This week started out with the pride parade and will end with fireworks – not bad for summer. The parade was on Sunday. Overall I enjoyed it, but the participant ratio of waving politicians and animal shelters to assless chaps and drag queens was not what I had hoped it would be. I did see the mayor, wearing a white button-down and slacks like he was going to work – you think he’d have tried something more rainbow-y – along with a few old men wearing nothing at all. I wish they had gone with slacks, at least. Here’s a pic of the float carrying the gay calendar boys of san fran, for all the ladies out there. One of the best characters was on the macy’s float; I must admit, marshall field would never have approved.

On Monday I went to the cubs vs. giants game. I’ve definitely never been at Wrigley field when the cubs just blew the competition out of the water – it wasn’t even a good game. We did spot this fellow though, at the game with his friend who also had an intricate balloon head honoring the giants. I went online looking for directions on making one of these bad boys myself but couldn’t find anything. Clearly this boy is a genius of structural engineering. The ballpark was gorgeous, right on the water and a sailboat harbor. Also, the beer cost $8.25 – that’s eight dollars and twenty-five cents American for a bud. The good stuff was a buck more. I should have heeded my friend billy’s advice and brought a flask. Next time.

The low point of the week was bailing out of summer league, thus guaranteeing that this blog will have nothing to do with ultimate all summer unless tony and bjorn post about poultry days, which is already ancient history. Turns out that in addition to the $45 SF ulty league fee, I have to be a current UPA member ($30), which means paying $75 for ~6 games of ultimate. Insane. I understand they need to use the UPA’s insurance (when has anyone playing ultimate sued a league or the UPA?) but how can they charge 45 bucks on top of that? Bah. Maybe I’ll get out to a pickup game one of these weekends to make dragging my cleats across the country worthwhile.

I hope everyone has a happy fourth, and be careful with those fireworks. Don’t start any forest fires.

we spoke to the cake lady who is amazing. tasting cake should be our national passtime. also we hired a photographer im really excited about. check out her work here. im wondering whether the new dress will allow for the trackstanding photos in our wedding gear that we wanted….the rings are bought and the flowers are.. well flowering i guess. the invites went out today even so its official like. our calligrapher did an amazing job with the invites. you can see them here on her blog.

as we try and use advanced calculus to decide how much beer to buy for the wedding i daydream about how this will all come off. im sort of envisioning it very preppy but in a ‘jcrew meets andre 3000′ kind of way. bright and modern but definitely a bit ghetto. hopefully the future mr. casual will get my name written in his fade for the wedding but well see…

now its on to fun stuff like picking out songs for the ceremony and our first dance. i kind of want to walk out of the chapel to something like the jackson five but nothings definite.. thoughts? heres our new color board with some revisions. still a work in progress but exciting nevertheless.

ok sorry ill stop.

Last week I thought all the talk about summer in san francisco being cold and overcast was really just part of an elaborate slander campaign to keep out newcomers. Every day was sunny, 78 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. This week though things have taken a turn for the worse, with a high of 60 predicted through the weekend. Easy come easy go. At least I got nice weather while I was exploring the city, and starting my internship today means I’m inside 9-5 (literally 9 to 5, actually, which is kind of amazing to me given I’m used to the 8 to 6).

Last week I landed at SFO as was picked up by one of my roommates – they are so nice, they actually picked me up from the airport. It threw me off given the SF subletting nightmares I’ve heard, but so far they’re the real deal. And, as mini and friend were excited to discover, one of them is a product manager for the company that’s launching a “revolutionary” new video game from the maker of sim city. Regular readers of the blog will know that misses casual and ultimate do not like to actively engage the TV or computer while sitting on the couch (besides updating this site once a month…ok, every six weeks), but mini’s friend was pretty astounded to discover my a-list connection to the gaming world.

Anyways, I spent last week exploring the sites and sounds of SF, which are largely made up of pride flags, homeless people, b.o. and burning cannabis. Just kidding, it’s a lovely town with much to discover. I live at the corner of market & guerrero, which seems to be smack in the middle of the city and makes getting around easy. I’m kind of between the mission and the castro, and below the lower haight if that helps anyone.

One thing I discovered quickly is that this is a city for food lovers. Last night when I was coming home from muir woods we saw a big crowd in the ferry terminal; turns out they were awaiting to grand opening of an artisan meat artist’s first retail outlet. This was about 6 pm on Sunday, a time when most Chicagoans I know would be at home eating leftovers or ordering six dollar noodles. There are fancy meat, cheese, bread, etc. sections every other block – artisan, I mean, not fancy. Clearly it’ll take me a few weeks to fit in.

In addition to eating, I visited noe valley, fisherman’s wharf, haight-ashbury, the mission, golden gate park and lovely muir woods in marin county. I was approached by a charming gentleman named bear while sitting in GG park eating my sandwich; he wanted to know if I wanted to buy drugs, hang out, etc. but there’s a medical marijuana dispensary across the street that seems much more trustworthy. Bear told me that my name would be chitown from then on, so please feel free to call me that if ultimate is getting old.

All in all things are good here, and starting a desk job for the summer is putting me back in the blogging mood. I miss new haven as well as Chicago now; it was so great seeing everyone while I was back. Oh, and other news is that I got into the business school at mi Universidad, so I’ll be on the east coast for an extra year getting my mba. Interesting. And actually last but not least, I thought I missed the SF summer league signup but turns out it’s tomorrow, so I may even post about ultimate. Crazy, I know. Just when you were getting used to the new all-bike format.

in other news.. ms. ultimate was in town for the last couple of weeks and it was wonderful. we went out on the town last weekend with the viking and t-brizzle.. just like the old days. drinks. dinner. ice cream. criticizing the outfits of everyone in lincoln park. seriously though.. we saw some lady wearing black and white leopard print shorts and black suade boots with fringe on them. this prompted our new category ’signs of the coming apocalypse.’ also in this category would be the appearance of an intermix on damen in wicker park. its getting dangerous out. fer realz. also we went and saw the ’sex and the city’ movie even against our better judgment. it was good but im glad we brought small pink cans of champagne.

the wedding is coming right up. best thing? we get to go taste cake this weekend. yeah cake. i love cake so much i want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant. um… anyway. its exciting. 3 months to go before im mrs. casual.

We’ll try to update CU with news of our journey when we get settled in Seattle. Thanks ahead of time to all well-wishers. We’ll miss Chicago and we look forward to visiting soon. Of course if anybody is in Seattle, look us up.

did you also know the average american wedding costs 25k$?? thats completely rediculous. go feed an orphan for goodness sakes. we are doing our part to feed the slave labor that nike employs by getting custom dunks for the groomsmen.

but things are coming along. i know all you dudes reading this cant wait to see our color scheme so here it is. exciting stuff right? we are tying the knot at the town cottage on lake michigan which i know many of you have been to over the years. i wish we could just have mama town make an epic feast of spaghetti and meatballs and enchiladas. it would be fitting and yet.. i think we still will get a caterer.

outside of all this madness.. i havent been doing much. training for the half triathalon? not really. we did bike the drive last weekend which was early but fun. lots of 30 rock but no ultimate. i was the worst spring league teammate ever. but ill let ms. ulty post about beach since she back in town this week. yay!

I must admit that I just don’t get tired of the disc out here. It is SOOOO good. Even the winter leagues out here are killer. There are 20 teams or something, and every single one of them has a roster that makes me think they are going to win…except mine, and we made quarters, so what’s up now? You want some? Get in line, son.

I just finished 14 months of try-outs. I say that because I think that in order to make a men’s team out here, you need to try-out with them at least twice. Oh yeah, or just be one of those guys who makes it their first time out. (I would recommend this approach by the way.) The point is, you not only have to be good enough, you have to PLAY good enough, you have to have what the team needs, and in my experience, you have to come back next year. When I moved out here, I was arguably a worse player than I am now, but I remember pretty much catching everything that was thrown to me and winning all the discs in the air for awhile during try-outs, and the fact is, if you are an unknown, that’s probably not good enough.

Anyway, I will find out this week if I am on Revolver. I like this team a great deal. I like the captains. I like the heart. I like the way these guys bring each other up. There’s so little ego directed inward at team-mates, that it makes it a real pleasure to go out and make plays. This is the first men’s team I’ve been around like that, particularly in the elite category. They’ve done a good job of getting some guys out with height and toughness this year. Depending on who they take, they could put out some pretty big lines for the first time and develop a more dynamic deep game. Oh yeah, and by the way, they can still break the mark and take 100% shots until the cows come home. Not a bad combo. Kinda like the #4 at Wendy’s.

What else is new? I am not working. My band is playing a good amount and close to cutting an album. We are The Wayside State, and we’re on Myspace. www.myspace.com/thewaysidestate

I have a beautiful girlfriend, and my sister is getting married. Give him the stick; don’t give him the stick!!! I watched the fensler gi joe PSA’s again yesterday for the first time in a couple of years. My god, what a comedy goldmine.

It was nice seeing a bunch of you last month in Chicago. No Sandblast or Poultry for me this year. Over the past year, I aged 5 and realized that sitting around and getting enough sleep - and not vomiting in 90 degree heat until I almost lost consciousness - is nice.

Luego

the rest of day one plays as expected – we beat the other teams (10-7 and 13-2 respectively), while playing hungover and missing a few guys. i played game 2, but not really in game 3, as my pounding headache returned later in the afternoon. awesome.

friday night comes and goes, and is generally low-key for most. that was both a planned thing to do, as saturday’s games determine whether a team plays up to 1-8 bracket or not, and the natural side-effect of the entire team getting completely shit-housed the night before. but, the night is not completely free from scandalous activity, as one teammate does not return to the hotel that night, and when he does show up the next day, he is without half his clothing and does not have a wallet. these items are delivered to him later that day by the object of the previous night’s affection. most of the team, and a lot of the tournament, has the good fortune to witness this exchange as it occurs in the front row of the stadium bleachers. comedy ensues.

saturday, scandal picks up where is left off, winning it’s first two games 15-4 and 13-5. in the first game, i realized i might be a better thrower when i have a hangover. despite feeling much better this day, i was chucking up pure garbage; whereas the previous day i threw a couple goals and no turnovers. awesome. that 13-5 game was our first of four games played on the arena field, and we used that opportunity to show the rest of tournament that we were for real. freespeed, our opponent, is a solid team and having beaten us in a previous year, thought they might be able to do it again. we answered that question by getting out to a 5-0 lead and never looked back. as the afternoon rolls into evening, scandal plays its final game of the day, a potential trap game against a fiery bologna team. for the first time in 6 games, scandal finds itself trailing by one for a span of a couple points. the italians are playing well, connecting on some well contested hucks, and scandal is off our game a bit. but one mark of a good team is being able to win despite not playing its best, and we were able to do just that, winning our closest game of the weekend 10-9. scandal is in the quarters. have fun tonight kids, but not too much, tomorrow morning we play sexxxspensive; then it’s on to quarterfinals.

saturday night’s party is back at the club, la otro mundo, after a few year hiatus. scandal scores a booth to chill in while the freestyle competition is going on. this party is, frankly, rather boring, so we leave. we go hit up the two brother’s gelato place , and head back to the barge, our home away from home.

scandal is up for an early game (9am) sunday morning, and we’re greeted by a cold, windy, and occasionally rainy, italian spring day. our first game is a placement game versus sexxxspensive; winner gets the better seed in the quarterfinals. given our history with this team, especially after the events of last year, they have no chance against us. no team with a sexxxspensive player on it will ever beat a team that i am on. its not going to happen. anyway, scandal proves that weather will not hold us back, and we beat the euro all-star squad 9-6. the weather continues to go downhill as the day goes on, with our quarterfinal game against hardfisch (germans?) a zone-heavy, super windy game. our offense plays great, working hard up-wind, scoring after having to complete a few dozen passes; and they do it point after point. we may not have been broken that game, which is a real accomplishment in that wind. scandal wins 12-6, with the final goal coming minutes after the real heavy rain started falling. soaking wet, but feeling great to have that monkey off our backs, we pack up our stuff and head for the shelter of the big tent. scandal is in the semis.

4:40pm sunday; it’s cold, windy, and raining hard. sexxxspensive is beating up on no tsu oh in the first semi-final of the open division. scandal is huddled together in the main tent, trying to be warm and dry, yet still somehow prepare for the upcoming game that starts in 20 minutes. sexxxspensive has just beaten no tsu oh to earn a spot in the final game. and then the we hear that familiar jingle.. the games are starting in four minutes… our semi-final game has been moved up 10 minutes, but no one had the courtesy to let us know. but it cold and pouring rain outside, no one wants to go out there until we absolutely have to, still, we have to warm-up somehow. well, there’s a crappy band playing on stage.. dance warm-up. and so it goes. scandal dances around while the young brits, huck & sea, are out doing a proper warm-up of running and throwing. the games are starting in one minute.. we finally head outside and put 5 on the line. the second semi is under way. the kids from england play a hard fought game, but scandal is better, playing a superb game as if we were playing in the sun while the brits were stuck in the rain. we continue our streak of convincing victories, winning this game by a score of 14-7, and taking the second spot in the open final. holy shit.

scandal, you’ve just won your way into the finals of paganello, you’re cold and soaking wet, what are you going to do now? we’re going to the barge! what better way to recover your body after a hard day of playing than by dividing up for boat races of jager bombs versus car bombs? yeah, i can’t think of anything better either, bottoms up; tomorrow you’re playing for a world championship…