Choch was one of the first people I met when I first visited the University of Redlands, as he lived with my close friend Carson. Choch was a basketball player, and we immediately became very good friends. I can't say there are too many people in this world who have been true mentors to me in my lifetime, but I can say that Choch most definitely fell into this category. Being as he was a few years older than me, he was always first to include me in any activities on campus, whether it be playing FIFA soccer at their apartment or being one of two people who took me out on my 21st birthday during finals week his senior year.
So having said that, and given a very brief background of our friendship, let us continue our journey in Tacoma. I flew into Seatac at 1:30 on Thursday, with a name and number of Choch's Uncle. I was supposed to call when I arrived, as he and Choch's aunt would take me with them to Choch and Sara's new house, where everyone was waiting. So after a very easy rendezvous, I made my way to the house, only to find all the guys (Drew Moser, Andrew Alhadeff, Ryan Pelo, Billy Shivers, Choch, and his cousins, parents and brothers) waiting for me.
I immediately realized that we were going to be drinking all night as I was handed a beer when I walked in the door. I was given a quick tour of the house, dropped my bags and we were off. We drove through the crumby Seattle traffic on our way to our destination for the night, the Whirly Ball Arena. We made two stops before we played this amazing sport...1st, an extremely overpriced bar for a quick shot of Tequila followed by a shot of Jager...after realizing that this place was ripping us off, Alf (Andrew Alhadeff) decided we should just buy a bottle of something hard, take pulls in the parking lot and then proceed to Whirly Ball. Instead, we found a little bar filled with some guys who looked like they spent the whole day at the mill. If this wasn't akward enough, we barged in and demanded a round of Rum shots, only to find out that this bar was strictly a "Beer and Wine" bar. With a puzzled look on his face, Billy turned to me and said, "I've never heard of that in my life, what the hell is this!?" Instead of panicking, Alf reacted quickly and ordered two pitchers which were downed in under 5 minutes. Ok...Off to Whirly Ball. Whirly Ball is a game played on a court slightly larger than a basketball court. At each end is a backboard that has a hole in the middle, behind which is a net. Two teams of 5 players move around the court in bumper car style carts with a shortened version of a lacrosse stick in their hand. The objective is to shoot a ball (slightly larger than a whiffle ball) into the hole in the backboard.
Having said that, remember that each and every one of us had been drinking quite a bit of alcohol before the event. We played ten minute games for an hour and a half and probably individually averaged about a beer for every game we played. So, lots of drinking and lots of whirly ball. We continued back to our little "beer and wine" bar, and more rapidly consumed pitchers of beer. At this point in time, I blacked out, and memories from the rest of our time at the bar are vivid. What I can say, is that if I didn't get to rest on that 40 minute car ride home, I would have been done for the night....but no, we continued when we got back to the house. We immediately started cooking, and I remember Drew throwing on about 6-7 frozen pattys on the grill. I made my way inside to find Pelo, and realized he was upstairs puking his guts out. At this point in time, I began helping Pelo find the toilet bowl, since he had obviously missed, plastering the corner of the wall in Choch's little bathroom as well as the entire left side of the toilet (seat included). What made this experience all the more worth while was the fact that we had just eaten an order of chiken tenders while playing whirly ball. Mix that with some ranch and bbq sauce, and you have yourself one hell of a colorful pile of puke. I remain with Pelo for some time until he tells me he just wants to sleep, so I make my way back downstairs only to see Drew piling some fresh cooked eggs on top of his juicy burger. My mouth is salivating at this point as I ask Drew where the burgers are. He casually says "oh, go grab one off the grill." I grab my plate, pop that grill open, and practically singe my eyebrows off as I discover 2 foot high flames burning the shit out the 5 other burgers on the grill. The burgers have shrunk to about 1/2 their normal size, and they are all dark black. I quickly turned off the grill, put the burgers on my plate and walked inside. Of course, being that we are drunk bastards at this point, Billy, Alf and I throw a burger on a bun, place a piece of provolone (double the size of the burger) on the burger, and enjoy this blackened crunchy well-done piece of meat. I cracked open an Olympia and that concluded my night as I passed out upright on a chair downstairs only to vaguely remember running in to walls as I made my way to a bed upstairs in the middle of the night.
As I woke up on Friday morning (after thanking myself I was alive) I reminded myself that I had two more nights of drunken debauchery. Wow. Considering that I have maybe had 1 drink since the day I finished my MBA, I was scared. I had managed to drink more alcohol on one night than I had for the last 3 and a half months, if not the year. So our day started early as Drew decided we should all go sweat out the hangover and play some basketball. We had a nice game of 3 on 3 at the sport court near Choch's place, and came back, made some breakfast, got showered up and made our way to the Lodge where the wedding would take place, and where we would spend the next two nights. Choch, Drew, and Alf all went to pick up the kegs for the weekend, and Pelo and myself traveled with Choch's cousins up to the Lodge. It took a little over and hour to get there. We made our way on some back roads, through the Cascades, and came to an opening where the lodge was located. It was a beautiful setting. The lodge had somewhere around 7 rooms that had at least 3 bunk beds in each room. Ryan and I spent a few hours on our own before the boys arrived, at which point we got ourselves situated in the room. Late that afternoon was the rehearsal and dinner following that. We started drinking during the rehearsal and began our night. Following rehearsal, we were given an itinerary that laid out the rest of the weekend in detail. Since Billy, Pelo, and myself did not have responsibility in the wedding (ie groomsman), we immediately decided that Bill would be in charge of the itinerary, noting that anytime our names weren't on it (the entire itinerary) we would be drinking at that time. This immediately turned into a joke between the three of us, constantly "double checking the itinerary" to make sure that we were in the right spot. Pelo and I would ask Bill if he could check and see what we needed to be doing at any given time, to which he replied, "uh...I think we are supposed to be drinking now". I can confidently say that one of my most memorable moments from the wedding was when Bill and I started playing ping pong on Saturday morning. The girls had started to get ready upstairs at about 10:00, and Bill looked at me with a straight face and said, "what the hell are they doing, they aren't supposed to be getting ready until 11:00?" Bill had memorized the itinerary. Gotta love it. Our time at the Lodge was very much meshed together in my memory as it was non-stop fun. The ceremony itself could not have happenned at a better time. The day began very crumby, and was raining a little bit on and off. About 15 minutes before the ceremony started, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and Choch and Sara were married in the wilderness of Washington. It was a wonderful ceremony and absolutely beautiful setting.
Following the wedding, we ate dinner and I proceeded to dance the rest of the night away. I absolutely love dancing, especially after having a few drinks and had a blast on the dance floor doing line dances, swing dancing, and just having a lot of fun. The night concluded after Choch and Sara were off to their own cabin and the rest of the young folks drank more and ended the night sitting around, catching up, and being drunk. I think that this is a great way to end my story. Being amongst this group of people may well have been the best three days I've had this year. It was absolutely unbelievable and I thank every single one of you for making it memorable enough to write an essay the size of my Master's thesis about it. In case you care, it was about comparative advantage and the use of GIS/location analysis (sexy I know). Please feel free to comment with one of your favorite moments from the wedding or even just to give your two cents on the story. Hope all is well :)
