Oh Yeah! I Have a Blog!

Fun Fact: Dark roast coffees actually have less caffeine than lighter roasts.

 

Last we left our heroes they had just traveled 3,000 miles back to Rhode Island to watch the Bruins lose in spectacular fashion so that’s where I’ll pick it up!  Hello everyone, Jeff here.  lots has happened in the last three months since I last posted a blog – it’s been tax season and although I don’t do taxes I get the benefit of working 1,000 hour weeks still J.  For those kids or parents reading at home tell your kids to practice hitting a curve ball instead of reading books.

 

Anyway, I guess since I already made a bruins reference I’ll work backwards on this post.  Also my memory isn’t too great so we’ll see how much of the last two months I can recall at the moment.  This past weekend was St Patty’s day weekend and although we didn’t go to the parade in Newport (RI) like we did those couple years before we became accountants, we still managed to enjoy some festivities.  The Bruins made their annual west coast swing so they played games on Friday night in Anaheim (against Coach Bombay and the Mighty Ducks) and Saturday night against Quasimodo and the Kings.

 

Quasimodo sporting a fine black tunic ahead of his match with some bears.

 

In September when tickets went on sale we couldn’t resist buying them to see the Bruins in Anaheim but as last week rolled along I couldn’t help but try to convince Carissa to let me get tickets to the Kings as well.  We ended up going to both games and they were a blast but unfortunately the flying V and non-stop quack chants rattled the Bruins to a 4-0 loss against the ducks and the Kings protected the castle and the Bruins lost again 2-1 making it two consecutive years where they went 0 for 3 on their west coast swing (they lost in San Jose on Monday of last week).  That concludes this week’s sports talk.  Tune in later in the blog when I remember that the super bowl also happened in the last two months and the sports talk actually continues briefly!

 

So the week before I traded Saturday in the office for Sunday in the office and we took a trip down to a beer fest in San Diego.  It was a beautiful sunny and 75 degrees (obviously… because that’s all San Diego ever is) and the beer fest was right on the water next to multi-million dollar yachts.  Carissa can explain the yachts better than I can though.

 

As Carissa pointed out above, this boat not only has a boat on it but also has a helicopter (sans blades) on the top deck.  It was quite an impressive sight to see.
(It's almost like you can't even tell this was recorded after a beer fest)

 

The beer fest ran from around 1-4, there were food trucks where I got bacon wrapped mac and cheese bites (almost brother’s competition quality) and we went out on the town after for a few hours before returning home and sleeping off a long day… before I had to wake up and drag my dead body into work because that’s what champions do… they drink too much and go to work the next day anyway!

 

Thursday March 10^th was the celebration of the day I was born 26 short years ago!  As always I celebrated the only way I know how – by going to work!  Luckily the manager I was working with found out it was my birthday around 3pm and felt bad about not knowing all day so he told me to leave at 5pm (instead of the more traditional 9pm that I had been working until the rest of that week).  So Carissa and I went out to a lovely dinner where I ate steak and drank some chardonnay!  Then we came home and watched Straight Outta Compton.  It was good but the most interesting part of the whole thing is that they just painted Eazy-E as a complete dingus (PG rated language alert) which is interesting because he’s now dead and couldn’t really add anything to the story.  Who knows? Maybe he was a dingus?  Either way – good movie.

 

So working our way back chronologically, I don’t remember anything else that happened between Super Bowl Sunday and my birthday so let’s go there!  Going into that weekend we were already into the swing of busy season and working too many hours including Saturdays (and by “we”, I mean “I” Carissa managed to find a diamond in the rough (the Aladdin of accounting firms if you will) where she doesn’t have to work overtime during winter).  So checking the weather report we noticed it was going to be nice on Super Bowl weekend and we decided to go to the beach.  In February.  On Super Bowl Sunday.  It was in the low 80s and it was amazing just to be at the beach hanging out… after all it’s one of the only times we really “celebrated” the fact that we moved to California.  We hung out there for most of the day then we watched Peyton Manning do his best to lose to the Panthers only to be bailed out by his defense.  But after a Broncos win and a Peyton doing a little advertising for Papa John and Budweiser the night went on.  The cool thing about the west coast is that big games like that usually end around 10pm so you don’t have to feel like a zombie the next day!  Although you still do because it’s the Super Bowl.  That concludes our sports talk for today, stay tuned for more interesting topics!

 

So arguably the most exciting thing that happened in the last two months (and in all honesty about 75% of the reason we packed everything and moved to California) was that we went to be in the audience of The Price Is Right!  So basically this should have been an entire blog in itself but I f’d up and I apologize.  I also can’t give away any spoilers because I signed an official looking piece of paper that a perused beforehand and said I shouldn’t or Bob Barker would kick my ass.  So basically all of their filming is done during the week but we (Carissa) found a rare Sunday filming and we (Carissa) got tickets for us!  The tickets said there was a morning and an afternoon filming so we chose the afternoon which meant we were supposed to be there by noon.  So in order to make sure we were there on time for what we thought was a noon filming we got there at like 10:30am.  What we did not know however is that they wanted us there at noon for the pre-show stuff.  What this means is that they have to take everybody’s information and SSN and everything to make sure you don’t make a living trying to get onto The Price Is Right (unfortunately).  So for about 4 hours we did everything from filling out some paperwork, to waiting in line, to getting our official TPIR nametags, to getting our picture, to getting interviewed in a group of about 25 at a time to see if you’ll be worthy enough to go up and be on contestant row.  Basically it was a long process that was totally worth it because we got to go inside the Bob Barker Sound Stage!  So *Spoiler Alert* neither of us got selected, I think the guy liked me during the interview because he talked to me for a bit longer than other people but as soon as I said I was an accountant (like an idiot) I knew that was the nail in my coffin.  TPIR is looking for an average joe, not somebody who makes them pay taxes (is that what people think accountants do?).  Anyway lesson learned and next time I go to a filming I am telling them I’m a plumber or a student or something.  Going inside the sound stage was pretty amazing, we got to see Drew Carey; he told a lot of dirty jokes during the commercial breaks.  We got to see some people win some games and some people lose some games.  Probably the funniest “crowd” experience I had was there was a game where there were 5 numbers in a row in the price of whatever and it was like 47512.  The goal of the game was to pull out either the 7, 5, or 1 to get the actual price of whatever it was.  So the girl next to us (who didn’t know the contestant) was screaming, SCREAMING 1 over and over.  Louder than anybody else in the audience it seemed and I figured I wanted to take a stab at it too, why not right? So I yell 7.  IMMEDIATELY after I yell 7 (thinking I’m helping the person playing the game) the girl yelling 1 whips around and yells “NO!” at me as if I was stabbing her cat.  At that point I was like ok fine 1! 1! And it turns out the answer was 1 and that girl was spot on so I just followed what she said on every game after that (except one where I was right and it was awesome – she was actually right on like 95% of the games so it sucks for her that she didn’t get called up… she obviously did some research beforehand).  Speaking of research, they told us multiple times before we went in that we couldn’t bring phones (obviously) or price listings which I thought was funny.  Like you just print out a list of prices of everything you can think of just in case anybody you know gets called up so you can help.  Everything from Toyota Camry to Flintstones vitamins just to be safe.  Stroll on in with an alphabetized ream of price lists.  Anyway… thought that was funny that they specified it multiple times.  All and all I have not given up on my dream to meet Drew Carey, call him Bob, have nobody anywhere find it funny but me, and ultimately do something stupid to lose it all.  The episode we were on is airing on April 26^th and we are in the second row behind the contestants so you will absolutely see us!  After busy season is over we will work on getting on TV more so you can all see us more – our goal for the next show we go watch is Who’s Line Is It Anyway (we are doing a Drew Carey tour).

 

I think that’s the high points for the last three-ish months.  We will do our best to do more interesting things to blog about and I will do my best to remember them and to remember to blog about them!  Until next time – have a great day!

 

May your poops be plentiful! (and you thought I forgot my closing line).

RI and the Winter Classic!

Editor’s note: wrote this on Sunday and forgot to post it so some of the “today” stuff is misleading… think of today as Sunday.  Also I didn’t send myself any pictures from my phone so the pictures from the winter classic will be forthcoming.

Fun Fact: Eating too much food can lead to tummy aches

This is another two weeker, mostly because I was home for the first week of the two weeker.  This post starts out back in the year 2015 - a year that was divisible by 5 AND 403 (probably other numbers too but I couldn’t find any in my brief long division).  So the last week of 2015 was uneventful for the most part.  I don’t remember what happened but from what I can recall we solved the case of the missing house keys and ate a pizza.  On Wednesday afternoon we left work with one thing on our mind… we were going back to RI.

We drove to LA after work and were parked, shuttled, and through security around 8pm.  Our flight was at 10:50 so we did what anybody would do and hit the airport bar.  My strategy was to have a couple beers so I could fall asleep as soon as I got on the plane.  This being our first time flying on Virgin Airlines, we did not really know what to expect but we were told it was a great airline.  We got on the plane and immediately saw a difference between that and southwest (which we usually fly but on this occasion was not less expensive).  Virgin had mood lighting which I’m guessing probably started as a way for people to feel less frustrated by the people in front of them who seem to be challenged by the overhead bins and continued because it worked.  I don’t know if it was because of the mood lights or the calming music but I was already happier when I got on board… take notice other air lines.

So anyway we got to our seats and since we booked this flight a little later than we wanted to (I didn’t know if I would have the next day off or not) we got two aisle seats one behind the other (so I was sitting in the aisle seat in front of Carissa).  Once we got to our seats we immediately noticed that they were slightly wider than southwest’s seats and that there was a few more inches of leg room… both obviously good things when taking an overnight flight.  The coolest part of Virgin Airlines is they have an awesome rap of the safety instructions that has a video and everything before takeoff!  I was happy that my plan was working and I fell asleep only to be awoken by Carissa hitting me in the head with a nip of sailor jerry (the small bottles that are like 1oz or whatever that they serve on airplanes… somebody told me this week that they didn’t know they were called nips so I figured I’d elaborate in case anybody else felt the same confusion).  I never really fell back asleep after that so I watched the TV that was on the back of the seat in front of me and watched the lady next to me struggle to play solitaire on her ipad.  She made me furious because she was terrible at it but in her defense she probably isn’t used to playing on overnight flights with a very critical audience.

Our flight took off from LAX at 10:50pm pacific time and landed in Boston at 5:30am Eastern time.  I don’t know how that math works and I haven’t tried to figure it out but I think we hit a time warp because that flight was WAY shorter than I thought it would be.  Anyway we left the airport and headed towards south station in Boston to catch the 6:20 train to Providence.  We made it with about 5 minutes to spare and Carissa’s mommy picked us up in Providence to take us back to her house to wait for Wein-o-rama to start serving lunch.

Wein-o-rama if you don’t know (I feel like this blog may have more Californian readers since I saw most of the RI audience last week… all 3 of you) is an old fashioned diner that opened in 1962 and specializes in making delicious hot wieners.  A wiener is like if the best tasting hot dog you ever had cloned itself and had a baby hot dog (like a pig in a blanket) that was twice as delicious and grew up to be even more delicious than when it was born.  It’s slightly smaller than a traditional ball park frank and comes on a steamed bun.  If you get one “all the way” you’re looking at steamed bun, wiener, mustard, meat sauce, onion, and celery salt.  I don’t know why this culinary delicacy only exists in Rhode Island (someone once told me it was because RI has more lenient health laws… but that can’t be the reason can it?) but I think the other 49 states need to get their shit together because wieners are the best.  After a healthy breakfast of two eggs, home fries, toast and 3 no mustard (yeah I get em with no mustahd, big whoop, wanna fight about it (say it with a really Rhode Island/Italian accent)) we headed out to go see momma DeLuca because she had been feeding me some garbage about missing us… I see through your clever façade mother.  When I got home we all hugged and kissed and played a quick game of how confused can you make your mother in a 10 minute conversation before we stole her car to go meet some friends for lunch.

After we left lunch we went to the AT&T store to get new phones!  I had been due for an upgrade for about a year so I figured there was no time like the present!  Due to some technical difficulties on transferring Carissa’s pictures and stuff so it took about 3 hours to get new phones but at least I got to watch the whole Winter Classic Alumni Game in the process.  Afterwards we went to Sam and Chris’s new House and hung out for some New Year’s festivities.  We went to bed around 2am and woke up at 7am (so we were working on roughly 7 hours of sleep total over two nights) to drive up to North Smithfield to reunite the Brothers and prepare for the Winter Classic!

When we got there Bob was finishing packing the car and Liz was inside putting some finishing touches on the last few things we were bringing.  To say that they won at tailgating would be an understatement.  I knew that they would do a good job but they far surpassed any expectations I could have ever had.  They brought small presents for us to open (essentially like a party favor bag that you would get when you were like 7 and at a friend’s birthday party - only these had scratch tickets and shots of tequila) they brought a queso dip that was good enough to kill for.  They brought bacon and eggs to cook before the game as well as chicken and skewers to cook after the game while we were waiting for traffic to clear out.  They also had premixed hot chocolate with Dr. McGillicuddy as well as many beers for shotgunning and consuming in the conventional fashion.  We made friends with some of the Canadian fans that were nearby.  Although we offered them food before and after the game we made it clear to them that we were not friends while the game was happening - a trade off they gladly accepted because the queso dip was that good.  We also made them shotgun beers with us which was a lot of fun.  The winter classic was overall an amazing experience even though the Bruins appeared to really only try for about 10 out of 60 minutes.  I think the sun was in their eyes for the other 50 minutes… which is probably why they play inside for the other 81 games.

That night we hung out in North Smithfield and the following night we had a family dinner in Cranston before having brunch on Sunday and heading back up to Boston by train to fly back to LAX that afternoon.  We had a lot of fun back in RI and I think we did an effective job of yelling at everybody to come visit us… COME VISIT US!

This week we took a trial run at a new cooking website we signed up for.  It’s called Cook Smarts and you basically pay like $8 a month to get 4 recipes a week and take all the thinking out of making dinner.  It tries to make all 4 meals have similar ingredients that you can prep earlier in the week if you want and pretty much just makes life a little easier if you’re like us and say “what do you want to have for dinner tonight?  I don’t know…. Want to go out?  No not really but I don’t know what to cook” every night of the week.

Other than that we didn’t really do much this week.  So I guess this is really just a 1 week late blog instead of being a two week blog.  The only thing I can really add is I’m sorry to all of the Viking fans out there.  If you missed the game but saw Ace Ventura: Pet Detective let’s just say Blair Walsh is the new Ray Finkle.  LACES OUT!  If you didn’t see the game or that movie than you are probably leading a more interesting life than I am.  Next week we will probably do more interesting things but we also might start getting really busy at work so we’ll see.  We bought Powerball tickets so hopefully we can afford to not work so much in the future.  The place we bought it had a sign that just said 999 million because they couldn’t get it to go up past a billion… which is insane.  Imagine how many boats you could buy with a billion dollars...  A lot of boats… or one REALLY big boat.  I hope you all have a great week and may your poops be plentiful!

Christmas and Santa Barbara

Fun Fact: Eggs is meat!

Alright Grandma… you told me these are still too long so this is my attempt to make these blogs more reader friendly.  Unfortunately by granting your wish for a shorter blog I will have to ignore your request to curtail the poop talk!

So as you all may or may not know - Christmas was this week!  I don’t really remember anything we did all week leading up to Christmas so I will start on Christmas Eve.  We went to the movies and saw “The Big Short” starring Steve Carrel, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and MOST IMPORTANTLY Brad Pitt.  It was about the housing crisis in 2007 and was based on a true story.  It was a good movie but the fact that it was based on reality and it pointed out that nothing has really changed since then it makes you pretty sad when you leave!

Speaking of movies!  You’ll never guess what we did on Christmas!  We saw the new star wars!  Spoiler alert: I enjoyed it and thought it was a great movie!  I would say it was better than The Big Short because I didn’t leave having lost some faith in humanity!  There’s also lots of fun action and lasers and stuff!  It’s so fun!  We saw it with some of the people we went to beerfest with (see post from early December-ish).  Afterwards we all went to the bar and enjoyed some beverages before finding out that the bar we were at was not serving food because the kitchen was closed.  Thankfully the Asian restaurant owners of Orange County understood the predicament we were in and we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner before coming back to our apartment and playing some Jackbox games until we were laughing so hard we were peeing our pants with excitement!  (Sorry grandma… I have a problem with bathroom talk that’s only been exacerbated by the fact that I was told not to do it).

Saturday (December 26) we woke up and jumped in the convertible (with the top up because it’s colder in OC than RI… which is really just more annoying than anything) and headed north to Santa Barbara.  Santa Barbara is north of Los Angeles just past Malibu!  Unfortunately due to a wild fire we were not able to drive through Malibu so I was unable to make any clever Mali-booty references - the ride up also took about 4 hours rather than the 2 hours it would have normally taken.  We ended up getting there around 2pm and went to State Street which is where lots of the touristy things are.  We walked around for a while until we found a winery!  That’s where I took this picture!

  

 After we left the winery we went to dinner where I took this picture…

THEN we left dinner and went to another winery where I took no pictures!  We did however get some wine and a couple cool wine glasses (one of which made it home unbroken)!  After our stroll around town we headed to the Airbnb where we stayed the night in a lovely room in a house owned by Charmaine and John… they were very nice people who offered us a California King size bed in a room with a city view!  We watched the road to the NHL winter classic on the laptop and dreamed about the hockey game we would be seeing six short days from then!

Sunday we woke up and went for a hike on a trail in the hills of Santa Barbara.  It was about a two and a half mile hike before we worked our way back down to Santa Barbara Brewing Company to get some breakfast and watch the Patriots game!  I had a breakfast pizza that included eggs, peppers and onions, and chorizo!  It was a yummy distraction from that train wreck in New York.  After the game we walked around town a little more.  We went to the historic courthouse and I took this picture.

After we left the courthouse (we didn't get married mom... don't worry) we got back in the car and headed home.  Luckily the fire was contained or maybe put out by the time we were driving home and we were able to take the highway home - which allowed for awesome ocean views!  After we got home Carissa made us go out and buy another dresser for me so she can have another arts and crafts project and so she can take another step towards making me an adult.  It’s like she doesn’t even know me.

That’s all for this week!  I did have a doctor’s appointment today which was my first trip to a doctor that wasn’t Dr. DeAngelis.  It was a sad moment and again - another trip towards the adulthood I’ve been trying to put off for so long.  It is Monday in California and Tuesday in RI which means I will be home in 2 and 3 days!  Hopefully we will somehow manage to see all of you in the few days we’re home!  I am excited to see you all and until then, may your poops be plentiful!

That Time I got Food Poisoning (and more!)

Fun Fact: Slurpee Machines to make frozen beverages were invented by Omar Knedlik in the late 1950s. The idea for a slushed ice drink came when Knedlik's soda fountain broke down, forcing him to put his sodas in a freezer to stay cool, which caused them to become slushy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN! (and Sarah I guess… but your birthday is old news now)

Hello!  It’s me!  I’m in California dreaming about who we used to be!  When we we’re younger… and freeee… (that’s enough Adele for one post).  So it’s been a couple of weeks.  I was busy last week and I figured if I just texted my mom instead she would know I was alive so I wouldn’t need to make any more coherent words.  So yeah last I posted I was mentioning that we had gone to beerfest and that Carissa’s family was stopping by so I will fast forward to Thursday when they got here (since nothing really happened last week that I can remember).

We Carissa cleaned the shit out of our apartment because the Pope Carissa’s mom was coming to visit.  On Thursday I was given a short list of things to finish before Carissa arrived from LAX with guests.  They arrived around 10pm or something and we pretty much just caught up and said our hellos and went to bed.  Friday I went to work and they went to Newport Beach to get the full California experience.  Friday night we pretty much just hung out if I recall, they went to dinner and I went to a work party where I got a bottle of bubbly Moscato as a Yankee swap gift.  It only exploded twice in the process of opening and pouring it and I almost shot my eye out with the cork only once.

So Saturday morning we took off for northern pastures and decided to give Carissa’s mom (Rhonda) and Carissa’s Grandma (Gram) an authentic look at Venice Beach and Santa Monica in Los Angeles, California.  Now if you don’t know what Venice Beach is the only way I can describe it is the place where beautiful beach, meets a crazy amount of drug addicts, meets street performer’s, meets lots of tourist shops.  It is probably a must see for your first time in LA (granted I haven’t seen all of LA and there are most likely plenty of things to do that are better) but for my money (free… plus the cost of parking) it is a great way to spend an afternoon people watching and enjoying the beach.

This is a picture of Venice Beach I found on the internet... I didn't take any myself

While there we saw a couple people perform, we looked at some of the art made out of various different mediums and Rhonda and Gram bought some souvenirs.  From there we drove down the street (about three miles) to Santa Monica Pier.  There are lots of fun facts about Santa Monica Pier that I don’t remember but my guess is the pier from Rocket Power is based on the Santa Monica Pier.  We just walked around the pier and took in the sights again before heading back down to Costa Mesa for dinner.

I also did not take this picture of Santa Monica Pier because I do not yet own a helicopter... but I'm working on it.

Sunday we tried to go to Knottsberry Farm which is both a farm AND an amusement park (it’s essentially like Six Flags).  Turns out that was really expensive!  So instead we went to San Diego!  We walked around the seaport and midway areas and eventually worked our way over to Coronado Island.  We stopped for an early dinner and walked over to Hotel Del Coronado.

I did take this picture of Hotel Del Coronado - you can tell because Rhonda and Carissa aren't facing the camera.  Candid shots only.

You may recognize it from some movie back in the day that may have had Marilyn Monroe and some other actors in it.  Gram remembered the movie but somehow I don’t remember it.  Anyway going to this hotel actually got me in the Christmas and holiday mood because they had a damn ice rink going on in the back court area of the hotel.  So there was literally an ice rink less than 50 feet from the beach.  Why that got me pumped for Christmas I have no idea but I thought it was amazing that the ice rink was there and it was probably mid-60’s and I took 3 steps and was standing in the sand.

The ice rink at Hotel Del Coronado.  Just beyond those palm trees is the beach.  As you can see there is a bit of a lake in the middle of the ice rink but the fact remains that having an ice rink in San Diego when it's in the high 60's is still pretty awesome.

So after we left San Diego we headed back to Costa Mesa and I went to a local watering hole to watch the Patriots play the Houston Texans.  So when I walked into this place I could tell it was unlike any other time I had been there because there was actually music playing and people inside.  Usually it’s like 5-10 middle aged men who are watching football but this time there was only like 5 of those and the rest were people in their 20's and maybe 30's who were watching football and hanging out and playing pool.  So I sat down and some dude I’ve never seen came over and poured me a beer.  I could tell in one second that this man had been drinking all day, if not longer.  I got about ½ beer and ½ head (the foamy part on the top).  Seeing that he was handing me that half full beer I decided I would take a quick bathroom break just to let it settle so my first drink wouldn’t be all foam.  I came back and he realized what had happened and filled it up the rest of the way.  Needless to say I was thankful but it was really foreshadowing what the rest of my night was going to be.  So I made a joke to the guy next to me about how drunk the bartender was and he confirmed my suspicions that that specific bartender didn’t even work there and that he was the brother of the real bartender… who at that time walked up… and she was just as drunk as the other guy.  So I talked to this bar stranger and he explained that this was a unique situation and how the real bartender doesn’t usually drink (which given the establishment I was at is actually a surprise) but tonight she was really drunk. 

Usually during patriots games I try to pace myself with drinking because even though I walk to the bar I don’t want to go too crazy (having work on Monday) and I don’t want to spend too much money (even though it’s $4 drafts – which is why I go to this place in the first place).  This Sunday moderation was not an option.  I had about 1/3 of my first beer left and the bartender came over and gave me a second beer instructing me to “drink faster” a command that I initially laughed at but then decided I would obey.  This practice repeated itself to the point that I was concerned about whether I was getting charged for all of these unwarranted beers making a joke to the other bar patron that my bill was either going to be $2 or $2,000 the way the night was going.  So a few beers (maybe 5-6 total?) and four quarters of football later I was feeling pretty good and ready to head home.  I asked for my bill and to my surprise the damage from all of those beers came to $8.  I gladly tipped 100% - making my total $16 for what would normally have been $24 worth of beer (not to mention the shot of Jameson that was slid my way… obviously I didn’t ask for it).  So on the way home I was feeling hungry and I stopped at Alejandro’s, a 24 hour Mexican food restaurant about 100 yards from my apartment.  I got a California burrito and life was great… or so I thought… more on that in a second.  I walked into the apartment and the end of Silver Linings Playbook was on TV and everybody was watching.  We hung out and I caught the end before bed time.

The next morning I woke up to what I assumed was a bit of a hangover, said our goodbyes to Rhonda and Gram and went off to work.  As the morning went on I started feeling worse instead of better.  My stomach had been upset and I had to go to the bathroom too much for it to be only from drinking.  That’s when I remembered the burrito and the questionable yelp reviews Alejandro’s had received.  After about 1:00 I realized I wasn’t going to make it through the day and I decided to leave early.  About 5 minutes from home I felt it.  That feeling we have all felt at one time or another.  I knew I was going to puke.  I made an agreement with my body that if I could hold it in for 5 minutes, I could throw up in the comfort of my own bathroom, rather than on the side of the road.  My body obliged and I made it home, puking about 3 minutes later.  This is pretty much when I figured I was clear from this being alcohol induced and that this was more of a sinister food poisoning situation.  I tried to fall asleep on the couch and I was doing a good job until I was awoken by another bought of puking that my body did not cooperate on… I puked about 3 feet shy of the toilet… it was on the wall… but not nearly as bad as the last time I puked on the wall (sorry Brian).  Luckily for Carissa this was a case of sober Jeff puking from food poisoning, not drunk Jeff puking from being an idiot.  So I cleaned it all by myself and she wouldn’t have even noticed if I hadn’t told her, or left the cleaning supplies in the bathroom, or if I had done a good job cleaning.

This is where this post would have ended if I had written it on Monday of last week… but unfortunately I didn’t so I have another brief section about going to Oakland.  Sorry Grandma (she said I should post shorter blog posts because she’s 85 years old and doesn’t have that much time left… which was really funny because she’s healthier than I am and she’ll probably outlive me… I love you grandma!)

So anyway – this week I went to Oakland for an audit of a hotel.  I was supposed to leave Tuesday morning at 6:45am but due to the whole food poisoning thing I changed my flight to noon hoping a good night’s sleep is all I would need.  When I woke up I felt a little better but I wasn’t 100% yet.  So I sucked it up and boarded a plane knowing I wasn’t contagious and flew up to Oakland.  I got to the hotel around noon and after I was offered food 5-10 times I finally ate the pretzels that were provided on the flight… first solid food in about 36 hours.  It went down ok and actually made me pretty hungry so I had a burger afterwards and everything was good.  We left the audit and I checked into the hotel and went up to my room where I fell asleep around 7:30pm.  It was glorious.

Hotel audits are pretty awesome because they’re not overly challenging and you get to stay in the hotel that you’re doing the audit of.  So it’s literally like you’re working from home… only you have to wear pants.  So I stayed on the 7^th floor and the conference room we were working in was on the 2^nd floor which meant my morning commute consisted of walking out of my room to the elevator (about 10 feet) and taking the elevator to the 2^nd floor.  Then I had to walk kind of far to the conference room.  On the way was the breakfast area though so I got to stop for breakfast on the way.  All and all I would say it was a pretty cool experience being able to audit the hotel I was sleeping in.  As for the city of Oakland I did not see much.  I walked about two blocks in every direction at night (starting Wednesday night when I was on a more normal diet again).  Thursday I went back to being a normal human who ate solid food and my life felt rejuvenated!  I flew home Friday and Carissa and I hugged and high fived to celebrate another successful return of Jeffrey from the San Francisco Bay area!

This weekend we went to Joshua Tree to go camping!  What’s a Joshua tree you may be asking?  They look like this:

This is a stock photo of a Joshua Tree!  The pictures I took are now on Facebook in an album called "Joshua Tree"

I don’t recall actually seeing any of these but we had a lot of fun.  We met a group of people there that we had never met before but also belonged to the same “orange county transplants” group we joined.  We met some cool people that were also from New England and we all talked about how we were freezing even though it was probably in the low to mid 40's (that’s what happens when you get cocky about the warm temperatures and leave all your winter clothes at home when you move cross country).  So we went for a few hikes during the day and one at night after the booze started flowing.  I’m happy to report no injuries.  We (Carissa and I) shared a tent and slept comfortably (except for the fact that I forgot my keys were in my pocket and just assumed the ground was uneven - when I finally realized I could get rid of the lump by taking my keys out of my pocket things got more comfortable).  I will post 3 or 4 pictures on Facebook so you can see the wonder of hiking in Joshua tree so go look for those if you have any interest!

Minor notes, we survived our first earthquake!  I would equate it to somebody pulling up too far in the garage and hitting the wall very softly.  Or what it was probably like if a T-Rex was approaching.  I saw the ripples in my glass of milk and immediately had to figure out if I should hide due to Jurassic era danger approaching.  Luckily it stopped after about 3 seconds and everything was cool. 

It is December 21^st right now (happy birthday again Bri Guy) and I don’t know where the hell the month went.  I hope you all had a Happy Hanukkah and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas on Friday.  We will be making a brief appearance back up in RI from 12/31 to 1/3 so if you are around text us and we’ll let you know where we are! (We won’t have a car so at least for this visit it’s on you to come to us)  We are also going to the Winter Classic at Gillette while we’re home but that’s at least one or two blog posts away.  Until then, from all of us here in Costa Mesa, may your poops be plentiful!

Beerfest!

Fun Fact: The United Nations estimates that there are over three million shipwrecks on the ocean floors. Lost, destroyed, or deliberately sunk, these wrecks are of interest to divers, underwater archaeologists, and treasure hunters alike.

I’m late again!  I try to post these on Sundays but that has obviously not been the case the last couple weeks… I can only imagine the havoc that is wreaking on my poor mother.  I am still alive and I would even say I am well!

Unfortunately for all of us I didn’t do much of anything this week.  FORTUNATELY for everybody this weekend I went to a beerfest!  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here… on Wednesday we actually saw the new Hunger Games movie and it was pretty good.  It was pretty crazy that Phillip Seymour Hoffman died during the filming of that movie.  I kind of forgot until about halfway through the movie but yeah - overall pretty good movie!

So yeah, that was pretty much everything that happened all week.  Then Saturday came along!  Carissa had found out about this beer fest (called Brew Ho Ho) from some people that she met doing yogurt classes.  We saw the flyer and were immediately even more pumped because there was a band slated to play at the event and that band was none other than Reel Big Fish (you may recognize the name from when you were in middle school - yeah they still play music and yeah its still great!)

So Saturday morning I put on my best beerfest attire and we ordered an Uber to bring us to the Phoenix club in Anaheim, CA. 

Jeff in his beerfest best.

The event was from noon to 4pm and when we arrived casually late around 12:10 the line was not nearly as long as we would have expected, probably only 30-40 people.  So we jumped in line and as we approached the front near the gates we spotted little Johnny Christmas! (also known as John Christianson or John ChrisHanson - the trumpet player for Reel Big Fish).  One of the guys at the gate was giving him the business because he wasn’t able to immediately prove that he was in the band… even though he arrived with two trumpets.  One guy was like “artist entry is around the corner, you have to keep going to the next gate” guy number two was like “just let him in” so guy number one said “do you have any ID or some way of proving you're in the band?” (again… he showed up with two trumpets AND me and Carissa recognized him and were talking to him about being in the band right before this line of questioning started) Johnny Christmas stated again that he had two trumpets and guy number 2 said “dude, just let him in.”  after about 2 minutes of guy one taking his job very seriously he finally cracked and let Johnny through the door - saving the concert for people everywhere!

So we made it inside the Brew Ho Ho area to find that it was everything we could have imagined!  There were beer stands everywhere serving the highest quality adult beverages on this side of the Mississippi!  We obviously started out by making sure we wafted in to get the sweet scent of each brew and then took a small taste before spitting out and grading each beverage in our homemade beer ranking portfolios… and by that I mean I challenged myself to consume as many beers as fast as I can because there’s nothing worse than the first 10 minutes of beerfest when you’re sober.  So we walked around the inside area for a while before making it to the outside area of beerfest where there were even more stands.  We wandered around noting that the stands with short lines usually had terrible beer and the ones with long lines had the best beers!  At one point we also came across this storm trooper and I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this guy who had a much better “meeting a storm trooper” reaction than I did.

After about an hour or so of wandering and trying out some beers we wandered to the other side of the beerfest where there was (you guessed it…) more beer!  But what you DIDN’T guess was that inside of a small building within the confines of this wonderful beerfest was (wait for it…) a shooting range!  Nothing too fancy here… only pellet guns.  But the fact remains, they were having a drunken sharpshooting contest to benefit the same charity as the beerfest (Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County… take note BBBSOS).  Targets were $2 so Carissa and I each got one and although I turned mine in to be scored against the judge’s will I did not win.  Carissa was smart and kept hers as a souvenir.  I got all three shots inside the black center of the target (don’t be too impressed it was only like 20 feet away... and I don't mean a bullseye, I mean I hit the main target) but couldn’t bring home the trophy.

So after we shot we went back outside and got a couple more beers (I think you’re probably getting the idea here) and went to the food trucks they had onsite.  Carissa got a burger I think and I got some tacos I think and both were delicious in their own right.  After we ate we made our way over to the outdoor stage right as the sound check was finishing up.  To our delight and as advertised Reel Big Fish started playing!  As they began to play the crowd got bigger and that’s where a man and a shirt arrived that would change the course of our night.  Now I thought I was wearing a cool shirt to beerfest but this guy totally had me beat.

As you may or may not be able to tell - that is Will Smith (in his Fresh Prince days) surrounded by awesome 80s geometry as well as cassette tapes and those big brick cell phones (or as I call them - Zach Morris Specials).  So the concert continued, Carissa and I screamed our little hearts out and occasionally made a trip over to the nearby stands to get some refills before coming back and screaming more.  As the concert finished up we began talking to this glorious shirted wonder and the friends he came with.

So we got to talking with this group of people and found out that most of them worked for Blizzard (the video game company that I sold a good portion of my childhood to) and that they were going out.  Not only did they invite us to hang out with them I believe the word offended may have been thrown around if we had backed out… either way when you meet a group of people like that at a beerfest you’re invested in hanging out.  So we Ubered to a local brewery to keep the party rolling and after Carissa had spilled about 3 beers we decided to have three of them who were willing come over to play some rock band.

It’s around this point in the day that the timing of everything starts to get fuzzy… I know beerfest was over at 4 and I know from the Uber receipt that we all got to our apartment around 7ish.  I don’t think I paid for the Uber from our apartment back to their apartment but what I DO know is that I skipped the important detail of their apartment having a hot tub.  So we obviously wanted to go hot tubbin’ with these complete strangers.  We got another Uber from our place to their place with bathing suits in hand to go enjoy this hot tub.  We were told that the hot tub had a closing time but that they had gone in after hours before.  That turned out to be false.

Sooooo we got to their apartment and all changed for some good ol’ fashioned hot tubbin’.  We jumped the fence to where the hot tub was and to our unfortunate surprise the hot tub was not hot.  It was actually downright cold (probably not actually cold, probably like in the low 80s but that’s not what you want when you’re ready for a nice hot tub).  Heartbroken and dry as could be the five of us walked back to their apartment with even odder plans in mind.  Being that we were pretty much on hour 9 or 10 of drinking we all decided it would be a good idea to go in the bath tub with hot water since we couldn’t do a real hot tub experience.  So four of us all got in the bathtub together (bathing suits still on) and tried for about 30 minutes to find a way for us to fit comfortably (it didn’t happen).  After that time we just gave up and decided to go watch some TV.  I really have no idea what time it was at this point because from the time we left beerfest we thought it was like 9pm when it was 4pm so we were all still just hanging out watching some TV and talking about whatever crossed our minds.

Again, from an Uber receipt I can tell you that we left their apartment at 12:45 and arrived back at our place shortly after 1am.  I believe we ate pizza and I think I drank too much of their beer (if you’re reading this I probably owe you a six pack).  When we left our apartment at around 11:45am we had no way of knowing the recklessness that would ensue but overall I believe a good time was had by all!

It is Tuesday now and I haven’t really done anything big this week yet but Carissa’s mom and Grandma are coming to visit Thursday of this week so we may have some stories from the weekend of entertaining to jive about!  As always, have a good week and may your poops be plentiful!

Thanksgiving in Las Vegas!

Fun Fact: At various times in history, the White House has been known as the "President's Palace," the "President's House," and the "Executive Mansion." President Theodore Roosevelt officially gave the White House its current name in 1901.

It was a short week at work and a long weekend of giving thanks for all that we have!  Carissa and I personally showed thanks to everyone by going to Las Vegas!  We do appreciate all of you, but we don’t appreciate how much it costs to fly back to Rhode Island instead of flying to Vegas… where we intended to win enough money to be able to fly home to see you all.  Obviously that didn’t happen.  In fact not much happened Monday-Wednesday before we left so I am going to fast forward to Wednesday afternoon.  (I also don't know if I mentioned this but we plan to be home on or around New Years for the Winter Classic so we look forward to seeing all of you then)

Wednesday afternoon we boarded a flight to Las Vegas and after a quick 48 minutes we touched down in Sin City.  We stayed at the Luxor Hotel (the one that looks like a laser shooting pyramid) and made sure we got one of the rooms with the slanty walls so we could get the full experience.

So needless to say before we got to Las Vegas we did very little research about the city itself and relied on my memory of going there circa 2004.  Also needless to say I have a terrible memory so we only had about 6 hours of the 4 days planned based on what I remembered being fun (4 of those six hours were just drinking and gambling so I would say 13-14 year old Jeff probably didn’t recommend those things - he was lame).  We had done a little research and saw that there were shows there, most notably Circ De Soulay (apparently spelled “cirque du soleil” and roughly translated by me to “Circus of Soul” - which I believe is just a circus of James Browns belting out soulful classics like this)

So yeah, we were interested in the Circus but also noticed that those shows (like most things in Vegas) were pretty expensive.  To our luck when we walked into the hotel we were greeted by a short Spanish woman we couldn’t really understand who told us to check in and come back and see her and she could hook us up with discounted show tickets.  We did as instructed and went back to see her where she handed us off to a different guy who started talking to us about the different shows we could get discounts on and after about 10 minutes of us trying to decide what we wanted tickets to we were told that there was a short presentation the following morning (Thanksgiving morning) at 8:30am where we would just sit for about 2 hours and then we could have our tickets for $25 each (normally $140… so us being the savvy business folk we are we couldn’t turn down that offer).  So I joked that it sounded like they were selling us a timeshare and the guy just said something like “there’s no obligation to buy.” 

After that whole ordeal we decided to go to the buffet for dinner and drinks.  At this point it was about 9pm and the bar closed at 10pm so we spent $10 each to get the bottomless wine/beer package and the game was on to see if we could get our money’s worth.  The short answer is yes we got our money’s worth and we were both in bed by around 11pm (no gambling on day one).

The next morning we woke up at around 7:45am (delightfully hungover) and joked about having no idea what the hell we were going to do that morning.  We met about 50 other people in the lobby of the Luxor and got on a bus to go to places unknown.  After a 20 minute drive we arrived at a resort and our fears were confirmed - we were about to get a 2 hour timeshare presentation.  Naturally we were pumped because nothing gets us going like an excited sales woman telling us how great time shares are after a night of drinking!  Her name was Dallas and she spit hot bullshitty fire with the best of them, claiming that we were pretty much costing ourselves more money by not buying a time share.  The presentation took about 3 hours and we finally managed to get out of there with a packet of info and two tickets to the Circus for Saturday night!

After that morning we decided to explore the strip.  We walked up to around the Bellagio from the Luxor (which is like 4 hotels and maybe a half mile?) in the process we went through Excalibur (midevil themed hotel), New York New York (New York themed hotel… obviously), MGM (no theme/lion theme?), and more places I don’t remember!  We eventually stopped for the thanksgiving buffet at Monte Carlo which was way better than the Luxor buffet and went back to the Luxor for some gambling.  I ended up winning about $50 between roulette and blackjack so I was pretty pumped.

The next day (black Friday) we slept in because its vacation and we don’t shop (I don’t shop).  We eventually made it out of the room for more exploring around 10am.  We walked down almost the entire strip and along the way we stopped at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum (which is one of the things I remember about Las Vegas that I remember).  It was fun and along the way I got a picture with Brad Pitt and Carissa got stuffed by Shaq!  Oddly enough neither of them moved or even seemed to breathe but it was cool anyway.  We ate dinner at Bobby’s Burger Palace (or Bob’s Burgers as I like to call it) which I was told by the DelSesto’s is owned by Bobby Flay so that’s neat!  That night we went down to Fremont Street (old Vegas) and had ourselves a time… we forgot to take any pictures of that so there are some parts of the night that are a little fuzzy.  I also forgot to mention that I took a Craps lesson during that afternoon so I could try to figure out how to play.  One of the things I remember from that night is that I tried to play craps at one of the hotels on Fremont Street and I lost the $50 I had made the previous night.  I think overall I was even on the weekend but I’d have to look at my bank activity to be sure.

Saturday we walked around more and saw the fountains at the Bellagio do their fun fountain dance thing (the other thing I remember from my youth).  I was waiting for Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac and the rest of the “Ocean’s Eleven” cast to show up but unfortunately they aren’t real people.  Saturday night we got to use our circus tickets!  They didn’t allow pictures or videos but the show apparently cost around $165 million to produce and run and it pretty much looked like it.  The set itself was a moving stage that was literally like a floating 15x30 foot slab of metal (or whatever stages are made out of) that was being suspended in the air by the biggest hydraulic robot arm I have ever seen.  The entire thing was gigantic.  The set itself also had pieces that made it out into the theater where the audience was that reminded me of Waterworld or Mad Max (which are the same movie by the way).

(set of Waterworld... focus on the weird tower things - that's what reminded me of the Circus set)

The show itself was pretty much amazing and since the Circus of Soul was actually based more on acrobatics than music there were some INSANE acrobatics involved.  I would totally recommend going to see it if you are in the area.  It was the “Ka” show at MGM.  Apparently there are many different Circus of Soul shows so I just want to make sure you get information on the right one.  Saturday night we attempted to go to bed early because we had an early flight out of Vegas to get home but like IDIOTS we stayed up until 1am and got the shuttle to the airport at 6:10am.  We got back to California around 10am and had breakfast before sleeping until like 2pm.  I then decided that I was going to buy Rock Band 4 and I did.  It was another fun experience with Amazon Now where I ordered Rock Band at around 3pm and it was delivered at around 6pm.  I was naturally not home because I was watching the Patriots but when I got home after the game around 9:15pm (thank you time difference) I played for about 2 hours (with Carissa for about 1.5 of those hours) and made a band called Grilled Cheese Hands… which reminds me, I was talking to these dudes at the bar while the game was on and we started talking about bands because he said he was in one with his buddy who was there… long story short they liked the same kinds of music as me and when I went to shake their hands I apologized because I had Grilled Cheese Hands (because I was eating a grilled cheese… not because of some medical anomaly).  They said that would be a good band name and naturally I took that as a sign that I should name my video game band that very thing.  Side note: that guy also bought my beers because apparently people in California really like buying me beers!  I think the whole state is conspiring to save me money on alcohol - a practice I really appreciate!

Normally I write these things on Sunday but since I waited the extra day I will include that I drove to Riverside for work today and on the way home I was driving past mountains that were b-e-a-utiful!  If I wasn’t driving I would have taken a picture… but alas… I was driving.  So maybe later this week I’ll try to snap a picture if I end up back that way.  No real plans for the rest of this week but I think we do have plans to attend a beer fest of sorts this weekend (that Reel Big Fish is playing at) so I should have a story or two for next week!

Hope you all have a great week!  May your poops be plentiful!

Looking back, I guess this post is about a hill...

Fun Fact: There are 118 ridges around the edge of a Roosevelt dime, 119 ridges around the edge of a quarter, and 150 ridges around the edge of a Kennedy half dollar.

So as mentioned last week I was imported to San Francisco again this week to help out on one of the jobs I’ve been working on.  Like last time there was not really much opportunity to see very much of the city but I did witness a few things in my week there that are blog worthy (by this point I’m sure you’ve realized that there is very little that is not “blog worthy”).

I took this picture before work on Wednesday, before I walked down the hill... more on that soon.

So Monday morning I boarded an aircraft at 6:45am and immediately fell asleep.  I don’t think I was even awake for takeoff.  When I woke up we were descending towards San Francisco airport.  That right there is the definition of a great flight (I did however miss my opportunity to get a ginger ale, my drink of choice in the air).  From there I took the BART to the office and got going on what promised to be a week full of long hours and expensive meals.  I don’t remember what time I left on Monday, my best guess is around 7pm.  I knew what hotel I booked and I had a GPS to get me there… what I did NOT have however was a topographical map of San Francisco.  Topographical maps are the maps that show the elevations of different areas as shown below:

Now I’m sure most of you (like me) when you think about San Francisco you think of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the “Full House” House, and maybe this road…

The sad reality is that’s not just like a joke road that somebody made… they wanted a road there but the hill was so damn steep that they couldn’t do it without making it look like a little kid scribbling some schematics for the construction company charged with building that unfortunate bit of infrastructure.  So back to how this effected me on Monday.  It came time to leave work and I grabbed my gym bag that was packed to the brim with my clothes for the week (I did not have a traditional rolly bag for a carryon because I think I’m hot shit and I can carry a bag without wheels).  So this time I stayed at a hotel on California Street known as “Stamford Courts.”  Last time in SF I stayed at an Airbnb on Post St that was not up nearly as big a hill (still up a hill, just more of a gradual hill) so I had no idea what I was in for.  Below I have highlighted my route as well as the points of interest in the following story.  Keep in mind that the entire trip was only about a half a mile.

A - This is where the Marcum office is in San Francisco.

B - This is where the Stanford Court hotel is (where I was staying for the week)

So back to me leaving the work on Monday to head to the hotel (the other points of interest will be explained shortly).  I left work with my backpack on my back and my gym bag over my shoulder.  I headed down Montgomery Street toward California Street where out of nowhere CRACK! BOOM! TERRIBLE NOISES! (see the red/white starburst above) the clip that connects the strap to the bag broke.  Now I’m thinking “this isn’t a big deal, I’m man enough to carry this bag draped over my shoulder, I’m man enough to carry it by the handles” so I pressed on - holding this 35lb gym bag by its handles.  I turned the corner at California street and as you can see, still not really very hilly, I’m still listening to my headphones and excited to get home so I can go for a run.  Then I start going up the hill toward point C. As you can see there is a slight increase in the elevation of the street before point C but at this point I am still confident, it’s just a hill, it’s not a big deal.

View up the hill from Point C toward point D:

Now I am standing at point C… still confident… still trucking along towards point D.  Then I go the two blocks up that hill to point D.  When I get to point D I realize that I am standing at the bottom of a HUGE friggen hill.  Which makes no sense… because I just walked up a HUGE friggen hill.

View up the hill from Point D towards point E:

Now I am standing at point D.  Confidence Broken.  My gym bag felt like 15lbs when it was over my shoulder, 35lbs when the strap broke, and now at point D I am holding what I believe is a 50lb gym bag.  Not to mention that I have the backpack with my work stuff on my back which by itself is causing some perspiration due to the lack of cool air between my back and backpack.  I am staring up the hill - not knowing how many more hills lie between me and this hotel that will hopefully be greeting me with a swimming pool, massage table, beers, steaks, etc. (spoiler alert, none of those were waiting for me).  I start walking towards point E and I am passing people who are also walking up the hill.  I am really just rallying at this point because I just want to get to the top of the hill and have it all be over.  Once I get to point E I found relief.

View up the hill from Point E towards the finish line:

I think by now you get it… I walked a half a mile and walked up the equivalent of 35 flights of stairs (according to the FitBit).  So I finally arrived at the hotel and at this point I must have looked like a broken man.  There was literally sweat rolling down my face and I was doing my best to wipe it off but I was fighting a losing fight.  I went to the front desk and told them I was checking in.  The lady at the front desk was avoiding looking at me as much as possible for obvious reasons and I was pretty much trying to catch my breath.  After a minute I broke the awkward silence by joking that the strap on my bag broke and I just walked up the hill from Montgomery street… which I guess wasn’t really a joke… I just said it in a joke-y way.  She laughed and said that she usually takes an uber to work and walks home and she only lives a mile away and she offered me a bottle of water.  Once I got to my room I took my shirt off to assess the damage and I am actually upset I did not take a picture because there was a clear outline of where my backpack was, clear outline of where my shirt was tucked into my pants, and cleeeeaaaaaarrrrrrr stains in the armpit region.  Before I told her I had walked up the hill I’m not sure how that lady hadn’t called for an ambulance because I must have looked like a serious mess.  I took about 10 minutes to cool down then I decided that since I was so sweaty I might as well just go to the gym - so I did.  Ate dinner at a 24hr diner because there was nowhere else open at 11:30 after I got home and showered and headed out to work on Tuesday.

TUESDAY rolled around and I worked a long time.  The biggest story from Tuesday is that I had a conversation with Carissa about ISIS and the attacks on France and whatnot which I can sum up in the following two points: 1. If you’re an extremist of any kind you need to take a step back and think about what you’re doing - this doesn’t just go for religious extremists, either.  Like if you’re the kind of person who goes to sports games in full body paint, if you’re the kind of person who spends all their disposable income on one thing (pimping out your car, etc.), if you're the kind of person who checks the box on the voting slip to just vote straight democrat or straight republican… what the hell are you doing?  Open your mind, take a step back, think for a minute.  Point 2: if you’ve ever thought that solving anything with violence was the right thing to do - you’re pretty much just wrong.  Outside of defending freedom, keeping peace, or if you’re actually paid to fight (boxer, MMA, etc.) if you’re fighting or trying to hurt somebody… chances are you’re wrong.  ::Mic Drop:: Also I found out my hotel had a 24 hour gym on Tuesday so I didn’t have to walk the half mile to the gym on Monday night.

WEDNESDAY I worked more, didn’t really do much else but while I was walking to dinner I walked past a homeless woman who was cutting her hair on the street when I was on my way to dinner around 9:45pm.  The place I went stopped serving food around 10 and closed at 11 so I was walking back up the hill to the hotel at 11:05 maybe and the same person was in the same place but her head was shaved and she was like looking in a mirror to see if she missed a spot.  So in the hour I was getting dinner she managed to go from trimming her bangs with scissors to full on shaved head a la Britney Spears circa 2007.

THURSDAY I kept on trucking through work.  At night I went out to dinner and had steak, potatoes, beer and warm seasoned peanuts - all the makings of a dinner that was fancier than I was prepared for.  Also the restaurant was called the Big Four (little accounting humor there... very little).  Everything on the plate was delicious and there was a lady playing piano so I felt like I was living the classy life at its finest.  This is a picture of my plate, as you can see it was a dimly lit restaurant to add to the ambiance.

So as I was leaving the restaurant I witnessed another person's interaction with a homeless person.  Keep in mind I had headphones in but I’m pretty sure what I witnessed was a homeless guy ask a person who was smoking for a cigarette.  As expected, I believe the guy said something like “sorry man, this is my last one” and gestured to the one in his mouth that he was already smoking.  Then I have no idea what the hell the homeless guy managed to say in one sentence but it just looked like he said something like “comeeee onnnnnnnnn” and the guy took the cigarette OUT OF HIS MOUTH and gave it to the homeless guy.  Baffling to say the least.  The guy even stopped to re-lite it for the homeless guy after giving it to him.

So I got back to the hotel right after this cigarette situation and remembered that I had a $30 coupon thing to use at the bar (they gave it to me day one… it might have been because my room wasn’t ready or it might have been because it looked like I was detoxing pretty bad).  So I sat down to grab a beer before going to bed and while looking at the drink menu I noticed there was an item called “Johnny Walker - Blue Label………. $40.”  I thought to myself WWBDDHWPOTJWBTMUARAI (What Would Brian DeLuca Do? He Would Probably Order The Johnny Walker Blue Then Make Up A Rhyme About It) so that’s just what I did.

I got a Johnny Walker Blue on the rocks (although Brian probably would have gone neat).  You might be asking what Johnny Walker Blue is and if you are I will simply tell you to look for it next time you’re at the liquor store.  I believe the going rate is around $250 a bottle.  That being said I felt like a champion for a few minutes and it tasted like what I would imagine rainbows and unicorns would taste like.

FRIDAY I worked again, left and jumped back on a plane to come home.  When I got home I saw Carissa and we high five'd and said “Hey! Missed ya!” then we went out to dinner at a bar down the street called “Social”…. It’s like SoCal with an “i”.  It was an aright place, the burger I had was amazing but the most notable part of the whole hipster bar was that “The Labyrinth” starring David Bowie was playing on all of the TV’s in the bar.  I don’t remember if I like that movie or not, I do remember that it was one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen, and I did appreciate that it was on TV at a bar.  Social was however pretty expensive and I don’t really know if we will go back.  That’s your new restaurant update of the week!

SATURDAY was just like every other day this week… I woke up and went to work (seriously… I put in close to 65 hours this week) and left around noon-ish so that we could go to the beach! In November! Aaaaaaaaand it all makes sense why we moved here.

So yeah, we spent the afternoon at the beach and went to a couple breweries at night.  Today is Sunday and we have pretty much been hanging out all day since there is not football on.  Next week we will be live from Vegas for Thanksgiving.  Everybody enjoy your Thanksgiving and from all of us here at Wallace Courts, may your poops be plentiful!