As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I spent the majority of last weekend sitting at the softball fields watching my niece play some of her last games on the high school team. From here she will quickly transition into summer ball and then eventually university softball. As you can see from the photo above, it was an absolutely beautiful day for softball on Saturday.
You might also remember this particular tournament on Saturday was a charity event to raise money for the Kidney Cancer Foundation in honor of one of the students who passed away several years ago. There are three high schools in the school district my niece attends, so each year those three teams get together and battle it out to see who will be the champ.
In addition to a 50/50 drawing (ask me in the comments if you don't know what that is), they also had a silent auction where three different baskets were being raffled off. There was a larger one that I didn't really pay too much attention to. Then there was a "Mother's Day" basket that I also didn't give much of a second glance. Finally, there was this "Father's Day" basket that had an interesting bottle of whiskey in it which was honestly enough to pique my interest.
Since it was for charity, 
The way this works is people or businesses donate things to the organization, then they bundle them together and raffle them off via a sheet of paper. You write your bid down as do other people and at the end of the window if you are the top bidder, you win the prize. Despite the fact that the basket was essentially free for the organization, the estimated value of the basket was around $250.
I noticed the lowest bid was something like $100, so I figured why not throw out a bid for $125. I wrote down my bid and stepped away to talk to my sister in law. I noticed out the corner of my eye another guy was writing down something on the sheet of paper, so I immediately knew I had been outbid.
I walked back over and upped my bid to $150 to counter his bid of $140. I stepped away to watch some more of the game and kind of forgot about it. Later on I wandered back over and saw that the bid was up to $190. I hesitated for a minute or two, but then I decided to bid $200. Worst case someone outbids me and the charity earns more money. Best case, I somehow win.
Well, imagine my surprise when I walked over after the games were finished to find that my $200 bid was still the high bid and I had won the basket. For reference, that first basket I talked about was valued at $1000 and it ended up going to the winner for $330. They got a great deal there.
Did I get a great deal? We shall see...
I had to laugh when the first thing I pulled out of the basket was this cup that says "The Best Dad Ever". If you know me, you know I am not in fact a dad. I thought about giving it to mine, but I decided to keep it and just use it around the house because it is a really nice cup!
Next up, a $50 Lowe's gift card. I will definitely be using that!
This was the bottle of Whiskey I got. It's a Rye from a distillery named Willett that I have heard of before, but never tried. It retails for around $70 in the US, so that alone was part of the high value of the basket along with one other item.
I'll do a proper review on this in the #whisky community when I get around to opening the bottle.
The basket also came with these two t-shirts. I was really excited about the "Body By Bourbon" one, but unfortunately, it was ridiculously small. I know I am a bigger guy, but this one was almost made for a kid, which seems weird given the message on the shirt. I honestly don't know who they expected to fit in the thing! It has gone in the pile of clothes my wife and I plan to donate to a local thrift shop.
The other big item in the basket was this $100 gift card to Top Golf. Since I don't really play traditional golf (sorry 
The basket also came with a variety of sauces and rubs for grilling. Honestly, besides the bottle of whiskey, this is one of the other things that drew me to the basket. I love trying new grilling items, so you better believe I will be implementing some of these items in my #grilling and #smoking posts in the future for that community.
The basket also came with a variety of hot sauces. That last one that looks like a grenade I ended up giving to my dad. He likes hot sauces and since he is a veteran and since The General's Hot Sauce is owned and operated by veterans, I thought I would give it to him. He tried it out and he said it was quite good. Plus the bottle is pretty cool!
The basket also included some random "manscaping" items. I am not sure I will use any of them besides the hand balm, but who knows.
I'm almost done, but there were some more gift cards in the basket. Dick's Sporting goods is always great for some exercise or camping equipment. Chubby's is a bar down in the Columbus, OH area that I will have to have my brother in law take me to sometime and treat him with the gift card. Rounding it out were some tokens to a local batting cage. I will probably just give those to my niece to use.
Finally, the last few items were in the #grilling vein again. I got a digital instant read thermometer that always comes in handy. You should really have one or two of these just laying around so you don't give people food poisoning! I also got a grill pan that will likely be going in our travel trailer to use while we are camping. Then I also got this pretty cool hat that I will likely also throw in the trailer for use while camping. You can never have too many hats!
That's my haul, how do you think I did?
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or
