[6.3] Back East, Again

Good day, loyal blog-ites. I first have to apologize for the sparse frequency of posts recently. We've been quite busy. However, while this has meant a gap in posts, it also means the posts should be coming fast and furious for the next few days since we've got so much to clue you all into. When we last left our heroes, Lisa and Dave were awaiting the Vlady-parents. After a few fun-filled days with them, there was a treasure trove of blog material. However, I'm going to hold off on that post until I get the pictures from Mom. After the parental visit, we headed back east for a wedding, which is documented below. Future posts will also include Trolloween, the comedy club, and our "meet the neighbors gathering", so watch this space as I hope to cover all this material before spending a week in Mexico starting on the 12 Nov for work.

Anyway, back to the wedding weekend. Lisa and I made a whirlwind trip to York, PA. We flew in late Friday night to Harrisburg and headed back out Sunday after the wedding. Mark, Lisa's friend from her east coast ski club was to marry his sweetheart, Lucy. We were, according to the invite, supposed to witness "rock and roll history as Mark and Lucy swap spit for the first time as husband and wife."

But before the wedding itself we have cover the locale, York, PA. I learned that York served as our nation's capital (actually, I might have known that once back in 7th grade Social Studies but hey, c'mon, that was 25 years ago). We stayed in a great old hotel on a main drag in downtown York and got to walk around a bit on Saturday before the wedding. Lisa went to get her nails done and I walked out to meet her. Well, about half way through my walk I met Evangelist Bill, as I call him. He shook my hand, and proceeded to shake my hand while walking for two city blocks. In that time he also asked me if I was prepared for the afterlife, said a prayer with me, and made me promise to recruit servants from the west coast to work for the Holy Spirit. I'm working on it, Bill. So far I've recruited our two cats and the afternoon barrista at Lighthouse Coffee Roasters around the corner.

Two other notable things about downtown York. There are posted signs that say "No Cruising -- You will be ticketed if you pass this sign more than twice between the hours of 8PM and 3AM." You know you live in a pretty boring town if there's a "no cruising" sign. And then we walked into a Rite Aid to pick up a few things and saw one of the most disturbing things ever. The video below is pretty raw since it was taken with my phone, but take my word for it, I'm not voting for Hillary if her election means more of these on the market. I've not been this freaked out since the first Chucky movie.

Anyway, on to the wedding. It was held at the Valencia Ballroom, which was pretty cool in itself. It was where the big bands used to play back in the 1920s -1940s. We knew it would be a slightly different affair when the string quartet played "White Wedding" by Billy Idol among its classical pieces pre-ceremony. Lucy and Mark swapped spit, with a little "ass grab" by Mark for good measure. The wedding party was introduced and each entered the ballroom to their individual songs. Rock on. After we got the DJ to play a string of danceable 80s stuff and disco, we wore the varnish off the floor.

We didn't know that many folks at the wedding, outside of the other ski club representative, Bruce, with his wife Mara. Mark and Lucy represented the third ski club wedding in less than a year, following Bruce and Mara in December and Lisa and myself in May.

So a great time was had by all and we end with congratulations to Mark and Lucy as they head off to Tahiti to start a great life together.

[6.2] The PGA We Ain't

Just a quick post today as Lisa and I are heading back to the east coast for Mark and Lucy's wedding in York, PA. Thus you'll all have to wait for the much anticipated description of my parents' visit this past weekend. For now, just a couple of quick tidbits on my trip to Myrtle Beach with the boys. This is primarily for Scott, who used his move to Phoenix as an excuse to bail on this year's trip. If Alan had his way, we'd have sent Scott text messages constantly throughout the weekend telling him what a good time we were having.

Thanks to Mike for finding us another great house right on the beach (photo to the right is of the sunrise from our deck overlooking the dunes)

Congrats to Alex for putting together three great rounds of golf and not giving anyone else a chance at individual honors


Congrats to all of us who played three days of football on the beach, before and after golf, and managed to avoid any hospital visits

Earle continued his long history of really random injuries by ripping the skin off of the bottom of both big toes


"Old School" play once again rules at the pong table...although any play by a bunch of guys approaching 40 has got to be considered old school


Kudos to Tommy for only two club throws in four days---and for getting out of this mess


Honors to JJ for worst travel experience by being stuck at Newark for 6 hours waiting for his flight to Myrtle to leave

And thanks to my team for putting the team competition pretty much out of reach on day 2



See you guys next year in Ireland...

[6.1] East Coast Update

Hey, all. Apologies for the delay and lack of posts for the last two weeks, but East Coast things were afoot. We've got lots to catch up on including our weekend in NJ, my trip to Myrtle Beach, and my parents visit to Seattle so we'll take this in manageable chunks. We flew into Newark on Friday and after dropping off our things at my parents house, we headed into Hoboken for dinner with the gang. Some highlights of the dinner:

• Watching the bug-filled Yankees/Cleveland game while waiting for our table
• Finally meeting Jack's new girlfriend, the lovely Monica
• Preparing Monica for her introductory meeting with Jack's parents that Wednesday
• Getting our Hoboken updates
• Sharing stories of Earle and Kelli's visit to Seattle
• Hearing about Tommy's escapades of that day (his "luncheon" for work caused him to show up late for our 8:30PM dinner reservation as there was some Patron involved)
• The always excellent fare at City Bistro

And what trip back to Hoboken would be complete without an after dinner drink or two at Ted n' Jo's?

The next day was Auntie's surprise party, which was the premise for our trip to NJ. She was mostly shocked, but she was a bit tipped off to at least part of the surprise. Earlier in the morning, we were telling my eight-year-old niece, Hope, what to say when she called to wish Auntie a Happy Birthday. After all, Auntie did not know that the family was coming up from Virginia. We ran through several dry runs and reinforced to Hope that if Auntie asked where she was to tell her that she was at home. Well, apparently Hope drove that point home on the call, telling Auntie several times during the call that the whole family was at home in Virginia. Auntie was a bit suspicious. But even if she had some inkling that Brian, Jen, Hope, and Justi were coming from Virginia, she had no idea that Lisa and I were making the trip from Seattle.

The whole day was a blast, particularly having the time to spend with our two year-old nieces, Justi and Hailey. After the birthday lunch at Bella Notte we headed back to the parents' house for some more family time. Just look below to see how comfortable Lisa looks with Justi.

[6.0] Goin' Back to Jersey

Short post today as we're headed east this weekend for Auntie's birthday. If I'm not mistaken, she's 29...again. I'm writing this on Friday, but she doesn't know we're coming in for the party, so it's being posted on Saturday after the shindig.

After the party, Lisa heads back to Seattle on Sunday and I'm hanging around NJ for some family time and a couple of meetings for work. Then on Thursday the gang and I head down to Myrtle Beach for the weekend for our annual golf trip.

One other point of note. Once again, Fozzie has, not surprisingly, become more popular than me. It happened in Hoboken all the time. We'd be out for a walk and people would come up and say "hi" to Foz and have no idea who I was. Well, I forgot to mention it in the Soapbox race post, but at the race, a girl in her 20s walks up and says, "Oh my god, it's Fozzie. Hi, Fozzie." I had no idea who she was until she explained that she worked at Great Dog, the day care facility that I'd been using for Foz. Then there's the dog park where people say hi to Fozzie and maybe manage a slight nod in my general direction. He's a rockstar. And my complex grows.

[5.2] Camptown Races...Doo Dah!!

We finished off a big week--we've already been to Oktoberfest and had the Vegas trip--with Fozzie, Lisa and I headed out to Fremont Avenue on Saturday for the Red Bull Soapbox Race that made a local stop about three blocks from our house. The event is held on a fairly regular basis around the country and encourages creativity and engineering, but this is not your Boy Scout event to earn a merit badge, this is serious stuff. Mostly adult teams compete and have to build a vehicle that is gravity-powered and weighs no more than 176 lbs. In addition, teams are rated on the look of the vehicle, the speed, and overall creativity, which meant most teams did a short skit before launching the cart into the course. I think there was some alcohol involved prior to some of these skits. Needless to say, this event had it all: Thrills, spills, and a flying pickle. The course was also outfitted with video screens and speakers so one could follow the action throughout the whole 800 meter course (you can see the Seattle Sonics Sasquatch entry on the screen). And just to lend an air of credibility to the proceedings, judges included Olympian Amanda Beard, Seattle Sonic Nick Collison, and how can you have a soapbox derby without Sir Mix-a-lot as a judge.



The event started with the pace car taking off. The only motorized car in the race, the pace car was the Red Bull NASCAR entry. It was followed over the next 2.5 hours by 37 entries that ranged from the hysterical to the ludicrous to the outright pathetic. I'll start with the winning team, who recreated the best TV show of all time featuring a large, black man with a mohawk. That's right, the A-team. Their opening skit had B.A. Baracus (the caucasian Mr. T in this case) and the rest of the team foiling evil doers. Then Murdock jumped into the "van" and sped to the bottom of the hill. There was a local newswoman at the bottom interviewing each contestant. The A-team's response when asked how it went? "I love it when a plan comes together".

The course was a bit difficult for some of the teams to negotiate. After the team's skit, each was required to send the car and driver(s) down a ramp and into an immediate 90-degree berm before the long stretch down Fremont which was broken up by two "S" turns along the way. About six or so teams failed to make it past the first turn. The train below was one of the successful ones. The team from Anytime Fitness was not. They lost a wheel coming down the entry ramp, but that did not deter the driver as you can see.

There were fast cars (you can tell how fast each car was going by how blurry it is) such as "Stifflers Mom Presents: Miss Red Bull"...

And not so fast cars...

I failed to get a picture of "The Crapsters" which was a large toilet bowl with the driver inside, dressed in all brown. Their skit consisted of shooting toilet paper off rolls into the air. Now that's creativity. But I leave you with my personal favorite, the team from Arizona that comprised a zookeeper that always wanted to ride one of the zoo rhinos, but is discouraged by his superiors, so this was his answer: