Four! – teen Balls Lost

I stayed in on Friday and watched a couple movies and I suggest both of them. I watched “Super Size Me” as well as “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.” It’s been a long time since I was able to watch one movie and not fall asleep during the it but both of these made the night fly by. Jocelyn went up to Canada on Friday but I couldn’t go with because I had my brother’s bachelor party on Saturday. Saturday morning I packed up J’s sister’s minivan and headed to Sheboygan for some golf and drink. The day really wasn’t the most ideal of days for golfing. It was really windy and cold. Our tee time was nine o’clock and with a temp of 37 and a gusting wind I teed off right into the river. That is pretty much how the day went. I’m awful at golfing and really have no desire to get better. It was fun golfing with Rich, Craig and Billy. The golfing really took a back seat to the drinking and screwing around after the front nine. The back nine our game really degraded and finishing was very hard. I lost somewhere around a dozen balls but I did manage to get par on one hole. We were the second of five foursomes to tee off so when we were done we sat in the clubhouse and waited for everyone to finish up. While we were finishing up I set up my laptop and stereo up for some tunes. We finished the party up at the club about ten and headed to Sheboygan for some drinks at Brennan’s. We stayed at the same place all night until two. There were a couple sober drivers so they took us back to Rich’s. I thought that this would be a lot crazier and I would have some crazy stories but I guess the wild bunch is getting old. It was still fun and there is still hope for craziness at the wedding.

How Would You Like Your Steak… Large Please

Friday we took off for the PGA championship festivities up in Sheboygan. I thought the traffic would be awful but we were actually able to fly right up. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for at least a month and it’s not because the golf tourney, who care about golf, it was the steak. I’ve had my fair share of steaks at my fair share of restaurants and the world’s best (and cheapest) steak is right in my back yard. Schwarz’s in St. Anna (it’s a crossroad in the middle of nowhere, seriously, nowhere) has the best steak ever. Once you find the crossroad you come upon your typical crossroads town. A church, a couple bars, and some houses. This boonies town happens to also have Schwarz’s and it is always packed so be prepared to wait at least an hour. You can’t make reservations at the place, in fact the have a sign “If you want a reservation, you’re at the wrong place.” and the whole process isn’t like your normal supper club meal. The normal crowd (this time was no exception) has farmers who just finished their daily chores to dressed up businessmen in their beamers. Now when you walk in the door, or should I say squeeze in the door, you are greeted by a large bar and some waitresses with menus. You place your order at the bar and then sit there and suck ’em down until your table is ready. I ordered the porterhouse ($22) and Jocelyn got the petite NY strip ($13). So once our order was placed we sat at the bar, watched some golf, and sucked down some of their world famous $2.90 Old Fashions. A couple drinks later and our table was ready. The whole dinner part of the experience only lasts about thirty minutes. When you get to your table they have your salad sitting out for your and a veggie platter with bread. Once you get your salads done the waitress swoops in with your steak and you’re ready to go. When my steak came even I was amazed and I’ve been there a good amount of times. My porterhouse had a little umbilical cord that was attached to another steak that was bigger than Jocelyn’s NY strip. The steak had to be somewhere in the 35 oz. range. I dug right in and it was done perfectly and tasted great as usual. Their seasoning and melt in your mouth tenderness is something no other restaurant can compare to. I polished off the steak, felt gluttonous, and loved every second of it. I paid the bill, a whopping $38 and was once again able to bask in the glow of my meat high. Once we were done we headed back to Falls. It was the same old thing except this time everyone was wearing PGA Championship clothing instead of NASCAR and Packers gear. The O and Firehouse had a band so we checked both of those out. We pretty much did the Falls bar crawl and hit up all the fine establishments as well as the new bar across from the post office. It was a good time. We headed to my brothers a little before bar time and got some sleep.

Saturday was the 1st annual Murray family picnic. I haven’t seen a lot of my cousins in a long time so this was a fun time. We rented a park and set up shop. The day was full of drinking, eating WAY too much, and every lawn sport that you can think of. I played (and dominated) bocce ball, horseshoes, wiffle ball, and threw every kind of ball and saucer you can imagine. Really not much more to say other than it was a good time with the fam. My uncle Tommy did put on quite the show when he made his tacos on the grill and told his story and how he served in the military with Elvis, funny stuff. The picnic was over at about 8:30. We were planning on going out but we couldn’t get ourselves going, we were spent. So we staying in and watched the Olympics on Saturday night.

Tuesday we went to the Brewers v. Cubs game. Jocelyn’s dad and her sister came up from Peoria for the festivities. We grilled out in the parking lot before the game. Once we were in the game I met up with my cousin Steve who also came up from Chicago for the game. Steve came up with some of his buddies from work and a couple of guys from India that he works with, it was their first game. I sat with Steve and his buddies and booed the Cubs. I got heckled at my own stadium but I didn’t care because the Brewers won! Go Brewers! Wednesday we went to the game again but this time the outcome wasn’t as good. The Crew lost in 11. The one positive about this game is that I don’t have to see the damn Cub fans taking over our stadium any more this year. GO HOME CHUBS!

Congrats to by bro Randy and his wife Becky. They had a baby girl on the 16th so now I have someone to celebrate my birthday with!

Peoria Dreamin’

Not much to report this weekend. J and I went to Peoria to visit her family. Friday was spent driving there after work. We had to go through Chicago to pick up her sister at O’Hare. We arrived in Peoria around 9ish. We ordered pizza and went to bed.

Saturday was a long day. We woke up at 6:30 because J and her sister were running in the Steamboat Classic. This race is dubbed as the fastest four mile race in the world. I don’t think I’ve heard of any other four mile races so I think it’s the only four mile race in the world. Jocelyn tried to get me to run the race but I’m not paying $25 to someone so I can kill myself and then receive a t-shirt reminding me of the torture. It was a hot sticky morning so it was more of a steam bath classic. It was 80 and humid. The humidity didn’t affect the crazy Kenyans who finished first through fourth. They finished the race in 17:30 sec. It was kind of cool seeing a couple people who are headed to the Olympics in Athens. Jocelyn’s uncle did very well finishing the race in less than 24 minutes. Jocelyn’s goal was finishing the race and she did. I don’t know her time so I can’t post it for you. We’ll just say that Jocelyn is more of a water animal than a land animal. I give her and everyone else who ran the race props for finishing though, good jog. We stayed by the riverfront until ten and then we had to get home and get ready for lunch. We had lunch by the aunt’s house. After that we had to run home and get ready for dinner. We had dinner with her grandparents, aunts, and uncles at the country club. The dinner was delicious. After a brief stop at her grandparent’s house to look at some pictures we hit the Peoria nightlife. There was an Elton John impersonator down by the riverfront so we headed down there for the beer. I say the beer because why the hell would someone want to see an Elton John impersonator? Any-who we met up with some of J’s old high school friends. Once pseudo-John was done performing we went to some bar down the street. It was a really nice place and I had a great time talking to Jocelyn’s old friends and wasting the night away. We headed home about one and got some much needed sleep. I actually had an event happen during the week. J and I went to the Brewers game on Tuesday. We tailgated a little and had a couple yards from TGIFs. Nothing crazy but a good time none-the-less.

Wedding Season

This weekend wasn’t too crazy. Friday night we stayed in because we had a wedding in Sheboygan to go to. It was couple beers and a movie night.

Saturday was the best woman on the face of the earth’s birthday, Jocelyn! There is no better way to spend a birthday than to spend it in Sheboredom at a relatives wedding. We went to my cousin Dirk’s wedding and it was actually a nice, small wedding. We left Milwaukee early and headed to Sheboygan around 8. We had some errands to do and that took us until around noon. The wedding was at one so we went to that and then headed to Dave’s Who’s Inn for a couple good Sheboygan hamburgers and some beers. The reception started at seven and was a fun time. We had some cocktails with my relatives and listened to their fish stories, you gotta love my uncle Tommy the man who things he Frank Sinatra. The wedding got so crazy EVEN MY MOM was taking shots, a definite rarity. When the wedding wound down we headed to Falls to finish the night in style. We started at the “O” and spent a good amount of our night there. Then in one of those “split second sounds good at the moment” ideas we got wrangled into going to Plymouth and seeing a band.  With no birthday being complete without going to Big Jimmy’s and getting a root beer shot we went down the block and pounded two root beer shots with Jimmy himself. He was disappointed to see us go but we were off to Plymouth. Cruising in style in the ’88 Towncar we made it to P-town with about an hour until bar time. The band was a jam band and they were pretty good. We hung out with my buddies Popper and Richie and grooved the night away. Nothing is ever dull in Plymouth and bar closing is no exception. On our way out we got to see a huge fight and some chick sprawled out in the middle of the road with her dress over her head after getting pushed down. Don’t know what that was all about but I chalk it up to Plymouth. That’s enough Plymouth for at least two years. Happy birthday to J. Sorry for the boring week, I’ll make up for it.

Hey Patty!

Not much happening lately. I didn’t go up north last weekend like I was supposed to because Jocelyn’s dad came into town. We had a good time. We watched the Big Ten tourney at the Milwaukee Ale House and wasted a good 6 hours there drinking and watching basketball.

I got another new cell phone so I’m going to have to plug all you people in again. I have to say that it is worth it getting the Sprint insurance if you have them as a carrier. My old Samsung wasn’t charging properly so I sent it in. Sprint upgraded my phone a top of the line Sanyo SCP-5500. It’s a video phone, not that I really need a video camera on my phone, but the thing is $350. Not a bad upgrade.

Happy St. Patty’s day to all. I had a great day. I celebrated the 25% of the Irish in me with 125% of partying. Jocelyn and I started off at County Claire. We got there around 6 and the joint was packed. They had a bar set up in the coat room and the lobby of the hotel was packed elbow to elbow. I had my corned beef sandwich and some beers to start things out. While we were there they had a father and daughter combo singing traditional Irish tunes. While we were sitting there a bus of bag pipe players came in and played some tunes but we couldn’t stay because there was other bars to be visited. We were supposed to meet Luedke at the Harp but of course he didn’t show up. So J and I had a pitcher of Smithwick’s and talked to some of my old Evan’s Scholars chums that I ran into. From there we went to O’Danny’s, had a beer and left. From there we went to McGillicuddy’s and low and behold we found the missing Luedke upstairs with his new woman. I always think the more the merrier so we stayed there drinking Guinness until eleven. To round out the evening J and hit Flannery’s on the way home for one last taste of the Irish fun before we called it a night. Another fun St. Paddy’s with friends. Erin-Go-Bragh!