Men's Weekend

Every now and again, my buddy’s wives let them out to play with me…what a terrible idea on their part! This past weekend the boys were left to fend for themselves and were given a weekend to live vicariously through their single friend, which we all took full advantage of!

First of all, no one was maced, tased, stabbed, shot, and not a single one of us were involved in any underground drug deals…we’re growing up rather nicely. We have a pretty awesome group of guys if I do say so myself. We can pretty much turn any situation into an unbelievable time as long as we’re hanging out together. We don’t try to get ourselves into too much trouble and we’re all pretty easy going guys so fights simply don’t happen and the only controversy that we generally run into is when we accidentally misplace one or more of the group or maybe stumble a bit and consequently are no longer allowed into some bars…but thankfully there are plenty of bars in Minneapolis and they don’t all have the same definition of “intoxicated individuals.”

The main reason for the trip was to get together with a bunch of our buddies before some big changes that will be happening for them. Two of my greatest friends are about to become fathers for the first time and a third will become a father for the third time! I can’t tell you just how excited I am for all of them…but I’m a little worried that the wives know me too well and our little get togethers may become limited shortly here, but that’s alright, I like their wives almost as much so I’ll just take them out when I can’t hang out with the guys! That’s right ladies, pop those babies out already then we’re going clubbing!

One of our fellow bloggers and one of the members of the group who participated in last weekends activities just got back from Washington, D.C. with his wife and might have had the hardest time convincing his wife that he should probably go on this trip with us, so he was busy explaining to her how we’re not as crazy as we use to be when we get together, how we’re definitely more mature now and it will be a much more laid back weekend than she might think…when he showed up at his house we were already waiting for him, parked on his front lawn and raiding his fridge for beer…his wife was probably not too terribly impressed…but remember, we’re going clubbing!

We’re pretty lucky to have a guy in our group who doesn’t really like to drink that much and is generally our designated driver, so that meant that by the time we reached my sister and brother-in-law’s place on Friday night we had hit a bar or two between Mentor and St. Louis Park…I believe it was two. We arrived in St. Louis Park and were immediately greeted with hugs and beers for everyone in the group, we’re a really close knit group…we’re huggers, and the alcohol makes us even more so…

After sitting around and watching some very entertaining Key and Peele videos at my sister’s place we decided that we might as well hit up some Park Tavern action to see if we could sing a little karaoke or bowl a little bit. Neither were options when we got there but we were able to have a few more cocktails and get caught up a bit more as we really don’t get to see each other very often any more. I think if we all lived really close to each other we would be pretty darn happy guys, the wives…maybe not so much (but remember, we’re going clubbing ladies!).

As our nights often end when we’re all together, we got back to my sister’s place and B.S.ed until about 5am and then somehow woke up early enough to make it to the tailgating for the Gopher game the next day…somehow it seems like at least three of us always end up in the same bed too, so if the wives are wondering if there was any extra curricular’s going on…I can say there were no girls involved at least…

So, the main event that we wanted to get together for was the Gopher’s vs. Nebraska football game…well the main reason we wanted to get together is just to get together, but apparently when you get married your significant other wants a little more reason then you just going to get drunk with your buddies. Turns out single life isn’t so bad!

We got our Gopher tickets through someone that one of our buddies works with and met up with them to tailgate, but as they were all pretty much Nebraska fans we just ate their food and stole their football to play catch with. So for our entertainment we started off with a good old fashion game of paper, rock, scissors…and because our group is who we are, we were obviously having more fun than anyone else in the whole lot. It takes very little to entertain people who truly enjoy one another’s company.

I feel like there’s a lot to cover in this blog so I’m going to go ahead and spare you the play-by-play of the game but it was pretty darn awesome. We hadn’t beat Nebraska in something like 50 years and we were able to pull off the victory! I randomly ran into one of my high school classmates while we were at the game too! She’s a reader of the blog and also was my prom date in high school. We went to the same city for college as well and she use to like to tell all of the people we met that she stole my virginity on prom night…and she just went ahead and introduced herself to all of my buddies the same way at the game…at least that’s how I remember it happening.

So we won! We had already been celebrating the victory for the past couple of days but now we really had a reason to let loose! We ran over to grab a bite after the game at the…crap…um restaurant (maybe I drank too much), where we were able to meet a very lovely woman by the name of Lindsay who happened to work for Sunday Night Football and was in town to cover the game. We were able to take a few photos with her, talk to her for quite a while and then one of the guys hailed her a cab so that she could get back uptown where they were doing a charity event later in the night. We also met up with my sister and her friends and continued to celebrate.

Our new friend Lindsay with a couple of the BDandLL boys!

We decided that it would be best to head to Uptown so that we could spend some more quality time with our new friend Lindsay and also get a chance to tour the SNF bus! The event was held at Bar Abilene where I think we ate for the fifteenth time that day or so, and also decided to celebrate a little more. We got there a little bit before the event so there was plenty of time to celebrate. At some point during our celebrating my one buddy called one of the bar tenders “Jamal” just randomly and the guy looked at him like, “what the hell?!” Later, I ran across him in the bathroom and was able to convince him to go up to my buddy and tell him that he better watch his back and that he was going to knife him in the parking lot, classic Jay.

When the guy went up to my buddy, he was so shocked he was speechless…and I’m pretty sure needed a change of pants. My brother, (who knew I had convinced the guy to do it) told him very seriously that he better go and apologize, but my buddy had no idea what he had done. So, he goes to apologize and he’s so nervous and has no idea what’s going on and what to expect and the guy finally lets him in on the joke, but for about ten minutes there I’m pretty sure my buddy’s life was flashing before his eyes…priceless.

Next big event of the night, Carl Eller shows up! One of the Purple People Eaters and probably one of the main reason’s anyone still call themselves Vikings fans. We had the opportunity to meet Jim Marshall when we were kids as well when he came up to play in a “Celebrity” softball game during a Klingon Language camp that use to be held at our campground. I think it was one of the biggest moments in my mom’s life as we were featured on Entertainment Tonight because of it…yeah, we’re kind of a big deal…or maybe she just was!

One of my buddies tried to tell Mr. Eller that his cousin had dated Mr. Eller’s son and it was pretty awesome how easily he blew off my buddy! I believe it went something like, “Oh, yeah! That’s great. O.K. then…” (Thumbs up, then walks away). Classic Carl.

We were able to talk to him a bit later on, though, and spoke to him about our charity basketball tournament and he seemed really interested in trying to get us something to help us out with our charity auction we hold that weekend too, even gave me his card…boom mom, I finally made it too!

So, Carl Eller is awesome. Fact. Fact number 2, our new friend Lindsay…also pretty awesome.

So, Lindsay is working her way into being a real big deal in the sports broadcasting industry. She is unbelievably personable, seems to be a very smart and funny girl, knows far more than me (or probably most guys) about most sports, and not too hard on the eyes either. She even put up with a bunch of random Northern Minnesota guys for most of the night. I had a pretty good conversation with her at the end of the night (hers not ours) too. I told her that I’m not looking for anything serious, that I have girlfriends in a bunch of different areas but that I didn’t have a New York one, so I could maybe let her take me out to a nice dinner next time she happened to be in Minnesota. I think we’re also going to play Madden with our perspective buses going to the winner. I would get the SNF bus and she would get the Voyageur’s “Totally Topless Tubing Transit.” She definitely gets the better end of the deal, but I’m not sacred…its been like three years since I’ve played the game but my smack talk hasn’t missed a beat.

My sister and her friends also took off at this point which left the boys to fend for themselves once again, and this time we didn’t do as good of a job. The next few hours had us losing each other throughout Uptown Minneapolis, our group of seven soon became two and the two remaining ones just said, you know what…I just want to dance, so we went clubbing.

At some point we looked over and another one of our buddies happened to be on the dance floor, we don’t know how he got there and neither does he, but he got there. He said that his phone had died so he tried to get some random girl to give me a call…but he couldn’t remember my phone number, so he had her add me on Facebook, ahh technology! Really, it didn’t matter, though, because I was far too busy clubbing to pay any attention to my phone. But the music must have taken a hold of him, like it did us, and before long we were reunited!

Shortly after our first reunion, another one of our friends randomly resurfaced. This one wasn’t as surprising as he somehow has a tendency to disappear for hours than always end up at the same place we all are to end the night, I don’t know how he does it but its unbelievable. I bet all the wives are wondering, whom the hell is he talking about and what the hell was he doing?! Turns out he had been with the other part of the group and when they decided to call it a night he decided to find the rest of us. The guy is like a bloodhound for his buddies, no clue how he does it.

We finally decided to call it a night when they told us that they were now closing the bar and that we had to leave…seemed like a good time to head home. We then decided to share a cab with some random girl at the end of the night, and although my memory is pretty foggy of everything after the football game, I think she was pretty good looking and somehow by the time we got her back to her place she and I had been messing around a little bit. We were hanging out in front of her place and the cabby was trying to convince me that I had to stay with her, that’s right, the cabby. He was taking photos and I swear he goes, “come on Jay, you got this!” The cabby and I are on a first name basis apparently, and it turns out he’s my wingman. But, I’m pretty sure we were now in the ghetto and it was one of those nights where it was just time to go home.

I knew I had made the right decision when I woke up in the cab and we were sitting in some random cul-de-sac and my wingman was nudging me saying, “Seriously, I need an address.” Turns out the last four standing were now all passed out in the cab. We finally were able to make it back to my sister’s place and three of us got out of the cab and got to the door of the house before we realized that our forth buddy was still passed out in the cab. Thank god, my wingman had my back.

So, we had a fantastic weekend. We don’t get to see each other too often anymore but when we do it’s like we never left each other. I’m pretty sure I have the greatest friends in the world, including Carl, Lindsay, and the cabby.

On a side note, I’ve been on a bit of a working and partying bender as of late as I’ve had buddies leaving for far away lands, friends having babies, friends visiting from other states, and sometimes I just felt like I needed to club. Because of this I have not had a whole lot of time to work out, but tonight I attempted to get back on track after about a month…turns out you can’t just start where you left off after being so terrible to your body for so long. So I couldn’t hop on the treadmill and go six miles no problem, 1.5 just about killed me as a matter of fact. I think it would be pretty easy to give up, especially since I wanted to figure out how to do leg lifts correctly and I happened across a video of Brooke Burke demonstrating them…it would have been really easy to just watch those videos instead of actually working out. But, sometimes starting over isn’t the worst thing in the world. It sucks to start with, but I think I’ll get back into it pretty easily now…hopefully I don’t have to see any of my friends for quite some time! I have a few months before the ladies will be ready for their night out clubbing with me, and it may take me that long to recover from this past weekend…

Good night folks, I’m throwing in the towel for the night!