You're Not Cheese!!!

I’m mid flight on my way back from Dallas/Ft. Worth headed back to Indianapolis. Librarian 0ne and I have had a great weekend but we’re definitely looking forward to sleeping in our own bed tonight.

Before I go any further let me first say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to Mrs. Rockcrawler for conceiving the LAN and opening up her home to a bunch of rowdy, sometimes drunken but mostly LOUD guys (and a couple of better behaved ladies). We came we destroyed and we left. Thanks to her for letting us run wild in her home and never saying a word about the mess we surely left behind.

On Thursday Librarian and I flew in to DFW for the first annual Rockcrawler LAN party. After getting our luggage (the best part of a flight is seeing that all your luggage made it.) securing our rental car and checking into our hotel we decided the next best course of action would be to take the last nap we’d have an opportunity to take the rest of the weekend. Actually that was Librarian’s idea, she’s a napper. A couple hours later we headed out to BFE, err I mean Rock’s house to meet the ‘Crawlers. Nashu and Christie had a meeting that night so when we arrived Rock’s aunt was there babysitting the ‘lil Crawlers. We chilled with the kids for a little bit then in walked ZeroCool. It was at that point the “must repeat” line of the weekend was uttered. Rock’s aunt’s kid (9 I think) kept yelling “You’re not cheese!” While it drove us all nuts, we couldn’t help but repeat it all weekend long. A short while later Tait arrived and Rock and Christie soon followed. Tait, Christie and Librarian headed out to Costco to pick up some grub for the weekend while Rock, Zero and I stayed behind to do what we do best. Scratch that, do what we do most. We plugged GoW in for some sweet chain sawing curb-stomping goodness.

Friday Lisa (Librarian) and I headed out with Tait to see the Ft. Worth Stockyards. I’m not quite sure what the point of the Stock yards is other than to separate tourist from their money. But they seem to have that down pretty well. Lisa got to sit on a real live bull. Tait and I ran around like morons all day. We played billiards on what was without a doubt the worst pool table I’ve ever seen and Lisa said she had the worst margarita she’d ever tasted at Billy Bobs. Apparently it tasted like frozen liquid plastic. After that we headed off to the Galleria Mall so Lisa could shop for some Coach gloves. When we arrived one of us needed to use the restroom and Tait was severely disappointed that the Men’s Lounge didn’t also serve drinks. Fortunately the mall also had a Starbucks. Tait never saw a Starbucks that he didn’t stop in the entire weekend. Finally we headed back to Tait’s house to “Suit Up” for dinner at Smith and Wolenski’s Steak House. Dinner was pretty good. Tait kept trying to pawn off his creamed spinach on me but I am animatedly opposed to anything with the word spinach in it. Over all it was a pretty good meal.

After dinner the three of us headed back to the hotel. Tait bunked with Relic the rest of the weekend and Lisa decided she had had enough excitement for one day so I headed out on my own to meet the rest of the crew. Rock clearly said that they were eating dinner at Don Pablo’s but when I arrived at the address given I was sitting in front of On the Border. Let me just take a minute here to mention something. If you are ever in the Dallas Metroplex for a visit I would highly recommend getting yourself a GPS to use while driving there. They have without a doubt the worst road system I’ve ever been on. There are times you actually exit a highway across oncoming traffic and merge into another road, and the exit may come left, right, left then right, you just never know. It’s has if the city planners decided to just build a bunch of roads and figure out how to connect them as an afterthought. Anyway, back on topic. Once I found that I was in fact at the right place, I met Relic, Bunsenbeaker, Rock and Christie, a couple of Christie’s g/f, and ZeroCool. After they had their dinner we headed back to Rock’s and got our game on until the wee hours of the morning. It was in those wee hours that xs Ice and Darth Cestual finally arrived after a long 7 hour drive from whatever back water town they live in.

Saturday was simple, PLAY ALL DAY. That pretty much sums it up. OK there was more to it than that but that pretty well sums up the majority of the day. Wait. There was also some drinking and hard core snacking as well. Lisa went to make her Kahlua cake when she discovered her surprise birthday cake. I say discovered b/c she found it while pre heating the oven. By found I mean she half cooked her own surprise birthday cake over again, while still in its packaging.  That evening Rock deep fried what was the best turkey I’ve ever eaten, Bunsen and Christie made a bunch of Thanksgiving style dishes for what was an early OMM Thanksgiving. We played once again until the early hours of Sunday before heading back to our hotel to try and get a couple more hours sleep in again.

Sunday I headed out with the ‘Crawler family to church, Lisa went with Tait to a comic convention, Ice and Darth headed back home, and the rest of the guys spent the morning at Rocks playing grab ass presumably.  That afternoon we played a few more rounds of GoW then headed out to the airport to drop off Relic. The rest of us were lucky enough to go out to Rock’s workplace where he took us all on a very cool tour of his plant. They make CD/DVDs there so it was cool to see how the process works start to finish. By the time everyone got back to Rock’s Sunday night I think we had all pretty much hit the wall. We all said our good-byes a few hours later and headed home.

A few thank yous. Rock and Christie for hosting. Bunsen for cooking and helping organize the event. Relic for cleaning up our mess Saturday night. Ice for helping with the kiddos on Saturday. Tait for taking me and Lisa out to see the sites on Friday and Sunday. Zero and Scotib for supplying most of the equipment needed to make it all happen. LL Bee and Mrs. Freakin Out for showing up Saturday to help make the event even better. Darth for showing me creative new uses for Duct tape. Relic for bringing me COOKIES!! Mrs. Rock for making me a secret batch. And most importantly, Lisa for tagging along with me and not giving me the “look” every time I made an ass of myself.

Update: The airline managed to tear up the front of one of our suitcases but at least they all made it back home with us.