Just Plain Chips

Alright, I’ll try to run through some things quick here.

Last weekend was quite a weekend for Minnesota football fans. The Gophers pulled out a huge win against #11 Purdue in two overtimes to go 4-0. The Vikings finally played like a pro football team and won their first game of the year against the homeless New Orleans Saints. And as an added bonus the Green Bay Packers lost by one point to Tampa Bay to go 0-3.

My trip up to St. Cloud went very well. It was very informative and very enlighting to see and hear what we saw and heard. It was definitely a sales trip, and a very effective one for the sales team that put it on. But the major part of the trip was meeting with other cabinet shop owners that had bought the same equipment previously. And all of them were honestly excited about the machines they had bought and all of them said that they don’t know how they survived before.

Anyway, one fun part of the trip was the food. The first evening we were there we had a meeting in the Golliday Inn we stayed in. Before the presentation part of the evening we had dinner served to us and it was surprisingly good. I had a stuffed chicken breast. I don’t know exactly what the stuffing was but it was super tasty along with the chicken. And they had garlic mashed potatoes and vegetables. It definitely helped put me in a good mood for the long presentation.

The next day while driving between two cabinet shops we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called the Ole Creamery. The lunch special was the buffet. But it was unlike any buffet I had ever been at. The first thing on the buffet was a salad bar–that’s normal. And there were some lunch meats, which was different but expected. They also had potato salad, baked beans, and I think a couple other things. But then, the piece de resistance, they had hamburgers and corn dogs! Unlimited hamburgers and/or corn dogs? That’s pretty much as good as it gets. In total I had a salad, two helpings of baked beans, a corn dog, and two hamburgers. Mmmm. Oh and for after dinner, they had an ice cream machine. So I had two bowls of ice cream with caramel, butterscotch, and crushed Heath bars. They were so tasty.

Okay, that wraps up all the food related stuff.

I am flying out to State College, Pennsylvania tomorrow night and meeting my friend Eric. He is originally from Pennsylvania and I met him out in Bozeman. He is a big Penn State football fan and I am a huge Gophers football fan. Last year he and I drove from Bozeman to Minneapolis to see the Gophers play the Lions at the Metrodome. So this year we’re flying out and meeting in Pennsylvania to watch the game there. I am really excited about it. Beaver Stadium seats over 107,000 people. I can hardly imagine seeing a game with that many people.

Even though it’s been light reading here lately anyway I wanted to let people know where I’ll be tonight and tomorrow. My dad and I are heading up to St. Cloud this evening for work. We’re going to see some demonstrations of some hardware he is considering buying for the company. There’s a dinner and talk tonight and then tomorrow we’re going to go to a number of cabinet shops that have the machines installed and talk to the owners. Hopefully it will be fun and informative.

Okay, I need to do a little catching up here.

Last Friday night I went out with a few friends to a concert at the Cedar Cultural Center. We saw Andrew Bird play. I was to meet my friend Suzanne, her boyfriend Jim, and her friend Kaari at the Center at about 8:30. Of course, being who I am, I got there a little early. I drove around and found a parking spot and just listened to music in my car for a while. Then I got a call from Suzanne saying that they hadn’t left and asking for directions. So I sat in my car for a little longer listening to music.

Suzanne called back in a while asking for more specific directions and I unfortunately couldn’t help them out much. I waited a bit and then started walking towards the Center to just wait for them. When I got to Cedar Avenue I crossed in front of a car and I looked in and saw a girl and a guy. The guy looked vaguely familiar and for some reason I felt a connection to the car. When I got to the curb the girl driving the car honked at me. I looked over and I heard my name being called. I looked to the back seat window and there was Suzanne’s face leaning out. I walked over and hopped in. I said hi to everyone and we took off looking for a parking spot. After driving around for 10 minutes we ended up parking directly across the street from my car.

We all walked to the Center and picked up our tickets from willcall. Just as we walked back they got done setting up for Andrew Bird, so we timed it perfectly. The place was packed, it was a sold out show, so we hung at one of the back walls for support. Then Andrew came on and I was blown away.

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I had some problems with the full size pictures not loading earlier, they should be fine now.

Thanks to Steve and Linzy for taking pictures and graciously sending them to me for me to post.

Saturday night was a little more active than Sunday. I headed to Matt and Jenny’s house and we headed over to Steve and Linzy’s together. Already there was Dan, and of course Steve and Linzy. We chilled out for a while. Just talking and discussing how old I was.

Chillin’ before grillin’. From the left it is Dan, myself, Jenny, and Matt.

An empty glass of Southern and Coke is not a good sign.

After a while Steve threw some burgers on the grill and before to long we were chowing down. (I’m getting hungry thinking about it) After dinner we decided to play a game. Steve brought out a few, including one that was still in the shrink wrap called Apples to Apples. A friend of mine had just played it and told me it was fun, so the choice was easy. It turned out to be quite a fun game, if I do say so myself. Though maybe I enjoyed it so much because of the Southern Comfort and Coke I had been sipping since arriving. Jenny ended up winning and I took second, so that wasn’t too bad. After the game we headed to the bowling alley.

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It was tasty but maybe my McDonald’s lunch followed by a Cookie Batter ice cream and cookie dough bowl from Cold Stone Creamery wasn’t the best idea for lunch.

So tasty. So full.

I turned 29 years old yesterday. The number only sounds big and old because I just don’t feel that old. It is a number, when applied to my parents’ generation, that conjures up images of a few kids and a life of responsibility. Not so when I think about my life. I’ve had it pretty easy, which is nice when you consider how easy-going I am. No house payments. No kids and no prospect of kids for years. But luckily, no hurry to get in that position either. I’m content and happy with how things are progressing.

So anyway, enough waxing philosophically. How did the birthday weekend go? I’ll work backwards.

Yesterday was a nice low key kind of day. Matt and Jenny came out to the house, the kids were already there, to hang out. We watched the Vikings get pounded by the Bengals (the Bengals!) and had a delicious lunch prepared by my mom. Pork tenderloin, potatoes au gratin, spinach salad, and baked beans. Yum yum. Matt and I played a game of chess during the football game as well. He played very well and had me a little worried at a few points, but I was able to pull out the win after chasing his king to the middle of the board and exposing him to all sorts of attacks. A couple times during the day I even got a couple of calls from friends in distant states wishing me Happy Birthday, which was very nice and unexpected.

Next it was cake and ice cream time.

And after that picture it was time for me to blow the candles out. As far as I know, I have never blown all of the candles out on my birthday cake since my first birthday. Except for last year when my girlfriend felt sorry for me and put two candles on instead of 28, one in the shape of a ‘2′ and one in the shape of an ‘8′. I managed to get both of those out. Well, this year my mom put 8 candles on the cake. I don’t know why, but that’s how many there were. So I huffed, and I puffed, and I blew the candles out…

…most of them. My whole family was making fun of me for standing up and getting in position to try and do it, but I couldn’t even get 8 out, what’s wrong with me? I left 3 going, which of course means I have 3 girlfriends. Yikes, zero girlfriends has been interesting enough lately. The cake was tasty and I can’t wait to have more tonight.

So that was Sunday. I think I’ll be a little flaky and write up Saturday, the actual BBBBB, in another post.

Well, it was my birthday this weekend and I had another big bowling party. I was going to write about it last night but my blog was down and I couldn’t post. So check back later for the birthday party post. I’ll try not to be as sporadic about it as last year.

Other than my weekend not a whole lot has been going on lately. I wouldn’t say my life is boring, just not much is going on. Tonight I’m heading to a place called Rudolph’s in Uptown to meet and old friend of mine and her boyfriend. I haven’t seen her in probably 2-3 years, so it should be pretty fun. Plus, they have good happy hour specials until 7pm.

Have a pleasant evening, I’m looking forward to mine.

…don’t go away. There’s a big thunderstorm outside right now. Perfect weather to type to. The thunder is rolling and the rain is falling. With the forest out back there are lots of surfaces for the rain drops to hit, so there’s lots of good noise. And the thunder, just like two weekends ago. It starts out crackling, like some trees are going down out back and then just builds to a big boom.

So, let’s see. I suppose I can go into a little more detail about my weekend. It wasn’t necessarily all that exciting, just really nice.

First, just let me get the two “hiccups” out of the way.

First, on Saturday night, I was playing some one-on-one basketball against Paul at a park near his house. He was beating me easily but we had to end the contest early when I stepped wrong and rolled my left ankle. In my youth I had some pretty bad sprains while playing sports and they’ve been pretty weak ever since. So I rolled my ankle, and it was very painful. But I just sat with Paul and Laura and let the pain subside a bit before getting up to test it out. It was tender, but I was able to walk back to their place.

Second, the Vikings lost. That wasn’t too fun. They got crushed by the Tampa Bay Bucs.

So yeah, that’s pretty much all that went wrong with my weekend. Not too shabby, huh?

So what went right? Friday was ultra low key. After some tasty dinner, sloppy joes, I believe, I played some dominos with my parents. I enjoy playing dominos, but it’s always extra fun when I win. I then read my book for an hour or two and finally turned in for the night.
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Seriously, it was great. And I feel great. Other than two little hiccups, the weekend was pretty much completely wonderful. Everything was very pleasant, and fun, and enjoyable. And then tonight capped it off marvelously. I (unfortunately) don’t have a habit of spending my evenings in the delightful company of two beautiful and engaging young women, but that’s what happened tonight. So how can you beat that?

Alright, I need some sleep. Back to work in the morning, hooray!

Well, I’m headed to the Gophers game this afternoon. They play the Colorado State Rams today at the Metrodome. Chey got me a few tickets from her work and I invited Chris and Paul to come along with me as they are both alumni and football fans. The outcome should be a win for the U and a fun afternoon for everyone involved.

Enjoy your Saturday.

When the going gets tough, Brenden gets joking. Trying to be funny and joking about things is my defense mechanism against things that are just too serious or sad. And since I’m not inherently all that funny, I glean what I can from other sources. Normally these other sources are TV or movie quotes.

My mom and I met my brother Matt for lunch the other day and we were talking about New Orleans and Katrina. Matt said something about how people are wondering if they should even rebuild the city being below sea level and in such a precarious spot. I hadn’t thought of it before but what popped into my head was a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The King of the Swamp is explaining to his son, Prince Herbert, about what he’ll inheret one day…

King of the Swamp:

Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ‘em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, THEN sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up! And that’s what you’re gonna get, lad. The strongest castle in these islands.

Of course, it’s much funnier to hear it with the accent and all of the inflections in the movie. Or if you’re my mom, to hear me say it with the accent and all of the inflections.

I’m not sure if they should or shouldn’t rebuild New Orleans. I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re going to rebuild it. But I did find it funny to compare it to the King of the Swamp in The Holy Grail. Maybe that makes me shallow, but I think it just makes me human.

My favorite kind of beer is root beer. Yesterday was, for some reason, a very frustrating day. After work I headed to the grocery store to pick up a bunch of things. I usually don’t like going to the grocery store around the time work is getting out, it’s often very busy. Luckily it wasn’t too bad yesterday. I decided to pick up some Jones Soda root beer as it was on sale. I had always wondered about that particular brand of root beer, but it was always too expesive to justify.

I brought the groceries home and I just needed to relax after my day. I sat down to watch some Seinfeld with some chips (just plain) and a root beer. I have to say that I liked the Jones root beer, but it wasn’t anything spectacular. I think my favorite root beer is still Sprecher.

So it’s Friday today, I hope it goes well for everyone. Later!

If you are very observant you may have noticed a couple of changes over in my “Books I’m Reading” and “Books that are Next” lists. Both Ringworld and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have disappeared from the lists. I finished the first and read the other this weekend.

Ringworld came somewhat recommended from Steve, but not what I would say highly recommended. He said it was good, but didn’t seem all that jacked about it. I enjoyed reading the book, and am glad I did, but I can’t say I liked it a ton. I still measure my science fiction by Isaac Asimov’s epic Robot/Empire/Foundation series, which many people don’t like that much, but which I thouroughly enjoyed.

I must say that I really enjoyed the science fiction part of of Ringworld. The concept of the ringworld was very interesting and well thought out. My problem with the book basically lies with the characters. Larry Niven just never seemed to be able to get me to care about the characters that much. I found myself rolling my eyes at their actions and decisions from time to time. They never really seemed to acheive a real depth and seemed a little cardboard to me.

The latest Harry Potter I enjoyed very much. The main thing I feel about the Half-Blood Prince is the main thing I have felt about the rest of the Harry Potter series: very easy to read (I started it Saturday night and finished it Monday night) and yet very entertaining. The plot is thickening, and there were a couple of huge twists and turns in the plot. A couple of things that were very surprising and a couple of things that you always wondered about but weren’t sure until this book. The world gets fleshed out a bit more and more. The characters grow up another year realistically. And much to my relief, Harry was much less whiny and annoying in this book than the last; I enjoyed that quite a bit more.

I’m convinced that there is one main plot device that seems to be used to create the conflict in nearly anything I read or watch. Miscommunication. Either someone lies/streches the truth to someone, or someone misunderstands what someone else is saying, or someone doesn’t tell someone something–usually because of embarrassment, or to not bother the person, or a host of other stupid reasons. But in this series especially, if the good guys would just be open and honest with everyone else, most of the bad things that happen wouldn’t happen. Of course, that wouldn’t make for very interesting reading, but it just seems too obvious some times.

All in all a good weekend for reading. I did start my next book last night. I started Chainfire by Terry Goodkind. It is the 9th book in a fantasy series I’ve been reading since 1994. I reread the last few chapters of the 8th book, Naked Empire before starting to refresh my memory a bit. When books in a series come out years apart, one tends to forget exactly what’s going on.

What a slow weekend. I did way too little. But it was relaxing.

I watched a couple of movies I had already seen on Friday night and enjoyed them again. Then on Saturday I settled in to watch some college football. During the half time of the Bowling Green/Wisconsin game I ran out to do some errands. From the moment I left the driveway it started raining and didn’t stop for most of the rest of the day. I felt that vindicated my desire to watch football.

Then yesterday I did some reading. I finished Ringworld and started the latest Harry Potter. Last night I went to see “The Constant Gardener” with Chey. It was quite good, if slightly depressing. The only problem was that I whined about going all the way across town to the theater she usually goes to. So we met at the Southdale theater, which was completely packed. I got there uncharacteristically late and we sat way in front and to the side. It wasn’t like we couldn’t watch the movie in relative comfort, it just wasn’t idea.

Then today I met my friend Kari and her husband Steve (who were in town from Madison) for lunch. First they were out at the house and showed us pictures from the crazy 6 week trip around the world they took this summer. We went to lunch at Pizzaria Unos. It was quite good. Then after I went swimming over at Matt’s, it was a perfect day for that.

Now I’m just chilling out. Hazzah!

Okay, when last we left off I had just left a computer that I thought would work at my friend Emily’s house and took off with my friends for the ceremony.

The drive to the ceremony was about an hour. The last part took the longest as it was on a dirt road that might have been 10 miles or more long. When we got up to the forest service cabin area we were treated to a beautiful view of the entire valley. Bozeman was down below us and the Bridger Range was behind that. The skies were blue and the sun was shining. A perfect day for an outdoor wedding.

People were running around doing this and that. Garrett and I just kind of stood around doing nothing. Making fun of Sean as he ran around with his cameras and gear. After a while we were roped in to helping him with some photos. He was taking some pictures of just the bride and some of her and her family. Garrett and I were holding up a screen to shade them and get the lighting more even. Of course, that wasn’t all we were doing. We kept Ricarda and her family smiling and laughing with our witty humor and constant banter. I’d like to see the smiles in those pictures. They were probably the best of the bunch. People are probably thinking, “Why does Ricarda look so much happier before the wedding than after?” Well, now you know, it was because of me.

There was a nice, short ceremony, completely with yelling kids that were a bit out of control. Then Garrett and I skipped out on holding the screen again (leaving that to Heidi and Sonia) and left so I could go check on the computer. We got back and I booted up the computer. It was running perfectly and I felt satisfied in a job well done and safe in the knowledge that I just might have saved the dance.

G and I left for the reception hall, which was at a park right in town. We dropped off the computer at the music equipment table and headed to see if the bar was open. It was open alright, completely open. You’ve heard of an open bar, where the alcohol was free? This took it one step further and just had alcohol sitting out on the bar. It was serve yourself. I’m not sure it was entirely legal, what with all of the kids running around. But it did make it pretty convenient throughout the night. So Garrett and I sipped our beers and waited for everyone else to make it back.

The college football season started last night. And the Gophs started their season with a bang. A 41-10 victory over the mighty University of Tulsa. But don’t let the score fool you too much. There was never really any doubt who was going to win, but the Gophs didn’t manhandle the Golden Hurricane as much as they probably should have. Laurence Maroney, on the first play from scrimmage of the game, ran 67 yards for a touchdown. Then at the end of the 1st quarter he rattled off another long run for a TD. But after that nothing too exciting happened. The defense played well, except in the 3rd quarter when Tulsa looked like another Big Ten team.

Overall, fans will be happy with a win, but one would hope that the team will be able to take some things away from this game and get better. Maybe it’s good that they didn’t play perfectly. If that had happened maybe they would have been overly confident. I know that Coach Mason wasn’t happy with the whole game and he’ll be letting the team have it in practice this week. He was ranting and raving on a number of occasions over on the sideline.

One and oh, baby!
(Go Bowling Green!)

Before we hear our top story, this just in:

I’m completely awesome.

Now back to our bulletin.

I’ve decided to break tradition a little bit and hold the 4th annual Brenden’s Beer and Bowling Birthday Bash on the day before my birthday, which would make the party on Saturday the 17th of September. When I was in Bozeman real life didn’t have much of a hold on us; so going out late on a work night wasn’t too big of an issue. But I think it will be more agreeable with people if we have a party on Saturday afternoon and/or evening and/or night. I still haven’t decided exactly where we’ll have the party, somewhere in the southern suburbs is kind of what I’m thinking, but I’ll let people know. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

That is all.

That post title is a take on a mistranslation from some Nintendo game from my youth. I can’t remember what it was, but when you won something it told you “A winner is you!”

Because I told him I would, I thought I’d let you in on my night last night. I hung out with my buddy Chris and his daughter Lauren. His wife was out of town and he was getting his car worked on, so I was the ride from and back to the dealership. I got dinner and fun out of the deal, so I’m pretty sure I came out ahead.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned before how Chris beat me in bocce ball and how he pretty much beats me at everything. Well, last night we had the bocce ball rematch. And I actually won 2 games to 3. I was pretty excited about it, though I hope he wasn’t letting me win to be nice. (I don’t think he’s that nice) And he does have a broken foot in a walking cast–so that could have affected him as well. Afterwards he taught me a card game called Cross Crib, though we played it without the fancy board and scoring tablets. It’s a pretty neat and easy and the games go really quickly. I actually beat him 3 out of 5 games in that event. So being 2 for 2 against Chris in one night was pretty huge for me.