Going To California

Wow, how nice! Their red carpet for the Meatsweats was very different than in Denver:


And look who I ran into at DIA. I guess the governent got to him too because he looks not too enthused at this whole Meatsweats-me thing:



Be that as it might, I get there.


At 11:30PM. I knew that I was flying back at 8:00PM tomorrow after the competition was over at about 1:00. I went by the Frontier desk to see if there were any earlier flights. Sweet, there is one at 4:15PM. No problem. Eat. Get back. Be on the way at 4:15PM. Yeah, remember that.

Got the car. Got a little lost trying to find the hotel. For the third time, another shout out to The Hangman. Free stay at the Days Inn. Make that, free stay at the Days Inn in a King mini-suite. Thanks, Hangman! That's good stuff!

Saturday morning. Didn't have any idea who'd be at the contest. Rich, sure. Maybe Toro. Maybe Kevin Ross. Maybe Erb. Badlands performing, no? Maybe Joey would make an appearance since he lives nearby? Castellano? Nerz?

Turns out - yes, no, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes.

Ryan Nerz working the crowd.

Not too many people there in the beginning, but Ryan worked it very well and the crowd of 200 or so got into the scene and had a good time. Here's a short video of him on stage. Joey showing up:


Ryan brought him up on stage for a few words:


The entrants list was full, but the eater turnout was something less than expected. Rich, Erbivore, me. Kevin Ross and Toro were on the list but not there. Most local guys did not show up either. But two did: Bert Chi and Jake True. Readers of eatfeats.com might know Jake as "Jake from SF". It's good to put a face to the name. Hopefully both guys will enter more competitions - good guys.



Slated to eat: Rich, Erb, me, Bert, Jake. One guy volunteers. And then Ryan gets another guy. So 7. That's weird, but it worked.

On to the eating. Many of you might have heard of the dogs. The IFOCE termed them "jumbo dogs". And they were:



Here's a shot of my plates before the eating.


The dogs were skinless, definitely fatter than the "normal" Nathan's contest dogs. But also a little shorter. I've heard "5 of these are like 8 of the other" and "3.2 ounces" and some other things, but whatever. But I do know that on GO I took a bite of 1/3 of the dog and tried to swallow it without chewing as I do with the normal Nathan's. Big mistake.

It lodges. I swig some water to get it down. Yeah, that's no help as I cough the water back up since it can't go down. I turn, cough out the dog, Ryan asks if I'm alright, I make the mental note to chew more, and on it goes. Chew more? Shit.


Aren't I past this? I had not chomped my tongue since the Nathan's qualifiers last year. Here we go again!


These photos were after the contest. When it happened I felt it for sure. It wasn't the pain but the thought of eating hot dogs with some special ketchup that got me. Ketchup on hot dogs? No! But it was quite delicious actually.

The eating continued and at the end:

1. Rich LeFevre, 21 jumbo dogs (equivalent to 34 HDB)
2. Jason "Erbivore" Erb 9 jumbo dogs (equivalent to 16 HDB)
3. Andrew "Skinnyboy" Lane, 8 jumbo dogs (equivalent to 14 HDB)

IFOCE.com reported these results.

After the contest I tended to the tongue:



These photos were taken at the airport a couple hours later so the blood stains looked much less impressive than they were right after the eating.

On the way back to San Jose I was going to stop at La Costena and get one of their legendary burritos, but with the tongue flappage I knew salsa and heat would just KILL, so I got soft-serve:


Had to get to the airport for that 4:15 flight, right? I failed to see the "MON. WED. FRI." part. So I returned the car and was at the airport WAAAYYYY too early. And that sucked because to a tech guy I am in our Mecca right now. Silicon Valley. Ebay. Apple. HP. Would have been much to see. Time to kill at the airport:




Doh, I have the pack on...


Anyway,