Meeting at the Tavern

If it seems like I'm a bit distracted in this entry, I apologize ahead of time, but I'm listening to the new Chili Peppers CD.

Anyway, this week came and went pretty fast. Nothing much happened till Thursday when we finally got a chance to go out to New Deck Tavern and meet up with Jeremy. After meeting 'big red' on campus, we headed on over to chill out and have a good time. They had $2 drafts after nine, which was good for Jeremy and Jay, and then the best part was the half price food, which was good for everyone. We were a little bummed at first since it seemed as though other people had plans and we would only be running three strong, but then we got surprised by the late appearance of Darren and Brian Bobb and things got real good. The food was awesome and the atmosphere was choice, and it was a few hours passed before we finally headed over to AXP to see Darren's underage brother Bubba. I'm actually not certain what his real name is, but the kid definitely looks like a Bubba, and Jay demanded we go say hey to the kid and see what was good (it should be noted that Jay was drinking glass for glass with Jeremy, who can hold his Guinness, so Jay was in another state of mind by this time). By the time we finished up and hobbled back home, it was pretty late at night, but it was definitely something we'll be looking forward to doing again.

We have a nice extended weekend for Memorial Day, and Jay's girlfriend Maria came out this way for the holiday. We went out to Reading to pick her up last night, and then today we all did the standard Philadelphia excursion: take the subway to Sonny's for cheesesteaks, then walk to and explore South Street, turn back north to City Hall and Love park, then a quick trolley ride back to home base.

Now all that's left is to look ahead to the future. Seriously, the last few days have been overshadowed by my anticipation of many things:
1. BBQ at my dads on Sunday, then BBQ at my house with my mom on Monday
2. the term coming to an end in a few weeks
3. camping trip to Virginia for a few days of my "summer break"
4. using trip to Virginia as an excuse to try growing a beard and seeing how I like it
5. heading up to New Hampshire with the family for a few days of lake fun
6. discussing coming back to my old job with my boss Dave
7. seeing how long my now-depleted bank account can last me

Ok, so some of those things are probably too far away for me to be worrying about, but I can't help it so what can I say.

P.S. To all the Jersey boys: have fun down in OBX, enjoy the time off, be safe and don't do anything too stupid.

Takin' Care of Business

You may remember my trip to a Phillies game a few weeks ago . . . you know, the one where we had luxury box seats and almost got a guy fired from his co-op? Yeah that one. An interesting thing that I failed to mention was that I got a phonecall from my Uncle Eugene; interesting because he said him and some NY cop buddies were driving down to Philly to see one of the games of the Mets series and he was wondering if I wanted to go and show them around. I laughed at the irony alone.

Well anyway, they came down last week, just in time for our area to finally get some rain. I took our wonderful public transportation system (no sarcasm, you can't beat free interchange between three different trains for $2) and met up with them at Chicky's and Pete's. They were all a bunch of good guys, real friendly and just looking to have a good time. In the end, the Phillies won after just 4.5 innings of play because the game got rained out. I felt kinda bad for them, but they definitely had a real good time. They are used to Shea stadium, which is a shit hole and where the closest place to get a drink before or after a game is the airport. Coming to a somewhat new stadium with plenty of bars and food places near the stadium was enough to make them cream their jeans. And while their team did lose the game, it was pretty close even at the end with some fantastic plays by both teams . . . hell, the Aaron Rowand catch was probably the best anyone's seen all year.

I knew that the weekend was going to be pretty bleak, with everyone going home for Mother's Day weekend and all, so I figured I'd go check out my brothers' baseball game on Saturday, something I hadn't done in awhile. My sister got back from school for the summer about 10 minutes before the game started, so most of the family was in attendance. Both of them were hitting pretty well, and Mikey was pitching for the first half of the game, which turned out to be unfortunate because when the other team wasn't hitting it to the gaps, our defense kept making errors. Then came the real surprise . . . Bobby pitching!?!? No one could believe it, my dad included. I knew he had practiced doing it before, but this was the first time he pitched in a game. He actually did very well, allowing no runs for most of three innings and only one or two at the end of the game, which really didn't matter since they were losing by a lot anyway. On top of that, Mikey was catching (since the kid can do everything), so we had the "Tegan battery" going on.

While the game was going on, I called Colavita and told him to get his bony ass over since he lives across the street from the fields. After the game was over, we headed back over to his place where I hung out with the "other" family. Not much happened there: grandma and aunt over, telling stories, busting on Mike, dropping icecream in the street, pork sandwiches . . . the usual. Mike and those guys are done with school for the summer, but apparently nothing has been happening (he said he had hung out with people once in the week). Surprising to both of us, Ray gave us a call saying that he was going over to Joe's to "chill". It sounded pretty bland, but hey, it was something to do and an excuse to go hang out, so we headed over.

Turned out to be a decent decision. Flacco was over there when we pulled up, so the five of us were hanging out and shooting the shit. Then Minardi, the worst alcoholic I know, showed up and made things a little more interesting. Then Jackson showed up, minus a Tara, and the good times rolled. It was pretty good since I hadn't seen any of those guys in more than a month, Jackson even longer than that, and I'm never one to shy away from catching up with old friends.
Not too much else going on since then. Kent actually came out yesterday to grill it up with us here on Larchwood. Rachel is done for the summer too, so it was a good excuse to light the grill and entertain (I cook a mean porkchop). All the CS kids here have a lot of homework to finish up, but hopefully we get a football game to happen tomorrow. That's right kids, the knee is healed and I'm itching to get out and play.

Trips in May

In my last entry I mentioned the planned Borgata trip for Friday with my housemates. How'd it go? As Jay and I would later say, it was quite the funky adventure.

Phil drove us all in his car down to AC, which was an event in itself. Why? Well, we were all still pretty sore from playing football on Thursday, and here we were making an hour long drive in possibly the smallest car in the history of the world (so small in fact that my feet were trapped under the drivers seat). Not very fun, but it got the job done. Once there, we rolled into the mythical land of Borgata. Honestly, if you want your casino experience to be a good one, go to the Borgata because it's probably the nicest casino there is.

After admiring the gals and glamour, we headed for the poker room, put our names on the list, and purchased our chips. I got sat rather quickly and then it was poker time, which did not go as well as my last visit. I lost about a third of all my chips on the very first hand when I played my top pair soft and let another player catch up and hit their straight. I bought in for the remainder of my money and just grinded for the rest of the night. My success at that could be summed up with just two words: "cold deck". I kept getting marginally good hands that demanded a call, but they just weren't hitting, and when they did they were never good. I can honestly say that I didn't lose to anything less than trips for most of the night. Bottom pair kept hitting trips, and flushes and straights kept catching on the river. It wasn't till the very end of the night, when I was down to my final $85 out of my starting $300, that my hands started to hold up and I was able to make a few plays and claw my way back to even.

When it was all said and done, I lost about $30, really not bad at all considering the abysmal cards and beats I was getting. By the time I left the table, it was almost two in the morning, and Phil, John and Jason had already left for Philadelphia. Jay and I found our way to the bus terminal and grabbed the first bus heading home. After meeting and seeing a few rare characters, we arrived in Philly around three in the morning and hailed a cab where we listened to our Nigerian driver complain about American black people, which was hilarious. I wouldn't say the trip was a success for me (although John, Phil and Jay won some money), but it was still fun as hell.

On Saturday, a few of us went to King of Prussia to eat and the Cheesecake Factory and stop over at Bestbuy, where Sundje used his cunning ninja skills to convince me to buy that digital camera I've been wanting for probably two years now. Aside from tossing around a football or baseball, not much else happened this weekend. Here's a couple of pics if you haven't seen my house or my room here in Philly yet, enjoy.

Play Ball

So I'm at class on Wednesday when I get a phone call from Jay asking if I wanted to go to the Phillies game that night. I haven't been to a game since last year, and with the Flyers eliminated from the playoffs (no I don't want to talk about it), I thought it might be fun to go. He said he friend Dimitry got the tickets, and I figured we'd be up in the nosebleeds somewhere. Oh how wrong I was.

Basically, Dimitry has a friend in his frat that works for the Phillies on his co-op, and he got us Luxury suite seats right behind home plate. The suite was awesome: there was an area with couches and an HD TV, we had our own private bathroom, and then there was the balcony where we could watch the action on the field. When our suite manager set up a free buffet with wings, dogs, beer and soda, we knew we were in for a good time.

What's even more incredible is that his buddy got us a voucher worth $500. At some point in the fourth inning, with our stomachs full, we decided to walk around and see what we could do. After getting a few little snacks, it was inevitable that someone would eventually ask the million dollar question: "can we use this on merchandise?" We asked around about what voucher money could be used on, and a couple of employees gave us the go ahead, so we made a bee line for the Phillies store on Ashburn alley. We bought about $150 worth of hats and #1 foam fingers, and at that point we were on cloud nine.

Then it got interesting. Charly (yes that's how it's spelled, his asian mom loved Charlie Sheen but couldn't spell a lick) decided he wanted a hat too, so they went back inside and tried to get one. Well they went to a different cashier, one who didn't believe what the computer was telling her about the balance on the voucher. Long story short, we went through a two inning ordeal where they took back our hats and Dimitry's friend almost got in trouble, but everything worked out fine. In all honesty, the kid was an idiot who was trying to show off his power by getting us the funny money coupon. If you give people free food at a sporting event and then give them a piece of paper that's worth $500, they are gonna try to spend it. But everything worked out, and no one got in trouble. We made our way back to our suite, slightly deflated, but still having a good time, and proceeded to watch the Phillies come back against the Braves and win. It was definitely the most fun I've ever had at a Phillies game.

Yesterday was a lot of fun too. I've been a lazy bum for the last, oh . . . 3 years, but my housemates and I went over to the park near us and played some two hand touch football. It was hot and the field was dusty, but it was hella fun. Turns out that even though I'm out of shape, my speed and quickness never went away, which was good news to me. My endurance isn't what it used to be though, so I was dead tired afterwards, but so was everyone else. Our friend Sundje is a speedy ninja who did track in HS, and his tank never seemed to run out, but it was a good battle with him all day. Jay and Phil were on my team, and we won the game by a pretty sizeable margin. We all agreed that we should try to play at least once a week, since it's a good work out and a lot of fun.

Tonight we're all going to Atlantic City to test our luck at the Borgata. Wish me luck.