail between her legs and cowering by our side, was surprisingly interested in interacting with others as well.  It seems like having Sadie around has pulled Nicki out of her shell a bit.  If Nicki sees Sadie having fun it makes her feel more at ease.

The dogs had a great time.  I waded out into the water and had a pack of dogs following me.  Sadie dropped a few logs in the water, something Nicki usually enjoys doing.  I actually managed to retrieve the poop from the water, doing my best to be a responsible dog owner.  You can see the retrieval process in this justin.tv stream I shot during the visit. It was not an easy task.

We hung out there for close to an hour before piling back in the van to head home.  As you can imagine the dogs were a sandy mess after their fun.  Before allowing them inside the house Ali and I gave both of them a quick mini-shower with the hose outside.  Neither of them enjoyed it very much.

Troy and I decided we would head out to the casino in Immokalee a little bit to gamble.  I was kind of hesitant since I didn’t really feel like blowing money but I set a $100 stop loss figure in my head.  Troy had been to the casino before but that was pre-renovations when it was little more than a warehouse with slot machines.  It is a much nicer facility now that they added table games to the mix.  Too bad they couldn’t make it smoke free as well, man I hate the stench.

So after walking around a bit I decided to play some blackjack.  The smallest minimum was $10, twice what I prefer to play. $5 tables let you ride out cold streaks much easier with a smaller wad of cash.  Troy didn’t join me at the table, he was a bit spotty on his knowledge of the game. I told him I could  help coach him.  In a nutshell you make all of your decisions assuming any down cards are a 10.  He opted to head off to some video poker machines instead.

I was doing half decent for awhile.  At one point I had grown my $100 in chips to $150 or $160.  Then they brought in the cooler.  Blackjack players are superstitious.  One of the things that they don’t like is if the dealer changes when the table is HOT.  A hot blackjack table is one where the dealer is busting on a regular basis.

Well the buxom blonde that had been bringing me good luck had her break.  The homely girl they brought in her place cleared out the table in no time.  In addition to the cooler I had issues with an older couple playing in front of me.  The guy was veering from what the “book” says on a pretty regular basis.  This behavior can be quite annoying for this reason.

Say the dealer is showing a 9.  You would play the hand assuming she has 19.  Well this old fart would have like 14, a hand the book says you hit on.  Well quite often he would say he “feels” a bad card and he would not hit.  I play by the book and I get the 10 that busts me that he should have gotten.  Then the next card would be something that I could have won with.  This happened to me quite a bit, it was seriously pissing me off.  Sure it’s his prerogative to play that way but if that is your style you are better suited to be the last person dealt and not the second.

I saw a lot of stupid play like people splitting 8’s when the dealer was showing a 10 and then doubling down on top of that.  I was like wtf???  They lost a bundle on those hands.

So anyway I finally bailed on the situation with $25 of my original $100 left.  Things really went downhill quickly, I bet I lost 7 out of 8 hands at the end.  Troy did not fair any better with video poker.  We headed home with the gambling itch more than scratched.

Saturday evening we went out to dinner at Carrabas.  I drunkenly lamented to Troy about the various changes they made to the restaurant over the years.  We had a nice meal that was enhanced by happy hour 2-1 drinks.

Sunday was the big day, the main reason Troy flew down.  We were going to the Dolphins/Browns game.  Troy and have a mini-tradition of going to see NFL games together.  Years ago we went to Green Bay to see the Eagles play and then last year I flew up to his place to go to a Ravens game.  This year we decided to stay close to my stomping grounds.

Last year we miscalculated just how early we had to leave to get to the Ravens game.  As a result we were subjected to being the target of an angry mob as we forced a mass of humanity to split so we could park.  We didn’t want to make the same mistake again so we decided to leave around 9 am.

We needed to pick up tailgating supplies so I figured I would stop at the Ave Maria Publix.  It would also give Troy a chance to see “Catholic Town” up close and personal.  As usual the store was practically empty.  We grabbed a couple subs, some chips and beer.  After we got back to the van Troy quickly went back into the store, returning with a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper and a lottery ticket.  He delivered one of the funnier lines of the weekend, saying he wanted to “sin it up” since we were in Catholic Town.

On the way over to the stadium I got a text from Randall asking if I was going to the game, he saw my Facebook post that indicated I was.  Randall has season tickets to the Dolphins.  He was considering not going since he didn’t have anyone to go with.  He said I could pick him up and then we could use his parking pass to save 25 or 30 bucks.  Plus Randall knows the lay of the land which would be another huge bonus.  We stopped an picked him up and continued the drive in.

I figured Randall and Troy would get along just fine, they both have no problems talking.  I was glad we had Randall along as we approached the quagmire near the stadium entrance.  Luckily we didn’t have the same cluster f to navigate as we did in Baltimore.  We parked in a decent spot along a fence, right next to a port-a-potty.

We had about an hour to tailgate.  The three of us had a steady flow of alcohol going.  I opened up the back of the van and stood there, peering out over the roof line at the crowd below.  It was then that I shot the first of several brief justin.tv feeds of the day.

We headed into the stadium with about 20 minutes to go till kick off.  As we approached we saw a pack of Browns fans doing the famous dog pound barking.  I had to laugh when some Dolphin fans started chanting in response “We ….got…LeBron….”  It made me laugh out loud.

We had a bit of a problem when it came to the seating situation.  Randall had tickets for two seats.  We had tickets for two seats.  We had three people.  We decided to just sit in Randall’s area and hope that the rightful owner of the spare seat would not show up.

By the time we got situated they were just starting the national anthem.  It was sung beautifully and was accompanied by the unfurling of a football field sized flag and punctuated by an awesome F-16 flyover.

The game started but it was really not the focus of my attention.  I was pretty drunk at this point so I found it more interesting focusing on what was going on around me.  Drunk football fans are quite an interesting bunch to observe.  The game was pretty low scoring.  I was surprised how many empty seats I saw in the place, even by the end of the first quarter I bet a third of them were empty.

Somewhere late in the second quarter some people actually showed up for the seat that I was squatting in.  The three of us took that as a queue to leave.  We headed out to the concourse and hung out for a bit during half time.  We decided to go over to the section where Troy and my tickets were, on the other side of the stadium.  We found a large block of open seats that we plopped ourselves into.

This section seemed to have a large amount of Browns fans in it which added to the fun.  Randall, who was fully decked out in Dolphins gear, got into an argument with a female Browns fan a few rows back.  Somehow it came up that even though Randall was originally from Cleveland he is now a Dolphin fan.  This woman was incensed that he would betray his Cleveland roots and gave Randall a hard time throughout the rest of the game.

I had an embarrassing incident when my cup of beer slipped out of my hand and bounced on my knee, spilling at least half of it on both myself and Troy.  There was a small amount that splashed on a guy in front of me which he wasn’t very pleased about.  I just laughed it off.  Troy cut me out of the beer circle after that point.

So the game was decided late when the Dolphins QB threw a bad interception that turned into a game winning field goal for the Browns.  I shook the hands of the happy Browns fans around me and congratulated them on the victory like it actually mattered to me.  I was wearing my Dolphins visor so I looked like a fake fan.

In the process of leaving the stadium I got split up from Randall and Troy.  I figured it was no big deal, I would just meet up with them at the van.  I walked in the general direction I thought I needed to go.  Before the game I took a picture from the van of the stadium so I used the angles of the picture to direct me.  Well I got to the fence line and nothing was looking familiar.  In fact there was no parking along this section of fence line.

I texted Randall and asked where they were.  Just as I did I realized my mistake.  We entered the stadium on the far side.  When we switched seats we were 180 degrees from where we entered.  Doh.  So I had a long ass walk around the parking lot until I finally got back to the van where Randall and Troy had been for a long time.

The parking lot was of course a mess so we figured we would just hang out for awhile.  Troy and Randall polished off the 18 pack of Miller Lite we bought.  I decided against any further drinking since I would be manning the wheel of the van whenever we left.

We had some fun doing the post game tailgate thing.  We got involved in a game of catch with some middle aged woman and another guy.  However shortly after it started they got side tracked into something else so Troy, Randall and I just kept playing with their ball.  We decided we played enough when Randall threw a lame duck that bounced off the van, over the fence and into the street where it just narrowly missed getting run over by a police car.

I once again had the back of the van open and was sitting on the roof.  As I was up there some guy asked if he could “borrow my van”.  Since I was still somewhat drunk and not fully understanding what he meant I said “sure”.  The guy climbs up onto the back of the van and then uses the open doors as support.  His intention was to use the van as a make shift ladder to allow him to jump the fence.

The chain link fence was about 8 feet high and had a shrub on the other side that went all the way to the top.  Once the guy got his center of balance over the fence he plummeted through the shrubs and on to the sidewalk below.  I peered over and yelled down to the guy, asking him if he was ok.  He stood up and jogged across the street while flashing the thumbs up sign.  Funny stuff.

So finally, about an hour after the game was over the lots were clearing out.  I hadn’t had anything to drink in close to three hours so I felt ok to go, plus Troy gave me a Red Bull to help clear out any cobwebs.  On the way back Randall said something about Jeremy offering that we should stop by for dinner.  I figured it was just a courtesy offering without real intent so I told Randall to call up Jeremy to call his bluff.  I figured the last thing Jeremy’s wife would want is three guys that spent the afternoon drinking at a football game to show up at her door on a Sunday evening.  Well to my surprise, the invitation stood.

So we were headed to Jeremy’s place.  In retrospect I feel sort of bad since I didn’t even really ask Troy if he was ok with going to the house of someone he didn’t know at all.

Going to Jeremy’s house gave me a chance to meet their two month old daughter, Ainsley.  We also got to play with Connor, their cute little boy.  Even though we were only at Jeremy’s place briefly, we managed to cram a lot of things into that time.  We had a 25 pound weighted pull up competition, drank spinach and orange juice smoothies made in Jeremy’s $500 Vitamix blender and even got to do the customary Rodgers hard labor, lugging in his heavy 9 foot tall artificial Xmas tree from the garage.

Jeremy arranged for us to go eat at a nearby bar/restaurant.  Mandy was going to stay home with the kids.  I followed Jeremy in the van.  Originally Jeremy was told there would be a 40 minute wait, something I wasn’t cool with since I still had to drive back across the alley.  Instead we decided to eat at the bar which had no wait, fine with me.

Jeremy had invited another few friends to the bar whom I met later.  They all seemed like good people.  We finished up our meals and I was ready to roll, not looking forward to a pitch dark two hour drive across the alley.  We dropped off Randall and after Troy failed to find matches in K-mart we headed out.

The drive across the alley was not much fun.  I was tired from a day of drinking and eating. I stopped around the halfway point.  I told Troy it was a bathroom break.  It was but the primary reason I stopped was to save a frog.  Evidently there was a tree frog that was tucked into a crevice in the van.  He had made his way out onto the windshield and was pinned there by the 80 mph wind.  I didn’t want to see the thing dry up or get smashed on the highway.  So once we pulled off I corralled it in my hands and released it in the grass as Troy shook his head.  He always has had a skeptical view of my desire to save dumb animals.

We rolled into the house around 10:30 pm.  It was a pretty exhausting day but filled with memorable moments which is what we are always looking for.  Neither Troy or I wasted any time before retiring to bed.

Monday morning once again we didn’t have anything planned and it was good that we didn’t, neither of us were feeling all that energetic after a day of football related activities.  The 360 kept us busy as we played some F3 racing as well as watching a couple more Hoarders episodes on Netflix.

I came up with the idea of stopping for lunch at Panera on the way to the airport.  Panera is dog friendly as long as you sit outside.  The temps in the 50’s made eating outside a little less than ideal but we grinned and beared it in order to bring Nicki and Sadie along.

After eating we had a little more time to kill so I went a small park near the gulf where we walked the loop with the pooches, a nice way to wind up the visit.  The dogs were confused when Troy got out of the van at the airport and they weren’t able to follow.  They both seemed to really enjoy his company.  I wished Troy a safe trip and that was that.

I spent the rest of my day doing a few things around the house.  One of those was addressing my bedroom Tivo.  Apparently my 500 gig hard drive in the thing died, it would not go past the “Welcome! Powering up…” message. Normally this would be a long drawn out recovery which would require buying another drive and obtaining a vanilla image to restore from.  Well I happened to still have the original 160 gig drive so I slapped that in.  After running guided setup again I was back in business, albeit with significantly less recording space.

I am seriously considering just canceling the 2nd Tivo.  Last night I used playon.tv to catch up on the Fringe episode I missed as well as an episode of Ultimate Fighter since the Tivo now was wiped clean of the recordings that were on the big drive.  The main function it has served is as a third tuner in the rare case we have three shows we want to watch at once.  Now with playon if I can’t record something to the Tivo in the great room I could always go back and stream it via playon.

I spent the rest of the day doing some computer work, watching more Hoarders episodes and playing some more F3.  It was a quiet way to wind up a noisy weekend.