Island Life

You know how they say you never know someone until you spend a week with them on Nantucket? Well, I am sure someone says it. I have to tell you, it is so true. Let me tell you a few things that The Rose found out about me last week.

I am good for about two hours on the beach and then I am ready to go. I would be useless in a labyrinth. I won’t be going on a boat anytime soon. I am a good moped rider. I am willing to try any vodka – even habanera. I like ice cream. I am pretty good with an outdoor grill. There are limits to what I am willing to spend for things - $330.00 for sunglasses, get real! I have good friends and a very happy goddaughter. And the one thing I really hoped she learned this week is that I really care for her.

As for what I learned about her, well, she is a good fisherman. She would be very useful in a labyrinth. She also likes ice cream. She can cook anything and make it taste good. She is a trooper and will try to stick it out even if she should just say let’s go home. She can spend hours on the beach at a time. She is a good moped passenger. She thinks the Atlantic Ocean is cold. Believe me, these are all good things to know, since we have two more beach trips this summer planned.

As for Nantucket, I think we both agree that it was a good trip, but we would probably not choose to go back. Not that I have a problem with small, confining, overpriced islands filled with the over privileged. But I think you can have just as much fun getting a house at the beach on the cape itself. This would open up many day trip or excursion opportunities you can not get on the island.

Overall the vacation was great. There were a few bumps in the week, but I think we weathered them pretty well. Special thanks to T&K for being very good vacation buddies. It was also good to spend time with Baby Sam as she is really starting to grow and develop her personality. She couldn’t have been a better baby all week.

Oh and happy birthday to my mom. I hope you had a great day.

Come Support Your Team

I went to my first Nationals game this weekend. Turns out my seats are pretty good. I also learned that there is absolutely nothing around RFK to do. There are no restaurants, bars or even shops. If you are headed to RFK, you better stop at Eastern Market if you expect to eat or drink before the game. I got to see an extra inning loss to the Mets on Saturday. I noticed that the Nats don’t seem to have a great following. There were definitely more Met fans in the stadium than there were Nat fans. It could be that the team hasn’t been around long enough to build up a fan base. It could also be that there isn’t much to cheer about right now. I am still glad I got my 12 games this year. It should be fun to go to a few ball games this summer.

I also heard on the radio this morning that smell is the major sense responsible for physical attraction between men and women. Apparently women are attracted to the smell of cucumbers and fruit on men and men are attracted to the smell of excessive alcohol on women.

OK, I thought it was funny. Wish me luck tomorrow. Phone interview for Europe job. Not expecting much, but can’t pass up the opportunity.

Just Some Tidbits

I have another one of those weekend to weekend business trips going next week. I am leaving for Florida on Saturday morning, even though I don’t have to be there until Monday. I figured I would take advantage of the sunshine. Of course it is supposed to be beautiful here this weekend as well. I spend the week in Orlando and then come home on Thursday night. I am then driving up to Atlantic City on Saturday morning for the weekend. It is a really late celebration of my buddy’s 40th birthday. I have never been to AC so this should be a treat. It is also the first time I get to see KP and TS since they got pregnant. Well he isn’t pregnant, although he sort of looks like it. KP, it is really too early to have these sympathy pregnancy issues. Yes I will be Uncle Blue in October.

So, it will be a long weekend and week next week. I really need to go someplace and do nothing but sit on the beach and drink Rum Runners and just unwind. Maybe this summer.

I have a meeting set up in Florida to discuss one of the job opportunities I am working on in Europe. I am not expecting the best news, but I need to know where I stand. I have to try and touch base with the other job opportunity as well. I need to make some serious moving decisions. Stay where I am, move further east, or move to Europe. Those are not in order of preference.

On a different note, I am a firm believer that men and women can truly be friends. I have a number of female friends that I have never had a physical relationship with. I am generally very comfortable with this type of arrangement. However, I am the first to admit that sometimes there are other feelings involved. I think I am getting into one of those situations. I like someone and I have no earthly reason to believe that anything will ever come of it other than a great friendship. But she is the one person out here that I truly look forward to seeing all the time. Right now I am just enjoying her company…especially considering I am really hoping to move to Europe by summer.

Oh and definitely not least important is the brunch update. As always, I love meeting with my blogger buddies. It is always a joy to see them, pick on them, and just basically laugh with them. Brunch was incredibly fun and we need to do it a little more than semi annually. Wait…

**Phone Rings**
“Hello, oh, Hipchick it’s you. Wow, what a surprise, you never call me?”

Don’t worry, about 5 people who read that will laugh for the rest of you…you had to be there.

Thanks to Lily last week for running the guess who wrote this post game as well. Mine was posted on Scaramouche Jones site. He is a great read if you don’t ever get over there. I moved mine to My Writings page.

My St Patty's Day

So my day started out like any other day at the mall. I went to lunch about 12:30 and I foolishly thought I could go to me sports bar to watch some NCAA games. Well that bar was completely full. Apparently the Irish start drinking very early but I know most of those people we're crashed by 5 pm.

Tonight I went to Mortons to have dinner and smoke some of my cubins I brought home from Barcelona. As a matter of fact this post is coming from that bar. What is next, I don't know. What I do know is that I am looking forward to seeing all of my blogger friends tomorrow at brunch.

I hope you all had a great St. Patty's Day. I did.

These Are The Days...

I sometimes wonder if I am not being a bit to self indulgent by owning a car that I only drive about once a month. It seems like a waste of money every time I make a car payment as well as send in my insurance payment. But then I get a day like today. It is 72° and sunny today. There is no humidity and driving down the road with the top down, I don’t care if I am being self indulgent. Days like today make owning my convertible a necessity and not in indulgence.

I remember when I bought the car, my ex called me and in an argument, born more out of what her friends and family were telling her, she said she didn’t think the car was very practical. I asked her if I needed to be practical. We talked and she understood and from that point on we have never argued again. I think she always felt I would never do anything to hurt her personally or financially, but that day I was able to make her realize those feelings were true.

Since the last time I mentioned this car, Noojes asked me what color my Jag was and Kris asked me if she could have it, I thought I would include a picture. So for Noojes the car is British Racing Green and for Kris, I will think about it. ;)

1997 Jag XK8

Click on the picture for a better look.

Great Surprises

I needed to write about a couple things today. The first is that I got some good news yesterday. My boss called me in his office to give me my annual review. Well it is not really annual as I have only been here ten months, but they do it on a schedule. Apparently I have been doing a good job. I got a decent raise, not that a raise is every really much money in today’s world. Usually it is about enough for me to have one really good dinner every month. That was not what shocked me. The shocker was my annual bonus. I got about 50% more than I was supposed to get. A bonus on the bonus I guess. Don’t get me wrong, after the tax man takes his share, it is barely enough money to buy a bad car, but don’t worry, I will find a way to spend it.

The next thing I wanted to mention was I once again got to meet a fellow blogger last weekend. NYCBeauty and I met for lunch on Sunday. I have been reading her blog for a long time – pretty much since she started writing it. She is a great writer and I have always enjoyed the heartfelt accounts of her life she writes about. It is always a little strange to meet someone from the anonymous blogger world. It is strange to know some of the most intimate details of someone’s life and not know basic things about them…where they work, went to school, their favorite color, etc…I would still say that every time I have met someone from this world, the experience has been great. This was no exception.

I was pleased to find that she is just as enchanting in person as her words make her seem. I found her to be honest and real – easy to talk with and a beautiful person. She did order a chickpea sandwich for lunch, but I won’t hold that against her. :)

It always felt like we were more than just random blog buddies as we have exchanged emails in the past as well as just comments. Now I feel like I have a new friend. One I want to keep in touch with. One I want to see again. So, dinner next time I am in town?

Bars Just Shouldn't...

Stay open until 4 AM. I love Manhattan, but it is just dangerous to be out drinking and look at your watch and realize it is 4 AM. And if the bars are open so late, why is checkout 11 AM? Who can get up that early?

Friday night was a blur. I mean a real blur. We had a great dinner and about 6 martinis. We went to about ten bars after that and most of them I couldn't tell you about. So funny story...

We went out last night to the same neighborhood and when I walked into a bar, the bartender looked at me and said "you were here last night. You left your credit card." now that is bad. I asked him how drunk we were and his reply was "I am not sure how you found the door to get in." OK, that is pretty drink. We went down memory lane last night. Going from bar to bar asking "were we here last night?"

Bad, I know. Now I am waiting to meet a Blogger pal for the first time. I have met many people from this site and my experiences have always been great. Brandy, you are next.

Got to go for now. Only day three of a long trip and I already need a nap.

Home Sweet Home...Well For Now

Well, I made it back from Barcelona a little worse for the wear. I am not sure if it is the three hours of sleep a night I got, the staying out until three AM most nights or the lady next to me on the plane that looked like she was on death’s door, but I am sure that one of those things led to me feeling like crap the last two days. I have done little but sleep and eat soup since returning. Well, I did order a pizza on Friday night when I got home (at four AM Barcelona time). Might have been a bad idea as I was already starting to feel bad, but I had little choice as there was nothing in my house to eat.

I like Barcelona a lot, although I am not sure what it is like when there isn’t the largest wireless GSM show in the world visiting. Yeah, it was crowded. Restaurants were full and people were always on the streets. You would hear accents from all over the world. The people are friendly and there are small bars open very late. My Spanish was better at the end, but I think the only way I will ever really get it is to live in Spain. Hey, there’s an idea.

I don’t want to go into to many details, but I am getting very close to a move abroad. No, not a move on a broad…a move abroad. I think I will be in Europe before summer.

BTW - Let me tell you the one thing you never want to hear as your plane is landing at Dulles.

“Your luggage can be claimed at carousel 4. However, your luggage will be a delayed due to the weather.”

Delayed in Dulles? That isn’t good as Dulles is quite possibly the slowest airport in the country, maybe the world, at getting you your luggage. On a good day, the wait is 45 minutes. I had to wait almost two hours. And making people wait two hours for luggage after twelve hours of travel is just cruel. Even if they are traveling in Business Class.

I am home this week and then gone again for nine days or so. I am going to NYC, then Seattle and rounding out my trip to Arizona. NYC for the weekend…I am a buddy’s wingman for the weekend. Work in Seattle and then the weekend visiting another buddy in Arizona. Man, my life is pretty good.

For those of you that know the address, I posted some pictures of Barcelona on MySpace. I also put some new pictures of Nick on there. Father’s prerogative.

Valentine's Day?

I did not even realize it was Valentine's Day until I got on the metro and saw a man carrying roses. Then it hit me what day it was. This day has not been that important to me for the last few years. I have had no reason to buy flowers or candy. Well I buy candy, but only because I like it.

I have to admit that I do not really believe in the structured romantic gesture. Romance seems like something that you should do because you want to, not because a the greeting card companies tell you to. I mean, how romantic can it be if you are told to do it. I guess the holiday does serve a purpose...it reminds us that we should show the people that matter we love them. But we should do that every day.

For you guys out there, I hope you already got your sweetie something nice. For all you gals out there, I hope you plan on rewarding those guys. For those of us that are just bitter and alone, there is always alcohol to ease the pain. Drink up!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Day 4 in Barcelona

Yep, it is my fourth day here. I am going to have to get some sleep sooner or later. I can only burn the candle at both ends so long before I get burned.

The nicest thing about these conferences is the parties at night. All the big vendors throw cocktail parties. Including my company, as we are having one tonight. You generally have you choice of events to attend. All the alcohol and tapas you can eat.

I have three more days of fun in the sun. Oh yeah, did I mention it is very warm here. I could totally see living here, but that is a whole other conversation.

This post is brought to you from Barcelona via wireless technology. Thanks blogger for making it possible for me to email in my posts. Bon dia. 

Picture This

It is Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in one of the many typical squares in Barcelona. I am surrounded by four story walls except for one gap that allows people to enter the square from the street. There are palm trees planted strategically throughout the square. Some of them are as tall as the buildings. There is a large fountain in the middle of the square. People are sitting around the outside of the fountain. Chatting with one another but mainly doing the same thing we are all doing, watching everyone else.

There are many families walking around, many pushing strollers. Babies, small children, parents, and grandparents all enjoying an easy stroll together.  Strolling is a good way to describe it. Everyone strolls here. No one seems to be in a hurry.

There are six teenage boys in a circle kicking around a small ball. It reminds me of the hack-i-sack circles from high school.  I imagine some of them are thinking about their future on a professional futbol team. Funny, but they can keep that ball going so easy with their feet, but one of them tried to catch in his hands and dropped it. Well I guess they aren't dreaming of a life playing baseball.

There are  little cafes in all the corners with tables out in the square. Many people are eating and enjoying a beer or a glass of wine. Content to let the time pass.

Nick and I found a square just like this one in Seville. The town was different, but the scene was the same. Well it was a little different as the kids there were kicking around an aluminum can. They still had the same look on their faces. It is the look of contentment.

I am the King...

This one time at band camp…

OK, I was never at band camp, but the line always seems to inspire a humorous story from the past. In high school, my buddies and I used to TP the houses of the hot cheerleaders on the weekends and even some of the not-so-hot cheerleaders. I know childish, but we were in high school. Funny thing is we got caught twice doing it.

The first time we did not know we were caught. The mother of two cheerleaders saw us out the window and called her daughters over. One of the girls was about to let the dog out after us, when their mother stopped her and said “let them have their fun.” That is one understanding mother, I would have let the dog out.

The second time we got caught, we were in the middle of TPing a yard when we heard this booming voice coming from an upstairs window, “you hooligans better stay out of my flower beds.” We freaked out and took off running, but then I said, “Wait, he didn’t tell us to stop, just not to trash his flowers.” So we went back and finished.

The girls got us all back the last weekend of school. They got together to TP all of our houses, except mine. They didn’t want to venture into the ghetto and take a chance of never getting out, so they skipped my house. Good thing as I am pretty sure my dad would have let the dog out on them.

Now if this all sounds juvenile and childish, it was. If I sound like I was a geek in high school, I was. I am reminded of the movie Sixteen Candles. In high school, I basically was Anthony Michael Hall’s character in that movie – King of the Dipshits. My little group of friends and I were not in the popular crowd. We weren’t the nerdy smart kids. We were the outbackers (potheads). We didn’t fit into any particular click. That seemed like such a tragedy at the time, but as you get older, you realize that being different is a blessing, not a curse.

I didn’t particularly like high school, which should have been evident by the number of times I skipped it, but I do think it was a good experience. It taught me not to worry about what all the “normal” people thought about me. It taught me to stand on my own and think for myself. It might have been better if it taught me more about math or history, but I can’t be picky. Besides, if nothing else, it gave me a whole bunch of stories that start, this one time in high school…

Move Over Keith Richards

One thing you can do in Vegas, that most of us can’t do anywhere else, is live like a Rock Star. I will admit that the first two days in Vegas (the work part) were pretty much a waste of time. But Thursday night was worth the trip by itself. One of my colleagues has a connection in Vegas. A guy named Paul whose job is being your personal concierge. He makes sure you have a reservation at a hot restaurant, that you have the best table at the hottest club and that you never wait in line for anything. He does all this for a small tip. Well in our case he did because he was a friend of a friend. Well Paul set us up on Thursday night. A great steakhouse and a table right on the dance floor at the hottest club in the Bellagio. All we had to do was buy two bottles of alcohol for the table.

Now, I know what you are thinking, who buys bottles of alcohol for their table? Rock Stars. We ordered two bottles and they came with our own personal hostess. A 24 year old blonde hostess who basically tended to our needs. She poured our drinks and kept us company. We started with 8 people at the table, but as word spread around to our friends, more people started to show up. So in order to accommodate them, we had to get a bigger table and buy two more bottles of alcohol. I put up my CC for the next two bottles, I mean how much can two bottles of Grey Goose go for? As soon as I put up my card, then I got a personal introduction from the manager, our hostess and the guy who performed security for the section of the club we were in.

We ended up with about 20 of our coworkers all on the dance floor all drinking and partying. Not to mention the hundreds of people in the club partying…most of them hot girls. I spent my time dancing and drinking. This went on for a few hours, well until around 2:30 AM when most people started to wander out.

By the end of the night, we had more than a few drunks in the group. One of my buddies was so drunk that he wandered around the Bellagio looking for his room for an hour. Problem was, he was staying at the Venetian. Now that is a good night.

I got the bill as did my buddy who put up the CC for the first two bottles. So how much does living like a Rock Star cost? Around $1000.00. That’s right A THOUSAND DOLLARS. Plus tip. It was over $350.00 per bottle and then services etc…

Well I paid the bill and left a great tip. I hung out until around 4:00 AM when I decided to go play some poker. I played until about midday Friday and then caught a cab back to my hotel. I spent most of Friday trying to get some sleep. I might have lived like a rock star, but it was a 40 year old rock star and that requires rest afterward.

So four days in Vegas, one great meal, one night as a rock star, too much alcohol and very little luck at the tables…all in all a good week.

To top all of that off, I am on Day 2 of the Detox in a Box program and have a no caffeine, no sugar, no alcohol headache. The supplements make me gag and I was hungry all day yesterday…21 days is going to be very tough.