This past baseball season however I made a great prop bet with my good friend and neighbor, Jay.  You can read all the details of the initial prop bet here.  The short version however is that we bet on the overall season record of the Chicago Whitesox versus the Chicago Cubs.  The loser would have to spend the night in the winners backyard the first weekend after the world series.

Obviously Jay lost the bet, and this weekend was time for him to make good on it.  Luckily for Jay, the weather was unseasonably warmer than normal this weekend for the first week in November.  Nonetheless the temperature did climb down to around 40 degrees during the middle of the night.

Jay is a pretty clever dude though.  The rules of our bet stated that the loser could only bring with them a college sized backpack, and whatever could fit on their body.  As you can see in the pictures below, Jay showed up with 1 bag and several layers on.

He then began to set up his camp site in the wooded area in my backyard.  And then it all began………..

About a half hour after Jay arrived, people started arriving with beer, chicken wings, steaks, firepits, firewood, tents, portable electronics, etc.  Needless to say, Jay planned and executed one heck of a party that evening in my backyard.  I have to say I was impressed at Jay’s ability to turn a positive into a negative.

Overall it was a fun night.  I think everyone left and called it a night around 2:00 A.M., at which point Jay was left to sleep by himself in my backyard.  Judging by his demeanor the following morning, I have to assume that he did not have a lot of fun.  Even being in a tent, I can’t imagine a 40 degree night on the wet ground, all by yourself, in your neighbors backyard would be a lot of fun for anyone.

Here are the pictures below.  I guess it’s about time to find another crazy prop bet to get involved in.

Jay’s Arrival

The Set-up

The Equipment

Looks Comfortable To Me – NOT

Ever Slept In A Hammock For 7 Hours?

And The First Guests Start Arriving

Good Thing I Left The Grill In The Backyard

Lucky Jay, One Of His Guest Brought Him A Tent

Overall, I give jay a 10 on cleverness and planning.  Nice work, next year the rules will be written in much finer detail.

I am not a big basketball fan myself, but if I had to choose a team to root for, it would definitely be the Lakers versus Boston. I realize Boston was the birth place of America, the home of clam chowder, and the state represented by this idiot. But for the love of God, Allah, Buddah, and any other religous figure, who in their right mind can say “I love Boston”?

Well obviously Greg Powell can. So him and I have made a prop bet involving this years NBA Final. Obviously GP has taken the Celtics to win it all, and I have taken the Lakers. The bet is that whoever loses is going to have to eat at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles wearing a Sweat Sedo. If you’re not familiar with Roscoe’s, it is located in Long Beach just a few miles from Compton and even closer to Crenshaw Ave. In other words, it’s a real safe and friendly environment.

Then after dinner, the loser will be buying drinks for the winner (me) at the little jazz bar attached to Roscoe’s. If I win, meaning the Lakers win the championship, I might even order a cutom Celtics sweat sedo and make GP show up to Roscoe’s wearing that……… been nice working with you buddy.

The Celtics did win the first game of the series last night at home, however I am still confident in the Chicago native Phil Jackson putting a royal ass whooping on the Celtics this Sunday. Combined with the superfecta I plan on winning in the Belmont, and three gold medals in the Neighborhood Olympics, it is going to be a great weekend. And don’t forget, you too can piss off your wife this weekend.

Feel free to share your comments below on either how bad the Celtics are, or what a terrible city Boston is.

Well, I have a new bet that I am actually very excited about. I have made this prop bet with my good friend and neighbor Jay Sandine. For those of you that may remember, he demoralized me in the 100 yard dash in our street last summer. Now it’s my turn to get even. Clearly after reading this, you will see I am huge favorite to win. But I invite your comments at the end of this post.

The great thing about Chicago is that there is no shortage of professional sports teams to root for. In baseball you can choose between the Chicago Cubs or the Chicago Whitesox. I have been a diehard Cubs fan since I was a small kid. I have been to several games, and yes I have even sat across the street on the rooftops a few times. A few years ago at a pharmaceutical sponsored event, I sat and watched a game with the legendary Ernie Banks. I’ll be honest though, it hasn’t been an easy 31 years to be a fan.

Finally though the Chicago Cubs are getting it turned around, and I feel they have a very easy schedule this year compared to the sox. Let’s be honest folks, I am a major favorite here. Let me explain the wager.

One night my two neighbors and I were all playing an intense game of Yahtzee and having a few drinks. Jay who is a huge Chicago Whitesox fan had a little too much of the sauce and proposed a prop bet to me. The actual bet is very simple, whoever has a better record at the end of the season wins. I obviously take the cubs and he has taken the sox.

The loser has to camp out in the other guys back yard the first Friday and Saturday night after the MLB World Series. But here are the rules and where it gets good. Keep in mind the World Series is in October and in the Midwest it could be extremely cold or even worse, rainy.

1. The loser can only bring a standard size backpack and whatever is on their body.

2. The loser must stay in the others backyard for a minimum of 7 hours.

3. The loser may not hide or store any gear in the others backyard prior to the evening.

4. The loser can use any existing furniture, trees, or any pre existing equipment in the others backyard.

5. Weather or temperature is no excuse for not paying up on the bet.

So there you have it, this is the latest crazy prop bet I have got myself involved in. For the record, Jay is already trying to con me into spotting him 10 games. Ummmm, No.

At the time this seemed like a great prop. After all, the Packers sucked last year, and the Bears almost won the Superbowl. Plus it would have been great seeing my neighbor fly a gay flag in his front yard for a seven days. Well, here we are after week 15 and my loss is imminent. Initially I was just going to get it over with and shave my head this weekend. After further review however I am going to wait until Superbowl Sunday. What a great way to end a dismal season eh…..<——-(not Canadian)

I blame losing this bet solely on the Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner. I don’t even think he could coach the local community college to a winning season, let alone an NFL team. His play selections are horrible. Mr. Turner, if for some reason you ever come across this post while searching your name in google, please click here immediately. Although considering my bet, I will be waiting for you when you get there.

My wife was not to thrilled about the prospect of me showing up at Christmas gatherings this year looking like a skin head. And actually now that I think about it, I am probably going to be speaking at CAP Euro, so I mine as well wait.

Note to self, no more proposition betting pre-season while intoxicated. Have a great weekend!

And prepare for a potential BIG ANNOUNCEMENT on this blog next week………….Oh the suspense.

So on Friday night my good friend and neighbor Jay said he could beat me in a 100 yard dash. Keep in mind I have ran 2 marathons with my best time being under 3:30. When I was in my best shape, I could run a mile in less than 4:40. So of course I was up for the challenge. We set the the time for the race at 11:30 on Saturday morning.

Jay is a pretty athletic guy and plays softball, basketball, and hockey. Nonetheless, I will destroy him when it comes to running any type of distance, including a 100 yard dash.

So I went to bed early on Friday night after having a nice relaxing night watching the movie Hostel with my wife. <——- craziest movie I have ever seen. I live on the coolest street in the world and my neighbors have become some of my very closest friends. (and if Karl is reading this, you need to move here……baller) But anyhow Saturday morning came and as expected Jay was late and no where to be found. My other neighbor John and I went and got him out of the house around 12:30.

Now mind you, my in-laws were over and we had a crowd of neighbors and kids that had to be at least 15-20 people waiting to watch this much anticipated race.

The bet was this; Whoever lost has to go to the bar to watch the Packer / Cowboys game on Thursday Nov. 29th wearing Greenbay gear and buy drinks all night. We are both huge Bears fans and absolutely despise the Packers. Our gay friend and neighbor John is a Packer fan however.

So finally Jay comes out and we have the typical stare down before the race……please notice the Carl Lewis spandex I have on. (warm up gear)

So in front of all the fans, we have the girls run the finish line tape across the street and the race is ready to go. Well all of the sudden Jay wants to shorten the course from one mailbox to another. Hell, this “new distance” has to be only 40 yards at best. Obviously somewhere around the distance from home plate to first. Easily in Jay’s favor being a softball player. When he came outside he had a beer and a bag of cookies, so I knew I had a huge edge right from the start.  So being the good friend and realizing he was struggling I said O.K.

Well John fired off the gun and the race was off. Needless to say, I killed him by a nice margin. BUT, of course while I was oxygen deprived right after the race and not thinking straight, Jay said let’s do best out of 3. Keep in mind I am a distance runner and not a sprinter, my legs were shot. Worst gambling decision I ever made, I could have just walked away and taken the win, but because I felt sorry for the guy I said fine 2 out of 3.

Well, I ended up getting beat the next 2 races by less than a nose, and lost the bet. I was pretty pissed all day about it. That was like turning $100 into $4000 playing poker and then losing it all. I was so stupid to not even get any odds or a new bet after winning the first race, but whatever. Actually I was stupid for even agreeing to do best out of 3 after winning the initial race. My legs were done after the first race.

So the bottom line is I got hustled by Jay.

Now, what do I do from here. Of course I will honor the bet and wear the shitty Green Bay gear at the bar as well buy the drinks. But I think Jay forgot who is messing with. My office IS the internet, and although I have to buy drinks and wear a Packer shirt, I would still like to own him. So I did just that.

Jay is in our fantasy league and his team “Green Weiner’s” is absolutely terrible. So from here on out I now own Jay Sandine…….literally

I lost a bet due to my own stupidity, but for the rest of his life I will own Jay. (I could have done a lot worse, but Jay has a high profile job in the community and I had to be somewhat reserved)

JaySandine.com

Anywho, on to more important stuff. As many of you know I love to gamble. Although gambling on poker, sports, or casino games can be fun, I personally get a lot more satisfaction doing proposition bets. In fact I’ll share my latest prop bet.

My good friend and neighbor John (the big dude in the middle) is such a die hard Green Bay Packer fan that this dumb ass made the following bet. If Green Bay has a better overall record than the reigning NFC Champion Chicago Bears, then he will have the pleasure of shaving my head with a dull razor. Damn, that could be cold this winter!

But here is the best part, If when the Bears finish up the season with a better record he will have to fly a gay flag outside his home for 1 week. Note to fellow gamblers……..Bet with your head and not your heart.

Okay, as you can see I have a lot of fun messing with friends and doing crazy proposition bets. Below however are my favorite proposition bets. These are great bets to make at bars with drunk buddies for either free drinks or cold hard cash.

If you use any of these in coming weeks and make a profit, please ship the customary 10% to me via paypal. Alright, here goes in order of my favorite:

1. The Circumference of a Beer Glass - This is a classic and you will win this all day long. (Don’t lie, you know you just went into your kitchen to grab a glass and try it out.)

2. 6 Saltines in a Minute Challenge - Okay this one is good. Eating 6 saltine crackers in a minute doesn’t sound that difficult, but believe me it is. I have only seen one person do this successfully. The problem is that saltines literally dry up all the saliva in your mouth and you are unable to swallow. When making this bet, you cannot allow the suspect to drink any water or liquids during the 60 second period. (Gay Video, but I didn’t have time to scour Youtube for a better one)

3. Break a Beer Bottle With Your Bare Hands - This is also a good one but can be quite messy. It really only works well at house parties or if you have a sink to do it over. Definitely not the most profitable prop bet, but it does work.

4. Open a Beer Bottle With A Piece of Paper – Again, not as great as #’s 1 & 2, but it will trick most people. Good luck finding a sheet of 8×10 paper at the bar.

I actually have many more, but these are my favorites. If you have some good ones, please post in the comments. The first one I have actually found to work the best. Happy Gambling!

More important than any other story or excerpt in this post, let me start by saying I just won the prop bet with Jimmy Johnson destroying Dale Earnhardt in todays race.

Oh hell, I don’t even know where to start when chronicling the weekends events. But the picture on the left should get you into they right mindset if you choose to continue reading on. (This picture was from the first days practice and qualifying) There are so many good stories from this trip, I am not going to be able to cram them all into one blog post. But I will try my best to share the good ones. We showed up Thursday afternoon and were the second R.V. at our campsite. The next people to show up rolled in on a old beat up Holiday Rambler R.V. packed with around 14 people.

These fine Nascar fans were from a small town called Swisher Iowa. Never in my life have I seen 14 people get a campsite and tent put together so quickly. It was almost as if these people were on a mission to get to the beer drinking and loud music as fast as they could. Needless to say about 30 minutes later they had assembled a huge tent filled with a full DJ set-up and a restaurant style grill. This was the beginning of a long weekend.

That evening was somewhat tame. We sat by the fire with a few drunks from Swisher and a gynecologist from Ohio……Nascar brings out all types I suppose. One of the guys names was Jimmy, and he kept the entire weekend interesting. How this man is alive or has a liver anymore is beyond me….more about his antics later

Forget about the rambler and tent campers, here is a picture of how baller Nascar fans roll…..actually not really, but it’s a picture of me and a losing Nascar gambler.

The following day we headed down to the track to watch practice and qualifying. This was pretty cool as Mr. E got us pit passes. Being that close to the races and the cars was pretty amazing. Even more amazing were the amount of vendors both at the track and across the street in one of the campgrounds. Just about anything Nascar you could ever want is here.

Allow me to go off on a business tangent. Although Nascar has the reputation of being a hillbilly sport, the actual business behind it is quite savvy. Neither the NFL, MLB, or NBA can top the branding or marketing of Nascar. Every single fan has hundreds of dollars in gear for their favorite driver…. Not too mention all the crap they hang on their trailer (And in Swisher, Iowa…..most of this probably gets returned to the front yard). Then they are smart enough that each car brings in millions upon millions of dollars in sponsorship from every major company in the world.

Nascar in general is raining money. One thing that was really cool however is that the entire sport is there for the fans. I could go on and on about this, but to give you one prime example, the fans are allowed to bring coolers into the track with their own beer and snacks. No other professional sport that I am aware of allows this.

Okay now back to the drunken stupidity. The first night I decided at 1:00 AM to sleep outside in my hammock. When I bought a hammock this summer I told my wife I was going to sleep in it outside at some point in my life. Cross that off the list of things to do. Sleep Outside in Hammock. It was actually quite peaceful and I got a good nights sleep.

Did I mention the camper neighbors had a DJ setup with two huge speakers. Every night once the rest of the campground was sleeping, the speakers got cranked up and we were treated to a little Neil Diamond. If I never hear this song again, I will be O.K. with that.

Although the Cup race got rained out on Sunday, I did get to see the Bush Race on Saturday. It is crazy how loud and fast these cars actually go. You really have to attend a race like this live to get the true feeling of what 43 cars going 200 mph looks, feels, and sounds like.

R.V. gets hit by a golf cart:

I had to bold the title up to this because it is just so unbelievable. On Saturday night we polished off a few beers and called it a night around 1:30. I am laying in the camper and half asleep when all the sudden a huge BOOM hits the trailer and actually moves it. For a second I thought I was just drunk dreaming it, you know like when your half asleep and you get startled and wake up.

Well a few minutes later Mr. E gets up and says “I’ll be damned, I think our trailer just got hit”. Sure enough we get up, go outside and our trailer got hit by a drunk on a golf cart. Not only did this guy hit our trailer twice, he then continued down the hill and went into a pick-up truck. He avoided a telephone poll, a guide wire, and a bunch of other dangers. Little did we know when Mr. E and I were checking out the damage at 2 something in the morning, the driver of the golf cart was passed out under the pickup truck he hit.

You’ll never guess who it was that hit our trailer. It was Jimmy. The best part was the next morning when we confronted him, he was laughing and telling us about the whole thing….. I guess that is how they apologize in Iowa. The good news however is that Jimmy did fix all the damage.

Where was Karl through all this you might ask? This dude slept right through out camper being struck as well as myself and his dad getting out of bed and going outside to check it out. You tell me, does this look like the type of Nascar Fan that would sleep through an incident like that.

From Saturday night through Monday night it pretty much rained non-stop. The race did get canceled on Sunday and we never made it back to the track. We did make the best out of it though as we had an awning on the R.V. and the neighbors had a fully equipped circus tent. Not too mention we had a cooler full of beer and a load of firewood.

The Poker Game:

On Sunday Night we found ourselves in the middle of a 1-2 NL game in the circus tent with the boys from Swisher. All I can say is fuck….these people were really bad. I started off on a nice run and rolled up around $170 or so. But then I lost most of it to “Kenny” when my K8 (trip 8′s) got beat by his A8. And holy shit when Kenny won that money you should of seen his wife. One would think this man just won the Iowa State Lottery. I proceeded to play very drunk and very badly the rest of the evening. At one point I became a credit player playing on $60 from Karl. I think my net loss was around $200.

The good news however though is that Karl took these guys for around $500 or so. He was on fire to say the least. This is pretty amazing considering Karl is usually a donkey at poker. I am just glad it wasn’t me that took these poor individuals house and car payments.

Overall the Nascar Experience was something to remember and hopefully a trip I will make every year. Getting the opportunity to hang out with Karl and his dad for a few days was priceless and I can’t think of a better way to spend a few vacation days. I will post a few more pictures later, I think I have a good one with me sitting in the stands wearing the headset. <——–Hardcore Nascar fan right there.

Winning the bet is actually quite nice too. I am looking forward to inviting some friends over to sit at my house and watch Karl groom my yard as well as wash my vehicles.

I hope Karl enjoyed the $500 upswing you had against the Swishers Karl. Because sometime in the next couple weeks he will be my bitch for the afternoon.

Although being a gambler I would allow him to make me a double or nothing bet for the race in Bristol……………………or even worse let it ride on the Green Bay Packers. It feels good to be a winner today.

Next up I will be posting my thoughts on the ridiculous mess that is going on at ChipLeader.

It looks pretty impressive. When it comes to Nascar, these fans don’t mess around. We have a pretty tight schedule tomorrow. Apparently these guys that work in the real world think leaving at 7:00 A.M. in the morning to go on vacation is a good idea. Obviously they do not work poker affiliate hours.

Actually getting up early will be fun though as I can properly plan ahead and get to bed with the wife early tonight.  My wife is awesome, she did all my laundry for me today and even helped me pack.  Just because of all this hard work I told her in cousin Eddie’s voice “Sweetheart, I got something real special planned for you tonight”.  She sounded thrilled…………

We are going to the grocery store at 7:00 to buy all the food and beer. Buying beer at 7:00 A.M. That will be a first.

I am really looking forward to getting away for a weekend and doing nothing but sitting around in t-shirts and shorts, smoking cigars, drinking beer, playing poker, going to the track, and generally just being a hillbilly. And believe me, I have a feeling I may cross paths with a few interesting people.

I promise I will get to some more business related and motivational posts next week, but this is just going to be too much damn fun. I am hoping one of these rich Nascar billies has wireless access I can jack. With all the RV’s in the trailer park….sorry campground, I imagine someone will. If I get access I won’t answer any of your emails or PM’s, but I will do my best to post some good pictures.

See you next week!

Here’s the preliminary pics:

Jeremy & Karl…….Do I look fat in that t-shirt? I’m so nervous, I want to look my best at this event.

“That there is an RV Clark”

Cousin Eddie 1990 something

She looks pretty happy for a wife that is going to be stuck at home by herself with 2 kids for 5 days……… now get out of our bus sweetheart.

Anyhow, this weekend I am hopping into a huge RV with Karl and his Dad and going to Michigan Speedway for the races. I have heard that going to a Nascar race for an entire weekend is actually an “experience”. I am going to have to be the judge of this first hand. I really don’t have a driver that I follow closely, but Jimmy Johnson seems to be trendy and he has a hot wife. I’ll take him.

So anyone who knows me knows that I like to gamble just a little bit. While watching the Bears per-season game last week with Karl, we had a few beers and came up with the following prop bet:

If When Jimmy Johnson beats Earnhardt on Sundays Cup race, I win. If Earnhardt somehow beats Johnson in this race Karl wins…….. Here’s the bet.

If I win, Karl will be coming to my house on a weekend day and mowing my lawn, trimming my shrubs, and doing some general landscaping. After he completes that he will be washing and detailing my Lexus inside out. While he’s here I am going to have him get my wifes vehicle cleaned up as well. Basically he will be my bitch for the day.

Now if Karl wins —- He owns his own manufacturing business sweat shop where they run wire machines, lathes, presses, and a bunch of other things I have no clue about. But I will have to show up first thing in the morning, slap on some dickies and a work shirt and do janitorial work all day. I imagine I will be cleaning the shitters, all the offices, and probably a handful of other grunt work.

Although this bet does not include any cash exchanging hands, there is some pride to be lost here. I enjoy bizarre prop bets like this better than cash bets all day long. This should make for a nail biting experience however while watching the race on Sunday.

Aside from the race, I’ll be sure to get some good pictures from the entire weekend. I imagine becoming intoxicated and seeing 250+ lb. Fat Chicks flashing is all but inevitable…… I mean hell, this is a Nascar race we are going too. Hopefully I make it back with all my teeth.