Orange Beach Retreated

Here it is, Monday night, after another weekend of Dave's Adventures... this time, the adventure was down at Orange Beach, Ala/Florida, for a weekend couples retreat with Stephanie and some people from our Sunday Sch... er, Life Connection class.

Some friends of ours have access to a few condos down at the beach, and we ended up staying at the Spanish Key condo resort type thingy... it was awesome.  Our hosts were already down there, and in Steph's dad's Yukon was myself, Tommy McLeod, Amy McLeod and James & Jessica Hawbaker.




Very close behind us was Willis & Meredith Watkins and Brett & Lindsay Mims. Anyway, the Yukon and the people inside all stopped for a fantastic dinner, then arrived late... the Lattas, the McLeods, the Hawbakers and the 2 Dollars stayed up in the $3 million dollar condo... the Mims and the Watkins were regulated to the condo that cost a mere $990K. Shame.

Anyway, it was the weekend of the great mullet toss... yeah, when I heard of it from Matt Latta, I thought of tossing hair too. No, actually, they toss fish. Mullets, specifically. Really, its just an excuse to get blasted and throw seafood to the wind... and there was alot of wind. A lot alot. It was windy pretty much all day Saturday...

For those of you who didn't go, I won't bore you with the details, because I don't have many--for whatever reason, I woke up feeling blah on Saturday morning... you ever do that? Wake up not really sick, or with a keep-you-from-standing-straight migraine... just feeling... eeech? Yeah, that was me. It didn't help that everything I ate, I threw up about an hour after it. Stephanie and Jessica went shopping, while most everyone else just hung out, went to the beach, went down the road to another condo that featured a lazy river type deal--which I heard was funny, because it was so windy that the wind stopped your float from going anywhere after a certain time.
Spent much of the day watching the NFL Draft, and in typical guy fashion, everyone wanted to know where Brodie went... Willis', the Miami fan of the bunch, was feeling pretty dejected (especially after someone had said "You know what I think of when I hear the word "Miami"? 1992.") until finally, Seattle picked up Kelly Jennings with the 31st pick. The mild surprise was that Reggie Bush went second to Mario Williams (Scott's blog makes good points) but I wasn't shocked... rumor has it that Reggie was a hold-out threat, and that the Texans had said they were'nt going to fool with it. Matter of fact, the Saints apparently grilled Reg's agent to get him to confirm that he would NOT hold out, or they wouldnt take him.
The draft also led to a fun discussion of names after D'Brickashaw Ferguson was taken by New York... what if we all put D's in the front of our names? D'Matt? D'Steph? D'avid? Yeah, it was funny then. Maybe it was just funny to me because I had just finished yakking my graham crackers. Either way, the name comes from the book The Thorn Birds. Not too bad... at first, I thought it was from the cheeseball mini-series in the 80s, The Thorn Birds... which led me to think "D'Brickashaw is better than Chamberlain, I guess."
Anyway, we ate dinner at The Oyster Bar, which had the best coconut shrimp I'd ever had. Of course, I could only eat two pieces and about two crab claws, because my stomach was very queasy... don't feel bad, though--I'd take a day of feeling eeh at the beach than a day of feeling pretty darn good in Birmingham.

Someone gave me a nausea pill, which helped me feel better later, we all stayed up and played Catch Phrase (more on that in a minute)

Sunday morning, the girls and a few guys cooked breakfast, James led a small devotion which was great, and we packed up and headed home. I could have done for another few days there, especially since I feel I only got half my Saturday's worth. It was still nice, though.

Highlights from the weekend included:
--Busting out the iPod for its first road trip. On the way back, we all created a playlist which included Jennifer Knapp, Billy Joel, Vertical Horizon, Amy Grant, Hootie and dialogue from The Big Lebowski. Good times all around. --The aforementioned Catch Phrase, which when James described a clue as "Something you do after you pee", Matt replied, loudly, "Shake it"
--Also the aforementioned Catch Phrase, which when James described a clue as "From Russia, three words", I yelled out "Mail Order Bride". Much to the room's bewilderment, I was right.
--The clash of wit from James Hawbaker and Tommy McLeod, two of the driest humorists I know, with a splash of Willis' goofy humor thrown in the mix

And so, today, I started on Starbucks' 280 location as their Assistant Manager. New crew, new location, new everything. I did bookwork this morning, then went behind the bar... its amazing how a store can be selling the same product, yet be so different. The set up is different, the style is different, the routine is different... not better, not worse, just different.

I'll be there for what they are telling me is the next six months, though Josh, the manager, is kinda predicting about two to three before they yank me out and give me a store. Who knows.

I've got Starbucks Open Forum tomorrow night at the Hoover Met, which is a big meeting of all the area partners. We'll eat, frolic, make merry, watch baseball and most will drink (not coffee, mind you). Anyway, I mention this only because after tomorrow night, plus opening on Wednesday morning, I won't have American Idol up until at least Wednesday afternoon. Just so you know.

Man I wish I had some more of the coconut shrimp.