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The Great 2005 Post Labor Day Get Off The Beach Backgammon Tournament And Pasta With Herbed Scallops Finale 09/17/05


Time for another backgammon party to get everyone together after the long Summer! I thought we should celebrate the passing of Labor Day and the official end of Summer. And a party to get off the beach and have some fun out of the sun!

Because this was a "get off the beach" theme, I told everyone that they needed to wear casual beach goin' clothes and to bring sunglasses and a beach towel. I threatened: "No gear - no food!" and as can be seen in the pictures, we did this one right! In my invitation I announced: "We are reclaiming this area as ours now that the tourists have departed. So now we can dress like fools the way they did and make fun of them all." And that's just what we did!

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I fixed Italian pasta with herbed scallops. We went on a real quest that afternoon to find the big sea scallops and to gather all of the other stuff needed. Earlier in the week I had gone over to David and Kerra's in Rye, NH for dinner and some backgammon with David. Kerra had given me all sorts of greens and herbs from her garden as well as a bunch of regular and cherry tomatoes. That formed the base for a terrific salad that Rachel had a recipe for. The salad actually took longer to make than the scallops.

The scallops were prepared in a low fat sour cream, garlic, shallot, white wine, and vegetable stock sauce. It was terrific, and unless they were all lying at me: everyone enjoyed it. I had also bought a couple of great loaves of fresh bakers bread and we had that with 4 different kinds of Italian herbed dipping sauces.

And of course there was the backgammon. Tim House was the first to arrive with his beach towel over his shoulder and sunglasses on. He and I sat down and started to hammer it out as other continued to arrive - 17 in all! It was a great time and we had a terrific party.

I had told everyone that we were going to keep score this time and that the two top scores would get prizes. Scott Williams and Tim House ended up battling it out in the grand championship match which was a best out of 3 point series with Scott taking top honors and the winners prize of a DVD of Jurassic Park III. Tim took the second place prize of a pad of sticky notes.

All the rest of us "looooos-ers" got out of it was a sharpened pencil. Rachel had determined that no one should go home without a prize and had brought a box of multicolored pencils with her. I had to call Rick Downs up before he headed over to bring a sharpener with him. By the way, Rick - you forgot to take it home with you; you can pick it up next time we play!

Speaking of " looooos-ers " - I include myself in that sad category. I couldn't hit the table with the dice when I threw them. It was that bad. I played the most games with Sherrie, but was only able to prevail a couple of times and I'm sure that was only because of the constant barrage of trash talk that I kept up. No amount of mo-jo or incantations - not even a "Standing Throw" or even the dreaded "Chair Throw" worked. Maybe "next time"...




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Tim House was the first to arrive with his beach towel over his shoulder and sunglasses on. Hey! I've got my shades on too; they're on top of my head, though... But I got 'em! And we both have our ugly beach goin' gear on! We're ready!


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Rachel heading for the battlefield to bring the troops her special refried bean and sour cream salsa dip that was devoured in short order.


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Sherrie arrives for battle. She's already smiling. She must know that it's her that's got da mo-jo tonight and not me because she put me to the floor like shit through a goose.


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Really, Rachel: the dip is great! Where's Rachel...


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This is before Sherrie and I played. After we played, Sherrie was the only one smiling then. She was not impressed with my "Chair Throw" either; didn't work against her. This time...


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Rachel (in the black pants; I'm in white just to keep it straight...) had bought a pair of shoes that whenever she stepped down on the heel they would light up in several colors and pulsate. A real hit. If you're into shoes... Notice my sandals don't light up. No one wanted a picture of my sandals. What does that tell you? Hu?


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Sherrie interrogrates Rachel about the sandals. She wants a pair sooooo bad. How long do you think it will be before she has some? Bets anyone? Nope. Didn't think so. Probably had a pair the next day. Notice I'm doing the best I can to fade this conversation...


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Jim and Chris Nancarrow sharing a quiet moment together. They will be opening their new quilt, furniture and accessories shop in Northwood next week! Good luck you guys!


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Josh arrives with sunglasses at the ready. Marissa had picked him up to bring him to the party because his car was being worked on. We had just taught him how to play Thursday and here he was ready to talk bad and do battle. Ok. Bring it on, Josh.


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Suzzie and David Shaw were able to make it back after a Summer of busy work. Suzzie just needs to work on her trash talk and she'll be fine. All David does is talk trash so she should get it pretty fast...


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Scott and Josh square off.


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Galen and Rick Downs have come with gear and are ready to play!


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Suzzie pauses after one of her games to watch Lisa and Josh battle it out in the background.


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Sherrie fails to impress our champion of the night, Scott Williams. Come on, Sherrie. Quit whining and get back to the board! Well, I'm sure that were his thoughts at the time...


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Colin and David Shaw locked in battle. Lots of bad talk going on here. All night. Guys, just throw the dice and get on with it...


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Some action at the main table.


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Marissa stops long enough in her game with Tim to show the world her box of candy that she, Lisa and Cam went out to get. Better pay attention to your board, Marissa. Tim is...


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Cam working through a position in a game against David Shaw.


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Tim is always trash talking and pointing at someone so I coached Suzzie to put the spin on him. She not only pointed but did some trash talk! Excellent, Suzzie! Now, you just have to keep that up win or lose.


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More action around the main table. This was a pretty vocal group. They even kept up with the bad talk I was putting out from the other side of the room!


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Is Scott offering another one of his famous doubles to Colin? Though his board position is pretty good, you can see that one of his white checkers is all the way back on his 24 point. He must have been on the bar and just come in. Of course, Scott. This is an opportune time to try to slam your opponent's wits with a cry of double. Been working most of the night for you so why stop now!


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I think the crowd was here because that's where the snacks were! It was like this most of the night.


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Rachel stirring the linguini; scallops are done. We're just waiting now for a couple of games to finish. And for those not wanting herbed scallops, there was pizza - which at this point was just about done as well and was ready to be taken out of the oven.


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This is what happens after dinner and you are trying to get your score up to at least qualify for the finals. Did this impress Sherrie? Noooooooooooo. Of course not. Not even the shades threw her off. She hammered me pretty good. Thanks. I'll have another sip of wine... about the only good thing I seemed to be able to do all night!


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Colin and Marissa share a brother/sister moment. Marissa was such a great help at the party. She was everywhere helping out. And Colin? Well... as you can see he had a good time! He was the only one to beat Scott. And considering how Scott was rolling over everybody, that was quite a feat.

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