Chris Wagler's 40th Birthday Party

Chris Wagler's 40th Birthday Party

Shortarmguy's Diary Entry for April 3, 2011

On Friday night, we joined our good friends, The Zitzewitz Family, to enjoy some Japanese Teppanyaki style cooking at a restaurant called Kabuki in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.  We loved the food, our server, Sang, and our chef, Ki!  They were all awesome!  I wasn't as fond of the manager on duty who angrily confronted me for trying to use two restaurant.com coupons at the same table.  I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to add that guy to my Christmas Card list.  His loss.

This was the boy's first time eating this style of food, so naturally they were a bit apprehensive.

But as soon as the chef started setting everything on fire in front of their very eyes, I think they were hooked!

On Saturday morning, we woke up, looked out our front door, and realized we have more snow in our yard still than anyone else in the United States.  So we decided to go on a road trip and get out of town for the day.

We headed to my home town of Clear Lake, Iowa and hooked up with Krazy Kory for a wild and krazy Saturday evening.  This photo was taken on the deck patio of the condos I lived at throughout high school.  Krazy Kory and I were involved in a lot of shenanigans on this patio in our youth.

The reason for our trip to Clear Lake was to join in the celebration of the birth of Christian Wagler who turned 40 this weekend.  Amy's cake was stupendous and well worth the four hour round trip drive it took to get us there!

We only had a few hours to spend together, but we set out to make some new memories together.  So we did the Clear Lake Pub Crawl and made stops at our old favorite bars that all seem to have new names.  We hit The Island, The V, The OP, and Rookies.  There might have been a couple more as well, but for some reason I can't remember.

One of my oldest friends in Clear Lake is Scott Barragy.  He's tending bar in one of the hottest spots in town, The V.  Also known as the VFW.   I couldn't get Scott in for one of our group photos so I edited him into this shot here.  I think it looks pretty good although in real life I do believe he's quite a bit taller than this.

Before we left town, I made it a point that we had to stop by the Lake Theater and see our old buddy, John Sherman.  I'd heard he modified the upstairs of the old building in the theater into one of the best Man Caves ever seen before and I had to experience it first hand. 

 We'd spent a lot of time exploring the old theater when we were younger so I was quite surprised to see the level of restoration that he did with the place.  It was virtually unrecognizible from how I remembered it.  But man is it cool!  Two levels of Bachelor Pad Extreme living decked out with a nice bar, pool table, foosball table, and TV screens galore!  If Miss Sheri and I ever have a falling out, I know on who's door I'll be knocking on first!