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UVA Tailgate Wrap-Up:

      - Lot 1, College Park, MD 
 

Overall: 
 

Well I sit here doing another recap with mixed emotions.  On one side, I think the UVA tailgate may have been my favorite of the year so far.  Sure the weather sucked, but I think that kind of somehow makes everything seem better.  Don’t get me wrong, the crabs after the Clemson game were pretty sweet, but technically that was after the tailgate. 

Now on the other hand, we pretty much learned this Saturday that our season is now officially in the crapper.  It was my hope early on that we could somehow sneak into the Eagle Bank Bowl in DC and get at least one more tailgate out of this, but I’ve put that hope to bed.  It is now clear that when we pack up the table after the BC game, we will be putting it away until next fall (which reminds me I need to get my truck fixed soon so I can haul that thing back home). 

So now we need to focus on these next two tailgates.  Let’s face it, we can’t control what  happens on the field (no matter how much I try to yell at the game), but we can control whether or not we have fun in the parking lot, and I think we’ve proved not even Mother Nature can stop us at that.  Now if we were Nittnay Lions I’d have to adjust that last sentence, but luckily for us Maryland is indeed below the Mason Dixon line (where it doesn’t snow prior to December), and our asphalt parking lots can handle tailgating in any kind of weather.

So with that, let’s take a look back at the UVA Tailgate, also known as the Pumpkin Carving Game.  

King of the Hill Flip Cup

I was corrected this weekend about the proper definition of the Survivor Game.  Survivor is when you play team flip cup and the loser has to vote off a player.  Then the remaining teammates have to carry the load and double up so that the same number of cups are still being drank.  So basically if you are the last person on your Tribe, you are doing 7 straight cups…No Thanks.  So I am now going to refer to this as King of the Hill.  We can keep calling it whatever we want, but at least I’m technically correct with the recap.  Anyway, this weeks Survi…I mean King of the Hill contest was very unpredictable, yet it wasn’t.  It was in the fact that we had a couple new people at the table, so that always creates an X-factor, but it also seems as though one “newbie” will rise up.  Someone (and I don’t remember who) actually pointed to Jess and said “She is going to win, it is always the new person” and whoever said that was spot on.  She won.  This week featured 16 competitors which I think is the new record.  So here’s how it happened.

I have to figure out how to translate these stats over the long season, but I still have time.  Anyway, we have 10 prizes for Pumpkin Carving and 8 contestants.  The winner gets two prizes and the Survivor Flip Cup winner gets the remaining prize.  If Jessica is not here next game to claim her prize, we will put it up again. 

Pumpkin Carving:

Ah yes, my favorite time of the year.  The Pumpkin Carving Contest, can you believe we now have 5 Pumpkin Carving Contests under our belt?  I can’t either.  This year featured 8 contestants which left me pretty excited.  I say this every year, but whenever we do one of these I always worry that I’ll be the only one to show up with a pumpkin.  Throw in the weather for this tailgate and I was extremely nervous.  But everyone stepped it up.  In fact 8 participants came bearing sliced up gourds.  This was the most since 2007, when there was 9.  We’ll touch upon some history here at the end, but for now, lets jump into the competition.

Grand Champion- I originally marked this down as 1^st Place, but that title just doesn’t live up to the actual accomplishment. This year’s winner was Surin.  Surin, remembered what he learned when he was 13 that “Hey, people like Vagina’s!” and 20 years later that adage holds true.  Surin took the regular UVA Cavaliar Logo and took out the word Virginia and added Vagina.  It was a hit.  I don’t know how many votes he received since I can’t find the voting results, but there were many.  Congratulations to Surin for joining the very exclusive club of Pumpkin Carving greatness.

2^nd Place- The runner up this year was the “Only You” pumpkin.  This featured a very lifelike portrait of Smokey the Bear carved by Dave.  Can I use the word “lifelike” if it is a cartoon character to begin with?  Anyway, Dave said screw any Maryland Virginia theme, I’m just coming with quality and letting the voters decide….oh and I’m going to bring about 4 voters from my own family as a little insurance.  Well some of that was true, but throw out the family vote and still no one disputes this pumpkins spot at #2.

All the Rest in no particular order (I need to keep better results in the note pad for this):

No Virginia- I only pulled one vote (which was my own…how pathetic is that?), but I was proud of my work.  When you don’t have art skills you take an object and the international “No” symbol and the rest sort of writes itself.  Mine looked better all lit up, but I knew as soon as I saw some of the others, that I was competing for 3^rd place tops.  However, taking a page out of David’s playbook, after March of this year, I’ll have another family member with which to stack the ballot box in my favor.

UVA Stink Bait- The fact that J has only won one of these is pretty amazing to me.  He comes strong every year and this year was no exception.  J technically had 3 pumpkins entered.  The fisherman, the fish, and the little pumpkin which was labeled UVA Stink Bait.  I thought it was pretty damn clever, and it makes you kind of wish more than one person could win this thing, but alas it wasn’t J’s year.  Then again he has about 20 PPK titles to fall back on, so I probably shouldn’t feel too bad. 

Maryland/D7tailgate- If I were the only judge, and wasn’t too worried about my own pumpkin getting shut out, I would have made Brian Lee the winner.  His M with the flag was awesome and on the back was D7tailgate.com (see top of the page).  So it had two things going for it.  At least Brian Lee can take solace in that we plan to use the back of his pumpkin on our home page. I am also stunned that Brian Lee has yet to win one of these things, every year he impresses me more and more.  It has to just be a matter of time.

Fear the Pumpkin- Emily came with the “Fear the Turtle” Logo.  It was also one of those types of pumpkins that looked better lit up.  Emily could have probably gone to any tailgate in the parking lot and won their contest (if there were other contests) but the glowing Testudo had some pretty stiff competition on this day.  Don’t loss faith Emily, there is always next year.

Punt Pass and (pum) Kick- I thought the title would come off a little cleaner for this pumpkin but it didn’t.  Oh well they can’t all be gems.  Anyway, Chris came in with his PPK pumpkin.  I’m not sure if this is a put down or not, but this was Chris’s best pumpkin yet.  He came strong considering the 40 minutes he had to carve it.  It looked exactly like it should have looked like, and I think everyone enjoyed it.  Now it wasn’t enough to win, but Chris knows, just being a part of this great tradition is worth the effort.  Consider him the “Rudy” of the Pumpkin Carving Contest.

Asphyxiation Pumpkin- I’m not sure if this pumpkin was supposed to have the plastic bag over it’s head or not, but with the bag, and with the face the pumpkin was making, it legitimately looked as though it was suffocating.  With this entry Doug has lost his Pumpkin Carving virginity, and anytime he is back in the area in late October, he’s welcome to enter once again. 

And there you have it, I think that is everyone.  I unfortunately did not have the prizes delivered in time for the tailgate which is a terrible mistake on my part, but the good news is they came today (Tuesday) and I will have them for the VT game.  Everyone who participated will receive one prize, with Surin getting the first two picks.  For the rest everyone else will just have to agree upon who is getting what.  As I said before the prizes are pretty nice and the idea this year is reward participation more than greatness…luckily for me.

So thank you to all who entered a pumpkin.  I hope (after you get your prize) you will feel as though it was worth the effort.  I will leave you all now with a few pumpkin carving facts to hold you over until next fall:

-All 5 winners have been males

-37 Pumpkins in all have been carved in the history of this contest

-The average Contest is made up of 7.4 pumpkins

-I believe Chris is still waiting on his first vote (Put Rudy in Coach!!)

Flip Cup Results:

I know I am going to take a lot of ribbing for this, but due to the notepad being totally soaked, and therefore un-readable, I can’t do the stats from this week.  Sorry, I know I’m going to catch grief, but I really have nothing to go on.  I’ll make sure to keep the pad nice and dry next time though.

Punt, Pass, and Kick:

They say that the weather is the great equalizer, and it must be true.  This was the closest PPK in the history of the event.  Going into the final round we had everyone within 2 spaces of each other.  It was intense.  After the final round, there was a three way tie between Chris, J, and Myself.  I led off the OT with a shanked kick, Chris followed that with a solid kick of 14, and then J beat it with a throw of 15.  And once again J was the PPK champ.  Not that anyone cares about my problems, but this is one of the benefits of writing these, had I only gone 10 parking spots on my pass, I would have won my first PPK ever. 10 FRIGGIN SPOTS!!!

Moving on, and this doesn’t necessarily concern me, but for those who put their name on the trophy, could you please do it with a little more care?  We had room for two columns of results on the front, but now that is over because each week the line gets longer and longer.  For example:

J 42 9/15/08

J 41 10/17/08

Brian 42 11/13/08

Chris 39 11/27/08

There is no extra prize for having the most space taken up on the trophy.  But if there was, Robert Irvin Wevodau III would certainly have a shot!!

Miscellaneous

Just an update on the Miscellaneous section.  Last week I used this to inform everyone, as well as thank J for supporting Chris and I’s work over on Raycomsports.com.  J won a free T-shirt (valued at 38$) for commenting on some of Chris and I’s posts.  I also used this to guilt everyone into going to Raycomsports.com to leave comments for us.  Well, I just want to thank everyone who did that…..WHICH IS NOBODY!  Do you know how many hours it takes to do these tailgate recaps?  Maybe 2?  Do you know how long it would take to read our post and leave a comment?  60 seconds maybe?  So I’m asking again, please support us over at Raycom.  Every comment you leave helps our popularity over there.  Otherwise we are going to start password protecting the flip cup results.  I don’t know how we’ll do that, but we’ll think of something…..INGRATES everyone of ya!  (Except John and J, we thank you for your support!). 

This just in, John F. also will be receiving a nice $38.00 Tee Shirt for simply taking the time to read our post and tell us what you think. 

Horse Racing:

Track closed due to the conditions.  We didn’t want any horses to break their legs, and we didn’t want to ruin the cards either.

Coffin Corner:

Too wet for CC this week. We’ll stand out in the rain for PPK, but apparently not for Coffin Corner.

LRC:

We had a very exciting game of LRC on Saturday.  I say it was exciting because I had several chances to win.  For those who were on the opposite side of the table, it probably wasn’t as exciting, but screw them.  Anyway, Megan who participated in her first tailgate in I don’t know how long, was rewarded for her travels by taking home the only LRC win of the day.  The payout, since we played 5$ a person despite J’s objections, was $45.  A nice haul. 

Flip Cup Results:

Seriously, did you think I wouldn’t have done the Flip Cup Results?  I really wish I didn’t have to this week, but I know this is the only value I provide to the tailgate.  I’ve seen your looks, I’ve heard your whispers, I know if given the choice between flip cup and me, what you all would do.  Not that I’m bitter.  It would kind of be like if my wife one day came home with Brad Pitt and said “It’s over, I’m dating Brad Pitt now.”.  What can you do?  You shake her hand and congratulate her, and move on.  I mean how do you compete with that?  I know I can’t compete with Flip Cup, so I handcuff myself to it with these results to insure my place in the D7 tribe.

Anyway, lets get into the action.  I must say it was a great week despite the weather.  We had all kinds of people.  When I was standing around at 11:00 with Chris, Pete, J, and the Leavitt's, you start wonder who all is going to come, but as always the table was elbow to elbow, which is great.  So let’s see how the day went. 

The First Series:  It appears we are on to a new tradition.  The top two finishers of “King of the Hill” get to be the first two captains of the day.  I think this is a fair way to start things off, unless of course one of those two people don’t know anyone’s name!  So we start off with Jess and J being Captains.  Jess’s team who we’ll call Uncle Jess’s Overalls in her honor consisted of said Jess, Meagen, Chris D, Bob, Sally, Derek, Justin, and Jason.  J’s team will be called the Daisy Dukes, no wait that’s way too flattering, how about Boss Hog’s Hats.  They were made up of J, Collenn, B Lee, Chris, Pete, Juanita, Doug, and Surin.  I’d like to say this is a just world and the good guys win in the end, but that wasn’t the case today.  The BHH’s rolled to a 4-0 win, which should have been the end of it except someone had to say “Run it Back!”.

The Second Series:  I don’t know who on UJO said run it back, but they apparently didn’t watch the same Series 1 that I did.  Needless to say, the teams were exactly the same and the results were likewise the same.  BHH’s swept back to back series which lead more than one person to say to me “I haven’t even lost a game yet today, yet alone a series!”.  It was all I could to not pour a beer over their head.

The Third Series:  Now here was the first shake up of the day.  I can’t say how we arrived at these teams whether they were picked or not, but this one was just a bit better than another sweep.  First we have the General Lee’s made up of Meagan, Justin, Derek, Colleen, Jason, Chris, Bob, and Chris D.  The other team, who we’ll call the token Hazard County Sheriffs car was made up of Surin, Doug, Juanita, Jess, Pete, J, Sally, and B Lee.  Just like the TV Show, where the General Lee left everyone in the dust.  GL won the first two, then lost game 3, then pulled out the last two to take it 4-1. 

The Fourth Series:  Next up was the fourth series.  This series featured teams very similar to the last match up but Jess was subbed out for James on the Hazard County Sheriffs, and Emily subbed in for Collen on the General Lee’s.  This must have been one of the Lost Dukes of Hazard Episodes because the Sheriffs actually won.  Not only that, but this was also the first game 7 of the day.  AND NOT ONLY THAT, this also featured the “asterisk” game.  I won’t elaborate on that because I don’t want to come home from work and find my pets all decapitated, so I’ll just say there were some issues.  Anyway the Sheriffs won game 1 (aka the asterisk game), then the GL’s took game 2.  Then HCS took three, and GL’s took four.  Then HCS took 5 and the GL’s took 6, and if you are picking up the pattern here, you probably already figured out HCS took the decisive game 7. 

The Fifth Series: The fifth series was a run it back game.  And why shouldn’t it be after a back and forth match like that, but unfortunately it isn’t always easy to catch lightning in a bottle.  This time the GL’s took game 1 and then the Sheriffs won the next four.  This must have been the episode where Cletus plants a pipe bomb in the General Lee and both Duke Brothers were killed, because that is what it felt like. 

 The Sixth Series:  After that last series, we decided to shake things up again.  This time we had Team Cletus which consisted of J, Chris, Pete, B Lee, Surin, Doug, Jason, and Jess vs. Team Roscoe made up of Emily, Bob, Meagan, Chris D, Juanita, Derek, Justin, and Sally.  This one looked close for a while.  Cletus jumped out to an early lead but was turned back in games 2 and 3.  Then they tied it up in game four, but that is when Team Roscoe took it to another level.  Roscoe P. Coltrane was victorious!

The Seventh Series:  I may be wrong, but I think this is the first time I wrote “The Seventh Series” this season. I guess that is what happens when its too wet to do anything.  This match up was a Minnie match.  In fact I don’t know the last time we had 4 on 4.  So we will call this one the Bo vs. Luke Series.  Team Bo featured Chris, J, Dave, and Meagan.  Team Luke featured B Lee, Bob, Pete, and Emily.  Bo won game one, only to drop games 2 and 3.  Then they rallied again to claim game 4 to pull the series even.  However, that would be their high water mark.  Team Luke kicked it into gear and took the final two games to win the series.

The Eight Series:  That is right people EIGHTH!  This was the last match up of the day.  It was a great one to go out on.  I guess we are pretty far in to this Dukes of Hazard theme, so we might as well ride it out.  For this one we’ll pit Cooter vs. Flash.  Team Cooter was made up of Chris, Pete, B Lee, Derek, Doug, Sally, and Justin.  Team Flash was made up of Chris D, Emily, Bob, Meagan, Jason, Jess, and J.  Cooter took game one, lost the next two and then tied it up at 2 a piece.  Then Flash got the crucial game 5 victory, but was then systematically neutered and allowed Cooter to walk away with game 6 and 7.  It was a tough way to end the night for Team Flash.  In fact if I loss the season championship by one game (pretty unlikely I’ll get that close after today) I will circle this game.  We had them, we really had them…DAMN!

So below are the season standings for Flip Cup. As you can see Emily is having a solid year at 5-0.  Colleen is easily having a career year at 11-2.  B Lee is solid at 11-4, but Pete is the real story with his 16 wins on the year.  If tailgating were to end today, and thankfully it doesn’t.  The title would go to Pete.  It pays to play! 

Random Thought:

Is it my imagination or was I really eating Ice Cream in the pouring rain during one of the coldest games we’ve had in recent memory?  I totally forgot about this until about 5 minutes ago.  How odd.

The “Save the Terrapin (tailgaters)” Drive:

I don’t know if Chris wants to put anything in here or just leave this blank, that is his decision, but the money from today’s tailgate is going to go to a memorial fund for his cousin who passed away this week from a heart attack.  He was only 33.  I think there is a message in there about living life to the fullest, because you just never know.  I sometimes think in the big scheme of things all this stuff we do for D7 is a bit silly, but when something like that happens, it almost makes everything in your professional life seem silly, and this hanging out together important. 

Anyway, getting back to the charity, Chris’s cousin has a 4 year old child, and his wife has cystic fibrosis.  For those who are not aware about CF, those who have it don’t usually live that long.  Therefore there is a memorial fund being created to help out with his child.  Unfortunately due to the weather, we didn’t play many games that involve money, but I am certainly willing to donate any cash from our remaining two tailgates to send a big check to help out.  If we could raise $50 or $100 in that time, I think it would be a nice gesture. 

Not that anyone really cares to watch, but my half of the family that lives in Cali, made a nice little tribute on youtube for him, so email me if you are interested in checking it out so you know who you are helping.

Tailgate MVP:

Cop Out Alert!!  Cop Out Alert!!  I had to do this, but I’m going to give out co-mvps this week.  We have a saying in Agriculture (which is my day job for those who don’t know me outside of D7) that when you have food you have many problems.  And when you don’t have food, you have 1 problem.  It’s just a catchy way of reminding ourselves that you have to take care of your basic needs before you can worry about all the small stuff. 

On this occasion the basic need was staying dry.  Jason and Justin once again came through with their tent, and it made a world of difference.  For that, the Leavitt twins are the Tailgating MVP’s for Homecoming.

Honorable Mention (in no particular order): 

I’m going to go with J for runner up.  He also had a tent and when he texted (That’s texted, not sexted for you 90210 fans out there) us at about 9:30 that he was sick and not coming, we really were legitimately bummed out.  That would mean no flip cup, no grill, no flip cup, and well that’s still a lot to miss.  So that you know that you are appreciated J, you are our honorable mention.

Hmmm, no mention of Megan Y. on either list….very interesting. 

Reminder:

I don’t really need this section today since it was used last time as a reminder about the pumpkin carving contest, but since I already have a header, I’ll just keep it.  This weeks reminder is that there are only two tailgates left this season.  So let’s hope we see everyone for VT and BC. 

Conclusion

Ugh, you can start to feel it, you definitely know it’s coming based on Saturday’s weather, but the tailgate season is winding down.  Boy is that depressing.  I can’t say enough how much I enjoy hanging out with each and everyone of you.  It is just something that was taken for granted all those years in College. 

As some of you know, every year I play golf in a 4 man tournament where anyone who scores over a double bogey has to shotgun a beer before the next hole.  As that event draws nearer and nearer each spring I get very excited.  I tried explaining it to a co-worker, and after I got done, I said “You know what? We call this thing a yearly tradition, but back when I was younger, we’d just call it ‘A Saturday’”.

The point is that life gets hectic, but it is good to know that for the most part, every home football game in the fall is going to be a place where everyone can just be stupid.  And where real world issues are replaced by such life and death stuff such as flipping a red solo cup over.  It seems dumb, but it’s what keeps you going!  Until then, don’t forget:

·        Life is short, flip hard.

·        Rain is okay, cold is okay, but rain and cold together REALLY sucks.

·        Only YOU can prevent forest fires

·        VAG!!!

That's all for now.  Thanks to everyone for coming out.  I look forward to seeing you all in Lot 1 for the VT game.  If ever there was a day to drink as if there were no football game, this very well could be it.