My May was full of wholesome Texas fun. Here’s a recap:

🪵 In The Country

Zac from my sand volleyball crew lives on 10 acres of land in New Braunfels, an hour outside of Texas. So a group of us drove up to spend the day out in the country.

We scarfed down a crawfish boil, shot BB guns, rode around on his horses, played grass volleyball (using truck lights to see after the sun set), and ended the night vibing out to some guitar/mandolin/banjo tunes.

It certainly was a new experience for this Chicago suburbs lad, and I absolutely loved it.

🌮 Taco Crawl

I participated in a taco/margarita crawl around Austin that took us to seven top-end spots on the east side of town. ‘Twas a great squad and I had a blast! Rankings found below ⬇️

Taco rankings: (1) Discada (2) Cuantos Tacos (3) Nixta (4) Granny’s (5) Licha’s (6) Denada (7) Norte

Margarita rankings: (1) Denada (2) La Holly (3) Licha’s (4) Nixta

⚾ The 9-9-9 Challenge

The Cubs played the Cardinals on ESPN on the Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend, so my friend from St. Louis and I decided to try our hand at the 9-9-9 challenge: 9 innings of baseball, 9 hotdogs, and 9 beers.

With the game severely rain-delayed, we got antsy waiting and threw on a 1998 Cubs vs. Cardinals game instead, which wound up being a blast since (1) we still had no idea how the game was going to go and (2) we were gifted two home runs a piece by McGwire and Sosa.

Unfortunately, the challenge was harder than expected and we only made it 5.5 hotdogs through. Still a fun way to spend an evening though!

🤠 Other Austin Happenings

♣️ I’m getting more into poker and played a couple of casual games with friends this month

🏊 I ventured over to some pool parties to chill out from the heat

🥒 I sprinkled in some more pickleball, in addition to my regularly scheduled volleyball programming

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Monthly Favorites

🎵 Song: Throw Some Ass by Sofi Tukker — Well this is an embarrassing one. But man is it a bop.

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📺 Video: Nathan Chester on The Voice — Friend from high school Nathan Chester made it to the finals of The Voice! So I got super into the show, blocking out my Monday and Tuesday evenings for the past month-plus to tune in. He absolutely crushed every performance, and while he finished in fourth, I certainly felt like he was robbed of a higher-placed finish. Bonus: here are two other performances of his from the show that I also loved (Fooled Around and Fell in Love | Higher & Higher).

Thanks for reading! As always, if anything I shared resonated with you, I’d love for you to shoot me a reply 😊

Til next month,

Ben

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