Saturday
My Recap
This day felt like three days all rolled into one – games and fun around Albert Oaks, the epic journey of all you can eat meat and the almost bus ride to the bachelorette party’s lake house. Great mix of laidback and crazy… thank goodness I took a nap and was able to rally. Homer is good at cornhole, Stu is good at bocce, makes a mean guacamole. GM burned bright but fast, however even in the defeat of being passed out, was still able to rally for one last round of laughs before retiring for the night.
The highlight here was more what could have been than what actually was. Getting on the bachelorette party’s bus was insane, but had so much potential for awesomeness. Getting booted off the bus in shame may have been the “right” play, but I’m still pissed we didn’t grab a box of pizza on our way off.
Play-by-Play
Well, come to find out, Uni discovered that the fridges in every room had beer in them. After his attempt to pick the lock to my room with his house key, he grabbed a beer and headed back down to the patio to drink alone before calling it a night. He missed Uruk by no more than a half hour for the complete wrap around Coshole drinking experience.
Unfortunately, my night on the couch wasn’t as restful as I needed. Poor farmer Uruk woke up shortly after 5 from what I can tell to a snoring guster passed out on the couch. I peeled myself off the couch around 7:30 when it was apparent I wasn’t going to be able to fall back asleep.
Somehow, Uni came down not too long after I woke up. He and I were both hurting and proceeded to attempt to rehydrate while we watched the masses wake up. Romo and YSR leaving for a walk, then returning and leaving again. St Louis Bob waking up and going for a walk, GM coming down ready for a walk with Bob a good while after he had already left. At one point, Thorn even texted me asking where I was before passing out for 3 more hours without unlocking the door
While were were gathering in the dining room and recanting stories from the night before, I kept mentioning how I felt a bit of shame for hooking up with that girl like I did. For some reason, I had reverse beer goggles and I thought the girl I was talking with wasn’t quite up to par. Maybe that’s because I had explored more of her than one typically would on a ride from a bar to a diner and back home
Thanks to some excellent Facebook stalking sleuthing by Stu, I was able to get some pictures of
her. Much better than I had expected
Uni was the first man down on Saturday, surrendering to a nap before breakfast had even been served. I wasn’t too far behind – but fortunately I toughed it out long enough to enjoy some amazing corned beef hash and monkey bread. Awesome hangover food… that Cos guy knew what he was doing.
While some folks
powered through their hangovers on the patio with drinking and games, I went up to my room to a nice warm shower and a nap. An hour or so later I woke up to sounds of raucous laughter down on the patio. Apparently a game of
cornhole had broken out at our cornhole. Stu had brought cornhole boards down from Dallas with him. Of course, he couldn’t just show up with regular boards, he had customized them… one board with Shuke’s picture and the other of GM… mouths open around the holes.
Apparently, in the process of trying to play cornhole, GM ended up
roofing a bag. I wasn’t watching, so I can’t tell how much of that was shtick and how much was court layout/GMs ability. Fortunately he was able to
rescue his bag so the fun could continue.
A short while later, I emerged to Bob on his
third cat shirt of the weekend… the guy was giving me a good run for my money on wardrobe changes! Not to be outdone, I donned
Tanner's school shirt.
Apparently YSR decided that in addition to killing off brain cells, we also needed to be challenged mentally. She busted out the
world's most impossible cat puzzle. I’m pretty sure that everyone at least looked at the puzzle to try to figure it out, but no one really made much progress. Well, except Romo, I’m sure the he could do it in under a minute, with his eyes closed. Mrs. Cos finally got frustrated enough with it that she decided to pour her drink on the puzzle later in the evening.
After a couple brews to jump start my day, I decided it was time to try my hand at cornhole. Surveying the setup made it pretty clear how GM got a bag on the roof. There were tree limbs hanging over the middle of the court and the boards weren’t the right distance apart. Cos has a nice walking path (
with scarecrow) around the back side of his property. There was a perfect setup for cornhole right along side the building near the gate to the path, so we moved the game over there. After a game of Dallas guys vs. Maine guys in which the Mainers went out on a high note after I sank all 4 bags in the hole for the first time in my life, Homer and GM cut in for the next match. Since Homer and I have both spent time living in the birthplace of cornhole (Cincinnati), we were throwing from the same side while
GM and Thorn threw against each other. Homer’s presence must have shaken me because my game was off compared to the previous round. Thorn and I kept pace for a little bit before Homer helped push his team to a big lead. Thorn and I held on as long as we could, but ultimately succumbed to the awesomeness that was Homer. And there was
much rejoicing. I’m especially impressed with Homer’s ability to pants himself while keeping the cigarette in his hand.
After a round of GM/Homer whooping up on the Dallas boys, the SLBs tried their hand at cornhole while Stu, Bogart, Uni and I took to the path for a game of bocce. Despite having played bocce before, it took me until the next to last round of throws to actually get a point
I rarely had a ball in position to point, but most of the time when I did, Bogart did a stellar job of knocking me out of position
Not surprisingly, Stu ended up winning the game. When we returned to the patio, some folks were taking mid-afternoon naps while others were drinking. Cos had made some absolutely fantastic guacamole.
Some folks went and took mid-afternoon naps, others just disappeared for a while and some watched basketball on the patio while continuing to drink.
During this time, Krista posted about going to Atlanta so see Louis CK. The fact that she and the Mr had shaken free of Memphis gave me hope that they might surprise us with an appearance after all… but there were some dissenters. To give an example of how sweet (in a great, friendly way) our GB Uruk-Hai is, he came up to me and asked if his reply to K4 was too harsh. This was
his post. When I showd him
Homer's post, he didn’t feel quite as bad. Somewhere in the mix of the afternoon, Buck showed up and the dude knew how to make his entrance. Knowing that he was showing up in the middle of a group of people that had been hanging out and getting ridiculous for the last day, he brought it strong… showing up with and awesome
ice cream cake that I would later defile.
A little while later, Kev and Cos helped to round us up to head to an epic endless barbecue dinner at
The Salt Lick. Uruk wasn’t feeling well – poor guy was hacking and hurting. You could see the pain on his face – not sure how much of it was lungs and how much was disappointment - to the point that it seemed like he was holding back tears at times (not sure he noticed me noticing). I honestly didn’t know what to do and wish I could have said something to comfort my friend, but I was at a bit of a loss for words, so I did my best to not to make him feel bad/embarrassed.
There was a gaggle of us heading to dinner, so we spread out across three cars. I was in the car with Cos driving, Pepper riding shot gun and Homer and St Louis Bob. On our way out of Albert Oaks, Cos was driving like we were being chased by bad guys and managed to shake YSR, who didn’t know where we were going and was under the assumption that she was following us. She called my cell and inquired about what she should do. Unfortunately, Cos wasn’t able to give me a quick answer and in my inebriated state I managed to piss YSR off and got hung up on
Come to find out, that was the least of her worries. While Homer was
tending bar in the back seat, GM became angry drunk in the car YSR was driving. YSR detailed it pretty well, but apparently the topics ranged from not gambling to sweating your portfolio to driving too f’ing far to get BBQ. As Pickles pointed out in the bear pic, GM’s eyes were essentially completely dilated at this point. It was pretty much just pupil and sclera.
YSR’s recap:
The trip out there was a riot. First of all, GM really, really wanted to drive to the Salt Lick. He asked everyone, repeatedly, if he could drive their car. I think Romo ultimately got him in the car with the promise that he could drive at some point, but I can't say for sure. And as has been documented already, the ride over went something like this: "Uni, don't ever get married... I mean, I know you're going to get married at some point, so here's what you do... save all your money... buy property... ISN'T THAT RIGHT, ROMO? YOU GUYS OWN LOTS OF PROPERTY... but the property has to have cash flow... otherwise, you sell it... and then... you put the money into a portfolio and you let it sweat... yep, let that portfolio sweat for you... where are we going?.. how far away is this place?... this is bull####... if we were in Portland, we'd be at the coast by now [repeat x32]... Jesus Christ, where the hell is this place?... if you guys came to see me in Portland, we would just go to a restaurant across the street... so if the Ravens win, I've got a $1300 ticket... yeah, I gave a stripper $100 to take to Vegas and put on the Ravens... no, I don't have her phone number, but we are friends on Twitter, so I'm sure she's good for it... my god, we have seen this sunset from 8 different angles... this is such bull####... I bet there are rattlesnakes out here... where is this place?... yeah, so you want to let your portfolio sweat...
Upon arrival at The Salt Lick, GM wigged out. Like a caged wild animal finally released, he went on a rampage of discontent. Blabbering about this and that, the group tried to wrangle him to join us at check in, but he hung behind in the parking lot. After everyone in the group pointed out the
Girl Scouts to Homer, we realized that leaving a drunken GM alone in the parking lot probably wasn’t our wisest move and there were multiple reconnaissance missions to find and secure GM. Apparently, but the time he was discovered, he had found his way to the armed security dudes who were guarding the place to make sure things didn’t get out of hand, or something like that. It might have something to do with the fact that every group I saw brought in at least one cooler full of beer. These people weren’t messing around.So it turns out that when a BBQ joint in Texas says it’s all you can eat, they aren’t joking around. After GM led us all in grace that only a third of the group could actually hear, we started chowing down on the endless plates of meat that kept making their way to our table. I was fortunate enough to grab a seat with a
view - the table of girls in the next row over was fantastic and created a nice backdrop for the dinner, but there was one girl at the table next to them that was even better. She must have been 8 foot 6 and three quarters of that was legs. She got up one time to go to the bathroom and smacked the cross beam framing the entry like a Notre Dame football player hitting the “Play like a champion” sign. I think Stu and I both a bit entranced. Poor
Uni sat in the wrong spot and had the scenery at his back, but still managed to enjoy his meal. During the meal, GM’s antics continued as captured in
this picture and YSR’s video.
Kev probably looked as happy as I have seen any human being in a long time. And I can’t say I blame him, that was some good stuff.
But for me, the highlight of the meal was Cos and his Mrs. They had snuck squares of aluminum foil into the restaurant in Mrs Cos’s purse. Towards the end of the meal, they scraped the last bits of meat off one of the communal plates and got it refilled. As soon as the lady came back with the new plate,
Cos moved so fast that Usain Bolt was asking for tips. The Mrs handed him a piece of foil and he quickly wrapped it up and handed it back in return for more foil. It was such a smoothly operating machine that it was clear they had done this before. The part that had me
the most was a short while later, the waitress came around with to go boxes for the sides that they could have easily used for all the meat. As we were all fumbling around trying to figure out how much each of us owed towards the meal, Bob stepped in and said he was going to pick up the bill. That was not a cheap dinner and it was such a nice move on Bob’s part. Totally great guy in every way and this is just further proof.
Back home at Albert Oaks, it was clear that the crew was slipping into a meat coma. Except for GM, who was slipping into an
alcohol induced coma.
Pepper posed with Kev to taunt Zooks before taking it to the next level by
draping herself over GM's passed out corpse. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Pepper took a picture of two of our heroes (I want to say Thorn and Stu maybe?) Eiffel towering GM – I think the picture is on Pepper’s phone though, so I don’t have that gem to share. After being used as a prop countless times and being covered in any random stuff in arms reach, our hero finally came to. Stumbled to his feet, staggered off the patio, up the stairs and off to his room. Good for him, sleep it off so he’ll be in better shape for the next day and all that. Except a couple minutes later, he reemerged… this time with a bottle of BBQ sauce and no pants. Knowing that he was soon to be down for the count, GM wasn’t leaving without one last hurrah. After stumbling around the patio and waving his… stuff around a bit, he and YSR had a good serious conversation about his departure the next morning (YSR was driving GM to the airport). GM had no clue what time his flight left or what airline he was on, so YSR was a bit flummoxed as to what to do. GM then left to go back inside, but started down the wrong hallway – the one we were told to stay the f away from because that’s where the parents were staying. Mrs Cos started to object and Cos started to get a bit upset, so Bob sprung into action and captured GM and pointed him in the right direction.
As people were digesting the massive quantities of meat we consumed, we watched the UFC fights that Cos had gotten. Romo somehow knew all the fighters and had a gauge for what the lines should be for each matchup. Cos kept shouting out that he wanted the underdog and the odds in each battle and Thorn took him up on it several times. Somehow, it seemed like the underdogs kept coming in, much to Thorn’s dismay. The worst though was when Romo dropped his guarantee of a lifetime. Best bet you could ever make. Guaranteed lock on a 1:4 favorite. I made a bet with Bob and Thorn with Cos, Thorn and I on the guaranteed to win, never going to have easier money favorite. Yeah… that didn’t turn out so well and I forked over $8 to Bob in disgust.
Around this time we were starting to hit a critical time in the night. The gravity of the chairs was starting to pull us in and if we didn’t move soon, there may be no night out. Just some light drinking on the patio and an early night to rest up for the Super Bowl the next day. Or not… Stu and I had been whispering about ditching the UFC watching and heading downtown, but since neither of us had wheels, we needed a way to get down there. We asked Cos about how we could get a taxi to pick us up at his unmarked location, trying to hint that Cos should drive us into town. After a couple attempts of thinly veiled subtlety, Bogart stepped up to play the role of nice guy yet again. He had a car since he had driven the Dallas crew down, so Thorn, Buck, Stu, Bogart and I climbed into the car for a night of fun. Uni was left behind as the odd man out – half wanting to join, half looking for an excuse to not further punish his body that night. He said he might join us out later if he could get Homer out too. Unfortunately, Homer was in the middle of a pork-induced colon cleanse and wouldn’t see the outside of his bathroom for quite some time.
We got downtown and started off hot. A group of fine upstanding
young citizens had parked right near us and we gladly followed them to 6th street.
We found a nice crowded bar and grabbed a round and Buck treated us to
shots, I snagged a free shot from a bachelorette party next to us that ordered one too many,
Thorn posed in front of some
hot chicks so we could try to get their
pictures. Oh, and Buck kept taking their picture over and over again. With his flash on. Smooth. There was some
serious talent at this bar, but the highlight of this bar was the white dude who could dance. I mean, this mother ####er had MOVES. There was a dark skinned girl (not full black but dark Asiany or something) that came up to him to dance and the dude flipped a switch. He had every white guy move you could ever imagine and threw them all out there. It was kinda amazing.
After exhausting the possibilities at that bar, we ventured outside to find our next destination. Stu was eyeing a couple bars across the way with upstairs patios and also trying to figure out how we could venture to a place with a mechanical bull at some point. Turns out he chose our next bar wisely. After waiting in line to get carded, we grabbed a beer at the downstairs bar and made our way up to the patio. There were pockets of people, but it wasn’t super crowded or anything. We made our way into one area and there wasn’t much happening, but Stu spied an opportunity on the other side of the patio that looked interesting. We took off through the crowd and what do you know, Stu’s spidey sense was right. There was a bachelorette party over there that looked like they had been having quite a fun night. Stu quickly honed in on his http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2123/img0032to.jpg”]lady of choice'>
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2123/img0032to.jpg”]lady of choice and while
he chatted with her, the rest of us schmos mingled with the other girls. I was chatting with this one smoking hot married chick who kept making comments about how if she were single… she ended up steering me over to the bachelorette and
I got a little silly. When Bogart mentioned in his writeup that he was a little surprised/disappointed(?) that the stuff I write on the boards isn’t just shtick and that I’m really like that, this is probably the sort of thing he was referring to
Somewhere along the line, one of the fine ladies from the group decided to show how intoxicated she was by falling to the ground. Not surprisingly, Thorn shows he’s a good guy through and through and instinctively leaps over to help her up. Of course, this girl’s not going easy, so I come over and we help her up to her feet, which swiftly fall out from underneath her again as she almost takes Thorn and I with her, but we manage to brace her fall and prop her back up…winning the hearts of the ladies in the group that we swiftly handed her off to. While this was going down, Stu
switched targets for a bit. Well, it’s more like a new target latched onto him. A little while later, he had turned his attention back to the girl he actually wanted to talk to again and I sensed my opening and started talking to the girl that had chatted him up. I’m nothing if not opportunistic and while I knew that if she had her pick, she would be with our hero Disco Stu, I was more than willing to settle for 2nd best – you can live a pretty good life eating off the scraps from Stu’s table. She’s the girl I’m nearly devouring in this lovely
group picture.
This is where things start to get interesting. Both the blonde haired married hot chick (not pictured) and the brunette I had been talking to more recently had mentioned that they had to get leaving to their lake house. I had half jokingly said that it would be fun for us to join them. They laughed it off and said no way… that is, until they started to leave. As brunette was walking down the stairs, so made eye contact with Stu and told him to join them. Once again, I sensed an opportunity and rid our hero’s coat tails downstairs to the group of girls. They were getting one last round before they left for their party bus and somehow it was just assumed that since I came down with Stu, I would be joining too. They told us we had 2 minutes and then they were leaving, so I quickly texted Thorn to round up the group and come on down NOW. But he had momentarily lost Bogart and Buck and had to make a quick decision. Sensing the opportunity for an epic story, he joined us downstairs and the ladies quickly whisked us out of the bar and we walked to their party bus. Somehow along the way I got back in the favor of brunette and we had “coupled up” as Stu and Thorn each gravitated towards their own girls of choice. I was happy with how this had sorted itself out and was looking forward to seeing what the night would have in store… somewhat guilty for having abandoned Buck and Bogey, but I mean, I would expect them to do the same if given the same opportunity. We get to the bus and my lovely lady goes on first and I follow closely behind. As soon as I pass through the curtains I hear the voice of dissention. Oh no way, no guys allowed, etc. As the other ladies with their heroes join on the bus there’s a bit of a buzz and chatter. It’s clear to us that there were some girls that went out to the bar and were drunk and fun and wanted us there, but there were some that probably stayed on the bus knitting or reading the bible or something and they weren’t having any of it. At first it seemed like the crowd was in our favor, but as the wheels started rolling, the dissenting voice got louder and eventually grew in number. I think we made it 3 or 4 blocks before our visit was cut short and we were unceremoniously booted off the bachelorette party bus. As we were walking out, I told Thorn that we should grab a box of pizza, but the nice guy shone through again and he passed up the opportunity.
With our tails between our legs, we texted Bogart to see if he had left yet and if we could meet back up for a drink and a ride back. Total **** move, but Bogart is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet and he didn’t hold it against us. We met up at a ####ty dive bar for
last call with some of
Austin’s finest. Oh, and Thorn paid me some small amount of money to finish a drink that had been left behind on the table we were sitting at. :bag At this point, Bogart was dead set on getting some Whataburger before returning home to Albert Oaks. Being the driver and having been ditched for sluts on a party bus, he pretty much had the upper hand here.
When we came home, we were greeted by the early crew – Uruk-Hai. We devoured our burgers and then decided it was time for a
shot video. What you don’t see is that we were told we would be doing shots of vodka. Thorn did a great job of getting them ready and chilled and poured out. Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware that it was actually cucumber vodka and neither were the rest of us. Doing a shot is one thing, but when the flavor is something totally unexpected, you get reactions like you see at the end of that video.
Thankfully, I had Thorn with me still this night, so I didn’t end up locked out of my room. I snuggled up on my cot as Thorn climbed into his queen sized bed and strapped on his cpap and we dozed off to another drunken slumber.
But I think Oats actually believes it.
x 1000:(Looking forward to reading Guster's recap when I retire and have enough time to dedicate to it. Gonna finish Song of Fire and Ice books first, will be quite a bit shorter
