Rochester MN ~ One lucky night

We arrived in Rochester around 6pm yesterday to see John sitting in the garage awaiting our arrival.  John Burns is a fellow IBMer who I did my first Co-op at IBM with.  He is currently working at the IBM Center of Excellence (COE) in Rochester MN.   The town is smaller and you can attribute the majority of its healthy economy to the Mayo Clinic, which is a not-for-profit medical practice and medical research group specializing in treating difficult cases (tertiary care).  The next biggest contributor is probably IBM, however, I am not sure of this.

It was a sunny afternoon (we have not seen rain since PA) when we arrived and John helped us carry our things in.  We all shared in catching up over a local brew that I picked up along the way (the Micro brew in Wisconsin is called New Glarus Brewing Co. and it was great beer).  With beer in hand we went out back and tossed some Frisbee and football on some of the spongiest soft grass I had ever felt (everyone’s lawns were very well kept and the houses were all brand new).  It felt like we were in Pleasantville, MN.  Melissa and I then both grabbed showers (first one since we left 4 daysish) before we went out on the town.  You really appreciate a shower after 4 days, lemme tell yah.

We went out for dinner at a place called Newts.  It was mainly a burger joint and they had a variety of different burgers to try… just to give you an idea of the kinds of burgers they had the Grilled Cheese Burger which had two grilled-cheeses as buns and a burger with fried onions and the works in-between.  I went with Dave’s Burger as a sort of toast to my friend Dave who couldn’t make it on the trip with us.  This burger was infused with jalapenos and habaneros, a Tabasco based creamy sauce, and Pepper Jack Cheese – Delicious.  Melissa got the Mad Daffy Burger, which she describes as - “basically it was a grilled chicken sandwich” – and John got a burger which I don’t know any details about (John, if you read this let us know in the comments below).  Nonetheless, the food was great.

From there, we went to Dooley’s.  This was an Irish dance club/pub built in the area within the last two years.  It is a very modern bar and the crowd was full of all different kinds of people.  There were many nursing students there, who were coming to unwind after long days at the Mayo clinic.   One nursing student named Erin, who I struck up a conversation with, came with a big bingo card that she had won in the previous week at the bar.  I came to find out that every Wednesday night for the past 6 weeks the bar was hosting a bingo tourny with a grand prize of 2 nights and three days paid in Las Vegas.  Last night was the night they awarded the Las Vegas trip to the person who won “Blackout Bingo” (meaning the winner had to get every single number on their bingo card to win).  The catch was that you had to win once in regular Bingo in order to participate in the Blackout Bingo.  John, Melissa and I partook in the free event without any serious mental investment in winning.  Melissa and I both lost, however, John won in the second round.  So he was given a chance at Blackout Bingo.  Erin was sitting next to us and had been coming to Dooley’s for the past 6 Wednesdays in order to have a chance at this Las Vegas Prize.  John came once, by chance.  When I say by chance, I mean, it wasn’t certain what day we would arrive in Rochester, but it just so happen to be the Wednesday during the final bingo night when they were awarding the prize, AND, we were not even planning on going to this bar first.

So here I was sitting between Erin, my new friend who had her eye on this prize for weeks, and John my IBM buddy who just walked into the tourny for the first time and before this moment had no intentions on winning.  The number calling was intense Erin and John were neck and neck the whole time, not to mention there were about 15 others around the bar who made it into the blackout round as well.  It came down to the last number for both Erin and John. “N41,” the DJ called out.  John smacks his now “lucky pen” on the bar table and calls out BINGO!  John won a free 2 nights stay in Vegas!  Now he is going to meet us out there in mid-June and we are going to stay in luxury hotels in Vegas for free!  Talk about luck.  At the next few bars we stopped by, we were the talk of the town.  “Oh that’s the guy who won the trip to Vegas! Nice win man! You’re a local hero.” hahaha.  It was – as Steve Jobs might describe – “Magical.”

I do recommend the town of Rochester to any new IBM hires, it has some good night life and is very inexpensive.  Great place to save up cash and build a nest egg for retirement.  However, Melissa and I agree that its not a place we would want to settle down in for too long.

On to the Badlands in South Dakota… 9 hour drive, here we come. But not before we stop in Austin, MN to visit the SPAM museum.  The locals call it "Spamtown, USA." hahaha.