A Hasher Turns 40

I stole the title from Jimmy Buffett, but what the hell, this only happens once. Today has been a great day! I took off from work, slept in and just chilled till lunch. I went to the Charles Town raceway and slots for the afternoon to see what the Las Vegas of West Virginia had in store. Lots and lots of slots were found. I wandered around making money for the casino for about and hour and a half, finally hit for $500 on the $5 slots, had a few beers in celebration, blew about $200 more cause I got greedy, got smart and went to the winery.

I swear, I have more wine in the fridge than beer now. My favorite winery, Breaux vineyards; was deserted so I went in to the tasting room, had a few "samples" of some excellent Chardonnay, Viognier and a Pinot Gris. Tried for the discount rate on a bottle because today was my birthday, didn't get a discount but received a free glass on the house. I bs'ed with the nice lady behind the counter for a bit, and left with 2 bottles of Chardonnay and 1 Viognier (for Mom).

Finally, I was treated to an excellent surf and turf dinner from my folks, had a little cake and champagne and headed for the house. Got a new Polo shirt and a fat check from Mom and Dad, allegedly for surviving this long.

All in all, an excellent day was had! Must take my mostly inebriated self to bed so I can go to work tomorrow with a nice hangover.

Got Sunblock?

So there I was bored off my ass Saturday morning when Mom calls and asks if I want to go to a wine festival. I said sure, when and where? She tells me to float on down to the house and we'll go from there. Great time, plenty of good wine - yes, it's not beer but I gotta get some culture in somewhere. Spend 4 or so hours drinking wine in the hot sun. Yes, I got sunburned but not that bad. You'd think I'd wear sunblock, but noooooo SPF 4 in Virginia should be more than enough.

Sunday, I went hashing. A nice 5 miler through the wilds of Harper's Ferry in West Virginia. We ran a trail with great views, f*cked up checks and I ended up snaring the hare while searching for trail off a check. We regrouped after pantsing the bastard and continued on the rest of trail. Somewhere down along the Potomac, all the hash marks just stopped. I scouted down a bit further and when I came back to last mark, the hare had showed up with beer and tubes! After a refreshing beer check, we hit the water and started floating down the Potomac, drinking beer, just like back in Texas. We had one blowout and some pretty hard rocks but all in all a great time.

At the bar, once out of the sun, everyone started turning a bright shade of red. I do not know how bad everyone else got fried, but I look like a freakin' lobster. Several beers, 1 cold shower and 1/2 a bottle of Solarcaine later, I could move but was a hutin' scooter. Today at work the A/C died, my boss has been laughing his ass off at me, making lobster-boy comments and saying that I sure am red. I'm officially hiding from the sun until this weekend, when, of course; it's time to wander down to the southern shores of Maryland for lots of drinks, good friends (in from Texas), and probably more sunburn. If I can get the pix from Roll-On, I'll post'em here.