My weekend in Champaign
Last Thursday my phone starts ringing at roughly 11:30 PM. I’m ready to go to bed but I pick it up. Its Trevor, and he has an extra ticket to see the Illini in the NCAA tournament in Indianapolis on Saturday and he’s offering it to me. I agree to go and we decide to all meet up in Champaign.
Friday, 4:05 PM: I leave work and head back to my apartment to take care of some odds and ends.
Friday, 5:45 PM: I leave for Champaign.
Friday, 8:30 PM: I get to Champaign and start drinking immediately. Bergan, Darren, Tom, Sztelle and a few others are playing poker with fake money in the dining room at the house.
Friday, 10:30 PM: We go downstairs to watch the end of Bucknell beating Kansas and we love it. Trevor comments that he needs to drive to Kansas to give Bill Self syphilis. I wonder (aloud) what Alice is doing this weekend. Everybody seems to enjoy the comment. Then we are reminded that Alice has chlamydia, not syphilis.
Friday, 11:00 PM: We decide to go to Brothers. We stop at Kate’s apartment (which is the same complex where Trevor and I used to live). Trevor and Kate go into her apartment on the 2nd floor. The rest of us are standing downstairs i nthe courtyard. Joe and I notice a floor lamp stuck in a tree nearby and wonder how long its been there. We figure its been there a while and I decide that tonight is the night to get it out. I climb up into the tree and as I’m doing this Trevor walks out of the apartment. Now I’m about ten feet up in the tree, so Trevor is literally eye level to me. I struggle to get to the lamp. Travor makes fun of me. Just as I’m about to get the lamp out, I notice Bergan’s little brother standing directly below the lamp. I inquire what he’s doing and he says he wants to catch the lamp. I tell him to get out of the way. I struggle some more, and grab the lamp. Then in a moment of brilliance, I decide to toss the lamp out of the tree instead of carry it down. The glass on the top of the lamp smashes and makes a loud sound. I get out of the tree and break almost every branch in the process. Allyson takes pictures of everything on her camera-phone.
Friday, 11:15 PM: We get to Brothers and start losing our hearing
Saturday, 12:30 AM: We go to Clybourne.
Saturday, 1:30 AM: We go home and go to sleep.
Saturday, 10:00 AM: I wake up to the sounds of Darren and Tom running around screaming “Shaileeeeeeesh”
Saturday, 10:30 AM: We head out to the tennis courts near Huff Hall. Tom and I tie Darren and Jeremiah, 6-6.
Saturday, 12:30 PM: Back at the house, Tom and I get oranged up for the Illini game. Kate and Trevor come over. We head to Tom’s house to switch cars with his mom and we head to Indianapolis at roughly 1:45. Kate and Trevor fall asleep in the back seat.
Saturday, 3:15 PM: Tom and I are having a nice conversation about life in general when Trevor wakes up in the back seat of the car. He asks us if we’re in Indiana and when we say yes, he goes on his grand rant about how Indiana is the worst state ever and it was full of inbred hicks who were all useless. Granted, he’s right (what more can we say about a state that a) gave us reggie miller; b) stole the baltimore colts; and c) idolizes a basketball coach who once threw a vase at his secretary) — but why bother noting the obvious? We stop at a White Castle to get some lunch. (Note: WHITE CASTLE SUCKS!!!)
Saturday, 3:45 PM: We pay $20 to park in a spot labeled ” Enterprise Rentals Only.” We all secretly pray that Tom’s car won’t get rented out to some tourist family, although we publicly acknowledge how funny it would be if that happened.
Saturday, 4:10 PM: We go inside the stadium and get to our seats. Its roughly 5% Nevada fans, 20% Cincinnati fans, and the rest is split between us and Kentucky fans.
Saturday, 4:40 PM: Tip-off! Illinois vs. Nevada is on. I’d show you some pictures but I left my camera on the kitchen counter at Tom’s house.
Saturday, 6:50 PM: The Illini win! And they’re headin’ to Chicago. We note that UW-Milwaukee has beaten Boston College, which means that the Illini will be playing against an old foe, Bruce Pearl. 15 years ago, Pearl was an assistant coach at Iowa who was involved with get Illinois placed on NCAA sanctions.
Saturday, 7:20 PM: The Kentucky – Cincy game tips off, and the place gets LOUD, *REAL* LOUD. There is a Cincy fan sitting two rows in front of me who is almost red in the face screaming at the players. You’d think he was altuall tryin to coach the game from the 17th row of the uppder deck. He’s also talking waay too much smack with the 15 year old Kentucky fan sitting right in front of me. I guess I’ll be rooting for Kentucky.
In other news, Tom, Trevor and I divert our attention from the game to the crowd, hoping to find Ashley Judd, who happens to be a huge Kentucky basketball fan. Instaed the only celebrity at today’s game is Nick Lachey, who happens to be a Cincy fan. Ugh.
Saturday, 9:30 PM: We leave the game with one minute left. Kentucky wins. Tom’s car is NOT rented out when we get back to our parking space. I guess the luck is all ours tonight. We head back to Champaign and listen to West Virginia beating Wake Forest on our way back.
Saturday, 11:45 PM: We get back to Champaign and I head to White Horse to see Byron. We start making fun of this girl with her 2 male friends (no reason really, just for the sake of making fun).
Sunday, 12:30 AM: White Horse decides to close early. While they are kicking us out, the aforementioned girl with 2 guys gets up to leave and she falls over. Her friends get her up and she falls over again. In all, she falls over 4 times while getting not even ten feet from the table where they were sitting. The bouncer finally walks over and starts yelling at the two guys, telling them not to pick her up again. He calls EMS and she goes home in an ambulance. Personally I think the whole thing was a little fishy. She definitely didn’t seem that drunk 5 minutes earlier when Byron and I were making fun of her. I think one of the guys slipped her something. And since she went to the hospital in an ambulance, maybe the cops will know about it too.
Sunday, 12:45 AM: Byrons friends almost get into a fight on Green St.
Sunday, 1:00 AM: We go to legends and I run into Curtis. Curtis was a Triangle at Purdue who came to U of I for graduate school. I knew him through ECE 361 and MATH 347 (which I later dropped).
Sunday, 1:15 AM: I go back to the table and Byron’s 28 year old friend is passed out with his head on the table. His girlfriend decides to walk him home. As they’re walking out of the bar, thi guy pukes on the FRONT DOOR of Legends. Now, *THAT* is clutch. Naturally I took pictures of the vomit-caked entrance to Legends.
Sunday, 1:30 AM: The manager of Legends run over to the table next to us where he starts yelling at three guys and telling them to leave. They hold up their beers and ask to finish them. The manager gives them 30 seconds to get out. Then he starts counting down and kicks them out. Later, I find out that these three guys were all passed out (heads on the table) with full beers for the last half hour.
Sunday, 2:00 AM: The bar closses and we stop for pizza.
Oh well, an interesting weekend, I guess. And next weekend I’m heading back there to play golf.
