Milkin' It -- Labor Day Weekend

One word to finish up the last true weekend of summer: Wow.

It was simply a great weekend -- a true Labor Day weekend -- to hang out and relax one final time before I'm back to teaching. I made the most of it with a little football, a little beer, some great grilling, a little hot-tubbin', and a little super-late night party action.

It all started on Saturday at Sean's house, where I participated in my 2nd annual Minnesota Fantasy Football League Draft. It was all pressure-cooked, stress-filled strategy as we all picked our players (it really got thin towards the end, but by then, there were several Miller Lite cans on the floor and we really didn't care who we picked -- or so it seemed).

I wish I had my draft picks -- in order -- but I left my copy behind at Sean's so he could put them in our ESPN Fantasy Football tracker this season. My overall #1 pick was Rudi Johnson, a running back from the Cincinnati Bengals. Again, just like the South Dakota Fantasy Football League, I think I have a pretty stout team within one of the toughest "divisions" of the league. I'm matched up with Sean, Sean's brother Troy, and Sean's brother-in-law Matthew. As far as pure raw talent, our division is probably the toughest. If there was a team to make the championship this season ... it'll be from our division.

After chasing little kids around the house for a while, it was time to retire. It got later than usual with a quick stop at Woody's, then on Sunday, it was "lay-low-for-a-while-time" as I quickly recovered when Mike called and said that we were going to a garage party.

Seriously, when I think back on it, I should have brought my camera. There was so much shit going down (the good kind) that made my sides split. I hadn't been to a "garage party" in a such a while, but when it comes to partying with the boys from C-Wood, that's all they do.

Mike, Lacey, and myself probably took the world's longest road trip to get out there -- it was dark, it was foggy, and we were running into some-what familiar lake territory that it made for us to get a little lost. Our destination, Shane and Megan's place (Megan is Lacey's sister) and once we finally got there after travelling on gravel for about 20 miles, we immediately started hitting 'er up.

Since the rain was continually on-and-off for that evening, it was considerably tough to get a campfire started. Every once in a while, people would douse the fire with kerosene, which made things brighter and hotter just for a slight few seconds, then would slowly die away. But most of the time, I was around folks who I really didn't know a whole lot about, but I made the most of it, just continually drinking beer and laughing at the antics of other people -- and oh, there were antics.

After watching Mike and Shane go 1 and 1 in some ping-pong drinking game, everybody huddled around the small-ish fire since it had gotten so cold. Somebody started dumping isopropyl on the fire (yes, the stuff you put into your vehicle during the cold months to prevent fuel lines from freezing over) and we'd get these mini-fire balls -- nothing too dangerous.

Then, the thing that made the night worth it.

There's this guy -- the same guy who tried to get Lacey to drop the charges on her stolen car; I call him "Numb-Nuts" -- decided to make his own fireball with isopropyl. He would put it into his mouth, take a lighter, blow it out so there would be this giant fireball (watch "Revenge of the Nerds" for an example). Sure enough, he did it -- fireball and all, isopropyl dripping off his chin.

But I would also like to say that prior before that, Shane got a fire extinguisher -- just in case if things got out of hand (by this time, everybody was feeling "pretty good"). So Numb-Nuts stood there, looking like he was going to be sick.

Lacey: "Oh, my God. I think he swallowed some."

For a split second, there was actually some kind of worrying going on, and then ...

A blast from the fire extinguisher, directly into the face.

There was no fire to speak of, but all you saw was the white powder spewing forth from the extinguisher, directly into Numb-Nut's face. He immediately hit the ground, rolling around and yelling, "It's in my eyes!"

After it was all said and done, the kid popped back up and just laughed. It was like something from "Jackass." I myself could not stop laughing so frickin' hard -- it was possibly the best thing that I had seen in a long time. Plus, it happened to a guy who I already don't think too kindly of, so that made it all much better.

We decided to leave around 2:30 that morning, as an eerie fog seemed to drift across the place. We all had plenty to talk about -- one of the more memorable moments this summer.

On Labor Day, it was simply a day of rest. I "paid back my debts," so to speak, and helped out my parents with a little yard work and other small tasks (getting sunburned in the meantime). I even jumped into their new hot tub that they had just installed. Nice! Hot tubs now day have pretty much a water-jet for any muscle group.

But in the end, I had to get back to P-Town get things going, as far as the teaching goes. I was extremely tired from the weekend, but there's always more fun on the horizon!