I was expecting a really crazy bachelor party. Vin's brother Tommy rented a house in Key West. I was kind of scared. My goal was really just to make it home alive. John and I had joked about how the bachelor party might be unbloggable because it might not be appropriate for the blog and/or I wouldn't remember some of it. That didn't happen. I think I remember everything and there's nothing that happened that I would consider out of bounds for the blog.
After going to the Met game the night before, I got up really early to get to LaGuardia for a 6:00 flight. I met John and some of Vin's friends at the airport in Miami. We had breakfast/lunch/whatever it was at that point in the airport and then rented a van to drive down to Key West. Speaking of airports, John asked me to rank the best airports I've been to. I've been to a lot. Midway and MacArthur are probably my two favorites. They remind me of going back and forth to Notre Dame. Midway would be number one. There were lots of times that I would get there really early since I had to take that long bus ride from Notre Dame and I didn't want to take any chances. I'd be going home for a break (usually with no work to do) and I'd go to this Irish bar and drink Guinness to pass the time. I also knew exactly where the best bathroom in the airport was. And they have mass on Sunday there (which I went to at least twice, including the day after the Bush Push game). Unfortunately, Southwest doesn't go from MacArthur to Midway anymore, so I haven't been to either one since 2011. Kennedy might be next on my list. You'll see why after I unveil my Bad Airport Power Rankings:
5. Newark. It's on the list even though I've never been to Newark. Because, you know, it's in Newark. Jon once emailed Kyle and me to tell us that there were going to be direct flights from Newark to South Bend. We just didn't care. Whenever I search for flights on Kayak, I put in NYC and then filter out Newark. I wish I could just always fly from Kennedy and MacArthur.
4. DFW. I was only there on my way to and from the Shamrock Series game in 2013. I just didn't like the way it was laid out. All the terminals seemed exactly the same and there just wasn't much space to navigate. Love Field, on the other hand, is very nice.
3. Fort Lauderdale. I've only been there on my way too and from the National Championship Game in 2013. The terminal I was in was being renovated and parts of it smelled weird, but maybe it's nice by now. But I'll always associate it with that trip. On the way back, my flight was delayed and I got home around midnight and then had to go back to work the next day. I was not happy.
2. O'Hare. It's not that bad, but I just remember having to spend a night there and the bars closing before I got there. And they don't have Guinness.
1. LaGuardia (the link for O'Hara has information on why I hate LaGuardia too). It's no contest. Laguardia is awful. Actually, terminals C and D are pretty nice now, but terminal B is by far the worst airport terminal I've ever been in. There are separate concourses that aren't connected to each other. So once you get past security, you don't have many options for places to eat or drink. In fact, in one of those concourses, they didn't have a single bar. I don't often drink much at airports anymore, but when I was stuck there back in 2012 when my flight to Chicago was delayed, a beer would have been fantastic. And unlike Kennedy, it's not easy to get to.
Anyway, back to Vin's bachelor party. Driving to Key West is really cool. I didn't realize how many islands there are. Most of them are very close together. I think the longest bridge on the nearly four-hour trip is about seven miles. We stopped one one of the islands at this outdoor bar/restaurant. One of the guys had been there before. You could feed tarpon. I had never heard of tarpon before, but they're pretty big fish. We walked out on the dock and a couple of guys were feeding the tarpon. John was asked if he wanted to and his response was, "I have no interest." That probably would have been my response too, but it was interesting to watch.
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| Feeding the tarpon |
We got to the house a little before Vin, Tommy, and Sean arrived. That first night, we drank and John grilled up some meat for dinner. I think beer pong started after we ate. This seems like a good time to tell the story of my incredible beer pong run in the summer of 2006. I kept track of my record that summer and I think I was 38-16 (it was nine years ago and there was lots of alcohol involved, but I'm pretty sure it was something like that). I also think I was 19-3 with Vin as my partner (which would mean I 19-13 with anybody else, pretty good, but not great). Early in the summer, John had a party at his apartment. I wasn't planning on sleeping over, but then Vin and I started playing beer pong. And we won ten games in a row. We never lost. John just cut us off at one point. We were unbeatable that night. I think there were at least two games where we needed to send it to overtime and we just took care of business. It truly is one of my greatest accomplishments. Later in the summer, there was a beer pong tournament. It was World Cup style since it was a World Cup year. We had 12 teams so there were three groups of four. You played everybody in your group once. The top two teams from each group plus two wild card teams made it to the elimination round. Vin and I cruised through group play, going 3-0. We were the only team to go undefeated. So we were the number one team going into the elimination round. This was where the controversy started. One team that made it to the elimination round had to leave (I think they were either the 3 or 6 seed). I didn't really think about it at the time, but they just should have been replaced (make that new team the 8 seed and bump everybody else up). But that's not what happened. Instead, one team was given a bye. If you were going to give anybody a bye, it should have been us since we were the 1 seed. Instead, the team that was supposed to play the team that left got a bye. Again, we just should have added another team, I didn't want a bye. The team that ended up getting the bye won one game in the elimination round made it to the finals against Vin and me after we won two elimination games. Now on this team was a girl that was notorious for playing beer pong and not drinking. Vin tried to make the rule that if you were playing, you had to drink. And I was with him. If you're just playing for fun, then whatever. But if it's a tournament, you have to be drinking. But it wasn't his house, so that rule wasn't made. We ended up losing by one cup. I'm pretty sure I had the last shot to send it to overtime and my shot either hit the rim or was right on line, but just slightly long. Vin was so upset about losing to that team that he refused to accept the prize money for second place. I'm still bitter about it to this day.
Anyway, Vin and I played two games of beer pong on Friday night. We were down four cups before we even took a shot in our first game. But we came back and won. Vin was better than I was and he hit the last shot, but I played a solid game. In the second game, however, Vin played much better than I did. I think I only hit one cup and we lost. The next day, Vin and I took on his brothers. Vin hit the last cup and it looked like we'd win, but Tommy sent it to overtime. We started overtime, but we didn't finish before going out to dinner. So for the weekend, Vin and I went 1-1-1.
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| Tommy, John, Vin, and I. I think this picture was taken between our beer pong tie and going out to dinner. |
After eating and playing some beer pong, we went out pretty late on Friday night. John was talking about staying in. I was totally ready to stay in with him. I had gotten maybe three hours of sleep the night before between getting home late from the Met game and getting up early for the flight. But John went out so I had to as well. It was fun. We ended up at this karaoke bar where Vin and Sean put on a good show. But the real highlight of the night was Alex and T-Dog. Lots of jokes about that the next day.
On Saturday, once we finally got up and ate breakfast, Vin, John, Ronnie, and I went to Ernest Hemmingway's house. I think he lived there with his second wife. John is a big Hemmingway fan. He was not a big fan of our tour guide. Vin and Ronnie decided early on to just chill out by the pool instead of staying with the tour. There are cats all over the place there because Hemmingway had this cat with six toes that he thought brought good luck or something and now they have 50 descendants of that cat living there.
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| Ernest Hemmingway's house |
We also went to the southernmost point in the continental US, which is apparently not the southernmost point in the continental US. Looking at the map, it's really somewhere else in Key West. There were jokes about hiring a boat to take us to Cuba. It's as far south as I've ever been. The farthest east I've ever been would be Canterbury, England. The farthest north I've ever been is Dublin. And the farthest west I've ever been is San Francisco, which is just slightly west of Seattle. Hopefully someday I'll get to Australia. That would be the farthest south easily. And is that the farthest east or west that I would ever be? I'd be traveling west to get there, but it's in the eastern hemisphere.
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| The southernmost point in the continental US, but not really. |
We went back to the house and I watched the end of the Ranger game while everybody else was outside in the pool or just chilling in the sun (I did get in the pool later). The Rangers won and eventually overcame a 3-1 deficit to win the series. Hopefully they'll take care of business quickly in this series because Game 7 would be the night of Vin's wedding. And then they need to win their first Stanley Cup in 21 years. Later we watched the Kentucky Derby. I'm no animal rights nut and I will watch the Kentucky Derby and maintain interest in horse racing as long as a triple crown is possible, but I do find it a little odd that the athletes in the sport are the ones that are least aware of what is going on. We went out to dinner at this nice restaurant on the water. After that, we were trying to figure out how to watch the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. We went back to the house to see if we could get it there. I went up to my room to charge my phone for a little bit. I put on a podcast and passed out. By the time I woke up, the fight was over. I didn't care. I have no interest in boxing at all other than Chris Algieri (only because I went to school with him up until high school). I just went back to sleep after that.
After getting a pretty good night of sleep, I got up early so that I could go to mass on Sunday morning. I went to the Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea. It's a pretty small church, but it was nice and crowded.
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| There was a little grotto right outside the church. |
After that, I went to Harry Truman's house. I didn't realize he had a house there until John texted me about it maybe a week before we went down there. Actually, it wasn't really his house. It's been used by several presidents going back to William Howard Taft. Truman just used it more than anybody else. He spent 175 days there as president (about three weeks per year). You can take a tour, but we were told that the secret service wouldn't let us take pictures inside because the president always has a standing invitation to use the house whenever he wants. I think Carter was the last president to go there while he was president, but Colin Powell used it for official business when he was Bush's Secretary of State. The house was definitely dated, but it was interesting. There was a poker table that had a cover to make it look like a regular table because Harry Truman's wife didn't approve of him gambling. Our tour guide said that the press knew about it, but they never mentioned it because the public wouldn't approve of it either.
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| The Little White House in Key West |
By the time I walked back to the house, it was just about time to make the drive back to the airport. I had a late flight and I had been dreading going to work the next day after the bachelor party, but it turned out to be not too bad.
I've known Vin for a long time, so I'll leave you with this picture of the two of us and our bartender from January 2005:
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| This was from the last time I went out drinking underage. It's funny for many reasons. |
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