mindsquirt

….which is why you should always carry at least $100 in Tijuana.

Another exciting story I have is my exploits on the backside at Derby 06’. Me and my mates had a jolly good time. To hear part one, click on this sentence. To hear part three, click on the last sentence at the end of this blog. Get it?

Anyway, Mike, Matt, Brad and I settled down on the patio of the restaurant on the backside (see picture below). Notice how close the track was. See the arrow pointing at the bushes? The track was on the other side.

Now that is close people!

Infield shmenfield.

My score of the morning was a folding chair, which proved more than adequate for “a good sit”. I was too humble to tell Mike “I told you so” when he was living the good life in his folding chair. A good thing too, because within minutes Brad fetched some chairs from inside the restaurant for Matt and himself.

Before long race 2 was about to start. At this time, I would normally wittingly remark that this was the beginning of a litany of losses for me. However, I won at least 4 races that day (one of them being a moral victory, since I couldn’t get to the betting window in time). Of course like 3-4 million other people that day, I lost my ass on the Derby race.

Now, please understand that Brad cunningly had about 50 Miller Lights waiting for the four of us at this restaurant. A plethora of beer, plus a lot of free time between races, so of course this lead to some silly hyjinks.

One particular way we tried to keep entertained was to mess with one of our fellow patio members. He is pictured above and denoted as “the guy with the hat”. Before every race, this guy would hold a raffle on who would win this race. Apparently, conventional betting was not enough to this fella. He mostly would appeal to his group, which had about 20 people. He would hold up his hat, which contained chips with painted numbers on them. Everyone would pick one and would get to have first pick on a horse depending on what number they got. One of the times, around race 4 or 5, I started to try to bid on the hat, as though he was auctioning it off.

He would yell out: “five dollars for a pick”, while holding up his hat.
And I would yell, “Two dollars for the hat!”
I would raise my offer after a succession of disapproving nods.
“Five dollars!....Okay, Ten dollars”

I think I managed to do this exact same thing two or three more times before other races, while largely being ignored by this guy. When the Derby came along, there were many more horses (20), so this guy had to reach outside of his circle of friends. So when I asked to buy his hat this time, he took us a little more seriously, and we (mike and I) ended up buying part of the raffle (we had 18th pick, and thus lost). After we gave him his money, Mike and I were eyeballing his pretzel sticks sitting on his table. Mike noted that it was assumed that pretzels were part of participating in the raffle, so we nonchalantly helped ourselves.

Later I dared him to sneak over and get another one. I captured it in this movie* (download and save to hardrive). Mike is a master of subterfuge.

For some reason, we also started shot-gunning beers. It all started while I was gone with these two:

Teen Wolf has nothing on these guys

When Matt and I came back from betting, we had to match them in order to maintain status.

Mike and I also played a vigorous game of keep-away from some kids running around. Kids suck at that. I think I hit Mike in the face twice with the ball. I am sure that has alot to do with the beer he hd just shotgunned.

The rest of the day was spent handicapping, eating at the restaurant, drinking beer (traditionally), and standing in line for 30 minutes to bet. I think there might have been some horsing around (snicker).

But all of this was before the actual Derby race…


*thanks to bean for the movie posting.

# posted by fooiemcgoo : 5:22 PM