Mid Week Madness

It's been a while since my last blog, and let me tell ya, much has happened since then.

Lets start with last saturday.

I thought that my days of grinding in a bar, that doesn't even have a dance floor, were over, but apparently they're not. Don't worry, it gets worse. Not only was I dancing, but I was dancing using my patented move, called "the backpack." This move is self explanatory. I become the backpack for the girl I'm dancing with. Wherever she goes, I go, wrapped around her, nice and tightly. There was kissing, and other PDA's. This behavior is not acceptable, and I am afraid to reappear at a bar where we are frequent customers.

Sunday was filled with golf, where I'm still sucking, and then recovering. Not too eventful, but a much needed break.

Monday started innocently, meeting two buddies for dinner. We start shooting the shit with the waitress, and she comes out and tells us that she's a stripper. It was an interesting conversation, that's for sure. Later that night, we were off to the casino, only to come back, 250 down, at 6AM! The week hasn't been quite right since.

Best part of it all, the next weekend is already here. Stay tuned. More to follow.

Wow....

Ok, blogging at 3am is not usually my thing. However, tonight, things need to be talked. So, my roomate and I just spent the night pounding drinks and enjoying the fact that the weekend arrived. You see, for me, getting crazy was no new thing because of the fact that summer had arrived and weekends and weekdays seem to blend together. But, tonight, the roomy wanted to get drunk so I obliged.

So, things went as planned and we drank, and partied, and I got dominated in every competitive game possible, darts, bowling, and even pool. Yes this was a bit strange, but the night was about to take an even crazier turn.

We were on our way to Chicago's to fill our appetite for a little pizza, when I saw a truck coming up Barry ave. right at us. I could tell this truck was "not all there." For no apparent reason I took the left side and my roomate took the right. As soon as we made the change the truck turned right into my roomy, knocking him clear off his bike.

Luckily, the roomy was ok. We talked, more like yelled at the driver, who was obviously drunk, and demanded payment for the bike. However, he stumbled away. We followed through with our threat to cal the police, only to sit around for many minutes with no arrival of the 5-0.

Our night ended rather uneventfully. With no arrests and no beat downs. Crazy stuff for an otherwise calm night.

Too old?

Question: When are you too old to go on a bender?

I mean seriously, I just spent the last six days "doing work". It all started last Tuesday and Wednesday in innocent drinking situations that turned deadly. I already commented on the near debacle of Wednesday night.

Thursday I flew out to Colorado. With a flight arrival time of 9:30, I was thinking to myself that things couldn't get too out of hand. I was wrong. Thursday night turned out to be a bachelor night of sorts, except the groom has chosen to avoid all drugs and alcohol because of his teenage wife, so I took the opportunity to make the most of it. Now I don't know if it's because the air was thinner, but the next day I woke up with a pounding headache.

The next day was filled with wedding prep stuff, like getting tux's and decorating, and I made the decision to play it low key because I didn't want to be hurting for the actual wedding day. 10 jack and cokes, and many beers later, at 3 am, in C. Springs very own V bar, my decision to be low key went right out the window.

Anyways, I managed to make it through the wedding day, which was a wonderful day. Highlighted by two young people who were very much in love coming together in a beautiful ceremony. In that cermony, I again managed to do what I do best, get hammered.

Apparently 26 is not too old to go on a bender.

Summer Plans

Alright, so i've already mentioned that I plan to work on my golf game this summer, and I do. My other big plan is to get back in shape. Now, i've been told that this is overrated, and that it will really do nothing for me, but, i've got a lot of time, and it sounds like something to do.

So far I've been good about getting to the gym and hammering out some miles on the treadmill. However, I've also had a significant increase in my partying time. So, i've amended my plans. My new plan is to work out during the day, and take the night by storm. No longer is it to get in shape, because I believe that this new lifestyle will not allow for such a thing.

On a side note, last night I experienced luck in a way that i've never experienced before. Without giving too many details, let's just say this: I was inebriated. I wanted to do somethings that I would regret. I even acted upon my urges. Luckily, the stars were aligned in my favor, and there were no regrettable offenses. Very rarely would I say that I was glad to wake up alone. This morning was one of those mornings.

I'm Back!

Ok, so I've been challenged to blog more. I think this is kinda funny because when I was blogging, I was told that I wasn't that good. Anyways, because of my competitive nature, when I get challenged, I respond. So, let the blogging begin.

This is the first week of my summer. School ended last Friday, and with that, I have 3 months off, to do whatever I please. I kicked off the summer with an annual trip to Vegas. Myself, and 13 other teachers from my school, decided to celebrate the summer together, by dumping our money in beautiful LV.

I was quickly reminded of how unlucky I am. For the first day and a half I played pretty much every game in the casino, and was yet to experience the thrill of winning. I started to get excited about only losing a little, rather then my whole buy in. I mean seriously, how can you lose everything. I always have this feeling that my luck will begin to turn. I wait for that "hot streak". I do know that it's this mentality by gamblers that builds those beautiful buildings in the picture up there. Fortunately, my luck started to turn, and it ended up being a decent trip.


Also in Vegas, I was pressured to golf. Now, for some reason, golf is something I can't do. I would say that I am pretty good at most things, but I definitely suck at golf. I've never felt so awkward as I do when I'm swinging a golf club. How bad did I play? I couldn't even tell you, because after a few miserable holes, I opted for pounding beers over keeping score. One of my big goals this summer is to make some strides in the positive direction with my golf game. As I was reminded yesterday, I've got 49 years to beat my roomate, otherwise I'm out 10 grand. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.

School Daze

It's been over a week since the last time I've blogged. It's superbowl Sunday and I could go on and on about the bears and how they are going to dominate the colts down in Miami, and bring back the Lombardi trophy to chicago. However, I'm going to talk about something a bit more exciting. Well, maybe not, but it needs to be talked about.

Ok, so I am taking grad school classes, and the program that I'm in only has class every 4th weekend. However, for that weekend, there is class ALL day, both days. This is not a class where we sit around and talk, and do cute little group projects. This is full blown calc. 8 hours on saturday and 6 hours on sunday. So, needless to say, as the hours go by, I find my mind wandering, as I look around the class.

This is a class of current high school math teachers and aspiring math teachers. And let me tell you, this is an interesting group. This is just a little sample of what I had to deal with this weekend.

First of all, there is a group of about 4 women who absolutely cannot come to class on time. Every single class they have been consistently late. Not a couple minutes late. Were talking a half hour, or sometimes more. I mean seriously, why the hell would you be late to class all the time? Late when it starts. Late when we get back from lunch. Late all the time. Not only are they late, but they are loud and obnoxious when they come thundering down the hallway, and they take their time to find a seat, and they must love being the center of attention, because that's exactly what they become when they walk in the door. These people bother me.

One of these women likes to sit down right next to me. This is a classroom where the desks are so packed together that I have a tough time fitting my large ass into the seat. It would be acceptable to sit every other desk because they really are that close together. There are usually plenty of other desks in the room when she walks into the room, but sure enough she plops her sloppy ass damn near on top of me.

Picture this woman. She usually wears her HUGE depaul sweatshirt which hangs down well past her waist, overlapping her faded jeans which look to be from the early 80's. She usually has her hair up with loose strands everywhere, but to try and make herself look classy, which I know is hopeless, she usually has a pair of designer sunglasses on her head, and keeps them there the whole class, as if to say, "yeah, I'm hot shit." Let me assure you, she isn't.

If she just walked in late, wearing her ridiculous outfits, and didn't really do anything else, I wouldn't hold it against her. However, she is the type of woman who loves to talk. She blabs the WHOLE time. She blabs to the girls next to her, who has to be annoyed. She answers the questions of the professor, either out loud to the whole class or to herself, just enough so I can hear and be annoyed. The best part is, her answers are wrong 90% of the time. That's right, she's not smart, but she has to be involved so that she feels important, and she continues to wear her stupidity on her sleeve. This lady bothers me.

Other characters in the class include, a goofy looking man with long gray hair who wears a cowboy hat every class and shakes his head side to side because he has some type of nervous twitch. There are two ladies who talk and laugh loudly, to the point where I am embarrassed for them. They sit their during the class and read magazines and talk about the articles. I mean seriously, you don't have to be there. They don't take attendance. Why come? I think to annoy me. There's a guy who's pants ride up so high that when he sits down, you can almost see the back of his knees. And there are a ton of people who sit there and grade papers.

I mean seriously, stay home, class will be better without you. Well, maybe I wouldn't have anything to keep me busy while the professor goes off on his meaningless tangents.

I love being in school again.

Wednesday Night Hoops

Tonight, I again had the pleasure of holding my post as the clocker for a high school bball game. My last job was for the Varsity boys in perhaps the best high school game in recent memory, between two top ranked teams who battled to a last minute finish. Each team showed players of all star caliber hit big shot after big shot in an environment fueled by a raucous crowd. That was an enjoyable 50 dollars earned. That kind of game is why I love basketball.

Tonight I earned a painful 50 dollars. This was not the varsity boys, this was the freshmen girls A game. I guess for my sake, thankfully it was the A game.

Let me begin by saying, these girls played extremely hard. In fact, I would go as far as to say that they left it all out on the floor. There was hustle. There was teamwork. There were screens, and cuts. There were two intense coaches who wanted to be successful. There were a lot of things that make up a good bball game. However, there wasn't a lot of SCORING! Final score 22-10. A low scoring football game, or even a high scoring baseball game, but not a basketball game.

I truly feel for the girls because they do try. But if you watch basketball on TV, you take the little things for granted. You expect layups to be made. You expect SOME outside shots to fall. Even more importantly, you expect people to handle the ball and make passes. In the game tonight, none of these things were guaranteed. My the game of bball loses it's beauty when a 2 foot shot has less then a 50% chance of going in.

Good defense has something to do with it, but my god is it painful to watch a team play a whole half, 14 full minutes of bball, and manage to score only 1 point. A freethrow was the only thing that kept the second half goose egg out of the book.

SO....as a coach of girls bball, I hope these girls continue to work at it. Continue to get stronger and more comfortable on the floor, and maybe, just maybe, I will be able to watch them play in a year or two from now, and this time say that my 50 dollars earned was no longer painful, but was pleasantly enjoyable.

The Clocker

Alright, I started this blog by saying I would do it every day. I'm sorry faithful readers/fans, I just cant do it. However, I promise to do it as much as possible. I don't want to anger the public.

Being gone for several days, there's so much to say in so little time. My weekend was jam packed. My Saturday was spent working high school basketball games. Yes, it is as exciting as it sounds. What exactly do I do? My job is to run the clock. Which I feel is a very important job. In fact, I'm going out on a limb here, and saying that it's the most important job of all the people working that day.

Before I delve into the intricacies of clock working, let me tell you some things about our school district. Our district claims to be hurting for money. However, they are able to pay an ungodly number of people to do meaningless jobs. I mean seriously, freshmen girls basketball games don't need to have 3 chaperone's for a crowd full of parents of the players. So, our money hurting district, shells out close to 50 dollars an hour for meaningless jobs.

But, my money, on the other hand, is well earned. I'm the only one who has significant impact on the game. If you forget to stop the clock, or you don't get that one free throw up there quick enough, believe me, some fan, who must look at the clock every other second, will holler out the infamous, "start the clock" or "scores wrong". I pride myself on perfection. I make it my goal to not make mistakes. I would be willing to say that when I am asked to do the clock, I bring my A game. I laugh at the mistakes of other clockers. Amateur's.

Now, there is another underlying story in all of this. You may be wondering why the hell I work 4 games on a Saturday instead of enjoying my weekend. Well, I'd have to say, it's the same reason that I volunteer my entire winter to help out with girls bball, I am clinically insane. I can't get enough of my school. I am a cougar. Proud to wear scarlet and blue. Proud to spend my weekends in the gym cheering on my teams.

Wow, that sounds pathetic. Is it summer yet?

The Little Things

This afternoon, I was reminded about some of the little things in life that I would call annoying. Now, before I start, friends of mine would probably say that I'm a whiner, or a complainer, but let me say this, I may complain, occasionally, but while these little things are happening, you wouldn't have a clue that I was bothered. I would say that teaching teenagers, if nothing else, has taught me patience.

It started on my drive home. I purposely left practice early so I could get a jump on traffic. Yesterday I left almost an hour later and the traffic was pretty good, so I figured I would leave even earlier and just fly home. As soon as I got on the highway, I was greeted by an endless sea of break lights. Apparently the 3:30 rush hour was in full effect. Who gets out of work that early? Apparently a lot of people. Already impatient, and annoyed, I immediately got off.

Now, any experienced highway driver, something I would consider myself, knows that this is a mistake. Unless there is an accident blocking all lanes of traffic and even the shoulders, getting off the highway usually means a longer trip. Being the gambling man I am, I rolled the dice. There is nothing more frustrating then sitting on a side street, next to the highway, and watching the cars up above zip by. I had made a mistake, and I was annoyed, with myself, more then anything else.

When I finally got home, I decided to work out at the gym that I pay 50 dollars a month for, and have only gone once in the last 3 months. Being a math teacher, I know that's A LOT OF MONEY per workout. On the walk over, I realized that during my 150 dollar one time work out, I was also nice enough to donate my lock to the gym. For a moment, I took this as a sign and almost headed back for the couch, but instead, I hooked a left into the corner walgreens.

In a hurry to get to my workout, I grabbed the lock and proceeded to the counter. The line was 6 people deep, and the checkout lady was in no apparent hurry. This annoys me. Ok, you're miserable, why bring everyone else with you? Anyways, I waited patiently, for the barely moving checkout lady to pout through her job. Finally, I got up to register, with just the lock in my hand, and what did she do? She decides to refill her bag rack. I mean, come on, couldn't that wait for someone who needed a bag? Several minutes later, she checkedme out, and asked me if I needed a bag. With a smile, I politely said,"no". After she gave me my change I thanked her, and she said.... NOTHING!

Traffic and unhappy check out people annoy me.

My Underwear

Well, my roommates and I had an interesting conversation the other day. Politics? No. The latest issues facing the world? No. The bears in the Superbowl? Not even that. Our conversation focused on one thing: UNDERWEAR.

Ok this might not seem like that unusual of a topic for a bunch of guys in their middle twenties to talk about. I bet you could see us sitting around talking about crazy women's underwear like thongs and what not, but that wasn't what where it was headed. We were talking about guys underwear, and no, don't worry ladies, not in a gay way.

You see, there's something about me that is a little different for a man my age. Ok, maybe there's a number of things, but specifically related to this topic, I can say with confidence that I'm in the minority, because I still wear tighty whities, or whitey tighties, or however you say it. The sight of my underwear laying on the stairs sparked the conversation between my friends and I.

Now, I cant really explain why this is the case. I must say, I was raised on the whities, so really i'm blaming my mom. Before you truly start to worry about my sexual preference, in my defense, I don't wear them all the time, but only when I work out.

I guess the main reason why I LIKE the whities is because they are comfortable to work out in. As much as I'd like to say that they're comfortable because they help secure my manhood, that's not really the case. I just like em because that's what i'm used to. I will admit, I have what doctors call, a bit of a sweating problem. Without getting to graphic with the details.

Sweat + boxer briefs = NOT COMFORTABLE

I would like to consider myself a large part responsible for keeping briefs around, and I'm proud of it.

Wearing the whities definitely has it's perks. I mean honestly, the t-shirt tucked into the waistband of a good pair of briefs is an instant seducer. At least, if anything else, it gets a good laugh.

So, with pride, I can say, whities will continue on, through yours truly.

Unlucky

Alright, so it has to be said early. I like to gamble. I really don't think it's because of the money, I just like to say that I have won. I am super competitive and I hate to lose, and this is precisely why I get ridiculously angry when I lose to my 3 shit talking friends in Silver Strike bowling, a game that consumes way too much of our money, and even more of our time.

Anyways...If i just gambled on my own and risked my own money, and lost on a consistent basis, that would be one thing. If I lost a ridiculous amount of money on my own decisions, which I usually do, and heard about how bad I am at gambling, I could accept that. However, there is something that I have to deal with, which I think is absolutely ridiculous......I get BLAMED by MY FRIENDS, for their losses. If I ever am gambling with people who lose, I get the finger pointed at me for the loss.

Can you believe how ridiculous this rationale is? The claim that my 20 dollars wagered, sparks a chain of events, which changes the outcome of a given event to become the exact opposite of what it would have been prior to my bet, is insane. Being a mathematician, dubbed mathlete by friends, I know that this statement is ludicrous, and is merely the product of people trying to get under my skin. However, it bothers me to be known as "the curse." Nobody wants to accompany someone with that nickname walking off the airplane to Vegas, or sit down next "the curse" before the big bears game, knowing full well, TC (short for "the curse")has money on the bears.

So....What do I do? I continue to bet on my own to prove the doubters wrong. Not wanting to be TC fuels my addiction. As I write this, I'm watching one of the best college bball games of the season come to the end of the 3rd overtime with money on the longhorns, up 1 with 10 seconds...hoping to reverse the curse....I lost on a last second shot, by that bastard hanging on the rim up there...maybe they're right.

Opening Day

So, I decided to follow in the footsteps of my computer savy friend, Derek, and created my own blog. I feel like I experience enough craziness on a regular basis to share those stories with the rest of the world. So, away we go......

Today is sunday. Sunday's are made to watch football. Especially this sunday, the day the bears will hopefully show the world that they are the best team in the NFL, despite the recent critics and the masses of pessimistic fans.

So, my sunday started the way it should, watching the bears. As kickoff neared, friends started to filter in the door. The before mentioned derek walked in with a story. A story that can be described by one word: UNBELIEVEABLE. He claims that last night he was walking home from the club, somewhere we NEVER go, and he was approached by a large black female. At this point, I start to wonder where this story could go. It actually crossed my mind that he is going to tell us he got mugged by a chick, something that most guys would never admit to. He goes on to tell us that she was a lover and not a fighter. Her intentions were sexually driven, at least so they seemed. As she continued to try and get derek to go home with her, using his better judgement, derek denied her advances. Long story short, derek woke up this morning and found his wallet missing. Yes. He got robbed. By a LARGE pick pocket. Crazy stuff.

Anyways, I had to cut the game short, and run to my indoor soccer game. This is something that I should have retired from a long time go. Today, my age caught up with me, and now im injured. Mostly pissed off, but a little happy, becuase there is a chance that I won't be able to play next week, which will allow me to watch the bears win again. Ahh...the things sports make us do.

Now, im back where I started, on the couch, leg hurting, hungry, and a little tired. Man I love sundays.