Boston - Part III - Bringing the colonies together!

Well, if you haven't read the first part of my freedom trail bar crawl, you can find it here.

7. The fours - great sports bar- right next to the garden. Long trail - decnt beer - vermont beer - Since the Celtics were playing the Kings that night, we decided to head to the bars around the Garden. The first bar we went to had a ton of memorabilia on the walls like some sports bars do. It was very impressive and the place was packed with people in Celtics shirts/jerseys.

8. Greatest bar - big sports bar - love it - pbr tall boys. Pbr tall boyyyyysssss! And now you can see my excitement growing. Who had bar 8? This bar was awesome. Huge and I think it has like four levels. Another PwCer joined us here, Nate, who is a Michigan State alum. Let me go on a sidebar about Boston bars in general. The first floor of them are very similar to Chicago. However, they for the most part are multi-level bars. I know not all but they have a lot more multi-level bars than Chicago. I found this interesting. This is the bar that had a huge first floor, the 2nd floor looked over the first. The third floor had Tennessee fans and i think there was another floor that we never made it to. It was a nice bar and they had PBR tall boys. Michelle and I had dinner there - BBQ chicken pizza. I will be honest. I was ready to give up on my mission of 13. This bar was big and once we were away from the Tennessee fans there was no reason to leave. However, the group decided it would be more fun to hop. So after a few beers and dinner here, we were on our way! FREEEDOOOOM! (i may have yelled that a few times....hahahaha).

9. Sullivans - I was on fire with poposhot. Never lost. Had smitheich draft there. Loved it Here is a bar none of the Boston boys had ever been it. It look sketchy from the outside. No windows, small sign, looked questionable. Well, we walked in and we see touch screen and pop-a-shot. I ordered a Smithwick's. You can see my typing in my notes is dying. I quickly figured out that a bank shot was far superior in this pop-a-shot and if you hit the Celtic logo, it was about a 90% chance of going in. Well, a local with a huge accent comes up and challenges me. Fine. I beat em. We are having fun. I can tell he is pretty competitive but still jovial. I beat him a couple more times. He then plays a friend of mine. Wants to play me again. I play him. beat him. He wont quit. I played him one more time. Set the high score on one machine and off by one point from setting it on both. I stopped with a few seconds to go to for style knowing I had him locked up. Thing is - he didn't want to stop. We told him we had to leave. I asked after we left if he would have ever quit, everyone said "no and welcome to your typical boston guy. Intense enough that it might become a fight and will not quit but usually nothing happens". Ok, lets move on. I have never been that good a pop-a-shot.


10. Djs- palm beer - here quick. Need three more bars. We spent too much time at Sullivan's. We wanted to be done at a minimum by half time of the Mich State game for our Mich State alum. So, we went into DJ's grabbed a random beer and moved on. The beer came in a fancy glass.



11. Grand canal - shot of chilled soco- shot and go. The british r coming. We
need to come together quickly! This bar was more like a club. Well, they had a live band. The shots although the Boston boys say were normal size, are big by any standard. They pour them in a glass for crying out loud. I am not complaining though! Again, we were looking for speed especially because the games were not a focus at this bar. If you can not tell by my notes, I am in my happy place. I have been there a while now...

12. Boston sport grill - bar 12 _ has seadog blueberry. Had the beer before.
Great beer. On tap here. Soooooooo good. Pretty good lots of tvs. So, if you remember, bar #1 started with a blueberry beer because I was looking for the Seadog Blueberry. Well, this bar had it. I was EXCITED. It was ON TAP! I almost missed it because there was so many taps. Colin found it. This bar had TVs everywhere. it was a good place to watch the game. However, last time Nate was there for a tourney game, Michigan State lost. He even warned us if Mich State started blowing the game, he was going to bolt to the next bar. I was okay with this.

13. Boston beer works! - 13 - slainte-bunker hill blueberry ale! Ended the
night at a microbrewey. The beer had blueberries in it. This was a micro brew. Nice sized bar. I went right for their blueberry beer and it was fantastic. It even had about 5-6 blueberries floating in it. We stayed here until a little after 11 pm and went back home. I paid my tribute to the original 13 colonies. It was great. Another great part - we walked right back to the hotel. No cab was needed.

On Saturday morning, I wishing that there were only like 8 or 9 colonies and not 13. Lets just say I was not on my A game.

To say I had a good time on Friday would be an understatement. The next blog is all about Cressey Performance (a gym) - you are forewarned.

Boston - Part II

On Friday, I slept in (not really) and Michelle had meetings in the AM. After walking Michelle to her meeting, I basically just re-hydrated in the hotel room and caught up on administrative red tape for my job. When she got back our plan was to walk some of the freedom trail and hit up a few bars along the way. Freedom trail is actually really easy to follow. They have two layers of bricks laid the wrong way along the sidewalk and that is what you follow. No tour guide needed!!!

Let me rewind before I begin. I told the boston boys about this plan and they loved it. We printed out a map of the trail and they circled some must go to bars. The only killer was the weather. On Thursday, it was 60. On Friday, it was snowing when we woke up. It settled at 40 for the day and for the rest of the weekend. Thank you very little.

On our walk to grab lunch at a bar and grill by the graveyard that contains people such as John Hancock and Paul Revere, I thought it would be fun to try to hit 13 bars for 13 colonies.

Knowing it was going to be a long day, I decided to take notes via my blackberry. So I am going to break each paragraph by my UNEDITED notes (you can see what happens with my note taking as the night progresses...).

1. Started at beantown pub right by old graveyard. Beer- waschuttes blueberry - it is light and tasty. This was a great starting point. I can not lie. The boston boys know what they are talking about. The food was great too. Again, across the street was quite the graveyard. Also, ever since I randomly had a seadog blueberry beer, I have fallen in love with blueberry beers. Please keep note of this...Time of lunch was around 1.

2. Seen some cool places. Michelle had to go do work. I walked into sissys. Got a noble pils. Not a fan. Boooo. There is a lot of time between messages here. I think I walked into Sissy K's at like 3. Michelle had a rush project come up around 2:30. We were taking in the sites so I did not have to write about any beers. We visited America's oldest church, the site of the Boston Massacre, the hall where the Tea Party started. This town really is impressive and not very big. I highly recommend the freedom trail. Sissy K's is a boston boys favorite bar because Bud light drafts are $2 (did not know). I ordered a Sam Adams beer that I did not like and it cost $6. I was not happy and I was alone now. Reinforcements were coming though.

Ok - I wasn't alone. Red was just sitting on a bench in Union Market! I had to say hi.

Fine - I took this pic on Sunday morning but he was right there. I just didn't see him on Friday!

3. Kittyosheas - molston canadian- don't get this on draft very often. Came in here on cynthia's suggestion. Hilarious. So, I am right by Faneuil Hall (union market). Faneuil Hall is where colonists first protested the Sugar Act in 1764 and established the doctrine of "no taxation without representation." I posted on facebook that I was bar crawling and one of Michelle's friends posted back that they liked Union Markey area and stopped at Kitty O'Shea's for a beer. Thus my next choice in bar. Their options weren't great but I do like Molson Canadian and it was on draft. This is where my buddy Colin met up with me.

4. Trail tour interrupted. Colin drops off nrol4w at aquarium. We meet up with mich at mr dooleys by hilton, have a boddingtons. So Colin has a book with him that he wants to give to a friend. This ends up being a 30 min sidetrack. I noted it because I was finding my rhythm and this broke it. NROL4W is not a typo (New Rules of Lifting for Women). After the drop off, I get a call from Michelle saying she done. YESSS! Colin and I head to Hilton to pick her up and we stop at Mr. Dooley's for a beer on our way back to the freedom trail. TIMECHECK - 5 pm. This was the worst bartender I have ever dealt with...maybe not but she is up there. Let us move on.

5. Green dragon- oldest bar ever awesome- had the dragon beer it was awesom. LOVE THIS PLACE! The place inside was an ordinary bar. However, the Green Dragon Tavern has been open since 1657!!!! It was deemed the "headquarters of the Revolution" by Samuel Adams, Daniel Webster and Paul Revere. This bar is the perfect symbol of this 13 bars bar crawl! This is also the last site I visited on the freedom trail. Another PwC-er (ex Chicago guy), Jay also joined us here.

6. Caffe pompei-colin and jay need some food. Grabbed a coors light. We r in the north end...ie little italy. Caught a glimpse of the garden walking over here. So after the Green Dragon, we gave up on the freedom trail and headed to the North end, so the guys could grab some food. Now, Michelle and I were SUPPOSED to go to dinner that night just the two of us but sitting at Cafe Pompei we decided to cancel. We were having a blast. Also, on the walk over, we saw the garden and decided we were heading there next.

Well, not too put too much into one blog. The continuation and finale of this wonderful Friday in Boston will come to an end tomorrow.

Boston! - Part I

Wow, has it really been 13 days since I last posted???? Well, i have a few posts to talk about with my Boston trip. Wow. What a whirlwind. What a great city. We had a blast.

I will start with Thursday. Thursday, Michelle and I left Chicago at 6 am and were in Boston by 9 am their time. Well, we both went to the PwC office. Michelle first meeting was at 10:30 a few blocks from there. It was good to be in the Boston office. I have a couple good friends there and meet a few more while I was there.

So, Michelle's meetings were done around 4:30. She came back to the PwC office while I wrapped up my work. We then checked into the hotel (which was about two blocks away) and headed back to PwC to pick up a co-worker. We headed to Fenway area to watch baseball games. Another 5 PwC employees and a couple of Michelle's co workers met us.

We went to a bar called Game On. It was huge and a sweet bar. It was right next to Fenway. I was told though to walk into Bleacher Bar because from inside that bar, you can look into Fenway. Well, it was not crowded and I took a quick pic with my blackberry. The night was great. Butler upset Syracuse which was great because the bar was ALLLLL Syracuse.



When we left, we tried to find a cab. I quickly found out that the cabs there do not abide by any light on/light off rule. In Chicago, if a Taxi has his light on, he is looking for a fare. In Boston, light could be on or off. It doesn't matter. That was annoying but in all a great start to a long weekend!

Tomorrow: Freedom Trail meets Bar Crawl meets the Garden!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

For St. Patrick's day I will list a bunch of random thoughts in bullet form.

• Samantha is 363 days old. Two more...two more...It has been quite the year.
• On Saturday instead of drinking over 20 beers, I got the oil changed in the jeep and worked out in the afternoon. Quite a change of pace. I did split a bottle of wine with my wife over a sushi dinner. My liver was the big winner on Saturday.
• Biggest loser was good last night. I like the Samoans. I think it is inevitable that someone from the blue team will win the money but you never know.
• Speaking of fat people, why does medical insurance reward laziness? Let's say that I get lazy, eat bad and gain 100 lbs. I go to the doctor and get blood pressure prescription because well, my heart is being overworked. The doctor visit and the drugs are covered expense. However, hiring a nutritionist or a personal trainer is not covered. If people are serious about preventive care, should it not start with them? Glad I got that off my chest.
  
• Bryan's bachelor party in New Orleans is starting to take shape. I am getting excited. Ok. I am excited! Will someone be arrested? I would say that it is better than even money!
• This weekend Samantha is having a birthday party at my parents' house. I am looking forward to a weekend in the burbs.
• Next week's episode of Lost is about Richard. I. CAN. NOT. WAIT!!!!!!
• I hope Butler does well in the Tournament but I really think next year is their year.
• What am I saying???? Next year is Loyola's year!!!! No. It's not. So sad.
• Baseball season is right around the corner and for that matter so is summer. YESSS!

I hope everyone has a great St. Patrick's day!

Another sign of old age

St. Patricks Day parade downtown....This saturday is the parade downtown and the day Chicago will be partying in honor of St. Patricks day.

Every year, the Saturday before St. Patrick's day is probably the 2nd biggest party day of the year for Chicago (behind new years eve). For over 10 years, it was easily my favorite day of the year in Chicago. It all started in college with going over to Smitty's place at 7am to tap the keg and eat some green pancakes. If you were lucky, Tiny made an appearance...

You see Chicago parties early and often tomorrow. Bars are crowded by 8 am. We always had a party or gathered at a bar in the am. Slept off the morning fun in the afternoon and came back for more in the pm. Well, that was my usual game plan.

I digress. I did not even realize that the parade was tomorrow until yesterday! Ahhhhhh! You know what my plans are for the am. Wake up with Samantha. Get the oil changed on the jeep and go to the gym. That is my Saturday plans right now.

When did this happen? Oh well, another sign of old age...

Survivor All Stars: Good vs Evil - revisited

Am I the only one rooting for the villains? With each week, I am beginning to hate the all-stars more and more. They are offered free chocolate...a sample if you will before the challenge. They refuse to have it. Come on. You are coming off like such jack-asses. I am hating colby, tom and especially rupert. Rupert is the worst. The other ones I am fine with. It is a real bummer that James is hurt.

Now, the villains work well as a team in competition and it is paying off. I am not saying the challenges are not close but they do not crack under pressure. I am a little bummed that Rob and Russell are not getting along. I think they are my two favorites. Watch out for Pavarti. She is playing a good game again. I am very interested to see how this hidden idol plays out.

Happy Friday!

Samantha's birthday month

Michelle and I are known to celebrate birthdays for a month. We are also notorious for celebrating events early. It comes of no surprise that we did the same for Samantha. While in Florida, we kicked off Samantha's birthday month with Grandpa and Grammy.

Here is the video of her eating her first cake.



Of course, Samantha is looking forward to round 2 at nana and papa's house on the 21st!

Yeah birthday month!!!