The Weekend Edition

Myself with two cute girls all over me - don't pretend you're not impressed

As previously mentioned, Yes Month continues to be an roaring success. This weekend was a good example of that as nearly every minute of every day was accounted for with fun to be had by all. By all, I mean myself and occasionally others as well.

What went down?

• Moose's Tooth after work with Amy, Cate, Joanne, Eric and Darren (plus a special guest star - couch surfer whose name I cannot recall)
• Counter-Strike, Hot Rod, and the No Pants Dance (not like that) at my house
• Dancing like crazy for four straight hours while at the bars with the previous group minus Darren and the couch surfer)
• Relaxation at Middle Way and Kaladi's with my best friends (a breakfast burrito, an americano and a really awesome comic)
• Two seriously intense one-on-one basketball games between Colver and I
• The Charbonneau Family Dinner (so much fun!)
• The first Football Sunday of the year (wake at 8, early games with Amy, Jessie and Joanne at Eddies' with a tasty breakfast buffet and coffee, late games at the Peanut Farm with Joanne and...a different Jessie)
• Balancing hours of sitting and watching football with running at the gym
• Decompressing at my home for once

With all of the high highs that happened this weekend, I feel like this is a good time to talk about something that I've always meant to talk about on here: the ongoing one-on-one basketball tournament that Colver and I have been playing for a long time. First up, a little back story: Colver and I have been playing basketball together since college, but we mostly played with other people while at college.

Since moving to Alaska, we've gotten gym memberships and started playing an endless series of one-on-one games which have effectively rendered each of us useless against the other person. Colver is a naturally good defender because he's quick and is long, but against me he's like a mixture of Bruce Bowen and Ben Wallace circa 2004 because we've been playing together so long. Essentially at this point, the only shots I have open are three pointers (once a strong suit of mine but a skill that has regressed) and shots in the paint that are preceded by approximately 8 spin moves and are often in the form of no look finger rolls while fading away from the basket. That is not an overstatement.

For the most part, we play weekly, but with two weddings in the past two months (including Colver's own) we had not played in a month and a half. Yet as soon as we stepped on the court, we picked it right back up and split both games. Of course, given that we battle to stalemates constantly and our games to 15 almost always end up finishing at 23-21 or some other rather insane score, our games end up looking like the basketball version of today's Bengals/Broncos match up (minus the insane last play), or like a slow motion version of our earlier selves. Basically, the winner of the second game is the person who survives it.

We've had a running tab of wins/losses for the past half a year or so and Colver is up 16 to 14, but that is after a hot streak carried him to an early 9 to 3 lead. I've made a fearsome comeback, but ultimately that's not even the point. You always see in movies where the main character has a main friend or a main group of friends who they play basketball with and it always seems a bit contrived. Oddly enough, I've found out that not only does this happen in real life, but it's incredibly awesome. It's the ultimate friend bonding experience for guys and it really is my favorite part of the week.

That's even with me being down in the series, which is amazing because I'm incredibly competitive. As soon as I surpass Colver (and I will), I think I'll like it even more. Which is amazing.