Leaving One Day Early

Sitting here at the airport waiting on my delayed flight back to Austin. Just read about the Mississippi Picnic in Central Park at SunHerald.com. Too bad I'm not staying one more day so I could go enjoy some fried catfish and sweet tea.

Weekend update

Saw a new (to me) Sweet Tea Vodka yesterday. I present Jeremiah Weed. I'll update later if it's noteworthy.



I also enlisted James's help last night to move in my new, very heavy gun safe. Our chocolate ammo is protected now.

Weekend BBQ: DOMINO Edition

Over the weekend, the MSU Track & Field team was in town for the Texas Relays.  On Saturday evening, we were invited to a BBQ in which the MSU coaches would be attending.  The BBQ itself was hosted by a local MSU alum from the 80's.  He had a bunch of his friends and family in town (I estimate there were 40+ people there), and most of them were from MSU as well.  Oh yeah, it's worth mentioning that the host and majority of attendees were Que Dogs from MSU.  

When we came strolling in it was about like you would expect...tables and chairs setup in the backyard, the game on the big screen in the living room, drinks flowing freely, plenty of Black and Milds and Swisher Sweets, and a game of bones in progress.  The host introduced us to everyone and one of the guys, Kelvin, I recognized.  I started talking with him and he said he drives the buses around for the student-athletes at MSU.  I then asked if he used to drive the shuttle from frat row onto campus and he said yeah.  Some of you lammas will probably remember him as well.

Other notes:

• We introduced them to Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka.  I brought a handle of it over and it was well on it's way to being gone when we left.
• The ribs and green beans were excellent (I wouldn't have expected any less).
• We discussed at length the branding process for members getting the Omega symbol on their arms.  I told them about Eric T. and Luke getting the Lambda on their backs on a camping trip.
• Shey got a dude to show her the brands on his chest.  She was particularly interested in this guy because he was a fireman.  Coincidentally, Shey did not wear her wedding rings to the party.
• The fireman told me that the "big, light-skinned, brother" inside had brands on both of his butt cheeks.  On my way in for a drink I happened to cross paths with him and in my drunken stupor I inquired about it.  He told me he actually had two on one cheek and one on the other.  I then said, "Prove it!"  Just kidding about that last part, but in hindsight it was pretty dumb of me to ask one of the biggest dudes at the party about his butt.
• John was upset that there wasn't some sort of step-show, but I told him he would need to challenge someone if he wanted to see it.  But of course he's scurd so it didn't happen.
  
• I was not ostracized for having my sweat rag in hand.
  

All joking aside, we had a great time.  We had only planned on being there for about two hours which turned into 4+ hours by the time we left.  I can't wait for next year.  We're already planning on bringing a cooler of Boone's Farm so we can pass those around.

It's on

James and I went up to Spec's to grab some Firefly. Well guess what? There's some sweet tea vodka competition. Sweet Carolina. James mixed me up a pretty stiff Firefly tonight. Sweet C. is next.

Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka in Texas

John broke the news to me earlier so I'll share the good news.  According to the Firefly website:

Products are currently available in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Texas, Alabama, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and New York.

I'm sure we'll be enjoying some with our Thanksgiving feast which should be a step up from John's bobo version.

Sweet Tea Vodka - Texas Style

As mentioned in John's liver story; he did try out his own brand of sweet tea and vodka since he was unable to partake at the Vandy game. I took a sip and I can't say it's as good as the Fire Fly, but after the 8 or 9 beers I had it was decent.

And you can see the Chicken Express logo on the tea. John tried to buy a t-shirt, but apparently you must be an employee to get that hot item.

John ate his liver

Yesterday, we had some Chicken Express for dinner.  Every time I see their logo it makes me think of Nunnrey.  The chicken tenders are great, but I would still prefer some Raising Cane's sauce over the white gravy.

Anyway, Shey for some reason has a liking for fried chicken livers.  I learned this on a trip to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles.  I'm not a huge fan of the livers as I think they are a little gritty, but since I saw them on the menu at Chicken Express I decided to pick some up (specifically for Shey) to go with our chicken and catfish dinner.

John claims he's never had liver so I told him he should try one.  He refused, but Shey called him a sissy so he gave it a whirl.  There were no fava beans or Chianti for John's Hannibal meal, but he did have some sweet tea with vodka (not to be confused with The Sweet Tea Vodka).  Once John got through the fried goodness and his teeth sunk into that liver he started whining like a little girl about how gross it was.  

I'm not sure if he actually swallowed it or not, but this one goes up there with his fear of roaches for how much of a little punk he is.  I assume this means you'll never see John on any survival shows in the future.

Vandy Trip Wrap-Up

We had a really good trip down to Starkville over the weekend.  Here are some of my notes:

• Ran up a ~$500 tab at The Grill Friday night.  Even better than that...JT picked it up.  What a guy!
• Sweet Tea Vodka is good...no...actually it's awesome.  Thanks Lukey and Vanessa for bringing down your stash.  Shay, next time you mix one up remember to use half water.  And thanks to this drink we actually ran out of bottled water before we ran out of beer at the tailgate.
• Had a nice setup in The Junction for tailgating.  Big shout out to Devin for taking care of the cooking duties.  Although we didn't get any Luther Burgers, Devin did hook us up with some of his Deebo's Delight burgers.
• Potato salad from Bulldog Deli is still like ambrosia.
  
• Pool + JT + Nunnrey = lots o' water displacement
• Devin really is a dirty Mexican.  After digging around in the mud to try and find Vanessa's shoes (walking back to get truck after tailgate), he bathed in the water fountain in front of the Comfort Suites.
• Pork chop and gravy biscuit from Hardee's hits the spot pretty well in the morning while you're hungover.
• JT and I took a tour of the Little Brown Crackhouse.  It's still pretty much the same, but the flooring in the kitchen has been replaced and they have a dishwashing machine now (that's BS).  Oh yeah, and it smelled like hippies lived there.  And I was a little disappointed that there was nobody over there drinking on a Friday night of a home game.
• That's what Deebo loves about college girls, man.  He gets older, they stay the same age.

Definitely had a great time and I always enjoy getting back together with the crew.  We should try to make it a yearly thing to make it out to at least one home game.

Vandy Game Plans

As mentioned back in July some of us are headed to the Vandy game at MSU on October 11. If you haven't already made your plans you've still got time.

• Shey and I should get to Starkville sometime mid-Friday afternoon (coming from Jackson).


• JT, Lisa, Nunnrey, Kaci are flying into Memphis with a pitstop in Tunica Thursday night, and they will get up to Starkville on Friday.


• I now have confirmation that Luke and Vanessa will be West Bound and Down with some of Lukey's sweet tea vodka arriving sometime Friday.


• Deebo should be headed out as well.


• I've got reports that Crunk Craig and wife are gonna come hang out as well.

We will be working out some tailgating details in the coming days. I'm hoping Nunnrey will cook us up some of his Luther Burgers.

Not so fresh feeling

Do you ever have that not so fresh feeling? Well, I'm not sure what's going on with me this week...maybe it's the extra sweat from this Texas heat or it could just be that time of the month, but my face has been breaking out like a 15-year old, punk kid.

Against my better judgment, my wife convinced me to try out some of her facial wash (the same one that John also uses from their shared dermatologist). And I gotta tell you, I feel like a new woman today. Some of Lukey's sweet tea vodka would make my day complete (joking aside I do want to try that out).

Take Advantage Man

There are several things I miss about the Deep South. And I'm not talking about the humidity as I keep a constant moisture with me at all times as pointed out in the comments to The Mexican. I'm talking about the nectar of the gods that is known as sweet tea.

You take it for granted while in MS since it seems in many establishments sweet tea is the default, and if you want crappy unsweetened tea you actually have to specify. In my current location there just aren't that many establishments that offer sweet tea. And for many of the places that do have it there is no comparison to the level of quality I'm used to.

Once a week my company provides a lunch where all of the employees gather in the conference room to enjoy the feast together (there's only 17 of us so not that big of a deal to be in one room). The food changes weekly and we have a 'healthy' rotation with Mexican, BBQ, pizza, sandwiches, etc. Our BBQ typically comes from Rudy's which happens to be my favorite BBQ place around. Rudy's is one of the few locations in town that actually serves sweet tea.

Last week was BBQ week and I learned that I work with a bunch of people that are uneducated on the simple pleasures of good sweet tea. While in line making our plates and getting our beverages I noticed a couple of my co-workers actually getting half sweet tea and half unsweet tea. Several of them were actually discussing that the sweet tea was 'just too sweet' and they had to cut it with some unsweet.

I'm here to tell you that while I enjoy my Rudy's...their tea just isn't that sweet. Discussing with John earlier tonight he equated Rudy's tea to taking cold, unsweetened tea and dropping a packet of Splenda in it. It ain't quite the same as a nice big cup of the good stuff from Bulldog Deli. I suppose my co-workers wouldn't know any better since none of them come from the South. All I can do is shake my head in disappointment to their ignorance.

I'm just waiting for someone to tell me where I can get some of Miss Bell's magical sweet tea (Billy Currington - Good Directions). Sweet tea is from the earth. God put this here for me and you. Take advantage man, take advantage (Friday, sort of).