General

In the grand scheme of things, I’m not really that old. I mean, with current life expectancy in the US at 78.4 years, I’m technically not even middle age. But damn, thirty just sounds old, doesn’t it? Since my 20’s provided many wonderful memories, as well as increased tolerances for alcohol and reduced need for sleep, I decided to send them off right with a night at The Edison. Arriving at the bar/lounge at 9pm turned out to be the best thing I did all night, as guests who began arriving at the insanely late hour of 9:30 were subjected to a long wait in line. As my level of intoxication grew, my confidence in my negotiation skills grew, and I went upstairs to talk the doorman into letting some of my friends in. I mean, it was my birthday, right? I soon found that I didn’t have the pull drunk Stanley thought he had, and I went back downstairs with strict instructions from our waiter to allow him to do his job, and to funnel all future requests through Matee, who was kind enough to take over logistical coordination for the remaining late arriving guests. In the end, we all had a great time, everyone (well almost everyone) was able to make it out of the insane line, and nobody (mainly me) ended their evening by worshipping the porcelain gods (if you’ve been to my last two birthday parties, you’ll know this is an accomplishment). I suspect at the ripe old age of thirty, I’m literally too old for that shit, so I’ve become better at holding my liquor and pacing myself, although Ron and Matee tested my theory by purchasing Absinthe and Tequila shots. I sipped on the Absinthe and downed the shots, but the pizza I had for dinner did not come back to visit me. Success!

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In any case, thanks to everyone who came out and celebrated with me, especially those of you who suffered in line for close to an hour. That’s dedication. And thanks to everyone (all ~45 of you) who left me a birthday message on Facebook. Here’s to 30 more!

In 1997, when Tiger Woods won The Masters with a record score of 18 under par and a 12 stroke margin, he not only became the youngest Masters winner and the first African American to win The Masters, he changed the game of golf forever. After the Masters win and subsequent major wins later, the phrase “Tiger Proof” came into fashion. With a driver that could easily reach 300 yards, golf courses were too short for Tiger’s power, as his tee shots were putting him ahead of the competition. Golf courses across the country were lengthened to harness his power and even the field. It was like the NBA changing the distance of the 3-point line from the college distance. He was that good. The game needed to change. Advancements in golf club technology allowed other golfers to reach the 300 threshold, bringing Tiger back to the pack, but the changes were done. Most golf courses were at record lengths, in direct response to Tiger Woods.

When Tiger crashed his car into a tree outside his house in November 2009, and the subsequent parade of bimbos tarnished his reputation and nearly ended his marriage, he had changed the game again. Only this time, it wasn’t golf, but the groupie game.

Groupies have been around since the dawn of the road trip. Businessmen, musicians and athletes have always been tempted by the call of an attractive female in a town they were only visiting for the night. No strings attached. Women used to throw their panties on stage at the feet of rock stars, hoping to be able to score an invitation backstage or onto the tour bus. Touring musicians were notorious for having a woman on the road and a woman at home. Wilt Chamberlain claimed to have been with 20,000 women, and nobody really questioned that number. It was something that everyone knew, but nobody talked about. Some wives even tolerated it, just as long as the other woman stayed on the road.

In the past, all groupies were looking for was a chance to be with that rock star or athlete they’ve had a crush on, brag about it to their friends, maybe get a couple bills paid for or taken on a shopping spree. They knew they were the ‘other woman’ and they didn’t question that standing. They got what they wanted out of the deal, and so did the man. ESPN’s Player X blog has a good angle on this, and even estimates that close to 60% of NBA players are unfaithful on the road.

That all changed when Tiger hit the course. After Gloria Allred paraded out a seemingly endless number of home wreckers who were clearly in it for the fame, it changed the game. Tiger was a billionaire, if they just wanted the money, all they would have to had done is ask. He would have happily paid for their silence. Now, not only was the other woman looking for sounds and 13’s put on her Cavalier, she was looking to be on TV. She was looking to be rich and famous. Doing interviews by day and selling text messages and voice mails by night. Our reality culture encourages such behavior, making ‘celebrities’ out of ordinary people who have some angle that puts them in the spotlight. Look at Dancing with the Stars, they’ve had ‘stars’ who were nothing more than contestants on reality dating shows. Now, they’re ‘stars’.

For further evidence, you can look at Jesse James. Apparently, he didn’t get the memo when Tiger took one for the team, and kept his affairs alive. Now, he’s in the same predicament as Tiger was, woman after woman coming out of the woodwork to claim that they’ve been with Jesse. While he’s not as big of a celebrity as Tiger is, he’s married to an Oscar winner, Sandra Bullock, which makes his story just as interesting for the paparazzi, as they have another new couple to track down now that Tiger and his wife have seemingly made up.

Jesse also kept alive another game changer that Tiger introduced. Claiming that he’s addicted to sex, and is entering rehab. I don’t know what will happen in his case, but if Tiger and Jesse have taught cheating businessmen/musicians/actors/athletes anything, it’s to keep your road ho’s to a minimum, and if you’re addicted, at least watch How to Be a Player.

For me, the answer has been: Go to Bob Hope Airport, catch a Southwest flight north. Sit for an hour and voilà, you’re in San Jose. I’ve also repeated that same trip twice in the last week. Due to a customer demo in the Silicon Valley, I was asked twice to travel north for a day. Once to help set up the equipment, and once to tear it down and ship it back. Even though the flight is only an hour, doing two flights in a day is rough. Though, the benefit of flying someone for a day is that you don’t have to pack any luggage aside from your carry on, and you don’t need to conform to the absurd 3oz liquid restrictions.

On my first trip, I had developed what I had thought were my allergies acting up due to the rapid weather changes Los Angeles had experienced in the previous week. I soon discovered that 30,000 feet is a shitty place to discover you need a Kleenex. After waiting what seemed like forever for the flight attendant to bring me a rough ass napkin to blow my nose with, I then discovered the second shitty part about air travel with clogged sinuses: landing. The entire decent was painful as my ears were unable to pop due to all the crap clogging my sinuses. It wasn’t until we hit the ground that my ears finally popped, providing sweet relief.

The work was a bitch, setting up a crapload of equipment in a loud lab while the guy assigned to keep an eye on us did just that. And nothing more. Well, he played with his BlackBerry for 3 straight hours while we busted our ass, but that was about it. Thankfully, we were still able to finish in a reasonable amount of time, so I was able to have dinner with Marc and Daisy before catching my flight home. While waiting for Daisy to get off work, BeeJay came by Marc’s house and we watched a bit of his wedding video before firing up the PS3. I remember Street Fighter vividly from my youth as it was the most popular arcade game when I was in high school, and I was amazed at what 1080p has done to the classic. It looks amazing. If I had more time on my hands and a worthy competitor, I’d pick it up. After a bumpy ride home, during which all hell broke loose at home, me and my runny nose had finally made it home.

Fast forward two weeks, and I was asked to once again make the trek north to break down the equipment I had set up two weeks previously. It’s always amazing how much quickly breaking down equipment is compared to setting it up. My coworker and I had a natural rhythm going as we packed up 100 parts and shooed away a slow working coworker who had good intentions, but would have fucked up our flow. Being done in what seemed like no time, I was able to catch an early flight home in plenty of time to go for a bike ride before having dinner and getting back to studying for a midterm I had last weekend.

I noticed a few things during my travels. After two flights in two weeks, I had become very efficient at getting through security. By the second trip, I felt like George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, as I swiftly took off my shoes, unpacked my laptop, shoved the entire thing through the X-Ray machine, and then methodically packed it all up on the other side. Secondly, I don’t know if it’s a change in Southwest policy, or if I got lucky, but the flight attendants were quite funny during their preflight spiel. Two of the funniest things I heard were “Make sure your seatbelts are securely fastened, we’re about to go really fast.” and “Please sit back and enjoy the flight, or sit up and be tense. Either way, we’ve already got your money.” Whatever the case, it definitely made the flight a bit more enjoyable.

Yeah, I’m still around. Yeah, I know I haven’t posted regularly in what seems forever. And yeah, I know I keep using the school excuse. But it all reality, it was really a legitimate excused this time. Well, at least most of the time. I had about one week off between Q6 and Q7 a few weeks ago, and it was the first week where I completely and totally had nothing school related to be thinking about. Let me tell you, it was awesome. Makes me even more excited for August 1, 2010, aka – the morning I get my life back.

In other news, I completed the Pasadena Marathon Bike Tour last weekend. A few months ago, I gave myself this goal as a way to motivate myself to get into better shape. While round is a shape, I was getting sick of being “big man” when in pickup basketball games and decided that since my weight was closer to 300 lbs than it was 200 lbs and it gets harder to lose weight the older you get, I should do something about it. Again, school makes this difficult since I don’t have free time to spend hours in the gym. So I went with an exercise that I thought would be both effective and enjoyable: cycling. I had tried this method in the past, and it lasted for a few weeks before I gave it up, so I signed up for the marathon to give myself a goal to work toward. Combined with a handy iPhone app which allowed me to track calories, I finally found something that worked for me. Seeing the number on the scale get smaller every week was further reinforcement and motivation.

The marathon morning was unsurprisingly, raining. Not surprising because it was a Sunday in late February. Thankfully, the rain tapered off just as the race was getting underway, so we started under cloudy skies. Unfortunately, an evening of rain causes wet roads and ultimately causes water off my front tire to smack me in the face. Since I had experienced this before, I didn’t let it bother me too much. Matty J was also doing the race with me, so as we set off in the middle of the pack, he was pushing the tempo to keep me going. Aside from getting cursed and nearly killed when I spotted Liz and Cory at the first turn, the first half of the ride was uneventful. Then the hills came. Two straight miles of an incline. I had figured out how to change gears for hills a few months into my training, but two miles is quite a distance to be going uphill. About halfway through, I commented to Matt that I thought we were done with the hilly section. He informed me that there was more around the corner. Some evil jokester thought it would be funny to tease me with a block of flatland before continuing the punishment. After conquering the main hill, we encountered another master creation of the jokester with another hill at Mile 22, where I discovered a newfound respect for Lance Armstrong and anyone who bikes up the Swiss Alps for hundreds of miles on end. A sudden downpour at Mile 24 taught me that biking in the rain sucks ass, but it cleared right before the end so we were able to cruise across the finish line under the same cloudy skies we started with.

All in all, it was a fun experience. I finished in a personal best 1 hour 48 minutes, and I think I could have done even better if there hadn’t been as many hills. Although I finished the 26.2 miles on the saddle, I can see where people get a marathon high. I’ve already started looking for other rides to complete.

I was happy to discover that Nike is planning on continuing the Kobe and LeBron MVP Puppets campaign from last year’s NBA Playoffs.

For most of America, the Thanksgiving holiday is a 4 day weekend where people trade the stresses of the workplace for the stresses of Thanksgiving dinner and shopping malls. For me, it was not only a break from work, but a much needed break from school. Normally, we’re given a week off between 10-week quarters, but due to a scheduling quirk, we received no such break, and up until two days ago, had class for 11 straight weeks. While that might not sound that bad do you, consider that I’m in class all day Saturday and have missed out on various birthday parties and baby showers while studying finance and marketing. School is essentially a 6th day of work, and overtime for the other 5. What did I have to be thankful for this year? That I only have 9 months of school left.

The weekend started off with dinner in Studio City with Kristin and her neighbor, who may or may not have had a few screws loose, and a couple glasses of sangria. Thursday morning, I was off to Palmdale to spend the day with the family. After watching the traditional football game, I helped my dad knock out a clogged kitchen sink. Thankfully, after plunging, Liquid Plumbering (twice), taking the pipes apart, and snaking, the drain opened and water was flowing. Crisis adverted. Washing all those dishes would have been a bitch in the bathroom sink. Friday afternoon’s destination was the ‘hood, Inglewood that is, for betting the horses at Hollywood Park, which was coincidentally also the home of my high school prom. After breaking even, and rejecting Mikey’s absurd request to throw his birthday party at my house, I still prefer Santa Anita, where there aren’t 747’s flying over the track. At least one thing hasn’t changed about the race track: there are still an eclectic group of people hoping to strike it rich on a trifecta.

After leaving the track without blowing my paycheck, I headed south to Hermosa Beach for some Cajun food and spent the evening at a couple bars on the pier, which were very quiet. I think the combination of the holiday weekend and the wind kept most of the drunks at home. Though the one highlight was clowning on some Rico Suave with a half unzipped shirt trying to pick up on girls at the bar. My one free Saturday in 3 months was spent in Rancho Cucamonga, helping Matee and Kelly paint their new townhouse. It took us the better part of 8 hours, but along with Mike, we were able to finish the entire downstairs, two coats and all. Sunday was spent catching up on the homework I had been putting off all weekend and waiting for Jeanine to return from her weekend in Sacramento. Sadly, I’m back at work Monday, and wishing I was back painting Matee and Kelly’s townhouse. You could say I have a case of the Monday’s, which I believe are magnified when coming off a holiday break.

Sorry I don’t have anything more interesting, like I said the last 11 weeks of school have been a bitch, and this weekend was the only time I was really able to get out and see the world. It was amazing seeing all the yard sales and what-not going on. I had forgotten what normal people do on a Saturday morning. 27 more Saturdays…27 more…

I figured I should probably get around to posting about my trip to Oregon that I took almost two months ago. One of the downsides to grad school is that it pretty much consumes your life, and doesn’t leave much time for a social life. I find most of my social interactions have been through Facebook since I don’t have alot of free time for much other than work and homework. That being said, when Jeanine asked if I would drive up to Oregon with her to visit her family in Reedsport, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get away for awhile. At least from work, I still had to bring homework with me.

Since the drive from LA to Reedsport is about 14 hours, we decided that it would be best to plan a layover in Sacramento to break up the drive. After getting off work, packing the car and strapping my bike to the trunk, we were on our way at about 8pm on Friday and rolled into Sacramento a little after 2am. I spent most of the drive sleeping, but the highlights of the trip were stopping at In-N-Out in Merced at 11:30 to a packed crowd from the local football game (Ah, how I miss those days). I realized that playing high school football in Merced must suck ass when it came to road games. If I thought a trip to Rosamond was bad, I can’t imagine what those kids go through every Friday night. The second highlight involved me tweeting (yes, I Twitter, see sidebar) about going to Sacramento, and being promptly followed by the Sacramento Bee. Unfollow please.

After a layover in the State Capital and breakfast, we were on our way to Reedsport, which is located on the Oregon Coast along the Umpqua River. After a good 4 hours of driving after leaving Sacramento, I made the observation that California is a big fucking state. It had been about 17 years since I’ve transversed the northern regions of California and it seems like a longer ride when you’re 29 than when you’re 12. Upon entering Oregon, the obvious difference is how green it is. Trees everywhere. I think I saw more green over the course of the week than a pothead at a Bob Marley Festival. The second, and less obvious, is that the roads are so much better. Oregon Department of Transportation is kicking the shit out of CalTrans. These roads were smoother than a baby’s bottom. Also, as Jeanine’s dad explained, it is illegal in Oregon to “coast” in the left lane. It is for passing only. If only this were the law in California, but then again, Californians would be too selfish to follow the law and would probably coast along 10 mph under the speed limit in the fast lane while talking on their cell phones…wait, that already happens. Another driving thing I noticed is that Oregonians take their speed limits seriously. If the speed limit goes from 60 to 25 for a school zone, motherfuckers slow down to 25 mph, and speed back up when the sign says they can go 60 again. Amazing, and quite irritating for a California driver used to flying through school zones. Kids? What kids? Shouldn’t they be in the classroom?

Eventually, we made it to Reedsport, which is a pretty small town. It’s not as small as Drain, OR, but they only have about 3 stop lights. Jeanine’s aunt and uncle live right along the river, and the view from their backyard was beautiful. Clear skies, clean air, peace and quiet. During the week we were in town, I don’t think I heard a single barking dog, and only saw 1 black person, which was mildly disconcerting. I like to see at least a few of my people are comfortable living where I’m visiting. That being said, I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all while I was there, and everyone was very nice. It was definitely a slower way of living, with the exception of running from tsunamis or going to church in the nude. People not in a rush, they make small talk with you while you’re getting gas or coffee, or even stop you in the supermarket to comment on your jewelry. Refreshing to see compared to the me-first mentality of Los Angeles.

Since I was in the general vicinity of Portland, I decided to take a couple days during the trip to get up and visit Ron. Figured since he’s been living there for about 2 years, I should at least visit him once. It was about 3 1/2 hours to Portland, so I bunkered down, set the nav, and was on my way. If there’s one thing I love about driving, it’s driving on a windy road, which is the only way from Reedsport to I-5. Fun times. The only worrisome part was a tunnel that was just wide enough for two cars with a sign to look out for cyclists. It would take some steel cojones to ride through that tunnel. After driving through the town where I should be mayor, I arrived in Portland, where Ron immediately informed me that the night would begin with Whiskey tasting at a downtown bar. So much for pacing it. Before we got to that, Ron gave me a driving tour of the town, which is very interesting in that it is a mixture of old and new. There was a building ordinance put into place that limits new development, so you have some very new and modern buildings as well as some very old buildings. One thing I took away from Oregon is that people firmly believe if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Does the sign outside from 1956 still work? Fuck it, leave it alone. Who cares if it’s 2009. After the tour and a stop at legendary Powell’s books, which is a 4 story, single city block bookstore with a really cool rare book room, and a stop at Ron’s favorite bar, Clyde Common, we were on to the Whiskey tasting. Now, I had just recently cracked open the bottle of Crown Royal Sam had brought over at Christmas, so I was thinking I could hang. Wrong. Straight Whiskey (at least the ones they had) tasted like straight hot ass. At least Ron was in agreement. From there, we were off to another favorite of his, Beaker and Flask, which has an assortment of custom cocktails and where Ron took a ‘rum flight’ consisting of rums from Brazil, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, of which all but one tasted like straight gasoline. I’ll have my rum mixed with Coke, please. While we caught up, I had an interesting observation of the laissez-faire attitude on gentleman’s clubs in Portland when Ron asked the waitress where she liked going, and she had her own opinion on which club was best on which night. Odd.

Just when we thought were in for the night, at 10:30 nonetheless, Ron got a call from some bartender friends who were headed out to Chinatown. Off we went. One of his friends was in desperate need of both coffee and karaoke, and after a Vietnamese iced coffee that brought her back from the dead, we were off to a bar that had karaoke on the menu. At 12am. On a Tuesday. Surprisingly, the place was jumping, and was instantly stunned when Ron’s friend got on the mic. Girl could sing. She needs a record deal, not a Chinese karaoke bar in Portland singing Norah Jones. I decided that since I was never seeing any of these people again, that I would throw out my sense of embarrassment and did a forgettable rendition of Bust A Move (apologies to Young MC) before we called it a night. It was 1:30am and Ron’s friends were still going strong. Damn bartenders.

Once back in Reedsport, Jeanine’s uncle took us down to the sand dunes, which cover about 50 miles of the coast and were covered with ATVs. He showed us around a bit and I got some night shots of a multicolored lighthouse that was on a Coast Guard base. A few more days of relaxation, and we were headed back South. After another 14 hour drive (I’ve noticed the feeling in my ass goes out at around the 3 hour mark) and a layover in Sacramento, we were back home. Being in the valley and being on the Oregon Coast are like night and day. Too bad it takes a day to get there.