Messages from abroad, not massages from a broad

Finally I’m free!  In a few weeks, I’ll officially be out of Support!  Woohoo  I’ve been waiting to report this forever, but nothing really seemed official until today.I guess it’s worth the wait though because I’ll be moving to our Business Development department and I’ll get a new title: Client Care Manager for our publishing partners.  I guess this position was created for me so I’m feeling pretty stoked about it.  Life should be different and improved.  I hope!  Let’s put it this way, I was not thrilled for various reasons the last few months, so this is really a breath of fresh air.  It’s the light at the end of a very long dark tunnel.  The other option was to quit and go home, but I’m not exactly ready for that yet.  We just moved into a brand new building in Chinatown and the new space has been nice.  Everything’s new and there’s way more space now.  We went from 6/7 small floors to 3 big ones and I even hear we’re trying to get one more floor below us.  So if anybody cares, things are going pretty well.

Speaking of work, I was christening the toilet last week when I heard someone come into the restroom.  He kinda swung open the stall door next to me kinda hard, muttered something, and then walked out of the stall and headed towards mine.  Well, I guess the violence of his door opening knocked the lock of my door open.  So when I thought he was about to be denied entry to my stall, I was completely caught off guard when he was able to swing the door wide open.  I don’t know if this has ever happened to anyone else, and I highly doubt it, but it’s a really odd and fucked up feeling to have some stranger (the janitor) looking at you with your pants at your ankle.  He quickly apologized and I quickly lept to the door to re-lock it.  Honestly, I was really too shocked to have a reaction, but I bet the expression on my face was priceless.  So my next move was to get the fuck outta there.  The funny thing is, the guy stayed in the room to finish his maintenance.  As I washed my hands, there was this awkward silence in the room.  I kinda wanna bring up the problem with the lock with the building people, but I really don’t know how to approach them with my concerns.  Do I tell them what happened?  Fucked up eh? 

Alright, moving along.  So what else is new?  It’s been a couple months since I updated this blog.  I won’t bang out everything cause that’s just boring.  So let’s see.  I celebrated Independence Day for the second time.  Some of us called it America Day for fun.  I think it sounds better anyway.  I have pictures!  See how beautiful the fireworks are here.  I also went out to the Canadian Embassy on Canada Day.  It’s only 5-6 blocks away from the office and it was a perfect way to spend lunch.  They had this huge party going on with free burgers, hot dogs, poutine(!!), Kool-Aid, pop, juice, water, and beer!  That was totally worth the walk.  We got there at a perfect time too.  Any later and we woulda been screwed.  By the time we left, it was really hard to get food. 

One of my buddies here, knows a girl that works for WB.  He hooked me up by inviting me to the big premiere showing for The Dark Knight.  Man, am I so glad that I got to see it.  Not only was it free, but we got to see it in advance, AND we even got to skip the line.  So while hundreds of people were lining up in the heat for hours, we got to walk right in before all of the general admission were admitted.  Brant, you are da man!  Please thank your friend Jordan again.  If you haven’t seen the movie yet, it’s pretty damn good and it lives up to most of the hype.  It’s not a perfect masterpiece by any means, but it’s got a great story with lots of cool twists and surprises.  I originally thought that the Batpod looked really stupid, but after seeing the movie, I think it’s the coolest Bat vehicle ever.  To avoid spoiling anything for anyone, I encourage everyone to see it!

As some of you know, I’m heading out to San Diego in a couple of days.  And I wanna make one thing clear, I am NOT dressing up like He-Man!  I’m not dressing up at all!  Don’t listen to anything that that fucker Wes has told you.  That bitch!  I’ll be taking lots of photos I think.  I don’t really know what to expect, but I know that the convention is completely sold out.  So it should be quite the eye-opener.

Lately, it’s been hot here.  We’re talking about mid 90s, or for you Canadians, about 35+.  So when I got home, I took off my shirt and chilled out in front of the TV.  I heard a knock on the door and I immediately thought it was FedEx because I’m expecting a package.  I quickly grabbed a shirt that I had ironed and I didn’t want the guy to get away so I didn’t bother buttoning it up.  Well, I opened the door and it wasn’t FedEx at all.  It was my two hot neighbours that were standing there.  WTF??  This is like a nightmare.  These two women are very pretty and I’ve always had limited conversations with them.  So I don’t really know what kind of impression they have of me, but I’m sure it was greatly enhanced when I opened the door with my gut hanging out and American Gladiators going off in the background.  Oh well, they had swung by to ask if I smelled gas in apartment.  I said I didn’t, and our conversation ended quickly after.  Shit! Fuck! Crap! I started walking around the apartment, and indeed there was a foul smell coming from the bedroom and the bathroom.  I buttoned up the shirt and decided to go back over to tell them that I did indeed smell the gas now.  I got a good look at their apartment.  Very nice and clean and totally representative of two females.  Candles, art, and a generally nice homely feel to their place.  They called the building maintenance guys to report it and that was the end of that.  Swell eh??  I can’t wait to see them again.

I guess I’ll have more stuff to talk about soon.  Drop me a line some time people!  Bye for now!

On my way home the other night, I was on the train and I noticed a man trying to wake up a guy riding the train.  The unresponsive guy just sat there as his phone rang 3-4 times.  They shook him over and over again, but the guy wouldn’t respond.  Another concerned guy came over and started checking for his pulse.  They took someone’s glasses and placed them under the man’s nose to see if he was breathing.  So they pretty much determined that he wasn’t breathing or that he was in serious trouble.  So people picked him up and put him on the floor and I couldn’t see what they were doing to him, but they may have been giving him CPR.   At this point, everyone on the train was quite concerned and for the first once, people actually used the emergency phone/intercom at the end of the train.  The conductor was asking stupid questions like "which train are you on?" and not surprisingly, nobody knew what the number of the train was.  People started calling out "8" and "1" cause the doors were numbered 8 and 1.  Around this time and to everyone’s relief, the troubled guy started to respond.  One lady started to ask "what drugs did you take?".  I’m not sure if she wanted to know because doctors/paramedics might want to know later on or because she wanted to know what drugs or concoction she needed to avoid.  I cannot imagine what the guy was thinking though; one moment he was sitting on the train, the next moment he was waking up on the floor with 5 or 6 people over him.  The person speaking to the train conductor on the intercom reported that the man had started to respond and the conductor closed the door at the station and just kept on going.  No paramedics or nothing.  Sweet!  No more delays cause I was one stop away.

Earlier in the week, I was heading home again and this crazy Texan army dude started talking to a bunch of us that were (unfortunately) in proximity.  He was loud and talking in tongues  mostly.  But I believed him when he was telling us that he was heading towards the Bethesda hospital to pick up some medication.  Meds for being unstable I reckon.   It seemed like it was the longest train ride ever cause the guy just wouldn’t stop talking.  What was normally a 20 min ride turned into an eternity.  As we got closer to Bethesda, the people started to get off and eventually, I was the only one standing there with him.  Fuck!  Luckily it was only one stop away again, but it was also the most awkward ride ever.  I had thought about getting off along the way or switching trains, but I knew he was getting off in Bethesda eventually, and since I thought he was crazy, there was a good chance he’d be lingering around the station if I had gotten in one or two trains later.  And besides, I didn’t wanna waste time trying to avoid him.  Maybe I should have though.  Cause we both got off at my station and he followed me, and he kept talking, and he started asking me questions about where I worked.  I answered him vaguely and then he threw me for a loop when he said "Well, looks like you’re my guide now.  Where are we going?"  Fuck!  Are you serious dude??  I laughed it off and as we neared the turnstiles, I finally shook off the nutbag cause he had to show the station manager a pass or something.  I picked up the pace and b-lined it to the escalators hoping he wouldn’t catch up.  Lucky for me, I didn’t see him again.  Score one for moi!

Last night was the DC101 Chili Cook-Off.   It’s an annual event pairing a chili making competition with a rock concert, all to raise money for the National Kidney Foundation.  A few of us set up a team.  Awesome Town consisted of Ben, Brad, Brant, Aaron and me.  We had a bunch of other people that said they were interested in participating, but ultimately, they didn’t show up or bailed.  The plan was to serve up some chili, enter it in the competition, and drink lots of beer.  This was the first time any of us had entered or even attended the event so we didn’t know what to expect.  It was drizzling and a tad cold and when we got to the event, we quickly noticed that we were total amateurs.  Everyone had a tent/canopy.  We did not.  Everyone had huge tables.  We had a 3′x3′ table pulled from a Honda CRV.  We were relatively unprepared.  So here’s a picture of us amongst everyone else.
We’re the tent-less little pile to the left of the Extoic sign.  But we made the most of it.  We obviously didn’t have much to set up so we made breakfast and then 4 of the 5 of us went for a beer run.  Yes, we wanted beers for breakfast!  It turns out that the beer lines weren’t opened yet and when we got back, we found Aaron sitting in the chair enjoying his punch, not noticing that our chili was burning smoking like crazy.  We had burned our chili!  It was pretty good too.  Well, we tried to save it by putting in Hershey Kisses and to some degree, it helped a little bit.  It still tasted burnt though.  So we made up some bullshit story that we had used smoked bacon in our recipe and we marketed as Smoked Bacon Chocolate Chili.  And some people actually believed our story, which goes to show, that people will believe anything you tell them.  Some of my favourites quotes from the day:

"I really like the smokiness!" - that’s burnt chili you’re tasting!

"You guys need to expand! Cause you guys got the best shit in the house but nobody knows you!" - in reference to our tiny stand and lousy signage.

"It tastes like cigarettes."  - one we couldn’t fool…

Surprisingly, some people actually liked the chili.  Even some of the judges liked the ’smokines’.  Hahaha.  Suckers!  Well, we managed to use it all up so I say that we were quite successful overall. How the event works, is that you hand out samples in little taster cups.  If people like it, they are supposed to donate to the Kidney Foundation.  We were pretty focused on getting rid of the chili, our donations suffered.  I think we ended up with about $4 in donations; not that that is a good reflection of our chili.  We just didn’t push for donations.  The event itself was pretty crazy.  The line-up to get in wrapped around the entire block.  And this isn’t a normal small city block.  This is a huge giant enormous block.  Think of a line up wrapped around Costco for 4-5 hours.  I have more pictures on Picasa and Facebook.  All in all though, we had a great time and we met a lot of interesting and cool people.

I wasn’t going to join Kickball this Spring, due to various reasons (Thursday night is a big TV night, hate heat, exercise is not my friend, previous season wasn’t anything special), but for another set of reasons (something to do socially, leave work early, exercise is good for you, new league, cheaper), I decided to sign up again.  So far, the new NAKID league is miles better than WAKA.  WAKA was so poorly managed and I hated that douchebag Law Dog who ran the WAKA league.  Anyway, our first game was Thursday and it was pretty fun.  I don’t know if it was the excitement of the first game, or the closeness of the game, but I had a great time.  Somehow I made it from First to Home in one play and everyone was surprised that I was able to motor around the bases.  I’m telling ya, underneath this fat suit, there is a dormant six-packed athlete.  I even showed up to the bar to play flip cup and I felt I brought my A game, usually flipping my cup with only 1 or 2 tries.  To cap off the day, our captain named me Player of the Game.  Impressive eh?  Well, with all that effort from kickball though, my knees reminded me that my body is just a vessel for my spirit and that I am just around the corner from turning 31.  Ack!!

I’m cool with it though.  I’m not going through any crisis’ or anything like that.  To celebrate next week, I’m going to attend the DC United soccer game.  It turns out that the NAKID kickball league is sponsoring a big event there.  There’s gonna be kegs in the parking lot, food, jell-o shots, the soccer game, and more post game drinking festivities; all of this for $27.  I think it’s quite a bargain.  I don’t think I’ll get too wasted, but then again, when I least expect it, that’s when I get in trouble.  I just gotta remember to tell myself to pee before I trek home on the Metro.  There won’t be any toilets for 45 min while I head home.

I dunno why, but it feels like I’ve been really busy lately or that I have a lot of stuff lined up.  Or perhaps I don’t know how to say no when someone asks me to join them.  I’ve agreed to go to Delaware in a couple of weekends to watch Craig Ferguson perform some stand-up.  In May, I joined a Chili cooking contest with some peeps from work.  I guess it’s all good.  It gives me something to look forward to each week and it keeps my mind off of stupid fucking work. 

Alright, before I sign off, here are a couple fresh movie reviews.  The Other Boleyn Girl is a waste of time.  Not even Scarlett’s great assets could save this film.  It was just boring.  Queen Anne was a retard, willing to commit incest to pop out a son to the king.  Her brother was even more of a retard to consider it.  The Tudors TV series is a much better show about the same period of time.  I also saw The Forbidden Kingdom.  The (white) kid in the movie is terrible.  I recognize him from Almost Famous.  He’s kinda grown up now and he is super scrawny and totally awkward throughout the movie.  All of his fighting scenes make him look slow and untalented, and hence unbelievable as any martial arts hero.  I hated everything about his story arc.  The rest of the fighting is really impressive though and showcases some of the best fight scene in a while.  It’s pretty cool to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li in a movie together.  I’m sure most of you will see it just because of Chan and Li, so you be the judge.  Be warned though, it’s super corny; especially you August Rush haters.  Peace!

So I returned to Vancouver again.  I think this has been my 7th or 8th trip back home in 14 months.  I don’t plan on coming back again until October though, unless circumstances lead me to return earlier.  Oddly enough, it felt like I had to beg to work from home this time around, which boggles my mind.  I had a legitimate reason too.  I needed to renew my passport and the time allowed me to take care of a bunch of other things.  Anyway, I ended up burning up a week of vacation in the process and I suppose that isn’t such a bad thing. 

‘Cause I guess I needed the vacation to take care of this fucking cold that I have.  I don’t know why, but I always get sick in Vancouver.  It never fails.  I think it’s the climate that induces illness.  I was cold and miserable for a few days and now I have a craptastic cough as a souvenir again.  I blame Wanger for getting Hank & Lina sick, who in turn, got me sick.  Bastards!!  But a little cold/flu isn’t going to keep me down.  I just took drugs every two hours for a few days and now my head doesn’t feel like shit anymore.  This brings up an annoying pet peeve that has started to pick my bum.  Have you ever noticed that when people take pills, some (most?) people will tilt their heads back in a quick motion as to help the pills go down.  What does that really do though?  I mean, when I’m eating a meal, I don’t cluck back my head like a chicken to help my food go down.  I just swallow and down it goes.  But people who whip their heads back while taking pills just look strange.  Do you do that?  Anyway, like I said, this illness didn’t slow me down.  I continued with my daily activities, and by activities I mean eating.

I think I’ve actually eaten out every day since I’ve been back.  Honourable mentions: Hapa Izakaya (first time eating there and I was totally impressed), the McRib (which wasn’t actually that great, but it was cool just to have one again), Pit’s mushroom burger, Deli’s samosa and chicken panzzaroti, dim sum (twice), Joey’s, Sushi House, Thai House, and etc…  Despite all this eating out, I’ve managed to shed 5 lbs since I’ve been back.  I cannot explain it.  I have a lot of good meals planned for the next few days, so I’m looking to lose a few more pounds before I fly back to Glutton Nation aka the United States.

My nephew is friggin adorable.  The times I’ve seen him, he’s almost always sleeping.  Which makes me think he’s a well-behaved little boy, but his parents know otherwise.  Apparently he’s a bit of a night owl and his favourite past-time is crying all night.  What fun!  I’ll follow-up with a picture of him later.  Peace out and see ya’ll at dinner in the next few days.

Despite what some friends might say, I don’t need anybody to bring any kind of good karma.  Everyone knows that I am a lucky son of a gun, so it shouldn’t be anyone’s surprise when eBay decides to send me a $750 credit for a bad experience I had with them.  I don’t see how that translates to ‘we visited, we brought good karma’.  Also, everyone knows that I’m a charming young man too.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise when I go out for dinner and the waitress and manager decide to treat us to free dessert because we are good guests.  So don’t believe anything that some people (Lisa!) have been saying about them bringing good karma.  There’s nothing true about it.  They’re just trying to take credit over my own awesomeness.  If anything, they should feel lucky to be around to witness to my good fortune once again.  I’ve been having a decent week.  I filed my taxes last week and two days later, my DC tax return was in the bank.  Out of the blue, Best Buy suddenly announces they are giving previous HD-DVD player buyers a $50 GC; score, free money again!  My European VAT tax refund arrived this past week too.  So obviously, they had nothing to do with that.  Most of this happened prior to their arrival.

So I just wanted to air that out there.. I am my own good karma.  Besides, there’s nothing karmically wonderful about bringing your smelly gas-producing husband.  Gesus, stop the farting!

On a side note, my nephew is one month old today.  I cannot wait to meet him.  For those of you that know Dom and Lieny too, their baby girl Evana arrived the other day.  I am looking forward to meeting her one day too.  Dom is a daddy!  Who’da thought?  It seems like everyone I know is having a baby.  I’m very happy for everyone.  Anyhoo, I’m back in Vancouver in a week.  I’ll see most of you then.  Peace!

I’m back in Somerset again.  This time around, everything is the exact opposite.

It’s cold here now and the weather report calls for a couple inches of snow later today.  I can’t wait to drive 15-20 miles on the highway in this shit weather.  I hope my Kia Spectra rental can handle the conditions.  The car is practically brand new (only 500 miles on it), so hopefully that will translate into decent tires.  I flew into KY this time around with very little trouble.  I had to rush to my connecting flight because my first flight was delayed about 45 minutes.  I was the last one to arrive to the gate for my connection and everyone else had already boarded the plane.  That was the only minor hitch.

For my first meal here, I decided to try out Cracker Barrel; a country style restaurant.  It showed promise but alas, it was crap too.  I shoulda known better.  $13 doesn’t get you a good ribeye.  It was cooked to my liking, medium rare, but the meat was chewy and tough.   The worse part were the vegetables.  I ordered corn, green beans and carrots.  Surprisingly, the carrots were the worse.  They tasted like they had been prepared in sugar water.  They were wayyyy too sweet.  The green beans were out of a can or frozen.  They were all mushy and tasteless.  The corn was by default, the best of the lot.  I tried this coca-cola fudge cake that was apparently their signature dessert; it was chocolate cake made with Coke.  It was good, but wayyyy too sweet too!  I couldn’t finish it.  I had a few bites and turfed the rest.   Food here sucks and as adventurous as I’ve been, I think I’m going to stick with places that I know are good for the next couple of nights (like Papa Johns or Pizzahut).

My stupid mouse is broken.  I brought my Microsoft wireless optical notebook mouse but it doesn’t work.  The optical light will not turn on.  So I went out to Wal-Mart after dinner and bought the cheapest one I could find for $10.  I brought it back to the hotel, only to find out that it was a PS/2 mouse.  Fuck!  I wanted to do some work and I hate using the pad cause it slows me down.  So I dragged my ass back out to Wal-Mart to return it and buy another one.  This time I spent $20 for a basic wired optical scroll mouse.  Man, I hate that.  I have had way better deals than that before.  For $20, it ought to be wireless, laser, and have 5-6 buttons.   What a scam.  That’s my quick update for the day (week, or month even).   Perhaps more will follow.

I cannot make up my mind as to whether I really liked Maui or not.  I think the trip was pretty fun in the sense that most of my good friends were there and spending time in a foreign place is always a rare treat.  Gladys and Adrian’s wedding was great too!  I really enjoyed the intimate approach of their wedding.  No presentations like videos, skits or anything fancy; just a straight forward wedding, gathering and celebration.  I loved it!  Maui itself was dreary.  It rained a lot!  And when it wasn’t raining, the clouds threatened to piss on us.  Everything worth seeing seemed really far away too. 
Volcanos and black sand beaches were hours away.  We even drove 1.5 hours away to find a fruit stand along the highway.  I’m glad I got to experience it though. 

The luau was the first big event.  It was really cool.  The food wasn’t too bad and the show was quite enjoyable.  I wish I had brought out my camera, but I forgot to bring it out with me.  Rain looked imminent all evening, but miraculously, it held off and the night went very smoothly.  The next day was the wedding day, we arrived at the hotel and promptly boarded a shuttle bus that took us to the chapel.  The problem was that no one told the driver which chapel.  So he brought us to the wrong one.  After a 10 minute wait, we felt it didn’t feel/look right.  The chapel door were closed and not a soul was in sight, so we walked back to the Ritz to double-check things.  Lucky for us, it was right next door.  Thankfully we went back otherwise we would have risked missing the whole darn thing.  Gladys looked beautiful and their
ceremony proceeded without a hitch.  Pictures and champagne followed and then it was off to the hotel for an open bar session before dinner.  The bartender was this woman who sounded like she smoked 6 packs a day; very friendly but obviously a bit crazy.  It turns out that she was a recovering alcoholic!  Oh the lunancy of the situation!!  Let’s just say she was very happy to be pouring us drinks.  Dinner was awesome.  The food was terrific.  The dancing was a lot of fun too.  Adrian, your sisters are wild!  We apparently scared the shit out of the hotel too.  I don’t think they had ever seen Asians drink the way that we did.  At one point, they made us take a 15 minute break because we were taking way too many shots.  Petron is so delicious!  All in all,
it was a great evening.  We wrapped up the night in one of the hotel rooms, drinking, and chilling.  Adrian’s family entertained us with kung fu, a hula-hoop, and spot-on re-enactments of various 80s music videos. 

Our favourite place to eat was the Paia Fish Market.  It was about 40 minutes away from the hotel but totally worth the drive.  I ended up eating there 3 times.  The fish plate was great, and a big hit with most of us.  Their ahi sashimi was pretty damn yummy too.  I pretty much tried everything on their menu in my three visits: deep fried shrimp, fried calamari, the chowder, the fish burger, etc.. I never tried their seafood pasta though.  Drats!  We also went to Roys steakhouse.  I thought their food was pretty good.  Una said she didn’t like it.  I thought she was crazy.  My ribeye was great!  Their sushi was decent.  And my banana crisp dessert was
fantastic!  Becky and Darren went earlier that night and said they enjoyed the banana crisp a lot too.  I told everyone to try it but they didn’t.  Their loss. 

The 5 nights flew by quickly.  Before I knew it, it was time to go home.  Most of the gang were headed home early in the afternoon.  Only Becky and Darren were moving on to Honolulu.  I was in a terrible position of being alone on the island for 5-6 hours because my flight wasn’t until about 10pm.  Darren told me about this awesome sushi place he had been planning on going to when they landed in Honolulu and he mentioned that I should extend my trip and go out there with him.  Well, I didn’t really extend my trip, but he did convince me to fly out there to have dinner with them.  So that’s exactly what happened.  I checked in my luggage 6 hours early, and then I bought a round-trip ticket to Honolulu.  It’s only 30 minutes away from Maui and although I was cutting it close again, it really solved the problem of finding something to do for a few hours.  In the end, I was in Honolulu for 2 hours, where I enjoyed a kick ass meal at Mitch’s Sushi. 
Hamachi, lobster sashimi, and monkfish liver were so good.  As soon as I passed through security in Honolulu, the plane had started boarding.  That’s how close it was again.  It worked out perfectly though.  Great idea Darren and thanks for dinner again! 

In one moment at the airport, we were going through the airport security check and Becky was nailed for leaving her water bottle in her bag.  I was right behind her and giving her plenty of grief because it was in plain sight.  Well, just as I was doing this, they called out ‘Bag Check!’  Apparently I had some contraband item in my bag.  They opened it up and pulled out a bottle of water that I had conveniently forgot about.  Deservedly, Becky took the moment to give me ’shit’ too.  The security guy thought it was kinda funny because he knew I was giving Bex a hard time about her water just moments before.  My bad, my bad!!  My foot tasted great in my mouth.

It seemed that we were always missing a room card or two during the trip.  As we boarded the plane, Darren whipped out a room card for our hotel.  Becky accosted him but Dar insisted this was one of the two that we had been using all week and he failed to hand it in during check-out.  I distinctly remember making a comment that someone would find another card in their pockets when they got home.  Well, a day later, I was unpacking my luggage, and low-and-behold, guess what I found in one of pants pockets?  Now I have a plastic souvenir. 

Fun times.  Good seeing everyone!  The Super Bowl was decent, but I lost some money on that stupid game!  Oh well.  The rest of my pics can be seen here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/biganthony/MauiFeb200802. 

Next stop, Kentucky (groannnn)!  Cya’ll in March!

Yowser, it’s been way over a month since I updated this thing.  What’s gone on since?  Hmm, I’ve been back to Vancouver and I even made a trip up to New York for a weekend.  I’ve been suffering from a cough and cold off and on the past month too.  All in all, I had a great time back at home and I loved seeing everyone. 

I’ve been back for nearly a month now and I finally got around to looking at the pictures on my camera.  I don’t know who got a hold of it at Allan’s place, but they are not allowed to use it anymore; sooooo many pictures of people playing Rock Band.  I don’t need three dozen pictures of different people playing that damn game.  I think Adam is one hell of a cute baby too, but I don’t need a dozen plus photos of him either.  The picture to the right is Adam, Ray and Deb’s baby.  Isn’t he a good looking kid? 
I think it was Kim who had my camera that night.  Kim, no more photos from you!  You’ve been banned from using my camera!  As I mentioned earlier, I played a lot of Rock Band over the holidays.  If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s like Guitar Hero, but with drums, a singer, and the option for a second guitar.  It’s kinda neat and I am only marginally interested in the game because I’m not that great at it.  Darren and Becky on the other hand, are freakishly good at the game.  They can rock out on the drums on expert level.  It’s quite impressive, but I think they’ve played too much.

Without spending too much time on this, I did want to mention my flight back to DC.  I showed up at the airport at 5am, only to find out that my 7am flight to Toronto was canceled.  They had re-scheduled me to a 12pm flight and I didn’t really want to go home cause I wanted to try to get on an earlier flight by going stand-by.  So 8am was full (JimmyT got on that one, lucky bastard) and 9am was full.  I got on the 1030am flight.  I was the last person to get on the plane and I settled into the awesome Air Canada Boeing 777 plane.  It was super nice and spacious.  So we sat there for about 20 min and then they got on the PA to say that they were short a flight attendant, and they were asking for volunteers to get off to take the 1230pm flight.  In compensation, they were going to stick you in Executive Class (EC) and provide you with a lunch voucher too.  I worked out the times and figured I’d still be able to make my connecting flight in Toronto.  So I volunteered to get off because EC was sweet; can’t beat a hot meal on a plane, liquor, individual pod seating, adjustable seats, and a huge LCD screen to watch movies on demand.  Anyway, my 1230pm flight was delayed slightly and we boarded late.  In the end we landed at 815pm and my 845pm connecting flight had already started to board.  So I ran my ass off through the airport, picked up my luggage, went through security and customs, and by the time I got to the gate, I was sweating like mad, and my face was beet red.  I was so tired and exhausted that I was ready to throw up, and my cough didn’t help out the situation either.  But the lady at the gate calmly said ‘there’s no need to run, they haven’t started boarding yet.’  Wow.  That sucked.  Cause all the way through the airport, the monitors kept saying that the flight was On Time.  I was pissed, tired, and relieved all at the same time.  To top it off, when I got back into DC, I almost missed the last metro of the night too.

Last weekend was Martin Luther King day and so we had the luxury of a second observed holiday of the month.  I went up to NY to visit Konnin and Gladys.  I finally got around to using my Amtrak gift certificates.  The train is great.  It ’s way better than taking a plane because it’s a lot less hassle (i.e. very little waiting, no security check).  It’s a tad slower to get to your final destination, but the time you save by not going to the airport works out to be about the same.  The train is really quite comfortable though.  Big roomy seats and a power jack to plug in laptops and things of that nature.  It’s really cool and I highly recommend that people give it a try if they can.  It’s not cheap, but if you buy early enough, it’s not that bad either.  NY was all about eating.  I had a fair share of wine, champagne, and great food.  We went to some Cafe Habana place.  They had this corn on the cob, that was covered with butter, spice, and cheese.  It was amazing.  Lisa would have loved it.  Next time you’re there Lisa, give it a try.  It was a nice little weekend getaway, and I finally got to check out KT’s pad.  Nice place!  Great artwork too!  Konnin’s always had good taste in things.  Thanks for letting me crash again!  I didn’t get to eat halal food, but it wasn’t a big deal.  I didn’t even make it to Time Square.  No big loss though.

Next up on the travel agenda, Maui later this week, Kentucky again at the end of February, Vancouver in March, and San Diego in July.  Work is sending me back out to Kentucky again.  It’s the greatest place in the world………   San Diego should be a tonne of fun.  I’m going to check out Comic-Con for the first time ever.  Comic-Con is basically the biggest comic book convention of the year.  No, I’m not going to dress up.  Yes, I used to read and collect comic books.  It’s only $75 for a 5 day pass, so why not?  Big Wes really had to twist my arm to go.  :)  Maggie’s coming along too and I’m sure she’ll love it as much as us.  Either that, or she’ll want to break up with Wes when it’s over.  hahaha.  I kid I kid.  I know he doesn’t read this, so I can say it.  I’m only joking anyway.  She knows what she’s getting herself into… I think.

I feel pretty good these days.  I might cough once or twice in the day, but nothing major.  It was a lot worse a couple of weeks ago.  I almost think I’m cured except for the weird mucus I’ve been blowing outta my nose lately.  Last week I thought I was getting a nose bleed in the shower, but instead of seeing blood, it was this bright yellow mucus goop.  I know I know, this is disgusting, but I wanna share it with you.  :)  So I didn’t think too much of it because I was still suffering from my cold.  Flash forward to today and I get out of the shower, blow my nose, and voila, bright yellow mucus again!  This time I got a good look at it.  It resembled egg yolk.  I wanted to bottle it and mail it out to Andy as a joke (grin), but I decided that that would have been way too inappropriate.  Disgusting.  I may have to see a doctor about cause it’s lasting way too long.  I feel fine though, so I’m not really concerned about it yet.  I think it’s just some kind of weird sinus infection.  Any med students out there that can make a diagnosis????  I’d make an appointment this week, but I don’t have the time.  I tried to make a dentist appointment the other day.  I called one up, left a message and those bastards never called me back.  I think I have a cavity and I need to tend to that more than anything.  I’ll try again tomorrow and hopefully I can see the guy next week.

Anyway, I think that’s plenty for now.  No more ramblings from me until I get back from Maui.  Peace in the East! 

I reached the 11 month mark over the weekend.  I’ll take this opportunity to give myself the ol’ JimmyT pat on the back.  I’ll be home for about 11 days, then I only have to suffer another two weeks to reach the 1 year mark.  Woohoo!  Quite the milestone for me.  Well, having said that, I was sitting around on my ass over the weekend, flipping through a little booklet on stores and eateries in my neighborhood.  I came across the listing for McDonald’s and this really surprised me because I hadn’t seen it since I moved here.  Many moons later, I finally found it, and I feel kinda dumb cause it is only three blocks from the Metro station and totally in sight at night.  I just wasn’t looking in the right direction.  In my defense, it’s totally out of my way to go to McDonald’s, so it’s really not a big find since I will probably never go.  I guess it was just a surprise cause I always thought it was weird that such a big town didn’t have one nearby.

This past weekend, we had our company Holiday party.  It was at another museum and the venue wasn’t as swanky and big as last years, but I thought it was a lot better overall.  With a smaller place, the event seemed a little more intimate and it was way easier to find people.  Here’s a picture of me and two of my office mates, Aaron and Kwaun. 
I thought that the food was actually better, mainly because it was hot.  Last year, the food was cold and craptacular.  I’d say that there was a little bit more variety last year, but given the choice between shitty food and hot food, I’d take tasty food over cold food any day.  They had pasta, beefy boneless tender short ribs, mashed potatoes, sushi, a bunch of little appies, and a couple desserts.  They didn’t spend a lot of time on the display of the food either; it was very no frills.  It was fun though.  I stayed for the whole event and went out to the after-party at the 18th Street Lounge.

So I was heading home from the party and I was riding the Metro with Mike Siegel, and we spotted a piece of poo on the first seat of the train.  Fricking disgusting!  It wasn’t a piece of chocolate and it wasn’t a truffle.  I didn’t taste it or get up close-and-personal with it, but I’m pretty confident with my visual evaluation.  Mike would agree with me.  I’m just glad he spotted it before I sat down on it, otherwise I’d have a real poo on clothes story to tell **shudder**.

Yesterday, a few of us decided that to try out the Maryland crabs.  I hadn’t tried the famous crabs here and it was long overdue.  We went out to this place called Steamers, just 2 blocks away from my apartment.  At first glance of the restaurant menu, it looks like it might be a decent, semi-classy place, but in reality, it’s just a bar that happens to sell a lot of seafood items.  It wasn’t anything I had expected.  For one thing, it was just the foundation and some walls.  It was kinda like sitting on a giant covered patio.  The floors were basically concrete and the roof wasn’t even a roof.  They had a giant tent-like canopy for a roof.  It started to rain and hail, and you could really hear it hitting the plastic roof.  I’m surprised it didn’t fly off with the gusty wind outside.  Anyway, we were sitting at our plastic patio furniture and we 
ordered a dozen large crabs.  This is what a dozen crabs looks like.  After I finished my first one, I wasn’t sure if I really liked it.  It was a lot of work to get a few morsels of crab meat and it was covered in Old Bay Seasoning which I didn’t care for.  I ended up shaking off the seasoning on the other ones.   By the end of it though, I thought it was quite enjoyable and a pretty decent way to burn an afternoon.

Last weekend, we went out to the Outlets and I saw some guy wearing a Vancouver Giants jersey.  I was pretty surprised cause I didn’t think I’d see anybody wearing one of those out here.  I figure he probably wasn’t really a fan of the team, but more likely to be just a fan of the jersey’s logo and colours.  I felt like asking him, but I didn’t think it was appropriate.  Alright, I’m gonna shower and get ready for bed.  I’m coming down with something and I wanna be better by the time I am home this weekend.  Cya’ll soon!

Well well.  Another month, another holiday and this time I went to Barcelona. I flew with Iberia Airline this time and it wasn’t too bad.  The TV monitors sucked but the food was decent.  One thing that was glaringly retarded was that nowhere in my itinerary did it say I was flying through Madrid.  On my return flight, they handed me a single boarding pass with no mention of Madrid, but that’s where I ended up again.  Does that make sense to anybody else??  I guess it didn’t make sense that my flight had a duration of 10-12 hours each way, but I wish they would have mentioned the layover somewhere. 

Anyway, I met up with Gladys at the Madrid airport.  That was convenient.  It made life simpler since I wasn’t sure how smoothly it would have been to track her down in Barcelona.  My first impression of Barcelona?  Well, while I waited in the baggage area for my luggage, I couldn’t help but notice the amazingly horrific odour wafting through the air.  Apparently the restrooms in the airport were filthy and disgusting because the smell emanating in the baggage claim area was unbearable.  I retreated to the far wall to prevent myself from throwing up.  Other than that, Barcelona was quite clean.  I love the culture and lifestyle there.  Mid-day siestas and closed shops on Sunday are a nice way to live.  We easily assimilated with the people and culture;
late lunches, afternoon coffee, tapas galore, and cheap wine.  We took each day nice and slow, never starting the day earlier than noon.  Our first meal was at the nearby Market.  The market resembled Granville Island, but they also had these wonderful
eateries mixed in with the food stands.  We didn’t know what to order but Gladys managed to order us some sardines, baby octopus, and meatballs.  Gladys was a great travel buddy and she moves at my pace; in other words we didn’t try to cram in too many things in one day.  The streets are small and all of them look and feel the same.  There were a few instances when we just walked around in circles for a 15 minutes, trying to get our bearings on where we were and where we were heading.  All of the shops are hidden behind garage doors when they’re closed.  A lot of shops were closed for a day or two or at odd hours, so we found it weird when we noticed new shops that we hadn’t seen earlier in the day/week.  On the last day, we went back to the Market to try another eatery.  It was fantastic.  I’ve never tasted calamari so fresh and tasty.  Their razor clams were amazing too.  As far as touristy
sites, we saw: the Picasso Museum, Casa Battlo, Casa Mila, Park Guell, and the amazing Sagrada Familia.  I’m mesmerized that they have spent about 100 years building a cathedral that no one has ever been able to use.  When it’s completed in another 100 years or two,
it will be an amazing ceremony to attend.  Ambitious is one word to describe it.  Other than the sightseeing, our other goal was to do a little shopping.  Gladys managed to purchase a couple clothing items and shoes.  I also bought two pairs of shoes from the Camper store.  FYI, there’s also a Camper Hotel in Barcelona.  It is really expensive to stay there and it doesn’t even look that nice. 
Anyway, it was a quick 4 day trip and I can sum it up as being full of good memories, great company, and wonderful food.  More pictures can be found on Facebook.

Friday evening, I got home took off my coat and I then I noticed a giant poo stain on my vest and t-shirt.  Somehow I had grown an anus next to my bellybutton.  I’m glad I didn’t go out that night cause it would have been extremely embarassing to pull off my coat and reveal the 3 inch stain in public.  Well, it turns out that my ass did not miraculously move itself to my torso.  Instead, the culprit was a piece of Lindt chocolate that someone had given to me before I left for work  I stuck it in my pocket and promptly forgot about it.  The chocolate itself was semi-intact.  It was actually the liquid filling that had escaped from the confection that was causing me grief. I tried to wash out the chocolate by hand and most of it came out, but I think it’ll take a couple of washes before it’s completely clean.  This is actually the second time I had a chocolate accident on my shirt this week.  I had splattered some on my shirt just a couple of days earlier.  I am one clumsy mofo.

So this weekend, the Safeway here is having it’s Grand Re-Opening.  It went through some renovations like all of the other stores across the nation.  So to celebrate, they have been giving away 200 Ipod Shuffles at random.  It shows up on your receipt if you’ve won.  I heard about 4 people win in a matter of 20 min on Saturday.  Instead, all I got was a numb fucked up finger for my efforts.  I was holding my grocery bags awkwardly and the strain from the weight must have cut off the circulation in my index finger.  It’s been well over 24 hours since this happened and it’s still feeling numb.  I don’t think the cold temperature helped it either.  I hope this problem resolves itself in the next little while.  Anyway, I didn’t pick up everything that I wanted yesterday, so I went again this morning.  I heard another 4-5 people win within 30 minutes and again, I did not win when I paid for my groceries.  I hate not winning and I am miffed!  I am tempted to go back and buy one item at a time until I win one.  But after thinking about things, it doesn’t really matter cause the Ipod Shuffle is useless to me and I don’t wanna look like a greedy chump.  I would not even use it.  Although it would probably make a great addition to a Secret Santa gift later this month.  I got a few more hours to go before they run out, but I don’t think I’ll do it.  The best deal of the week is their Roasted chicken.  It’s on sale for $4.99 and with the purchase of one, you get three 2L bottles of Pepsi products for free.  This morning I had purchased a lot of heavy items.  I was smart enough to bring a backpack though and it was friggin heavy.  I got home and I was kicking off my shoes when the weight of the backpack knocked me off balance and I came crashing down on my cardboard end table.  I wonder what it sounded like to my neighbours downstairs.  It probably sounded exactly like it was, like a 200+ lb man falling on the floor with his 40 lbs of groceries; or like someone dropping dead in the apartment above.  See, I am a big clutz!

Well, my sleeping pattern has been tottally whacky the past few days.  I don’t really blame jet lag, but maybe I generally feel fine when I’m awake.  I didn’t sleep a wink Friday night and I stayed awake all night.  It wasn’t til about 4pm on Saturday when I finally passed out on the couh.  I didn’t get up til 11pm.  Not surprisingly, I didn’t sleep again last night.  I watched several films and I started out my day quite early.  I hit Safeway at 8am and I was in crazy chore mode.  I’ve accomplished a lot this morning.  Along with the early trip to Safeway, I also did 3 loads of laundry (including the shower curtain), I vacuumed the apartment, I took out the garbage, I dismantled and recycled several boxes I had been collecting, and I even cleaned my toilet.  All before noon!  All I know is that I need to stay awake all day today in order to sleep later tonight.  Otherwise I’ll be a walking zombie at work on Monday.  Enough gabbing from me.  I’ll have another update before I come home in 3 weeks.  Peace!