Go! Go! Go!

This weekend was good and busy. Actually much busier than I would have thought, now that I look back on it.

Friday there was a going away get-together for my Brand Manager at work, so many of us from the company went down to the Rock Bottom Brewery to chat and wish him well.

I left there a bit early with Shana and we drove down to Chopstix (I refuse to post a link) for Heather's birthday party. What can I say about Chopstix... how about, I hated it. Here's the thing, I used to go see Pat McCurdy all the time in Madison. Pat is an excellent entertainer; he knows how to work the crowd, he plays fun songs, he enjoys performing, and his honestly shows through. Chopstix is a "dueling piano bar." You see that and you think, "Hmm, that sounds pretty cool," right? But it's not, and it's not because the performers are fake, through and through. They grind out their songs for tips, they make jokes that have been rehearsed and repeated to death, and they're painfully fake, fake, fake. Soul sucking is how I prefer to describe it. I stayed for a little over an hour (despite finding a parking spot to kill for) and then left for Javier's.

Javier is the husband of a co-worker and he's a big poker fan. He's arranged poker games every Friday at his place and it sounded like fun. There were seven of us and we had a great time playing Texas Hold'em. (Only a $5 buy in, so it was a cheap night.) We played until about one o'clock when people started fading fast. I had one excellent had that probalby won me more than ten dollars, then proceeded to get wittled down so that I left with about $12 less than I came with. Mostly this is a really good education in poker, so I don't mind. And it's a lot of fun.

Saturday Seth and I left early for comics, then met with Jason, Matt, and Chris to go on a hike on Cougar Mountain in Issaquah. We'd planned to do a 3.8 mile hike (with a difficulty of 1 on a five point scale) but we took a wrong turn and ended up doing a total of 4.8 miles (with a difficulty of 3), descending 1200 feet and then reascending them on the way back. Mostly I was okay, but, wow, I get winded fast walking uphill. It was a bummer. I'll have to keep working on getting in shape, but this was a good start and a good test. I think I did pretty well and I felt good that night and today.

After some downtime, Seth, Chris, and I went to eat at a steak place, then watched the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines. It was good, but I have to admit that I was a little shocked to see actually them kill and elephant for a scene that called for killing an elephant. Rather disturbing, really. It was a decent movie overall with some entertaining "old style" movie tropes.

Sunday I started laundry right away in the morning -- due or die time, you understand -- played some City of Heroes with Kerry, then got ready for my night out.

Ethan, from work, invited me and a number of others to a semi-formal party at a house he and his girlfriend were renting this week for vacation. On the way down we'd all wondered if it was an Oscars' party, an engagement party, a wedding, or just a plain old party. Well, it turns out that it was a wedding party. We arrived, talked a bit. Noticed that the girlfriend wasn't around, then a couple more people disappeared, then they all came back and announced that the two of them had just been married in the back room and we were all there to celebrate. It was a very nice night, low key, intimate, and fun. It may have been another perfect way to get married.

Now I'm going to bed. Maybe I'll dream of more sunflower-carrying dolphins who turn into women like I did last night. Yes, seriously.