The transformation is complete. Today I lost my last official tie to California...my car license plates. I've been putting off changing the my plates for two reasons. The first is to delay the cost, but since the plates expire on Saturday it was due. Secondly, I really liked having out of state plates here in the Midwest. Granted, it makes me a little more paranoid about getting pulled over (scroll down and check out the post about my trip to Chicago), but I do feel individualistic as I'm sure I'm the only CA plates in town.
So, here is a quick recap of the long weekend's festivities. My old roommates from the OC decided to make a trip (probably their only one) to the Midwest. I'm fairly sure they had a good time. I tried to have a bunch of events and things to do so it wasn't like my last visit to CA where we sat around a lot and played games on the iPhone. I kid, I kid, they are right I used to live there so there wasn't anything new that I needed to see. I digress, here is the break down.
THURSDAY
EVENTS: We ate dinner at
Jack Stack Barbecue. Definitely good eats and big portions. We were munching on left overs all weekend. The only odd thing is that they didn't have or even know about TriTips. Strange. After dinner we sauntered over to the Power & Light district in downtown KC and hit up the
Mosaic Lounge. Sadly, this place is probably one the best "dance clubs" in KC. The dance area was probably a total of 30 square feet. But the music was good and the company was even better.
Interestingly, I met up with an old high school buddy whom I hadn't seen in 14 years. We'd emailed and we're FaceBook friends but hadn't hung out in a long while. Turns out he had come out of the closet a few years back. He's still the same nice guy, but honestly I was a little surprised. Back in High School he was the left guard on the football team, and we always talked about girls. Back then he was a very good wingman and always mediated things with the ladies, hmm, I guess that should have been a sign. Oh well, he's still a cool cat and it will be fun to hang out with him again.
SNAFU: There was a little confusion about when the guys would be flying in. Keep in mind that I live in a city that is 2 hours away from the airport they are landing at (Kansas City). Not a big deal, I just have to time things correctly. So, originally they guys were supposed to fly in around 4 pm. I received a call early Thursday morning telling me they missed their flight out of OC and wouldn't make it until 5. No biggie, we'd still get to see some of the city.
Then I get a call saying they wouldn't get to their connecting in Denver in time so they wouldn't make it until 9:45! Again, not a disaster, we would skip the fancy dinner and just grab a bite then hit the club. So, around 1 PM i decide to take a nap to charge up for the weekend. Lo and behold, they called around 3 to tell my voicemail that they caught their connecting flight and would make it in by 5:45.
I awaken from my glorious slumber around 5:30 to find those messages. I just out of bed, grab my things and start scrambling to get on the road. I know they'd been at airports/airplanes all day and didn't want them to wait longer than they had to, but I was still 2 hours away. Thankfully, another friend, whom they had met when he visited us in CA, lived close to the airport and offered to pick them up. So, they got picked up earlier and got to watch some college football while waiting for me to get there.
HIGHLIGHTS:The BBQ was good, I'll definitely make a return trip there. But the highlight was definitely hooking up with some Filipino folks out in KC. As Mosaic was winding down we got approached by this guy who asked us if we were Filipino. That is the universal opening that leads to instant friendship (or hook up) among pinoys. We ended up grabbing some after bar foods with them and I'll be back in KC this weekend to party it up some more with our new KC crew.
I would say my highlight was just the banter we had thru the course of the night. During one such exchange a friend casually mentioned that he liked the website "Perfect Guy". I think he meant
Dude Perfect, which are trick shots in basketball. However, this caused quite a bit of laughter as you can imagine. I don't know what it is, but nothing brings men closer together than making fun of each other's sexuality.
I'm sure even cavemen did it.
Ungaha: Me, Ungaha, make fire!
Oophala: You, Ungaha, make fire to have sex with other cavemen.
Everyone else: Hahahahaha, Ungaha like sex with men.
FRIDAY
EVENTS:We woke up around noonish on Friday and made the 2 hour journey back to Columbia. We drove around town so we could see some of the sights and ended up downtown. We had a late, late lunch at
Booches Billards Hall. This is a local favorite as they serve some pretty tasty sliders. The bread is delicious and the meat is the perfect blend of herbs, spices and grease.
After the early dinner we decided to chillax for a bit at my house, do a little preparting before we headed to the Mizzou Black & Gold basketball scrimmage. The guys got to see an Elite 8 college team from last year play against itself in the first scrimmage of the year. We saw some dunks, some nice j's, but it was pretty relaxed since its just a scrimmage.
Photo Credits: R "double dribble" DrizzleWe left with about 4 minutes left to edge out the rest of the 5000 folks in attendance. After fighting some bitter cold we headed to the
Heidelburg restaurant. This is a nice little joint right off of campus where I used to go quite a bit during undergrad. We got some food, some drinks and took in some eye candy.
After padding out stomachs for the eventual alcohol assault we made our way to a club called
Generic. It was an off night (I'd been a few times before), but there was some things to look at. However, now the guys now know the plight of the short Asian man in the midwest amongst all the cornfed giants.
After Generic we went over to a buddy's house for some Flip cup & beer pong. Also there were a few games of Madden to go along with all the drinking.
SNAFU:The only plan that kind of hit a snag was the trip to the Corn Maze. It had been raining all week and the maze was pretty muddy according to the farm people. Also, three guys running around in a corn maze together isn't very masculine...its almost romantic. So, we decided to cross that off the to-do list.
{Side note: There are about 7 smoke detectors in my place and I just spent 20 minutes trying to find the one beeping to tell me it needs a new battery}
HIGHLIGHTS:While my friends really seemed to like the Sliders and the Fried Ravioli (from Heidelberg), I really enjoyed seeing the basketball team in action. I do plan to catch as many live games as I can.
SATURDAY:EVENTS:We were up pretty much till the wee hours of Saturday morning so it shouldn't have been a surprise when we woke up at 1:30. This was interesting because we were supposed to be at the tailgate by 1 PM. For those who may not know, Tailgating is a time honored tradition for many sporting events. People basically go to a parking lot, pull out their grills, folding chairs, beer and party until the game starts.
After preparing the fellas a sumptious meal of eggs, sausage and eggo waffles we headed out. We had to take a side trip to the mall because one of my friends (who shall remain nameless) advised me that he is incapable of wearing t-shirts larger than a "small". Hiding his "guns" is appearantly not part of his steelo. I actually told him to take a look in the kids section.
After our mall misadventures and a trip to the grocery store (which are quite large in the Midwest BTW) to get some tailgating supplies - beer and chicken- we made our way to campus. Now, the city I live in is roughly 85,000 in population. With the students at Mizzou, the population expands to nearly 115,000. The stadium holds 71,000 and it was full to capacity that night. You can imagine the parking situation when nearly the population of the whole city decends upon one square mile area.
We parked on campus, but it was a good long trek to the tailgating area. It was a good workout since I was lugging a gym bag full of beers. Though we got to the tailgate around 3:30 we still had plenty of time to get our beer on. Funny thing though, we were camped near the line for the porto-pottys. Not the porto-pottys themselves, but the line for it. Easily a 30 minute wait, so our drinking was tempered, not by the fear of getting drunk, but rather the fear of going to the bathroom.
The game itself was laughable. Texas easily over matched Missouri, and everyone in the stadium was pretty resigned to that fact. Most left around middle of the 3rd quarter. We hung around until about 7 minutes left in the 4th, but left right when the drizzle started up.
Photo Credits: Ronaldo von Hennessey
After the game we made our way back to the downtown area. For those of you who are aware of San Diego, the downtown area is akin to the Gas Lamp district. Most of the bars and nightlife is within easy walking distance.
Since the guys were hungry we popped into an Italian food restaurant called
Rome. The food was good and the drink prices better. One of my friends, lets call him "
Small Shirt Wonderboy" was a little saddened that we weren't carded for our drinks. However, my other buddy did point out to him that kids under 21 typically don't ask for shots of
Hennessey and
Grey Goose on the rocks. An astute observation I thought.
With our meal and a couple drinks vanquished we sauntered a few doors down to a club called
Tonic. This has probably become my go-to dancing establishment. The shitty thing is that its sometimes closed. The owner owns another, more crappy, dance club in town and sometimes doesn't open both so he doesn't compete against himself. Bastard!
So, we shook our money makers for a while then grabbed a bite to eat at a midwestern late nite diner,
Steak'n'Shake. By this time I had really lost my voice. I sounded like a 12 year old finally going thru puberty. Let me tell ya, that worked wonders for my game, PIMP!
SNAFU:It was a great day, capped by a great night. The only regret is that we didn't get to eat at
Shakespears Pizza since they had reached max capacity. Damn fire safety codes. I did accidentally step on a very LARGE brotha's shoes while on the dance floor. Luckily he was dancing with a lady and let me off with a stern look and a "damn homie, these are some new shoes". Hey dog, you had new Nike tennis shoes, not that pimp. Needless to say, I did not vocalize my thoughts.
HIGHLIGHTS:The football stadium was really rocking for the first 5 minutes or so. Then people starting thinking about where to go drinking. Tonic was tons of fun and they actually played decent music. All in all, I think we all had a blast.
SUNDAYThe day was basically spent driving through the rain back to the KC airport. It was interesting as we had to drive through a bit of a thunderstorm. There was a "shocking" moment as one lightning bolt struck the access road about 30 feet from the highway causing a "boom" in the car. You know the lightning is close if you can hear the thunder in a moving car over the radio and the rain hitting the windshield. Welcome to the Midwest fellas!
Thats it from me...hopefully I'll have more stories and pictures to share after this weekend's Halloween parties! Stay safe out there and don't let the ghouls or zombies get you!
SLTSFMMWhat you need, you can have that,
my black card they won’t decline that,
see potential in ya,
let me mould that.
"
I Can Transform Ya" by Chris Brown
