Zane Patrick's Day

Big foot sighting, or Steve McKenna?

Some things are worth forfeiting a yacht race for. In this case, it was Zane Patrick's Day, a celebration of drinking and a chance for fans to drink some beers with the host of Three Sheets and Drinking Made Easy, Zane Lamprey. And no doubt an easy way for him to get a little extra cash.

As much as I love excuses to drink and party, I'm not a huge fan of St. Patrick's Day mostly due to the throngs of obnoxious drunks pretending to be Irish. The pretending to be Irish part is what's annoying, not the drunk and obnoxious part. Side note: corned beef is NOT Irish... Anyway, since this was the week before and not technically a St. Patty's Day celebration, I said let's go.

150 bucks for 7 hour open bar including brunch? I'd spend that much in two hours without eating. Hanging out with Zane and Steve was just bonus. I did have a race scheduled for that day, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices...

Ran into Zane again at the Shore Club. Man, I hate that place.

Really?

After several weeks of shitty weather and neglect, I decided to take a look at my bicycle. I was riding it to work for a while, which was great, but I switched offices and now it's too far of a ride for me to be bothered with. As such, the bike has been locked up at the marina bicycle rack and exposed to the elements--and apparently thieves.

I took the bike to shop for a tune-up, lube-up, and to check out a rattly headset that I thought I had fixed. As I was returning to the boat with the lock, I noticed that the cable portion had been cut at. Someone had tried to snip through with some bolt cutters or something, but only managed to cut the rubber coating and expose the steel cable. Idiots. All they would have gotten was the front wheel, anyway. I guess that would be useful if you needed a front wheel. They also made off with the cheap headlight that was on the handlebars, so I guess they got something.

So I'm not really out anything but a $20 headlight, but seriously, who does that shit? Get a life.

40 days and 40 nights

Day one, and look at that face already

I'm not religious myself, but I feel others should be able to believe in whatever they want, from Jesus to Pikkiwokki the mud god. That being said, It gets a little annoying when everyone and their brother wants to tell you what they gave up for Lent. Who cares. I've never been fond of the idea of "giving up" things, it seems a bit negative and I don't really think denying yourself something you enjoy does anyone any good (unless it's for health reasons, of course).*

Which brings us to this post. My disinterest in others' self-denial ends when there is a direct effect to myself. A buddy of mine has decided to stop drinking alcohol for the next 40 days. It's not really anything to do with Lent, but the timing makes it convenient and gives an excuse to have drunken Easter party. His motive is weight loss, as he has apparently gotten heavier than he'd like to be.

How does this affect me? This is my go-to drinking buddy. Who is going to keep up with me as I start the weekend with happy hour on Thursday and continue until I have to go work on Monday morning? What am I supposed to do now, drink by myself? What about balance? Should I increase my consumption to make up for his and prevent the universe from tipping over?

The next 40 days will probably be pretty uninteresting, actually. I've abstained from drinking for longer before, and it's not really a big deal. At most I'll have a few opportunities to tease him with a tasty cocktail and a designated driver to save me some cab fair. If anything does come of it, I'll be sure to post it here. Cheers!

* I'm not a doctor

UPDATE: this endeavor lasted all of almost three weeks. Funny thing is, it was my view of self denial and this blog post that changed his mind...

Lady Craig

Invented this a couple of weeks ago. Based on a pisco sour, I used blood orange for the sweet and left out the bitters. Delicious! Garnished with a lime wheel and a cherry, it looks quite pretty. The name was just a convenient way to make fun of a rather sensitive buddy of mine. He still refuses to try one.

While I was playing with the blood oranges and since I ran out of limes, I came up with a Flaming Blood Orange Daiquiri using a healthy dose of 151. Very nice!