…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.
On Saturday I got up not too early and got ready to head out to go to the Gophers football game. They played the Colorado State Rams. Chey had got me tickets from her work and I went with Chris and Paul. I met them at the Mall of America (we all live a ways apart from each other) and we headed towards the Metrodome in Paul’s truck. The traffic was surprisingly good until we tried to park. Chris led us to a lot he had used in the past, and that I believe I had used in the past as well. But sometime between then and now it had turned into the tailgating lot. Yikes. There were lots of drunk college kids there. We pulled into the lot, paid the man his money, and he said “Follow me.” So we followed him into the melee. Being a single person he easily waded through the throng. It was not implausible though, that a Toyota Sequoia didn’t seem to be able to make it through as effortlessly. It took us probably 5-10 minutes to go 20 yards down into the parking lot. With him trying to wave drunkards out of the way. All the while tailgaters were yelling and screaming at us through the windows. It was quite the experience.
So we finally parked and got out and headed to the Dome. We had tried to leave ourselves some time to get downtown, find parking, and get to the game. We ended up giving ourselves too much time as we arrived 30 minutes before kickoff. We sat in our seats and watched the pregame warmups and then the Marching Band’s pregame show. The game started a little slow, and I was worried I wouldn’t win my bet. Paul bet me $5 that the Gophers wouldn’t cover the spread of 12 points. I was pretty sure they would, but the way the game started I wasn’t overly confident. It was only 22-10 after the first half, just barely covering. But the 3rd quarter turned out to be all Minnesota and the game ended up with a final score of 56-24.
The only bad thing about the Gophs game was that with it being a blowout, and us having parked in the tailgating lot, Paul and Chris wanted to leave early. We left at the end of the 3rd quarter. I was a little bummed, but that’s okay.
After we got back to the MoA, Chris headed back home and I basically followed Paul back to his place. Laura had just got back from hanging out with a friend of hers. We chilled out for a bit before Paul headed to the store to pick up some tasty things for dinner. The hotdog he had had at the game inspired him and we had hotdogs for dinner. Mmmm, super tasty. After dinner, we took a short walk over to the park with the dog. Paul and I shot some hoops. First he beat me down in HORSE and then he mauled me so bad in one-on-one I twisted my ankle just trying to keep up.
After the fun at the park we headed back and put in a movie. I wouldn’t have been averse to watching the Texas vs Ohio State football game. But I was the only college football fan there, so a movie it was. We watched Constantine which wasn’t what I would call great. But it was fun and entertaining. Keanu was his usually Oscar-winning self, but that didn’t take too much away from the film.
Because of the ankle injury there was to be no DDR after the movie. We watched a bit of tennis and I headed home.
Then on Sunday I hung out for most of the day with a few buddies where we watched the Vikings give a football game to the Bucs. Not long after the game I headed out and met Chey and Kiki for dinner at the Edina Grill. It was very tasty. I hung out and chatted with those fine ladies for a while and that was the end of my weekend.
Today was a pretty nice day for a Monday. The excitement came in the form of a delivery made in the pouring rain. We were carrying in stained molding, railings, and doors in a downpour. But they had to be delivered. I was soaked by the end of it as was my dad. Other than hoping that the wood wasn’t getting too wet, it wasn’t that bad. I don’t mind a little rain.
