Uneventful snow in the NE...

Well, I ended last week in Portland, ME. I finished up the seminar there, flew home, did laundry, packed up, hung out for a bit, and flew back out early Sunday. Oh look a burrito ====================>

Yea, thats the kind of dribble I like to type to waste your time.

Once my flight took off in Seattle, I soon found myself in Rochester, NY where it was pretty cold out. I got my rental car, drove to my hotel (turned out to be a POS establishment that had upgraded a little with some stuck-o and fake gold leaf on some railing) and crashed for the night. I woke up to find it snowing a bit, and Matisyahus tour bus outside my hotel. I never caught a glimpse of the guy, but it was still cool to see that. After that seminar, I drove to Albany, NY where we were in a Hampton Inn. I got upgraded to a suite with a HUGE flat screen, a massive bathroom, and a granite step in the shower I could sit on. I was spoiled. I worked out and afterwards must have sat on that step in the shower and let the water hit me for like an hour. God I am so awesome. I picked up this burrito (pictured above) from a hole-in-the-wall place down an alley called, Burrito Joes. It was awesome. Cheap, fast, and tasty. After a smooth seminar, it snowed that night as we drove to our next destination, Burlington, VT and made the roads tricky, but we made it fine. I love Burlington. It has a beautiful downtown with great restaurants, shopping, and my personal favorite place, Lake Champlain Chocolates. This place, along with the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, has the best chocolates in the nation. I met up with another PM, Emily, and we had dinner, got some chocolate from Lake Champlain, and got a few drinks. Burlington is really a city everyone should try. Its great. It snowed alot during the seminar the next day, so i took a vote from participants, and they wanted to end early to get back to their houses and families. I collected money, ordered pizza for them, and we ended the seminar early. The next city was Manchester, NH. The drive there, was a bitch. It was 150 miles, around 70 miles less than the 2 previous destinations, but took almost an hour and a half longer. The snow and wind were making it impossible to drive the speed limit. It turned out to be a 4 hour car drive for what should have been only 2 1/2 hours. The seminar there went great. I was fed a whole shitload of food from the conference center kitchen, which never happens, and we packed up, left, and here I am back in Portland, ME where I will be spending the weekend. I look forward to having a lobster roll, going to the flagship store for L.L. Bean, going to Di Millos Seafood, and exploring another portion of the northeast for a couple days. Hope all is well with whoever reads this, and hopefully my blog will be more exciting next time. Maybe I'll make something up. Deuces from Portland, ME homies....

Long Island,NY.... hated it, Hartford, CT...it was aight and Warwick, RI....pretty rad

Well, I am in Warwick, RI which is about 11 miles south of Providence. It is a small town with beautiful coastlines and bays. I really have come to like Rhode Island. Downtown Providence is really amazing, and every small town on the outskirts, Seekonk and Warwick, have been fairly nice. Last night my speaker and I went to a restaurant about 3 miles from our Hilton Garden Inn called The Crows Nest. I had researched restaurants in the area the day before so i could have the traditional Rhode Island "stuffie". (I'm sure there is a joke here, but i got nothing) I had one last time I was Rhode Island and loved it. Supposedly a lot of bars serve it as late night food, and its amazing. The take a quahog shell and stuff it with chopped up seafood and bread. They then deep fry it, and it comes out so damn good. Honestly, its one of the better dishes I have discovered around the country. While searching for a restaurant around our hotel that served stuffies, I stumbled upon The Crows Nest. It's located on the edge of a harbor and serves amazing food. I started with a stuffie, and then had half a lobster roll with a cup of the chowder soup. This meal was amazing. The best part about it was that I didn't have to pay a cent. My speaker picked up the check because he told me that "I had his back the whole week." To which I responded,"Did I pass the initiation to get into your gang??" Honestly though, nice guy and killer meal.

On Tuesday I was in Long Island, NY in the Ronkonkoma Holiday Inn. I have been there before and everyone said that the people from Long Island are dickheads and bitches. I hadn't experience that negative attitude until this visit. What a bunch of pricks. Long Island is a bitch. It has horrible traffic, horrible people, and no places to eat. I only look forward to the hotel concierge food and drink Holiday Inn provides for free. If I were sitting outside that seminar that day and my speaker came out to get me, and all of a sudden smoke started to appear, and the door caught on fire while my presenter and I were outside the room, I would have glanced over for a few seconds and gone back to my paperwork. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh, but the people were unnecessarily rude and ungrateful. Oh well, Long Island got a "Shit Stamp" of approval from me.

The next day we were in Hartford, CT and everything went great. The Crowne Plaza there had a GREAT workout facility with televisions everywhere and any machine you would need for a full workout. The only awkward part about it was when I was working out and nobody was in there, and I was watching the movie "The Wrestler" with Mickey Rourke. Well, I am watching it in a public place and hadn't seen it before. As I am running, a man walks in and starts running on the treadmill next to me. As soon as he does this, it switches over to a stripper scene in the movie and I'm thinking,"Oh shit this is gonna get awkward." Well Marisa Torme ends up to be topless (which is awesome btw!!!) but i am watching this stripper scene with a complete stranger. Our workout room had just turn into what felt like an actual strip club. It had the feel of watching pornography with a complete stranger. As this happens though, the guy goes,"Hmmmm. Never seen this movie." To which I respond,"I haven't either. Want to change it?" He goes,"Hell no! I love Marisa Torme!!! To see her topless is gold, but for the sake of any kids walking in here, keep the remote close." This guy was like mid-50s and apparently emitting the attitudes I want to at that age. Eventually, some women walked in and we changed to basketball or something. That was one of the funnier situations I have had in a workout room.

Alright peeps, I gotta go but will maybe update tomorrow. Got a long flight home to Seattle and don't arrive till around 1130 or 12. Its gonna be like an 8 to 9 hour travel day which sucks, but the good news is that I put in for an upgrade. It would be awesome if I got it. Well deuces from Warwick, RI friends and frienemies.....

Fishkill, NY and food

I am in Fishkill, NY and tired as hell. After spending more than 4 days in one place, I acclimated to being on one time zone. I didn't fall asleep last night till 3 o'clock, seriously. Well, I had a good break and was in Philadelphia last week, and it was pretty standard. I didn't have a chance to hit up Jim's to get a cheesesteak, and have come to the conclusion that going anywhere else doesn't match up. I am trying to eat reasonably healthy being out on the road. My usual diet usually consists of tons of greens or fruit. Usually for lunch I might get a salad from Panera Bread or Ruby Tuesdays. Dude, Ruby Tuesdays salad bar is never-ending. Its sorta like the movie the Never-ending Story, but in salad version. Imagine Atreyu as a carrot. (I realize that is incredibly dumb, but what do you expect?) Subway is a staple as well. Six inch wheat bread with turkey or ham with pepperjack cheese, lettuce, green peppers, salt and pepper, red wine vinegar, brown spicy mustard, and garden salsa sun chips. After describing that, I am hungry. Some of the hotels BER puts me up in have free bananas and apples at the front desk too, so I usually steal one or two of them for mid day snackaroonies. Sometimes, that's all I have for lunch. It saves money and is fairly light. Unless I know of some awesome place to eat like Jim's or Dinosaur BBQ. I figure unless the food is damn good, why put up the money. I made the mistake of recently going to an expensive thai place in the Philadelphia airport. It was a recommendation I shouldn't have taken. It was sub-par, oily, and put a stain on my pants.... no, I didn't crap my shorts, although that would have been funny.... to other people... well not the person sitting next to me on the five and half hour flight home to Seattle....whatever. Well, I wasn't expecting to give you a blog on my road diet but that's apparently what I just gave you. Above are pictured some of my favorite meals around the country. Buffalo wings from the original Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY, In n Out Burger in California, Oyster Shot from Acme House in New Orleans, Crawfish Etouffee from Baton Rouge, and the other picture is for your enjoyment.

My computer is back, and so am I...

Well my computer crapped out on me in Oklahoma City. Mac Store fixed it for free (900 dollar fix) and I am back on the blog. Ill keep it short Omer.... I mean Jason, so I don't waste any of Boeings... I mean McDonnell Douglas's time. Yeaya...

So Oklahoma City, OK was fun (except that computer shit) and I got some good BBQ and saw Where The Wild Things Are. That movie didnt deserve the hype. It was somewhat good, but not monumental good like some people were making it seem. After that, went to Minneapolis, stayed in a killer new Embassy Suites. It was built like 2 months before I got there. Had a first class seat on the airplane home and loved every minute of it, except not getting a portable dvd player. Yea I know! WTF?!?! (I hate that acronym) Yea, I got first class for free and Im complaining. Feel free to kick me in the ass next time ya see me for being a stuck up POS. (I like that acronym)

The next week, I was in Grand Rapids and it was nice as always. Met up with a friend and had dinner at a small bistro. An awesome dinner that included a delicious salad with prosciutto and chicken. The next day we flew to Hot-lanta and stayed in a ghetto Holiday Inn. Usually, chillin at the Holiday Inn is nice, but this time it was not so nice. We left the next day, and went to Mobile, Al. This hotel was a straight up shithole. I could have pissed in the corner of the lobby with people there, and nobody would have looked twice. "Oh, thats normal." "Funny college asshole. Hey, how does my mullet look?" After that, we scurried over to Baton Rouge where we stayed in an Comfort Suites and we went to a place that had AWESOME crawfish etouffee (sp??). I saved half of it for lunch the next day and it was spicy and delicious. Baton Rouge was an alright city. REALLY southern. It also had a massive industrial district that kinda visually over shadowed the fact that the downtown is actually decent. After that, we jumped on a plane and made our way to Memphis. Well, actually itwas West Memphis, which is in Arkansas. Now, I have been to some shitty places, but this place took the cake. The hotel was full of truckers, the rooms smelled like moldy smoke, the restaurant (the only eatery in 5 miles, no joke.....even the front desk guy was like "yea.... theres no where to eat.") had like 5 things on the menu, and so on. Just shiteous. It was pathetic. So I put on the seminar and was unable to see the REAL Memphis cuz we were 20 miles from it and it would have cost a shitload to pay for a taxi to go into town. Next time, rental car fo sho. After that I flew home, got in late, and did laundry, got up, got my computer fixed, had beers and pizza with the roomies. Im in Cherry Hill, NJ right now with another PM and meet up tonight with a couple others to have dinner. For those of you that read this between now and tomorrow, I thought I had a flight that got in super late from Philly, but as it turns out I get in around 9. Not bad. Well I will see ya some time soon. Maybe a new blog post tomorrow. Deuces from Cherry Hill, NJ brahs....

Dont piss of southerners....

I was in Nashville, TN yesterday and began the morning pretty relaxed. A few people strolled into my seminar, around 7 or 8 and I signed them in and everything was going great. Then the shit-storm arrived. I was expecting 86 people for this seminar but ended up with 104. This room was already at max capacity and I had nowhere to put these people. I literally had to put chairs behind the speaker and around the trash cans and squeeze people in any way I can. As people are signing in, there are others who haven't paid and even more people who just aren't registered but have paid. On top of that I have people coming out of the room telling me there are no more seats, people leaving because of the lack of space and a speaker who looks like she wants to rip my head off because she has to use the hotels sound system which requires she carries around a hand held microphone all day. God I love BER. They send me out into the ditches so that I can have over 100 people creating a tornado around me while I look like I don't know what the fuck Im doing. Oh man, these southerners were pissed. WHERES MY BOOK!? I WAS TOLD THAT I WAS SIGNED UP!! WHOS IN CHARGE HERE?! I am redneck. After telling the fat southern men and women to go into a diabetic coma and shut the fuck up, and after fixing the sound system that the hotel had NO IDEA how to fix, things finally got underway. After my week of having two speakers and yesterdays shit-show, I am honestly not cheery over my decision to do this job again. After the seminar ended and everyone gave shitty seminar scores to us, I left. I got in a cab. Went to Nashville airport. Was stopped at security for a half hour because I had 9 volt batteries in my case. Fuck them. Crashed in the Delta Lounge. Boarded the plane. Flew to Dallas. Arrived in DFW. Got to a La Quinta by taxi service. I hate La Quinta. Its 945 by the time I get in my room. I wanted to workout. FUUUUUUUCCCCKKKK. Whatev.

I reported the problem, and of course the company acts like I didn't troubleshoot the situation well enough. Doing this of course while sitting back in Seattle in an office,

behind their little desks with their clothes in THEIR drawers, and THEIR showers to get into, and THEIR beds to sleep in at night and see THEIR friends and not babysit not only one, but TWO people at times. I swear to god, whose requests can sometimes be short of wiping their asses. Anyways... this is what I signed a contract for and should have understood when I did another year right? Not really. I guess I didnt imagine that I would be this bitter this soon with all thes changes that occured. Oooooookay. Breathe in buddy. Whining done.

I fly to Oklahoma City tonight, and hope to see the Oklahoma City Bombing memorial. Heard its pretty powerful. Maybe Ill get some good BBQ there too. Well deuces from Dallas, TX yall.

A fuckin massive eclair....oh and Arizona, Michigan, Washington, Texas, Ohio.....

Well someone has brought it to my attention that although some of my posts can be a bit entertaining, he wishes they would be shorter so as not to waste his companies time. Soooooo this will be my last 'long' post. I will try my best to make them more frequent and a little shorter. If you have a problem with this take it up with the man who told me. Lets call him..... Homer......no wait.....Gomer....how about Jason. Yea Jason Burstein. Anyways..... I am currently in Nashville Tennessee in a Hilton Garden Inn flipping channels back and forth from The Man in the Iron Mask to Hitch. I love Hilton Garden Inns. mostly because when you check in, they have warm cookies waiting for you at the front desk that i mow through. Its awesome. Soo, when I last posted I was in St. Louis whining about the ghost piano above my meeting room. After that seminar, I flew to Phoenix right after that and had an amazing cab driver who used to be a New York Police detective. Every other word out of his mouth was either 'rat-bastard', shithead, pussyface, or motherfucker. He was hilarious and had the thickest New York accent I have ever heard. We had a quick seminar and drove to the airport where I arrived in Seattle around 8 on Thursday night. This next segment I will call a "shitstorm" of traveling down to San Antonio to see the WSU game and spend a night on the riverwalk for Halloween. After flying home from Phoenix, I had dinner with Steve, and repacked my luggage. After a pointless day in the office, a coworker and I headed to the airport, but en route got a call from our company saying we wont make it to San Antonio till the next day around 2 or 3. We said fuck that. Get us as close to San Antonio as ya can and we will drive the rest. So we flew into Houston, and drive to San Antonio, arriving at 130 in the morning. By this time, everybody was drunk and Hillary and I were tired as hell. We woke up in the morning went to the football game (miserable) and later that night went to the riverwalk to party it up. It was great. I really enjoyed the riverwalk. I could have stayed a couple more days down there and felt like it was worth my time. After a total of 30 hours in San Antonio, I bounced to Singh-Singh-nasty, Ohio. (Cincinnati)...yea, Im an idiot.

In Cincinnati, I began a week of having 2 speakers for a week. Its a new deal that BER is doing so they can save money. Both my speakers were great. Super nice and fun to talk to and easy to get along with. It makes the process 10X easier if they are like that. I have been to Cincinnati before, and like every other time, it was uneventful. I thought maybe this time I would show up and maybe Singh-Singh-Nasty didnt suck ass. Oh well. Anyways, from there we made our way to Columbus, Oh where we went to a Man vs Food restaurant called Schmidts Sausage House. It was good. They had MASSIVE eclairs and I got one. (pictured above)

****Quick Side Note: I dont remember the ending to The Man in the Iron Mask being so shitty. My opinion of this movie has changed completely. What a bum out.

.....So this Schmidts place had awesome German food. Great sausages and killer potatoes. After Columbus, Oh, We went to Toledo, Oh. Now, I have been to some pretty depressed towns around America, but this place was pretty bad. It was a big town, but NOBODY was there. All these high rise building, absolutely vacant. It was ridiculous. Kirsten Varg, a BER coworker and friend was in town and we decided to walk out into "town" to get lunch. We didnt walk far before somebody was smoking weed in a bus stop and we got nagged for change. It seems the town was inhabited..... by homeless people. I was wrong. This town had been hit by the failing auto industry. Its only 30 miles from Detroit. Alright alright, enough depression talk. After depression town, we headed to Grand Rapids, MI which I love. Its an awesome city and BER always puts me up in a nice hotel. There is also a restaurant called The Pita House that has the best gyros and kabobs outside of Santorinis in Kirkland. There is a picture of it above. Grand Rapids has an amazing downtown with a river running through it, and clean streets. I have blogged about how much I like this place, but will go ahead and gush some more. After Grand Rapids, we made our way to Detroit and stayed in a remodeled Raddison. It was nice.

After the seminar in Detroit, I made my way to the airport to catch a flight to Washington DC where I would meet up with My friend Omer/Jason and Eric Bleeker. I flew into Baltimore around 730 and we were staying in the Intercontinental right downtown. We had some food at Chicago restaurant Uno, and had some beers. We went out in an area called Power plant that was filled with ho and d-bags and proceeded to p-tay down. We woke up in the morning feeling feeling and looking like bags of shit and drove down to Washington DC. We hung out at Erics place for a bit but then made our way into the city to see some sights. We passed by the Arlington National Cemetery, went to the National cathedral, and drove through a street where most of the embassies were. The different tastes and stylings these embassies had were interesting. Some of them were just townhomes, but others were like mansions and victorian estates. We later went out to an area called Adams Morgan, which I guess is typically know for being the place where everyone only comes out of the bars to puke there brains out and then go back in to have another brew. There are also a couple pizza restaurants around that area, that compete to have the biggest pizza slices. There are some picture of how big they are. Not only were these pizza slices stupid big, but they were good. Well after a second night of redonk a donkey punch antics, we woke up and went to a place called Old Emmets for brunch. It was delicious. Great food, great atmosphere, and HUGE restaurant. After that I boarded a plane and have headed here to Nashville, TN. The next few days will be easy and I look forward to it. I will be blogging shorter entries and more frequently hopefully, and will keep ya updated on everything, Well Im tired people and need to go to bed. Hope all of you are livin the dream. Deuces from Nashville homies....

Hey!! It must be the money!! Right Nelly?!

Hello. I am currently in St. Louis in the Crown Plaza Clayton outside the seminar room listening to a piano upstairs play the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera over and over again. The only problem is that the person playing it isnt a person at all. Its a ghost. The keys play themselves. Some of the songs sound good, but seriously some of the songs sound like crap, with missed key hits and all types of ridiculousness. Okay, I know its not a ghost, but somebody needs to fix the computer program running that thing. Its missing notes and sounds worse than a homeless man farting into a tuba. (Why a homeless man you might ask? I dont know... Lets move on) Maybe it could be like in the movies where there is like a mid..... sorry, dwarf in a small cabinet behind it playing a small piano, with string attached to the keys so people think its a "magic" piano...... sorta like how they did R2D2 in Star Wars. Man, someone needs to give that dwarf some piano lessons. Whatever. Anyways, I love this hotel. They have a concierge room with free dinner and free breaky-brek (term a la the skeeziest skeez of the seven seas.... Stephen Kamnetz) and they wait on me hand and foot. It also has an awesome workout room. Huge flat screen with tons of weights and machines. Its great.

Okay so I will continue from the last blog update. After flying out of San Jose, Costa Rica, I flew into Austin, TX to see my friends Ashley Walker and Amie Geister. I flew into Austin airport where they greeted me with a shot of Jack Daniels from the bar. I liked that welcome. I grabbed my smelly backpack full of sandy shirts, smelly shoes and shit-filled underwear ....wait what? No, but honestly my clothes were filthy and rank. Good thing I thought ahead and put a box full of clothes in the mail to send to Ashley so I had some fresh ones when I arrived. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, "Man Matt you are fucking intelligent!" Yeah I know, but unfortunately it was Terry's idea. So Amie and Ashley have T-Dawg to thank for my presentable appearance in Austin. What a mommas boy. So we grabbed my stuff and headed straight to Austin City Limits where we enjoyed man cans of Lone Star, Tecate, and Bud Light for several hours while listening to Citizen Cope, a lil bit of Mos Def, a lil bit of Bon Iver, and the headliner, Dave Matthews Band. We did this six to seven hour activity while it was DUMPING rain the whole time. Check out the pictures on facebook, Amie and Ashley wore flip flops. It looks like watered down monkey mess on their feet. It wasnt till a couple days later that a story on the news revealed it might have been more like watered down human mess.....true story, but for another time. Anyways, we woke up the next morning and Amie and I took a tour of the State capital of Texas and got to see Sixth St. up-close and personal while watching the Seahawk game. Sixth street is comparable to Bourbon St. in New Orleans with bar after bar after bar for several blocks. Its pretty cool. After that we found tickets for the Bon Iver concert, got drinks, saw an amazing Bon Iver concert in an cool retro theatre and went home. The next day day we went to Juan in a Million, (a Man vs Food restaurant) had a shitload de comida para pequeno dinero, and explored a bit more of the outskirts of Austin. It really is an eccentric city and it was a fun vacation. Before we left, we hit up Stubbs BBQ, which was needless to say, amazing. Some of the guys from the band Snow Patrol were eating downstairs and sound checking outside for their concert there tonight....I thought that would be the closest I would get to main stream music fame that weekend....nope it got better...

At the airport Amie and I are walking through the airport after having a beer and these two men dressed in all black clothing walk past us at a leisurely pace. Amie looks over at the tall really pale one and says "Gees. Jack White much??" Referring of course to Jack White from the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and presently, The Dead Weather. Too which I replay,"Yeah and Elvis Costello much?" because the guy next to him looked like Elvis Costello. Small, black hair, dark clothing, thin beard, fedora....ya know. Then I say," Amie, I think thats him." Then a small Japanese girl runs up with her camera and says,"Pweese takah pictaw Jak!!".

Grinning from ear to ear. Then me, being a music lover myself, and apparently a 15 year old japanese girl seeing a music icon for the first time, I say,"Froget it. Amie, I need to get a picture with Jack White." So being the prepubescent Asian girl I am, i grinned from ear to ear, walked up to him and said "Jack I need a picture man." He said "Totally man". I asked him a few questions and he was totally casual and a nice guy. I basically kissed his ass for 25 to 30 seconds. It was great. Afterwards I was pretty star struck. That was a good way to end a three week trip in Costa Rica and an awesome weekend in Austin.

After a week of preparing myself for this ridiculous job, I began my training at BER again. This is my second year of having my first week of training and was expected to help a little as we prepped the newbies for the road. This year, the people doing the job are older. We have PMs this year who range from being 22 to 32. Usually the age range of the managers tends to be between 23 and 26 years, being kids just out of college. I guess with the swinging economy, its desirable to everyone. SOOOOOOO the week went by and we flew to Chicago with our Logistics group. We were there for two days where we meet up with another group and put on the seminar and let the new people get a hands on first time at these seminars. In Chicago, we went to Giordano's, a Chicago style pizza place that has been mentioned in past blogs. One slice will fill you up, seriously. The next night we went to an awesome bar/restaurant called Goose Island that was a block away from Wrigley Field. It had awesome food. Fried pickles, some of the nest wings on the road, amazing nachos and a killer pork sandwich. After that dinner, all the PMs went out and had a few beers (OR 70!!!! AHAHAHAHAH). The scene around Wrigley Field is awesome. If I were to go down there for tickets, and by chance couldn't get any, I wouldn't be disappointed with hunkering down in one of the bars around the field. Cool part of town. After that night, there isnt much else to describe about the week.... except...

Due to budget cuts, BER program managers are now, on certain weeks, taking out two presenters at a time. Doubling the paperwork, doubling the orders, doubling the wake-up time, doubling the work overall. Not to mention the fact that if you are driving with these two presenters and they don't get along (what happened to me the last two days of last week), its a bitch. Most of the presenters are real sweethearts and fun to be with, but every now and then you get one that has an ego and thinks everything is about them. Part of my job is to sit next to those ego-maniacs and listen to them talk about themselves for three and a half hours until we get to our next destination. I can name the car rides where I had to do that. I would purposely stop at a random Starbucks or a gas station just to have a few minutes away. Im sure those speakers wrote in their notes about me...... I think Matt has IBS cuz all he did was want to stop at some random restaurant or coffee stand every 30 minutes on the road to do something. Some of them have even made like deep confessions or told me about family troubles and its like I play therapist/psychologist for an hour or two. Not necessarily giving advice, but just zoning out and drive and pipe in with an "uh-huh" or "yeah". When presenters butt heads with somebody in a conference, its one thing. They bitch about it and move on. When a presenter bitches about another speaker they have to travel with for a week, welcome to a dramatic fifth graders gab session whenever they have exclusive time with me. It wares on a person. Honestly, after two days of that shit....It was the Beatles who sang 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' right? Now THATS over dramatic. In all honesty, I try not to talk about presenters, cuz there a few I really like, and one of them last week was awesome, but some can honestly shove it up there ass. Okay, rant done.

Well, yesterday I was in Minneapolis at a beautiful hotel, and the hotel staff loved me. Not sure if it was cuz I was putting on a seminar that would give them business, but I got a lot of free stuff and upgrades. God Bless the Marriott Minneapolis West. Right now I just got done with my seminar and am typing in my room which has a 42 inch flat screen, a mini bar/fridge that I wont dare touch, an incredibly comfortable bed, and ample space to throw my crap everywhere. They also gave me a key to their hospitality room where I can get free drinks at night with a free meal. Last night I had Thai Chicken Noodles with veggies and swedish meatballs (IKEA good?? I think not) and a glass of milk. No, no beer or liquor. I am trying to watch my alcohol consumption during the days on the road. Trust me, passing up a free drink is hard when the restaurant downstairs serves the same drink for 10 buck, but its easier on the gut. They also gave me free breakfast. The Crowne Plaza Clayton is pretty solid. Its amazing. I stay here again tonight and go to Phoenix tomorrow. We will see what that trip brings.

Hope all is well in the chair youre in.

Deuces from the Crowne Plaza Clayton in St Lunatic Louis.....

Again?!? Another year?? Masochistic much??

Well Hello. Yes folks, I am at it again. Another 9 month season of me traveling 6 days a week to places around the nation to give teachers the much needed CEUs, PDP, CDUs, STDs, and CDPDUs they need to keep their teaching licenses. Did ya catch it? Yea I said STDs. Im pretty immature. As a second year of doing this, I might be a little more experienced at my job and understand a lot more, but due to the pathetic economy I unfortunately have picked up ALOT more work. Some blogs might deal with weekends in the Bahamas paid for by my company.... (that request took some serious convincing and persuasion) Some weekends might include me just going home and crashing in my bed, which is just as equally as awesome after a LONG week on the road. The possibilities are endless and I look forward to it...

Alright, lets get to the bitching....

Here I am. Shit. A 2 1/2 hour layover in SeaTac. Due to "airtraffic control issues" (which gives me the mental picture of some assholes standing around in a 200 foot tall tower in Minneapolis/St. Paul airport playing with themselves instead of directing planes in....Im pretty sure its not that) my speaker and I will be residing in the Alaska Airlines Boardroom for the time being. No Worries tho. My speaker is super nice, sarcastic, funny, mid-thirties, and pretty damn cute. I think the next two days, needless to say, will be easy as pie.

So last time I posted it was a few days before I left to Costa Rica, and had a hell of a time. I flew down with my good friend Mackenzie and met up with Eric and Candice (brother and sister Gobel, once again, great friends) in San Jose. Flying into Costa Rica is amazing. Although much of the housing is a little run down, the scenery is outstanding, and getting an overview of a different society/culture is pretty interesting. Soon Lisa's plane flew in and we were on our way the next morning. We had a Rental Car a Garmin (Garmond, Lisa thought it was ACTUALLY called that, so the name stuck) We went to La Fortuna, where we stayed in a town in the shadow of a massive volcano. For some reason the Volcano name escapes me right now and it was great. Stayed in a Robinson Caruso-esque (sp?) hostel for 5 bucks a night for each of us. There we met some cool people, and one unsavory older Australian man who we have several run-ins with. We swim in the La Fortuna Waterfall.... absolutely one of the most amazing things I have ever done in my life. We had some decent food and made a good friend at the lava lounge bar at the end of town. Waking up in the morning after a night of drinking, Im not sure what it was, but I never got a hangover down there. It might be the fact that during the night, the extreme humidity caused me to sweat out all the toxins I had consumed into my body. Anytime I had the chance to take a shower, the feeling of being clean and fresh would fade quickly due to the absurd temperatures and thick blanket of humidity that wrapped around me after I walked outside. I didn't care about sweating, or my clothes smelling like complete shit. I was just glad to be in a paradise with friends to enjoy the moment. You are totally thinking; "God, what a fuckin cheesedick." In all honesty, 99% of the time, I was on cloud nine. The other 1% was the confusion of having 4 other people to make decisions with and figure out plans. Even then tho, I was pretty happy to be where I was. After that we went to Montezuma which was set up as a tourist town, but was pretty dead for the time there. We had a massive private beach to ourselves. Sat, drank, watched dramatic thunderstorms in the distance at night, sat and stared at lizards fighting on the ceiling (anytime they fought we called it the "Battle of Montezuma".... just fucking dumb I know) and had awesome food. Fried plantains with guacamole on top is one of my new favorite dishes. We did canopy tours here as well. It was sooo rad. We swam in small waterfall pools with rope swings, jumped off cliffs with waterfalls and got up-close and personal with monkeys. After a few days in Montezuma and completely demolishing our hotel (clogging toilets.... a la Dessert "El bano es no bueno!"... losing 2 sets of room keys, running over a pipe in there parking lot that connected to there restaurant and causing all types of damage while managing pissing almost everyone off in town, we left) we went to a small town called Dominical. This town was my favorite. Although it was filled with gringos and we stayed at a kinda crappy hotel, waking up (super early, like around 630 or 700), getting a tall cup of coffee, I would lay in my hammock outside our place and gre

et the friends we had made next door from Florida who came to surf. They lent us their boards and Mackenzie and I surfed one day. On that same day we surfed, we did a pretty intense ocean-kayaking tour where we went to a private beach and yelled at howler monkeys, say some sloths and paddled through caves. It was great. Holy shit was a I tired and soar the next day. After our amazing day in the ocean, Lisa and Candice needed to head out to San Jose so that they could catch their flights home. Candice was shitting her pants to be traveling home after 3 months away. After that, Mackenzie and I made our way to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.

Okay so let me fill you in on Costa Rica attitudes and culture. Pura Vida....Pure Life

.... is their "saying". What I would say is a more just saying, "Tranquillo" which means "be calm"/"chillout". I have never been told in Spanish or English to chill out so much in my life. Now I understand I can sometimes be a high strung guy or a lil intense, but these people were like the most relaxed ever. On the Pacific side, people were relaxed, but on the Caribbean side, it was magnified times 3. It might be all the ganja they were inhaling into there lungs, but everyone was sooooooo laid back. so anyways....

Mackenzie and I hopped on a bus the day after Lisa left and made our way to Cahuita where there was a beautiful national park beach walk and great Argentina food. We stayed there for 3 days and walked all around Cahuita. Small town but a little too quiet and filled with a few crazies. Some quotes..... "Hey you guys want some good cocaine?? Actually its not that good, its mixed....AHAHAH" (Crazy drug dealer living out of shanty in middle of town)..... "Praise be to the Prophet, for I am him. I have never been a F@gg$t".... (crazy american who got dragged away by police and would hold a fifth in the middle of town and scream. I am so glad he

clarified he had never been gay. It made it SOOO much more believable that he was god.... that thick sarcasm for those of you who dont know me. After leaving the peaceful, interesting town of Cahuita, we headed to Puerto Viejo for a few days. Puerto Viejo seemed like it was a bit more "Americanized" than other cities and was the biggest city on the Caribbean side. It had great restaurants and awesome beaches. We had lobster and this amazing fruit bowl parfait for breakfast. It was massive. We got gifts and headed to Los Volcanes which was our "homebase" and had a NICE warm shower with pressure, awesome beds and great service. It was nice. We ended it nicely. We had the same flight up to Houston, where we split off. Mackenzie continued onto Seattle while I made my way to Austin for Austin City Limits and a fun tour of Austin with Ashley and Amie.

Well after a long post, I will save the Austin story for another time, and my delayed plane is about to board. Overall, my 2 1/2 week experience in Costa Rica was a blast. It was relaxing and helped me get ready for a long 9 months of working on the road. Hopefully this year I will work on posting more about my adventures and will take advantage of my unique employment opportunities in different cities. Deuces from the SeaTac Alaska Airlines......

A Lucky Duck...

Okay.... Hello to the one or two people who might read this pure crap that I call a blog. It seems I havent posted since the 5th of May (what a bastard huh?) and need to catch up on some things. Well I have been back in Seattle for the summer, and loving it. No place like home right? Its good to have a solid home that doesnt change each day, and a place to actually cook my meals.... by cooking, I mean place a bag of frozen veggies in the micro and throwing a piece of chicken in the skillet to grill.... or theres Guaymas. I am right now employed at yes, its epic, Ride The Ducks. Truthfully I was pretty stoked to get this job and for the first two months it was good. Unfortunately, this job is ridiculously repetitive with the same EXACT questions and exact responses each day and it takes its toll. It has been a decent job, but i hope to never do it again.... and no, I dont drive the duck...
Overall, I declared the beginning of this summer,"The Summer of Matt" (Seinfeld?) and even though I have just a bit more summer left, I would say I am on the right path to making the title true. Between golfing, softball, the boat, concerts, some weekend trips, relaxing, and finishing it all off with a 2 1/2 week trip to Costa Rica, this summer has been great....and here comes the traveling...
I am heading back out on the road starting October 18th. I train the week before that and meet all the new returning PMs and get filled in on what qualifications have changed in each state (mindless boring dribble) so that these teachers can get there CEUs. I want to copy and paste my schedule on this site, but I dont really know how to yet. Ill figure it out and let you guys see whats gonna be coming up. I can tell you I begin in Chicago, Detroit, Cinci-crappi (clever huh?), and Columbus, OH.
As in the past year, I will be going to places featured on the travel and food channel. I usually like to try out an Anthony Bourdaine: No Reservations restaurant, or an Extreme Eats location. This year, I am looking to find Man vs Food eateries. I might even try some of the challenges... Enoch might appreciate that... I dont think he reads this though.... whateva. I have a few stayovers for the first half of my traveling and they are, San Antonio, TX for the WSU vs Notre Dame game over Halloween weekend, Washington D.C. to visit Bleek and see some of the capital, and Portland, Maine for some lobster and east coast browsing. I am traveling to some places I haven't been before like Roanoke, VA and Memphis, TN to name a few and look forward to the new experience. I will also be traveling to some familiar places, Boston, Long Island, Phoenix, and Chicago and cant wait to experience them again.
At the beginning of October, I have to turn in my choices for where I wanna go from January to May. Once I get my finalized schedule for that period, I will post it, and you guys can glance at it. If anybody sees a weekend where I am in saaayyyyy Denver, CO (Megan) and they want to meet me there for a weekend, let me know so I can schedule it. Also if youre going to Portland for just the weekend, I dont necessarily have to be there for my last day of work, I can just fly into there instead of going to Seattle. So if anybody wants a little bit more Matty D in there life, let me know. That update will come soon enough.

Okay well I am typing this blog at the duck (such a great employee) and think some people need some quackers... gun?? anybody gotta gun?? Well I must be going, but I will return with the updates probably after Costa Rica. Hope this year is as interesting as last year and hope you all are a bit more caught up on what Im doing and this blog relieves whatever little monotony might exist in your day...

Deuces from Ride the Ducks....

Im still blogging....every now and and again.... New York State, Illinois, Wisconsin....

I know I'm slackin horribly on the blog posting.... I will make up for it with a LONG post today seeing as how i am in Cincinnati with nothing to do for a whole day.....

  Okay so last time I talked to you I was heading to Oklahoma City, OK.....  and as expected, every other place I have called a shithole is 5 times better than this city.   What a poop streak on the underwear of America.  The hotel we stayed at had mice running everywhere and there were cats roaming around in the middle courtyard meowing constantly outside my window.  That night, i went inside the hotel bar with my speaker and, no joke, heard about 6-7 Nickelback songs in a row.  If you werent aware, Nickelback is the official music of wifebeaters and  Nascar lovers.  Not to mention just the music is pretty douchy as well as the band members themselves.  I walk over to the ATM to get cash and a tatted up gentlemen is .....this is serious...... talking about how he got out of jail 3 weeks before for beating his wife and her boytoy after he caught them having an affair.  I glance down to see his ridiculous tattoos his handle bar biker stache and he goes, "Hey boss, if you agree with that, chime in anytime." To which i respond,"I think Ill leave that one to you guys" and i slink away.  

   After seeing what a POS Oklahoma City is, we head to Chicago where I stay in the hotel where we are next to a Giordanos pizza place.  I get some pizza with some milk and as i am drinking my milk, i notice it is really sweet and thicker than the normal milk i drink which is skim (gotta watch the LBs son...).  I finish one glass and the pizza takes a long time so I get another.  I finish half the glass and my pizza arrives.  I finish one slice and im ALREADY FULL!  WTF?!  I tell the waitress I dont know whats up but im full, and she goes "Well you drank 2 glasses of whole milk."  I was like,"Why did you serve me whole milk?'' and she was just like "Well I wasn't sure what you wanted."  I mean besides farmers who drinks whole milk.  Not this guy.... Whatev.... 

  The next day I fly home and have a quick turn around weekend where I manage to move into my new APT which rocks....

   

     The next week begins and I'm in Illinois.  I start out in Champaign, and end in Neenah/Appleton, WI.  First few days are good and easy.  My speaker is a cool older guy who is pretty down to earth.  I was in Chicago for 2 days and moved onto Milwaukee.  Now, Milwaukee itself has suffered pretty bad in the past 20 years with alot of the breweries moving out of town, and jobs being becoming scarce, so the city is a little run down.  This didnt stop us tho from finding some good in the city.  As we went into town, on the northside of Milwaukee was a pretty cool area that had nice shops, funky restaurants and good bars.  While there we went to a restaurant called Zaffiros.  It was an Italian restaurant that had been around since 1945 serving the same delicious food.  They gave me TONS of food and it was delicious....We were staying right near downtown, and I mentioned to my I wanted to go to the Miller Brewery Factory and take the tour.  He was all for it, so during my seminar, i left for the tour and it was great.  Remember the Hershey chocolate factory tour i told you about a while back where i thought I would get to dip my hand in chocolate and i didnt get to and instead it turned out to be a lame kids ride?  Well this tour was everything I wanted and more.  It was genuinely educational and awesome.  At the end of it, the give you postcards that have the factory on it that they mail out for yo

u, and give you 4 free pints of whatever beer they have in the "Tasting Room".  They took us through the whole process and gave us a chance to see how the beer is made.  I whole-heartedly suggest doing this tour at one of the factories.  It was awesome.  That night I took my speaker to get a golf lesson from a PGA pro while I got to golf at the driving range.  After that the pro took us out for a super nice dinner that he paid for.  Stipend in my pocket!!! Holla!  

     Well, finally friday arrived and I was back on the plane in Appleton with a layover in Chicago and another quick weekend turn around for me, and some more rearranging and moving to do on the apartment ....

   The next week I was with 2 people, who have some impressive resumes.  One was the speaker, and the other was his "helper", but she was more along for the ride.  They both run a nonprofit that does HUGE numbers and get millions of dollars in grants from several states in the northeast, and they are about to pick a massive one up in California.  They have met the past 3 presidents and have worked with some movie stars and crap (dont ask me how they did all this because they had alot of stories).  So now that im kissing these peoples asses, let me tell you about the week.  First, it was a hellacious 6 hour flight to Philly, where I had to catch a plane into an airport that was 70 miles outside of Fishkill, NY where my seminar was.  I got a Ford Taurus as my rental, and it was much better than I imagined.  Ford had upgraded the interior and kinda made it into a higher end sedan that had some serious balls.  Well my seminar in Fishkill went fine and my speaker and his partner went back to Boston where they were from and spent the night there because our seminar the next day in Albany, NY was cancelled due to low attendance rates.  I on the other hand stayed in BEAUTIFUL Fishkill, NY and got a haircut, some Ruby Tuesdays and watched Hook.  The next day I woke up got some coffee and had a 4 hour drive across rural northern New York to Syracuse.  In Syracuse, I had the chance to meet up with Hillary, a good friend

 from BER.  Everyone was saying we had to go to this BBQ restaurant/bar called Dinosaur Barbecue.  I will post the pictures on the next blog, because i cant post anymore on this one, dont know why....

   But anyways this place rocked.  By far, the BEST BBQ I have had on the Road.  There was a place in New York called Brother Jimmys that had good food, but the pulled pork, ribs, pork loin, cajun corn, side salad, cole slaw and microbrew beer they had were AMAZING. Most of their restaurants are in New York, but I think there are a few just on the skirts surrounding.  I will continue on the next blog with lots of pictures.....

Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cracker Barrel.....Panera...

  I am sitting behind my registration desk outside of the seminar room which happens to be in a golf course clubhouse here in Kansas City, MO.  My speaker this week has good taste in music and blasts songs over the facilities sound system from artists like Elton John, The Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and others I enjoy.  Its refreshing to not have a teacher that plays songs that swoon and slowly swing everybody in the seminar to sleep, not to mention bug the shit out of me (god forbid I be bugged by the seminar I am not attending or participating in).  Since my last post, not a lot has happened, but I still got some things to tell.  I left off, I think, with the ferry ride from Port Jefferson, NY to Connecticut.  That might have been the most relaxing ride on a ferry I have ever had.  It was also scenic and for some reason it was like a hot female convention was being held on the bow or something....(figure of speech, there was no hot girl convention on the bow terdface).  

  From the port in CT we docked at to north Hartford, it was a quick drive and when we arrived I asked my speaker where she wanted to go to eat.  Shes from Iowa, and LOVES Cracker Barrels.  I on the other hand dont share the same enthusiasm she has. Well what do you know?!  Theres a Cracker Barrel right across the street from our hotel.  She says she wants to go and pay for my meal.  When you eat at a Cracker Barrel there is nothing to chew.  All the food is soft and slides down your throat like pancake batter.  This is due to the fact that EVERYTHING there is cooked in tons of butter and glistens with the fat and cholesterol that will soon be settling into your arteries and slowly starting to clog the much needed red cells from getting to the rest of your body (too much?).  I ordered the turkey dinner, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, a buttered roll, and mushy mushy green beans.   This was the healthiest thing on the menu as far I was concerned.  My speaker got the chicken fried steak, with EXTRA gravy.  She had literally like a coffee cup of gravy in front of her and by the end it was absolutely clean.  (Can you imagine somebody waking up in the morning and having a nice relaxing smooth cup of gravy to start the day?) She loved that shit man.  Literally as she was finishing this stuff off, she was telling me how she used to have cholesterol problems.  I was like,"No shit?!"  Okay, I may not be the healthiest guy but ya know....whatev, enough ranting.....  She was a sweetheart and she could eat anything she wanted as far as i was concerned, not my business. We both went to the airport and we were both anxious to flew home.  

   As I ended my 6th month doing this job, I have seem to acquired some status with the airlines and hotels.  This part of the job is so clutch.  As I get to my... (ridiculously hott P.E. teacher just showed up to seminar....HOLLA!!!!) anyways..... as i get to my gate there are literally like close to a hundred 5th and 6th graders cackling, jumping, running, yelling, and overall being obnoxious in the terminal.  At that time, United had me in the middle of the plane in a middle seat no less and I can only imagine what ADHD spaz I could be sitting next to in 20 minutes.  Now, to be fair I'm sure I wasnt the most pleasant tween back in the day, but now that I am more mature (poop poop poop pee pee pee...AHAHAHAAHAHA) I don't want to sit next to any of these little bastards on my 4 hour flight from Chi-town to Sea-town.  Well, I go to give them my ticket and my status has paid off, I have first class.  Thank god!  I have never been so grateful in my life.  The next 4 hours fly by as I get 4 jack and cokes and watch Seven Pounds (delicious drinks, sad movie).   My break was filled with finding a new APT (found one) trying to find a job (didn't find one) and catching back up with friends and family.  

  I left a week and a half later on a Monday (day late, awesome) at 10:30 (later than usual and as well awesome).  Once again I go to give them my boarding pass on the flight and I get bumped up to first class.  Holla!  I get to Minneapolis, rent a car, go to the Country Inn and Suites, run 5 miles and hit the hay.  

Wake up, have b-fast, go to the seminar facility, eat some Panera, and make a mad dash to the airport for the  5:15 flight we have to Kansas City, MO.  

  We arrive in Kansas City and we are staying at an Embassy Suites....clutch.  I check in, have a free beer with my speaker and go to my hotel room.  I get into my hotel room

 and notice that there is a plate with fruit, cheese, meat, crackers, a couple Bud Lights, a few bottles of water, and some granola bars.  HELL YEA BRAH BRAH!!!!!!  Well, as I make a few cracker sandwiches and drink a Bud Light I notice an envelope that says,"Mr. Abernethy" on it.  I am not Mr. Abernethy.  I open up the card and its a letter saying, "Thanks for choosing the

Embassy Suites Daniel Abernethy.  Here are your refreshments you requested.  Have a nice stay!"  Well, after having a few more cracker sandwiches, finishing off the beer, drinking half a bottled water, and stuffing the granola bars in my briefcase, (I know, I am a dickhead) I decide I should call the front desk and tell them they might have made a mistake.  I get put on hold for a few minutes and they say that I can have the treats, but the alcoholic beverages I'm gonna have to pay for, to which I say,"What alcoholic beverages?"  and they reply,"Enjoy!" and hang up. BOMB!!!!!!!  I eat a good portion of it, decide working out is a bad idea because I am full and don't wanna move.....

 As I look at this picture, I realize I am a hypocritical bastard with all the Cracker Barrel ranting.  There I was stuffing my face with prosciutto, salami, brie, beer, and some unhealthy combinations and I rant about unhealthy lifestyles.....  dammit. The only way I can justify this is that I didnt pay for it. This shit was FREEEEEEEEE BITCHES!!!  Oh well...

  I woke up this morning to the sunrise pictured above, made my way to the golf course where

our seminar was being held and here I sit.  Never had a seminar at a golf course club house.  Its beautiful outside and I think at break I am going to go hit a bucket of balls or something.  Kinda bummed I cant workout, but golf should suffice until I get to the LaQuinta in Oklahoma City tonight and burn some calories.  We fly American Airlines tonight and stay, as I said before, at a LaQuinta.  Although I get FF with AA I have never had a good experience with them, not to mention American Airlines regional jets have the worst record for baggage handling and customer service.  The only experience I have had at a LaQuinta ended in confusion and disgust.  I forget the details, but the employees were horrible from what I remember.  God, what a travel snob I have become.  Okay people, have a good day and deuces from Kansas City, MO.....

I'm slackin.... Denver all over again and Southwest flight attendants....

Whatup behotchies....  thats right..... behotchies.... anyways....I am outside of Hartford, CT and had a good day yesterday.  but first let me tell you about these past couple days, it been a while since i have posted, I know I am a slacker....

   Lets start in Atlantic City.  I had my hopes up for Atlantic City, but it was kind of a piece of crap.  Number one, there are parts of the city where everybody was saying "Dont go there during most times of the day."  Thats a sign that suggests the city your in, sucks. We stayed in the hotel that hosts the Mrs. America Pageant, and it had all sorts of stupid memorabilia and stuff like that.  I can honestly say that i think that the Mrs. America Pageant is a waste of time, waste of money, superficial, shallow, pointless and is just flat out ridiculous.  Great, you're good looking, lets all give you a crown stand up and clap for you while you answer some fuckin random stupid question as you wave at people who could care less about you and some cheesy asshole sings some song like, "Look at her....Isnt she fuckin gorgeous".  Thats how I feel about most beauty pageants anyways.  Strong man competitions too....i mean....really?!?!  So you can lift a 1500 pound boulder, who does that help, we have machines for that now you idiot.  On top of that, your metabolism is just gonna be SUPER fucked up now...good luck you dumb bastard.....  okay, rant done....  So to sum it up, Atlantic City was a bummer.  Next was Allentown, PA.  As we pull in we are downtown, and its a Holiday Inn.  It was just remodeled and they had a managers reception (free drinks and snacks....BALLIN!) and I met the General Manager of the Hotel.    After telling him i have the seminar tomorrow, he hooked me up with some free drink coupons for the bar downstairs  I talked with him for a bit and i left with a beer in hand and some crackers with cheese.  After that I traveled to Bethlehem to meet another Program Manager and go get some grub and drinks.  First we went to a bar where they serve 400 different martinis.  Im not a martini drinker, and dont think i have actually ever had one.  I got a berry surprise or some shit, drank it down, and we went to another place for dinner.  Its a place called the Bethlehem Brewery.  Kelly, the other PM, said I had to get the Mac n Cheese, cuz its the biggity bombastic shizzle frazzle dazzle wigwam (shutup haters) mac n cheese.  SO.... we start with a Christmas salad, which is pretty good with spinach, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, and an awesome cinnamon vinaigrette dressing.  Next we had a crab dip with chips and pita bread (decent) and the crem de la crem, the mac and cheese.  This stuff was amazing.  It totally lived up to the hype....  It had 4 types of cheeses, bits of bread, and great pasta.  It was bomb.  After the meal I went back to the hotel, used my free drink coupons from the GM, talked/ignored some old guy from Florida who was pretty bitter at my generation for "taking jobs from elders" and went to bed.  I woke up and this day started as a disaster.  My speaker needs internet for her seminar, and the hotel didnt have internet in the conference rooms.  I called the GM and told him to get his butt down to the hotel to fix this.  He did this, but not until the seminar was half over.  They had to run a 400 foot ethernet cable from the hotel front desk, through the lobby, through the hotel kitchen, through some back hallways and finally into our room.  It was a bitch.  On top of this my speaker is flipping out, yelling at hotel staff, constantly calling me into the seminar with all 40 people there and asking me if i had heard anything and would just be a pain in the behind.   To sum it up, the day sucked.  Kelly came around 1 to my hotel and brought some desserts from a place called vegan treats in Bethlehem.  It was a brownie with vanilla mousse on top and a peanut butter cake thing.....all vegan, and it was delicious.  Also, a band called Slightly Stoopid was staying at the hotel, and I talked and hung out with them for a bit.  It was a day of good things and bad things.  After that seminar we went to Harrisburg, PA and it went off with no problems.  I flew home for a quick 24 hour turnover, and headed back out to Cherry Hill.  

  I take off to Philadelphia at 830 in the morning on Sunday and we were projected to arrive at 430 that night.....Nope!  There were some bad thunderstorms in Philly, so we were stuck in a flight pattern for 2 hours, and had to land in Baltimore to refuel and just sit on the tarmac for another 2 hours until we were given the okay to fly in.  By the time we got in, i had been on that damn plane for 11 hours.  It was 10 o'clock and i had a horrible headache.  I felt like i was going to throw up.  I never get headaches, but for some reason, was suffering till no end.....okay.... (stop whining you pussy)....  In Cherry Hill, was another PM, Hillary Schmidt.  We hung out and talked and the day went by super fast.  After that seminar, Hillary left and my speaker and I went to Bethlehem.....again, and I ate Bethlehem Brewery again, and went and got Vegan Treats again.  My speaker had some and was blown away that they were vegan.  She loved them.   My speaker this week is a kind woman from San Diego who has a bad leg, and I help her out ALOT.  I do it because she is super nice and is 10X better than my speaker last week.  After enjoying Bethlehem again, We drove to Newark to the hotel next to the prison.  This was an easy seminar and nothing exciting happened.  Afterwards, we had what I thought would be a quick drive from Newark to Long Island, a 45 to 50 mile drive.  It took 3 hours for us to get to our hotel.  Traffic was stupid, just stupid.  When I arrived, I met up with the program manager I was with in Denver, Kyle.....pictured below on the cow.... 

This was gonna be another night ending up almost like that one had above in Denver....  We go to the bar and get some drinks and immediately start playing photohunt (the game where there are 2 exact picture but they have 5 small things different in them and you have to find them.)  Well we start playing and are coming so close to the record but we just cant get it.  This whole time we are ordering Long Island Iced Teas (ON LONG ISLAND!!!!) and not even thinking about anything around us but this game of photo hunt.  Well we are loud and making a scene from coming so close, and eventually a few people start to join us.  It was a group of 4 people 2 hot chicks, an 2 FABULOUS!!!!!! dudes.  They eventually notice our determination and start playing photohunt with us.  After several drinks later we learn that these people were Southwest Airlines flight attendants. We defeat the record, the Holiday Inn in Ronkonkoma, NY has a record under photo hunt that says heckssert....(heckendorf and dessert), and we talk with the attendants some,  We sit down with them and they are going to town on drinks and evetually start sharing with us.  Somebody brings up the topic of getting drinks on Southwest flights and they comment on how they have stacks and stacks of the free drink coupons.  they pull out like 10 of them from their pockets and give them to us and we give them our addresses and they said they will send us another stack for us in the mail.  FREE DRINKS ON SOUTHWEST HERE I COME!!!  After eventually stumbling my way back to my room and going to bed/passing out I wake up in a daze, but feeling good.  I go downstairs to my speaker who is  ready to get this show on the road.  Everything goes fine and we head to Bristol, CT.  Unfortunately, to do this, we had to go through New York and that traffic again.  We eventually found out there was a ferry that goes from Long Island to Bridgeport, CT  (Thank God) and we were just going to catch it.  We departed form Port Jefferson, NY where the picture below was taken....

  The Ferry ride was nice and relaxing.  After we got off the ferry, it was an hours drive north to Hartford and here I am.  I have come to the conclusion that in every state there is an unwritten rule about how fast you can go over the speed limit and not get pulled over.  In Washington, it tends to be about 5 miles an hour.  In Pennsylvania, most likely going 5 to 10 miles an hour over and you will be okay.  In small towns in Illinois, where most of the cities money comes from passing through speeders, stay going the speed limit and you should be kosh.  In Connecticut, I was going 10 over, and was still getting passed on my right and on my left.  These people were hauling balls.  Interesting thing to notice tho.  I am in a Clarion Suites and its dec.  I had a continental breakfast, some subway, downloaded a new app for my IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPHOOOOOOOOOOOONE (say it like you have a monocle on) and fly out at 530 back to Seattle for a week.  I have an interview on Wednesday that I am stoked on, and look forward to relaxing for a bit.  Hope all is well with you peeps..... deuces from East Windsor, CT......

The Flatulence Doesn't Seem to End....

   Okay, so does BER send me on the road with just incredibly gassy women??  My boss.....," Hey does Eileen fart alot??....No?.....Okay well we wont give her to Matt because we need to give Matt speakers that will fart in his presence....."  I had it happen or the first time last week, on my thigh (read previous post) and now, I meet my speaker this morning, and within 15 minutes of shaking her hand and getting in the car, she farts in the car and it smells!  I mean...really?!  Whats the deal?!  I must have a "Please, fart on me or in my presence and I will be okay with it" vibe going on or something.  Pat use to do that to me when I was 12.  Have I come in full circle to where old ladies think its funny?!  Whatev....

  Sooo anyways....  I went to New Orleans this past weekend, and it was ridiculous.  First off, flying from Burlington to  the NO, I had a layover in Washington D.C..  I hate D.C.'s airport, but since it was the weekend, found a littla bar, pulled up a chair and talked to a cute girl for an hour.  before rushing to my gate at the last minute to catch my flight.  I was literally the last one on, and as I am walking down the gateway, one of the employees form USAirways runs up to me and is like, "Hey wanna bump up to first class?"  and of course Im like "Hell Yea!".   This flight was awesome.   Just had drinks and great snacks and relaxed.  I love bump ups, they do a body good.  I arrive in New Orleans (Naaaaawwwwwwllllleeeeaaaannnnsss) and go to the house we have rented for the weekend.  It was super nice, and cheap for where we got it.  Now this week is when a lot of colleges have gone on spring break, and we expected some serious ridiculousness to happen, so we headed to Bourbon St..  This street is just ridiculous.  Every establishment is a bar.  There are karaoke bars, bars with bands, there are club bars, and a never-ending  flow of booze on every corner.  The street was packed as well.  Hundreds and hundreds of people were on this street all just drinking and partying.  It was kind of ridiculous and obnoxious.  After a night filled with dancing and singing, we woke up and got some breakfast at a small cafe down the street.  After this we headed back downtown to watch some basketball at a bar called Ref's.  This was an amazing bar with AWESOME wings and food.

  (Bourbon Street picture above)  We watched the UW game and had a few beers and headed to the house as soon as the game was over.  We hang out, and lounge around and play a card game or two and get ready for another night.  We decided to go to ACME oyster house which is a famous restaurant with amazing seafood.  While there we enjoyed grilled oysters and crawfish.  We washed it down with some 

hurricanes they made for us to drink, we drank them, got drunk.....T-PAIN!?!?!?  The crawfish were spicy, salty and amazing!  The grlled oysters were covered in butter and were also amazing ot eat on top of a nice piece of french bread.  All this was to be concluded with an Oyster shot, an oyster in a shotglass with vodka and tabasco..... sound disgusting??  It is.... I wish I had the after picture of me, but somebody else has it.  I look like I am about to yack all over the table we are consuming this delicious food on.   Pictured below is the Oyster shot....  

  After another ridiculous night, we all manage to miraculously compose ourselves and get to the airport.  I get on my flight, fly to Atlanta and catch my next flight to Philly and here I am in Cherry Hill again.  I go to Atlantic City tonight and am kinda looking forward to it.  Im starting to miss home a little bit and REALLY look forward to having a week off in 2 weeks.   Deuces from Cherry Hill yall.....

The Northeast tour....

  Its cold outside, but that is to be expected when your in the most northeast section of the country and it is snowing outside.  I am in Burlington, VT and this week has been what seems to be another week of a job that I have definitely settled into.  The speaker I am with this week is a sweet ol' lady from Indiana who is very relaxed, which is awesome because in turn, I can be relaxed.  Not much has happened this week, but thought I would fill ya in on the weeks happenings anyways.

  The week started off with me getting up at like 530 on Sunday, after a late night out, and head to the airport to fly to Newark, NJ.  I was on Alaska Airlines, which is my favorite airline to fly.....but not on this day.  I board the plane and EVERYONE is already on.  Im literally the last one to get on the plane and I am dumbfounded. They boarded the plane early so to de-ice the aircraft.  All the overhead space is taken, two gentlemen (one of them HEAVY set) have to get up out of the row I'm in so I can get into my window seat.  I place my bag underneath the seat infront of me, leaving me no room to stretch out my legs.  For a 5 1/2 hour flight, stretching your legs is important.  After getting into my seat, the gentlemen get back in their seats, and the heavy one sits next to me, spilling over into my section of the row.  ( Total side note :  You would think with all the flying I do, I would have sat next to somebody who has either bugged me or would have been proportionately bigger (side note on the side note: proportionately bigger means they're a fatty) on some trip from one city or to another already)  Well for 6 1/2 hours (waited an HOUR to de-ice....wanted to pull all my hair out) I sat in my seat with no leg room and a behemoth next to me reading his book jabbing me with his elbows as he stuck them out while reading his book.  I would nudge him and make it obvious I needed space, but he just wasn't getting the point.  Ya know the box that they have outside the terminal walkway where you measure your bag to see if it will fit into the required measurements that the FAA has set into place so as to prevent a good use of space on the plane??  They should have one of those for humans.  If you spill out into the walkway, or over an inch into someone elses seat, you get moved.   If a person is extra tall (a person simply cant stop growing up), they can request an exit row seat, or bulkhead seat so they can fit into the plane.  My question is.......Where is the FAT row??  I wanna know where the fat row is, because there are people who are clearly made uncomfortable on a plane due to the amount of room the person sitting next to them is not giving them.  Now, there are 2 common people that others dont want to be sat next to on a plane...... a baby (screaming) and a fatty. Now babies cry and scream and dont really know any better and will likely stop.  A fat person can PREVENT being fat.......okay maybe thats where I need stop this rant........put it this way, I was made uncomfortable on the plane to Newark.  WHEW .....anyways.....

  So I arrive in Newark to the Holiday Inn at the airport where I have been before.  Its alright, but the staff is horrible, and the food is just ridiculously expensive.  There are no restaurants around except a white castle like 2 miles down the road, but seeing as how I am not wanting to eat square burgers that look like they were meant for the keebler elves ( their burgers are small...dont get it??? whatever...) I decide to eat at the hotel.  I get a salad, a bowl of soup and some milk, and it was 28 bucks!!!!  Now the meal was good, but was it worth 28 bucks?!?!  Hell no! The seminar the next day went just fine, and we drove that night to Cherry Hill, NJ which is about an hour and a half south from Newark.  I am like the new mayor of this town.  I am constantly in Cherry Hill, NJ for this job.  (A man who works here at the hotel I am at in VT just went past my registration table with a shit-eating grin pushing a bucket of trash dancing like a dork because I have music playing on my computer......it just made my day)  After the Cherry Hill seminar, we got on a flight on USAirways (dont like USAirways) to Boston.  We flew out of Philly, and we sat on the tarmack for an hour and a half due to airport traffic.  We got into Boston around 1030 and to the hotel around 11:15.  We were staying in a Hilton Garden Inn which ten to be pretty nice.  It was St. Pattys day (F-off Steve for saying its a weak holiday) and they had green cupcakes at the registration desk.  In the time it took the front desk attendant to check me in, I had 2 of the cupcakes.....(what a fat kid).  The seminar was an easy one the next day, and there was a cougar who wouldnt stop talking to me ..... is that a bad thing?  No way, that provides so much entertainment value for my day and Im kind of a lil flattered.  GO COUGS!  ...wait....which one?!?  (The same guy who was dancing before just walked past my table again and told me how the wheel on the trash can he was pushing had broken off. Do I care about the wheel?? No, but he has some missing teeth and he talks funny.....needless to say, I like him already)  ....anyways..

  As we are loading stuff into the rental car we got, a Toyota FJ cruiser which is an interesting sport utility vehicle that hauls butt (pictured below left.....what the fuck is with the squinty eyes ya douche bag??), for Boston , my speaker goes to pick up a bag of hers that is kind of heavy.  I am standing behind her,and as she goes to pull up, the force she exerts from lifting causes her to fart LOUDLY directly onto my right thigh.  Now if this were one of my friends, they would be dodging my fists with lightening speed, but this was a frail ol woman who goes,"Oops, excuse me. Im sorry."  I hold back the laughter that is literally bursting in my gut and in my head and we start driving to

Manchester, NH.....just ridiculousness.  I love the next seminar city, because I dont have to do anything except show up, sign people in, eat the food that is given to me, and talk with the other program manager on site.  EASY day.  After that seminar we had a 2 1/2 hour drive here to Burlington and have found it to be a nice city.  All the people are really nice and I think for lunch I am going to go downtown and explore.  My family and I use to come up here for a number of years to visit friends, and I want to relive a few things like the Vermont Country Store.  

  Today, I fly out to New Orleans where I will be for the weekend and will be celebrating one of the PMs bdays.  The groups of program managers I am going with is really cool, and will actually give me some insite on what my decision might be for a few of my future endeavors in this job.  Well I hope all is well with you honkies reading this....deuces from Burlington, VT.....

  P.S. - I might post some more badass pics later in the day....

Ohio, South Dakota, Colorado, Montana, Utah, Spookie-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo/spokompton/ spoke-vegas/shithole/methtown/Spokane......

  Well Well Well, fancy seeing you here....  Okay, so I have another week to tell ya about.  Last week was my adventure through beautiful Ohio (pretty sure form past posts you know about my sarcasm about this state).  I ended on flying to Baltimore where it snowed 9 inches in one night, but it soon melted and everything was in the clear.  My speaker for this week, seemed nice, but as I got to know her more and more and we traveled together, she seemed just a little off.  After Baltimore, we took a flight to Cleveland, OH.  

   In Cleveland I rented a car, a Dodge Charger (fast mofo) and rallied the shit out of it.  Our first stop was decent in a Double Tree which is a completely new hotel chain for me.  It was nice, not the best, but not the worst.  It was comparable to a Sheraton, no free breakfast, nice rooms, comfy beds, and decent service.  The restaurant there though was awesome.  I got a steak salad, and that just rocked my socks off.  After that our travels took us to Akron..... do i need to say anymore?  I could go on for hours about this place, but let me sum it up in one word.....whatapieceofshit.  We stayed at the Quality Inn, and this place was of really poor quality let me tell you.  I had hair all over my shower, the drain was clogged in the sink, the locks on the door were broken off, the remote didnt work, and I had the the feeling that a coke deal was going on in the next room.  Thanks BER for putting us up in a ritzy place.  Also during this time, my computer started to act funny.  My internet application and Safari program had started to act up in Cleveland and was getting worse in Akron, so instead of sitting around the Quality Inn, i found a "licensed Apple technician" a few miles away and took it to him.  Not only did this guy not fix my computer, but he erased EVERYTHING off of it, and said he didnt have time to put it back on even thought he said it was an easy fix.  I swear to god this guy was a total ass-brain.  On top of that, he made me pay $90 for him erasing all my information of my computer.  I argued with him for about 10 minutes said "i dont have time for this shit" and left Akron just plain ol' pissed off.  Luckily, I have a time machine application on my computer that saves all my info, and had recently run it so I could get all of my information back on, but still this guy was a moron.  Anywho, we left Akron and drove to Columbus.  Columbus was decent, and had an awesome gyro place next to the seminar facility we were at.  Also the hotel we were at, Hilton Garden Inn (pretty nice btw),  was run by alot of Ohio U students.   In Columbus, I took my computer to an Apple store where the guys at the Genius bar told me how to load everything back on and reboot my computer in a way that would fix what that cumfarter (too graphic and vulgar???...sorry for you sensies out there) did.  Columbus was aight, then we drove to Cincinnati.  I have been to this hotel before, and its nice.  They have a Priority Club floor (points program for Holiday Inn)  that has really nice rooms with flat screens and a concierge room with pop and cookies and shit.... its nice.  Had subway for lunch, its my staple on the road besides Panera.  After that seminar we flew out of Cincinnati and I went home.  Throughout this car trip through Ohio though, my speaker kept telling me how when she dies she wants to donate her body to science.  This might have been her topic of conversation for a good 1/4 of the car trips we were on and how important it is that humans have cadavers to study on to cure things.  I agree, its a good thing but i dont rant and rave about how awesome it will be when my body will be poked and prodded with needles and foreign instruments or might possibly be cut up and disposed of in some weird way.  Whatev, to each their own I guess.  

  After a short weekend home, watching the Cougs lose to UW, they deserve it, but it doesnt change the fact that UW is a school for concubines and cocksuckers (holla), I was back on the road.  I flew out on Sunday at 11 a.m. which was amazing. I got to sleep in an extra couple hours and didnt have to rush to the airport to catch a flight that would most likely be delayed or sit on the tarmack for an hour.  I was flying to Rapid City, South Dakota, and it reminded me of the Palouse alot, only less people, seriously.  This place was deserted.  The only time they have people is during the summer and its for Mount Rushmore about 25 miles outside of the city.  The hotel we were staying in was really nice, but was very empty.  So that means i get an upgrade!  I got a 2 room suite with 2 flat screens, 1 1/2 bathrooms, a massive bed, and a couple cookies.  That rocked.  Hardly anybody was at the seminar and we departed on a plane that was meant for 40 people, but there were only 5 of us... I got my own row on the plane, love it.  We flew into Denver and from the get go this was a different experience.....

  First off, I rented a car cuz its a long drive into the city and its cheaper to rent a car than get a taxi.  Also, my seminar/hotel was changed at the last minute to a hotel down the street and everything shifted for the day.  We were staying at a Sheraton where a MEAT (acronym for some sort of meat organization that actually spells MEAT) convention was going on with a bunch of fat  drunk texans yelling about how good MEAT is.  My hotel room was decent, but they had great service.  In my room I received a free bottle of wine, a basket of fruit, some crackers and cheese, and a few bottles of water.  They hooked me up!  It was compliments of the hotel Catering manager to sweeten me up so BER will come back more.

  Will we?!  Not for a bit....  The hotel was under some serious construction and I knew the next days seminar was gonna be hell from all the attendees and teachers complaining, but first.......

  So another BER program manager was gonna be in Denver and he had a friend who he says is alot of fun in Boulder.  So i meet up with Kyle (other pm) and we head to Boulder in the rental.  We meet Adam, his friend whowas kind of a grungy hippie character. It looked like everyone from Boulder was that way, and he was nice so we went and got someting to eat and headed back to Denver to our hotels.  Before that we stopped off at the liquor store, open till 1000 btw (awesome), and grabbed a fifth of rum.....just pure stupidity.  After killing that, we met another friend of Adams at a bar called Double Daughters, played beer pong at the bar and ended going back to my hotel room around 430....just dumb.  This picture defines the night.  I get up the next morning, struggle down to my seminar at 720 and feel like a mess, manage to get everything set up, sign everyone in and fall asleep on my seminar table.  When i wake, the Bolivian National soccer team is around my table, and 5 professional soccer players are laughing and giving me shit about being hungover.  They knew the drill.  They would say,"Mas cerveza o tequila amigo?" and laugh. I had on and off convos with them all day, they were hilarious.  There was a bunch off press too, like taking pictures, and i got in a picture with one of them.  Im a soccer star in Bolivia now, the first Irishman to play for them.  They were playing Mexico the next day and were there doing TONS of press for it.  For lunch I went to Jimmie Johns, always solid meal, and after the seminar went to Maggianos and got some Pesto Linguine....IT WAS AMAZING!  We drove to the airport and took off to Billings at 940 pm and landed 1130 pm.  I hate late flights.  Stayed at a hotel that I have been to before and it was an easy seminar.  After that seminar we flew here to where the mormons live in Salt Lake and am at a Holiday Inn that has nice rooms and comfortable beds, but bad service and no free breakfast, ultra lame.  Theres also NOTHING to eat around here.  I fly to Spokane tonight and tomorrows seminar should be easy.  I have a flight scheduled for 530, but hope to go standby on another because flights from Spokane to Seattle happen literally every 30 minutes, its insane.  Alright well I will see some of you tomorrow and hope all is well..... Deuces from the land of mormon.....

  

Long time.....alot to tell.....New York, Ohio, midwest....

Okay, so it has been a while since I posted.  After a week and a half of my computer not loading onto the internet and some douche bag in Akron, OH erasing everything and charging me 90 bucks to screw up my computer, i got it fixed.   Of course as always, I have been to some really rad places and some shitholes that would wipe the smile off of anyones face.  I would also like to thank the loving people who have made snide remarks on my facebook and over the internet to post. Those motivate me more to keep this meaningless explanation of my travels going.....Im going to slice your face off....wait... what?!  

  Anyways I will start with my birthday, it was good.  It was filled with unicorns, interesting cakes, fish-eyed dogs, singing, and most of all booze.  Thanks friends.   I would also like to thank those close friends who traveled to Las Vegas and New Orleans over my birthday, so thoughtful (Just giving ya shit guys, ya know i hate.....i mean love you retards....alot negativity today huh???  God i love it.  I got some cool new things and had alot of fun.  In all seriousness, thanks.  

  After my good b-day, I worked in the office at BER in Bellevue, which might be the most boring, monotonous thing i have ever done, besides those 3 days I worked in a warehouse in Woodinville packing backpacks full of toys for Macys all around the U.S. and soon quit.  I hate temp jobs.  At the end of that week I traveled to New York, New York.  

  New York, as everyone says, is an absolutely awesome city.  Big surprise huh?  I took an early flight out there and landed at JFK.  After waiting literally and hour for my bags to come off the conveyer belt, I grabbed the nearest taxi and spent an ungodly amount getting into Manhatten to our hotel.  It was a new Holiday Inn with tiny rooms, but they were nice.  It was, get this.....100$ bucks a night.  For New York thats unheard of.  I first made a quick trip to Brooklyn to see my friend Jessica Soga and had some sushi with her and her cute Photography coworker (holla back).  After gettin a little saucy with them with some Sapporo, I headed back downtown to meet up with the other program managers.  We all met and hung out at the hotel to get our minds in weekend mode after a week of work, and headed to a couple bars.  One of the PMs used to live in New York, so she knew her way around and showed us some rad places.  I don't remember the names of the bars (big surprise) but they were alright and it was a kind of a chill night, just drinking and talking.  The next day we wake up and 2 other PMs and I go to a small breakfast place called Blue Moon or something along those lines, and I get the cream cheese and lox.  Now these lox arent like small strips of salmon, this was like they deboned the fish and through the whole fuckin filet on this thing, literally.  (It was like a fish with a cracker on either side...... Mitch Hedberg?!)  It was a whole filet and son of a bitch it was good.  After making small talk and discussing todays events, we met up with one of the Kyles (PM) friends named Evi who was pretty rad.  She told us of this place called Brother Jimmys.  It is a restaurant/bar that serves southern style food, and oh god it was ridiculous.  The food was amazing and the wings were godly.  I wish I could have tried more of the food because I am sure it was just as good, maybe better than the wings.  After several pitchers, over 100 wings, and good discussion, we decided to go to Central Park where we were to meet one more PM and get things going.  After foolin around in Central Park, seein the tunnel Kevin (Macauley Culkin) ran through  in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and the rock in Little Nicky where Adam Sandler sat, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the night.  After getting ready we headed to a place called I think McSwilleys or McSwirleys.  it only served 2 types of beer and was awesome.  You paid 2 bucks, (cash only) asked for light or dark and they handed you a 12 ounce mug of beer and these things were being consumed in record numbers in this bar, for good reason tho.  This beer was awesome.  It got a little crowded and we headed out.  After a drunken piercing idea from one PM, and taking nips off a bums brown bag (no joke, just dumb) we headed to a small !rish (accidental exclamation point, but i like it...) bar where some serious pool was played and discussion was to be had.  I forget the name of this bar, but I know its next to the place we went to after which is called Iggys Rock and Roll Karaoke Bar.  Oh man, this place was it.  I have found my Mecca.  It was packed, and from the outside, its a spider whole, but once you break through the small entrance and get in the back, its awesome.  There is probably a 3 foot tall 10 foot long stage in a 40X 40 room with a bar and people are belting out karaoke songs on stage.  This place was awesome.  Everyone was enjoying the drink and being ultra supportive, singing along and living the dream for a few minutes as they drunkingly stripped, danced, or flailed their way to karaoke fame.  It was a 2 hour wait to sing a song, so none of us did it, but to be a spectator was fun enough.  After staying their late, we woke up in a haze and headed to Arnie's Deli which is an authentic Jewish Deli with amazing food.  Never have I tasted a better sandwich in my life.  The reuben sandwich at this place was outstandingly delicioso (It might be spelled wrong but I forgot my Spanish, plus I aint Mexican fool!  Im AMURICAN! joking...not about the American part, just in general....yea....shutup.....).  The food and plates set in front of us to eat were out of this world.  Everybody cleaned their plate clean and even ate all the pickled green and red peppers served as somewhat of an appetizer before the meal. After a few PMs left to catch flights, a few of us headed to another little bar to get a quick pitcher to let our headaches subside and digest.  We sit downa nd say one pitcher 4 glasses, to which our waitress says "We have a deal of 2 pitcher and 36 wings for only 5 bucks more.  To which we respond, "Done SON!"  After consuming more delicious wings and few drinks, I head to JFK where I am flying out.  

    As i arrive I can see that most of the flights are cancelled, including mine.  A bad snow storm is coming and its just creating all types of ridiculous fuckery round the northeast.  For my job thats a hassle.  Delta tells me to head to Laguardia to catch a last minute flight out to Reagan (not where Im suppose to be going, but is the closest to Baltimore as i can get).  I rent a car in Washington D.C. and drive 2 hours through the night in a snowstorm in a Chevy Malibu.  I arrive in Hunt Valley, MD around 1200 and crash.  

  The next week I went to Ohio, and drive through all sorts of stupid towns and small POS areas dealing with unsavory characters who screw up my laptop and give me more reason to not like Ohio....  Alright until possibly tonight or tomorrow, deuces from Billings, MT......