Jesus, I thought I had updated more recently than I have. I have a few weekends and a holiday of partying to recap. I didn't even talk about the huge snow storm yet? Ugh, this is going to be a long entry. Perhaps I'll just post the Cliffs Notes version. At the very least, there will be breaks between paragraphs for this blog….lol
So at my last post I was disappointed about not seeing the snow. Well right after that we got hit with a crazy amount of it. My drive home the day we got hit increased from about 20 minutes, to about 100 minutes. At least when I got home I got to play in actual snow. Not the couple flurries that randomly sprinkle down and melt maybe once a year...this was a good 6 inches of the real deal. I built snowmen, threw snowballs around at nothing in particular, and had an all around fun time in the snow. A few days later, I still saw it around on the ground in a few places. Thankfully the next day the roads were ok to drive in. I don't want to deal with that mess again.
At this point we are still a week before Christmas. Instead of doing a big gift exchange, I toss out the idea of us going somewhere nicer for a dinner. Since Sarah was leaving to visit her family and Aaron had some work parties, we did it the Friday before. We decided on Red Square at the Mandalay Bay. I think the dinner was a great idea. It was a little pricey, but overall really good. I had martinis, caviar and bilinis, a tasty steak, even dessert. Some others joined us during dinner and a few of us partied after.
Chris took Sarah home, but we hung out at MB for a bit. The ridiculous drink prices at the center bar scared us over to the goth club. They were doing a silly little Absinthe bar night. By the time we tried some Aaron was getting out of hand, so we migrated to the Tiki bar.
I decided to take a good chunk of my remaining vacation days starting on Christmas Eve and running through the New Year. That day I went over to my parents for our normal holiday dinner and gift stuff. Everything went well...we were all civil and no one started fighting. Everyone seemed to get the things they wanted. The ham we had for dinner was probably the best I've ever had.
That night I met up with Aaron, Chris, and others at Firefly. We did a similar outing last year on Christmas Eve. Firefly was just the jump-off though. We went to Tiki Bar shortly after, ended up at Artisan, and finished up with breakfast at Palace Station.
Christmas itself was pretty uneventful. Stayed in, watched a lot of movies, played Gears, etc. That Friday also wasn't anything special really. Skizofrenia had a $15 night and a few of us did the normal partying.
Saturday was a bit more exciting. There was a big A-tech reunion dinner that we were tossing around going to, and ended up attending. It was over at this place called Half-Shell, which was good enough for what it was. Saw some people I hadn't seen in a long time. A few people I didn't even remember too. After the dinner they were doing a game night, but we already had plans to watch UFC at Aaron's new place. When the fights concluded, we also checked out Aaron's new car. Of course the first night he had it he gets pulled over. I guess the car matched the description of some alert they had for some kidnapped women. The illegal u-turn probably didn't help either. Hahah!
Everything was pretty quiet the next few days until New Year's besides a quick stop at Yardhouse.
Near Year's seemed a bit tame compared to years past. Everyone I talked too took it easy. People stayed in, left their parties before midnight, or just didn't do anything special. The crew headed to Greg's for a bbq. Had some burgers, beverages, and watched Rocky IV before midnight. Did the big champagne toast thing at midnight...and then Chris popped the big question to Sarah. You can't really beat that for NYE highlights. Within the next hour most people called it a night. Ken was still having his party, so I stopped by his place for a bit. We ended the night drinking out at his fire pit with everyone and then watching a few episodes of Always Sunny.
Just like Christmas Day, I was sleeping off the previous night and relaxing on New Year's Day.
Friday I grabbed some lunch at Johnny Mac's with Ken, but sadly they had no chicken wings! That was the only reason we went though. That night Meghan was having more of her birthday partying, and Aaron convinced me to meet up with everyone at the Artisan. We weren't really feeling it there and ended up at the goth club again. Also hit up Crown for some food and to wind down before calling it a night.
Saturday night Amina was having a game night at her and Mark's new house. She invited Tina and I for their little pot luck gathering. Their house was really nice, though the game part of the night was lacking. The Monopoly game specifically became annoying as hell. Tina fell asleep when everyone was playing, so I took her home before returning for a quick poker game which I dominated.
Going to back to work this week was about what I expected. Some stuff got done, but a lot more was left that shouldn't have been. Made my week a bitch. The only plus side of having so much stuff to do was the week went by quickly enough. That leaves only one more weekend to recap and I can stop typing!
Friday I actually had 2 tickets for Lance Burton and Amina was doing another game night. But I was so beat early on I didn't feel like doing either. I don't think I would have gone to Lance regardless though. Ended up online playing Gears with everyone for a bit before we decided to go to Yardhouse for a late dinner. We went to Artisan briefly for a bit later on. It was overly crowded and we were all kind of beat by the time we got there. So it was a somewhat short outing.
Saturday we did one last group dinner. I had a restaurant.com coupon for Med Cafe and everyone seemed ok with going there. I don't think I have been there in 7 or 8 years. It was a lot better than remember. Chris seemed to think it’s changed a good deal over the years, so that may be why. I already want to go back...
Well, that just about sums up my holidays and the last few weeks. Went out a bit more than usual, but it was the holiday. There seems to be a few more places that are becoming regular hangouts. I've also been big on using Netflix and 360 lately. Basically any time I didn't go out over the last few weeks I was playing Gears, Fallout 3, or watching movies. I expect the trend to continue for the foreseeable future. Hopefully if it warms up a bit any of these next few weekends I'm going to try to make it out and golf.