Shhh... Be cool, be cool... Scatter!

The title is essentially our tags lines from the trip. Yup, I'm back and basically no worse for wear. I am tired and barely made it into work this morning and I'm sure I killed more than a few brain cells, but I had a GREAT time on the trip and am looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble can be had at Tracy and Abbey's wedding in June ;).

A quick tangent; Jen and I had a very nice time at Il Fornaio last Thursday and I am taking her to a Nuggets game this Friday. I think it's progressing nicely, but hopefully things will make a bit of a jump after Friday. I like her, but am still having trouble gauging her feelings at this point.

On to Sox spring training/Keeney's last blast '05.

I'd like to start off by thanking Shiff, Josh, Coulter and others who helped to put this together by buying game tickets, hotel rooms, etc. Even with the few minor hang-ups (which weren't your fault anyway), everything turned out fine in the end and there are many memories to be had. You guys did a great job sending Tracy off in style.

Since it was a jam packed 3+ days and will make my blogs longer than what is probably appropriate, I will spread out the diary over a period of time. For you readers who were on the trip, feel free to add any details that I may have forgotten or just add links to your own blogs.

Go Big or Go Home

Josh called and emailed me on Thursday afternoon telling me that it had been decided that we would start big on this trip. Each of us (me, Josh, Burrus, and Nate) were to buy 4 shooters to consume before the end of the flight into Tampa. Knowing that I couldn't take shots like I used to and thinking we couldn't mix, I bought a decent selection; Ketel One Citron, Jagermeister, Wild Turkey, and Bacardi. Josh ended up buying 4 more (for a total of 20 shooters) because in an email I sent to him on Thursday, he thought I accused us of being wimps for only having 4 each. In fact, I was just wondering if we were to shoot them before the flight began or during the duration of the flight itself. Prior to the flight didn't sound appealing, especially since I didn't think we could mix them. When I found out that mixing was going to be allowed, we all bought a large coke from the airport McDonalds in preparation.

Distribution was decided by the roll of a die that Burrus found in the shuttle parking lot. We lined up six bottles and what ever number you got was your shooter. I ended up getting Bacardi O, Bacardi, Jagermeister, Ketel One Citron, and a disgusting Rum/Tequila concotion called Kuya. Josh and I started off by shooting the Jager which went down okay. I then mixed the Bacardis and the Kuya into my coke and sipped it while waiting to board. It wasn't too bad and I had the Bacardis to overrule most of the taste of the Kuya. Nate discovered that coke and watermelon vodka was a decent combination. I saved the Ketel One for later in the flight.

When Josh made the reservations a couple months ago, he requested seating that would keep us together. But due to a change in computer programs by Frontier we were scattered throughout the plane. Josh was able to get him and me to sit next to each other, but we were in the last row, meaning we could not lean the chairs back. Fortunately I think we were inebriated enough not to really care. I was able to finish off my coke before we took off, so at that point I had about 4 drinks in an hour/hour and a half.

It was probably one of the fastest 4-hour flights that I've had in a long time probably due to the fact that I had a little to drink. Josh and I spent most of the flight watching DirecTV, mocking the old 80's music videos on VH1 classic and talking about religion and such. We were probably kind of obnoxious, but we had a good time. We were also lucky enough to be attended to by an attractive mid to late 30s flight attendant. When the pilot turned on the fasten seat belt sign because of expected "jiggling", she turned and said that she hoped that he didn't mean the flight attendants. The rest of the crew was great also. When Josh showed another flight attendant the shot that he brought aboard, she noticed that it wasn't something they sold and asked him to hide because she didn't want us to get in trouble and her to get fired. We got a turkey wrap during the flight and I'd say more about it, but all that's worth mentioning is that other than a bag o' mix, it's the first time I've had a meal on a flight in a long time. I finished off the Ketel One with some ginger ale an hour or so before landing. Over all it was 5 drinks in a span of 5 hours so things were good.

We met up with Tracy, Shiff, Davis and Anstine at the airport and rented a 7 person minivan to head to the hotel. It took us an hour to rent the van because for some reason everyone was renting from Budget last weekend. There were no lines at Hertz, Avis or Dollar.

It took us another 2 hours or so just to get to the hotel because of some accident on 19. It should have taken us half an hour at most. We spent the time listening to music and rocking the van back and forth (while stopped in traffic), much to the entertainment of other drivers. The line from the drive came from Davis. While an older gentleman was chatting with us about the traffic, we noticed that he had a Garfield air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. Davis tactfully and not so quietly said, "Garfield sucks, dude". The other driver never spoke to us again.

Since we had been in traffic for so long, Davis was in dire bathroom straits. He braved 3 lanes of on-coming traffic to hit the head at Dunkin Donuts, just to go. We were travelling just slow enough for him to do it. We finally reached our destination and checked in. Since we were hungry and it was a bachelor party, we headed off to get some grub and booze.

After that we spent the rest of the time drinking beer, talking and laughing. Fortunately the room that we were hanging out in had the stairs to one side, was vacant on the other and vacant above. Regardless, whenever someone knocked on the door we'd all become silent, someone would say "be cool" and we would jokingly be ready to scatter. It was like being underage drinkers again. There were two times we thought we were really in trouble; once when Kirk showed up at the door because we didn't expect him to show at our door (he flew in a day earlier than anticipated); and once when Büer (sp?) showed up totally unexpectedly.

Although there were many great stories told at the expense of everyone else, the highlight had to be drunk Budzy. He and Seamus were at the hotel way before anyone else and had spent the afternoon drinking and hanging by the pool. By the time our group got there Budz was doing pretty good. As the evening progressed he had more to drink. At one point he began to brush his teeth and get into his jammies; as such, it was only appropriate that we heckle him. When we asked if he was brushing his teeth he responded with "Well duuuhh!" then pointed his electric Oral-B at us and claimed that he was tougher than us because he started drinking at 2 that afternoon.

When he went to bed to "lie down", Anstine began flipping pennies at him so Budzy grabbed the Bible from the night stand, not only to protect himself, but in search of the passage quoted from Pulp Fiction. Unfortunately for him it wasn't in that version, but Budzy wouldn't know it because he had trouble focusing on the page. Then as he progressively got more and more drowsy the sharpies that Tracy had provided for autographs on our baseballs came out for their secondary purpose. I gotta give Budzy credit; it got to the point that as soon as someone twisted off the cap to the marker he would react and wake up. We were able to get a couple lines on his arm and stomach, but nothing really on his face since he would wake up as soon as you touched him. I think fun was had by all that first night. Part II tomorrow...