2011 HGTV Dream Home: Stowe, VT

Last night on HGTV, they unveiled the 2011 dream home. It's appropriately named, because it is in fact a dream home of mine (for the east coast at least.) It's up in the heart of the only place on the east coast with decent snow conditions, Vermont. I actually had the opportunity to head up to Killington 2 years ago, and would love to get back to visit some of the other mountains [cough]Stratton[cough] at some point. I feel like living in the HGTV dream home, would more than likely provide me (and 13 of my friends, the home sleeps 14 you know) that opportunity. I'm entering twice daily until the registration closes on winning this house. Assuming I win, who wants to move there with me? To apply, I'll need you to help pay taxes, and also earn your keep by providing the house with some service. Please respond in the comments on why I should pick you, when I win this house. In return, you'll be granted a living space, and lifetime of amazing memories. Pretty good deal if you ask me. Here's a couple pictures of some of my favorite spots of the house.

Front of House. Massive windows and right next to the slopes

Massive two car garage, the Challenger will hibernate in peace with it's own protected parking spot.

'Gathering Room' - again, massive windows reminding you just how close you are to the slopes. Oh, and the gas fireplace, that's nice too.

Huge Kitchen. I hope one or more of my roommate applicants will be able to put this to good use!

Deck. Perfect spot for some after dinner beer pong, we may need to buy a space heater or two though.

Master Bedroom. Not really crazy about that black dresser over there, but I suppose I'll let it slide....this time.

I have a feeling my hot water bill may be a tad on the high side with a bathroom like this.

Ski Vermont? Okay.

TV/Movie/Game Room. Yep, that'll do.

First Roommate Room. Think you can live with that? Yea, you better be able to!

Guest/Secondary Roommate Room, pick a bunk and stick with it.

Outdoor Grill. I'm much for suited for this type of culinary art.

Outdoor Hot Tub/Fireplace. The best for last. After a long day on the slopes, who wouldn't want to unwind with a cold beer and hot tub session?!

You may have noticed that "a couple favorite spots" included the entire house. Trust me, I planned it that way. So, if all goes as planned, I'll be moving in sometime this spring, and will be accepting roommate applications from now until then. Of course, if you win this home instead of me, I get dibs on the room of my choice. You can enter twice daily, here, and here. Good luck folks! :)

Rob V Food

Last week while driving home from a Wizards game, my friends and I passed a McDonald's, and one of my friends pointed out the big McRib sign the store had in the window, which prompted another friend to ask me how many I thought I could eat in one sitting. I responded, "5, maybe 6." This discussion on eating massive quantities of food somehow evolved into eating pancakes and the famous gallon of milk challenge. One of my friends then decided to combine all 3 and challenge me to the 3, 2, 1 challenge. 3 pancakes from IHOP, 2 McRib sandwiches, and 1 quart of 2% chocolate milk. [I had the choice of whole white milk, or 2% chocolate....I chose chocolate.]

The challenge went down yesterday afternoon, and all I had to do was finish everything within 40 minutes, or I had to pay for the food myself. My strategy was simple, inhale the pancakes as fast as possible, move on to the McRib's, and then start chugging chocolate milk before my brain had a chance to catch up to my stomach. The food was gone in 7 minutes, and the first quart of chocolate milk was gone maybe 5 minutes after that. I crushed the [original] challenge. But this is where things got interesting.

Since my roommate couldn't find just one quart of milk in the store, he bought a half gallon instead. And even though I beat the official challenge, the unofficial challenge began of trying to finish off the entire half gallon of 2% milk as well. I lost. I got extremely close, maybe 6 ounces of milk left, but it was just too much. I spent the next 45 minutes paying for my recent decisions, then continued to watch football for the remainder of the evening.

In case anyone is wondering, I woke up and went swimming to prepare my stomach for the oncoming feast. I swam almost 3 miles in about 90 minutes, not too shabby. Here's some before and after pics of the food.

Before:

After: [That cup is only half full, and that's all that was left]

Oh, then we ordered two large pizzas from Domino's for dinner. Man I love being back in the pool!!

Blog Music

You may have noticed a slight change in the blog the other day.

1) The poll results are gone.

2) Some songs were added! I figured out how to embed an mp3 player and add songs on the side.

What does this mean? I'm glad you asked. As it's been mentioned before, I love music. I could not live without it. So I'm going to be uploading and sharing various new songs each week and will run polls onto which song you like better. The winning song will remain alive, and the loser will be replaced with another new song. If a song wins 3 times in a row, we'll enter it in the infamous 'Blog Music Hall of Awesome Songs'.

The current songs do not count. And since we're on the subject of the current songs, these are by a band known as The Swingkidz. A punk/ska band from Marlton, New Jersey. Circa 1998. ....Okay that was too official sounding. The band is actually the former band of the older brother of one of my best childhood friends. When visiting the States in the summer of 1998 [I was currently living in Germany at that time] my friends brother gave me that tape, and its been in my posession ever since. Only the other day did I decide to pull it out, record and digitize it and make the tracks into mp3's. The end result: Classic late 90's New Jersey Ska Rock Band music for your enjoyment. The three songs listed were some of my favorites. Enjoy.