A Memorial weekend to remember

A friend from MN came to visit this weekend. Jen and I have never went out on the town yet since we got to FL. Something about being pregnant will do that to you. But since Jean was here we made an exception. Joel, Pardeep, and Co were nice enough to take us out. We had seven people piled in my truck. Yep it was a very tight fit cuz no one wanted to sit in the bed. We hit Banana Joes Friday night which was pretty cool. It was very similar to the Banana Joes in MN that got closed down. Saturday night we went to a club on Clearwater beach. If you've ever watched a MTV spring break show, then you know how crazy this bar was. Girls were making out on stage and the DJ was walking around with shots for the girls when they did crazy things. We hung out in the back until a little after 1, thinking the bar closed at 2 we'd have a good hour of dancing. Well the bar shut down at 1:30. No biggie though, we were all pretty tired out by then. Well except for Jean who was still on MN time.

We spent Sunday at Honeymoon island in the super hot FL sun. While sitting the beach Jean kept saying "Look at the fish". I'm thinking a Grouper or something must have been splashing around but I never saw it. I asked what kind of fish and she said a whale or something. I'm like "You're crazy", but sure enough we saw a bunch of dolphins swimming around. Talk about friggen awesome. I got some pics of them and I'll post them later. Later that night we ate at Crabby Bills and then we went to some bar where Jean drank Pardeep under the table. Actually she drank everyone under the table but the fact that she was not that drunk compared to Pardeep was really funny. After getting home, Pardeep and Jean stayed up and went outside for a while only to get scared off by the back yard gator that was swimming towards them. I'm curious, would the gator have tried to eat them or was it just swimming around?

That about sums up the weekend.

A handicapped win

After 7 holes yesterday I thought I was losing big time at golf. I even had a 10 on one hole. Things were not going good. The only thing going for me was my opponent was playing that much worst. Well actually he shot his handicap, I shot two under mine. I won 5.5 holes and won an extra 3 for overall score. All this for shooting a 53 on a short course. That's a really bad score, but my great play has let to a really high handicap so I was able to pull out the win.

I'm still angry at my 69 though.

It's league night

So I'm at work now and all I can do is think about golf. Why do I get so excited for golf? I'm actually confused by this. For the last week or so I've been in a grumpy mood because of the 69 I shot. I feel like Gary Anderson in '98 after missing the only field goal of the year and the Vikings end up losing. Why should a golf match get me so upset? I won my golf match on Monday like 7-2, but that just doesn't make things better for some reason. I think deep down I'm just upset because I'm getting older. I hate the fact that I have to be mature. I keep getting funny looks when I say "What's up bad guy?" or when I ram someone's golf cart and try to push it into a pond. For some reason that was funny years ago and now people just roll their eyes. Well guess what, I think it's funny and I don't care what anyone else thinks. I'm going to be the most immature old fat person on the planet. It's my new goal. Either that or I need to invent a time machine and cruise back to the 80's.

After a once in a lifetime drive (300yds with a slight draw down the dog leg) by me the rest of the gang decided they needed to bow. Actually they were just really drunk so they didn't know any better.  

Pardeep and his new Mini Cooper S. 

Beach - Star Wars - Golf - Beach

That sums up this last weekend. Does it get any better? We took home two awards from the golf tournament. Most Honest Team (Highest Score in a scramble) and some other award for being the silliest team on the course. We had two golfers who've never golfed before so that helped.

The weather was great for the beach. It was in the high 80's. Pardeep picked up his new car. It's a Mini Cooper S. Basically a super charged 1.6 liter that's super light and it goes.

Star Wars was awesome. It made me want to get the trilogy of episodes 4-6 and piece it all together. However, all stores were sold out. I guess I'm not the only nerd on the planet.

Sun burnt

We hung out at Clearwater Beach Friday. Not wanting to get a sun burn again I put on a ton of sun screen. We have a SPF 40 sun screen so I thought I'd be fine. Well it turns out I put on SPF 14 not 40. Let me tell ya, SPF 14 is not that strong. I resemble a nice red tomato. Yep, totally sunburnt. Next time I'll check the SPF without assuming what SPF it is.

It's pretty warm down here

I just thought I'd point out that it's getting pretty warm down here. I just checked the forecast for the next ten days and I've never seen a more consistent forecast. High of 87 Low of 69 with a chance of T-Storms. The temps very less then 2 degrees each day. But I like it, it makes for great beach bummen'. Which is what is on tap this three day weekend. Along with the viewing of the latest Star Wars movie. I'm going to predict that it's going to set a weekend gross record with all the hype it's received.

Have a great weekend all.

No backing in

A guy stopped me on the way to work and told me I can't back into my parking space at the Condo I live at? Under normal circumstances I wouldn't care, however, I have a truck that is pretty long and it's a major pain to pull in straight. It requires at least two shifts or more to get the vehicle straightened out in the space cuz the spaces are so small. I can back the truck in without a hitch ever time. So now I'm putting more wear and tear on my transmission because of the extra shifts to get the truck straight. So can anyone give me a reason why one can't back into their parking space? Someone here at work said it's so they can see your license plate. If that's the case then why doesn't FL require a plate on the front and back of the car like MN?

This may be a rant that's spilled over from my golf game. Which has been so bad lately that I just may retire now and not have to live with the frustration.

Miss me Tigger?

Wow, only four more months left here in FL. We just got called by our neighbors across the street in Richfield letting us know that they think Tigger is pregnant. If she is I'm sending her back to the vet, she was fixed 3 years ago. Actually, Tigger is just a fat cat, kind of like her owner. So I'm confused now, is she getting bigger or did the neighbors just notice that she's a tubby kitty.

Practice Practice

After the 69 I shot for nine holes last Thursday, I spent a good chunk of the weekend hitting golf balls. In fact my hand is really sore today. Probably a sign that I grip the club to hard. Hopefully it helps the golf match this week.

Jen's (the work Jen) parents took the Clw OLDP's out for supper on Saturday night. They were fun parents to hang out with. We had the loudest girl I've ever heard sitting behind us. I could hardly hear the conversations with this loud, and I might add really drunk, lady sitting there. For the most part I just kind of laughed when everyone else laughed, and I hoped for no direct questions so I didn't have to keep asking them to repeat themselves. I was really thankful after the lady left cuz I got some of my hearing back. Unfortunately it was time to leave. I was really shocked to find out that Jen's parents paid for all of us. If I would've known that I would've laid off the desert.

Sixty-Nine

Probably not what you're thinking. It's my golf score for nine holes yesterday. By far my worst league night ever. Although it was my first time playing on this course and my first league night in FL. Every course in FL has twice the water as any course in MN. Not good if you can't hit the ball straight. Next time I think I'll pass on the golf lesson the day before. One should give themselves plenty of time to work out their changes from the lesson before playing in a league or tourney. Either that or risk losing all clubs due to a rage induced impulse to see if you can throw the club farther then you hit the ball. Although on this day I was able to hold out and not throw any clubs. After exercising the restraint I did yesterday, my game suffered even more. From here on out I'm going to learn from this experience. It's better to throw a club or two and release the tension then it is to try and hold it in and not look so silly throwing a club. In my estimation shooting a 69 is way worse for the reputation then throwing a club. In fact the first thing said to me by my opponents today was "You didn't kill yourself?" Yep, definitely throwing my clubs next time.

*** Later Addition ***
If you've read the comments on this post then I need to inform you that my wife has yet to realize that many of my posts here involve the use sarcasm.

The "Whizzinator"

The Vikings list of potential starters at the Running Back position just got shorter. The big O was caught with a device called the "Whizzinator". It's used to fake pee tests. Some people are never going to learn that maybe drugs aren't as important as making a couple million. Nothing new I guess. I thought the funny part of the whole thing is the name of the device. I looked online for the company that makes it and here's what they had on their web site. The WHIZZINATOR© is an easy to conceal, easy to use urinating device with a very realistic prosthetic penis. It has been extensively tested and proven to work under real-life conditions!

Unbelievable.

Three Day Weekend Flies By

Sunday we watched the Twins play the D-Rays at Tropicana Field. This is the second major league stadium I've seen outside of the Metrodome aka. The Inflatable Toilet. There were about 8-9 thousand fans there. I'd say a majority of them were Twins fans also. Jen and Joel got to experience my booming voice after I tipped a few down. What seemed like a sure blowout after a 8-1 lead heading into the bottom of the seventh turned out to be a game when the Rays scored 5 runs to cut the lead to 2. In the top of the eighth Joe Maurer was hitting a lot of foul balls in stands by third base. I thought I'd heckle him and yell at him to hit one to us in left field. Sure enough he smacked one a section down from us. That was pretty cool. Anyway, I posted some pics below this entry.

Saturday we went beach bummen at Clearwater beach. One could not ask for a better day. The temps were around 80 and there wasn't a cloud in the ski. I have a nice full body sun burn as a reminder, well except for some racoon eyes from my Oakleys. We also hit a movie that night, "Hitchhickers Guide To The Galaxy". All I can say skip it.

Friday was a fun fullfilled day of sleeping in and hitting the Gym. I finally got Forza and played that for a while. The game is pretty cool cuz it has my old Eagle Talon in it. I had to race with that for a while at first. Later I tried out the Mini-Cooper so I could let Pardeep know what his car was going to handle like. He should getting it this week sometime after about a 45 day wait.

Thursday night we watched a double episode of OC at Jens.

Fun stuff but now it's back to work. Boooo. Oh well gotta pay the bills.

8 dollar beers. After a couple of these there's no meaning to the word embarrasment. I'm pretty sure Joel and Jen will sit really far away if we ever attend another game.  

DRays Field Shot 

DRays Game 

Our Back Yard Gator

Jen got brave today when she spotted the gator that lives in our pond behind us and took a couple pics of it. Kind of cool.

Virtual Friday

It's Thrusday but since I don't have to work tomorrow it's like Friday. ahh I get to sleep in tomorrow, I'm so looking forward to it. Tonight I'm going to buy Forza, a racing game that just came out for the X-Box. So I can give you my update of my weekend in advance.

Friday - Saturday - Sunday: I'll be racing.

Have a good weekend all.

Missing Fingers

OK I can't resist the urge any longer. After reading Ryan’s post about people finding fingers in their food, read it here, I need to tell a story about Jennie-O. I'll admit up front that I'm telling story second hand from someone that I worked with there. But there were a couple witnesses so I'm thinking it might be true. Just a warning before believing this story, I'm very gullible and these girls might have been filling me full of bologna, turkey bologna that is. Anyway, here goes -

This guy is working on this machine and loses a finger. He show's some girls on the line so they can get help for him. One of the girls throws up on the line and all the product has to be thrown out. The line is washed down really well, generally when a line gets washed down it can take up to an hour so imagine the time lost from this. When they finally startup again the figure comes out of the machine and the girl sees it. She throws up again on the line. The line has to be shut down and cleaned again.

OK maybe it wasn't that funny and I wish I knew for sure of it was true or not. But I did meet the guy they claimed it happened to and he was missing a finger. So who knows? You can judge for yourself.

Just an FYI - To this day I have no problem eating anything made at Jennie-O. They have a great Quality Control program and they don't screw around with product safety. If there is even a hint of something wrong they'll throw out the entire batch of product.

What I miss most about Minnesota

Well I've been living here in FL for a while now and for the most part I don't really miss living in Minnesota that much. Other than not being able to see the relatives and having my own house. Today I was reminded by Matt of what I really miss most about Minnesota.

CHASING GEESE!!

There's nothing like trying to run down a hundred geese with a golf cart while honking away. It's so vivid in my mind right now.

Honk Honk Honk

Them dam alligators chase them away down here. Maybe I should chase some gators instead. hmmm let me ponder that one for a while. I’m thinking it could be kind of fun as long as I don’t lose a limb.

I'm Back

Jen and I got back home last night from our vacation. We went a whopping 90 miles away to Orlando. We stayed in the same condo as last year. The trip was a blast. Some pics from the trip are posted.

Here's a quick run down on what we did.

- Wednesday we were lazy and hung out by the pool all day. We did manage to get to Downtown Disney later that night. While we were there we hit Pleasure Island. That was pretty cool.

- Thursday we got up early and hit Animal Kindom. We got there when the park opened and took the Kilimanjaro Safaris, that was great there was a short line and the animals were moving around since it was still cool out. After we hit the bird show, which is where the Bald Eagle pic came from, and some Tarzan Rocks show. In all I'd rank Animal kindom a 5 out of 10 for fun.

Around 2pm we went to MGM and ate some lunch and I rode the Hollywood Tower of Terror and the 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds Rocken' Rollar Coaster. **Suggestion** Get a fast pass to the Rocken Rollar Coaster, since the line is pretty long, then ride the Tower of Terror a couple times. That line moves pretty fast.

We ended the day at EPCOT. We got some Chinese for supper and watched the fireworks to end the day. I didn't get a chance to ride any rides there.

- Friday and Sunday we hit Sea World. It was super busy on Friday but on Sunday it was a lot slower and more relaxing.

- Saturday we were lazy again and we just hung around the pool.

The tree 

Close and personal with the ducks 

The future at Animal Kindom. Something Everest 

The big whale 

MGM Hat 

Aerosmith Rocken Rollar Coaster 

Hollywood Tower of Terror 

Epcot 

Shamu 

Bald Eagle 

Downtown Disney