A look at the weekend

Since there may not be much posting here over the next few days, I thought I'd outline my weekend now while I can. Because everyone is dying to know what my plans are at all times.

Tomorrow starts with some tennis in the morning, then work in the afternoon/evening. After that, who knows. It should be laundry and packing and sleeping, but we'll see if that happens.

The packing is for my trip to Milwaukee this weekend! KP and I are heading up to Miller Park to see the Brewers/Royals game. Saturday is Negro League Hat Giveaway day, so I'm pretty stoked. I'll have to decide if I want to wear my Royals hat or my Kansas City Monarchs hat. Tough decision. I think I'll go with the Monarchs. And I'll wear my Royals shirt.

After the game, I'll be crashing a co-worker's wedding reception. These friends of mine just happened to be getting married in Milwaukee the same day that KP and I were planning on going up there, so I figured we may as well stop by for some free food and beer. Miller Lite, of course. Although, I don't know if it's technically considered "crashing", since the bride-to-be found out and was extremely excited about us showing up, and the groom invited me after he found out I'll be there. But the girl keeps asking me if we're going to be "crashing their reception still," so who am I to disappoint? She was so excited, she showed me all of the extra food they had ordered and everything like that. I think it's more of a wedding excitement, but sometimes I like to tell myself it's all for me. People should be excited to see me. (I'm excited to see me in the mirror everyday. Or nearly everyday. Any day that I look in the mirror.) It works out well for us, they're going to have all sorts of finger-food, and lots of beer, all for free. What more could I ask for?

We'll be staying the night, and then heading to the Sunday game, which happens to be Bill Hall Bobblehead day at Miller Park. AWESOME! Two ballgames in one weekend, both with freakin sweet giveaways, and a free party in-between? I'm excited.

The weekend

My weekend started with a visit from Team Dilldahl, aka Bill and Haley (H prefers Bailey Hill, but I'm sticking with this one) on Friday night. They were heading to Chicago, so they drove about halfway and stayed with me, in order to cut down on the consecutive hours on the road. They pulled in a little after 11, and we were all pretty tired, Haley basically walked in the door and immediately sprawled out on my futon, so there were no drunken parties that night. Besides, I had to be at work at 7, and those two wanted to be on the road early, so we just sat around and chatted and eventually went to bed. It was a good time, but could have been better if A) they could've hung out for the weekend and B) if I didn't have to work at 7 the next morning. But any visit is good, I can't really complain.

Saturday was a long day, but fun. Any day that starts at 6 and ends with me passing out on a friend's couch at 2 am is long but fun. My friend Dan from work (you may remember him from this post, he's the other guy pictured with me in the last photo) and I decided that we'd play some tennis after work, then hang out as his place to play some beer pong, and then head downtown for a friend's birthday celebration. We both were at work early, he was there at 6 and I came in at 7, and both planned on taking naps (not together, we're not at that point of the relationship) before tennis. And neither of us napped, yet we still played some good tennis. I won the first set of our best-of-three match 6-3, then lost the next 4-6, but won the third 4-0 (we decided that we needed to cut the match short so the third set was only going to be to 4). We went to our respective houses and showered, then met up at his place. Something that we both forgot to eat something, so our drinks hit us pretty hard, and pretty quickly. It was a fun night. Nothing especially exciting happened, but that's not always a bad thing.

Today was mostly spent bumming around, eating McDonald's twice (which shows how absolutely lazy and disgusting I was feeling today) and not doing much else. My boy Federer lost today, so that always leaves me in a funk. One of these years, he'll win the French Open. He just may have to take out Nadal's knee first. Federer may end up being the greatest all-around players in history if he continues his dominance (this was his 8th straight Grand Slam event final, winning 6 of those, and 10 Slam titles overall), but he'll need to win the French at least once to cement that status. It's unfortunate for him that Nadal is one of the best clay-court players of all time.

That's basically my weekend. Nothing that exciting, but a fun time. Oh, before I forget, for those of you in the first Great Blogger Mix CD Exchange, Marin has sent her mix out, and Heinricy will be very soon. They both want me to thank everyone for their patience. So keep an eye on your mailboxes, there should be a few more tunes heading your way.

Quick post before work

Sorry, my "internet" hasn't been the most reliable lately, so I haven't had much of an opportunity to post. Now that it's working, I only have a short amount of time before work, so these are just going to be some quick notes, and I'll try to post more tomorrow.

• I am extremely jealous of both Marin and Heinricy for this weekend. Marin is seeing Loney, Dear in DC tomorrow night, and Heinricy is seeing WHY? in Austin, also tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I'll most likely be asleep by 10 after working 7-3.
  
• Daren and I had Thai for lunch, it was delicious. Rice noodles are amazing.
• I added another blog link, Bad Wims. I'm pretty sure he's my food soul-mate, he has posts about falafel and sushi (where he mentions his favorite roll is the same as mine, the spicy tuna). So check him out, there's good stuff over there.
• I've forgotten to pay my phone bill for a few days now. Oops. But, they sent me a text message reminding me to pay it, isn't that nice! I guess I'll do that tomorrow.
  
• It's Federer vs Nadal in the French Open final this weekend. I have Sunday off, so I'll need to get somewhere to watch the match. Federer won their last match on clay, just last month, so hopefully he'll complete his career Grand Slam this weekend, on his way to picking up the Grand Slam this season. I love Federer. He's my current man-crush, along with Jim Krasinski from The Office.
• Speaking of Jim Krasinski, he co-wrote the screenplay and is directing and starring in the film adaptation of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, a book I just finished. I'm really looking forward to this!
• The new book I'm reading is Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. It's awesome so far.

That's all I have right now... I must get ready for work. Hope everyone has a great day/weekend!!!

Tennis, anyone?

I got some tennis in this morning, and, much to my joy, I didn't hurt myself or make a fool out of myself. In fact, I played well for being a little rusty. My first serve occasionally landed in, and actually improved as the game went on. I had some pretty well-placed shots, but then had some that I totally miss-hit and sent all over the place. We played a five set match, which I won in 3 straight sets (6-2, 6-2, 6-4). In fact, I haven't lost in quite some time. The last time I lost was a few years ago, although I'm not officially counting it. (I was playing Marin a day or two after I scratched my cornea. Not good times. I'm pretty sure I lost 0-6, and probably shouldn't have been playing.) That may be a little misleading, however. Most of the times I've played have just been for fun. I should take on my brother sometime soon, though. He's good. Better than me. But when we play, I can usually beat him, only because I can frustrate him by just returning his shots, and not making too many mistakes, forcing him into mistakes. And occasionally hitting my spots.

I should play more often now. There are plenty of courts around Iowa City, it's just a matter of finding someone else to play. Of course, I could always just go and practice my serves by myself. That would give me more opportunities to sport the headband, which I am always ready to do.

I'll leave you now, not with something tennis-related, but a decent compilation of some baseball brawls. Nothing's better than the benches clearing on both sides, and the bullpen trotting in about 3 minutes later. Somehow, no one ever gets hurt. Amazing! I laugh at the Izzy Alcantara fight every time, not only because of the kick, but because there are like 3 or 4 guys on the field who seem a little scared to take him on, not sure what he's going to do. And Nolan Ryan vs. Robin Ventura is a classic. My favorite, though, is my man Mike Sweeney of the Royals, usually a calm, mild-mannered guy, coming out and tossing the helmet before tackling and punching Jeff Weaver. Good times! (I just wish that Pedro Martinez vs Don Zimmer had happened when this was made, that was high comedy.) Enjoy!

Photo from last night and Barack!

The photo off to the right is me and my lovely former co-worker Jenni, who was in town for the weekend. I happened to run into her when KP and I were out, and spent the rest of the night hanging out with Jenni and her sister. Good times were had. And I'm impressed with technology. First off, the picture turned out pretty well for being from a cell phone (I'm looking like the money, and Jenni usually looks good), and secondly, Jenni sent this from her phone to my email, all while we were sitting at our table in the bar. Amazing!

I just got back from seeing Barack Obama. It was an excellent day, near 80 degrees with a little breeze, and tons and tons of people turned out! I took some pictures with my phone, but alas, I don't have the abilities to send stuff through email, as far as I know. . . If I do, it probably costs a lot of money. So I'll try to figure some way out, but for now, I'll probably steal some photos from other websites and post them here. The speech was great, if you ever have a chance to see Senator Obama, I would strongly recommend you take the opportunity, no matter your political affiliation. He's a great orator. And, as of now, he's my favorite candidate, and will be getting Flenker's Vote in the upcoming caucuses.

I'm off now, to enjoy the day, before the thunderstorms come through. We're under a severe thunderstorm watch until 9 pm CST, so we'll see what happens. I'm going to play tennis soon, hopefully I won't hurt myself, or make too much of a fool of myself. It's likely that one of those scenarios will happen, though. Wish me luck!