Minty Ham
Monday, November 27, 2006
I am lucky to say that I have some good friends up here in Dallas from A&M and more importantly from Youth Impact. I have heard that Mission has gone completely down the drain since most of us graduated, but that is what happens when you let Rick take over as the little-little's big dog.
A good group of us have been getting together occasionally for dinner and what not and I have slowly introduced Kendal to the group. I believe they have all decided that they are fans of Kendal by now, with the only major exception being Jax. This last week we all decided to meet at Rielly’s house for a Thanksgiving potluck feast, and Kendal and I thought it would be a good idea to put together a little honey baked ham for this occasion.
On Monday we went to the store to buy the parts for this ham, and Kendal decides (without consulting with me) that we need some sort of direction since we don’t really know what we are looking for. Knowing that Lisa had recently baked a ham of her own, Kendal decides to give her a ring. Lisa is an all around excellent cook so I am not completely turned off by the idea of getting pointed in the right direction by her. However, Kendal calls Lisa at least 4 times just while we are searching the store for ingredients and then another 5 times while we are cooking the thing. At this time I am thinking that this is turning into more of a chore than an adventure, and I didn’t even realize the trouble that this endless dialogue would cause me. Lisa and my Mom are great friends, so naturally Lisa tells my Mom about the ham and causes my Mom to wonder why I wasn’t calling her up for some ham tips. I believe I had a good defense though when I reminded my Mom that I am more of an experimental cooker and was looking for an adventure with the ham rather than just taking directions from an expert.
In the end though we managed to add some twists to Lisa’s recipe and we got an outstanding honey baked pineapple glazed mint flavored ham.
I am almost positive that I overheard Parker giving us the blue ribbon for our ham and saying something like “That ham is fantastic, it satisfies in all the right ways!” I personally would have given the ribbon to Rielly though, because I deeply enjoyed his fried turkey.The best part of the night though was when I walked in and saw who all was in attendance. After getting a healthy welcome from Mike and Parker, the next person I see is a lady we will call Jennifer. When I see Jennifer we exchange these greetings: Jennifer- “Hey Ben, how are you? Haven’t seen you in forever!” Me: “Hey, how’s it…I’m good...Yeah I haven’t seen you since I thought we were dating and I drew you a picture of me and Jojo for your half birthday only to find out that you were actually already engaged.” Maybe not exactly how it played out, but close.
So quickly after talking to the kitchen people I go to find Kendal (who is rummaging through the ice chest at this point in time) to try and remind him real quick who this Jennifer girl is. I start reminding Kendal about bringing Jennifer down to Austin to see some live music and enjoy everything there is to offer in the best city in the World, how Kendal met us downtown to take part, how we aggressively tried to convince Jennifer to get a tattoo, and how Kendal finally convinced her to do it by telling her that he would pay for it. But while I am telling him the story (wondering the whole time why he doesn’t seem to remember), Jennifer’s husband walks up and introduces himself to us and turns to Kendal and says, “So I heard you bought my wife a tattoo”. Kendal, for some reason, continues pretending to not remember and kind of just gives him a confused look. Then Jennifer walks up on the conversation and is like “Hey Kendal…you don’t remember me? Remember you bought me a tattoo…Remember we saw some blues or something…Come on you remember!” At this point in time I am just standing there thinking what Kendal’s strategy could possibly be, and then realizing he obviously doesn’t have one. Finally Jennifer shows Kendal the tattoo and Kendal decides this is a good time to remember and says something like “Oh yeah the tattoo…yeah its all coming back to me now…I think I was actually pushing for the forearm but it turned out nice.”
Labels: ben
posted by benbox @ 3:01 PM,
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An unLucky Trip to the Casinos
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
[I am embarrassed to tell this next story, but for the sake of the blog I will tell on.]
I will start off by saying that going into this next adventure, I believe the Box and I might have underestimated how important free beer is to us (or free alcohol for that matter). Here is how I came to realize this:
A little over a week ago the Box and I decided that a trip to the casinos was in order (see Ben's post Maggie & Margaritas). So we got all dressed up in our Sunday best
and hopped in the car. Now we didn't exactly know where the nearest casino was located at and our internet was down, but we knew the general direction (North) and that it was right across the border into Oklahoma and so we ventured forth, hoping that we were on the right Highway and that we would see a billboard at some point. We were indeed able to confirm that we had guessed right and the drive was a little over an hour to the highly-touted Winstar Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma. The Box snored the whole way while I memorized a few verses just to brush up.When we arrived at the casino, we were a bit surprised at the overall size of the building…well, actually building isn't quite the right term, it was more like a large circus tent. Nevertheless, we were excited to have arrived and a bit anxious to sit down at the tables with a few stacks of high society and show these toothless red-necks how to play some poker. As we made our way through the parking lot we received several glances from people that were probably thinking, "So that's what a gay couple looks like." We ignored them and continued on through the entrance. We thought it was weird that they didn't ask for our IDs, but we figured that we would be carded when we got a drink or sat down at the tables. We then got asked by the lady at the door, "Oh you guys look awesome, are you here for the Grand Funk Railroad concert?" We informed her that we were not and asked for directions to the poker tables.
After several more comments from people who seemed to really like Ben's hat, we made it to the poker room. There was a woman on a PA system shouting out names and roughly 15 poker tables all full of completely shady-looking characters. I was a bit new to the casino poker scene, so I decided to just follow Ben's lead (probably not a good idea). We walked over to the lady and put our names on the wait list, but we were so far down that our names didn't even appear on the screen that showed you where you were on the queue. Again we were not carded and we were now becoming curious and a bit worried at our chances of playing poker at all this evening.
We decided to walk around and scope things out and try and find a beverage lady because we hadn't seen one yet. The first thing we saw when we turned around was a man giving himself a refill at the self-serve fountain drink station. Then as we took a quick panning glance across the casino we realized two things: 1) There were no beverage ladies because 2) there was no beer or alcohol. Naturally our hearts sank as we discovered what a waste of trip this was becoming. We scoured the entire casino looking for any sign of hope,
but there was none to be found. All we saw was about a million slot machines each occupied by some poor soul pretending to have fun.After confirming the lack of alcohol with one of the employees, we thought we should head back to the poker tables to see where we were on the list only to have our spirits further crushed to see that we hadn't even moved up one spot. We quickly counted the names before us and calculated that it was going to be at least 5 hours before we got a seat at a table. The Box began to weep out loud and feeling fairly awkward, I gently patted him on the back hoping not to add to the "gay vibe" we were sending out. We regrouped, considered all of our options at this point, and decided to cut our losses. We got back into the car with our tails between our legs and headed back home after only 45 minutes at the casino…Box snored all the way home. When we got back we decided to get some pizza and Tecate to help numb the pain.
Labels: kendal
posted by Kendal @ 10:02 AM,
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Maggie & Margaritas
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Kendal and I like to go to a little bar and grill close by our place on Mondays to enjoy $1 margaritas and some chips and salsa. This is a Monday tradition that I am worried is getting taken away by a girl that I will call Maggie (because if I remember correctly that is her name). A couple weeks ago I met Maggie and her friend when they came running into the bar completely overcome with excitement about seeing Kendal. I was obviously surprised by this, but was also a little bitter about the idea of Kendal knowing all these random attractive ladies and not mentioning them to me.
As they take a seat next to us I learn that he knows her from Merge, the college and singles ministry he helps run and lead worship for on Tuesdays. All of a sudden I realize it’s almost halftime and these girls have literally talked nonstop for almost 2 quarters without Kendal or I saying a word. At halftime they start trying to talk us into going to the bar down the street for the second half of the game. By this time I have figured out that Maggie is pretty in to Kendal, that I was not very interested in Maggie’s friend, and that both Maggie and her friend are…I don’t know…a little rough on the edges I guess you could say. Regardless, I accept this invitation to meet them at Milo Butterfingers thinking that Kendal would want to, but also just generally intrigued by where this night was going.
We are now settled in at the new venue and Maggie is doing a fantastic job of letting Kendal know she is in love with him. Her efforts include, but were not limited to:
- Scheduling dinner dates for the two of them throughout the week.
- Inviting herself to join us on a trip to the casinos over the weekend.
- Telling us how hearing Kendal play guitar used to be her favorite part of Merge, and explaining why she doesn’t go anymore (her explanation, which I won’t get into, clearly supported my “rough around the edges” analysis )
- And my personal favorite was her amazing efforts to impress him. It started with her standing with her head right below a dart board while a stranger proceeded to throw darts, and it ended with her walking behind the bar to pour herself a drink. To clear up any confusion, yes we introduced them to honor points.
Fast forward to yesterday and Kendal and I miss our first Monday Margaritas in some time. We weren’t avoiding Maggie we were actually honey baking a ham for a little family dinner that we will be enjoying tonight over at Rielly’s. However, as you can imagine, Maggie did not take kindly to Kendal’s terrible excuse when she calls from the bar wondering where he is. As true as the ham story was, it turns out that it’s not real believable.
So, basically I am getting worried that we are being pushed out of our Monday night paradise by Maggie and her crew. We really had a fantastic combination at this place between the football in hd-tv, excellent atmosphere, good music, cheap margaritas, and delicious salsa.
Labels: ben
posted by benbox @ 1:15 PM,
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Photo Album
Monday, November 13, 2006
[The bro dancing to some Michael J]
[Crazy hat night]
[The PT Cruiser]
[The Minty Ham]
[Kendal on Casino night] 
[ Our fateful trip to the casinos.]Labels: photos
posted by Kendal @ 7:14 PM,
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The Ultimate Road Trip
[The Box and Kendal love adventures. This will be a description of the greatest adventure yet to be undertaken. We will keep the page updated when any changes are made or if any details come more into focus.]
The ultimate road trip has been hatched and is picking up steam as each day passes. Here are the loose travel plans: The trip will begin in Dallas (or Austin) and will end there as well. There are several sure-fire cities that are penciled in for a stop, but there will be a whole heap of improvisation going on. Some of these cities include: Nashville, Raleigh, New York, Boston, somewhere in Maine, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and Santa Barbara. Here is a look at the extremely flexible road map:
The current plan is to buy a van of some sort to be used for the duration of the trip that will have the ability to provide shelter for the night when necessary (we are thinking a VW because Brunson's did us so well on the trip to the Olympics). The length of the trip is not completely decided, but it looks like 3 months is the current target (probably a week or so at each stop). There really are no plans as to what will happen when we get to each city, except that we will find different ways to earn money at each city in order to make it to the next destination. Here are some possible money-making endeavors: the cliché guitar on the sidewalk (which we grew a large audience in Australia from), miscellaneous work-slave for a day or two, painting houses, trimming the hedges, or baby-sitting (who wouldn't want two male, complete strangers to watch their kids?). The Box is a social butterfly, so we are just planning on meeting people and making friends as we get to each new location. If you have any suggestions, ideas, or if you would like to become a sponsor for the trip then please leave a comment.
Labels: trip
posted by Kendal @ 1:00 PM,
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The Authors
Kendal Haug
Kendal is a graduate of the University of Texas in Austin and most recently earned his Masters in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. He works for Bible.org and likes to think he knows how to play the guitar. His man-crushes include, but are not limited to: Ryan Adams, Donald Miller, Ray LaMontagne, Neil Young, Vince Young, and of course The Box.
Ben Box
Box, is a recent graduate of Texas A&M University and currently works for Medco Construction building hospitals and being important. Ben loves paying lots of money on broken down Jeeps and has a propensity for getting Kendal into trouble.
About This Blog
This is a multi-author blog devoted to the happenings of two bachelors living it up in Big D. We will record the daily nonsense that occurs when 2 life-long friends live together in the same apartment and have no shame, sense of fashion, or chance of meeting a girl in the next 10 years.
A Word on Comments
Ben and Kendal both highly encourage your comments. They look forward to hearing your thoughts and insights. No matter how harsh the criticism or if you just want to give them a good ole pat on the back and say "Way to Go!" or "Ha! That was a funny story!" or "That Ben sure does crack me up." And if you have a request of something you would like to see Ben and Kendal do or write about, let them know.
Disclaimer
Ben and Kendal are in no way responsible for stories that may worry, upset, or lead their parents to altogether disown them.
