I have enjoyed the last five days hanging out with my friends. While working out today, I reflected on the past several days and realized that I could kind of pull a certain story from each night that kind of defined that particular evening. Let me warn you now, there is nothing too overly exciting…well maybe one of the stories…but I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. Basically, I have just lived my life recently and am deciding to write about it for tonight’s post. Hope you don’t get too bored!

This past Wednesday, a group of us went to the Broadway (Restaurant/bar in Missoula) for all you can eat wings and trivia. For only $9, you can gobble up as many wings as your stomach can handle while also playing in a pretty fun trivia game. While getting basket after basket of wings, we managed to hang tight in trivia. We managed to stay in the upper tier of the standings for most of the game. However, when the final round came along, it looked as if we would not leap frog into first place. Because of this, we all paid our tabs. The last round, the “music round”, came and went. We hung around just to see where we ended up.  Well, wouldn’t you know it? We actually did know our music pretty well and once the results flashed on the bar televisions, there was our team name, #Winning, sitting all alone in the number one spot. We had just won a $50 bar tab and none of us had a tab open. We remedied that situation and asked our server to bring us out $50 worth of Fireball shots. The Broadway staff was more than happy to help us consume the plethora of shots.

During Thursdays during the summer, Caras Park in Missoula holds “Downtown Tonight,” a great community event that features food, beer, and live music. The food choice is always amazing and when the weather is decent, the fun to be had is pretty remarkable. This past Thursday, my friend Chris, my co-worker/friend Jimmy, and myself invaded Caras Park. While chowing down on gumbo and distributing business cards for Jimmy’s new BBQ restaurant, we also met a couple different groups of really cool people. First off, we met two girls working a booth ran by a very successful real estate agent here in town who we all know from work. As successful people usually do, they hire intelligent and motivated people who will in turn be successful in the long run. This was definitely the case with the two girls that Diane (real estate agent) had working her booth. Just a little ways from the real estate table, there was a wood oven pizza stand ran by three girls around the age of twenty-three. One of the girls happened to actually start the business. This girl hired two of her friends to help her run the business (it is called Ciao Bella Wood Fired Pizza…check it out next time) and the rest is history, they completely sold out of pizza on Thursday night.

On Friday night, Chris, Dan, and I were at the Iron Horse (yet another established restaurant in Missoula). The Iron Horse has two levels, connected by a staircase. The staff closed down the upper half of the restaurant that the three of us happened to be in. As we made our way down the stairs, there was a big commotion just a few feet away from the bottom of the steps. A troubled and very intoxicated guy in probably his late forties was giving the Iron Horse staff problems as they were trying to get him to leave the place. Not wanting to get mixed in with the unfortunate scene, we veered to the left to completely avoid the confrontation. Well, that night my red and white striped Where’s Waldo shirt must have attracted just a little too much attention because as I walked by looking straight ahead away from the scene, I was the recipient of a sucker punch to my jaw.

Friday night, Dan and I played in the Bingo game at the Lucky Strike. Dan happened to win one of the rounds and in addition to some cash he also got a coupon good for two free dinners in the bowling alley’s connected restaurant. We decided to cash in the coupon on Saturday night. The card was good for two dinners, two drinks, and two desserts. We sat down in the empty restaurant with a killer air conditioning system and just enjoyed a free meal. Our entrees came with either soup or salad and I chose the former which was meatball soup! I had never tried such a thing before but it was delicious. Next, our dinners came. I got steak and mashed potatoes while Dan got the steak and shrimp combo. Even though we probably could have passed, we couldn’t refuse the free dessert. I got a giant brownie topped with ice cream and whipped cream while Dan got caramel cheesecake. We enjoyed every bite of our food along with every drink of our bottomless Coca-Colas. Getting a hearty, good tasting free meal every once in a while is not so bad.

On Sunday late afternoon I got to see an old friend who I had not seen in person since the Miranda Lambert concert way back in October. A lot had changed since that last encounter and unfortunately it was not for the better. Ellie lost her dad in January, an experience that I can’t even begin to comprehend. She came up with her mom from Kalispell for a day of shopping. When they finished hitting the Missoula shopping spots, they invited me out to one of my favorite restaurants in Missoula, Johnny Carino’s. We visited and caught up and had a really nice time. After I ate every bite of my five meat Tuscan pasta, I got to taste some of what Dan ate last night as the three of us split a piece of cheesecake. I was honored that I got to spend some time with Ellie and her mom on what had to have been a very tough Father’s Day for both of them.