A Tribute to the "Dirty Girl"

Bobby Light gonna do you right... You're a dirty girl, you're a dirty girl!

I used to have a dog. Yes, you read that right, I USED to have a dog. He would be a huge asset right now for picking up chicks. He was a really friendly good looking dog. I met a ton of people with that dog. I wish I had time to have a dog. Unfortunately the ex-girlfriend got him in the break up. That kind of sucked. But she dumped him on her parents so he's back in Canada now. But I already have digressed from what I wanted to talk about. Anyway I was thinking I miss him. At the time he was a huge pain in the ass and caused a lot of problems. But now that I look back he was actually a pretty awesome dog. He was smart as shit and a really affectionate dog. His name was Ty. Since he was part boxer I wanted to name him after a famous professional fighter. My favorite boxers of all time are Mohammad Ali and Mike Tyson. I wasn’t going to name my dog after Mohammad Ali because come on, who names their dog Mohammad? So I named him Ty after Mike Tyson. Petty sweet name if you ask me. Coincidentally shortly after I got him I got a new manager at work that was also named Ty. He swas an absolutely terrible manager, but it was funny to talk about my dog at work because my manager always thought I was talking about him. Ty had many nicknames, but “Dirty Girl” was the one that really stuck. I will explain how he got that nickname..I got him from a local rescue. He was a boxer, lab, pit mix. His mother was turned into the rescue pretty much as she was having puppies. Ty was one of the few puppies that lived. That’s just another reason why he was named after a fighter. He had a rough first few days. And like I’ve said before, I truly believe in survival of the fittest. He was one of the few survivors of all the puppies. So we pick Ty up at a dog park in Clearwater. He was literally 9 weeks old and about the size of my forearm. He slept the whole way home. I don’t know why but I still picture him laying on the ex’s lap in the passenger seat sleeping. Little did I know the HELL that was about to start in training a puppy to use the restroom outside. He eventually learned but it sucked. He got the name “Dirty Girl” because he was the dirtiest dog I’ve ever seen. He was a white trash dog. He loved to eat his own shit. And he loved to eat other dog’s shit. We upped the amount of food we were giving him among other things but he loved shit. It was horrifying. He would do this at dog parks and in public and people would look at us like we were pieces of white trash. I couldn’t handle it anymore. His love affair with poop was finally ended by bringing a squirt gun with me on walks. If he even thought about trying to eat shit I would shoot him with a squirt gun and he hated it. He would flinch and back away immediately. After a while he would flinch if he even saw the squirt gun. It was awesome. Is that mean? HA. Eventually he would see a pile of poop and look at me first but he would always move on. Problem solved.
Anyway I miss seeing him when I come home from work and I miss him laying at my feet when I am watching a game on TV. Don’t get me wrong he had his downfalls. He was such an attention whore and would eat holes in walls if he got pist off but overall he was a really cool affectionate dog. We taught him to sit in like three tries. I taught him to walk on two legs and he would bark on command. He loved EVERYONE and every other dog he came across. He’s in Canada now and I’m sure he has a better life. He lives with another dog and has a yard to run around in. The ex’sparents spoil their own dog so Ty now eats ground beef mixed into his food. That never happened here. I’m sure he has a better life up there but he lives in Canada. Let’s be honest, it’s Canada. I don’t wish that upon anyone. Pretty soon he’ll be a liberal idiot asking for a handout. Ty and I used to talk politics together and he was with me as a fiscal conservative. I’d like to think he’s stuck to his guns. HA Anyway I miss that little “Dirty Girl.” Maybe someday I’ll have a dog again. But right now it doesn’t fit into my life. I’d like to think he misses me too.

It's Been A While...

It’s been a while since my last post. And I can explain. It’s not you, it’s me. HA! I’ve always wanted to say that. But seriously to be totally honest with you I really haven’t felt like myself lately. And I won’t use this too much as a mind dump for all my problems because to be honest, no one really cares about other people’s issues, nor do they want to read about them. I don’t really want to call it a funk, and nothing bad has happened to cause me to completely drop off the face of the earth like I have lately. I tend to do that from time to time anyway. I will chalk it up to a complete change in my life and probably part of the process of getting over a long relationship. After the initial shock of ending that relationship, I got back to the regular gato negro, going out, being crazy and having fun again. What I will say is it’s good to be me again. But after about 4 months of "doing work" I started to think, ok what now? I had a life that was going one direction, and almost overnight it’s completely different. I was in a mindset that I was going to live in Tampa, work in my current job, and marry the person I was with. When I started to evaluate my life I realized that I had all the options in the world available to me because my former life was no more. A married friend of mine said to me, “You have a second chance at life that most people would kill for,” both a funny and true statement. And that’s the dilemma… I’ve always been very decisive with every decision I’ve ever made. I make a decision and go with it. But for some reason I’m not sure what to do. I’m trying to decide to stay here in Tampa or move back to NYC, if I stay here do I want to stay at my current job (which I have been miserable at lately)? I’m taking my time with the decision and it’ll hit me one day and I’ll run with it like I always do. I’m sure I’m not the only late twenty something who has or is going thru this. I think it’s pretty normal. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell myself. But anyway, on with the post, like I said no one really cares about other people’s problems, or maybe that’s just me, HA.

So what have I been up to lately?...

1)I took two weeks off of drinking. There were three reasons why. When I looked at the amount of money I had spent on alcohol the last few months I was blown away. I realized I could feed all the starving kids in Africa for a year on the amount I have spent at bars in 3 months. Not that I would feed children in Africa, I don’t care about kids in Africa. Survival of the fittest I say. I also needed to get going on my training program for my race in July. And then I also needed to clear my head so I could think about the aforementioned things that have been on my mind. It was both a great and horrible experience. I LOVE alcohol and more specifically craft beer. I wanted nothing more than to grab a dog fish head or something of similar taste and take down a few, or ten. It was a true test of my will power but I made it. The good part about it was my body felt absolutely great and it really helped me get on track with my training for the Boilermaker.

I’m up to running 8 miles now with a month and a half left until the race which is only a 15k so I’m looking to CRUSH IT! The other positive was the amount of money I was able to conserve in those 14 LONG days. I bought myself a tablet with those funds. To celebrate my 14 days of sobriety I went out Saturday night and got shit faced drunk and if I remember correctly, I think I danced a little bit at Mangroves. I can neither confirm nor deny this. I also vaguely remember hitting on a married woman. Again, I can neither confirm nor deny this act. Congratulations me!... Sunday was hell.

2)I really got into the show Mad Men. I have never watched it before but decided to pull it up on Netflix. It has quickly jumped into my top three favorite shows. That show makes me wish I was a young adult in the mid 60’s. It has a great story line and a lot of good looking women.

January Jones has also quickly moved into my top three hottest celebrity crushes. The other two being Marissa Miller and Eva Mendez. Those are three totally different styles of women but I’ve never really had a type to begin with. My only type I guess would be hot? Back to Mad Men… Beyond a great story line and hot women, the reason I like the show is the people. If they are correctly portraying the 60’s, men were real men, and women were women, as well as “HO’S FO SHO, I guess some things never change, HA. What I mean by that is that men in the show act like real men. They “suited up” for everything and they weren’t pussies. I wear a suit every day for work. I wouldn’t mind wearing them out everywhere if that was normal these days. It looks good. They didn’t bitch about things and worked hard. More people these days need that mentality. The women dressed up for everything. They wore dresses and were lady like. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy a fit woman in yoga pants everywhere I go but at the same time there is something about a woman that is wearing professional attire or a nice dress that I can’t explain. Everyone is too informal these days. That’s one thing I like about going back to NYC. Wherever you go people are dressed in suits and professional attire like they just came from work, because they just came from work. The other thing that I found interesting about the show, was the amount of alcohol that is consumed, even at work. I would love to just take out a bottle of scotch and drink in the office, wait, I can and have done that. But not very often. And lastly there is a lot of hooking up in the show. That always makes for great television. Was it a requirement in the 60's to cheat on your wife? That part I think is a little exaggerated but what do I know, I wasnt born until 1983. Anyway, great show and I’d recommend it if you haven’t seen it.

There are a few other things but this post has gotten long enough as it is. With this weekend being a long weekend, I will for sure be getting after it and will probably have some stories to share. Sober me doesn’t have as many crazy things to share in my blog. So for the sake of keeping you entertained I will not take any hiatus’s from drinking anytime soon. Respek.

Dropping some knowledge that will blow your mind...

Since it’s been a while since my last post, I thought I would come back with a blog of real hardcore Gato Negro thoughts. I’ve had a few blogs lately that have been too serious in nature, you combine that with an extended hiatus from writing and I wouldn’t feel like myself unless I come back and piss someone off with some knowledge that I drop. In this case I will probably piss off a lot of single girls my age that read this. I don’t really care, build a bridge and get over it. This analogy came to me while drunk at some point this past weekend. No person or situation spurred this thought, it just came to me. That’s where a lot of my ridiculous thoughts are born, while drinking. I put these thoughts in note form in my phone so that I can elaborate upon them when I am sober, also I would probably forget them the next day if I didn’t. I hope no one ever finds my phone and reads my notes because they will have a lot of blog material. I sensor a lot of my thoughts as I deem them too inappropriate, most of those notes go unpublished and are used for my own entertainment. So today’s blog was one deemed inappropriate but I feel like posting it anyway. It's about single girls. This is not meant to describe every single girl out there. There are a handful of single girls who actually have themselves together and I applaud you. The ones that do have themselves together will probably not be offended by this but I have been wrong once or twice before. The ones that don’t, will think I’m a dick but that’s ok. So getting to my analogy….

Has your phone ever broken and you take it to the store of the carrier of your choosing, and they give you a refurbished phone as a replacement? Have you ever wanted to save a little bit of money so you buy a refurbished phone from said carrier instead of a new one? I’m sure some/most people have. I have broken a few phones in my day and the phone company replaced it with a refurbished phone. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am comparing late twenties single girls to refurbished cell phones.

I know this is probably pretty harsh but let me elaborate, it’s not all bad. And again I am not saying they are all like that but I have happened to come across some refurbished phones lately. So let me explain.
When your cell phone breaks, for whatever reason, whether it’s the phones faulty build (a girl with daddy issues) or your own fault and you break your phone (you screw up the relationship) you take the phone back to the store to get a new one. This is much like a break up. Whether it was your fault, hers, or a combination of both, you end the relationship (bring the phone back to the store). The cell phone carrier then tries to fix the phone with replacement parts or whatever but you have nothing to do with what they do (you lose contact with the girl). At this point a lot of single girls I know end up slutting it up for a while then try to put their broken life back together and find a new boyfriend. This is the part where the phone company fixes the phone. The phone carrier then tries to resell this phone and represent it as good as new, but deep down you know that’s not the case. The phone (the girl) then is resold or gets into another relationship. Everyone knows when they get a refurbished phone that at some point there will be issues with the phone. It’s not new, just looks the part. At some point the phone will probably break. This is much like females my age, they have baggage. The girls with baggage are refurbished phones that are new to you but really are some other guys throw away phone/girlfriend that will probably break at some point for reasons stated above (daddy issues or issues from previous relationships). When you find out about the defects in this new phone you decide to go back to the carrier for an upgrade, and you trade it in for a newer, better model of phone (a younger girl with less baggage). There are the occasional refurbished phones that were rebuilt just fine and last for a long time. These phones should be proud of themselves for putting themselves back together, much like some late twenties single girls. I once had a refurbished blackberry bold that was a great phone and lasted until my brother bought me an iPhone as a present for being his best man. That part is not an analogy, but it would be pretty sweet if I could have turned it into one. That was just a sweet gift. On second thought, that actually is an anology. I am saying there are some nice normal single girls my age, just a little harder to find. You usually find these phones/girls through mutual acquantainces like family or friends. BOOM, I just made that an analogy!

This phenominon is not entirely the girls fault. Maybe their parents didn't hug them enough as a kid? This is my explaination for a lot of what is wrong with people. Maybe they dated a bunch of jerks that treated them like shit or cheated on them? Well that part is partially their own fault for dating multiple jerks but I can partially justify their actions if this has happened. What I'm getting at is that it is not entirely the females fault she has baggage. What you have to do is find a refurbished phone that was rebuilt nicely and you can deal with the little quirks of the phone. Or just buy a newer phone, the choice is yours.
If this offends anyone, I’m sorry that I’m not sorry. These are the thoughts that come into my brain while I drink. I do not choose to have them. They choose me.

The one that got away... A lesson in what you shouldn't say to the girl you've had a crush on for four years.

Believe it or not, there have been times where I have failed with the ladies. For some of you who knew me in college, you might not believe it since there was a new girl at my house about once a week. But even at the peak of my career of “slaying biddies,” as we use to say, I would fail from time to time. I am waaaaay off my game now and am trying like hell to regain the form I had between 2002 -2006. 2006 in particular was probably the prime of my career with women. I can honestly say I was in the zone, and anyone from the UCREW can vouch for that. I put on a clinic. These days that is not the case, but I’m getting there. I will blame this lack of game on being in a four year relationship and not having many single friends left these days. Damn you all for getting married/having a serious relationship (who does that?). I am not too proud to say that I have some work to do. But even when I was on top of my game, God decided to remind me that I was human by allowing me to destroy any chance I had with the girl of my dreams, we’ll call her “Honey”. I will tell the story of the one who got away. This is not a particular flattering story. It is quite embarrassing but it is a great story that gets retold many times by my friends because, as I said, it is a great story and it is particularly hurtful to me. We love telling stories that bruise each other’s egos. Even six years later I hate myself for blowing my chance with “Honey”. HA!

“Honey” is probably the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in person, in my life, at least in my opinion. She was on some sort of dance team (not a stripper) so she was always in great shape, very athletic and toned. I have come to realize I am a big fan of an athletic female. She was maybe about 5’8” blonde hair, girl next door look, which is also my thing. Anyway I met her freshmen year at some party. Throughout my college career I’d talk to her a little bit at parties in passing. I played beer pong against her a few times as she was the roommate of one of my buddy’s girlfriends for a year. We never had any profound interaction other than simple conversations here or there but I liked her outgoing personality and she was absolutely smoking. For some reason I could never muster up the courage to speak to this girl. I had no problem speaking to any other girls but for some reason I was so taken by “Honey” that I would never approach her and try my luck. She was a Long Island girl so she had a little bit of attitude to go with her overall outgoing personality. I have always loved that little edge that Long Island girls bring to the table. That is one thing that you don’t get in Tampa. The girls with attitude here just have overall bad attitudes. Long Island girls know how to party, are a lot of fun overall but have just enough edge and whit to keep you on your toes. Long story short our interaction was minimal but all my buddies knew I had a huge thing for this girl and would always give me a heads up if she was around.

It’s maybe February of my senior year at Albany. The senior tour had not quite started but all my friends knew our days at Albany were numbered so we were always out at the bars. So we are at the infamous Michaels in Albany on a Friday night. We were all pretty plastered as we always were but not out of control drunk yet. I obviously get the heads up from my friends that “Honey” was in the building. But like always when it came to this girl I was being a huge pussy. Sometime in the middle of the night it was my turn to buy a round. All my buddies stayed where we were hanging out toward the back half of the bar near the dance floor. I ran to the front to where the bar was located and ordered us drinks. I’m waiting at the bar when I see “Honey” staring at me from about 10 feet away against the wall. I smile but like I said before I was terrified to approach this girl. I have no clue why this girl got in my head. We had similar personalities so the world might have exploded if we had ever gotten together. That’s how I will justify not talking to her. I didn’t want the world to end… Anyway I’m alone at the bar, she’s alone about 10 feet away. Much to my surprise she approaches me. In my drunken state I was in no condition to work my magic, you couple that with the fact that I could never work up the courage to approach this girl and you have a recipe for disaster. Right then and there I thought my heart was about to jump through my chest. She grabs my arm, which took me even further by surprise, and says to me “Hey Uli! What’s up? You look good tonight.” This girl just made my year and she doesn’t even know it. I was in heaven. But then I said the least smooth thing that has ever come out of my mouth. I say back to her, “You know my name?" I doubt very much you could think of a worse thing to say at that very moment. I must have sounded like the biggest idiot. I am haunted by that statement to this day. I am going to blame this on the alcohol and the shock that she actually approached me. The look on her face was priceless. Total disbelieve comes across her faces as she says, “UH- yeeeeeeaaaaaah.” While simultaneously letting go of my arm and walking away. I’m standing there in utter shock. I just blew the best opportunity I’ve ever had with this girl. She approached me, initiated contact and that is what comes out of my mouth. YOU KNOW MY NAME?! I just stand there dejected. I finally turn around, pay for our drinks and head back to my friends. While I was waiting for our drinks she approaches one of my buddies and says to him “What the hell is wrong with Uli?” He has no clue what she is talking about so she goes back to her friends. I push through the crowd with my Bud Light bottles and get back to my friends. They ask me, “What the hell did you say to “Honey”? She just came over here really confused.” I tell them the story and they just about fell over laughing at me. I begrudgingly hung out the rest of the night, dejected. I never spoke to “Honey” again even though I did see her out many more times and at a few parties before I graduated.

This is obviously not the highlight of my college career but it’s a pretty funny story that a buddy of mine brought up on the phone the other day. It is a lesson that no matter how on top of your game you are, no one is invincible. I however am scarred by this experience. Some of my friends would keep me informed as to her whereabouts from time to time as they knew this was a form of torture for me. “Honey” went on to dance for a couple of professional sports teams and I’ve recently learned that she got married not too long ago and is a personal trainer. Again friends have kept me informed to torture me. I obviously kid about being tortured still by the experience. It’s more of a joke among my friends than anything else. It’s kind of funny to think about now. I’m sure I’m not the only guy to say something stupid to a girl they liked but I’m not sure there is a worse story of blowing an opportunity with that girl. I hope this is a lesson to everyone out there on what not to say to the girl you’ve had a crush on for four years.

My friends are getting married, I'm just getting drunk...

I get a Google Talk message a couple weeks ago from one of my best friends growing up back in G'ville, Mike. He was in Singapore for work and tells me, when he gets back from ASIA, he is going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. At the time I was the only person to know, which was pretty sweet. I kept his secret under my hat for a while but I am in Tampa a thousand miles away from the rest of our friends so his secret was safe with me. I’m happy for them, but I wasn’t jumping for joy or anything. Only girls get that excited when a friend gets engaged. They have been together for a while and I think she is an awesome girl. I am really happy for them though. He had hinted during my last trip to NYC that he was going to do it soon but had set no timetable. Due to her being sick he had to push it back a week after he got back. So he proposes this past Friday night. The details are unimportant but it was nice and she said yes. She had no clue it was coming, so that was nice. They are great people and I wish them all the happiness in the world. Mike is one of my oldest and best friends and I’m definitely looking forward to the wedding festivities/bachelor party. After initially being happy about getting to partake in those activities my next thought was, hopefully Deb has some hot single friends at the wedding. Most of my NYC friends are in serious relationships, engaged or married. The only other single guy I can think of from that crew is Tank. The two of us will need something/someone else to do that weekend, other than drinking our faces off. So hopefully Deb steps it up and has hot friends, or finds some in the meantime. Congrats to Mike and Deb!

This leads me to the title of my post. While my friend was doing the whole engagement thing I was doing my best to get hammered, for the ENTIRE weekend. A buddy of mine down here in Tampa and I decided since his girlfriend was on a girls trip in Vegas, and I don’t have a girlfriend, that we were going to get drunk the entire weekend and do man stuff. I played golf for work Friday and started my weekend off right by drinking a bunch on the course. When he got off of work we met up at his house and drank for about 4 hours before walking down to SOHO and a few bars. I’m not sure why because I never drink these but we started our night at the bar with Long Island Iced Teas that were way too strong, just right. But since we were doing man stuff this weekend I decided to drink it even though it tasted horrible great. After that the night is a little foggy but nothing exciting to write about other than we were drunk. We walked back to his house and I slept on the couch. I did one responsible thing this weekend, HA. I woke up at 7:30am, drove home, slept for a few hours more and then got myself together. Saturday we had a big day planned, a little Home Depot, maybe some Bed Bath and Beyond, I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll have enough time…. It’s also known as a pool day at my condo. I have a pretty sick pool scene at my condo complex. It’s a great pool, usually a bunch of good looking girls around and a waterfall into the pool. Everyone is usually drinking so it’s a big party every weekend.

I have a floating beer pong table so that we can play beer pong IN THE POOL. Everyone is jealous of it. We decided to finish a case of Miller Light and a few other random beers by the end of the day. We went undefeated in pool pong verses some of my neighbors and some high school kids. It was a little sketchy for me but their dad (my neighbor) was giving the high school kids alcohol, so I wasn’t responsible. We smoked them pretty bad. They were talking a lot of shit so it was nice to be old men and light up a bunch of punks who play every weekend. At 29 my skills have not diminished at pong even though I only play a few times a year. They left the pool egos bruised by old men, as they called us. We played a few more games against each other and called it a day. We were pool pong champions of the world so we decided to shower up and celebrate our championship. We head back to his house pregame some more and head to the bar. Again we start the night out with a Long Island Ice Tea, two nights in a row, it is now a tradition. At the bar there was nothing really to write home about, typical night out in Tampa. We got/stayed drunk, hung out and grabbed some pizza before heading home. The walk home was pretty funny; we were a couple of “rascals” as we decided to call it. I will not disclose the events of the walk home as I do not want to get myself or my friend in trouble. We didn’t break any laws, just acted like a couple of “rascals.” I will say that it included pizza, a pool, and a car (we did not drive). That is all. I was pretty hung-over Sunday but sucked it up to play golf with my buddy to wrap up our weekend of man stuff. Overall it was a great weekend.

While running tonight I was thinking about how different my weekend was compared to my buddy Mike up in NYC. We both had great weekends. Friday he’s getting engaged, I’m golfing and drinking. Saturday he’s going to a family party to announce his new engagement and celebrate, I’m drinking all day in a pool, and then out to the bars. Like I was saying, my friends are getting married, I’m just getting drunk. I’ll call it a push because my weekend was much more awesome, his weekend was life changing. Like I said we both had a great weekend, just in different ways. Congrats again Mike and Deb!

The Starting Line, SPANISH WORDS and sports bras

It’s funny how a song can take you back to a situation, a place, a person, or a time in your life. I have noticed over the last couple years that I don’t really listen to new music or artists. Most of it annoys me, or is just bad. The worst is probably rap music. I feel like they actually rapped about something back in the day. Now it’s all BS and just hard to listen to. I can’t remember the last time I drank a bottle of Crystal or threw “hundends” at a stripper. Although my high school friends and I have made paper airplanes out of 1s to throw at strippers, which was a lot of fun until we got kicked out on one of their visits to Tampa. Apparently that is frowned upon at Mons Venus. Another classic story by the way. Don’t get me wrong there are some artists that are still good and rap is always good to party to but I feel like there aren’t any Tupac’s or BIGGIE’s anymore.
If I look at my Spotify account it’s mainly songs and artists that I listened to thru high school and college. Obviously there is some new music mixed into the playlists but about 80% of my music on my computer is old stuff. I then took a look at my preset stations on Sirius/XM in my car and it was the same thing, Lithium, Pulse, 90’s, 80’s, BPM, Bloomberg, CNBC, The Blend, and ESPN. How I came to this conclusion about my music was actually while running. I am training for the Boilermaker in July in Utica, NY and I run 3 days a week. I do a lot of thinking while running. It’s kind of my time to decompress from the world and not think about work or whatever else is going on. Every time a new song came on today I was thinking about a situation where I heard that song. After about the third song I realized that every song was an old song I loved at some point.
I remember being a kid, riding in my Dad’s car and whenever an old song would come on he would tell a story about what year it was and where he was or what happened when he first heard that song. As a kid I was always annoyed and thought who cares about some Jim Croce song and what he was doing. I pretended to listen. As I got a little bit older I started liking some of the music but still hated the stories. By the way Jim Croce is one of my favorite artists from that time period. And now that I’m older when I hear a Jim Croce song I remember some story my Dad told me as a kid and where we were when I heard him tell that story. That’s what I mean by taking me back. I associate songs with times and places in my life. When I hear an old song a picture of that memory comes to mind in my head. It’s almost like I’m back to that place. Some of those memories are not long ago, some of them are.
I think this is why I started to enjoy distance running. For that hour or however long I’m running for, I have a clear head and am remembering moments from my life. It’s a great way to de-stress. Most of the memories are good ones, sometimes not so much. Either way I’ve been enjoying it.
In saying all this I will take the three songs that prompted this post and post those memories…
1)The Starting Line – Hello Houston (not the official video below)

This song actually reminds me of my brother and my all-time favorite concert. The Starting Line is one of my favorite bands. Any Starting Line song always makes me think of my bro but this one came on tonight so I will recall the time it reminds me of. It was sometime while we were in college. It was probably my junior year, his sophomore year. We only went to school 20 minutes from each other so we would hang out a lot. Anyway The Starting Line was playing at a club up in Clifton Park about 25 minutes away. We obviously wanted to get toasted for the concert but had to drive. Obvious decision is to buy a bottle of some cheap liquor, drive to the club, get hammered in the parking lot, stop drinking part way thru the concert and be ok to drive home. Problem solved. So we get to the parking lot, and start jamming out to some kind of punk music. We are there extra early. Between the two of us we finish almost the entire bottle and had an awesome time just sitting in the car drinking and talking. We go to the concert but don’t have too much interest with the opening bands so we post up at the bar and down some more drinks. The bartender is pretty hot so obviously I start throwing the vibe out there. Most of the people at punk concerts are high school kids so there isn’t much competition for her attention. I eventually get her number; I think we ended up hanging out once. I know now that hitting on the bartender is cliché but I was in college then and had no clue, just following my instincts. The concert finally starts and we push our way thru the high school kids and the emo kids that their parents didn’t hug them enough and get right to the first row. The concert was amazing and we couldn’t hear for three days after but it was by far the best set list I’ve heard at a concert. And it’s pretty awesome seeing your favorite band from the first row. That concert was a great time and I’m glad I was there with my brother.

2)Baby Ranks, Looney Tunes – Verme

I know what you’re thinking, “WTF is this?” This is one of the weirdest songs that I can say is one of my favorites. I don’t know who found this song but it was our pregame song for the UCREW at Albany. If we were pre-gaming you could bet this was on the play list. I just picture being in our apartment senior year with all my closest friends. There are so many memories of this song but my favorites always go back to pre-gaming without anyone else over. It was like 8 of us who were real tight. I picture Jim doing a little dance with his hands, a game of beer pong going on, the girls getting ready in the bathroom, all of us dancing around yelling “SPANISH WORDS” whenever they started speaking Spanish in the song and “HUGO CHAVEZ” whenever we thought it sounded like they said his name. Our pre-gaming was awesome and this song was definitely our theme song. I forget who but someone would always get real hot and hit shit loads of cups when this song came on while playing beer pong. I really don’t think anyone will appreciate this song as much as the UCREW members will. To be honest it’s probably not a great song to most people but to me its “legen – wait for it – DARY.”

3)Dashboard Confessional – Turpentine Chaser

This is a sad song and to tell you the truth I don’t know how it even ended up on my running mix. Maybe it was a subconscious slip because I made this mix this fall? Unfortunately it reminds me of my most recent breakup with “Canada.” Talk about motivation, when this song came on I suddenly got a second wind, which was badly needed at this point in the run. I’ve always loved Dashboard Confessional and I listen to him on a regular basis anyway, but not so much the really sad stuff, like this song is. Listening to this song took me back to probably one of the darkest times in my life which was only about 6 or 7 months ago. Ending a relationship is never fun but it was especially tough after 4 years. It reminded me of coming home from work for the first time after she moved out. It was probably one of the worst days of my life, coming home to a half empty house, no dog and no girlfriend anymore. The mental picture I get as well as the feeling is not fun to remember. If you read my football blog, it was one of the days that Coach Ford referred to and I remembered that quote when the reality of the situation hit me right there. I have moved on since then and I am in a great place now, but thinking about that day is not fun and still painful. Don't go and get sad now,the run did not end on a sad note.....

The sad feeling ended and everything was right with the world again when I ran by a group of smoking hot girls wearing nothing but sports bras and spandex on Bayshore Blvd. Not only is there a great view of the bay and downtown Tampa on Bayshore, but there is a great view of the talent that Tampa has to offer. And THAT RIGHT THERE is how my run turned happy again and another reason why I am loving life right now!

So it's been a week...

I just looked at the date of my last blog post and realized it’s been a week. It’s actually been a really busy week, hence no posts. I’m sitting here recovering from a whole day of drinking yesterday. I finished my first official race and decided to celebrate by drinking from the time the race finished at about 11:45am through about 11pm last night. Surprisingly I feel pretty good for almost 12 hours of drinking. I’m going to play some golf this afternoon to cap off the weekend. Living in Florida is awesome. Anyway, a group of friends from work and I decided to run in the Mud Crusade up in Dade City. It was a 5k race through mud and all sorts of obstacles. It was a lot of fun and we did it together as a team. That was my first experience with a race and we did it more for the fun of it than to try and get the best time but we all pushed pretty hard. We ended up finishing with a pretty good time so I am happy with it. It was good to see those people outside of our normal work capacity. For me it was really nice to get out and compete. I really miss it. With a race like that your only real competition is yourself. I know I am not going to be breaking any records. But just competing is something I really miss from my playing days and I will be signing up for many more races. I’m really looking forward to running in the Boilermaker with my family in July and I’d like to get involved in some sprint triathlons. I had such a “runners high” the rest of the day and it carried me through my day of drinking. I haven’t had that feeling in a long time. To celebrate I drank a beer in the shower like I used to do after a victory in college, and obviously the drinking didn’t stop there. I live alone so I was pretty much drinking alone, normal people do this. Since my body was dehydrated and I pretty much chugged a beer my stomach decide to vacate the contents of my stomach, at 2pm. Drinking alone and “vacating my stomach” at 2pm is again normal, right? It wasn’t “vacating” from drinking too much; I was just dehydrated and hadn’t eaten yet. I drank a bottle of water and made a sandwich, I was golden from that time on. All my college and high school friends would have enjoyed the show I was putting on, alone. They would have absolutely joined me. I love my friends down here but no one gets after it like we still do when we see each other. I know they still get after it the same way back north without me. I had like 3 more drinks before leaving for the Rays game with a group of friends. We “tailgated” at Ferg’s since it was raining. It’s not really tailgating at a bar. It’s just going to a bar, but the rain ruined the plans. I was disappointed as I brought a cooler of beer. I started out part 3 of the day with a shot of Patron, by myself. No one wanted to do a shot at 3:30 in the afternoon but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from getting after it. Congratulations me. I think a few people thought I was crazy, or an alcoholic, but since when have I cared what people thought? I have come to terms that I may be a little crazy. I chased that with a RBV and then switched to beer for the next 3 hours before the game.

Side note, as I am writing this I am watching Planet Earth, and this came on. HILARIOUS!!! Who thought this was a way to attract females?

Now back to the post. Anyway we go to the baseball game. Nothing really to write home about other than the Rays won and I continued to celebrate my race with alcohol. At that point I assume almost everyone was drunk but I could be wrong. A couple people must have been sober though because we had like 3 car loads of people. Those details are unimportant because I knew I wasn’t driving so I kept the celebratory beers flowing throughout the game. The people who had to drive I’m sure shut it down at some point. I came to a couple realizations throughout the day. I think I do some of my best thinking while drunk. Or at least certain things will jump out at me while I’m drunk that I don’t normally realize sober. There is a sweet spot for that to happen. It’s usually at around 5 drinks deep. After about 7 drinks the ability to think rationally goes out the window. So I was at that sweet spot early in the “tailgate.” What those realizations are I am not going to share but they were helpful for me. I was able to process a couple conversations I had earlier in the week and understand what that person was really saying. Who says drinking only leads to bad decision making? Anyway I have a pretty normal week coming up. No big plans or anything. I don’t think I was home at all last week other than to sleep and get dressed for the “so many activities” I had planned. Yes that is a “Step Brothers” reference. This past week was a good one. Met up with a couple friends for drinks on different nights, went sailing, ran in a race, got hammered at a Rays game, and came to some much needed realizations. Overall it was a great week to be me. But to be honest, when is it not a good week to be me?