You Want That Turkey Well Done?

Love those long weekends, and I love them more when you know there's going to be a massive meal involved. Jocelyn and I headed up to 'boygan after work on Wednesday. I stopped off at Rich's house and got the turkeys started. I was responsible for the turkeys this year and I went a bit overboard. I bought about thirty pounds of turkey. I deep fried one with Cajun marinade and brined and roasted the other. Once the turkeys were ready to go we went out to eat with Rich and Billie. We went to Brisco County grill on the lakefront. After that we headed to Falls for "the biggest bar night of the year". The Thanksgiving night out was a little more exciting this year. It's still nothing like it was when I was in college but the downtown had a good crowd. I didn't see a lot of my friends out but the ones that I did hang out with were some of my best buddies. Bill surprised me and showed up at the O and Marti showed up as well. So we all hung out the entire night. We went to The Other Place for my traditional Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire karaoke. The night was spent bouncing all around and talking to Fallsians. Thanksgiving day I woke up nice and early. That was a mistake because I was tired all day. That is the one negative of having a job, not being able to change your sleep schedule if you want. I had plenty to do though. I spent most of the day trying to set up Rich's computer while also making roasted root vegetables and chopping up some other stuff. Come dinner time I was famished and more than ready to eat. The roasted bird turned out great but we had a little incident with the deep fried bird. Rich and I followed the instructions to the t but when we pulled the turkey out of its peanut oil bath at the 39 minute mark it was a black, charred bird. Rich and I turned and looked at each other and started busting out laughing. We took the bird inside and showed everyone and we all had a chuckle. It ended up that the sugar in the jerk marinade caramelized/charred in the cooking process. Once we cut open the skin the inside was done, moister, and more flavorful than the other bird. The meat was by far better than the brined one. The only thing that we had to do to the bird was remove all its skin. After that little incident we had a normal Thanksgiving dinner. The whole family was there and everything was delicious as usual. After dinner Terri and John stopped over for a bit. We had a bit of loud revelry then in a flash everyone went home. J and I sat and relaxed for a bit. We put in Star Wars and tried to watch it but the tryptophan,…

Here’s The Story of The Hurricane, Aftermath

Short week for me this week. I took off Friday because this weekend I flew to Florida for my cousin's wedding. Thursday night after work Rich and Billie came down and drove us to the airport where we all caught a flight to Ft. Lauderdale. The flight was smooth and without incident. We changed planes in Atlanta and ended up getting into FtL about midnight. We took a cab to a cheapy hotel by the airport and spent the night. On our way to the hotel we saw a lot of damage from the hurricane that had rolled through the weekend before. There were tons of broken signs and a lot of dark places that still didn't have power. I was a little worried because I wasn't able to get an answer from our hotel when I called them during the week I was pleasantly surprised when we drove up to the place and it was still there. The weather was hot and humid and so was our hotel room. It smelt very musty and extremely damp. The four of us were only going to be there for a couple hours so we dealt with it. We cranked the AC and went to sleep. Friday morning we woke up early and took a cab to downtown FtL where our nice hotel was. We dropped off our luggage at our hotel and started to do some site seeing. The site seeing lasted about four blocks when we decided we were hungry and needed some breakfast. We stopped at a little diner and got some breakfast. I had some delicious huevos rancheros. The problem is my meal was huge and had lots of salsa. This would normally not be a problem but having this meal sitting in your stomach isn't very conducive to walking around all day site seeing, I was worried how this would work out. After we finished eating we walked toward the ocean. On the way we passed a bunch of intercoastal waterways. These waterways all had mansions up and down them but the amazing part is these mansions were dwarfed by their mega-yachts parked in front. These mansions and yachts continued the couple miles that we walked to the ocean. Once we got to the ocean we happened upon the international yacht show that was in town. The FtL marina had hundreds of mega-yachts tied up that you could walk around on and dream about some day being able to afford the anchor. I keep using mega to describe these yachts because they were. You haven't seen anything like these yachts on Lake Michigan, these things were huge. We looked at the yachts from a bridge for a bit and then continued on to the beach. Once at the beach we snapped some pictures and walked in the sand a bit. It wasn't all that exciting, more water and sand. Just across the street from the ocean there was an open air bar/club that we went to and…

Flippin’ Good Time This Halloween

This Halloween was a lot of fun. My costume of choice this year was Napoleon Dynamite. I bought some moon boots and a flippin' sweet wig and glasses. I wore my costume to work on Friday and won the award for funniest costume. We didn't do anything Friday night because we knew we would have to be full power on Saturday. Somehow Jocelyn talked me into doing a fun run on Saturday morning. I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it because of my leg. I put on my Napoleon outfit and attempted to do the run. My leg is still really screwed up and I'm going to have to go get it checked out sometime in the next couple months. I bit the bullet and walked and ran and walked and ran until we finished. I finished just a shade under a day. One positive of the run was that it finished at the Milwaukee Ale house. We met a bunch of Jocelyn's swimming buddies that also ran the race at the Ale House and drank some of their special beer that they brew only for the runners of the race. We stayed there until about noon. It was worth getting up for but I could have done without the running part. Saturday night we went to a party in Random Lake at one of my brother's friend's house. He had asked me if I could be the DJ for the party and since I hadn't heard of anything else going on I gladly accepted the duty. We arrived about 8 o'clock, I as Napoleon and Jocelyn as a hippie chick. Tal, the owner of the house, had a great Captain Morgan costume. Craig was Elvis, Jackie was a wench, Feyer was a blue man group guy with Dan and Rich Weiss was my favorite costume, a tiki guy. The party was a lot of fun. Tal has a great house right on Random Lake. I didn't know a lot of people that showed up but everyone at the party was cool and it appeared a good time was had by all. We were crazy until about four in the morning (day light savings included) when we shut it down. We ended up spending the night in Random on Craig and Jackie's couch. After a pretty disappointing Halloween last year it appears one of my favorite holidays is back on the fun track.

Partying Like It’s 1999

This weekend I felt a young spry 26 again so instead of staying in like I normally do on a Friday night, J and I actually left the apartment for a change. Chappy was having people over by him so we decided to venture the block. Adam and Stacey were there along with a couple of their friends. The night was a lot of fun but we really didn't do anything "crazy". We sat around most of the night just telling stories and acting crude. There was a little dice shaking by the others but I avoid those games at all cost. We were planning on going out to the bars but we were having so much fun that the time melted away. I remember seeing ten o'clock and the next thing I knew it was 3:30. Club Jim shut down and walked out with everyone. They were on there way to Mykano's but I had pizza oven quesadilla on my mind so I skipped out. I had a bunch of fun, a cheap night, and was able to stay up late just like the days of old. Saturday was another football game. I called up the troops from the night before to see if they were up for some festivities at Apt. 54. They were all surprisingly up for it so I had a gathering for the Badger v. Minnesota game. Todd, Steph, Adam, Stacey and Chappy all came over. The ending to the Badger game was pretty amazing. They got their butts kicked all game but somehow stayed with the Gophers. Then during a punt with thirty seconds left the Badgers blocked it and recovered the kick in the end zone. It shocked the Badger fans as much as it did the Gophers fans. Craziness ensured in Apt. 54 and we celebrated with some tequila. After that game we watched USC v Notre Dame and Michigan v. Penn State. They too were awesome games that ended on the final plays of the game. After the games we DID NOT go to Brothers, amen. Instead we all went to Joey Buona's for some family style Italian dinning. Oh, did we eat too much! I have never felt so unbelievably stuffed in my entire life; I was drunk on food, delicious food. Everyone at the table was in the same overstuffed boat after the 2 salads, 2 appetizers, 2 pastas, 2 entrees, and 2 desserts. It really is the definition of gluttony but the food is so good! I struggled to stay upright during the walk home. It felt so late when we arrived back at the apartment and it was only 10. There was no way anybody was gong to be able to go out so we all went our separate ways. I was up for about another half hour when the food coma set in and I passed out cold. Sunday Luedke and I went to Germantown and I helped him set up his company's new network. It's…

Must Be Fall, The Weddings Are Over

Believe it or not this weekend was the last of the summer weddings. It has been a long summer and I admit that I am relieved that it is finally over. This wedding was in East Troy so it was fairly close and we didn't have to spend the night. Billy and Stephanie had their wedding in a quintessential small town church. The weather was pretty hot so all the doors and windows were open with a nice breeze. The wedding party was by far the largest that I have ever seen with ten attendants on each side. There seemed to be about the same amount of people up by the alter than there were in the pews. The wedding was nice and the little church and summer breeze added a lot to the experience. After the wedding we went to the reception which was at a golf course a couple miles away. My brother Rich was one of the few people that wasn't in the wedding party so we spent some time at the bar before the reception started. The meal was a very tasty cut of prime rib so I was happy. After the meal we headed to a patio, smoked some cigars, and had some brews. We concluded the night with a couple dances and headed back to MKE to conclude the summer wedding season for me. Let the relaxing weekends begin. See you in Canada!