DropKnees.com Blog

For the past two months, on every Wednesday, I have left work a little early and ventured up to Lincoln Park for some serious coed softball games. We never won, but it was a lot of fun. The team consists of some Google and DoublelClicker blokes. 16 inch softball, http://www.16inchsoftballhof.com/history.asp, has been known to hurt the fingers because of the lack of gloves in the game. But it is also known for bringing people together (cheesy line) for a good time. Salutes go out to the team, thank you.

After every game, I then venture to Second City to make funnies with the comedy troupe. Since January 2008, I have been spending three hours every Wednesday night in a room with nothing on the walls and no flare. Yet, every week I laugh my butt off at the scenarios that we put ourselves into. Our crew comes from all sorts of backgrounds and we always make for a laugh.

Most people dread the humpday, Wednesday…I thoroughly enjoy it.

16′’ screwballs:

16 screwballs:

The fourth fell on a weekend this year and it was great. I was able to cruise to to sides of Lake Michigan. The fourth of July was spent in Indiana on the shores. The Ryan family put me up and we had a great time on the beach all day (fireworks were a must at night). The next day, I drove all the way to the otherside of the lake, to Racine. Racine is where Holleb acres is. Its like a family compound with tennis and a pool. We had family laughs and then threw down in a crazy game of Taboo. The next day was full of Tennis matches and a short jaunt to Whitewater. We mountain biked kettle moraine and I bought a bike from the backyard bike shop. It was a long weekend that involved 3 states, but it was well worth the travel.

I spent the weekend in LA. It allowed me the opportunity to check out the whole town. Residing in West Hollywood, we cruised to Venice on Saturday for a day with some kids from high school that I hadn’t seen in well over a decade. We got weird like most of the people on the beach. The next morning, I met up with a member of the Meyer (family) clan, Jeff Meyer, for a brief surf session in Santa Monica. Where the Sunset blvd. meets PCH (the Pacific Coast Hwy) and near the Baywatch lifeguard towers, there was a great long-board break. I was able to catch three waves and live up to my “bro-ness.”

Last weekend, I participated in my first bachelor party ever. Billy Zanoni, a good friend and old roommate from Utah, is from Chicago and all his local boys took part. We rented 3 fishing boats and cruised out on Lake Michigan. We were all dressed as Mike Ditkas (some with fake mustaches and some with real staches). The day was perfect and my boat was able to have everyone on the boat catch a fish. The captain and his first mate catered the entire day on the boat. It almost made me feel lazy, but it was great. I caught the biggest fish of my life, a Lake Michigan Salmon. It was almost three feet long and over 20 pounds. I still have a bruise on my hip from the 15 minute fight to bring that sucker aboard.

The middle part of the day was spent at my apartment. All 17 participants came back to our place for more beer and food. People were still coherent and speaking from that heart when we toasted at that point. Then, we moved to a Chicago favorite, Kingston Mines. This is where the night got more eventful and exhausting. The blues and tunes that K. Mines creates is great. The day was long, but fun.

The real reason for being in DC was for Chris & Christian’s wedding (friends from Wyoming and Park City).  Their wedding was at Gonzaga High School’s church (near where I had played lacrosse when I was in High School) and the reception was at the Four Seasons in Georgetown.  The wedding was great and it was a pleasure to romp around a place that I used to live.  I went to Flint Hill Elementary School for three years when I was growing up.  During that time, I routed for the Washington Bullets and saw Doug Williams pull home a Super Bowl.

The East Coast provided some serious humidity when I was there two weeks ago. I arrived on Thursday and went straight to the Nationals/Cardinals baseball game. The new stadium was amazing. Wrigley field has two dudes sweating it out in a sauna in center field, manually placing numbers in the scoreboard, like Vanna White on the Wheel of Fortune. National’s Stadium has the largest scoreboard in baseball, with a 4,000 square foot HD screen. Needless to say, it was an amazing stadium and the game went into extra innings and ended with a walkoff homerun.

After the game, I was escorted around DC’s newest attraction, National Harbor, by the developers, A&B Gault. It was amazing to see something that has been in the works for over a decade. We saw blueprints for the development when I was still in high school. I like seeing things come to fruition.

The next few days were spent roaming around DC and Georgetown. Some pictures are below.

We spent the night at Holleb Acres on Saturday night.  It is a unique family vacation compound with over 8 households on it.  The Holleb family was homesteaders at this Lake Michigan bluff.  It is always tough to get a kid from Boulder to represent where they are really from.  There are plenty of Boulder kids out there that just disown their homestead for the CO. license.  Josh Holleb, took the summer off from Bro-isms and is chillin with his family on the acreage just south of Milwaukee.  It is also a pleasure to meet the family that imbedded such zaniness into such a character.  We certainly enjoyed hanging with the Holleb on their estate.  It was like going back in time because you could tell that only about a handful of things have changed in such a place, for example, the furniture and art were quite dated.  Below are pics of the Hollebs and their view.  Thank you for the hospitality.

I tried my hardest to have an excuse to leave this city for a jaunt to anywhere on this fine three day weekend. The best that could be done was a short drive to LaGange, Wisconsin. There, the Yeti got its first relatively intense rides of the year. Myself and D. DeDeo, the soon to be lawyer for Baker & Mackenzie, spent two days mountain biking in the woods of Wisco. Below are some pictures of the jaunt.

“Wisco,” the term used for people from Wisconsin.  I was able to spend some time in the town of Whitewater this weekend.  We went up with intentions of biking the trails at Kettle Moraine, but the weather shot us down.  They closed the trails due to Midwest rain.  It would be pretty cool if they shut down work because of rain.  Needless to say, a pub crawl through this small town in Wisco was well worth it.  And props go to the Backyard Bike shop for walking me through my next purchase, Trek Modone.

The first music venue for the spring was had last night. I went to a show at Chicago’s Metro (If ARod was a Cub, he could tag the front of the theater with deep balls outta Wrigley Field). The Tokyo Police Club was the name of the band and they were actually pretty good. I really had no expectations coming into this evening and anytime that you go to an 18+ concert, one is always wondering what to expect. These guys threw down many tunes (avg song duration=1.5 minutes), all of which were enjoyable.