Vegas Adventures

Vegas was everything they say it is. A town where the entire population exists solely to take your money and satisfy one of your vices in return. By the end of the third day I foudn it really unsettling how you couldn't trust anything anyone said - every person there has an agenda, and is running backdoor deals. The best example was the cab drivers - they have deals with clubs and bars and casinos where they get paid for dropping people there. Obviously they'll twist your arm pretty hard to get you to eat at the place that pays them $100/head. Even if you called a limo and had arranged a ride to bar x, they almost always started telling you how that place sucks and bar y is where the action is.

The other remarkably unsettling aspect of Vegas is how time doesn't matter. I'm sure the two hour difference threw me as well, but by the end of the weekend I was sleeping for just a few hours per day, staying up until sun rise and heading back out the next morning. Luckily I was with a group of very laid back guys who didn't mind spending a couple of hours watching Cribs to gather our wits back up before heading out into the maddness (and 110 degree heat) again.

But despite, and because of, all that, the trip was a blast. We hung out in lots of fancy casinos, got comped drinks, did some sight seeing, all of the usual bachelor party stuff. My favorite part was probably the gun range. I just shot a Glock, but other guys shot sniper rifles, 30-cal machine guns, MP-5s, etc. It was pretty amazing to stand next to a SAW and feel it as a guy blow through 200 rounds. It wiped away any impressions of gunfire I had from videogames real quick. Military-grade weapons are amazing loud and impactful.

It was also great getting to know some of the guys from Madison better. Most of the group of guys were friends with the bachelor from before I got up there, and I've seen many of them many times but never really got to know them. Good guys all around.

Now that I'm done with my string of crazy July weekends, and I must say it feels great to be home and settling back down. Maria and I even got to finally move in most of the way (all of our furniture is setup now). There are still a couple of lingering things (like, for some reason, half of our closet doors are missing), but it feels pretty great to have nothing going on this weekend.

I am taking the Twitter Challenge

I've wanted to try to figure out Twitter for a while now, and what better time than a four day trip to Las Vegas? This weekend I will be getting myself all setup to Twitter from my phone, and hopefully recieve Twitters there as well (assuming I can get it setup - it doesn't seem to be working right now). If anyone out there uses Twitter, my username is spanishturtle, so add me, message me, whatever it is you do with this. Also, if you can offer any advice on how to get things setup, drop me an email. (Oh, and send me your twitter names so I can add you before I leave.)

If you are not on Twitter, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/spanishturtle. Check out this morning when I woke Joe up at 6am (California time) by inadvertently texting him.

If you do use this thing, please hit me with a lot of messages this weekend, as I'll probably just lose interest and forget about it otherwise. If it holds my attention you should get lots of stupid drunk messages. Enjoy.

Update: Thanks to Pat and Joe I am all setup. I've received more text messages in the last hour than I have in the last week. I'm going to have to do some adjusting.

Quick July Update

I'm entering the home stretch of July insanity, with just my trip to Vegas left. New York was great, especially getting to see everyone who lives out there. The first couple of days were spent with Maria's family, surrounding her brother's wedding. The wedding was quite awesome; the first Jewish ceremony I've been to since I was like six. The dancing, the band, and the ceremony were all great, and felt very personal to the couple. I definitely think we can learn a thing or two about how to throw a wedding from these guys.

On our last full day there we went into the city and met Arun and Katie for lunch at a place with a Nelly-themed bathroom (the rapper). Always good to see those two. We spent the evening on a patio with Gabe, Anne and Theresa drinking cheap margaritas and catching up. In between we attended a taping of the Colbert Report (where Gabe works), and got to see the office and studio before the taping. It was pretty interesting; the whole thing seems very similar to putting on any other show, with Colbert very much on stage the whole time. It was nice to get to see him in the office afterward when he was calm and not running around quite so much - turns out he is a real person after all. Before the taping Maria and I walked right past him and I didn't even notice (she pointed it out to me later). Everybody else there was incredibly nice, and Madison is surprisingly well represented.

Indiana was also top notch; hanging out with everybody at Ted and Caroline's wedding was so much fun. They also had a very nice ceremony, followed by a great reception. This was another evening spent on a patio catching up with friends. I really enjoy Ted's group of friends (who I'd met at the bachelor party). Its too bad they're all so scattered. The day ended with us making grand plans to go out all night, but falling asleep instead. Oh, and I rode in a limo for the first time ever. (It was everything I'd imagined and more.)

Upon returning from Indiana, I cracked somewhat when we discovered that the painting and other repairs in the apartment still aren't done. (27 days and counting to paint four rooms.) I finally broke down and yelled at our landlord and actually got our August rent reduced, which is fortuitous timing with a Vegas weekend on the way, but I'm still annoyed. We've been promised (yet again) that everything will be completed today.

Friday morning I fly out one more time, destination Las Vegas. It should be an absolute blast, especially considering the group of guys going, and afterward I'll be home until back-to-back Madison visits at the end of August. Time to go out with style and then take a couple of weeks to recover. See y'all on the other side! Pow! Pow!

News from the Old Country

I've always had this extremely positive image of northern Europe, and this has just reinforced it yet again. A drunk old man tried to row home from Denmark to Sweden (across a straight that's five miles wide). He fell asleep in the boat, and was woken up by the police the next morning. The boat he used was stolen, and the owner decided NOT to press charges! I'm picturing the owner the next day getting the news in a pub somewhere, slapping the old man on the back, buying him a beer and saying something along the lines of "Any man crazy enough to row home across the Oresund in the dead of night can borrow MY boat any time!" Then they would sing and laungh and watch soccer. Ah, I love you, you northern european bastards. Vikings, Saabs, fjords and now this? Someday I must go visit.

Requests

If anyone still reads this, help me out with a couple of questions.

1) What am I supposed to use Twitter for? I keep hearing all these people that are nerdcool talk about how great it is, and they all update their shit all the time, and send tweets to each other and stuff. Can you set it up to alert you every time someone you follows twitters? Maybe that's what's cool about it. So you could be like "hey, I'm going to Gio's", and everyone who follows you would know without you needing to call them? I don't know, it seems very pointless to me - even more pointless than blogging or text twist. The one good use I have seen is on Joe's blog where he uses it for sort of 1-second temporary posts, which I think is sorta neat.

2) In a few months here I'm going to be seriously looking for a replacement for the Saab. What should I look at? I want something a bit smaller, better made, and with some kick. I keep coming back to the GTI/C30 and thinking I'd rather not go with a hatchback (and the GTI has suspect build quality), then looking at a BMW 3-series and deciding its too expensive and not really all that small. A 1-series would be cool, but they're too expensive, a Z4 or some other 2-seater would be cool now, but in the winter they would suck, a new XWD Saab 9-3 would be awesome, but again, too expensive. I've basically talked myself out of every car available.

And so it began with a squawk

Last weekend Maria and I moved to our new place. Its very nice, and I'm pretty much all around happy with the move. The only small complaints are 1: our landlord is proving very slow to take care of the maintenance / repair issues he has promised to complete, and 2: there is a family of birds living in our wall. The second one is the more immediate issue, as we basically have baby birds in our closet screaming every 20 minutes from 8am - 10pm (at least they sleep, I guess). Thankfully, we've been told that things will actually start happening today (though we've heard that a couple of times now). Until walls are actually painted and floors are fixed and windows are re-framed we're still living out of boxes quite a bit, but the neighborhood is great, the space is awesome, and the air conditioning does its job well. I'm also looking forward to my first Hayden pop-in sometime this week.

The move was the first float in the July-long parade of weekends which now proceeds with the 4th of July Sports Day, New Jersey / NYC, Bloomington, IN, and Vegas. It is rather daunting to be looking at so many expensive and busy weekends, but I'm also really looking forward to all of it. I am also looking forward to buying lunch without feeling like I'm breaking the bank sometime in August.