March Calls For Lack of Snow and Stasis

Short and sweet.

Like the next three days are going to go because I selfishly demand it.  The countdown to Mastodon Weekend in G-Vegas is getting tighter and tighter with every email received and the decision to go this year becoming easier and easier.  When I hear a podcast from Gambling Tales or Dr. Pauly's much anticipated Lost Vegas book it stings that my friends come in the form of auditory bites instead of asking the stool next to me if they'd like another round (to the answer is:  duh.).  But, thanks to the awesome planning skills of such friends we get events around North America (that includes Canada of course, unless the border patrol shut things down after that hockey game to end all games.  Seriously, even if you're not a hockey fan per se, the beautiful savage side of this lightning-quick sport should have drawn you your local Olympics carrier to watch in awe just how jaw-dropping the play can be.  Congrats to our Northern friends for Team Canada's victory, may the fans in the U.S. be gracious in defeat as it was more about the nipple raising excitement and less about the color of the shiny metal disks around the player's necks).

Tangents.  I love them.

Anyway, come Thursday I will be knee deep in mid 50s temperatures and bloggers as standing in three feet of snow no longer appeals to me for the reason that sane people shouldn't be subjected to not feeling their fingers for six months at a time **shakes tiny globial warming fist up Al Gore's acai berry colon-cleaned ass**.  Should I see my shadow in a G-Vegas snowdrift, it would take some serious wheelchair-inducing drinking to prevent freaking the hell out.  Not really.  Just a conversation at a local bar with no national presence or handbook on how to sing Happy Birthday in a canned corporate manner.  Bars with local flavors make the beer taste better and liquor flow smoother, as an aside story I remembered Otis posting about "buying local" more often and tried it this weekend:

My wife needed some Mike Light Hard Lemonade and there was a choice between going the same distance in opposite directions for the 12 pack.  In one direction a well-known mega booze store that would certain have what she wanted, the other a smaller literal mom and pop shop that use to sponsor my mom's bowling team back in the days my terrorizing fellow kids for quarters in the Texa-Tonka Bowling Lanes arcade.  With a turn down Bass Lake Blvd. I pulled into Princeton Liquors who's website design this one's ass sideways.  Joel still mans the register, as I walked in with Kyra in tow to make the quick purchase and help set up for my father-in-law's birthday party.  But, the spot where the 12 packs for the Light was empty as they only had 6-packs available which increased the cost $3.  I pointed it out, and while Kyra was snacking on a Lemon flavored Dum-Dum sucker, he said "just grab two of em' and I'll take $2 off each one".

You sir have a repeat customer.  Of course I've gone there several times in the past because their craft beer selection is one of the best in the state thanks his son Bill and because of the willingness to deal, they made an additional sale when I grabbed a bomber of Goose Island Demolition after Bill's suggestion.  But, from now on if I want to grab a 12 pack for the wife I'll be heading north to the "older" section of Maple Grove versus the veener of the "newer" side.

Ok, this isn't going short and sweet despite banging away around 5,000 words at PokerStarsBlog last night.   I took a college placement exam last night which was simple enough except for the fact there was zero study materials and I haven't taken a proper learning course since my final exams at NHCC in 1999.  The grammar section was brutal, as you can tell by my sentence structure here over the years, grammar is not something I incorporate into a post, rather just letting the words stick where they may.  I loathe the fact I may need to re-take Freshman Comp because of my butchering of this simple test.  Not fun, but again neccessary to move forward with the academic return and a need to learn things versus skating by as done in the past.

And maybe that's why I take these trips, love my second job, and find myself one month removed from studying with kids half my age.  The need to stretch, to develop friendship that wouldn't otherwise be possible, to challenge has finally bubbled back up after years of stasis it's time before my kids get into fifteen different activities to have that trampoline of education ready to bounce off of should the economy decide to continue its downward spiral.  And who knows, maybe with a few writing courses you might get more readable junk here and online poker reporting at PokerStars.