The Awesome – Day 20 : The start to my Jeopardy fantasy...
Ever since I saw White Men Can’t Jump and learned you could actually submit to be on the show Jeopardy, I have wanted to do it. Rosie Perez is one of my all-time favorite actresses simply for the role she played in that movie. That and how fun her accent is to imitate. I’ve got it pretty down pat.
However, I have not made it to the big stage as of yet. But yesterday, I got close… with an appearance at Geeks Who Drink trivia night at the Irish Snug in Denver with my friends Lesley, Sean, Caitlin, Rik and JT.
Geeks Who Drink is a chain trivia game hosted at various bars on various nights throughout various states. The questions range in category from audio “name that artist and song” to “The worst vacation spots on Earth” and beyond. The difference here between Geeks Who Drink and Jeopardy, is your well of useless trivia is not enough, your clever quotient also factors in. This is where I falter and where JT shines. Ask me who assassinated RFK, where and with what weapon and I’m all set. Put the same question in the form of a riddle and I’m hopeless.
Regardless, it was fun and I hope to be invited back.
Maybe my other Awesome friends would like to come one day? Jess? Tawnya?
What’s better than drinking nine PBRs on a Monday afternoon/evening? Recycling the empty cans into a sweet wind chime for your Awesome friend Lesley, that’s what.
While sitting at my desk yesterday afternoon drinking a PBR and contemplating what to do to get Awesome, it dawned on me like a bad Windows 7 commercial… make a wind chime with these empty cans. And to make it even more Awesome, I will give it to Lesley because she loves PBR more than anyone I know.
So, the process began.
It started with drinking and ended with being drunk… and a sweet wind chime that sounds like a bunch of empty beer cans clanging together… because it is.
Even thought Lesley loves PBR the most, I know Jess and Tawnya have an affinity for it as well.
So, okay. If you’ve already read Tawnya‘s blog, you know her, Heather and I went to the Renaissance Festival yesterday. If you haven’t, we did. And it was Awesome.
Renaissance Fairs are variable overloads of stimulation. From pirate themed shacks to green wood nymphs roaming the grounds to the World’s Largest Rocking Horse, there is, in description, not a lot of consistency. But when on the grounds, it all feels very normal and cohesive. Well, as normal as grown men walking around on stilts and women selling elephant rides can be. In the middle of Colorado. In the year 2010.
Tawnya used attending the Renaissance Fair as her Awesome. And as the rules of 30daysofawesome.com go, two people can not do the same thing on the same day. Fair enough. There were plenty of other Awesome things happening in this sprawling complex of schizophrenia to discover my own Awesome within her Awesome. Cue Henna Tattoos.
I love tattoos. I have three permanent ones of my own, albeit small, but I just think they are fascinating. I often find myself rudely staring at people in crowds like a cocker spaniel examining their tattoos and imagining what prompted such displays of Chinese symbolism, frightening clowns and half lion/half man creatures. It’s intriguing.
I have often dreamed of a full sleeve tattoo of my own. But alas, my healthy Midwestern upbringing shudders at the thought of actually pursuing it. Again, cue Henna. A 2-4 week temporary alternative to the permanence of real ink. With Henna, you are free to experiment with body ink in ways similar to sexual experimentation college allowed… without fear of judgment or permanent harm. (Minus my roommate in college who will forever have to take a daily pill due to an ill-advised one-night stand that resulted in a very unfortunate STD.)
The lovely renaissance folk at the ye olde fair grounds were more than enthused to take my very modern visa and charge me $30 to give me a wildly drawn hand tattoo that you may have seen in pages of National Geographic featuring Indian culture. Dots, not feathers.
I love it. I can’t stop looking at it.
There were also copious amounts of other oddities that I would be remiss in not recounting here. I really couldn’t get over the fact that people working there literally never broke character, there was real jousting (to the death), and you could in fact eat a lamb shank with you hands like that was the most normal meal in the world. Great times.
Oh, and I had to share a video of this guy. He was KILLING it on the bell organ. Phantom of the Opera style. Really, really cool.
I know Lesley likes the Phantom. Not sure about Jess.
The Awesome – Day 17 : No Pants. No Pants. No Pants..
Sometimes you just gotta dance. With no pants on. On your 4th floor balcony. That faces a busy street. In the middle of the day. Because you had three too many Bloody Mary’s. Awesome.
I’m obsessed with HGTV and decorating. I have a lot of art on all of my walls from friends like Kurt Halsey and Erica Birkhold.
One thing I didn’t have, however, was a lot of photos of my family on the walls in any type of cohesive manner. So, I made an Awesome project for my new room in my new apartment. I started by choosing some select shots and putting them into photoshop. From there, I turned them black and white while leaving one item in the photo colorized.
I printed the photos out, bought some nice black frames at Target and created a photo collage for my wall. I think it’s pretty Awesome, and everyone needs family on their wall.
These girls are pretty much family, and also Awesome. Tawnya, Jess and Lesley.
It is quite possible that there is no place on earth more comfortable and calming than a bookstore. From early childhood on, I have been at peace in any place that is lined with books waiting to be indulged by my penchant for consumerism. So when I learned that one of my favorite authors, Sloan Crosley, was going to be right down the street at Denver’s Tattered Cover bookstore to do a reading from her new book of essays, How Did You Get This Number, I had to attend.
Sloane’s first book, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, is also a hilarious collection of essays that I had read about in various book reviews and picked up a few weeks back. I couldn’t put it down and would actually laugh out loud when by myself. Something I rarely do. Listening to Sloan read her own works yesterday only reiterated the voice I had of her in my head and sealed the idea I had of her talent as a story teller. She is uproariously funny and immensely talented with a knack for creating a hilariously dramatic telling of the most common events and goings on of 20-something females working to carve our their place in the world.
Additionally, she is a very warm and gracious person willing to chat about her path and sign any number of books for her fans. She signed both of mine. Thank you, Sloane.
Before logging off of Nog, please take a look at Sloane’s website. It is a mix of her stories, her creativity and personality. Two things, A) she has a permalink to the original Girl Talk game. For all of you late 80s, early 90s children, I hope you remember how awesome this game is. B) Sloane created dioramas — yes, the 3D scenes you had to create in middle school depicting the first Thanksgiving with Indians and Pilgrims in a shoebox. Her’s are much more elaborate — of many of her essays. Sloane Tanen started working with Sloane Crosely and the dioramas evolved and are now created with chickens. Please go see for yourself, they are amazing.
Today was one of my favorite Awesome days thus far. I love meeting people and sharing in their creativity. It truly is inspiring.
The Awesome – Day 14 : Around the world in 80 drinks.
Yesterday my interest was piqued when Matt Harvey and Chris Owen were downstairs, drinking beer and talking about Centro’s new marketing plan. Centro is a bar on Pearl Street in Boulder — formerly known as Rumba — that specializes in Latin American infused cuisine. This week, they took the theme one step further and started offering a Latin American Cocktail Passport. Essentially, they have specialty drinks of various Latin American countries and once you have purchased one, you get a stamp. When you have conquered the entirety of the passport and all the flavorful drinks within, you are rewarded with an amazing feast for two on the house.
So, being curious, and being Awesome, I went… after Harvey and I hiked/ran 5.5 miles from his house straight up Sanitas. Needless to say, I needed a drink. I opted for the Brazilian, in honor of their team doing so well in the World Cup thus far (so I’m told, I don’t really watch. Blasphemy, I know.) It was pink, and it was bursting with interesting flavors. Here is the description:
I don’t even know what half of those things are. But it turned out pink and delicious. Ironically, I had to order it with my real passport posing as my ID since the cop in Lafayette still has my driver’s license in his back pocket, dick wad. But I digress…
You would think, that I would have seen this giant structure before as it is a mere mile or so from my house. Alas, I had not.
Ian called me last night on my way home from work, while sweltering in the heat and traffic of 36. He suggested that to get Awesome, I visit the Little Man Ice Cream shop that is situated between my house and his in the Denver Highlands. I asked, “What makes going to get ice cream so Awesome?” He replied, “It’s in a giant milk jug.” Um, what? For those of you who know Ian, you know he rarely makes sense but he does have a pretty good idea of what Awesome is, so I trusted him.
I had to run to the shop, however, so as to not feel guilty about ingesting multiple scoops of ice cream.
So, Ian came to pick me up on his bike, cycled four miles while I ran and we ended up in LoHi at the Little Man Ice Cream shop. It was Awesome. This structure is 28 feet high, 15 feet wide and weights 14,000 pounds. Not only that, but the scooper servers wear traditional ice cream shop attire circa 1950′s.
In addition to the ice cream, they have a slide. One could not say they were 100-percent Awesome at a place like this unless the utilized all the the places potential. So, I slid the slide. First time since grade school, I’m pretty sure.
With ice cream in hand, of course. I opted for one scoop of Vanilla Bean and one scoop of Raspberry Lemonade Sorbet. Amazing combo.
One of the coolest things about this place is the way the utilize their business to help others. Read the sign that hangs next to the shop.
Here’s the sign that explains the origins of the place.
For the hottest day of the year so far, this trip was pretty Awesome. You know who else is hot? Jess, Lesley and Tawnya. They are Awesome, too.
It doesn’t get much more Awesome than this folks… I almost flew a plane. Well, not really. But I got to sit in the cockpit with Captain Mahoney, wear his pilot hat, and play with the buttons and gadgets on the control decks. He showed me which button lowered the wheels, which one put the flaps on the wings down and where he talked to the control tower. I mean, it was Awesome. It left a smile on my face the entire flight.
I was lucky enough to get upgraded to first class as well. That included a baller meal as well as all the wine I could drink. Oh, and warm cookies and nuts also. Not too shabby.
The nice folks at American Airlines definitely came through for me on Awesome Day 12. They may have just wooed me away from United… may have.
The Awesome – Day 11 : Historic Covington, GA or Hollywood of the South?.
The past few days I have been in the south visiting my friends Cari and Leeann. Cari lives in Covington, Georgia. Small, quaint little town, that, much to my surprise, has been the backdrop for over 55 movies and television shows. It is my understanding through a bit of research that Georgia offers great film tax incentives and Covington is rather small, out of the way and accustomed at this point to film crews so the locals don’t bother the celebrities too much.
Among the television shows filmed here were the first few episodes of the Dukes of Hazard, I’ll Fly Away, In the Heat of the Night and the currently running hit CW show, the Vampire Diaries. I was able to visit some of the locations that are used in the shows like the Newton County Courthouse that they use in Dukes of Hazard as well as the train tracks jumped by the General Lee and Mystic Grill that is a main location for Vampire Diaries.
Additionally, the Historic Square nestled in the middle of downtown Covington is a popular filming location for all the shows and the streets around the square is where the car crash scene takes place in the movie Remember the Titans. In addition to this heart warming film, My Cousin Vinny, Friday the 13th, Part VI, Cannonball Run, Halloween Two, The Family that Preys, and Miss Ever’s Boys, among others, have been filmed in Covington as well.
Cari and Graham gave me a tour of the town and I snapped a few pics. Some you can actually compare to scenes from the movies. Pretty cool. I made them look grainy, like a movie. Ha!
xoxo.
The courthouse in a scene from Dukes of Hazard.
The Courthouse yesterday.
Historic Covington Square in the Dukes of Hazard.
The square now.
Jed and Luke jumping the General Lee on Elm Street.
