CB’s House of Porn and Pancakes

So this past weekend was TT’s bachelor party in Chicago. Now this was a pretty momentous occasion as  about 27 of us were going on this party that was heading non-stop right to hell via all the debauchery that was going to ensue…… So sit back, get comfortable, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll say WTF and most assuredly you’ll just read this in disbelief…….

This was a trip I was looking forward to, TT’s Last Stand. The week had flew along for me, I had been getting my liver preped for this seeing I had given up booze for Lent, I had to put it through a crash course training to get back to pre-Lent condition. Wednesday I hit the Cardinal Game, Thursday I went out with JM, she wanted to take me out for drinks as a belated bday celebration, cause I hadn’t celebrated enough…. Friday rolls around, I’m a bit deshelved from the previous night’s libations, I get through work and have to go to the airport, catch my flight on my newly inspected MD 80 to O’Hare. I damn near miss my flight thanks to the traffic and the fact people can’t drive in rain. I land at O’Hare, get my bag, even though they said it will be at Carousel 8, it was actually at 4, but 4 was labeled Miami. (Remember that point, I’ll come back to that later) So I walk out of O’Hare and look for the cab stand. I see a sign that says Taxi and the arrow pointing to the left, so I follow the arrow, I go a distance, no cabs, I look up and see another sign saying Taxi and it’s pointing to the right. Son of a…… I should have listened to
Mitch Hedberg

“I fuckin’ hate arrows, man. They try to tell me which direction to go. It’s like, “Fuck you, I ain’t goin’ that way, line with two-thirds of a triangle on the end!” Imagine being killed by a bow and arrow? That would suck; an arrow killed you? They would never solve the crime. “Hey, look at that dead guy… Let’s go that way.”

So anyway back to the story, the arrows were bouncing me back and forth like a frick’n tennis ball, this guy stops me and said in a heavy accent, “You need taxi sir?” Yes I say, he said follow me, no wait. So it was like frogger crossing the road to the parking garage, I go with this guy to the second floor, my thought is, well there’s cameras around, so I doubt this guy would try to rob me, but I swear to God if he has something like a Carola I’m outta here…. I see his car, it’s one of those executive town cars, big plush leather seats and bottled water. So I get in, if I’m going to die, might as well be in a fancy car. I take the car to our condo that we had rented. Yes that’s right, roughly 13 people staying in a 3000 sq ft condo in Lake View. I roll up to the condo, pay the guy, it turns out my ride was cheaper than a taxi from Midway, I rule! I call AJ and ask him where the key is, since they are all out boozing, he says it’s under the potted plant with flowers. So I walk what I thought was behind the condo, opps, I was next door, I go around to the back of our condo, it’s like a frickin’ shell game, 3 pots of flowers, all are full of dead plants, I lift up the first 2, one pot left, God I hope I have the right place….. Victory is mine! I found the key. I open up the front door and walk in. I kept thinking, I hope this is the right place…. I see a rocking horse, a buffet with 2 stuffed pigs, 2 Jesus bears, a large print bible and a book, Memories of Khrushchev, completely random I know….. I see some beer cans littered around the place, well maybe this is the place… I go to the back kitchen, I see a box of cupcakes, scratch that, naked lady cupcakes. The box has a note that says it was from his mom, now that is frick’n awesome! I wait for Timmy and TR to get there. AJ calls me and says “Hey Timmy and TR are heading to the condo, you might want to talk to them before you leave to meet up with us” I said I just talked to them, I’ll wait for them to show up and then head over. He then repeats the same sentence, I explain again how I just talked to them, will wait for them to arrive and then head over. Oh boy, I have a lot of catching up to do. The two guys arrive, we hope a cab and head to Wrigleyville, destination, Slugger’s. We show up, the group is about to leave, they say there’s 100 guys and 3 girls, just then I see 3 girls leave, 2 Beers says “And there go the girls.” We head to Victory Liquors, sweet bar! It was $5 Miller High Life 40oz night. E orders up oh about 20 of them for everyone…. Oh, this is going to be one of those nights… So we are hanging out, doing shots, That Guy shows up, he had been drinking since about 4pm and it was about 11pm, damn that’s impressive! That Guy had some good quotes, one he said was “You don’t like me do you? It’s because I’m white isn’t it?”  Classic. 40 is done, shots are next, I order a captain and coke, no captain the guy says, he says we have something close to it and it costs $3, sold! A few trips to the dance floor, the night was cruising along. I caught up with most of them drinking wise. 2 Beers told me a girl that some that her friends were talking to some of our guys is “The female you, the Brennan of Chicago” She didn’t want anything to do with me, that’s ok, I usually don’t want anything to do with me either…. Victory closes, so we are outside trying to determine what we are going to do next. This is where the night gets weird. A few Ole, Ole, Ole, OOOOOOOOOOOOOLE! cheers in the middle of the street, we decide to go to Nick’s Uptown. We try to flag down a cab to no avail. Part of the group gets lucky and gets a cab. We see a cab up the street, flag it down, but 2 guys jump in it. That Guy was mad, and punches the hood of the cab. The cabby slams on the brakes and starts yelling at us in a heavy accent “Mother Fucker! I will kill you, you son of a bitch!” He just kept saying that, the cab pulls away, hey, it’s TR and Timmy in the back of the cab, whoops……. So waiting around, we try flagging down another cab. That’s when this roid raging psycho on the 2nd floor balcony starts yelling at us. He says in a death metal style voice “Get the hell off my block! I don’t like you, I want to smash your face!” That Guy just says “Really? You are really saying that?” The psycho responds, “Shut your face or I will smash it! Get out of here right now! You guys woke me up punching cabs and yelling, I’m trying to sleep here” The problem was the dude was dressed like he just got home. That Guy says something else, something to the effect of “We are trying to leave but there aren’t any empty cabs.” That’s when the psycho screams “That’s it!” he swings his legs over the balcony and lowers himself to the street. WTF is all we can think, before we know what happens, the guy charges That Guy and pushes him onto a parked car. Jim steps in and helps defuse the situation. In the meantime the psycho’s friends came over, I guess the one other dude jumped down off the balcony and wrenched his knee, he came over and said he screwed up his knee and wanted some revenge. Yeah, revenge for being a dumbass…… The psycho was trembling saying he was sick of That Guy’s voice and wanted to smash his face. Just then, empty cab approaches, TAXI! We get the hell out of there. Off to next bar. Post that bar we end up back at the condo. We had gotten some food, pizza and burrito’s the size of your head, yes that’s right, LaBamba’s Burritos the Size of your Head!I hadn’t had one of those since college. This was the last bit of calm before the storm….. So E was sitting on a couch eating a slice of pizza and a cookie on top of it. That’s when MN decide to rush the couch screaming “I like to tip things over!!” He proceeds to lift up the couch, the end E was not on and flip the couch over, dumping E on the floor, his pizza goes flying, but the cookie stays! Things were being thrown back and forth, most of us, yours truly was ducking so they wouldn’t catch a hanger or plate scrubber in the nogging…. I am not sure how it happened, but it did. MN ends up with 2 dozen eggs, he looks at the eggs, then at E, makes the “boop, boop” (truck backing up) and eggs start flying. Mr Secret scrambles for the back door, opens it up and see KB passed out face down on the patio. Apparently he was walking down the stairs and face planted himself after missing a step and just passed out. So he gets pelted with a few eggs. After a few minutes, we get a truce called after TR smashes 3 eggs MN is holding. We get KB upstairs to a bed. Come downstairs, AJ sees the carnage (the condo was in his name) Eggs put away, towels and anything that can be used to cleaned is used. In the other room we hear a commotion, E rounds the corner, his face caked with red icing. Sebastian emerges next, his face looks the same…. I don’t want to know what happened….. We had to clean eggs off the ceiling, walls, floor, cabinets, rugs, well you get the point…… The next day, err scratch that, a few hours later we get up to go to the Cubs/Pirates game, we got rooftop seats. They were awesome seats, we got our money’s worth that is for sure! When we woke up that morning, MN had a shirt for TT to wear all day, it was a women’s Cubs jersey and it was pink. MN also had a pink ear band to go with it. TT was a good sport wearing that all day. Post game we head to some bars. On the way there, MN stops at a souvenir stand, gets TT a pink tank top, the border has pink hearts. TT is forced to wear it, it was hilarious. Many pics were taken, that will be his Christmas card this year…… We end up at Barley Corn, got food, TT traded jerseys with another girl, this one wasn’t pink but was 2x smaller, so he had to finally go to the condo and change, as it was cutting off  his circulation. Sebastian heads to the bathroom, this dude at the urinal next to him starts telling him how he likes to screw Sheep, Sebastian quickly finishes his business and gets the hell out of there. Apparently the guy was still going on about it as he was walking out.  Some of us head back to the condo, rest and rally. Once we get motivated, it’s about 11, we head to Shenanigans. Find the rest of the boys and camp out there all night. We  were getting  ready to leave, AJ was dancing with a girl, her friend  grabbed me  and started to dance with me. I couldn’t be rude  and just leave. So me and AJ  hang out with these  girls. I asked the girl I was dancing with where she was from, she said Michigan. I asked “Detroit?” because a lot of people  you run into in Chicago are from Detroit. “No” she replies and then says “I am from the white part of the state” Wow is all I can say, course that was in my head. Her and her friends seem quite friendly with each other, grinding on each other, spanking each other, groping each other, then I come to find out they are all sisters, they are in town because their mom is sick. WTF??? This isn’t the bootheel….. Post bars, we end up back at the condo. MN was passed out on a couch, E decides to pee on him, and does. MN gets up, grabs E’s glasses and snaps them in half and goes back to bed. E starts going on about how his glasses were 600 dollars, then they were 700, I think they were up to the 3k after 2 minutes…… Mr Secret runs by shirtless saying E tried to rape him and runs outside. Mr Secret’s bro, the Mad Deeznutzer kept just saying “I just want to go to bed.” After some more raucous and a picture getting knocked off the wall, everyone settled down for the night. Sunday we all got up, cleaned up the place and headed to our respected homes….

Stiffy had the best description of how he felt this morning:

“I think my liver crawled out of my body and beat on me all night”

I’m going to sleep now……..

So the weekend rolled around and it has been some time since I’ve written this, my weekend started on Thursday with viewing the NCAA kick off at Skybox. Watching the games, my brackets were essentially in tact and I was a happy camper, plus I had the ribs there, they were good and the sauce Nelly had help create, really good, not quite Memphis, but still pretty damn good.

Friday arrives, I head to Mandarin for the Big D CD Release Party, I meet Bones, Vince and Co up there. My last night really of not drinking, so I stick to water because well I’ve had enough Sprite that week to sink the frickin’ Titanic. I meet one of Vince’s co-workers, this girl finds out I gave up drinking for Lent, she decides she will make me drink that night by being sly, when I would start to talk, she would try to ram her beer bottle in my mouth, it never worked and I ended up wearing half of the beers…. Being a good wing man, I’m chatting with her friend, she mentions how she feels old, so I ask how old she is (I know, I know, I’m never suppose to ask a lady how old she is, but hey, I wasn’t drinking, I had to entertain myself somehow). 23 she says. Shit I think. She asks how old I am. I ask how old she thinks I am. 26 she says. (sidenote, other 23 and 24 yr old girls I’ve met lately all think I’m 26) Nope. 28? Nope. 29??? Nope? 30?!? Nope. 32?!?!?!?!?!? Yup. She then says, “Oooh, you don’t look 32.” More banter goes on, more beer spills on me as Drunky McDrunk the co-worker keeps trying to pour beer in my mouth, suddenly we see a guy talking to a girl, the guy is on crutches and is missing a leg. I think nothing of it, but the 23 yr old says to me “I could never have sex with a guy with one leg.” Half paying attention “Uh, what?!?” She goes on to say “I wouldn’t know which leg he is putting in me” I made some comment about “Well that’s why you leave the lights on….” Then Drunky McDrunk co-worker chimes in with “I don’t care what is it is, as long as it’s big and hard” I could really use a drink right about now. So over the course of the night I proceed to lose everyone, usually this only happens to me at Mardi Gras, after drinking for 8 hrs, but this night I’m sober and hadn’t moved from where we were….. I run into Cosmo Boy, he’s feeling pretty good, he wants to find Vince and figure out where to go when Mandarin closes. So we end up by the DJ booth, find Vince, find out the 23 yr old and the Drunky McDrunk co-worker left. By this point Vince is slightly inebriated, he got his tab and it was $78, $92 with tip. He was trying to make out what he was charged for, hands me the receipt and says “Here, you are sober, you can read this” Going through the drinks listed he says “Ok, I did order all of those…..” We wander around for a bit, Cosmo Boy orders 2 drinks, hands them to me and tells me to give them to two girls standing near by, so I do, turns out he knew them. We stop and talk to them. Vince joins us, Cosmo Boy wanders off. Vince talking to the one girl, so I try to talk to the other girl. That girl did not want anything to do with me or I’d wager didn’t want to be there in general. She gave me one word answers and kept looking away. Vince leaves to go to the bathroom, the girl he was talking to said, wait here, I’ll be right back. Damnit! So I’m stuck with this girl that isn’t a happy camper and I’m sober, God hates me. So I send a text to Vince and Cosmo Boy that says “You guys suck! Thanks for leaving me with the uninterested one!” Thankfully her friend came back, they said they were going to walk around, I head to find Vince and Cosmo Boy, no luck, it’s wall to wall people and it’s near closing time. So I decide to bail, send those two a text telling them I’m heading out, will catch up with them tomorrow. Cosmo Boy text me back saying he was talking to a girl I had met a few weeks ago at a Red Bull party and she was asking about me, as it turns out, she was asking about me and Vince in general, but by this point I was outside and walking home……

Saturday I was supposed to play in the Back to the Cause Trivia Night but I couldn’t get a team together, so what do I do instead doing a charity event, I go to the boat, Lumiere actually to meet up with Cosmo Boy and Vince. I had a good run at Roulette and doubled my money, it was before midnight so I hit the refreshment center and got my free Sprite, it was free this time, it hadn’t cost me $150 this time………. Cosmo Boy got a text from a rep he works with, she was at PT’s Sports Cabaret watching midget wrestling, damnit, I didn’t get the memo that was going on….. So to celebrate my accomplishment, after midnight rolled around, I had a Red Bull and vodka, I toasted my friends to the end of Lent, took a sip of the Red Bull, looked at the drink and said, “I missed you”

Midnight on Sunday marked the end of my journey of fasting and atonement. This year I gave up Alcohol, Caffeine and Energy Drinks. When people hear what I gave up, they all roughly said the same things, “What the hell is wrong with you?” “Are you into punishing yourself?” and my personal favorite “You will never make it, you’ll break…..” Well the good news is I made it the full time without breaking, I came close a few times to breaking, but never broke…….. Well almost did on St Pat’s Day, my buddy was having a party and said he would break open the Johnny Walker Blue Label if I would drink some of it, keep in mind I have been trying to get him to open that bottle for oh, 8 yrs…… He didn’t though

Republican Primaries are Tuesday February 5th! (That’s also Fat Tuesday, so bring your beads and celebrate after voting with a Hurricane)
Since Fred dropped out, I’m on the Rommney bandwagon even though bandwagons scare me………

Info on Mitt:

http://www.mittromney.com/

“I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‘fat cat’ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‘public-spirited philanthropist’” 

- Ronald Reagan

“I can resist anything but temptation”

- Oscar Wilde

So I’ve been on hideous since October, call it taking a break, call it being lazy or maybe I had a helmet on hiding from whatever ‘07 decided to throw at me…… Let’s take a look back at a year that I will always fondly look back and want to shoot the bird at………

Jan

- It started out so great, a busted NYE trip to Big D was salvaged with going to Mandarin, kissing the Playmate of the Year from 1986 at midnight, yup I was 11 when she posed, ole!

Feb

- February brought Back to the Cause 80’s Trivia night, my brother Pat threw down the gauntlet saying he was going to beat our table, we took first!

- I buy my first gun, a Ruger .22 Pistol and join the NRA
March

- Literally the next day I was in hell, literally as a water pipe in the server room burst over most of our production servers and dev servers. Worst case scenerio I’ve ever run across. Lots of cursing , sleep deprivation and a great team effort, we pulled through and was able to keep the company functioning. That week was a lot of stress, but then as everything stabilized, I was able to go on my trip I had planned weeks before, went to Florida to visit my parents in Florida and catch the Cards/Twins Spring Training game in Ft Meyers. As I sat in my seat before the game started, it sank in, I could unplug, I couldn’t be called into work, the weight of the world lifted off me. I spent a week doiwn there, helped me regain my sanity. The return trip home was a punch in the face back to reality as thanks to US Airways, I spent the night on Charolette, NC’s airport. Sad commentary, the Starbucks was more organized than they were. I missed a friend’s wedding the next day, but hey, US Airways sent me a letter to make amends, $25 voucher for my next flight with them, yeah, it’s still posted on my refrig with the letter, no plans on using that anytime soon…..

April

- Opening Day rolls around, I go to the first 2 games, the Cards get shelled and do not look like the defending World Champions. It’s ok, baseball is here and I’ve got all sorts of collectible stuff (a schedule refrig magnet from opening day and a replica WS ring) The first 12 games I go to, the Cards don’t win, Mulder blows out his shoulder and is done at one of the games I attended. When I don’t go, they win, I’m starting to get a complex……

- I saw my buddy I had been sponsoring into the Catholic Church be baptized and get his First Communion to become a full Catholic

- My bday rolls around, it’s the Shaq year! Good times had by all as the Birthday Week Celebrations carry on another year….

May

- Cardinals are in a tail spin and my brother in law side swipes my car, I don’t know which is worse…….
June

- The company I had worked with for over 4 yrs, decides they want to make a change and let me go. Thanks again for the paid vacation
- Cards can’t decide if they want to win or lose as injuries keep piling up

July

- We do a party at the Top of the Met to watch the fireworks at well, eye level. This is literally 3 days after my firing, it’s open bar, wasn’t driving, so I indulge in the open bar. Drinking double and seeing triple, I had a fun night!
- Start the interview process, have an interview mid month with a company that would become my next job, a company called Lexiter Technologies, they are part of Software Plus, a big, $300 million company. I went in for the initial interview, it was supposed to be 30 minutes but ended up being 2 hrs. I left, the interviewer said he’d be in touch in about 2 weeks and said “Hope you are still available”

- Spend a lot of time at the range when I’m not doing contract work for AJ or interviewing. AJ has me going to prisons to fix machines that update prisoner records

- Road tripped to Memphis for Sleazy’s bachelor party

August

- Get a call from Lexiter, they want a second interview. Have a second interview also with Bunzl. Then I’m off to Big D. Lexiter called with a verbal offer when I was at a Gentleman’s Club…… So I let it go to vmail and called the next day…..

- Started at Lexiter, was doing internal infrastructure stuff for their corporate network and datacenter, backing up their NOC Manager and was also doing external consulting

- Cards showing some life

September

- Nothing of note, got into the groove of working at Lexiter

- Football is here! Damnit Rams still suck……  Double Damnit! Raiders are still horrible also….. But I still have the Huskers, son of a…..
Oct

- Bought an AK-47

- Cards get within a 1/2 game of first and then just give up, finish 3rd for the season, Cubs get thumped in the playoffs, all is right with the world

- Bagger’s Bachelor Party

- Closed Innsbrook for the Season

- A soccer mom shears off the back of my car as I’m backing out of a parking space, the cop assigns fault to me, no ticket and I end up with a KIA rental car while mine is getting fixed. I hear God laughing at me
Nov

- Hit with I need to get my MCSE by the end of the year from my boss
- Pass first test, I’m an MCP now

Dec

- Another successful Holiday Party on Wheels, we hit F15teen and Jive and Wail, apparently Old Rock House was to cool to call me back, so we passed on going there, it’s cool, the other two bars benefited

- Get the news, Software Plus is sold, we are losing our jobs at Lexiter, God hates me

- Out of work for a day and a half, talked to two companies, got two offers, took the one that made more sense for me

- Had my first trip to Highland for Ski Cola (pretty much puts Mountain Dew to shame), Deer Sausage and Poker. Post poker we hit a couple of the local bars, word to the wise, bucket races not a good idea at 1am…….

- Worked a dinner for Lumiere Place on NYE and then went to Mad Art Gallery to meet up with friends and ring in the New Year!

All in all ‘07 was quite a roller coaster, times I ended up on my feet, other times I ended up on my face, would I change it? Probably not, would I do it again, f’ no! But it did help me grow and am a better person for going through it, just don’t want to do that again….. My goal for 2008, having one job…..
Here’s to 2008!

So the Cardinals are a game out of first place, they should be about 14 back with all the injuries and death…….

Go Cards!

The photo album has been updated, check them out and also send me any pics you have to be added!

http://www.stumblingirishman.com/album/main.php

As many of you know, Tessa, my parent’s German Sheppard died a couple of weeks ago. She was almost 14 yrs old, so she had a good long life, mostly torturing Vince…… Today I drove down to Popular Bluff to help my parents pick up their new dog, her name is Sydney, she’s a 2 yr old Chocolate Lab, great personality and very much a lab! Here are some pics of her:

http://www.stumblingirishman.com/album/main.php?g2_itemId=3523

http://youtube.com/watch?v=77aLOGQuNHU