Is Red House Tavern in Canton Any Good?

Going there tonight for some trivia ... will try some food and see how everything is. I went the once before, but was not in the capacity to remember much about the experience. It was the night of the Irish festival and the night before my dragonboat race, there was a band playing and it seemed nice, but I couldn't stay long and didn't form much of an opinion.

A Sign of the Times

Above is the commercial from 8 years ago ... damn, has it really been that long?

Below is the 2008 version of the commercial ... damn, this sucks.

Maryland Homecoming Football Game

I went to the Maryland vs. NC State football game this past Saturday as part of my fabulous birthday weekend. We got there several hours early and set up shop for tailgating. At first we thought the weather reports about heavy rain all afternoon were BS because it was really nice out and warmer than originally expected. That sure didn't last. We start hearing people yelling and looked over and could see the edge of the rain making its way toward us (it reminded me a lot about when I was in Ireland and everyday you could see the edge of a storm somewhere off in the distance). After a few minutes of the rain we decided that it wouldn't matter because it was just going to continue all day. We continued our drinking, grilling, and baggo (cornhole) playing. We also made it a point to stop by some tailgaters that had an awesome ice luge last year to see what they brought this time around.

Needless to say, this is a bad ass ice luge. If you look at the shoulders there are small funnels that pour out into the opposite hands of the Terp.

When we got to the game it seemed like everyone but us were wearing ponchos. The stadium had a good amount of people considering the weather and that NC State was perceived to be a weak opponent. The game was really sloppy but Maryland was able to win 27 - 24 in the last few seconds with a field goal (after already having won with a TD pass to Darrius Heyward-Bey that was ruled incomplete but definitely was a catch).

This photo shows how much it was raining during the game. I got it from umterps.com and hope it is OK to publish it on here.

We went back and tailgated some more as we waited for the parking lots to clear out then headed home (with a short detour towards DC ... oops). Our plan was to go to the Green Turtle in Columbia to watch the UFC fight but within a few minutes of getting home there were 4 guys passed out on a couch.

Ho Co General Hospital

First, I want to commend myself on being the most awesome brother in the world (at least for 5 or so hours today).

That being said, I spent 4+ hours in the hospital with my sister tonight and now I am tired as hell. Thankfully it was nothing serious and she is at my mom's sleeping and seemed to be doing better when I dropped her off (after getting her some Wendy's since she hadn't been able to eat all day and I think she has been addicted to their Frosty since childhood ... really, when she gets one it's like she's getting a fix after going through the early stages of withdrawal).

Now onto more self-promoting; I went to my mom's after work to clean out the suburban I used for tailgating at the MD football game this weekend and to watch Heroes from her DVR (which didn't record :-( so I'll be watching it on NBC.com on my small laptop) when I got the call old sis was in the hospital (the call was from her cell but when I answered it was her bf so I knew something was up). Old sis bf asked me if I knew where mom was cause they weren't able to get in touch with her ... score points for the reliable brother. Luckily, I knew where mom was so I called her repeatedly until I finally got a call back and let her know the deal (after having to call back old sis bf because I didn't ask for any details at first and just thought to call mom). We all got to the hospital and hung out for a long time while they periodically had a nurse over to do nursey stuff. Anyways, after several hours (and knowing it wasn't serious) my mom headed home instructing me to call when we were leaving. Another hour or so later old sis roommate needs to leave (she was with her the entire time and this was the first time I met her so it was a good first impression). There I am, the only one left with my ailing sister in the hospital ... score points for the dedicated brother. I drove her to my mom's so someone would be there in case she got sick again (old sis roommate was house sitting for her 'rents and wouldn't be at the condo) then I drove home to my house, and now here I am typing this.

Anyways, long story short I really just wanted to say how clean Howard County General Hospital is. I have a tendency to get sick in hospitals ever since I was a kid visiting my G'ma before she died but have never had that feeling the few times I have been to HCGH.

BTW, sorry for all the "old sis bf" and other IM speak, just makes it easier. And an fyi, I have an old sis and a mid sis. I am the youngest and was subjected to the torture of having two older sisters. Luckily, I was taller than them by 3rd grade or there abouts so the torture was fairly subdued after that.

Purple Fever-Another Guest Post

Hi everyone! It's me, your favorite guest, coming due to the immense popularity of my first guest post. Today was the Ravens game, which was AWESOME except for the intense sun exposure that was directly on my face. This blog owner, however, is in worse shape then I am as he did not even have sunglasses. What kind of person wouldn't wear sunglasses? Especially when seats are on the sunny side of the stadium? I only have one word for that kind of person...one I can't say in fear that there may be feeble children or bible loving old ladies reading this blog. I'm not here to offend.

Back to the Ravens game today...we played the Raiders. One thing I will say about the Raiders is that they like spikes. Spikes I must admit can be pretty cool when used appropriately (ladies you know what I mean). However these particular spikes were just used as a bad version of the 80s shoulder pads. Not fashionably forward at all, just hurtful. You could poke your eye out.

Cause I'm Drunk

It's my birthday and I have been drinking all weekend so I am going to have another guest post and you all (3 of you) can just deal with it.

Guest post from the most awesome person ever

Hello, I am writing to you as a special guest for this particular blog. How did I earn that right you may ask? I'm sexy. Damn sexy. That's right kids, be alarmed. I wanted to comment on the house's condition from a guest's perspective. You walk in, and there is nothing. I mean not a thing. How is this possible? Then, you walk into the kitchen and there is a couch. No, not the cool kind of talking couch but just a regular old couch. You would think that a couch in the kitchen would be at least a couch that could eat or something, It doesn't eat though, so you move on. Then there's the back yard, which is more like a back square. It's cool like a square dancing square not "Im a boring person square", but it does have a mammoth tree that overtakes you upon entrance. This tree is out to get you. You know the trees in the Wizard of Oz? Yea, they took lessons from this tree. It's down right elephantic, which is a word in several different languages. So yes, that is my analyzation of this house from a guest's perspective. Scary yet cool. Bring your hard hat. Kudos!

The ground can really hurt

I have a lot to catch up on here but work has been bust this week ... well, except for yesterday afternoon but I decided it was a better idea to leave early since I worked late on Monday and Tuesday. Today I should be able to catch up on some things since I am working from home with a f'ed up back and neck. Last night I was playing beach volleyball over in Fed Hill and jumped to hit a ball while running backwards on sand ... oh how I love how stable sand is ... especially when your feet are numb because you don't have any shoes on and it's 50 degrees out. Anyway I landed on my back and my head snapped back into the ground. I think I have whiplash or something because the top of my neck realy hurts. Oh well, maybe I'll get some good updates done from this past weekend.

Doing My Part (at least starting to)

I won't be around this weekend because I am volunteering at an overnight camp sponsored by a local hospital for children (up to 17, is that still a child?) with a chronic illness (I really don't know what I can say here so I will be as vague as possible while saying as much as I feel comfortable saying). One of my friends was a counselor last year and said they were short-handed this year so I got my necessary vaccinations and signed-up. I haven't done much volunteering since college and am looking forward to this. Hopefully I'll be able to get involved in some other stuff and spend some of my free time doing something good. My favorite thing to do in college was Habitat for Humanity, but for right now I think I have my hands full with my personal habitat.

Weekend Review

I accomplished my goal this weekend and did not spend any money and still had a great time.

After working on my house Saturday and watching a movie in the morning I went for a walk around Canton. Stopped by Blockbuster to return the movie and pick up some new movies (I subscribe to the BB Total Access and believe it is better than Netflix since I can walk to the store and get a new movie immediately for free and still have the next one in my queue arrive in a couple days) then continued down toward the 1st Mariner building and looped around till I got back home. Cooked some lunch and wasted an hour and a half of my life on the worst (maybe not the worst but definately up there) movie ever; The Happening. Walked up to Patterson Park and watched my sister's BSSC football team shutout some horrible team 50-something to 0.

After the game, we (me, my sis and her bf) headed to Dockside and had dinner (they paid, thanks!) before heading out to Mahaffey's to meet up with some people from their football team. I stopped by my neighbors' for a minute and a couple beers before going to Mahaffey's since a couple of them ran in the B'more marathon and were having a party later. Back out at Mahafee's I had a couple beers that I think people only bought to increase their level in the 100 Beer Club but didn't want to drink. Gotta love the 9% beers. I stayed there for a while until my sister's choice of music on the jukebox started getting to me and I had to leave.

I went back to my neighbors' house and by this time the party had started and there were a bunch of people there. I started playing the drinking game "baseball" (which I had never played before) and ended up drinking more than I had planned. After a while everyone wanted to head out so about 10 of us made a quick pit stop at my house and finished off one of the bottles (yes I keep multiple on hand) of Jager before heading to Looney's. Thinking back on it I find it funny that there were that many people crowding around my kitchen with a drop cloth hanging between the living room and the kitchen and my couch and bike also in the kitchen with my ceiling half missing (run-on sentence?). We got to Looney's and went upstairs to go dancing (I haven't danced since college but since my friend couldn't find her husband she used me instead). A couple of the people that had the Jager shots with me bought me shots at the bar so it all worked out in terms of not needing to buy anything. We closed out the bar (I think) and I went home and passed out.

I woke up feeling great at 12:45 Sunday and immediately updated my fantasy football team (good thing too cause I didn't have a full line-up ~ ended up winning). I packed some beers and rode my bike over to my sister's bf's house to watch the Ravens game. After getting there I think the realization that I had entirely too much to drink the night before hit me like a ton of bricks. I went to the basement and passed out until the 3rd quarter. When I came back upstairs and saw the score I really felt like going back down to pass out again. Instead we waited until the end of the game (and the Redskins final and the Dallas ending) then went outside to play football in the street. A couple collisions with cars and some scraped knees later, my team won. I got a ride home since it was dark and I didn't feeling like getting hit by a car on my way home. That pretty much ended my weekend since I wasn't able to get to my volleyball game after getting home (stupid car).

Bored out of my mind

I got home from work yesterday, did some more demolition on my house (expanded the hole in the ceiling), cleaned up for 3x longer than I destroyed stuff, watched the second to last disc of Six Feet Under and went to bed around 11. I didn't go out (it was hard to resist the texts saying "In Canton drinking, where are you?") and didn't spend any money.

I woke up at 8 this morning and actually got out of bed. Cooked some eggs and watched a movie then did some more work on my house (less messy stuff today cause I am running out of room to put the rubble). Now I am going crazy cause I don't want to watch any movies and don't have cable to watch football but don't want to spend money at the bars to watch it. I was going to walk over to Fed Hill, but my friends are either out of state or getting ready for weddings. I don't think this not spending money thing is going to work out ... I am pretty sure I will be at a bar watching football by 2.

My Goal

My goal is to not spend any money of food or drinking until my birthday weekend (the 26th) with the exception of this Sunday night (already have an outing with my volleyball team planned to go to the comedy club). I feel like I have everything I need and just need to keep myself from going on my random, nightly trips to the bar. I only have two discs left till I am done the entire Six Feet Under series so hopefully I will be able to get some more work done on my house instead of getting distracted by DVDs.



The beer is left over from the Ravens game this past weekend and I will be drinking mainly out of the Brita, unless I am working on my house ... then the beer will be a requirement since drinking and demolition go together perfectly.

So many holes ...

Yesterday I got my free flu shot from work and today I had to get a PPD test for TB (where they inject a something in you and you go back two days later to see if you are going to die ... or something like that), several tubes of blood drawn to find out if my MMR and varicella vaccines from when I was a kid are still strong. If those come back and my vaccinations aren't strong enough I will need to get several booster shots. So far everything has either gone into or been taken out of my left arm ... I am left handed for most things and now my left arm feels weird and I can't write or type normally, hopefully this will go away tomorrow and no issues with drinking tonight arise ... it's a friend's 25th bday.

I am getting all these things because I am volunteering at a camp that I don't really know much about right now. It's an overnight camp and it's for a good cause and I'll be leading a bunch of random activities so I am looking forward to it. I haven't done much volunteering since undergrad and really want to get into some local things (like Habitat for Humanity) so this is a good first step. I am even skipping a Terps football game for it (anyone want to buy tickets to the UM - Wake game? 6th row?).

Happy Birthday Christy!

1 Week Left ...

1 week left to register to vote in MD. I know how I have said voting in the Presidential election in Maryland (for the most part) is pointless because of the electoral college, but that doesn't change the fact that voting is the primary way most people in the United States can cause change and is a very important responsibility.

From JWER

Register to vote in Maryland

Happy Birthday Ali!

Stupid Terps

From the American Heritage Dictionary

con·sis·ten·cy - n. pl. con·sis·ten·cies
1.a) Agreement or logical coherence among things or parts: a rambling argument that lacked any consistency.
b) Correspondence among related aspects; compatibility: questioned the consistency of the administration's actions with its stated policy.
2. Reliability or uniformity of successive results or events: played with remarkable consistency throughout the season.
3. Degree of density, firmness, or viscosity: beat the mixture to the consistency of soft butter.

Antonym - University of Maryland Football

Friday Night Lights? (House Post)

So before going out tonight (which I am no longer doing) I decided to do some work on my house. I figured I would take down the rest of the drop ceiling since it wasn't (supposed to be) overly messy and wouldn't take too long. Well, I don't really feel like typing since I was almost taken out by a fluorescent light when it broke off from the ceiling and swung toward me. Pictures say enough:

Not much of a view, but that light is the one that came at me

The results (I disconnected the light since it was just hanging there)

Happy Birthday Brian!