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!
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!
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?
So due to the somewhat serious nature of my last couple posts I sent an email to my college friends and asked for their favorite Uli story. This was not done out of arrogance. Some of these stories even I am embarrassed about but they are good, so I will share. Most of these stories I have forgotten about because I was either too drunk to remember or I choose not to remember. But once they give me a title they all come back to me. Yup my stories have titles within my group of friends because they are so ridiculous. Almost by unanimous decision upon emailing my friends, “The drive for 30” was emailed back to me. As my former roommate emailed me, “man up and write about the drive for 30.” Due to the ridiculousness of that story I am not prepared to share that story publicly yet. That story took place during the “It’s OK, We’re Seniors Tour.” But really it was the culmination of four years of hard work and drunkenness at the U of A. Anyway the other responses were “golf cart”, “Uli, I can’t go to jail”, and “you disgust me.” All of those titles make sense to me. I chose “Uli, I can’t go to jail” mainly because I alluded to it in another post. This story involves Cardillo, Jim and myself on an infamous Halloween night, 2004.
So Halloween happens to fall on a Sunday. Obviously on Saturday the freaks came out. We all dressed up as whatever (unimportant) and every girl in Albany was dressed as a “sexy” (insert costume here). That’s normal on Halloween at any college. I swear, even pushing 30, women use Halloween as a reason to dress like whores and no one can say anything about it. I’m ok with this. To me the real Halloween that year was on Sunday, October 31st. I decide that we need to go out since it’s the real Halloween. Most people aren’t up for it. But being the beer pressure expert I am, I convince two friends, Jim and Cardillo to come out on a Sunday night. We go to a place called “Michaels” which is no longer in business. The three of us are obviously drunk and hanging out in the bar doing our usual trolling for chicks/getting black out drunk. It’s half empty because let’s face it, who goes out on a Sunday? WE DO. We make our way to the dance floor. We are off to the side making ridiculous comments about the girls that are dancing. For a Sunday the talent there was actually top notch. Hot girls dressed scandalously. It doesn’t get better than that. One girl catches my eye, smoking hot. Or that's how I remember her. She was wearing some kind of black butterfly costume. Her costume is again unimportant other than the fact that it was sexy. If I recall correctly her “pants” were pretty much stockings with underwear over them. I say something about this girl to my friend Cardillo, who is probably one of the best wing men in the history of wingmen. This guy will bring girls to you unprovoked. How can you not love a guy who does this for you? His line for me was usually, “have you met the starting QB for Albany?” This worked A LOT. He couldn’t close for himself (that’s another story) but he could pull some girls for his friends. I love that kid, to this day he is one of my best friends. He did not use this line tonight. Without hesitation he walks up to my target and says something to her in her ear. The “butterfly” immediately walks over to me, puts her arms around my neck and starts grinding up on me. To this day he won’t tell me what he said but I honestly don’t care. We dance for a while but I know it’s not going anywhere; I go back to my friends. After a while, Cardillo, Jim and I decide to leave. We are waiting outside of Michaels a while and realize no cabs are coming. We have no choice but to walk. I didn’t know how far it was at the time but I just Googled it and it’s just about 4 miles back to campus. We start the trek. We decide to stop by Cardillo’s ex-girlfriends dorm, which is on the way, on the downtown campus (not our campus). We hang out for a bit but leave shortly after showing up. I don’t even know why we stopped; maybe we were hoping to run into a sleepover/pillow fight in their underwear. That’s what girls do at sleepovers, right?
Outside her dorm is an unaccompanied campus police car. Since its Halloween we all decide to smash a couple pumpkins on the cop car. Why we did this I still don’t know. I’m assuming it was a combination of drunkenness and just being idiot college kids. Looking back that was such a dumb decision, but we didn’t get caught so whatever. I’m assuming we had some kind of run in with campus police and decided to take it out on that car. The path of destruction has begun. About halfway back to campus we see a for sale sign on someone’s house. I’m not sure who’s idea it was but we decide to move the for sale sign to the house next to it. I think it’s a great prank. I move the sign from one yard to the next. Some old lady starts yelling at us from her window. It’s like 5 am at this point so she was probably up getting her morning coffee. We run and laugh but think nothing of it. Well she called the police. About 5 minutes up the road a police car with his lights on stops and confronts us. The officer tells us the report of 3 large males moving the for sale sign. We obviously deny it. He obviously doesn’t believe a word. He threatens to take us all to jail for trespassing, destruction of property, whatever else. The cop wants to know who did it. At that point this old lady rolls up in her car. Gets out, points at me and starts screaming, “YEAH THAT’S HIM. THAT’S THE GUY WHO STOLE MY SIGN!” She yelled this like 5 times. She leaves. RANDOM. Even though Jim and Cardillo are great friends of mine they are both staring at me, they are softies, I was prepared to keep my mouth shut and go down with the ship. The cop notices this and asks, “Well son, everyone seems to be looking at you.” I continue to deny. I’m not a pussy, or I’m just that stubborn, deny to the very end. Jim then says to me “Uli, I can’t go to jail.” Hence the name of the post and a classic quote. That’s it, my fate is sealed. I decide to fall on the sword. I didn’t really have a choice. I confess. The cop cuffs me and puts me in the back of the car. He tells Jim and Cardillo to keep walking. They continue the trek to campus. The cop comes back to the car and I decide to pull the “listen my dad is a federal agent, is there anything we can work out” card. Yup I’m that guy who does something messed up but gets out of it because the family business is putting bad guys in jail. The cop doesn’t believe me and asks me to call my dad. He frees my hands. I call my dad and wake him up. Yup I called my dad at 5am, I felt like a small child, he’s PISSED but agrees to help me out. I give the cop the phone. After a brief conversation outside the car I get my cell phone back. The cop informs me I have to move the sign back and he’ll let me go. I later paid the price with my dad but who cares, I was free. I wasn’t going to jail. So I put the sign back and the cop lets me go. At this point I am so excited I decide to try and run to catch up with my friends. After a long run I see them. I start yelling “I’M FREE BITCHES!!!!” This became a slogan for us later. They stop and are shocked to see me a free man. We rejoice and hug on the sidewalk. Imagine 3 large football players yelling this in the middle of a busy street, people on their way to work. At this point the sun is coming up. We stop and grab a bagel at a local bagel shop just off campus that is just opening, first customers of the day! We sit and talk about every detail of this amazing night. We somehow dominated the bar, vandalized a cop car, put someone else’s house for sale, made it back to campus, and avoided arrest all in one night. We all go back to our dorms, champions of the night. Just another night in Albany.
"I don't know, its the battle, the going to war with the other guys, hanging together, having our own dorm, staying in hotels the night before the games, setting ourselves apart, being different than everybody else, having a chance to be somebody, to do something that people look up to you for, your strength, your courage, not everybody can play football... we're the lucky ones."
I think anyone who knows me understands that sports have always been a huge part of my life. Growing up I pretty much played every sport imaginable. My main sports though were baseball, basketball, but most importantly football. My family likes to say I was born with a football in my hand. My parents have countless pictures of me holding a football, throwing a football, jumping out of a football toy chest. Yes I had a football toy chest. It was sick. Here is a picture of me on Christmas when I got it.
I used to hide in it and jump up and yell “TOUCHDOWN” with my hands in the air. I was an awesome kid, HA. It’s one of my favorite childhood pictures. I wish I had that chest today. I would absolutely keep that in my condo.
I played the other sports because I love sport in general, but without a doubt I lived, breathed, and ate football all the time. The sport was in my blood and still is. I think anyone who played football in high school or a higher level would agree that it takes a special person to be able to play football. At least in my opinion nothing challenges your will, toughness and determination like the game of football. It’s a sport that takes you to the highest highs and the lowest lows. I'm sure everyone has something that has molded them into the person they are today. Mine just happened to be football. I know of no other sport or activity that can better prepare you for life. I hope if I have kids someday that one of them is a boy and loves the game. I think I am the person I am today because of football. By no means am I living in the past. I’m happy with my life but whenever I think about my playing days a smile comes to my face or a lump in my throat. There’s certain moments that still choke me up whenever I think about them. If they come up with friends who were involved they get the same way. Those two college conference championship rings look nice on my shelf as does the smile it brings to my face, I know my Albany teammates feel the same(White on the road, purple at home, we love ya kid. Purple Family). Ask any guy I played with in high school about the 1999 Queensbury win. It was probably the toughest and most rewarding win I’ve ever had as a player, at any level. They had beaten us twice the season before, the second time knocking us out of the playoffs. In ‘99 we beat them in one of the most physical games I’ve ever played in. I scored late to put the game away by jumping over a guy and being flipped into the end zone. I refused to come out of the game when both my calves cramped up. Every guy on that team has a story from that game. That win was so emotional. The entire team, even guys on the bench, and coaches were crying on the field after the game. It was one of the highest highs I’ve ever had. I’m getting choked up writing about it.
I was lucky enough to be able to play in college at the 1-AA level. Yes I still call it 1-AA because I refuse to call it “FCS”, they changed the name a few years ago and it sucks. It’ll always be 1-AA to me. I say I was lucky enough because I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was such a privilege to play in college. Not everyone gets to play in high school but even fewer get to play in college. It was an amazing experience. You come to college with 100 friends already built in, you get to travel and experience something that not everyone can. The quote I started this post with is from “The Program”, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. That quote is a perfect way to describe the college football experience. At about 40 seconds into the clip below, which is from "The Program", a few players describe what it’s like to play football. I think it’s 100% true. Nothing else in the world matters for those few hours out on that field. It’s amazing.
My college coach used to use a metaphor, “At some point in your life you’re going to get fired from your job, come home to your wife leaving you and your dog is dead. What are you going to do? The lessons you learn on the field about picking yourself up and moving on to the next play is going to help you do the same in life.” It’s absolutely true. Nothing has prepared me better to deal with the ups and downs of life than football.
The thrill of game day is nice and I miss that adrenaline high. But what I really miss about the game is the people. I think any player misses the time in the locker room, hanging out before/after practice, just being around guys you’ve gone to battle with. There is a special bond with guys you’ve given blood sweat and tears with and it’s nothing I can even start to describe. There is a certain level of trust you have to have with the other 10 guys on the field with you. That builds unbelievable bonds that I still have today with a lot of former teammates. But beyond all that I was a quarterback. There is nothing like 10 guys staring at you in the huddle waiting for a play to be called.
It might be weird but I can name every starter from every team I played on going back to 10th grade thru college. The images of dirt sweat and determination on the faces of those ten guys looking and listening to only me is engrained in my brain and I hope I never forget that. It’s a special feeling.
That’s the thing I miss most. Not the TD’s, crowds, adrenaline rush, or the recognition. It is the looks on those 10 guys faces that I will never forget. I don’t have any regrets from my playing days. I left every drop of me on those fields for those 10 guys. I hope they saw that. I try to bring that same mentality to the real world now. It’s not nearly the same but I think that’s what I like about my job. It’s that look I get from clients on the other side of my desk. They are looking at me to point them in the right direction with their retirement or life savings. They have to trust that I’m doing what’s best for them, just like the 10 guys on the field looking at me for a play call. Like I said it’s not exactly the same but there is a certain high that comes from that.
I really don’t have regrets in my life and I can thank football for teaching me to leave everything I have on that field or in this life.
I apologize for the gap in posts. It’s been a crazy couple weeks…
So I just came to a weird realization this week. All my ex-girlfriends are now married (except for the recent one but we just broke up), and my college girlfriend is engaged. I don’t keep tabs on any of them really. Honestly I hope the best for them but I really don’t care what they are doing. Who keeps in touch with ex’s? What’s the point? And why do females always want to be friends after a break up? I’ve never understood this concept. Does this make them feel better about the breakup? I don’t want to see them. But moving on…. The only reason why I know about most of my ex’s, is that my mother thinks it’s a good idea to let me know every time she sees the wedding announcement in the local paper. She even sent me the article and picture of my girlfriend from my senior year of high school. I’m not sure if that’s her way to tell me “hey hurry up and get married” or if she just thinks it’s interesting since she knows who they are. I’m hoping it’s the latter because she will be waiting a while. There will be no ring on this guy’s finger for a long time. Luckily for me there are no ex’s left to be announced back in the hometown newspaper.
Why this came about is that I received a text from my college girlfriend, let’s call her “Abby”. She was going to be in town for a few days for a friend’s bachelorette party and wanted to meet up. I haven’t seen or talked to her in years, totally random. Actually the last time I saw her was when my last girlfriend, let’s call her “Canada”, was moving here from Canada and we stopped in Albany for alumni weekend, which was October 2008. When I last saw “Abby” she was wearing a Jameson school girl outfit promoting Jameson liquor at bars while I was out with some buddies and “Canada.” It was pretty classic, running into the old girlfriend who is dressed like a school girl while with the new girlfriend who was moving in with me. I can’t make this stuff up. I think I won that break up. I was drunk and shocked so I stammered through the introductions of the girls to each other, it wasn’t a total win. I could have been a little smoother. A win is a win. Anyway I agree to meet up with “Abby” while she is in town. This is kind of interesting because it kind of bookended the last 4 years with “Canada.” Anyway, back to the point of this blog. “Abby” hits me up when she gets to town. It’s her first night in town, she is drunk and is trying to get me to come to the bar. I decide this is not a good idea as we have a history of relapsing. In fact we relapsed a few times during my college career that we both hid from our friends because my friends hated her and vice versa. I did not want to even give that concept a chance. I think everyone has someone they use to relapse with. Luckily for me she lives far, far away and I’m past that with her. I decide to break that cycle and just meet her for lunch the next day. She looked pretty much the same, minus the school girl outfit. I met her by the pool of her hotel so she was in a bathing suit this time; I came from work so I was in a suit, like a boss. Again I win. I’m looking dapper in my suit and I get to check her out in a bathing suit. To her credit she still looks good. I’m starting to wonder if she wears regular clothes anymore. We grab lunch and it actually went pretty well. It was nice to catch up; I guess we both have grown up. She keeps alluding to relationships almost probing to see what was up with mine. I avoid this but finally give in, tell her I’m no longer with “Canada” and then ask her. She acted surprised like I was supposed to know her situation. She asked me twice how I didn’t hear. News flash I don’t keep up with her life. “Abby” then tells me she got engaged late in the fall. Good for her. It then hits me that every single one of my ex’s is now engaged or married. I feel a little like the movie “Good Luck Chuck”. She then starts talking about the old days. She brings up a vacation we took and how much fun it was. All I remember from that vacation was that we didn’t leave the hotel room so I smirk and give a small laugh. She does the same. I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? She’s engaged but texts me late at night to meet up and then brings up something like that. I know it’s a bachelorette party and things go down at those things but cheating on a fiancé shouldn’t be one of them. Even though I’m single I don’t take the bait. To tell you the truth I feel like it was a game to see if she could still get me to say or do something inappropriate and she didn’t have any intention of doing anything, another win for me. Girls are so scandalous.
Getting married at this point in my life is not a priority at all. But when I realized that everyone I ever seriously dated is now engaged or married it made me at least think about the topic for a second. I’m a big fan of “How I Met Your Mother.” The most recent episode was about what they thought their life would be like in three years. Even though I feel more like Barney Stinson at this point in life, I’d like to think in three years I’m in some kind of serious relationship, moving toward getting married, Ted Moseby style. Either way I’m good with where I’m currently at in life. My life has been kind of interesting lately, kind of a weird turn of events over the last week or so. That lunch was pretty entertaining and I’m glad I went. It brought a good prospective to my current life, it’s pretty nice.
I will apoligize in advance for the somewhat serious nature of this post. Now on to the goodness...
So I hope by now everyone has seen the new movie "Free Willy." Pretty sure it just came out. And if you haven't seen it yet, you should. I think it's still in theatres. Someday this movie will be a classic. I don't know how they got Michael Jackson to sing the title song from his grave but he did a great job as well. My favorite part is the ending when "Willy" is freed by the little asshole kid who spray painted "Willy's" house. After a wild chase, "Willy" is superimposed jumping over a huge jetti jumps over a large jetti to get himself to freedom. You should see the look on that whales face. Pure joy. You can't fake that kind of joy.
I now know that feeling. And it feels absolutely wonderful. As some of you may know, late last year I ended a 4 year relationship. I will not bash my ex as I am not bitter and she overall is a nice human being. I learned a lot from that relationship. Unfortunately I had to learn those lessons the hard way(BTW is there an easy way to learn things in life, I am unaware of it). The first little while after the breakup was extremely hard. But over the last month or so I have not felt better in my life. I'm starting to be the real Gato Negro again. A friend of mine even said to me, "you've been less of a pussy lately." My friends are so uplifting.
Anyway when Willy was released back into the wild he could do whatever he wanted. Hunt seal, jump around in the ocean, swim with friends, whatever his heart desired.
Now that I'm over that whole situation I too can hunt seal(women), jump around in the ocean(play golf), and swim with friends(drink with friends). I can do what I want. I did not enjoy the single life at first, now I am embracing it and actually enjoying myself. I am similar to "Willy" or any animal being released back to the wild. You have to learn the way the world works again. The adult dating world is interesting, that's for sure. The last time I became single after a long term relationship was back in college and I went on a 5 year bender of booze and women. And a perfect example of my bender is my previous post. There will be many more stories to be told. While I don't plan on going another 5 years without a girlfriend, I do plan on attacking the single life with the same tenacity as I did 9 years ago. My ridiculous thoughts, crazy sayings and general obnoxiousness is coming back HARD. I guess you can take the beast out of the wild, but you can't take the wild out of the beast. I just compared myself with a killer whale, a beast and used the words attack and tenacity when talking about "single life." This is normal right? Long story short being single is fun again and I will dominate life once again. The above picture is a metaphor for what I plan on doing to the single life. I will soon write a blog about single girls as I find them to be hilarious and "hot messes".
A married friend, with whom I will not mention for fear his wife could read this, said something that was so insightful while cracking a joke that I actually stopped and thought about it. He said "I am rooting for you, you just got a second chance at life." When I really thought about it, he is 100% correct. I could be caught in some shitty marriage that makes me miserable, like most married people. Instead I get to start over and be that Orca that slays seals and jumps jetties. And unlike Willy my dorsel fin isnt bent. HA! I owe it to my idiot friends who got married married friends to make the best of this second chance at life. I owe them stories after every weekend. I will not do this for me, but for all those guys who married for love and now hate their wives lives.
"I got two tickets to the thunderdome, one for you, one for your emotional baggage."
So one of my best friends, and former college roommate, Jim, and his wife Jen, just had a baby boy. So first I would like to say congrats to them. I hate babies in general but I am extremely happy for them as they are great people. If that kid is like either one of them he is going to be awesome. Plus with the "uncles" he's going to have he has no choice but to be awesome. We will teach him the ways of the UCREW. The above picture is from some random night in the middle of the week while in college our last semester together. Jim is obviously sober in this picture and I'm being my normal awesome self and showing off the guns. I purposely picked this picture because it is unflattering to Jim (but that hat is pretty sweet). I'm a dick. Please feel free to ignore all the girls in the picture, none of them are important to the following story. The girls in the background, I can't remember their names, and I don't know why they were even at our house. They weren't part of the group. The girls in our group of friends were much better looking. The girl to my right was a friend of ours but has since fell off the face of the Earth so she is no longer important. Another picture is posted below and is much more flattering to Jim. In honor of Jim I will tell my favorite Jim story. There are many and I will roll them out whenever I'm feeling nostalgic but this one takes the cake in my opinion and shows how composed and funny Jim is.
It's my last semester of college (April 2006) and all I needed to graduate was three classes, one of which was freshmen spanish. Because of this light work load I partied my ass off and made all my friends do the same. The "It's OK we're Seniors Tour" was born. This consisted of 47 straight days of drinking on my part and this story takes place somewhere in that span of days. I will tell you more about that "tour" at a date TBD. The reason why this is important is that in freshmen spanish there are freshmen girls. There was one girl, let's call her "Tina" for anonymity purposes, who I noticed always sat next to me in class. She was cute so I would talk to her and I knew she had a crush on me. Bad move on her part. One night out at one of our favorite bars, Chubby's, I ran into her. Skipping unimportant details she wants to come home with me. Always be closing! When we go to leave she grabs a jean jacket. YES A JEAN JACKET. She also has jeans on as pants. She was not wearing this jacket the entire night. Had she been I would have made her take it off. She is now wearing a Canadian Tuxedo! I could not believe it. I am no fashion guru but this freshmen girl, as pretty as she was, needed some help. I was on a mission so I did not let this throw me off my game. She left me no choice but to text my roommates and tell them all to be in the living room to check out the tuxedo. Again I know this is a dick move on my part. We get home and just as I thought my roommates were all there with a few other friends to check out the show. Jim was in his room with his girlfriend Jen, who is now his wife, and did not see this happen. They all smile as we walk by and into my room. After I close the door they all burst into laughter. She asks what they are laughing about and I make some comment about what they were watching(obvious lie). Things go down. After we are done she goes to the bathroom, still naked. She comes back a few minutes later and says "I met your friend Jim", I laugh because she is naked but think nothing of it. She leaves the next morning. I go out to the living room and Jim tells me about his meeting with "Tina". Apparently "Tina" was on the toilet but did not lock the door. Again bad move on her part. Jim had just gotten done doing his thing with Jen and was also completely naked. He was unaware I had a visitor. He walks right into the bathroom on her. After a second of pure shock as a 6'3" 280lb naked man just busted into the room, the only thing she can come up with is, "I'm with Uli", which is a weird thing to say. Jim on the other hand doesn't leave but stands there with genitalia still flowing in the wind. His response is classic. "Oh I bet you are. I bet you had a good time tonight. I'm Jim by the way, I live here." Remember that they are both naked and have never met before. He goes back to his room and waits for her to leave the bathroom. I think this shows the legend that is Jim. He could have freaked out, covered his genitals and ran out. Instead he stands there proudly and has something witty to say. Jim might be one of the quickest tounges I've ever met. His comebacks and one liners are classic. This is a perfect example of this and I love him for providing such entertainment. Without Jim this is just another hookup story that no one cares about. Instead, like Jim, it is legendary. I miss you buddy and am very happy for you and Jen. At some point I will tell the other Jim classic, "Uli, I can't go to jail" story in which I end up handcuffed in the back of a cop car. But that's for another day....
Thoughts and comments can be emailed to thenoisepainandrain@gmail.com. Any friends who wish to contribute a story or anything else please feel free to email or call me. Respek!
