Paved With Good Intentions

Is it Tuesday night already?  Wednesday for most of you, by the time you see this? 

Believe me...  I want to write and post more, I really do.  I'm just never in front of the computer very much any more.  Well, scratch that--I'm in front of a computer all day at work, but that doesn't count.  And while I can facebook and browse on my phone during the day, I don't much care to.  I even downloaded the Blogger app so that I could theoretically blog 'on the go', but it's better in theory than in practice.

I suppose one could blog from their smartphone, but only if one's blog posts are more like Twitter updates. Y'all know that once I get all this stuff moving, it's hard to stop, so pecking away on the touchscreen of my iPhone does not appeal.  And I can't even begin to imagine all of the nonsense that autocorrect would do to my updates. 

So you'll just have to be patient and let me go at my own speed...

So what's new?  Of course I worked all last week--I'm pretty sure it was the first 40 hour week I've done in ten months or so, and it wasn't much fun.  For those of you who don't know, I had a few more health scares this past year, but some pretty good health triumphs also, but even so, I've been under the knife twice and have had three hospital stays since last April, plus countless doctor visits.  Most of that is behind me, and I'm down to about once-a-month appointments, so instead of spending a couple days a week at various hospitals and doctors offices around town, I actually go to work and have to sit in my cube for about nine hours a day. 

It's not quite as enjoyable as pitching the cards at Bally's or Sunset Station, but then again, not much is.  I have a few distractions to keep me entertained.  This past weekend, for instance, was a lot of fun.  Although I worked all day on Saturday (Umm, yeah, we're gonna go ahead and need you to come in this weekend...), that night was a whole bunch of fun.

It was my friend Cory's birthday, and she had rented out the Nashville Performing Artists Co-Op for the night and hosted a party.  What is the Nashville Performing Artists Co-Op, you ask?  Well, imagine a combination of Forman's basement, your Grandma's attic, a condemned building, every stereotypical practice space you've seen in countless videos, and the bathroom from Trainspotting thrown in for good measure, and you have the NPAC.  (Did I use that reference last week?  I did? Sorry, it's the only nasty bathroom I can think of.  Writing is hard)

It. Is. Awesome.

The only thing fancy about the place is it's name.  But it was cleaned up as well as could be, with space heaters and candles providing heat on a cold night.  We had a keg of Fat Tire, a truckload of catered BBQ, all kinds of smokeables, and even a jar of moonshine on hand.  Scotty and the boys set up on stage and provided about five hours of live music while the rest of us mingled, danced, drank, told stories, took pictures, and had a much better party than all those dress-in-black poser d-bags from that Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl.

Let me dig out the camera and find some pics:

The first impression as you walk in the door...

 

 The sound booth and 'facilities'

 

 The view from the stage.  Not sure what the random acts of hanging bamboo were about, but it only added to the funky ambiance

The band in action.  That's Scottie, Colin, Sparky, and Tommy

Lots of different people went up onstage and played with the band at different times throughout the evening, the most memorable being some dude I'd never met before singing a cover of Tush that brought down the house.  The highlight for me was one of my friends, so drunk she could barely stand, got up there and just absolutely nailed a cover of Rollin' In The Deep--not an easy song when sober, but she just killed it.

Good times all around.  Before we knew it, it was after midnight and being old farts, we were finished lettin' it all hang out, so we had to pack up the party and head home.  I think I got home around 1:30 (but hey, I had a beer in my hand pretty much ever since 6:15) and fell directly into bed.

I sure didn't want to get up on Sunday morning, and almost considered begging off of my sister's Super Bowl party (strawberry moonshine was a bad choice), but I gutted it up, packed a bag, and hit the road early that afternoon.  

My contribution to the party buffet was an old Vegas Firefly favorite-- stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. 

Oh hell yeah.  I made about sixty of those little suckers--about twenty of them filled with garlic and herb cream cheese, and the rest stuffed with pecans.  And I wrapped them in thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon.

They were the hit of the party.  Oh, there was some great food to be had--shrimp cocktail, pulled pork BBQ, Rotel dip, etc., but everyone raved about the dates.  I have to admit, they turned out pretty damn good!  This is the only photo evidence that I have, however...

The picture doesn't do 'em justice, but trust me, they were good.

As far as the game goes, I was rooting for the 49ers, but earlier in the week TRev and I were discussing wagers and settled on the Ravens getting 4 points and the under.  We were half right, as usual. 

Since my sister's place is much closer to my office than my house, and it would've been a 50 mile drive home after the game, I just stayed there in her guestroom that night and went to work from there in the morning. 

Monday was a tough day for me, but at least I didn't have a moonshine hangover to deal with.  I'm back at the homestead tonight, doing the never-ending chores and planning a hike for Thursday.  I think I'm going to try and do a 7 mile greenway walk or maybe strap on the 36 lb. backpack and head out to the woods for the day.  If it's not muddy, I'm heading to the woods.  If it's raining, I'll walk the greenway with the local soccer moms.

More on Thursday--

Mikey