Life: Next Chapter – CliffsNotes

So this weekend was pretty big. But I can't just overlook Friday. Friday J and I went to the Brewers game. The Brewers played the Twins and these tickets were one of the sets of Beer Pen tickets that I bought on in the beginning of the year. The Brewers picked up the victory and we met some nice people in the parking lot tailgating before the game. This brings us to Saturday. So this was the big day as was previously mentioned. I had this day planned for a couple months but it almost didn't come together. The day kind of snuck up on me and I booked the hotel and the dinner cruise the week before. It was tough finding a hotel and my original cruise was sold out. But it all turned out in the end. We woke up early and drove to our hotel, the Congress Plaza in Chicago, at about 11. We weren't able to check in and I had the ring (which I bought online at bluenile.com) in my bag and wasn't about to let Jose throw it in the corner of some room. So I told Jocelyn that I didn't want to check my bag because my watch was in there and I didn't want it to get stolen. She didn't buy that so I told her that I had to go to the bathroom. She kept on yelling to leave my bag but I just ignored her and kept walking. I got down the corridor a bit and ducked down a hall where I took the ring out and put it in my pocket so I ended up having to walk around with the ring all day in the cargo pocket of my shorts. Once we got our bags dropped off we headed across the street to the Taste of Chicago. The Taste was a good time. It's a big food festival and they have a "taste portion" at eat food stand which is a sampling of the food of the restaurant. Some of the taste portions were actually a good size and we had plenty to eat. After the taste we walked to Navy Pier and around Chicago a bit. Wired NextFest was going on at Navy Pier and I really really wanted to go. If it was any other weekend I would have probably put up a stink and went but it really wasn't on my mind this weekend. I did get to peek in the entrance doors and I did have a little "doggy in the window" feeling. After Navy Pier we headed back to the hotel to check in and get ready for the night. We got back and I was getting ready to shower when I realized I grabbed the wrong the shirt. I grabbed my light blue short sleeve one when I wanted my long sleeve one. Then I realized that I had NO PANTS! I had laid out my outfit the night before and hung…

Is That a Pre- or Post-Chili Glow

Saturday was the start of our weekend this week. Adam came over to watch the basketball games and drink a couple brew ha has with us. After the games the three of us went to the Metro for a couple drinks. I actually skipped the martini special this week and drank only beer. The last time I was there was the night we drank hurricanes and I got gut rot from all the sweetness of the drinks. After that we headed over to My Office and finished up the night there. Sunday J, Adam, Stacey and I went to the chili cook off being held at Lakefront Brewery. They had a bunch of different kinds of chili from all over the MKE area. It was $3 to get in and then a dollar for a cup of chili. I forgot my chili tastin' spoon at home but that didn't prevent me from eating upwards of twelve cups of chili. It was a gorgeous day so we finished up our chili eating adventure on the outdoor patio at Lakefront and soaked up some of the spring sun. It was pretty much the consensus in our group that Koppa's had the best chili of the competition. There were many other good chilies including Philly Way, Soup Station, Soup Shack, BBC's, and the official winner Q who made their chili with BBQ brisket and gave you a tortilla with it. We all ate way too much chili and we rolled home and basked in our chili glow. Maybe a chili glow isn't a good way to describe what we were basking in. Either way it was fun. Since a good majority of the Jocelyn's family went to Illinois I have to give them my condolences for Monday's hard fought loss to North Carolina for the NCAA basketball title. You'll get 'em next year tiger!

Pickled Easter Egg Hunt

This weekend is Easter weekend. Friday after work I watched the Badgers play NC State. The Badgers comfortably won which was a refreshing change as opposed to their normal play. I met Luedke after the game at BBC's on North Ave. I had a beer to celebrate the big win and headed home and got some sleep. Saturday was a lot of fun. Luedke and Anna joined me for the Riverwest Pub Crawl. The crawl consisted of 19 bars and you could consume one free beer at each bar. The crawl was $30 and more than worth it. We got our free t-shirt and map and off we went to explore the Riverwest area. Riverwest is actually kind of a sketchy part of town but there were hundreds of people on this bar crawl and there were always groups of people around. All the details of the crawl would take way too long to explain so here is a bulleted list of the highlights. Ate a pickled egg Met two old ladies on the crawl who were wearing plastic cups on their heads and said they were so hungover after last years crawl that their hair hurt Saw memorial to some guy that got killed in front of one of the bars Saw Peep art Saw crazily dressed band at a couple bars got buzzed in through buzzer door by the bartender/doorman at a sketchy bar Purchased old records from a yard sale Ran into guys from Random Lake Met Spike "the mayor of Riverwest" The whole thing was very fun and I must thank L and Anna for going along with me. I had a good time and made it to 18 of the 19 bars. Easter I just stayed at home and watched basketball. I didn't feel like going to Chicago with J so I just stayed put. I made a good ham and will have enough ham to eat for the next couple months. Unfortunately the Badgers lost to North Carolina. They played really good but didn't have quite enough in the end. Happy Easter!

The Skipper Too… Was Wasted

Friday after work I went to state fair to do the whole eating thing. J picked me up and we parked outside of the grounds so we didn't have to pay for parking. We got in to the fairgrounds for free too because you could use a Cubs v. Brewers ticket stub to get into the fair for free. Since we went to every Chub game we had a stockpile of free tickets so we got a couple for Deli and Steph and we met them at the fair. It was really crowded and we really didn't do anything but eat. I had my pork chop sandwich (best food at the fair), a Swiss n' rye, a big pickle, a couple glasses of flavored milk, and a couple ears of corn. We went into the main expo hall but I really didn't feel like listening to all the Brits pitch their wonder mops. We also signed up for the dream home again so I have my fingers crossed on that one. We spent a majority of the night in the micro brew tent. They have different beers from the micro breweries in WI. If you kill a keg there you get a "keg killer" t-shirt with Paul Bunyan on it. J and I tried for about four hours to kill one last year but we didn't get one. This year was different and she killed a keg on her second beer and received the coveted t-shirt. We hung out there until elevenish. My brother was there so it was a good time hand by all. Saturday we took the Milwaukee microbrewery boat tour with Chad and Emily. For $18 you go to Rock Bottom, Lakefront, and the Milwaukee Ale House on a pontoon boat. The boat tour started at one at Rock Bottom. We had a good time sampling the brews and being stupid. A word of advice if you take the tour, don't have the Ale House as your last stop. You only get one beer there and after having an unlimited source of brew up to this point it is tough to scale back to one beer an hour. Once we were done with the boat tour we headed back to my apt for a bit. After relaxing briefly we went over to Chappy's apt and joined them for a cook out. I, being the manliest of all the men, took over the grill and cooked up the brats and chicken. We chowed down and played some darts. Chappy and his crew were going to hit up some of the bars but I didn't feel like going out yet. So Chad, the girls and I headed back to my apt. We had some brews and watched Aqua Teen Hunger Force on DVD, funny stuff. Then Chad got a call from his brother Paul and he was at a house party just up the street from us. So we headed up there and spent the rest of the night…

Color Me Exhausted

I believe I left off on the Tuesday of 'fest. Tuesday J and I were going to go see the Midwest Operas stirring rendition of Pink Floyd's The Wall and then go to see Kenny Wayne Shepard. We made it down to the fest ground in plenty of time and got a good seat for what we thought was going to be a cover band doing Floyd. Instead it was absolutely the worst thing I've seen in my life. We weren't the only ones that thought that this "rock opera" was going to be worth watching because there were tons of hippies waiting to see them as well. Since the hippies had their senses dulled/heightened they couldn't process how much this rock opera sucked. J and I as well as handful of people were able to determine how awful they were in about two minutes. So we left which really threw a wrench into our plans because now we had 3 hours to kill before KWS. So we decided to walk to get a beer and I ran into my good pal Gregory. He and his woman were down for the night. In the process of getting the beer we learned that you didn't need a wristband to get into the main stage. J and Greg's woman both loved Jessica Simpson so we did what any whipped man would do, take them to their free concert and then hold it over their head that we went to the JS concert. We sat there for a couple hours and watched the concert. I think Greg and I were watching different things on stage than the rest of the audience so we were able to block out the music and prepubescent screaming. After that was over we headed on home. Thursday was our next day and was going to be the last. I biked down to the grounds and got wristbands to see The Bodeans and Steve Miller. We headed down to grounds pretty early and grabbed a bite to eat before the show. We went in and got some pretty good seats for the show. The Bodeans put on a really good show. I've seen then a couple times at Lakefest in Sheboygan but I can honestly say I don't "remember" seeing them there. We then stayed for a handful of the Steve Miller songs. It was getting late so we headed out of the concert. On our way out we got to check out Paul Oakenfold. We watched him for a bit, admired the trance scene and glow sticks, and then started home again. On the way home we ran into another stage and heard Peter Frampton doing "Do You Feel Like We Do." No true rock n' roll fan could pass that up so we had to stop and listen to that. Finally we got out of there and made it home. Friday I went to a house warming party at my buddy Chappy's new place. It was going…