Wrong House

Last night, my friend (Ryan) drove me to another friend's (Mike's) house to play poker. I've been to Mike's several times, but this time I wasn't driving and wasn't paying too much attention to where we were parked. While getting out of the car, I was on the phone giving another friend directions over to Mike's. Well, Mike's neighbors' house is an exact replica of his and the only thing that differentiates the two is color. But at night, color doesn't come into play. Distracted by the phone call, Ryan and I walked up to the door of the house we parked in front of and knocked, and since no one said anything, we walked right in like we owned the joint. I looked to my left and right while on the phone, and thought it was odd that it was really clean inside with hardwood floors. And thought to myself, "Vaughn doesn't have hardwood floors, does he?" When the light bulb finally turned on, the owners of the house politely said, "Can we help you?"

Looking like a bunch of idiots, Ryan and I apologized for our foolishness and moonwalked out the door. Hahaha. People of Rochester...Lock your doors.

What's That?

Have you every known someone who annoyingly repeats a little catch phrase without consciously knowing it? Back in junior high school, this one girl would transition all her sentences with the word, like, but she never made any comparisons. One of my friend's professors would always end a statement with the word, right, as if to as a question but never intending to do so.

Most of the time these nuances go unnoticed like white noise. But there are the select few who pick up on these quirks immediately, and fail to keep to themselves because the pain is too much for them to bear, thus have everyone else suffer along side with them.

Over the course of the week during our lunch hours, my friends and I have been discussing such a topic. Mitch Arends, one of my good friends in town, has a terrible habit of saying "What's that?" At first I thought it was because he was deaf. But after having it pointed out by another friend, I knew exactly what he was talking about. When Mitch calls me up on the phone, he is notorious for interrupting your responses with a habitual "What's that?" It makes me so mad to the point where I have to yell on the phone to tell him to shut up for 10 seconds so I don't have to repeat myself.

Two days ago, another friend tried to test Mitch by pointing to his shoes, and asked him, "What's that?" And without hesitation, Mitch quickly responded, "What's....thaaa...", catching himself in an awkward situation because he realized that he answered a question with the same question. Hahaha...you got served, Mitch. We don't have the heart to tell Mitch's wife about this because she'll probably divorce him if she knew.

What's that?

A Rivalry Continues

Saying that the Green Bay Packers hate the Chicago Bears (and vice versa) is an understatement. The two superfans I know, also two of my best friends, live up to the billing of resentment for each other's teams. Matt Karlen is a die-hard cheesehead; the guy loves Brett Favre more than Madden himself. Samir Shah is Bears fan extraordinare; can't watch a Bears game in the presence of others because he's superstitious and throw temper tantrums. Well, Week 2 of the NFL season brought out the worst in this rivalry of fans when the Bears upset the Packers at Lambeau Field.

Both Matt and Samir have been bickering back and forth on our fantasy football league message board. Over the past 2 days, the two have managed to write over 2 dozen posts arguing about their team and bashing the others. Even though Samir has the edge with the Bears winning, I still have to give proper due to Matt for coming up with the most clever post of the week because it made me laugh the hardest. This is his post...

Today's game show!
by: Panty Raiders (matthewkarlen)
Topic:What does $5-$20 million a year get you?

Q:If you're a football team?
A:Brett Favre

Q:If you're a baseball team?
A:Barry Bonds

Q:If you're a basketball team?
A:Tim Duncan

Q:If you're the Chicago Bears?
A:SHIT
Message: 76 of 90.

Right now the superfan match is tied, Samir-1 (for a Bears win) to Matt-1 (for making me laugh).

Acronyms from Monday: MNF, CP, TO, RAC

Thanks for hosting a great MNF (Monday Night Football) party, CP (Chris Perez). Too bad for all the Viking fans that showed up though. I'll admit, I was cheering for TO (Terrell Owens) and the Eagles to win for fantasy football purposes; despite many of my friends being Vikings fans. Won an office pool league and two fantasy leagues this week thanks to that touchdown-that-shouldn't-have-been by TO. I'm definitely glad it wasn't challenged by the Vikings.

CP is a grillin' machine. I ate two burgers, a dozen bite-size pizza rolls and 6 chicken wings. As an old friend once said to me, "You gotta eat big to get big." I'm sure he meant to eat healthier though. Good thing I worked out before the MNF party at the RAC (Rochester Athletic Club). 5 pounds heavier and a sore chest today is worth the rewards of this past Monday night. Especially the laugh I got when CP walked right into his screen door while tending the grill. I'm the only one that saw I and he asked me not to tell anyone. Does writing about it count? Hahah...good times.

Soccer Is Over

The company soccer season is finally over. I can now rest all my injuries up until January when the Broomball season starts. For being supposedly friendly games among co-workers, physical play was the theme of the season. My friend last night suffered a 7-stitch gash to forehead on a 50/50 header; the other guy suffered a similar laceration to his forehead. The worst injury to our team is still my other friend tearing his ACL as he tried to avoid a clip from an opposing player. But through it all, our team came out with a winning record at 6-4-0 and ended up in 3rd place. With much inexperience on our team and being our first year playing together, 3rd place is nothing to be ashamed of. Next year, thoughts of 1st place aren’t a pipe dream.

Here are our team awards...

• Top Scorer: Jeremy McJunkin (a.k.a. Junker) - scored 6 goals in last night's game alone.
• Sickest Move: Tim Gerdes (T-Pod) - spin move with the ball through 2 guys, and blasted the ball into the upper right goal with a powerful left foot. Sportscenter Top Ten.
• Defensive Stud: Josh Westbrook (Westy) - made my job at goalie easy with him playing sweeper, and is infamous for his game time cartwheels.
• Not Knowing The Rules: Pete Kubista (Sneaky Pete) - got red-carded for intentionally stopping a ball with his arm in the penalty box. Oops.
• Most Likely to Fall: Candace Pederson (Candy) - she's just clumsy.
• Second Half Season Hero: Ryan Pendergast - our team needed a stopper, and he filled that need.
• Whine With That Cheese: Eric Iseler (Ice) - when is this guy not complaining?
• Worst Injury: Jesse Smith - matching ACL injury to go with his repaired right one.
• Got Skillz: Chris Mwarabu & Funsho Aduloju - born to play, ready to roll.
• Most Improved: everyone else on the team - Matt Goshgarian (Gosh), Jim Chen, Zack Garbow, Dan Nelson (D1), Becky Vossberg and Ryan Cradick.
• Worst Goalkeeper: Me - to my credit, I was also the best.

Thanks for a great season, looking forward to next year.

Growing Pains

If only I was getting taller. Unfortunately, my body just tells me I'm getting older. At 5:00am this morning, I woke up all of a sudden with the worse cramp I've ever experienced. It was like someone took a rusty knife and stuck it in the back of my left calf, and twisted the handle. Several hours later, it still is cramped. I've tried massaging the knot of my leg, but to my dismay, my body despises me. Add this to my list of current injuries: 1) sprain of outer left ankle, 2) sprain of inner right ankle, 3) slight lower back pain, and 4) muscle cramp in left calf.

It's good to be 26. On a lighter note...Happy 21st Birthday, Allison!!!

Completely Worthless

I am still feeling the aftermath of excessive drinking of Saturday night. Jim hosted a going-away party for two other close friends, BK and Renee. Drinks were provided by the house. I tried Jungle Juice for the first time and for the last. I passed out pretty hard last night; forgetting to take out my contacts. Thanks for being DD, Jesse.

Surprisingly, I woke up with a little headache. But my body was completely drained of energy and fluids. Luckily, the NFL season began this week, and sitting on the couch watching games was about all I could do. Hooray, Seahawks. Good win, good weekend, good times…

Showing Improvement

You could not ask for a better day to go golfing. Sunny skies and no wind in Rochester is a rarity at this time of year. I went back to Meadow Lakes Golf Course to redeem my free round of golf. Had a few 3-putts to inflate my score, but a steady front nine score of 41 helped me achieve a personal best of 89 over 18 holes. I only lost one ball today. Where lost balls are a good indicator of how my round is going.

So far the weekend has treated me well. Yesterday, I won a 14 person poker tournament hosted by a co-worker. I was a newbie to their group, and took them all out. Don’t know if they’ll invite me back. But that is okay, there are plenty more “fish” to fry in Pokerland.

Wireless And Ready

Thanks to my good buddy, Mitch, our house is now wireless ready. Stupid firewalls, access points, routers, SSIDs and other mumbo jumbo. I know nothing about networking. Now I can be lazier than ever on Sundays when I can check the internet and watch football on TV from the comforts of the couch. Only if I was equipped with a Stadium Pal, then I wouldn't have to get up from my seat at all. This is technology at it's finest.

I also gave blood today for only the second time in my life. Found out that my blood type is B-positive. Got a Taz, the Tasmanian Devil, covered band-aid. Yeah, I'm cool.

Back From The BWCA

Spent the entire Labor Day Weekend in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) Wilderness with 4 good friends: Matt, Dan, Bart and Derick. This is my second BWCA trip in as many Labor Day Weekends. Here are some highlights of the weekend...

Thursday, Sept. 2nd (11:30pm): Left Rochester for Northern Minnesota. Had to wait for Bart to arrive from his London trip. Surprisingly, the 6 hour drive to the BWCA went without trouble. Sleep was lacking.

Friday, Sept. 3rd (6:15am): Searched for a restaurant that was a favorite in past years, turns out it burned down last year. Settled for the next nearest restaurant, Coho Cafe. Since it didn't open until 7am, we caught some shut eye until it did. However, once inside the Coho Cafe, we had to wait a half hour for the cook to show up. Too bad the quantities of their meals were not proportional to their wordy descriptions on the menu. (9:00am): After packing our gear into Duluth bags, Derick got a bit thirsty. Being his first time ever to the BWCA, he was not good at packing his bag, and packed his Nalgene bottle full of water at the bottom of his bag. Looking for water, he reached for the nearest Nalgene bottle to him. He asked, "Is this anyone's water?" Dan answers seriously, "That's oil," as in cooking oil. With no hesitation, Derick decides not to listen to Dan, takes a good swig of the oil, and swirls it around in his mouth for a few seconds. After spitting it all out, "Yup, that's oil." Too funny. (11:00am): Embarked on the Lady Chain of lakes. Portaged and canoed out to Lake Polly. It was basically a relaxing day since we didn't get much sleep the night before.

Saturday, Sept. 4th (6:30pm): After a tough day of canoeing against the wind and through long lakes, we were rewarded with the best campsite on Lake Phoebe. We had the pick of the litter since we did not encounter anyone else that day. For the second year in a row, I was the fishing ace. I caught the only walleye fish of the group, and it was a good 14 inches long. Caught a few bass too, but not nearly as impressive as the walleye.

Sunday, Sept. 5th: Caught some more bass in the morning on Lake Phoebe, but released them all. Canoeing was much easier this day because of the calm winds. Stayed at Lake Beth. Took a swim in the 60 degree lake. Yeah, I was the only fool to do so. Rained that evening and through the night, but it didn't ruin our spirits. Too bad we ran out of liquid spirits that evening.

Monday, Sept. 6th (11:00am): A hot shower never felt so good. Cost $4 for a shower from the outfitters up there. But it's definitely worth it, especially when you have a 6 hour drive that awaits you. (12:00pm): Listened to my first ever book-on-tape, The Jester, on the ride home. Not bad at all. I would definitely recommend them for long road trips.

Good times...

Standing: Matt, Bart, Jase. Sitting: Derick & Dan

Just Desserts

Earlier this year, a Vietnamese restaurant opened up a mile away from my work. I've convinced a bunch of my friends to go there (some hesitant and others not), and they are now hooked on Vietnamese dishes. Hardly any of them order the Pho. And I'll admit, it's not the greatest, but it's the only place I can get my fix unless I want to drive 90 miles up to the Twin Cities.

Today, my roommate treated me to a lunch at Pho Hoa for helping him mix and pour concrete for the footings of the deck to be built (a.k.a. Ewok Village...but that's another story). The owner there recognizes my friends and me, and he always tries to guess how many we have in our party. Usually we have 5, and he seats us at our usual round table. But today we had 7 in our party, including a newbie to the restaurant. As with most Vietnamese restaurants, it's not uncommon to find people ordering by number rather than trying to butcher the name of the dish. Well, here's how one of the conversations went as we scanned the menu:

Ryan (the newbie): "What's good on this menu?"
Tim (Michigan co-op): "Whatever you do, don't order 99."
Ryan: "Really, what's that?"
Tim: "Oh? There's a 99, I was just making a number up, didn't know there was even a 99th dish."
Me: "Tim, you idiot. But seriously, you can't go wrong with #41 or any of the 50's or 60's if you don't like soup and prefer noodle dishes or rice dishes."
Ryan: "Hmm... Ok. What's a Meat Pie?"
Me: "Actually, it sounds kind of funny, but it's really good. It's like a Vietnamese version of a meatloaf. Sort of."
Dan (my roommate): "Do you get ice cream with that?"
Everyone else: "What?"
Dan: "Ice cream?"
Everyone else: "Why would it come with ice cream?" Puzzled looks on everybody's faces.
Dan: "You know, ice cream with pie."
Everyone else: *laughing at Dan*
Me: "Wow, someone was snorting a bit too much of that concrete powder yesterday."

Yeah, it's really not a funny story unless you were there. Thanks for the free meal, Dan. But sorry, no ice cream. On a lighter note, my fortune cookie read: Your income will increase. Now that would be just desserts.