Orlando Spring Break

When Dad finally got home, we didn't have too much time to hang out because he had choir practice. Earlier in the week, I had been looking up things to do in Orlando (besides Disney and Universal) and started looking up local breweries. That is how I found the Orlando Brewing Company. We dropped Dad off at the cathedral, then followed the yahoo directions to the brewery. We were a little scared at first because the directions took us to a really shady part of downtown. It made sense though, because most breweries are located in the factory/warehouse district and don't necessarily look very pretty on the outside. The inside was pretty sweet, and there was a bar setting, tables and chairs, and a small stage. We soon found out that the stage was used for open mic night, and some lesbians would soon be singing us hits from the illustrious and numerous Beatles catalogue. It wasn't all that bad (it's tough to screw up The Beatles), and we got an 8-beer sampler of the brewery's fine products. We went around the horn and tried all of the flavors, and ended up enjoying all of the beers they had to offer.

I (Heart) My Collie is an inside joke in my family. We used to have a bumper sticker on our car that read I Love (heart shape) My Collie but the heart wore off and over time it just read I My Collie. We also call Lassie a dogbag, which is an inside joke that I really can't explain. We were then taken on the tour, but I was too drunk to understand what was going on. I've been on enough brewery tours, so I wasn't upset. We met this chick, and I have since forgotten who she was or where she was from, but she thought that my shirt was funny.

Jenny and I have different tastes when it comes to beer. She likes richer, more flavorful beer like spotted cow, where I like cheap lite beer like Hamm's, High Life, and Miller Lite. I made sure to taste all of the beers in our sampler, but there certainly were some that I didn't care for. Luckily, Jenny did, and we finished our beers.

Our Dad then arrived with some friends from choir and we took the stage to sing Harry Chapin's Cats in the Cradle. We hadn't played together in a while, but I was too drunk to notice or care. Chances are the crowd enjoyed it, but they too could have been too drunk to care.

This guy was hanging out at the brewery and he kept on talking to Jenny. He had an odd name, but then most Rastafarians hanging out in brew pubs usually do. He questioned Jenny about her tastes in music, and they settled on their love of Bob Marley, so they went up on stage and sang Redemption Song. At first, Jenny was trying to play the song on guitar, and even though she knew how to, she just couldn't play it flawlessly. I'd chalk that up to a combination of nerves and drunkenness. She decided to ditch the guitar and sing the song acappella, and enlisted the help of Dan (the white dude in the picture) from my Dad's choir to sing some Bob Marley. Apparently Dan is a huge Marley fan, so he jumped at the chance to get up and stand up for his right to sing these songs. There only one love, Dan, and you were up there jammin'.

They offer free tours of their brewery, but they were waiting until there were enough people to validate giving a tour. The bar was nice, so we didn't mind waiting around until the tour began. On the table there were decks of cards and mini post-it notes. We played go fish! and wrote silly things, like Spring Break-Ho! to pass the time.

We went back to the bar and got a couple more beers, then Jenny started dancing. Some guy was playing some music, and Jenny thought that if she started dancing, then maybe other people would join her. Since this is a brewery and not a club, no one followed suit.

I made sure to get a picture of Jenny and I with Bob Schaffer because at the time, we believed that Mom had not seen him in many years and would like to see a picture of him again. Little did we know that Bob had recently been in Milwaukee and met up with Mom when he was there. It looks now like my plan has been foiled, but I still consider this picture to be a success. For the last few days, Jenny and I had been calling Bob Schaffer Bob Schaffski, for no reason whatsoever. Jenny and I were quite young when Bob left St. Catherine's, and I personally have little to no memory of him being there. This makes the fact that we were goofing around with his name all the stranger, since we hardly knew the guy. The only thing that could have made it weirder would have been if we had called him Schaffski to his face. That really would have created some tension in the room. But we didn't, and we continued to drink until the night wore out and our Spring Break came to an end.