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.

Weenie Wacking

I mentioned Weenie Wacking in a previous post and promised to explain it.

About 9 months ago I was down in Houston visiting Mark, Val and McKaylee. They were talking about the going-ons back in Iowa and Val started telling us about a new fad sweeping their old high school. Apparently kids today sit in class and work up a semi-boners and then when the teachers turn towards the board they pull their ding-dongs out of their pants and whack it against their desks. The goal is to whack their quasi-bonered schlongs against the desk the longest and hardest without getting caught by the teachers.

When we were in high school we would play the Penis game, which involved progressively saying the word penis louder and louder without the teacher hearing. But this brings the game to a whole new level. I mean this is bordering on the criminal. I can't wait to see what kids are like in 20 years, it's going to be insane.

Daylight Savings Time

My favorite day of the year is June 21st because that is the day that it says light out the latest. I enjoy sunlight. I like being able to go out at night and have the last glimmering specs of twilight still present at 10pm. Today the sun went down at 4:18 here in Seattle. Sunrise was at 7:50, giving the city 8 and a half hours of the sun's ultraviolet glory. This corresponds almost perfectly to people's work schedules, effectively forcing people to drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark. I find that criminally depressive and I've blogged about how I hate that the sunlight doesn't match up people's schedules. This year I took a stand, and changed nothing.

Yep I changed nothing, but everyone around me changed. Because I enjoy the extra hour of sunlight, I decided to stay on DST this winter. So far it has worked out terrifically. Basically I never set my clocks back an hour and it's great. I get out of bed at the same time as I have all year, but now I get to work an hour early. If I oversleep by an hour, I get to work right on time. I work my 8 hours and go home but it's an hour earlier in the day. I get an extra hour of sunlight and I can show up an hour late for anything and be right on time. For me the bars close at 3AM instead of 2AM and my Michigan Football games don't start at 9AM but at 10AM giving me what seems like an extra hour of sleep.

This could all be accomplished by converting back to standard time and adjusting my schedule. But for me it works because time is all about perception. I wouldn't be able to go to bed at 9:30PM usually but when I look at my clock and says 10:30, I realize that I have to get to bed. It's the same thing with getting up in the morning. The only way I'll get out of bed is if my clock tells me if I don't I'll be late. I have the same amount of time from when I leave work until I go to bed, but it seems like more because I have more sunlight and I actually get to enjoy a little of it.

Come March when everyone talks about how great the extra hour of sunlight in the summer is I'll remind them that I've been enjoying it the entire time. I'll also mention how I won't be losing that hour of sleep during the switchover.

The Wire

I had this wierd quirk to watching The Wire. Whenever I would decide to start a new season I would force myself to watch every season up to that one before I could begin. Then once I was finished, I would give myself 4-6 months to reflect on the awesomeness of that season before starting the process all over again. It took my two years to get through the series, and I've now seen season one 5 times.

I watched my first episode of the wire in 2008

How do you describe the wire. It's an engrossing series. Even

Some Notes:

• Favorite Character: Bode Broadus. I liked Cutty and Landsman, but Bode was the one character I really felt his achievements and defeats so viscerally good or bad. I felt worse when he died than when real people have died
• Season rankings: 4 and 3 are far at the top with 4 getting the slight edge. Then 2 followed by 5 and 1. I think 1 was hard, because it had to set up so much, and 5 was hard because so many characters were gone by the end.
• Best season closing song/montage - Steve Earle "I Feel Alright" from Season 2. Steve Earle also plays Walon, Bubbles sponsor.
• The one thing that was apparent throughout the series was the importance of leverage during a negotiation. In season 5, when Lester has the head shot on Clay Davis he uses it to get Clay to give him information. Clay has no idea that the US attourney has refused to prosecute Clay because of beef with Carcetti. But Lester still uses this against Clay Davis. The best example of this is when Pearlman goes in to Levy's office to negotiate the plea against Stanfield. Levy knows that the charges are from an illegal wiretap, and Pearlman knows has leverage against Levy for his purchasing grand jury depositions illegally. Both have leverage against the other, but a Rhonda reminds Levy, he will go to jail for longer than he will. It's like a prisoners dilemma where Rhonda is reminding levy that if he stabs her, he will get stabbed worse. Just a great climax of an episode.
• Despite how Marlo came off as brutish and hard to watch I have to feel that he was the best at playing the game. Sure Stringer was good, but he was meant for a different game than the drug trade. Avon was to territorial, Prop Joe too willing to compromise, Cheese too aggressive, White Mike too white, Slim Charles is to weak and unable to make a move. Marlo knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to do what it took to take it. This was written by someone else, but sums up my feelings of Marlo. The first time Marlo makes an impact is when his underlings are about to punish Bubbles and Johnny for leaning on their car, threatening them with a handgun. Marlo takes in the situation and says simply 'Do it or don't. I've got places to be." He instantly puts himself above trivial concerns; he shows neither anger nor compassion. He has merely sized the situation up, judged there is no threat or benefit to him therein, and leaves it as not worth his time. His decision-making is calibrated to winning "the game". Marlo's utilitarian analysis is perhaps most marked when he decides Michael's fate. He clearly has a slight fondness for Michael (he chose him after all), and agrees with Chris he's unlikely to be the snitch. "But you willing to bet your life on it?" he asks, and the decision is made. He acknowledges his inability to put human relationships first in his last exchange with Joe, who he clearly also felt some bond with: "I treated you like a son" "I wasn't made to play the son. Close your eyes...it won't hurt none".

I've watched so much of the wire that I made a few fan video's which I have posted below. The last one took me the longest and may be the one thing on the internet that I am most proud of.

The Wire has changed my life in a way no other TV show has been able to since Walker Texas Ranger. Everything that happens in my life I can relate to a moment in The Wire.

The Omaha Steaks Brochure

One fall day during our college years we were magically misdelivered a catalog for the Omaha Steaks. It languished around the couches receiving little attention for a few weeks. Then one day someone picked it up and looked at the goods that the Omaha Steak Company was selling. We were in awe. The number and diversity of steaks along with the sides and knives that they included amazed us all. We spent the next several hours debating about which packages we were planning to get and how we would divide them. We were going to eat like kings from that day forward. We made our plan and then gave them a call to place an order. But the deals in the catalog were only good for the names that they sent it to, and we were not on their “exclusive member” list. And like that our hopes of brashly made steak purchases were dashed. It were those spur of the moment purchasing decisions that led to us being delivered $170 worth of Fatheads or an entire case of 40oz Camo Silver Ice’s.