Joisey Ken, Pepto-Bismal and the Porcelin Throne.

Well, my weekend started out innocently enough. Friday morning I had a meeting with a client and then it was off to the airport to pick up Joisey Ken. Fairly uneventful so far. I thought it would be a good idea to get our tailgate shopping done on Friday since we were going golfing on Saturday afternoon and had a party to go to on Saturday night. No worries still.

In a fit of practicality, I decided to call Gibson's Steak House just to confirm what I thought were 7:00 reservations, but what could have been 7:30 reservations. Much to my dismay, there were no reservations at all!! Ugh. Ken comes from Jersey and they lose my freaking reservations that I made on Monday (right after I made golf reservations by the way so the memory was vivid in my mind). So we went to the grocery store and would decide what to do while shopping. As it turns out, we decided to grab some porterhouse steaks, potatoes and asparagus and cook at home instead. Fine and dandy.

So after shopping we came home and started preparing the tailgate food. Ken was working on the bacon wrapped shrimp (which were all eaten so I guess they were good) while I started to work on the chili and preparing dinner.

Now for you grillers out there, there are many ways to cook a steak. Many people, Ken and several professionals as well I'm sure, profess the "one turn" method of cooking steak. You put the steak on one side and only flip it once before serving. Myself, I prefer to sear both sides to lock in the juices and flip two or three times. Well, Ken was having none of that. I'm not saying he gave me botulism, but I'm not saying he didn't. :-)

Everything was very good and we were stuffed.....maybe that was the problem. Then we played some pool (9-ball) and drank several Smithwicks. Maybe THAT was the problem.

(a little gross in this paragraph)

Whatever the cause: the steak, the Smithwicks, the Pepto-Bismal I took after the steak and Smithwicks, the airplane ride on Thursday, being at the airport on Friday, I woke up at about 3:00 a.m. and hurled like I haven't hurled in some time. In fact, I don't really remember the last time I threw up and it may have been when I had an inner ear infection almost a decade ago. Regardless, this was a triple flusher.....yep, three flushes. Yowza. And no flush was cheated believe me.

(end grossness)

Anyway, when I woke up Saturday, there wasn't much I could do. Our tee time wasn't until 12:50 though, so I thought maybe I'd recover and we headed out to the course after sleeping in (plus it was too late to cancel so we were paying the $110 for the round regardless). Well, I was struggling on the practice range and I didn't get better on the course. After nine holes, I had to send Ken out with the other two-some and I headed back to the car in the parking lot to sleep. I was cold, every joint ached and I was desperately exhausted just walking. Picture me sleeping in the reclined front seat of a 2002 Camry with a Mexican blanket in the parking lot of a $110 a round course. Pretty freakin' funny if you ask me.....though not while it was happening. No one bothered me surprisingly.

Needless to say we couldn't make the bachelor party to which I was invited Saturday night either, nor the Oktoberfest/house warming event. In fact, at around 10:30 I called my buddy Benny "the drunk", to see if he would go down to the game with Ken and do the tailgate thang with him two of my other softball buddies. He gladly accepted and the game was afoot as they say.

Sunday morning found me feeling little better, so I was happy to have made the call Saturday night. For Ken to fly out and then not make the most of the weekend was upsetting enough for me, so Sunday had to go well. The food, I guess, was good as was the booze and the four guys who went so the day was successful. Kenny said he had fun and the weather, despite a drizzle, was much better than the sub 10 degree weather we had last year when he came out for the Vikings/Bears game.

Today, just in time for the work week, I was feeling much better, though still not able to eat all that much. I've continued to get better as the day wore on and hopefully tomorrow I'll be closer to 90%.