Wide open spaces…

Alrighty. I really need some help here, peeps & tweeps. Please share, re-post, re-tweet, whatever. I just need suggestions!

While we love where we have Brewfest now, we really do.. There are things that we could improve upon if we had just the “right” place.”

What is my dream space for my Brewfest? (Keep in mind this also involves what we want and what we NEED…)

• Somewhere with an open floor plan. Not a few places somehow tied together. (this is MY personal dream. My helpful planners are not on the same page. My flow plan worked this year. I will guarantee any open floor plan I’m given will work. I PROMISE.)
• Said open floor plan would ideally have a nifty corner where we could have a band or set up a rent-a-stage for a band….
• Somewhere with at the very least one ice machine and a kitchen type environment.
• No carpet.
• Somewhere with at least two bathrooms each for men and women. On the same floor. Or at the most one each on the same floor and another one floor away…
• Said bathroom should come with the regular old stuff like toilet paper, soap, water and paper towels. And it should be clean when we show up. (Not kidding – previous establishments have had nasty – I kid you not NASTY – bathrooms when we showed up! We cleaned them!!)
• Somewhere that had multiple elevators if it was over 3 flights up. And if it was so, a freight elevator to help us move stuff in & out.
• Oh! Somewhere in or super-duper near to the city of Pittsburgh…  I’m talking downtown, Station Square, South Side, Mt. Washington or very, very near to there…
• Somewhere able to accommodate 1,000-1,500 people, including attendees, brewer reps and volunteers.
• Somewhere that can allow for an outdoor area, if needed. For a smoking area, a get fresh air area, whatever…

There you go. That’s it for now. Most locations can’t meet even half of those, let alone the ones that are super important (ice, bathrooms, elevators) to just the general function of the event…

I’m taking, any, all and any random ideas. We’re looking into everything peeps/tweeps. Random open spaces…

Actually, wide OPEN SPACES. Please…

Church halls, fire halls, convention center, arenas/sports facilities. Whatever ideas you have, send ‘em my way. Please. And thank you very much.

Positive.

My sister said something during my visit while we were out on a walk with NE, Little C and D. Something along the lines of ‘Think about the positive. The negative weighs more.’

And I’ve been thinking about it ever since. She’s entirely right. And I hope I never forget it.

So along the same lines, instead of sitting at home tonight, being sad about leaving my family and especially My Little C, I decided to go out and not only be positive, but help to do something positive.

I went to LasVelas, in Market Square, and joined my Yinz Team friends to help raise some money at the kick-off event for this:

Make Room for Kids is an awesome venture brought to us by Ginny (whom I finally met for real tonight – even though we’ve seen one another a few times!) with the help of the Mario Lemieux Foundation.

So what are they doing? From Ginny’s site:

So, our goal? $10,000 for our sick kids.  That will be enough to buy some sweet LCD TVs, awesome gaming systems, awesome mind-numbing, addictive, forget-you’re-sick-for-a-while games, computers, computer games, AND even a bit left over to purchase some hand-held gaming systems for those children too sick to or unable to leave their beds. We’ll bring the games to THEM!

How awesome is that? Totally awesome!

One of my favorite places, IKEA, is even on board! (Personally, the amount of furniture my family and myself own from IKEA is insane, and we all LOVE it… so I think they’ll do an awesome job.)

I’m very glad that I went. Not only did I do the positive thing to help Ginny & the kids, but I had a great time and also got to see a number of my Yinz Team friends, many of whom I haven’t seen since softball time!

This was also approved by The Nana! She thought it was a good thing to do. Thanks, Nana! (I’m still jealous that she gets an extra day with Little C… but I only have 26 days till I see her again.)

Hysterical

To keep you through the next oh 24 hours or so where I land in Florida, see my Little C, forget about Pittsburgh, rugby, Yinz Team and my blog in entirety…

Bwahahaha. Lordy. Enjoy.

The drive in…

Last week, we decided to go to the drive in on Saturday. But when I looked at the offerings at the drive in this weekend, I wasn’t exactly happy.

Option 1:

Planet 51 & Disney’s A Chrismas Carol

I knew this one wasn’t an option. Not a chance…

Option 2:

2012 & The Stepfather

Well, maybe. Not that I want to see either of these movies, but…

Option 3:

New Moon & Where the Wild Things Are

Well, we have wanted to see Where the Wild Things Are for a long time now… And since I knew I’d eventually see New Moon, I wrote this option off as well.

I emailed the options to FM. And I was very suprised when he texted me and chose Option 3. I immediately texted him back and made sure he understood he was actively choosing to watch New Moon. And that it was the big movie this weekend, and it could be crazy busy.  He didn’t care. He was really just picking to watch Where the Wild Things Are. Alrighty then…

I was a little concerned that it would be insanely busy since New Moon has been sold out at every regular movie theater all weekend. Wow, was I wrong. By the time the movie started, the lot was not even half full. Heck, I doubt it was 1/3 full.

Watching New Moon with FM was significantly less painful than I expected. Besides having to explain the entire background of the Twilight series and who people were, I thought the movie was okay. I liked the first one better. I doubt “like” would be a phrase FM would use to explain New Moon. I’m pretty sure he views it as 130 relatively painful minutes of his life that he’ll never get back.

Apparently most of the people there were only there to see New Moon. Half of the cars drove out when the movie was over. Heh. The movie we really wanted to see hadn’t even started yet!

Where the Wild Things Are was AWESOME. Awesome. So funny. I have to be honest here and admit that I’ve never read the book. I have no idea how I’ve never read it, but I really went into the movie knowing nothing about the story. But I’ll be getting the book for Little C and making sure she gets to read it. Definitely.

Exciting!

Ok. I lied. The title for this post should really be “Amazingly Boring” or something like that.

Why?

Because it’s a Friday night. And instead of going to happy hour with the ruggers or to Blogfest with my online friends, I decided to avoid the chaos and traffic from Light Up Night and stay home.

I hit up a nearby Red Box and rented Up and Star Trek. Here’s a hint for all you Red Box newbies – rent your movie ONLINE! You just swipe your card, it spits out your DVDs and you’re done!

So I’m going to go back to watching Up. Have a good weekend everyone!

GO OSU!

success

I think we have our heads right and will have totals on Brewfest within a day or two. And surveys are being sent out. Whatcha think? If you get the survey, please tell us. Good or bad. It’s just so much to deal with, even after everything that led up to the event. As a responsible event planner, I’m trying to check back with our attendees… Two years ago? I never thought of this. Now, it’s another responsibility.

And yet, some ruggers didn’t work and hid from us so they didn’t have to work. That? Hurts. It hurts me a ton, especially since I said all along, you work all night, you don’t pay – and unsaid, I’d have loved you forever as a rugger. I know who worked. And who hid. And who hid and did work. And who just tried to drink their faces off while pretending to work.

Those of you in the hid & worked category, you’re ok. I’m not pleased, but I’ll deal with it. Kudos to you!!! I thank you – thirty times over! Thank you!!

Those of you who I KNOW didn’t work? Or who pretended & drank? I’m so disappointed with you. Honestly, that should make you feel worse than those who didn’t work.

I might be a task-master and make you think you work your a** off. But in reality, the rest of us have been working for months behind the scenes. And for you to be unable to give us 2-3 hours of work? I AM SO DISAPPOINTED in you as a human being.

Those of you who have seen me working at My Living Room and yelling in the past, or have seen me at Coopers Lake, or saw me yelling at Brewfest, that yelling is nothing to being let down and what I feel towards my clubmates for this. So disappointed.

There were a number that I didn’t expect to show up & work – and they did. In mass numbers! I kid you not! I have pictures from others to prove it. I’m proud, so proud, of those people. They proved me wrong. I LOVE being proved WRONG.

I hate being let down.

Good luck, to those who let me down. That’s all I’m going to say. Because I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll remember this.

Good luck.

Over!

Brewfest is over! Done! Whew.

Things went really well. Cindy Lou and I did a bang up job!!

I don’t have exact numbers yet, tickets still need to be returned. Hopefully by December I’ll have totals. Oy.

But things went really well. I am happy that things turned out so great.

I have to figure out where some random thingts went, and I found a jacket that doesn’t belong to me in my stuff.

I’m just happy it’s over.

Now? I have to keep trying to find a job and get ready to go see my Little C in just under two weeks. Sweet.

Music

After the game on Sunday, most of our teammates left Houston. A few of us were left. We went to dinner. Some of them went out after, but I was hit with the panic of all the things I had to get done for Brewfest. So I was gifted with a cab back to the hotel.

I managed to get most things done, as much as I could. The entire exhaustion of the weekend hit me then. I crashed & crashed hard. I don’t remember my room mates coming home!

The next morning we slowly woke. I realized that I was not immune to the mosquito bites my teammates had received the two previous days. I was itchy and spotted all over. And I had a black eye. Fun! But where did that come from? (Stil no idea!) Combine that with the two GIANT blisters on the bottoms of my 4^th toe on BOTH feet and my inability to walk from the pain of them? I was a spectacle to behold… WOW.

We started to pack and get into the vans. We arrived around 11:30am. I was in a different terminal than my teammates. I asked about an earlier flight… I missed it by about a half hour. Great. And I couldn’t check my bags yet. I had over an hour to wait.

I finally checked my bags and entered the terminal. Lunch at Chili’s with a fail of a waitress. I then went to the gate and FINALLY finished my sewing project. Hooray!

Once I got to DC, I hobbled around to find somewhere for dinner.  I found that the more I walked, the less the blisters hurt. But sitting, then walking hurt like crazy. So I walked. I finally got some food and sat down at my gate, 10 min to boarding.

And then the oh-my-gosh-can’t-speak-English gate person made an announcement that we were delayed about 30min. I had to charge my phone, so I went to the nifty Samsung charging station (only good thing about the DC airport). I overheard some guy saying our flight might be cancelled and that was the last flight out of DC.

At that point, I was 11hours into my airport/plane vacation that day. I wanted to go home. I wanted MY bed. My friends. My ride home. Cancellation was NOT an option.

All of my friends were at Ruggers, celebrating our success. I was stuck in an airport watching the Steelers, praying my flight would take off.

We waited what seemed like forever. I made friends over my new Scotland jersey, my black eye and my rugby hoodie. Everyone congratulated me and via me, my teammates for our showing at Nationals. They all seemed to know what rugby was and what a great achievement. I was so proud.

Our flight finally boarded after 11pm. Over an hour late. We arrived in the ‘Burgh after midnight. Thankfully, my day-glo yellow bag was already in the baggage area. Sweet.

I finally made it home after 1:30am.

A few days later, I feel better, besides the bug bites. The toes are better. And I want to start fall season tomorrow again. I want it back. I will be back in the Spring, and give it another try this next fall, along with my teammates. I need you all to remind me at the start of the season that I finally found again my game. My sight. My love.

I may be overwhelmed with the work. I may not want to socialize with other teams anymore, I may just want to play and go home. But at this point, I’m allowed that. But after the past few weeks of practice, I realized I still can see my game the way I dreamed I could. And I have to give myself one last chance to try to get that championship.  My teammates and I? We CAN and WILL do it. And we deserve it, as does our coach.

Freak Out!

Awww, yeah… tomorrow is Brewfest.

And if I didn’t realize I was freaking the heck out, my super awesome shoulder pain (where I obviously “store” my stress) is back in full force, screaming at me.

Nice.

I think we’re ready. Well, by we, I mean everyone else. I’m currently trying to wrap up online Will Call sales, print out about 2,763 pages of docs (ok, that might be an exxageration. Maybe.) and figure out what the heck is going on tomorrow.

I know I am forgetting approximately 300 things.

Will call ticket sales have come in, I kid you not, every few minutes, all day today. To the point that it took me an hour tonight to make sure I got all the orders recorded. Wow.

Nearly 800 tickets sold so far. And I expect a ton of walk-ins tomorrow night. 84 beers. Who can turn that down? Even myself, as a non-beer drinker, has a few on the list I want to try.

Especially Tommyknocker’s Maple Nut Brown Ale. I’m sorry, but if you combine just about anything with Maple Syrup? I will try it. Most likely, I will love it. I believe I’ve discussed my love of the Starbucks Maple Macchiato here. No longer exists (Starbucks? Super fail. You’d have all my coffee $$ in the fall if you still had it!!) So here’s hoping for the Maple Nut Brown Beer.

If you’re coming tomorrow and don’t know me in person yet, I’ll most likely be near the entrance, but if you can’t find me, ask someone in a black & gold rugby shirt to find a “lead” and call me on our super-cool walkie talkies… I’ll come find you!

Here’s hoping I survive tomorrow night!

(P.S. Who’s bringing me a bottle of American Honey so that I can make it through the night? Anyone? Anyone?)

Second.

(This was supposed to post on Monday. Again, oops.)

We finished up our season yesterday. Second place in Nationals.

And we’re okay with it.

We beat Albany 5-3 in the semi-finals.

Due to a wild card system in the semi-finals, we had to again face Raleigh in the Finals, whom we beat the day before.

This time we lost 12-0.

Our team played hard. Very. But we’re okay – last time, 4th; this time 2nd. It’s all good.

Just wait for next year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now it’s on to Brewfest work for me!