when the Barbos postpone a Super League match
Well the trip to Denver was a homecoming of sorts for me.
I recently lost my job and my brother so graciously had found me a
possible job in Denver, a former residence, and I would fly out a day before
my team who were scheduled to play a Super League Match vs the Denver Barbarians.
When I lived in Denver I played with the Denver Highlanders, cross
town rivals, and enjoyed the thought of beating them with my new club PAC
Rugby.
During the flight, I drank several beers, watched some crappy movie, and enjoyed the 3 hour flight. When I arrived, the winds were quite strong. The plane landed, my brother picked me up, and we were off to his house. We arrived and we were off again to meet up with a former rugby mate to discuss the job I was there to interview. We had a nice chat and my brother and I went to some bar for some beers then off to the Rugby bar to meet up with my old mates, the Denver Highlanders.
There were several NEW faces, but some of the older ones chatted with me at length about the days since I had left. I had interesting conversations with Rowdy, Wiley (future IB), Kenny (IB 10) and some of the other players. The bar was packed due to the Colorado Avalanche (hockey) playoff match vs Los Angelas, but as soon as the game was over, the crowd left and there were a handful of ruggers in the bar. My brother and I made our way back to his house and watched some movies before heading to bed.
The next day was a bit cold and bad news came with the chilling winds. The Barbos had cancelled the match and would make it up in Denver on May 11. In the Super League, if PAC had traveled already to Denver and there was NO field to play on (they were expecting a blizzard), the Barbos would be forced to forfeit. To prepare for that option, they decided it best to cancel the trip 4 hours before my club was to depart Washington, DC. This left me with nothing to do.....so my brother and I decided to wake up Saturday and head for Colorado Springs where my club would be playing.
I woke up Saturday morning and was shocked NOT to see ANY snow. In fact the day was a sunny day in the upper 40s. I called my mates back in DC and they were a bit upset about losing their weekend in the Rockies. We drove down to Colorado Springs to find my old club. I had my kit bag in tow, but didn't figure on playing. Instead, I sat back and drank about 6 beers during the hour drive. When we arrived, I found a nippy freezing day with freezing rain. I sat and shivered til they asked me if I wanted a run. I booted up and in no time was out for the kick off. My body stiff from driving, not stretching, and being for the most part buzzed, didn't react well with my forced Baatan Death march. My first scrum I felt my fibers in my back muscles individually tearing and my legs felt like I had no joints. I stumbled through the shortened game and after receiving CPR on the sidelines, made my way to the Colorado Springs bar for some beers and Pizza.
That is one part about Western Rugby I missed. The food. In DC, we rarely serve food to visitors, simply because 90% of the teams we play are from the metro area. I drank with my old mates, chatting with them about the game and the season and soon found myself with the hooker I played with that day, Sean "Tilly" Tillotson and our opposition hooker. The CSRFC hooker, Josh Shiflett, was a Scot and he liked the kilt I was wearing. After long discussions of rugby, touring, the Idiot Odysseys, and the brotherhood, I realized that both hookers would join Wiley in the fraternal order. Two other props would join them with one of the largest inductions of IBs during any one odyssey.
After CS party, we headed back north to a bar called the Candlelight Tavern where the team liked to begin their nights. But first we would stop at a small bar along the way called the Celtic Crossroads. A member of the highlanders was playing in a band there that night. His father and the rugger were singers in a celtic duo that played some of the great celtic songs, including The Wild Rover. Now the ruggers in the room, number about 10, would sing the verse "Lift up her Skirt." To this the father would stop the singing and say, as long as you are lifting up her skirt, not his kilt.
My brother had started to fall to the dark side of drunk and he decided to lay off the drink for an hour to sober up a bit. I was hesitant to his abilities to come back from the dark side, but as usual he surprised me. We arrived at the Tavern to find no other ruggers in the bar. We played darts for a while and slowly the boys started to arrive.
The Highlanders are very talented about finding chicks and soon several were at tables with random girls. I decided to play some music and with about 8 songs remaining was dumbfounded on what else to play. The juke box gave you like 30 songs for $5 and the selections, while good, were not numerous enough for me to fill my deposit. So I asked a cute "geeky" looking girl to finish my selections. She seemed rather interested in me, but as usual, I meandered off to find my boys.
Later while walking over to some of my other buddies, my sporin (the furry bag in front of your kilt) caught some girl's ass as I squeezed by....and she approached me and grabbed my ass. I turned around quite shocked and she replied, "if you are gonna grab my ass, I am gonna grab yours right back." I was a bit confused and tried to explain it was my sporin, but she would have none of it.
Near the end of the night, an old veteran named Jethro arrived. He was one of the warriors in the Winnebago trip to both Maggotfest and the High Dessert Classic. He provided me with some photos of our motely bunch during our journey to New Mexico. We laughed about the days of yore and he soon left. The greatest part about Jethro (aka Monty) was the fact he bought me a can of Schaeffers Beer to welcome me back. For those of you not in the US, Schaeffers is a low grade beer, right on target with Jethro, who has never been confused with a hoity toity type. Jethro is a good idiot if ever there was one. Shame he is a back.
After several shots of Sambuca, a couple of which were shared with the "geeky" girl and her friend, I found myself explaining myself to a native american who had a bit of an attitude. For some reason I switched to my pathetic Scottish Accent and her friend instantly called me on it. After some babbling of words she seemed interested as well, but I thought better of it and decided I would spend some more time wasting the evening chatting with the Geeky girl. I mentioned my intentions to Rowdy and headed out looking for the librarian. On the way, I was nabbed by the butt grabber and I sat and chatted with her for a few minutes. About that time the Geeky girl approached and said hi and started giving me crap about going hunting with a shot gun. I left the grab ass girl and followed the geeky girl, to which she razzed me more about my "hitting" on other chicks, not to mention the fact that the girl I was hitting on was ugly.
I quickly corrected her that I wasn't hitting on ANYONE and that the other girl wasn't that "ugly." She corrected herself and said, "you are right, she isn't ugly, she is just fat." (MEOW...saucer of milk for 2?) I tried to explain that I was actually looking for her and her friend to chat more, but got distracted. She didn't believe me, so I went to find Rowdy to back up my story. With Rowdy not available, I grabbed Tilly and brought him over. Along the way I told him to agree with whatever I said, and like a true wing man front row idiot he agreed. We approached and I said, "this is my buddy. I told him I was going to look for the girl in the Yellow sweater and the glasses (HER). Didn't I?" He nodded yes, "yeah, he was looking for you." She quickly replied....."this sweater isn't yellow......it is green." I quickly countered with, "I know it is green, but he doesn't.....he is color blind...aren't you." To which he nodded again, "yeah it looks yellow to me." All of his good intentions were washed away as the bartenders started to kick everyone out because the bar was closing. On the way out, an Asian guy approached my brother and I (who had completely come from the dark side and was having a good time razzing some girl about looking like Brooke Shields) and asked if we wanted to go to his place for an after hours party. We were parked across the street from his address so we figured we would go in and check it out. When we got there, the party was for the most part empty. Six guys and one girl sat at a table chatting. The Asian was passed out on a couch and the crowd didn't blink an eye when my brother and I entered (I in a kilt). We asked if they had cocktails and we were handed a warm bottle of Blackberry Vodka. I quickly did a shot and found myself in that ackward situation of regurgitation. Not from drinking too much, but for drinking something that has repulsed your system so much that you want to spew it back out.
I walked towards the door, mumbling something about seeing if the moon was out that night, and ran into the Geeky girl and her friends walking in. I said hello and exited out the door. Not more than 2 feet down the stairs, I let out a loud puking noise, which was followed by the partially digested slice of pizza, the handful of chips and the remains of the beer in my stomach. After 3 or 4 retches, I walked to my brother's car, grabbed his 6 pack of Fat Tire (the best Ale EVER) and reentered. I was quickly called out for puking and admitted my guilt. Handed my brother a beer, who was shocked that I brought his 6 pack into the "party without beer" and he quickly horded it.
My brother was in the middle of discussing the finer points of how that same girl he was speaking to earlier, looked like Brooke Shields when I got back inside. She was getting quite upset about his descriptive, as she should have, she looked nothing like Brooke. I quickly pointed out she looked more like Winne Cooper from the Wonder Years, to which most of the guys agreed. The Geeky girl's friend asked me to go outside with her to discuss something, and I walked out on the porch to hear her out. She started getting mad at me regarding my brother's actions (calling her friend Brooke) to which I was shocked that I was actually having this conversation. I decided to sit on the railing and hear her tirade out, when I realized I had misjudged the railing's height and that is when everything got a bit fuzzy.
I remember seeing the street flash by me (but upside down) and a smacking sound followed by pain to the back of my head, and then seing the house fly by and suddenly landing on my back with a huge thud. I thank the lord my neck broke my fall. I lay there moaning a bit, trying to catch my breath when the girl runs down the stairs (it was about an 8 foot drop) and asks if I am alright. I reply "I am a bit disappointed with the Russian Judge only giving me a 9.5."
I get up, grab my brother and we laugh the entire way back to his house regarding the fall. Nothing would have been funnier than seeing a 325 pound prop wearing a kilt, falling ass over tea kettles off an 8 foot railing, doing a 1.25 flip in the process.
The next day, my brother and I went out to eat and we found ourselves drinking beer (to kill the pain) and talking about our next Thomas Brother adventure.
The trip was a success. No job out of it, but a halfway funny story.
During the flight, I drank several beers, watched some crappy movie, and enjoyed the 3 hour flight. When I arrived, the winds were quite strong. The plane landed, my brother picked me up, and we were off to his house. We arrived and we were off again to meet up with a former rugby mate to discuss the job I was there to interview. We had a nice chat and my brother and I went to some bar for some beers then off to the Rugby bar to meet up with my old mates, the Denver Highlanders.
There were several NEW faces, but some of the older ones chatted with me at length about the days since I had left. I had interesting conversations with Rowdy, Wiley (future IB), Kenny (IB 10) and some of the other players. The bar was packed due to the Colorado Avalanche (hockey) playoff match vs Los Angelas, but as soon as the game was over, the crowd left and there were a handful of ruggers in the bar. My brother and I made our way back to his house and watched some movies before heading to bed.
The next day was a bit cold and bad news came with the chilling winds. The Barbos had cancelled the match and would make it up in Denver on May 11. In the Super League, if PAC had traveled already to Denver and there was NO field to play on (they were expecting a blizzard), the Barbos would be forced to forfeit. To prepare for that option, they decided it best to cancel the trip 4 hours before my club was to depart Washington, DC. This left me with nothing to do.....so my brother and I decided to wake up Saturday and head for Colorado Springs where my club would be playing.
I woke up Saturday morning and was shocked NOT to see ANY snow. In fact the day was a sunny day in the upper 40s. I called my mates back in DC and they were a bit upset about losing their weekend in the Rockies. We drove down to Colorado Springs to find my old club. I had my kit bag in tow, but didn't figure on playing. Instead, I sat back and drank about 6 beers during the hour drive. When we arrived, I found a nippy freezing day with freezing rain. I sat and shivered til they asked me if I wanted a run. I booted up and in no time was out for the kick off. My body stiff from driving, not stretching, and being for the most part buzzed, didn't react well with my forced Baatan Death march. My first scrum I felt my fibers in my back muscles individually tearing and my legs felt like I had no joints. I stumbled through the shortened game and after receiving CPR on the sidelines, made my way to the Colorado Springs bar for some beers and Pizza.
That is one part about Western Rugby I missed. The food. In DC, we rarely serve food to visitors, simply because 90% of the teams we play are from the metro area. I drank with my old mates, chatting with them about the game and the season and soon found myself with the hooker I played with that day, Sean "Tilly" Tillotson and our opposition hooker. The CSRFC hooker, Josh Shiflett, was a Scot and he liked the kilt I was wearing. After long discussions of rugby, touring, the Idiot Odysseys, and the brotherhood, I realized that both hookers would join Wiley in the fraternal order. Two other props would join them with one of the largest inductions of IBs during any one odyssey.
After CS party, we headed back north to a bar called the Candlelight Tavern where the team liked to begin their nights. But first we would stop at a small bar along the way called the Celtic Crossroads. A member of the highlanders was playing in a band there that night. His father and the rugger were singers in a celtic duo that played some of the great celtic songs, including The Wild Rover. Now the ruggers in the room, number about 10, would sing the verse "Lift up her Skirt." To this the father would stop the singing and say, as long as you are lifting up her skirt, not his kilt.
My brother had started to fall to the dark side of drunk and he decided to lay off the drink for an hour to sober up a bit. I was hesitant to his abilities to come back from the dark side, but as usual he surprised me. We arrived at the Tavern to find no other ruggers in the bar. We played darts for a while and slowly the boys started to arrive.
The Highlanders are very talented about finding chicks and soon several were at tables with random girls. I decided to play some music and with about 8 songs remaining was dumbfounded on what else to play. The juke box gave you like 30 songs for $5 and the selections, while good, were not numerous enough for me to fill my deposit. So I asked a cute "geeky" looking girl to finish my selections. She seemed rather interested in me, but as usual, I meandered off to find my boys.
Later while walking over to some of my other buddies, my sporin (the furry bag in front of your kilt) caught some girl's ass as I squeezed by....and she approached me and grabbed my ass. I turned around quite shocked and she replied, "if you are gonna grab my ass, I am gonna grab yours right back." I was a bit confused and tried to explain it was my sporin, but she would have none of it.
Near the end of the night, an old veteran named Jethro arrived. He was one of the warriors in the Winnebago trip to both Maggotfest and the High Dessert Classic. He provided me with some photos of our motely bunch during our journey to New Mexico. We laughed about the days of yore and he soon left. The greatest part about Jethro (aka Monty) was the fact he bought me a can of Schaeffers Beer to welcome me back. For those of you not in the US, Schaeffers is a low grade beer, right on target with Jethro, who has never been confused with a hoity toity type. Jethro is a good idiot if ever there was one. Shame he is a back.
After several shots of Sambuca, a couple of which were shared with the "geeky" girl and her friend, I found myself explaining myself to a native american who had a bit of an attitude. For some reason I switched to my pathetic Scottish Accent and her friend instantly called me on it. After some babbling of words she seemed interested as well, but I thought better of it and decided I would spend some more time wasting the evening chatting with the Geeky girl. I mentioned my intentions to Rowdy and headed out looking for the librarian. On the way, I was nabbed by the butt grabber and I sat and chatted with her for a few minutes. About that time the Geeky girl approached and said hi and started giving me crap about going hunting with a shot gun. I left the grab ass girl and followed the geeky girl, to which she razzed me more about my "hitting" on other chicks, not to mention the fact that the girl I was hitting on was ugly.
I quickly corrected her that I wasn't hitting on ANYONE and that the other girl wasn't that "ugly." She corrected herself and said, "you are right, she isn't ugly, she is just fat." (MEOW...saucer of milk for 2?) I tried to explain that I was actually looking for her and her friend to chat more, but got distracted. She didn't believe me, so I went to find Rowdy to back up my story. With Rowdy not available, I grabbed Tilly and brought him over. Along the way I told him to agree with whatever I said, and like a true wing man front row idiot he agreed. We approached and I said, "this is my buddy. I told him I was going to look for the girl in the Yellow sweater and the glasses (HER). Didn't I?" He nodded yes, "yeah, he was looking for you." She quickly replied....."this sweater isn't yellow......it is green." I quickly countered with, "I know it is green, but he doesn't.....he is color blind...aren't you." To which he nodded again, "yeah it looks yellow to me." All of his good intentions were washed away as the bartenders started to kick everyone out because the bar was closing. On the way out, an Asian guy approached my brother and I (who had completely come from the dark side and was having a good time razzing some girl about looking like Brooke Shields) and asked if we wanted to go to his place for an after hours party. We were parked across the street from his address so we figured we would go in and check it out. When we got there, the party was for the most part empty. Six guys and one girl sat at a table chatting. The Asian was passed out on a couch and the crowd didn't blink an eye when my brother and I entered (I in a kilt). We asked if they had cocktails and we were handed a warm bottle of Blackberry Vodka. I quickly did a shot and found myself in that ackward situation of regurgitation. Not from drinking too much, but for drinking something that has repulsed your system so much that you want to spew it back out.
I walked towards the door, mumbling something about seeing if the moon was out that night, and ran into the Geeky girl and her friends walking in. I said hello and exited out the door. Not more than 2 feet down the stairs, I let out a loud puking noise, which was followed by the partially digested slice of pizza, the handful of chips and the remains of the beer in my stomach. After 3 or 4 retches, I walked to my brother's car, grabbed his 6 pack of Fat Tire (the best Ale EVER) and reentered. I was quickly called out for puking and admitted my guilt. Handed my brother a beer, who was shocked that I brought his 6 pack into the "party without beer" and he quickly horded it.
My brother was in the middle of discussing the finer points of how that same girl he was speaking to earlier, looked like Brooke Shields when I got back inside. She was getting quite upset about his descriptive, as she should have, she looked nothing like Brooke. I quickly pointed out she looked more like Winne Cooper from the Wonder Years, to which most of the guys agreed. The Geeky girl's friend asked me to go outside with her to discuss something, and I walked out on the porch to hear her out. She started getting mad at me regarding my brother's actions (calling her friend Brooke) to which I was shocked that I was actually having this conversation. I decided to sit on the railing and hear her tirade out, when I realized I had misjudged the railing's height and that is when everything got a bit fuzzy.
I remember seeing the street flash by me (but upside down) and a smacking sound followed by pain to the back of my head, and then seing the house fly by and suddenly landing on my back with a huge thud. I thank the lord my neck broke my fall. I lay there moaning a bit, trying to catch my breath when the girl runs down the stairs (it was about an 8 foot drop) and asks if I am alright. I reply "I am a bit disappointed with the Russian Judge only giving me a 9.5."
I get up, grab my brother and we laugh the entire way back to his house regarding the fall. Nothing would have been funnier than seeing a 325 pound prop wearing a kilt, falling ass over tea kettles off an 8 foot railing, doing a 1.25 flip in the process.
The next day, my brother and I went out to eat and we found ourselves drinking beer (to kill the pain) and talking about our next Thomas Brother adventure.
The trip was a success. No job out of it, but a halfway funny story.