An Evening with the Kings of the Hill

What's up, homies.

We've had ourselves some pretty solid weather around here the last couple days, and today was no exception, as we remained in the low-80s with pure sun most of the day. On account of the good weather and everyone's relatively-open calendars, Tom invited all the Kings of the Hill over to his place for a grill-out. 

He was planning on a taco night, and was smoking a pork shoulder for carnitas, and so, as usual, the rest of us had to come up with something to contribute. I'm not much of a 'grill guy,' and let Kris handle that 90% of the time (neither of us are big 'food' people, we prefer to just eat quick and get it over with), so I struggled a bit with what to bring along. Finally, I decided to bust out the Cooking with Beer book - that I won from Mitch in the White Elephant game from the Sheahan Christmas Party - and whipped up a chipotle cheese dip that not only fit the taco theme for the night, but also tasted awesome.

I headed over to Tom's later on in the afternoon, and for the next several hours we hung out, played some cornhole, had some beers, and feasted like kings. All sans wives and kids.  Pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself - I've spent far shittier Saturdays, that's for sure.

Here you go folks - enjoy.

Sprinkled some cilantro on top. You know, to be fancy and what-not.

Hot and muggy out on Tom's back patio.

I was an idiot and made this cheese mix in a Pyrex bowl instead of a crock pot (never doing that again), so I wasn't prepared for how fast the dip was going to cool off. Tom had an extra crock pot in his kitchen, so we dropped my entire cheese dish inside - ceramic bowl and all - and, as ghetto as it may have been, it worked perfectly. Removing the dish from the crock pot at the end of the night was definitely a bitch, but we finally got it. 

Damn It Tom checks in on his pork shoulder, which had, by this point in time, been smoking for several hours.

Ready for removal.

Erik and Mitch arrived shortly after I did, both bringing bacon-wrapped pieces of awesomeness that they had to smoke for a bit once Tom got his pork out of the way.

One of our friend group staples, bacon-wrapped jalapenos filled with spicy cheese is just about as close to Heaven as someone's gonna get.

We put out some of the dinner stuff for folks to graze upon while the last few things finished cooking on the grill.

This was incredible.

Just about done. Erik's offering is on the left - he had bacon-wrapped pieces of venison.

Props to these two and Tom, who enjoy the actual grilling process and do the whole 'mad scientist' thing with it. The entire ordeal always stresses me out, as I'm just trying to rush through it so I can be done and eat, then do dishes and go about my merry way.

By the time we had all finished eating, Omkar and Ryan rolled in.

We sat around and gorged ourselves stupid for a couple hours. That's why we're all in such great shape.

Omkar's contribution for the evening was his hookah and some authentic hookah tobacco he had purchased overseas.

Whatever the hell this was, it was awesome.

Collier, Omkar and I enjoyed the hookah while the other a-holes broke out Tom's set of cornhole boards.

Wouldn't be much of a Kings of the Hill hangout without cornhole. . .

Omkar and I would take on the winners of this match, then go on to win the next three or four matches handily. I was having the night of my life in terms of cornhole, folks - like, hitting three cornholes per throw, multiple times. Unreal. Probably on account of he hookah, who knows.

Losers smoke on the sidelines, following their humiliating defeat.

By the end of the night, Lonnie and Rob (a new addition to our band of heroes) had also showed up, but by then it was dark out and pics wouldn't have turned out great. . . and we were just sitting around talking anyway, so nothing really photo-worthy. If this summer ends up being compromised of nights like this, I'll be a happy camper indeed.

- Brian

Brocation '21, Pt. II

 (contd.)

The next morning, after a horrible night where I only managed to get about 3 and half hours of sleep, we all had to get up at the ass-crack of dawn in order to make our 8:40am tee time at Treetops, where the guys were going golfing.

Before heading out, Mitch prepped his smoker (he wanted to start his meat before we headed out so that it'd be ready around dinner time - something to look forward to later that evening, for sure.)

Grumpy old men, having coffee.

Dead cow.  Don't ask me what cut of cow that is, I don't know.

Morgan, Mitch, Erik and I loaded up in Morgan's car and hit the road for the golf course, while the others - still not ready yet - scrambled to get their asses in gear.

Treetops

After buying drinks at the clubhouse and hitting the restrooms one last time, we loaded up in carts and set out.

Can't complain with the view, that's for damn sure.

Getting the run-down from some of the course managers (concerning how to drive the karts, pacing etiquette on the links, etc.)

We decided we should get a group pic at the first tee before they started - I touched it up as best I could, we were so back-lit in the original that we were nearly solid shadow.

And yes, I'm posing without a golf club.  The guys offered me one for the picture, but since I think golf is lame and wanted no part of it, I respectfully declined.

Teeing off.  Here's Morgan. . .

Ryan

Erik

Omkar

The guys decided to do two three-man scrambles, with Morgan, Tom and Mitch in one group and Erik, Ryan, Omkar, and myself in the other (I ended up sharing a cart with Omkar throughout the morning.)

Catching a glimpse of the other three from the far side of the course (link? I never know which term to use.)

Weather was perfect - 70 degrees and barely a cloud in the sky.

I took a shit-load of golf pictures today (these ones uploaded to our blog are only a fraction of what I ended up keeping), so don't think I'm captioning every one of 'em. . .

Turkeys wandered in and out of the course from time to time.

A few holes in, we caught up with the other three guys - as well as the drink cart lady, who restocked us.  I spent most of the day working on a stiff, 32 oz Bloody Mary I had brought in one of my Yetis.

I'll never get sick of riding around in golf karts. . .

So there was some caddy who worked up at the clubhouse stationed outside this particular hole (who also was nice enough to take this picture for us), and he was selling some kind of fundraiser thing - $20 and if you landed your ball within a club's distance from the hole, you could get $100 off any club in the pro shop, as well as some free golf balls.  

Erik said 'why not' - the kid was nice enough to take our picture anyway - and took a whack at it (the rest of us declined.)

In a stroke of freakishly good luck - because this was a hard shot for even a veteran golfer - Erik somehow managed to land the ball close enough to the hole.

The caddy goes over some of the details of the prizes with Erik.

Soldiering on as we enter the second nine holes.

This one bug was devouring another bug on our golf kart's steering wheel - this is about the best I could get without my macro lens on hand.

On one hole, when Ryan teed off, he somehow managed to drive the ball underground.  None of us had ever seen or heard anything like that before.

Here's some video from the day - at one point I decided I had taken enough golf pictures over the course of the last few hours (they all start to look the same after awhile.)

I drove a few balls from time to time, too.  Definitely not my thing.

Noted.

About two-thirds of the way through the course we realized the score pamphlets the clubhouse staff gave us had maps of each hole, along with tips on how to best play them, printed along the back. 

Deer popped up from time to time as well.  Zero f***s given, here.

At the end of the 18th hole, Omkar had to take off in order to do a Zoom Conference in his car for work, and we finally caught up to Morgan, Mitch, and Tom.

Celebratory Fireball shots at the completion of 18 holes.

This plaid carpet is awesome.

Mitch, who works at a golf course pro shop himself, helps Erik pick out his prize club that he won earlier in the day.

After leaving Treetops, we headed back into Gaylord and decided to grab some food and drinks at the Pine Squirrel Bar.

The waitress took our picture, and thought it was hilarious we were on a 'dadcation' (her words.)

For about an hour or so after we got back to the rental house, things were pretty quiet.  Four of the guys all fell asleep in chairs in the backyard - day drinking and playing golf all morning in the sun takes a toll on some folks, I guess - but a few of us stayed up and kept chugging along.  Yours Truly spent his time whittling down pictures from his SLR - a grueling but necessary process.

Waking up the sleepy heads with another round of Fireball. . .

We got the grill that came with the rental going shortly before dinner so that Tom could grill up some bacon-wrapped, stuffed jalapenos and Mitch could do some salmon.

Ryan goes down

Playing some can jam while folks grill.

This game is fun, but it's a lot harder than cornhole.

Erik and Mitch talk shop.

Works in progress

These were absolutely amazing.  It's a given that one of the dads always makes these whenever we have a grill-based hangout, as they're a big hit with everyone and, from what I've heard, are relatively easy to make.

(The ones on the right are pre-grill, obviously.)

This wasn't my favorite, I'm not a huge fan of smoked fish.

So these two old timers were hanging out on the back patio of the house next door to our rental, and at one point in the evening a couple of our guys went next door and invited them over to try some of the meats we had been grilling.  They came over and hung out for about an hour, with their wives even momentarily stopping by to drop off some snacks they had been having over at their house.  The guy on the left saw my hat and asked if I were a Mason, and when he found out I was a Master, he said that he, too, was a Mason (forget which lodge he's from, though.)  So him, Erik and I shot the shit for awhile about that, always fun to meet a Brother.

After our new friends returned to their house, we decided to start a fire for the evening.

It's helpful having Morgan on hand for times like these.

Mitch grazes on leftovers.

Yours Truly, scopin' out the lake and wishing we had a pontoon.

Tiki Torches are obligatory adventure accessories.

We decided to go on a brief walkabout around the lakefront neighborhood to stretch our legs and maybe burn off some of that meat we had devoured earlier.  We grabbed some beers, along our trusty pipes, and beat the pavement for about an hour.

Back at the house, winding down around the fire.

Time for another hookah session with Omkar the Indian Assassin.

- Brian