Cinci Flavor

On my way to lovely Northeastern Indiana last weekend (really), I was lucky enough to fly through the Queen City. Technically, I flew through Northern Kentucky, which made me feel a bit dirty, but I digress.

With an hour to spare, you know I was looking for some chili. Even though all that was available was Gold Star (the redheaded bastard stepchild to Skyline), I dove in and devoured that cinnamon-flavored slightly watery goodness in no time.

I did not feel well on the flight. Some things are worth the pain.

ILL

Spent the weekend in Chicago, visiting the Midwestern Martins and their child prodigy (aka Evan), who is probably posting daily on Facebook.

It was a great all-inclusive trip...met up with DC friends and saw the Reds play the Cubs at Wrigley (and lose in dramatic fashion...nice work, Cordero, you fat bastard), celebrated annieB's birthday (29), visited family and ate like a champ.

The only downers were some crap weather the one day we had outdoor plans and these really weird, super-mega-short ties the wait staff wore at Carnivale, a Brazilian-Spanish fusion place (ednote: I'm repeating the waiter verbatim) that had some kickass plantains and meatstuffs. I ignored their poor choices in neckwear and plowed through a bigass steak.

While we were there, Evan had his first documented crawl and updated his status on Facebook (ILL, which works on so many levels). His weekend was easily 2x as productive as mine, but mine had more steak. I win.

DR

This one is pretty overdue, but earlier this month I jumped on a plane for the Caribbean to see my good friend and Ohio native JBanks marry the super-rad MAdams down in the Dominican.

For some reason, I only took 5 photos when I was there. I think it's b/c I roomed with the wedding photographer, and I didn't wanna get my stupid point-and-shoot out while he had all this kickass photo gear. I think I felt inadequate.

But enough about me. The wedding was incredible, the resort was real purty, and the weather was hot as hell. Luckily there was a beautiful beach nearby, a gigantic pool in our resort, and part of the 'all inclusive' deal was all the alcohol we could pour down our gullets. Win-Win-Win.

As a bonus, I learned about the shandy, which I've been pushing on everyone I see in DC. Most people think I'm crazy, and my brother thinks it's a less-than-manly beer. I'm still sticking with it, but you have to get the mixture correct. Two parts beer to 1 part lemonade is my mixture so far. To be honest, it's beer. It's pretty hard to screw it up.

Big congrats to J&M on their wedding. I was pumped to be a part of it and glad to make my first trip to the Caribbean.