Karin v Ed - Round 2

I won this time :) Ed tried to take me out when there were only 3 players left - I had a straight on the river and went all-in and Ed called on a flush draw, which he made on the river. I thought he had me covered, but I miscalculated and still had about 150 left. A string of good cards (or bad cards when the others had worse) and I won again. I'm so glad my bad poker luck seems to have ended for at least a little while.

Game Stories

Just thought I'd throw a couple of "game" stories out as I continue to procrastinate about getting the Memorial Day party pictures off my camera.

Recently we've pulled two of our old favorite games out of retirement. At our party, we played two games of classic Settlers with Jeremy and a roving 4th (first Ben, then Seth). Tonight we had Dave over after volleyball for a couple of games of Puerto Rico. I was pretty rusty at first, but it all came back quickly. I didn't win either Settlers game - the first ended too quickly and the second went on forever but I was boxed it, but I did win the second Puerto Rico one. I could tell I was going to lose the first one immediately, but the second one just felt "right" and Nick and Dave kept picking what I needed them to pick.

In other "game" news, the Twins finally swept a series again! We beat the Chicago White Sox three games in a row. Today's victory was by far the strangest - Torii Hunter was walked on 4 pitches in the bottom of the 9th, two outs, tie game, bases loaded. Oops. That brings us up to third place in the division - keep holding on guys!

Yummy Coldstone

Last night Nick and I made an emergency late-night trip to Coldstone. They had a new base flavor that I don't remember seeing before - Dark Chocolate. Yum! Nick is pretty boring and always gets the Apple Pie a la Coldstone. I'm a little more adventurous and get something different each time, which is exactly the opposite of how Nick and I normally operate. Little does he know that I'm just continuously re-creating my favorite Zesty's flavors! Last night I did Dirt Dessert with the dark chocolate base. Delicious!

Charmed Again

Tonight I lost most of my money early and then limped up and finished in 6th place out of 11. I did "come back" from 7 and 9 chips to last longer so it wasn't bad at all. Nick finished in the money, so that's three straight weeks that he was in the top 4.

Since we actually started on time, there was time for a second game. Nine of the original eleven played again. This is where my real luck came in - I took 7 of the other players out and ended up winning! Unfortunately Nick was my second victim so he didn't get to finish in the money there.

Onward to the long holiday weekend :)

More Storm News

We went outside and talked to a few of the neighbors. Sounds like at least two other houses had their screens shredded. There's still big hunks of hail out in the yard, and it's been at least two hours since the hail stopped. The rain stopped too so I guess we're on for volleyball tonight!

Turns out we didn't get the worst of it. The guy on the corner had a skylight and the hail ended up shattering it and flooding his family room. What a headache. I'm off to go hose down the front of the house. It's always something to keep us from making progress on the bathroom!

Weekend Fun

Busy post day! I just want to share some of the fun that we had this past weekend. We flew into Chicago with Dave, then drove to Smeeta's place. We went out for Chicago deep dish pizza and then back to Smeeta's apartment to play games. Smeeta had a new one called "Buzz Word". We played 4 times and I'm happy to say that I won each of them. We played teams, Nick and I against Dave and Smeeta, twice, then decided to make our own rules and play a couple of free-for-all matches. It was fun :)

Smeeta loved her birthday scrapbooks!

Saturday morning we got up early and drove south to the St Louis area. It was a very easy and pleasant drive. We got there in plenty of time to change and meet up with my mom, aunts, and grandparents. We even ate a quick lunch of 50 cent brats from a gas station anniversary sale! The wedding itself was beautiful - my cousin looked great, and her husband is pretty cute too. After the ceremony and pictures, we went over to their apartment and had a yummy supper of sloppy joes and pulled pork.

A picture of the happy couple that I altered slightly.

Back at the hotel, we introduced everyone to Whoonu. They thought it was unfair at first because they didn't know Nick very well, but we all learned some interesting things about each other and I didn't win every time, so I think it was pretty enjoyed by all.

Sunday morning, my family all left for the drive home, but Nick and I spent the day as tourists in St Louis. We started off the morning by going up to the top of the arch, then walking around downtown St Louis and eating a "picnic" lunch in the arch's shadow. After that, we toured the Anheiser-Busch world headquarters.

Our first "sight" at the arch - this car's door was left open. We pushed it shut after I took the picture. It was still sitting there when we left a few hours later - I wonder if the driver ever figured out what he did!


My first full view of the arch


View of St Louis from the top


Nick looking at the river from the top of the arch


Crammed in the tram car that brought us up and down


An ice-cream truck in downtown St Louis!


View of the arch from downtown


History of the Growler


Beer running over our heads


Some of the famous Clydesdale horses


Central clock tower - part of the Busch family's original brewery. I didn't get a picture, but for over 50 years the corporate headquarters was the old schoolhouse where the founder and his children used to go to school.

We finished our trip by driving back to Chicago, eating out at a Mexican restaurant, then crashing early so we could wake up at 4 AM to catch our flight back the next morning. What a terrific weekend!

Almost Home

We had a fantastic trip to Chicago and St Louis over the weekend. It was nice to see Smeeta's place before she moved out, and my cousin Danielle's wedding was beautiful. Nick and I also had fun being tourists on Sunday. However, the real fun started when we got to the airport Monday morning. The signs were misleading, so we had circled around once, but we got inside, through security (my and Nick's bag got checked, but no big deal because I knew it was ok and we had an hour to spare), and into the right terminal. From there it got interesting. We almost walked right by our gate; it was just a set of double doors half-hidden behind two large signs, not your typical lounge area.

Inside the double doors it looked pretty much like a temporary add-on to the airport. At least the airline has a sense of humor (you may need to enlarge the picture to read what the sign says). I was more afraid of the "No Toilets" sign. Where were we going? There was a set of restrooms right outside the double doors!

The view from the window in the picture above. The walkway to the gate stretched on and on. You can just barely see our plane at the end of it. From the windows on the other side of the walkway you could see that the off-ramp from the parking garage was only about 3 feet away.


The further we walked, the longer and stranger it seemed. The airline kept their sense of humor though.

Even more bizarre, there wasn't even a gate area before you got to the plane. Once you were within 20 yards of the flight door chairs just started to line the hallway. Luckily, the plane itself was fine and we arrived home without incident! It was a great trip!

Storm!

It was raining this afternoon with a thunderstorm watch, but I didn't think much of it. When I got home, however, I found out it was more than just a simple storm:

Our entire street looked like this too! Leaves everywhere!


A close up of the leaves "stuck" to the wall of the house


The worst part: all of the screens in the sunrooms now have tears. I guess there was hail. This is the worst one, but all of them have multiple holes with one at least the size of a golfball. Luckily the window parts are fine, but this still sucks.

Almost Winners

My poker luck continued this week, with a lot of good playing and some luck too. I also bested my old favorite hand against Jeff G. The old favorite was pocket K vs pocket K pre-flop with both of us all in. Tonight Rob and I bettered that. I only called pre-flop because I was trying to bait another player (not Rob) but it didn't work so we got to see the flop. Rob (short stack) went all in and the third player called. Then I went all in myself and the other guy folded. Turns out both Rob and I had pocket A! We did win the other player's blinds and call of Rob's all in so it wasn't completely fruitless.

In the end, I had a lot of money. Nick and I were both hanging in there, then he took 4th and 3rd place out with a single hand (pair of tens), which gave him almost as much money as I had. We decided not to play it out, so we're not sure who the winner was, just that Nick and I finished on top :) Janelle did deal a last face-up hand - Nick got suited ten-jack and I had 4-6 offsuit. The flop came out with a straight draw and a pair for Nick, but then there was runner-runner 4 to give me the "victory" - not that I ever would have called him. And that's poker night.

Celebrating Achievement

This is post 100 on the new blog! For anyone who's read all 100 of my ramblings, thank you.

In other news, Nick has been working like crazy on the bathroom. The picture below shows three of the things he's done recently: installed a new outlet (guests will be able to find it now!), the new sink, and the chair rail above the wainscoting:

Bathroom Trifecta

He's also done most of the plumbing, some work on the mini-wall I showed before, and worked on replacing the window. It's coming along nicely - hopefully we'll have phase one done before Memorial Day :)

Google Game

Basically, type your first name into google followed by "is such a". No cheating - you have to use the first one or two things that come up.

Karin is such a...
Karin is such an unusual vampire
Karin is such a cute girl

Nick is such a...
Nick is such a gentleman carrying Vanessa's bags and going inside to pick up his lady upon her return to LAX.
Nick is such a has-been and a tabloid publicity seeker!

What are you?

Avoiding the Sweep

It took over 3.5 hours, but the Twins destroyed the Tigers tonight, 16-4 with 22 hits (4 home runs) and one error. It was great to see them do well - too bad we were at yesterday's game instead! We also avoided being swept by the Tigers - maybe we'll win our next series. Go Twins!

Georgia Pictures!

As promised, the pictorial version of our trip to visit Erin :)

Welcome to Peachtree City!


Our "Happy Birthday" cake


Erin and Nick outside the Waffle House


Nick retrieving the first errant disc


Nick retrieving the second errant disc


Erin and Nick in costume at the Georgia Renaissance Faire


Nick and Karin in costume


Dextre doing a "normal" stunt - the "high wire"


Dextre after lighting off firecrackers on his chest and getting audience members to throw water balloons at him

Haven't You Ever Eaten a Toad Grilled Over an Open Fire?

The horror has ended! Yes, my long, long streak of going out first has ended. In fact, I finished second. I though I was going out in 4th place - I went all-in and Nick called me, he had 10s and I had 9s. Then Ed flipped his hand and showed me that he had a 9 too. But somehow the other 9 showed up on the flop and saved me. After that I did pretty well for a long time, at one point having about 1000 of the 1100 chips on the table. All good things must come to an end, however, and I let Ed back into the game and he managed to whittle away my chip stack and beat me. I was a little sloppy at the end and my run of terrific cards (I had 4 queens again!) stopped, and Ed got his well-deserved first win of the year. So Nick finished third and I finished second - better watch out next week!

Bacos: Full Throttle

Team Bacos played hard tonight, winning 2 of 3 games with scores 27-26, 23-25, and 26-24. Everyone played well and had great hits, but the winner of the All-Heart Award has to go to the Borchs. They worked well together and got us many points. Rob was also the "game ender" for our two victories: he served the winning point in the first game and pulled up mid-dive to avoid hitting the ball on the winning point of the last game (it was out-of-bounds). Go Bacos!

Visiting Frank In Georgia

This is the "long version" of the trip that Nick and I took recently to Georgia. We were visiting his little sister who had been after us for about 9 months to come and visit. The trip started off in a very Erin-like fashion: due to traffic, it took over an hour and a half to get to the airport instead of the normal 30 minutes or so. Then we got the "trainee driver" on the airport shuttle. He had no clue where we were going - luckily there was a trainer on the bus so we did arrive safely! There was no drama in the airport or on the plane - security was deserted, we took off on time, and landed ten minutes early. It was actually a fun ride because our plane was equipped with free XM Radio and Nick and I listened to the Twins game for the entire flight! Once in Georgia, the craziness was back when Nick and I got separated in the Atlanta airport. As we came down an escalator, I said "Oh, we need to get on that tram!". Nick hopped on and the doors closed before I had a chance to move. Oops. Luckily he knew where we were going, so I caught the next tram and he was waiting for me at the end of the line.

Friday morning we got off to an early start - Erin had to go to work so Nick and I got up to drive her there so we'd have a car for the day. We ended up taking our new disc golf frisbees to the local course and playing it through twice. It was quite an adventure, as the holes weren't that clearly marked and I had never played before. We couldn't even find the correct starting place for two of them, and just had to guess at a spot that seemed an appropriate distance away. Erin unexpectedly got the afternoon off, so after picking her up we went out to lunch at one of my favorite Southern restaurants: Chic-fil-a. Yum Yum. Nick and Erin liked it too. After lunch we decided to beat the crowds and go to a matinee showing of Spider-Man 3. I thought that it lived up to the hype - it was a fun movie. We were feeling lazy after that and just went back to Erin's to watch another movie, Little Miss Sunshine. I thought that that movie was excellent too. Much funnier than I expected it to be. Nick and I even renamed Erin after one of the characters in the movie, Frank. (Karin and Erin is just too confusing.)

After the movie we perked up a little bit and had a 3-way birthday celebration since all of us were born within six weeks of each other. We had a cute little 8-inch cake that said "H.B. Nick, Karin and Erin" and made ourselves a spaghetti dinner. After dinner, we opened presents and played the weirdest game of memory ever. We used the "Easter Egg" deck that Steph got Erin for Easter - the backs were all different colors which made it slightly easier to remember which card was which.

Saturday morning we got out the frisbee discs again and headed back to the golf course. Erin had walked the course before we arrived, and had found one of the starting points that we missed - you had to go over a creek that we thought was the boundary to the course and behind a tree and there you were! As we were playing, some other golfers were kind enough to point out the other one we had missed - up an embankment in the middle of the golf cart path. Crazy! I think I was getting progressively worse the longer we played. The fourth time I threw my disc into the boundary creek TWICE! Both times Nick had to wade in and fish it out for me. The second time was worse because there was a 6-foot vertical drop with no hand holds to the creek bank below. He got down ok, but it was trickier getting up. Nick, on the other hand, was a rock star, and was able to make par by the last time we played.

Sunday, our last full day, we got up early and dressed up to go to the Renaissance Fair. Nick and I wore the same costumes we wore for Halloween (mine was originally a Renaissance Fair dress) and Erin wore one that we got for her on eBay. We had a great time walking around and watching all the shows. The performers were very funny and up-to-date: we heard jokes about Paris Hilton going to jail and the jazz scene of Spider-Man 3. The craziest stunt we saw was by a guy name Dextre. He duct-taped about 100 firecrackers to himself, then climbed one of those stunt ladders (the kind that you just climb up with no support but the ground). Once he was up there he lit the fire crackers and had the crowd throw about 300 water balloons at him. Who comes up with this stuff? It was like an outtake of the Nic and Nick Go Fishing show :)

If you got this far, wow! I bet you feel like you came to Georgia with us. Hope you enjoyed the trip! Check back later to see pictures!

Crazy Sights of PTC

A tribute to Erin and her new home:

1. Being greeted by approximately 5,000 Lions Club signs upon entering PTC.

2. Driving under a perfectly normal-looking "pedestrian" bridge and then seeing a golf cart drive over it.

3. Golf carts with child seats attached. At least the kids are safe!
3a. Golf carts with small children riding on an adult's lap. Poor kids!
3b. Golf carts full of pre-teens, being driven by a pre-teen. Scary!

4. Kids in a day care playground rolling giant wheels around. Yes, actual wheels from cars.

5. Watching a woman in a red convertible sports car brushing her Shitzu in the drive-through lane of Chick-fil-a.

6. The teenage boy in pink sheep pajama pants when we went out for breakfast.

7. Not really a sight, but on the radio: "And our roasted nuts are free, Free, FREE! You can't beat free nuts on a Saturday!"

8. The guy at the pizza place pulling our pizza out from under the cash register after we paid for it, but going in the back room to pour a fountain drink.

9. A pick-up truck towing a full-size semi flatbed trailer (only loaded with hay, but still, it dwarfed the truck!).

And finally, the "standard of the South":

10. A Waffle House at every exit.

Sad News

Not only did the Twins lose again today to Boston (3-4), we've lost Mauer for at least 15 days. Not to mention Cuddyer is still out with the back injury from earlier this week. Our team is being devastated by injury. Tomorrow is an off day, then they play the White Sox and the Tigers at home. Go Twins!

It Worked!

The Twins won, 2-1. Keep it up!

Go Twins!

The Twins have been having a rough time of it lately, dropping their last two to the Rays. :( We're starting a long home stand right now with the Red Sox first and I'm just sending a little love out to them. Nick and I will be there a week from tomorrow when they play the Tigers! Go Twins!!!