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| New Orleans New Year Pictures |
New orleans
04
We all
left for New Orleans some time on the 29th. Some earlier than others. Jill and cousin
Tyler were somehow compelled to leave at 4 am, and got to the Big Easy before any of the rest of us. Michael and Amelia drove from Tulsa, and after a short stop in Shreveport, Evan and I (tim) arrived at around 10pm at our hotel. The entire team, minus myself went to the party and as I had promised myself, I went
to bed early. The rest of the team went to the boot, a local dance bar similar
to the hawk on a smaller scale. It can be said I received every bit of trashing
from the other teams that I deserved for staying in, and was awaken by good friend Karl from USA at around 3. Thanks bud. Went back to sleep and we all headed to the regatta site in the morning.
The regatta
started off slow for Jill and I in A team. Kept running into the whirlpools and
going to the back (see penalty turns). In 3 of 4 races we managed to foul someone
in the clusterfuck that was the windward mark, and in the other were OCS. Came
back to pass only one boat after sailing nearly 40 seconds before realizing our foul.
SHIT. Hell of a way to start an important regatta. Mike and Evan fared better for the first set and sailed fairly consistently all day. Jill and I got things together a little better for the second set of 2 and made fewer mistakes, but still
expected to be sailing better.
After
day 1 we were just about ready to party. Originally the plan was to get plenty
of sleep, do it right, kick ass. Obviously this “Plenty of sleep”
approach was not working and it was time to jump on the “Our team is in position to win this regatta and we’re
still partying hard” bandwagon. After dinner at a local Cajun place, we
headed to the party at one of the Tulane sailor’s houses. After the alcohol
finally arrived people could be seen riding a couch down the sharply inclined stairs, and playing intense games of flip cup,
and catching up on good stories. Alum Chris LaBorde met us at the party and helped
carry spirits as he would also help us in the morning as a coach. After a good
amount of spirit boosting, KU, UNO, and USA
lead the charge to the Boot which was only a block from the party house, and showed everyone how we dance when WE go out. Good times were had by all and the group crashed around 3.
On Sunday
Jill and I came out and never hit a first mark farther back than 5th, and despite a terrible leg putting us in
the back on the first race, sailed much more respectably. Sailing, like kindergarden
is more fun when you get to be in the front of the line.
We finished
a somewhat disappointing 11th of 17 teams, and with the regatta over there was only one thing left to do in New Orleans on New Years Eve.
After
dogpiling Michael into persuasion, shooting the champagne cork 20 yards, and downing the bottle, we were primed and ready
for a wild and very late night which is a good thing since that’s exactly what was in store.
It took
us about 20 minutes to find a taco bell as everything in New Orleans
was shut down except for the bars and we were laughed at several times at drivethrus for our clowncar of a Nissan Maxima with
7 of us piled in. We finally made it over to Dave’s for what was already
an awesome party and got in on some flipcup. Team KU was again triumphant coming
back from 2 games down to win a best of 5 series before heading upstairs to persue more watersports. The champagne flowed like water, and 2 kegs were barley enough before most everyone stampeded about a ˝
block to the trolly. No alcohol on the trolly was something we could barley comprehend
at this point so we all did our best and slammed our drinks at the door. With
20+ college sailors on the trolly our ongoing party immediately commanded all the attention of the other passengers. It sounded like a concert as we were all yelling at the top of our lungs, and reciting
the Rock Chalk chant, yes… everyone. Go KU!
About the time we get downtown, team USA
and UF buzz by us in a truck for one hell of a shouting match. Luckily they got
stopped in traffic and were in perfect position for my run-by-mooning. The rest of us made our way across Canal St.
and into ground zero.
Chris
again showed his experience and knowledge in the persuit of spirits and delivered an armload of 44oz. Hurricanes. As we made our way to the front of Fat Cats and got on the horn.
Some other teams that had been in the truck caught up to us there, and thanks to cell phones, the rest weren’t
far behind. Once our mass of sailors was big enough to fill the entire 4 way
intersection, we all headed to an awesome Piano bar called Howl At The Moon. We
didn’t know how many college sailors it would take to fill the entire stage, but we knew how many we were going to use,
and it was plenty to do the job. The bar exploded with the guys on the piano
playing anything we could think of, and we danced on the stage and in front of it until about 5am.
After
that, there was only one thing left to do. Café Du Monde for Beginets. 18 of us barley standing, and watching out for those gravity storms made the journey several blocks. For the second year in a row, Café Du Monde was the sight of a massive powdered sugar
war leaving us all looking like the cocaine addict from Chappelle’s show. We had made a huge mess, broke 2 plates, 1 glass and on our way out the staff couldn’t
stop laughing. At 6 am there was only one thing to do for this spirited bunch
of drunken sailors and that was to return to the alcohol. 18 people piled into
a Honda Pilot which is no easy feat by any stretch of the imagination and with knees to ears we all made it back to Dave’s.
At Sugar Bowl ’03 team Minnesota and Kansas vowed to see the sun come up on Jan 1, and didn’t make
it. This was not a feat similar to taking the beaches at Normandy which was not for the weak at heart, and saw lots of casualties. The champagne that flowed like water, now tasted like it too as we all scavenged for the last of the rations
before heading for the hay. Before our heads hit the pillow, We saw the sunrise
from our hotel and on January 1 in New Orleans, that happens
at 7:35am. We did it!
4 hours
later we were in the cars heading for Shreveport where we
would lick our wounds before doing it again the next night. We started with bloody
marys at a very cool bar in Shreveport, and then headed to
a place for some dancing. The door man wasn’t having it and to us pointing
at Michael says “if he’s 25 I’m 68”. Without missing
a beat I said “WOW! You’re 68?!! You don’t look a day past
25!! He failed to see the humor. SO we hit the store and went back to Casa De
LaBorde for hours of storytelling and Quarters.
The
next day we went shotgun and pistol shooting, and let me tell you after a weekend like that there’s something satisfying
about hearing a loud bang, and seeing something destroyed… Just like we are at these sailing events…over and over
again.
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The Following Courtesy of Jocelyn and the rest of the MU Ohio
team from the 2004 Sugar Bowl Regatta aka.. get Fing Faced on school money over new years on Bourbon St. Regatta...
Thanks... ya damn drunks... see you in Florida!
this barely does it justice....
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Before I left my dad said to me, as he always
says to me, "Jocelyn, don't do stupid things". Well dad, sorry, I let ya down. This excursion once again proves that sailors
are a cunning and unique breed of people capable of outrageous feats that the average person would think impossible. For example,
college sailors have been able to dispel the ceturies old rumor that sailors are a pack of horny rum swigging drunkards, and
convince their respective universities that we are part of a refined team of athletes. To our credit we do push our bodies
to unnatural levels of exhaustion, but let's be honest, there is a reason the song "What would you do with a drunken sailor"
still exists...
The sin wagon/Tahoe picked me up at the Cincinnati airport on the 28th, bedecked with Mardi Gras and
reeking of soberiety. We quickly turned it into a green torpedo of fatality by putting the seats down in the back, confident
that the icy roads and 9 flipped cars on the side of the highway were not what was going to kill us. We travelled in style
with a roof coffin (to bring our bodies back in) which later proved to cause parking garage hell. With Crack Mack at the helm
I settled in for a long winter's nap, when there arose such a clatter, I sprung from my fetal position to see what was the
matter. Fireworks store in the deep south + Freshman boys = impulse explosives buying. We spent way too much of our parent's
money on creatively packaged gunpowder. Doug bought a 2 foot pipe apparently filled with compressed air and confetti, which
we still have yet to test out. We drove through a death shroud of fog and made it to our housing place at Tulane University
at about 3 AM.
We got up late (for a college sailor) at 8:15 the next morning and headed out to be good little students
of history and see the Mississippi, the French Quarter, the cemeteries, and most importantly the place where we would committ
atrocious acts in future nights, Bourbon Street. After our walking tour, which we all enjoyed but agreed that we needed to
"forget to tip" and save every dollar for alcohol, we went to the first liquor store we saw, which also happened to be across
the street from the place the tour ended. Convenient. We went back and made some hurricanes, which tasted pretty good until
we were shamed when we bought real ones later. We headed out to say hi to everyone, Wisconsin, Minnesota, UF, South Alabama,
Dartmouth (?only because they happened to be sitting around with another team), Kansas and probably some others that I can't
remember. We went to the Boot and just caught up, played pool and took a ride home in Seth's mom's mini-van.
The 30th
we sailed 'n stuff. We rotated every race and did 4 half hour races in a row which was unexpected and made our ADD get completely
out of line. Doug threw the frisbee in the water when he was playing ultimate after our rotation and took a dip in beautiful
lake Ponchatrain only to find out afterward that a couple weeks ago kids had gotten staf infections.
After sailing
we went home and got ready for the evening. We wanted to check out Bourbon for a bit so we headed over there for dinner. An
hour and half after we drove around looking for parking, we found the BEST space literally one block off of Bourbon and went
to dinner at Deja Vu, a hole in the wall bar with food, so it worked and was actually pretty good. Bourbon street was beconing
our inner alcoholics so we wandered over there and the boys ran around trying to quench their insatiable thirst for tatties.
Their goal was to see 15, and they more than doubled it and would have seen more if we hadn't left to go to the sailing party
back at Tulane. Anne, Eryn and I got hand grenades "New Orleans' Most Powerful Drink". They don't lie, there was moonshine
and dshkjf and lkjdhfue and something else that tasted good; one did the job, and we got cool glasses.
When we got
to the sailing party, we acknowleged that there was a hobo sofa in the middle of the street and didn't really think anything
of it, until we found out that they had been riding it down a flight of about 20 concrete stairs into the middle of the street
until they thought that might be dangerous. Wow, what a good idea! We played with some of our fireworks, drank some grain
alcohol with pink stuff (koolaid?) and boatraced then when sufficiently drunk, went down the street to the Boot. The sailors
innundated them and we danced all night, broke bottles and held up our reputation. Anne got in with my ID somehow b/c she
accidentally forgot her liscence. "What's your soc."..."I dunno, that's why it's on there" It came that time to leave the
boot so we went back to the house. And let me just say, we have a new event for Nagano, and Anne and I won the gold medal.
It's called Hobo couch sledding. Yes, that's right, we both jumped on the couch with Karl from Alabama and with no concern
about the very likely possibility of pitchpoling it and going end over end with a couch down the gauntlet. Anne and I took
a ride home in Seth's mom's minivan again and toppled out of it in a cackling drunken mess and passed out on the hard wood
floor.
The 31st we sailed...yada yada yada. Ok
The night we had been waiting for. Text can't even describe.
Holy Shit. It started out with Champagne and writing a return address on the back of Anne's neck. After we exhausted our liquor
supply we went to South Alabama's party. It was drizzling a little, but that didn't stop the debauchery. Miami hit the boatracing
table and cleaned up as usual. Hey Dartmouth, just because you beat us in the regatta by like a bazillion and a half points
doesn't mean that you can even touch us on the boatracing table. bitch please. fools to challenge us, fools. We got herded
into the Tahoe circa 11:15 and headed for the promised land, Bourbon Street.
Some of us made it out in time for midnight,
others didn't. Miraculously we met up with Wisco and Minnesota, and JJ from UF was with me and Anne. The three of us got separated
from the group, go figure and ventured down to the street of liquor, tatties and sin. It was also JJ's birthday, so he took
our arms, put on his suede cowboy hat and being the pimp he is, escorted the 2 Miami ladies. We got into a bar, like there
was even a problem, and got some more hand grenades, and since we had been winning all weekend (accept at sailing) we thought
hey why not win one more time and somehow meet up with all the sailors in the sea of lawlessness.
Everyone ended up
at an awesome piano bar called Howl at the Moon and we danced until 6AM. JJ got a birthday serenade about being a prison bitch
and went along with the joke as only a Cotera could. The sailors took over the stage and all 40 of us had what I consider
to be one of the most fun nights of my life. At about 5 I felt like I was seriously going to pass out from just being really
hot and in 4 inch heels so I asked the bartender for water, and he gave me a disgusted look and handed me a glass of champagne,
which I proceeded to drink and then went back on stage.
We left at about 6AM and packed 15 of us into a Honda Pilot
and went back to the party house where we were greeted by Tim from Kansas and a bottle of champagne, "We're not done till
the sun rises!!". That's the spirit. So we had some more champagne and I think hit the floor at around 7:45? That was the
best 2004 slash 2005 ever.
After a grand total of 20 hours of sleep, 5 days and 10 blocks of pure and un-restrained
sin, New Orleans sent us merrily on our way. Thank you Miami University for funding this althletic competition. Here's what
we think about you raising tuition. We Win, again...bitches | |
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