Meet the newest member of my "You Got Humped" Club - Joey (Cathy's brother):
Check out a preview of our engagement pictures here! April is an awesome photographer who has a great eye for capturing the moment and a sixth sense for creativity. Highly recommended and wonderful to work with! Great work, April!
It’s 5 PM on a Friday and I’m on the train leaving work. It’s been a long time since I’ve left right at 5. And there’s lots of time before the 8:30 PM flight out to Washington. Yabba-dabba-...poo??? Awww, crap. The iced venti non-fat extra-caramel caramel macchiato that my friends at work got me is hitting a lot earlier than I had expected and it’s hitting hard. It must be from all that milk in the venti. Or maybe it’s the two extra espresso shots I’m not used to getting since I usually order grande’s. Either way I gotta go and I gotta go right now. I see Cathy in the parking lot with our bags and I can tell she’s confused when I tell her she needs to go back to the car. She can drive as crazy as me when she needs to so I’m squeezing those cheeks and holding it in for dear life. We get back home and I feel so much better. Back to the airport. Not good. I go again as soon as we get there. While I’m sitting in the stall, I look at my watch and realize that we’re starting to cut it close. I’ve never missed a flight before, and I didn’t want the reason for the first time to be because I had a case of the squirts. We check in baggage and get through security with just enough time for me to make one more pit stop before getting to the gate. I sit on the toilet and this time I feel relieved. Oh shit, where’s the toilet paper??? There’s a new unused roll that’s up in the dispenser and I can’t reach up there to get it started. And my plane is boarding! Ahhhhhh!
That is how my weekend started.
It's 11 PM on a Friday night and I'm stuck waiting in line at a car rental place after a long and cramped typical flight from Chicago to Seattle. The clueless customer at the counter makes it pretty obvious to the entire world that he's not from around there, yet he declines the handy navigation feature. Better watch out, Washington, a tourist is on the road so the streets are no longer safe. Not to worry though because after miraculously getting a rental, he comes back a few minutes later and asks if there are other cars available…smaller cars…a car he can actually drive. That’s right, he wanted to return the car he got because he didn’t know how to drive it…and it was an automatic! I’ve got to admit, there are lots of things I don’t know how to do (float, tread water, drive by a funeral home without shouting something inappropriate), but I would rather spill the beans and admit to getting a freaking pedicure before losing all manhood and telling everyone and my mother that I wasn’t able to figure out how to drive a car. I’m still waiting in line.
So that is how my weekend started.
It’s 3:30 AM on a Saturday and I’m in a rental minivan on the way to Anacortes. Between today and the day before I’ve slept a total of a whopping, get this, four hours. Kinda funny in a sleep-deprived sort of way that he who has the least amount of sleep is the one driving the six other people in the car who happen to be sleeping because our nice family-sized minivan has a DVD player in it and someone decided it would be a good idea to play Happy Feet. I really tried to give it a chance, but I had to stop playing the movie after hearing the lyrics, “Don't push me 'cuz I'm close to the edge, I'm trying not to lose my head.” Too late, I lost my head a long time ago.
And that is how my weekend started.
There are tons of movies that have alternate endings, but why aren’t there any with alternate beginnings?
Finally...I have come back to Detroit! The last time this pie-eatin, jabroni-beatin son of a gun was in the pimp capital of the world was almost four years ago for a concert which filled Ford Field almost to capacity. Now, I return to Ford Field for the biggest global phenomenon in all of sports entertainment – WrestleMania 23 – along with a record shattering 80,103 people in attendance. Here’s a breakdown of this weekend’s highlights:
Friday
I used to think that traveling was fun, but after spending almost two weeks out of every year for the last few years practically living in airports, going out of town has become downright stressful. Getting to Detroit was no different, having to get through a trains, plane and automobile relay race against time to check-in before registration closed at the hotel. After dropping my stuff off at my room, I decided to search Detroit for a late night dinner and ended up in their Greektown area. Saganaki looks cool, but eating a huge slab of flaming cheese all alone on a Friday night in Detroit of all cities can be very lonely.
Saturday
C.M. Punk’s in my autograph session! There were so many questions I wanted to ask:
How are the Cubbies going to do?
Where did you go to high school?
Since you’re straight-edge, can I get hardcore with Maria?
Too bad the chick in front of me became a woman (i.e. Total Bitch) and started berating Chicago’s Very Own over something that happened in the past to the point Torrie Wilson had to tag herself in to make the save. By the time the smoke cleared and I got to C.M., all I could say was “Uhhh, so can I have a straight-edge pose?”
Next up was a picture with Mrrrrrrrrrrrr...Ken-ne-daaaay (3 second pause)...Ken-ne-daaaaaaaaaay. One moment I’m walking towards him wishing Mr. Money in the Bank well in his match. The next moment from out of nowhere, I’m being body searched by Triple B (Big, Bald and Black) Security because he thinks I’m carrying a weapon. What’s up with that? Hey, at least it gave Kennedy a laugh.
Getting autographs made me hungry so it was time to get on the People Mover and search Detroit for food again. Detroit’s known for its Coney Island hot dogs (hot dog topped with chili, mustard and onions), so I walked from Ford Field over to Lafayette Coney for a couple. Coney dogs are good, but I’ll take a Chicago dog from Jimmy’s on Grand and Pulaski or Gene & Jude’s on Grand and River Road any day.
In the day and a half that I’ve been walking around, I’ve seen or met a bunch of people from the U.K., some Aussie chicks, an Irishmen dressed as Ric Flair, a bunch of Japanese tourists that I thought were related to Funaki and quite a few Canadians. All these people came from around the globe, yet I haven’t seen or met a single person from Detroit. What a shithole.
Sunday
There’s no better way to start off your day than having a nice big breakfast watching highlights of past WrestleManias. Mick Foley made an appearance at the Bacon, Bagels and Biceps Brunch which was pretty cool and even cooler was that he was presenting awards to special Make-a-Wish kids. In keeping with last year’s awkward moment, I was able to make my presence known among a bunch of these kids:
Foley: So what match are you looking forward to?
Make-a-Wish kid: Undertaker vs. Batista
Foley: And who do you want to win?
Wish kid: Batista!
Me: If Batista wins, we riot!
Rest of the crowd: Batista sucks! Batista sucks!
I don’t think Foley was happy with me turning the crowd against the Wish kid because he gave me the evil eye and had us pretend to root for the Ultimate Warrior of the new millennium to make the kid happy.
After the brunch it was onto Ford Field. WrestleMania was more than 6 hours away, but being one of the first people at the gate was a pretty big deal to me. The brief moment that exists when you’re all alone in an empty stadium with nothing but the ring, the stage and thousands of empty seats in between is an experience that very few ever get. Over 80,000 people from all 50 states and 23 countries from around the world, and I’m #1 at the gates…now that’s cool...at least to me.
If you’re a true wrestling fan, there is no event bigger than WrestleMania, and being part of it was just as special as last year in Chicago and also my first time in Seattle. Getting to my seat and watching people sitting at ringside scream in sheer joy and excitement over their great seats brought me back to last year when I did the exact same thing with my WrestleMania brothers and practically lost my voice before the show. And looking at the sea of humanity that filled a football stadium reminded me of how I did the same thing at Safeco Field, amazed at how a single wrestling event could fill a baseball stadium. This year’s WrestleMania theme – All Grown Up – pretty much summed up why this WrestleMania was going to be special to me. Being in the city and the place that started it all, I’ve truly come full circle.
Now for some WrestleMania observations:
Nature/Landscapes
Places/Events
Friends
Erwin and Cathy
Erwin