Weekend Update
This Won't Be As Funny as SNL's Version...
OK, it took an entire day of gun-cleaning and napping to get to the point where I could take an objective look at the weekend's activities and post a relatively honest post about it all. Last night was just too close to the heat of yesterday's 4 hour return drive sans air conditioning to have enough of the happy memories push their way to the surface.
Note to self: Next time you have some spare cash, blow off the 4-Star hotel, fix the Caddy's AC and stay in a cheap motel!
Overall, the weekend was fun, but fun in the manner of a high-school hum job from a girl with braces. You still enjoyed it, but there were a few painful snags along the way.
The ride up there was uneventful, and check-in at the Worthington was quick and efficient. I have to say, I can get used to valet parking! I had a quick shower to get rid of the road grime and cool down, then poured a healthy slug of rum to prepare for the evening's activities as I listened to the Russ Martin show on the radio. As juvenile and idiotic as his show can often be, it's one of the things I really miss about living in D/FW.
Rockhauler dropped by the hotel, and we shot the breeze for quite a while before heading over to Arlington. The Ft. Worth freeways have seen quite a bit of improvement, and as a result we got there early enough to take a tour of my old homestead. From 1990 to 1998 I lived on Davis Dr. in Arlington, about 2/3 of a mile from the UTA campus. The old casa now under new management, but hasn't changed a whole lot. I envy their addition of central air conditioning!
The actual festivities began at J Gilligan's, where back in my college days I spent at least as many semester hours in there as I did in lecture halls. The Irish Nachos still kick ass!
The other birthday person Jenni was already there with her hubby and Country Shelli. Shelli's a hoot! She's probably all of 90 pounds soaking wet (which I'd kinda like to see, to be honest...) but that gal's from way out there where the owl hoots and the coyote hollers, and she knows her way around a barroom! She don't take no guff from even a grizzly bear!
So, Rockhauler and I are jawin' with the three already there, and slowly the crowd begins to arrive. And there I hit the weekend's first snag. See, with the exception of Rockhauler, everyone that shows up is one of Jenni's crowd. Oh, sure, out of the 15 or so of her crew that appeared throughout the weekend, I know a couple of them pretty well, and quite few of them casually, but they're still really her clan, not mine. So, it was a bit of a kick in the nads that there was only one person on my side of the aisle. Great for the ego, lemme tell ya...
In their defense, I did get phone calls from Kosher Red that night and Andy the next afternoon with their apologies. Also, I didn't do a lot of promotional work, just the notice on the blog, but still... No effin' sign of Zippo, Snake, Briggs & Stratton, Butch, Swan, Man-Ray, the Deanster, or Opera-Man. No emails, no phone calls, just a big ol' 404 Not Found. Fuck.
We did the pubcrawl, and I managed to have a good time regardless. Jenni has a good write-up here, so I'll let her tell the tale. I will add that the Good Times has become a refuge for the more... erm... masculine women in Arlington, and I'd surely like to know what secret aphrodisiac they put in their drinks to make one of their male clique (a hag fag?) fucked up enough to hit on me. Well, he coulda been legally blind, I suppose.
The best dive bars of the night, IMHO, were the first and the last. Sunshine would have been cooler if it had been, well, cooler! Pack that many alkies in that small a place and it heats up quick. I will say that I'm glad we went there, 'cause I got turned on to a new band on the jukebox that's perfect for drunken carousing. They're a Boston crew called the Dropkick Murphys, and are what the Chieftains might have become had they been bar-brawling street punks!
We followed the time-honored tradition of dosing ourselves with pancakes on top of all that booze when the bars shut down. We met at the nearest IHOP, and had the whole thing paid for by Jenni's DJ pal Ty. Thanks, dude!
Next day I got up at the crack of noon and moseyed up to Rockhauler's House O' Beagle. We chowed at a Mexican joint, then headed north up I-35 to the Redneck Mecca of Cabela's. Naturally, Rockhauler and I fit right in. If it had anything to do with outdoor sports, they have it in stock, and were selling it to one of the 50,000 people that were crowding the aisles. Snag #2 - I'm sweating out all that alcohol from last night and it's so hot & crowded in there I'm feeling kinda woozy. So, we didn't see everything. We checked out the taxidermy exhibits, the aquarium, and the Gun Library (slobber drool drool...) before departing for another gun stockpile.
We met Rockhauler's brother over in Bedford to pick up a couple of rifles that have been slated to spend some time down here for quite a while. Since the actual transfer required a combination of a) El Capitan in D/FW, and b) Rockhauler and his brother both available, it has been a comedy of errors to actually complete the deal. We got it done, though, and I've now got a couple of new boomsticks in the arsenal. One's on 'permanent loan', but the other is a combination bday/xmas present that's one of the nicest gifts I've ever received. It was one of Rockhauler's father's project guns that he hadn't finished before he died, and I'm looking forward to finishing it up. It's going to need quite a bit of work, but I'll get my own father into the project, and have a finished piece that will be an heirloom for both our families. I'll post more on the guns tomorrow.
Afterwards, we saw shitty movie #1. If you ever have the urge to rent the recent 'Punisher' movie (and *boy* is it aptly named!), just flog yourself with carpet tack strips for 2 hours instead.
Finally, on to the Ridgmar Movie Tavern for a midnight showing of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'. It's a bit unfair to call it shitty movie #2, considering all the weekend nights in high school I spent hollering at the screen with fellow RHPS addicts, but it's definitely something from way back in my youth. This night was "Pirate Night", dubbed so by the horde of fanatical youngsters that act out the show every week and seem to have control of the theater. I bought a party pack full of all the crap you throw around the theater at certain parts of the movie, which in turn entitled me to some pirate swag to go along with it. I spent most of my time hurling things, both verbal abuse and objects, at the cast, since they annoyed me on a cellular level. I can see being devoted to a religion, a person or a political cause, but their degree of worship of this B-movie just kind of creeped me out a little.
It was fun, though. We had a large enough posse that we could be obnoxious as hell, and they couldn't do much about it. Call it the Old Rocky Crew vs. the Young Rocky Crew. There's no doubt we were doing the Time Warp when these kiddoes were still an itch in Daddy's trousers. They had more energy, but we were much wittier!
Jenni has a good post up with pictures, so go check it out! Yar!!
Sunday was just one big ugly snag. The plan (which was all kinds of flexible) was to go to Dallas and have lunch with Kosher Red and whoever else felt like showing up, then head over to Andy's to make goo-goo faces at baby Anwen. For whatever reason, numerous messages to Andy's phone went unanswered, as did some earlier emails asking about visitation hours. No responses or invites came from any other quarter, either. So, with the entirety of Dallas County showing complete lack of interest in my presence, I called Kosher Red to apologize for deep-sixing lunch, and just drove home.
Naturally, as I write this I'm feeling like I shouldn't be angry at people having their own lives to deal with, but for Christ's sake, a phone call giving me even the lamest of beg-offs costs you 2 minutes and doesn't leave me feeling like a leper.
So, a mixed success, but still a good time overall. Big thanks are due to Jenni and her posse, as well as the Clan Rockhauler for going out of their way to make my weekend a good one. Jenni and her beau will be down here over Labor Day, and we'll tear this town a new one!
OK, it took an entire day of gun-cleaning and napping to get to the point where I could take an objective look at the weekend's activities and post a relatively honest post about it all. Last night was just too close to the heat of yesterday's 4 hour return drive sans air conditioning to have enough of the happy memories push their way to the surface.
Note to self: Next time you have some spare cash, blow off the 4-Star hotel, fix the Caddy's AC and stay in a cheap motel!
Overall, the weekend was fun, but fun in the manner of a high-school hum job from a girl with braces. You still enjoyed it, but there were a few painful snags along the way.
The ride up there was uneventful, and check-in at the Worthington was quick and efficient. I have to say, I can get used to valet parking! I had a quick shower to get rid of the road grime and cool down, then poured a healthy slug of rum to prepare for the evening's activities as I listened to the Russ Martin show on the radio. As juvenile and idiotic as his show can often be, it's one of the things I really miss about living in D/FW.
Rockhauler dropped by the hotel, and we shot the breeze for quite a while before heading over to Arlington. The Ft. Worth freeways have seen quite a bit of improvement, and as a result we got there early enough to take a tour of my old homestead. From 1990 to 1998 I lived on Davis Dr. in Arlington, about 2/3 of a mile from the UTA campus. The old casa now under new management, but hasn't changed a whole lot. I envy their addition of central air conditioning!
The actual festivities began at J Gilligan's, where back in my college days I spent at least as many semester hours in there as I did in lecture halls. The Irish Nachos still kick ass!
The other birthday person Jenni was already there with her hubby and Country Shelli. Shelli's a hoot! She's probably all of 90 pounds soaking wet (which I'd kinda like to see, to be honest...) but that gal's from way out there where the owl hoots and the coyote hollers, and she knows her way around a barroom! She don't take no guff from even a grizzly bear!
So, Rockhauler and I are jawin' with the three already there, and slowly the crowd begins to arrive. And there I hit the weekend's first snag. See, with the exception of Rockhauler, everyone that shows up is one of Jenni's crowd. Oh, sure, out of the 15 or so of her crew that appeared throughout the weekend, I know a couple of them pretty well, and quite few of them casually, but they're still really her clan, not mine. So, it was a bit of a kick in the nads that there was only one person on my side of the aisle. Great for the ego, lemme tell ya...
In their defense, I did get phone calls from Kosher Red that night and Andy the next afternoon with their apologies. Also, I didn't do a lot of promotional work, just the notice on the blog, but still... No effin' sign of Zippo, Snake, Briggs & Stratton, Butch, Swan, Man-Ray, the Deanster, or Opera-Man. No emails, no phone calls, just a big ol' 404 Not Found. Fuck.
We did the pubcrawl, and I managed to have a good time regardless. Jenni has a good write-up here, so I'll let her tell the tale. I will add that the Good Times has become a refuge for the more... erm... masculine women in Arlington, and I'd surely like to know what secret aphrodisiac they put in their drinks to make one of their male clique (a hag fag?) fucked up enough to hit on me. Well, he coulda been legally blind, I suppose.
The best dive bars of the night, IMHO, were the first and the last. Sunshine would have been cooler if it had been, well, cooler! Pack that many alkies in that small a place and it heats up quick. I will say that I'm glad we went there, 'cause I got turned on to a new band on the jukebox that's perfect for drunken carousing. They're a Boston crew called the Dropkick Murphys, and are what the Chieftains might have become had they been bar-brawling street punks!
We followed the time-honored tradition of dosing ourselves with pancakes on top of all that booze when the bars shut down. We met at the nearest IHOP, and had the whole thing paid for by Jenni's DJ pal Ty. Thanks, dude!
Next day I got up at the crack of noon and moseyed up to Rockhauler's House O' Beagle. We chowed at a Mexican joint, then headed north up I-35 to the Redneck Mecca of Cabela's. Naturally, Rockhauler and I fit right in. If it had anything to do with outdoor sports, they have it in stock, and were selling it to one of the 50,000 people that were crowding the aisles. Snag #2 - I'm sweating out all that alcohol from last night and it's so hot & crowded in there I'm feeling kinda woozy. So, we didn't see everything. We checked out the taxidermy exhibits, the aquarium, and the Gun Library (slobber drool drool...) before departing for another gun stockpile.
We met Rockhauler's brother over in Bedford to pick up a couple of rifles that have been slated to spend some time down here for quite a while. Since the actual transfer required a combination of a) El Capitan in D/FW, and b) Rockhauler and his brother both available, it has been a comedy of errors to actually complete the deal. We got it done, though, and I've now got a couple of new boomsticks in the arsenal. One's on 'permanent loan', but the other is a combination bday/xmas present that's one of the nicest gifts I've ever received. It was one of Rockhauler's father's project guns that he hadn't finished before he died, and I'm looking forward to finishing it up. It's going to need quite a bit of work, but I'll get my own father into the project, and have a finished piece that will be an heirloom for both our families. I'll post more on the guns tomorrow.
Afterwards, we saw shitty movie #1. If you ever have the urge to rent the recent 'Punisher' movie (and *boy* is it aptly named!), just flog yourself with carpet tack strips for 2 hours instead.
Finally, on to the Ridgmar Movie Tavern for a midnight showing of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'. It's a bit unfair to call it shitty movie #2, considering all the weekend nights in high school I spent hollering at the screen with fellow RHPS addicts, but it's definitely something from way back in my youth. This night was "Pirate Night", dubbed so by the horde of fanatical youngsters that act out the show every week and seem to have control of the theater. I bought a party pack full of all the crap you throw around the theater at certain parts of the movie, which in turn entitled me to some pirate swag to go along with it. I spent most of my time hurling things, both verbal abuse and objects, at the cast, since they annoyed me on a cellular level. I can see being devoted to a religion, a person or a political cause, but their degree of worship of this B-movie just kind of creeped me out a little.
It was fun, though. We had a large enough posse that we could be obnoxious as hell, and they couldn't do much about it. Call it the Old Rocky Crew vs. the Young Rocky Crew. There's no doubt we were doing the Time Warp when these kiddoes were still an itch in Daddy's trousers. They had more energy, but we were much wittier!
Jenni has a good post up with pictures, so go check it out! Yar!!
Sunday was just one big ugly snag. The plan (which was all kinds of flexible) was to go to Dallas and have lunch with Kosher Red and whoever else felt like showing up, then head over to Andy's to make goo-goo faces at baby Anwen. For whatever reason, numerous messages to Andy's phone went unanswered, as did some earlier emails asking about visitation hours. No responses or invites came from any other quarter, either. So, with the entirety of Dallas County showing complete lack of interest in my presence, I called Kosher Red to apologize for deep-sixing lunch, and just drove home.
Naturally, as I write this I'm feeling like I shouldn't be angry at people having their own lives to deal with, but for Christ's sake, a phone call giving me even the lamest of beg-offs costs you 2 minutes and doesn't leave me feeling like a leper.
So, a mixed success, but still a good time overall. Big thanks are due to Jenni and her posse, as well as the Clan Rockhauler for going out of their way to make my weekend a good one. Jenni and her beau will be down here over Labor Day, and we'll tear this town a new one!
posted by El Capitan | 6:40 PM
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