Allocca's Wedding

So like 6 weeks ago, Allocca got married and I went to the wedding. I suppose this is worth blogging about, since he's become a pretty solid friend after I left apple and assumed I wouldn't really see much of him anymore.

It was kind of a murky, ugly day in late September, but the skies worked pretty well with the foliage. I got up at 6:30am if I remember correctly, and pretty much froze to death in the shower. Got there actually a little early, and headed in exhausted and uncomfortable in my ghetto suit.

It was a short ceremony, but it was beautiful outside and it was generally pretty enjoyable.

LOVE

It helped that I was sitting next to this guy. Look at that mustache!

After the ceremony, we all headed in to our tables. The inside of the place was amazing. Look at the frame work!

They even had "Allocalypse" written in lights on the dance floor area, but I forgot to take a picture. Good work. Here's Sean trying to learn the art of the mean mug. He sucked at it.

I was the loser asshole that had an empty seat next to me. Since I don't have a lady friend, I asked Allocca who I should bring with me that he hadn't invited. I had asked Shawn to go with me a week or 2 before, and he said he would, only to hit me with a "oh yea, I forgot to tell you, I can't go" the night before. Thanks asshole. I asked like 12 other people and nobody could go. At least our table got extra food.

I sat next to quite the attractive young lass, who, after talking to her for like 10 seconds, I learned is a fellow food-blogger. So we talked a lot about our blogs, how many hits we get, goals, design, etc. It was a great case of "it's a small world," when the stranger next to your non-existent date's empty chair is another weirdo who writes about food they eat on the internet.

I decided to not only be the dateless loser of the table, but also the resident village idiot, commenting on how I didn't understand why we had so many forks, then taking all of my forks and Shawn's, and eating with them like the moron I am.

CLASS (this and the next 2 shots, I stole from CJ)

After food (which was surprising in that things I didn't think I'd like I liked, and things I was excited about did nothing for me), everyone randomly ended up outside smoking cigars and laughing it up. I enjoyed my first alcohol (an ice cold Bud Diesel) since getting out of the hospital, and we basically just stood outside in the cool air and didn't dance.

Here's Allocca, talking to the coolest guy there. He was wearing a leather sportcoat, smoking a pipe, and regularly put on a monocle most likely solely because it made him awesome.

The pose that everyone took a picture of: Weird top hat pipe guy vs. British bare knuckle boxer guy. Kind of looks like a steampunk festival to me. (Suck it Allocca!)

I think this is my favorite picture of the day:

Eventually the DJ brought everyone in and instead of having the girls try to catch the bouquet, he had them play musical chairs for it. Now I know what you're thinking- has there ever been a more stupid idea at a wedding? What normally takes 10 seconds lasted like 15 minutes at least. We all thought it would be horrible (and it sure started out that way), but after awhile, it became hilarious. Most people didn't want it at all and were forced out there by peer pressure. So watching a bunch of chicks try to lose at a game of musical chairs was pretty hilarious. Then we would randomly decide to cheer for people. We really thought Tara might pull it out, but she lost to someone who REALLY wanted it. Who is the real winner in that situation though? Hmmm...

A little bit of dancing happened, and I sort of forced myself to dance like an idiot just because I enjoy it so much. It was also a way to try and get more people involved (it's weird to me when not a lot of dancing happens at weddings), but it didn't work too much and honestly, I didn't care that much. A lot of people had already left too. It was a weird thing seeing a wedding end at like 4 in the afternoon and seeing people leave early. I also realized that the amount of dancing at a wedding is extremely reliant on 2 things- 1. Darkness: If it's too bright, people don't want to dance too much because everyone will see how stupid they look, and 2. Time of day: Let's face it, most people aren't going to drink a ton at 3 in the afternoon when they know a wedding is scheduled to end at 4:30ish, and most dancing is quite reliant on alcohol consumption too. A night wedding= drunk morons dancing all night and making really stupid faces in the dark. Afternoon wedding= MAYBE some slow dancing, but generally a few drinks, some laughs, and heading home early. Things to think about!

It was good though. I wanted to stay longer, but it was a pretty reasonable amount of time for a wedding that was generally pretty nice. I mostly just enjoyed it because everyone I knew there, I knew from Apple. When I left a year and a half ago, I knew I'd stay in touch with a few people and see some at shows or if I visited Apple here and there. I didn't expect to be invited to weddings and to go hiking with people or go to their parties. It's been awesome that I've kept in touch with these people- they're good people.

This was the first social thing I'd done in like 3 weeks and the first alcohol I drank. It was also the first time I didn't think too much about what I was eating (I was eating as heart-healthy as possible after the hospital, and didn't even really eat dessert or much sugar). I decided after that I should probably go wander around the woods and get some instagrams too. So, since the wedding was close to Wachusett Mountain, I decided to see if I could drive to the top. Turns out I could.

The views from the top were pretty unexciting and it was super foggy, but I did get some cool pictures of the cell tower. This one made it to instagram:

I learned while at the wedding that Ralph (who left apple and moved away) would be visiting and hanging out at Unos for awhile, so I decided to drive super out of the way and headed an hour east to Burlington to visit. I fought sleep the whole way and showed up in my wedding clothes. It was good to see the old lunatic.

Even Stevie was there!

Not a ton of people visited, but enough did that it was totally worth it. I even got Zack to come out. Just hanging out with Ralph and making fun of him and Clark with Stevie B, and saying stupid things and doing Laflamme impressions to make Zack spit out his food felt like old times. I don't miss work in the least, but I absolutely miss hanging out with everyone from work. 

I'm happy I've stayed in touch with so many people and am able to visit as often as I do, even though I should visit more. Thanks for the invitation Allocca. Let our friendship continue. What a solid day this turned out to be.

senile old man, dude from reveille, girl I have a crush on

ALRIGHT, THE NEXT BLOG POST WILL BE STUFF FROM OCTOBER!

currently listening to: The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza- "Danza IV: The Alpha-The Omega"

Peaks Island, day 3

Day 3 started with some sweet mini breakfast sandwiches from Tara, then us heading into town to get coffee, where people accidentally posed for fake band promo pictures. Damien is clearly the drummer.

As we sat around and watched Wyatt try to play with rusty nails, it started raining. We knew it was coming, but hoped it wouldn't show. It did. So we headed back and had a nice quiet day inside.

Tara colored some sweet pictures while Wyatt colored Damien's tail. 

Damien could use a little color in his life

Then we threw on Gentlemen Broncos, one of the finest films in all of cinema. 

Shaun and Natalie decided to head home, and apparently missed like 3 ferries because the line was so long for people leaving. Should have stayed guys!

After the Gentlemen Broncos ended, Tara apparently decided she wanted all the guys to leave, so she put on a movie starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and a lot of singing: The awful, awful musical, Mamma Mia! This sent us outside onto bikes pretty fast. We didn't even care that it was misty with a chance of pouring- we needed to get out of there. Kevin looked extremely natural riding Tara's rental bike. 

We decided to head up the road to where we had seen all of the cairns.

It was nice to be outside, even though it was disgusting out.

I took a lot of pictures. 

Here's Jake getting daring,

then running away in terror when the waves came after him.

man he blends in!

Kevin stayed safe.

We wandered around admiring all of the cairns. Some of them were pretty awesome.

We decided to make our own, right as the rain started kicking in again.

I went for a house structure with sticks like flowers growing out of the middle:

Kevin went for a more abstract approach, with some solid balancing.

And Jake went for the big balance- trying to get this insane rock on top of smaller ones. It actually worked. I was impressed, but I'm sure wind and waves knocked this thing down pretty quickly. Still, great job Jake.

This ended up being one of those weird times where I was at a place for 3 days and have lots of good memories with a good group of people, but when I think about the trip, my brain goes right away to a brief section of time where we made the best of not great situation. Just being out there in the rain, building cairns while the girls watched chick flicks, I don't know- it's just a nice memory, and it's where my brain goes first whenever I think of the trip. 

We headed back as it poured on us, and I threw my soaked clothes in the dryer and put on nasty dirty clothes. It was now Wyatt's turn for movie picks, and we were watching The Incredibles.

Here's a sweet picture of Damien freaking out on his dog bed. 

Tara and Gina went to the store for more chips and some ice cream sandwiches. They swore they'd be able to get fudgsicles, but they were drastically overestimating the inventory at the 1 store on an island. Jake, Kevin, Wyatt and I were fairly bored, so we attempted to play Texas Hold 'em while Wyatt played with his toys.

It turns out Texas Hold 'em doesn't really work when you try to bet empty beer cans and potato chips. Everyone just goes all in every time. And who wants to win empty beer cans? So we played Go Fish.

Hey 2 readers of this blog, when was the last time you played Go Fish? We had to look up the rules online because none of us remembered exactly how to play. Let me tell you something- Go Fish is AWESOME. What a great game. Shit got very competitive and we each won one game. As Tara and Gina finished cooking up 3 different pizzas, we had one more game to decide the true winner, which was ME. BOOM.

We sat down for a lovely dinner with some more sweet dinner music.

After cleaning everything up (it's astonishing how many dishes are created when a big group of people cook for every meal), I decided it was time to head out. I had only planned on being there until that night, and the next day looked like more rain. I had had enough. So I checked the Ferry schedule, packed up everything into my backpack, threw the built-in waterproof cover over it, hopped on my wet bike, and rode toward the Ferry in the dark. It felt so weird to leave friends who were settling in for a movie in our happy little home. I had already gotten fairly used to island living in our sweet little house by the ocean. But it was time. I missed my bed.

Of course I'm an idiot and I screwed up the Ferry schedule. It was now technically "off season," and the times had changed. I caught that, but I looked at the times the ferry LEFT portland, not arrived at Peak's Island. Oops. 

So I sat there in the cold for 25 minutes while people started showing up. I rode back (again the only one with a bike, and again, I felt cool because of this) while listening to a group of 50+ year olds who had been partying pretty hard. They may have even taken the ferry just to have drinks there. I love listening to drunk adults. So many bad jokes.

It was actually even cooler to leave the island to head back to the real world, especially in a dark fog. The distant horns of tugboats all around us, the sound and smell of the ocean, misty lights everywhere- it had a very neat atmosphere- a transitional world between Island Life and the daily grind back on dry land. Going alone on a bike made the experience that much more of an alien world.

This was a giant boat that I thought looked awesome reflecting on the water. I loved the light rays coming off it too. 

I had arranged for Pog to come pick me up (he awesomely volunteered to drive my illegally parked car to his house), and I practiced my slow motion biking while waiting for him. He forgot I had my bike, but luckily he had everything he needed to throw it on the back of his car. Him picking me up saved me the worries of my car getting ticketed or towed, and it saved me having to ride up a steep hill while it was still misty and gross outside. Thanks again Pog. We hung out as his house for a bit, then I headed back to NH and regular life. It was new experience and an awesome little vacation with great friends. Hope to do something like this again!

Peaks Island, day 2

Day 2 started with a Tara breakfast feast of eggs, bacon, pancakes, fruit, yogurt, etc. It was niiiice. Pog and Simone showed up as we were cleaning up the kitchen, and we set off for the beach.

Except it was really just a pile of rocks. 

With beautiful views.

Here's our set up from rocks I explored. It was a sweet little peninsula.

Wyatt was looking his best in a Batman hooded bathing suit zip up thing.

he's the hero Peaks Island deserves

This was clearly a max and relax vacation, with most people kind of just sitting around and popping some beers. I set out to explore the rocks and took some sweet pics.

Kevin skipping rocks:

Waves crashing over rocks:

The view of a neighboring island from the edge of rock cliffs on our little peninsula:

A similar view from farther out in the rocks:

I found a lot of treasures:

Including a Pog basking on the rocks:

 Check out this bitchin rope swing. To nowhere.

After wandering around the rocks looking for treasure and pictures while smelling the awful stink of settled ocean puddles, I saw that Kevin and Shaun had beat me to doing the stupid thing of swimming in the ocean:

So I went down and joined them. I've never liked swimming in the ocean and don't know why anyone would. It's absurdly freezing, there's just giant horrific rocks instead of smooth sand, there's gross seaweed everywhere, and the water is salty and disgusting. But it was hot and we were on the ocean- it felt weird to not go in at least once. I brought the frisbee down more as a joke than anything, and we stood in the water freaking out from the temperature for 5-10 minutes max. Getting out, the sun felt absolutely incredible. 

After warming up, we all just continued chilling. Pog really went for it:

And Damien played fetch. I didn't think a pit bull would care about running after a stick or swimming, but robo Damien hopped right in. It was adorable.

Unfortunately, he tired out pretty quick though, ending by gag coughing and throwing up. Poor guy.

It was great to see him acting young though, and chasing the stick every time Tara threw it. That thick skull of his just doesn't know when to stop.

We then headed up to a pig roast/party thing that was being held at the same place Dan's wedding had been. There was a band that sounded like a bad version of a phish cover band:

And there was food. We were supposed to pay 15 bucks each for unlimited food, but none of the food looked all that great to us and we are pretty cheap. Shaun manned up and bought a ticket and went up, bringing a ton of food back for everyone. Then we slowly realized that nobody was really paying attention to if we had tickets/bracelets, and we became scumbags that had free food. 

hamburger with watermelon: not good. 

We headed to the store to get food and more beer for the night. I then bought this sweet "Got Beer?" hat and proceeded to wear it, much to everyone's delight:

I hit up the umbrella museum real quickly solo, because I was the only one interested in it. It's literally an umbrella cover museum- a room full of umbrella covers from all over the world. When I talked to Nancy (who pretty much runs the whole thing), she told me they were waiting on their official Guiness Book of World Record paperwork for the largest umbrella cover collection.

literally just now noticing her sweater

I went in there because it was hilarious and very random. I felt like if Peaks Island was known for having this (and it kind of is), I had to go. And you know what? It was actually kind of interesting, at least in the "wow, there are a ton of these" or "wow, this is from Mongolia?" way. I even got a private show: 

Here's a beautiful silhouette of Shaun and I on the walk back. Can you tell which one is me?

When we got back, Wyatt continued to be cute,

And the Robertson family decided to take him on a bike ride. 

Since I wanted to experience as much of Peaks Island as I could, I joined them. 

There were sections all along the road where people had made hundreds of little rock cairns of various sizes, and it looked like people had generally left them alone for eternity. 

There were a lot of nice spots along the road.

I always love seeing someone just sitting alone with a view like this. This guy gets it. 

There was really only one hill, which was marked with this at the top.

Other than that, the ride was awesome. It was 2-3 miles of gently rolling tar roads along the ocean for 60% of it. When it wasn't right next to the ocean, it took us through super tight neighborhoods where we got to see the ridiculous names of all the houses. Towards the end, there was a huge harbor next to us. I got to see a sweet sailboat,

and then shortly after, this view: 

We met everyone else back in town for some ice cream, where Wyatt tried his hand at being cute. 

this may be my favorite picture of him ever

We walked back and drank some brewskies, then Kevin served up the pulled chicken he had had in the crock pot all day. He had dill and mint in it! WTF! We sat down at the dinner table outside and listened to a sweet Pandora station playing nothing but big band stuff from the 50s. How classy are we?

on island time

As the night went on, things got weird.

Jake and I ate a bag and a half of chips, and eventually the night ended as they usually do at our get-togethers, with Kevin, Gina and I being the only ones up. We played horrible music and had a lot of laughs. Then... let's just say the pulled chicken didn't agree with me. After calling me and playing a song I'd been trying to play for the last 40 minutes (I think it was Kanye West's "All of the Lights") over the phone, Kevin and Gina snuck into bed while I was in the bathroom. Kevin was out pretty quick. The joke here being of course, that Kevin partied until I pooped. 

I settled into my pile of pillows, blasted the fan on me, and snored all night while Shaun and Natalie tried to sleep. 

currently listening to: Emmure- "Slave To The Game"