The Weekend: March 9-11

It's been a while since I've done this -- posting what I've been doing during the weekends. This past weekend is quite the exception, since recently my weekends have been quite boring to begin with.

For starters, I'm lucky, in a sense, that I work at a high school in which we are loaded with female athletic talent. This past fall, our varsity volleyball made it to the Minnesota State High School Tournament and came away with 3rd Place in their class. For some reason, I knew that talent would carry over onto the basketball court, and wouldn't you know it, they beat their opponent on Friday night to win their Section, earning a state berth and returning to state for the first time since 2005.

But previous to all that, I had my heart set on visiting my cousin Eric (who is affectionately known as "Noodle"), because he practically lives at a bar in which our other cousin, Tom, successfully owns. Prior to the game, I gave Eric a call and he was already down there after a long day of work, so I met up with him about an hour and half prior to the 8:00 p.m. game.

The place itself was packed, but not with the college regulars, since they all probably went home for the weekend -- but the atmosphere itself reminded me that I was back in college. This time, I'm hanging out with Eric and a bunch of other older, balding or graying guys. I'm properly introduced, sit and talk about work, and at the same time -- the beer is flowing freely.

I probably bought one beer myself and the rest were already paid for when it was time to get another. Before I knew it, I was almost full and the time was already passed 8:00 p.m. It was time to hit the road and get to the game!

I get there and obviously, just over 10 minutes had already run off the clock, but our girls had a commanding lead. I'm trying to find a spot -- behind the student section -- and several of the students had already knew where I was at. I made my greetings as quickly as possible and moved up to the top to watch the game.

Afterwards, I chatted with a few of the students and moved on to return to downtown once again, where Eric and I continued to hit it up. We also hooked up with softball teammates Joe and Craig, which made it even more of an excuse to stick around and shoot the bull. Eric and I did manage to hit a few other hotspots around town, but it wasn't the same as our cousin Tom's place.

Towards the end of the night, we even witnessed a fight between two guys who were fighting over a 37 year-old MILF, who according to Tom, is "hot to trot." The fight went out to the parking lot where there was just a lot of shouting, but nothing much happened. Eric and I just went back to his house and I crashed on his leather sofa for the night, waking up the next morning with an extremely sore neck.

But the experience of Friday night was something that I hadn't experienced in a while, dating back to my college days. Sure, it wasn't much of a college crowd, but the place was packed and there were people worth talking to. The "lady" situation wasn't all that great either, and yes, I did my share of speaking to them. I could have easily walked out with a college girl that night, but she was sporting a mustache that almost made me jealous ... so nothing came from that!

Saturday was a day of recovery. I was hoping that day that I would get to some more interviews for the documentary but nothing fell through. That afternoon, I gave Mike a call and we along with his wife Lacey went back to watch some high school boy's basketball, who were in the midst of their own playoffs. After we had all gotten back to the Home Town, I was so tired and shot that I really didn't have the energy to put up with anything else.

March 10 was also another big day, since it marked the annual "FroFest", aptly named after a roommate of mine back in college. But that drive was clear across the state and me being me, was too tired for the trip. I did manage get a phone call from Jewett and Troy, but that wasn't going to move me much further. I crashed early Saturday night, moved the clocks ahead one hour, and fell asleep.