Baltimore chop

So, it’s time to finally start getting caught up I suppose. Forgive me if I’ve forgotten some of the finer details; the events covered in these next three posts happened at least a month ago. Or basically eons ago, in terms of my old man memory.

Commence to start with the recapping!

Over Memorial Day weekend, The Wife and I headed up to Baltimore for the wedding of our longtime friend, Ed. That’s not his real name, nor even the name he goes by with family and post-high school friends, but it’s what we called always him and it’s just as good as any other name.

Ed and I have known each other since junior high. We shared the same core group of friends, have birthdays on consecutive days and roomed together for three years in college. I loaned him 50¢ for lunch every day of the seventh grade. We ditched school for a week to visit New York. We watched A&M win it’s only Big XII championship in a hotel lobby in Waco because my car had broken down. He was one of the groomsmen in my wedding.

As the kids today say, “we’re tight, dawg.” (Please note: kids do not actually say this.) There was no way we weren’t going to his wedding.

And so go we did. It wasn’t easy though – the siren’s call of a Sephora machine threatened to make The Wife miss our plane and then once we did get on board, the plane didn’t go anywhere. It just pulled away from the gate and sat on the tarmac for a good thirty minutes. The weather in Houston was fine. The weather in Baltimore was fine. The weather in between was fine. Apparently it was just a good day to sit around on the runway.

All of that sitting around, while pleasant, made us late getting into Baltimore. That meant we unfortunately arrived too late to make it to the rehearsal dinner (which I hear was quite fabulous). Instead, we ended up dropping our bags off at the hotel and finding a little tavern where we had a nice, quiet dinner out by the street.

Our table outside also gave us the opportunity to watch people breaking numerous traffic laws while picking up food from a Chinese place across the street. This was our first taste of what would be a recurring theme throughout the weekend – Baltimore is a place where traffic laws do not exist. Speed limits, turn lanes, one-way streets…these things are all foreign concepts to the good people of “The City That Reads.” To their credit, though, it all seems to work out just fine. I didn’t witness any accidents or traffic problems while we were there.

This is how we party

Fortunately, I was able to connect with some of the guys and figure out where everybody else was staying downtown. While The Wife chilled back at our hotel (or more likely tried to discover an unlocked supply room where she could get a suitcase full of tiny little shampoo bottles), I headed downtown and joined up with some of the guys for Ed’s bachelor party.

And just what type of debauchery did we engage in? Why the best kind, of course – namely, Mario Kart, guacamole, beer and lots and lots of pie. I think Gabe made like 20 pies. It was incredible. I proved once again that I suck at Mario Kart and ultimately Gabe emerged as the evening’s winner, aptly named the “King of Kart.”

The wedding was held the next day, and although it contained considerably less Mario Kart, guacamole, beer and pie (actually none), it was very nice and we had a great time. The church where the ceremony was held was beautiful and apparently (I didn’t know this at the time), the pastor is quite the interesting fellow himself. I refrained from taking pictures of the inside of the church, but I did manage to fire off a celebratory Foursquare checkin.

Following the wedding, we all headed over to the überswanky Evergreen House, which is an art museum on the campus of Johns Hopkins University. After sweating in the warm Chesapeake summer sun and imbibing copious amounts of mojitos, we all headed down to the old carriage house behind the mansion for the reception. All of us of “old friends of Ed” got to sit together at the same table – well, everyone except Gabe. The Wife and I had a great evening catching up with old friends, doing a little bit of dancing and generally just spending time together without the kids.

Random fries at the bottom of the bag

• First of all, there are no french fries in Baltimore. At least not as far as I could tell. I don’t know that we saw a single fast food establishment the entire time we were there. The closest thing was a Dunkin’ Donuts. Kind of weird.
• Our hotel was in a quiet residential area and attached to an outdoor shopping mall. It wasn’t the Ritz Carlton, but it was very relaxing.
• The Wife and I took a scenic 45-minute detour through the ‘hood on Sunday morning while trying to get back to the airport. It was quite eye-opening. Didn’t stop to take pictures though.
• Despite the fact that the airport was virtually abandoned when we got there, our flight back to Texas was delayed by technical issues. That didn’t stop idiots from lining up at the gate for an hour (even though we all had assigned seating).
• Expect a Wordless Wednesday devoted to the coolest thing ever – the harbor trash collector.
• Why ride a lame-o paddle boat when you can get a dragon boat?
• Here’s what $13 gets you when order crab cakes in Baltimore. They were good, but good goo – with prices like that, who can afford to start drinking before noon?
• They may not pay attention to street signs in Baltimore, but they do have them. And they have oddly specific fines listed on them.
• It appears that Uncle Lee is a bit indecisive.
• The collegiate national lacrosse championships were also being held in town that weekend,which explained why there were kids everywhere walking around with lacrosse sticks. And they all lined up to get this guy’s autograph, whoever he is.
• I had a run-in with a bike gang in downtown on Friday night. No, not a biker gang, but a bike gang. As in a gaggle of 8- to 18-year-olds pedaling wild through the streets of a major American city. It was a little surreal to be swarmed by a fleet of bikes while sitting at a four-way stop.
• If you’ve ever wanted to sweep up crap that comes from the ocean, the City of Baltimore has a job for you.

But enough with the words. Here’s a slideshow highlighting the highlights of our weekend in Maryland (or you can click here to see all the pictures):