Where I've been hiding

A long absence from the blog requires some quick catching up on my comings and my goings. But first, some business...it has come to my attention that a loyal reader of Bros11 got hisself a wife this weekend. Mark Alan Russo, please stand up...now let's hear it for Mark everyone. Ok, thanks....here we go.

Spent Tues-Thurs last week on a team-building retreat for my new gig. I'm quitting my financial services job to go back to school...and part of that includes me taking an assistantship to help pay for school and give me some pocket moolah. So this retreat thingee was like a training thing for that. Hanging out with 20-21 year olds is pretty cool, but definitely conspires to make you feel old. I won't dwell on it, let's just say that that whole experience left me needing some serious buffoonery to prove that I am still capable of partying like I'm not legal.

So I took myself down to Charlotte, NC where a couple of my friends from school have a house on a lake. This place is pretty unreal...like dock-in-the-backyard unreal...or ridiculously-well-stocked-bar-in-the-basement unreal. We had a solid crew coming in for the weekend, probably about 10 bros and affiliated hos in total. Did lots of eating, lake swimming and cornhole playing....beer drinkery was also indulged in with reckless abandon. I hit up Total Wines when I was down there...pretty solid and broad selection. I picked up a bottle of Brooklyn Brewery's Local 1 which is one of my favorite beers around. I also tried the DFH Midas Touch which was definitely interesting....not really in my wheelhouse but definitely interesting especially when you consider how the recipe was formulated.

On Sunday we joined the shirtless masses at Lowe's Motor Speedway for the Coca Cola 600 Nascar event. Imagine the Super Bowl happened in your backyard once a year and that basically explains the level of excitement and participation that takes place at this thing. Miles upon miles of RVs, campers, tents, and haulers all there just to party. Shotgunning was the order of the day...as was Sparks. Sparks was not shotgunned however for fear of the ramifications. It was a blast though and we were all very thankful to our gracious host and hostess for putting up with all of us and making it such an awesome time. But they don't read this blog....so I don't know why I am mentioning it here.

Got a 8 am flight Monday morning after partying all weekend and being up till 3 am on Sunday night. Landed in Boston at 10...by 10:30 I was home watching The Last Waltz and crying. By 1 I was Scituate-bound with my friend Alyssa for more beer-drinkery and pool-hang-outitude. We stopped at Shaws for some food and witnessed a fat kid take the spoon from the Crab Dip sample station, lick the mothersnuffing spunk out of it and return it to the container. Then we watched as two or three people used the same spoon to try the stuff. Too shocked to intervene, we sat quietly by as this enormous crime against humanity was perpetrated. Then we got our produce and left.

The afternoon consisted of lounging, eating about a pound of steamed mussels myself, followed closely by not one but TWO pound and quarter lobsters. So tasty. Then we stopped to get milkshakes on the way home. Suffice it to say I need to take a dump.

&Ry