Without further uh-dew...Brian's Bachelor Party

Ok, so I didn't feel like looking up the spelling of "adieu" (spell check works in here apparently!). Brian's (my sisters' fiancé) bachelor party was actually almost two weeks ago, and I'm just now getting to this blog. Sorry folks, been busy. Seriously, I have been!

Alright, so last we left off I was bitching about my delayed flights for the weekend. The quick recap is that Friday I was flying up to Washington DC for this event and my flight got delayed about 2 hours. I was sure I was gonna miss out on Friday nights' festivities (in Baltimore) but luckily Brian's friends Anand & Emory wound up waiting around DC to take me to Baltimore. I'm still very greatful to them! (And if they ever actually checked myspace, I'd be at 100 friends right now! C'mon guys!!!) :)

So we drive to Baltimore, get to the hotel, which was RIGHT across the street from Camden Yards. Go up to the room - a suite! Get changed and find a cab to the bar. A lesson I learned is to never compliment a cab driver on his "system". Anand did. He blasted some garbage christian reggae sounding music through the stereo. I haven't fully recovered. After what seemed like alot of zig-zag driving through some streets, we got to area with all the bars and found Brian and friends. I have no idea the names of any of these bars, so don't ask. The first bar was kind of small, but it was a pretty cool environment. I remember getting a couple of beers, along with 2 shots that some of the other guys bought for everyone. Good start! This bar had some - I could only describe as - holes in the floor. You could see downstairs. No one was down there, I don't even know how you'd get down there, but you could see that it existed. I think we talked a couple of girls into believing that we were scouting the place out from downstairs. All I really remember about these girls is that they were from Michigan, and Brian used his hand as a map to show where in Michigan. And one of em lived in Atlanta for a while. Oh, another highlight from that place, I was on my way to the bathroom, and I didn't realize there was a line. Some guy pulled me out of line and said no FSU fans were allowed in there! I totally thought it was a random guy messing with me (I had my FSU hat on). I didn't realize it until about an hour later, but it was Brian's friend Andy. Oops, I'm an idiot. From there...onto bar #2. These girls wound up going with us, still not really sure why, but we are pretty cool guys of course! I liked the next bar more, it had an upstairs where we actually had room to breathe. At one point I went to the bar and got 4 beers and a water. Walking back to the group was tricky. I had 2 drinks in each hand, and mine was in my mouth, being held on by my teeth (plastic cups, Courtney wouldn't approve!). With that, its not like I could tap people's shoulder to say excuse me...and with my beer in my mouth I couldn't say excuse me either! It was probably alot more impressive in my mind when I picture it. But I made it back to the crowd. I - amongst others - drank way too much Friday night. But I needed it. That flight almost killed me and my night, but I overcame :) At about 1:45 they began kicking people out of the bar - 1:45!!!! Lame! Anyways, we left. I somehow talked myself into walking back to the hotel with Brian and Andy while everyone else got cabs. I was pretty drunk at this point, I just remember coming across a church that had a funny sign outside. For the life of me I can't remember what it said. But I remember trying to walk up to it to take a picture with my phone. I tried a couple of times, I remember it being blurry. Eventually I realized that it probably looked like I was taking a piss in the bushes. I wasn't! I swear! So I gave up on the sign. And eventually caught up to Brian and Andy and back to the hotel we staggered. We had two rooms in the hotel, a suite - on the 7th floor, and another regular room on the 5th floor. Someone needed to go to the 5th floor - and got their own bed - so I volunteered. I somehow actually found the room - only because the door was cracked a little. And plopped in the empty bed and that was the end of day 1.

Day 2 began pretty rough. I never did have dinner Friday, which also explains why I felt like sh!t. As if 7 beers and 2 shots wasn't enough, but I never ate anything! I think I actually started eating a hot pocket before I went to sleep, but it was pretty nasty. Anyways, woke up and had about 10 minutes to get ready to go to the baseball museum attached to Camden Yards. The museum was pretty cool, aside from the fact that I almost puked. It had pretty much the entire history of sports in Maryland. I didn't even know that Babe Ruth was born there. They had a really cool room that was a replica locker room where there were some uniforms - with pads - for anyone to try on. Obviously its against everything I believe in to wear a UMaryland football jersey, or a Baltimore Ravens jersey, so I tried on a Navy football jersey instead and went oneon one with Andy - Ravens jersey. Andy also was brave and tried on the Maryland jersey. I thought I looked pretty damn good in that thing. Although it was kinda tight. You'd think a jersey with the number 62 on it would be big!

Brian and I took turns in the huddle

They had another cool thing at this museum, where you got to be a play by play announcer for some famous sporting events. Brian's friend Brett - a huge Maryland fan - did the play by play of the Maryland-UNC-Wilmington game from the NCAA tournament a few years ago, where Maryland won on a buzzer beater. Brian did a homerun call of a Cal Ripken HR. I tried to be funny and also did the Ripken HR call but when he actually hit the ball I just said strike 2, as if it never happened. It was funny in my head anyways!

Later Saturday night we were going to the Minnesota Twins vs. Baltimore Orioles game. I was looking forward to it, never been to a game there...and someday I want to be able to say that I've been to a game at every stadium in the country - it's gonna be a while, I've only been to 6 (Mets, Yankees, Marlins, Devil Rays, Braves, Orioles). 24 to go! And in 2 years the Mets & Yankees get new stadiums, so I'll have even more travelling to do! Anyways, I still wasn't in any kind of mood to be drinking anything, so I just hung out with everyone as we tailgated before the game. It was a pretty cool environment. Unlike Braves games that I'm used to, the stadium is actually in a decent area, there are a couple of bars and just a bunch of people hanging out outside the stadium. Including this cool guy in a Ray Lewis jersey that said "Killer" instead of "Lewis" hahahaha. There was a table setup outside one of the bars for beer pong. An actual beer pong table! Awesome! I'm still new to the beer pong scene, but some of the guys who were playing were TERRIBLE! It's not supposed to take 45 minutes to finish a game. i was able to finish off my grandma in about 10 minutes a few weeks ago :)

So, after the pregame festivities, we finally make our way into the stadium, when all of a sudden the skies start to look reaaaaalllllllll bad. They were in the middle of inducting B.J. Surhoff into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame when the rain began. Luckily our seats were below the overhang to the 2nd deck, so we stayed dry. But it POURED! We were all amazed by all the steps involved in getting the tarp onto the field. They even put the tarp over the podium where the speeches were going on before the game.

I didn't get a picture, but I think the highlight of the night was that a bachelorette party had seats RIGHT behind us. The part that was amusing - to us anyways - was that there is no way these girls were older than 18. I may not be good with age, and I thought they all looked like they were about 14 or so. It was bad! I think one of the guys in our group got on their nerves a little and they finally left. We thought that they were going home because of curfew reasons, but turns out they stayed and sat in another section.

The game was delayed about 2 hours because of the rain and finally started at about 9pm. Thats Anand pictured on the left. Absolutely couldn't stay awake. And guess what...later in the game...he got a foul ball. And after much peer pressure - alledgedly he wanted to give the ball to Brian - he wound up giving it to a little kid. I know thats the right thing to do, but I really would be hard pressed not to keep a foul ball. Those kinds of things just don't happen too often. Kids would appreciate it for a minute then couldn't care less afterwards. But, whatever, Anand got a mini-standing ovation from the crowd. I guess that makes it worth it.

As for the actual game, it was fun. Ironically, a guy named Liz was pitching for Baltimore. He threw nothing but 96 mile an hour fastballs in the first two innings. He finally threw an 86 MPH pitch at the end of the 2nd inning. I'm not exactly a fan of either team, but Torii Hunter from the Minnesota Twins is on my fantasy baseball team, so I was trying to get an action picture of him while he was hitting. I did...but I was a fraction of a second too quick. I got a good picture on the left, but that very pitch he hit a 3 run HR. I was so close!!!

Knowing that bars closed kinda early in Baltimore, we left the game in about the 7th inning - the Twins won 8-1 - and went back to the hotel and changed. Like any bachelor party, traditi0n seems to dictate that you've gotta go to a strip club. We did, and thats all I'm gonna say about that :)

So thats about it. All in all it was alot of fun. Since I have so many girl-friends in Atlanta, it was nice getting to hang out with the guys for once!