On night fires and golf tournaments

Wednesday night I headed over to Humble to hang with Converse and friends. She sent the invite out to a dozen or so people, my expectation was a bonfire and craziness.
However, when I pulled up to the house, what I found was a quiet fire in the backyard with two folks hanging out. Just Converse and her man were left.
Here's the thing...though the night was nothing like I'd expected it to be, I'd tell you that it was far better. The conversation was stellar, the two of them are fantastic, and I missed Converse. We talked about the phone call a few months ago when she asked me for pointers on making jam, then her man and I discussed this long distance parenting thing I'm doing, and how...while it is painful and seems hopeless...it is such a good thing.
This coming from a bit of a personal perspective on his part, so it was very good to hear.
Oh, and the jam conversation...methinks that Converse and I will do a group jam session at her house. That sounds like music but is actually cooking.
The fire was awesome, so were the smores, and the conversation was delicious.
The only down side was that I missed Barista by like forty five minutes. Oh well...as she put it, we live in the same town, we'll have other opportunities.

Friday was the company golf tournament.
Man, golf is okay, it's kinda fun and not too shabby. But golf tournaments sponsored by companies and whatnot?
Just do it.
Four of us met up, drank alchohol, smoked cigars, cracked jokes, lots of homoerotic ball references, plenty of flirting with beer cart girls...sooo much fun.
I also won a $25 gift certificate and a $50 nike golf shirt. My entrance fee to the tournament was $75. Plus, all of the money goes to the company scholarship fund, so I'm helping someone get an education.
Good times.

Heh...oh, and about halfway through the day I met Barista's mom for the first time ever. Lining up to take a shot I heard my name from behind. After the shot I turned around and saw a cart with two ladies in it...one I recognized as having used to work here at headquarters...and I knew that she was friends with Barista's mom. Sure enough...I walk over and get introduced. Then she poured me a shot of tequila.
The universe is so random sometimes.

Yesterday I changed the oil on the car, then SweetD and I headed to Chi Sushi here in The Woodlands. After that, tailgaters with friends. Good times.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend.


-playing through

Vancouver Day 3

Wake up late, walk to Nester's to grab a few breakfast items and then back to play video games with Mogivite.
Then a short walk to a festival downtown where we met the lovely redhead and saw the sights.

Mogivite and I tried to enjoy the hottub at his apartment...but it was more luke warm. It was broken a few days ago something something. I don't know...I didn't really care. So we hung out down there anyway and talked in the tepid water for a half hour or so.
Then it was off to enjoy Tapas at La Bodega.
All of the food was good, but the chorizo is what got me. It didn't have that killer heat that we have here in Texas with Mexican Chorizo...but the flavor was phenomenal. Definitely order the chorizo if you go there. Do it.

Anyway, as always, the company and conversation were both excellent. We had a great time and then walked back home. Due to flight changes I had to be on the train at about 0530 so it was decided that Mogivite and myself would stay up until 2ish playing video games and then I'd nap for a bit.
Right.

That was the plan.

Sometime between 0230 and 0300...I was yanked from a sound sleep by the loudest alarm clock I'd ever heard. The lovely redhead came out of the bedroom and I thought she was looking for her cellphone...until I became coherent enough to realize that the two of them were trying to suss the reason for the ruckus, and that the loud bonging noise was actually the fire alarm.
Mogivite lives on the twelfth floor of a 25 story building.
He also has an awesome cat.
So I found out that my jeans will actually fit OVER my pajamas...good stuff, and then we spent a few minutes wrangling the understandably freaked out cat into it's carrier.
Cat wrangling...heh
Then, at 0300, we walked down 12 flights of stairs so that we could go stand in the rain with all of the neighbors and find out what happened.
Which was this:
Someone was cooking or some such, there was a mistake of some sort, which necessitated the use of their fire extinguisher.
Good on them for having the fire extinguisher.
In fact, that's the only portion of the story that is definite...I heard different versions as to the reason it was needed...but yes...the fire extinguisher fulfilled its purpose and put out the fire.
Only the building's fire alarm is designed to recognize the use of a fire extinguisher and to call the fire department.
Also...to sound the alarm.
Good times.
After about ten minutes the firemen declared the building safe, and then we spent roughly twenty minutes trying to get back upstairs. Yeah, there were a couple hundred of us, and only two elevators. The stairs don't have floor access, one you go into them you can't get out except for at ground level.
So all of us had to use the elevators to get back upstairs to the apartments.

I did try to sleep...but after thirty minutes or so of tossing and turning it seemed pointless. So I just played video games for the next half hour until the lovely redhead's alarm went off and we all got up to walk to the train station.

I had such a gerat weekend. I enjoy them so much.
Go to Vancouver. Even if you don't know anyone, it's a beautiful city and a ton of fun. Totally worth the visit.


-cat wrangler