The DBO Midwest Meetup (Off-Topic)

by stabbim , Des Moines, IA, USA, Thursday, August 09, 2018, 11:57 (2080 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by stabbim, Thursday, August 09, 2018, 12:35

Friday AM

Bluerunner starts a group text which will stay in my archives for as long as possible.

Funkmon arrives at my place (Des Moines, IA) from Detroit. Swap things over to my car for the rest of the trip to KC.

Start drive to KC. It's a straight shot down I-35, not a terribly eventful drive. Luckily Funkmon is fun to travel with. 3 hours pass quickly.

We all learn that Kermit's flight has been delayed (I'll let him give the full story on those shenanigans, but at one point we weren't sure which DAY he would be arriving on). He was supposed to be Bluerunner's ride from the airport, so it's now a race between cheapLEY and myself/Funkmon to see who arrives first. I can't be bothered to hurry, so cheapLEY wins. During this travel time, Bluerunner keeps us posted on the happenings with people arriving at the airport. There's a security situation with a man who very much wants to make sure that everyone knows what he's saying.

Just before noon, we finally learn that Kermit will in fact be arriving on Friday.

Friday noon (ish)

Funkmon and I arrive first at our agreed lunch spot, Harry's Country Club, which does not appear to be a Country Club as far as I can tell. Bluerunner and cheapLEY arrive in cheapLEY's Jeep, which is very cool and remains a point of interest throughout this trip. I order the strangest things I can find on the menu, some bacon-wrapped shrimp (which was great, but needed to have about 3 times more shrimp to be worth the price) and a fried bologna sandwich, which was well worth any price.

Friday afternoon, and "the incident"

The 4 of us who've arrived so far elect to go to the WW1 memorial (which is next to Union Station), as we still have some time to kill before the 3pm check-in at our rental house. We'll just look at the outside stuff - we figure we can do the full museum later, after Kermit arrives. This turns out to be a catastrophic mistake for one of us, by which I mean me.

Bluerunner and cheapLEY arrive at Union Station slightly before Funkmon and I. While Funk and I are parking, I am viciously and unpredictably attacked by gravity, which slams my car door on my left hand. I remain composed due to being in far too much pain to speak for several minutes. I have ibuprofen in one of my bags, unfortunately it would take two functioning hands to reach. Luckily, Funkmon also has some, which I responsibly take at the correct dosage:

I also snag some of the ice from Funk's cooler. Having nothing to put the ice in, I balance it on my now-purple fingernail, while walking around Union Station looking for a more suitable ice pack, and dripping water everywhere. BTW, if anyone needs to know which stores in there do NOT stock ice, I now have a comprehensive list. Amazingly, said list includes a store which serves ice cream. I do finally find the movie theater concession stand, where some very nice young ladies have plenty of ice, and plastic baggies. Problem temporarily subdued.

We go across the street to the WW1 memorial. It's considerably bigger than I had expected. We look around the outside and Bluerunner tells us some stories about his visit to South Korea and the DMZ. Despite my limited ability to concentrate at this point, Blue's stories are always good.

The 4 of us head to the rental house. Dame has beaten us all and checked in. We spend some time unpacking and setting things up, and debating where to go for dinner. Kermit (who has not arrived yet) jokes in the group text about reserving the biggest TV and best seat for him, not knowing that we had already done exactly that. Kermit finally arrives a little after 5:00pm. Bluerunner finds a place for his hammock inside the house (well, the garage).

Friday evening

We eat dinner at a barbecue joint called LC's. It's clearly not in a good part of town, with iron gates over all the windows and a uniformed police officer who appears to work his entire shift standing in the restaurant. The place doesn't look like it's ever been cleaned. There seems to be only one type of sauce, because the dude has decided that flavor is how it's done, and you either like it or GTFO. Everyone seems to like it, so this isn't really an issue. I have a pork sandwich which is easily the messiest thing I've eaten since graduating from the high chair. Funkmon supposedly commits some sort of food atrocity during this time, but I am not witness to it, having sat at the other table. All I do know is that he didn't eat anything again until very late the next day.

Breitzen and Levi come over to the house after we return from dinner. We probably played some games that evening, but the specifics of which games were played when are a little fuzzy to me now. I think this may have been the night that cheapLEY showed us No Man's Sky? Which I've now pretty much committed to buying, once I find out whether I can afford it (still have a few weeks to go before I know). The updated version looks like something I very much want to experience.

Saturday morning

My fingernail, which was only partially purple Friday night, is now entirely purple.

Someone brings Krispy Kreme donuts to the house (I think Blue and cheapLEY?). We take turns guessing at which jar of ground coffee is or is not decaf - they are entirely unlabeled. I elect to brew half-each in hopes of getting at least some caffeine. My finger is still killing me and this is not the time to develop a caffeine withdrawal headache.

I decide to visit an urgent care clinic for the first time, where some things happen that I'm not going to go into here. Suffice it to say, I am not entirely healed but my finger is throbbing a lot less after that visit and I can actually use a game controller for more than 60 seconds, which was kind of a problem the night before.

Saturday afternoon

We go back to the WW1 memorial, which is a truly amazing place to visit. They've done a great job, and it really has an impact if you pay attention. It's a sobering experience, and I'd urge anyone who passes through KC to try to make the time (we were there for about 2 hours, but another hour probably would have been good).

We do a Da Vinci themed escape room. None of us had any prior experience with these, and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I can see now why they're so popular. And raid-type skill sets definitely translate well. Even if one of the locks hadn't been broken, I think we would have had plenty of time to spare.

Saturday evening

The core group who's staying at the rental house eats dinner at a sort of gourmet burger place. I'm not normally a vegetarian, but their black bean burger with queso is quite good. We meet breitzen and Levi back at the house.

More video games at the house. I think this was the night we played most of the Halo matches. Despite insisting that I'm not into multiplayer anymore, I actually had a great time and even did reasonably well on a couple of matches. AR starts suck, though. :P

I try several Detroit-native sodas. Still can't decide between the Faygo strawberry cream stuff, and the blue cream stuff (I forget the brand).

After the rest of the games settle down, I break out my wheel and pedals for XBone, and cheapLEY and I play some Dirt Rally. For those not familiar, it's the Dark Souls of driving games. No rewinds and no mercy. It's also a game that cheapLEY and I had discussed some control issues with on these very forums previously. It has some difficulties with controllers, but is outstanding on a wheel and pedals. If I did convince him to buy a new peripheral, I'm sorry (but not really).

Levi very kindly brings some prints of his artwork to give away. Halo stuff, Destiny stuff, Fistful of Arrows stuff. He says they're throwaways. No one else thinks so. :P I'm having mine framed. Sadly, we say goodbye to Levi at this point. We all make mental notes of where and when this happened so we can tell people a few years from now that we totally met him in KC that one time.

Sunday morning

We have to check out by 11:00, so Sunday morning is mostly just packing up. Breitzen stops by to pick up his things, so we all say goodbye to him then. Except Kermit, who is cruelly and maliciously left out. Or, just isn't up and around yet. Accounts differ.

While some folks are going home at this point, Dame, Kermit, Funkmon and myself are going to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Also, Funk and I are staying through Monday evening for a baseball game. We OK an early check-in with the hotel and drop most of our stuff off there, then make a stop at Hy-Vee, an Iowa grocery store which has made its way down to KC, to get me some acetaminophen for my... condition. We also grab breakfast/lunch at their diner's buffet, which is seriously good. While there, we watch a Marky Mark workout video which, I kid you not, is part of a collaboration he's doing with Hy-Vee.

Sunday afternoon

We meet up with Dame and Kermit at the art museum. It's my first visit to one, and I have to say, I got a lot more out of it than I was expecting. I thought you had to be an art snob to have any idea what you're even looking at, but the exhibits are generally pretty well explained, and there's so much variety that you're bound to see something interesting.

Sunday evening

Dinner for Funkmon and I is the Pizza Ranch, another Iowa institution invading KC, and one which is special for me because my dad managed one while I was in high school, and they're often the only good restaurant in the little Iowa towns I travel through for work, so I've eaten a LOT of Pizza Ranch in my life. Their pizza/salad/dessert buffet is legendary where I live, and doesn't disappoint in KC.

We retire to the hotel and I introduce Funkmon to Firefly.

Monday morning

There is almost no Monday morning to speak of. We are extremely tired and request a late checkout, so we don't have to leave the hotel until noon. I do get up around 7:00 to grab the hotel's breakfast, but I don't stay up for long. Funkmon appears catatonic until approximately 11:45am.

Monday afternoon

Lunch at Red Robin, which I THOUGHT I had been to before, but apparently I was wrong. The whole thing is new to me. Their fry sauce is good.

We see the latest Mission: Impossible movie to kill some time before the baseball game. I haven't seen one since the first or MAYBE the second film, but I think I was missing out now. It definitely gets my recommendation for an action movie.

Monday evening

Finally, we get to the Kansas City T-Bones ballpark. The T-Bones are part of an independent league which, to oversimplify what was explained to me by Funkmon, is sort of at a similar level to minor league, but isn't affiliated with MLB at all. The game is pretty entertaining and the T-Bones win it.

During the game, Funkmon gets to try another Iowa staple, Casey's pizza. Casey's is a convenience store/gas station chain here which is known for their pizza and donuts. I'm not saying it's the best pizza on earth, but it's head and shoulders above any other convenience store pizza I've had (and better than some actual pizza restaurants, TBH), and in many small Iowa towns it's the only decent thing available, so people here love it. For some reason, there's a stall in the park selling Casey's pizza, so we grab some of that.

Funkmon knows the guy who does the internet radio for the team (and, apparently, manages media in general) so we go up to the media booth afterward and chat with him and his wife for a while.

Drive back to my place. Not much traffic to speak of, and we discuss music a lot. Good times. I think it's about 2:30am when we get back to my house. Funkmon continues on from here.

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Thanks a million times to Dame for putting this all together. It was entirely her doing getting this thing organized, and we all owe her for a great vacation.