Birthday Blogging

Today is officially my birthday! Figured I'd get a quick blog in today. I'm a whopping 27 years old... *sigh* ...which leaves only 3 more years in my twenties. But I'm not concerned, life has been great to me lately and I owe a lot to my new, positive, "Make It Happen" mentality that I've had all year. I've met so many new people this year, friends that I plan to keep long-term and not just seasonal, and I've kept up with my older, closer friends as well. Loving every minute of 2010, I celebrated my birthday this glorious year by just spending it with as many friends as I could, new and old!

I started the festivities off at my place around 5pm on Saturday by watching the Cardinals preseason game with my good friends from high school, Kyle, Jeff, and Mike. Thanks guys for coming down to hang out with me! People eventually started coming over throughout the night and we got several good games of Fingahs and Flipcup in. I think I drank 7 bottles of Guinness, another 4-5 Coors Lights, and a couple of gin and vodka shots before I hit up O'Malleys on 4th. Yeah, I've been going there a lot lately but I like the venue and the scene enough where it hasn't gotten old.

For my birthday, I wanted to stick out a little, but nothing too crazy. I decided to go with a nice dress shirt and a tie hanging around my neck. At first I was planning to just do the d-bag outfit solo, but my friends wanted in on the fun so you'll see some of them wearing my ties as well. When I got to the bars, I was drunk, but not yet smashed, so people proceeded to buy me several shots, beers, and throw in a hand-grenade. :) By the end of the night of was pretty wasted and when I got home, I passed out and missed the after party at my place. :( But I was happy to survive (I didn't pray to the porcelain god) and had a blast celebrating my birthday! Thanks to everyone who came out to see me!!!

Spontaneous Wing Eating Contest

Last night I was hanging out with a bunch of buddies over at the Fox and the Hound for the typical Tuesday night festivities: food, $2 pints, Buck Hunter, free pool, darts, and chess etc. The Fox and the Hound is a great hangout spot and usually bumpin' on Tuesdays, but last night was the first time I have ever seen a wing-eating contest there. I had already eaten a bunch of wings and cheese fries for dinner, so when I heard about the contest, I was way too full to be interested or excited for it. However, pretty much everyone in our group signed us up, so we decided to stick around for a while and see what it'd be like. Worst case, you get some free wings and it's not like you're obligated to eat them all, right?

Eight of us sat down at a table while several spectators gathered around. Our group of friends made up 75% of the contestants, LOL. They gave us a shot of rum to get our competitive juices flowing, then they brought out plates holding a dozen hot wings each. The contest wasn't "all-you-can-eat" like I first imagined (and where I think the "Bottomless Box" would've stood a better chance), it was based on speed-eating alone. Whoever finished their 12 wings first would win a $25 gift certificate. I had never tried eating wings quickly before, and about 7 wings through, my jaw was really starting to hurt. When I was on wing #8, the leader was already on his last wing, so I gave up knowing I had no chance to win the thing and based on how full I already was. However, my buddy Teqas came up a half-wing short of winning it all! I learned a lot from participating in the contest. I was trying to pound wings by pulling all the meat off at once and chewing away. The winner ate these things like corn cobs, limiting the amount of work his mouth had to do, so I get the strategy now. There is a video you can watch and it's already on Facebook, but since it's over 500MB and 7 minutes long, I'll leave it there instead of uploading it again to my Blog.

In the end, this contest turned out to be a ton of fun even though I didn't perform as well as I would've hoped to. And for a dozen free tasty wings and a free shot of rum, one can't complain with that! Definitely hoping to get another crack at something like this again someday!

Matt's Entry: Recipe for White Wine Angel Hair Pasta

Matt was the winner of the August 4th contest on my blog and chose for me to give him one of my easy yet delicious new recipes that I've recently discovered. Out of the dishes I offered him here is the one he picked.

White Wine Angel Hair Pasta

Ingredients:
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup white wine
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 lemon
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Optional: diced chicken breasts, shrimp, scallops, or veggies

Directions:
1. In saucepan or pot, combine broth, wine, heavy cream, shallots, garlic, and juice squeezed from the lemon.
2. Cook on high heat for several minutes to reduce liquid, then stir in butter until melted, then add flour into sauce until fully mixed.
3. Reduce to medium-high heat and let it cook some more. At this point I would add any optional meats/veggies but they would need to be cooked separately before you add them to the sauce.
4. Serve over angel hair pasta and add salt and pepper if needed and enjoy!

Depending on what you serve the pasta with, you may or may not want to add those optional meats and vegetables. I'm sure you could throw in anything that sounds good and that's the fun with cooking. You can be creative and let your experience take over the recipe.

Shown below is the end result, served with breaded chicken breast. For the white wine, I chose Sauvignon Blanc by Concannon, which I chose based on reviews and value, but any of the white wines should work well (maybe avoid the pinkish colored ones). Good luck and have fun!!!

Nate's Entry: Scottsdale Weekend

Nate was the winner of the July 11th contest on my blog and he chose for me to blog about the weekend I visited him, so Nate, this entry is for you buddy!

I visited Nate this past weekend while his fiance was out of town, which allowed us to do all kinds of bachelorish stuff. Haha, actually all it meant was that we'd be hanging out without Elizabeth around, but not like that wouldn't happen anyway when she's around 'cause Elizabeth is very cool.

I got into town around 5pm on Friday and we had dinner at Carolina's Mexican Food on Cactus and 24th (recommended by Chet). I got a Chorizo burrito enchilada style, which was quite satisfying, while Nate got the Oaxaca Special - WTF Nate!?!?

Whenever I go to Phoenix and Scottsdale, I literally try to see everyone I know while I'm in town. I know several people, so trying to see everyone is usually very exhausting and requires me driving to all parts of town. But hey, you know me, I make it happen this year! So after our mexi-dinner, we went to Doug's house to play poker with Matt and Yuan. Just a quick 2-hour cash game with 10 and 20 cent blinds. Kevin joined in the fun as well; a great decision on his part as he walked away the big winner.


Since we were so close to Tempe, Nate and I decided to go out on Mill since neither of us had been there in forever. Yuan tagged along while we met up with Kyle at the Tavern. It was 10:30 and the place was kind of dead, but that didn't stop me from taking advantage of Buck Hunter. :D

Meanwhile, CJ happened to be coincidentally celebrating her birthday weekend that night on Mill too. Her and her friends were at the Cue Club, but when we walked by, the line had to be 50 people long... We punted and headed to Hooters instead to grab a beer and some wings and eventually CJ and her crew headed to the Tavern. Despite already being there earlier, we decided to go back and meet up with them.

What a difference an hour can make 'cause the place all of sudden was PACKED. Shown below is Nate being a clown on the dance floor.

The crowdedness didn't stop Kyle from doing what he does at bars. No, I'm not talking about Hurricane Kyle, I'm talking about Golden Tee!

We eventually left Mill and Nate, Yuan, and I were craving some Fili-B's, so we stopped at the one near Doug's house. When we got there, some goofball was playing with fire sticks in the parking lot in the pouring rain. LOL. Wish we had those kind of streetshows in Tucson.

I live in Tucson where Mexican fast food joints are very plentiful, but for some reason I continued to eat them while I was up in Phoenix. Mmm...carne asada burritos with extra guacamole never get old: anytime, anyplace!

The next day, Kyle, Nate, and I went to play golf at the Camelback Golf Course that Brad works at. Very pretty course on what was originally a gorgeous day, but unfortunately it started raining after we had only gotten through 5 holes. UGH. And when I say rain, I mean Flash Flood pouring! Unbelievable.

In the pic below, the branch that Nate is holding is one he sawed off with a golf ball. LOL.

So instead of golfing all afternoon, Nate and I went back to his house and randomly watched Roadhouse on TV. *punch* ROADHOUSE. :P New contest: first person quote where that comes from gets to pick a blog entry! Hehe. And no, the answer is not Roadhouse itself.

I stopped by my parent's house for dinner before I set out for Kyle's girlfriend Jamie's birthday party at their house in Scottsdale. Kyle had been working on remodeling his pool and it turned out great!

I was also very happy to see guest appearances by Puza, Tom, and Josh!

And of course with Josh there, we had plenty of Cornhole to play. But man, it was just not my night. I literally lost in every drinking game I played, Beer Pong and Cornhole. Ahh well.

I left the party around 10 and then headed out to Old Town were CJ was continuing birthday weekend. They started at Mulligan's and then we bounced to some club that I don't remember the name of. I do remember paying $8 a drink, something I definitely don't miss about Scottsdale clubs. $8 for a rum and coke. FML!

I ended the night by making a pit stop at Senor Taco. Diablo Shrimp Burrito baby! Haha, wow, I did NOT eat healthy this weekend.

The weekend ended with lunch with my parents and they love to eat in the Chandler area. They introduced me to a new noodle-house (China Magic Noodle) that's probably been open for less than 3 months. It was delicious and I'm happy to see a good noodle house finally open in Phoenix.

Although I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to, such as Mike, Jeff, and Sam, Scottsdale was still a blast as always! Looking forward to being back there for a week towards the end of the month!