Training Like A Beast

I recently started to work out with a couple of friends who know what they are doing in the gym and i decided to join their workouts. Damn, that was a mistake. I could barely keep up with them and almost gave up several times.

I have been going several times now and can start to see and feel the results. So if you see me and say "Wow Kevin, you look like a beast!" I will just reply by saying "That's because I train like one".

Top Golf Suprise Party

Lately, I have been writing a lot of posts about birthday parties, weddings, and other special occasions but I have been looking toward this party for some time now.

It was time to celebrate Boj's 30 birthday and his wife Jess wanted to do it right. And the only way to celebrate it right was to have a surprise party at Top Golf in Dallas.

In case you don't know, Top Golf is an awesome place where it brings a new dimension to practicing golf by providing the ability to score points and to make practicing a competitive and fun experience. Top Golf encourages and trains players at all skill levels to focus on and make every shot count.

Basically, it is a driving range with a GPS in each ball to determine whose golf ball has gone the most distance. Combining a driving range with darts through the use of RFID tagged golf balls, Top Golf is an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Way better way to do some golfing in Dallas in the summer than actually trying to hike 18 holes. Plus, they bring beer to you! I haven't tried the food yet, but plan to on my next trip. Everything I saw go by looked pretty good.

About 10 of us arrived a little before 6 at Top Golf so we could surprise Boj and then hit some balls. He and Jess showed up a couple of minutes after 6 and Boj was pretty surprise by everything.

I'm not the world's best golfer, but I did learn a few things while at Top Golf:

1) A two hour wait on a Saturday afternoon is to be expected.
2) A two hour wait on a Saturday afternoon at the Top Golf bar is FUN.
3) Their guacamole is yummy and their beer is ice cold. Keep it coming.
4) You get free mini golf while you wait....but you'll end up staying at the bar instead.
5) If you say you're not a golfer....buy your 3rd beer you'll be swinging away.
6) Watching ladies playing in heels and a skirt is accepted here....hell, it's encouraged!
7) The top level is the place to be.
8) You can play as the night rolls in. Even if it's lightening and pouring rain, you can keep the party going at Top Golf.
9) Go ahead and buy the members card....you're going to end up wanting to play more games than you think. Save some money and accept that you won't have the discipline to stop playing.
10) You can bring your dog!
11) Top Golf is wayyyyy more fun than real golf.

After 3 hours on unlimited golf and drinks, it was time to take the party to Eric and Kristen's house for the after party in Coppell. We stayed there for a couple of hours. The girls talked inside while the guys were outside on the patio being too loud and retelling some horrible yet funny stories.

Boj said that he had a great time and was appreciative that everyone should up. Most importantly, everyone wants to back to Top Golf, but we have to remember that we are drinking on our own dime now.

The Vennum Wedding

Congrats to Cale and Sarah on getting married!

Katy and Cale met for the first time in the spring of 2004, Katy's freshman year and Cale's junior year at Texas A&M University. The organization that Cale was a member of, Iron Spikes, was participating in Katy's sorority's, Delta Gamma, philanthropy event and her friends were coaching his team.

Over the next couple of months, they encountered each other a couple of times when Cale's friends and Katy's sorority sisters hung out. It wasn't until that summer, at a friends birthday, that they both realized they were interested in being more than friends.

Thanks to the evasive actions of Katy's roommate, they went on their first date to get ice cream. As they say, the rest is history.

The wedding ceremony and reception was held at the Bass Performance Hall Maddox-Muse Center in Downtown Fort Worth and it was hell of a time.

The ceremony was attended by numerous amounts of family, friends, neighbors, sorority sisters, and Iron Spikes Members.

Everyone seemed to have a good, especially dancing to a bunch of 80s hits and Cale attempting to do the Soulja Boy Dance with Katy and all of her sorority sisters. You can check out all of the wedding pictures on my photo site.

Colin's Bday Party

My friend Colin had a birthday party thrown by his girlfriend Meredith at his house. It was a pretty good party and plenty of people showed up to make sure that it was a good time. The party had all of the ingredients to be awesome. There was drinks, food, Kinect on xbox 360, wheel chair races, beer pong, muddy dogs, and 70s music sung by some of Colin's inebriate family members.

Party Boat and Stephanie Ruth's Bday Party

The morning after any bachelor party will be a rough one. Either by alcohol, regret, or just too tired to function at all. And this morning after the bachelor party was no different.

I woke up at 9 and already knew it was going to be a rough day. I was supposed to at a marina by 9:30 for Jennifer's going away party and Austin was supposed to be at work at 9 and he works at least 40 minutes away.

Paul and I quickly made out way to the marina to get on the 2 story party boat that was filled with enough drinks and jello shots to make a frat party look bad. The boat also had a decent slide and two areas to jump off of. And just to make clear, that before we sailed off, the captain of the boat specifically pointed out these 2 areas and not to jump off anywhere else. That will come back to haunt on of the passengers of the boat in a very hurtful, yet hilarious manner.

After about an hour and a half out in the middle of the lake and it congratulated Jennifer on going to the Navy, it was jumping time. Everyone was following the Captain's orders and jumping off of only the 2 designated areas except for 1. And that 1 was the fearless Paul.

Ok, let me set this up. In the rear of the boat (whether it is the 1st or 2nd floor) there is a guard rail that comes a little over waist high. The flooring of the 2nd floor of the boat is that astro turf that you will find at putt putt or something similar to that.

Paul thought that it would be a good idea, and I will be honest we thought it would be, if he staked 2 coolers near each other and used them as a ladder in order to jump over the railing. Before he jump, Paul did make sure he could at least make the jump by acting it out and everything seemed that it would work.

As Paul was getting ready to make his dare devil debut, one of the guys said that he should dry his feet off before jumping the coolers. Paul said that he would be ok if he didn't and then it was up the Water Gods to determine his fate.

The second Paul's right foot hit the cooler, it was all downhill from there. He immediately lost balance and fell right into the railing, hitting his right hip, went overboard while hitting the outside back wall of the boat before finally landed pretty hard in to the water.

When he hit the water, the whole group let out a collective laugh quickly followed by a noticeably loud gasp. I was laughing the whole time. When Paul finally surfaced and said he was ok and it was time to resume to party again.

After a few more hours on the lake, some jello shots, and a couple of jumps from the designated area, it was time to head back to shore. Even though I love to be nautical, it was good to be back on dry land because I was exhausted and was in dire need of some food and a nap.After a couple of hours of sleep, it was time to go to Stephanie Ruth's bday party.

The birthday party was held at Stephanie's house and there was a nice turn out for this occasion. Food, beer, boxed wine, and MMA fights were all available at everyone's disposal.

The party ended and everyone had a great time and some others may have a too good of a time due to alcohol, games, and maybe even more alcohol.

Sneaky Pete's and Deep Ellum

A couple of weeks ago, Paul, Austin, Cale, and I went to a bar in Lewisville called Sneaky Pete's for Cale's Bachelor Party.

The main reason why we chose this place was because of a local sports radio station, The Ticket, was hosting their annual Summer Bash Party. At the Summer Bash, there are live bands by the pool, tons of people at the volleyball courts, and most importantly, cheap drinks.

Other cool aspects of the Summer Bash being at Sneaky Pete's is that people have great access to the docks and have an impromptu boat party with anyone you want to. Or if you are like a certain 12 year old that was there, have you attractive mom participate in a wet t-shirt contest while a bunch of guys cheer her on. And after she finishes 2nd place, she calls that particular 12 year old to come up on stage to join her in her celebration. Great family values.

The four of us spent a couple of hours there and ran into some friends we haven't seen since high school and talked to them for a bit. One of us may or may not have changed clothes with an extremely hot girl in front of everyone for no purpose at all other than shits and giggles. That point of the night got interesting quick. Then it was off to Deep Ellum to rejuvenate and hit the bars once more.

Once the four of us grabbed a late night dinner, it was time to hit up Adair's, one of our favorite bars, and end the night there since it was so close to closing time anyways. A couple drinks there and it was already 2am.

The party went back to Austin's apartment since his place is walking distance away, a 3 minute walk at the most. There we all hung out more and quickly passed out one by one. It was one of those easy going, relaxed bachelor parties that everyone had a blast at. Good times all around.

Dallas Mavericks Riotless Parade

"This is going to be bad-ass," the blond girl said to me as I pressed into her from behind. The parade crowd was already 14 deep and it was getting hot. We craned our necks looking for the first sign of Mark Cuban's gold-trophy ventriloquist doll or Dirk's shaggy hair. She smelled like shampoo and I smelled like beer. I was ready for action.

Fast-forward two-and-a-half hours. I'm bored, disappointed and sitting on a storm drain surrounded by parade garbage. My blonde has evaporated. I reach into my front pocket and pull out a damp sheet of folded paper. I shake my head, just as I'm doing now a week later, because I can't believe Dallas actually pulled off a parade without burning down a few square miles or knifing two dozen people in the pancreas. What a rip-off. I thought Dallas had more mayhem in its soul. Most good cities do.

I thought we wouldn't get the Mavs' lead float in the barn without at least a few guys shooting each other or drunk college kids exchanging STDs in front of curious families. That's what celebrations look like. At least in my family. I was itching to go lawless as I stood behind that girl. I went to the parade just to become one of the people you'd see on the news later that night screaming and holding a fire hydrant over his pepper-sprayed head. I kept thinking, "Surely, one of these 200,000 sweating idiots will start some [expletive] and then I can let it all hang out." But it never happened. Everyone was happy and respectful and, for the most part, hydrated.

Come on, Dallas. You missed a gilded opportunity at parade immortality. It's not every day you get paper-thin justification to act like you're in Detroit. Our team won it all. Time to create insurance claims, not good will in the form of high fives and bro hugs.
I unfolded the sheet of paper and looked at it.

Kevin's Parade Mayhem To-Do List:

• Throw rocks through storefront windows.
• Torch a cop car.
• Overturn a city bus.
• Torch my own car.
• Call insurance company about car.
• Overturn porta-potty, releasing Mavericks blue onto street.
• Set off firecrackers in congested areas.
• Create pedestrian bottlenecks by setting up fake barricades; mug people.
• Stab a stranger.
• Stab my friends.
• Stab wildly into the air.
• Make love to a police officer.
• Overturn a motorcycle.
• Overturn a bicycle.
• Overturn Roe v. Wade.
• Stab the green building.
• Tell Dirk I love him with baby alligators attached to my nipples.
• Parachute into parade wearing superhero outfit.
• Stop parade through forced lactation.

I pulled out a pen and put a check mark by the alligator one. Then I eased two small alligators into the storm drain and walked home. Go Rangers.

Dallas Mavericks: 2011 NBA Champions

After years of waiting, the Dallas Mavericks finally won their first NBA Championship.

It was great to watch the Mavs beat the Miami Heat but it was nerve wrecking. I don't remember much of the games other than pacing back and forth getting pissed because we would either blow an early lead of just breakdown completely. But luckily that was for only a couple of games.

When the Mavs finally did beat the Heat, Dallas went crazy. There were parties going on all over the place from the American Airlines Arena, where the Mavs play, to Lower Greenville to people just emptying the bars and crowding the streets.

By the next day, bootleg t-shirts and other Mavericks apparel were hitting the streets at a rapid rate. So far, I think my favorite t-shirt that I saw was a pink Dallas Mavericks shirt that was completely misspelled and off centered. The colors were also completely wrong, but at least anyone can buy 2 shirts for $10.

Updates Galore

Its been a while since I have updated not only my blog, but my picture website as well. So give me a couple of days I can talk about stuff like the Mavs Championship, the parade, some weddings, bday parties and father's day. Its going to be some good times

Heart Attack Grill

A new restaurant opened up in Dallas a couple of weeks ago and they aim to make you as fat as possible. And they are doing a damn good job at it.

The restaurant is called The Heart Attack Grill and the concept seems pretty funny to me. The theme of the restaurant is that its a doctors office and they want you to try a new diet. Instead of watching calories and limiting the type of food that you eat, they want you to eat as much as possible.

Priscilla, a co-worker, and I tried the Heart Attack Grill last week for lunch and it was awesome.

There are 2 hostesses that will welcome you when arrive at this fine establishment. The first girl is outside to attract people to come in the restaurant. She is a college aged girl who seems like a typical hot sorority girl. Her job is the give you a medical band (remember, you are eating at a diet center as a joke) and find you a table.

The second hostess, this could just be in my case, was not that attractive or young as the first hostess. The second hostess was a slim 50 year woman with, according to what she told me and Priscilla, 5 year old gigantic boobs. Apparently she didn't like to strip anymore but still love to show off some skin. Her job was to fit you with a medical gown and walk you to your table. Oh, and before I forget, medical gowns are required to be worn at the restaurant at all times or they ask you to leave.

We sat at the counter and was greeted by our nurse, who was our waitress but they are called nurses, who told us about the menu which can be seen at the top of this post. She also introduced us to Doctor Jon, the manager of the restaurant, who was dressed head to toe as a real doctor that included a stethoscope, white jacket, and doctor badge. The cooks were referred to as residents and they were dressed up in scrubs.

Another clever thing I thought was pretty funny was that they do not serve "meals" but "procedures". The four main procedures that they serve are they bypasses and you can have a Single, Double, Triple, or Quadruple Bypass. They are all hamburgers with either one, two, three, or four huge hamburger patties.

The biggest one is obviously the Quadruple Bypass that has 2 pounds of meat, a whole tomato, a whole onion, 8 slices of cheese, and 16 slices of bacon. This is the biggest burger I have seen.

Another gimmick that this place has is that if you weigh 350 pounds or more, then you get to eat for free. And man did I saw some huge ass people get weighed in so they can eat for free. It is kind of funny how Manager does the weigh in too. They treat it like 2 boxers weighing in before a fight.

One thing I can not forget to talk about is the shake that they sell. It is known has having the highest butter fat content than other shakes.

They make the shakes the same way as you would a margarita or Slurpee. The put in a ton of milk, ice cream, enough sugar to turn you into a diabetic, and a vat full of butter. Yes, you read that correctly. A VAT FULL OF BUTTER.

Once they pour it of the margarita machine, they will add whatever flavor your ordered and then they will add more butter to the side of it. It kind of resembles of Bloody Mary with a stick of celery as garnish expect that it is a crap ton of butter.

The Heart Attack Grill also sells candy, cigarettes, and if you want to be just like your old man, candy cigarettes too.

There have been alot of people protesting outside of the restaurant stating that it is promoting heart disease and other unhealthy eating issues. But it really is just a novelty restaurant like Hooters or Bone Daddy's (as you can tell by the picture to the left).

The protesters have been trying to steer people away from The Heart Attack Grill by offering them fruit and carrots as healthy alternatives to the greasy hamburgers that they serve. But something tells me that they will be unsuccessful in their goal.

The protesters could not even get the spokesman of the Heart Attack Grill to get on a diet and he even died not too long ago. He weighed over 500 pounds and loved the attention that he got when he walked in to the restaurant, devoured a quadruple bypass, hit on a nurse, and then went to his room in his mother's basement to chat online with equally heavyset girls.

Even though the place may be unhealthy for you, lets face it, it is. It is pretty fun to go and try it out. The food was decent. You can people watch like crazy and you can cheer people on when they weigh in to get their free burger.
Also, you can be like the recently deceased spokesman and attempt to meet a girl like the one to the left.

Sure, she will act like she likes you because she says she is into big men who can eat an 8,000 calorie hamburger in one sitting, then devour a pound of fries while drinking several PBRs and sweating all over the place. That nurse will get so turned on it was become almost pornographic.

Or, at least that is what you will dream about it when you go home and change in to your seventh clean t shirt of the day because you were sweating too much through the previous six.

So go and try the Heart Attack Grill and not be like the guy behind the attractive waitress who is either dead or suffering a major heart attack right now. And be honest, did you even notice that guy when you first saw the picture.

Trivia Finals

It has all come down to this. One more 4 hour trivia game left to determine which team is the smartest in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

This is the second time in the past 2 years that my group and I have made it to the finals. We did not do too well last year and we were looking to redeem ourselves.

The trivia league started in January and it took us this long to make it to the finals. We would meet up every Thursday at 9 at the Friday's restaurant and play for a couple of hours. We scored enough points to keep on advancing to the next round.

We had 2 teams that qualified in the finals, both teams were called Todd Scott after a fake id a friend used in high school, that had to meet at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Addison at 12:30. The final was supposed to start at 5 but the league had to change the time due to the Mavericks/Heat NBA Finals Game was going to start at 6.

My team consisted of Jamie, Boj, Jess, Mr Betik , and myself. For the first round we actually did extremely well. We landed in the 1st place position and tried as hard as we could to keep that sport during the second half of the game. Our other team was not doing so well. They were in 18th place out of 32 total teams. That Todd Scott Team consisted of Paul, Katie, Austin, Cale, and Peter.

The 2nd half of the game became extremely difficult for our team to hold on to the coveted 1st place slot. We slowly but surely lost our footing and moved to 8th place. It wasn't that bad because, during the second round, almost all of the teams drastically switched positions.

Overall, we came in 8th place out of 32 total teams that were playing in the finals. I was glad when the game ended because 4 hours of trivia is just too damn long. Also, the location was just too damn hot as well. We had the same problem with the Buffalo Wild Wings last year. About halfway through the finals, it started to get uncomfortably hot and there was nothing to do about it anyway.

Now all we have to do is prepare for next year's finals and hopefully we will dominate and keep a hold of the 1st place position for the entire game.