Then on the way home we decided why not extend the fun.  We went to Buffalo Wild Wings which was busier than an atm on pay day.  We were lucky to find a seat at the bar.  We ordered two cold ones and eventually I asked the guys next to us what the blue Electric Bingo Dauber type machines were that they had.  They said it was a trivia game and that we should play.  I quickly explained that I was terrible at trivia, I actually fundamentally hate Trivial Pursuit and would chose only to play the kiddie version if forced.  Eventually though we decided to play, I was inspired by Dave and Tank who continually placed in the top 5 on the reader board displayed above the bar.

I was unaware of this new bar trend, the company which provided the one we played was buzztime.  I sucked as expected and Elliott kicked butt, which figures.  Although it was fun.  We will difinetely go back and I think it would be fun to go with a group, so we will see if we can rally a few people to go with us, otherwise we will just make new friends if only temporarily like Dave, Tank, and King who sat on the other side of Elliott and killed it, she was the winner the game before we left.

Do you have a last meal?  What you would request if you were given a choice as to your last meal to enjoy here on earth?  In high school my last meal for a long time was a roast beef sandwich from Arby’s, curly fries and a jamoca shake, yum!  Now I think I would go with something very similar to my Friday dinner although rather than the noodle dish I think I would have gotten the pasta dish I like. 

Saturday we got up early and got our 3 miles in.  Then we drove to Auburn to see our friends Carie and Josh who we haven’t seen since our wedding.  They have 2 little girls, ages 2 and 3 months and they are adorable! Maddie played a little shy for awhile although quickly warmed up to us.  Mel or I think also known Mo is still so little and I had a great time making faces at her!  We got to see there beautiful house, spend time catching up and we went to the zoo to ride the train although unfortunately it was closed.  We had a wonderful time, and it was so great to see Carie and Josh.

Then we met up with our friend Brad and his friend (becoming our friend too) Emily and had dinner in downtown Sacramento at a cute Mexican restaurant which was fun.  Then today we went kayaking in a lake/river with them which was lots of fun and we still managed to stay on track with our running schedule by running 7 miles this evening after we returned home.  The run was a bit slow, all my fault, my excuse is my stomach was bothering me a bit from the milk I had this morning, in case I wasn’t sure yes I am still lactose intolerant!

Tomorrow is another big day, Elliott is taking the car to Tahoe for a work site visit and as we are sharing one car I am going to bike to work, which is not a big deal, and then I am going to bike 11 miles to my haircut in Danville!  Which I am really looking forward to.  There is a great regional trail so I will be safe and I only feel bad that my head may be sweaty and my hair will be helmety for my haircut, although over all I am still looking forward to that.  Only thing is my computer is at home and needs to get to work.  Elliott told me if I was really “urban” I would strap it on my back and bike it to work.  That is true, although it is 12 pounds (may be a slight exaggeration) and I have 9 other things i need carry to work.  So he is going to drop it off at the office for me so I don’t need to lug it to work on my bike.  My bag is a rolly bag so I kind of think it would be funny to rig it up and tow it behind me although I think our IT guy may have a different opinion on that being a good idea.

They have a flight of small shots similar to wine tasting although the menu instead includes mostly vodka with some brandy and whiskey to mix it up.  I didn’t know what to expect other than to bring food because they don’t serve any and it works out to be a few shots so it is not an insignificant amount of alcohol for a Wednesday night, at least for us married types.

We had a tasting tour guide who shared facts about the distilling process and tasting tips.  Our favorite factoids included that the making of the pear vodka, for one bottle, required 15 pounds of pears, and also that breathing out after your sip helps with the experience – boy is that true.  There is something that happens when the alcohol mixes with oxygen which is why we were informed not to swirl the glasses like you would wine tasting.  He also said the reason why your throat burns when you shoot vodka is because the oxygen mixing, so he said sip and exhale…  For me what happened on the flavored vodkas is with the exhale the flavors filled my mouth with a fresh exhilaration.  There was a floral flavored vodka that made you feel like you were exhaling a garden for the short moment of breathing out.  We had a lot of fun, we will definitely take other people back there when we have visitors.

We then went to Reno for the annual shareholders meeting for work and I had a board meeting the next day.  It was a quick trip as I had to be back Saturday morning so it felt a bit rushed, just Thursday and Friday, and unfortunately that we had little to no time for family and friends.

Saturday, yesterday, I spent all day with ULI and Rebuilding Together helping to repair a school, a wonderful little and unfortunately dilapidated school, in San Francisco.  I had a wonderful day.  I haven’t spent enough time lately giving back.  Two of the contractors we work with helped with the project as well so I felt like I was really able to contribute.  I worked mostly on a new storage area in the back for the teacher to store her materials and new guardrail and handrail at an entrance with a stair that was built out of now rotting wood.  The rest of the group made a variety of other wonderful improvements including cleaning up the second entrance with new pavers and a new door.  New lighting.  All new paint.  ULI secured a huge group of volunteers and it was a mad house, just go go go all day.  Then we went to happy hour to celebrate our good deed.  I enjoyed a couple of ambers and mostly had some laughs with one of the contractors we work a lot with.    One of those guys reminds me of John so much its silly.  He has such a similar personality to John with the same sense of humor of himself and also of others.  And he has the same laugh as John, the one that is higher pitched with a pinch of sarcasm and mischief.

So a great week overall.  Then today Elliott and I went out to breakfast and then sat around all day, did laundry, and watch tv.  It was glorious, and we needed it.  Although don’t feel too envious because we did get back on our schedule after a missing a few running dates last week and ran 6 miles.  So we got our sweat equity in.  Now we are relaxing before bed.  Elliott is reading a sci-fi novel in an effort to seed his creative side and I am going to read a better homes and gardens magazine, that I can’t seem to get them to stop sending (my effort to be more green), in search of recipes.  So, the Goodwin’s are good.

Then I had read about a yogurt place in the Diablo magazine that I wanted to try and I also saw something about a Belguim beer spot so I added both to our places to go list.  Elliott agreed to check out the yogurt place with me which is in Berkeley.  As we were headed to Berkeley we realized we could also go to theatre where we could catch a flick that we haven’t seen yet.  You see we go the movies so often these days that we have seen nearly all of the movies at the neighborhood theatre.   However there is an off beat theatre in Berkeley, Shattuck Cinema that was playing Son of Rambow which looked pretty good.  We drove by the yogurt place on the way, couldn’t find parking and because Elliott insists on getting good seats and seeing every preview we didn’t get yogurt because we were pressed for time.

The movie theatre was totally cute.  Elliott really liked the ceiling in the lobby, .  I really liked the popcorn, they had 4 flavors of powder to sprinkle on top including white cheddar and ranch!  The theatre had no more than 50 seats, very intimate.  The movie itself was really well done, much more enjoyable than some of the bigger name movies we have seen recently – I swear we so many movies I think we should be movie critics.

After the movie we walked across the street to try a different yogurt shop than originally intended, Yogurt Harmony.  It was delicous - a must do again.  Very fresh, light, organic – seemingly healthy.

After that on our way home I suggested that perhaps….  we could go to Oakland and check out the Belgium Beer bar I had read about, Elliott agreed to it.  We drove around looking for parking for a bit and eventually tentatively entered the bowling alley of a space.  We walked to the end of the bar but not into the extended table seating area when a couple said they were leaving and gave us their seats, it was meant to be.  The Trappistserves all Belgium beer, not that Belgium beer means that much to me I softly whispered to Elliott do you think they serve Fat Tire, and he explained that the New Belgium brand is not actually Belgium beer (although inspired by), oh…

For the first round we ask for suggestions.  I ended up with a Houblon Chouffe, which I picked for the name.  A passerby commented thats the same way he picks his horses, not a bad method.  Elliott ordered the Manneken Pis.  Both were great.  The best part is The Trappist takes pride in their work selecting the proper glass for each type of beer, chilling the glasses, it was nice to see these bartenders work.

Our second round, who knew, this was Elliott’s idea, I thought we only had one round in us, for me was a St Bernard Abt 12 which could only be described as Christmas in a bottle, very spicy!  Elliott settled on the blueberry wheat, with just enough taste of blueberry, hmmm yummy.  We snatched pictures as we usually do of our beers and of us.

After awhile of sitting there I realized there was a guy sitting next to Elliott who was by himself.  I asked Elliott if he had realized he was sitting there and asked why he hadn’t said hello.  I asked the stranger about his beer choice which was a Frambroise a raspberry beer as my pick up line.  We chatted with him for what might have been an hour.  He was from Belgium and was new to the area too (I know we have been here for a year, but it all still seems new).  It was nice to talk with him. 

We did eventually head home.  When we got home we enjoyed more beers and an escape from all sorrows and stresses of the world.  We played a dice game different from our normal gin rummy game.  It was perhaps one of our best dates ever. 

We used Elliott’s bike which worked fine except his breaks squeal like a mother so everyone could hear my lame self coming down a hill riding the breaks like a sissy!  I did get off the breaks quite a bit and passed a lot of the girls who ran by me on the running legs.  We tied gold ribbon to the bike so we could find it and it had our number on it too.  Elliott had the misfortune of starting on the bike and had to climb this horrible hill the entire first leg.  He said he stayed on the bike the entire time and didn’t walk it which was impressive.  It got a little hot around the middle of the race which took us about an hour. At the end you have to crawl through a mud pit on your belly.  I had no idea how hard this final piece would be.  We didn’t do it the sally way on hands and knees either, we dug in and sloshed our way through the mud, it was tiring and awesome all at the same time.

At the end we were caked with mud from neck to toe.  We followed the mud stream to the hoses where the buddies washed off.   I felt kind of bad about this part because the wasted water was immense.  But we cleaned off and then changed into our clean dry clothes at the car. 

We enjoyed a beer at the beer garden and enjoyed the line of guys watching the tail end of the girls who were still coming through the pit. They start everyone in waves, guy teams, coed teams and the women teams.  I think this system was designed by a man who wanted to watch all the ladies coming through the mud while encouraging them from the beer garden.  If the girls were crawling hands and knees the guys taunted and yelled at them to get on their bellies, if the girls complied they were met with cheers, it was rather entertaining.  After that we collected some swag and then went our way, what a great way to start a Sunday.

Next year we want to get our friends to do it with us and we can have more muddy buddies.

We posted our pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elliottgoodwin/sets/72157605506646408/ but we don’t have any of us really muddy because it would have been impossible to hold the camera without ruining it, but hopefully the race photo people can read our muddy bib numbers and send us legit muddy photos soon that we will share soon.   

So we left work a little early, took the BART in.  Stopped at a bar we had found last time and had a watermelon wheat.  The 21st Amendment opens up an area on the side of their building and serves food and beer.  We had had our first watermelon wheat when we went to a game with Marlon, this time it was sans watermelon slice so it wasn’t as good, but still a nice light beer, kind of like drinking lemonade.  About 1/2 a beer in our troubles melted away, my eye twitch subsided, we both relaxed a little.  We reminisced of how me met some of our current friends.  These are my favorite times with Elliott.  We have been together a long time now, over 6 years, so after awhile it seems as if you have heard everyone of their stories.  We laugh about certain stories being our story number 3.  But every once in awhile one of gets to a time or a place with our memories that we haven’t gone before with the other and its like we get to know each other even more, its always a special treat!

After we finished our beers we walked the rest of the way to the park.  Brian was the second season ticket holder to tell us we had to get a Cha Cha bowl.  I didn’t listen the first time someone suggested it because when we got there no one was in line so we decided to try something else.  Anyway this time I decided to listen.  So we walked first to go get our Cha Cha bowl which we decided to share.  I saw people taking their bowls to a counter of dispensers, like the ketchup ones at Costco with the spicket and the big red button, so I asked the guy at the counter, should we put something in this.  He smiled and said the BBQ sauce is great in it…wait… I just realized my title is wrong.  Because at this point I ordered a Corona, because that was about all they had, which was my second beer and there is another beer in my future of this story, oh well I am leaving the title as I like it as it is and I think my 3rd beer might have been borderline dark anyway so technically the title is still correct.

So we politely shared the ChaCha bowl which has white rice, jerk chicken, some sort of veggie dollop and BBQ sauce… I think that was it.  We sat on the edge of a sectioned off area that is normally open but there was a private party.  We lamented our curiosity of who this company was because as many companies are hunkering down because of the economy they were hosting a buffet dinner at the Giants game which can’t be cheap.

After our dinner we walked around the other side of the park to see the view of the water before making our way to our seat.  So this is the part that became interesting.  We go through the doors of the lower level and show the gentleman our tickets, he says “go all the way down to the end”.  Well I am a couple beers in so I am not paying attention to what this means, meanwhile Elliott is asking what did he say?  So we go to the end and show our tickets to another person who points to even further down the aisles, and another person checks our tickets and walks us to seats that are literally one row away from the field.  We are in a dug out essentially eye level with the field.  Crazy!  Quickly I decide these aren’t Brian’s personal tickets these must be his company’s tickets.  Which isn’t fair to Brian, but I can’t even imagine the cost of these tickets or that they are even readily available to the general public.

I jokingly say they probably deliver you drinks and food in these seats.  At that point a lady comes by and takes the order of the kids in front of us.  Elliott quickly snatches some pictures so that in case they were to find us out and move us to the real seats we could  prove that these seats exist and we were indeed in them.  Eventually we settled into our reality for the evening.  We did eventually order a burger, cracker jacks, and 2 beers, mine was an Anchor Steam (a deep amber beer… but still no headache today!).

The game was great except for the end, they lost in the 13th inning – yes it was a long game.  The Giants made a triple play, which was amazing to see in person.  It turns out you don’t see one of those everyday, the last triple play the Giants made at home was in 1980!  We left after the Padres scored 4 runs in the 13th inning.  The problem with taking the BART is if you miss the last train around midnight you are stuck so we wanted to make it back so we could come home.  The bummer is they had fireworks after the game last night, and the big booms are my favorite, but we missed them…

So pretty much I will never be able to watch a baseball game in the same way again.  I will always remember those seats.  I think there is a chance we will get those tickets again, Brian thru out some other dates when we talked.  Now I owe him dearly, I felt like I bent over backwards for them already as client, but now I am indebted.

I do have a few random things that I have thought of lately that I will share.  First is I am working to get the word ‘try’ out of my vocabulary.  We all know what ‘try’ means.  I am going to try to eat better.  I am going to try to go the gym more often.  I am going to try to leave work earlier.  It means I am not really going to do it, because for one reason or another I am not fully committed to the idea, but if I say I will try to do it, at least that shows effort and I don’t have to feel bad when I don’t succeed, well at least I tried.

The other funny word in my life is ‘just’.  Elliott and I use this one all the time. I am just giving you a hard time.  I am just asking.  I am just saying.  These statements usually follow an otherwise rude comment that then is washed away by saying I am just giving you a hard time.  Now that we are aware of it we are both trying to stop…

Other than that I feel like crap today and I look like I got hit by a bus, not really sure whats up with that.  My eyes are all puffy.  And I slept for almost 14 hours!  We had some early PF Chang’s for dinner, I gorged myself with chow mien and crab wontons!  And I had to drink this crappy beer that Elliott accidentally ordered.  It is an inside joke between us that I like the heavier beers.  Normally our servers will hand the light colored beer to me and the dark colored beer to Elliott and we will switch.  So last night I order a Fat Tire, a darker but not real dark beer.  And Elliott orders some beer I have never heard of, think it was called Chimay, he says its some fancy light Belgium beer he has had before.  Well he sees the bartender pouring it and says oops thats not what I thought it was.  It was darker than my Fat Tire and had some strange particulate matter in it that kept fizzing till the end.  So I took one for the team and said I would drink the darker beer.  But I think those particulates did something funny to me.  Anyway I was out like a light when we got home, first asleep on the couch and later moved into the bedroom.  But seriously I look like I stayed up all night crying to Steel Magnolias not like I slept a lovely and well deserved 14 hours.  And I feel like crap.  Oh I forgot to tell you I have an eye twitch!  Thankfully it is my left eye which Irene says in Chinese culture is the lucky eye to twitch, apparently the right eye twitch is unlucky.  So the eye twitch is back this morning too.  Last night the beer made it go away.  Perhaps a bloody marry is in order…