May 26, 2004

Hey everybody! I'm glad to be writing you safely from the confines of my office desk this Tuesday morning after a trip to Maryland. This weekend my old high school buddy Lee graduated Hood College in Frederick, Maryland with a Master's degree. Since he really wanted Dave and I to come up, his dad footed the bill for two roundtrip tickets on Delta to get us there this last weekend.

I'm not a fan of air travel. In fact, it outright terrifies me. I had the jitters the whole time both ways. But thankfully, I held myself together. That said, it might be another 20 years before I get back on a plane.

Anyway, we got into BWI (Baltimore-Washington International) at about 10pm on Thursday night and drove around the parking deck for about 30 minutes before we found the exit out. For a while, I was beginning to think that Maryland was just one giant parking deck.

We finally were freed from the deck and were on our way to Frederick. Along the way we got to listen to Lee's XM radio. That is some impressive shit. I never much thought about it until I got the chance to browse through the 100 plus different stations. It's like cable radio.

Once at Lee's house, I whined about my ears and went right to sleep.

The next morning we got up briskly at 10am and had lunch at the restaurant called Pargos. The place was great and even had sweet tea! A cruel fact of this world is that the chances of getting sweet tea anywhere above the Mason Dixon is almost an impossibility. It was our lucky day.

After lunch we cruised around, ate somewhere else and played some racquetball. As always I whipped some ass. But I'm not going to use this forum to brag. I'd rather do it in person.

That night, we returned to Pargos (because it was the only place we could get reservations) before we went out for a night of drinking. While there, I had the opportunity to suck down a 25 ounce glass of Yuengling beer. Good stuff and worth the flight up there alone. It kinda puts my High Life addiction to shame. Damn beer laws in the state of Georgia!

After dinner we went to this extra large, extra loud, and extra sucky bar called Champions. Please refer to my Augusta story about my snobbiness towards various bars. Thankfully, we were sitting outside and a huge downpour of rain showed up. Lee's friend Courtney suggested we go back to his place and play some poker. Now we are talking!

Courtney and his wife had a nice townhouse and were cool people. It was a shame I had to take their money. There was a $10 buy-in and I had to cover Dave since he didn't have any cash. Long story short, Dave blew the $10 I gave him because he was too busy trying to talk up this girl and give shout outs to his homies on his cell phone. It ended up being just me and this guy Troy left at the table. After a few hands of me chipping away at his coins, the game was called due to the fact it was like 3am. We split the pot and I got my money back and then some. Dave, where's my $10?

The next morning was Lee's graduation. It was long and hot and I was a little tired and hung over. Just like most graduations ceremonies really.

Afterwards, Lee's dad took us all to lunch and we then went back to Lee's place and crashed.

After we came to, we decided to catch the Frederick Keys Single-A baseball team. I can't say I've been to a Single-A stadium like this before. They had sky boxes! However, we got some good seats on the first base line and drank even more Yuenglings.  Of course, it's almost impossible to get bad seats at a minor league baseball game. The Keys lost unfortunately, but I had a good time.

On the way back to Lee's, we bought a sixer of Yuengling and some "crab" chips. They proved to be an interesting combo while playing some pool in the basement.

The next morning we got up, caught our plane, and got caught in Atlanta traffic. It's good to see that things didn't change while I was away. Maybe I could dedicate a column to how much I dislike Atlanta.

It was a good trip and I'd like to thank Lee and his dad again for footing the bill to bring us up there.

Person I Want to Punch

This weeks victim in the beat down corner is my roommate Dave, who besides throwing away my $10 while trying to talk to a girl who lives in a different state and who will probably never see him again, said "Stank you very much" to my girlfriend for giving us a ride home. I understand that it's from the damn Outkast CD, but you're white pal, and that's not exactly the phrase you use to bestow gratitude. I should have expected as much seeing that this is the same guy who says "holla" to his dad.

It's a good thing I'm not armed, cause he's got a pistol whipping coming some day.

That's all for now. Have a good Memorial Day weekend. I think my lady and I are road tripping to somewhere. As always, feel free to email me at jacsv76@hotmail.com.

Peace in the Middle East!

I'm Outty!

Holla!
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