Saturday, July 9, 2011
Bellmore, New York
Schedule
Participants
Dave (15th), Marc (15th), Span (), Mehr (), Brian (), Eugene (), Eric (4th)
Breakfast
For the second year in a row, we met up at Marc's house. From there, we headed to the Lighthouse Diner for breakfast, meeting up with Eugene, who was running a little late. MBBB15 was the latest we ever planned events -- we actually had a vote on events during breakfast! Mehr came up with the idea to do one active event, two semi-active events, and one non-active event. We quickly decided on handball as an active event, geocaching and Kan Jam as semi-active events, and mini-golf as a non-active event. Poker after dinner was a given.
Geocaching
Brian made one of the few suggestions for a new event leading up to MBBB15 -- he casually suggested geocaching. To his surprise, we thought the idea was a great one. The night before MBBB15, Dave and Marc scoured the geocaching.com website for viable options. They even went out in the rain to look for a few of them! They came up with eight caches and we divided the group into two teams. Each team would start at a different cache. Eric -- having gotten addicted to geocaching the previous night -- joined in. The two teams were Marc, Eric, Mehr, and Span, and Dave, Eugene, and Brian.
Using an app Span downloaded onto his iPhone, the first team did great at finding caches. Dave's team wasn't as successful. So, towards the end, we joined forces and found a couple more caches. Span's team found the "Hang in There" and "One Two Tree" caches. The seven of us found the "Wantagh Park", "Watch Your Step", and "Donkey Dust" caches. The "Watch Your Step" cache was especially well-hidden -- no less than three people didn't realize they were looking at the cache when they first saw it!
The treasure hunting was fun. It was also long, so we decided to grab lunch next.
Lunch
We ordered lunch (sandwiches and drinks) at Becks Delicatessen in Wantagh then ate at Marc's house. Eugene was so thirsty, he got two cans of Arizona iced tea.
Kan Jam
Since we were already at Marc's house, we took the opportunity to play Kan Jam in his backyard. Three teams were formed: Dave and Span, Marc and Mehr, and Eugene and Brian. There was a lot of excitement as everyone played this first-time event. Frisbees were tapped and slammed and some people even went h' (horizontal for you non-disc readers). The highlights of the event, however, had to be when two instant-win tosses were thrown, first by David and then by Marc. After some round-robin play, Marc and Mehr won a mini-tournament beating Eugene and Brian in the finals.
Mini-golf
Next up was mini-golf. We drove out to Farmingdale to try the course at the Skydrive Golf Center. We split into two groups: Marc, Mehr, and Span, and Dave, Eugene, and Brian. There wasn't a formal competition, though Marc's group wound up with the better scores.
Handball
Next we drove down to Town Park in Merrick for an MBBB favorite, handball. Although we had done tournaments in the past, as with mini-golf, we didn't have a formal competition. We simply played four games in a row. While the games were played, there was also an all too familiar complaint: "How did I get behind Mehr?" In the end, Marc and Mehr won two games apiece.
Dinner
After handball, we had a quick vote on where to eat dinner. Amazingly, we were able to agree on a place among the six of us. We decided on Red Robin in Carle Place. As usual, the conversation included movies, sports, and the events of the day.
Poker
After dinner, it was back to Marc's house for the annual poker game. Eric joined us again, and this time it was Span as the big winner. The biggest hand though belonged to Eugene -- during a game of 7-card stud, Eugene had four cards of a royal flush showing. Did he also have the ace? Sure enough! To top it off, the royal flush was done without wilds!
Notes
TODO