Dip'n'Rip 2K5

This was the unauthorized version of my spring break from 2005. In 2006 we are going to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and it should be a blast. Here is a look back at what makes spring break awesome and a look ahead to what I have to look forward to in 69 days.

Spring break is awesome. It was awesome. Ten days of not having to work makes you think your life is actually not as routine as you make it out to be. Especially when it's warm in March and there's college basketball going on. The first night in Phoenix before we left to Rocky Point had some funny moments and then I'll get into the Rocky Point part of the trip. Without further ado, I present to you random moments from spring break in Mexico (and Arizona some) without very many deletions of the X-rated words, thoughts and etc.

Thursday, March 10

-A group of 8 of us decided to go out to the bars from our hotel room after we lost Marc coming back from the airport. He thought he was following us, but we think he was a little, you know, dazed. We hit up this place called Dos Gringos, which has a sister bar called the Trailer Park. Perfect name for our group of crazy folk. It's hard to explain the combination of personalities in the group but let's say that out of the total of 12 of us, 6 of them are from Nebraska. I think that's the best and clearest explanation.

-Dos Gringos had one main highlight since it was Thursday. There is this funny looking, drunk, skinny guy dancing there with some coeds and lo and behold, it is da da da, da da da...Dan Patrick! He was wasted and only there for a bit, but he was down there for spring training. I have no idea why he decided on Dos versus getting VIP at some other places, but his dancing was en fuego!

-Later on, after everyone someone got smashed in just a few short hours, someone requested food. Justin goes to Jack in the Crack and buys food for a couple people, picking the food for them instead of really asking. Turns out he bought breakfast burritos. Marc chows down on his while blurting out, "Who the hell buys breakfast burritos from Jack in the Box? You couldn't get a burger?" in the first of many funny commentaries on the trip. I guess the lesson is you just don't go to JitB and buy breakfast burritos for a group of guys at 3am.

Friday, March 11

-Driving down to Mexico was a hassle. Marc was following Clint's car, which I was in. Justin tells him before the trip not to bring any drugs as they are cracking down on that at the border and he doesn't want any holdups. The first cop we pass Clint slows down but Marc does not behind us and sure enough we see the lights come on and the cop pulls Marc over. We think sure enough he is going to jail, they will find drugs, and they had started to drink in the backseat of the truck. We keep driving and call them to find out what happened and Adam says that they found the drugs and Marc is in the back of the cop car. Basically ruining our whole trip. Turns out he was fucking with us and the cop asked for his license and then asked where he's from. He said Nebraska, and the cop says, oh really, I'm from Nebraska too and lets him off with a warning only. The trip is officially on!

-We arrive at the mansion on the beaches of RP and it's the fuckin' shizzle nizzle badizzle. (Translation: it's badass) Words can't do it justice but it's five bedrooms, five bathrooms, plasma tv, sundeck, atrium area with fountains, huge grill, and the best part, a hammock. Hammocks are underrated. As the place is scouted out in its various nooks and crannies. That's a great phrase, nooks and crannies, there is an outdoor shower. This prompts the first house rule of the trip to be made: Everyone has to use the outdoor shower. (It never happens but it'd be a good rule if it weren't 12 guys)

-Somehow, out of nowhere, the phrase of the trip is born by Sjulin. Pronounced Shhh-lin. It starts off as a house rule but pretty soon morphs into a saying. The house rule #2 is: Before you're about to come you have to yell G-Unit at the top of your lungs.

-Pretty soon everybody is shouting Gggggg-G Unit every couple minutes and I have no rhyme or reason to this development but in the conversation about rule #2 the saying Dip'n'Rip 2K5 is born. Now, you don't need too much imagination to figure out what it might stand for, and I won't go into the details here, but Dip'n'Rip Rocky Point 2K5 is titled.

-House rule #3: Everyone has to use the neon bodypaint their names on to the chests of the girls they fuck. (Don't know if this actually occurred but it would be hilarious to see)

-Story #1: Sjulin fucked 15 girls over 3 days in Mazatlan a couple years back on spring break, including one behind a dumpster. It's now officially a guy reader only blog, all the girls have stopped reading.

-Story #2: Story time kids. Marc has way too many stories to tell but a good one involves him going to the Shanty in Tucson and he pukes on the pool table. He walks back to Justin and says, "hey, Justin, we gotta go". So they leave the puke on the pool table and go to another bar before he gets kicked out. They end up at the bar formerly known as 8 Trax. While in the bathroom Justin convinces Marc to take the plunger out on the dance floor which he does. Marc starts doing 360's on the dance floor with a plunger in his hand waving it around and gets kicked out. They go to a third bar, go up to the bouncer and March shows him his ID and the guy says "sorry, we can't let you in." He was blacklisted from the bar! How many people do you know that are blacklisted from a bar? I don't know what you thought about this aside, but we were rolling after hearing this story.

-Story #3: Another great story. Marc was driving his truck and took a turn over the curb by railroad tracks. His truck ended up getting stuck on the curb and he couldn't get it moving at all. Part of his truck was over train tracks. He got out and tried to push it. Along comes a freight train, and BOOM. You guessed it. His truck is smashed by the train. No one was hurt. He calls Matt and tells him to pick him up but all that comes out to Matt is "Matt, pick me up, train". Matt goes to pick him up and he is talking to the cops about what happened. Matt calls Justin to tell him about it and Justin tells him to hold the phone up so he can hear what the cops are talking about to him. Matt proceeds to hold the phone up so Justin can hear the conversation. This lasts for two hours. Marc has a different truck now after Matt called his mom and explained what happened to Marc's truck. Another classic story about Marc that is infinitely funnier if you were there to listen to it or know Marc.

-Story #4: Justin gets loaded and he is walking back home with Matt. Matt lifts him up and puts him in a giant recycling bin. When their ride gets there to pick them up, she asks "Where's Justin?" "Oh, he's in the recycling bin."

-Nothing especially memorable happened Friday night and those stories were told later in the trip, but if anyone cares we went to Manny's Beach Club on that night and Matt tried climbing the metal bars over the dance floor.

-While walking around Manny's we would all randomly go up to girls and ask "hey, do you know Fiddy Cent? Do you know G-Unit?" This is actually a good conversation starter if you can continue to convince the girl you are part of G-Unit, otherwise don't waste your time. Marc passes Sjulin in the bathroom and all he hears is "Dip n Rip 2K5" and that's all he says.

Saturday, March 12: Lay Day

-Went to the beach and threw a football around, had some Corona's, and met a hot girl that jammed her finger the day before playing catch with a football but still threw spirals like nobody's business. It was utterly amazing to watch.

-Watched the first half of the Arizona-Washington game at Sunset Cantina. Nothing better than watching your favorite team at a bar at sunset in Mexico with a bunch of drunk fans.

-At night we went to Baja Cantina, Manny's and Pink Cadillac. At Baja, Justin wanted to get a spot on the railing overlooking the crowded dance floor and porn show across the way. He "uses" me to clear out space by telling all the smaller guys on the rail to move out for him, telling me that I need to use my size to intimidate people. It works to a charm.

-After all the bar closed Sjulin was itching for booty so me and him walked down the strip and started talking to some girls. They ended up driving us home with me directing us. Somehow we got back, since I had never really watched how to get home. Sjulin just takes his girl to the side of the mansion and does his business and walks away.

-Later, around 5am with the music bumping in the mansion and about 6 girls over at our place (I think there might be video of some of this) Adam get laid on the beach by a girl Justin used to TA and swears he yelled G-Unit when it happened, Matt brought a girl home earlier from Baja and had twice the fun with her, and Clint got some.

-Justin's quote about talking to one of the girls that was at our place that night: "Dude, that bitch was so dumb. I started talking about the stars and planets and she thought I was Albert Einstein."

Sunday, March 13

-We went to this place called The Reef where they were having a wet t-shirt contest, also known as getting naked. Before we got in there was the most drunk person I have ever witnessed in my life outside with a bunch of white guys. His name was Rafael. Apparently, he only speaks Spanish and he saved one of the white guy's lives the night before by talking to someone in Spanish for him so they decided to get him wasted as a reward. I think I have some pictures of him, but he couldn't stand up and when he tried he body was contorted sideways and his eyes were in the back of his head and he was drooling. They were taking care of him, but kinda just sitting him down outside and this guy was just hammered beyond anything you can imagine.

-Sjulin's pickup line: "Smile bitch, I'm high and drunk."

-Justin was way drunk again this night (no surprise and lots of fun). His goal was to talk to every single girl in Baja, probably numbering about 150 girls. He pretty damn well reached that goal by telling every girl "I'm on drugs" or "What's up Shorty?" even if the girl was six feet tall.

-"Hey, this girl's from Detroit, she knows Eminem."

-No one was with him but Justin was ordering a taco from the taco stand on the strip and he says he only got two pieces of meat. He asks for "mas carne, por favor", but the guy says, "no, fuck you." Justin comes back with the classic "no, fuck you and your mom" and turns around. Someone yells "watch out!" and Justin turns around to see the guy swiping at his back with a butcher knife, deftly moves out of the way, and punches him four times in the face and runs. He later describes the guy's face after the punches as "his face looked like a pizza".

-Marc dressed up in a 70's getup this night with a rambo bandanna holding down his rock star wig. Girls just aren't attracted to bandannas like they used to be. The best comment made about his outfit by some girl as he is puking in the bathroom trough later that night: "hey, it's THAT guy!"

Monday, March 14

-The last night and so many people were out of it that only 8 out of the 12 of us went out the final night including Marc sleeping while we went out after playing football on the beach. Complete disappointment. I dressed up in my costume because I thought it was costume night, but no one else really wanted to do it so I just put on regular clothes. All that effort shopping for a costume and I didn't even wear it out!

-Story from Sunday about Matt: He takes home a girl that night and does what he does best. Josh is still out at the bars and runs into the girl from the previous night that he had twice the fun with in one night who tells Josh, "tell Matt I'm coming over tonight at 3am." Josh gets back to the house at 2:55am and goes straight to Matt's door and knocks on it til Matt answers and he tells Matt he has to get the first girl out of there because the second girl is coming over at 3. Matt drives her home after telling her some lie about how Josh is pissed that he doesn't get to sleep in the bed just to take her home. When he gets back, the other girl is there and they get it on. Good teamwork and communication guys. Very seamless and smooth with props to Matt for a 2 for 1 with the shot clock running down.

-Actually on Sunday night, one of those girls sees Matt and the group of us at Manny's and Matt doesn't want anything to do with her after dancing with her so he takes off and we don't know so Justin and I are the only ones left out and we don't know it and this girl is so infatuated with Matt she follows us around the whole night for two more hours thinking Matt will come back and meet up with us (which he doesn't). Eventually we get rid of her after taking her number for Matt and Justin and I closed down Manny's on our last night out at 3am. The funny thing is, this girl is a dance major and had a nice body, yet Matt wants nothing to do with her even though she'd probably do whatever he says. We know realize she is probably psycho.

While in Tucson

-A tiny little dog was climbing around the house, stopped on my lap while I was sitting on the couch and pissed all over my shorts.

-If I can remember any more good stories while in Tucson I will add them later, but this covers all of Rocky Point. Enjoy.

NIU Tailgate & More Tailgating

On Saturday, October 15th Kevin, Dave and I went to Northern Illinois University to tailgate with Jenn, Kevin and others for NIU's homecoming. It wsa a lot of fun and my friend JJ and his girlfriend met up with us. We got there around noon and tailgated until 3pm when the football game started we headed to a bar called Fatty's and watched the Notre Dame-USC game which was awesome. Around 6pm O'Kelly, Kevin, Dave and I went to O'Kelly's friends house and hung out for a little bit before we headed to another bar called the Barn where one of Kevin's coworkers and her friends were at. We stayed there from 7pm-1am and Dave and I ran 8 straight games of pool winning some money, and shots in the process. Kevin's coworker outchugged both Dave and Kevin as I watched on knowing I'd get smoked too and then we drove home at 1am. It was a lot of fun being in a college town for 12 hours and meeting up with friends. This Saturday, the 22nd, we are going to tailgate at the White Sox World Series Game 1 and then on November 12th, a HUGE group of us are tailgating up in Madison for the Badgers-Hawkeyes game. There should be about 40 people in total there to tailgate and we are gonna party all day up in Madison, WI. There was an evite sent out for it so if you want to go let me know and I'll forward you the info. This will be my 6th tailgate of the year, the others include:

April 23rd: Milwaukee for the Brewers-Cardinals game
September 18th: South Bend for the Notre Dame-Michigan State game
September 23rd: Milwaukee for the Brewers-Cardinals game
October 15th: Dekalb for the NIU-Eastern Michigan game
October 22nd: Chicago for the White Sox-Houston Astros game
November 12th: Madison for the Wisconsin-Iowa game

Baseball Road Trip

Nate and I came up with this plan in April to see as many baseball games in one weekend as we could. This mostly involved finding a day that both the Cubs and Sox played a day/night doubleheader. The only two weekends we could do it were this weekend and another weekend in which the Brewers were not at home so we couldn't do that weekend. It turned out to be September 23-25 and we were going to see the Brewers-Cardinals game in Milwaukee, Cubs-Astros in Chicago, White Sox-Twins in Chicago and Tigers-Mariners in Detroit.

After work on Friday, September 23rd Jim, Kevin and I drove up to Milwaukee at 3pm to watch the Brewers-Cardinals game. We tailgated before the game with Nate and his neighbor, Val. We played some bags and had some beers before heading in to watch th game where our seats were in the right field bleachers. Nate was completely wasted and just started giggling, gurgling, and make nonsensical noises. He started swearing in the bleachers and finally some dad turned around and said hey, there's kids around here! Classic. Then he went to visit some friends near the third base dugout. Later, we tried to get down to those seats and it was easy as pie. We sat fourth row behind the dugout for the last two innings and the Brewers ended up winning. After the game Nate and Jim were imitating Mike Tyson's Punchout characters for no other reason than alcohol. Kevin drove back after drinking very little since he was training for the marathon and with Jim and I passed out ended up getting pulled over for speeding. The cop luckily let him off with just a warning. I say lucky because the ticket would have easily been over $200.

The next day we were scheduled to go to the Cubs-Astros game. Nate didn't show up on time for the game so we left his ticket taped to our door. His phone didn't work so he ended up scalping a ticket to get into the game without knowing the ticket was hanging on the door. It started raining in the 6th inning and we ended up leaving and walking home in the rain so we could get ready to go to the White Sox game at night. On the walk home my friend from college, JJ, called and asked if we were walking down Addison since he was driving down it. That was a weird coincidence and it was true since we were soaked.

After changing and the weather clearing up Nate and I drove to the Sox game to meet up with Jim and Kevin and found parking about a mile away for free across the street from a police station, which was nice because the neighborhood was not nice. Our car could easily have got jacked, had no wheels, or had been stolen if we weren't across the street from a police station. The park is a lot nicer than I remembered it. The game got out of hand early on in the 5th inning or so and we decided to go early after Nate's idea that we should hit up a college town before we get to Detroit. The Sox won the game and we were already in Indiana by that time. We stopped at a casino in Indiana where both Nate and Kevin won money. After that we continued on to Kalamazoo where we planned on stopping at a bar before it closed. We got directed to a huge bar called Wayside, apparently the only cool bar in town because the whole town must have been there. The parking lot was packed at midnight and I've never seen a parking lot so big at a bar that was so full. We parked in a spot we made up ourselves and went in for two hours. At 2am we got back on the road with Nate driving, Kevin up front and me trying to sleep in the back.

Around 5am we stopped to get gas with only Nate awake. It actually was a gas station/White Castle/"massage parlor". The massage parlor was closed but the other two were open. Around 6am Nate pulled over in a random parking and declared he was done driving for the night and needed to sleep and we were still an hour from Detroit. An hour later we were up and back driving to Detroit to meet up with Nate's grandpa and golf and 18 hole par 9 course with him. We golfed at 9am and no one else in the town even seemed awake. I hit a shot within a foot of the cup but that was about the only highlight for me. Then we headed to the game, where the humidity was so bad. We walked around the park and took some more pictures before it started pouring in the 8th inning. We checked out the gift shop and then left as I drove all the way back home from Detroit and we got back around 8pm. It was a long drive in the rain, with lots of traffic and construction delays. All in all we saw 4 games in 3 different cities all within 42 hours. Quite a feat of planning, organizing, and travelling if you ask me. We tried to see games at St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Anaheim, and Oakland but those didn't work out. All told for the whole summer I saw at least one game in each of the following parks:

Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)
US Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox)
Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers)
Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers)
Coors Field (Colorado Rockies)
SBC Park (San Francisco Giants)
Dodgers Stadium (Los Angeles Dodgers)
Petco Park (San Diego Padres)

Notre Dame Tailgate

On September 18th, what was supposed to be a big group outing to the University of Notre Dame turned into Nate, Ashley, Laura and I driving down to South Bend to partake in the atmosphere of a Fighting Irish football game versus Michigan State. Normally, you would go down for the football game because you have tickets but not us. We decided that we would just tailgate and put all of the money from a ticket into the tailgating aspect of the trip. When we got down there around 10:30 the exit to get to the stadium was packed and backed up. There were two lanes of traffic, the slow one which we were stuck in and the fast one which led to the parking lot you needed a pass to get into. Nate did the asshole move that everyone hates when there is a lane shut down by going in the fast lane and then merging/cutting back over to the slow lane a half mile up and cutting off a half hour of waiting in line. This was preceded by Ashley getting out of the car and going in the trunk to get us some drinks to pass the time while Nate would slowly move the car forward each time Ashley went to reach into the cooler for a drink. Sort of akin to holding a carrot in front of a donkey.

When we got to the lot after three miles of turns and traffic we busted out beanbags and a football for a while before heading to the campus. We met some cool people who gave us a map of campus and let us grill some dogs on their grill. To get to the campus where the cool, rich people park you take a shuttle. We got pictures taken with TD Jesus and a group of girls who spelled out IRISH painted on their bodies. The result of which left Nate with blue arms from trying to put his arms around the little smurfs during the photographic process. The usual hecklers trying to get you to sign up for a credit card were there and they persuaded Nate to sign for a longsleeve shirt which will get worn maybe once more in his life for girls to write their phone numbers on since the other shirt that had numbers on it is getting pretty full.

The Joyce Center where the basketball team plays had its fieldhouse showing the game on its screens so we watched the first half in there with about a thousand or so other fans. Actually that’s a lie. We weren’t fans, and in fact, Nate was cheering for Michigan State (because they have so much historic football tradition). At halftime we wandered back outside to all the RV’s to try to get some free food from the people who spend their lives devoted to tailgating with huge plasma tvs hanging out their trucks with tables of food and tables of bottles of alcohol and giants grills of brats, dogs and burgers simmering. This trip didn’t stop us from being hungry so we headed over to an on campus restaurant bar called the Alumni Club. Obviously, being at a college, this was basically a gathering of as many student non-ticket holders who could get their asses up before noon to continue their drinking that had lasted until that morning, if they even went to sleep at all. We grabbed some food there while the game was in double overtime, still going four hours after it started. I don’t watch a majority of college games for the duration of the game so this may well have been the longest football game ever played timewise. At least it seemed that way since I had no interest in the actual outcome. Probably should have dropped a dime on something to make it interesting before I went. Ah, hindsight.

On the way out the bar Nate and I wandered inside the stadium to take pictures while losing Ashley and Laura to the mass of crushed humanity walking around bummed out by the stadium after Notre Dame lost. For the second time that day we cut in front of about one hundred people to get on the shuttle back to the parking lot while getting stared down. If Notre Dame would have won I don’t think anyone would have cared. Back at the lot, it was a mad scene to get out so we just sat around and waited it out. When we finally got in the car we didn’t move so Nate got out and laid on the car hood. Ashley was driving home and turned on the winshield wipers and fluid which sprayed him. Nate then turned around and through my open passenger side window threw his beer on to me and Ashley. This caused me to get out of the car and chase him around the parking lot until I caught him and I took his hat and threw it on top of the ten foot tall shuttle bus. After minutes of Nate threatening me to get his hat back instead of just going and getting it himself before the bus drove away I decided to end the foolishness and I jumped on the back of the shuttle and climbed up to get his hat off. It wasn’t as difficult as it sounds. All was then right in the world and we drove home. A fun day at Notre Dame with some friends and something we plan on doing at other colleges in the upcoming weeks including Iowa, Wisconsin and possibly some others. Stay tuned for more updates from tailgating central!

Colorado Vacation (Sept. 8-Sept. 12, 2005)

Thursday, September 8th

Denver’s airport is in the middle of nowhere. BUFU as some of you call it. It has these white tents on top which makes it very distinguishable amid the nothingness. We got lost coming out of the rental car place because Denver finds it unnecessary to post signs on the road even though there is a ton of room to do so. We had to pay a toll, two in fact, even though I only had 7 cents on me. Legally, we should have driven back within 48 hours to pay the full toll, but of course we never did since it was so far away from where we spent all of our time. This gave us a biased view that Denver highways suck, which would soon change due to the short commute to nearly everywhere in town and huge lack of traffic. Jim, his cousin and I went out to eat and got some gelato afterwards which tasted like heaven in a cup. A bar called Front Porch was next and they had this cool marketing ploy that each day of the month had two names on the calendar and if one of them was your name you got free drinks all night. Weekends had lesser known names like Evita and Donald, but Mondays were full of names like Adam, John, and Sarah. They also had flip nights on Wednesdays where the bartender flips a coin and if you call it you get a free drink. Whoever thought of that idea is my best friend, even though I’ve never experienced that yet. After a few drinks we were tired and Kevin was due in so we went to pick him up, along with some girl he knew from Chicago who was on his flight.

Friday, September 9th

There is nothing more satisfying than going on a brewery tour in the morning and getting free samples of beer at the end of it. We were in the first group of the day (possibly an indication we are the biggest alcoholics). The tour was interesting and I ate a sample of barley I believe it was, that tasted so bad the beer was sorely needed to wash down that horrible taste. While we were hanging out in the lounge after the tour bringing our tasty beverages before noon we ended up hanging out at a table with a bunch of Nebaskans. I have much experience with Nebraskans and they perfectly fit my image of a Nebraskan. Always ready to drink and if they weren’t, then they were already drunk. I don’t remember what we all talked about except that it was fun and they were older than us. I do remember the words “Zack Morris brick phone” coming up in a conversation though, which was hilarious. The only thing more hilarious would have been one of them say “I’m going to the bathroom, be back in two and two” while doing the hand gesture. Two of the women were 38 and 39 and the other couple was married and a couple years older. One of the late 30 year olds didn’t look that bad and she was macking with Kevin pretty well. We ended up going out to lunch with them and having a good time. Kevin went out with them later at night when they were completely trashed while Jim, his cousin and her friend and I went to the DMB concert at Red Rocks, my first one there. It was awesome to see the place in person, and I had the closest seats out of the three nights this night. It seats only 9500 people and all seats are good. I was able to sneak in my digital camera and get some good pictures and a movie or two. Those are up on my Yahoo photos site. Here was the setlist from this night:

Everyday
Time of the Season
Say Goodbye
Dreamgirl
Louisiana Bayou
The Stone
Stolen Away on 55th & 3rd
Bartender
What Would You Say
Everybody Wake Up
American Baby Intro
Dancing Nancies -->
Warehouse
So Much To Say -->
Too Much

Encore:
Old Dirt Hill
Ants Marching

Saturday, September 10th

I got up nice and early, possibly the earliest ever on a vacation, at 5:45am. Kevin, Jim, Patrick, and I went golfing at Arrowhead Golf Club which was a 45 minute drive. It has giant red rocks in the middle of the course which makes it an awesome experience to golf. I spent four month tracking the online coupon to golf at this course for way less than the normal $100 fee. I have tons of pictures from this course. Kevin somehow ended up parring the hardest hole on the course after I bet him $20 he couldn’t land his fairway shot on to the green across the street. Of course, he does, as he has never done before. The greens were really hard to read as they were supposed to all tilt towards Denver but that didn’t materialize every time. To win my $20 back I had to par one of the last 6 holes and ended up hitting a tee shot on the par 3 13th hole to within eight feet of the cup. This hole was described by the ranger as the most beautiful hole you’ll ever set foot on and if you are up on the elevated tee box between two red rocks overlooking a pond it’s hard to argue with him. This course was definitely worth the money even though none of us golfed any better than a two year old playing mini golf. It took us from 7:45am to 1:30pm to finish and then we went back and took naps before going back out. Kevin, Jim and his cousin went hiking in Breckenridge while I went to the second DMB concert at Red Rocks by myself. I got there early and went sightseeing in their museum. This museum (of a concert venue no less) featured memorabilia, a movie, a restaurant, gallery, Red Rocks history, a listing of every band to ever play there, a Hall of Fame, and probably more I can’t remember. I’ve never seen so much stuff about a venue at the venue. It showed how Red Rocks came about and was built and opened in 1946. Pretty much any band that is important has played at Red Rocks, because it is the best amphitheatre in the world for natural acoustics with the shape of the rocks. I could go on and on but I just bought a tshirt and hat as well as a shotglass. I sat next to a kid I sold my other ticket to who was from California and was cool. He ended up buying me three beers that night too. So all in all, a pretty good deal. Here was the setlist from this night:

Seek Up
One Sweet World
Don't Drink The Water
Hunger for the Great Light
Rhyme & Reason *
#34
Smooth Rider *
Jimi Thing *
Blackbird -->
Steady As We Go
Hello Again
Crash
Louisiana Bayou *
Best Of What's Around
American Baby
Tripping Billies *

Encore:
Where Are You Going?
Two Step

* With Rashawn Ross

Sunday, September 11th

This morning we went to a place (I forget it’s name) that had dudes dressed up like women and serving us food with their belly hair sticking out from underneath sequined outfits. Quite interesting. I got a picture with one of the not so hot waitresses and one of the sandwiches there was called the Jackoff Special. I think that says all you need to know. Afterwards we got dropped off at the Colorado Rockies game. They were playing the Diamondbacks. This was quite possibly the hottest, most boring baseball I’ve ever been to including Little League games. We had seats in the sun but the seats were so hot we had to find room in the shade, and there was plenty of room. I fell asleep for an inning as there was nothing very momentous about this game. The park was pretty nice though. It just never has any people in it to fill it up. The nice part is that it’s located right by the trendy bars and downtown area so after the game (usually a Rockies loss) you can go right across the street to drink. After the game we got ready as Kevin and I went to the concert while Jim went off with his cousin. It was September 11th, and as such, the concert was anticipated to be awesome by me. It was nothing short of the best of my 27 concerts I have attended. The only snafu was that while taking pictures of the stage two hours before the opening band came out I was “caught” and taken back down the hundred stairs I climbed to get up to my seats and forced to leave and take my camera back to my car. The car was located so far away that I didn’t want to go back there and come back with no camera to take pictures during the concert like I had the first two nights. I decided that instead of going back in the same entrance with no camera I was going to climb up a steep hill with the camera and try entering through the top entrance. I didn’t think of the fact that the electronic ticket would scan with a different sound indicating that I had already entered so I had to come up with a reason. “I already entered down there but I forgot my wallet in the car and had to go back and get it” was my response when looked at quizzically by the ticket scanner. It was a good thing I didn’t get caught because I probably wouldn’t have been able to get back in a third time with a camera since there are only three entrances total. So, in short, the concert was spectacular and they played the song I have been waiting to hear for so many shows, Halloween! The crowd started chanting for it after Granny and the boys talked it over and then busted into it with Carter’s intro. It was great, even if Dave didn’t quite remember all the words. Add that rarity (hasn’t been played since 2002) to Pig, #41, Butterfly, Star Spangled Banner, and kick ass versions of Watchtower and Lie in Our Graves and you have yourself a classic concert that needs to, and from all indications will be, a live release with a potential for a Red Rocks box set. Here was the setlist:

Don't Burn The Pig
You Never Know
Stand Up
Grey Street
When The World Ends *
Dreamgirl
Lie in Our Graves
Lover Lay Down
What You Are *
Out Of My Hands
#41 *
Granny
Halloween *
Butterfly
Crush *
Pantala Naga Pampa -->
Rapunzel *

Encore:
I Did It (tease)
Louisiana Bayou *
The Star Spangled Banner (Intro) -->
All Along The Watchtower

* With Rashawn Ross

After the show with it being our last night in Denver I wanted to hit up some of the bars near Coors Field so we went to the Sports Page, which is a real cool place. It has a life size pop-a-shot set up and since almost no one was there on a Sunday night we shot on it. It has Monday Night Football specials like $3 you call it’s for dumb things that happen like a fumble or a 50 yard field goal. I can see why it was ranked in the Top 25 Sports Bars list in Sports Illustrated.

Monday, September 12th
Our last day in Denver took us to Boulder for the day to check out the campus of Colorado University. It is a very cool town that is picturesque with the mountains right next to campus and lots of natural scenery. It has a fashionable downtown area with shops and a pretty large campus. The football stadium (Folsom Field where DMB played and released a live show from) was perfectly upkept with great views. The rec center there is second to none. It is very spread out with a huge indoor pool and plasma tvs for the cardio area. It even had a pop-a-shot there that must be some sort of Colorado staple item at any sports place in the state. I played it until I set the new scoring record on it with something like 105 points. The only weird thing about the campus was that it was eerily quite. There wasn’t a whole lot of people out milling around talking or doing too much overall other than studying. Maybe everyone in Boulder drank too much and had a case of the Mondays. We took a stroll down the promenade a little further in town which was more upscale and then took off for the airport. I ate some bad Taco Bell and then boarded the plane to go home which was so empty that I was able to move up to first class with no charge and sit there the whole flight. It was the first flight I can ever remember staying awake for the entire flight. I had to cherish every first class second I could and it was glorious! The trip was a lot of fun and Denver is an awesome city that I recommend visiting if you have the chance. Especially if you go in the winter and know how to ski or snowboard I’m sure it can only get better. And if you have the chance to go to a concert at Red Rocks it is more than worth the cost of admission to see a show there. I can now cross that off the list of places I’ve wanted to go and see a concert at with just the Gorge and Madison Square Garden left to go. (And MSG should be coming up this December.)

Arizona Vacation (Dec. 3-Dec. 12, 2004)

This vacation review from our trip to Arizona from December 3-12, 2004 has been so long overdue that if it were a library book, my overdue fees would be enough to own a wing of the library and print circulation of the book would have ceased long ago. It has just been sitting on my desktop at work waiting to get typed into when I have time and I finally had some time. Just for the records my Philadelphia vacation encompassed 3,731 words, Rocky Point 2,535 words, California 5,113 words, and this one is 4,142 words. Without further ado, here is a quick review (of what I can remember) from that trip.

Friday, December 3rd

After a nice, long nap on the plane ride there thanks to having the middle seat empty and a couple overly friendly female flight attendants from Southwest Jim and I are ready to go out, but it’s already 11pm when we leave the airport. We are taken by bus on a 20 minute drive to seemingly nowhere to pick up our rental car. I thought it was going to be the equivalent of Pee Wee getting a ride from Large Marge and having to jump out of the bus, but carrying the golf clubs and luggage we never would have made it on our own. We were staying at my parent’s house in northwest suburban Phoenix, in a town called Fountain Hills. So named because it is home to the largest man made fountain in the US (world?). It’s a quiet little town where anyone over the age of 30 (most of the town) is asleep by 9pm so pretty much all of the places in the town close early too.

We got to downtown Tempe on the Arizona State campus to go to some bars around 12:30 so we didn’t have much time. Even though it was a Friday, it was finals week so there weren’t many people out milling around on Mill Ave. A major obstacle was the arts and crafts fair was set up on the street with barricades around it so cars couldn’t drive through. All the booths were closed by the time we got there, but arts and crafts don’t exactly encourage the youths to go out and party. Unless the wristbands to get into the bars were multicolored lanyards, because I’ve always wanted one of those, I wasn’t biting on any covers this night so we just went to a small bar I don’t remember the name of and went home. You know it’s a small bar if you can’t remember the name of it and you only had one drink.

Saturday, December 4th

We had made a tee time online for 2pm and of course it was raining. It was pretty cold for Arizona weather, about 50-55 degrees, and we tried to finish 18, but could only get through 12. The club flew out of my hands at least 3 times and ended up going further than the ball each time. I lost more balls than holes played I think. Somewhere, Titleist executives are targeting their new marketing campaign towards people like me. After we quit due to inclement weather that left us as the only people on the course we went back to the pad. As soon as we jumped in the car we jacked up the heat to high and put our hands in front of the vents to defrost them since they had no feeling left in them. One of the greatest feelings ever. At home we watched a Laguna Beach marathon. Somehow, there are very few things more satisfying than watching these rich high school girls do nothing with their life while I do nothing with mine and watch them. Kristin is hot. So is LC. Laguna Beach 2 starting July 25th on MTV! (Edit: It’s already aired 5 episodes and they are spectacular!)

Tory came up from Tucson with her Idaho friend who was going to get married, but lately I have found out she did not get married after all and isn’t even dating the guy anymore. But I digress. We went out to a piano bar on Mill Ave. called the Big Bang. I won’t write any of the obvious 389 jokes that I could here. It was a pretty cool place and packed on a Saturday night. The two guys on dueling pianos knew all the popular songs to play to get the crowd going and even started an ASU-U of A chant and did their fight songs. Afterwards, we grabbed some food from Jack in the Box and headed home.

Sunday, December 5th

The day was very rainy and chilly for Arizona. We had wanted to go play more golf but it wasn’t even possible so we just sat around all day and watched tv. Later on we decided to go to eat at Red Robin, which is a favorite place of mine because you get free refills on French fries! I can’t believe this craze hasn’t caught on at more places since it’s an amazing idea. Who doesn’t want unlimited fries? Imagine that policy and McDonald’s or Portillo’s or any place that has great fries. I guess there’d be a lot more fat people walking around but they’d all be so happy. We rented a couple movies including Mean Girls and Dodgeball. Then we hit up Justin’s new house to see what all the fuss was about. It was barren of much stuff but it was a nice place in a cul-de-sac. It was still wet and drizzly outside (who came up with the word drizzle?) so we didn’t do much except for getting groceries for the week. There’s so much freedom in shopping for food in a huge grocery store at 2am with only 5 other people milling around.

Monday, December 6th

Another glorious day of waking up late and going golfing at the same course we golfed at two days earlier only it was not a monsoon this time and we finished all 18 holes. Golfing badly always makes you work up an appetite so we went to this place called Rustler’s Rooste to eat dinner. This restaurant is really cool and I give Justin props for suggesting it. It’s a big place up on top of a hill in southern Phoenix in a resort area. It has a giant patio and a live cow grazing outside the front door that lights farts like no other cow ever has. The whole city could be started on fire if just one of its farts was lit. They have an old slide that you can go down in the middle of the restaurant that was supposedly used as an escape hatch from robbers in the old days. It also has this dish for dinner called Cowboy Stuff, that is 30 bucks for 2 people and has a ton of food just splattered on a platter including potatoes, meat, vegetables, etc. etc. etc. Their drinks are served in glass jars. It is just a cool place to go and I recommend going if you are ever in Phoenix. It just being the two of us again for one last night we didn’t have much to do so we did what any two, studly, heterosexual males would do. We went home….and watched Mean Girls. Great, spectacular movie that captures the imagine like you’re a little kid meeting someone famous for the first time. A night at home with another dude just doesn’t get much better than that. I have to rank watching Mean Girls as one of the top 5 most satisfying movie going experiences of my lifetime.

Tuesday, December 7th

Tuesday is the first day that someone other than Jim and I is scheduled to arrive. Kevin gets in at night so we went golfing again during the day at Karsten ASU golf course. This is a pretty cool course on which I scored my first ever legitimate birdie. Before we played I had actually run out of golf balls from sucking so bad the first two times we went that I had to swallow my pride and buy a 12 pack of ASU golf balls. Somehow with my luck, they tended to stay on the course and with me for a while. Go figure. One of the best parts of the trip was adventure to find one of the best hidden secrets in the world. Bahama Bucks shaved ice. It took us a while to find it but when we did over an hour later it was well worth it. This place has the best shaved ice in the world you will ever eat. They can add cream to it to make it taste like an orgasm in your mouth (so I guess some girls know what that would taste and feel like already). I got blueberry and watermelon together and kept getting free cream refills. I cannot explain to you just how good it tastes until you taste it. Sadly, it is only located in Arizona.

The night commenced after picking up Kevin at where else? Hooters. The Hooters was the third level in a 4 story type complex that housed the Big Bang at the bottom underground, the Library bar at street level, Hooters on top of that and another bar with a patio overlooking Mill Ave. on top of that. We ate some food and then went downstairs to the library to “study”. By study I mean drink. And watch magic tricks. There was a magician roaming around performing for drunken coeds who were amazed by his sleight of hand. No place was very full since it was a Tuesday before finals. The other places we went to were Acme and Dos Gringos. At Acme some girl was dancing and Kevin says “she can’t keep up with me”. Well, sure enough she overheard him say this amidst the roar of the bar and she walks over and challenges him to dance. It doesn’t last long because a friend of hers came but if Evander Holyfield had showed up we could have had a “Dancing with the Stars” competition right then and there. It was on to the trailer park trash bar next at Dos. This place had a very unique setup. Since it was Arizona it was a two story open air bar with a giant fountain in the middle and lots of cheap Corona. It was sort of like an apartment complex type deal with the balconies overlooking the lobby type area with the fountain in it. The fact that you aren’t allowed to smoke in bars in Arizona plus the fact it is still warm enough at night in December to not have to wear a jacket and there are heat lamps outside at every bar makes for a supremely comfortable bar-going experience. This enables you to wear the same shirt multiple times on a trip without washing it since it never get smelly. The only thing that was a downer about the night is that our house is about a half hour or more away from everything but the speed limits are all higher out there so it really flies by.

Wednesday, December 8th

The big arrival day to double our group size has arrived! Laura, Mike, and Bernie were all set to arrive later on at night. Little did Laura know, since she had never met Mike and Bernie before, that they had a connecting flight in Chicago and would end up on the same flight as her. Weird how things like that happen. Jim, Kevin and I met up with Justin for lunch near his work and went climbing on nearby Camelback mountain. There are pictures of this on the yahoo website. This climb was definitely not easy and I think at one point my legs wanted run back down the mountain and throw themselves in a hottub for ten hours. It was a great view once you get to the top but you stay there for such a short time comparatively that it makes you wonder why you climbed so far. I guess the fun is all in the journey and not the destination if you like torturing your body. The only thing worth rewarding ourselves with after this hike was, drumroll…you guessed it! Bahama Bucks shaved ice! It was perfect. Nothing less than expected.

We didn’t end up having to pick up Laura since she made friendly with Mike and he drove her out to Mill Ave. again where we hit up an ASU bar and ate some disgusting cheese fries. The next destination was the Loft, the upper tier of the 4 story complex that included Hooters and co. It had this sweet outdoor patio that overlooked the street and we chilled there for the night. All was right with the world. Our other video rental was waiting for us when we got back home. Dodgeball was popped in, which I hadn’t seen, and it was hilarious. So many great moments in that movie. That might be the best one-two rental I have made in a while considering I never rent movies. Boom, boom, chee. Boom, boom, chee.

Thursday, December 9th

The gang decided to do one of my favorite activities of all time this afternoon. Miniature golfing! We went to Funtasticks without Mike, who wasn’t ready as usual to go out even though it was 3pm when we left to go. While we were leaving the place, which had a range, arcade, batting cages, 3 mini golf courses, beach volleyball, bumper boats and a racetrack we ran into Luis Gonzalez. He plays for the Arizona Diamondbacks. It was kind of cool but we didn’t say anything to him because he was with his kid who was presumably at the batting cages. With all that money he should just build his own batting cage. Rustler’s Rooste got such great reviews from Jim and I eating there that we all decided on going there again for dinner. We were all set to go but Mike was not ready to go again and it was four hours later! So instead of waiting we dropped off our Mean Girls rental and then came back to pick him up. The Cowboy Stuff was ordered and the slide was slid down and it was good times. Some might say it was special. I won’t go that far.

The next phase of our plan of coolness was heading to the hippest club in Scottsdale and possibly all of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, Axis/Radius. Michael Jordan has been known to get private rooms here and party as well as other popular baseball players during spring break. It was relatively empty while we were there because it was Thursday but it picked up later. It cost $10 to get in I think. It is split into two parts. The Axis part is hip-hop and the Radius part is techno. Or maybe it’s reversed. They had outdoor fireplaces and scantily clad ladies are dancing on podiums in the techno part. And by scantily clad I mean naked. On the way home we decided it was beerpong night. We stopped at a gas station and picked up the necessary supplies just in time and headed on for a memorable night of red cups and ping pong balls. We played a couple games of Philly vs. Chicago until a mishap occurred but that was quickly adjusted to. The ridiculousness occurred later while I wasn’t playing. During each turn it looked like a game straight out of BASEketball. All, and I mean all, techniques were deployed to stop the other team from being able to concentrate during their shot. If I ever see a game with said techniques performed again it will be too soon. Bedtime at 5am was not late enough as Mike stayed up all night and Laura was easily persuaded to do so as well because I heard them outside my bedroom window all night drunkenly talking about random topics by the pool until the sun came up.

Friday, December 10th

Some of us woke up early enough to get out the door by 3pm without feeling like a sack of dead mice to leave for Tucson. Jim, Kevin, Laura, and I drove in one car while Mike and Bernie left later in their own car to meet up with their buds in the Old Pueblo. We got to the campus of my favorite college, the University of Arizona, and Laura was too hungover and tired to walk around campus as the sun was going down. We made it around a mini tour of the union but since she didn’t bring any gym shoes to walk in her feet hurt. Stopped by McKale to check out where the best team in college basketball plays. A bunch of us were going out to dinner at Sakura, one of our regular group outing restaurants in Tucson and we met at Josh’s house before going out. It is there that the Chicago crew first got to experience the wonder of Matt, Marc, Josh, etc. before eating, which amazingly did not destroy anyone’s appetite! It was Clint’s birthday and his girlfriend was there along with another girl and Megan, Josh’s girlfriend. We all did saki-bombing chanting out the Man Show mantra “ziggy socket ziggy socket hoy hoy hoy” twice and then pounding the table to drop the shot into the beer and chug it. I hurt my hand on the first pounding because I was a little rusty at it but I’m a warrior. Kevin got some video of us bombing with a napkin tied around my forehead and our chef flipping food and alternately lighting it on fire. My favorite part is when he flings you the food with the knife and you have to catch it in your mouth. Just makes me want to eat. Mike and Bernie met us up there for a little while before we finished eating and went off to the Keys for some after dinner partying. Tory and Alex met us up there making it a full fledged party with everyone I used to hang out with in college there in one place except for Wheeler, who was scheduled to drive down.

At this point I had already had two bottles of saki while most everyone else had only had one yet I was feeling fine. I grabbed a beer on the way in and started to mingle with everyone. It wasn’t that full, but it was still only 10. After a while I can’t really tell you what happened or how it happened but people can definitely vouch that I ended up making out with a short little blond girl named Nina that I met. She was from Germany and spoke pretty good English. I danced with her, to my amazement and recollection not as terrible as I could have been, and we continued to hang out well after everyone I knew had left the Keys. I have to give props to Kevin for attempting to be a wingman to her friend that night even though she was having nothing of the sort and didn’t really pay much attention to him, much preferring an older gentlemen with a shaved head. Well, we actually ended up going to this dude’s house, all four of us (not Kevin) and he was pretty hooked up with the stuff he owned. We went with the intention of hottubing, even though I had no shorts to speak of with me, but we never actually made it to the hottub…IF you know what I mean? If you don’t, then that is good as well. Suffice it to say I didn’t make it back to Josh’s until 6am, but it was one of the more fun and better nights I’ve ever enjoyed. It ranks in my top 5 of most memorable nights. It segued nicely right into…

Saturday, December 11th

I set my alarm for 8am so that I could try and get up for Arizona-Utah basketball tickets. They went on sale on game day to the public at 9am and I thought I’d give it a shot, and at least grab a poster if nothing else. I didn’t feel too great waking up on two hours of sleep but it being December and over 80 degrees along with the night I just had was enough to wake up happy. I parked outside McKale and waited for tickets, seemingly the only one who got up that day to wait in line. When the window opened at 9am I was the first one in line and got two tickets for the game. Suddenly a line formed behind me of about 30 people waiting. I don’t know if they were lifted in by helicopter but I didn’t even see 30 people. They popped up out of nowhere like a case of herpes. No matter I got my tickets, picked up Jim and went to the game. It was a great game with Arizona barely winning in the last minute against a team featuring Andrew Bogut. Afterwards we continued to enjoy the gorgeous weather and met up Mike, Bernie, Kevin and Laura on 4th Ave. for the street fair. It was nicest December 11th day I’ve ever experienced. Walked around the fair for a while, dropped by the old digs at Entrada and then split up with Mike and Bernie going to visit some friends and the rest of us going up on “A” mountain that overlooks the city. Climbing up on to the A was a lot easier than climbing Camelback mountain a couple days earlier. Something that is much appreciated after downing some Wendy’s. I was running on almost no sleep but when it’s so nice out you don’t notice it as much.

We drove back up to Phoenix and stopped at Bahama Bucks before resting for a night out. On our BB punchcard we had 9 ices punched and one more punched would give us a free ice but we never quite made it to ten. I’m craving one right now at 7am even just writing about it. We met up with Justin at night at a club of his choosing that had a long line out front and in customary Wheeler fashion he says “fuck this, I ain’t waiting in line” so we went to the Devil’s Martini across the street. Mike and Bern met us there later as I told Justin about my Tucson story in the car and drank wine. He was very shocked by the punchline to the story, which I withheld for the longest time waiting for the right moment to spring it. It’s always fun to surprise Justin since he is straight faced or bullshitting you 99.7% of the time. At the bar, which was super nice and probably a little out of our league. Jim put it in perspective by saying "I think this might be the nicest place I ever farted." Justin opened up his credit card for drinks. He made it a two drink maximum but then was upset when he got his bill at the end of night saying we didn’t charge enough on it. It was about $80. There was a lot of effort put into buying as many beers and giant mixed drinks as we could but if it was in Chicago the tab would have easily been twice that. Justin wanted to find a club open until 4am, but we couldn’t find one. The strip club was closed and he didn’t know the exact locations of the other bars he knew about. He had a nice long conversation with the 411 girl all night asking her about cool places to go and what she likes to do. Half of us gave up and went back home but Mike, Laura, Bern, and Justin stayed out and drove around looking for any place that would take them. They ended up getting food and Justin crashed disappointedly on the couch with visions of the 411 girl dancing in his head.

Sunday, December 12th

I drove Justin to his truck in the morning and then went to look for a lamp replacement part. No such luck after looking through thousands of styles. We went back home and packed up and cleaned the house. It was a warm and balmy 80 degrees when we left to go back to the cold. Mike and Bern left an hour before us to catch their flight. It was a great trip even if I didn’t capture the funniest or craziest moments in this blog because I couldn’t remember them all or they were self censored. Coordinating all of it was a task but it was well worth it getting all my friends from all over the country into one place, if even for just a night, in my adopted hometown of Tucson.

California Vacation (Aug. 5-Aug. 14, 2005)

So I wanted to write about my trip and finally got around to it. I was asked to do it in 5,114 words or less and I barely made it. 5,113. Here is an overview of what transpired when two Chicago boys vacationed in California for ten days:

Friday, Aug. 5th
Airport: After luckily making it to the airport after my car would not start and having some of the worst pizza ever, I do not recommend O’Hare’s pizza, we arrived in San Francisco where Meredith and Rachel picked us up. I hadn’t seen her since October of 2001 and our luggage barely fit in the trunk of her car along with us fitting nicely like sardines in her backseat.

Calzone’s: In what would become a staple of the trip, we drove around looking for parking for 30 minutes so we could go out to eat. We settled on this nice Italian type place in the North Beach area near where we would be staying and had some meal that was a set price that included appetizer, dinner and dessert for $20. A very good deal for popcorn shrimp, pasta, and some cake. I couldn’t finish it all because those airplane pretzels just fill you up so.

O’Rielly’s/Kel’s: After getting our stuff settled into the apartment we stayed at we went out to find some bars. Now going out downtown in SF is kind of a pain because if you go one way down a hill to a bar you pretty much have to go back up the hill on the way back, which can suck depending on your fitness level/drink level/love of walking hills at 2am. I’m not big on hills, especially when we are not sure where we are going and have to walk back and forth up streets twice to decide on where to go. We finally found an Irish place called O’Rielly’s which we didn’t stay at long before asking some girl where else we could go. She mentioned how the bars in SF can only serve til 2am so no place is open past 2. No place, not one. She recommended this place called Kel’s. It was $5 to get in which isn’t that bad but it was darker than normal inside along with crowded as heck and the guy to girl ratio is like the black to white ratio in the NBA. Let’s just say the guys there are not the nicest and non-creepiest you’ve ever seen. There’d be four guys stalking each girl. Girls that just wanted to dance in groups with their girlfriends were being touched from behind while trying to ignore the drunken touches. There really was no person to aspire being with at this place and it was SF’s version of Tai’s Til 4.

Saturday, Aug. 6th
Pier 39: Tried to catch a trolley to the pier but five went by. One was full. A second one we got cut off by some French people. A third and fourth didn’t even stop at the sign for the trolley stop and a fifth was out of service. So we walked to the pier and ate lunch. It was pretty busy down there and there are about 5349 seafood restaurants. The most competitive seafood market in the world apparently.

Fisherman’s Wharf: The sea lions were really noisy. Argh, argh, argh. All day long. They all seem to occupy the same dock too. There are 12 platforms for them to sunbathe on and get fat, but they all pile on to just 2 of them. They could have their own luxury lounger but choose not to. Their IQ must be pretty low as with any animal that just lays around 22 hours a day.

SS Jeremiah O’Brien: In our wanderings we came across this battleship from World War II that is the only surviving ship that was at D-Day. It was a cool self tour and the engine room in the ship room was where Titanic filmed. That doesn’t mean much to me since I watched that movie in 1997 and haven’t seen it since, but a good value for $8.

Old Time Arcade: This was the best value you could get on something that isn’t free. All the old time arcades they have from the 60’s and 70’s were in one big building and you could play them for the cheap cost of a nickel, dime or quarter like it was 1962. You know those games, stupid ones like squeeze this handle and you are a sexpot or in need of help, or turn the wheel and watch your horses race each other. Most of them were pointless since people didn’t know how to make fair games back then, but I spent about $2.25 for an hour of fun.

Lombard Street: The windiest, curviest road in the world. This was never verified to me but I believe it. Straight downhill and left to right about three times is a good sobriety test, but the residents of that street would probably not agree with that. There is a backup of cars a mile long and you have to wait a half hour to get to the street unless you cut in front of it all like we did. It is a constant flow of traffic 24/7/365, I can’t imagine living on that street. It’s like a constant traffic jam trying to get out of the driveway. “Um, excuse me, Chinese tourists? I need to get to work, can you back up a bit?”

Full House: We got a tip about the location of the Full House house. Basically it was a street with 7 of the same type of houses on it so we didn’t know for sure which one it was, but the tip was that it was repainted so I photographed it. If you look at the pictures and it’s not the right house, please have mercy. At least I saw a piece of TV history.

Mission St.: After a long day of touring around we got ready to go out for the night and went to a couple small bars before heading down to the trendy Mission District, which ironically or not, is know by the same nickname as the missionary position is in the porn industry, “the mish”. We went the wrong way before ending up at some bar with a rooftop deck and some dude’s home stereo system pumping out tunes all the while this bar was built around a shelter.

Sunday, Aug. 7th
Mo’s: Before going to the Giants/Astros game we went to breakfast at a place called Mo’s Restaurant. Not only are there pictures of the 3 Stooges inside, but there are pictures of cows on the wall. I’m not sure if the place used to be called Moo’s or if it’s named after Larry and Curly’s brother but they had awesome French toast. The only positive French experience in California.

SBC Park: This park is so awesome, you have to go to a game there to understand. We were a little late so we couldn’t walk around inside the park with such a huge crowd but the garlic fries there are amazingly addictive. It’d be like a drug addict sprinkling crack on his fries. The guy in front of us (we were in the second row along the right field line) caught a one hop foul ball that would have been mine had he missed it. Then again later, another one the same way hit off his hands and he didn’t get it. That’s the closest I’ve been to catching a foul ball. Clemens was pitching so it was more interesting than a no name matchup, and I got sunburnt amazingly enough on a 68 degree day. I had to wrap my undershirt around my head in the absence of sunblock and a hat, which prompted more than a few odd glances as to what was actually going on inside of my head instead of outside it. An interesting fact is that the stadium was designed without an area for bullpens so they had to squeeze in the bullpens at the very end in the location they are in at Wrigley in foul territory, only the foul territory wasn’t originally intended to house the bullpens so it looks like a tight squeeze. Oh yeah, the Astros won if anyone cares.

Trolley: On the ride back we still hadn’t been on a trolley so we paid the three bucks to ride one up a hill for three minutes and then get off just to say we’ve been on a trolley. It was relatively cool for one time, but it’s way expensive for the amount of good it does you. If I started a trolley car business today charging the same rates I’d be a millionaire by October.

Golden Gate Bridge: We had picked up our rental car which got upgraded to a Chevy Classic from some smaller POS. Good. Thing is, it was an exact replica of my Malibu, just gray and newer and without all the Arizona basketball decals and DMB CD’s on the visors. It was foggy the whole time we were in SF so while we drove over the bridge we felt like we were in a fog tunnel where we couldn’t see up very far, or see the water below, only just straight on in front of us. Really you could not tell you were on a bridge at all. After we got over it we took some pictures and this is when I realized that there’s a 50% chance in a touristy town that if you ask someone you think speaks English to randomly take your picture that they will mess it up. One guy trying to picture us with the bridge in the background ended up taking one of the ground in front of him so we just asked someone else to take our picture. Needless to say the delete button was in full effect on this trip.

Meredith’s House: We drove by Sausalito which is mostly for girls or romantic excursions and went across the San Rafael Bridge to Alamo in the East burbs, which is where a friend of mine lives that we were staying with Sunday night. I met her on a cruise in 1997 and was last at her house in November of 1998. She had a cabana in her backyard so we got hooked up with everything we needed. The temperature difference between SF and Alamo was at least 25 degrees.

Monday, Aug. 8th
Alcatraz: The morning’s breakfast consisted of some yummy, and never before heard of, canary melon, which is like yellow watermelon. It was delicious and I highly recommend it if you ever have a chance at it. I would even accept it as a gift. Got to the pier early enough that we had time to walk to Ghirardelli Square and get free chocolate samples to augment our breakfast and then headed to Alcatraz. Everyone knows about Alcatraz so I won’t give a history lesson here. It was interesting and the headset audio tour basically turns all the tourists into jailbird zombies as they listen and walk around the joint. The funniest part of the audio tour was when it told us to look through the visitor window and how the prisoner’s who hadn’t seen a girl in years would expect to see some beautiful woman on the other side of the glass staring at them when usually it was just a family member or friend. Yet there was a beautiful woman on the other side looking back through the eyeslits at us. She was probably the hottest girl on the island too. The odds on that have to be 100-1.

Pacific Coast Highway: Time to head to SoCal along highway 1. It goes right along the coast and had awesome views. I didn’t capture many of them with my camera because it was difficult while the car was moving, but this is the most scenic road in the USA. It took a long time to drive it because it curves around mountains so much, but my only suggestion other than drive it once in your life is that make sure you fill up your tank with gas before you leave because if you have to stop for gas you may as well mortgage your house or forget about eating out for a year because it cost us $3.60 per gallon.

Atascadero: This is a quiet little town halfway between SF and LA where a college friend of mine lived. We stayed with him Monday night in order to eliminate a ton of driving on Tuesday and he lived way up in the hills of the town in this super sweet dig with his dog that wanted to make out with me all night. Sadly, it was the only makeout offer I got the entire trip, and I was too tired to return the effort. The most overrated California thing: In’N’Out Burger. That place has slow service, doesn’t accept credit cards, and has only ok food. Nothing compared to Portillo’s.

Tuesday, Aug. 9th
Hearst Castle: Go to www.hearstcastle.com if you have never heard of, nor seen this castle. It belonged to William Randolph Hearst of Citizen Kane fame. Words do not describe how fancy this place is, but I have some pictures to try and do it justice. It has the coolest pool, actually heated, that you will ever see. Way up in the mountains and it took a 20 minute busride to reach it. It has its own zoo, movie theatre, two towers, indoor golden tile pool and outdoor Roman pool with two tennis courts and 108 rooms or something crazy. And it was built in the 1920’s-1930’s. It took 28 years to build and was never fully completed. Lots of famous people have stayed there and the tour was informative. Definitely worth the money because you will never see anything like it. Just make sure you don’t F it up and order tickets for the wrong day or time because they will charge you a fee to change it at any time. Not that I did that or anything.
Note: Six hours of driving later we would finally arrive in San Diego. If your IPOD breaks on the trip, you are forced to listen to the radio, and have the same five songs on rotation beaten into your head.

Gaslamp District: This is the “cool, everyone goes, most talked about” bar scene in San Diego. Unfortunately it was only Tuesday night so it wasn’t fully packed like a weekend but after the Padres game it got busier. We scampered around to as many bars as we could, probably about 5, and got some recommendations, most of which weren’t anything special. The one thing to note about California in general is that they love their Coors Lite. It is more prevalent there than most any other drink. It’s like Miller is in Chicago. It is actually very good and has moved up my list into the 1B slot. Every two miles on the highway there is a Coors Lite billboard too.

Wednesday, Aug 10th
Hotel Coronado: This is one of the historical landmarks of San Diego. It’s basically a big long hotel with a red roof on the beach. I always go on the rocks near the hotel and was last there in March of 1999.

Point Loma: The most southern and western point in the continental US. It’s up on a cliff with a lighthouse for incoming ships, and is also called Cabrillo Point. It sort of became a tradition for my Mom and I to call each other every time we are at this place. It started in ’99 and then she called me from there in ’02 I think and then I did it again this year. She loves it, as it overlooks the ocean and San Diego with battleships cruising by. She randomly said she wants to have her ashes thrown over the cliff there, but you’d have to do it quickly because it’s again the law.

Kayaking: A 15 minute drive up the road to La Jolla was where our kayaking outing was. There were some rich houses in this area, some cool looking cliffs and caves and of course, a beach. We don’t have any pictures from this since we didn’t have a disposal with us, which we should have looking back on it because the views were awesome. It was about two hours of kayaking, which can get tedious, but going through caves and paddling up to ten feet away from sea lions and seeing leopard sharks (they don’t attack) was cool. There is a four hour kayak option along with individual or group outings so we just took the less expensive individual option and just followed the tour guide’s group saving $15. Such smart lads we are.

Petco Park: Another cool park. It has a waterfall in the front and is made entirely of some sort of stone that is the color of the Padres. It covers a huge amount of land even including a wiffleball park for kids in the centerfield area. I decided not to play because the kids would think I’m a 12 year old on steroids. We were in the left field stands about 8 rows back underneath an overhang so our chances of catching a homerun were slim. Little did we know a David Wright homerun went just to the left of the overhang and up a row in the handicapped seating where no one was sitting. Another ball we just missed by about five feet too high over our heads as it hit the empty seat behind us and bounced back on to the field. The Padres might also have the MLB record for most different types of baseball hat designs/colors for one team that I have ever seen. Pink, normal, green, camouflage, black, white, striped, USA colored, and the list goes on and on…

Pacific Beach: We got another tip to head to another place at night instead of Gaslamp. This new place was up the highway a bit and we had to drive a while to find it but it was more of a college kids home for the summer type bars than the older 20’s type bars at Gaslamp. They had really good deals and it got packed very quickly. All the other bars we wanted to go to had huge lines outside them. We watched ESPN for the Padres highlights to see if we were featured in the shot of the homerun but it cut away too quick to see.

Thursday, Aug 11th
Seaport Village: After checking out of our ritzy hotel we made our way to Seaport Village so I could pick up my requisite shotglass from each city I visit. It’s mostly just a shopping center so we didn’t stay long and continued up on our drive to Los Angeles.

Venice Beach: Muscle Beach. Where Arnold gained his fame and glory early on. We didn’t actually have enough time to pay $10 for parking and see the muscle-bound part of the beach, but we finally found free parking for the hour we were there and walked the pier. Looking back, I wish we would have had more time to see where everyone works out on the beach, but with the slow moving, I want to get out and start walking LA traffic, we had to leave by 4 to try to make the Dodger game.

Dodger Stadium: We had checked into our hotel and changed, but didn’t know how to find the right public transportation to make it to the game for cheap. Taxis were expensive, driving was a pain, and buses were cheap, but we didn’t have a bus map and didn’t have time to walk around and find one. So guess what? We ended up driving, just like 98% of the people that go to the game. It’s no wonder that LA fans get the notorious distinction of showing up in the 3rd inning and leaving in the 7th. It’s virtually impossible to make it to the game on time, especially after work with the regular work traffic and then the game and parking traffic. The parking lot is just a giant circle around the stadium which makes getting out a pain too. We had seats way up in the third base side upper deck with some annoying Mexican kid chanting “Let’s Go Dodgers” at the top of his lungs for five minutes at a time. An interesting story while at the game is that one of my good friends from college’s friend was there and I was trying to get a hold of him so we could hang out with someone while in LA. He went on spring break with everyone last year so I’d met him and he was at the game but in seats behind homeplate on the lowest level. At this stadium they do not let you even go on a different level than your ticket unless it’s a cheaper level so they make you go in through separate entrances like a caste system and then put security in front of the only stairs and elevators in the stadium. It is nearly impossible to skip levels since we asked the stair guard and then asked the elevator guard. We even tried telling them that we wanted a Dodger jersey personalized since an usher said that is a good way to get down there since it’s the only place they are made. It turns out that they are also made at another location so they didn’t buy that reason. Exasperated from trying we decided to just be honest with the guard and told them we are from Chicago and are going home in a few days and just wanted to see what it was like down on the field. She rebuffed us. We walked away and just watched the 8th inning after getting rejected. A couple minutes later she walks up to us and says let me see your licenses. Of course, we are from Illinois for real, and she let us go down the elevator! We felt like kings. We got down and found my friend and talked for the 9th inning. Honesty actually works. Who would have known?

Sunset Strip: We had no idea where anything was in LA so we just drove around after the game up and down Sunset and then decided we were undecided on where to go. We went back to the hotel and went to Mann’s Chinese Theatre with all the hand and foot prints outside of it. Arnold, Cruise, Sandler, Hanks, Stallone, Willis, etc. The oldest cement was from 1924.

Friday, Aug. 12th
NBC Studios: Leno tickets went on sale at 8am, which probably meant getting in line at 7am. No chance of that happening on vacation unless I’m guaranteed to meet someone famous, win money, or other tempting propositions. Needless to say, none of those applied here. We went on the 1pm tour at NBC, but still could have purchased Avril Lavigne tickets for $4 had we been high and decided to make a bad decision. On the tour, we got to see the spectacular Day of Lives sets, my favorite soap opera of all time if I had to pick one (not), and all of the sudden Jay Leno, complete in his jeans and jean shirt pops in to our tour group, and starts to ask if anyone is from Massachusetts. One of the 14 was and so they started a dialogue while the rest of us just listened. That was the only celebrity encounter we had while in California.

Hollywood Sign: We drove up in the hills to see the Hollywood sign, which is still really far away from the actual sign. There is an observatory that is opening in September that has been under renovation for the last three years. Other than that, there is the Greek Theatre on the way up the road that was hosting an Avril Lavigne concert. I just remember the sign from 90210 when the gang was sitting up in the letters like it’s so easy to get up there during their high school graduation or around that time. Help me out if you remember exactly when they were up in the sign.

Santa Monica Blvd: Hollywood Blvd and Highland has a huge mall that we went shopping at for a while with nothing on the docket, then later, we drove down Santa Monica Blvd. I tried all trip to think of the oldies song that features Santa Monica Blvd in the lyrics but couldn’t think of any other song than that Sheryl Crow song that goes “all I wanna do is have some fun, until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.”

Rodeo Drive: It didn’t quite have the same appeal at night with no stores open and no people walking the street as it did during Pretty Woman, but just driving down this street makes it feel like they are sucking money out of your wallet. This is hands down as ritzy as ritzy can be.

UCLA: You would think UCLA, with all the glamorous images of the bar scene, would have great bars. Well, it has two. Since school wasn’t back in session yet, neither was real full until much later on. While we were walking around the downtown area we noticed a cookie store with a huge line of about 30 people outside of it at 11pm at night. We had no idea why this would be since cookie stores hardly ever have lines at any time of the day. We ended up at a bar that served liters of beer. Only near a college campus can you find a bar that serves beers in measurements usually reserved for Sam’s Club. Kevin ended up getting flagged down by a girl who had finished almost all of her liter of beer and a couple minutes of conversation later, the liter of beer was full again, but not with beer. It turned out that the cookie place just had really good deals on cookies we found out later and that was why it had such a line. It was 25 cent cookies. After thinking about it for a couple hours we went back to get some cookies after leaving but it closed 15 minutes before so we got shut out. But on the way home we passed a Mrs. Field’s so I said we have to stop and get cookies. It was the best tasting cookies I’ve ever had. I’m now going to start a trolley service that picks up people from the bars at 2am and drops them off at strategic cookie shops locations that I’m part or full owner of.

Saturday, Aug. 13th
Santa Monica Beach: The whole day of Saturday was spent at Santa Monica beach. It was a nice day out. Every car dealership and other type of store uses the town’s name to give it more prestige. Lexus of Santa Monica, Ford of Santa Monica, John’s Pet Food of Santa Monica. It must give it instant business by inserting such a rich town’s name in it. We played some Frisbee and laid out, nothing too special.

Santa Monica Pier: The pier is pretty cool. It has a Ferris wheel and tons of shops, games, and things going on. We just walked around it and took in the scenery. There was a mini golf course on the pier just like at Navy Pier, but it didn’t compare at all. It was only 9 holes as opposed to the 18 Navy’s has and it was pretty bad quality. I didn’t even need to play it to tell. There was also a cool artist guy who had a big group around him watching him mold someone’s face out of clay for them in “just minutes”! Whatever just minutes means. I’m putting the over/under at 25 minutes. He was extremely good though.

3rd Street Promenade: The promenade was another ritzy shopping strip three streets up from the beach. It has every store you could want to shop at, along with restaurants, and plenty of unique street performers. I assume you need a permit to perform there otherwise the acts being performed might be even weirder. One lady was a flexible lady performing to music without speaking, another was a Harlem Globetrotter type guy, another was a dude with a monkey on a leash that would be trained to come take coins and bills from your hand, and a bunch of others were musicians. We ate dinner on the promenade but had to get back to our car because we had to be out of our pay lot by sunset. I don’t know why since we were paying to park there, but it was a rush to get back.

Hollywood Blvd: We spent all night cruising for parking looking for a place to go out since we still didn’t know where to go. We thought maybe Geisha House, Viper Room (owned by Johnny Depp), or some other place Kevin had heard of but couldn’t find on the strip. There was no parking to be had and it was jam packed with traffic. We spent an hour and forty five minutes driving looking for parking before becoming desperate. Actually we became desperate sooner than that. There was no parking at our hotel, or the parking garages or the street or the meteres. It was insane. Finally we tried the honesty route again since it seemed to work in California very well. I told the parking garage security guard our sob story and that we were leaving to go home the next morning so we just had to park for a few hours, could he please let us in the garage? He ended up letting us in and I noticed that he had the same alarm clock in his booth that I have been waking up to for over 15 years. I thought I owned the only surviving version of mine but now I know that there is at least one more out there. After we parked we just ended up going to one of those fancy bowling/bar alleys so we could at least experience something without having to wait in the super long lines that the other places I mentioned had outside their doors. Kevin ended up getting noticed by this Korean girl who was in nursing and liked Midwestern boys. There’s pictures to prove all of this too.

Sunday, Aug. 14th
Airport: We drove down to the Orange County airport which took over an hour and drove by Angel Stadium in the process. Our fourth stadium seen on the trip. It was a very full trip with lots of money spent but it was fun. The End.