California Road Trip

Every once in awhile an opportunity comes up to take a road trip simply for the sake of taking a road trip. Usually the purpose of those trips are to drive 3 hours to the nearest Sonic. This weekend I had the opportunity to drive down to California so my girlfriend could get her car smog tested. Apparently due to her insurance rates it makes more sense to drive down to California every other year than to register her car in Washington. I had Friday off work for Veterans day (big ups to my federal employees) and not much else planned so I decided to join her.

The trip got off on the wrong foot. To get to Seattle I usually park at the Indian Casino (fo free) and take a bus to the ferry terminal. When I got to the terminal I realized that I was without my trusty cell phone. This was a serious problem. I've been on many road trips, most of which are written about in this blog. The best tool on a road trip is the iPhone. It's as useful for getting directions as it is for settling silly debates that arise during long drives.

*Side note: My first thought when I realized that I didn't have my phone was that it would be really cool to tweet all the things that I couldn't do over the course of the trip due to the lack of iPhone. I immediately realized that the first tweet would be "Can't tweet without my phone".

My more pressing problem was that I had neglected to tell the GF what ferry I would be on and when she should pick me up. Since I don't carry around an address book at all times I couldn't have even called her on a pay phone. It really made me realize how useless I felt without my phone. I've touched on my generations dependence on technology before but I couldn't even perform a simple task like arraigning a pick up from the ferry without my phone. Luckily I had my laptop, and was able to email her iPhone to let her know when I would arrive but I still felt pretty useless waiting at the terminal not knowing if she was coming or not.

On Friday we left Seattle at 5 AM. As the old adage goes "Some people just aren't cut out for life on the road". I was that people, and instantly fell asleep until we got to Portland around 9 AM. We made good time and got to Califorinia around 2 PM, we went to the first auto shop over the border and got the smog test and paperwork along with a very awkward post-smog-test hug from the inspector. With that complete we were on to the next portion of our adventure.

My girlfriends grandparents used to live in Medford, Oregon just across the border from California. Her grandmother was a hoarder to such an extent that her grandparents had two houses completely full of random stuff including every item ever sold on an infomercial. I could have walked away with a Big Mouth Billy Bass and a NuWave Oven if I had wanted. Her grandparents have both been moved to homes 2 years ago, and her parents have taken 6 trips to clear out their houses and filled up 7 large dumpsters. This was to be the last trip where they would clear out the rest of the house and take the valuables down to California.

Her parents had arrived 5 days before to start the final cleanup. Among the items that we were to be packing up was a collection of over 100 unopened Barbie Dolls that had been growing for over 5 decades. Everything in the house smelled real funky. But after a few hours on Saturday morning we had everything done. We then started our drive home. But before we could get too far we had to stop to watch the Michigan game.

We chose a sports bar in the dusty town of Medford. It was an interesting place to say the least. I wish I could have taken a picture of it but alas I was phone-less. The sort of place where patrons would come in order two Budweiser's, drink them and leave. The bartender seemed to know everyone that came in except us. This one feller comes in and sits next to me at the bar and orders a double well vodka and a bud back. He finished the double and then he orders another single well vodka. Finishes that, chugs the rest of his beer and leaves. Couldn't have been in the place more that 10 minutes. We finished watching Michigan win and then got on the road. We stayed the night in Eugene, and mad it back to Seattle this afternoon.

Not a bad 3-day 1,000 mile adventure. Next stop is Florida on Tuesday.

Blogging Book Report

I just finished reading John U Bacon's epic tome Three and Out about the Rich Rodriguez years as Head Coach of the Michigan Football Team. It left me with mixed feelings.

It was great in that it provided insight to some of the questions that had been lingering around the program the past few years, but it didn't quite deliver on all fronts. I was hoping for more meat between the buns. I think part of the problem is that Bacon was unable to get interviews with Carr, Martin and Coleman. And I can only imagine how tight-lipped that Carr interview would have actually been.

The book was hard to read knowing just how frustrating the story would end up. I had put that 2009 Illinois game behind me and tried not to look back, and having to relive that game was tough. Going back and having to remember being in the Big House for the loss to Toledo was another tough one. Three MSU and OSU losses weren't fun to remember either. It made me go back and wonder how things may have been different had one or two small things had gone the other way. The one that really gets me is the Antonio Bass injury. It's impossible to say, but I'd like to think that he is one player that could have really made a difference when Rodriguez arrived. He would have been a mobile senior quarterback perfect for the Rodriquez offense in 2008. A major upgrade over the Sheridan/Threet combo, I think he could have won us a few games and put the entire program on a different trajectory. But Butterfly effect and all, maybe with him we win the 2006 National Championship and Lloyd doesn't retire. Hard thing to predict, but it still sits in my mind.

My favorite part of the book was seeing the players behind the facade of the program. I liked the stories about how the players saw those years and what their views on the team were. It was also interesting to see people I knew and hung out with get mentioned in the book, though never in much detail.

Tomorrow night John Bacon is going to be in Seattle doing a talk and Q&A type thing. I've been thinking about the various questions I want to ask him. The one that's really puzzling me is the minimal mention of Justin Feagin in the book. Feagin was only mentioned as a high risk recruit when they were discussing the Demar Dorsey fiasco (which is another thing I want to ask about). But I clearly recall that there was some very negative backlash when he got kicked of the team for setting up a bad cocaine deal and then having the guy he set it up for try to burn down West Quad. I wonder if that just got left on the cutting room floor, or if there was more to it that only someone with access would have seen. It would also answer my questions on how a players dismissal affects the coaching staff, player, and team. The Boubacar Cissoko dismissal was mentioned in the book, but Bacon never talked about how that affected the team to see one of their own leave the program like that.

The Oregon Trip: The Great Ruse of 2011

It all started last Monday. I was sitting at work bullshitting with Kyle, the fellow Michigan Grad who I had help recruit. We had just gone to the Washington-Cal game the weekend before and had been talking about other games we wanted to go to. We both agreed that an Oregon Ducks game was near the top of our list and decided to take a look at their schedule. With other commitments looming in the weeks ahead we realized the our only opportunity would be the game that was coming up on Thursday. We looked at each other and asked "Can we really do this?" and then scrambled to open our Outlook calendars. With a little rescheduling we had cleared off Thursday afternoon and Friday and then told our boss what we were planning.

When we left work on Thursday morning we really had no concrete plans. We had lined up tickets but that was about it. We had a tent and a few sleeping bags, but much less in the way of arraignments. We drove all afternoon, stopping near Portland for Wendy's and filling our cooler with ice and beer. We rolled into Eugene and parked our car near the campus. We got out, shotgunned a beer, put 12 more in a plastic bag and walked towards campus. At Oregon, all of the campus is on the South Side of the Willamette river and the stadium is on the other side surrounded by large fields of tailgaters. Students walk along a short trail before taking a bend in the trail and seeing this:

We sat with a bunch of alumni and told them how we always wanted to go to a game here, and how we remember Oregon coming into Ann Arbor in 2007 and giving us a whipping behind the legs of Dennis Dixon. They were pretty good guys and we had some fun with the people around us. It may have helped that we had a couple of beers in the ol' belly by this point. They say it never rains at Autzen but it sure seemed to be that night. There are two interesting notes that are stuck in my mind from Autzen. 1) There is a ridiculous amount of corporate advertising in the stadium. Even the DuckVision has ads on it all the time. 2) They pumped up the crowd before the game with a montage set to the song Lightning Crashes by Live. It's a song about dead babies.

The view from our seats

The game was pretty good in the first half with Cal actually winning at halftime. But in the second half the Ducks came out ready to play. A few times the crowd got really loud and I could understand why Lloyd Carr called Autzen the loudest stadium he's ever coached in. For only 60,000 people they sure can make some noise. Overall the game experience at Autzen was generally positive and exciting.

After the game Kyle and I were hungry and decided to get some burritos. Without any alternatives we decided to drive out of town and sleep at a campground for the night. On the way there I ran over a possum in the Camaro.

The next morning we woke up and packed our things while discussing our plan for the day. We did consider the fact that we were halfway to San Francisco, and that we had Monday off work for Columbus Day so it was in the realm of possibility. But eventually we set out for Corvallis to eat breakfast and see what there would be to do in Oregon. We walked around the campus of Oregon State in Corvallis and even made a friend who informed us that Delta Upsilon was basically the "Frattiest Frat on campus". He also asked if we "wanted to party". It was only 11:30 in the morning, and at that moment be both dearly missed college.

Before leaving town we decided to stop by Reser Stadium. We walked right in and had ourselves a look around. We brought some adult beverages with us and decided why not shutgun a beer on the field.

Note all the advertising

After Oregon State we continued our tour of Oregon by heading towards the coast. We made it just in time to go on the tour of the Rogue Brewery in Newport. I've always liked breweries and enjoyed tours, but I found Rogue to be a little unique. Their only brewery and entire world headquarters is located inside of an old boat dry-storage shed, which is sitting in the parking lot of a marina. There is no lobby and you walk right into the fermentation tanks. It looked like a mexican meth lab built overnight in some shabby building. But boy is their beer tasty. After the tour we decided to head up the coast and towards Portland.

Me outside the Rogue Brewery on the Oregon Coast

This is where the story gets good.

Kyle had never been to Portland, and I absolutely love Portland so I wanted to give him a good taste of the city and to go out and get hammered. Our only problem was that we had no accommodations and wouldn't be able to drive to a campsite. That's when we came up with our greatest plan to date. The Occupy Wall Street protests had spread nationwide and in every major city there were groups camped out downtown. All we needed to do was to infiltrate the Occupy Portland movement and fake our way to free camping right by some of the best bars.

We found the park that they were occupying and we set up our tent in one of the last free patches of grass. On the drive into Portland we spent most of our time discussing how utterly stupid the protests were and created back stories for ourselves. When we introduced ourselves to our tent neighbors we said we worked for a small metals company in Seattle that supplied Boeing. We figured that telling the Anti-Goverment protesters that we worked for the Government may be a bad idea. The first protester we met welcomed us to the start of the "next great american revolution". I agreed, trying to keep the sarcasm from dripping into my words.

Portland is a city that in known for it's free speech laws, interesting characters (hippies and weirdo), and transients. It's the characters that give the city it's style and one of the things I like best about it. Well, many of the people that joined the occupy Portland movement look, dress and talk a whole lot different than the clean-cut, north-face wearing, iPhone 4 owning duo that are Kyle and Brian. But support is support, so we were welcomed freely.

After we setup our tent, word spread around that there would be a general assembly in 10 minutes. Of course we went, there could be useful information regarding the availability of "shit-buckets" for bodily needs. The first 20 minutes was spent going over the hand signals that we would be using to communicate and gain consensus. For an unorganized, leaderless protest there sure were a lot of sub-committees, action items and agenda topics. Great for a group who wants to end bureaucratic practices. The biggest issue facing the Occupy Portland movement seemed to be who got to be in charge of the Occupy Portland movement. After a while of waiting to get to the "shit-bucket" agenda item, I decided to break away and become the leader of the Occupy Chipotle's Bathroom Movement. It was an overwhelming success.

After that Kyle and I decided to hit some of the best bars in Portland. We started at the Barcade, where I proceeded to spank him up and down the field in Madden 99. Then over to the Thirsty Lion where the U-M Alumni Association meets to watch the games. We talked about sticking around Portland to watch the Michigan game the next day but then realized it was a 4pm game. We ended the night checking out some of Portland's finer entertainment and grabbing some Street Cart food which Portland is famous for.

We wandered back to camp pretty drunk and ready to prod the revolution. I decided to jump in with both feet and gauge the sentiments of the crowd. It was 2AM and the camp was arush with activity. The camp library was still open, and the chefs has a pretty tasty hobo stew cooked up. Kyle wandered off to bed while I argued for the need to end corn-subsidies. The entire thing cracked me up, but I managed to keep a pretty straight face. After talking to some people about my idea to fix the trade deficit a few of the protesters said that I should start a camp newspaper. I started to consider the thought on my way back to the tent before I realized how ridiculous it was.

When we woke up the next morning we were hungover and realized that our ruse had worked. We had actually faked joined a nationwide protest so we could go out and get completely blitzed and then camp in a city park for free. We got out of our tent and realized that the park had been fenced in. The Portland Marathon was that morning fences had been erected around the park. We quickly and quietly packed up our tent and went to leave. On the way out I managed to get a picture of the camp.

The camp. You can see the fences around the park.

We drove back to Seattle and completed our 3-day, 700 mile tour of Oregon. When we got back we went to the bar despite terrible hangovers and watch Michigan come back to beat Northwestern. The best part of the trip was that we never had a real plan worked out, yet everything seemed to work out. We flew by the seat of our pants, never knowing what lay ahead. Now when our clearances are up for renewal we'll have a pretty funny story to tell the investigating agent when they ask if we've ever protested against the government.

Night Moves

Whenever I come back into Ann Arbor I like to listen to a couple of my favorite tracks that remind me of Ann Arbor. Usually I listen to some Postal Service because it takes me back to my days in Markley Hall, Timaland's Apologize reminds me of Sophomore year living at 510 Benjamin, some Since U Been Gone takes me back to the wild tailgate days, and I usually listen to some Bob Seger because I'm pretty sure all his songs are about being an adolescent in Ann Arbor.

So with those songs playing on my ipod I flew back to Ann Arbor on the red eye Thursday night. The music really didn't matter much though because I had taken an Ambien before the flight immediately passed out until I was awoken by the stewardess violently shaking me in an attempt to wake me a few minutes before landing. It was 6 AM EDT, 3 AM PDT. A few hours later I would finally get someone to come pick me up at the airport and take me back to Ann Arbor.

I dropped my stuff off at the apartment I was crashing at and along with the 5 that flew in the day before did the most logical thing possible: go straight to Benny's. Benny's was the hungover diner of choice during my last two years of college and you'd be surprised how many people you would see at Rick's at 2 AM and then back at Benny's around 11. Being us, we were immediately seated at the corner booth (Campus Legend). I obligatorily ordered a Coney Dog and a Saganaki. It was good to be back home.

That afternoon I went to meet up with two of my former box house brethren. On the way there I noticed something amazing. There is now Buffalo Wild Wings on State Street and Washington. I have no idea when it was put in, but I sure wish it was there when I was a student! It's amazing how somethings change so quickly. I'm pretty sure it was an Olga's kitchen when I went to school.

It appeared that every grad from the last 5 years was back in town for the game. That is, except my intrepid co-worker who got to the airport and realized that he had booked flights for the wrong weekend. We decided to get to the bars early because of how many people were back for the game. Zola and I showed up at Charley's and were immediately offered the lounge (Campus Legend). We eventually moved to a regular table and spent most of the eve of the first night game in Michigan Stadium history doing shots and chugging brews. Conversing about the good times, and the better times.

I woke up on the floor of the apartment on Saturday morning at the ridiculous early hour of 8AM. But it was gameday and we had tailgating to do. Fortunately our buddies had spent the previous week planning a perfect tailgate. 15 pounds of pulled pork, 100 burgers and dogs, a sound system, generators, a tent, multiple beer pong tables, cornhole, a television, 6 coolers, they even managed to get their hands on an Excursion for transportation purposes. Unfortunately, our planned tailgate location - the U of M golf course - would not be opened on account of heavy rains. As a resourceful campus legend, I made a call and secured a tailgate location at my younger sister's house at Benjamin and Packard. A much better tailgating locale if you ask me. The girls at the house had heard some of the stories from the box house and requested that no pizza's get nailed to the wall like they did at the box house. We agreed.

We got to the house and set up shop around 10AM and soon after went to go pick up some kegs. I walked into Campus Corner and the first thing I hear is "Brian!". It was the owner of the liquor store that I had befriended in college and apparently as a Campus Legend, I had not been forgotten despite not living in Ann Arbor for 2 years. This wouldn't be the only time this would happen on the trip. Several people came up to me and said they recognized me from my wild college days.

The tailgate was a wild blur. Lot's of drinking. Playing beer pong and corn hole. Doing several rounds of Thunderstruck and generally doing all the things we did on gameday when we were undergrads. But this time it was spread out over 10 hours. It was something that was foreign to all of us, and no one really seemed to know if it was possible to pace ourselves for a game like this. I spent some time going to other tailgates. I think I ran into 8 people from my high school. Because we had plenty of beer and food, eventually most of our friends ended up at our tailgate. Kegs were tapped and new ones were rolled back in recycle bins from campus corner.

The tailgate, with my old house in the background.

At one point all the Russell kids were there and we took our annual Christmas card photo. This wasn't it.

The hours rolled on. Things like this started to happen.

That's why they call him Bodyshot!

Before the game we decided to take a quick group picture with our hostess.

Before the game we all slapped the bag and chugged Andre. We got our last cups of keg beer and cleaned up a little. Then it was gametime.

On the walk to the stadium I somehow struck of a conversation with the Mayor of South Lyon. Our topic was Mr. Dave Brandon, who just happened to grow up with and still talk to Mr. Mayor. It was by far one of the most interesting conversation I had during the weekend. We made it into the stadium and down to our seats and got checked out our view.

The game experience was unreal. It was nothing like any game I had been to at the Big House before. The fans just seemed so much more into the game. The best part is that we were right in the endzone that Michigan was driving towards during the 4th quarter and all those touchdowns were right in front of us. For the game, I can't do it justice, but I'm sure this video can.

The game was so crazy that after the final TD the man in front of us cheered so intensely that his wedding ring flew off his finger and landed a few rows away. Only in Tuscaloosa after the Iron Bowl had I seen fan wait in their seats so long after a game had ended. It was like no one had anywhere to go, and why would they, because the party was here anyways. It was mayhem.

I don't think this will go down as the best game I've ever seen in the Big House, but it will go down as the most exciting. I'm thinking a ranking might be a good next blog post. I loved every minute of it, except for, you know, the first 3 quarters. But deep down I always knew we would come back and make a game out of it.

It was 1 AM by the time we left the stadium, too late to go to the bars. Everyone was amped up from the win but at the same time exhausted from the extensive tailgating and emotional game. It was a weird feeling. We went back to my sisters house to drink some of the last keg and try to rally. The climax of the rally was us all walking to Packard Pub and then deciding we would rather get some Jimmy John's. Half of us passed out on the ride home.

Sunday morning everyone woke up and asked "did that really happen?" Most of our voices were hoarse and we all looked like garbage. We watched some of the Gameday that we had recorded and then decided to get some food. Early in the afternoon my Sisters picked me up to go meet with Grandma Sunshine. We had a nice lunch before Julie and I flew home. On the way to the airport I reached in my bag and felt something unusual. It was a small knife that I had put in for my camping trip to eastern Washington the weekend before. I had been very close to unknowingly trying to sneak a knife onto a plane on the 10th anniversary of September 11th. I'm sure it wouldn't have helped out when they found it right next to the book on the Taliban that I was reading. I left it with my sister to mail back to me, but the really scary part is that I had flown out to A2 with it in my bag. It didn't do much to inspire confidence in the abilities of the TSA.

After a long trip I made it home and went to bed at midnight. It was 6 hours before my alarm clock was set to go off. But as I lay in bed, I figured that there was nothing that would make me not want to go back to the only place I've ever felt truly at home.

My New Favorite Hobby

Back in May I took a trip down to Vegas to meet up with some friends. Over the course of the trip I did pretty well at the tables which was mostly due to luck. When I got home I decided to get the blackjack books off the shelf and give them another read. Since then I've been trying to make trips every weekend to play. Part of it is nice to get out and drive to places I would never otherwise go. And to be honest, I'm doing pretty well. So when one of my friends asked me if I wanted to go camping this weekend my first thought was 'how can I make this into a gambling trip'. On Friday afternoon I withdrew $1,000 from my bankroll, packed up some gear and drove out to the campground. We were camping in the Olympic National Forest which is only about 40 minutes from where I live. Staying up late drinking and then sleeping on the ground isn't probably the best choice for accommodations the evening prior to a gambling junket, but why should I let my 'second job' get in the way of my life.

Actually, that brings up a good point. Why should I let my first job get in the way of my life? Wouldn't it be great if I could just quit my job and spend my life driving around the country playing blackjack and visiting my friends. I have about 100 friends and family spread out across this country so I could visit each for 3-4 days a year and live on the road playing Blackjack for gas money. To do that I'd need to A) be good at blackjack and B) have a serious bankroll. Neither of which I have yet achieved.

So I woke up this morning and packed up my tent and hit the road. First stop was straight down US 101. A neat side note about US 101 is that since it hooks around the Olympic Peninsula the to get to the northern terminus of the road, you actually have to go south for the last 100 miles or so. But that last part is some of the most scenic. The road hugs the foothills of the Olympic mountains and runs right along the Hood Canal. You can stop at oyster stands along the side of the road of some fresh ones right from the source.

I continued inland towards Shelton - A lumber mill town that appears to have seen more prosperous days. I stopped at the Safeway and bought an apple and a peach to eat just outside the store. There were lots of people just loitering around looking shady. I decided to keep moving, I had to get to the tables.

The first casino I stopped at was Little Creek casino about 10 miles south of Shelton. Somewhat in the middle of nowhere, this Indian casino resort was the nicest I went to today. It was just remodeled last October and has opened a championship golf course this year. The only bad thing may be that a girl about my age died there last week.

Little Creek Casino

My strategy was to attack 4 casinos on today's junket. I'd planned to walk into each one with $400 and walk out with either $200 or $600. So even if I had terrible luck at the first three, I would still have $400 to win it all back at the last stop.

My luck didn't start out so hot at Little Creek. The 80 year old gentleman who was chain smoking next to me seemed to be getting all the good cards on his $5 table minimum bets. The smoking didn't bother me too much, I already smelled like a campfire. After an hour or so I was down to $200 and ready to leave.

I had stopped there because it was on the way to the better casinos. The next casinos wouldn't be as nice, but they offered better rules. I'd rather sit in a basement and double my splits than have to endure not hitting 9's against dealer 6's. So onward.

To get to the next joint I had to travel to the end of US 101 which terminates in Olympia, our State Capitol. It was exactly 2 years ago today that I arrived in Washington on my move out to the Pacific Northwest. I spent most of that drive listening to Rancid sing about being on the highway back to Olympia, WA. Today, I cranked that up as I made the wide turn and the Capitol building came into view.

I drove through the (pretty cool) city and decided to visit the capitol. I present the dirtiest rotunda in the union:

I also found out that instead of a state supreme court building, Washington chose to go with a "Temple of Justice" which I insist is as silly sounding as it is impressive.

After my short sightseeing trip I continued up I-5 and to a place called Hawk's Prairie. I settled in at a decent table with two other patrons. The first was a lady who bet big and probably spent $60 an hour tipping the dealer. The other guy was wearing a MMA shirt and was an Atlanta Falcons fan. We seemed to get along pretty well and it was a pretty fun visit. But it was about business too. The first hour I was pretty much even. The second hour I started to hit some big hands. I got a good lead going and kept riding it. By the time I decided to move on I was up $300 at the joint. But after my poor showing at the first place it meant I was really up only $100.

At this point I'd like to note that I have asked without luck at every casino I have been to for a Coors Original. So far most cocktail waitresses act like they've never even heard of the Banquet Beer. I always grudgingly settle for the Silver Bullet.

The next casino was a micro-casino in Tacoma. The non-Indian casinos in the state aren't allowed to have slot machines and most of them aren't much bigger than a couple of pits, a bar and a cashier. This one tends to get most of their business from soldiers stationed at the nearby army base. The other main customer base is the Vietnamese. For whatever reason the Vietnamese love to gamble. Seattle with it's high Asian population has a large contingent of Asian gamblers. The funny thing is that only the woman seem to really gamble a lot, the men usually aren't even around. And the Vietnamese are notoriously superstitious. Since many of them gamble lots of them end up working in the Casinos. That's the interesting situation I found myself in at my third casino.

I'm sitting at a full table of me and 6 middle aged Vietnamese women. The dealer is as a Vietnamese woman, they are all speaking in Vietnamese and I'm right in the middle. It was an interesting sight, but I was sitting there first and at the time the cards were pretty hot, so what was I to do? I kept playing but the cards tapered off. I hit a $125 payout on a lucky ladies side bet that invigorated me but in the end I found myself walking out the door with $200 less than I walked in.

In the 6 hours after I had left the campground I had managed to lose $100. This was pretty dashing to any hopes that I could turn blackjack into a career path. But I had one last trick up my sleeve. I actually had to pass my next casino on the way to the last one. I had purposely done this because I knew no matter how bad things were I could make money at the last casino.

Since I hadn't lost much so far and this casino had slightly higher table minimums I decided to take $500 into this last casino. I found my usual table empty and proceeded to make it my proverbial bitch. I think I won $250 in my first 20 minutes there. Things slowed down a little after that but one thing remained constant: me winning. There are two reasons why it is so easy to make money at this casino. The first is that the deal nearly every card in their double deck games making it easy to predict what cards are left in the deck at the end. The second is that they have some of the best rules of anywhere around. After my second Coors light the cards got hot again. Before the pit boss could notice my chip stacks rising I quickly colored up. As the dealer counted out $1,020 in chips the pit boss quietly stated "I'm going to be in deep shit for this one". I had to keep a straight face until I was out of the casino. With those winnings I was up $420 and ready to head home. But not before I had a victory Jimmy John's.

Another interesting side note about the last casino. It is also staffed mostly by Vietnamese but the ones at this joint have terrific names. I had a dealer whose legal name is "Mom" and another whose name is "Dong". Just another reason to play there is getting to yell "HIT ME DONG!"

It was a pretty great day but even though I made money I don't get to go out tonight and spend it all. Everything goes back into the bankroll but the feeling of getting to drive home a winner and rub $100 bills all over myself makes it worth it. So 200 miles and 26 hours after leaving home I made it back home from a successful outing. I'll leave you with a map of my trip.

My favorite business card

I hope that when I'm a parent I'm as awesome as their parents must have been.

Putting down roots?

Every summer for the past 6 years I've packed up everything I owned and moved. I found that a yearly move pretty much shaped my mindset on materialistic possessions in two ways. First, everything I owned had to fit into the back of a car. Second, I couldn't ever become attached to anything. Everything I owned was temporary and I only owned what I needed.

This is the first summer since I was 17 that I won't be moving. It's a strange feeling knowing that I can purchase furniture and expect to still own it in 5 or 10 years. In my parents house they still have furniture that my dad owned when he was in college. It's a little bizarre thinking that some of my possessions could follow me that long.

I think that at a certain point people become so bogged down by what they have that they can never escape. It's more than just furniture and shit on the walls. When people stop moving and settle into a house, a job, and relationships they eventually become bound by the same things that make their lives comfortable. Item by item, paycheck by paycheck, date by date they slip into the routine.

What scares me is that I can see myself slowly falling into this settled down life and it scares me. Yesterday I bought an ice cream scoop. I don't even have any ice cream in my house. It just makes me think of a scene from the wire where Dennis "Cutty" Wise goes to The Deacon. He sits down and says "I've had this feeling for a long time and it's like I'm standing outside myself watching me do things I don't want to do." Now he was probably talking about murdering people and whatnot. But I see my life falling in this rut where 20 years from now I'm sitting in the same office, driving down the same roads home and wondering how despite all having everything I want, why I still feel like my life was a little too predictable.

Before Cutty says that line above he starts out the conversation by saying "The truth is I don't know what I want. I know I'm looking for something but I can't even tell you what it is." In a certain way that's how I feel. I have a good job, lots of nice things and a pretty awesome girlfriend. So it bothers me that I feel like I'm not living this life to the fullest. Last weekend when Dave was here he told me that I'm going through a quarter life crisis. I don't know about that but I think I need to keep mixing it up before it's too late.

Baseball Cities

I've always lived in cities with AL baseball teams. I prefer AL baseball and there are some great cities with AL teams. I've been thinking the past couple of days about which division in baseball has the best cities in it. If for some reason I had to choose one division in baseball and I had a random chance of living in any of the cities within that division, what would be at the top of my list? I went through and ranked them all based on my perceptions of each city as a place to live not considering being a fan of baseball.

6th - AL Central (Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, Chicago, Minneapolis)

The AL Central is hard to rank last growing up a Tigers fan, but straight up there are a few cities in the AL Central that I really wouldn't want to live in. Kansas City is lifeless, Cleveland is Cleveland, Minneapolis in nice when it's not 10 degrees outside. I grew up near Detroit but it's still not a city that I would be excited to live in. The only great city in the AL Central is Chicago.

5th - NL Central (Milwaukee, St Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Houston, Chicago)

With 6 teams the NL Cental is nice if you like manufacturing cities located on rivers. None of these cities would be horrible to live in but most of them lack the glamour of a great city. The only cities I'd be excited to move to are Houston and Chicago.

4th - AL West (Dallas, Seattle, Oakland, LA)

In contrast to the NL Central, the AL West only has 4 cities making it a bit easier to rank. It seems like nothing good ever happens in Oakland. Dallas still strikes me as a city stuck in the 1990's. LA is LA, and as much as I hate to admit it would be a really cool city to live in. I live in Seattle so I know that it's a fine place but I honestly feel that it's lacking the character of some of the better cities in the US.

3rd - AL East (NYC, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, Baltimore)

The AL East has 4 cities that I would totally jump at living in. NYC, Boston and Toronto are amazing cities and Tampa is really nice too. But the AL East also has Baltimore. Baltimore really drags it down the list. Maybe I've watched too much of The Wire, but no one wants to live in Baltimore.

2nd - NL West (San Francisco, San Diego, LA, Phoenix, Denver)

There are some great cities in the NL West and I like all of them. The last time I was in Denver I didn't really get a chance to appreciate the city but what I hear/read about Denver is that it's pretty decent. All the other cities I really love. Beautiful cities with great weather and lots of fun things about them.

1st - NL East (Washington, Philly, Atlanta, NYC, Miami)

The NL East really has it all. Each of these cities have been great places every time I've been. I've driven around Philly, but I haven't ever spent the weekend there. The other 4 cities I've been to a fair amount and they are all terrific. There isn't one city on this list that I would be unhappy living in.

I guess I hate on the midwest but with the exception of Chicago most of the cities are depressingly banal. From the view of a 24 year old LA and NYC beat out Milwaukee and Cleveland. Another note, whilst compiling this list I realized that the only MLB City I haven't been to is Toronto.

What do my readers think? Agree, disagree? Just a reminder to keep the comments reasonable. With all the comments on my last few posts I guess I need to remind you guys to not go overboard.

5 Reasons Why Safeco Field is Awesome

In my 2 years living in Seattle one of my favorite activities has been going to Mariners games at Safeco field. There are a lot of reasons I like watching games at Safeco. The good views of the city, the retractable roof, legalized scalping, the airplanes flying overhead to land at SeaTac, the sounds of the trains rumbling outside the stadium. All these are nice but as I continue heading to games I've found there are a few other things that really make going to Safeco enjoyable.

5) No Bad Seats - I've sat in every part of the stadium and so far I haven't found a spot with a crappy view. The cheap seats are still close to the action, and the outfield bleachers are at the perfect height to see the game. There is a great mezzanine level that features a full-service bar which I find to be quite special.

4) Park Location - Safeco is a 15 minute walk from the heart of Seattle and 10 minute walk from the Ferry terminal. It is on the south end of one of the prettiest neighborhood in the city. Right outside the stadium are bars and brewpubs. The stadium is only a couple of blocks from the International District (The PC term for Chinatown). For people not familiar with Seattle taking a walk to Safeco can highlight all the best parts of Seattle.

3) The Beer Garden - In center field there is a terrific beer garden right at field level. Often when the opponent was terrible we would purchase $8 bleacher tickets and just spend all game hanging out in the beer garden. Essentially those games were like going to a decent bar with an $8 cover which by the way happened to have a live baseball game going on inside of it. Like any stadium though you have to mentally get past the fact they you will pay $9.75 for a 20oz Microbrew.

I stole this picture from someone's Flikr. Fair use or whatever.

2) Fan Giveaways - The Mariners organization has typically provided great giveaways. Everything from a Franklin Gutierrez Fly Swatter to free compost (keeping Seattle one of the greenest cities in America). Yesterday was Irchiro replica jersey night and today is Felix Hernandez knit cap night. But every team does giveways. What makes Safeco special is that you can go into the stadium, pick up the free giveaway and then leave the stadium with it. In most stadia fans who arrive early enough for the giveaways resign themselves to waiting in their seats for an hour before the game. At the Safe fans can get the giveaways and then leave the stadium and go drinking before the game.

1) Food - Safeco has always had really good stadium food. The Garlic Fries make the entire concourse smell vampire proof and the Seattle Dogs (dog with cream cheese and grilled onions) are legendary. But that's not what makes food the number one awesome thing about Safeco. The number one thing about Safeco is that you are free to bring in any foodstuffs that you please. You can literally walk into Safeco with a shopping bag full of food. Usually I walk in with a completely unconcealed Jimmy John's sub in my hand. I've seen a guy bring in a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly and makes sandwiches for his entire family inside the stadium. I have no idea why they let people do this, but I'm not going to ask any questions. Letting people bring all the food they want into the stadium is totally awesome and is the biggest reason I love Safeco Field.

This amused me

Every once in awhile they send out these security newsletters at work. They are usually filled with stuff warning us about terrorists and shit. Whoever puts them together is either a 40 year old lady who wears Mickey Mouse shirts or a really high 17 year old sailor. Usually the last couple pages are filled with LOLcats, 90's clip art and random crap. I have no idea how they get sent out via official Navy Channels. The last page of the one they sent out today was simply this:

The image of a drowning sailor whose final thoughts before being consumed by the bosom of the ocean was someone blogging. Now consider all of the levels of irony that comprise this blog post.

Vegas

I spent Memorial Day weekend down in Vegas, doing Vegas-y things. It was about as much fun as ten 24 year old men can have in Vegas. Most of the trip will stay in Vegas (like how I came back missing a toenail), but I did want to share the events of our first night.

Right after dropping off our bags at the MGM we went right down to the casino floor. As a matter of tradition I put $100 on black to test my luck for the weekend. Sure enough it landed black and so it began. We gambled a little bit and drank at the MGM and then went off to dinner at 9 Fine Irishmen in New York New York. We ate a big meal and had a couple of rounds of Irish Car Bombs and Guinness's. Afterwards I think we went back and drank some more in our rooms before deciding to head out. Our destination was O'sheas, for the midget bar pour. In was the first of a fresh weekend tradition where we had to drink beers every time we walked down the strip.

We drank for a couple hours at O'sheas and before long it was 3AM. Being our first night in Vegas, Dave and I went to go gamble for a bit at The Flamingo before calling it a night. Everything after this point is pretty much a blur. At some point we decided to head across the street to The Mirage, and I remember it was still dark. We found a great dealer, and settled in for the long haul. We drank and gambled for hours and at some point decided it was time to go home. When I cashed out I was up $1200. I was elated as I walked out of the casino. I really didn't have any idea what time it was until I went out side and it was sunny out. We grabbed a cab back to the MGM.

I think at this point it was about 7AM by the time we got back into the MGM. Still feeling the high from the big win I thought it best to let the heater ride. I convinced Dave to join me and we spurned sleep to keep gambling. I can't recall how we decided it was a good idea to keep gambling but I'd like to think that it was because we could keep our 14 hour drinking bender going.

Dave and I spent the next 4 hours having the dealer push money across the table to me. I started switching from Red Bull based drinks to Irish Coffee's, Mimosas and Screwdrivers. I can't really remember many of my bets but Dave said at one point I put $350 up and won. By now I was up another $1600 and Dave was starting to get hungry. I started asking the Pit Boss if I could get some breakfast, and really started hounding him to comp me a Bacon Buffet. It was all I talked about for like half an hour. Eventually the pit boss comped Dave and I a meal at the buffet and suggested that I get some sleep. I couldn't argue with him as I was a hungry/wasted/sleep deprived mess. I finally colored up and the dealer gave me a $1000 chip and a handful of $100 chips as well.

On the way back to the room I had so much cash on me, I kept thinking it would fall out. I burst into our hotel room where everyone was sleeping and made it rain. By the time I collected it and counted it, I had cleared over $2800. I wouldn't eat or sleep for another 3 hours and then only a small nap before starting to drink for the next night.

Needless to say, that night in itself was pretty trip defining. I managed to hold on to what I made and came home with a free trip and a few extra bills in my pocket. And that was just the first night.

The fall of the website

You know what really slams my salami? Every 2-3 years I like to go online and check out my old website I made freshmen year of college. It was pretty simple given that I did all the HTML coding by hand. And I don't know how to code in HTML, so it was just a (2x2) table with 4 links. There was an About me, a Music and a Other. But the only page that really mattered was the one that listed all my old High School Newspaper articles. I had meticulously scanned and uploaded every article I wrote for my High School Newspaper, The Lahser Page.

The quality of the scanned images wasn't great but the articles themselves were downright hilarious. Since the newspaper advisor was usually high during the class, we had pretty much total creative control over the articles that got published. The articles were read by the teachers, students, parents and administration. I included in one article how a member of the marching band touched a stinky poo at band camp thinking it was fake. The best part was that it had nothing to do with the actual article. I wrote some really bad stuff, but in a really good way.

Apparently after you graduate you can keep your @umich.edu email, but they remove all your MFile documents. This effectively wiped out the best archival collection of angst-riddled writing I ever curated. I have no idea how to get it back. Even if I can find the original files somewhere, I will forever lose the pithy one line descriptors of each article. That is unless any of you happen to have taken a screen shot of my webpage and filed it away in case this very scenario unfolded. So I ask of my readership did any of you happen to archive my website for me? No?

I'm very distraught that Michigan decided to delete my entire body of work without consulting me first. They can't bother to keep my tiny website hosted for a few years, but Comcast is still hosting the website I made when I was a 14.

http://home.comcast.net/~rusty7887/index.htm

(I will try to find a copy of Cucumber Man and put it on the blog)

Phew, I'm glad I can have my life back

Sorry guys, I passed out for a minute. What happened? Has it really been a month since my last post? I wanted to write a post on my position regarding the role of government in supporting innovation in the field of biotechnology. But unfortunately I'll write about something much more intriguing. No, not recaps of online risk games, or Age Of Empires III. Tonight's topic regards my outwitting of the law.

It is hard to believe that I am finally reaching the point where I can no longer be charged for any of the petty misdemeanors I committed in high school. Michigan's statue of limitations for non-felonies is only 6 years so whatever misdemeanors and frauds I committed before April 26th 2005 I got away with sans punishment. So that time I parked in the handicap spot on November 3rd, 2004 - unconvictable. That one time I got drunk in a friends basement - off scot free. The other time when I killed that guy in the dead of winter just to see the steam rise up from his wounds - actually, I could still go to prison for that one. Statue of Limitations don't apply to murders.

I think I'll receive the biggest relief when 2015 rolls by and I am free of all my rowdy college tomfoolery.

Justice System

Last week I received my settlement from the year and a half long legal battle with my old landlord. Despite the indeterminately large amount of damage we caused to the house over our 2 years, I still got $320 of my security deposit back. It ultimately rested on my landlords terrible record keeping meant they couldn't prove what damage occurred when. They were unethical and terrible landlords anyways. Everyone remembers me dominating them during the door fiasco of 2008 right?

I was throwing out all my old files relating to the case when I came across all my other legal items from college. I kinda forgot how many legal problems I had and subsequently weaseled out of. Student Legal Services is the best $7 of tuition I've ever been charged. I came across speeding tickets from Oklahoma and Iowa, MIP's, Noise Violations. There was the unpaid parking ticked from Chicago. The notice to appear on a trash violation. But then I came across this.

This is a judgement by the 15th district court to reduce a noise violation to a civil infraction of blocking a sidewalk. Around that time noise violations were running us $600-$800 because we were repeat offenders. I'm not sure exactly how I managed to get a loud party reduced to me blocking the sidewalk but I'll take it.

The Roommates: Bricky Bear

Brick moved into our house halfway through my Junior year. He was only a Sophomore but I instantly liked Brick. The main reason was because his nickname was Brick. I never really knew why we called him that but I always liked it.

This is the picture in my phone for when brick calls.
(Note the willingness to go barefoot in BOX)

Normally brick would be looking a little more faux fratty than that image. You see brick came from the marvelous world Michigan greek life. He wasn't very good at being in a frat because they didn't let him go on their date party. So to retaliate he threw a huge party at the frat house while his "brothers" were all out at their date party. Then he proceeded to get hammered and pile all the furniture in the front yard. Somehow a fire extinguisher got thrown against a wall and exploded. The brothers returned from their date party about the same time the Ann Arbor Fire Department showed up to fight the smoke billowing out of the house. The next day Al helped carry his futon down State St. and directly into our basement.

Brick lived in the unfinished basement of the box house for the next 4 months in a tent. He had the tent because of all the rodents and insects down there. And I'll be dammed if he didn't manage to bring a girl down there. He often lamented about his "Box pledge semester" on the Box blog.

At heart Brick was a small child. He marveled at everything in awe and his favorite TV shows are re-runs of The Wonder Years. Often after a Michigan loss he would go to his room and watch them or his other stand-by the 1997 Red Wings Championship Season VHS tape. His youthful unrequited love for all sports Michigan would often have him screaming in a childlike rage after losses. He drank heavily and often did shot challenges with himself. He was one of the best drinkers in Box. Though I did once beat him in a Camo Silver Ice drinking contest.

In March of 2009 we embarked on FLASB09. Brick endured 21 hours of sitting bitch seat in Al's G6 all the way to Florida and back. He spent most of the trip wimpering like a small dog and wooing beached whales. He can be seen in the Dirty Sanchez post picture which was taken on the trip.

Brick brought many things to the house while I lived with him. Mostly girls. But also an innocents that was sometimes shocking. Like the time he put a metal can in the microwave and upon roommate protest said "what? that's what I've always done." Brick was notorious for eating half a can of beans and putting the other half back in the fridge.

Brick never took part in the best things about Box. I think I only saw his penis about 5 times, by far the lowest in the house. He didn't relish in the movie Gettysburg, and he definitely was not hanging out in my room playing AOEIII.

The summer between my Junior and Senior years brick embarked on a quest to win the 1996 world series in Ken Griffey JR Baseball. He played all 162 games and on the day he won the final game we threw a big party. It was the happiest I've ever seen Brick. I even posted about it.

Brick was the best person to play pranks on. His normal response would be something along the lines of "Oh no! Aww shucks fellas." One time he was in Chicago and we decided to fill his room up with unused Keno Cards. It took us many days but but we pretty much covered everything in his room.

I'm writing this because today is his birthday. I could think of 100 more stories about Brick, but I'm pressed for time. Even though I only lived with Brick for a year and a half he still remains one of my favorite roommates. I wrote most of this in the past tense but he is not dead. Unless of course he died tonight.

Who would be friends with me? I hate everyone and everything seems stupid to me.

What a perfect title for a post. After I got everyone thinking I've gone emo with my past two posts I decided to drop some Randal Graves on everybody's asses. I was only sad faced because everyone would be switching onto Daylight Savings Time and I would no longer be special. So perk up bitches, and welcome to the world of extra daylight!

So tonight's post will not be about how awesome DST is. It will be about how if the world gives you no friends you go out and hire a friend.

I was the first University of Michigan grad that our organization had ever hired. Soon after coming on board (employer pun) I looked around and saw a bunch of ohio state shit and was disgusted. I decided that I needed backup and realized I needed another U of M grad. So I went back to Michigan, found one that had strong legs and good pad level and hired the shit out him.

Quickly our appreciation for being smarter than everyone else became apparent. You see, most days people would go around and ask if anyone wanted to grab lunch at one of the local food joints down the road. It was always a crapshoot if people had brought their lunches or not, and there was no way to determine if people were going out on any given day. So we decided to develop a quick and simple way to know whether we would pack a lunch or go out to eat. But the trick was that we wanted to keep it varied and not always go out on the same days every week. We came up with the Prime Number Eating Schedule (PNES). Everyday which is a prime number we go out to eat.

It ends up breaking down really well.

Days 1-10: 4

Days 11-20: 4

Days 21-31: 3

It is possible to get the unlucky week where the 24th is a Monday, but there is only one of those weeks between now and September 2012. I double checked that with one of those idiot savants who memorize calendars. For the most part it's a pretty good system, because I can look at my watch and know whether or not to pack a lunch, and I know that my someone else is doing the same thing. That's the Michigan Difference.

One person who still cares about me

When the world has me down and wondering where all my friends have gone, I can always look back to one friend who has been there no matter what. A friend who shows up at just the right time and stayed only as long as he was needed. I'm talking about my childhood imaginary friend Farty.

My older sister had a imaginary friend named Emilyemmus. Her and Emilyemmus always had great stories of adventures and fun times. I too wanted to share in the pleasure of imaginary friendom but lacked the imagination to create a real imaginary friend. Emilyemmus was just a projection of my older sister into imaginary form. My friend had to be better, and since he was only a means to and end, I decided that he would just be Farty. Today scholars still debate whether Farty was actually made out of farts or not. I'd like to think he was.

Farty had a knack for showing up just when I needed him. If I didn't want to sit next to someone at the movie theater those would always be the shows that Farty decided to tag along to. Sometimes Farty would join for dinner just in time for Grandma Sunshine to sit on him. This was a considerable offense as Farty didn't like being sat on. Usually an instance of Farty would only last minutes or until blame could be shifted onto Farty's crazy antics.

Farty was mostly a joke much like the acting career of The Rock. He lived on well past the normal age of most imaginary friends, which can be mainly attributed to the fact that he was so much fun to be around. While he hasn't appeared in a long time, I think Farty has lived on in the hearts of those who loved him, and those whom he loved.

Proof that less people care about me

This is a graph of how many people write me birthday messages on my Facebook Wall.

During my peak college years I was getting about 45 birthday wall posts a year. Just a few short years later I'm down to receiving 7. Even the breakdown of the 7 was a little depressing. 6 from my family and one from a guy at work. And one of those 7 was a very suspicious post from an Aunt followed immediately by a post from her husbands account. I know the only reason her husband even has a Facebook is so she can go and play more Farmville on it.

I'd like to chalk this up to people using Facebook less to wish people happy birthday, but they didn't make up for it with 38 texts or calls. It's just another data point of the trend of me having less friends than I did in 2009.

But here is some interesting analysis.

This chart adds in the number of blog posts that I write in a year to compare with the number of birthday FB wall posts. 2011 is projected. Maybe there is some correlation between blogging and people caring about me. Perhaps if I blog more this year, I'll have more birthday well-wishers next year. Hell, it's worth a try.

Milestones in a Man's Life

Today marks a big anniversary. March 5th, 1996 was the first day I ever wore boxer shorts. It is now the crystal anniversary of my total testicular freedom. It's crazy to think back on those first 9 years of briefs. In fact, those undergarments seem to accurately fit my fleeting memories of those times - brief. It was an era of great change. It was a time of Mad Cow, Bob Dole, and 1996's song of the year Kiss From A Rose. I was 9 years old and it was time to become a man and start wearing some manly underwear and let the boys breathe a bit. I found the freedom quite refreshing, and to celebrate 15 years of modern skivvies I went out and bought a $25 pair of boxers because I'm worth it.

But there is also the other anniversary. March 5th, 1987. A glorious day that saw the world be forever brightened by the presence of the author of this blog. I remember it vividly -the bright lights, the doctors, and looking like a burn victim because I was born 3 weeks late. I'll never forget my own birth. It was a time of fascination. The Edmonton Oilers were in the middle of a dynasty, Wall Street was on the big screen, and people were being Borked. To celebrate 24 of years of making the world a richer place to live I went out and purchased a handgun.

I bought a gun for three major reasons 1) to kill zombies, 2) to impress chicks, 3) to scare children.

Zombie defense is pretty much self-explanatory but to briefly explain: the thing I wish for most in this world is for a zombie apocalypse so I can see if I can survive that challenge. If my wish were to come true only for me to be woefully unequipped to live in the world I so desperately want to exist in, I would feel foolish and defeated. That's also why I bought this. It will probably never happen, but neither will using it for "home defense".

The second reason is to impress chicks. I don't know why a girl would be impressed by a gun, in fact it seems rather odd. But I've impressed chicks by having a blog and a Campus Corner card.

The final reason is to scare small children. When I was a kid there was a rumor that one guys who lived in a house down the block had a shotgun. Whenever we would cut through his yard we would do so running at full speed and usually in a zig-zag pattern. We all thought he would shoot us for trespassing. That's the type of impression that even the rumor of a gun has on children.

Becoming a gun owner and getting a fresh pair of trouser-shorts seems like a fitting way to celebrate March 5th, 2011. Here's to my new Beretta 92 FS and designer underwear.

The bigger they are the harder they fall

Last weekend was President's Day, and being the history buff that I indubitably am, I decided to take a trip to visit the location of the first executive residence of the President of the United States - New York City. Here's a juicy trivia tidbit: Presidents Day is technically designated as "Washington’s Birthday" in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, so the correct term for the holiday is Washington's Birthday. So there you go.

Anywhoo, I went to New York City for the long weekend, it was my first return since I was in middle school. Between a 5 hour flight and the 3 hour time difference, it was already like my entire Friday was spent getting there. But since it was NYC, I figured I'd have to dig down deep and find some energy. I was staying with my sister in SoHo and using her apartment as a base of operations. The weather was amazingly in the 60's the first day so we walked around and grabbed some Thai food for dinner. After a pre-funk we went out to the bar to meet up with some friends. It turns out everyone who we met up with was a fan of the blog (I'm huge in New York). This was great because we could converse on how awesome the blog used to be, but it wasn't so great when every time I would try to tell a cool story people would say "yeah I read that story on your blog". But we persevered on to bigger and better bars.

In New York many bars stay open until 4AM. Some even stay open until 6AM I hear. I wasn't about to go all the way to NYC and not take advantage of a gift like that. We stayed out until 4AM, which was really awesome at the time. I think that someone should still come around at 2AM and remind everyone that nothing good is going to be accomplished in the next two hours and they are all fools for still being around. I mean if you can't close a deal with a girl by 2AM what makes you think that another hour is going to do much? But so is life, and I helped close down the bar at 4AM.

As you may have guessed, I still got up at 7:30 to spend all day vanning and museuming. Ha! That was a gullibility test. Because I didn't arise until 2 the next afternoon. At that time NYC had become a windy cold weather vixen from the planet Miserablapious. My sister and I braved the elements to go to a Carnegie Deli and get our Ruben on followed by being cold around Times Square. We then went down to The Village to watch an inspiring Michigan Basketball win. I still felt like a hot ball of garbage but I manned up to drink a few brewdoggers during the game.

After the game I decided that I should travel across the river to magical Hoboken, New Jersey. I got some dinner with an old Michigan friend and some other people from Hoboken. Oddly one girls there said she had once met me at Rick's when she was visiting Ann Arbor one time - I had no recollection of it, but then again, it was at Rick's. We had a marvelous night in Hoboken and it turns out one of my friends out there had went online and became an ordained minister. He has marriage certificates at his house and is totally legit (minus the online part). He absolved me of all my sins right there at the bar. So I have that going for me, which is nice.

I came away pretty impressed with Hoboken, although I didn't really know what I was expecting. Lot's of well-maintained and classy row-houses and bars and restaurants. It has a really high population density and does so without the need for tall buildings.

Sunday I grabbed a slice of NY style pizza pie and then went shopping with my sister. What's a trip to New York without a shopping spree - amiright ladies? I then went up to the upper east side for dinner with a friend at a really classy Italian place. Monday, the sister and I went down to Chinatown for lunch. You would be amazed at how many designer bags fall off the back of trucks right around Chinatown. The food there was really good though, and we split three entrées between the two of us and it was still less than $10 a person. Pretty good for Manhattan. Then I got on my flight and headed back to the great Pacific Northwest to continue my life with a newfound revere for the Big Apple.

Some notes:

• In the 4 days I was there I probably only saw 2% of the city. I didn't even check out any of the other 4 boroughs.
• Less bums than I expected
• It was much dirtier than I had thought it would be. It was the dirtiest major city I've ever been to. There was litter and trash everywhere and I would walk down the street and taste the dirt in the air.
• Everything happens later in NYC. People get up later, go to eat later, go out later, stay out later and thus get up later. I'm beginning to think that the pace of a city is determined by its bars closing time.
• Not as many pigeons as I expected.
• For such a big city, I was glad to get to see some of the neighborhoods. I had always just taken all of Manhattan as one big built up monstrosity, but each area has a different feel and in some cases unique area. Then again I could only see a handful in my short time.
• I really liked terminal 4 of JFK. I was wowed.
• I was surprisingly intimidated by the people that lived in Manhattan. I think this was because I took them to be more cultured than me. I got that old money vibe a lot.
• The rent there is insane. What you pay vs. what you get is unreal. It makes me glad I live in a small town.
• Overall NYC felt to me as a place I would like to live. I don't think for more than a year or two, but despite its cons, there were lots about the city I really liked. Maybe someday it will happen.

LA Business Trip

As part of my job I'm required to complete a few training classes. They are a mix of online courses and classroom training. The classroom training are week long classes that are offered at various places around the country. The first one I went to was located in Dahlgren, VA. Dahsgren is a bustling community of 997 people with the main attraction being a gas station. That was one of the boring-est weeks of my life. So when I had to take my next class, I saw there was one available in Los Angeles. I jumped on it.

The training itself was a one week rehash of everything I learned in college. I'm an industrial engineer and the class was about production and manufacturing. No one else in the class had a background in the materials so they all thought I was some sort of genius. On the last day we had a closed book exam. Before the exam everyone was talking about how much they studied the night before. I didn't even take the book home and spent the night getting drunk at the bar. I still got 100% on the test.

LA was pretty nice, especially the weather - which was perfect. I was able to secure lodging at the Embassy suites which was right down the road from the training. I more than made use of the complimentary cocktail's during happy hour, and the cooked to order omelette breakfasts. It was considerably nicer than the "hotel" that was on the base in VA.

A quick rundown of my time in LA. I was surprisingly more busy there than I am normally at home.

Sunday - Arrived in LA. I soon realized that the travel office booked my hotel like 2 hours away from the class. After switching to the much closer Embassy Suites I drove over to Manhattan Beach to check it out and then ate In-N-Out.

Monday - Went to class and then drove up to Santa Monica. Got my hair cut at this little one-chair shop and bought a pair of Puma's.

Tuesday - After class I went up to Culver City for burgers and beers with my RA from freshmen year. We had a good catch up. His life makes my life look as boring as Milliard Fillmore's college years.

Wednesday - I went out and bought a new dress shirt. I had packed for the trip hungover and was short a shirt to wear, I then got sushi and a few beers with a girl I met whilst shopping.

Thursday - I watched the Michigan Basketball game over free beers and then went down to Hermosa Beach with an old friend from college. We went out drinking and I got pretty sauced. I had to take a cab home.

Friday - Took the final test and we finished at 10am. I then went to the beach and chilled for a few hours. I ate my final meal of In-N-Out and then went to the airport. I switched to an earlier flight but it had a mechanical problem and we didn't end up leaving until after the flight I was originally supposed to be on left. I finally made it home tired, hungover and smelling of In-N'-Out.

My goal was if I had to spend all day in dumb training, that I would get out and do stuff at night. I did some cool stuff, but a couple of things like getting to the Getty and driving out to Malibu I didn't have enough time or daylight for. Still it was infinitely times better than Dahlgren.

One thing about LA is that driving there is crazy. I remembered this from the last time I was there in 2007, with Mark driving the 10 while he was drunkover. Drivers in LA do things that other places would be suicidal. People accelerate until they are about to hit the car in front of them and then slam on the breaks or swerve into another lane without looking. Motorcycles just ride in between the traffic. No one uses turn signals and u-turns are commonplace everywhere. It's all par for the course. I consider myself a pretty aggressive driver, but I wouldn't hold a candle to some of the people on the 405.

Drunkest Man in America

I went to DC for New Years. After waking up from a tremendous all-you-can-drink on Friday night, we proceeded directly to the bar at noon on Saturday to watch the Gator bowl. Because of the results we decided just keep drinking all day and all night.

Somewhere around hour 9 of 14 and bar number 4 we began wondering if we were any of us were approaching the title of drunkest man in DC. Clearly, one of us held the title of drunkest man in the bar we were at. But there was no way tell if any of us could claim the title of drunkest man in our nation's Capitol.

Human microchip implants are an existing technology. Cell phones with RFID readers exist. I'd wager that in 40 or 50 years microchips will be widely used in conjunction with cell phones for people to monitor their blood sugar, temp and other body statistics such as BAC. This could be very helpful for people that want to know if they are legal to drive a vehicle or need an insulin shot.

So it stands to reason that it could be possible to create a phone app that compares the BAC for a large number of people and output over what geographic area you are the drunkest man. I'm pretty sure there have been a few times that I've contended for DMIA. I've at least broached the top-100, and definitely have been the drunkest man in Ann Arbor. But until the future catches up, I'll have no way to know for sure.