SwampLog 3.0

Yokozuna!

You've heard me allude to the missing video footage of Marty and I sumo wrestling while in Greensboro last year.  Thomas was able to resurrect the footage from a shaken (not stirred) drive card.  The video is here, a QuickTime clip that weighs in at 4.7 MB.

Here's the deal with the clip, since the audio is hosed.  Marty and I were put in the suits with the intention of going out in the middle of the sixth inning.  With the lead time it normally takes to get the suits on, they took us down to the dressing room at the top of the fifth.  We were in 'em by the middle of the fifth, but at the rate the game was progressing, we would be on the field in no time.

The bottom of the fifth was when the Bats started their rally, scoring with abandon.  There were at least two pitching changes for the Savannah Sand Gnats, and the suits, which were already hot, were getting unbearable.

We were right in front of the stands waiting to get on the field, and the kids in attendance were loving us.  Taking turns trying to shove us over.  Trying to goad us into squashing one of their friends.  Anything to get our attention.  Meanwhile, they start playing "YMCA," which we promptly turned into our own little number. 

Finally -- FINALLY -- they get us on the field.  We're both sweating bullets.  I know for a fact I'm about to keel over, and Marty looks to be in the same boat.

Now, bear in mind that I've done sumo suits before, and there's a distinct strategy for knocking your opponent over.  It involves momentum and balance, and I knew I had both on my side.  Problem was, so did Marty.  We took runs at each other, and it was apparent that neither one of us was going to go down easy.  So, for the sake of brevity, I took a fall for the first point. 

Marty wasn't listening to me while we reset, as I'm telling him to take the next fall.  Meanwhile, I know for a fact that I'm about to have a heat stroke, so when Marty wouldn't go down, I took another fall.  (It's evident in the video.  See for yourself.)  Had we done any planning at all, we would have finished in a tie, and had him chasing me around the field, Keystone Cops-style.  But, instead, I suffered my first Sumo loss at the hands of my best friend.

Enjoy.

National Lampoon's P1 Vacation

It started with the four of us -- Woody, Tim, Chubbs and me -- sitting in the drive-thru window at McDonalds getting food for a couple of the guys.  The clerk could not get our order right to save her life, and in the middle of the confusion on which drink was supposed to be diet and which Coke was large, she stops in mid-sentence and says to Woody, "Hey, aren't you that guy on TV?"

It was on.

We've done a whirlind tour of Nevada in the last five days.  Vegas on Friday night, Reno on Saturday night, and the Moonlite Bunny Ranch throughout the weekend.  It's been one helluva trip.  I'm sitting in a wireless internet coffee shop (no, not starbucks -- they have played hide-and-seek with the Carson City Starbucks this weekend; one night it's on a certain block, the next morning it's been picked up and moved to another city) getting caught up on e-mail and various work-related disasters.  We don't pull back in to North Texas until Tuesday afternoon, so I'm still mostly incommunicado.

As to the Bunny Ranch festivities, there's so much to cover.  For example, we now know how to shock a room full of working girls: have a skinny Gen-Y intern run into the place wearing nothing but a pair of boxers which are falling down around his knees.

Scheduling a wedding in Nevada in November is fine, but holding it outdoors in the early evening might not be the most prudent.  Also, scheduling the outdoor photos for the wedding party after the sun goes down is less prudent.

Richard Hunter is one of the luckiest men alive.  He has an amazing career (which he claims is non-existant, and he hasn't felt like he's worked in three years).  He has a group of friends who will follow him to the ends of the earth (especially if one of those ends is a legal brothel).  And he now has the most beautiful, wonderful wife.  The two of them are so damned happy together it almost makes you sick.  It also gives people like me hope for the future.  Their love is something undefineable, and they light up a room when they're together.

"Fine," you are likely saying, "enough mushy stuff.  Get to the hookers."

The women at the Bunny Ranch are an eclectic bunch.  They run the gamut of backgrounds and ethnicities.  They're hot.  And they make no bones about their careers (or second careers, in some cases, like the real estate agent who comes out on the weekends and rocks people's worlds simply because she loves sex).

For the record: I did not partake.  I also did not get married, arrested, or obliterated.  Came close to getting sloshed in the Vegas strip, thanks to some well-made margaritas at Jimmy Buffett's joint.

There are a ton of pictures, and a whole lot of video that I have to edit.  The video will be up by the end of the week.  The photos, I hope will be available at some point mid-week, once we get back to Texas.

Back to the road.  We have to make good time on the way back: there's a White Castle on our return route, and I need my White Castle fix.  It would make a perfect trip even better.