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• June 17th – All time favorite band: Reggie And The Full Effect – His first album in since March ‘05. A lot of the songs I’ve heard sound loud and kind of annoying, so let’s hope he can find space for a few gems along the lines of “Congratulations Smack and Katy” or “Get Well Soon” on the new album.

• June 17th – From Autumn to Ashes Live album. Doesn’t look like any new songs, but should be fun.

• June 17th – The Hold Steady releases their new album on iTunes

• June 24th – A band that holds a certain spot in Cheyanne and my heart: The Anniversary.. They broke up in 2002, but are releasing a rarities album that looks like it has a lot of songs that I haven’t found in some way on the internet. REALLY looking forward to that.

• July 1st – Alkaline Trio album.. from what I’ve heard, this sounds like it will be the best of this new bundle of releases.

• July 29th – Get Up Kids frontman Matt Pryor releases an solo album. Hopefully its a little smarter than his “Terrible Twos” project.

Man.. working in front of a computer will be really awesome for these next couple of months.

The weekend started with relatively quick drive up 15N, with Zid, a friend who played on “Batman,” a different team, that’s theme was characters from .. Batman. Noteworthy costumes included two face, (half was an ultimate player, the other half was a disfigured uber-villian), and The Penguin (in coat and tails). We dropped our carpooler off at his hotel room, which happened to be a HUGE suite at Bally’s, and the location for the party Saturday night.

After dropping off Zid, we gave Hoowa a call so we could meet up and get to our hotel. Hoowa had gotten in Friday morning so he could get a full day of poker in before the tournament. We get to Planet Hollywood to find him, up about $600. Nice. We headed over to our hotel, the Best Western off the strip, where we met up with the rest of the team. I hadn’t seen a bunch of these guys and girls for a while, so it was fun catching up.

We headed out to the strip to take in the Vegas experience. Noteworthy highlites here include seeing Will Farrell dressed in a neon orange sweatshirt and bright green hat, (not too subtle there Will), hitting the roulette wheel, and getting lost in the casinos. The casino architects are amazing. We got so lost looking for an exit, not because we wanted to leave, but because the $1 jello shots were right next to the exit, and those looked like a lot of fun for the team.

Saturday morning hit like a ton of bricks. We crawled out of bed and into our warm weather ultimate gear. It was freezing outside. The first game started at 8:20, and I was eager to where the team’s skill set and fitness level was at since it had been a few years since last playing together. We got off to a slow start, but won our first game 9 – 7. We started clicking in our later games, which could have been due to any number of things; taking a game to remember each other’s style of play, burning off the hangover with a little sweat, having a few beers, having an egg McMuffin, wrapping ourselves in a space blanket to keep warm, or dancing to Chromeo. Looking back, I think it may have been the Chromeo. We ended up winning our other games 13-1, 13-5, and 13-6. The highlite of the day took place as a floaty throw goes up to a short girl on the other team. Cenzer, a 6’something guy, sees it, and makes a careful play to get the D without clobbering the girl. Somehow as this play develops, Cenzer’s tear away warm up pants get tangled up with her, and as he lands, yells,”Aww come on!” and his pants promptly fall to the ground. Unfazed for a moment, he continues to play in his boxers, until realizing that no one was cutting because everyone was laughing so hard. So funny, and it could have only happened to Cenzer.

Dinner that night was at the Bally’s buffet, because the party was happening upstairs a few levels in the “Batman” suite. The buffet was alright, but I think next time I’d go somewhere different. We got there early, so we left until more people showed up, although we didn’t end up making it back. We hit more casinos, with people winning hundreds of dollars, and people losing hundreds of dollars, myself losing like $40. The night was short because after a day of ultimate, 7,000 calories from buffet, and being outside all day made us all really tired.

Sunday mornings of ultimate tournaments may be my least favorite thing in the world. You’re tired from getting 5 hours of sleep in a loud hotel room, sore from 8 hours of running the day before, and uneasy at the fact that you have to play harder today because you won your games yesterday, meaning that today’s games are going to be harder as you fight for the Championship. The first game we went down 2-0, but as everyone woke up, we answered with a 13-4 run, with the game ending 13-6. The semifinals were next. The team we were to play had just beaten “Batman,” who I really wanted to play because it had a lot of my LA friends on it, and they looked like a fun team. We crushed the semi-final matchup 15-4 in our cruise control pace to the finals. We played the team who I had beaten last year at the finals of this tournament. They go up 2-0. We start firing shots to the endzone, making huge defensive plays, and incredible layout grabs to end up winning the game, and the tournament 15-6. The whole time goofing off on the sideline, and having a great time with each other. Here we are after winning the tournament.

Getting to hang out with all my old buds, and winning a tournament was really fun. It was cool to see that even after hanging up our college cleats, we could all still get out on the field and tear it up. It also goes to show what a great ultimate program UC San Diego has. Looking back, I taught a lot of these guys how to play, and to see them rise up to be great ultimate players was pretty rewarding. It was a sweet weekend, and I hope that everyone is down to defend the title next year.

• 1 head of Romain lettuce
• 8 Morningstar Farms Buffalo Wings (Half a box)
  
• 1/8 red onion
• 1/4 bundle of cilantro (key ingredient)
• Handful of grated sharp cheddar cheese
• 2 handfuls store-bought garlic flavored croutons
• Your favorite chunky bleu cheese dressing
• Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

Cook the buffalo wings as directed on box, (actually cooking them a bit longer makes them extra crispy which we found is a good improvement). While the wings are in the oven, finely chop the romaine, cilantro, and red onions, and throw into large salad bowl. Toss in the grated cheddar cheese, and give the croutons a rough crumble before throwing them into the bowl as well. Toss everything around, and mix in bleu cheese dressing to taste. Plate salad.

Take wings out of oven and cut into quarters. Place them on top of plated salad and drizzle Frank’s Red Hot Sauce over everything. Enjoy!