Texas Weather

This past weekend, the weather went from awesome to freezing in no time at all. Then it slowly decline into the 30s this morning and by the afternoon it should be 75, then 85 tomorrow and at least 90 on Saturday and Sunday. Ridicules.

Bang Bang, You're Bleeding

"I don't know if we have enough bleach to clean up all of his blood." Hope that got your attention.

Over the past weekend, I went to Ennis, Texas to hang out in the country and do some country stuff. What is country stuff you ask? Well, I will tell you. You shoot guns, have a beer or 30, grill out, and try your hardest not to shoot yourself in the hand.

Paul, Katie, Boj, Jess, Matt Austin, and I went to Thomas and Deanna's house in Ennis to camp out and shoot some guns. Since they live in Ennis, we could shoot in their backyard because they live in the country. It is the type of place where you have to drive just to get to your neighbor's house and sometimes, you don't even have to use the roads.

People arrived any from 4 to 6 and once you got there, you immediately started to shoot some guns. We had a couple of 22s, 30-30s, a rifle that looked liked a damn cannon, and about a half a dozens of various types of handguns.

After several hours of shooting paint cans, beer bottles, and other objects that just happen to get in the way of our bullets, it was time to eat and call it a day for shooting since it was getting dark out.

Oh, before I go on, I need to tell you about a couple of rules that Thomas had informed us about. He asked us only to shoot at a certain direction, pick up the shell casings, do not shoot after dark, and be careful at all times. OK back to the story.

Everyone filled up on hamburgers, hot dogs, and various types of chips around a roaring fire to and enjoyed the rest of the night. Since we were done shooting, we started drinking a little more heavier and just bull shitted around with everyone.

I guess at one point, Austin got a little bored with this scenario and got up out of his seat, positioned himself between a couple a cars where the rest of the group was not insight and shot off a couple of rounds.

There was probably a 10 second pause between the two shots. The group was joking around and telling Austin to use his keys to open his car instead of using his gun. Then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Austin walking away from the cars and towards Thomas' house.

He came back a couple of minutes later with a full roll of paper towels wrapped around his hand and blood just spewing out of his hand. At first, he claimed that he just cut his hand a little bit but there was just too much blood for a cut to do that kind of damage. Luckily, Matt, who happens to be a RN, was there and checked out the wound.

Matt confirmed that yep, Austin clearly shot himself in the hand. When I looked at it, it didn't seem that bad at first, but if he moved it all in any direction, blood was just come gushing out. It was kind of cool and kind of not at the same time.

Austin said that he was just going to sleep it off and wait until the morning to do something about his hand but everyone convinced him to go to the hospital that night. The only person who could drive Austin to the hospital at that point was Jess and she was about 20 minutes away.

Once Jess finally got there, Austin was on his way to the hospital but had to leave his car at Thomas' house just in case he went into shock. During his car ride, Austin called us and told us to check the house just in case he got blood anywhere on the floor. Paul, Katie, Matt, and I check the house and Austin sure did leave his mark at the house.

The house basically resembled a crime scene of some sorts. Blood was everywhere. It was on the patio outside, on the door, the door handle, the walls, the floors, electrical sockets, tables and all over the sink. This is when Matt said "I don't know if we have enough bleach to clean up all of his blood", but thankfully we did. It took us a bit to clean everything up and we still somehow to miss a couple of spots.

Since we were cleaning up blood, our conversation quickly went from how to clean up this mess to "how fast could we dispose a body if we needed to". We logically discussed and determined that we could get Austin's car to Mexico in less than 12 hours by using a tow truck. Obviously we had to clean the car out just to make sure there was no evidence of him being in Ennis at all. I know this is highly morbid but it helped past the time.

We also were making some damn good one liners at his expense as well. Such one liners were "He sure does know how to go out with a bang", "He always has some sort of backhanded comeback", or "Come on Austin, don't give up just give it a shot".

The rest of us camp out on Thomas' land that night and the next morning we woke up bright and early so I could drive Austin's car back to his apartment in Dallas. His hand was wrapped up in gauze but at least he was OK. Can't wait to this all over again next weekend.

St Paddy's Day Parade

It is that time of the year where everyone because Irish and celebrate the only way we know how: massive amounts of alcohol consumption in the public streets.

The annual St Paddy's Day Parade in Lower Greenville was a hit even before we got there. Jon and I had to meet Paul and Alex at Austin's apartment at 9 in the morning the day of the parade and things immediately got out of hand.

Austin lives in a loft above a restaurant surrounded by bars in Deep Ellum. Apparently the lofts in Deep Ellum are pretty relaxed because they, along with his neighbors, had no problem with us lighting fireworks in the apartment at all.

Paul and Alex finally showed up and they were ready to party, especially Alex. She has never been to the Lower Greenville Parade before and she could hardly contain herself. She started to construct a beer pyramid with the empty Coors Light Cans she had while Jon was trying to blow them up with fireworks and Austin was blaring music for everyone to hear.

After our pregame party was coming to a close, it was time to get on the train and head to the main festivities. The train ride only took about 20 minutes for us to get to the huge block party. The street is basically designed to be in two types of areas: the resident area and the business area.

The resident area was awesome. There were tons of house parties with people grilling out, live bands trying to out play the band that was down the street, and tons of people.

We knew a person who was having a party in the neighborhood, but didn't know exactly which street it was and no one in the group could get any type of phone reception at all, so we decided to hit a couple of bars first.

To be honest, I don't have a clue of what the name was of the first place we went to. All I remember was that there was no cover, not to crowded, and the drinks were pretty cheap. Since we wanted to pace ourselves, we figure 4 pitchers would do the job just fine. After running into a couple of friends and having some "don't worry, they are paid for" shots. It was time to head into the streets and see what was going on.

As we made tried to make our way to through the streets of Green Madness, we ran into a typical drunk douchbag who wanted to fight because the guy was just a plain douchbag. Apparently he was super pissed because he was waiting near the port-a-potty and Austin started to joke around with him. Things stepped up to another level when Alex, a small feisty girl, started to fun of the douchbag as well and that is when the guy started to raise his fists. His friends came out of nowhere and apologized for their friend by saying he is just drunk and this is the third time that he tried to fight someone. His girlfriend said that if tries to fight one more time then she would break up with him. He started to act like a 3 year old because he just started to do whatever the girl told him to. And she wasn't even that pretty either.

Whenever a drunken douchbag tries to fight you, you should always go to the nearest bar and make fun of him as soon as possible. We ended up at a place called St Martin where we hung out with a married couple for a little bit. This is also the place where Austin started to go downhill quickly.

Right when we get to the bar, it was nothing but Jameson shots for him. He bought our table a round and himself a couple of extra shots too. We were there for only 30 minutes or so, but we ended up making glass pyramids, messing with year books that were used as decorations, and sampling too much wine.

As we left St Martins, our group got split up in two groups for about 45 minutes. Jon, Paul, and Alex went to Trinity Hall (a pretty good Irish bar), while Austin and I hung with the bass player from Taddy Porter at Kirby's bar. Bad idea. Massive amounts of free wine, beer, and Jameson is never a good idea. I survived the ordeal, but it was a different story for Austin and the bass player.

At this point, Austin is drunk but still able to walk on his own. On the way to Trinity Hall to meet up with the rest of the group, Austin and I crashed a house party along the way. Anyone could tell that the owner wanted everyone to leave because he posted a sign that said "NO MORE BEER OR FOOD". The guy was right because the trashed house only had empty pizza boxes and a couple of floated kegs in the back.

After the slight detour, the two of us finally made it Trinity Hall where we quickly had to leave because everyone was too exhausted to keep on going. We have been out for 5 hours and up since 9, so it was time to head the apartment and rejuice the batteries.

After walking Austin to his apartment and making sure that he didn't fall, get sick, or pass out on the way, the rest of us went out and explored the bars of Deep Ellum with food in the stomachs. The bar scene wasn't that crowded at all which was great because everyone just had a good time and had no problem getting a drink.

Once we closed the bars down, we went back to the apartment and went to bed. The next morning was a little tough. Apparently we stayed up a little longer after the bars because there were more bottles than earlier, the floor was sticky from spilt drinks, ricked of fireworks, and for some reason, Paul's clothes were drenched in the shower. No one knew what happened and we just didn't even try to find out.

We packed the car up with all of our stuff and went home. I slept for almost the entire day and was still feeling the repercussions of actions from Saturday on Monday. It was a great time and cant wait for the actual St Paddy's Day to come.

Sunday Funday

Its the morning after my birthday party and I have absolutely nothing to do. And when you have nothing to do a Sunday Morning there is always one thing anyone can do in order to have a Sunday Funday: brunch with unlimited mimosas followed by a trip to the gun show.

Alex, Austin, Paul and I went to a restaurant called Reed's for brunch around noon on Sunday. Reed's had all of the ingredients in order to make a great brunch buffet. They had pancakes, made to order omelets, enchiladas, fresh sea food, and of course mimosas just to mention a few of their highlights.

The four of us stayed past the brunch cut off time (which was 2pm) but still got some extra mimosas from our waiter. Diego, the waiter, told us 4 times that it could only serve us one more drink a piece, but once it was 2:20, we knew it was time to go and head to our next destination.

We had to drop off Alex at her house so she could get some rest and the remainder of the crew went on to the gun show in Las Colinas, which was only about a 30 minute drive.

If you ever wanted to see what Texan Gun Nuts look like, just come to a gun show. You will see the craziest people there. Some of the people looked like they shared DNA with the family for years, while others looked completely normal but were just obsessed with anything gun related.

One of the funniest/most awkard moments of the gun show is when I went to one table that sold knives and AirSoft Guns. I asked the man in charge in the AirSoft guns hurt at all and he said not too bad since he has been shot with them a couple of times. I then looked up and saw that the guy was in a wheelchair and he had some stupid ass grin on his face.After a couple of hours of roaming the gun show and playing with tazers, Paul bought a Glock 9 mm and of course had to go to a bar to celebrate.

We went to BDs for only 30 minutes before we head off to Paul's mom's house for their weekly Sunday dinner where we meet up with Katie, Boj, and Jess. She made a great dinner that consisted of pot roast, various amounts of vegetables, and my favorite, rolls. We were there for a couple hours. We ate food, played rock band, and made some pretty good jokes.

The time had arrived for us to vacate Mrs B's house and get a drink with Alex at Bone Daddy's. She wasn't having a good night and just wanted to meet with everyone for a quick drink. 5 beers later it was time to go home and get some sleep. It was now a little pass midnight on Sunday and I was beyond tired. Work is going to be interesting.

Birthday Party

Well, its that time of year again where you forget about all of the small stuff and focus on the one thing that matters the most: ME.

Before the main festivities even started, I went to Rahr's brewery with a couple of friends to and have a couple of drinks. We were there for a couple of hours and we then went to a hamburger joint called The Magnolia Motor Lounge where I had the best burger in the world. It was called the Highway Men. It was a regular hamburger but topped with a grilled piece of ham, a onion ring, and a quail egg. Best Burger Ever. It was now time for me to go and get ready for the night portion of the long day that is still ahead of me.

I didn't want to do much this year, like the previous years. Instead of roaming from bar to bar, I decided to meet a The Flying Saucer and spend the most of the night there. The Flying Saucer was pretty cool. A group of 25 of my friends sat in the downstairs patio section near the band.

As my friends were coming to the party, the area of tables we reserved was quickly diminishing. Pretty soon, it became standing room only but it really didn't make that much of a difference since almost everyone was switching seats with everyone else.

As the night grew on, the majority of the group was tired of the Saucer so we ended up going to Rick O'Shea's, a small bar that will never disappoint at all. From what I have been told by my friends, the rest of the night went like this: beer, beer, darts, shots, beer, the beginning of a story and suddenly trails of to nothingness, and repeat.

I stayed at P and K 's house that night with some of the other people from the party as well. We stayed up pretty late over there and enjoyed a late night trip to Whataburger and more beverages. Around 3, everyone quickly passed out to a documentary called Cat Dancers. If you have never seen that movie, don't watch after a night of drinking because it will haunt your dreams forever. Especially if you wake up in the middle of the movie and one of the main characters is covered in blood holding her husband and searching for the inbred tiger in the backyard that will eventually kill you as well.

Grapevine, TX: City of Elderly Drunks

Last Friday, Brittney, Tril, Natalie and I decided to get out of Arlington for a night and have dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Grapevine called Ezparza's. Grapevine is a pretty small town and is primarily known for it local wineries and annual wine festival.

Ezparza's was great but it was the people at the restaurant is what made the night memorable. First of all, even before the night began, we saw our first drunk person of the night. And I don't mean "Hey, this lady is kind of tipsy and its not even 8 yet" kind of drunk, this lady was full blown "Hey, I have been here since 3 in the afternoon, my blouse is unbuttoned, my right boob is almost hanging out, and I am wearing the last two shots I attempted to take" kind of drunk. Aka, my dream girl.

As we went to the bar and get a quick drink, we stood who we thought would be a normal man in his 70s, but of course we were wrong. The old man, who dressed liked a kind of skinnier version of Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard, took it upon himself to show us his trade mark talent. And his talent was nothing but making "Choo Choo Train" sounds with his hands. This guy was just nuts. And this was not just a one time occurrence, Crazy Train Man was doing this for about 10 minutes, took a break, and kept on with his antics.

We finally sat down to order and eat, which had no problems at all. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meal and since it was a nice night, we decided to walk around Main Street for a little bit. We have only been walking about about 3 minutes when we came across an old man in his 60s face down in a public trashcan just throwing up everything he consumed that night and probably the night before as well. It was hard not to laugh because, honestly, how often do you get to see some guy at his age get sick like that. It was pretty awesome.

As we walked down the street a little more, we saw another drunk guy. This time he was being propped up by his wife and daughter as they helped him cross the street to get to their car safely. He kept on calling his wife and daughter the best looking crutches that he has ever had.

Brittney, Natalie, Tril and I decided to cross the street and we found even more drunk people in the streets. I kind of looked like a geriatric version of Mardi Gras in New Orleans if only wine was served to people. Drunk people, wine bottles, and vomit covered the streets so people knew everyone was having a good time.

Before we called it a night, we wanted to go to a local winery and try some samples of their products. I don't know what the winery was called that we chose to go to, but it was damn tasty. I tried something that tasted like some sort of jalapeno wine and I was surprised how good it tasted. At the end of the night, we all got to sign our name on the wall of the winery. The owner was pretty pleased with us because she said that we were the most sober people that came in all night and we didn't try to steal anything. When we left, Brittney asked me if took anything, because that is what happens if i drink too much. I said no and she said she was surprised. Apparently I am losing my touch in my old age.