Missing Bubba

So Lisa and I are going to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park this Saturday night to catch a Durham Bulls game. As luck would have it, the Louisville Bats are in town. They are the AAA affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. So you know what that means right??? That's right, former Yankee fan favorite Bubba Crosby is going to be in town. However, it of course had to rain on my parade, as the Bats website lists Bubba on the 7 day DL. Will he be back for the game? Who knows. Unfortunately, the amount of injury updates is not as plethoric as the big leagues, so I don't know. Maybe we will get lucky and get to see Bubba. If not, we will have to settle for seeing Josh Hamilton, who is down on a rehab stint before returning to the big club. As well as other washed up MLBers and prospects like Homer Bailey, Kirk Saarloos, Mark Belhorn, and not to mention the Bulls own Jonny Gomes, Mitch Talbot, and Seth McClung. And the 2 time AL all-star and World Series Champion coaching the Bulls, Gary Gaetti.

So when the best seats in the house are $8 a pop, there is no shortage of beer, you get to see some MLBers, and of course you get to watch a good game, I guess you can't go wrong. I think I'd still trade it all to see Bubba though.

Virginia is for lovers

Well, at least that is what I am told. But my investigation into that theory would have to be put on hold, as this trip to Virginia was all about Bich.

So I hopped in the new ride and made the drive out on Saturday morning. Mapquest told me it was supposed to take 3 1/2 hours. I said mapquest be damned and did it in 2 1/2. Hitting 115 mph at one point obviously helped the cause. So at around 2:15PM, I arrived in Bichland. Got a quick pseudo tour of their very lovely apartment building and apartment and then we sat and shot the shit for a while.

Rich then embarked on his major home improvement project of hanging a dry erase calendar on his fridge. After looking up online where the nearest Home Depot was, we took a ride there and I introduced Rich to Home Depot and explained what exactly it and the merchandise inside was used for. After he got over his disgust at the idea of actually doing home improvement, we found the necessary items and were off. On the way back to the apt, Rich decided to introduce me to a local legend. There was a restaurant that he had heard about and people actually put stickers for it on their cars. With recommendations like that, it had to be good right? It reminded me a lot of Stewarts as they had the whole drive up, eat in your car thingy going with some inside seating also available. We went inside, sat down, and perused the menu. Our ever so charming (and by ever so charming, I mean bitchy) waitress came over and took our orders. I got a pork roll sandwich, a rarity down in the south I might add, and rich ordered a steak sandwich. A few minutes later, our plastic saran wrapped sandwiches were thrown our way (and yes, literally thrown, remember the bitch thing from a few sentences ago). I actually enjoyed my sandwich. Pork roll on a roll. Not too hard to screw up. Rich on the other hand, didn't have as much luck. They really shouldn't have called it a steak sandwich, a more appropriate name would have been a fat and ligament sandwich. On the bright side though, I got a cherry coke and they make it the old way by just dumping cherry juice in the coke. That rocked! So after that lovely experience, it was back to the apt to hang the board.

After completing the project and catching a horribly hacked and edited version of Dumb and Dumber on tv, it was time to start drinking. We went to a cool little bar/pizza place. They had a lot of beers on tap and it had a nice feel to it. The waitress was friendly and a very smart business woman, as she took her 2 best "assets" and shoved them together and pushed them up so that they were flowing out of her shirt. I am sure that works to get nice tips from a lot of guys, but not when a jew is at the table. So after a few beers, it was on to dinner.

Rich wanted to try a steak house that he had never tried before and heard was good. I should have known something was up after the lunch situation, but we went for it. It started out nice. Good salad bar, really good buffalo sauce, but then it was time for dinner. And like the aforementioned waitress, this place also had a sound business plan.....the customer cooks their own food. You know how much money you save by not paying cooks? That's right. You pick out your slab of meat that you want from the fridge, and you cook it. There was like a 50 foot long bed of charcoal in a room and you find some place and you add any spices that you want to it and slap your meat on the grill. In theory, this doesn't sound too bad, but when you are already 5 - 7 beers in to the night (i lost exact count, but around there) and when one person orders a thin sirloin which only takes a little while to cook and the other orders a thick t-bone which takes a while, and add extreme heat just standing by the grill, it doesn't make for fun. Oh, and there are just loaves of bread that you can butter and grill and such. Yeah, well again, not a great idea, as I would say that maybe 4 of the like 20 pieces we made weren't burnt. So after that agonizing ordeal, we sat down and ate. On the plus side, the meat was actually good quality stuff, so that redeemed it a little. And then it was off to a bar.

We then went to a spot in town where there were a few bars and ended up a sportsy kind of bar to watch the Yankee game, as luckily it was a west coast game. So we watched DeSalvo pitch a great game and get his first major league win. And then Brooke joined us after she got out of work for some more shit shooting and drinking. We sat and drank and talked the night away until the bouncer/closing time nazi was yelling at us to get out and literally took the beers out of our hands.

The next morning was filled with lots of sleeping and then a good breakfast at a little hole in the wall down the street from their apt. This place luckily saved any hope of me not bringing my own food next time and giving me a little faith in the areas food service industry. Although the service was pretty slow, but the omelet was great. Then it was off to make the drive back home to see my preggo and the boys, which by the way I did in 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Rich might blog about the weekend (and definitely craft better written story than I) and include anything that I forgot or just blatantly got wrong, but I figured I would let you know my experience of the weekend. I look forward to the next trip where i will hopefully not have to cook my own dinner.

Getting Around

So, we've finally started to explore some of the area down here. By ourselves and with the help of my friend and his wife, we have been slowly expanding our horizons and learning the area and the good places to go. So in no particular order, mainly because I can't remember which came in what order, here are some of the cool places we have discovered:

First, I'll start with this past weekend because it is the freshest in my mind and can probably remember most of the details. This weekend took us to the gun show at the NC State fairgrounds. At the same time as the very popular gun show, there was also a train show, a flea market, and a cheerleading competition going on at the same time. So we had to park a ways away, but we trekked through the sprawling fairgrounds and eventually found our way there. And yes, I bought my gun and a large amount of ammunition while I was there. So after the gun show, we met our friends at their place and went out for dinner. They took us to a little place right on the NC State campus and gave us a little tour of it as we drove through. The restaurant was a little too fancy and overpriced for my taste, and the food was mediocre, but at least we tried a new place and discovered a new section of the city. So after dinner it was off to Charlie Goodnights, the local comedy club as we had tickets to see Bill Burr. If you don't know who Bill is, he is on the Opie and Anthony show alot and is also known as "the white guy" from Chapelle's Show. The show was great and Bill was hilarious. I would definitely recommend to see him if you get the chance. So I think that about wraps it up for this weekend.

Here are some other places we have found.

- Blue Flame Tattoo - My new tattoo home. Really nice shop. Real cool guys.
- Streets at Southpoint - This is a whole complex which has a really nice mall, a million times nicer than freehold (not that that is saying much), plus movies, restaurants, and such
- The Durham Bulls - Our local AAA baseball team. They are affiliated with the Devil Rays, but they are still fun to watch. Plus the best seat in the house is only $8 so you cant go wrong to watch a game and drink. i haven't made it there just yet, but am going on Thursday night with some people from work. Plus I hear the stadium is really nice and it is only 15 minutes from our house.
- Tyler's Taproom - this is a restaurant and bar right outside of the Bulls stadium. there are a few restaurants and bars along the street that the stadium is on. We went to this one one night, again with the aforementioned friends, and I really liked it. The food was pretty good. Your standard kind of barish food and an overwhelming selection of beers on tap. They have 33 beers on tap on their beer menu. And this is all specialty beers. There are no really normal beers on tap. So if you want a Miller Lite or Bud, it is bottle only. Now you know me, I'm not really a fancy beer kind of guy, but i decided to try one and I actually liked it. I had the Ska Nut Brown Ale and it was pretty damn good. i would definitely get it again and would recommend it for anyone who has the chance to try it. You can read about it in the beer menu on the site linked above if you wish.

So I think that is about it. We've explored some other places that I am sure I am forgetting about and some that really don't need a whole breakdown, like the Benz dealer and the shooting range. So if anybody actually ever comes down to visit us, at least we will know some good places to go.