bobafred

This past weekend we attended the 2007 Whiskerino Throwdown in Nashville, Tennessee. In short, it was awesome.

In not short, it was:

Friday night was a Whiskerino art show at a local gallery. We picked up a small painting by hale! ryan! for the man room at home. I can’t wait to hang all the beard art I’ve bought throughout this thing. After that, 50 or so of the beards headed over to a local bar for some additional conversations+drinks. It was really fun to see the reactions of the people that were already at the bar when that many dudes with beards showed up. The looks on their faces were classic and almost worth the four hour drive to Nashville alone!

Saturday day was an entire bowling alley of beards bowling. We were able to get the lanes all to ourselves for 2 hours, which was pretty awesome. Here is all 132 of us, plus whatever additional others were there.

Saturday night was fancy dinner and then a rock show consisting of Codaphonic, Yea Big + Kid Static and The Protomen. Lori and I saw Codaphonic a few weeks ago here in Atlanta, and it’s nice to see that they are consistently excellent live. Band members and Whiskerino participants Cody! and tao jones are also super nice guys. Next up was Yea Big + Kid Static. They pretty much ruled. Their mix of hip hop with high energy and story telling really was awesome to see live. The final band was The Protomen. We only stayed for one of their songs, though, as it was getting late and we had a long drive ahead of us in the morning so all I can really say is that they were loud and face painted. Both of which is ok by me.

Obviously the best part of the weekend was meeting and hanging out with all the participants. Every single person we met was great to talk to. And, that’s what the Whiskerino is really all about. Sure we all grew beards, but the social aspect of it is what we’ll remember most at the end. It really was a great weekend.

So, will I participate in Whiskerino 2009? Right now, I’d say yes. It’ll probably depend on what’s going on at that point, but I’ve had so much fun, that I’d love to do it again.

Many thanks to Mackle and everyone else involved in putting this thing together.

Here are my photos from the weekend.
Here are a bunch more from others.

Tags: beards, bowling, codaphonic, kid static, nashville, protomen, throwdown, Whiskerino, yea big

1. We looked at a couple wedding ceremony/reception places. So far we’ve seen 2 winners out of 2 visits. 100%. Lori is doing an awesome job at planning stuff. I’m not. But, we’ll soon have the best wedding website ever, so that’ll be awesome.
2. I failed at doing roof things again. I just feel like I’m going to fall the whole time I’m up there. I think we’ve decided that I’m not going to attempt it too much more in the future. We also did some raking and filled up 17 of those giant 30 gallon leaf bags from Home Depot/Lowes. And that was just from the front yard. I don’t want to think about the backyard.
3. Did anyone else notice how biased Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were during the Giants/Cowboys game today? I’m sure it bothers me more because I’m a Giants fan, but it was pretty annoying. Aikman sucks, btw.
4. 3 words: Monster Truck Jam. This will be a separate post. Stay tuned.

Done.

Tags: engagement, falling, football, leaves, monster truck jam, roof, wedding planning, weekend

Stuff:

• Adam visited from Chicago last weekend. We enjoyed food and drinks and bowled and went to the Georgia Aquarium. It was fun. He should move back here.
• Today is day 37 of Whiskerino. I haven’t shaved in 37 days. The moustache is starting to become annoying.
• We decorated the house with lights and junk for Christmas. I was successful in not falling off the ladder or roof. Also, didn’t get electrocuted. I’d like to also mention that I have a minor fear of heights and even though our house isn’t very tall, I was mildly freaked out.
• SDXE launched our first game: Violent Night. It’s fun. I can’t beat level 3. I suck. But, I do get invited to meetings called “Game Meeting” now, so that’s cool.

My yearly Chicago trip to visit Adam and Melissa happened this past weekend. Here’s what went down:

Lori and I started the weekend off right with drinks and people watching at an airport bar. This is fun because we both like drinks and talking shit about strangers at the airport. Adam and Melissa picked us up at Midway and we headed out for dinner. After a few places being too crowded, we ended up at a Cuban place that was really good. There are a fair amount of restaurants in Chicago that are BYOB, which is awesome because when you get the check for 4 people and it only has food on it, it’s pretty cheap. Of course, we didn’t BYOR(um), so that was less awesome. Anyway, after dinner we headed to their new condo for more alcohol and post-dinner conversations.

Saturday day we woke up not early and went out for brunch. I had pumpkin flavored french toast, which doesn’t really sound good now that I read that, but it was. A little on the sweet side, but I’m ok with that. Afterwards we made the yearly trip to the Puma store where I picked up some new Frankenclydes. We did various other shoppings and walkings. Soon we headed back to the condo to get ready for dinner with Jeff and Jen, who are both awesome. There was food and talking and drinks and laughs. It was fun catching up with everyone.

Sunday Melissa woke up, went the grocery store, came back, and made a pot roast. Just like that, completely unplanned. It was delicious and a great way to fill our bellies before heading to the airport and back to Atlanta.

It was a fun, lazy weekend trip — just how I had hoped it would be. Thanks to Adam and Melissa for everything and to Jeff and Jen for first suggesting Tomboy for dinner and then picking up the very expensive dinner tab.

Here be photos.

Lori, Robert, Sue, and I attended the Matt Pond PA show last night at The Loft. I very much enjoyed it. There was a fair mix of new and old tunes. When the crowd started to yell out song suggestions, I went with Athabasca, because it’s a funny word to yell and also a good song. While I appreciate the extra rockingness of the latest version of the band, I do miss the cello some. And, not just because the former cello player was hot. Still, they’re awesome.

Buy the new album, Last Light. And, when (not if) you do, get it from iTunes because it also includes the If You Want Blood EP. I picked up Several Arrows Later from the merch table.

Also, check out the haiku review of the show by Eskimo Bliss.