Coll'Euchre

What's up, readers.

The dudes eating some Mexican before the tourney started. 

We're in the slums of winter still, and it's been relatively dead around these parts for weeks, but tonight we had ourselves a slight break in the monotony: the Colliers' annual Euchre Tournament.

This one has never been one of my favorite parties our tribe throws; as much as I enjoy a good hand of Euchre, playing eleven rounds of it (or four hours of it, whatever comes first) is a bit excessive. I'd be cool with, like, half that amount of playing cards - after a few games I'm over it and ready to call it a night - but Collier loves hosting this so we all buck up in order to help the guy out.

Mitch the Pro and Mr. Collier partaking in some jello shots.

After all, Kris and I make all of these assholes dress up in themed Halloween costumes every year, it's the least we can do.

Kris, of course, never plays at these tournaments. Sometimes she makes up an excuse, other times she's just like, "Nope, I'm not playing," but this year she had a legitimate reason for bowing out of the tournament at least. Abby and Ella each got a few tickets to the Saginaw Spirit (the 'minor league' hockey team in our area) for Christmas, considering they're both huge hockey fans, and neither us or the Johnsons were cool with Ella driving them both into downtown Saginaw after dark. She volunteered to drive the girls down to the Dow Event Center for a game tonight, and then pick them up about three hours or so later so the Johnsons and I could participate in the tourney.

Out of the twenty or so players who pay the $10 buy-in for the winning pot, I usually place somewhere in the 8th - 12th place, comfortably in the middle of the pack. I know how to play the game and am competent at it, but I don't take a lot of ballsy risks like Going Alone, etc., so I never place in the top five. Honestly this game is like 95% luck of the draw, so that doesn't even really matter. This year, however, I was on fire, and was in the top three spots for most of the night. Ultimately, I ended up placing in 4th place, which meant I made my $10 back plus an additional $10 - not bad for a night's work of playing cards and drinking beers.

So here you go, folks - this year's Coll'Euchre (something Ryan's AI came up with, don't ask me.) Enjoy. . .

Some of the wives grab some shots of something or other that Mitch whipped up. Left to Right: Kirsty, Courtney, Mees, Lori, Beth (the wife of one of Collier's college friends who comes out to the Euchre tourneys ever year), and Danielle.

Grazing on some Mexican food.

Collier sets up the tournament's spreadsheet (a crap-load of formulas go into this thing, I have no idea how it works - Cory set it up for him.)

Morgan, Mitch and Erik talking among Collier's famous homemade cookie spread.

The taco spread they set out for these tournaments is pretty impressive. A few clicks up from what we usually do for our family on any given weeknight.

Different types of proteins.

I'm always grateful so many folks in this tribe of ours knows how to operate a grill - the food is always top-notch.

As we approached the 7pm start time, Collier once again went over the House Rules for all those in attendance (not that we needed a refresher, we're all old hands at this by now.)

Cory has won the last couple of years and is a notoriously aggressive player. Collier wanted blood.

The tournament begins. . .

After each round, as various tables concluded their two rounds, folks would come back to the kitchen to continue grazing on the spread and observe the scores as they came in.

We noticed at one point in the evening that the Collier's family room windows had plastic on them. Mees tried telling us this was probably for energy purposes, but we told her that that's not really a thing. When she told us that they had been up since they had moved into the house back in like 2017 or whatever, we tried telling her that the plastic wrap was probably just never taken off during the installation process (because the previous owners had installed the windows shortly before selling the house.) Mees had to run outside to investigate.

Holty and Morgan face off against Lori and Danielle.

Kris showed up shortly into the second or third round after dropping the girls off in Saginaw.

I brought my Oredock stein along for the night 'cause Collier had a keg of Miller Lite primed in his kegorator. The flip lid is awesome for events like this where folks are constantly knocking drinks over.

He had five tables set up throughout the main level of his house. We had eighteen players this year, so we didn't have to set up any tables in his basement (which is usually like twenty degrees colder than the main level - no one was complaining.)

I came roaring out of the gate this year, and was in first or second place for the first several rounds. Mees was on fire, though - she kept getting insanely good hands all night.

Erik, Kelli and Mees gang up on some over-zealous petting of the Collier family dog, Winnie.

Collier adjusts the spreadsheet as the tournament drags on.

I fell to fourth place in the last stretch of the tournament and remained there for the rest of the night. Would have been cool to make it to third place, which paid out like $30, but I was cool placing as high as I did - probably won't happen again.

At the end of the tournament, we were met with an unprecedented anomaly: a tie for first place.

Mees and the infamous Cory had tied for the top spot, so Collier decided to hold a final, sudden death round to determine the night's winner.

Stakes were high for Mees, who was the tribe's best shot at unseating the usual champion.

But there was no stopping the juggernaut - Cory came out on top once again.

Mees concedes defeat. Cory won a trophy mug for nabbing first place, but he was nice enough to bequeath it to Mees for her efforts.

Being inappropriate with some Vienna sausages. . .

This lil' guy is super excited about Collier's cookies. . .

Courtney tries dislodging something from Winnie's mouth. Dogs are a-holes.

Collier and Cory

An attempt at a group pic towards the end of the night, right before the vast majority of folks took off for the night.

At the end of the night, it was us, the Johnsons, Amy, and the Colliers remaining. The wives took up singing karaoke to the music Collier had playing in the background, which is pretty typical for midnight-ish around these parts.

So there you go, gang - this year's Collier Euchre Tourney. Hopefully next year Yours Truly will crack the Top Three, but I'm not getting my hopes up. . . 

- Brian

February: Winter's Low Point

Jesus Christ, I hate this month.

We're two months into winter and, knowing Michigan, probably have another two months to go. The grey skies, snow, bracing temperatures, and even that road salt spray on everyone's cars aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Work sucks 'cause all my students have cabin fever and can't behave or learn for crap. At home, the girls are funned out with their routines. Hell, even our dog is sick of this shit - all Samson does is sleep all day and look depressed.

Yes, readers - this month sucks. . . but we've been able to keep ourselves somewhat entertained with a few bright spots each weekend. We had the SuperBowl Party with the Tribe, Abby and the MHS Varsity Pom Team made it to States, I had a Colonoscopy (which was just as much fun as it sounds, folks), and the Colliers had their annual Euchre Tournament. Aside from that, it was all the usual crap - work, school, gym, commutes, extracurriculars, etc. 

Only in super shitty weather with no end in sight.

So here you go, gang. February '26.

Enjoy. . . .

Did a crap-load of shoveling and snow-blowing this month. Definitely not my favorite thing to do, but I'll take it over raking leaves any day.

Kris and her co-worker were screwing around with AI image generation one day on their lunch break, and they came up with some pics of the girls. Here's Alayna (who's called 'Amber' for some reason.) Taco Bell, her car, Watson, lots of pink - no surprises there.

Same for Abby (who goes to Trenton). who's wearing a pom uniform, has some Starbucks in there (with a few extra hands, 'cause why not), her Model UN and Journalism extracurriculars, and a microphone for karaoke. No idea who the floating head is supposed to be. 

So after my Grandpa passed last month, Mom offered to sell us his Oldsmobile, which was from like 2002 but barely had any miles on it. Abby's going to be driving in a few months and we're starting to look for a used car that's comparable to what we ended up getting Alayna when she turned 16. This car was rated pretty well but after taking it to a mechanic we found that there was about $2000 worth of repairs that needed to be done, and that it would probably only make it, like, five years with regular use. That's obviously not ideal, so we passed on the car. . . and now are back to the drawing board looking for yet another car to clog up our driveway.

The Houghs as royals. This is what people now do when they're bored, they create super shitty images of themselves re-imagined via AI. Beats doom-scrolling on one's phone, though.

Alayna, Abby and some high schoolers went on a field trip to some. . . place. For some reason. I forgot to ask what this was all about.

Wherever it was, it was quasi-fancy.

Orchestra kids (including mine, who are in there towards the back.)

Abby at yet another pom practice, doing crap that doesn't look fun by any means.

Hard pass for me, thanks.

My brother Jeff sent me this secret list his son, Owen, wrote - he was looking for something in his bedroom and found it, and then texted it to Chris and I. We all found it hilarious - I especially like the list's tag-line. Every list should have a snappy tag line.

Another cello selfie.

Abby and her boyfriend, made a Valentine's Day cake over at our house one school night. Not the sort of thing I would have done with any of my high school girlfriends, but whatever.

Samson crosses his paws when he wants to look distinguished.

The MHS Varsity Pom Team performed at half-time at one of the boys basketball games, as a warm-up/preview for the States showcase that was to take place later that weekend (which I already covered here.)

The States routine.

There was a professional photographer on hand to get action shots of the girls, which was awesome 'cause we don't get a lot of those for Abby (usually just a couple during the football games.)

(I think she's pinching off a fart here, I don't know.)

Abby hungers for blood.

Kick Line is always tight with this team.

Pretty convenient they have her front and center for this routine - she's the main focus of all the pics.

Lying down for a nap, I don't know.

Posing with a teammate after the game.

Ancient Egyptian pharaohs enjoyed vacationing at Discovery Cove. . .

I plan on using AI-generated pics like this in my U.S. History presentations (that might students take notes from) throughout the school year. It'll be like little Easter Eggs for the kids following along.

Alayna and her boyfriend, Sebastian, went out to a local place that sells crepes for Valentine's Day. I've never had a crepe so I don't know if this is a good one or a bad one.

He bought her a Lego bouquet of pink roses, which is right up her alley. Knowing Lego, this probably cost $100.

The official team pic for the competition season (we haven't gotten them yet, these were screenshot I think - I found the images on Abby's camera reel.)

Screwing around and making TikTok videos at practice. . . which makes a lot of sense if you know Abby and Ella. . .

Another TikTok video. This generation is doomed.

The girls had their Winter Orchestra Concert this month, the last winter one for the Cannonball (and yes, Kris cried.)

Rehearsing backstage (I assume.)

My dad got a decent close-up of her as they waited to kick into another song.

Again, no videos this time around - all the songs are so long that the video files are too big to upload here.

One Thursday after school, Abby, Ella and the Model UN club boarded a bus and headed downstate for a weekend UN 'summit' with their team and some other schools.

The timing for this was solid, because Yours Truly was about to start his 'prep' for his colonoscopy. They lowered the recommended age to start getting routine colonoscopies to 45 due to more young people getting colorectal cancer (due to our society's obsession with high-protein, low-carb diets, this cancer is now the biggest cancer for men under 50.)

My colonoscopy was scheduled for Friday morning, and I started limiting my diet on Tuesday - nothing fibrous, nothing hard to digest, and limiting my solids from Tuesday to Wednesday. On Thursday, I consumed nothing but black coffee and chicken broth, then started my 'cleanse' around 6pm. Chugging the liquid itself wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, nor was the 'afterwards' - if anything, the restrictive diet was the worst part of it all. I had to set an alarm for 2:45am to start my second round of cleansing (due to my procedure scheduled for 8:45am), and by then I was down to 154 lbs and was pouring a pale, yellow fluid from my asshole. Kris, obviously, volunteered to sleep on the couch throughout this entire process.

While I was firing out of my lower end, Kris and Courtney went to the Midland Tennis Complex to watch some kind of exhibition match, featuring a bunch of local team mascots. . . for some reason.

The next morning, Kris drove me over to the endoscopy place, over by Costco, for my procedure. I had to strip down and throw on a paper sheet and hang out on this gurney for like an hour (they were a little backed up so my procedure was like 45 minutes behind schedule.)

IV's hurt worse than I remember. I had this hooked up to me for a half hour before they finally wheeled me back into the surgery (or whatever) room, and there a couple nurses switched out my fluid for some goof juice. They said it'd knock me out soon, and I don't even remember getting drowsy. . . I just woke up afterwards and it seriously felt like I had slept 16 hours, it was AWESOME. I had only slept like three hours the night before, so this was a much needed nap.

I wasn't too loopy coming out of my drug-induced coma, but I kept asking Kris the same questions repeatedly, and had zero short-term memory for the first few minutes. I literally watched her walk in once she was allowed to do so, but repeatedly asked her if she had been in the room the entire time. I was also in love with the biscuits and Sprite they gave me upon waking up (because I hadn't eaten real food in almost two days.) The nurses were nice enough to give me a few bags for the road, as they were cracking up over how much I was gushing over them. I tried them again when I was 'sober,' and they were just normal-ass biscuits - drugs are a hell of a thing. Anyway, long story short - everything was clean, looked good, and they removed two polyps that turned out to be cancer-free. So good news there.

Meanwhile, somewhere downstate, Abby, Ella and some random kid from their team were all suited up and ready to solve the world's problems.

The morning after my procedure, I had a session with the DnD Dewdz (some of my old college buddies from Western.) We aim for every Saturday late morning/early afternoon, but in reality it's been like every 2-3 weeks, 'cause we're all busy and have kids and crap like that.

The session this time around wasn't as action-packed as the last two, and so we focused a lot on more passive actions and character dialogue. Still, it was a good time, and the three hours flew by.

We use AI a lot to help bring our characters to life (for use in maps, diagrams, etc.) This is my character, who's a Rogue/Thief, which I thoroughly enjoy playing.

I used our existing character images to create a picture of our most recent session and sent this out on our text thread.

Zack did it as well and came up with this, which had us all looking like romance novel (a.k.a. cliterature) cover models.

Later that night, Kris and I drove over to the Pickvets to hang out with a few other couples. Cory has a golf simulator in his polebarn out back, so Morgan, Mitch and Erik brought their clubs over (while I sat and watched and had a few beers.)

Collier and Holty arrived with their spouses a little later and jumped in (again, I'm the only guy in this group who despises golf - I think it's incredibly douchey.)

After awhile, the wives - who had been hanging out in the house in their kitchen - came out to hang out with their husbands, and Kris took a shot and swinging a golf club (a first for her, if we're not counting Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf.)

Mitch helps Mees get set up.

Myles will probably get into this game once he's older, I'm sure Collier will take him out all the time.

The Pickvet dog is not amused by this conversation. . . 

Abby and Ella, out and about somewhere.

Not sure where this is, and I don't recognize any of Abby's clothing. I assume she killed someone and stole their clothes.

Alayna, studying for an anatomy course at Delta, decided to utilize one of our Halloween decor skeletons for assistance. She ended up getting an A on her exam, so it turns out our ol' one-legged skeleton has some use outside of spooking up our house.

Speaking of skeletons, my classroom skeleton, Skeletor, has been getting 'upgrades' courtesy of my students this year. They keep giving it trinkets and accessories, amping up his street cred. Can you tell I work in Saginaw?

Abby, sitting totally normal in her bedroom.

The last week of the month, Abby and her team helped run the annual pom showcase thingy that allows little kids from like 3 to 11 a chance to perform alongside the pommers in front of their families.

Abby was in charge of a group of 10-12 kids for the hours-long workshop, and those little bastards ran her ragged - she slept like a rock that night.

Stretching out in Alayna's room.

I used AI to generate a pic of the four animal sigils from my team's 'Houses' (think Harry Potter, based on the English academy tradition of grouping kids into homogeneous 'houses,' independent of their classrooms.) My house is Ausdauer, our colors are black and white, and our sigil is a wolf (I based our coat of arms on our own Hough family coat of arms), and I had AI dress him a leather jacket and interacting with a globe to better fit my personality and my subject area. My science teacher's house is Magari, his sigil is a polar bear, and his house colors are green and blue. My math teacher's house is Simba, his is a lion, and his colors are purple and yellow (he's the basketball coach at the high school as well, hence the jersey.) My ELA teacher's house is Immortali, hers is a phoenix, and her colors are yellow and orange. The fifth teacher on our team is the Resource Room teacher, and she just kinda pops in and helps out with her special Ed case load from time to time (hence her not being an animal.)

Abby got some new glasses towards the end of the month, and nobody has yet seen them on her face yet.

While Abby's phone gallery is mostly selfies and pics of her friends, Alayna's is either dogs (like this one) or photos of questions from her homework or passages from her textbooks.

Towards the end of each month, Abby and her Journalism crew gets together to push out the school's monthly newspaper, The Focus.

Why is Abby wearing a mini-skirt in 20-degree weather? Because it's Abby, that's why.

Posing with Brooklyn, from the pom team.

This dork is her Journalism teacher.

(I don't know any of these damn kids. . . )

The newspaper staff.

Seriously. . . what the hell.

Alayna took a pic of the sunrise during her early-morning shift at Taco Bell one Saturday morning. She's opened a couple of times and can surprisingly move super fast in the morning if she needs to.

Mitch and his dog swing by to say hi one morning on their constitution throughout the Chestnut Hill neighborhood.

Later that morning, Kris took the girls dress-shopping for prom in Saginaw. They popped into a variety of shops - some super pricey, others more like Macy's or JC Penney - and the results were to be as expected: Abby loved everything she tried on, Alayna hated everything.

Looks a lot like the Belle dress from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. . . 

Alayna really wants a light pink dress for her last prom, but wasn't loving anything she was trying on today.

Abby was totally in love with this one, but Kris wasn't about to drop $600 on a prom dress for her sophomore year (she's only going because her boyfriend, Logan, is a junior and asked her to go.)

Later that evening, while Kris and I were over at the Collier's for their annual Euchre Tournament, Abby and Ella were taking in a Saginaw Spirit hockey game at the Dow Event Center. . .  

(I never understood the fascination with this sport. . .)

The Terror Twins

So that was our February, folks - one month closer to Summer and sweet, sweet, freedom. We'll see ya next time. . .

- Brian