bukcs party numero uno

The weekend ended spectacularly well, with a huge Chiefs upset over the Steelers.

The weekend started just as good, with the initial BuKCs party of 2009-2010.

What. You thought this BuKCs affiliation ended with just a one season fling? (keyshawn voice) Come on man! I'm not a one night stand ... ok, one season stand, kind of guy. (Unless I get really, really drunk. Then all bets are off).

The initial BuKCs party last year was at Dusty's old place. This year's debut was at Gregg and Ashley's. As always, here's your recap ...

* Friday, 4:30pm. I arrive at Raytown's finest liquor establishment, the Whiskey Barrel. They had plenty of Bell's products available ... but no Lakefront. Very disappointing. (But that didn't stop you from buying 3 mix and match 6 packs, right?) Hell no it didn't.

* Friday 5:50ish pm. I get out of the shower, and my phone is ringing. Its Dusty. "Can we get a ride". Sure, champ. So after picking up Dusty and his lovely better half, its off to the party.

* Arrived about 7pm on the dot. This might be the first time in my life I've shown up, or been ready, for something on time at Gregg's. And I lived with the guy for 8 years. I'm just saying.

* The four of us (Katie arrived at the same time as us) were amongst the first to arrive. I believe Eric and his latest girlfriend were already there, and I'm pretty sure we had a Kyle sighting.

* Brent and Sara up next. (Again, I apologize if I spelled Sara wrong. I'd call her Hoss like everyone else does ... but that just sounds wrong. You just don't call a chick as hot as she is, a "Hoss". You call her, well, "hot as hell blonde chick". Or "Sara".)

* They brought with them someone who not only is from Central Wisconsin ... who not only is a bona fide, certifed life-long BuKCs fan ... but he's (allegedly) got ticket connections! January 30. Miami. Milwaukee. I'm drooling already.

(And since I can't remember his name, I'll pull a time honored tradition out and call him "Phil").

* Ashley made some kick ass BuKCs cookies. Beyond beautiful.

* After some initial pleasantries, a group of us (ok, me, Gregg, Brent, and "Phil") headed down to watch the BuKCs. Most everyone else, stayed upstairs to watch (I assume) some basketball and (far more likely) to make fun of us, and shoot the sh*t. Either way, its all good.

* BJ opened strong, dropping in 17 points in the opening quarter, as the BuKCs sprinted out to a 30-25 lead. Also starting out strong: me, who was three Bell's beers in before tipoff, and 5 down by the end of one.

* The BuKCs dominated the second quarter, holding the Bobcats to only 16 points, and sprinting to a 12 point lead at the half. The key to the second quarter? "Cut" Ersan Ilyavich, who was draining top of the key three's, playing rock solid defense, and generally irritating the living hell out of Gregg. That's a winning combination in my book!

* I wanted to drop the "see, this is why the Bobcats need to sign Nathan Scott" joke that apparently nobody other than me finds funny, but then realized why nobody else finds it funny: because nobody in the room (other than me) watches "One Tree Hill". (And that's probably because the odds of a white point guard who doesn't play ball for five years, suddenly rising up through the D League, then quitting on his team, yet STILL getting signed to a multi year contract with the local NBA team is so ridiculous to contemplate, that I can't believe I watch this crap every Monday night. Again, its a WHITE dude! How about some realism!

Seriously, you can count the number of white, American, born-and-raised point guards in this league on about 3 fingers. Steve Blake in Portland, who's atrocious. Jason Williams in Orlando, who was washed up 5 years ago. And the BuKCs very own Luke Ridnour. And NONE of them are worth a damn. Save for maybe Ridnour. And before I get the "you left out Steve Nash, he's white and he's pretty good!" responses ... Steve Nash is Canadian. Not "American born-and-raised".

Wait, where was I going with this? Damned if I know. Back to the recap ...)

* Third quarter, more BuKCs solid defense, as the Bobcats again fail to crack 20 points in the quarter. BuKCs stretch the lead to 16, and save for the last 80, 90 seconds in the fourth quarter, never let Charlotte close to within 10. BuKCs win! BuKCs win! 95-88.

* Postgame, we'd decided earlier that if the BuKCs did win, we'd text our "good friend", the BuKCs GM John Hammond, to congratulate him and see what happens. Yup, we got a response! He thanked us for our continued support, gushed about how good BJ is, and thanked us again for our continued support. Neat stuff.

* Then the games begin. I tried some Tiger Woods golf on the Wii. I apparently suck as bad playing golf on a video game, as I do in real life. So it was off to play some card catchphrase game, Apples to Apples. That was a couple hours of drunken fun.

* Left around midnight. Kellie was down for the count, as she started to sleep in the back seat. And then started to ramble about how "I miss you Steve. I wish you and Dusty still lived together. I really miss seeing you all the time". I'm chalking that one up to drunken delusion. But still, its nice to be liked and missed.

* After dropping them off, it was off to the apartment and some sleep. Still had the Saturday night pre-party and the (completely unexpected) Steelers victory to celebrate on Sunday.

But still, BuKCs party numero uno was a hit. We gained a few new fans, retained most of the old ones, and got to witness a solid BuKCs victory without two of our three or four best players even participating. (Redd is out with a knee, Bogut out with a back). Which makes the 8-4 start to this season that much more frigging awesome ...