Charity Happy Hour Re-cap (Catch-Up pt.3)

Last Thursday was the happy hour at Mad River to raise some money for Anna's House, my Dragonboat team's charity organization. The turn-out was pretty good and I think we raised a decent amount for them.

Lee, learning how to make a margarita:



My pops and Linda showed up (after the HH ended though):



From long range (Nick and I ran the table till everyone left for Mother's):



Everyone stayed at Mad River for a while after the happy hour ended and then headed over to Mother's until ... well ... I guess a while (the last picture in my camera from the night was taken at 11:55 PM and showed no signs of us stopping).

Happy Hour for Charity - Mad River, Thursday, 4/16, 6-9

Hey Everybody. We are hosting another happy hour to support Anna's House. Please come out and have a great time and support a great cause.

Where: Mad River - Federal Hill, Baltimore
When: Thursday, April 16th, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Why: I am on the Dragonboat team for my work and we are raising money for our charity organization, Anna's House
What: $10 cover (goes to Anna's House), $1 off specials for domestic beer, house wines and liquor (not top shelf though) and 1 free drink ticket with each paid cover, all tips also go to Anna's House and I will be "guest bartending" from 8:30 - 9:00 PM (these are what the specials were last time, they might be different)

I appreciate anyone coming out to support Anna's House.

Finally getting to the Weekend

This was supposed to be 50 hours of straight drunkenness that turned out to by one night of crazy drinking, a day of recovery and nerdom, followed by a day of partial drunkenness and an early night to bed.

Friday night started on track when I left work and was able to get to Slainte in Fells Point by 5. This was my first time there and I definately liked it. I always like going to an Irish Pub, but unfortunately none of the girls had an accent (but some of the guys did). Some good conversations and a few half & half's later my friends called me and I had to head home so they could pick me up with all my Rock Band and weekend stuff. We headed over to Newman and Paris' place in Fed Hill and continued drinking while playing our world tour:

After a couple hours we head to Dog Pub on Cross St. for some more drinks and to meet up with some friends. On the way there I ran into an ex that was pretty drunk heading to some other bar in Fed Hill, it's always nice to know how small the world is. Several "pairs" and some shuffleboard games later we decided to head to Ropewalk down the street. This is where things started to get interesting. There were a bunch of people dancing (they dance at Ropewalk) in the back room and certain members of our group were destined to join in. Of course we had to get the obligatory drunk picture at the bar with some drunk ass-hole giving the shocker, a guy appearing to be sleeping standing up, the contemplative drunk and the laid back guy with the mohawk beanie (and of course the hot girl in the background):

So the random group of people dancing slowly started to include people from our group. Coincidently, this happened shortly after a group of us had some Jager bombs. The following is an accurate representation of why I do not dance at bars, this could happen to you:

The usual reaction WoW gets when he tries talking to girls ... even one's he knows (OK, maybe this isn't true, but it fits the picture)

We left Ropewalk at last call and then split ways. The majority of people went home and three of us decided it was a good idea to go to the Hookah lounge on Light Street that was open till 5. They don't serve alcohol (hence being open till 5 in B'more) so we ordered some Red Bulls. I was drunk and hungry and ordered some kind awesome shrimp. I also proceeded to force both York and Paris to eat some of them because I was drunk. We got some kind of Hookah and for about 10 minutes I participated. Shorlty thereafter all I remember is being constantly told to wake up. An hour and a half later (after about an hour of solid sleep) the three of us left and headed back to Paris' place. Getting there around 4:30 was great because the walk home in the freezing cold and not drinking for a couple hours woke us up and we felt the need to do the same to everyone else crashing there that had to be up at 5:30 (which was everyone but me and Newman).

The next day I woke up to the jackhammer in my head trying to get out. I thought it was early but it happened to be around 11:30. Everyone else was gone and apparently made it into work on time, even if they weren't coherent and probably unable to pass a sobriety test (they walked to work btw). Newman and I got up and played some Resistance 2 for about an hour until the uncontrolable urge to swear off drinking came over us and figured passing back out would be the best idea. Most of the guys that had to work got home around 5 and a few of us went out to eat. When we got back everyone was pretty much a zombie and we just spent time waiting (and playing video games) for the other 2 to get home so we could go out again. Eventually, we just gave up on going out since we couldn't get in touch with them and they didn't have a key. We decided to be super-nerd and play some future version of Risk. I have never played this and didn't know the rules, but learned them during the first couple of rounds. The other 2 got home real late after working for about 17 hours (one was York who slept 0 hours after getting home from the Hookah lounge) because IBM sucks at life, and proceeded to pass out. Once 2 AM came around and we weren't done playing yet we just quit and all went to sleep.

Woke up the next day and some people went to work again and Newman and I went to the Ravens - Eagles game with several hours of drinking/tailgating before. I am done writing and now need to go out for Thanksgiving Eve festivities.

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.

Football Funday

Yesterday was the first Ravens game of the regular season I went to this year. If you recall, I went to the Ravens - Vikings preseason game (for about 15 minutes) but ended up getting rid of my tickets to the Cincinnati game. Rob and I started out at Mother's in Fed Hill around 11:30 for brunch, Brian got there shortly after to meet up with us. Mother's was good and bad ... the good was the Maple leaf 'dilla I had for breakfast and all the TVs showing the 1:00 PM games while we waited for our 4:15 start ... the bad was the complete lack of drink specials. We had our 'dillas (and a couple beers) and headed over to Cross Street Market and got the more valuable $5 32 oz drafts. A couple of those and we headed back to Mother's to watch the games for a little while. Rob and I left Brian to his Eagles and made our way to lot H for some tailgating with my sister's bf and his crew. I also met up with an ex I hadn't seen in several months that was tailgating (I think that was awkward but was drunk and am not sure). Several Natty Boh's and a couple of Jager bombs later we made our way into the stadium. A bag of pistachios, half an order of nachos and another couple beers later the Ravens won and my voice was shot. Rob and I headed back to Cross Street to get picked up by his awesome fiancee. I had her drop me off at Tiburzi's so I could see some of the Dallas - Packers game but fell victim to the long day of being in the sun (nothing to do with drinking) and went home to pass out around 10:30 PM. My fantasy team is down 30 but I have two WRs going tonight, I hope Favre and Rivers have a shoot-out and Cotchery and Chambers come out the best.

Dragonboat Races (Long Post)

So this will be a long post and may go off in different directions at times but it will have everything I want to say in it along with a lot of good pictures (some from my camera, some from teammates, and some from a co-worker that is a photographer on the side [I bet you will be able to tell those]).

My morning started at 4:30 AM, waking up to get my two teammates that crashed in my living room up and make sure we were ready for a third teammate to pick us up at 5 and drive us over to fed hill. We got to the captain's house in fed hill around 5:30 and started packing up the cars with stuff to decorate our tent. Once everyone got there (around 6) we all drove over to Rash Field and started unloading all our stuff. Let the set-up begin:

Once everyone got there and we checked in, we sat around, ate breakfast and waited until 8:15ish for our seeding race. This was against Baltimore City Police and two other organizations. We were in the first lane that went along the end of all the boat slips on our right. We were winning the whole race until the end when we started veering to the right and headed toward the last slip and right for the corner of a large yacht (the one with Route 66 on it ... the owner moved it forward about 10 feet after our close encounter). After coming within about a foot of the boat and our right side paddlers stopping till we passed it, we crossed the finish line (white buoy) a little under 2 second behind the cops. We were seeded 8th out of 21 teams.

I don't really remember how long until our next race, but we went up against Verizon (seeded 8th) and the Mayors office (seeded 17th) in our first "real" race. This one went much better for us ... although we still lost, we posted the 3rd best time during that round. The mayor's office lost control and started going out into the harbor (hence the 3+ minute time). Since time didn't matter anymore, we moved over into the losers bracket.

Our next race was against a couple schools and we won easily. The next team was over 10 seconds behind us. Our time slipped a little to 1:50.6 but we were still happy with our performance.

We had a long break before our next race and relaxed for a while and did our chant to the Gilligan's island theme (every team had to do a chant and most were a couple minutes long, I think ours lasted about 40 seconds). Our team name/mascot was the falcons so don't ask for an explanation regarding the beaks.

Our next race was the most controversial of the day. We got our rematch against the BCPD and also had Suntrust Bank and another organization in the race. We were pretty pumped and knew we could win. The race starts and we are winning be maybe a third to a quarter boat length to Suntrust with BCPD in third. What we didn't know is a water taxi crossed through the lanes after we had already start and since we were in front we got completely turned by the taxi's wake. We start heading in the direction of the Suntrust (on our left, my side) boat and collide we are rubbing against the boat and I am yelling, "keep paddling!" while i wedge my ore between the boats to push off. Once there is room, both teams start paddling and it sounds live an ancient war with swords clashing. We end up getting back into our lane and now the BCPD team was heading toward us (we later found out they were avoiding the boat in the first lane that was also affected by the water taxi's wake). We come to a dead stop and let them pass then start right back up not letting this deter out desire to win. We catch up to them and start gaining but only manage to get to their halfway point. Suntrust ended up winning the race but the organizers reviewed it and (after 20 minutes of waiting and wanting to hunt down the water taxi) determined that the water taxi essentially ruined the race. They allowed us all to advance (BCPD declined though) as if we had won. I wish I had more pictures of this race, but I was in the boat and my picture taker had left. Notice the angle of the boat on the far left in the picture.

While loading into the boats for the next race we got some dirty looks from Suntrust because they felt we didn't deserve to advance even though (with the exception of the water taxi race) we had consistently better times than them. This was the semi-finals and the winner would move on to the finals. So we went out and did our best ... leading for most of the race (with Suntrust right with us) then we started to the left a little bit than back to the right to compensate ... at the end of the race we came in at a slight angle and had no idea if we won. They announced that they needed to review the video because it was too close to even make an unofficial call. We were still happy about how we did regardless of the outcome.

We all got off the boat and asking everyone in the crowd and anyone volunteering for the event who they thought won and no one could tell us. When they announced it, we were winners by 0.4 seconds. We made the finals ... we celebrated:

While we were getting ready for the finals, we got some of the dirtiest looks from people on the Suntrust team, except one guy who came over and congratulated us and shook our hands and all the stuff that this day was about. The race came and went and we got 4th place running our worst time of the day (with the exception of the taxi race). Maybe fatigue had finally set in after being in the 90+ degree heat for 10 hours and not having a break between our semi-final and the final race. It doesn't matter, we were happy we could help a charity and have a day of fun at the same time. Some more pictures of the day:

This Week

So far this week has been pretty boring overall. The only things that have been interesting to me this week were finishing season 3 of Six Feet Under (Disc 1 of Season 4 should be arriving today) ... and checking out the re-opening of Tiburzi's in Canton last night, causing me to get a little drunk because I talked to the new owner for an hour about how to market the new bar with the square being so close and what specials might attract a crowd (same owners, new management, it's becoming a sports bar [Terps and Ravens] instead of the failed attempt at a nice Italian restaurant). Tonight should be fun though; meeting up with a friend from college that I was in a play with my sophomore year but was never really friends with but ran into each other this past weekend at Noble's in Fed Hill (love those stream of consciousness sentences). Tomorrow I am working from home then heading to Rash Field in Fed Hill to set up for the dragonboat races this weekend. I am looking forward to them except that I have to be up by 4:30 AM on Saturday and then be expected to row for at least 3 races. All I know is I am going to the closest bar once the races are done.

Fundraiser Fun

So the fundraiser on Wedesday turned out great and we raised a good amount of money to donate to our Charity Organization. We ended up closing out the night at Magerk's after coming in 4th or something in trivia at Mad River. The actual happy hour was from 7 - 10 and each hour one of the people from the dragonboat team bartended ... I got the 9- 10 shift. Anyways, it was a great time and we raised money for a good cause.

Lee, Me and Shelley (Bartenders)

Me bartending

Doc, 'Ish, and Paris

The group at Magerk's

I guess this is turning into a photo blog, but since I do love pictures I don't mind.

Happy Hour for Charity - Mad River 9/03 7-10

Not that I believe anyone reads this blog (I really write everything for me since I don't remember what I did this morning let alone last week), but I figured since I subscribed to Blogtimore, maybe the headline will reel someone in.

Where: Mad River - Federal Hill, Baltimore
When: Wednesday, September 3rd, 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Why: I am on the Dragonboat team for my work and we are raising money for our charity oganization, Anna's House
What: $10 cover (goes to Anna's House), $1 off specials for domestic beer, house wines and liquor (not top shelf though) and 1 free drink ticket with each paid cover, all tips also go to Anna's House and I will be "guest bartending" from 9:00 - 10:00 PM

I appreciate anyone coming out to support Anna's House, they have been great supporting us during our dragonboat practice the past several weeks.

This weekend

This weekend I learned some things:

• When you leave work early on a Friday to take a nap before happy hour, you won't wake up until hapy hour is over
• After you miss happy hour, there is no desire to go meet up with a bunch of people that are already drunk
• I am not a mason and don't know how to repair a chimney with bricks missing
• I grossly underestimate the amount of mortar needed to replace two bricks
• Going out at 2:00 PM for a 7:30 PM football game = not remembering the football game
• NFL Preseason football = not worth remembering
• Mother's is a good place to go before a worthless football game
• I still love Dog Pub and always will but hate that I can't refuse the free shots of GM they give me
• Nacho cheese washes out of shorts pretty well
• Tropic Thunder is funny but tries too hard to be as un-PC as possible
• The movie theater in Linthicum is a great deal
• Phelps is a great swimmer but I still prefer watching any track event over swimming

At Mother's before the game

Quick shot for J's bday, also before the game

Teamwork

After work on Thursday I went to the Volleyball House in Elkridge with my vball team and played for a couple hours in a random warehouse that's lacking A/C. After losing every ounce of water in my body, we headed to our respective places and got cleaned up to go to a concert of one of the other guys on the vball team, Walter. He was playing at The Depot on Charles St about one block north of Penn Station. The music was very interesting, it was a mix of sounds and I really don't know how to describe it, but I definately liked it. Here is all of us at the Depot and Walter playing:

After the concert most of us headed down to Fed Hill to the Dog Pub to get a couple "pairs" of beer. The cabbie that took of down in a Mini-Van was named Sammie and was getting into it with Jeff about what he was drinking. We tried to get Sammie to come in and grab a drink with us but I thnk he had enough to drink in his water bottle. The manager at Dog Pub gave us a few shots of GM (which I hate but can't turn down) before kicking us out (last call) so we headed to the pizza place for some late night snacking. Of course by snacking I mean we dominated two pizza's in about 5 minutes.

Overall it was great time and I look forward to more of these nights when our vball league starts up again in September.

Last night

So last night ... and by last night I mean Friday night since it is now past midnight and last night would really mean tonight.

OK ... so last night I went to a happy hour for this guy (who said he would add me to his "Blogroll") with Brian and Dave. I now have several things I must do as a result of this excursion. I volunteered to help this girl with some home improvement demolition (which I would actually love to do). I need to try Haggis because the happy hour host and his Mrs. spoke so highly of it. I have to take a glass blowing class and need to remember to get information about doing so from Charissa (and I need to not eat the Hummus at Don't Know). I met a lot of good people and learned other people's reasons for blogging and can compare them to my own (or at least what I think my reasons for blogging are).

After meeting all those good people (and winning a game of shuffleboard (and losing Dave and Brian to random circumstances)) I headed to Mother's then realized everyone I was meeting up with was at "the Magic Bar" (Illusions). I went over there and had a couple beers and watched the show then we left and went to ... Mother's. After a while and some more beers I went to leave but there was a horrible storm out the front window. I went back and had another beer with my friends hoping the storm would pass, when I went back to leave it was still raining. I asked the person next to me (some random stranger) if they knew when it would stop raining. They looked at me funny and just walked away ... I was confused so I looked out the side window and it wasn't raining there. Apparently someone or something hit the fire hydrant across the street and it was spraying all over the front window but I was too drunk to realize it wasn't raining until that person gave me a funny look. I left through the front door (because I was too stupid to use the side door and not get sprayed with Baltimore fire hydrant water).

Overall a good night.