New Bowling Ball!

Today I ordered a new bowling ball, the BYTE from Storm Bowling.  The last ball I purchased, the Storm Gravity SHIFT, was my first reactive ball I ever owned and I was really happy with it for the 6 years I had been bowling with it.  However, bowling balls do reach an end of life eventually after so many rolls down the lane.  I had taken my Gravity Shift to be revitalized a couple years ago, and while I have still seen my average go up since owning the ball, I felt like it was time for a new ball.

The Gravity SHIFT was an entry level ball at the time, which I bought for $100 off bowlingball.com (no drilling included).  The BYTE is a $250 ball that was $160 on bowlingball.com and included free shipping, so I was very happy with the price.  I figure it is time to take my game to the next level, and equipment definitely contributes to success.  I am so excited to try it out this season, which starts on September 11th!

It's been a while since our team has won a championship in the IBM & Friends bowling league, mostly because my team's player averages have somewhat peaked, so we are receiving less pins of handicap to help boost our score.  I'm hoping to advance my game with this new ball, which has nearly identical specifications as my previous ball, and get back into the winner's circle!  And while a 200 average might not happen right away, that is also another goal for this ball's lifetime!

4th of July with Mike in Alexandria

It had been a while since I've left town for the 4th of July.  It had also been a couple years since I visited my friend Mike in D.C.  He actually had additional reasoning why this 4th of July in D.C. would be more special than others, but we'll get to that...

I arrived in D.C. late on Wednesday night, having scheduled a long trip to visit Mike who now owns a townhouse in Alexandria, living with his girlfriend Keri of 4 years.  Mike had asked if I'd be hungry when I landed and I told him I was good, but I'd probably be very thirsty.  I asked him to get a 12-pack of Yeungling for us.  Even though it's really nothing special, they don't sell this beer on the west coast, so I'm always inclined to get it when I'm on the east coast.  When we got to his house that night at around 11pm, we hung outside on his back patio, having some beers, catching up, and discussing the weekend planned ahead.  We ended up killing the 12-pack of Yeungling and an additional 6-pack of Sweet Water Pale Ale before calling it a night at 4am. LOL.  So much for an easy first night...

On Thursday morning, Mike's friend Steven stormed into his house, trying to wake both of us up.  I felt like I was in college again: shortened sleep after a night of heavy drinking, being awoken by a very loud man with way too much energy, screaming that it was time to get up. LOL. Since Keri was away at work, this was the only time Mike had time to go to Costco and grab supplies for the weekend.  Steven and Mike ended up getting about $900 in food and booze for the couple of parties they had planned the next two days.

After stocking up and storing everything at Steven's place, Mike and I went to Ted's Montana Grill for lunch.  Out of all the places Mike took me to the last time I visited, no other restaurant's food stood out like Ted's, known for their bison burgers!  I got one with guacamole, jalapenos, and pepperjack, cooked rare to perfection and it was phenomenal.  I also had forgotten how amazing their fries were.

The rest of Thursday, Mike and I took things pretty chill.  Mostly we just hung out at his place playing Halo 4 and watching baseball.  We figured we'd take it a little easier that night since there was a lot coming up in the next day.

The 4th of July was on a Friday and part of Mike's plan all along was to use the holiday as an opportunity to propose to Keri, a fairly influential factor in my decision to come out here this weekend.  His plan was to go to the waterfront near King Street and do the asking there.  My story was supposed to be that I was gonna meet up with my friend Ben in Chinatown to get some drinks while this was all going down.  The 3 of us got on the metro and they got off at King Street Station, where I was supposed to get off on the next stop and head to Joe Theismann's for happy hour (the eventual destination after the proposal).  Unbeknownst to Mike, my plan was to actually snipe pictures of the proposal without him knowing it.  So instead, I took an Uber immediately after I got off the train and went to the location where Mike had told me the asking would go down.  I waited for 40 minutes with camera in hand, but never saw them. :( I even had my friend Chris (who was coming down from Jersey for the weekend as well) drive around to try and spot them for me.  Later I would find out that Mike changed the location and he didn't tell anyone because he didn't think anyone would be following him.  Oh well, I got some nice pictures of the waterfront anyway...

Chris, his wife Priya, and I met up with Mike, Keri, and a bunch of their friends at Joe's later that afternoon.  Several people had come out for the "engagement party", including a couple of Keri's friends from Pennsylvania without her knowing.  When asked if Keri had an idea, she said she had no clue whatsoever.  The only thing that might've tipped her off was why I was coming to D.C. this weekend.  Nonetheless, Mike's plan all came together almost perfectly and we enjoyed several drinks at Joe's followed by a house party back at Mike and Keri's later that night.  Shoutouts to Herman, Aaron, Head, Meg, Brian, Steph, Matt; several people who came out for Mike and Keri's party.

The next day there was a BBQ at Steven's place, which is at most a mile away from where Mike and Keri's home is.  We pretty much spent the whole day there, eating burgers, brats, boiled mussels, and fish fry, watching World Cup, and playing drinking games.  Steven invented Connect Four Flip Cup, which requires a player to finish their cup and flip it successfully before being able to place a chip in the Connect Four board.  The day went by pretty fast as one could imagine.

Sunday was mostly a day set for recuperation.  While there was some talk of going to the Nationals game, Mike and I felt it would be more relaxing to just hang out at his place for most of the day, watching the Wimbledon Championship and some baseball.  I had already been to a Nats game the last time out, so I wasn't dying to go.  Hey, these days of relaxation are my kind of vacation anyway.  And I didn't travel out to D.C. to see the city, I really just traveled there to see Mike.  It felt like the times we're back in Scottsdale at the same time, to just hang out, only that it was Alexandria instead.  After grabbing some sushi out in town for dinner, Mike and I ended the night by finishing the Halo 4 co-op campaign.

On Monday I was set to fly back home to Tucson, but with a 3pm departure from D.C., Mike and I went to get lunch at Pasara Thai in the city.  However, right after we put in our order, the fire alarm goes off!  We're like, is this for real?  Is it a drill?  Everyone in the restaurant proceeds to evacuate and turns out the entire building's fire alarm was going off.

I began to worry that I would not have enough time to eat lunch and make it in time for my flight, but Mike was confident that the alarm would be resolved shortly and the food would be prepped quickly.   The fire trucks would follow soon after, only to realize that it was a false alarm.  Nonetheless, we did wait for our food, but had to get it to go and I ended up eating my lunch in the car, lol.  Anyway, an interesting end to yet another memorable weekend with one of my best friends!