Man, did I ever have a great weekend past! :)
It's been awhile since I had the opportunity to get together with a few "long-distance" friends -- so, Monday past I decided that I was going to take the time this upcoming weekend to make that right. I got on the phone and started making calls... "{Insert name here} -- what are you doing this weekend? Feel like gettin' together?". The response from all was immediate -- "Absolutely! When and where?".
You see, these guys are all my "safecrackin' buddies", who live 5 to 8 hours from me, so we don't get to get together very often. When the opportunity arises, we take full advantage!
Anyway, arrangements were made for the upcoming Saturday as two of the group had things to do Sunday (turns out that Sunday was a busy day for me as well). The logistics of this is fairly tricky as we've got four guys that live all over the place (one's even in his own "Nation"! LOL!). Well, this time Mike H. got lucky as we decided to meet in his hometown (Or did he? After he found out we were coming back to his place!). One of the group was 2 hours east, one was 45 minutes North and then there was me... 5 hours SouthWest. Bummer!
Seeing that I was the furthest away this time, I decided to drive out Friday night and stay over at a hotel. The drive was uneventful. Boring, but uneventful. :) I grabbed some dinner... yadda, yadda, yadda... I woke up the next morning and headed off to meet the guys!
Here's the happy bunch! From left to right...
myself, Kelly, Mike H. and Mike S.
Breakfast was delicious (I had the steak and eggs) -- the best part was the conversation though! Chatting with these guys individually on the phone is just not the same. What a treat to be able to sit, relax, grab something to eat and not have to worry about the horrendous phone bill we're racking up!
After we finished off a couple of pots of coffee, we headed back to Mike H.'s place to play with a few safes and a few new tools that I brought along to test.
The rest of the day was, for me, pretty exciting, but I'll not bore you with the technical details. ;) We tested out some of my new tools by putting a few holes in a couple of safes Mike H. had around, while we continually told stories of recent experiences with nightmare safes, etc. (of course, Mike S. also had us splitting our sides with his continuous stream of jokes... man, how does one remember so many jokes? And be able to tell them well... they always bomb when I try to repeat them! LOL!).
The day actually got cut a little short as Mike S. got a call from a desperate man regarding his gun safe -- it was Saturday afternoon, approximately 1:00pm, and he could not open his safe. The worst part was, he was going hunting on Sunday and needed his safe open NOW! Well, I didn't want to see Mike S. go, but duty (and alot of $$$) called! Mike S. is two hours east of where we met... which put him a total of 7-8 hours from my home... if I didn't have stuff to do Sunday, I would have loved to go with him. You see, once you have a passion for safes, any chance to open one, or even watch, is jumped at... even if you do it for a living, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. It's an addiction for sure. And it doesn't hurt that you get paid to do it. ;)
The three of us remaining hung out for awhile longer having a great time, and decided to call it a day around 4:30pm. Back in my truck for a 5 hour drive home... another bummer... but the trip was WELL worth it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! Actually, I can't wait to do it again... but next time we'll pre-plan a little more. This time was, pretty much, a spur of the moment thing. We had simply been putting it off for way too long.
So, have YOU got a friend or two that you have not had the chance to get together with lately? Do yourself a favor... MAKE THE TIME! You won't regret it (but you might if you don't)!
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