Last weekend my buddy Turbo had a "He-Man Woman Hater" party. When he first told me about it I was like, "huh... cool name, Aaron." I figured he'd made it up, but it turns out it's a real club from The Little Rascals. The He-Man Woman Haters Club was... wait for it... a club of boys that hated girls. You know the "No girls allowed" sign on the treehouse? Yeah.

So basically, it meant that Turbo was having a dude party. Cigars, beer, grilling large cuts of meat, ya know. But he put an amazing twist on it. His invite said, "Aaron got a new humidor. Help him stock it! Bring a cigar for you and one to share." An amazing, amazing idea. You guys can all do this for my upcoming birthday party. ;)

Anyway... Zach, Ninja, and I …

As most of you know, Kari and I hosted a Halloween Party this weekend... and if you didn't come - you're lame.

We had a little over half of the turnout that we had last year... but it was still a good time. Most of our out-of-towners didn't make it this time, however Tara came down from Mpls and Jake and Ania came from Illinois.

Anyway, there were some pretty amazing costumes, like Winnie the Pooh, Zombies, Me, Richard Simmons, etc, etc. Take a look at the pics.

All the beer pretty much got drank, aside from maybe a couple pints of light. So, I think the next party we have, I'm just going to get a regular keg instead of 2 small kegs.

Also, we picked Ninja up on Sunday. He looks pretty hilarious. After a few hours of him …

And we broke it in.

That's right, 6 months later and I finally finished the the basement bar project. There are still a couple accessories to add: lighting, stemware rack, stools, and a shoe rail. But finally the bar's in a completely usable state and I can forget about it for a minute.

before

after

The party went pretty well. Actually it was sort of a strange party - very laid back. I invited 80+ friends hoping that 40-50 would show up, and we ended up with 30. Lots of people that I hoped would be there couldn't make it. And lots of people showed up who I totally didn't expect. It was good though. We drank all the beer, smoked cigars, and Kari made sure my birthday was celebrated. Diverse even made us a custom mix to …

So last weekend, we hosted a 30th Anniversary party for Jeff and Teresa. It was quite ridiculous - lots of people, barely enough food, and lots of drinks.

Saturday morning, Jeff, Vic, and I went to 5 point studios to get Victor's ears pierced. He's been wanting to 0-00 gauge plugs, however he has never had his ears pierced. So we talked to Leo at 5 point to find out he could very easily pierce them to 2 gauge with a needle/taper, or use a scalpel to go up to 00. Vic opted for the needle. It was pretty insane. It took me years to get from normal piercings up to 2 gauge - Vic had it done in a matter of minutes. They pierced him with a 4 gauge hollow needle and then stretched it to 2 gauge with a taper. Pretty awesome. He said …

Holy Freaking Weekend. Steph finally came to visit, which was awesome. We haven't seen her in over a year, wtf. Lindsey also stopped out for a minute or two, which was good while it lasted.

So, Friday was "girls night" or whatever. Which basically meant, the girls went to dinner while Nick and I got pizza. Afterwards it was just a few dudes outnumbered by girls for the rest of the night, yesssssss.

Saturday, we got lunch at a brewery, then drank beer at a non-brewery, haha. Later, we went to the Stars/Rivermen game. It was Shooter's birthday (the mascot). So in between one of the periods they had a broomball game with a bunch of mascots. It was pretty hilarious. Other than that though, great great game. I'd like to go to …

We scored our first point in broomball last night! haha. We're still 0 and 2, but we managed to score a point and defend one more than last time, bringing the final score to 1-13.

Most of our team has official broomball shoes now, which make a ridiculous difference. Basically broomball shoes are moon shoes with some super foam on the bottom that squishes/springs nicely when you run. Somehow this magically keeps you from slipping. The hard part is when you slide/dive for something, because then it's really tough to get back up. Basically your knees are still really slippery but your shoes get traction. So you end up pivoting on your shoe while your knee spins around you in a circle. It's stupid. However they're still awesome. …

I got to hang out with a lot of different people this weekend, which always rules.

Friday we met up Tia and folks at Taki to celebrate her birthday before heading to the Loft to act like idiots. It was a good time and really nice to see those peeps. Pics.

Saturday I finished up the guest bedroom, edited a short vid for the 2030 Society, and then went out for Kari's Colfax Christmas party. It's pretty hilarious to watch teachers party. It really makes me wonder about the teachers I had growing up... So after hanging out for a bit we had a mini after party back at my place where more elementary school teacher debauchery happened.

And Sunday I completely slept through morning, woke up just past noon and realized, "we have our …

I was just walking through the hall and someone asked how my nye was, which reminded me to blog.

So in a nutshell, New Years was pretty blah this year. There was no plan, no party, and no going out really. It was quite different from my last couple NYEs spent in Chicago.

The weekend was good though. Friday, Cedric, came over to watch B13, this awesome french action parkour movie. It was pretty awesome. Then Nathan stopped up and led us in debauchery.

Saturday, Kari's parents came over to help pickup and setup furniture for our guest bedroom (another amazing Christmas Present from Santa). We got the furniture from Sears of all places... and it's the most solid "assembly required" furniture that I've ever had. Everything is …

Last weekend was quite fun and completely random. This week will probably be the same.

It basically started when Kari decided to end her night at 8:30pm Friday, which left me quite bored. So a couple calls later, Cedric, Nathan and I somehow wound up in Ames. I've never partied in Ames before, it's quite different. We met up with Diverse at phuel, then found Nathan's sister and went to Welch Ave Station. After getting ditched by Cara we randomly stopped into this columbian restaurant to have some dos equis with people who didn't speak english. Then after brainstorming our new salon idea, we went to the London Underground. It was a fun night ending with some amazing Gyros.

Saturday was just retarded awesome. The Bad Kids …

As if I even have to say it... Dog parties are stupid. Kari had this brilliant idea to have a dog party at our house for Ninja's 2nd birthday. I originally didn't like it for a few reasons, one being that it ties us a lot closer to being parents than I'm really comfortable with. But also, wtf? However I agreed to it for both of those same reasons. One, I like having a dong in place of a kid. and B, I thought it'd be pretty hilarious.

I dunno, once it started, I wasn't quite feeling it. Kari decorated our house for a dog party, which felt way lame on an over-the-top level. All the girl dogs fought and nearly killed a couple smaller dogs. And I got peed on - which actually was a highlight, haha. Pics.

Aside from that the …

Oh Yeah. So, we had a Halloween Party last weekend, which marked the biggest party held in my house to date - 40 people. I didn't realize how much fun that costume parties can be. It sort of makes an automatic ice breaker and then everyone ends up hanging out with everyone. I loved it. Check out my pics, Nicole's Pics, Zach's Pics.

And to continue the radness, Des Moines Alive got invited to the Friends and Family pre-opening party for Cabaret Night Club. We're also getting invites for the VIP party. I'm pretty excited. We have some good plans to make the site much better... Not to mention the new Mobile site that we just launched. We're totally going to rock it.

This weekend will be pretty ridiculous as well. Ninja turned …

What is it about Memorial Day that is always insane? Last year it was Mt Vernon and Chicago, this year it is Des Moines, Dubuque, and Iowa City.

Thursday before Memorial Day, Rico talked me into hanging out with him and the British kids that are staying at his house right now. It was a really good time, we all hung out, then went out. They are cool guys. They thought Royal Mile (our 'london pub') was hilarious.

Friday, Zach and I ditched town for a Heelys demo in Dubuque. We got into town and our hotel dude was a skater like us - so he ended up totally hooking us up - better room, cheaper, and free drinks, ha. We met Zach's cousin BJ and my friend Josh at some fest downtown. It was a fun time, then we went to all kinds of …

So this weekend was Zach's bachelor weekend. Turbo, Rick, and Jake came up, we partied a lot, etc. It was a pretty crazy/good time.

Rick pulled into the driveway Friday and barely said "hi" before he started pulling Coronas, chips, and salsa out of the trunk for Cinco de Mayo, haha. The rest of the night was fairly laid back - hanging out, rock bottom, etc.

Saturday, we woke up, went to look at a Ford GT, and then worked on the pocket bike. We rebuilt the carburetor, tuned it a bit, and now it runs like a champ. After that, a bunch of us paintballed which was a really good time. There was an amish lady playing that had a dress on - I totally shot her, haha.

Later we all met up at my house, grilled, hung out, dropped by …

Oh man, the mustache party was really fun... really ridiculous, but definitely fun.

We had 35-40 people over and 3 - 5gallon kegs of Rock Bottom beer, which didn't quite get finished, but we got close.

There's not really a lot to tell, but you can see most of the story through the photos.

As for the winners...
Longest Stache: Minnis
Best Stache: Chuck
Worst Stache: Nick
Most Creative: Nehru

The thing that sucked was that I woke up Saturday morning with strep throat. Fever over 103, etc. Way to ruin a good weekend! I was so mad I couldn't hang out with my buddies from outta town Saturday night. Stupid, stupid sick.

Man, this weekend was super nice. Finally I got to put a couple of my best Christmas gifts to good use - the compound miter saw from Jeff, and a couple hundred in Menards gift cards from my parents. Rico came over Thursday night we cut up the wall, wired in a switch, and did some planning. Then Friday we turned my garage into a shop and built the first section. Saturday the 2nd section, and Sunday we had everything boxed in. Now I just need to get some more cash so I can trim it all out, build cupboard doors, spray everything, and fill it with books. I'm super excited to get it done.

As you can see we wired it with lights and sound. The lights are dimmable to get a nice ambient lighting in the loft... and there are speaker …

This week was a pretty good one. Monday I went to the Brother Ali/Swollen Members/Gaiden show at Vaudeville Mews. It was awesome. Swollen Members are really hype and Brother Ali is really good.

Wednesday, Kari and I went to a Cornell alumni thing at Mondo's in Des Moines. It was pretty nice to see some people and hear some things going on at Cornell. But it's also pretty funny that after all the money we spent on that school we had to pay for our own food and drinks. Then I met Zach @ Val Air for the Reliant K/MXPX show. It was pretty funny. We walked in to the biggest crowd I've seen at Val Air so far - 95% of which were H.S. kids. The number of zits in that crowd was INSANE. Plus there were soooooo many girls. It was like …

Omg, this weekend was totally crazy - I loved it. I wonder how long I would live if all my friends lived closeby...

Anyway, Friday, Rich, Sean, Jeff, and Josh came into town for my bachelor party. We all headed up to Rico's to grill out, etc. They made an awesome meal for all 16 of us (it was a great base for the night we had - it definitely worked). We played monster golf, bocce, poker, etc. The rest of the night was absolutely crazy, here it is in list format... The bus picked us up, we went to the Cab, Lift, Royal Mile, Red Monk, Aura, Third Base, Cabaret, etc.

The night included: running, dancing, punching contests, slapping contests, running over minivans, getting interviewed by some TV station, playing with the …

So, Aaron's bachelor weekend was insane and there were only 10 of us. I can't even imagine what's going to happen with 20 of us. Here's the weekend breakdown...

Thursday, I went with Kevi to get another tattoo. I temporarily talked him out of that stick figure guy, whew.

Friday Kari's dad came over, we bottled our beer, then Turbo and Zach came over and we went out. Kevi threw a big tantrum because he came to my house and I wasn't there. It ruled. Then we went searching for him downtown and he cheered up a bit.

Saturday was the official bachelor party. We rode pocket bikes, sipped good scotch, smoked cigars, grilled, hung out, soaped, played pool, etc. There is this tradition in Turbo's family where he has to drink a …

Man, what a weekend. Friday, the Coffins had a couples shower for Kari and I - a "stock your bar" party. Everything was a ton of fun. We had martinis, hung out, boxed, played a game, etc. Thanks to everyone that was there, especially the Coffins. Afterwards a few of us went out to Stix to play some pool and goof around. Great night. Kari's dad even walked home on chutes and ladders, haha.

Saturday we woke up, hung my new fan, did some landscaping, and then Jeff and I made beer (which should be ready about the day of my bachelor party, heh).

Sunday, we hung out at my cousins and ate frog legs. Then later we grilled and hung out with more friends at Jake's. And lastly, yesterday we hung out and boated at Saylorville lake all …

Thursday my parents stopped by on their way to take bre'anna to texas. We hung out a bit, took the pocket bike for a spin, etc. Then friday we drove to cedar rapids, stayed with karis parents, and then finished the trip to Steph's graduation party Saturday.

The Froelichs always put on a good party, this time they had a Mexican theme with a margarita machine, a mariachi band, a pinata, lots of great Mexican food (including mexican sushi rolls, heh). It was nice to see some people from college also. At one point I noticed an M parked in front of their house, so I had to show off my bike. We also rode around a bit, Elizabeth fell, Lindsey was sexy, and we couldn't talk Dr. Bob into getting on (but Steph did). I really like visiting …