Another Great Weekend

We started the weekend early this week with some friends coming out for dinner on Thursday night. With the big gopher opener we had a lot of friends in town, college friends that is. The core of my college friends have moved out of the Twin Cities and when we have a chance to get together it is always a great time. On Thursday we had Aaron and Emily Peter (Rochester, MN), Adam and Eve Adamson (Bermuda Island), and Mark and Amanda Escen (Geneva, Switzerland) over for dinner. Nicole made her specialty which is chicken marsala and it is always great. She had some great appetizers and we had some nice bottles of wine. This was our first group dinner since we finished the basement and I was curious how it would work out, where would people congregate, what would the flow be, etc. Well, as expected the bar was the popular spot, but that was not exactly the best thing. Nicole was left alone in the kitchen and for that I felt bad. The guys were at their bar stools, Thursday night football was on so that made sense to me, but all the gals wanted to be downstairs where the action was so it made me feel bad that Nicole was managing all the food in the kitchen by herself. At our previous dinner parties, the kitchen was the popular place to gather, but now downstairs seems to be. Maybe I'll come up with a sign that says women upstairs, men downstairs, until the meal is over.
Mark brought me a great bottle of whiskey from Ireland (he goes once/month) as it is only a short flight away.
Adam and Eve brought a bottle of rum from Bermuda and it was quite tasty and Aaron and Em brought us some wine for our cellar (it didn't make it to the cellar as we drank it before dinner).
It was so much fun to spend a night with old friends catching up on our lives and it was very exciting listening to the Escen's and Adamson's talk about their experiences overseas. Adam and Eve have only been in Bermuda a short time but Mark and Amanda have been in Switzerland for 3 years now. Eve is an actuary and the reason for the Adamson's move to Bermuda. Adam is not allowed to work "officially" as they don't want him taking a job from the locals. So he finds things to do for cash once in a while but admittedly spends a lot of time on the golf course and the beach. I hope to play with him there soon.
Mark and Amanda both work for Cargill in Switzerland and they absolutely love it there. Amanda hopes to move back to the US in the next 2 years but Mark wants to live there forever. He told us he sees no reason to move home, which was a little surprising to his wife. Mark spent the afternoon taking the Summit Brewery tour so maybe the MN beer was talking. I know he loves it there though, they are so close to so many countries and have experienced so much in the past 3 years. They really talk highly of the quality of life that the Europeans enjoy over the US with much more emphasis on family and enjoying life and not as much on WORK!! Interesting!
On Friday night I got together with the "boys" again this time at Rock Bottom Brewery. 15 of my college buddies got together to talk smart and catch up. Everyone is doing well which was nice to find out. Some have kids, some don't, some are married, some aren't.
Saturday was a big day. I started out the morning playing in the Troy Burne Club Championship. It is a 2-day tournament. I teed off at 7:45 and played ok. I shot 83 and was in 3rd place. The golf course is in the best shape it has ever been in, greens are very fast so it is playing very difficult.
After golf I came home and took a quick shower and Nicole and I were off to "The Bank", TCF Bank Stadium. We were meeting friends for afternoon grilling and off to experience Golden Gopher Football Back on Campus. It was a great day, people were so excited. We met up with Ashley and Ally, my brother Andrew and Brianne throughout the day. We tailgated for a few hours and then headed over to the stadium for the pre-game festivities. The stadium is unbelievable. I don't think it could be any nicer. There are more bathrooms than people, the only thing you are not used to is SO MANY people at a Gopher football game. They didn't have cash registers yet so everything was manual at the concession stands, which made for very long SLOW lines. They lost some revenue as people couldn't wait that long, and if the soda man came down the aisle his bucket was empty before he got to the bottom, so a few kinks to work out yet.
They had 4 F-16 fighter jets fly over the stadium, which was cool, but they flew over too early. We received an e-mail a few days before the game with a detailed timeline on all the activities. The flyover was supposed to be AFTER the national anthem which makes sense. Instead, the flyover happened DURING the Rouser and we nearly missed it, they flew over VERY FAST! Anyway, it was still a neat thing to see.
The game went by very quickly it seemed. The Gophers pulled out the victory which is great to start off the stadium right. My own personal opinion is they will have a very hard time winning Big 10 games this season, but maybe I'll be wrong, hopefully, but I just don't think they look very good.
It was a great day to be an alum of the University of Minnesota, and for the current students, what an atmosphere to experience on Saturday. We were very proud to have went to school there, we always are actually, but Saturday was a historic day!
Sunday, I played the final day of the Club Championship. I was in the final group, but I was 7 shots behind the leader, my friend Brian Thompson. Now, let me tell you just a little bit about Brian Thompson. He played Division 1 golf at Michigan and is MUCH BETTER than me, so there was NO PRAYER that I was catching him. I was 1 shot out of 2nd place, which was held by Mike Lovick, the Club Champion from last year. I thought I had a chance to catch him. So, we tee off on the 1st hole. I make par, Brian makes bogey, and Lovey (as we call him) made a double, so all of a sudden I'm 6back of the leader and 1 ahead, in 2nd place by myself. I played well until the 9th hole where I had a DISASTER. I lost my ball in the long grass to the right of the fairway (we call it FESCUE) Then I hit another one and it went in the same Fescue farther up the fairway and WE LOST ANOTHER one. I made a 9 on the hole, 5 over par for 1 hole. My chances of 2nd place were OVER. I ended up shooting a 92 today, and finished in 5th place. OUCH! I was disappointed of course, but how can you ever be too upset when you are on such a beautiful golf course.
Nicole spent the entire day Sunday working on her dissertation, she is nearly done, but it's crunch time so she's really into it. Sorry this got long, but it was a great weekend. We're watching the Packer/Bears game now and relaxing for the night. Go Bears!