Crewnit Does New Years Eve 2008

Happy New Year!

This Wednesday was New Years Eve, and it was a celebration of the passing of another year. We went from 2008 to 2009 in grand fashion, with many of the same people I shared it with last year plus a lot of other new and old people.

2008 was a great year, kicked off the right way by an amazing party at Hannah's house sitting house, featuring some new friends, some departing friends (we miss you Lacey and Kim!), the creation of a friends super team with levels of awesomeness the world had yet to see (enter...the Crewnit), tons of fantastic events (Sobo and Sarah's wedding, Erik and Katie's wedding, Sasquatch, the Eklutna camping extravaganza, etc.), and pure unadultered ridiculousness by yours truly.

I'd have it no other way.

2009 started with the Crewnit and friends together at Colver and Lorna's place, partying down and kicking it up a notch like only we can. It was a fantastic night and almost the ideal way to start the year. Some say that the way you spend your new years eve is an indicator as to what your year is going to be like...here's hoping 2009 brings me the joy and friendship new years eve brought me.

Throughout the rest of the week I will be writing 2008 retrospectives and 2009 resolutions. Expect all of the fun those can bring this weekend. Get excited people...get excited. See below for pictures from Crewnit Does New Years Eve 2008.

2009, the year of the pickle

This happens always, Lorna and I fighting

Rebekah, Peter, Jason, and Hannah - all elbows, all the time

The Crewnit+1 Cheddared

The Weekend Edition (Mega crazy weekend edition)

So this weekend was pretty much freaking epic. Because I've been tied up with other things between now and then, I'm even going to get into Thursday's events, so this is a breakdown of what went down Thursday through Sunday. It was about as epic as you can get, no doubt about it. I'm going to split it into three sections though, to cover the main three events.

Part 1: Lyrics Bored

One of the best concert runners in the state of Alaska is the restaurants Bear and Moose's Tooth, who have over the years brought up Wilco, Matisyahu, Cake, Third Eye Blind, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, and more. During the summer they have the Moose's Tooth summer concert series, but they also have First Tap events at Bear Tooth every month where they premier a new beer and have a musician/band/whatever put on a show.

December '08's First Tap brought up Bay Area rapper Lyrics Born, a college radio favorite and an artist I caught for part of one song at Bumbershoot '07. I had reviewed his album Same S@%^ Different Day (clearly mine was the censored one) in college, and felt like he could put on a pretty good show. One way or another, I figured Jason, Hannah, and I would have a good time.

Sure enough we did, and we ran into plenty of other great folks there to share in the good time and beer with, as many tasty beverages were consumed (while I liked the new Stout they revealed, I stuck to lighter beers after one run). Plus, the opening band was ATF (Alaskan Thunder Funk) which featured a fellow Bosco's new comic day guy as one of the lead rappers. It was great seeing comic book geeks being represented in a good way on stage.

On came Lyrics Born, and I have to admit, I was severely underwhelmed. Their performance reminded me of the Starting Line years back at the Drive Thru Invasion tour. It started out really cool as you had a fairly well performing group who had clearly been doing this for a while and brought some good banter to the stage. Then when you realized all they did was the same thing, over and over, it started to get tired (heads up Lyrics Born, you do NOT have to ask how the ladies are in the house after and before every song - nor the "fellas").

While overall they performed well (especially the freakishly talented Joyo Velarde), I was pretty freaking bored by the end. Strangely enough, possibly my favorite part of the night was driving back to my place with Jason and Hannah as a slightly intoxicated Jason continually threw down Joker quotes from the Dark Knight in a scary accurate Heath Ledger voice. Creepy as hell, but it made me laugh hysterically. Bravo Jason.

Part II: The Crewnit Celebrates Colver's 25 Years

This past Saturday was Colver's 25th birthday, and to celebrate Lorna invited the remaining Crenwit members (meaning it was Colver, Lorna, Amy, Hannah, Jason, and I) over for drinking and ridiculousness. Any time the Crewnit gathers, it's cause for celebration, and we've rarely been assembling in our entirety lately.

However, we did this time, and it was legendary. I mean come on, we had beer pong, we had me trying to kick a ball and eating it ridiculously afterwards, camo hat pics, cake, wedding discussions, more Joker quoting, coercing Jason into skipping his hockey game, and tons of hijinks.

Most of all, we just had great friends together having an incredible time together. That's something we haven't been doing as a group as much as we used to, and it felt like a perfect time to bring it all back together. It just reminds me that we need to do that more often, and thankfully, it's the holiday season. That's the perfect time for planned Crewnit hang outs, like our upcoming Christmas party and New Years party. Now that I can't wait for.

Part III: Fastest 36 Hours

Erik and I at the game

Between 5:45 PM on Saturday and 8:40 AM today, I was in transit between Anchorage and Seattle for one purpose - to see the New England Patriots to play for the first time. It was everything I thought it could be and more.

I was excited, but more than this guy? No way.

Here's an example of how excited I was: as we walked in, I asked Erik "would it be weird if I cried because I'm so happy? Because that's kind of what I felt like doing." It was overwhelming, going in and seeing this ridiculously amazing stadium (Qwest Field is a work of art) and looking on the field seeing all of my favorite players.

My new favorite Seahawk

Plus, while you can actually see the game better on TV, there is something to be said about live games. Watching the game live, it's like you're in sync with your team. I was calling plays as they developed, penalties (or not called ones) become glaringly obvious, and every nerve wracking situation becomes inflated in its intensity.

Belichick and Vrabel stratergizing

This is a game that was decided with less than 2 minutes left with the Seahawks driving to tie or win the game (thank you Brandon Meriwether!), and the go ahead touchdown was scored on 4th down from the one yard line. Needless to say, I was a wreck. I felt as if I was going to collapse at any second from pure stress. I couldn't though, and I could hardly even sit the whole game due to pent up energy (thankfully, at Qwest Field, everyone stands always). Here's an idea of my mental state: Erik at one point asked "did you forget your paper bag?"

Yes.

Yes I did.

Vrabel giving tough love

Not only was it amazing just seeing everything so up close and personal, you really get an idea of team dynamics and what it means to be a professional athlete. To see Mike Vrabel talk to all of the younger defenders after they gave up a TD, coaching them and really hyping them up...to see Vrabel and Bill Belichick scheme together on how to stop Branch and Carlson from killing us...to see the determination on Wes Welker's face the entire game...it was just a revelation.

Wes Welker = The Man

Now to see Stephen Gostkowski and Chris Hanson goof off while waiting for their 5 seconds to shine...that was just hilarious. Kickers officially became my heroes after watching them live, as they are just clowns on the sideline (Gostkowski tends to juggle footballs off his feet when bored), but while the field as a whole felt shorter from the live perspective, good god if kicking field goals and punts didn't seem like the hardest thing imaginable. I have a new level of respect for them.

Hardest job ever!

Also, it was great to go to the game and actually have a good amount of Pats fans around me, as I loved being able to high five people around me after great plays and complain openly and vehemently when I perceived something to be a transgression against my team. Of course, the Seahawks fans around didn't particularly appreciate it, but that's okay with me. I wore my Welker jersey with pride and cheered my team like none of them existed. I'm just glad I didn't get punched.

Victory!

It was just such a joy to see them play, and such a relief to see them win, and none of it would have been possible without my dad. Thanks so much for the best Christmas/birthday present ever. My dream of watching the Patriots play was everything I thought it could be and more.

View of the Seattle skyline from our seats

The Weekend Edition

Another weekend down, and another great one in the books. This one was definitely spotlighted by big events on all three days of the weekend, and it was a great second to last weekend to my very good friend Kim. She moves next Monday to Portland but we're throwing a party for her next weekend and it's going to be legendary. No less, this weekend was great too (but perhaps not legendary). What'd I do?

• Debate party! (Amy, Colver, Lorna, Jason, Hannah, and Jesse came over to watch McCain/Obama duke it out and eat Moose's Tooth pizza and drink their tasty brew as well)
• Coffee with sister and niece (delicious and fun)
• Taking my niece Emily off my sister's hands for 2.5 hours while she saw a movie (which was actually really fun - put my niece into slave labor bagging and boarding comics, had Benny's, watched the Spiderwick Chronicles)
• Frisbee Golf for probably the last time for a while (I will miss you!)
• Dinner out at Hannah's sister Kim's place
• Drinks at the Avenue with Amy (weird night, but fun!)
• Football Sunday (Amy made biscuits and gravy + orange chicken for Jason, Colver, and I!)
• Sleeping ELEVEN HOURS on Sunday night

So yeah, this one was packed of great events, plus I somehow managed to fall asleep at 8:30 PM and not get up until 6:45 AM (with a bit of a wakeful period to transition to my bed) which was both very needed and ridiculously awesome. I was crazy tired, and it made me feel amazing.

The highlight of the weekend (which was full of them) was the dinner out at Hannah's sister's place. Josh and Kim were incredibly gracious hosts, making a delicious dinner with chicken and beef skewers with peanut sauce, a tasty salad, rice, amazing brownies and cookies, and a hummus/oil appetizer. Plus, they were incredibly cool, as Kim was really funny and Josh and I could go on and on about music for hours. Plus we all had a political conversation that was entertaining and covered all sides of the discussion without getting heated.

Definitely not a normal night for me, but it was awesome no less. Even if it was in the mythical land of "Palmer."

Also a highlight amidst the nights was the mid debate discussion amongst everyone there about how shocking it was that Lorna had never seen Star Wars. It was eerily reminiscent of the premiere of How I Met Your Mother and was incredibly entertaining, veering wildly off topic and somehow going full circle to bring us back to 30 more minutes of incredible dryness from McCain and "John...John...now that's simply not true"'s from Obama. Possibly the funniest section of an extremely entertaining debate experience.

What's going on back in AK?

Once again, before I get cracking on my Sasquatch related posts, I wanted to get into details about my thoughts about a few things and then a couple current happenings in my life. This post is about current happenings in the good ol' AK, now that I'm back from vacation and getting integrated back into the ebbs and flows of that crazy place.



Before I left, Amy became really interested in the vegan lifestyle, or at least sampling what it had to offer her for a month. This extremely random scenario came to fruition because her good friend Blake decided he was going to do the same thing (as you can see here) and was going to blog about the whole experience no less. She set herself upon the idea, but before I left we had a discussion as to how long I would last as a vegan.

Amy: 45 minutes?
Me: Come on...way longer right? I'd be ok so long as I had milk.
Amy: You can't drink milk - cows remember?
Me: ...
Me: ...
Me: Dammit.

Ok, that isn't exactly how it went, but there was not a lot of confidence in her. While in Portland I quizzed friends and the general consensus was somewhere between one (AMANDA!) and three days (Erik and Sheri I believe). Upon my return, I asked Colver, and he suggested I'd last a week, but to quote him it'd be "because everyone said you couldn't, and knowing you, you'd do it just long enough to prove everyone wrong."

Colver apparently gets me very well. So I'm going to try it, just to see how long I'll last. I'm shooting for a week, but who knows! Maybe I'll last even longer. Maybe I'll love it and develop taste for soy milk and tofu.

Nah. No way. But it's a worthy experiment - but for those concerned, don't worry - I am not getting involved with issues. This is just a study in self control, or better yet, my extreme lack of it. Starting June 1st, it is on.



My Alaskan posse and I (also known while in separate factions as the Crew and the Unit, or the Crewnit when combined) are embarking on a legendary journey this summer taking us from sketchy bar to sketchy bar across the Alaskan wild. This summer is going to be the inaugural Crewnit Alaska Dive Bar Tour, taking us all the way from the Buckaroo Club in Anchorage to Tips in Eagle River, from the Salty Dawg Saloon in Homer to the Comet Club in Fairbanks - we are going to turn this state upside down - Crewnit style.

Should be delicious and ridiculously fun, but special thanks to my good friend Raechelle who designed our shirt logo above. She did a great job and dealt with my needy nature when it came to the shirt design, and I love the finished product. Now we just have to make the shirts and distribute them, and then drink in sketchy places of course. We're good at that last part at least.

As you can see in my post here, Elton John is coming to Alaska for a few performances. After the first show sold out incredibly fast with no tickets coming my way (myself and the Crew all struct out), I managed to secure six tickets for the show this Friday. Tomorrow night after three straight days of wall-to-wall performances, I'm getting myself back in the thick of things for a performance by the Rocket Man himself.

I'm very excited though, as my parents told me it was a good performance on Wednesday, so now I am even more excited for the experience. I'm hoping it will be akin to Neil Diamond's performance, which was incredibly fantastic facing lowered expectations. Just can't let those get too high, but it's really hard not to fall victim to Hannah's limitless enthusiasm for the show. I just hope it's good so she isn't disappointed, but I have faith the man will bring it like only he can.