So it all started off on Friday morning. At first, I was schedueld to scoop up Trav and Mike from the airport Thursday night, but their flight ended up getting cancelled, which put a bogus damper on the night, because I was expecting to kick it, but it was pushed back. So the flight got in early Friday and I was there to scoop them up. We spent most of the day just relaxing at my place, because we were waiting for my brother, his boy T, and cousin Rodney to get into town.

As soon as they got to my place, the juices were cracked. We kicked it at my place for awhile waiting for Mexi to come, who made a whole bunch of wrong turns, so it took him about 2 hours to get to my place from Jackson. Never the less, he made it safely, and brought even more juice to add to the pile. Of course, like the good old days, we had to take part in a great past-time……..jager! I remember we used to drink that like water back in the MSU days, so we wanted to reminisce a little bit!

So since my brother wanted to spend a night partying in the R.O., our destination of choice was Woody’s. We got there around 11, and immediately Greg (my brother), T, and Rodney went to the dancefloor. Now, I’ve mentioned it before, my brother is 33 going on 18. He still likes to party like he was in college, and it’s quite funny to me. Woody’s wasn’t too crowded when we first got there, so we wanted to try going across the street to 5th Avenue to see how things were over there. Now, I’m not against live bands, but when it’s party time, I’m not really trying to listen to a live band. I want to hear dance music.

We stayed at 5th Avenue for awhile, but then it just got way too hot, and it was really cramped, so we went over to meet back up with Greg, T, and Rod, who were definitely still on the dancefloor. So we just finished out the night at Woody’s and closed it down. We had alot of fun there, and the music was pretty good. After the bar, we just went back to my place for some more drinks and just to wind down the night, and we had to get up early to head to tailgate.

8:00 a.m. came a little too fast. We wanted to leave by 7, but that failed miserably, so once we woke up, we scrambled hard and got on the road en route to East Lansing for tailgate. The weather was terrible. This was definitely unexpected. After making a few stops, we didn’t get to tailgate until 11, which gave us about an hour to tailgate before it was time for us to go to the game. Tailgate was not great. It was a little chilly and rainy, and there were not many people out there. If the homies weren’t in town, I wouldn’t have been out there either. So we quickly threw down the beers that we bought, and went to the lamest game I’ve ever been to.

No need to recap the game, we suck, John L. sucks, our season is over. We ended up leaving at the beginning of the 4th quarter because we were tired and hungry. We grabbed some wingzone, and went to the hotel to check-in, and cool out for the day. We watched some football and napped all day to get ready for the evening festivities. Me, Trav, Mexi, and Mike went over to Miller’s to meet up with the homies, while Greg, T, and Rod got ready. We decided that we would just meet them at Harper’s.

They left before us, and decided to do Harper’s Downtown, and since not everyone in our group wanted to go there, we decided to go upstairs, and then a few of us could just meet Greg at Downtown after a bit. That didn’t happen though. Me and Trav tried to con some managers into accepting a cash payment for getting us right in the door because they were way crowded. That didn’t happen because they were at capacity. So we just chilled in the upstairs part all night and drank…..alot. I was so out of it though and mad tired, so most of the night I was trying to stay in the game. We had a big group, and Darko and Elliot were there, so that was good to see them again. Nothing too exciting happened at Harper’s, just alot of catching up and hanging out, but it was really fun.

We closed down Harper’s, and by that time I was spent, and was expecting to go home, but there was a slim change in plans. Trav and Greg wanted to keep the party going and head to an “after hours” spot. We’ll leave that nameless, with no details! Long story short, we didn’t get back until about 4:30 a.m. and I was extra spent by that point. The crappy part was, we had to be up at like 7 a.m. so that I could drive Trav and Mike to the airport for a 9 a.m. flight. It seemed like the longest morning ever.

I wish we had more days for Trav and Mike to be in town. We had a bomb ass time, but missing that first Thursday night made it seem like the rest of the days were rushed. The weekend flew by a little too fast to leave my brain, liver, and wallet every bit of spent on Sunday. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures, again. I really need to start taking pics, because these times are too few and far between. We had a bomb ass time this weekend, minus the Spartans losing, and I can’t wait until the next time we can all get together.

peace

So after work Friday, I went to go eat with momma Philly and my sister in Canton, then scrambled back home (R.O.) to meet up with Batio so that we could boogie on up to State for the big weekend. Unforunately, we didn’t get in until around 10. Now, usually, I don’t care about arriving into town late, but on a weekend like this where tons of people are going to be there and at the bars, it really helps to get somewhere early to beat the lines. This wasn’t the case, and the night ended up being a flop because 1.) it was pouring rain out, and 2.) we arrived too late and lines were absolutely ridiculous. Now yes, I wanted to go out, however, I’m quite past the days where I will wait in line at least at hour to get in……negative!

So I ended up staying in and chillin with Izzo and his girlfriend. Early Saturday morning, I woke up for a breakfast meeting to sign some papers, and after breakfast, I was all kinds of geeked and ready to get it done. I went over to Steve & Barrys to get myself and Kell some hot alumni t-shirts. I can’t even put into words how glad I am to be a Spartan Alum. But anyways, I met up with Bill, Tran, and Paulie D at the QD so that we could pick up some juice. We went back to Izzo’s to organize, and then we hot-footed it to meet up with the rest of the Stoddard Alumni.

So we arrive there, and damn was it good to see everyone. It had been like a year since I’ve seen the guys from 129 so when we saw them it almost instantly brought up some of the fun memories. So we had to spend a bit of time catching up, shooting the shit and whatnot, and overall, it seems to me that everyone’s life is going very well, and that their lives were well on the way to happiness. That’s always good to hear, and you never want to hear that someone is doing bad. So we hung out there for awhile and boozed it up like we did in the good old days.

After a while, we decided to see stroll on over to the tennis courts (our tailgate was at Old Horticulture) to see who was around. Honestly, it was nothing really special to me. Because of the fact that I’m not in college anymore, I don’t feel that our tailgate needs to be in the center of the action because I came to tailgate to party with the people that I shared the finest days of college with. So in no way did I feel like I was going to miss something at the courts, however, we still went to briefly check it out and take a brisk walk through. Apparently Dano was there, but unfortunately I didn’t see him, which was kinda lame cause I haven’t seen/talked to him in so long.

There were more people than I thought were going to be at the tennis courts, but it still will never compare to the days when tailgate wasn’t tainted by the stuck up big wigs at MSU. Never the less, it was still cool to see tons of Spartans partying in a place other than the bar. But after our stroll near the courts, we headed on back to Old Horti for some more action. One of the highlights had to have been Double O’s girl trying to call out Team Baller (Stoddard flip-cup league champs!). I didn’t take that so well, therefore I felt like that was a challenge….

So we set up some flip cup, and because there were alot of people there, we couldn’t exactly have just Team Baller again the challengers, so a bunch of other people hopped in the play. Never the less, Team Baller and some other randoms held it down, not losing a round. For some reason, our squad always gets underestimated until we whipping ass, and then the excuses come out……but that’s not here nor there.

Of course with every tailgate in which he is there, Uncle William has to have everyone’s attention for the traditional tailgate speech, or, the Uncle William Speech. As always, he came with another good one! I really wish I had a damn video camera or some way to have recorded it, because I definitely would have. A still camera just doesn’t capture enough of the moment when Uncle William gets in front of everyone. Oh well, maybe next year.

Now, tailgating from 1 until gametime (8pm) sounds like a long time, but it went by really fast. A little before 8 we started to make our way to the bar to watch what we had been waiting for all day, to butt heads with Notre Dame. Our location was Harpers, and luckily we got a good table to watch the game. I really don’t feel like going in depth about the frustrations that went on in that game, but I have one question. How in the hell do we lose a game where we dominated for 3.5 quarters. If this was a Sound Session, you would probably hear alot of swearing right now, but I will contain myself.

So we only stayed at Harpers for a few minutes after the game, because after that much drinking all day, it starts to wear on you, especially when you can’t even celebrate a Spartan victory. Oh well, there’s always next year. We just about called it a wrap after that though. We went to Izzo’s for a minute, and then to Miller’s place to wind down the night.

All-in-all, it was a fun ass weekend. It was everything I thought it was going to be, and it was damn good to see the Stoddard Alum at it again, just like we used to do. I have to admit that my camera performace was not good. I didn’t take nearly as many pics as I wanted to.

Batio was mentioning that, even if it wasn’t tailgate, we should try and plan at least a couple times a year where we all get together somewhere. Sounds like a good idea to me, so we’ll see. So to all that made it, I hope you had fun, because I definitely did. No one does it like the Stoddard Alum!

peace

So I’m seeing all of these students that look like they’re all 15. It made me feel so old, and nothing about the age of 23 sounds old. It’s even more weird that I don’t really know anyone in East Lansing anymore. There’s Double O, Paulie, Miller, Andrew, and Tyler. That’s it. I feel like I know and still talk to just as many old professors as I do my friends.

Welcome Week hasn’t changed at all either. Not that I expected it to, but there were just tons of people out, it was ridiculous. You’d think that it would be nothing to me, since I’ve done the welcome week thing quite a bit, but it’s not everyday that you see thousands of college students out partying. And the freshman are the easiest to recongnize because they will be the ones in packs of 20+, and they’re extremely sober because obviously they are way under age.

One thing that I just kind of thought of, is if you think back to your college years, and all that we went through and dealt with, and every last bit of fun that we had. Just think about that for like two seconds. And then think about all of these incoming freshman that have no idea what they are about to go through. They have no clue about all of the life changing events that are going to happen, whether it be meeting friends for life, meeting your future spouse, that opportunity to make it big, etc.

That kind of bugs me out a little bit because we (alums) were all in position once, and personally, I didn’t know anything. I was naive to sooo much. So it’s interesting being able to briefly recap my college years and then look at the new jacks coming into the school and to think “Wow, life is about to get real damn interesting”. This is definitely one of those times where you can easily look from the outside-in because we’ve been there done that.

Even though it made me feel old looking at the youngsters, at the same time, it makes me damn proud that I was able to spend some of the best years of my life (thus far) as a Spartan. I am one proud ass alumni!

peace