Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts

Saturday, June 26, 2010

I Had Adventure

Well, I haven't blogged all week, and I'm okay with that. Not much happened, so I had no reason to get all up in arms about things this week.

What I need to do right now, for my sanity, is to write down my chain of events from yesterday, so that I can understand what I did. Come along on my journey. A journey through a random Saturday in my life, that turned into one of the more memorable days I've had in some time.

It all started while I was at work, trying to figure out if I was going to go to an establishment to watch the USA world cup match with a bunch of hooligans. I decided against it, citing the beer in my fridge, the proximity of my dwelling in relation to my work (saving time and not missing much of the game) and the want to not spend any money. I did that, and it was cool except the USA lost. I was very excited throughout the game, but unfortunately, the end result was less than desirable. I talked with my good friend Caleb who was celebrating his golden birthday by going golfing with his mom. I was jealous, but he also reminded me that my beloved Atlanta Braves were playing his (and my) beloved Detroit Tigers. After the world cup match ended horribly, I played a bit of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, but that wasn't doing the trick for me. I realized that I should venture out and procure more beer, perhaps in the form of a growler filled up with Yazoo. So, I put the dog in the bedroom, grabbed the growler, and headed out the door. While driving towards the Yazoo taproom, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that the Braves were playing, and it was in the 6th or 7th inning, and if I went somewhere to catch the end of the game, I would be much happier. So I detoured down Broadway towards the Broadway Bar and Grill, where I knew they had plentiful TVs and an open, breezy bar that you could smoke in.

I got there, ordered a Yazoo Pale Ale and requested the bartender switch the nearest TV to the Braves game. To my delight, as soon as the TV got switched, Chipper Jones hit a 3 run home run, to put the Braves up. I proceeded to text Caleb, the Tiger fan and birthday boy, that my team was ruining his birthday. After chit-chatting with the bar patrons around me, someone mentioned that they were going to go to the Nashville Sounds game tonight. When he mentioned it, it light a lightbulb over my head. The Nashville Sounds, by the way, are the Milwaukee Brewers Triple-A team, and they play right here in town, and I had never gone to a game before. I am a huge baseball fan, but I just never found the time to go, or remembered to go. The game was starting at 6:30, and it was about 6:22ish at the time. The Braves won, even though the 9th inning was painful to watch (THROW A DAMN STRIKE). I paid the man for the pint, and drove out to the ballpark in south Nashville. The timing worked out perfectly. I paid for parking, bought my way into the game, and found a seat and it was only the top of the 2nd inning. I proceeded to buy some nachos and a Miller Lite for basically the same price as my ticket (or what my ticket should have cost if I was savvy). Then the lightning started flashing on the southern horizon, and I figured we'd have a delay soon. Baseball players, fans and umpires don't really like to be struck by lightning.

Then it started to downpour, and everyone took shelter as they rolled out the tarp onto the infield. I ended up on the second deck, basically. There is where I met a nice lady and a nice man whom I've forgotten their names. We talked about Nashville, the east side to be specific, and where the bad parts of town are. The regular small talk you would have during a rain delay with strangers. We ended up next to the place where they serve Yazoo, ironically, and the nice lady bought me one. That's where it starts to get hairy, in my opinion. When the server lady had her back turned, the nice folks were freely refilling their cups with beer, but I did not partake in these activities. I noticed at this point that it was still raining and the fans were exiting the park all together. That's when I realized the game had been called for the night. So me and my new friends were pretty much the last people in the park at this point, and we left once they finnished their beer. As we exited the ballpark, there was a golf cart sitting there, and the guy decided to check if it was drivable. It was, and he started it up, and they hopped in and took off. As they drove off, I was yelling and cheering them on, their brazen, bold move was something I would never attempt. They pulled up next to me and told me to hop in the back on the flatbed, which I proceeded to do, and as soon as they hit the gas, I realized this was a bad idea, and tried to step off. Well, I crash landed in the parking lot, right on my right wrist, and I thought I had broke it at first. Once I realized I could still move it, I realized I was fine. I informed someone that was working the traffic that I was okay and that someone had just stolen one of their golf carts.

I walked to my car in the pouring rain, soaking wet, and I felt alive. It was weird, man. I didn't care that I was soaked. I didn't care that I just busted my ass. When I woke up yesterday morning, I had no idea the day would end with me walking to my car from a rained out minor league baseball game soaked head to toe. It was a mini adventure and I'm glad I did it. I called my friend Dave to tell him about it as I drove home. I tried to call Sean, but he was working.

I went home and ate some veggie corn dogs (4) and did the dishes. I listened to Arctic Monkeys. I went to bed.

And now I'm here. And I don't know what today will throw at me, but I'm ready for anything. I don't really have anything planned, but you saw how that worked out yesterday.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Have Adventure

Firstly, I would like to thank the readers for participating in this latest reader poll. It was a huge success, and I have you to thank. The question asked is, "Who was you're favorite Beatle." The winner of the poll was Sir Paul McCartney, and rightfully so. My personal experiences in listening to the Beatles is that the good songs were written by McCartney. By good, I mean the ones that are the best. Not to say that the other members didn't do amazing things, but I prefer Paul's songs. So yeah, cool. Thanks for that.

What brings me to Blogger today is the Newspaper. I like to regurgitate news stories for you, but I like to put my brain to work here.

There was a story a few days ago...we'll say it was this past Friday or Saturday, where a young 16-year-old girl was attempting to sail around the world solo. She was unsuccessful because her boat got wrecked by a huge wave, and she was stranded in the Indian Ocean for a while there. She came out of it alright, but there were questions leveed against her parents, questioning their decision to let her sail around the world at such a young age. I loved the fathers response to the critics, basically saying that she is as capable of completing this task as any other person. She was trained for most of her life on sailing, and she was well equiped with the knowlage to complete this journey. He went on to say that her sailing around the world was just as dangerous as any 16-year-old behind the wheel of a car on the roads, which is very dangerous indeed. He also said that those that felt she shouldn't be doing this had lost their "zeal for life" and that people that hold that opinion are "living in a cotton-wool tunnel to make everything safe." Let me say that I totally agree. What is this life for anyway? Why not have adventure?

This would have been the end of my thoughts on this, which was this past Saturday morning, but another news story came through yesterday, and continued this morning. It's about that guy from Colorado who had made a journey to Pakistan to find and kill Osama Bin Laden. People said he was a crazy person who was getting in the military's way and had no business going over there and doing something so crazy.

Why would you care? Because we're throwing away so many of our tax dollars on a war in Afganastan that has thus far turned up little results as far as what we originally set out to do, which was capture and/or kill the leader of the group that attacked our country, Osama Bin Laden. Why would you oppose a man from our country from going over there, doing what he can by himself to do what we all feel is the right thing to do. I applaud Gary Brooks Faulkner for trying to take the issue into his own hands.

Though he did say he was told by God in a dream that he had to go do it, so maybe he is bat-shit crazy...


The critics say that no none should do this. Why? Why not live you're life how you want, as long as you're not really breaking any laws or anything like that. Go live life. Don't be afraid to take risks. You don't have to play it safe. The best memories from you're life are not the times you played it safe (unless you decided not to go hiking and everyone else that went without you got eaten by a grizzly bear or something. That could be a good memory.) If you want to self-finance a trip to Pakistan to kill the leader of Al-Qaeda, go for it. I mean, don't live recklessly, as to endanger future adventures by cutting you're life short, but just go have adventure. I promise you're life will be more fulfilling. What are we here for? Why not just go see what you can do, doing whatever you feel like. Sometimes playing it safe is the right thing to do, but not you're entire life. The best stories come from the people that have been places and seen things. The ones with life experiences are the best storytellers, and it's something we should all strive for.