October 2007 Archives

My day at the Krystal Square Off.
a report by Val Bromann

Yes, we drove ten hours to Chattanooga and ten hours back to Chicago to watch people eat hamburgers for eight minutes.
Yes, we are weird and wacky and insane.
Yes, it was totally worth it!

The whole event started at noon with "Free Krystals, games, etc. etc." We had to check out of our hotel by 11 and had nowhere else to go, so we arrived around 11:30/11:45. We saw some people in Krystal Fan T-shirts so we went to scope out where we could get some. Nad and I bought red ringers that say "Official Fan of the World Hamburger Eating Championship." Bryan got a yellow one that said "Future Champion."

The T-shirt lady showed us where they'd be giving out free Krystals. We told her that we'd never had any before and then we'd driven the ten hours from Chicago just for the contest. She mentioned that she hated White Castles.

We went and stood in line for Krystals, where we started to determine that it seemed that we were the only people there who did not live within a 2-mile radius of the event. Are we really the only crazies in the world?

So we got our Krystals. A Krystal Lady came up and took my pic because I'd put on my t-shirt and had my burger. We told her our story about never having had a Krystal before and driving all that way. And she gave us free posters! Score! She then pointed us in the direction of the Krystal Confessional where Nad and I got a video taken of us trying our burgers for the first time (see previous entry)

Shortly after coming out, T-shirt lady came and tracked us down with another Krystal person. She asked us if we really drove all that way just for the competition. Yes, yes we did. We came, of course, to cheer on our hometown Deep Dish hero!

They kind of thought that was awesome...and then kind of gave us free V.I.P. passes. !?!?!?!?!?! WHAT?!?!?!

We were kind of totally shocked!

That basically meant that we got to go way up in front of the crowd and watch in the press area. SUPER AWESOME because that meant not only did we have great seats, but we didn't have to worry about trying to find and save seats at all!!! And we'd be right there in the action! And maybe even get drooled on or something!

Nadia and I were seriously the giddiest little clams you would ever see in your life. EVER!

We wandered about collecting more awesome Krystal stuff. We got a free t-shirt, thunder sticks and pompoms! We watched the competitors being brought in convertibles (except for Sonya...how did she not get a convertible??) And then stood in line to get autographs but were only able to maddeningly score Joeys.

We went and tracked down the woman who gave us the passes and she let us through the ropes and told us where to go...which ended up being just us and the press. Seriously, I don't think any of the other VIPs knew that they could come around and stand right up front...

First were the bunnettes, then the amateur competition, then the National Anthem...and then...the MAIN EVENT (only slightly delayed due to live bowling coverage...)

All the competitors were introduced...then they were off! And my oh my can they eat!!!! and eat. and eat. Actually eat is the wrong word. Consume? Devour? Absorb? Ingurgitate?

It really was the Joey, Pat, Bob show..."Humble" Bob Shoudt was mighty impressive at chowing down burgers...especially for a vegetarian
:-)

And Joey "Jaws" Chestnut was...amazing! Seriously! I don't know where all that food goes! And then...and then...in a history making, record-shattering moment...he hit 100!!!! 100 burgers in less than eight minutes!!! Holy processed cow meat!

The Krystal Square Off was an absolutely amazing battle and ended with Joey "Jaws" Chestnut in first (103 Krystals), "Humble" Bob Shoudt in second (95 Krystals), and "Deep Dish" Pat Bertoletti in third (94 Krystals). And I can't even begin to describe how defeated Pat looked (especially since just a few weeks ago he defeated both Joey and the great Tsunami Kobayashi at Chicken Wings).
:-(

It was an amazingly awesome contest. Those eight minutes were completely worth 20 hours in the car...

Afterwards we hung around and got pics with a couple of the eaters, including Mr. Joey Chestnut himself.

Then we went and got a picture with Pat. He asked if we'd met before and said he knew he'd seen me before. (he most likely remembers seeing our crazy selves at the Jalapeno eating contest, although we were too chicken to go up to him there). :-) He also asked "You didn't come here just to see me, did you?" "[yescauseyourehot] nono, for the whole event!"

Truth be told, the original mission of the trip was to see Kobayashi in action. But alas his jaw injury had kept him away :( Ohwellz. I am so happy that we went anyways!!!

So we let Pat go because he had to catch a plane to Chicago and we had to drive to Chicago.

And then we drove to Chicago.

And that is a very long drive. (but did I mention that it was totally worth it?)

**MORE PICTURES HERE!**

Everyone told me that Krystals were kind of like White Castles, which made me nervous because I hate Castle sliders. Let's just say that there were a pleasant surprise...the Krystal meat isn't gray.
:-)

Of course, I was full after two of them...how can anyone eat 103 in 8 minutes???

(pics and a recap later...I swear!)

Let's start with Saturday

I woke up at 5am on Saturday morning surprisingly awake. I think it was kind of like when you're a kid how you can wake up on Christmas morning before anyone else and be completely ready to go. Except instead of waiting for Santa Claus I was waiting for Joey Chestnut and Pat Bertoletti. I showered and packed up my car then went to pick up Nadia and Bryan.

Before 7am we were already on the road to Chattanooga for the Krystal Square Off, the only Major League Eating sanctioned hamburger contest, and one of their top two competitions. The Square Off is held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, 600 miles away and a nine and a half hour drive.

The drive was boring and fun and beautiful and crazy all at the same time. The road signs wanted us to play pong but we determined that may be a bad idea. We also determined that there has to be some sort of street called neutralville between the neighboring towns of brownsburg and whitestown.

At about one or so we made it to our first destination: Cave City, Kentucky. Cave City is an anomaly of a town that is basically my idea of heaven. Our first stop int he town was Big Mike's Rock and Gift Shop and Mystery House. We wandered the gift shop for a bit and then purchased our $1.06 admission for the guided tour of the mystery house...

The first room we went to was full of posters. You know the things: the sentence that has an extra "the" that you completely ignore, the drawing of the two hands drawing each other, the staircases that you can't tell which way was up, etc. etc. Pretty basic everyone's seen it stuff...

The next room was blacklight posters. A room filled with blacklight posters. That was all. They glowed. It was psychedelic or something.

And then on to the good stuff...

The next room was freaky deeky awesome. There was a water fountain and the stream of water ran UPWARDS. And there were pool balls on a ledge that fell UPWARDS and stayed there. And there was a chair that balanced on the wall and I sat on it and was like floating. And the whole room felt like I was going to topple over because it was on weird gravity-defying angles. It was hard to even stand in there!

The next room had a little house thingy and when we went in depending on where you stood you looked either really short or really tall. And then there was a ledge that looked like it was completely on an angle, but in reality was the only thing that was perfectly straight across so when you stood on it you felt completely in balance even though it looked lopsided and you were toppling over everywhere else.

Then it was on through a hall of portraits...those things that look normal at first but then change to look all freaky when you pass...and that was that. The most awesomest Mystery House ever! Totally worth the buck admission. We tipped an extra buck to our fourteen year old tour guide Alex and headed on our way.

We were going to go to the old decrepit wax museum...but it was closed...perhaps permanently :(

We passed by the KY action park (mmmhmmm) but did not go...

We stopped at Dinosaur World, which is kind of a park like Jurassic Park but I don't think the donos are real. We didn't feel like paying the $10 admission though...

Then we stopped by Wigwam Village. It's a motel...where all of the rooms are wigwams. Seriously, these babies have real beds and cable TV and everything. And are shaped like wigwams. I am so making JoeJoe take us canoeing or something around here sometime so we can stay in these :)

Then after it was a quick bite to eat and we headed off to Tennessee, Georgia, Tennessee (silly directions)...

The views through Tennessee are awesome...but we especially loved the runaway truck ramps going up the mountains...

By about seven we made it to Chattanooga and our wonderful Days Inn! Ideally we would have stayed across the street at the Sheraton (they sponsored the Krystal Square Off and so we assumed they hosted all fo the eaters there) but in the interest of saving $100 we opted for cheap motel. Once there we basically passed out for a bit watching a crappy movie. Then we walked a couple of blocks to Sticky Fingers BBQ for dinner. The food there was amazing. I got a pulled pork/half slab combo with Tennessee whiskey bbq sauce. The meat completely just fell of the bone. I picked it up an the bone was completely dry. And it wasn't fatty at all. That's a rib!

We were thinking of doing something afterwards but we were all pretty much exhausted so we went back and called it a night. Needed to rest up for the Krystal Square Off and the long, long drive home...

***MORE PICTURES HERE!!!***

1. Sometimes you tell someone that you drove ten hours to see the hamburger contest. And then sometimes that person finds someone else who gets you VIP passes to go stand all the way up in front with the press.

2. Sometimes records are broken.

3. Sometimes your favorite eater kind of remembers seeing you before :)

4. Sometimes you seriously have what may be the best roadtrip ever. :)

Recap, pictures, etc. to come later.
For now, it's 2am and I just got home after driving the entire 10+ hours (damn constuction) from Chattanooga...zzzzzzzzzzzzz

When you hear the whistle blowin' eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far
Shovel all the coal in
Gotta keep it rollin'
Woo, woo, Chattanooga there you are

So Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?
Chattanooga choo choo
Won't you choo-choo me home?

Yup, I'm in Chattanooga! But I doubt I'll see much of it :) Driving 10 hours Saturday to get there...watching an eight-minute hamburger-eating contest on Sunday...driving ten hours back :) but it's so worth it!!!

Watch the Krystal Square off on ESPN at 1:30pm central on Sunday!!!

1. Please convince me...
that the fact that some models allow you to choose a cute little car icon is a stupid reason to choose one Garmin over another. Or tell me that I am right and that that is, in fact, the most important thing to look for in a navigation device.

2. I spent way too many hours...
and four computers today trying to convert an itunes song into an mp3 to send to someone.

3. a conversation...
after my mom shows me the ridiculous pug-shaped purse she bought for my sister
Me: if i ever get an animal don't EVER EVER buy me anything with that animal on it.
dad: so, let's say you inherit a mustang horse. that's means you don't want me to buy you a Ford Mustang?

3. Because you don't have enough val in your life...
I have started a new blog...
I know, I know, I post too much to this one as it is. But this one is different, and actually only a supplement to a bigger website I am creating. But while I am working on designing the site, I thought I'd start posting some posts anyways.
My new website www.sillyamerica.com is devoted to all that is odd in America. Playing off of my summer roadtrip, I plan to eventually see every state and the glorious oddities they hold. The blog will also feature other random odd places and events.
I don't plan on posting in it nearly as much, and much of what I post there will be the same as here, but I thought I'd let y'all know! I'll let you know again as I make progress in designing the website...but that will take a while.

1. I will give a cookie to anyone who can guess how many versions of My Funny Valentine I have playing on repeat on my iTunes right now.

2. Kobayashi backed out of the Krystal Square Off. We are now driving 20 hours in less than 48 hours in order to see a bunch of white guys eat burgers. It also means I can't cross off "see Kobayashi" from my list. :(

3. I had lunch with Walter. he now knows who I am. He also thinks I am nuts because of my stand on shredded lettuce.

4. I don't know which I find crazier: John calling me a stripper or JoeJoe calling me Valerie. All I know is that if I'm going to be a stripper my flight, hotel room, and a $60 Kobe and foie gras burger better be comped :)

Saturday

Bengtson's Pumpkin Farm

Saturday I hit up the pumpkin farm with the girls...Adam counts as one of the gils because he carries a purse.

There were tons of superneat things to do like pig races, hayrack rides, singing chickens and a petting zoo.

We went to a little haunted house...Adam and I managed to get completely lost in it and accidentally leaving through the wrong exit. Oops. Jenny didn't make it past the door.

We saw the absolutely most innapropriate witch statue thing ever.

Seriously, it kind of just held its broom pole with both hands and vibrated. And then from the back all you saw was the broom head with smoke coming out. Now that's creepy.

We saw lots of animals including a Zedonk and kangaroo. The kangaroo was sleeping so the kids around us just started throwing their carrots on top of it to try to wake it up.

Then we searched out the perfect pumpkins. Adam and Jenny looked around until they found the perfect one...but then found an even perfecter one. Nadia just wanted a baby one. I chose this one:

simply because I liked the curlycue funny stem. I go for character over perfection :)

**PUMPKIN FARM PICTURES***

Statesville Haunted Prison
After the farm I bid adiue to the girls and headed off to Statesville Haunted Prison. I didn't bother to invite Nad or Jen because I figured their answer would be no anyways.

Of course, I got there way before anyone else, so I staked a place in line. The plan was to be there a half hour before it opened and I was already pretty far along in line. Finally Joe and Alina showed up and then Emily and her crew.

After paying our $30 admission (yes, I said $30) we went in...and then Emily realized that she'd forgotten one of her friends was still coming. Luckily for only $10 more dude with megaphone let him bypass that first line. Yes, I said first line. After getting chased by really scary stilt man we headed off to yet another line...where we proceeded to wait. All in all we were in line for about three hours. Yes, I said three hours. A bunch of scary dudes came around being all scary like and a dude with a chainsaw was chasing people around. At first they were scarier, but after three hours you just kind of got used to them. We did however see chainsaw guy chase people to the point of one running into the rope fence and another guy falling, summersaulting and his friend then tripping over him. Hilarity. At least chainsaw man was nice and helped them to their feet.

At one point I totally almost made out with a zombie because he started wagging his tongue at me so I just started doing it back.

Finally we made our way to the front and then were carted off into a prison cell. Then we were brought into the prison. It was the scariest haunted house I have ever been to. But also totally cool. There were a bunch of people per room and some of the rooms were basically pitch black and sometimes you felt like you were in a car wash and had to squeeze between foamy rubber walls and sometimes you had to crouch down really small to squeeze through the rooms. And there were killer klowns from outer space.

Emily, Emily's friend who I can't remember the name of for the life of me, and I made a little chain of holding onto eachothers sweatshirts.

It was totally awesome though.

When we got out the line was about 5 million times longer and considering it took us three hours we figure those who were there will get in at about Christmas...

Sunday

Bromann Park
Sunday afternoon I met up with Alina at her apartment. We grabbed some sandwiches and headed over to Bromann Park.

So, I had no idea that this place even existed until about a year ago when I googled my last name, despite the fact that it's apparently been around since the 70s. I'd never been and Alina wasn't too far so we decided to go!

Basically I think it was named after a relative from "the other side" of the family. You can read some of the history here.

It's a really cute little park. Although I think they just redid it, so I am curious as to what it looked like before. There was a little swing set and a little play thingymabob and some picnic tables. Alina and I had some girl talk and ate our sandwiches. It was a funfun afternoon and I still can't beleive I have a park named after me Shush you, it was named after ME!!! :- )

**BROMANN PARK PICTURES**

BBQ with MattyK
Later MattyK had some people over to his house for bbq and top gear watching and rafting photo viewing. MK took like 4 pictures. I guess I baklanced it out with my 200+ :)

I had steak but made a sammich out of it. He didn't yell at me for turning the steak he worked so hard on making into a sammich but said it was a good idea. :)

I have not seen Top Gear in like three years because I am never invited over to watch it. It was funny because they redid the make a car work on both land and sea experiement and actually made it to France! It was funny. I said that already.

I had ice cream in my coffee but MK would not let me have it in my wine.

Then I made him play me Rhapsody in Blue and My Funny Valentine.

Then I left.

Then I went to bedzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

**PUMPKIN FARM PICTURES***

**BROMANN PARK PICTURES**

Sometimes a complimentary poncho doesn't actually protect you from the spewing banana puke that then gets all over your jacket and hair and sweater and chair... :(

So I saw Blue Man Group twice in high school, but haven't seen it since. So I grabbed Joew and Meredith and Andy and Josh. First thing you have to do when you go to BMG is go to the bathroom, not because you have to but because you want to hear the bathroom song. The second thing you do is get a mimosa...just because mimosas make any show a million times better.

The show was kick-ass awesome (aren't you sick of the fact that the only adjective I seem to know is awesome? Be grateful that I at least several modifiers to it). If you have never seen it, go...and take me with you damnit. I mean, any show that gives you a free poncho to wear (and seriously, you need that poncho) and toilet paper to wear on your head has o to be good.

My only complaint is that the show definitely has the Rent-effect where some of the magic of the show is lost when half of the audience has already seen it and knows what to expect.

Some highlights (or maybe lowlights): I wish I could catch marshmallows like that, getting covered in blue man chest puke, trying to read all the signs, half-expecting to have to lead everyone in the national anthem, Me to Josh: There's a blue man on your head!, painting the town in tp, ummm everything!

After the show we headed to Clarke's for pancakes. mmmpancakes.
Hare Krishna on the street: Would you like some homemade vegetarian food?
Meredith: I only eat meat.
hahaha.
We also saw a giant penis and were fascinated. It did not belong to the Hare Krishna.
Everyone agreed that they can't take me anywhere. They determined this as I tried to wipe the puke out of my hair at the table and licked the hot chocolate off the side of my glass so I wouldn't lose any of it.

I TOOK MORE PICTURES!

***

1. I am apparently not going to officially have my masters in November because I am an idiot who does not pay attention to deadlines.

2. I came home and watched Next Great American Band...exactly what I thought would happen did. The commercials for auditions called out to any band any type...but then when they showed polka bands and such they criticized them and didn't take them seriously. Lame. The Australian dude who's supposed to be Simon Cowell also made way too many Simpsons references.

3. Hood's reaction to me buying new software:
Fish8581: for $700 you can buy a damn pretty box and have $683 left over
Fish8581: OR
Fish8581: you could fold a $100 bill into a box
Fish8581: it's called origami
Fish8581: they have books at the library

4. Did I mention that I have all this new awesome (there it is again) software and my damn CD drive is still broken?

White Water Rafting on the Upper Gauley River in West Virginia.
October 11-14 2007

Thursday

How many Emilys?
Despite being vallate, I arrived at the yK residence and JoeJoe was not there :) He had arrived earlier but when MattyK was late at arriving at HIS OWN HOUSE, Joe went to get food. Hilarity ensued I'm sure. We then split up into cars and I sat with JoeJoe while he hit on me the whole time, and then tried to search out Plecki's place (Joe knew the street started with an "M"...unfortunately there were about five "M" streets in a row to the one we (luckily) determined was hers). Then I switched to MattyK's car with Emily (human), Emily (electronic), and heated seats and it was off to Indiana...




Shut up and go to sleep
After a couple of wonderful hours in the car (Emily and I totally made that car unboring) we stopped over at the Super 8 (it may not have been a Super 8, I don't remember). While the other room was trying to sleep we instead watched America's Funniest Home Videos (and Sid refused to give me the remote!) watching people get wondrously injured :) and ate my s'mores bars (haha, sucker other room!) I broke the sink. Sid did not brush his teeth in the shower. The other room wanted to sleep or something so they pounded on our wall a bit. ohwellz.








Friday

300 horsepower!
Woke up, shower, change, pack...I spread the s'mores love to the other room and found out that Alina was determined for her room to be finished before ours...so I rushed right back and everyone was all ready to go! Who'd have thunk that a room with Sid would be done first :) (It was all MK holding up the other room by trying to be all clean and stuff by showering...but I guess that's good because I was then stuck next to him the rest of the way...)

We stopped at breakfast and everyone got sausage biscuits except for JoeJoe, who got an ice cream cone. And then it was time to hit the road! MK says that his car has "300 horsepower" way too much. Waaay too much. So Emily and I decided that we would make that the word of the day, so every time Matt said it we screamed Pee-Wee style. It was kind of awesome. Our car was super awesome on the trip because it had the three most superawesome people there (by that I of course mean me, humanEmily and electronicEmily) :)




Winding Down
Finally about 50 billion hours later we made it to West Virginia!

Here electronicEmily failed us by not going the way JoeJoe thought we should ( ;-) ) and then disappearing when she determined we were no longer on any road at all. Joe apparently got a speeding ticket, although I didn't hear about that until muchmuch later. We saw deer (but MK managed not to kill it) and confederate flags.




Cabin Fever
We finally made it to our cabin at Major Harding's Abode in the Carnifax Ferry Cottages.

The place was damn sweet! It had a kitchen, fireplace, three bathrooms, hot tub... Unfortunately I didn't get a bedroom or a bed and had to sleep on the couch :(




Trailing Behind
After getting most everything settled we decided to do a bit of hiking. So we hit the trails! Hiking is my favorite part of camping (even though we weren't actually camping) because it's just so calm and peaceful...except when you realize that everyone else is so far ahead of you that you can no longer see them or hear them...oops.

Coming out of the woods we realized that we were actually pretty close to the cabin, so some of us walked (or ran to definitely try to beat the others) back while the rest got the cars. I made it almost to the cabin before the cars got there so I decided to walk in the middle of the road as slowly as possible :) Yeah, I'm a jerk like that :)




Hot Tubbing
Then it was time to hit the hot tub! With a glass of wine...or five...we soaked away while some of the boys prepped the grill and the fire for the hot dogs and burgers. Yum.

Jen gave me her fiancé, so now I am engaged to Andrew instead of JoeJoe, but I can still have him on the side.

After soaking...and drinking...and drinking...and me being one of the very few who went to go appreciate Joejoe's fire and eat a s'more (yum) it was about time to call it a night, so I curled up on my little couch and went to sleep till morning.








Saturday

Rolling on the River
Rafting was totally awesome! OK, so maybe it didn't start out that way (or really *end* that way)...but it was still totally awesome!

Like always I started out as the crybaby scaredy cat that I am and started having one of my panic attacks that resulted in me crying, Sid having to hold me for a while, my guide wanting me to be put back on the bus, and the main guide (who was the guide for the rest of the group) having to come check up on me...

Of course, once we actually got out there I was pretty much fine...and did I mention that it was totally awesome!?!? We did five class fives and a bunch of other littler ones. The weather was actually decent, in the sixties and the water wasn't too cold. I still bundled up in a wetsuit and polyester sweatshirt though. The dude at the rafting place tried to find me a pink wetsuit to match everything else I was wearing, but he was not successful :( For lunch we had actual grilled food (no sammiches this year!) By lunch I really had to pee but had on so many layers that I would have had to take off to be completely naked while doing so, so I decided to just hold it. You didn't need to read that.

Towards the end of the ride we came to "Fuzzy Box of Kittens" which was the name for a particular rapid where guides are known to pull crazy shit to try to tip the raft over...yeah, so he totally had the raft completely on its side so that I went flying (he later said "I've never had anyone fall out then from the LEFT side of the boat before!) and taking Sid with me (Sid later said that he had no idea how he fell out since he felt pretty secure...oops!) The scariest moment of my life then occurred when I tried to come to the surface but found that I was trapped under water under the raft. I tried feeling my way out but it seemed like it was forever (in retrospect I am pretty sure that I was going the length of the boat for the most part instead of the width...) It didn't help that I think I was reading those damn brail instructions backwards. When I finally came out I could hardly breathe because I never really learned to swim and therefore never really learned how to properly hold your breath under water without sucking in a ton of water.

And yes, my adoring public, there IS A VIDEO of this particular rapid...that will be posted in the coming weeks...

After that ordeal, rafting was pretty much over...just a little float towards the end.

And then it was all over (I'm doing my sad face. I'm making my sad sound)




Winding Down
After rafting we chillaxed at the rafting place for a bit, dried off, grabbed some popcorn, and watched the video of what we just went through.

Then it was back to the cabin for a quick nap, girl talk in the hot tub (me: I used to date a guy named Matt, he was a total douchebag / MK - pointing at Hood: haha, she's talking about YOU!) and jugs of wine :-) We prepped up some kabob and threw that on the grill, I star gazed a bit, and ate up (p.s. Matt and Matt do not eat straight from the skewer straight from the fire).

Then I made some hot chocolate, the boys lit up a fire in the fireplace, and we played some UNO and watched cartoons. After that everyone pretty much called it a night and I tried not to wake Emily as I washed all the dishes and then woke up JoeJoe as I realized the fire was still going and I had no idea if I was supposed to do anything. Joe doused it with some cups of water and then gave me a fire extinguisher to sleep with. And I did.








Sunday

Goodbye
Sunday we woke up early, cleaned, finished off whatever food we could, packed up the cars and left our cabin :(

We took a pit stop at the New River lookout point to see the big ole Bridge (check your state quarters if you want to see it) and the New River (p.s. the whole rafting trip the guide kept comparing the rapids to what was on the news. I kept thinking what kind of rapids do you see on the news? It was at about this point in the trip that I finally realized that he had been saying the New and referring to this river, which was what we rafted last year. Yeah, I'm slow like that). We played around for a bit, snapping pictures of the bridge, snapping pictures of the river, snapping pictures of each other snapping pictures, then decided to hit the road.

The Road Home
Emily and I jumped in the coolest 300 horsepower car around and took off.

We stopped at Steak and Shake for lunch.

We listened to a lot of songs that had "road" or "driving" in the title.

We listened to some Dane Cook, but then he ran out :(

While Emily slept I made conversation with MattyK to find out the important stuff I wanted to know about him...such as:
He would rather have a heart transplant than a hair transplant.
He would rather eat a dog than a cat.
He would rather drive a gigantic motor on a unicycle than the Cadillac.
He would rather belong to AAA than to AA
He would in fact drive a Kia and only a Kia for the rest of his life if it meant he would be able to have sex.
and other such things of that nature. He refused to ask me anything though and told me my questions are frivolous :( and then I recorded a ringtone for him of me doing my sad noise :)








Homecoming
At the gas station we split into different cars and Isla drove me the rest of the way.

I told Hood to make sure he took Isla through the traffic circle on the way out because last time she screamed and got off at the wrong street...twice.

I finally looked in a mirror Sunday night and realized that I didn't just have a cut on my lip like it felt...rather it was kind of swollen.

My mom's first and only question: "You didn't get wet, did you?"








***PICTURES HERE!!!***

Sometimes you learn things about your friends...

1. Sometimes your friends can sum you up better than you ever could yourself...
Me: Did you get my message that I might be late?
Joe: Yeah, but you're Val so I figured that just meant you wouldn't be early

2. Sometimes you really find the people who you don't necessarily think of as your closest friends turn out to be the ones who seem to care about you the most, while the ones you think of as being better friends don't seem to be. This can make you feel both absolutely amazing and absolutely shitty.

***

A couple of pics to tide Hood over...

Full recap and pics from the rafting adventure hopefully tomorrow...I have three cameras to go through, including a yet-to-be-developed waterproof disposable. :)

Where in the world is Valerie Bromann?
a. White Water Rafting in West Virginia.
b. Drowning.
c. Chillaxing in a cabin.
d. Freezing her ass off
e. all of the above

answer: most likely e. all of the above.

on laziness

1. Two years ago DePaul got new ID cards and required that every student go to ID services to get a new one. Today, I finally went.

2. I ordered some software today...but it will come on CD and my CD drive has been broken for six months.

3. I suppose I could delete that email draft I wrote and never sent in 2000...it never bothered me before but the new hotmail interface makes it glaringly obvious that it is there.

on baking

1. Any recipe that calls for seven chocolate bars has to be good, right?

2. Bad idea: keeping the candy bars and marshmallows on the stove while it was preheating.

3. Good idea: S'mores bars!

Wow...so, I never thought they'd actually CALL OFF the Chicago Marathon, but I guess there is a first for everything...

So with record-breaking heat after about four and a half hours they called of the marathon. Apparently over 300 people were hospitalized and one died. It was seriously hothothot. Hell, I was sweating just watching the marathon...

I managed to get down there with about ten-minutes to spare before Josh crossed the halfway point. Unfortunately, Adam and Jen had a crappy train schedule and missed it...we then walked to the finish line (seriously, with the amount of effort it took just to find the finish line, we might as well have run the marathon). We watched there for a while figuring when he was supposed to be rolling in. After w bit though we gave up thinking he either was really fast or not fast enough.

We made our way to the "F" section to wait with his dad and sister...then some lady came on a loudspeaker and announced that the race had been called off. The heat was just way too much. So they were telling everyone to take a bus back...Luckily Josh turned out to only be a few miles from the finish and was able to forge on...I mean, can you imagine being that close and being told to go home??? So he finished the marathon! He was gunning along with the four-hour pacing team, but ended up at almost five due to heat and the ending confusion. He was kind of upset over the time, but I think it was completely awesome that he even finished when so many people couldn't (or didn't even show up)... especially when a few years ago who'd have thought he'd ever even run a marathon?

Awesome job Josh!

Congratulations!

p.s. I made him a sign. It said...well, it said a lot. About an eighth of the way through making it I was very very happy that I didn't buy the big-sized poster board.

1. Trading Spaces was on tonight and that was the first new episode in forever. They, of course, retooled the format...again. Each time they do it it gets worse and worse. They now have compeltely lost the two key elements: they no longer really focus on getting to know the homeowners, and tey no longer show you how easy and great it is is to do all the projects..it sucks more and more.

2. Went out tonight with Josh and Nadia to Fridays. They have parmesan encrusted quesadillas which we got just because it sounded so ridiculous. We loaded Josh up on carbs. I finally got to give Nad her birthday present. I basically buy her what I want in powder blue in green... We are too alike. We then went and drooled over stuff in bed bath and beyond.

3. I am sooo glad I didn't buy the large poster board :)

4. I need to wear all polyester when I go rafting, so I went to the sports store and loaded up on anything I could find that was 100% poly and 100% pink :)

1. It should seriously be illegal for a package that contains ONE cookie to have under nutritional information "Serving size: half a cookie (servings per container: 2)"

2. At one point today it took me thirty seconds to remember which was right and which was left. I put my hands in "L"s and stared at them. Doing that really does nothing for me, I mean I never pay attention to what my hands are doing; I just make the formation, look, and know, it usually just triggers something doing that. But today it just didn't click. I am losing my mind...or maybe I just need to go back to kindergarten.

3. I already write 35 things for my list next year...guess this means I am writing a list for next year...at this rate I will have 300 things by January. Any suggestions?

4. I went to eat with Josh tonight at Sandbar...I ordered a banana...seriously, I ordered a banana. It cost me $6. I also had two drinks and feel pretty damn loopy right now. This is why I don't drive anywhere. The drinks come in the same glasses as the candles...don't mix them up!

1. Some days you just don't feel like doing anything but getting in your car, grabbing some Starbucks, and driving around with all your windows down. Sometimes it is the only thing that makes your head feel right. And sometimes the weather is the absolute perfect weather for it.

2. So, The Krystal Square Off will not be the first battle of Joey against Kobayashi since the stunning upset at Coney Island...Next Tuesday they will be facing off in a wing battle in Vegas...the pathetic thing is that if it weren't for me bailing on class tonight and for the $400 the ticket would cost, I so was considering going :(

3. Quite possibly the best commercial EVER:

Valerie's 100 in 2007:

Bah, it was a slow month...(well, in terms of the list...I mean I DID take a trapeze class, go to Hollywood Boulevard twice, see Pat Bertoletti win a jalapeno contest AND attend a ball...)

19. Go to Millenium Park

I figure it's safe to cross this off my list since I have now been there once on my own, once to take wedding photos, and once to see a concert...but next summer we are all going to tromp in the fountain :)

30. See plenty of Opera
I saw La boheme :)

34. Go to Renegade Craft Fair

Done and done.

78. Go to a baseball game

Go Sox!!! (and hot dogs!)

85. Bake once a month

Corn bread.

91. Chicago Wine Festival

mmmpinkwine.

Poll:
Should I do another list for 2008??? If so, how many items should be on the list? What percentage of that list should I have to complete?? (This year I had 100 on my list of which my goal is to complete 50.) Should it be a completely new list or contain the things that I don't finish this year? Any suggestions for things you want to see val do???? Leave your answers in the comments!!!!