Tequila, Seahawks, Push Ups and Fantasy Finals OH MY!

Man oh man. Saturday night was a rough one. Josh and I rolled into Dare's a little before 9pm, when the party was set to start. I'm used to rolling into parties a little late, but Josh reasoned that the earlier we get to the party, the earlier we get to start drinking--and that made a whole lot of sense to me on Saturday night. Dare and Will were already at the house, but Josh and I made 4.

Dare came up with the brilliant idea of everyone doing shots of tequila when each new group of visitors arrived. I don't do shots, but it just felt right. A.Flew showed up and the five of us took shots. A few minutes later, a car-full of people showed up, which meant another round. I convinced dare to put a shot of tequila on top of the toilet, so whoever broke the seal first had to take a shot.

We played some cards in between rounds of shots, and we had a big game of Asshole going. First rule, made by Will, was President gets to be thumb-master, always a good rule. The second rule, made by Dare, was that if you make eye-contact with the Asshole, you have to take a drink. This rule was new to me, and amazing! I got to give a trivia question (holding a 2 as my only remaining card), and I asked what color the asshole's eyes are, which got plenty of people drinks.

I ended the night on the floor, after hugging the toilet for a while. Josh got us back to his place, and I woke up around 10:30am to the Seahawks leading the Rams, and a nice headache. I looked at my phone and had 3 voice mails from Tyler and Marc, who were supposed to come down to watch the game, but chicken-shitted out because of the snow. Bullshit!

The Seahawks pulled out the last-second field goal to win it in the 4th quarter, for our 3rd win of the season (two against the Rams! Eight in a row against the large beasts). Josh made some red beans and rice, and the meal was finally ready around 3:30pm, which was actually perfect for me, because up until about 3pm I had absolutely no appetite.

Sunday was definitely the hardest day of Push Up Challenge 2.0, but I got in my 117th push up of the day around 11pm. I also recruited Push Up Challenge 2.0's second official member, Will! Welcome aboard! Will got the crazy idea to add sit ups to the challenge, which I'm a fan of. So today I've got 118 push ups and 100 sit ups to do, each increasing by one until I max out at 200 or 300 of each. Will says 300, but I'm leaning towards 200. I like his style. I also got in my 2,000th push up since Thanksgiving in today, so that was a nice milestone on this chilly Monday.

Speaking of chilly, Stevens Pass opens limited operations on Thursday, so that is where I'll be! Gotta take advantage of my first season's pass while I'm on break!

In Fantasy news, if David Akers doesn't kick for 26 points tonight, I'm moving on to the fantasy finals in my money league! The $20 buy in represents a third of my Full Tilt Bankroll, so if I can get 1st or 2nd place money, it'll be a huge boost to the roll! I only made one decision this week that was not the best possible decision in setting my line up. I played the NY Jets defense over the NY Giants defense for the 2nd time all season (1st was bye week), and it paid off huge. My only mistake was not starting Minnesota's back up running back, he scored more than Lendale White or NYG's Ward--but both of those guys started and Minnesota's back up obviously did not, which is why I kept him on the bench.

Lastly, Suvivor Gabon ended...

(slight spoiler ahead)

...and it was a really good season to watch. Sugar was amazing towards the end of the game, giving up her chance for a million bucks so a more deserving person, could claim their rightful prize. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else do that in my years of watching.

Hanford Howl, 2008

This weekend was an absolute blast. I attended the Hanford Howl ultimate frisbee tournament for the second year in a row. It is an all-weekend affair of fun, frisbee, and booze! Unfortunately, I missed out on an impromptu blogger home game at The Chako's residence, and I'm sure I would have had a blast.

I drove down to Tacoma to pick up Josh on Friday around noon, then we drove the 250 miles over to Richland, WA. The drive over was lots of fun. At first, I was perturbed because the Honda Pilot has an Aux button, but no auxiliary jack to plug an iPod into! The Aux button does nothing! Luckily, the Pilot has XM Satellite Radio, so Josh and I messed around with that for the entire drive. We found a rocking XMLM channel that played "liquid metal" from big name bands like "Lamb of God" and "Cattle Decapitation" raaaawwwwwwk! Another favorite channel was the comedy channels up in the 150's, including David Cross, George Carlin and a few other skits that had us rolling. The Fall colors were amazing crossing the Cascades, lots of reds and oranges made the hillsides look like they were on fire.

When we arrived in Richland, the Atomic Alehouse welcomed us with open arms and the drinking began with a sampler while waiting for the rest of the Tacoma crew to show up and check into the hotel. We made a pitstop at the liquor store, then waited in the parking lot while watching "License to Kill." Our team theme was James Bond (w/ Bond girls), so we were researching by watching the kick-ass movie. Eventually the rest of the crew came trickling into town and I honestly don't remember much else from Friday night.

Saturday morning marked the beginning of ultimate for the weekend. Instead of dressing up like Bond, how many of my teammates were dressed--white dress shirt, blank pants/shorts, bowtie--I dressed up like Jaws--tan pants, suspenders, white shirt and a metal mouth of first tinfoil, then duck-tape. During our first game I quickly realized I needed to change the metal mouth somehow, because breathing through my nose while running around on a frisbee field just does not mix. I ended up folding the duct tape over and being able to breathe through my mouth, which made running much easier!

Our team, Moonrakers, went 4-0 on the day Saturday, and I scored a callahan in our last game of the day, which I mac'd to myself a few times before my fingers remembered how to close on the disc. Saturday was one of my best days of ultimate in a long time. I had really been looking forward to this tournament and played great all day long. In our third game of the day we were down 2-4 and called a timeout to collect our thoughts and try to stop the bleeding. We ended up taking half 7-4, then the game 13-6. It was a great timeout call, and for some reason I was keeping track of my personal W/L record (the points I played, and whether we won or lost the point). I was 9-0 that game, which I don't think I've ever done before. Ultimate has 7 people on each team, so it wasn't all me, but I don't think I made any mistakes and had a few D's to help our team through our early deficit.

Saturday night was fairly tame. Most of us were tired from running around in the scorching 65 degree sun all day. I took a nap, watched some Bond, watched the Phillies and Jamie Moyer's all-out performance. We got hooked on a Batman animated tv show for an hour, and were all pretty sluggish in the hotel room all evening. Somehow we made it to SNL time, and all fell asleep halfway through the show.

Sunday we had a first round bye, as the #2 seed in the A-pool of the 25-team tournament. We got to sleep in, which is always nice, and got to the fields around 9:30am. On Saturday, the weather was perfect--60-65 degrees and sunny. Sunday, however, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. We got to watch Olympia and the UPS team (my alma mater) play in the first round, and the wind was wreaking havoc on both teams. The winner of that game was our next opponent, so getting to scout them out was a big advantage. I noticed that neither team was playing zone defense, which made no sense to me.

Olympia won the tight game and we played them in round 2. We set a nice zone against them and I got to play a lot of cup. They didn't get the disc past half-field for most of the game when they were going up wind, and we started to roll once our offense got accustomed to the wind, winning 11-6 at the hard cap. Our next game was against Resurrection, an older, wilier team, who called a lot more penalties than any other team we had faced--which I find takes a lot of fun out of the game, and is also much more present in higher-level ultimate. I took myself out most of the game, because I didn't enjoy playing in a hotly emotional game where lots of fouls are called. It felt like they had our number, but we fought back for a universe point, 7-7 at hard cap.

Surprisingly, one of our captains called out my name for our final point. We had a huge disadvantage, having to play defense and going into the wind. Odds were not in our favor, but we all vowed to try our best. I got the necessary D, stepping in front of a throw, then I raced deep. Dare tried to huck it to me into the wind, but the wind completely turned the disc over and it fell just out of my reach. We stepped up our defense and got another D, and worked the disc up the field. I made and cut and got the disc, then at stall 5 a pick was called, freezing the action on the field. When play reset, I wasn't confident enough to try and break the mark into the wind on a flick, so I turned back to dump the disc to Sean. As I turned back, my mark tried to deny the dump and Sean raced up the sideline. I was able to swivel back quicker than my defender and got the disc to Sean for the 8-7 victory! It was a blast to be part of the improbable win.

We played Bad Spirits in the finals. It was the Tacoma team's first finals appearance at Hanford, and we were playing the #1 seed. They were comprised of a few very good players from around the Pacific NW. Much like the semi-final game, we fell behind and the game was filled with penalty calls which just sap the fun out of the game for me. I played my share of points in the finals, and we ended up having another universe point at 8-8 for the championship. This time the odds were in our favor. We were defending, but we were going down wind and liked our chances. My number wasn't called this time, and Bad Spirits worked the disc brilliantly up wind for the score and the championship.

It was very odd not to be drinking at the end of a frisbee tournament. I am used to watching the finals and drinking a few beers at the end of a tournament, but this time I got to play in the finals. It was a fun experience, even though most of the 25 teams had already left the fields on their long drives home. We had some fun-spirited hecklers on the sideline from Suspicious Package, the WSU team, who heckled both teams evenly for all the penalty calls being made.

The drive home went quickly and I drove Josh and Stephanie back to Tacoma. Josh's new place has a hot tub in it, so we relaxed there for a bit and finished up another Bond movie. Josh has Rock Band 2 and will be getting Guitar Hero World Tour in the next few weeks, so I'm sure another trip down to Tacoma is in store. Overall, a great weekend, can't wait for next year's Hanford!

PLU BBQ: The Nalgene Ninjas

The PLU BBQ is an annual college frisbee tournament, put on by Pacific Lutheran University, in Tacoma, WA. I went to the University of Puget Sound, also in Tacoma, and fierce rivals with the PLU Lutes. Up until my senior year, I didn't really like PLU--I'm not sure why, other than everyone else around me at UPS seemed not to like PLU. Then my senior year at UPS, I started playing in a pickup frisbee game at PLU, and met some really cool men and women.

Both PLU and UPS were not any good at frisbee when I attended UPS, and the guys I got to know from PLU my senior year started up the tourney in 2003 to add a fun tournament for teams who weren't in the top tier of ultimate frisbee colleges on the west coast. In 2003, there couldn't have been more than 6-8 teams. This year, we were the 24th seed... out of 24 teams.

The Tacoma pickup team, under the guise of UPS Alumni, grabbed the last spot in the tournament, and we were placed in the final spot of the C pool. Captain Josh thought this might have been an under-seed, and when we went 5-0 on Saturday, I finally had to agree with him. The second point of our tournament was another Callahan. Two in two weeks! I didn't score the Callahan this time, but it was off of my pull, and Anders intercepted the first pass for the defensive score. In our third game of the day, I jumped out of the end zone and Greatest'd a disc to Sean for a score. Two weeks in a row with a Greatest... that's a little silly, especially because Sean threw the greatest to me last week.

We made quite the run from seeded dead last to eventually succumbing to the University of Washington team in the semi-finals, tying for 3rd in the entire tournament. The Tacoma team had ten old guys playing, and we had won three games earlier in the day, making our weekend record 8-1. UW had 3 byes and had about 15 young guns that quite simply ran us into the ground.

Sean was coaching the UPS team, and they had a bye in the 4th round, so he played with us and made the most amazing lay-out D, without actually getting the D. The guy he was guarding scored, but Sean flew through the air and landed face-first into a 2'x5' perfectly placed puddle. It was the funniest thing any of us saw all day. He got up and was completely soaked. I gave him a big hug and I'm pretty sure Will got the lay out on video.

Jerry was up to his old shenanigans. We had a nice D, and I was trying to slow us down a bit (commonly, when your team gets a D in ultimate frisbee, the instinctual thing to do is pick up the disc right away and throw it--which leads to rushed throws and usually turnovers). I hollered for Tom pick up the disc, since he was the furthest from it, giving us time to set up. Tom starts walking to the disc, and the rest of us set up in a stack.

All of a sudden, Will starts cutting to the back corner of the end zone. I don't know why he is cutting, because Tom is a good 20ft from the disc still. Then I see Jerry running up to the disc and he steals it before Tom can get to it--and promptly hits a leaping Will for the score. It was hilarious because I don't think anybody besides Will saw Jerry sneaking in to steal the disc from Tom, and it worked perfectly, because the other team was just as confused as we were. Tom sulked off the field, silently cursing out Jerry--which made the moment that much better.

Somehow I lost not one, but two of Josh's nalgene water-bottles this weekend. He offered me one Saturday morning, and I gladly accepted it, only to leave it at the fields Saturday night. Sunday morning rolls around and Josh has a third Nalgene for me to use, and once we lost our game to UW, I couldn't find my Nalgene for the life of me. I searched up and down the sideline for the water bottle, with no luck. Must have been ninja'd. Sorry Josh, I'll get you two Nalgenes next weekend.

The weekend was a blast, and I had a bunch of fun playing on a team that I still believe was out-matched physically in almost every game we played. Our strategy and experience played a HUGE role in our success, and it was fun to be a part of the "old men" team... even if I'm only 25...

Dangle Wrangle 2007

I got back from a Guitar Hero rockin' trip down to Tacoma this morning at about 1am. The drivers in Seattle are crazy around midnight. I got to drive the new Saab, and that thing has some getupandgo! I would be motoring along with the speed of traffic, assuming it was around 65-70, and I'd look down and be going 80.

The drive back from Tacoma was pretty funny. I'm not the craziest driver out there, but unless I'm distracted, I usually follow the "Nine you're fine, Ten you're mine" cop slogan when driving. I came across an unmarked cop car about five miles outside of Tacoma, and slowed down and trailed it from a ways back. Not a minute later, this car comes zooming up two lanes to the right of me, and passes a semi on the right side (semi was in 2nd lane, crazy driver passed in far right lane). The unmarked cop car swerves from the leftmost lane across three lanes of traffic and passes the semi on the right as well, then proceeds to ride the crazy driver's ass for a good quarter mile.

So I'm wondering if the cop just didn't get a gun on the driver, or if the unmarked cop car is even a cop at all. The car looks identical to a cop car, but it doesn't even have the little bulb of a side mirror that gives away all the other cop cars. I couldn't see a big antenna anywhere either. The crazy driver slowed WAY down after recognizing this "cop" swerved across three lanes of traffic and was riding his ass at 90+ mph.

I kept my distance for the 20 or so miles I trailed the "cop." What was funny is that at least six other cars came ZOOMING past me, and then would practically screech their brakes once they saw the "cop" car. The cop led our little pod of me and crazy drivers, all driving 65mph and exchanging glances at each other in between glances at our speedometers and the road.

If that dude actually wasn't a cop at all, that would be hilarious!

Today was also a bit crazy.

As much as I wish I could be in Vegas with the other bloggers, that just wasn't the smartest option for me. So instead of cooping myself inside all weekend, I headed down to Tacoma yesterday and played in the Sixth Annual Dangle Wrangle frisbee tournament. It is an all-men's hat tournament (which follows yesterday's all-female "Chick Flick"). I played in the tournament three or four years ago, and we had a very solid group of guys and won it. I wasn't planning on playing this year, but I haven't gotten out as much as I wanted to this last month--and wasn't going to Vegas--so I signed up earlier this week.

The best part about Dangle Wrangle is the mandatory spike rule. Spikes are usually considered bad spirit (think touchdown dance but with a little more taunting and less crowd play). For Dangle Wrangle, if you DON'T spike the disc, you don't get the point. The Tournament Director split us into 8 teams of action heroes, ranging from Clint Eastwood to Chuck Norris.

My team was Wesley Snipes. Boo-yah! Although not a very big action movie like Demolition Man, Blade, or Double Impact, my favorite Wesley Snipes quote has to be from "White Men Can't Jump." Woody Harrelson and Snipes are betting money on 3-pointers, and Woody needs to make the last one to tie Snipes. Snipes walks out in front of Harrelson and shakes his butt from side to side and says, "The wind moves the ball six to eight inches." Harrelson misses, and Snipes grabs the cash and scoots.

So yeah, I brought out that spike. Other favorites today were using the frisbee as Blade's sword, and slicing down everyone else on the team who became vampires after the score. A spin on that was that the vampires take Blade's sword, then promptly get their hand chopped off from the kick-ass fingerprint verification on the sword (best part in the movie!).

We played against the Jean Claude Van Damme team and brought out some obscure references, like "Sonic BOOM!" because Van Damme played Guile in the Street Fighter movie.

But my favorite... has to be... the cheer we did for the Steven Seagal team. One of the guys on my team knew the Family Guy episode where Seagal fights the baby seals, snapping many baby-seal necks in the process.

"You bastards come into our village, kill our fish, pollute our water... I'm going to send you back to hell where you came from!"

The worst part about today's frisbee tournament would have to be the fact that we were playing on a frozen tundra, and in the snow. I've never played frisbee in the snow, at least not organized frisbee. It was fucking cold! Ah! But that reminds me of my Beowulf cheer where after scoring, I took my four layers of shirts and sweatshirts off (which took longer than I anticipated), and screamed:

"I... AM... BEOWULF!!!"

Then I played a couple points with no shirt on, in the snow, to prove my manliness... like I know my good friend Beowulf would have done.

Flashback to 2003

I rode down to Tacoma yesterday after class, and I couldn't help but remember all the drives I did while I attended UPS. I'd come up for the weekend to hang out with friends, or make an excuse to come home and use the hot tub. Just south of the airport along I-5 is where the "good ol' Alma Mater" feeling hits.

I took the back way, which takes you on a bypass through downtown Tacoma, along the water and up through Old Tacoma and 30th N. 30th is a long, steep hill in North Tacoma, about a half-mile from the UPS campus. I parked my bike in the SUB parking lot, hoping to not get a parking ticket. Strolled over to the Business building to see if my old advisor was around, but he wasn't.

I came back to the SUB and headed upstairs, which immediately brought me back to my junior and senior years at UPS. I'd always go up to the loft of the SUB to study. There was usually plenty of ambient noise, as well as plenty of opportunities to people-watch. I was never good at just sitting in a room and studying, I need little distractions to keep my mind fresh. I opened up my backpack and started studying for my Geography exam next Tuesday, and within an hour Josh called and he was off work.

We met up at his house for some Guitar Hero 3 action, which definitely didn't disappoint. I started off with Pearl Jam's "Even Flow," then played "My Name is Jonas," "Welcome to the Jungle," "Seeker," "Bulls on Parade," and a few others before we packed it up and headed out for trivia night at E-9.

Josh and I were the first to arrive, and he suggested we get a pitcher of Belgian White to go along with our food. I had completely forgotten about the Belgian White at E-9. We'd always get a couple pitchers of it after playing ultimate over on Jefferson Field in 2003. Josh is beer conesuer, and he still hasn't found anything quite like the Belgian White at E-9.

We had slim competition for the first round of trivia. Josh got 27 of 32 answers right, and he needed my help for the Lenny Kravis question. We won a free pitcher with 28/32 right! Tom and Andrea showed up for the second and third rounds, but by then there was more (older and wiser) competition in the room. And even with Tom's history degree and Waldo's Bio. degree, we didn't get anymore free pitchers of beer.

No matter! Josh and I got more Guitar Hero in, and decided because we were buzzed from the beer, it only made logical sense to try the next difficulty setting. And we owned it! We ended the night on Josh's near perfect run through "My Name is Jonas," and promptly passed out.

I made it out on the road by 8am this morning, and froze my balls off. Besides the wet bum and cold hands, the ride wasn't too bad. I only ran into a little bit of traffic, and made it up to Seattle in about an hour. I quickly hopped in the shower and took a nice 15 minute relaxing shower from luke-warm to "so much steam it looks like I'm hot-boxing." Not the most environmentally sound thing to do, but it hit the spot.

Looks like I'll be heading back down to Tacoma on Saturday for the UPS Alumni vs. UPS frisbee game, where I hope to sky Dylan. Afterwards, we might get some more Guitar Hero in, and depending on what goes down, I might spend the night--or I may come back up here to watch the Seahawks game and the Indi/Pats game. Go Colts!

Halloween!

This Halloween is going to be a blast. I'm not partying hard this year. Instead, I'm riding my motorcycle down to Tacoma, playing some guitar hero 3 for the first time, going to quiz night at E-9 for the first time since 04', then playing some more guitar hero! Can't wait to ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!!!