Punta Cana Three-Oh!

The 30 Things I Learned On My 30th Birthday Trip in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic To celebrate our 30th birthdays, a few friends and I (and Val) went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. I thought we'd look back on 30 years of living, but it turned out to be a great and fun learning experience. Here are 30 things I learned on my 30th birthday trip to the DR, in no particular order... 1. Don't ask people if they are Irish Twins (siblings born within same year). They will most likely be confused or think that you're insulting them by calling them Irish and/or calling their parents promiscuous. 2. Don't forget to leave the floaters in pool. Every night we received a flyer that highlighted events for the following day and always reminded you to leave the floaters in the pool--floaters being floating rafts of course. 3. Mariana is the best negotiator I know, personally or famous. She negotiated getting herself and Val rings that were $55 each for $20 each, primarily just by repetitively saying "Senor....no." Okay, maybe she also offered to give them the pretty blond (Val), but it was fun to watch. Consider this, the same discount applied to the Yankee payroll would result in A-Rod getting about $10 million a year. 4. You could potentially cost a foreigner their job by teaching them common American phrases, but it's hysterical. During beach volleyball, an "enthusiastic" Mariana kept telling our attendee/teammate Joanna, "You my sexy bitch!" Finally, Joanna returned the phrase and continued to do so whenever she saw us at the resort for the remainder of our stay. We just hoped that she wasn't saying that to all other women staying there. 5. The second best way to Punta Cana is to miss your flight, catch a flight to Santo Domingo and catch a 3 hour cab across the island to Punta Cana. Yes, this happened to Alyssa and Dana, but they made it to the resort for the first night and we had a blast. 6. If you have some great neighbors, the best time of day in the DR is Backyard Time. Hammocks, drinks, music, room service apps, Lishnoffs, Coontzes, Lyss & Dana. Nuff said. 7. When playing golf, remember what ball you are playing. If the game gets a little competitive you might be accused of playing the wrong ball. Even if that ball is the only one in the area where you landed. 8. If an amusement park ever had a ride called "Being Driven Around in the DR", it would be really scary, cause a lot of accidents in peoples' pants and be shut down immediately. I can't tell you how scary our ride was. Our driver Francisco seemed to gravitate toward cyclists and farm animals. 9. The Charlie Sheen "Winning!" thing is much better yelled out loud than on Twitter. We even learned how to say it in Spanish and had one of our waiters repeating "Ganadon!" (Note: I think the correct pronunciation is ganador or ganando, but ganadon is what we yelled) 10. Don't think that blackjack tables with lower limits will allow you to play longer. $5 tables brought the rare sight of Lishnoff at a gambling table...and disposed of him quickly. Also, don't make stupid moves at the blackjack table with Mickey or he might call you an dummy. He did to some guy that saved the dealer from busting and made everyone lose the hand. 11. It's impossible to get tennis lessons on vacation when the tennis instructor is...on vacation! The resort offered morning tennis lessons, which I attempted to take but the instructor was on vacation early in the week. He showed up later in the week and took great pride in avoiding people who wanted lessons and he also enjoyed locking the basketball up so Mick and I could not shoot around. 12. Any phrase referring to a horse is most likely accurate. A few of us went on a 30 minute horseback ride and at the halfway mark all of the horses peed simultaneously for a long and loud period. I can't imagine how a race horse pees. But I can tell you how hung a few of these horses were. Yuck. 13. Champagne has many uses--it can be used to make mimosas, poured on peoples heads when they win something, drank after toast. However the best use of champagne is to put it in a bucket of ice, put that bucket in front of Mickey and enjoy the show. 14. There aren't many bicycling rules in the DR, but there at least two. 1) It's not safe enough to ride outside the resort without your resort companion. 2) You can't ride if the bicycle loses its handle bars. Okay #2 might be universal. 15. Trademarks mean nothing south of the equator. On the ride from the airport we noticed how leisurely they used sports logos on bars that they had no business using. Down the beach, they had a strip of small, sand floored shops with cement walls and curtains for doors where they sold island made crafts and souvenirs. What was odd about these shops? They were named Macy's, Kohl's, Target and Sears! This lesson was reinforced when I got back and read a story about Jay-Z and Big Papi settling a dispute. Apparently, Papi went to the 40/40 Club and liked it so much that he opened a club in the DR...called Forty-Forty! 16. If your resort offers a free x-rated television channel (channel 96 in our case), there will never be an instance where a joke about this channel will not be (a) hysterical and (b) appropriate AND inappropriate at the same time. "Hey, we hear you watching channel 96 in there", "I think I saw her/him on channel 96 last night", "Let's call their room and put the phone receiver to channel 96 with the volume on full blast"... 17. There's no way to stop "boph" Mariana and Val when they bring their AA game. On the next to last night, these two got carried away singing (amongst other songs, Jay-Z "Bonnie & Clyde": "How dey gonna stop bof us?") to the point that Mickey was about to dump a garbage can of water on them, only to learn that they disappeared for drinks and tipped the bartender by playing American rap songs of their choice. 18. Flamingos are evil, ugly and will Chase you if they're hungry. They look like cool, chill animals because they are associated with tropical places and they look friendly when they are in the form of lawn ornaments. But I dare you to get within 10 feet of them, like Val and I did in the garden at the resort. They were basically scarecrows to mine and Val's crows. We got out of there in a hurry. 19. You're never too old to be disrespectful to women, as long as you are from Boston, have a mustache and are named Phil. This guy would openly howl at women and at one point he did so to Dana and I had to stop consuming large quantities of alcohol to tell him that he was being extremely inappropriate. 20. I'll never be able to look at trash mags again without thinking of Alyssa and Dana (no offense girls). They brought a giant stack on vacation and I devoured them. I now feel sorry for Bachelor Brad and want to break Timberlake's back for breaking Biel's heart. 21. It's okay to not be alarmed if you hear a scream from another room, even if your sister/sister-in-law is in that room. It's most likely just a bug or something not harmful that is being screamed at. Although, you should not overlook the threat of Jordan van der Sloot. 22. The best way to clap consists of no clapping at all. All it entails is yelling out "Clappy! Clappy! Clappy!" It's extremely fun and effortless and I'll be bringing that to sporting events beginning this year. 23. If you opt to sing into a microphone in front of people, please know the lyrics. During poolside name that tune, I walked by the MC who was playing Aerosmith "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" and I named the tune so he wanted me to say it into the mike. However, instead of simply naming the tune, I yelped "....juuuust to heeeeear ya dreeeeamin!" So he disqualified me and gave it to someone in the pool. 24. You don't need to put sun block where the sun don't shine. Ahh, we all knew that one before the trip to the DR, but Mickey felt that he had to tell me that before I applied my sun block on Day 1. 25. The best way to tell people you're tired when you're 30 is also the best way to tell people you're tired when you're 3. You just put your head on the dinner table. Introduced by Mickey and repeated by others during the week. 26. Under normal circumstances, it takes about 10 people chanting "Do it!" to get me to do anything, but at a resort it takes about 5 and maybe 5 drinks. The thing I did was float across the closed pool at night on 3 floaters stacked up. Okay, 6 people were chanting because I forgot about the attendee who was supposed to be securing the pool who was also chanting "Do it!" 27. Superbowl 42 Giants over Patriots will live on forever. I had a couple opportunities to rag on Phil from Boston regarding that game. After Phil said, "I bet the farm on that game," I responded with, "Well, you're here Phil, so I guess the farm is back." Later I made a joke about SB42 being possibly rigged after he complained about a poolside hula-hooping contest being staged, of all things. 28. Just because you know you're an adult, that doesn't mean you know what you wanna do and what you don't wanna do. This was a direct quote from Mickey to Mariana, as he was explaining to her why she did not want to go horseback riding when she thought she did. 29. The best verb that I never knew before Punta Cana was "Coontz". When Mick made one too many dives and lost the ball during pool volleyball, I stated that he out-Coontzed himself. After scoring against Mickey, a girl we didn't know later professed that she de-Coontzed him. Let's just say that Mariana was rightfully less-than -with her choice of usage of the verb Coontz when told about this later on. 30. You don't have to go all the way to Punta Cana to learn something that you could have learned at the Starbucks around the corner. Mariana thought that Raw Sugar was especially called "Sugar in the Raw" in other countries. After Val confirmed that it's called that in the U.S., Mariana: "I never KNEW that!" We might be getting older, but the week was as hysterical as ever, especially when considering that there were a few friends who we wished were there. Hope everyone can make it in 5 years when I learn 35 new things somewhere different.

Yankees vs. Blue Jays (5/23/11): The Edge of Nothing

Whenever a friend offers you a free Yankee game ticket (or a free ticket to almost anything for that matter), the correct response is, "Yes, please. If you don't mind, I'd like to keep a running diary of the event and post it as a blog entry..."


5:42PM - Just got to Grand Central and called Mayor and he's already at the stadium. I can either sprint through Grand Central to catch a train that gets to the stadium at 6PM or lollygag and get there 15 minutes later. Since I bought the new Lady Gaga album on Amazon for $1 this morning and am listening to the climax of "The Edge of Glory" at the moment, it's sprint all the way.

5:54 - Two unrelated facts: #1) I'm about to meet up with Mayor, who is giving me a free Yanks ticket via his brother-in-law Dan and #2) the Gaga song playing now is called "Government Hooker". Unrelated facts. (Picture 1: The new (to me) Metro-North station near Yankee Stadium)

6:35 - After meeting Mayor, getting to our seats and catching up on some TV shows (both agreeing that through 6 episodes, Game of Thrones might be the best show ever), Mayor shows off his and his camera's stalking prowess by getting a closeup of Kim Jones by the dugout from our near left field foul pole seats. Also, a storm is about to come in and Mayor is tracking it on his iPhone.

6:57 - They just played both national anthems. The Canadian players on Toronto dipped their bats into a vat of pudding...as is Canadian tradition.

7:05 - I unveiled my new nickname for tonight's Yanks starter: Bartolo Gravy. I expected nothing from him, so anything we get is gravy. Oh, and he probably smells more like gravy than cologne. (Picture 2: These are good seats, but we have a serious problem if a bat ends up in the stands here)

7:12 -
Me: I saw the movie Catfish and now I'll never join Facebook.
Mayor: Is that the movie with Hugh Jackman?
Me: No, that's Swordfish with Hugh Jackman and Haley Berry's boobs.
Mayor: Oh is "Catfish" about Catfish Hunter?
Me: No!!!

...yes Mayor, because a movie about Catfish Hunter would make me not want to join Facebook.

7:16 - Bautista just hit a 400 foot HR. If 2011 post steroid MLB were Game of Thrones, someone would say to Bautista, "You're not playing honorably." And Bautista would respond by pointing to Jeter's batting average and extra base hits and saying, "No. But he is." (You gotta watch Thrones)

7:28 - The 1st inning ends with Jays pitcher striking out the side. Having Teixeira is like having Doug Mientkiewicz's glove...with Doug Mientkiewicz's bat.

7:47 - I'll admit that I've grossly underestimated Girardi's managing skill if I find out that he sat Swisher on purpose just to pull him off the bench during the impending rain delay later on to do some goofy stuff on the infield rain tarp.

8:25 - Some Canadians have started the wave to see what Yanks fans will embarass the franchise by joining in. Somebody check to see which side of the St. Lawrence River the Mayor was born on.

8:29 - Mayor and his buddies are discussing whether or not he should ask out any of the girls who are sitting next to us. Instead, can we ask them if one of them will stand him up? (Picture 3: Me & the Mayor)

8:40 - I'm not gonna say who, but someone near me looked at one of the girl's IDs for a few seconds when she passed it down to the beer vendor to buy a beer. I'm not gonna say who, but this guy must be trying to hit for the stalking prowess cycle tonight.

8:57 - Uh oh. The Gravy Train came off the track. Big inning for the Jays and they're up 6-1. Did you know that I can tell how many runs we're losing by just by counting the number of NYPD officers lining the outfield wall in between innings?

9:14 - Ugh. The Yanks got our hopes upby putting a couple runners on, but only got one run in. Jorge Posada is beginning to come into full focus in Haley Joel Osment's eye sight.

9:21 - Mayor just rooster blocked himself with a giant tub of popcorn, which prevented girls from walking by him. #FML

9:29 - You know how I know the Blue Jays are up 4 runs with 6 outs to go? The wave is happening again. "Ohh Can-ah-dah!"

9:45 - Just once I want a baseball player to make a snow cone catch and open up his mitt to reveal an actual snow cone. I tweeted this during the game and Jon responded with a basketball potty shot tweet. Well, Mayor and I were not familiar with that type of shot, so we YouTube'd it and you don't even wanna see some of the stuff that came up alongside a LeBron James half court potty shot.

9:53 - The girls in front of us finally roped us into doing their "Ahh (Clap!) Wooo!" cheer. They'd tried earlier to no avail, but our standards had lowered (I think because the wave had tainted the stadium). The girls and Mayor started talking about tagging each other in photos and I thought about excusing myself, but luckily Curtis Granderson made a sliding catch to change the subject.

10:07 - Curtis Granderson strikes out to end the game and the Jays win 7-3. Umm, please tell me that Yanks hitting coach Kevin Long has been and is still on an extended winter vacation. Please don't tell me that he's in the dugout somewhere.

Two potentially relevant historical notes. 1. The last time I saw the Yanks play the Jays they smoked Phil Hughes in his MLB debut. 2. The last time I saw Bartolo Gravy he pitched a great game and lost 1-0 in the last game I ever saw live at the old Yankees Stadium. Although, that night he pitched under the name Bartolo Colon. So what did I learn with tonight's game added to this information?

1. Don't go to Jays games. They own me (or they own bad pitching).
2. Bartolo might be done giving me all of his gravy. He might have been done giving me that gravy back in the old stadium.
3. A couple times tonight, Jeter and Posada were up with runners on and despite their stats, I still expected some "Core Four" magic. Tonight I learned that those days are pretty much over.
4. The Lady Gaga song that I sprinted to early in the evening ("Edge of Glory") might describe the Yanks. They had high aspirations coming into this season and they're not in their primes, but they're certainly on the edge of something. Based on what I saw tonight and what I've seen so far this season, the Yanks are really a couple of years past their edge of glory (reached in 2009). Until they can get those averages up and get hot, they're really on the edge of nothing (Picture 4: The Old Yankee Bat that once stood next to the stadium is now over near the Metro-North station).

Despite the beat down, I had a great time at my first 2011 Yanks game with the Mayor and company and we were very fortunate to get the game in without it beginning to pour, as was expected. I just hope next time the Yanks can pour on some runs and give me something to do the "Ahh (Clap!) Wooo!" cheer to.

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Philadelphia Milestones: My First Half-Marathon

Recently I ran my first half-marathon with Val, Mayor, Ray and his wife Jen in Philadelphia . I finished in 2 hours, 12 minutes (10 minute miles), which was a solid finish considering my lack of training. To document this achievement and recap the weekend, I've put together a list of 13.1 milestones/events that occurred over the course of the trip. Yes, these aren't all "milestones", but it's my best gimmick for setting up yet another list style blog. (Pictured below: We did it!)

1.0 Mayor POPpins

One of the funnest things about taking a road trip with Mayor these days is trying to find music that he’d enjoy (if you choose to indulge him). A few years ago, I think we would’ve had to listen to NPR to appease him, but these days it’s not hard for me to satisfy his interests since I have plenty of Eminem, Blueprint 3 and Katy Perry on my iPod. Some people (most notably my sister) think that I am a movie snob because I always pick apart movies. On the flipside, I’m far from a music snob and I enjoy “mindless pop music” (Lavin, S. Aery, J., circa 2004). Mayor does too and during the road trip we came to the conclusion that we are in the midst of a golden age in pop music. There are some hits that will be played 10 years down the road (LMFAO, Pit Bull/Ne-Yo) and even the bad songs right now would be chart toppers in a normal period. (Pictured below: As soon as we got to Philly, Mayor signed something into law)

2.0 Being Jen Younghans

Despite me, Val and Mayor--let’s just call us “MayGer Val” from now on--getting on the road after Ray and Jen, the Younghanses hit some insane traffic and MayGer Val arrived at the hotel in Philly hours before them. This resulted in me having to check in as Jen Younghans, which made me evaluate the pros and cons of being her. Pro: (1) Fastest run time of our group, (2) Aware of insanely fun TV shows like “Scared Straight” and (3) Husband will go to a wine festival and carry around six bottles of wine for me. Con: (1) Have to buy all the band-aids at CVS because I’m running with a bullet hole in my foot, (2) Husband makes me eat at terrible pubs (see below) and (3) students in my history class hand in papers that say “The Colonists dumped the tea into Pearl Harbor”. Hmm, that’s weird--even some of the cons sound like exciting pros. Being Jen = fun. (Pictured below: Being Jen is more fun since you can run really fast. And the guy next to her is pretty fun too)

3.0 First Expo

The night before the half-marathon, I got my first taste of an expo. The sponsors of the race set up a big expo where you picked up your running number, bought racing gear and got some free stuff. The expo was really a bit disappointing because there just wasn't enough free stuff. The top (and maybe only) free things were (in reverse order from worst to best): (3) Miller Genuine Draft, (2) Snickers Marathon bars and (1) the product with the greatest slogan of all time, which shouldn’t even bother with any other words or nutritional facts on their product than the following: Muscle Milk: "Contains No Milk".

4.0 My First "Real" Philly Cheese Steak
I know the Mayor will disagree with me, but in hindsight I think the Pat’s Cheese Steaks we had were a bit overrated. I'll agree with him that there is something they do to the meat that makes it incredibly succulent, but I'm not a huge Cheese Whiz on steak guy. Next time I'm trying Gino's.

My other Pat's highlight was that we had 35 minutes to get ready to place our order (half-marathon made the stand overcrowded) and they want you to pay them in a microsecond and step down. Sure enough, Mayor short changed the guy by $1 and I started cracking up. In Mayor's defense, placing an order and paying is terrifying. I could've given the guy a $50 bill and not cared if I received any change because I just wanted to step down and get my sandwich without some guy from Philly yelling, “What’s wrong WIT you!?!”

5.0 The Constitution Center
After checking into the hotel the day before the race, MayGer Val had some time to kill so we walked by the Liberty Bell and went to the Constitution Center. I have to admit, that I didn't want to pony up the $12 at first, but it turned out to be one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. It starts in a theatre where you get a state of the art look back at U.S. History, which included a live narrator who looked and sounded like--and was every bit as neat as--Gus from Breaking Bad. After the show, you went upstairs and it was like a hybrid science/history museum that had many interactive exhibits. For instance, to illustrate changes in the law, they had books piled to the ceiling. Finally, you walked out through an eerie room of bronze life size statues of the signing of the constitution. The craziest fact I learned was that Ben Franklin had a Droid and followed me on Twitter.

6.0 Ten Years Later, Ray and I Are Now Even for "The Pledge"

Back in 2001, I made a few friends go see a movie called "The Pledge" with me. It was significant because it was Sean Penn's directorial debut and it starred Jack Nicholson. Well, it turned out to be one of the worst movies ever because it was extremely long and in between each scene there was a 30 second shot of birds flying around. As we watched in agony in the theater, I tried to will the movie to get better, but it didn't help that there was a guy sitting behind us oscillating between snoring and saying things like, "What the hell is going on!?!" After the controversial end of the movie, the guy behind us yells "What!? That's it?!" and Ray proceeds to storm out of the theater, tear his ticket stub up and throw it down the hallway. As a result, Ray always brings up the Pledge and has never forgiven me for making him go see it.

That brings us to The Field House, which is the pub where we ate dinner the night before the race. Ray and Jen had eaten there last year and he said it was really good. Well, we got there and were told that we'd have to wait 45 minutes, but we probably waited about 2 hours. The majority of this waiting was due to a group of Michigan State football fans who had decorated the room with Spartan paraphernalia and watched as their team got beaten down by lowly Notre Dame. Only, they acted like they were winning and remained at their tables after finishing dinner, though Michigan State had zero chance at winning. This caused me and Ray to sign a new bill stating that you need to leave the bar if your team has mathematically lost a game. Mayor ratified the bill into law. We did all this while waiting for our table.

After our wait, we headed to our table where we found that they had run out of several items on the menu (mind you it was only 7PM). They ran out of cheese pretzels which were one of their signature items and Jen’s choice--veggie burgers! I contemplated saying that we had run out of money when the check arrived after dinner. Later, Mayor's chicken pasta came out and was missing one of the two aforementioned ingredients. All in all, it had to be the worst restaurant management I've ever experienced. It would have been better had birds flown through for 30 seconds. So yes, I turned to Ray during the meal and said, "Now we're even for the Pledge" and he said, "You're right Rog. We're even for the Pledge!"

7.0 Two New Facts About Hotels
#1 The whole extra cot strategy should be re-evaluated. They’re perceived as flimsy and Mayor was on the verge of sleeping on the floor instead. However, after we convinced him to get a cot, he received the Rolls Royce of cots which took up almost as much room as the Queen size beds.

#2 According to Val, we squandered a hotel room because we didn't sit around and drink. She vowed that we’d never use a hotel again for simply sleeping over somewhere. Noted.

8.0 @shitmymayorsays
God bless that Mayor, but he says the silliest things. Here are a couple gems:

"I totally forgot. that it was National Constitution Day."

After he said how many books he'd recently bought Jen asked, "What, did you hit up Borders when they were going out of business?"
Response: "I did! Twice!"

There were a couple more of these Mayor-isms, but I can’t recall them. So I just had to do it: http://twitter.com/shitmayorsays. I am going to distribute the password to a group of friends. Never again will silly Mayor statements go undocumented. (Note: “shitmymayorsays” was taken, so I had to modify the name) (Pictured below: Mayor couldn't say anything during the grueling race and neither could I)

9.0 Performance Enhancers
Advil, Chomps, Gu and to a lesser extent vaseline and chafe roll-on sticks. What do all these things have in common? They all enhanced the performance of our respective running times. Look, I get that anabolic steroids and such probably shouldn't be used, but after having three Gu’s and one pack of Chomps to give me enough energy to finish the race, do the steroid enlarged heads of Barry Bonds and Mark Maguire look a little smaller to me today? I have to say yes. Because they did what they did so they could put on a great performance whether it be for the fans, the money, to win or to be the top dog. They wanted it. Let's put an asterisk next to their names if we have to and put them in the Hall of Fame already.

10.0 The Rocky Theme (Eye of the Tiger)
"Da da da dah dah, da da da dah dah!" Does any other city have a song that you can just break into at any time and everyone will enjoy it? I don't think so. It makes turning every corner enjoyable when you're voyaging the city. I'm pretty sure that the Rocky Theme also qualifies as a performance enhancer in Val's case since she said she could barely hear her music during the last 0.1 mile of the run with her brain playing: "Da da da dah dah, da da da dah dah!"

Throughout the weekend, whenever we did the music we'd talk about getting some raw footage of Mayor running up the Rocky steps, put that footage on a thumb drive and slip it into Jon Aery’s Christmas stocking. We never got the video though, which is why we need to go back.

11.0 Surpassing the Aeryan Race
Sometime between mile 9 and mile 10, there was a sign notifying runners that we'd passed the 15K mark. This, of course, is the distance of the Boilermaker--the signature Aery race. I think it's accurate to say that none of the Aerys have run a longer race than 9.3 miles. In fact, after finishing the race MayGer Val all confirmed that we shared the feeling of supAeryiority when we crossed the 15K threshhold. Fine, the Aerys would have slayed our pace, but at the moment they get DNPs (Did Not Play) for half-marathons.

12.0 The Finish!
The last two miles of the race were grueling for two main reasons. First, the clock at Mile 11 was broken, which totally threw a bunch of us off (Note: It was still working when Jen ran by it!). It impacted Ray the most, who was thinking about making a dash to get under two hours, but kept his pace when he couldn’t see the clock. Second, there was no shade on the back end of the race and only one water station in the final three miles. This was a back breaker, but it made it that much better when we finished. I was especially happy to find out that the answer to Val's question that she kept asking before the race was "No". The question: "Am I gonna die?"

After the race, there was a free Brett Michaels concert where Brett pointed at me and I pointed back at him. Sorry to the other people in our general vicinity who stumble upon my blog andthought that Brett was pointing at them.

13.0 The Walking Dead
I'm not just being Aerygant. There's a huge difference between 9.3 miles and 13.1 miles and the 1.5 mile walk from the race to the hotel room was one of the longest, most difficult ones of our lives. We gravitated towards the curb "ramps" on street corners and avoided having to step up like zombies would avoid sunlight. We walked backwards because it felt better. We contemplated switching places with a 2-year-old being pulled in a wagon by his dad, but ultimately decided against it. The walk was that bad.

13.1 It's Not Benjamin Franklin Up There
It's William Penn. Damn, I used to think that my oldest Twitter follower was perched above Philly!

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FLNY Wine Tour 2012: "Cayuga Wine Trail, Are We Square?"

In some parts of New York's Finger Lakes Region, inhabitants tell a tale about eight twenty-something adults from Florida, NY (FLNY) traveling along the Cayuga Wine Trail in a limousine seeking to taste wine. As the story goes, the group voyaged along Lake Cayuga for the good part of a winter's day and ended up being embarrassed by the expedition. They couldn't find a place to eat lunch and consequently drank a little too much wine on empty stomachs. They inadvertently insulted workers at wineries as a result of their lack of wine tasting knowledge and they eventually wound up in bed around 9PM. If that ending weren't embarrassing enough, somewhere along the line a few of them ended up in a pile of boxes and bottles of wine in the hotel room yelling things at each other like, “Does anybody owe you wine or money!?!” 

But that was last year. And this is a new year with many of those people having reached a new level of maturity since turning thirty. So before the ink dried on that fable about FLNY's latest folly, the group went back on the Cayuga Wine Trail one year later for a return engagement. The new level of maturity resulted in a maternity leave of absence from this year's tour for Mickey and Mariana, a married couple from the original trip. So it was my wife Val and I, Ray and his wife Jen, and Kolin and his fiance Danielle as carryovers from the first year making the trip back to Ithaca. And with Mickey and Mariana taking the year off to be new parents and a bunch of us getting older, it was time to add some youth to the line-up in the form of BY and his fiance Jess--two new twenty-somethings.

I'm not going to waste time with any suspense here. We took care of business this year. We ate like kings all day, we were marginally well behaved at the wineries and we stayed up past our previously established Ithaca bedtimes. At the end of the evening, we even managed to exchange wine and money with class and dignity. The rematch with the Cayuga Wine Trail was successful and we were victorious. So how did we do it? Well, we came back with a vengeance and a five-point game plan. Here's a look inside that plan:

Part A: The Improvements

1. The biggest flaw in the "Year 1" plan was that we found ourselves unable to find a place to each lunch on the trail and thus we lacked the sustenance we needed to finish the tour and function as human beings for the remainder of the evening. That mistake added a certain level of debauchery that we all appreciated early on the trail, but at a certain point we ran out of steam. This year, we took a two-pronged approach to combat the hunger. First, we brought an appetizer that consisted of some crackers, a salami stick, and Barber's 1833 Vintage Reserve Cheddar Cheese--one of the oldest and stinkiest cheeses that can be found at Whole Foods--to eat with a bottle of white wine purchased at the first winery and consumed in the limo. The second hunger solution tactic, and our main course, were Wegman's subs that we ate midway through the tour. If you've ever had a Wegman's sub, then you probably agree that the four hour drive to Ithaca alone is probably worth it just to go to Wegman's and purchase a sub, even if they don't fire your sub to you like Doug Flutie used to do in Buffalo. 

2. As I alluded to earlier, last year the bulk purchasing of wine started out great. We'd combine purchases at each winery to rack up the discounts, but at the end of the night we didn't know whose bottles belonged to whom or how much money we owed each other. This year, we came up with a method to track the bottle purchases throughout the day. Val ordered sheets of stickers with each couples's picture on a sheet and we brandished our bottles of wine with these as we purchased them. If that weren't benefit enough, the sticker sheets doubled as "scorecards": If you had the most number of blank spaces on your sheet it meant that you'd purchased the most wine and were in the lead--or as Val would say, "Look at all our empty squares! We're winning!" Back at the hotel, we reconciled stickered bottles with receipts and settled our debts with the following extremely civil exchange:

Person X: “Are we square?”
Person Y: “We are square.”

This exact exchange repeated several times until we were all square.

3. I once went to a bachelor party where a groomsman made a mix CD with all the groom-to-be's favorite songs. The only problem was that almost all the songs were really the favorite songs of the groomsman who made the CD. It didn't matter though! Everyone still loved every song, including the groom-to-be. The lesson I learned that day was that you shouldn't step foot in a limo without a mix CD. So why didn't the FLNYers have a mix CD during the Year 1 wine tour? I don't want to waste time being angry about that mistake. But what I DO want to waste time on is telling you some of the mix CD related highlights of this year's wine tour:

-Unlike the groomsman in the story above, everyone had "their song" on the mix CD. For instance, Ray had "Pour Some Sugar On Me", Jen had Notorious B.I.G. "Hypnotize", Kolin had Of Mice and Men, Danielle had "Poker Face",  Val had Drake, I hypocritically had almost as many songs as the groomsman mentioned above, Jess had "Teach Me How to Dougie", and BY had "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy"--that was until his song got hijacked by Mike the Limo Driver. We had 19 songs on that mix CD and Mike probably disliked 18 of them, but had an ear-to-ear grin for "Cowboy" every time.
-Some of us were expected to do some kind of gimmicky dance in reaction to our signature songs. But none was better than Jen's "Hypnotize" dance marked by lots of bobbing and double fist pumps. They best part was learning that Jen had a sixth sense for predicting her song because even though the CD was on shuffle, she always seemed to break out her dance on cue for that song when none of us had a clue that it was coming.
-Although these songs rocked our limo in the back, they caused our driver Mike to furrow his brow in the rear view mirror. This gave me a pretty accurate fun-o-meter to determine how much fun the group was having. Did Mike have a very furrowed brow? Yes? Then the group was having lots of fun!
-There was an electrical problem with the limo's sound system that caused the music to stop playing when the car slowed down. This was annoying at first until we told Mike to refrain from slowing down as much as possible in order to keep the music going. We explained to him that the slowing down/music stoppage situation was like the slowing down/bomb exploding situation in the movie Speed...but with greater stakes.

4. In addition to the five wineries we toured, our Ithaca extrodinaire Kolin added a new wrinkle into the game plan. Kolin's wrinkle was the Ithaca Beer Company. The beer was delicious and as great as wine is, it just can't be served in a growler. Maybe Kolin's suggestion was an improvement as obvious as Giants Offensive Coordinator Kevin Gilbride calling a passing play on third down and long instead of running a shotgun draw play for three yards (Editor's Note: This line was written before Kevin Gilbride's offensive genius helped the Giants win a second Super Bowl in four years). The lesson here is that there's always room for improvement, even when it seems like everything is clicking.

5. Let's call the last two upgrades we made in Year 2 of the FLNY Wine Tour 5a and 5b. They were both unplanned or incidental, yet they both added value to the trip. 5a was the addition of one hour to our limo. We couldn't comfortably do five wineries and the Beer Company within five hours, so at some point we bargained with Mike  to tack on an extra hour and we got a decent bargain. Keep that in mind if you ever have a limo and are stressing over time. As for 5b, well some might argue that it was not an upgrade but here's my argument for why it was. I meant to book the Hilton located in downtown Ithaca, but I booked the Marriott a few miles outside of downtown. Although this was the wrong hotel, the Marriott had (a) much better parking, (b) great access to our rooms, (c) Marsha, one of the greatest Hostesses from Gainesville, Florida who named her grandson after Tim Tebow, (d) a swimming pool (only if we had our swimming suits!) and (e) due to aforementioned hostess, choosing this hotel led to BY "Tebowing" in the lobby for Marsha and eventually Tebowing inside the limo (pictured below). Yes, it's a little bit of a ride to get to the hub that is the Metropolis called Ithaca, but I prefer the burbs.

There you have it. Five improvements we made from last year's trip that made this year a success. And this year, instead of 9PM, we were all in bed aroun 10:30PM!

Part B: The Reviews

Since we handled this trip like professionals, I thought I'd take the next step in wine touring and offer my review of each winery. No, this blog is not brought to you by the number "5" like an episode of Sesame Street. It just so happens that in addition to the five-point plan above, I've developed a five-point system to rate each of the five wineries that we visited. Fine, so I really couldn't have done this blog without the number five playing a big role. Even though I will rate all of the wineries, I'm not using a point system or picking the best. They're all great for different reasons. Besides, as you'll see from this rating system, what the hell do I know?

Rog's Five-Point Winery Rating System
1. Atmosphere: This is self-explanatory, but the atmosphere is very important. A great atmosphere can be the difference between feeling like you’re tasting a good wine and feeling like you're doing shots of spiked grape juice in your neighbor's basement.
2. Pourers: So it turns out that those wine pourers do have a technical name— Sommeliers. Despite that newly learned fact, I will go ahead and continue to use the term pourers even if it says something bad about my social ettiquette or my overall intelligence.
3. Crackers: Last year, we found out how important crackers can be when tasting wine on an empty stomach, but it can be argued that they were more important this year because we actually cared what they tasted like.
4. Wine: Although it's one of five categories, it would obviously be worth more than 20% if I ever get scientific with this methodology. Also, you might notice me comparing wineries to baseball pitching rotations (e.g calling a wine a #1 or #2 like a pitcher in a rotation). Like a strong pitching staff on a baseball team, a good winery should have a strong stable of wines with different characteristics. Just as a strong pitching rotation has a mix of righties, lefties, and guys who throw different pitches, a great winery has strong variety of reds, whites, and wines that throw different characteristics at you (sweet, dry, fruity or oak taste, etc.)
5. Specialties: If you think about it, a lot of the wineries in the Finger Lakes are probably somewhat close in quality since they're all from the same region. So in order to be competitive, those wineries need to go that extra step and not simply stop with a good wine. They need a marquee liquor, food or something sweet to keep the folks coming back.

Thirsty Owl Wine Company
Atmosphere: Val says that this place has the best venue with a gorgeous view for outdoor spring/summer/fall tastings. I've only been there in the winter and I say it's also the best for winter with it's extremely large tasting bar.
Pourers: The girl at the Owl said all the right things that would make me nod my head in approval such as, "This is a 2010--that was a really great year for harvesting," If you make me nod my head, I will continue to drink your wine.
Crackers: I think we extensively covered the quality of Thirsty Owl's crackers in last year's recap. They're perfect for everything from cleansing the palat to snacking on during a ball game. The Owl gets a great score for crackers but gets penalized under "Specialties" for selling way too many stuffed owls and no oyster crackers.
Wine: Last year, I was really impressed by Lot 99 and the cabernet sauvignon and this year they added a Meritage from the good harvest year (2010). That's a scary 1-2-3 at the top of their wine rotation that I wouldn't want to compete with if I owned a Cayuga Winery. (Note: Now might be a good time to drop the disclaimer that I prefer dry red wines to sweet and white wines.)
Specialties: The only glaring weakness of the Owl is that they don't have many Specialty items, aside from lots of clothing and stuffed owls.

Montezuma Winery
Atmosphere: The tasting area of Montezuma is a little small and could get very cramped if a lot of people were there at the same time. There are also too many breakable knick knacks close to the wine bar. We didn't bump into or break anything, but let's just say that I'll be highlighting this line from this blog when I study for the next tour. 
Pourers: I don't want to get any pourers in trouble, but the girl at Montezuma went off script and gave Kolin and Danielle an extra shot of the amazing maple syrup liquor they make there. And guess who walked out with a bottle of that maple liquor? That's right, Kolin and Danielle. Kudos to that pourer for having the smarts to recognize a couple who looked like they like drinking liquor with their pancake breakfast.
Crackers: The crackers at Montezuma were forgettable and are an area where 
they could make an easy upgrade.
 However, they were served with a little more sanitary caution than some of the other wineries, as they had a spoon for dishing them out (a little nod to flu season). This caused Danielle and I--coincidentally, both nicknamed "Bear"--to demonstrate how domesticated bears eat oyster crackers from a spoon.
Wine: Montezuma features a strong Cayuga White and Red Tailed Red at the top of their rotations and is overall a great winery for those who enjoy those sweeter, white wines.
Specialties: Specialty items such as different liquors and knick knacks is the area where
 Montezuma excels. Kolin bought the bottle of Maple Liquor and I tried a triple distilled honey vodka as well as Tej, an Ethiopian Honey Wine. All were excellent. There were also a lot of
 great impulse buys, crafts, and decorations and quite a few people walked out with a gift. Jess took a long time to come out and was nearly left behind. 

The Lucas
 Winery
Atmosphere:
 Any winery that hands you a delicious cup of warmed red wine with mulling spices as you walk in has to be considered a great atmosphere in my book. If that weren't enough, on our way out they made me an honorary captain and rang a bell to make it official (there's a tugboat theme going on there) because I made the group's purchase.
Pourers: The rating of the pourers at Lucas drastically fluctuated based on a
couple of the interactions we had. A little background info here: This was the place with the pourers that I'd (possibly) inadvertently insulted last year, so I announced before we went in that I'd be on my best behavior. Well, three minutes later I'd handed Jess our welcoming spiced wine before the guy ID'd her and he wasn't happy about that. Ray really got a kick out of this and eventually all proper ID was shown and everything worked out. And here's some more background info: Earlier in the day, I had a disagreement with Kolin and Val about how they make ice wine. They didn't believe me that it was harvested from frozen grapes. Well, imagine my reaction when our pourer confirmed that I was (mostly) right. Although there are two ways to make ice wine and we were both sort of right, the way I described is the traditional way and here Ray, our resident judge of all friendly disagreements, awarded me victory in the debate. 
Crackers: Lucas offered an alternative to the traditional oyster crackers that 
we'd consumed all day. It was some type of club cracker with seasoning
 baked on. I would not be surprised if they were purchased from Wegman's.

Wine: The aforementioned warm Tugboat wine with mulling spices is as good
 and unique as anything you'll find along the Finger Lakes and it's the 
reason that we'll always go back to Lucas. Most of the other wines are on the fruitier and sweeter side of the spectrum that I don't personally enjoy as much. They also feature a very good ice wine that I strongly recommend. 
Specialties: In addition to the mulling spices, which could be considered a Specialty, there is a mustard dip Ray buys here each time that warrants mentioning.

Knapp

Atmosphere: As mentioned in last year's blog, Knapp is far too concerned with 
the quality of it's wine to keep up appearances. Although the wine tasting area
 is nothing especially fancy, there is a large shopping area almost completely comprised of wine and a cool looking, separate wine barrel encircled room for private events and banquets. 
I suddenly feel like I may need to host a banquet near Ithaca.
Pourers: A nice guy; the pourer here (a) recognized some of us from a wine festival that we went to over the summer an hour from Ithaca and (b) took a group picture of us. Two marks of great service.  
Crackers: The oyster crackers at Knapp were one of the big surprises of the
 day. Let me take you through the process of eating three of these:

1st Cracker: "What the hell? This tastes weird. It tastes like a 
cookie, not a cracker."

2nd Cracker: "Well, it's not too bad. It kinda starts as a cracker but when 
it's half eaten, it tastes like a cookie."

3rd Cracker: "This might be the best oyster cracker ever invented!"

Wine: I didn't want to pick favorites, but I think Knapp holds the title for best wines. The Prism and Cabernet Sauvignon are a #1 and #2 that are almost unbeatable, although the Thirsty Owl's triple threat of the three reds mentioned above makes it a close call. Any of both winery's top reds are stalwarts and you can't go wrong.
Specialties: One word: Limencello. Last year we bought a bottle that lasted a few 
months. This year we had to break it out a day later during the Giants-Packers playoff 
game. This year we even bought a couple travel 
limencello's for the limo and after having those, I recommend that Knapp write the following on the side of those bottles: "Warning: Do Not Drink Warm"

Americana
 Vineyards
Atmosphere: Val thinks we should hold it against them because there are ghosts
in the tasting room that was converted from an old barn. I say that the friendly dog that walks around redeems 
them. Plus, it's got high ceilings, wooden beams, cool lighting and the works.
Pourers: The MVP (Most Valuable Pourer) of the day. We started off asking him 
if it was okay to give us all the same recommended wines because we
 were in a rush. Without missing a beat he sarcastically responded, "Oh no! I wanted 
to juggle and pour 10 different bottles at once!" After he recommended his favorite list--which we loved--I 
asked him if I could follow him on Twitter and it got really awkward 
for a second until I "clarified" that I meant the winery, not him. Of course, I was hoping that he personally managed the winery's account.
Crackers: If there were crackers there, I don't remember them since we were doing a rapid wine tasting. At one point, I turned around and BY said "I'm just shootin' everything, Rog". And after feeling briefly appalled, I joined him in his crude behavior and took some shots of wine.
Wine: Although Americana doesn't have a #1 Ace wine, they have an 
abundance of very different, exceptional wines.
 They have the best range of wines, that includes a Baco Noir, Revolutionary Red, a great Reisling and the Gewürztraminer.
Specialties: Americana is a bit like Montezuma with great small gifts that would make anyone happy, but their bread and butter is their fudge. They even incorporate fudge into the last wine sampling. This led to me and BY somehow shootin' fudge.

There you have it. While I have my personal favorite wineries, they're all spectacular and worth a visit. And hopefully, you'll take something away from this blog. Whether it's something you do on a wine tour, how you evaluate your next booze related venture, or even use of the phrase "Are we square?" in your next in-person financial transaction.

Things We Learned at Giants-Bills-Mageddon 2011

Last year, when I realized that the Buffalo Bills would be making a trip to New Jersey to take on the Giants for their octo-annual meeting at the Meadowlands, I swooped right in and grabbed all my buddy Rich's tickets to the game. A plan was devised and a roster compiled that included myself & Val, Alana & Jesse, Andrea, Mickey, Kolin, Jon and Garba. We knew the game would be fun but when the Bills started the season hot, the excitement mounted to a pretty high level. And then there was this: My mom suggested that I wear the opposing team's jersey and consequently my dad wouldn't stop talking about my friend Jon's jersey, which happened to be a very dashing version of the OPPOSING TEAM'S JERSEY!

In the end, Bills at Giants was one of the best football games I've ever been to. It boasted two teams with winning records and strong offenses, it was played on a beautiful day and was an exciting game from start to finish. A few days after the game, Jon tweeted about something that happened while we were tailgating that he probably should have known about. The significance of that is that the night before Bills-Giants, we watched "Forrest Gump", which is a movie about a guy who learns things that he clearly should know. And between Jon and Forrest both learning the obvious perhaps a bit later than the average bear, I bring you "The Things We Learned at Giants-Bills-Mageddon 2011":

• After seeing Forrest Gump for the 286th time, you not only know every plot hole, but you start to find logic holes. Case in point: Remember when Jenny throws the rocks at her childhood home? Well, when you slow it down, it turns out that there were maybe two rocks on the ground, yet she threw about eight. On top of that, she threw the same rock four times using the same throwing motion each time--and she also used her same face each time. The scene ends with Forest sitting down next to her on the ground and saying, "Sometimes, there just aren't enough rocks."
• You find that your friends laugh at you when you recall a story from the middle of the night before when you were cussing out your cat because he wouldn't let you sleep. One of said friends isn't laughing the following morning. Instead, he's empathizing with you as he explains that he almost put your cat outside because it wouldn't let him sleep.
• You hear that on the Mayor's 12 hour hike the day before, he nearly died a few times and either stood or walked for the entire 12 hours. Then you find out that there are more plot holes in the Mayor's hiking story than Forrest Gump's life story! For instance: 1) The Mayor said that he never sat, yet the outdoor chairs in his car trunk were wet (he claimed that it was from wet clothes), 2) He had to remove his shoes and socks to go across a river, yet he somehow did this without sitting and 3) He starts talking about how poorly marked the unmarked trails were. After arguing these plot holes with him, you stop arguing and explain to him that you can't fall and nearly die without leaving your feet!

• You learn that New Jersey grocery stores don't sell beer before noon on Sundays and have a panic attack before realizing that the beer store closer to the stadium does sell beer. You've now learned these things for the seventh or eighth time. (Note: No beer would've been a huge problem, since we all now know that JG doesn't drink Coors Light since it's associated with a bad Giants loss)
• Via @jaery33's tweet: "While tailgating I found out my car battery died AND a bunch of people fixed it for me all while I competed in a polish horseshoe game meaning: A) I have great friends, B) Giants were helped karmically by their no-nonsense get-shit-done tailgating fans, C) I'm an idiot."
• While grilling burger patties, you ignite a grease fire so high that the seasoned tailgaters next to you ask, "What time's the hockey game? I see you're making some pucks on the grill!"

• You find someone more fun to pick on about an outdated/wrong numbered CJ Spiller jersey than The Mayor. Me to guy: "Hey! That Spiller jersey is outdated!" Guy: "I know! But what am I gonna do? I'm in the same boat that he's in." (gestures towards Mayor).
• The over/under for points scored in the game is 50. That's also the over/under of Kolin's ridiculous pumpkin bars that you attempt to eat before and after the game.
• Even though you're 30-years-old, married and on the verge of buying your first home, you decide to keep the "Never Grow Up" Gods honest by shoving a few Slim Jims in your sock and sneaking them past stadium security.

• It turns out that Giants fans will get insanely giggly if, on the way into the game, you slowly chant "Heeeere we goooooo Norrrrrwood. Heeeeeeere we GO!" and then follow it up by shouting, "Hey Norwood, the wind looks like it's blowing to the right! If anything, aim the kick to the left a bit!"
• You learn that Mickey put some action on one of the six 3-team teaser options he mentioned while you were tailgating. You later learn that you and him won that teaser.
• A female Bills fans get upset at you for celebrating and perhaps "Cackling" a bit to much. This poses the question: Who decides how much celebrating is too much celebrating? I say definitely not the opposing team's fans. So do Cack and Jesse.
• If you're the Bills defensive backs, you learned that the Manning-to-Nicks back shoulder thrown cannot be interfered with. It either happens or it doesn't happen.
• You've invented what you think is the greatest "leave the building after a great win" chant: "Es-ca-la-tor-shi-TALK! Es-ca-la-tor-shi-TALK! Es-ca-la-tor-shi-TALK! Es-ca-la-tor-shi-TALK!" Only you take the ramp down and you can't use that chant.
• You're driving home from the game and the only thing keeping you from falling asleep at the wheel and potentially killing your best friend and your brother's father-in-law and a Vietnam vet in a car crash is you slapping your self in the face. Oh wait! That was from "Things We Learned at Giants-Bills-Mageddon 2003"! (Note: This actually happened)

• You're extremely happy when it's been four days since the game where you worried about under cooking chicken Spiedies (from Owego!), yet nobody seems to have been visited yet by Mr. Monella; first name Sal.
• Finally in Jon's case, when he was being a smart ass and sending me a check for the tickets last month, he wrote a score prediction inside the envelope: "Bills 24 - Giants 17". He now realizes that he must've forgotten to carry the "1" on the Giants score. Final Score: "Bills 24 - Giants 27" (Note: The Bills also scored 24 points when they played at the Giants in 2003. But the Giants only put up 7 points that day)