Hooray for Friends!

By now, my good friend Jared has left for destinations south (Colorado Springs and Santa Fe, NM). It was a bittersweet parting for the both of us. Bitter because we had just officially "met" off the internet, but "sweet" because it was weird waking up and going to the kitchen for my morning cereal and seeing him curled up in his sleeping bag on my couch. Hard to watch early-morning cartoons when someone's trying to nap.

Last night, Jared, Steve, Nikki, and our friend Mandy went to Choppers Sports Grill, where Nikki and Steve are regulars. (Note that the bar rocks the Ravens logo on their homepage!) While the guys watched the Orioles game and the NBA play-offs (SNOOZE), Mandy and Nikki played skeeball and tried to get the ball in the little 100-point circle. (They weren't successful.) One of the managers came over and recommended that we go duckpin bowling at this bar in nearby Cherry Creek. Nikki flipped out; duckpin bowling is SUCH a Baltimore sport (and, unfortunately, a dying one). Having a place to play it in Denver seemed like great fun and a taste of home. So we got in the car and headed over to the Milwaukee Street Tavern. They have two bowling alleys (miniaturized, of course) in the back of the bar. It's $4/person per game, and you don't need fancy shoes or anything. We were set to have a great time!

It turns out, Mandy lettered in bowling in high school, so she was REALLY good. And Steve's REALLY good at bowling too, so it was throw-down between the two of them. Since the ball weighs more than I do and is roughly 1/3 my size, I watched on the sidelines. Nikki's pretty terrible, but so is Jared; they ended up tying with 94 points. Steve beat Mandy by something like two points. It was ridiculous.

My picture of them didn't turn out that great because the flash was being weird, so I decided to play around with filters and make this a REALLY creepy-looking photo!

When we got home again, Jared and I hung out with Nikki, watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I wanted to get some pics of us before he left today, so we snapped some "MySpace pics" with our cell phone cameras. (Hooray for technology!) They're not that good, but I like them anyway.

Tres amigos!

Besties!!

Don't forget to check out the post I wrote a couple of days ago to find links to all of Jared's blogs, include his travel blog, which features some pictures from his stay in Denver.