Weekend in Review (the LONG version)

Friday:

Fridays are always long for me considering it's the 5th consecutive day of waking up at 4:30, usually after about only 5 hours of sleep. By the end of the my work day I am ready for a nap, but with errands to run and a dinner reservation at Como's for Kelley's birthday I didn't have the time for such a thing.

Como's is a nice little place right on the main corner in Ferndale. The seating area outside is where we reserved a table, and we enjoyed the open atmosphere throughout the night. Once we found some reasonable parking and got inside. I took the reasonable parking for granted. Once we got to Ferndale we didn't see any open spots in the public lots or on the streets near Como's, so I had Jen high-tail it over to a lot near The Post that I figured would be a good place to park. We pull up and see the sign for $5, not the best value but at least we're getting a close parking spot.

Jen feeds a five into the machine which then instructs her to add 5 more dollars....my level of aggravation is rivaling that of Clark W. Griswold when he sucker punched Marty Moose's statue at Wally World....So I get out and look over the parking machine, because I am an expert on these types of things ya know, and realize quickly there is no way to compromise with the machine just because the sign says $5. So I hit the refund button and CLANK CLANK CLANK here come the quarters, like I cashed out at a slot machine. So I take my new found wealth and jump back in the passenger seat and we end up getting a spot on the street a couple blocks away from Como's.

We had a lot of fun celebrating Kelley's birthday and people watching. The bar inside Como's is very nice and the price for my libation of choice was the lowest I've found anywhere. Now I had heard that Como's had good pizza, but that is an understatement. The pizza is excellent and I wanted more than we ordered.

We stayed a little later than I would have liked, I actually fell asleep briefly while we were still there, but all-in-all it was a fun night.

Saturday:

Saturday was supposed to be a nice long day of football followed by a nice little BBQ. The weather changed all that rather quickly. When my alarm went off I could already see the impending storm and just jumped back in bed for a couple more hours. When I finally rolled out of bed Jen and I watched Layer Cake, which I had just bought the day before. I dug the movie, but I'm going to have to watch it again to catch some of the dialog.

Toward the end of the movie Mark told me on his way out the door that there was a safety meeting in progress at the OPAC (Oakman Performing Arts Centre) and that one of our crew members was celebrating a birthday. After the movie Jen and I puttered about the house for a little bit and met decided to stop in on the meeting and sing happy birthday in our own special way.

After the safety meeting Jen and I headed over to Steve and Jill's to celebrate their engagement and Steve and Adam's birthday. With many people out of town for the weekend the BBQ was slightly underattended. Once Mr and Mrs Gentner left, the remaining ten of us were herded down to the basement by Jill, so we could listen to the CD of one of her friends who is in a band....

Sitting on the couch listening to Mormon Rock was not the highlight of my evening, but I did turn to Jen and say something to the effect of, "Wow this is such a blog entry...."

About halfway through the second song the ability of the evenings imbibers to feign interest in this God awful sound was completely gone, and most everyone jumped off the couch to hang at the little bar in the basement. Jen and I sat patiently and listened to a couple more songs until someone mentioned poker....I was upstairs so quick you would have thought someone shot me out of a cannon. I fetched my chips and cards as enough chairs were brought in for everyone who wanted to play.

We played two tourney style games with a $5 buy in for each. Second place got their $5 back and first place took the rest. I think we had 6 players for the first game, and 7 players for the second. The games were not seriously competitive and I played solid, but fun poker. I didn't mind blowing a few chips here and there calling people all-in with 4-8 off to see what would happen when I was big stack. I was getting pretty good cards, even hit quads once, and really capitalized on types of hands. Both games ended up with me and Mike D heads up, and I seemed to have a better read on him than he had on me so I took first both times.

On the very last hand of the night it was pretty obvious that I was behind in the hand when Mike moved all in. The flop was 8-J-K and I was holding only A-J. I read him for the king and said so as I called him, as he turned over Kx, and then I asked for a Jack on the turn. Ask and ye shall receive. The turn was a blank and I took home enough cash to pay for my round of golf the following day. Which brings me to....

Sunday:

Went golfing with Mark, Marc, and Jay at Taylor Meadows. It's a nice municipal course with some pretty challenging greens. Started out poor, got somewhat better in the middle of the first nine, then completely lost it for the rest of the day unless we were on a par three where I made the green in regulation 50% of the time, which was at least 100% better than all the other guys.

Not much more to say about it....had I played more this year, or gone to the range more than once, I would probably have more to say....but as it is, I now stink at golf.