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!

Amazonian Basketball Hoops, Ducks fighting Islanders, and Shows that are apparently still on TV!

Fun Fact: Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

I am a fan of this fun fact opening.  This week was not super eventful due to the amount of work I’ve had to do for upcoming deadlines but I owe it to my mom to keep writing blogs so she knows I’m not dead or in jail.  I’m alive and free mommy!

This beginning of this week was largely uneventful!  Sunday Carissa and I walked down to a Tiki Bar near our house that came up when we Googled “bars with NFL Sunday ticket.”  It is like a half mile away and one of the guys who owns it apparently grew up in Connecticut and is a Patriots fan  the other owner is from Southern California and is a Dolphins fan though so it’s not a full on Patriots bar if you know what I mean.  Keep in mind this was the game against Washington so it was moderately interesting considering at no point during the game was there ever really a fear that the patriots would lose so our focus in the bar just shifted to the D bag next to us who couldn’t stop yelling about the Rams game (even one of the owners came over and said everybody at the bar hates him and that he’s there every Sunday).

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were relatively uneventful.  I went to work and came home.  Monday I also played basketball and schooled some Californians on how we do it on the east coast (for those of you that don’t already know, I am horrible at basketball… I’m told that I don’t even shoot the right way… that’s the joke there…).  Tuesday we bought a dresser on craigslist because Carissa needed a bigger dresser/wanted a new arts and crafts project.  Wednesday I worked late and found out I’m going back to San Francisco next week (tomorrow… or today depending on when you read this… or a few days/weeks/months ago if you're not as interested in reading these as I write them).  But yeah, another Monday through Thursday trip to make sure we get all our ducks in a row before the deadline!  So to me that means more nights working late and the same amount of not actually seeing any of the City.  Such is life.

Thursday we had our annual State of the Firm at work where they tell us how the last year has gone and tell us we all need to work harder and be better.  The best part is after the whole meeting and whatnot there is an open bar!  We get a couple hours where we are rewarded for sitting through the first couple hours of the meeting.  I got a little face time with the big brass of Marcum and even found myself talking to Jeffrey Weiner at one point briefly (Managing partner and Executive producer of the Bourne Films).  It was a good night and nobody lost their job by saying anything stupid!

Friday started like any other Friday where we both went to work but then it got better.  Since my entire office had been at the state of the firm the previous night we were all feeling some of the lingering effects of having an open bar the night before.  I was in at the normal time because I know my limits and when the rest of the crew strolled in around 9:30 we figured it was time to start the day.  Since they were in no real condition to be productive (mixed with the fact that not all were as busy as I have been) there was a good deal of carousing going on.  We were talking about how we should get a mini basketball hoop to hang on the wall in our office area but we obviously didn’t want to wait until Monday to get it.  Enter Amazon Now.  This was my first experience with Amazon Now.  I have had Amazon Prime since college and I knew that they did free 2 day shipping.  It was one of my favorite things in the world when I found it.  Little did I know Amazon was not done changing the world there.  Amazon Now is a new(?) service where Amazon provides select items and allows for same day delivery!  Lucky for us Amazon realized that a miniature basketball hoop was 100% needed by us as soon as possible.  So yeah… if you pay $7 you can get one hour delivery or if you want to wait 2-4 hours you get free delivery.  I ordered the hoop (and some pizza rolls) at noon and by 2:15 we were shootin hoops and eatin pizza rolls!  It was the best day ever BUT THEN….  Carissa calls me.  Completely out of nowhere.  To tell me this:

Carissa: Hi

Jeff: What’s up my love?

Carissa: Nothing.

Jeff: Carissa my love!  I am so happy to talk to you because I’ve missed you while I’ve been at work!

Carissa: You’re ugly.

Jeff: Oh no!  You’ve noticed!  I’m ruined!

Carissa: I am going home now to poop in all of your shoes.

Jeff: That will be so squishy!

That went on for another 5 or 6 hours after that so I will give you the main points

Carissa said: I got free Anaheim Ducks tickets from work!

Jeff said: Woohoo!

So yeah, Friday night we went to see the Ducks play the Islanders!  It was a great time and a great game that I for some reason did not take any pictures of!  Hopefully there will be more opportunities though.  I also decided I wanted to buy an old school Ducks jersey (you know… Charlie Conway style) but when we went down to the pro shop the only ones there were of Teemu Selanne (which is cool) but they were $500 each (which is not cool) unless they were signed by Teemu Selanne - then they were $1,000 each (which is even less cool).  We then tried to go to an exclusive secret restaurant that’s hidden behind a book case in a mall-type location and they pretty much decided that we were lepers and said that they were booked out two weeks in advance and even though they had open seating at 10pm (which was about 15min from when we got there) then said that the “open seats” were already taken?  Either way I was not willing to sit there and talk to them because I was getting a vibe I wasn’t a fan of.

Saturday we both worked again.  That time of year I suppose?  Not really though… I’m busy because of the client I’m on and Carissa got put on an inventory count because she took new years off because we are coming home to watch the Winter Classic!  Not sure about specific dates or times yet but we will be home for at least January 1, 2016.  Hopefully the Bruins learn how to win a home game/beat Montreal by then.  Saturday night we went to a different restaurant that was named after an animal that was less exclusive and my bet is way better.  I had a bison burger that I’m still thinking about and we got to watch the Kings game!  We came home and Carissa started her arts and crafts project and eventually we had to go to bed because we had a big day today!

Sunday came and we had big plans.  We ignored that the Patriots were playing (because I’m dumb and can’t read schedules) and missed what was apparently one of the best games of the year to go be in a studio audience!  First things first - the Patriots are now 2-0 in games vs. the Giants I don’t watch so it’s a good thing I stopped watching.  Second the studio audience we went to sit in was for America’s Funniest Home Video’s with new host Alfonso Ribeiro!  You may know him as the winner of Dancing with the Stars season 19 (thank you Wikipedia - I also can’t believe that there’s been 19 season of that show…).  You also may know him as Carlton Banks from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air!  We were told to dress up in more formal attire so Carissa wore a nice dress and I wore a suit.  We were rewarded with front row seats!  The entire experience was awesome and we got to see the filming of a show from the other side of things.  We also know who won so if you’re looking to start taking bets on non-live TV let me know and I’ll give you some inside notes.  Look for us on January 3^rd at 7pm on ABC.  For probably 90% of the show we were sitting in the front row on the right next to the giant cube thingy that showed some videos.  They did move us out right before they did the whole voting thing so we won’t be there when the lovely family from small town Georgia is sitting there.  That being said… We no longer have cable so you should all record it and send us pictures of ourselves on the TV!

That’s it for this week sports fans!  Have a great week full of rainbows and puppies!  More updates from San Francisco coming eventually!  Until next time - may your poops be plentiful!  (yup… loving this sign off)

Roscoe's Chicken is 'effin Awesome!

Fun Fact: Camels do not store water in their humps, as it is commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue. Concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes heat-trapping insulation throughout the rest of their body, which may be an adaptation to living in hot climates.

I think I may be onto something with that opening.  Definitely a strong contender.  So this week was once again full of normal things.  There was nothing too exciting so it’s time again for me to paint you a lovely word picture to make it sound more interesting than it actually was!

For starters, my company started a FitBit competition where everybody in the company walks and runs and our newfangled wrist bands tell everybody else in the company how many steps we’ve taken.  This is the second time they’ve done such a competition.  Last time I was in the top 20% of the participants and this time I am in the top 10 (so far… it is still week one).  So it is safe to say I might be a little obsessed so far.  It helps that most things are within walking distance of our apartment so I’ve been going for a run either in the morning or after work, parking in the street about half a mile from the apartment so I get steps in the morning and walking a mile to the gym to exercise more too.  The default goal that they give you for daily step output is 10,000 steps per day.  For most people (who work behind  a desk all day) that’s not too bad but it’s also not something you’ll get just by coasting through the day - you have to do some sort of outside exercising to get to that point.  Last week (Sunday to Saturday) I had a little over 175,000 steps (25k per day average) so it’s safe to say I am putting more effort into this than I am into actually working so far.  I wanted you all to have this background because over the next three months I may toss in a few more lines about this.

So Sunday I pretty much just walked and ran all day - played Frisbee again.  Monday was the same only without the Frisbee.  We got our first sample of California rain.  We walked to the supermarket and when we were inside it started raining.  When we walked out it was raining so we were literally caught in the rain.  We didn’t live that far so we were just going to walk quickly and deal with getting wet.  We put our heads down and made a break for it and by the time we got to the end of the small parking lot the rain had already stopped.  I guess that’s what rain storms out here are like.

Tuesday we went to Wahoo Tacos and got some fish tacos.  If you plan to visit remember the name because that’s most likely where we will take you if you want to get some delicious fish tacos. 

Wednesday was an interesting day.  When we woke up on Wednesday we felt an old familiar feeling - it was “cold.”  Now I’m not talking about “ehhhhhh I live in California and its 65 and now its cold ehhhhh” IT WAS 57!  Now I know at this point I’m just rubbing it in but hey… you all could have moved too!  Wednesday night we went to see the new Tom Hanks movie about spies and the cold war and whatnot.  It was pretty good but the beginning was kind of slow.  I may or may not have taken a 2 minute nap during it.  Which brings me to my next point that I am terrible in movie theaters now - I just can’t seem to make it through a full movie without either going to the bathroom (situations where I drink before) or falling asleep for part of it (situations where I don’t drink before).  The movie was called “Bridge of Spies” and except for it being slow in the beginning I would recommend seeing it.  So now to the best part of Wednesday/Thursday/the whole week/the whole year - the dream I had that night.

Now the dream I had is up there for one of the best dreams I’ve ever had but unfortunately I don’t really remember all of it.  I woke up in the morning (probably like 5:30am) and wrote some of it down in the blog note I started keeping on my phone so I could remember what happened during the week but once I fully regained awareness of my surroundings I had completely forgotten about it until I saw the note again - then it all came rushing back.  It all began when I was by myself in a bowling alley during a rock ‘n bowl kind of scenario.  This wasn’t just like a normal bowling alley though it was a great bowling alley.  Actually I just looked at my note to make sure I didn’t miss any details and it looks like I wrote down that I was in a fancy movie theater.  This story is already getting derailed… I remember it as a bowling alley so that’s what I’m sticking with.  Either way that’s the atmosphere I remember going on in this dream.  While walking around I went past the bar and I saw Mr. T!  Now if you know me you know that I do indeed love myself some Mr. T - so much in fact that Nick DelSesto gave us this for a housewarming present at our first apartment and it is still on display:

I asked the bartender of the bowling alley/movie theater if that was really Mr. T and he said it was and that he was a regular!  I was obviously so excited about it that I brought somebody back the next day! I don’t remember who I brought so let’s say Carissa because it’s probably good to say I dream about Carissa. Keep in mind this is all the same dream… I managed to immediately jump ahead to the next day in my dream.  I was so excited I found out that Mr. T was a regular I had to go up and say hi so naturally I did.  When I went up to him he was dressed in full Buffalo Bills clothing - he had a t shirt and a jacket and a baseball cap all with the buffalo bills logo.  He also didn’t even have any of his gold on so I felt that this was an authentic meeting with present day senior citizen Mr. T.  Anyway, he was sitting there yelling the names of drinks like “JACK AND COKE! BUD LIGHT!” etc. so we went up and I said “sorry to interrupt but I’m a big fan and I just wanted to say hello” so he turned to me and just started speaking nonsense and shook my hand.  I don’t know how I could tell but it looked like he was trying really hard to squeeze my hand and obviously since I was dreaming it didn’t hurt so I just reacted the same way you do when an 8 year old gives you a high five and just pretended it really hurt by exaggerating.  This seemed to make Mr. T very happy and he continued to speak nonsense to the point that I just smiled and walked away.  I remember thinking in my dream that this interaction would make a great blog post and then I woke up while walking away from the table.  At this point I wrote the note about this dream so I would remember to blog about the dream of me writing a blog post about meeting Mr. T.  I think dreaming about blogging makes me officially a blogger so I think I’ve probably reached my potential in life.  I’d like to thank everybody that helped me get to this point.  I couldn’t have become a blogging accountant without you!

Hard to top that dream this week but I’ll push through writing this damn thing.  Thursday and Friday I didn’t do a ton.  I did lots more walking for this competition.  Saturday I went for a hike in the morning where I took the daytime pictures I posted on Facebook.  It was really nice!  In the afternoon we went to Los Angeles and took the other pictures that are in the same album.  We went to the Hollywood walk of fame and saw a bunch of stars.  We started taking pictures then realized it was stupid because we were staring at hundreds of stars (of which we knew about 15% of the people) so taking pictures of them would probably have meant taking too many pictures.  We also went to the Chinese theater where people put their hands and feet in the cement.  All and all it was a pretty cool experience.  After that we went to the Griffith Observatory.  It’s a planetarium that is on the side of a mountain on the outskirts of LA and right next to the Hollywood sign.  It’s pretty amazing and it’s definitely on the list of things to do when in LA.  The view alone was reason enough to go up there and those are also the pictures I posed in the same album.  We went at night and I was taking pictures with an iPhone so obviously those pictures don’t do it justice but yeah… next time we are definitely going to go like an hour before sunset and just see the amazing picturesque moments unfold before our eyes.

The last thing we did in LA was go to Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles.  I have a separate note on my phone where I just write down places that are on like travel channel or food network or something and this was a food network special.  The only other thing I wrote about this place is that I needed to try the mac and cheese.  Let me tell you.  None of this was disappointing.  This is a picture of most of what we got:

Everything was delicious and I absolutely recommend going there after Griffith Observatory and if anybody comes and visits and wants to go to LA for the day you can bet your ass that’s the plan for sunset.

Other things to note:  before I left RI people kept telling me how terrible pizza is in Southern California.  Now I’m going to be honest, maybe I don’t have the highest standards but there is one type of pizza out here that I am a big fan of and will probably be on the east coast (if it isn’t already) in the next year for sure.  There are 3 or 4 different places out here that all do pizza the Chipotle/Subway way where you get a thin crust pizza, walk down the row of toppings, pick what you want and skip the rest.  Then they bake your pizza for like 5-10 minutes and call your name and BOOM custom pizza.  The places I’ve tried are MOD Pizza, Pieology, and a third one whose name I don’t recall but I can assure you it was great.  I got an 9ish inch pizza with chicken, bacon, onions, jalapenos, and cilantro all for around $8.  Well worth it.  I am a big fan of this style, it’s not super Italian like the pizza everybody is probably comparing the “crappy southern California pizza” to but I think it was delicious none-the-less.  I didn’t take a picture of it before I ate it… sorry.

Have a good week everybody!  Until next time - may your poops be plentiful! (Might be my new sign off)

San Diego and "Authentic" Mexican

Knock Knock!

Who's there?

Blog Post.

Blog Post who?

What do you mean "blog post who?" there's a blog post at the door.  Open the door if you are interested in this blog post!

I think I’m onto something with that opening… So I last told you about my experience with time zones.  They are pretty crazy!  But Sunday brought the best gift so far… the gift of brunch and Tom Brady (this was the first 1pm Eastern Time aka 10am Pacific Time game the patriots had played since we moved here).  The patriots played the Jets and I got to go get brunch while Carissa was at yoga.  A few beers and a few close plays later (much to the chagrin of the Patriots haters in the bar) the Jets ran out of time on their final drive and the Pats won.  Nothing better than eating “The Hangover Burger”, enjoying some breakfast beers, and watching Tom Brady!  For those who are curious the hangover burger is a cheeseburger with bacon and a fried egg - something about it made it taste better than just that though. 

Which actually reminds me - I know this whole blog is supposed to be about our West Coast escapades but I’d like to bring something up here.  This isn’t the exact article I read but it was the one I found most quickly with a Google search: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/world-health-organization-processed-meats-cause-cancer_562e1144e4b0aac0b8fd51b2 So apparently The Who decided that eating processed meats is as bad as smoking cigarettes.  Let’s take a second to process this information.  I have a few points here - 1) nobody was under the impression that adding bacon to anything was healthy and I don’t think anybody really thought they were doing themselves a favor by eating it. B) Is there anything else left that doesn’t cause cancer?  So now eating burgers, bacon, hot dogs, sausage, etc. is going to kill me as fast as cigarettes?  Which actually raises an interesting point in my mind - let’s compare one slice of bacon to one cigarette (for argument’s sake).  Smoking a pack a day is 20 cigs I believe.  If you smoke one pack chances are you haven’t done a ton of damage, it’s the whole pack-a-day for 30 years thing that gets people into trouble.  Let’s replace cigs in this example with processed meats.  If you're eating 20 slices of bacon a day for 30 years I think the heart disease would kill you before the cancer did.  I wanted to go on more of a rant here but then I made that connection and I’m not rewriting this paragraph so sorry.  Saw an article similar to the one above first thing Monday morning and it got me going a little bit.  Also Joey Chestnut is as good as dead…

So back to West Coast antics - on Sunday we signed up to be members at Costco.  Costco is a wonderful place like BJ’s or Sam’s Club but slightly larger and with an entire section full of inexpensive alcohol.  We signed up on Sunday but after seeing the mess that was the store, we left after about 5 minutes to return on Monday.  Afterwards, I took a trip to Sports Authority to buy some cleats (they are way too flashy but they were also the least expensive option) and went to a Frisbee meetup game.  For those unfamiliar, meetup.com is a website for people who want to do anything really with other people.  My best guess is it was started for pickup sports games but now it has pretty much anything ever you’d want to do with other people… I’m pretty sure there’s even like book clubs and stuff on meetup.  Either way I went to Frisbee and played for a couple hours - a good time was had by all and I probably have a new Sunday hobby (provided it doesn’t interfere with watching football).

Monday we went back to Costco and did a little shopping.  I won’t really elaborate because if you find me talking about grocery shopping interesting than I think you might be a little bit too interested in what’s going on in my life (sorry mom).  After Costco we went to a restaurant on our road called Taco Mesa.  It was voted the best taco’s in Orange County in 2012 & 2013 so naturally when I got there I cracked under the pressure of looking at the menu and I did not get tacos!  I guess I have a reason to go back now aside from the fact that what I got was delicious.  So what I DID get was called a Chile Relleno.  It was basically mozzarella stick only instead of deep frying the mozzarella they put cheese (probably not mozzarella) inside a poblano pepper and cook it in a pan then deep fry it a little at the end?  There also might have been a few other things inside the pepper but either way it was delicious and pretty big too.  Carissa got a quesadilla and she said it was also yummy so when you people finally come visit us we will take you there.

I tried to start taking notes so I could remember what I do from day to day and so far it is not going so well.  Either that or I seriously didn’t do anything on Tuesday except for go to work (which is entirely possible - I think I might have actually worked late then come home and made burgers - suck it WHO).  Wednesday was a little more interesting!  I went to San Diego to do an inventory count.  It was so close to Mexico that the guy who works there said the DEA found 3 tunnels last year that were built by the cartel for transporting drugs across the country.  This is how close it was!

The circle on the map is the San Diego warehouse and the line is the border between the U.S. and Mexico.  So yeah, like two streets over.  This client also had a warehouse in Tijuana, Mexico.  I was asked on Monday if I wanted to go over the border for lunch to get tacos.  Like authentic Mexican tacos - from Mexico!  Obviously i said I did and I showed up with my passport ready.  Unfortunately things did not go according to plan and I ended up staying in San Diego while the person who asked me if I wanted to go get tacos went to the Tijuana warehouse to do the count.  Then the manager who went to Tijuana with her brought me back a chicken quesadilla for lunch.  Here it is ladies and gents!  An “authentic” Mexican Chicken Quesadilla!

I know… it tasted even better than it looked!  All jokes aside it was pretty good albeit very plain but there will be other opportunities I suppose.

Thursday the Patriots played and I went to the bar to watch them with Carissa and a couple guys from work around 5:45ish.  Nothing too special about that except the Patriots killing it and that our waitress was from New Hampshire.  We just keep meeting people from New England!  On Friday I actually found out that somebody who works with me actually grew up in Cranston and graduated from Cranston West before moving to California after high school.  Again, I don’t know how this keeps happening but I’m becoming more and more convinced that my life is a TV show.  Friday we wore costumes to work - I wore a Hawaiian shirt and a bucket hat so I guess I just dressed down and wore what I usually would wear.

As you can see I looked great.  Friday night we went out with some people I work with to a place that looked like it was built in the 70s and not updated since.  It was totally the kind of place you could picture people doing coke off the piano.  This is a picture of what the sign looked like and you make the call for yourself.

It was called Bistango.  I don’t know how I felt about it but I think if somebody wants to know what Southern California was like 20-30 years ago that’s a good place to start.  Saturday we pretty much just hung out for most of the day - drove around and ran some errands.  At night we went to a bar around the corner for their Halloween party.  Nothing too spectacular to report from there except there was an actual little person dressed as an oompa loompa.  It was pretty amazing.  Carissa posted a picture on Facebook if you're interested in what he looked like.

Today (Sunday) was the beginning of an exercise contest at work called the “fit-bit Challenge” basically we all got fancy pedometers (if we paid the subsidized fee - they didn’t buy thousands of fitbits for everybody) so I walked my ass off and right now I’m at about 27,000 steps with a few hours to go on day one.  For those that don’t track such random statistics a normal weekend day is probably 10-12k steps?  Obviously this depends on your activity level.  So we walked about a mile to breakfast, then I played Frisbee for about 3 hours, then I walked another mile or so each way to go sign up for the 24 hour gym around me.  Not to mention the fact that I had about 8k before I went to bed from rockin out on the dance floor between midnight and 2am (and the walk home from the bar and whatnot).  Either way this pace can’t stay like this or I might die.  But it has been fun!  My parting note today is that we finally started watching The Wire on Amazon Prime (originally on HBO like 10 years ago) and it’s a great show.  It’s about the drug trade in Baltimore and apparently its one of the best shows ever made based on its reviews.  Not sure what’s on the docket for this week but hopefully I can stir up something interesting!  OH the other big thing is we booked a trip to Vegas over Thanksgiving!  We got a room at the Luxor hotel from Wednesday night until Sunday if anybody cares to join us!

San Francisco and Pictures of Stuff!

Dear Readers,

I haven't yet discovered a good way to start these.  I don't think that's a keeper either.  So last Saturday neither Carissa or I can remember what we did.  It was obviously a lot of fun.  We can remember we went to Newport Beach at night for dinner and I had a mahi mahi sandwich.  It was yummy.  The place was called Baja Sharkeez.  It was a weird place that had kind of a dive bar feel to it but it was really open and had a TON of TV's.  We managed to get seats at the bar and got the Bruins on one of the TV's (and they even won!  I think... don't go fact checking me).  Then Sunday we went back to Newport Beach and saw the beach (we didn't really go to the beach as much as we just were at and observed it), went to some shops, stood around while Carissa shopped, got some food, etc.  It was a more low-key weekend than the weekend we moved in for sure.  Carissa is now reminding me that she went to lots of yard sales on Saturday morning which means I likely played video games so we wouldn't lose our parking spot (we have a 1 car garage but the other spot is up to chance depending on whether there are spots available in the lot.  It's about 10-12 cars trying to fit in like 6 spots so its a hot commodity... Yes I'm trying to defend playing video games on a Saturday morning/afternoon instead of exploring Southern California).

So Monday morning rolled around and I was off to the airport.  Luckily there is one very close to where I live, possibly as close as TF Green was to my parents house in Cranston (but not as close as we were when we lived in Warwick).  Flight left Irvine at 6:45am and landed in San Francisco at around 8:30am.  From there I jumped on the Bart (public transportation - not a trolley to my dismay) and took it to about a block away from the Marcum office in the financial district.  Now you may be thinking "Woah! Jeff just got to California and he's already in San Francisco?! I wonder if he did that really fun thing I did 5, 10, or 20 years ago when I was there????  I'll keep reading and see all the things he did!"  I'll stop you right there.  Unless your favorite things to do in San Francisco are to go to the Marcum Office or go to a hotel/airbnb in the area chances are I did not do what you hope I did.  If those ARE your favorite things than you're in luck!  So the Marcum office is on Montgomery Street (in case you know where that is or want to google it) and the Airbnb I stayed in on Monday and Tuesday night was about 0.8 miles away on Post St.

The Airbnb was crazy because it was probably about a 450 sq ft studio apartment.  I suppose I have never really been in a studio apartment before but they are pretty awesome, pretty much just the essentials there.  The only problem is if you want to watch TV you have to lay in bed which leads to falling asleep and occasionally letting your beer spill on your chest (hypothetically of course).  They had netflix set up on the TV so I started watching Wilfred.  It's pretty funny but apparently also good to fall asleep to if you're already in bed (I think Brian, my Dad, and the Egg Chair know what I'm talking about).  I went to a bar on Monday for dinner and one of the items on the drink menu was a 16oz PBR and a shot of Evan Williams for like $5 (keep in mind San Francisco overtook NYC as the most expensive city in the US this year... so $5 is cheap).  I also got a sandwich that was called the Foghorn Leghorn that was delicious and had a great name.  From what I recall it had turkey, lettuce, onion, guacamole and melted parmigiana cheese.  Some of that might be inaccurate.

Tuesday in SF I worked another long day but went to a nice fancy Italian dinner where I had Pasta Carbonara and a really expensive beer that was 750ml and like $30 (thanks to the Marcum per deim... otherwise I would have stuck to the PBR).  When I got home I was still hungry though because what they don't do at fancy Italian places is give you a large portion.  So I dipped into Wednesday's per deim and bought a large pizza!  The pizza had San Francisco toppings (Pepperoni, Ham, Olives, Green peppers) and was very good.  I ate about half of it around midnight and brought the other half to eat the next day.

At this point I was still under the impression I would be able to go back to Irvine on Wednesday night.  I didn't book the Airbnb for Wednesday night because I thought there was a solid chance I would be going home.  Turns out it wasn't in the cards so I had to book a hotel around 2:30pm for Wednesday night.  (for those keeping track, including Wednesday night I had spent 7 night since moving to California in either a hotel or an Airbnb and 9 nights in the apartment we got - a horrible ratio).  Since it was last minute and San Francisco I had limited options and ended up deciding on the Omni hotel.  It was SUPER nice and made me feel like a big shot.  That night I also took a stroll for dinner.  I hadn't planned my day very well because I got an expensive pizza at midnight so I had to be more budget conscious for dinner so I just went to a little hole-in-the-wall kind of place.  I hung out and watched the Mets beat the Cubs and had a couple drinks and a quesadilla that totally sucked (I could tell from the menu that it was not a bar known for food).  So I hung out for an hour or two when this dude walked in.  I was finishing my last beer (or so I thought) and he was already a few drinks deep.  I'm not sure what he asked me but it was something about the area and the conversation went something like this:

Guy: blah blah blah San Francisco?

Me: Oh, I don't really know.  I've only been here a couple days for work.

Guy: Oh, me too.  What do you do?

Me: I'm a CPA.  So where are you from? (the question that would change the course of my night).

Guy: Washington DC... you?

Me: Well I just moved to Southern California two and a half weeks ago but before that I lived in Rhode Island.

Guy: Seriously?  I grew up in Warwick then lived in Jamestown and graduated from Jamestown High School.

Me: That's crazy, I moved from Warwick... I grew up in Cranston and went to West, then I went to Bryant.

Guy: No way! I graduated Bryant in 2000.

So as you can see... I have uncovered that I am actually in The Truman Show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3gI9ms8Fdc)... you can all cut the charade because I've figured it out.  It only took about 25 years but its over now.  But seriously.  This guy did graduate from Bryant (or at least spent enough time there to know a lot about it).  He was talking about where he lived and naming different halls and stuff so I believed him.  He then got me a beer at that bar and a beer next door before we decided to head to our various hotels... which as fate may have it was actually the same hotel.  At this point I should have probably been concerned that he was trying to kidnap and "Bill Cosby" me but I'm just a small town boy living in the big city.  Luckily we both went back to the Omni and he got off the elevator at the 4th floor instead of following me up to the 16th.  So all and all his attempt to pick me up were futile... his attempt to liquor me up was successful however... It was a bit of a rough morning but hey... when don't people get out of hand on Wednesday night, right?

So Thursday as I mentioned was tough but I made it in on time and did my work as well as I normally would have.  I flew home later that day and got my first glimpse of something tourist-y!  I saw the Golden Gate Bridge out the window of the airplane!

If you look REALLY closely you can see it there in the middle between the greenish brown and the brownish green!  So yeah I got home around 6:30ish and changed and went right back out to a concert that included Ballyhoo! and Pepper.  It was a good show but it reminded me that Pepper (although in my top 5 favorite bands to listen to) is terrible live.  They just don't play enough of their songs... they either sing or play and don't do both at the same time often enough.  I'm assuming its due to various chemicals affecting them while their up there but yeah, that's my opinion on it.  The first opening band did bless us with the opportunity to be the fashion police.  This picture shows 2/3 of the members wearing either really long shirts or average length dresses:

Carissa coined the phrase "Welcome to Orange County, where the tee's go to your knees!"  This picture doesn't even do this justice either.  These just look like average tall tees but I assure you they were waaaaay too long.  To the point that we both pointed it out because it was so obviously terrible.  That's the only other thing we got out of the concert really.  Ballyhoo! is still great live.

Friday we both worked, Carissa had a 1/2 day.  Last night Carissa went out with some random girls she won't stop talking about that she met on the internet.  I think she's probably in love.  I stayed home and watched the Bruins and played some video games.  Carissa made it home safe and has been bragging about how many girls she gave her number to.  I think shes trying to compete with my obvious new boyfriend in San Francisco/Washington D.C.

Today we took a trip to Balboa Island to try to find Rocky and see what it's all about.  There's a street with some restaurants and shops and a bunch of SUPER nice houses with yachts and the whole shabang.  We weren't sure what to expect, we were going to take the ferry there and thought it would be like Block Island or something but when we typed in the directions to the Balboa Island Ferry into the GPS it took us to the side that was on the island not the side that was on the mainland because it was closer to our apartment.  We just crossed a bridge that was maybe 30 yards long and we were there... the ferry is kind of a joke... but it's also only $3 for a car and two people.  Once we got there we walked around the island (took about 45min), grabbed some lunch and watched Carissa do a little bit more shopping.  While shopping I found this book that I was surprised to find out I didn't actually write:

(The first part... not the influencing people part... If I had written the first part I probably wouldn't have stopped at just 120).  Then I got a frozen banana at the stand that Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand was inspired by (from the show Arrested Development):

When we were walking we also saw that a bunch of people had lime trees so we did a little research and decided that we could also afford a lime tree... so after we left Balboa Island we went out and bought a lime tree so we can have some fresh limes for vodka sodas and other uses too..... there's no reason for us to go buy limes just as an alcohol garnish.... QUICK get distracted by these pictures!

This is our baby lime tree.  If we care for it and water it I'm told that someday it can give us fresh limes!  That takes us to the end of Saturday.  Go Pats!  See below for pictures of my new car and for a video of the apartment!  Aslo, happy birthday AJ and Chris (it's AJ's birthday in California and Chris's birthday in RI! How crazy is that!!!!!)

MY CAR:

As you can see it is red!  It is also a convertible but I didn't take any pictures of it with the top down... sorry...  But here's a video of the apartment!  Again - should have taken the video in landscape but I didn't and I wanted the video to be authentic first try so if you want a better look at the car or the apartment you'll have to come visit!

-JD

We Have The Internet Again!

(Originally Posted 10/16/15) 

(Editor’s note – you’re looking at around 3,500 words so strap in)

When we last left our heroes they were in Irvine at an Airbnb.  Jeff had bought a car, Carissa had accepted a job, and they had decided upon a nice 2 bedroom apartment in Costa Mesa, California.  Since that is where I left off… that is where I will pick up!  This is going to be a long one ladies and gents so strap in.  A lot happened this week and I didn’t have the internet so I couldn’t share it with all of you!  (Don’t worry, I won’t keep giving you day by day updates… only the days where things that were mildly interesting happened will be shown separately.)

SATURDAY: Saturday was the day of days.  We were leaving our fun safe Airbnb… a place where everything still somewhat felt like a vacation.  We were moving from Irvine to a place to call our own in Costa Mesa.  For those of you who are not familiar with the geography of Southern California (like me) Costa Mesa is west of Irvine… and maybe north… I’m not really 100% sure.  My confusion is only amplified by the fact that in order to get to work in Irvine I have to take 55 north to 405 south.  Sounds to me like I should already be at work when I get on the first highway… I digress.  The apartment is a lovely 2 bedroom 2 bathroom vaulted ceiling loft(?) with a 1 car garage attached below the kitchen/family room area.  There are hardwood floors (laminate) throughout except for the bedrooms which have carpet and bathrooms which I believe have tile… not sure at the moment and not getting up to look.  I would have included pictures but there is no more space for pictures on my phone… that’s also why there will be no pictures of my car when we get to that but soon I’ll make Carissa take pictures of everything and post them in her blog… if she ever makes one.  So yeah, on Saturday we signed the papers and we became residents of Costa Mesa until at least October 2016!  The apartment came without a fridge (as many out here do for some reason… I don’t understand it at all – it’s not like anybody is actually living anywhere without a fridge) so we went to IKEA to do some shopping.  IKEA as fate may have it is only about 7 minutes from our apartment!  So we did the whole IKEA experience, ended up getting a few bar stools because we have an island of sorts in the kitchen and we got a fridge that was to be delivered on Sunday!  The other thing about our apartment is it does not have air conditioning (yes, this is going where you think it’s going… I’m about to complain about heat even though I moved to southern California… just move past it and laugh at my expense or something… or skip down… your call).  Apparently no apartments in this area have AC because it is close to the water and usually there is no reason to need AC.  But on this day it was in the high 90s (unseasonably warm we were told).  Things were hot to say the least and Jeffrey was being a complainy baby (ask Carissa… I’m surprised she didn’t just kill me).  So we went to CVS and got some essentials – beer, water, paper cups, paper plates, etc. and we went out to dinner.  We had Mexican, it was delicious.  We got home, it was terrible and hot.  We had no furniture other than 2 of the 3 bar stools that Carissa had assembled and our air mattress.  Life was terrible on Saturday night.  We just watched Scrubs on Carissa’s phone and fell asleep on the air mattress praying for relief.

SUNDAY: (if you thought Saturday was a story… just wait) Sunday began as Saturday ended (as it often does).  It was hot, we were sweaty, still didn’t have our stuff, still didn’t have the internet, still didn’t have a fridge (it was coming between 1-4 o’clock).  The only good thing about Sunday was that Tom Brady was going to be on at 10am (or so I thought).  You see… the funny thing about time zones is that when you’re on the west coast, football starts at 10am – provided the game you want to watch is at 1pm eastern time.  What Jeffrey didn’t realize, is that Tom Brady was really playing at 4:25 eastern time… which meant he was really on at 1:25, not 10am.  So Carissa and Jeffrey went to a local bar for brunch and to watch Tom Brady play the Cowboys.

I Googled “bars with NFL Sunday Ticket” and looked at some reviews and we decided to go to a place with great brunch reviews and NFL Sunday ticket.  We got to this place around 9:45, buckled in and got ready for some football!  I got a breakfast burger which was a burger with a fried egg on top.  Carissa got some other sort of breakfast item.  Then the bartenders started labeling all the TV’s with a clever “Team A vs. Team B” so you would know what TV to look at if you wanted to watch your favorite team!  I liked the set-up of this place, the food was delicious… the only problem was none of the TV’s said “Tom Brady vs. Cowboys”…. NONE OF THEM EVEN SAID “Patriots vs. Cowboys.”  After a quick Google search I realized that I was in fact an idiot and that the Patriots and Tom Brady were playing at 1:25 pacific time.  Carissa obviously didn’t want to sit at this place for 6 hours (and understandably so, they cap the bottomless mimosas after 3 hours) so we watched the first quarter of most of the games, finished our meals, and went on our way.  Carissa went out shopping and I sat in the hot apartment staring at my phone for a couple hours while she did that.  She got home around 1:15 so I left to go to a less expensive place to finally see Tom.  I went to a different bar, a divey-er bar, the kind of place that had $3 pints of PBR (account for California inflation and that’s pretty cheap!).

I ordered a Sam Oktoberfest before I saw the special and looked at the TV’s for my game.  I was half paying attention because the game before went into OT so the Pats game wasn’t on yet when a woman stumbled towards one of the servers and said something to the effect of (and I’m paraphrasing here) “I’m feeling rather intoxicated, however my body is telling me it is time to urinate, would you be so kind and hold my beverage for a quick minute so that I might relieve myself?”  I have no idea why the server agreed but she took the drink for this lady while she stumbled into the bathroom.  I was only halfway paying attention to this and halfway looking at other games when about a minute later the server proclaimed “why the hell am I holding this” so naturally I looked down and made eye contact… this of course changed the course of my entire day… she looked at me and said “hey can you hold this and when they lady comes out of the bathroom just hand it off to her!” so I naturally said “like the people who hand out water during marathons?” and the server agreed.

So while I was holding this glass I kinda turned to the guy who was at the bar next to me who was texting away madly on his phone and I just said “I don’t know how the hell I got dragged into this.”  Since he was smart and minding his own business I had to explain the situation to him.  The woman came out of the bathroom a minute or so later and I handed of her glass and she looked puzzled for a second and kept on stumbling.  I’m not sure if she was confused because this complete stranger had handed her a beverage or if it was just the general confusion she likely had going into the bathroom but she kept walking so no harm no foul.

After this episode I began talking to the guy next to me.  His name was Scott.  He was an average looking dude who I came to find out was 50 and a commercial airline pilot.  He said he was in town on a layover and that he came to that bar that fateful day because one of his buddies was a regular there and he was trying to surprise him.  He also said that a different buddy of his lived nearby and if his first buddy didn’t show up soon, this OTHER buddy (Tim) was going to pick him up and drive him around.  We continued to talk and shoot the shit and eventually he said Tim was on his way but that he wanted to “take me (meaning Scott) to his (meaning Tim) damn house… I wanna go out and watch the games!”  This continued into a phone call once this OTHER buddy got to the bar and eventually after Scott yelled “COME IN FOR ONE DRINK” enough, he got Time to come inside.  Tim ended up sitting between me and Scott where the open seat was and he introduced Tim to me and bought a round of drinks.  By this time the Patriots game had been on for a while, probably around halftime or so when Tim arrived and the day continued.  Scott apparently had money on every single game that day, betting the underdog in all of them… because who the hell knows why.  He obviously put money on the Cowboys which was something that Tim immediately started making fun of him for because even he knew that the Cowboys without Dez and Romo couldn’t match Tom Brady.  We all hung out, talked about whatever, Scott kept buying rounds for the three of us, when out of nowhere (literally out of nowhere… dude came from like down the hall where there are only bathrooms so I assume he must of came up through the toilet… which actually made his name make more sense now that I think about it) I hear a guy yell “WHITEY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!”  Scott turned and shouted back “SHREDDER!!!!” at the mystery man who came out of the toilet.  Apparently this is the guy they had been waiting for who they had decided long ago was not coming.  Once Shredder (whose real name was Tad I think) got there things escalated rather quickly.  Shredder appeared to be completely in the bag when he got there and I think Scott was just trying to get on his level.  They (meaning Scott, Tad, and Tad’s entourage he came with) went to a table nearby and started getting shots.  Tim and I just hung out and Tim started telling me he didn’t want to come in because he knew this would happen and that he was supposed to give some girl a ride to the airport.  He also said he apparently had 2 ex-girlfriends at his house and that one was crazy and the other was texting him about how the crazy one was apparently just walking around naked.  Tim knew Scott because they went to pilot school together so Tim was also a commercial airline pilot and he was 52 if I recall.  The Pats game at this point had become a blur in the background of these shenanigans and I lost focus on the fact that the Patriots had taken the lead.  I don’t think I saw like 85% of the game I had been looking forward to all day but I saw a play or two when Scott was yelling at the TV for the Cowboys to come back and win.  The game finally ended and Whitey and Tim left Shredder at the bar to go back to Tim’s house… or maybe another bar… not really sure.  I was there for probably a good 3 and a half hours or so and only bought 1 beer thanks to those two so I would classify that as a great day!  I grabbed two burgers to go and made the long trip home (approx. half a mile).  I was so flabbergasted by what had happened that I managed to stream together a thought or two to describe the night to Carissa… quite frankly she knew right away that Jeffrey had enjoyed a few sodas and was glad I wasn’t driving.

In all this madness I had forgotten about the fridge (which did not arrive by 4:00 and came closer to 5:00 I think).  The IKEA guys were nice enough to bring it up the stairs and drop it off right where the fridge was supposed to go.  They didn’t unwrap it though and as it turns out it was EXTREMELY annoying to undo 4 bolts with only a Leatherman’s tool (those fold up pliers that are only about half as effective as real pliers).

After that we were desperate to find a fan so we went to Big Lots! to look.  Naturally they only had heaters… because when it’s in the 90s, people clearly need heaters.  There was also a Wal-Mart Market next door which is just like a super Wal-Mart but only the super part.  So they didn’t have any of the normal things that Wal-Mart would have, just food (we didn’t know such things existed but apparently it’s not uncommon).  We got some groceries for the fridge and a Redbox movie to watch on my laptop since we still had no internet.  When we got home we just put the laptop on a barstool at the foot of the bed and watched a movie while falling asleep (it was “Focus” with Will Smith and Margot Robbie, I thought it was good… like the kind of movie you watch on a Sunday night when you have nothing to do but probably not the kind of movie you go out of your way to find).  So yeah, Sunday was a hell of a day.

MONDAY: It was Columbus Day!  Everybody got the day off!  Except Jeff.  Jeff worked.  Jeff had his first day of work in fact!  Since I didn’t have my car yet Carissa dropped me off at like 8:15 and I went up to start my old job in a new place!  There was an itinerary waiting for me of things to do.  The first items were filling out paperwork and get a tour of the building and meeting people and stuff.  There were 1.5 hours allotted for this.  We completed it in about 35 minutes.  After that I had things scheduled in one hour blocks every hour.  The second item was supposed to start at around 10 (an IT setup… I brought my computer from RI) was completed by around 9:30 since all the technology was the same, the third item was supposed to show me how to use a computer program I’ve been using for a year and a half then Lunch was scheduled for 12.  It was 10.  So I did what anybody in my position would do.  Deleted old emails and went on YouTube for 2 hours to kill time.  I went to another Mexican place for lunch, got taquitos and I think my body finally said “no more fried Mexican you moron” and I had a stomach ache for the rest of the day… Which was full of nothing by the way.  I had meetings with managers and stuff to say hello and one of them wasn’t even in the office and the other had a phone call after about 5 minutes of talking to him.  Either way I had met and talked to both of them already so there wasn’t much to talk about.  I was told in one of these meetings that the client I was supposed to be working on all week hadn’t gone through the client acceptance procedures yet so there wasn’t much for me to do.

TUESDAY: nothing happened.  Our apartment was still hot but it was starting to cool down.  I bought a fan on Amazon but didn’t get next day delivery because I’m dumb.  The internet router was delivered but it didn’t work so a technician had to come out but that couldn’t happen until Thursday.  I watched more YouTube videos at work.

WEDNESDAY: THE POD THAT HAD ALL OF OUR POSESSIONS CAME!  Carissa unpacked some of the stuff that was in the front of the POD and that she could get to.  I had called a moving company to come help us unpack describing our move as “nothing is really too heavy, we just can’t do it alone… I pretty much just need a friend but I just moved 3,000 miles so I don’t have any.”  So two guys who I assume were in college showed up around 5:00 to help us move everything from the POD up into the apartment.  The moving company told me their rates were for 2 guys for a minimum of 2 hours.  When I showed them the POD they got so pumped because they knew it would only take like 30 minutes.  Sure enough about 45 minutes later they had brought everything inside and even assembled the bed for us.  I gave them $160 bucks for their service and realized that if Carissa and I had done that ourselves it would have taken about 4 hours and probably would have led to a shouting match or two.  So it was worth every penny to have those guys come (Mission Movers for anybody looking for movers in Orange County).  We went out to dinner at this place nearby called Mimi’s Café and we realized we are probably going to become regulars there because the food was great, they served breakfast all day, and the house wines and sangrias were only $5 a glass.  I got a quiche and 3 glasses of chardonnay and it was gloriously affordable!

Also I watched a video at work about the maker of 5hr Energy.  I guess he’s worth $4 Billion dollars now and wants to change the earth.  It was a YouTube Advertisement that led me to watch a 45min movie about him.  This is the link to the trailer: https://youtu.be/se_fYZRbyJs  this is the link to the Documentary:https://youtu.be/YY7f1t9y9a0  (I want that bike… and those squeezy pants)

THURSDAY: The fan I bought on Amazon came and the cable guy came and installed our internet!  Carissa also did some serious work unpacking during the day which was SUPER awesome (thanks again!).  My car came during the day (as foreshadowed above… I haven’t taken any pictures but I will eventually) Carissa got to drive it around while I drove her car to work.  We went to a sports bar for dinner and watched Adrian Gonzales, Carl Crawford and the dodgers lose to the Mets.  At work I literally couldn’t find a single thing to do… it was October 15th too… the corporate filing deadline.  All I did all day was drive 5 minutes to a client to have them sign a tax return and then drive back.

FRIDAY (today):  Nothing happened for most of the day.  I seriously couldn’t find a damn thing to do at work.  Went to lunch and had Pad Thai (which was delicious) then somebody said “heard you’re going to San Francisco on Monday” to which I replied “really? Who told you that?”  That was around 12:30 and I didn’t hear another word about it after that.  I had been told I might work on one of the San Francisco jobs in November but hadn’t heard anything about next week.  Then at around 4:40 I am sitting at my desk, watching hockey on my computer (benefit of games starting at 7pm EST is they start at 4 pacific) when one of the managers walks up to my cube and says “so I talked to a partner in San Francisco and he wanted to know if you could help out on one of his jobs next week.  It’ll just be a couple days, probably like Tuesday through Thursday or something because I don’t think they’ll have you go out on Monday since that’s really short notice.  I’ve been trying to contact [the partner] for like 30 minutes but he hasn’t answered my calls or emails so I’ll let you know when I know something.”  About 10 minutes later I got a phone call from the San Francisco partner telling me he wanted me to come up and help them work on something.  He figured it would only take a couple days, probably three at the most but he wants me up there Monday morning.  Sooooooo I booked a flight on southwest and I leave Monday morning at 6:45 to take my first trip to San Francisco!  Something tells me I won’t have too much leisure time while I’m there but hey! At least I get a free trip to San Francisco!

On next week’s edition I will do my best to include pictures and videos of the apartment and car and stuff!

-JD