CB’s House of Porn and Pancakes

I have to hand it to Drudge, they show the stock time line for today, it seems the big unveiling the plan to save the economy went over like a fart in church.

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 I get a call on my cell phone, one of the developers tells me that the production websites seem to be down and a server outside the pix is down. I was on my way out to Innsbrook to help open it up, I turn and head to the office thinking that it’s just the internet line down, maybe it was cut outside because they are doing a lot of diggin in the middle of the street or I have to reboot the router, nohting of which was even close to correct or what I was expecting……… I arrive at work, walk up to the double glass doors, about to open them when I hear water trickling down and see a big wet spot in the middle of the hallway. My first thought was “OH MY GOD!” Race to the server room door, it sounds like a hose running in there, open the doors, blasted with humidity and water is literally cascading down from the celing, right over our projector we use to show images on the glass and of course right over our production server rack……. I first call the building manager and tell him we have water cascading down from the ceiling and then call the developer that had called me originally and simply said, “Found the problem” and held the phone up so he could hear the water, I put the phone back to my ear and hear him screaming “Oh my God, is that water I hear?!?” He races down and helps me push the production rack out of the way of the water. It was tough moving it, as power cords were preventing the wheels from rolling, finally he pulled while I threw myself against the cage and we moved it out of harm’s way. We then inspected the damage, water still coming through the ceiling, the projector showed a red light meaning bulb was bad, I think that was the least of it’s problems seeing it was full of water and dumped about a galloon onto the guy that took it down from the ceiling. We noticed water under our raised flooring was about halfway up the boxes the circuits are in, we realize this is bad, water gets to the top of those circuit boxes, it will arc and we are standing on steel flooring that happens to conduct electric very well……. So we race to pull the servers out of the racks and get them to dry areas, meanwhile an emergency all hands on deck call goes out as others come into the office to help get all the equipment out. The building manager gets the water off and comes down to cut the power to the server room. Once all the equipment was out we could formulate a recovery plan. Thanks to some hard work by Xiolink, we were able to transfer our production websites over to there and have it up by 9am. (We moved the servers over there around 1am) Needless to say 26 hrs later they sent the 5 of us that had worked over 24 hrs home. Around 5am, I hit the wall, I was standing up, almost fell over twice, why you ask? Because I had fallen asleep standing up…. I got home, fell asleep for 4 hrs, woke up, it was dark and the Daily Show was on. I was confused on what day it was, where I was and what time it was….. It took me a minute to get my bearings….. The week was filled with long hours, stress and lots of cursing….. I picked the wrong Lent to give up drinking……….

So I meet this girl, let’s call her BD. She’s a friend of a friend. One day I get an email from her, simply has my blog url (on blogspot), so I ask her if Quoth had told her about that, she said “No, I googled you.” I didn’t think much of it as that si what all the kids are doing these days…… She then tells me how she’s running me through the Mo Courts and sees that I’m in dispute with my landlord over $2000. I told her that’s not me, that’s another CB……. At this point I tell her “I’m not going to lie, this freaks me out a little”

Makes for a good story later……..

So the plan for about 15 of us was to decend down to Dallas for New Year’s to GQ’s house. 10 made it, five of us got stranded in St Louis thanks to American Airlines and mother nature. Apparently Dallas is in the midst of a 2 yr drought but that day they got hit with huge thunderstorms, heavy rain, lightning, tornado warnings, etc. Most of the later flights were canceled. Before they announced our flight was canceled, they told us they were flying a plane up from DFW to pick us up and fly us to Love Field. So to kill time I brought Jackass Number Two, that killed the dull moments until the gate agent gets on the intercom and says “The flight has been canceled, no other flights are available due to the New Year’s holiday, the earliest we could get out is possibly Sunday, but more like Monday. The hotels are all full, we can’t help you, it’s best if you just leave.” Taken back we go get our luggage and head to the link to take the train back to the CWE. Back at my place, Sebastian combs the internet looking for any flight to get down to see dancing queen, while Dr KFO talked to an unsympathetic AA customer service rep who essentially said “We don’t care, here’s your refund.” We watched the rest of Jackass and headed to Syberg’s. Sebastian found a flight on Southwest and flew out the next morning. Me, I sent a text out to everyone saying “In St Louis, American Airlines sucks.” Got a flurry of texts back and calls. Cosmo Boy gave me the hook up at Mandarin, worked perfect it was right up the street. He also said they are going to Nectar, A was going to be there and to come by and say hi. The next day I called AA customre service line to get my money back, told the lady “Every time I fly you guys with the exception of once, it was the worst experience of my life. I gave her several examples and she apologized, I got my money back, but that was it.” The normal tradition of NYE Day lunch was thought to be skipped this year as everyone but me and Farns were here. Farns convinces me to go and keep the tradition alive, so 4 or 5 yrs running now……

NYE Night starts off at Mandarin, I get there, wandering through the crowd, run into a group of friends I hadn’t seen in a long time, funny sidenote when they walked in they said “I wonder if CB will be here?” Talked to them for awhile, went over to Cosmo Boy’s section, hung out with everyone, was drinking double, seeing triple, midnight rolls around, the lady next to me plants one on me at midnight, as she walks away, my buddy leans over and tells me, “That was the playmate of the year from 1986……” My first thought “I was 11 when she posed, awe-some!” Everyone needs a cougar story……. A quick shuttle ride down to Nectar, find A, wish her a happy new year, hang out with her most of the night, she leaves as the bar is clearing out. I’m hanging out with Cosmo Boy and some others, the bouncer tells Cosmo Boy that one of his friends is at the door, he goes to the door, looks back and yells “CB, take care of this” In stumbles one of my friends, Bagger, bloody face, tie and shirt a mess. I said “Holy crap, what happened??” The bouncer said “He fell” I left it at that. I take him to the bathroom to clean him up, the one owner came in to check on him, apparently Bagger outside was yelling he was going to sue the place, etc, etc. We call Bagger’s girl, whom he lost next door, apparently he was pretty drunk and she was avoiding him. We find her, get them in a cab and send them on their um way….. I talked to the owners, said “Don’t worry, he’s one of my fraternity brothers, he’s drunk, he doesn’t know what he is saying” They ask what fraternity I was in. I tell them, turns out they are in the same one, different chapter, even funnier they were part of the chapter that helped install ours originally….. Small world. So I text Bagger all that. He said the next day at the time he felt like an ass, when he got my text he felt like a bigger ass…….. Shuttle shows up, I go home and pass out around 4am, good times, my boys in Dallas were still going………..

A week or so later Bagger had a party to celebrate getting his master’s, Cosmo Boy told me that he can do the after party at Pepper if he likes…….

So before the post-season rolled around, the Cardinals were about to relive 1964, not the ‘64 Cardinals that went on a run at the end of the season, won the pennant and beat the Yankees to take home the World Series Crown, no they were resembling the 1964 Phillies, way ahead and imploded at the end of the season to lose it all…….. The Cards lost something like 10-12 to blow a huge lead over the thorns in our sides, the Houston Astros. The Reds had bowed out of the running, but the Astros would not go away. In Boston, Southy mentioned how the Red Sox are out of the playoffs, I said “The way the Cardinals are playing, they will be soon enough, the Astros won’t lose, they won 10 games straight.” Plus we had lost 2 8 games in a row and 7 games in a row. Finally the Astros lose and the Cardinals are in the post-season! We draw San Diego for the NLDS. Ah, we own them! Well this time we didn’t sweep them like we have the other 2 times, they won one game and it’s on to the NLCS. The much hated Mets are up next. Ah, visions of the 2000 NLCS fill every Cardinal fan’s head, but this time the memories go back farther, back to the 80’s, the old battle cry is dusted off, “Mets are Pond Scum!!!” That slogan throws us back to the days of John Tutor, Vince Coleman, Bruce Sutter, The Wizard, Tommy Herr, the list goes on and on. Hard fought (and rainy) series. Cardinals split in NY coming to St Louis. That’s what we needed to do. Cosmo Boy scores some tickets and gives me two, I meet the Teach (not to be confused with the teacher) at a Syn event and invite her. Well luck would have it, it’s a rain out…… Game happens the next night and me and teach go. I swear, I’ve been going to baseball games almost all my life, sat all over, but never this close to the field, we were right behind the vistor’s dugout. That night Glavine was on the mound, Pujols took him deep and the Cardinals pounced. Mets win one, the Cards win the other heading back to NY. Game 7 rolls around, I head up to Bar Louie to meet up with AJ, Roth and some others. The game was in the fourth already, pretty much a nail biter, Suppan was pitching a fierce game, Molina was the hero of the day when he hit the 2 run shot. I swear the roof about blew off Bar Louie. We all started jumping up and down, tackling each other, high fiving each other, I lost my beer in the excitement, but it’s all good….. Wainright after making it exciting gets the win by striking out “the Cardinal killer” looking, more celebrations, another lost beer, if this keeps up, the World Series could be expensive replacing all the beers! Next stop, Detroit! At this point I had guarded hope, now I was a full believer, regardless what the media said

Buttcakes calls me and asks “I got an extra ticket to the game, wanna go?” Uh, yes please! Standing room only tickets, but hey, we are at the World Series in the new stadium, you can’t pass that up! Game 3 is the first game in St Louis, chilly night, but clear. Series tied 1-1, Cardinals prevail! Looks like we have a series, unlike 2004…… I had tickets to game 4, going with the teach, it rained most of the day and evening, we camped out at Syberg’s seeing if they were going to call the game or not, they did. Game 4 would be friday, Game 5 would be played Thursday, so I went from seeing a win to potentially seeing them win it all Friday! Thursday rolls around, no real rain, Cardinals win in an exciting one! Cardinals lead the series 3-1, but of course all the a-hole reporters point out 3 teams have blown a 3-1 series lead, two of which were the Cardinals, once in 68 against the Tigers, the other in 85 against the Royals. So Friday rolls around and guess what? Rain. I joke with the teach about she seems to be the rainmaker but last time they won, so if they don’t this time, I’m never talking to her again……. We hang out at Syberg’s to make sure the game is still a go, while there we endure all the verbal abuse from my non-ticket holding friends…..

The nineth inning was so surreal, I can’t even explain it! Up by 2 runs, 2 outs and 2 strikes on the batter, Wainright strikes him out! The stadium roared like I had never heard before. Players charge the field, we were jumping up and down, yelling, clapping, it was out of control! Fireworks, champagne, we stayed for the whole presentation. Me and teach decide to head out and find people in the bars. Have to hit the bathroom first, waiting in line, people walking in, yelling, clapping, I all of sudden hear a familiar voice “Go Cardinals!” Turn around, it’s Stiffy, he runs up and about tackles me saying “We f’n won the World Series!” Walk outside to find Stiffy and Kylicia. The streets are mobbed, total gridlock, people hanging out of their cars, yelling, honking, complete bedlum! We make our way to Dolce, shots and lots of booze follows…… After a few hours, me and teach head down to Hungo’s to meet up with some of her friends, they were on their way out, gave us a full beer we smuggled out, we split it walking back to Syberg’s. (I don’t know why, but I end up walking to Syberg’s a lot after Cardinal games, Mardi Gras, etc) At Syberg’s we get food, hits the spot! Drop the teach off, head home still in awe about the impossible happened, Cardinals got their first title since 1982, 10th overall…….

Thursday rolls around, the night before I had to leave for the wedding in Ohio/West Virginia, I had to run some errands after work, mainly get my Tux. I had heard horror stories from others that had picked up there tux, Tex told me he got his tux, his jacket was a 58, keep in mind he is about 5′8″ and has a 32″ waist……. The tux fits fine, it just took me an hour to get out of there, 2 dressing rooms, a guy in each room, I don’t know what the hell they were doing nor do I want to know…….. Out of there, head home, pack and get a call from Tex, he wants to meet up, I tell him me and Panda are heading to Bar Louie because “I have to take it easy tonight, early and long day tomorrow.” (Sidenote: Tex is on the same flight as me) So Tex meets me at Bar Louie with blondie (they’ve gone out a couple of times), a girl he had met at my pool party, that is a friend of a friend. Sebastian shows up also. Panda decided to bail because he had a long day. So me and Sebastian notice Tex and Blondie are pretty toasty already, I was drinking Effen and Red Bull, enjoying the night. Tex would look at me and say “I’m going to get f’d up this weekend!” and high five me. Later on he would burt out “Wait until Manger sees us, he LOVES us!” (this went on all night, each time he said it, he slurred a little more) I knew it was going to be one of those nights………

I send out a text to see where people are, there’s a group at Bar Italia for International Night, I finally am able to round up the crew and go across the street. It’s hella packed! Hard to move through, looked for the group that was there, they had left. Ran into my brother by another mother (we have the exact first and last name), Blondie tried to introduce me to him, I inform her that he is infact “my brother by another mother.” Outside we find The Pimp, whose cousins own Bar Italia, hang out on the patio with him. He leaves for awhile, so it’s just me, Sebastian, Tex and Blondie. So Blondie asks Tex about his masters he just got and then asks me and Sebastian if we had our masters. We reply no and she tells us we need to get our masters because “that’s what employers look for.” Valid except in our field, IT, in IT it really doesn’t make sense, experience and certs make you more marketable, not a masters. I told her “For me to get my masters, it would be a waste of time.” We go back and forth a bit, some how Sebastian works in a comment “Yeah, well I don’t like your purse.” She gets up and walks off. Me and Sebastian were like WTF? Tex gets her, brings her back and she informs me “I’m pissed at you” staring at me…… At first I thought she was kidding, so I said she was, she wasn’t and about to cry, whoops. She informs me that her mom has her masters and is having a hell of a time finding a job, etc. So I’m thinking “Motherf’r, her mom is in IT and that’s why she’s freaking out……” So I ask what her what her mom does, she said “Teaches and counseling.” So then I explained that it made sense for her mom to have her masters because that’s a way to get ahead in that field, in my field it doesn’t make sense. So then she about breaks out in tears saying I don’t know what I’m talking about and how I’m conceited and if I’m going to be that way she is going to talk about her “billionaire friends that have helicopters.” Some how me saying getting my masters would be a waste of time because I’m in IT evolved into her mom wasted her time getting her masters……… Finally we all just apologized (I wasn’t sure why I did, it was just to get her to stop crying and I was in fact, the asshole) and we went on with the night. By then it was near closing time. This random girl walks up to our table and asks for a light. Blondie gives her some matches and we talk to girl. She starts harping on St Louis saying the city sucks, etc and can’t hold anything to San Diego. I’ve been to San Diego, it’s a cool town, but hella expensive……. I tell her I live around here and it’s a cool area. She says she lives near the beach in San Diego. I ask, “Well if you hate this town so much, why are you here?” She says she is a mortgage broker for National City, who has made a big push into St Louis. She asks if anyone needs to refinance, I tell her I am going to sell my place next year, she asks how much equity I have in my place, I tell her “I’ve been there for 4 yrs and it’s up to the mortgage people to figure that out……” She says I can call her at work, just ask for Lisa……. Yeah, I’m sure there’s only one Lisa that works for National City…….. So Tex decides to invite the random girl to sit down with us (cause she has a gi-normous chest and a tattoo on her lower back that goes kidney to kidney almost) and starts talking to her almost exclusively. This did not sit well with blondie, she just takes off. Tex realized the error of his ways…… By then it was to late. She was gone and we had to go. Outside Bar Italia we run into Cook, talk to him for a bit. We see Random Girl getting into her car, so Cook and his friend go over to talk to her. Random girl tells us she is going to Bucca and “can get us in.” Wow, you can get us into a bar on the landing, catch me, I’m going to fall over I’m that impressed……. I see she has a kids seat in the back seat of her car and that pretty much kills the fantasy for me…… I look up and I think I see Tex’s girl, Blondie in the middle of the street walking, Sebastian agrees, that’s her, so Tex runs over, throws his arms around her, looks right in her eyes and realizes that is not Blondie, but a dead ringer……… whoops.

It was at that point I decided to call it a night……….