Back from the Crescent City

I am home. Sick. Tired. And broke. But, even with the Gators losing, this trip was totally worth every cent. Here is my day by day recap of the trip:

 

Wednesday:

Mint and I left my house a little before 1 pm to drop off his car and then head to BWI. With the time change and everything we ended up landing in New Orleans around 8:50 pm. So, it was a really long day. At the airport we met up with Scott and headed to the W hotel on Poydras St. which is conveniently located right next to Harrah’s casino. The hotel was great, one of the nicest I have ever stayed in and we had a pretty nice view. After dropping our luggage we quickly headed out towards Bourbon St. After all, that’s what you do in New Orleans. As many would expect it was dead on a Wednesday night, there were people in the streets but most bars were pretty empty except for what looked like a convention crowd blowing off steam. After bouncing around for a few hours we decided it was time to hit the casino. Mint and Scott ended up at Caribbean Stud while I played Blackjack one on one with a dealer. By the time I sat down to play I was in that rare combination of drunk and tired where everything felt like a dream. It is entirely possible that I nodded off for a few hands but I still walked away with a few dollars of the casinos money before calling it a night.

 

Thursday:

We woke to overcast skies and lots of rain, the perfect day to just stay in and rest up. Even though we wanted to be out and about we just weren’t willing to walk around all day in the rain. We did make a few stops during the day, hitting the Harrah’s buffet for breakfast and getting a nice lunch at Mother’s. After lunch though, we spent the rest of the afternoon in bed watching TV and listening to the pouring rain outside our window while we waited on the rest of our crew to arrive. The second wave arrived around 6 pm, checked in to their room and settled in. We walked around the casino a bit before heading out to Port o’ Call for dinner. This place had amazing burgers and the look and feel of a place you would only see in New Orleans. It was all wood interior, very cramped and the clientele just oozed with Southern stereotypes, from the older suited gentleman at the corner of the bar to the drunken Cajun who looked like he had been there all week. After eating we headed out down some back streets towards Bourbon for another night out. Again, the architecture of the city was stunning, it is one of those places that just has a feel, a look, that if you were dropped into town blindfolded it wouldn’t take you long to realize where you were. And you don’t even need a landmark to do it, just the looks of the buildings all seems familiar and unique to this city. As the night wore on and our group grew larger, 7 total, we visited many of New Orleans famous bars, spent a couple minutes on a balcony, and drank some of the staple drinks like the Hurricane at Pat O’s. Again, we ended the night at Harrah’s where I won some more of their money before calling it a night.

 

Friday:

I awoke Friday morning to King and Scott discussing the arrival of more of our friends and as I was now awake I volunteered to join the trip. We got coffee and some food from the hotel before heading to the airport to get a second rental car and Shannon. All the while two other friends who had just landed in Baton Rouge decided to drive in for half the day. After meeting back at the hotel our group of now 10 decided to go eat lunch in the French Quarter. We took a long walk on a terribly humid day to the Gumbo Store where we had some of Louisiana’s finest cuisine. Gumbo, Jambalaya, Crawfish etouffee, you name it we tried it. Of course, combining hot sauce with the already stifling heat and forgoing water for beer might not have been the best plan but it did make for a great meal. After eating we headed over to Jackson Square to look at the art for sale and watch the street performers. By this time it was getting on into the afternoon and some of us had dinner plans in Baton Rouge so we had to get a move on. But, we could not leave before stopping at Café Du Monde for beignets. After the beignets, my car with Scott, Shannon and Mint left for BR. We luckily, just beat some nasty traffic and made great time. After arriving at Scott’s brother’s place we were treated to plenty of beer, tilapia and shrimp etouffee over white rice with a broccoli and cheese side. In short it was an amazing dinner, surprisingly cooked by an LSU grad student. Then we went out, which was just like any other bar in any other college town in America I imagine. Though, there were very few cabs in town and lots of drunk drivers, I am not even sure they have enough police to give out all the DUIs we witnessed. Though we did see a pretty entertaining one where the driver was so smashed the cop had to move the kids car off the road. And on that note to end our night we all walked home very carefully, staying as far as possible from the road.

 

Saturday:

Game day!!!! So this is what we made the trip for. Everything leading up to it was just an appetizer, an amazing one no doubt, but just a warm up. Our crew by Saturday had actually swelled to 12, but we were split up, with 4 of us staying at Scott’s brothers and the rest staying at another house. In this scenario where I stayed at sophomore’s apartment and slept on a reclining chair, I got the kind of sleep you would expect. But, I really didn’t need much. Mint and I woke up early, as did Shannon, so we strolled out while everyone else was asleep and got the best breakfast you can find without looking very far, McDonald’s. We also got a laugh out of the drunk drivers car from the night before still being in the same spot. We ate our breakfast and before we knew it we were on our way to the middle of the LSU campus right behind the Gameday set. On our walk wearing our Gator colors we really didn’t run into too many obnoxious fans. We hear Tiger Bait a lot but nothing really cruel until later in the day. Our first stop was at a Fraternity tailgate which was actually pretty impressive, a large tent in the middle of campus with a DJ and a bunch of kegs. This was even more impressive given that in Gville, kegs are not even allowed on campus and the fraternities do all of their pre-gaming in their respective houses. So, for what its worth I found the LSU set up much more enjoyable, obviously there are drawbacks to this but I think there are plenty of positives to having everything out in the open at a central location. Anyway, after spending some time at the tailgate we headed out to meet up with our Gator tailgate at another great location. We had a tent, a couple coolers and plenty of food. During the day, we drank, met friends and enemies, ate, and walked around. It was a beautiful day out and I don’t think any of us, especially those of us with tickets could have asked for anything more.

 

 

The Game:

At night we finally got to take in Tiger Stadium. This place seemed enormous and when they wanted to be the LSU fans could be insanely loud. We had seats very close to the field which were great but also made watching the game a bit difficult. Still, sitting in the Gator section and cheering on our team while they put up quite a performance was an awesome experience. I am now 2-2 on the road in the SEC and hope to continue going to games at new stadiums. But right now I have to say that the LSU experience will be hard to beat. Alabama was great, Tennessee was fun, but LSU was just a monster of a trip. Even with the loss it is not something I will soon forget.

 

Sunday:

 

Another long travel day. We left Baton Rouge early for New Orleans, had our final lunch and headed to the airport. Then I spent the rest of the day sneezing, coughing and blowing my now from one airport to the next and then on the long drive home. A day that started early in Baton Rouge ended very late in Northern Virginia. And now I think I will need at least a week to recover. Thank the scheduler for a bye.

My bookshelf overflows

I am a bit of an entertainment junkie. I love reading, going to movies, watching TV and listening to music both live and at home. But summers for me are usually the time when I devour books. And as a bit of a collector I like to buy them instead of just borrowing or going to the library. Finishing a good book is like a conquest and I purchase them in hopes of someday giving them away. I offer a lot but I think to this day only three people have ever taken books from me. Whether that is because of different taste or because my friends just don’t read as much as I do I am not really sure. One summer a few years ago when I was working at a sleep away camp I read about 8 books, all of LOTR and The Hobbit as well as the whole Enders Shadow series. Since the end of this TV season I have read about a dozen new books, all the Harry Potters, I am Legend, the Gunslinger (Dark Tower book 1), The Book of Fate, and Don’t Stop the Carnival. OK, so that is 11 books, but you get the point, I also bought the Drawing of the Three which is the second book in the Dark Tower series. The problem is that my two little bookshelves are now full and I have started just stacking books on top of other books. I really don’t want to get another bookshelf as I hope to move in the next month or so but I also don’t like my bookshelf to be so messed up and overrun.

 

Since my friends don’t want my books and I still want so many more I have been looking into online trading. My amazon.com cart is always full but I try not to buy too many at a time. There are some great book exchanges online that I am looking into

 

Book Mooch and Zunafish(you can actually trade all sorts of things on here) are the two I am considering signing up for at the moment. There is also Library Thing which allows you to catalog the books you read, no trading though, just kind of cool. Still, even though these online resources provide me with exactly what I am looking for I kind of wish people I knew read more so I could hand them the book in person and get to talk to them about it later. I might be asking for too much, after all I do get to talk to my friends about all the other things I love like movies and TV and music and those mediums we are able to enjoy together often.  

Pack, unpack and repeat

It seems that’s all I have been doing lately. I pack my bags, leave town, return, unpack them and then a few days later I am packing again. Of course, I also get to do laundry in between. At this point, after 6 weeks of this I am really ready to have an extended period of time where I don’t have to pack a suitcase. I doubt that will be possible for more than two weeks though. Anyway, last weekend I drove up to Atlantic City for a good friend, they were having a memorial of sorts for her Grandfather who passed away earlier this year. And since I am such a good friend and I got to spend a lot of time with her grandpa during my trips to Florida I felt like it was the right thing to do. I also had never been to AC, so I had to see what all the fuss was about.

 

I left last Friday around 1pm and arrived close to 5 pm. The drive was not bad but the hotel was an absolute dump. As you would expect of a summer weekend in the Northeast most hotels rooms were booked as people leave the cities for the beach. On Friday night we headed out to dinner and checked out the Casinos with my friend and her sister. The casinos were alright, though a big disappointment compared to Vegas. But, what really compares to Vegas? That is actually a pretty unfair comparison so I will overlook it, both Friday and Saturday night we did manage to have a good time at the places we went and I even won some money. Granted it wasn’t a lot but winning is always a lot better than losing. That and getting absolutely wasted on Saturday night after the memorial service Saturday afternoon. My friend and I basically drank all day, so I was a mess when I finally sat down at the tables around 10 to play; I am a bit shocked that I won at all. And after a long day of drinking that did not end until at least 4 am I decided it would be a good idea to leave AC to head back home at 8 am.

 

I made it back home around noon on Sunday and was able to settle into my house for a few days before having to pack up again. And that is where I sit now, getting ready to leave town tomorrow for Minnesota. I am both looking forward to it and dreading it, which is what happens with the bittersweet times I go to Minnesota.  This time we are going for my Grandmas unveiling, last summer it was for her funeral, before that it was my Grandpas unveiling and before that his funeral. So, on the one hand the occasion is somber but on the other I enjoy seeing my family and spending time with them. After this weekend I hope the next occasion we get together will be for a strictly happy one. I have actually spent this entire week in a bit of a funk because of the prospects of this weekend with this nagging feeling of regret that I never got to know my grandparents well enough. I have found myself looking for books to answer all the questions I never asked about their holocaust experiences that they never volunteered to me. I am sure I could have had 100 years with them and still felt there was more I wanted to know and that is something that the living will always have to harbor about the dead. So, we move on and live our lives, we try to honor their memory and I can not help but feeling that somewhere, somehow they really do watch over us. Unfortunately, all they get to see me doing lately is packing or unpacking my suitcase.

Guilt or Innocence

“Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway”

 

It is not very easy to make me feel guilty for something, rarely do I feel bad about the decisions I make. I second guess myself a lot but it takes a lot to feel sorrow based on a decision I have made. That is because most of my decisions only affect me and when I do have to make a decision that affects someone else I usually make it in their benefit. That is why today I feel guilty for a decision I just made. I told my roommate to continue her NY apartment search without me. Not that I still won’t move there or that it would be entirely impossible for us to live together but I was beginning to feel that I was rushing into a situation with her that was leaving my feelings out of it. We were looking for apartments in areas convenient for her, in apartments that while affordable required sacrifice from one party more than another. And our time frames are just not the same. She knows when she needs to be in New York, I am still fighting to get on a project there. If there is one thing I hate doing it is being forced into a situation, if I had continued searching for and eventually signing a lease on an apartment with her I would have probably come to despise her anytime that apartment put me in a bad situation. If I signed the lease then had to travel for work it would bother me, if I landed a project that required a long commute it would bother me, every time I wrote my rent check I would be upset about the situation.

 

I know this because once my mother talked me into buying a car I did not want. Every time that car broke down I blamed her, whether right or wrong, that car instantly had a negative spark because it was not what I wanted. That is what I feel would have happened with this apartment had I continued. So, I know what I did was for the best, I know I would have had to do it eventually and I am glad I got it over with. But, I have felt guilty about having to tell her for a few days now and had hoped that feeling would go away once I said it. But, here I am still feeling terrible about it.

 

What I think this comes down to is that I hate letting people down. I especially hate letting girls down. It stems from that big brother quality that grew out of being the only guy in a house full of girls and a toy poodle. For so long, I have taken pride in being there for my sisters and my mom whenever they need me that I kind of forgot what is was like to not be able to help. And that is sort of how I see my roommate; she is like a little sister that I really enjoy spending time with and was really looking forward to being a part of her journey. But, somewhere along the line I felt like I was only moving forward for her and disregarding my feelings entirely, which is no way to live. Hopefully, this horrible feeling in my chest will fade and with time I think her and I will be just fine but for now I know she is mad and I do not blame her at all.

Upstarts in a Blowout

Have you ever woken up and just known it was gonna be a bad day? That is exactly how my day went last Thursday. Wednesday night I was supposed to go down to Virginia beach but everyone cancelled so instead I spent the night in my hotel room watching movies and resting up for another day of work. Everyone apparently had decided that Thursday night would be a better night to go to the beach, I did not agree and went to bed with my mind made up not to go the next day. When I awoke the next morning I went to the hotel coffee maker like I had every other morning but this morning I found that no coffee was there to make. Anyone who knows me also knows that I do not handle the lack of coffee very well. Still, I pressed on, began getting ready for work and picked up coffee on my way in to work. But, before I could get too far into my day I realized my sunglasses had gone missing, this time it seems they have been lost for good. With two mishaps so early in the morning I knew there was something left on the horizon but still I had a job to do and I could not let a few setbacks ruin an entire day. When I got to work everything went as usual, I bantered with clients, talked with co-workers, solved a few problems and let everyone know I would not be joining them on their trip to the beach. However, as the day wore on so did my resolve and eventually somehow not only did I get wrangled into going to the beach, I was driving.

 

In anticipation of driving to the beach we all made sure to get off post as fast as possible and by about 4:30 we were all ready to go. My car was full of beach things, one coworker was lying down in the backseat, and another was in the passenger seat resting her eyes. Everything seemed fine and then 2 miles from my hotel I decided to change lanes, a harmless act that I have done countless times. But, this time was not the usual. I hit some debris in the road and immediately heard my left front tire go boom. I instantly knew that Anya had just lost a tire but I was not going to do any more damage and quickly got the car to the side of the road. Of course I was upset but I had to get my car off the small shoulder of the highway. Thankfully, a VDOT truck came up within minutes and offered to change the tire for me as this particular stretch of highway was very unsafe. There had apparently been 5 deaths recently changing tires and I did not want to be number 6. After the donut was on and the car was ready to roll, we got back on the road and returned to the hotel where I took about 20 minutes to collect myself and decide whether or not to take care of the tire or head out to the beach. I called my mom, cracked open a beer, then another beer, then hopped in a car and headed to the beach. All in all, we lost an hour of sunlight, but we did make it and we had a great time.

Connect the Dots

For the past couple of days, due to my work location, I have had much less access to the internet. Of course, I still have my Blackberry and can get to anything I really need to view during the day but this is a huge change from my normal working environment. I am usually online for 10 – 12 hours a day so this short break from that is nice. It really changes my daily routine as I can not jump over to some website every time I feel the urge for a distraction. And what I have been doing instead of those web distractions has been a lot more satisfying.

What I have been doing in the absence of the distractions is simply talking. Talking to coworkers, clients, management and anyone else around. Some of my teammates have even commented on how much more conversation is occurring between us. The conversations range from serious to silly. We have discussed politics, music, food, vacations and just about everything else you could think of. From all of this we really see that our perceived differences are just that, perceptions but not facts. After nearly a week of being disconnected I am more connected to the people I work with than ever before. So, this raises the question of whether or not our unlimited access is really helping or hurting us?

Shacking up

When I was in college, must have been sophomore year, one of my roommates had a girlfriend who spent so many nights at our place she affectionately became known as just Shaq. To this day I can not remember which roommate she was dating nor what her real name was. However, what I am getting at here is less about the girl than it is about the roommates. As someone on the wrong side of 25 I am starting to desire my own place, not that having roommates for the past 8 years or so has been a bad experience, but I would like to enjoy my own space for a little bit. And as I get older I am beginning to wonder if that will ever happen. The only time I can remember having my own space was one semester in college that I had my own room in the fraternity house. So now I see two paths I could take.

 

On one path I could continue doing what I have been doing, going from roommate to roommate and on the other I could find my own place for a little while. The thing is to afford my own place I would be limited in where I could actually live. So, if I continue with my plans to move to New York then I ultimately have no choice but continue with the roommates. Or, I can declare my independence, move to Florida and live alone for once. And if that is the path I should choose I won’t have to worry about who my roommates are dating or what their names really are, I can just remember that Shaq plays for the Miami Heat and that is the end of the story.

Dewey Beach

Last weekend for Memorial Day I took my first true beach vacation in the states. Living most of your life in Florida, a mere 10 minutes from the ocean, it is pretty easy to be skeptical about how good a trip to the beach in Delaware could possibly be. I have spent plenty of time at the beach and rarely have I left Florida to do so. I have been to some of the best beaches in the world without leaving the state I called home for so long. And while I have been to beaches outside of Florida, I have never made a specific trip to one until now. The hype given to me by my friends who had been before was immense; I thought there was no way it could be that good. But they were 100% right.

 

We left DC shortly after 5 on Friday night expecting to hit terrible traffic but luckily hit almost none. When we got into the tiny spot that is Dewey beach we checked into our hotel and were drinking by 9:30. Since we were meeting up with friends who had been in Dewey all day the four of us from my car played catch up and we were pretty much hammered within 30 minutes. After that things were pretty hazy the rest of the night and I have just received pictures that I have no memory of taking. With bars closing at 1 am things must have happened fast but we were still up until 6 am somehow, eating late night and drinking back in our room.

 

On Saturday morning I felt terrible. After a night of hard drinking I was surprised to even wake up but we did get up for some small breakfast and headed to the beach. This was probably the most impressive part to me, it was a nice beach, not amazing, but big and clean and packed. The rules were ridiculous, like no Frisbee or football, but we didn’t mind all that much. After a few hours of that and hangovers not going away we went back to the hotel pool and started drinking again. The beers finally killed the hangover and within a few hours we were ready to go. We listened to the jam session that was going on across the street, played 100 games of asshole as people got ready to go out and then we headed out to a new bar. Another night of live music was on the horizon and much like the night before it went very fast, but this night we ran into tons of people we knew. There were people everywhere, some I was happy to see like one girl from work, some I wasn’t as happy to see but it all worked out and much like the night before we ended up continuing our party until there was light in the sky. Only this night, I could not sleep.

 

Four hours after trying to get some sleep I was up and walking around. I tried to get breakfast, but settled for lunch, then a few hours later was joined by my friends and we started drinking again. In the afternoon, we enjoyed another cover band Jam session and that night it was another cover band and another bar. It was like groundhogs day or spring break for people too old to be acting like that. My body still hasn’t recovered. On the drive home Monday I didn’t so much feel hungover as I felt like I was going through withdrawal, I needed a drink the whole way home. And as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what my friends did after I dropped them off. On the other hand, I only had enough energy for a shower and bed. After all that, I have no idea why I hadn’t gone before and I fully expect to go again.

Living for the city

“If we don’t change the world will soon be over… Living just enough, just enough for the city!”

I’m burnt, my legs are killing me and Stevie Wonder is still ringing in my ears. The weekend could not have gone any better. And all it took was a bus ride and good friends. Of course once I got into NY my cab driver picked a fight with someone immediately which was hilarious and since he got me to my destination quickly I really didn’t mind the shouting. From that point on everything went well. I grabbed dinner and sake bombs with college friends before heading out to a few bars. While the bars were forgettable we still had a good time and bumped into familiar faces. Apparently the exchange between FL and NY goes both ways. Friday night ended pretty early though as most of us were tired from long days, so by 230 I was out cold. Saturday would be a different story altogether.

I woke up Saturday morning around 10 and began getting ready for what turned into a really long day. After a shower and a bagel my friend Jess and I headed out for Central Park. This is where I got the sun burn, the day was a bit chilly but very bright. We spent a while sitting around eating sandwiches, listening to music and watching the games going on around us. Eventually we decided to go look for a few other friends who were playing softball at another area of the park, an area that I totally misheard the location of and led to us walking almost the entire place in search of the fields. We did find the game and watched most of it before the weather started to cool down and forced us to head back home. Around 7 Jess and I went separate ways and I was on my way to meet Greav in Brooklyn.

The scene we encountered on Saturday night was much different than Friday. Brooklyn has a completely different vibe than Manhattan, maybe even an entirely different culture. After a beer at Greav’s apartment we hit the road. As we walked to the subway our conversations, as they always do, floated from one random topic to the next while I expressed my distrust of the umbrella. Yes, those umbrellas, I just don’t like them. Of course after we got off at our stop and realized it was now pouring, Greav certainly felt I was too harsh on the umbrella and that this was my fault. So, with no protection from the rain we darted from awning to awning, then bar to bar on our way to the Stevie Wonder tribute party. Again, the bars were non-memorable places where the drinks and the conversation were the story until we hit the party. We finally came in out of the rain too a packed, two story warehouse.  The music was great and the crowd was intense, the energy was contagious and after a while even I was dancing and singing along. The party kept going til 5 but we left a little after 3. The next day as I woke up and got ready to catch my bus back home I couldn’t help thinking how great it felt to be completely exhausted after a great weekend.

Why I do it

5 days a week I workout, I spend hours a day preparing meals, I eat like clockwork. And I just don’t think people really understand why people like I do it. Why do we lift weights and run? Why don’t we eat crap like everyone else? I can’t speak for everyone but I can say that for me it comes down to three things in no particular order: 1. Health, 2. Challenge and 3. The inability to be content.

 

The health reasons are obvious so I won’t waste any time on that but the others are significant. Challenge was my original reason to get started, after growing up playing sports competitively you kind of get addicted to it. I started lifting because of sports and then one day I stopped playing sports because of lifting. I still remember when I told my mom that I didn’t want to play sports anymore because I could challenge myself everyday in the gym. This inevitably led to my mom using hilarious terms like “ripped” and “shredded”. Anyway, the point is that I found a personal challenge that I can enjoy everyday whether it is running faster, lifting more or just looking better. And that leads into my inability to be content.

 

I always feel like I could be better. So I read up on nutrition a lot, I am constantly looking for ways to improve. But, this also means I am rarely happy, which could be a problem. I lose 15 pounds and I want to lose 10 more, I hit one goal and then create a new one. It’s a full blown obsession in something that you can never really be perfect at. Because there is no end date, no time when you can just stop, it’s a constant battle with yourself. And that is hard for a lot of people, a never ending struggle, so I guess I am fortunate that I have the will power to do it. To make my meals for the next day every night before I go to bed, to pack my gym bag, to schedule the time in the gym and to work hard once I get there. Most people don’t have the determination to do that, they want to look good, but they don’t have the mental toughness to make it a reality. Ronnie Coleman said that “everyone wants to be huge, but nobody wants to lift heavy ass weight” and while that probably isn’t true for everyone you can apply it to a lot of other areas. In this society an importance has been placed on appearance, so people generally want to look pleasing to others, yet so few want to do the work. They want magic cures as if we were all students at Hogwarts. There are no magic cures, there is no quick fix, it takes a lot of hard work, and a wealth of knowledge.

 

I was prompted to write this after reading about the US has the highest percentage of people considered obese by BMI. Now, I do not agree with the BMI fully but even if they used other standards this country would still fail health standards atrociously. And what really gets me in this whole thing is that all these overweight and unhealthy people think I am the one missing out. But, I think they are the ones that are crazy, eating 1000 calorie burritos everyday and lying to themselves about how they are eating healthy when they have skim milk with their bacon and sausage breakfast. Don’t feel sorry for me, I like being sore, I like eating healthy, and I like the way I look a lot more than I like the taste of fast food.