A Week of Crazy Pt 5 - The Finale

OK, the power’s back on, food it saved, the candles are put away… time to put a wrap on my June Vacation Extravaganza.

One of the cool things about my room at the Doubletree was that I could see the Pittsburgh Penguins new arena, the Consol Energy Center, from my window.  Sunday morning, we wanted to go over and visit the new statue of Penguins owner and legend, Mario Lemieux.  I would have been able to provide a nice aerial shot, except that there was a damned church in the way.

The Damned Church.  The arrow points to the Lemieux statue.

I was already starting to think of it as “The Damned Church,” and then when I heard that Sitcom Kelly’s room was looking the opposite direction, so I told her to come get a look out my window.  When she said, “But there’s a Damned Church in the way,” I knew the name would stick for the rest of the trip.

Our itinerary for Sunday was to go see the Lemieux statue, visit the Rivers Casino and then go to the Pirates/Tigers game at 1:30.  After the game, Sitcom Kelly and her sister were heading home.  My plans were still up in the air.

My big dilemma was whether or not I should wear my Pirates game jersey right away, or carry it until game time.  But then, I remembered that I was in Pittsburgh… a game jersey is appropriate at all times.

As we strolled around town, we came across this fountain.  I took some shots while Sitcom Kelly looked for an ATM.

The fountain outside the PNC Tower, with the Omni William Penn in the background.

It occurred to me, while I was moseying around the square, how much I enjoyed just being in downtown Pittsburgh.  There’s really no city like it.  I felt such a sense of comfort and ease.  Perhaps that’s because I knew that the likelihood of being jumped and robbed by a pissed-off Ratbirds fan was practically nil.

We made our way over to the Consol Arena to visit the statue.

This is the front side of the Mario Lemieux statue, showing Le Magnifique splitting a pair of NY Islanders defensemen.

Just about everyone that has seen pictures of the statue have seen it from this angle.  So I figured I’d get a shot of the other end.

I was pleasantly surprised by the detail that went into the two defenders.  I almost expected a thought bubble to emanate from them both, going, “Oh shit!”

I didn’t want to stay out in front of the arena for too long, or else I’d find Sitcom Kelly plastered to the outside glass, like a kid outside a candy store window.  I’m not saying she’s got a thing for hockey players, but I’d hate for maintenance to have to come out and clean the boob marks off the glass.

Our next stop was to get back onto “The T” and take it under the river and over to Rivers Casino.  This is a new subway route that just opened a few months ago.  It’s a free service that runs from downtown, under the Allegheny River, over to the North Shore, where the casino, Heinz Field and PNC Park sit all lined up in a row.  Residents may debate whether it was a worthy project for taxpayer dollars, but it sure helped us out. 

“I’m all for it!” says the non-taxpaying nonresident.

The Rivers Casino is a full service gambling joint with slots and table games.  None of us being much of a gambler, the sisters and I settled on playing some slots, to kill the time before the game.  While I was there, I met up with my cousin Greg, who had managed to procure himself a ticket to the game, right beside our seats.

While I was busy pissing my money away, I swear he sat down beside me, fed in $5 and instantly hit a big one.  I don’t know how much he won on that roll, but he played for about another 15 minutes and still walked away with $50.  Bastard!

So Greg won, I dropped about $40, and the sisters broke close to even, before we broke and headed for the ballgame.

This is the Duquesne Incline.  It’s not the one we rode the night before; that ones about a half mile to the left, but they are similar.

Our seats were pretty good… 3 rows from the field (not including the row of special needs seats), down the third base line.

The game was a rare sellout, mostly because a lot of Detroit fans realized that this was a cool road trip to make.  And why not make the trip?  It’s still the most scenic ballpark in the country.  (In my humble, but biased opinion.)

OK, it would have looked nicer, if it had been sunny and we were shooting from behind home plate.

Justin Verlander was pitching for the Tigers.  To me, this was good news and bad news.  The good news was that I’d be getting to see a future Hall of Famer pitch.  The bad news was that the Pirates were probably going to get their asses kicked.

That’s Verlander, on the left.  The big guy on the right is Prince Fielder, who isn’t so much a first baseman but a nose tackle.

As for the game, the Pirates were down 2-0 early, came back to tie it later, gave up another run in the 8^th, had guys on in the bottom of the 9^th but couldn’t score and lost 3-2. 

It was an exciting game, but boy, was it hot.  With no shade and few clouds, we were left to simmer in our own juices.  Carpetbagger and his wife were with us too, although Mrs. Bagger spent most of the game back on the concourse, in the shade.  (Obviously, she’s the brains of the operation.  And so are Sitcom Kelly and her sister, as they ducked out early, to start their drive home, in glorious air conditioning.)

With the game over and goodbyes said, I had the rest of the evening ahead.  I had originally planned to hang with Greg for a while before retiring to my hotel, and then go out on Monday morning to see my Grandpa on the west side of town.

But before the game, Greg said his mom was making homemade pasta and invited me out for dinner.  Homemade spags?  You don’t have to ask me twice.  So Greg ran me out to Coraopolis so I could hang with my 96-year old Grandpa and other loved ones for a while.

Greg and his wife recently had their 2^nd child, a girl whom they named Luci, after our Grandma.  Needless to say, that made my Grandpa a very happy guy.

Grandpa with his great granddaughter, Luci.

Check out the cheeks on this one!  She looks like a cabbage patch doll…

There’s enough room in there for a bowl of pasta and a couple of meatballs!

So we ate and yakked and had wine and looked at old pictures and yakked some more.  It was a great way to finish up a wonderful week and another satisfying trip to The Burgh.  Greg got me back to my room in time for True Blood on HBO, so I’d have less DVR to catch up on the next week.

Having my visit on Sunday night allowed me to head for home first thing Monday morning.  But the down side is that I wouldn’t be able to stop by the local market for some authentic Pittsburgh chipped-chopped ham and fresh Italian bread.  At least I learned that the place that serves the monster fish sandwiches that I love, was closed Monday too, so I didn’t miss anything there.

I got home uneventfully, which is good.  I made my usual Wendy’s stop in Breezewood, and for once had time to stop at that place that sells all the Steelers and Penguins paraphernalia.  Lord, I spent 30 minutes in there and could have dropped a ton of dough, but I was able to keep it under $35. 

My biggest problem was that I now had to go back to work on Tuesday.  

After all the craziness I’d just been through, I figured I’d need at least another day or two to recover from the vacation.

A Week of Crazy Pt 4: The Burgh

First off, the walleye tasted wonderful!  Had some for dinner last night and again tonight.  That’s a first-rate “eating” fish right there.

So, it was home on Friday, then back on the road on Saturday.  I took off about 10:30 Saturday morning, and pointed the car at Pittsburgh.  The first thing I noticed was that the road was filled with these guys:

The fucksticks were everywhere!

The most common variation was the people that camped in the left lane, usually right beside or just barely behind a car in the right lane.

There was one guy in a red compact that was holding me up for miles, as he slightly passed and then fell behind the same car over and over again.  Then I look and he’s got his hand out the window, playing with the wind current.

It’s times like that when I’m glad I don’t carry a gun, even though once I spelled out the circumstances, I’m sure no jury in the world would have convicted me.  I still want that hood-mounted water cannon though.

After a couple of traffic jams, some caused by accidents, another by the dreaded Squirrel Hill Tunnel Monster, I rolled into the downtown Doubletree about 3:30, just minutes behind Sitcom Kelly and her Sitcom Sister.

I had asked her if she wanted to come out to our bloggers’ get-together so that my friends could finally meet the person I’ve been writing about for the last couple years, and to prove that she was not a figment of my imagination.  She accepted because she finally committed to starting a blog, plus there was a Pirates game in the plans.  And any time she has a chance to stalk and capture an athlete to keep in her basement Silence of the Lambs pit, she takes it.

As luck would have it, the NHL was holding their amateur draft over this same weekend.  It was taking place at the Penguins hockey arena, which was just down the block from the hotel.  Bringing Sitcom Kelly to a target-rich environment like this was like bring the perv to the playground. 

Sitcom Kelly studies the NHL Draft Conference Schedule in the hotel lobby, to plan the most effective stalking spots.

When I checked in, I was told that I had an “eco-room,” designed for maximum energy savings.  This meant that they gave me a card that you stick in a slot by the hallway light.  When the card is in, you can operate the lights and stuff.  They also gave me a warm cookie, probably so that I’d go along with the eco-room scam.

I also noticed that the room thermostat was calibrated to the Celsius scale.  I assumed that was so that most people would be too confused to mess with it.

I loved that I got a king-sized bed and 5 pillows.  I didn’t know what to do first… freshen up from the drive, or make a pillow fort.  Alas, we had places to go so I freshened up.

After much consideration of options, we decided to take the subway, aka “The T,” across the river to Station Square, and have a few drinks there before going to the restaurant.  Our meet-up was at La Tavola, and they didn’t serve alcohol.  You could bring your own, but I really didn’t want to schlep a bottle of wine all across town, so we figured we’d have a few early, meet for dinner at 6:00, then come back for a nightcap.

The restaurant was up on the top of Mt. Washington, so to get up there, we had to take the Incline.  An “Incline” is like a single trolley car that while remaining on a horizontal plane, travels up the mountain on a railroad track.  I’d only been on one once before, back in the 80s, so I enjoyed the ride.

Waiting for our car (on the left) to arrive.  The other one is on the way up.

Once on top of Mt. Washington, we sought out the tourist platform, from which to shoot dazzling pictures of the city… like this one:

I love this city!

While we were all fixed up with Google Maps to get us to the restaurant, we ended up going a different way around the block that was in front of us.  This proved to be a karmic gift, because we just so happened to walk by a liquor store.  Figuring we were most of the way there by now, it was a much more manageable schlep for a wine bottle.  I wanted to bring a wine box, but I have no idea what the corkage fee would have been on that.

By the time we rolled in, most of the people were already there.  Maybe one day, I’ll actually arrive somewhere before Cassie does, but it hasn’t happened yet.  But it was good to see my best blog friends.

Cassie was there, with Jessica, our friend from Shreveport LA.

Cassie, me, and Jessica.  Jess also had her husband and daughter with her.

Mr. and Mrs. Carpetbagger were there as well!

Bluz, Carpetbagger, and the Mrs on the far side.

Bethany was there, with her man Casey and son Jones.

I was trying for a candid mother/son shot, but I probably should have asked her to look.

Facie was a newcomer to our events; she sat down on the end of the table with the Carpetbaggers and I.

Facie and Bluz

I swear, the next time we have an event at a restaurant, we have to get a round table or something.  It’s so hard when half the group is only reachable via shouting.  I never had much of a chance to talk to Cassie’s mom, Cassie, Jessica, or their husbands, the latter of which made an early break for it, with the kids.  I’m curious what it’s like having your life written about when it’s not you doing the writing. 

But I’m not complaining.  I enjoyed getting to know Facie, and the Carpetbaggers are always entertaining.  One thing I learned that surprised me was that until recently, Carpetbagger though my name was pronounced with a short “u.”  I was shocked… I always thought it was obvious that Bluz should rhyme with “booze.”  (Or “boos,” as it were.) 

Maybe I should start spiffing up my branding and call myself “Blüzdude.”  Probably not though… it just took my five minutes to find the umlaut.  (Or are those what you call the fringy things on Michael Jackson’s shoulders?  I get confused…)

About 7:30, much to my shock, amazement and utter delight, in walked Ginny, (nee PittGirl) of That’s Church, along with her 2 kids.  I’d been trying to get her out to one of our meet-ups and while she’s been agreeable, Real Life has always intervened.  We’d chatted briefly once before, after I spent half a day at Pittsburgh Podcamp 5, stalking her from room to room.

I promise, I tried really hard not to jibber at her about how great I think she is, but I’m afraid I was only partially successful.  I’m pretty sure that I beat into the ground the fact that she was the one that inspired me to take up blogging.  (So if you’re tired of reading my bullshit, blame her!)

Let me apologize right now to anyone else that wanted to talk to her that night.  She couldn’t stay more than a half hour or so, so I’m pretty sure that I monopolized most of her time.  But I couldn’t help it.  Must have been that third glass of wine that eliminated my last shred of decorum.

But on the other hand, I got this…

Now I know for sure that talking to her was NOT a figment of my imagination.

Eventually, all our wine ran out, which signified the end of the event.

We bade our fond farewells and headed off into the night, once Cassie finished giving wrong directions to three different motorists.  Sitcom Kelly, her sister and I took the Incline back down the mountain and went straight back to the bar at Station Square.  Carpetbagger joined us, after dropping his wife back at home.

We had a few beers and gabbed there on the patio, enjoying the end of a thoroughly wonderful night.  In fact, it was such a nice night; we eschewed taking The T back to the hotel and hoofed it ourselves. 

I say, whenever you have a chance to take nighttime pictures of the city from the Smithfield Street Bridge, you take it.

I’d like to sincerely thank everyone that came out to our event and made it the special day it was.  (Even if I hardly got to talk to you.)  You are all beautiful people and your friendship means the world to me.

Next up: City walkabout, a Pirates game, and the siren call of homemade pasta.

Powerless

We interrupt this vacation travelogue to bring you a breaking news update.

Friday Night, 11:15 pm:

Bluz: Shit!  The power’s out.

Saturday Morning, 6:00 am:

Bluz: Shit!  The power’s still out.

Saturday Evening: 10:00 pm:

Bluz: Shit!  The power’s still out.  I’m going to bed.

Sunday Morning, 6:00 am:

Bluz: Whoo Hoo!  The power is on!

If you’ve watched the news lately, or live in the Great Lakes or Mid-Atlantic region, you heard about the storm that rolled through on Friday night, which generally made a mess of everything.

Around 11:00 pm, I was sitting up, watching “Spaceballs” on HBO and contemplating going to bed.  I already had the PC turned off and was waiting to develop enough energy to get off the couch and go to bed, when I heard all hell breaking loose outside.

I’d heard there might be a storm coming but I wasn’t expecting anything like this.  The last two hurricanes that hit this area (Floyd and Isabelle) weren’t nearly this bad, at least not this far inland.  Then, around 11:15, the power went out.

I have candles and a flashlight and stuff, but it can be hard to find your stuff in the dark, especially when you’re not totally sure where you last put it.  I was lucky that I have a wristwatch that has a light, for night viewing.  It also creates sufficient light, in a darkened room, so that you can find stuff and not smash your feet into the table legs.  With that, I was able to find my flashlight, and successfully maneuver into the bathroom to remove my contact lenses and then go to bed.

I used to lose power during every single thunderstorm, when I first moved in.  Then after a couple years, my municipality got serious about trimming back tree branches away from the power lines.  Since then, I hardly ever lose power.  So when I got up Saturday morning and the power was still out, I knew it might be a bad one.

I knew we had water, but forgot that due to the electricity-operated water heater, I wouldn’t have hot water.  Unfortunately I didn’t realize this oversight until I was in the shower.  (You might have heard the screaming.  Homie don’t like the cold showers.)  So I cleaned up the best I can with a washcloth.  Sometimes having really short hair (and little of it) pays off.

After reading the paper, which had limited information about the storm, due to its late arrival to the area, I decided to go to the movies.  (Nothing like putting your head in the proverbial sand, to pretend that everything’s OK.)

Quick movie review: I went to see Prometheus, and loved it.  It was my first 3-D movie, so that may have tipped it even further to the positive.  The movie was shot in 3-D, (as opposed to adding the effects later, which isn’t nearly as effective), so it was really eye-popping.  Well, it was, once I got used to wearing the glasses.

Prometheus is a “prequel” to the “Alien” series, which is one of my favorites.  If you like the “Alien” movies, you should like this one.  It has all the same ingredients: Great effects, suspense, ugly creepy-crawlies and a strong female lead.

After the movie, (and a meal at Wendy’s), I called home to check on the power.  My answering machine didn’t some on, so I knew there was still no juice.  That made WalMart my next stop.  I have some supplies at home, but as yet, I didn’t know how long we would be in the dark, so I wanted to stock up.  I picked up a new flashlight and an oil lamp and a long-nosed lighter.  About the latter, I figured I may need to light our gas stove burner manually, so I wanted to be able to keep my distance, thus saving some valuable knuckle hair.

What Wally’s didn’t have was ice, so I made my neighborhood liquor store my next stop.  (OK, it wasn’t just the ice that I needed.)  I was worried, because of the widespread power outage, that all the stores would be cleaned out, but I was in luck, because they crowds hadn’t hit the liquor store yet.  This was good, because as I drove home past my local grocery store, they didn’t seem to have any power themselves.

As I was driving around the neighborhood, I got a good look at the scope of the damage.  There were huge limbs and trees down everywhere, some blocking 3 of 4 lanes across the road I was on.  There were many stoplights that weren’t working.  Now, I know that broken stoplights should be treated as a 4-way stop sign, but I believe I’m in the minority, here in Maryland.  Lucky for me, the traffic was light.

When I got home, I split my bad of ice in half and put the pieces into two soft-side coolers I have.  Then I filled in around the ice with all my frozen perishables.  (I’m not giving up that bag of walleye filets without a fight.)  So with the freezer full of ice and frozen goods, I knew they would keep for a while, as long as I could stay out of it.

By the time I was done, it was about 4:00 pm.  Pinky was staying at her place, so all I had to do was amuse myself for the next 6 or 7 hours, without TV, PC, DVR, VCR, or A/C.  It was time to go “pioneer.” 

So I sat in my computer chair, (because it’s right beside a window) and dug into a new book, Keith Richards’ autobiography, called “Life.”  (Great read, by the way.  I’m about a third of the way through it and it’s a fascinating read.  If you like the Stones, or rock and roll, go get it and read it.)

My new oil lamp, portable radio and Keef book, to take the place of all my useless toys.

I also have a portable radio so I was trying to find some news on it.  I scanned all through the AM and FM spectra and couldn’t find squat.  All the “News” stations were running national shows.  I settled on the Orioles game and was rewarded with a quick news break, wherein they stated that there were about 400,000 people in Maryland, without power, and it might take up to a week to get it all back.

When you need news, there’s noting more depressing than an inoperable computer.

Shit.  If the outage went on much longer, I’d need more ice and so would everyone else.  I figured I’d have to spend Sunday cooking everything in the freezer.  Maybe I could take some of it to work and put it in the refrigerator on our floor.

I also must state that I’m extremely luck to have a ground floor, partially below-ground apartment.  Even without the A/C, it remained comfortable inside.  I feel for the people, (like my brother) who had no such recourse other than to be both bored and sweaty.

My parents called around 8:30, when they heard my brother lost power as well and I wasn’t responding to emails.  This is another reason I always keep a landline with a corded handset.  The phone system has its own dedicated power supply that will remain on when outages occur.  I know I could have used my cell, but I was trying to conserve its battery, in case of greater emergency. 

As the outside lights dimmed, I lit the oil lamp and arranged 3 other candles around me.  I also have one of those little LED lights that you clip onto a book, to help you see in the dark.  I read until about 10:00 pm, when my eyes and my butt could no longer take the strain.  (From sitting so long, you pervert.)

Then this morning, as I foggily rolled over to face my alarm clock, I was rewarded by flashing numbers.  Seems that the power came back on around 5:00 this morning.  Stovetop cooking marathon averted and I get to take a hot shower.

So, after going ‘primitive’ for an entire day, (except for the part about driving around and going to the movies), I’m back in the saddle and living large in Century 21.

Viva la electricidad!*

I now return you to the regularly scheduled conclusion to my vacation posts.  You know… next time.

*Not sure that’s actual Spanish… my high school Spanish teacher is probably rolling in her grave.

A Week of Crazy Pt 3

I apologize for the uncharacteristic gap between this and the last post… I’ve been kinda busy.  Just got back yesterday from my weekend trip to Pittsburgh.  I’ve got plenty to write about that, but first I want to put a bow on the Ohio portion of my vacation.

What I want to do is to briefly go over the last days and then fill in some details that I forgot to put into omitted from the two prior posts, mostly via pictures.

We were really beat when we finally got home from the fishing trip, but at least we could claim success.  Not only did we each receive a big bag of fish filets, none of us got seasick.  The last time I was on a fishing charter, we were rolling pretty good and it made me pretty nauseous.  Luckily I hadn’t eaten, or there would have been more than ‘bait’ in the water.

This time, I didn’t get seasick at all.  I was pretty good at accounting for the boat movement by using my legs to keep my upper body steady.  While, I did take Dramamine this time, I prefer to credit my non-ralphing experience to my superior coping skills.

I mentioned that we set up for “trolling” in the last post.  I’d never done it before and it’s a pretty interesting setup.  First, they have something called the ‘planer boards,’ which are 2 x 8 beams set on edge and braced together about 2 feet apart.  It gets put in the water off the side of the boat, tied to a rope that’s attached to the top of the bridge.  There’s one for each side of the boat.  Once they’re out there, they glide alongside the boat as it moves forward, holding the line taut.

Then, you have a number of fishing poles with a lure attached.  Someone sends the line out about 50-60 feet behind the boat and then passes the end of the rod up to the Captain, who in turn clips the line onto the rope that’s holding the planer boards.  The line is released and the clip sends the line down toward the planer board until you snap the reel shut to lock it in place.

You repeat that step with several more rods and send it down the rope, stopping about 6 feet from the previous line.  By the time we were done, we had 4 rods on each side of the boat.  It looked like this:

You can see the planer board out in the distance.  All the fishing lines are clipped to that rope in the middle.

When one of the poles bent, the Captain would snap the line off the rope and hand it to one of us, who would go to the back of the boat and reel in the fish.  Sometimes, it got really crazy, when someone was trying to send out a line while someone else had a fish on the line.  The Captain basically functioned like an air traffic controller to keep us out of each other’s way and not get our lines tangled.  We did OK, for a bunch of greenhorns.

Also in the picture, off in the distance, you can see the Monroe (MI) power plant.  That’s how I was able to kind of keep track where we were.  There were three power plants around our corner of Lake Erie: the Monroe plant, the Fermi nuclear plant up to the right of Monroe, and Davis Bessie nuclear plant, off the other side of the boat.  For some reason, it gave me comfort to maintain a sense of where the hell we were.

By the way, this is the much-scorned “sheephead:”

The FISH, not me…

And now, I give you…

Irritating My Mother, Part 3

(This is where I’d put the picture of me pouring Froot Loops, if I had only remembered to take it.  Also, you’ll have to imagine a picture of my pouring Apple Jacks, for Part 4.)

I spent the day Thursday at Rik’s house, writing the previous post.  That evening we were scheduled to go to Bowling Green, to see his son Jake’s little league game.

Remember in the first vacation post, when I said that my buddy is such a horndog that he gets his Viagra from a Pez dispenser shaped like Pinocchio?  Guess what he found on the ground, by the stands at the game?

Sometimes these things write themselves…

 It was fortunate that Jake’s game was in Bowling Green… that gave us the perfect opportunity to go to Myles Pizza, my old college haunt.

  Still the best pizza in the world.  This one is black olive/mushroom/ground beef.

This one is pepperoni and mushroom.  Both were massive.

This excursion is always my treat, and I paid big-time this time, because everybody came, even Rik’s granddaughter Ailey.

“When life gives you lemons, make a duck-face.”

We ended up at Myles earlier than we anticipated, because the last inning of Jake’s game was rained out.  It poured like crazy while we were eating but was clearing up by the time we left.  But it produced one amazing sky…

It looked like the aliens were about to land.  Where’s Will Smith when you need him?

Once we got back to John’s (garage), we were too full for beer, but some Crown Royal did nicely.  It’s funny, though, when you combine classy whiskey with casual, garage furniture…

This is what you get when worlds collide.

While we were out there nursing our booze, John broke out his I-Pad for us to play with.  I’d never used one before.  I’ll tell you, that is now on my list.  Very nifty… Once I get a new PC and a WiFi network set up, I’ll be all over it.  Of course by that time, I’m sure the rest of the world will be onto something else.

One thing I forgot to mention about our experience at the Toledo Mudhens game on Monday… their opponent!  The Mudhens were playing the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.  It was like the battle of ridiculous nicknames. 

Needless to say, I need to get myself an IronPigs hat, to go with my Blue Wahoos topper.  Minor Leagues are the best!

Oh, and this is a shot of Rik’s son Jake and John’s grandson Gavyn, feverishly wishing that the jabbering mudhen behind us would shut her giant pie-hole.

Even the sourpuss down the row wanted her to shut it.

On Friday, the only thing left for me to do was to go home, but first I had to re-pack.  You may be wondering how one goes about taking 16 fish filets home on an airplane.  Luckily, you came to the right place.

First, freezer bags!  Put the fish in a gallon-sized freezer bag, then fill it with water and put in the freezer.  (Yeah, be sure to seal it first.)  By the next day (or so) it should look like this:

Mrs. Paul, eat your heart out.

Just before it’s time to go to the airport, take out the bag, wrap it in newspaper, and then wrap it again in foil.  Then it’s ready to go in your suitcase, providing you have room.

My only concern was going through security.  The last time I tried this, it was prior to the added security involving liquids.  But I figured, it really wasn’t a liquid now, was it?  Drop it on your foot and see how liquid it feels…

They definitely gave it a good look when my bag went through the scanner.  They pulled my suitcase out for additional inspection.  Can’t blame them for wanting to know what the big, dark, bowling-ball-sized mass in my bag was.  It sure wasn’t undies.

Anyway, I told the guy that it was a frozen bag of walleye that I worked really hard to catch.  They let me go, with a laugh.  And by the time I got home, it was still frozen solid.

I’ll let you know how it tastes, once we break the seal.

Up next: the second leg of my vacation extravaganza… a trip to Pittsburgh to see a bunch of bloggers and a ballgame.

A Week of Crazy Pt 2

On Father's Day, we assembled at John's dad's place for a large family brunch.  Always eating, we are, but damn, it was good.  Afterwards, I knocked around with Rik and his 12-year old son, Jake, pretty much for the rest of the day.

John spent the Monday smoking a turkey.  What resulted was the best, juiciest turkey I've ever had.  Dude is king of the grill...

The turkey, which was stuffed with sausage (on the right) and apple slices.

While John was grilling Rik and I took Jake out to work on his batting.  Rik pitched and I shagged balls in the outfield.  You should have seen me... I made a couple of decent running catches.  Well, OK, technically, I wasn't exactly "running."  It was more like a brisk mosey.

The day's big event was going to the Toledo Mudhens baseball game that night.  Rik, John and I went with Jake and John's 9-year old grandson Gavyn.  The only eventful thing about it was the dysfunctional family in front of us and the jabbering magpies behind us, while we sat here:


It seemed pretty obvious that the 6-year old boy in front of us had ADD or something because he was in constant motion and doing everything his grandfather told him not to do 3 seconds earlier.  It didn't help that he was being picked at by his hulk of an older brother.  Took 4 innings before Grandpa finally figured out that he should sit between them.  I was screaming it (in my head) since the bottom of the first.

Behind us sat a lady who yapped non-stop with the people beside and behind her about her job, the people she works with, her political views, the price of milk and everything else.  Because she was turned around in her seat talking to the people behind her, I was hoping for a wayward screaming foul ball to come her way.

I told my buddies that you never really appreciate your own kids until you see someone else's.  Jake and Gavyn were practically perfect.  (Oh man, you should have seen Gavyn eating his 15" hot dog.  Kid went through that thing like a buzz saw.)  But they sat there, kept still and watched the game.  It was a beautiful thing.

Finally, because there were seats to be had, we moved over here:


From here, the only thing we had to worry about was the intermittent shrieking, coming from the 3-year old on the outfield wall.  I assumed she was friends with the ADD kid.

Yes, I know it's a ballgame and people get loud, but this wasn't ballgame-loud, it was pointless screaming and noise and thrashing around.  Maybe you think it's cute when your kid is screaming his head off, but rest assured, everyone around him is plotting revenge in horrible ways.  Just sayin... 

Meanwhile, the plot to seek revenge on my mom continues with:

Irritating my Mother, Part 2

Thoughtsy, this one's for you.

The week's big event was our 2-day fishing charter out on Lake Erie.  On the trip were me, John, his Dad, John Sr, John's son Jay, Rik and his son Jake.  We were going out from 1:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Tuesday, and 6:00 am to 2:00 pm on Wednesday.  We had a 3-bedroom place to stay in overnight.  Our quarry: the walleye.

The last time I was out on the lake, the water was pretty choppy.  I ended up with the dry heaves, and I consider myself lucky.  If I'd eaten anything before the trip, it would have been the very wet heaves instead.  With this in mind, all I had to eat before the trip this time was a pack of peanut butter crackers and some Cheez-Its.

The weather was beautiful, in a hot and beating sun kind of way, but there was a breeze, which made it bearable.

Once we got about a half-hour out on the lake, we started casting with great expectations.  Like I said, we were seeking walleye, which are a nice, mild fish for eating.  But when we were catching anything, it always seemed to be a sheephead.  Sheephead are nasty, ugly, inedible garbage fish.  They put up a good fight, but are basically a waste of worm and oxygen.  When we weren't catching sheephead, it was white bass, which are OK but still not good to eat.

Pretty soon, it was we who were being preyed upon by biting flies.  How flies find us out 8-9 miles on the water is beyond me.  They weren't there when we left, then all of a sudden, they're everywhere, chomping on our ankles.  Gah!

The fishing was tough.  Every so often, someone would pull out a walleye, but most if the time, we'd cast around, get nothing, then the captain would take us somewhere else and we'd try again.  When the casting didn't work, we'd try trolling.  That's when you set up several rods in holders on each side of the boat and slowly trudge along.  (There's a lot more to it than that, but I'll spare you the hardcore fishing talk.)  We had absolutely no luck at all with that, so we went back to casting.

By the end of the day, we had 5 walleye and a small perch.  My personal count was one walleye and 2 sheephead.  Considering we spend about 7 hours actively fishing, it was beyond disappointing.

Say 'hello' to Mr. Wallace, our day's prey.  (That's Captain John there with me.)

One of the funny things of the day was that the Captain was named John and his mate was named Jay.  So on one boat, we had 3 Johns, 2 Jays, 1 Jake and then a Rik and a Bluz.  The whole trip, no one knew who was talking to who.

The best thing we caught all day was the sunset.

Coming in to shore after a long and very hard day.

One of the few sailboats we saw on the water.

The sun setting over a dock-side trailer says we're home for the night.

By the time we got in, I was completely beat up.  Remember, I have that hive condition, where I get red, painful, itchy hives after contact with hard surfaces.  On the boat, hard surfaces were the only kind.  Even with my bicycle gloves, my hands were wrecked from holding the fishing pole, my ass was hamburger from sitting on the edge of the boat, the tops of my thighs were swollen from leaning on them with my forearms, my back was tweaked from stooping all day and my heels were on fire from standing in one place, casting time after time.

John's dad had it rough as well.  He's 78, with severely failing vision and increasing frailty.  He said earlier that this would be his last time on a boat and he was going to enjoy every second of it.  But the trip was hard on him too. 

I had serious doubts as to whether I would be able to handle a 2nd day of this.  I felt like about 7 bags of fuck.  But I had a revelation as we were motoring in that night.

We just spent the day living on nothing but crackers and water.  We had little respite from the burning sun.  The walleye were scarce and the sheephead were plentiful.  I might as well have been sitting on a board of nails.  We were getting eaten alive by the biting flies.
 Amid all this suffering, I realized that we'd just had a cleansing.  We were sweating out all the poisons and toxins of everyday life and by doing so, we were strengthening and unifying the tribe.  We used to suffer like this at the old Steelers/Browns games in Cleveland, but it's been quite a while since we had such a collective miserable experience.

Granted, we came back to some righteous ham and turkey sandwiches (from Monday's smoked turkey) and cold beers, so it wasn't exactly the Trials of Job.  But tell it to my feet.

I made a mental note to never again sign up for 2 days of this "fun," but in the meantime, we had to give up the house on Wednesday, so I didn't have a realistic option to bail on the second day.  Otherwise, I think me and John Sr. might have sat it out.  But we had no real choice but to tough it out, so out we went again, at 6:00 the next morning.

It started out as dazzlingly as it ended the night before.

Sunrise on Lake Erie.

The fishing started off as badly as it was on Wednesday.  We motored from place to place, and had diddly-squat for luck.  I pulled out a walleye, but no one else found anything but sheephead. 

So they set up the trolling system again, which was nice for us because we didn't have to deal with the worms and the hooks and casting and stuff. 

 Finally, about 11:30, John told the captain, "Let's go another half hour, then we'll call it a day."

The captain offered to cut us a break on the price.  But no one out there was catching anything either.  It was just one of those things.  The captain and his mate probably had about 100 years of Lake Erie fishing between them.  If they couldn't find the fish, I don't know who could.

John's son Jay didn't want anything to do with trolling... he said it was cheating.  The rest of us just wanted to catch some walleye, so the captain had Jay get up on the bridge and steer the boat.

Ten minutes later, I swear, we started hitting walleye.  Apparently we finally found a decent route to troll.  One after another, one of those rods would dip and one of us would get on it and reel on in.  There were a few white bass, but almost no sheephead.  We pulled out one big, green walleye after another.  It's like we happened upon the whole Wallace family.

Jake and Captain John pose with Mr. Wallace Jr.

John, with a biggun.

Rik, aka Mr. Sheephead, finally gets off the schneid.

Suddenly, fishing was fun again.  It's funny how a little activity can lift everyone's spirits.  I think that we finally had to hit rock bottom, by asking to bail out early, before the fishing gods deigned to smile upon us.  And once we did, it was like a Chinese fire drill out there, with multiple fish hitting at one time, while we're trying to get the other rods ready to go back out.  

Jay just drove the boat back and forth over the same line, while the captain and his mate put us through all the paces.  Those last 2 hours made the whole trip worth while.  We ended up with 26 walleye and 4 perch.  My haul was 6 walleye (one of which was too small to keep) 4 white bass and 2 sheephead.  It was funny how my feet didn't hurt so much, once I could spend more time moving around than standing in one place.

After I got home, was able to take stock.  No seasickness, no sunburn, and the hives felt manageable.  The only problem was it still felt like I was on the boat.  I was up in the bathroom trying to shave before we went out for dinner, and it was like we were still rocking.  I wanted to yell downstairs and tell the kids to stop shaking the house.  Luckily, that subsided over the course of the night.

Tonight, we're heading to Jake's baseball game, followed by an appointment with the best pizza in the world at Myle's Pizza in Bowling Green.  I fear that I might have to be checked in as cargo, on tomorrow's flight home.  Then Saturday, it's on to Pittsburgh and dinner with my blogging pals.  The crazy continues... 

The Week of Crazy - Pt 1

Hi, and welcome to rustic Whitehouse, Ohio, home of, well... nothing.  And as this is my vacation, I embrace the nothing.  Good food, beer and "nothing" make a superb vacation, if you ask me.


I got here easily enough; no hold-ups at all.  Boarded my Southwest flight with the first group and for some reason, and for the first time I can remember, I picked a window seat.  I almost always take the aisle.  But I was rewarded for my choice because shortly after I sat down, a  pretty young girl took the aisle seat, and even better than that, no one took the middle.


We chatted a bit during the short flight.  She came from New York, routing through Baltimore, to Detroit, then heading to upstate Michigan for a bridal shower.  Not that any of that really matters, but it made for a pleasant flight.  (Between her, and the latin flight attendant dude with a severe excess of personality, it was an entertaining hour and a half.)


No doubt that if he were there, my hound-dog buddy Rik would have came off the plane with her phone number.  (If he didn't nail her in the lavatory...)


As usual, my buddy John picked me up, then we headed to our usual haunt, Shawn's Irish Tavern.  We met Rik and John's dad there for lunch and beers.  This particular place has been through a number of ownership changes, but we always seem to wind up there.  Rik, in particular, has engaged in a number of adventures within those walls.  Like I told him Friday, "Dude, if these walls could talk, they'd be screaming your name."


I'm not saying that Rik is a playboy, but he gets his Viagra pills from a Pez dispenser.  (Which is shaped like Pinocchio.)


As we always do on my first night in town, we assembled in John's garage for beer and loud music.  Rik's son and daughter also came by to visit.  They're such great kids.  The boy, Jake, is only 12 and is already almost as tall as his dad.  The girl, Kyrie, is just dazzling.  (Remember, she was the inspiration for my "Letter to a 16-year old girl" post from last year.)

Jake and Kyrie.

I got up Saturday morning with the inspiration for a new segment for my vacation posts.  I now bring you:

Irritating My Mother - Part 1

You may recall that my mother and I had a running battle as I was growing up.  I wanted sugary cereal and Pop Tarts, but because she didn't love me, she made me eat eggs and waffles and pancakes.  Revenge is mine!

John and I had a day ahead that was packed with errands.  First, we stopped at a local engine shop, so he could check on a new motor for his father's wood chipper.


What, doesn't everyone have a wood chipper?  Anyway, out front of the place, (which was packed with all kinds of fancy riding lawn mowers), they had this:

You gotta love small town businesses... Pink flamingos, dressed as Baltimore "Hons", cutting the grass.

Also, while in local traffic, we saw this:

I don't know what it is, but it was pretty cool.

After our first errand, we had worked up a pretty good hunger, so we went back to Shawn's for a burger and a beer.  Once sated, we headed for Lowe's.  John had to pick up a couple of light fixtures.


You know you're out in the country when outside the Lowe's, they have about 30 or 40 lawn tractors all lined up in two rows.  It looked like the starting line for the Redneck 500.


While John searched for illumination, I checked out the plumbing.

So.  Tempted.

I was dying to try it out.  I swear, if I worked at a Lowe's, I'd set up a mannequin, preferably holding up a newspaper. 


Our last errand was to go get the car washed.  John's neighbor's daughter was working on a fundraising car wash for the high school.  And because we are such supporters of quality education, we went to have a bunch of high school girls wearing short-shorts rub warm soapy water all over the car.  


Two of the girls even had a quick water fight, which I'm sure was arranged for our enjoyment.  In fact, they probably have one every 15 minutes, knowing that all the suburban dads will be texting their suburban dad buddies, going "Dude, get down to the car wash, right now!"


All over town, suburban moms will be going, "Honey, where are you going?"


"I'm getting the car washed, dear."


"Why are you bringing chips and a 6-pack?"


No, I didn't take pictures, so don't ask.  I have more decorum than that.  Plus, I didn't want to get kicked out of the car wash.  But I tell you, when that flock of girls started swarming the car to dry it off after the wash, it was like getting a full car massage.  Call it an "auto" body experience.


After all the excitement of the motor store, Lowe's and the car wash, we called it a hard day's work and retired back to the garage.


Later that night, it turned out that they were having an All-Year high school reunion, down in front of the local bar.  So we turned out there, but it was kind of under-whelming.  I mean, the event was fine, but there didn't seem to be many other people there from our class.  (And NO, they haven't all died off!)


But I did get to meet up with an old neighbor of mine and Barn regular, my old friend Margaret.

Reunion accomplished, we went back to Shawn's (again) for a few, then called it a night.

Coming soon, Father's Day, a Mudhens game, and fishing on Lake Erie.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!