However, something cool has happened (granted, a lot of cool things have happened… we just didn’t post about them for a variety of reasons.  Most of which is a whole separate post… I’m rambling).

One of the cool things that happened is that I got a deep fryer!  For Christmas (thanks, Youngest Brother!!).  Since that has happened, it has been brought out in all of its 1 gallon of oil glory… One time consisted of friends commiserating the most recent Ravens setback (I want to believe in you, Flacco… Really, I do.  You’re just like my first, high school girlfriend… You leave me wanting more and knowing there’s more because of what I see everyone else with).

The second was to celebrate Oldest brother’s event to celebrate his birth!  It was magical, friends.

There were pirogi, tater tots, french fries, chicken medallions,  shrimp, jerk chicken, mozzarella sticks, snickers… and the crowning achievement:  A bratwurst wrapped in bacon that went for a deep frying trip.

Now… My cardiologist says he’s waiting for my lab work to come back but, regardless, it was amazing…

Two things were learned from this event: 1) ANYTHING taste better once its been bathed in the boiling oil and 2) When threebrothers come together on an idea, who needs pizza?

However, there’s always been one thing that my two brothers possessed that seemed to have eluded me.

Looking tough/imposing.

I just never had it.

True, Oldest Brother was aided by a surly disposition and Barry Bondsian Chest (that’s 2003 Bonds, not Uerkel-thin 1994 Bonds).  When he shaved his head, it was like getting gravy on a KFC Double Down (it’s already too much as it is, the gravy is just pure mean).

Youngest Brother was the beneficiary of extra-recessive genes that boosted him to almost two meters tall (things just sound cooler in metrics… just trust me on this) with a filled out physique to match (how big has he always been?  When my family dropped me off at football check-in during my freshman year in college, many coaches and teammates thought my brother was the player and that I was there to help him move in.  In fact, a few of them, upon seeing him getting back in the car with my parents, tried to dissuade him from quitting the team.  Btw, he was 13 at the time).

This has always left me as the smallest (which lead to some amusement on this blog as we tried to refer to “youngest brother” as “smallest brother” to his chagrin), least intimidating one…

Until now.

I guess part of the reason I grew the beard (to a very small degree) was that I wanted to look tough.  Now that I live in the city, as my mother worries, I think about being the target of violence and looking susceptible.  One of the things that seemed to become apparent when the beard began to bloom was that it made me look like tougher.  People avoided eye contact, they allowed me to get easier access to the bar, they apologized after slight, incidental contact… girls were a little harder to approach (my friends joked that girls weren’t sure if I were going to hit on them or ask for change).

Oh well…

Now that I have my goatee, I feel like I have the best of both worlds!  I get smiles and reciprocation from the ladies and I still feel like the toughest guy in the Point (I’m walking around like Mr. T circa 1985).

That’s that…
I swear I’ll stop talking about my facial hair now…

So what then?

There’s Thanksgiving.  Rumors of an Eldest Brother Cornucopia being unveiled are building like China’s economy.  Shout out to GY5 and the soup recipe… the sacrifices we make for culinary excellence can not be underscored or overtold!

I think the best thing, though, will be the reunion of your humble contributors to this blog.  Eldest Brother and I still live in close proximity to each other, but the youngest is away and hasn’t been home in some time (Labor Day?).  It’ll be good to all be under one roof… even it’ll mean slight crowding and smaller portions.  I’ll live.

After that, there’s Christmas and New Years…

So what then?

There’s not much room for gazing too far ahead, but, one cannot help but do so.  I know it’s impossible to forecast what 2011 holds, so, in contrast, I will attempt to do something about the more present.  Look for more posts (where have we heard this before?) about the things us brothers are doing together.  In fact, after I watch this past Sunday’s episode, I’ll probably have a “Boardwalk Empire” entry unless Eldest Brother has one first!  I have to make it to The Lovers State and see Youngest Brother’s new digs and town (even if I’m prejudiced against it…).  Not to mention, I still haven’t visited Sister’s new house.  It’s only been like nine months… A lot happens in life.

So that’s the “what then?”.  Everything.  Everything regarding the family.  Get back to basics.

Breathe-taking!  The water is so blue!  The canyon is so majestic!  And it didn’t hurt that the sky was the perfect shade of Carolina blue when we were there.  I think all three of us were upset about the hour spent in traffic leading up the dam, only to fully understand why when we stepped outside of the car.  I don’t think that I have ever been so pleasantly surprised in my life.

As such, I wanted to share my favorite memory of the trip:

The Grand Canyon.  Ever since I was a kid, it was always the one place I’d always wanted to see before I died.  It was the only thing on my bucket list… Sure, I’ve traveled a decent expanse of this globe, seeing places and things I never dreamed I would (some good, some not so good… the not so good ranged from boring to “is that legal and/or enjoyable?”).  However, at the end of the day, the Grand Canyon was it.

I was terrified that, like many things in life, it wouldn’t live up to my mental image of it (As so often happens in our youtube/wikipedia/HD culture).

That fear was utterly crushed by the awesomeness of the place.

It was impossibly large.  Like, I’d believe the state of Maryland could fit in it large… I really felt that if I fell into it, I would land in China.  I’m pretty sure me and Biggest Brother wanted to spend a day just chucking rocks into it… Fortunately for our legal standing in the State of New Mexico and damaged rotator cuffs, we didn’t.

Ultimately, it was the grandest site to see on the grandest adventure that was made the more memorable because I had two of the best people in my life with which to share it.

Peep my facebook page to see my favorite video from the trip…

The club goers are jerks!  Now, I’ve grown used to being bumped into, fallen into, and elbowed – such are the hazards of going out to the clubs.  I’ve even come to expect that people who are behind you who want to move past you will simply put their hand on your shoulder so that you know to step to the side.  Not in Charlottesville, no, no.  The pompous, self-righteous Cvillilian will simply shove you out of there way, and I’m not just talking about the dudes.  The girls have no qualms of pushing their way past you.  Not only that, but dry humping couples, instead of hunting out a corner to do their thing in, will just start backing up toward a wall, regardless of who is between them and their destination.  The only thing more inconsiderate than that is the jerks who decide that the middle of the dance floor is the perfect place for a phone call or text message.  Now this wouldn’t be so bad if they were coordinated enough to dance while doing this, but they’re not.  So they just take up space and and prevent those around them from doing anything as well.

This kind of self-centeredness continues to be seen in the dj.  Not only he is bad, but a lot of his crappiness is on purpose.  He plays song intros and outros for an obnoxiously long time; just last night there were eight occasions in which he did this and people stopped dancing because one can’t really move to these portion of the songs.  But the dj just had this goofy, smug expression on his face, like, “Look at me, aren’t I clever!”  He randomly changed tempos in the middle songs, repeated songs and beats, and played an unforgivably low number of Lady Gaga songs (just half of one).  And every time he had the same, stupid smug look on his face.  At least the club isn’t ostentatious enough to charge a cover for this experience.

Now, why don’t I go somewhere else you may ask, here’s why.  I have four options in Cville.  Where I was.  A tiny little café about the size of a small dorm room, a sketchy joint with a bar and a “back room,” and a members-only gay club that charges $15 for people who don’t pay the $50 membership fee (which gets you cover lowered to five bucks).  So, as you can see, not a lot to choose from.  Hopefully, I am able to locate a new, superior option – otherwise I may just start staying home on the weekends.

Since I do not possess the strength to reverse the earth’s orbit of the sun (yet), I have decided to decree that we’ve now entered:  The Indian Summer of Boomer (which could become the Native American Summer of Boomer depending on the amount of angry emails we get).

Stay tuned for more to come.  Oh, and I’m growing a beard.

There are two things that always astound me whenever I go home.  The first being how certain nostalgic moments, seemingly buried in the deepest recesses of my sub-conscious, erupt and burn more strongly than at any other times and, the other, is how my house still smells the same way it did when I was 11.

On the former, each step uncovers a plaque in the hall of fame of my mind.  There’s the dent I put in the wall when I was trying to use the remote control as a bat when I was 10.  There’s the stain I spilled on the rug and made worse when I tried to use Ginger Ale to get it out when I was 14. I would keep going on, but “Remember the time” is the lowest form of conversation and I’m trying to keep from dry snitching on myself.

Anyway, I bring this up because, with all three of us brothers and our sister off on our own, the house seemed just a little bit emptier and a little big larger.  All that was left of us there were events randomly marked in the past.  That’s the problem with memories, when they’re the only thing around; the present feels just a little bit lonelier.

Bad idea.

While I love Verizon for certain things (FiOS is vastly superior to my current, crappy Comcast… both in TV and Internet format), the relationship is hardly rosy (not to be confused with rosay, which is what Rick Ross loves).  Their cell phone service, once the envy of the industry, now leaves much to be desired.  It seems their business plan was to overspend on R&D to develop a cutting edge technology to get a lot of people to switch to their service, even signing exhaustive contracts. Once they maximized their market share, they raised prices and slashed services (I drop way more calls now than I did two years ago despite having a “smart phone” which is virtually essential now if one wants a plan that won’t charge for every single feature… oh, you want to receive calls?  That’ll be an extra $4.99 a month).

I have a sinking feeling they’re going to do the same with FiOS, too. I don’t want it to happen with my internet service.

I don’t want to have every faucet of my entertainment life being dictated by anything, let alone an entity with a track record of letting me down.  That’s what I have human interaction for (another ringing testimonial for the “Summer of Boomer”!)

For my entire adult life, I had always been in a relationship during the summer (not complaining.  I’m actually quite content with that factoid).  However, for the first time, I was hitting the summer as a Free Agent.  While I wasn’t expecting anything “Lebron-like” to happen, I was expecting a little more than a “David Lee-like” experience. I guess “Nowitzki-like” would be sufficient.

Here we are at the 1/3 mark (give or take a few days) and I can say that we’re right on target.  True, I may not have had as many romantic encounters as I may have foreseen in reverie back in winter (don’t get it twisted… I’m doing ok), but I have had a completely different summer than I’ve ever had to date.

First, I’ve had more schedule freedom (i.e. not having to account why I’m not texting or calling back or why I can’t do something) which has allowed me to volunteer my time as a youth baseball coach.  That’s been… an experience.  I think I’m better for it.  The kids might be worse. It happens.

Second, I got to hangout with all my old friends who I hadn’t seen nearly as often as I’d like (it’s a two way street).  We were able to recollect about past times and create all new ones, too.  Which, brings us to point the third.

I got to discover my town.

No inhibition, deterrent, reservation, or regret.  Oldest Brother and my 18 hours of soccer odyssey (recap running diary coming soon), the rooftop belly flop (long story that involves a block party, a kiddie pool, and me), Inaugural Pong night, crashing the birthday party at Alexanders, and countless other moments of carousing around Charm City are a direct result of my newly found freedom.

Sure, I definitely am open to being in a relationship again (just like a hurricane, the conditions would have to be just right), but, for now, I’m content with the Summer of Boomer.