It's Been A Long Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of fun (except the part where the Indians choked to the Red Sox). My birthday week was filled with fun adventures including the opportunity to meet one of my favorite writers, comedians and actresses, Amy Sedaris. A couple days later I went on my birthday goal bike ride from my house to my friend's house in Chagrin Falls (20 miles), and then spent the rest of the day at the Winking Lizard in Bedford, which is a lot more fun than it might sound. Apparently at the Winking Lizard you get a free birthday shot called "The Blowjob" which creates for good photo opportunities, but the taste was too sweet for me. We also taste tested the new wing sauces (spicy seasme and garlic parmesean) they are offering which got a four out of five wings ranking from me.

On my actual birthday we went to Niagara Falls. Before heading to Canada, we stopped in Buffalo for some recommended wings at Gabriel's Gate that were really good (four out of five wings). We had an amazing time in Niagara Falls and got a beautiful room overlooking the Falls at the Marriott. It was a great trip, but Canada is just so damn expensive that it makes it hard to go there anymore. Remember when the American dollar was actually worth something?

Halloween was this past weekend and I decided to do it up this year. I went as Captain Cock Block (Julie went as Q-Bert). For those of you that don't know what a cock block is, here is the definition according to Urban Dictionary: "An act of ill etiquette in which a male is speaking to one female in a group of females, and the alpha female creates a disruptive environment" Now just imagine that in human form, or just check out the slideshow below.

The Difference Between 31 and 32 is 40!

I was able to reach my goal of losing forty pounds by my birthday! Complete details of the best birthday weekend ever will follow later in the week!

Birthday Card Rating System

This birthday card from my sister and Julie gets five wings out of five wings:

Dear Mom and Dad:

Greetings from Cleveland! I hope the weather is lovely for your month-long vacation in South Carolina. It's great that you have all this free time to travel now. However after sitting on the beach for almost a month, you need to come home and cheer on the Indians. Not sure if you have heard or not, but they are one game away from the World Series. I know you are having a great time as you never answer your phones anymore when I try to call you, but you are missing a lot of excitement back home in Cleveland! (You may not answer my calls, but I at least know you read my blog.)

First Time Fantasy Footballer Part 2

In just under seven weeks, the first time fantasy footballer has gone from asking me what the position abbreviations are in football (QB, WR, RB, etc...) to sending me this message this morning: "Calvin Johnson is dead weight. I am going to pick up somebody else." On top of that she has more wins than me this season in our fantasy football league. As a matter of fact, the three last place teams in my league are the ones who I thought would have the most wins, and we have a combined record of 3-14-1. We are losing to people who don't know how the game is scored, and don't take people out on bye weeks. Last week I lost to the woman in first place, who hasn't made a roster change all year and only had six players playing in the game compared to my ten players. Now that's embarrassing. If this continues, I may have to step down as commissioner of this fantasy football league and let someone who doesn't know anything about football take over the reins.

Moose Wings

A friend recommended The Blue Moose Eatery in Parma for their wings. Once she said they had 41 different flavors to choose from, I was there. Though that advertising is false because three of the flavors were crossed off of the menu, so technically they only had 38 flavors to choose from. I like to make sure my readers get the true story!

The Blue Moose Eatery is a huge huge bar. There is a gigantic outside bar which looks like something right out of a Spring Break disaster story, and then the inside is like two sports bars put together. On this particular day, three hours after the Buckeyes had played and three hours before the Indians game, we were two of only five people in the place, so we knew the wings should at least be fresh. We ordered their top three recommended sauces: Triv Taco Tonka, Southern Belle and Billy Bob Cajun, and then we went with the default Hot Buffalo just to see how spicy it was. While the Southern Belle was not my favorite, it definitely had the most flavor. I preferred the Billy Bob Cajun because of the heat. The waitress who gave us excellent service, and I don't think that was just because we were the only ones eating there, seemed disppointed that we didn't like the Triv Taco Tonka as much as everyone else. It was a good sauce, but not good enough to be number one..for us at least. I think we are pickier than most palates in Parma.

Overall I give this place three wings out of five. Even though there were a lot of sauce choices, there wasn't a lot of sauce on the wings, which were inconsistently sized. However outside of the wings, the service was great and the bar was an awesome place to catch a game. After this rating, I am now officially a black belt on The Wingmasters site. They e-mailed me today to let me know my t-shirt is on the way.

All I Need In Life Is Free Alcohol And A Good Bike Trail

What a great weekend! We spent Friday night on a quest for free alcohol and were not disappointed. We went to the grand opening of an alternative bookstore near Ohio City called Suspect Thoughts that was serving free wine and cheese. After welcoming the new owners to Cleveland and sharing in some fine spirits, we were off to the Art Walk in Tremont. Asterisk Gallery was our destination because they were having an art opening for Arabella Proffer. We got there so late, they were already out of wine, but the owner of Asterisk, Dana DePew let us tap into his personal stash of Natural Light. Talk about a classy art opening when you get to pose in front of the art with your Natural Light in a can (Tim and I pictured). We finished the evening at The Flying Monkey, where they had the nerve to charge us for drinks, though I was able to talk Dana into giving me his swanky jacket because I loved it that much, so I was still able to score more free stuff.

The weekend turned out to be incredible. The Browns won, the Indians took a game from Boston, my fantasy football teams won, I became a wingmaster black belt, and my sister introduced us to a really beautiful biking trail in Boston Mills. My sister, Julie and I biked through Boston Mills into Hudson and turned around in Stow to complete an 18-mile biking trip. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if the Summit County MetroParks served free wine. (Pictured is my sister and I posing on the trail)

The Wingmaster Cometh

I have stumbled upon a website that is going to change my life. The page is called TheWingmasters.com, and the purpose of the page is to bring together people who rate wings. Individuals go through what is called Wing Kwon Do training to become an official wingmaster on this site. You earn different points for different ratings and recommendations, and eventually climb your way up to the wingmaster level. Along the way you earn different colored belts as you acquire more points. I am currently halfway to becoming a wingmaster and have a blue belt. On this site, they rate their wings on a scale of five wings; therefore I will be changing the structure of my wing ratings to be based on a five wings to keep everything consistent in my ratings. I do believe I have now found my true calling in life. Mom and Dad if you are reading this, I can't imagine how proud you must be!

Not Only Was He White, He Was Also Chubby

As you many know by now there was a school shooting in Cleveland yesterday approximately one mile from my job. When I first heard about the shootings, I couldn't get over the fact that this shooting took place in an urban high school. These kinds of school shootings don't happen in the big city. They happen in the rich suburbs. With all the footage shown, one was made to believe that the shooter was black, which shocked the hell out of me because these kind of shootings aren't done by black kids. They are done by crazy white kids. As I watched more and more footage, I still was in shock...until this morning when Julie sent me these pictures and I saw that he was indeed a white student. A very messed up kid if you read over this page and believe that it is really him, though apparently that is not his real picture. I know it's not his real picture becasuse of this future pulitzer prize-winning journalism that gave me more insight into this kid's mind courtesy of cleveland.com: "Asa, who was 14-years-old and is known to have argued with fellow students over religion, was a chubby teen."

Finally! Biking, Camping and Rafting Pictures

In 1492, The Swoosh Was Invented

As a government employee, I get Columbus Day off. While having the day off is great, I have a sense of social responsibility, and I have always felt a little guilty celebrating this holiday. However, now that Nike has come up with a pair of shoes designed specifically for Native Americans, I can breathe easier tomorrow as I sleep in. Thanks Nike!

Witness The Backlash

In case you haven't heard, Lebron James wore a New York Yankees hat to last night's playoff game between the Cleveland Indians and the Yankees. I do believe my love affair with this man is over. His cockiness has exceeded all bounds especially when it comes to supporting the people and town that support him. The more I think about it, the more infuriated I get about the whole thing. This might blow over by the CAVS first game on November 15, but it feels like this Cleveland sports fan has been slapped in the face. When someone brought it up this morning in my office, I promptly got up and ripped down my LeBron poster, balled it up and threw it away (pictured).

Ahhh...Civilization

We made it back to civilization yesterday after four days in the woods of Pennsylvania. All told we biked almost 20 miles along the Youghiogeny River and then whitewater rafted 8 miles through the river. It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Our campsite (pictured) was secluded which was nice, but that also meant we walked miles and miles in that timespan UP to the bathrooms. Pictures are on their way and we got some great ones. Along with the recreational adventures, we had wings at the Falls City Pub after rafting that got a four wing out of four wing rating.

The Falls City Pub was one of the reasons we chose the rafting company Wilderness Voyageurs. We saw the company was located right next to the pub online before we made our reservations. After spending five hours rafting on Saturday we headed to the pub for some much needed food and beverages of the adult variety to share with some of our new friends, including our river guide (pictured). While the pub looked like a hole in the wall when you walked in, they only had top shelf liquor and any kind of beer you can imagine inlcuding some from Cleveland's Great Lakes Brewery. Those rafters know how to drink. And Cook! We ordered the house wings and they were crispy yet juicy. The sauce had so much flavor: sweet, spicy and tangy all in one. The people we were dining with got the garlic butter and hot wings, which were also exceptional. Perhpas it was the endorphins from rafting, but these were the best wings I have had in a long time.

Other than wings, we also cooked at our campsite. Along with the obligatory hot dog meal, we changed things up a little bit. We took porterhouse steak which we marninated in a pear champagne vinagrette with gorgonzola and garlic. We served it up with potatoes covered in mushrooms and onions sauteed in a garlic butter. On Friday we made turkey breast we had marinated in buffalo hot sauce along with vegetables and baked potato. We also scrambled up omlettes and made nachos over the fire. We worked hard to spoil ourselves including an air mattress that we had to manually pump using a foot pump because we had no electricity. That process took over an hour, but was worth it considering how cold and hard the ground was each morning. Overall it was a wonderful trip, but I was ready to come home and take a hot shower and lie in a warm bed. I didn't catch the Browns game on television, but thanks to my satellite radio, I was able to catch most of the action. I felt just like the early pioneers most of the time minus the wings, air mattress and satellite radio. They must have really had it rough without those things!