Overly friendly vendors.. I Iike it.

I went to a variety/wine store to buy deodorant and shampoo. (I have been using mini hotel shampoos for the last month or so, and recently, I was using a mini deodorant stick that ran out after 2 days.)

After perusing the isle for a moment, I made my final selection of Old Spice High Endurance Deodorant (Aqua Blue) and Suave Waterfall Mist Shampoo. I picked the Old Spice because that is what I always use, and I like to stick with what works. I picked the Suave because it was cheap, and to be honest, I really don't care about my hair enough to spend over $1.99 on hair care (except perms).

When I went to the counter, the attendant declared that he too used the deodorant I had selected, and furthermore, he believed that it was clearly the best available on the open market.

To this I responded: "I look forward to using it".

This was followed by a few seconds of uneasy silence.

Then he gave me my change and that was the end of the transaction.

A couple other things of note that keep me entertained: The punk rocker fellow I work with from time to time, and whom is starting a vitamin business with no legitimate fundamentals, has the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song as his ring tone. Unfortunately, Verizon has disabled Dylan's phone's ability to make outgoing phone calls because he had a $1000 bill a few months back (when he was dating a girl from Vancouver, Canada), and he doesn't want to pay. Luckily, he can still receive calls, and thusly rock out with the Heros in a Half Shell.

Make me a carrier pigeon so I can fly far far away.. and loiter around some crazy pigeon lady

Happy Belated Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Wouldn't it suck to be a Turkey??? Other than the obvious awkwardness of the enlarged piece skin hanging from your neck, you spend the your life eating corn, waking people up, which in turn, pisses people off, and all you get to show for it at the end of the day is your head completely severed from your body on a silver platter while people pay homage to some nerdy Europeans who ran their boat aground on Plymouth Rock.

A thankless job to be sure.

On an unrelated not, assuming teradactyl is not a choice, if I could be any type of bird, I would be a flying squirrel.

I know what you're thinking... teradactyl's are extinct. But my choice is obvious. As a flying squirrel, I have a built in cape. All I have to do spread my arms and it looks like I am super man or Robin. Additionally, I am generally accepted by both varmint and low flying birds, two very important players in the Animal Kingdom.

Anyway, again, I hope you all had wonderful thanksgivings and ate the hell out some unsuspecting turkey.

There is no chance he won't be a millionaire

In between working on the Matadortravel website (more like volunteering, as paychecks are highly non-existent) and getting my life sorted in the Bay Area, I have been working part time for the Christmas Light Pros (a company started up by my New Zealander buddy) to make money. It's pretty much what it sounds like; we set up christmas lights at peoples' houses and because we are acutely trained professionals*, they pay us an absurd amount of money to do it. I have also been looking for other jobs (commercial real estate, sales, etc), but I have found it really difficult to commit to something with the website's funded future possibly months away.

More importantly, the Christmas Light Pros business acumen and overall presentation is pretty good, I have to admit. At times it has been offset by one member of the CLP crew that dyed his hair punk rocker red, wears knee high leather boots, patched pants, a leather jacket and a top hat.

Our lives run pretty parallel to each other... He is involved with a couple of startups, and we both work to put food on the table. His start ups are: a dark Christian rock band and some herbal pill pyramid scheme he just got involved with.

It is slightly humorous to hear him speak about his new herbal pill venture. Most notably, after taking the pills, he reportedly felt "woosy, trippy and out of wack", which is alarming as the pills are meant to be a dietary supplement. Nonetheless, he has gone forward with his businessish plan. When he speaks about it, it doesn't appear that he actually know what the company does and all he says is that he has to sign people up (just like how he got signed up) and after he signs 35 people, he will get a BMW, take a carnival cruise and make $12,500 per month.

He later added that after one month of work, he would take his $12,500, sell his BMW and cruise vacation, and quit the job to travel.. I think he has it figured out. As long as he stays off the 'woosy' pills, there is no way he can fail.

*haha

10 cents on the dollar

Have you ever gone to a bar with a $100 bill in your pocket and mistaken it for a 10, and you accidentally use the big bill and the bartender (who is clearly an asshole) sneakily treats your $100 bill like a 10, and you get $3 change when ordering one Jack and Coke? NO? just me.. awesome.

The best $97 mixed drink of my life.

I am pissed.

Oh yea, and the engine light in my car just went on.. Those are normally cheap to fix..

It's a narcissistic dogs life..

My major duty as a guest of Jim's house is to walk Walker the dog. Other things I obviously like to do in my spare time: rub rubber, fold folding chairs, wash washers, fire firemen, etc.

Anyway, Walker kinda owns me. If I am around during the day (which I try not to be because I am out looking for jobs or at least activities to generate money), he comes to the edge of the stairs above my room (I live in the basement) and whimpers in a high pitch until I go play with him. When I resist, he sits on the ground directly above my room and pounds his hind legs on the floor boards. I then take him for a walk and typically step in Dog shit. One other thing of note, when I throw him a tennis ball, he will sprint like a bat out of hell to get the ball. Then he'll wander around for a bit and drop the ball behind a bush or in some other extremely inconvenient area and expect me to get it. I wasn't aware the the pastime of "fetch" was purposed for the human.

Sometimes I find myself talking to the dog (which probably means I should really put this job search deal in full throttle). Today, we were at the door ready to go for a walk, but I realized I needed to my keys, so first I said "Hold on a sec.." Obviously realizing Walker couldn't understand me, I quickly tried to fix my error by saying "Un momento.." As if he would understand Spanish, but not English..

Anyway, Walker has a hot spot. (possibly from banging on the floorboards...) I feel bad and hope he gets well soon.

The Odd Couple

I have been in the Bay Area for 3 weeks. Since the second day of my arrival, I have been living in a basement level apartment of a family friends' friend's house (Jim's House). This may sound depressing, but in actuality, it's not that bad, and becomes only slightly depressing when I step in dog shit and track it into the house. (twice thus far).

The price is certainly right at my current accommodations, as my monthly rental price is: Walk Jim's dog, change the paper in the barometric pressure reader and change a ceiling light bulb when summonsed to do so. All and all, it is a pretty good gig.

Jim is a great fellow, who has been a Lawyer for 40 years, and is a great activist in the community, heading up the California education board, and the committee in the fight for gun control. Sadly, Jim's wife was inflicted with an early case of Alzheimer's, and is now in a full time care facility, so Jim has the house to himself.

Jim has been a great host, and I think he likes having me around. Partially to have company, but mostly so his dog doesn't shit on the carpet. About once a week, we'll have dinner together, which is nice. He lights the candles, breaks out a bottle of red wine and tells me how good I have it as a 25 year old (he typically forgets how vastly underemployed I am, and that I step is dog crap on a bi-daily basis). He loves talking about the weather (hence the barometric pressure apparatus), particularly the weather up at his fly fishing ranch in the mountains, which is situated on 600 acres of land in the middle of nowhere. He says I can use it in the spring. I don't think he realizes that I am the type of person who will DEFINITELY take him up on his offer.

Also, Jim is an avid tennis player. He has slowed considerably over the years, but can still hit the ball with power and accuracy, when the ball is hit right at him. This was a conundrum I had to consider when we played a set the other day.
I had one of two options:

1) play normally, trying to hit the ball away from the opposing player (in this case, Jim), and thusly, looking like a overly competitive ass-hole 25 year old, who is running a very friendly 65 year old around the court.

or 2) hit it right at him and keep the play going..

I chose the later. The problem though, was that he can really nail the ball when I hit it at him, and he would place the ball from corner to corner making me run around, and he would mix in drop shots to get me into net, and then once I was at net, he would lob the ball to the backcourt and make me scamper back to the ball, where I would normally try to hit the Andre Agassi- between the leg shot, and either a) hit the ball directly into the net, or b) crush my knee cap with my racket.

It was an enjoyable round of tennis, and I came out victorious (6-4), but I definitely felt like the 25 year old ass-hole on a few of my passing shots. We're playing tomorrow apparently. I am obviously carbo-loading tonight..

Keith

Dear Keith,

Yo dude, come back to California. Remember me?? we drove cross country together, learned the alphabet backwards together, were underwhelmed by Mt. Rushmore together, were mesmerized/euthanized by WallDrug's advertising campaign together.

Dylan say's he could probably get you on the waiting list for the next available room at his co-op. Rent's only $350, and you get to listen to all the free music you want, as most of the co-op residents are struggling musicians. I've been wondering if they have co-ops for struggling vagabonds/writers/former all-star little leaguers who have lost their way/bowline tying contest champions who have lost their way.. I can probably find that out on Craigslist.

I've got a PT job working as a professional christmas light hanger. Not really what i thought I would be doing with a $130,000 economics degree from a relatively elite liberal arts college in Connecticut, but the hours are good, i get free water, free granola bars, plus, I get to learn more about the music industry. All I can say is: Living the dream. Living the dream. Even get reimbursed on gas mileage. living the dream. This is my "dare to be great" scenario.

Also, remember when you had you're hand in that cast?? I bet that sucked.

Hope all is average, to below average in DC, and you're getting in your non-existent car and driving west. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it. (See: Stuart Poole, Dan Mazmanian, several other equally awesome people).

zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba. (my new signature)

ps. I just had dinner with dinosaur boy. he reminded me of the brutality during the carboniferous period, and that i am an idiot for not knowing how fast a brachiosaurus can run on land. he'll be beat up regularly once he reaches middle school. I feel as though I am living in a movie.

The San Francisco beatdown

I have been in the Bay Area for about 2.5 weeks, and the beginning of my arrival to San Francisco provided me a good old fashion ass kicking. I actually got beat up by an inanimate City. In the first three days, I had my car broken into, computer stolen, went to check out an sublet/apartment (traveling 50 minutes to get there) only to call the guy while arriving to the door step and having him say "Oh yea, I thought I called you, we rented it to someone else", then I went to Sonoma Valley to go wine tasting and at the first vineyard I got some stomach bug and was nauseous/vomiting the rest of the time while my friends bounced around joyfully and intoxicated from vineyard to vineyard, while I laid in the back seat of the car.

But, as most people have have told me, "Wow. That's a shitty introduction to the city.. Well, things can only get better from here". I guess they're right. And things have slowly gotten better over the last few weeks, as I have mixed in job interviews/meetings, going out as a #2 pencil, going out and dancing/grinding with a competitive fervor, college alumni events, eating burritos, a Cal/UCLA football game, getting a new computer, figuring out how the hell a MAC works, walking the dog of the person's house I am staying at in Berkeley (I am currently in a student apartment of a family friend's house), looking for sublets in the city, working for my friends to make money, working for matadortravel.com to make no money, trying to figure out why the mechanical gas flap on my car won't open (which has basically rendered my car useless b/c I can't fill it up and I only have a quarter tank left), realizing that I am living in a state with the star of "Kindergarten Cop", "Twins", and "Junior" as Governor..

Which brings me back to the question I made in my third blog posting ever:

If the Governor of California threw Verne Troyer (mini-me), would the "i don't trust him as far as i can throw him" cliche still apply?

7 days, 4,000 miles, at least 15 stops at Subway, $500 in gas- what does it get you... your car window smashed and your computer stolen. I LOVE CA!

I should have known I was in for a bad 24 hours after eating breakfast at Burger King/Taco Bell.

On our way to San Francisco from Reno, we stopped at Lake Tahoe for a moment to see a lake, log homes and a ton of Volvos.

3 hours later, we were in the heart of San Francisco looking at the row houses heavily featured in the "Full House" introduction. We obviously knocked on one of the front doors to see if Kimmy Gibbler was home.. but apparently she was out buying DJ a nutter butter.

That evening, Keith and I went to Ocean Beach to meet up with some friends and to celebrate one of our friend's birthday. I was a little on edge leaving my car unattended while it had 99% of my belongings in it, but my nerves eventually calmed down, and we went to dinner at a nice restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. My calm and collectedness with regards to my car could be evidenced by the fact that I only left dinner once to check on my car and move it to a more well-lit parking area. freak.

After dinner, we had a nice bonfire on the beach, enjoyed (depending on who you were) some amateur music, drank some domestic brews and talked about how foggy it was. At the end of the evening, I found my car and all its contents were still there, and we drove to a friends house in an upscale neighborhood of San Francisco, where I figured my car would be safe..

If you read the headline, you may be able to piece together what transpired next.. The bitch of the matter was that it didn't get broken into until 10AM or so, AFTER I had gone out to the car to put my bag in it, and while I was inside for about 15 minutes, saying goodbye.

This definitely put a damper on my arrival to the Bay Area, and a dent in my wallet as I had to replace both my car window and my computer.

If there is a silver lining in all of this, it is that my I now have a MAC iBook and a whole bunch of people who feel bad for me, so they have offered to help me get settled in any way they can.

That, and now I don't leave anything visible in my car. Not even "The Odyssey" cassette tape (unabridged version).

Nevada and South Dakota: First Team All-America: Men's and Women's Misery

Jackson Hole was cool. And like all great guests, we ate a ton of French Onion Soup and then took off early in the morning to tackle the 11 hour drive to Reno, NV ahead of us.

This "getting a jump on the day" was quickly thwarted 10 minutes outside Jackson Hole by a snowy mountain pass, where only cars with "Snow Tires" were admitted. We stealthily snuck by the Snow Tire Checker Police (who didn't exist), and Keith, Myself, my shitbox of a car and my all-weather radials efforted ourselves up the mountain at break-nail speeds. When we reached the top, we realized my car was morbidly overstuffed/obese with all of my belongings and getting it to slow down on ice and a severe downslope on the backside of the mountain was like getting a middle school girlfriend to throw her inhibitions to the wayside. Slow going it was, and after driving down the mountain in 2nd gear, we retreated to lower elevations and smoother, less icy roads... for the next 10 hours.

Nevada was dreadful. boring. deserted. depressing. brown. (insert any other b or d word here and you catch my drift). To combat the boredom, we popped in the unabridged book on take edition of "The Odyssey".

Sitting in the shotgun position, I fell asleep within two minutes. Keith, sitting in and performing the driver position, kept his eyes open for a good 5 minutes before opening all the windows, changing to some bogus Nevada radio station and blasting the music full tilt.. obviously waking me up in the process. Throughout the course of our drive, we attempted the Odyssey on several more occasions. In each event, I would zone out/fall asleep/want to jump out of the moving car so not to have to listen to it/etc and Keith would endure for between 5-20 minutes before nearly nodding off or succumbing to the pure misery of the unabridged dialogue of the reading.

And still, before each time putting it back in, I would excitedly ask Keith to give me a 20 second synopsis of what I missed, convinced that I would pay attention this time around. I was wrong every time.

We made it to Reno, which, consistent with all things Nevada, can be summed up in one D-word.. Depressing.

Until... you win $200 like Keith did at the Blackjack table, then it becomes depressingly entertaining. I won $25, which I can't complain about, seeing as though my typical casino output involves me losing 7/8 of my money in the first 10 minutes and then bleeding the remaining 1/8 over the course of the next 30 minutes while in a bastardly foul mood.

We knew when to walk away, and thusly retreated to our hotel room at "The Celebrity Hotel and Resort" which, I would wager my entire life savings on, has never had a celebrity step foot on the premises.

The next morning, we left "the Celebrity H & R" in search of a breakfast place. After 30 minutes of search, I settled on Burger King and Keith settled on Taco Bell, as the two adjoining restaurants were all we could find in that hell hole of a city.

What do a towel, #2 pencil and Orange Mocha Frappuccino having in common??

Just another typical night out on the town.

Commercialized Jackson Hole in the Wall

Yellowstone to Jackson Hole:

After the torture bath, Keith and I continued winding our way through Yellowstone National Park. On our jaunt, we saw buffalo roaming (a sight that Keith was very happy to see), Old Faithful spew water in an upward direction, a snow storm at the top of a high mountain pass, and beautiful landscapes all around us.

However, we were exceptionally pissed off that we didn't see any bears mauling a buffalo. I guess there is always next year.

We exited the park and continued on our way to Jackson Hole, where we were to stay with my friends, Sam and Mareike. We arrived a little on the early side and had some time to kill, so we went to the nearest bar we could find for a beer.

Something I always find entertaining is when you overhear one sentence of a conversation, and in any context the sentence is funny.

For example, on my walk to work in Boston I always passed a veteran homeless shelter, and typically the veterans would hangout outside smoking cigarettes, talking and generally being crude. This one day, while walking around the corner, I heard only a snippet of a conversation, but it was enough to make me laugh out loud. I see this homeless man looking a fellow homeless straight in the eyes, and all I hear is: "...And that is why I am never getting married.."

At the bar in Jackson Hole, Keith and I were reminiscing about college, and as the waitress was passing by, Keith asked, "Was that the night you woke up on the stairwell?" Obviously, the waitress stopped, laughed and said "I heard that." Keith followed it up quickly by adding "it was the stairwell to heaven."

Anyway, the waitress was definitely flirting with us, as evidenced by the "watch out for those stairwells" comment when we were leaving. Little did she know, I have some pretty bad stairwell memories from childhood. Particularly from when my brother and sister would put me in a laundry basket and push me down the stairs, telling me I was "an explorer".

Jackson Hole to Reno, Nevada.