I want to wake up in a city, that doesn't sleep

My recent trip to New York was a blast and totally unplanned. Dana called me up on Saturday and asked, "I know this is totally last minute, but do you want to go to New York on Monday?" I checked my calendar, talked to my boss and next thing you know, the two of us are sitting on a plane headed towards the Big Apple.

The flight out was pretty interesting, or at least nervously entertaining. When Dana and I boarded the plane, we couldn't help but notice one of the passengers carried all of his belongings on board with him, sans suitcase. He brought at least 10-12 hangers worth of clothing, all unprotected, and was holding it at his seat. Just before we pushed back from the gate, he decided to bunch everything up and shove it all into one of the overhead bins. The woman next to me and I shook our heads and shared a 'what the hell is wrong with this guy?' moment.

Throughout the rest of the flight, this individual would get up every 20-30 minutes and head to the back of the plane. Every other trip or so, he would check on his belongings, sometimes pulling them out and putting them back. About the fourth or fifth time through, he pulled everything out and brought it with him to the back of the plane. He returned shortly after with everything in a trash bag and proceeded to jam it back into the overhead compartment.

I don't know what kind of drugs he was doing in the bathroom, but his behavior became increasing strange and laced with paranoia. It also started to catch the attention of a lot of people on the flight. The flight attendants started to become more and more irritated with his antics as well and seemed to be having words with him every few minutes. By the time we arrived at JFK, I noticed that the flight attendants had distributed and recollected a couple witness forms to people sitting within the man's vicinity. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this guy was going to have a lousy evening when he got off the plane. Sure enough, when Dana and I deboarded, he was being detained by a half dozen police officers.

We arrived at Dave's place in the early evening, got settled in and then went out to walk around and get a bite to eat. Our first meal was at a place called Spice in Greenwich Village. It was a fusion Thai restaurant with a very modern décor and reasonably priced food. After dinner, we went to grab a quick drink at a nearby bar called the Coffee Shop. Note to self: next visit to New York will include Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights when a lot of people are out and about. After whetting our whistles, it was time for another round of food, so we went to a little desert place. When we sat down, we noticed a couple of Asian girls at the table next to us. During dessert, Dave overheard part of their conversation and determined that they were Korean. Well, it just so happens that Dave had already educated Dana on how to say "hello, beautiful girl" in Korean (Phonetically, it's 'ahn-yong-ha-say-yo ipon-yuh-jah' for those planning on using it to their own advantage), which would have lent itself to the perfect intro line. Dana was unwilling to showoff his language skills, however, so the responsibility of international relations was thrust in my direction. Over the next 10 minutes or so, my language coaches worked with me to help memorize my line and get the pronunciation correct. Finally, it was time to deliver the line. Dave interrupted the girls from their indulgence and told them that his friend had something to tell them. Enter me and my newfound ability to speak Korean. I deliver the line, a little slow and rough, but I get it out. Total silence ensues. Everybody is looking at me like I just escaped from the asylum. Dave senses trouble and dives in to salvage the situation as Dana sits back, savoring the moment. I, on the other hand, decide that I need to deliver the line again and proceed to do so, this time altering my pronunciation slightly. I guess I got close enough to what I was trying to say because the girl sitting closest to me suddenly smiled and thanked me for my compliment. I breathed a sigh of relief. Dave kept working on the girl that was sitting closest to him and Dana and I traded off talking to her friend. The conversation was marginal at best. I felt like I answered the same two questions about five times. By the end, we were just trying to buy Dave time to work his magic. The interaction ended shortly after as he got their phone numbers and we paid our bill and got the heck out of dodge.

After dessert, we decided to walk around the city a bit and headed over to Times Square. We continued to check out the sights and just enjoying the constant activity of the city. On the way back to Dave's place, it was time for another meal so we stopped off at Gray's Papaya for the "recession special" (a couple of dogs and a fruity beverage).

Tuesday morning, Dana and I slept in until around noon. We got up and went out in search of some true New York pizza. Dave took us to a place that was a few blocks away from his place. The pizza was good, almost as good as the pies at Bronx Pizzeria. After lunch, Dave went to class and Dana and I trekked out on our own. Once we had a grasp on New York's transit system, there was no stopping us! We tried to get off around Wall St., but we were seemingly unable to find the correct subway stop; instead, we started our day with the World Trade Center site. Standing in front of the huge crevasse, a square city block in size, was truly sobering. There were quite a few other people there paying their respects. Sadly, there were also a couple of vendors trying to cash in as well. One man even had the audacity to place his table under a sign proclaiming that there was to be no selling of goods within 50 feet of the site.

After leaving the memorial, Dana and I spent the rest of the day doing some shopping. Let me just say that there is no sense of style or fashion what-so-ever in San Diego other than "beach." Everybody in New York looks so much better than the people out here. Many believe that New Yorkers are so much more attractive than everybody else, but I think it's just that they take the time and energy to make themselves more presentable. At any rate, Dana and I were most successful in our shopping endeavors and managed to return to Dave's place with arms heavily laden with clothing.

That night we met up with a couple of Dave's law school friends as well as Tricia and we all went out for dinner at Joe's Shanghai restaurant in China Town. The specialty of the house was soup dumplings, so we loaded up on a ton of those. There is a very precise way to eat said dumplings, as Dave's friends tend to reject those who cannot follow suit. After dinner, Tricia had to take off but the rest of us went to grab a beer at a bar across town. Again, next time I hope that my visit includes one or all of the following nights: Thursday, Friday, and/or Saturday. The places we went to had really neat atmospheres, but they tended to be on the less-occupied side. Regardless, after visiting a couple we were feeling pretty good. On the way to one of the bars, we passed by a tattoo parlor. Dave used this as an opportunity to call Dana out, claiming that they had made a deal, whereby Dana would get a tattoo if Dave was willing to pay for it. Dana assured him that if he was still willing to cover the costs, then he would get inked right then and there. For the sake of a good story, and to make the trip a little more memorable, I decided that I would help with the cost of the tattoo and put up $60. Dave and his friend, Steve were willing to cash in on the entertainment value of the situation and each put up $20 as well. Suddenly, the night got a lot more interesting. I'm not sure Dana was quite ready for all this to be thrust on him, but he took it all in stride and we entered the tattoo parlor to pick out something for him.

Dave's conscience soon intervened and he called the deal off for fear that Dana's ego was getting the best of him. It also happened that someone sat down in the chair at that moment which bought Dana some more time. We decided to leave the parlor for the time being and go grab a quick bite across the street. While we were eating, Dave and Dana continued to go back and forth arguing about who had really welched on their bet. By the time we were done eating, Dana was ready to silence Dave once and for all. Five minutes later, we were looking at tattoos again and Dana had decided on one that he liked. The tattoo artist finished up with his current customer and came out to talk to us. The moment of truth was upon us.

Without flinching, Dana told the guy which tattoo he wanted and they began to talk prices. It turns out that tattoos aren't such a bargain in New York. For the rather small, simple design that Dana had picked out, it would have cost us over $300! Needless to say, Dana is still tattoo-less. However, since the deal still stands, we can expect to see Dana get inked this winter in Pacific Beach (where pricing is a little more reasonable) when Dave comes out to visit.

Well, after the tattoo adventure, the rest of the night was pretty tame. We hit a couple more bars on the way home, but everywhere was pretty dead.

The next morning, Dana and I slept in again until Dave was out of class. We subway'd over to his school to check the place out and then grab some lunch. For lunch, Dave took us to a place that had the most amazing falafel the world has ever seen (according to Dave). I didn't end up getting the falafel, so I can't comment on whether or not it lived up to it's claim (perhaps Dana can comment).

Dave had to study for the afternoon, so Dana and I were on our own again. We went over to the Guggenheim to check out some art. The museum was featuring an exhibit on Kandinsky as well as works ranging from Picasso to Pollock. I always feel like I don't remember anything from the art history classes I've taken, but I was actually able to identify most of the artists that were featured in the museum.

When we'd made our way through the museum, we left to go in search of Tom's Restaurant. For those of you unfamiliar with Tom's Restaurant, you may recognize the outside as the diner featured in Seinfeld. It was quite a trek to get over to the place, which included crossing Central Park and walking another 20-30 blocks. But, we finally made it. We sat down for a bit and had a slice of pie before heading back towards Union Square. It was there that we met up with Dave and Arvind.

The four of us had dinner at a little tapas restaurant in the area. After dinner, we went back to Dave's for a bit and took a shot of absinthe before heading out again. I didn't feel anything from the shot and was thusly disappointed. However, at the first bar we went to, I noticed that the first beer hit me pretty hard. Arvind confirmed that he had experienced the same thing. I found that for the remainder of the night, the drinks were having a much more pronounced effect on me than usual.

The next morning (or, more appropriately, 3 hours after we got home), Dana and I got up and caught a cab to the airport and thus ended our very brief, but very enjoyable, stay in the Big Apple.

Up next: The San Franciso Chronicles...

On the go

Just got back from NYC yesterday and I'm off to San Francisco this afternoon, so I haven't had time to finish any updates. I will be back on Sunday, so look for something early next week.

Here's to another weekend!

This past week was pretty mellow which is what the doctor ordered. Wednesday night, I had a hockey game at 11:00PM! I swear, that took the wind out of my sails for the rest of the week. The game was a lot of fun, though. I joined a different team this season than I had played on in the past to mix things up a bit. This new team consists mainly of guys that I had played with in a couple of the hockey tournaments. On Wednesday night, we played against my old team. I know it's in poor taste to say this, but it was nice to be on the winning team for once. It was bittersweet not being able to play with my old teammates, but at the same time, playing with these new guys inspired me to raise my game a level. I ended up playing well and had a fairly pretty goal to boot.

Thursday morning, I took a couple hours off work to get new tires put on my car. I should have just taken the whole day off. It took me over two hours for them to install two tires and not rotate the other two like I'd asked them to.

Last night, I met up briefly with Christine and her friends for happy hour over at Cozymel's, where I also ran into a couple people from the Rock Bottom Happy Hour group. After grabbing a drink, Eric, Michael and I went out for sushi at Sushi Ota. The sushi was better than the last time I was there, so I think I could be coerced into returning again. It was good to see Michael out of his house for the first time in six months. In fact, I think we're all planning on going out to dinner again next week to celebrate.

I've been reading a lot lately, which seems to be a much more productive way to spend my time than watching TV. The last two books I finished were Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time and Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia. I've ordered a few more books to read, but I'm still waiting for them to come in. I don't know what it is, but lately I feel as though I half brain-dead. I think my mind isn't being stimulated/exercised nearly enough these days. I need to start looking for other ways to get the gears turning again.

This weekend filled up pretty quickly. Tonight, I'm heading downtown for the annual San Diego Beer Festival. I've never been, so I'm really looking forward to it. Tomorrow morning, I'm getting together with my uncle for breakfast up in the Del Mar area. It will be nice to hang out with him for a bit, since the last time we had breakfast together was for my birthday during my freshman year of college.

After breakfast, Vay is coming by and I'm going to help him install new springs on his car. By the time we finish up with that, it should be time for my hockey game. After the game, the team is taking our goalie out for some beers to celebrate his return from the Middle East. He's supposed to come back today, but we'll have to wait and see. I can't wait to hear some of the stories that he has to tell. It will be very interesting to have a first-hand account of what things were like over there.

Sunday should be pretty quiet as well. I think the only thing I have on my calendar thus far is a hockey game in the evening. I'll probably use the majority of the day to catch up on things around the house as well as sleep.

Travis goes to a lesbian bar

Last week was pretty tame. I went out with Al on Tuesday night for dinner and a movie. On Wednesday, we had a company softball game in the afternoon, which was a lot of fun. Our team played pretty well and we ended up tying the game with plans for a rematch in the near future. After the game, most of us headed over to Rock Bottom for a couple beers and to relive the glory of the game.

On Thursday, I found myself again at Rock Bottom hanging out with Al and the usual Rock Bottom Happy Hour crowd. I could only stay a couple hours, because I had to go back to work later that night to do some work on our servers.

Friday night, Kevin and I went to get some sushi down in Pacific Beach at Kabuki sushi (it's the place with the sushi boats that travel around a moat). After dinner, I had to go back to work again to finish up a couple of things I forgot to do the night before. On my way home, I stopped by Blockbuster and picked up Tao of Steve. It was a pretty interesting flick that examined the philosophies of dating.

Saturday, I met up with my parents for lunch in Escondido and then we did some preliminary car shopping (my mother is looking to replace her car). Following that, I had a hockey game over in Mira Mesa. It was a good game, although our bench was a little short-staffed. Since I've only been playing one day a week, my fitness levels are definitely lower than they've been in a while. Fortunately, I'm going to start playing over at UTC again, so that should help that as well as my game. Unfortunately, the game times aren't that great (this week's game is Wednesday at 10:45 PM).

After the game, I rushed home to shower and then drove down to Hillcrest to meet a bunch of friends from work for dinner. We ate at a little Thai place and I managed to devour everything on the table (I hadn't eaten anything since my game and I was famished). Dinner was only a prelude to the rest of the night, however, as we walked straight over to The Flame when we'd finished eating. The Flame is a lesbian bar. It was a lot of fun, actually. Everybody there was nice and I didn't seem to be catching all of the negative looks that I had planned on receiving. It also seemed to be a slightly older crowd than I was expecting. Truth be told, I haven't seen that many woman who look like men in one place before. But, on the flip side, there were some very attractive women there as well. I'd be lying if I said that seeing some of them make out and dance together wasn't a turn-on. I also must admit that is was a very weird feeling to be in a place with that many women and know that none of them found me the least bit attractive. Nobody else in our group seemed to want to stay out very late, so we ended up calling in a night fairly early. In fact, I think I was home by midnight.

Sunday was another fairly relaxing day. Kevin spent most of the day installing tile in the house while I ran errands and read. In the afternoon, my boss dropped his car by so that I could install a turbo timer for him. Working on his car was about 100 times easier than working on mine and I was done in about 45 minutes (the same job on my car took me the better part of a day). After he picked up his car, I BBQ'd myself up some dinner, watched a little TV and went to bed.

Let that be a lesson to us all

Ah, good ol' AOL; why do you have to suck so much? I was on AOL Instant Messenger yesterday and noticed an old friend of mine sign on. I started us off on a PG topic, and it went quickly downhill from there. Before long, we were talking about things that would make a porn star blush, although most of it was simply for shock value.

Some time passed and I was getting ready to leave the office for the day, when all of a sudden I received a call from my friend who'd I been talking to earlier.
"Whatever you do, don't instant message me!"
"What are you talking about?"
"There's some sort of bug in AIM that has allowed me to be logged into two computers at the same time. When the secretaries in my dad's office turned on the computer this morning, it automatically logged in my screenname. They, along with my father, saw everything that you wrote to me today."
"Oh, shit." My heart dropped to somewhere between my feet and the floor. I quickly opened up the message window to see just what I had written that afternoon. As my eyes scrolled through the many very colorful exchanges, I realized that I would have to live the rest of my life without running into my friend's father ever again. I was able to take the slightest bit of comfort in knowing that I wasn't the only one who fell victim to this. I guess my friend was also having a very racy conversation with a female friend of his that put some of our discussion to shame. From now on, I should stick to topics that are safe for an everyday audience.
"My dad wants to know just what, exactly, it is that you do at work?"

Weekend Update

Last week was pretty quiet around these parts. No late night episodes or hung over mornings to speak of. Friday, however, was a different story. I got a call from Chris in the afternoon saying that he was thinking about coming down for the night. Todd also happened to be in town and hanging out downtown and happened to have a room at the Weston in Horton Plaza. Add into the mix that Street Scene was in full swing and, well, there wasn't a viable reason why we shouldn't have been partying down there that night.

Knowing that parking was going to be an absolute nightmare, Chris and I decided that we would park at Bill's (who, along with Renon and a couple other guys, was also going down to meet Todd) and then cab in from there. We got a bit of a late start on the night and didn't arrive at Bill's until about 10:30. Renon and some of his friends were running even later than we were and didn't show up until 11:15 or so. The only plus side to this was that we were able to do quite a bit of drinking before leaving the house.

We tried to go to the Onyx Room, but the place was packed and even though I knew the bouncer, he couldn't let us in because they were at capacity and he was being watched by 3 managers and a video camera. We left there and walked back over to the Yardhouse. The scene was pretty good there, but the place was, by no means, packed. After hanging out for about 30 minutes, Todd went downstairs to the club to check it out. He came back and reported that there was a much better crowd down there. Chris, Todd and I ended up going into the club while the other guys hung out upstairs. There were quite a few people on the dance floor, so we spent the rest of the night dancing and people watching.

When the bar closed, we all went back to Bill's place to hang out for a little bit. Dana was around, so I talked to him for a bit while everyone else smoked outside. Chris and I left there around 3:00 in the morning. On the way home, he wanted to grab a bite to eat, so we stopped off at Roberto's. I think we finally got back to my place around 4:00.

The next day, Chris and I had breakfast at Le Peep and then he took off for home. I ran errands for the majority of the day, and then Al, his friend Katrin, and I went down to the beach for a little bit in the afternoon. In the evening, Al and I went over to the Butcher Shop for an end of season dinner put on by our bowling league. Mark and Shira were there, as well as all the other guys that we hang out with on Monday nights. The meal was nothing to write home about, but we made the most of the situation.

I opted to spend the rest of the night at home and watched Bowling for Columbine. It was a really good movie and quite entertaining. Although, I can't say I'd recommend watching it on a date.

Sunday, I forced myself to sleep in to try to catch up on sleep. In the afternoon, I went to the outlet stores in Carlsbad with Al to see if we could find some good deals. I didn't find too much, but I did end up picking up a couple shirts and a sweater.

In the evening, I had a hockey game over in Mira Mesa in which we completely dominated. I had a goal and a couple more good chances. After the game, I was pretty wiped out so I just went home, made some dinner and went to bed.

I think I could really get used to these four day work weeks

Well, I guess summer's officially over. Three days off for the Labor Day weekend wasn't enough for me, so I took Friday off as well. Knowing this, I set no boundaries for myself on Thursday night. After work on Thursday, I headed down to Rock Bottom with a few friends from work and attempted to max out my Mug Club card. About an hour after we got there, the rest of the official Rock Bottom Happy Hour club showed up and we all had a few more drinks. Kevin came out for a beer or two and was nice enough to hold my keys for the night. As the group started to lose steam and direction, I went into pep talk mode and convinced everyone that we needed to stay out for the rest of the night and suggested that we all head downtown. An hour later, we all met up again at Red Circle, downtown. Unfortunately, the place was completely dead. And, when I say completely dead, I mean we were the only people in the place. So much for that grandiose plan. Another round there and then it was time to face the music and call it a night. We all stopped at In N Out on the way home for a late night bite.

Friday was a pretty relaxing day for me. I puttered about the house for most of the morning and then hit the gym. After my workout, I drove down to Bill's place to meet him for a round of golf. We played the 9-hole course at Balboa since I was a little short on time. I managed to put up respectable numbers considering how little golf I've played in the last few months. After the game, Bill and I grabbed some food at El Indio and I pretty much called it a night.

Saturday, I didn't do too much during the day, except that it was Michael's birthday, so Eric and I went over to his place to hang out for a couple hours. As soon as his back gets better, we'll throw him a proper celebration. After hanging out there, I went home and waited for Alexis to show up. She was supposed to get in around 7:30 and then Al, Al's friend, Katrin, Alexis and I were going to head downtown to meet her boyfriend, Jannik and about 12 of my other friends at the Yardhouse for dinner and drinks. The place may be an amazing stop for beer, but I think the food doesn't quite set the same standard. Not that it wasn't good, but it was all pretty overpriced fare. Anyway, back to the beer; there are 150 beers on tap, so there is no shortage of tasty beverages to imbibe. I decided to stick with a hefeweizen theme and just started going down the menu alphabetically. Some were clearly better than others, but they all seemed to be getting better as the night went on. That is, with one clear exception. Never order whatever hefeweizen comes 2nd alphabetically on the menu. The aftertaste tastes exactly like hotdogs. And, to ensure that I wasn't insane, the other 3-4 opinions I solicited all agreed completely. The rest of the night continued with plenty of beer, friends and good times. I'm not sure what time we left the bar, but it must have been fairly late because I wasn't in bed before 2:00.

On Sunday, I got up and met up with Lucas to play a round of golf at a course in Oceanside. I played ok, but particularly noteworthy. After golf, I went home to find the dining room completely torn apart. Kevin spent his weekend ripping up all of the carpet in our dining room and den in preparation for laying down hardwood floors in the near future. However, in the mean time, all of our floor space downstairs is cement; very industrial looking, indeed. Al came over in the evening and the two of us went out for a bite and then did some shopping at Fashion Valley. I was able to find replacements for my worn out running shoes, but that was about it.

I was too tired to go out Sunday night, even with Al's invitation to attend a Brazilian house music party at a lesbian bar. So, I countered with my own window into lesbian culture and watched Chasing Amy from my couch.

Monday was a day of reckoning for the mess in my office, and I was able to get nearly everything cleaned up. When I was finished with that, I went down to Hillcrest to meet up with Dana for dinner. The two of us went to Phil's BBQ again; this may be becoming a habit. After dinner, I hung out with he and Bill at their place for a little bit before calling it a night.