Day Whatever (Six?)

I did forget something I didn't write about before, that I did before I left.  Got to visit the guitar shop where I used to work.  Sweet.  It had been about nine months since I was there so that was good.  Nice to see a few of the guys, shame it took me that long to get over there being a mile from school and all.  But thats school.

Today was sweet though.  It was basically a Carl planned day, seeing what I wanted to see, which my dad was skeptical of I think but played along with anyway.  He likes to say he doesn't have an opinion on things...and I like to say well, only until you have an opinion on something.  But everything turned out well.  The Disney Concert Hall was PHENOMENAL.  Built by Frank Gehry I dunno how many years ago now, maybe 5-7, right in downtown LA- regardless of whether you think its ugly, bizarre, or just a huge waste of money, I challenge you not to be amazed walking through some of the spaces.  Especially those where they filmed Ironman.  Sweet.  So we spent about an hour there, doing the self-guided tour, which since we were the last people in the building meant the usher-herded tour, as we got scolded for going to the third floor and then returning to the second, because that floor was already supposed to be "clear".  Okay, SORRY.  There was a new usher at every turn, inside and in the garden, directing us to the next destination, just YEARNING to get the hell off work for the day.  We did get to see the concert hall itself inside which is rarely open to the public.  The whole place was just an incredible experience to walk through and discover, moment to moment.  New thing on list of life to-dos (which isn't really that long, but somewhat grandiose)- see a concert at this place.  And hang out in the garden outside afterwards.

From there we went to meet up with my mom's cousin Joe Wack, of Simpsons character design fame.  Look for his name in the credits.  He lives with his wife Katy just outside of downtown up on a hill with a great view of the city.  They're both multitalented people so we had a chance to talk about a great many things, including music and art mostly.  I think we coaxed them into coming to SB for the 4th of July next year.  Its always nice to connect up with people, especially family.  Their yard was of particular interest, as in typical California fashion (to me, anyway) they had fruit tress growing there.  Avocados and limes in the back, figs, pomegranates, persimmons (which I've never even had) aaaaaaand something else I'm forgetting, in the front along with Bird-of-Paradise flowers.  Pretty cool.  

We then made our way into Hollywood, saw Capitol Records (smaller than you'd think) and drove by THREE different buildings associated with the Church of Scientology- one was their Celebrity Center or something, which covered a whole city block and I'm pretty sure housed their compound-worker-children in the back, one place that was being protested at, and once place they were having some event at with people in suits handing out stuff.  All within blocks of each other, right near Hollywood and Vine.  From there our real destination was the Griffith Observatory, free (just like the usher-urged tours of Disney) and waaaaaay up these switchbacks we drove on until we had a clear(ish) view of the whole valley, including LA and two other outcroppings of buildings that were I assume Pasadena and something-something.  We got to look out a huge telescope up in one of those domes with the slit in the side, and see a star in broad daylight that apparently was 2 million miles across.  It was a cool building, WELL traversed by many language speaking peoples, and you could also see the Hollywood sign.  Yay.  

So then we came *home* to Newberry Park, got some wine, and found out they were shooting some new fall show "Opportunity Knocks" that was some game show being filmed in a cul-de-sac of the nearby neighborhood.  Weird.  California.  Watched the most ridiculously world-fastest man EVER on the Olympics in addition to *yawn* Mr 8 gold medals Michael Phelps.  And now it is time for bed.  More great LA sights to be seen tomorrow.  Yesssss.

Day Five

Well I must say its awesome that Apple stock WAS up to $180 but its down to $175.  Still making a sweet return on my bills.  Dark Knight is also within $9 million of #2 all-time, Star Wars.  Only $140 mil more to catch Titanic.  Yeah.  It was also exciting to have internet last night and check my mail.  I only had about 1000 spam messages.  Thanks Gmail for taking care of that for me.  You're mah boy.   

Just drove past the number many-th In-N-Out Burger.  Or "bur-jer" as Karen the Garmin voice likes to call it.  She also calls El Pollo Loco "pallo".  Right.  I don't think I'd ever actually eaten there- turns out they have this amazing little drink that I suppose Mexicans but not Carls are familiar with- Horchata.  Its rice milk and cinnamon.  And oh its magically delicious.  And of course a milky drink is perfecto for quelling hot spiciness from pico de gallo.

Anyway today we basically got up, had our continental breakfast, took brief advantage of the wireless, and went to the SD Zoo.  Apparently world-renowned- didn't keep Chris from being over it, but going turned out to be cool.  They had a skytram that we rode over the zoo, which was those little cable cars up in the air like at Cedar Point.  They had 4 of the remaining 1600 pandas in the world, and they were of course ALL sleeping.  They have the in-process Safari area that is supposed to be for elephants and lions and zebras and all kinds of other stuff...oh and cost $45 million.  They had some other cool aminals but nothing you can't find at Lincoln Park Zoo.  They had a fat-ASS hippo.  Ummmm some other stuff that I forget.  But we spent like three hours there.

Then we went to find San Diego State University's football stadium so we could do rain dances there- or um drought dances I guess, since they play Notre Dame in a couple weeks.  After wrong turning because of signs leading us to Chargers Qualcomm Stadium, we found SDSU campus...and found out they play at Chargers Stadium.  Okayyyyyyy Go Irish see you later.  Now we drive to an hour north of LA to meet up with relatives, technically my grandpa's cousin, though she's quite a bit younger and her kids are like junior-high age.  Sweet.  They have some fruit trees I think.  Tomorrow and Sunday we see the world of Los Angeles.  Not really the super touristy stuff though cause we've already done that bargage.

Day Four

Well today we left Las Vegas behind us- time for the second of our four two-word-name cities, San Diego.  But not before we got in some good gambling- Chris stuck in $10 to play video poker and floundered before getting a flush and a full house to get over his $10 up to $17, and he cashed out.  I put $3 in a nickel slot machine, bet three credits (15 cents), and immediately got three free spins which I used, having no idea what was going on, till I suddenly had a bajillion credits and cashed out to have $9 instead of 3.  Victory.  

We drove the five or so hours to San Diego (who's seen Anchorman, c'mon) and after driving through downtown for a bit, headed south to find a cheaper room.  Found it.  Drove to Mexico.  Accidentally went INTO Mexico in our rental car.  My dad kinda uhhh reacted strongly.  Waited in line for twenty minutes, got OUT of Mexico, parked and walked back in- not before realizing the MTS (SD trolley) went all the way from SD to Tijuana.  Oops.  We spent under an hour in Tijuana since most of the booths were closed down and there were no white people, just Mexicans not so gently coaxing us into their strip clubs or restaurants.  So after equal portions of food and sex (which is to say, none of either) we headed back for the border.  And bought some Mexican cane-sugar Coke before we walked over.  Not as magically as I had hoped but it IS sweeter.

That about sums up our adventures for today.  Our little suburb of SD has seldom few restaurants open at 9:30pm.  Filipino food turned out to be okay though.  Apparently they're a 3am weekend drunken favorite.  Neat.

Day Three

Day Three

Found out Karen isn't infallible.  Karen is the Aussie voice of Chris' Garmin GPS.  Punching in "Grand Canyon" and then following her directions may or may not lead you to the South Rim 4 hours from Vegas rather than the North Rim, 2.5 hours away.  Turns out someone told her to ignore dirt roads,  Two digital photos of a map in a gas station, 1 extra hour of driving, and 17 miles of dirt roads later, we arrived at the Grand Canyon.  Orrrrrrr else we arrived at some Indian reservation where instead of a casino they decided to run a tourism scam instead.  Shoot my laptop battery is down to 50%.  That means I only have mmmmm about three hours left of battery.  Rock.  What also rocks is Apple stock making $9 a share in three days.  I like them apples.

Anyway, after the 17 miles of dirt roads and incredible fields of Joshua Trees, we got to the Some-Indian-tribe-name Reservation, where parking was $20.  Hmmm okay.  Into the gift shop, hi, what can we see around here without paying out the ass for a helicopter ride, bus ride, or other some such overpriced tour-y thing?  Nothing.  Okaaaaaaay uh we'll have the cheapest scalping available.  $30 for a shuttle bus to drop us off and pick us up at a few locations.  One of which was the engineering feat we came to see, the Skywalk.  Oh by the way, thats an extra $30 a person.  Right.  Well that looks neato from the bus.  Next stop.  Which turned out to be pretty sweet looking- climbing on some rocks on a peninsula with almost 360 degrees of canyon around us and the Colorado River below, helicopters flying below through the canyon.  Coooool.  Okay time to go back home.

And get some In-N-Out Burger on the way.  Who knows what I'm talking about?

We three kings agreed we were glad that our rental Chevy wasn't ours, after 17 miles each way on washboard abs dirt roads.  Oh wait we were glad the rental Chevy wasn't ours anyway.  

We finished seeing what we needed to see tonight including three more Bellagio water fountain shows.  Might catch another tomorrow, before or after we find out what the catch is behind this Rewards card that refunds you your first $100 of losses gambling.  What, $1,000 minimum gambling or something?  Pretty tired after our 5 hr of sleep night.  Wish I knew how many miles we walked today- probably around five- but the pedometer in my cell phone didn't like the washboard abs roads any more than our sweet Chevy did.  Which is to say, I enjoy any and all wear-and-tear my phone takes on, as I would if I owned a Chevy, because I welcome the hastening of its own demise so it can be replaced by something cooler and foreign-made.  

I need to go to bed now.  Tomorrow is a short jaunty to Mexican via San Diego.

Day Two

Today we drove our Chevy to the levy.  The levy was however not dry.  But the song WAS on the radio when we turned it on in our sweet Cobalt rental car.  We were supposed to get a call about our car at 8am.  Uh woke up about 1:15pm- hadn't ever gotten our call.  Apparently *I* was the only one mostly soundly sleeping until that time- but hey no one woke ME up.  So our car isn't that bad though.  Puts out enough AC to keep the 113 degree temperatures at bay.  Well at least on the return drive it was only 108.  In the shade.  At 6pm!!  Hoover Dam was pretty sweet.  I could give all the facts and figures but the coolest is, its as thick at the bottom as it is tall.  Which is two football field widths.  The Lake, Lake Mead, that it traps, holds enough water at any one time to keep the river past the dam flowing at its current rate for two years.  They're currently building a concrete arch bridge to bypass the road over the dam.  It's sweet also.

Did I mention most of my pictures will be of Chris taking pictures?

After getting three regretted large frozen things from DQ on the return drive and seeing many many sweet mountains all around, we came back and went to Hofbrauhaus.  Got some too-expensive but taste sausage and mashed potatoes that the three of us split (splitting is good when a bloody Subway footlong costs almost ten bucks- what is this, Disney World?) and some large beers.  So we each had a half liter beer and then played beat the clock (meaning drive home before the alcohol hits) only because it wasn't that much beer and we left right away and only hadta drive four blocks.  And we're pretty sure everything is legal here.  

We did get yelled at by a cabbie as he left turned past us for jaywalking though.  No seriously.  And here I thought they didn't know much English.

Tonight we saw Cirque du Soleil's Mystere show.  Um it was crazy wicked awesome sweet.  All kinds of acrobats, trapezes, trampolines, raising and lowering stage pieces, ridiculous costumes, man-sized drums, and two ripped guys who did some homo-erotic slow balancing/lifting thing that was kinda like pairs figure skating without skates and ice and a woman.  At one point one dude was doing a one-handed hand stand up in the air on top of the other guy's HEAD.  Then same other guy was laying on the ground face down with first guy doing hand-stand on his ankles.  Then he lifted the hand-stand guy up with his calves.  Unreal.  Even all the music was live from up on some side platforms.  

Then we continued our evening walking down the strip into different casino-hotels- Bellagio, Luxor, Mandalay Ga...er...Bay, MGM Grand, New York New York, blah blah etc.  The Bellagio has the most amazing outdoor water fountain shows to music, of all time.  And its lobby is kick ASS.  Full of miniature trains and a giant moss garden with the jumped water fountains and a huge skylight roof and a scale model of the hotel built.  New York interiors were full of scaled down building fronts of bars and stores and stuff basically a huge indoor food court.  Chris didn't win the BMW that was the jackpot for playing these slots we saw.

Walked past City Center again, saw the scale model of it, found out five world-renowned architects are working on various parts of it.  Completed our evening at about 4am finally, getting up tomorrow at 9:30.  Awesome.  So 12 hours of sleep followed by 5.  Awesome.  And we walked 15 miles today.  Not bad, aside from my shoes smelling like diiiiiiick.  Bought some odor-eating spray for Chris and my dad, or my shoes.  Better keep up with that.  

Tomorrow, Grand Canyon, The Parisian, maybe more dollar margaritas, In-N-Out Burger, maybe some MEDIUM DQ.  Yum.  Lots more pictures.  Taking about half a gig a day so far.  Probably will slow down.  Some.   I'm differentiating mine from Chris' by having him taking pictures in all my pictures.  Ha.

Day One

Vegas.

I'm not sure whats more exhausting- the fourteen miles we walked today (FOURTEEN) or the 0% humidity.  You don't even notice the 100% temperatures when you're busy nursing your sore throat and dry eyes.  Combine that with drinking my own  $1 Michelob plus two more that Chris and my dad didn't like in about thirty minutes, and I'm ready to dry up and blow away in the wind.  The heat actually feels pretty great, cause your sweat basically vaporizes here.  I don't think any of the water from my shower even got down to the tub- there isn't even a drain.  I was dry as soon as I turned the water off.  Okay that's not true. 

We ran into some famous people, and did some drinkin'...

Also exhausting is the constant stream of middle-class white people in a hurry to lose their money to endless fields of machines with flashing lights and ringing bells.  Its like a bloody Pavlov city.

What's cool is watching probably the biggest single development in Vegas history in the middle of going up on the strip, I think called the City Center.  For the whole day I'm forgetting who designed it.  It'll come to me.  Or I'll look it up.  If only I didn't hafta walk past 20 Mexicans flicking and slapping business-card sized handouts advertising for the local strip clubs, that they thrust out in front of you without a word.  

Yum.

This place is basically like an Adult Disney World where every part of the park has the same rides and they all cost a lot of money and don't even go anywhere.  I guess I'm enjoying the gambling of an 11% percent return on my shares of Apple stock in the past few weeks more than sitting down at a slot machine and repeatedly pushing a button that might as well be labelled "Take My Money".  

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually quite enjoying the place.  I just don't understand wanting to spend your honeymoon or family vacation here.  And damned if they shouldn't be selling eyedrops and lotion on every corner with the "ice cold water one dollar".

Um Chris had some fun.

Prequel

Hi from California.  Time to post all this garbage I've typed.

Prequel

Well I suppose I should write a bit about previous events in life before I get on to our trip.  So here goes those.  Tiffany's friend Shubair, aforementioned, came to visit a couple weeks ago, so we got to do some touristy things that never get old for me.  Saw Navy Pier, which took way too bloody long, and walked past the River East Art Gallery where Tiffany and I met, that's $15,000 to rent for a Saturday.  Or $6,500 on a Sunday.  That's better I guess...  We also got to see the Hancock Lounge again, have a $15 drink (hey, the Observatory costs $12.50 so what the hell) and look around the city.  And we took some cool pictures.  And some dumb ones.  Thankfully Tiffany is as ridiculous as me cause I don't think I could deal with taking serious pictures all the time.  And my faces would piss her off.

Also, my soccer season ended.  For me anyway, cause I hadta leave town for this vacation thing.  I'll miss the playoffs.  Also, my esteemed former roommate Matt, yes the guy in Japan, turned a big strong 27 August 3rd.  Later that week we went on the Notre Dame Alumni Club Annual Booze Cruise or some name like that with too many words.  It used to be $30, now its $40, but its still magical to get a three-hour boat tour down the river and out on the lake with all you can eat pizza and all you can drink beer and wine.  And all I can take pictures.  Sweet.  I think there's less and less people I know each year on that boat that aren't already there with me.  Sign of old age.  Tiffany enjoyed hanging out with (read "would not stop talking to") her new friend Diana, who Josh tried to catch up with when he could get a word in.  I enjoyed taking pictures of buildings.  A riverboat cruise in Chicago is an architect's  Disney World.

Then I had my pseudo last day at work, hoping that I will have more days at work during the semester provided they have work to keep me busy.  I could use the money, and certainly have the spare time...HA no.  But really, I enjoyed it there.  And going downtown means I get to see buildings go up and the parking garage out back go down.  That's fun.  Architect's Disney World, I'm telling you.  At least not counting Dubai.

The last event before we embarked on our epic journey was my cousin Rachel's wedding in Noblesville/Carmel/Indianapolis area, IN.  If it wasn't for that wedding I'd have been in MN at another friend's Katie Noack's wedding and then crashing another, Colleen Clark's.  Or I'd be crashing two, either Spencer and Katie in Niagara Falls or friend Kyle from school and his now wife Julie in Buffalo.  Apparently its the weekend to get married.  So all excuses for spending time with family are good, but of course weddings are great.  Personally, I just came to see the newly renovated Wack kitchen, but the wedding was nice also.  Its always weird seeing people get married though cause its such a life-changing momentous occasion.  But also these days, not being in college anymore, and being older, people not only marry people you don't know well, but do it in more haste cause they're ready.  I've met Joe enough times but its still weird that Rachel knows him enough to get married.  That and the whole meeting a year and a half ago and now being married.  And we used to be really close in college and afterwards so she's a bit like a sister.  Well enough about that business.  But check out the sign at the Hilton pool...and three bald guys.

Chance Meetings Are Weird. uhhh Part 2.

Now I know everyone says "its a small world" and has those experiences, but I thought I'd document a few of my own.  I've gotten to the point that any time I'm pretty much anywhere with alotta people (a random big city, or an amusement park) I can practically count on seeing someone I know...of course that extends to someone I vaguely recognize from class or work).  So here's a few stories:

The first story isn't my own.  A friend of mine (I think it was Aaron King but I have a knack for remember what I was told without remember who told me it- people around me know this) was in Europe (maybe it was Paul Miller who's story this is) and was in some random town in Germany when he ran into someone we went to high school with, Ben Corson-Knowles, as they both were passing each other on the stairs of an old clock tower.  There were 100 people in my high school, and two of em ran into each other in a clock tower in Germany.

Second, an event that cemented my belief in these occurrences is when I was in Toronto with my family some years ago, and I think we were seeing Castel du Mont or du Pont or whatever means Castle on the Hill in silly French.  And we ran into a family we knew from South Bend there (the Busks), like we were at the mall or something.

My family has one of my sister's classmates Megan living with them for the summer while she does a rotation for physical therapy in South Bend.  I'm really fuzzy on the details but thankfully after briefly posting a completely incorrect story about the wrong people, my sister Jenny set me straight.  Megan and her husband apparently for part of their honeymoon stayed at someone's house.  During 4th of July weekend, Megan met Joe Tigue, my cousin Rachel's fiance (for three more days anyway) and found out that it was his brother who's house she stayed at.  I don't think her and Joe had even met before but it was random conversation about where people were from that brought it about.  Oops its rapidly getting late.

The weirdest ones of late are these.  

My (now former) roommate Matt (who moved to Japan to speak English- insert plug for his blog here- vicariousjapanese.blogspot.com) was in uh, some city in Japan a couple weeks ago when he saw an American looking girl in some garden he was walking by.  She, Megan McCandless, was reading a book, and surprisingly I'm fuzzy on the details but he approached her and said hi more or less because they were both American, and it turns out she's friends of one of our good friends from SB, Rachael Stowe, because they went to college together.  Finding people you know in random gardens in Japan.

Lastly (I gotta go cut my hair take a shower go to DQ and go to bed), Tiffany as you might know moved here to uh, hang out with me.  She has a friend from Baylor, Shubair.  He bumped into one of his old friends from grade school, in Houston, who said she was moving to Chicago (or something like that) coincidentally to be with HER boyfriend, and he asked if she knew me.  And she, Diana Guilen, is a friend of mine from college.  So Shubair ends up flying to Chicago a couple months later to visit us both.  Its like the Circle of Life or something.  Gotta go now. 

I get the feeling this isn't terribly compelling or even decently written.  Apologies.

Some interesting things about Texas, the state my girlfriend likes to identify with :)

There are apparently cities by the following names, among others:

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus , Texas 76084

Cut n Shoot, Texas 

Gun Barrell City , Texas 

Hoop And Holler, Texas 

Ding Dong, Texas and, of course,

Muleshoe , Texas

THIS is how large Texas is:

 

1. Beaumont to El Paso : 742 miles

2. Beaumont to Chicago : 770 miles 

3. El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas

4. King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island

What a reeeedickulous place.

Random Stuff. But No iPhone.

This is a short and scattered entry.  First, I decided that in the theme of my blog about my parents, I'm gonna write a series of entries about important people in my life- who they are, what they mean to me, what kinda person they.  I suppose I already did that sorta with my grandma.  Or maybe not.  But people like my siblings, Josh, Tiffany, etc.  So some of you will get to read about yourself.  Everyone loves getting recognized, right?

Second, DO THIS.  ING Direct opened up the gates so that you can invite more people.  I can make $10 per person that joins through my referral, and you get $25 in your account!  I mean seriously its worth opening the account just to get $25.  ING Direct is an online-only bank account where you can get a 3% return on your money.  Used to be more like 4.5% before the market tanked.  You can directly transfer money to other bank accounts, or from other accounts (without the transfer fees that people like Chase charge) and if your money is just sitting in your bank making no money, might as well be making 3%, seriously.  Email me and I'll send you an invite.  Josh and Chris have accounts.  They're sweet.  I forget if my parents got accounts yet...

Also, my mom got a Mac.  ROCK.  She's computer savvy like that.  Learned it in no time.  Right mom?

Also, I want to complain.  I have a thousand different websites that I have usernames with.  Some important and financial, many not.  Of course I have multiple different passwords.  But these days, when you sign up and it tells you it hasta be six digits, or six digits with a number, or six digits with two numbers, or six digits with two numbers and no dictionary word longer than three letters (seriously this is true) how the HELL am I supposed to remember the stipulations they gave me for my password I entered almost a year ago for my student financial services, that I use about once a semester?  Couldn't you at least tell me what the password is supposed to contain so I remember which of 10 passwords I used, before my five-login max is exceeded and I'm locked out of the account for 24 hours?  SERIOUSLY.

Next I'm going to write about some stories that illustrate ridiculously how small the world really is.  Or how that six degrees thing is really true.  Or something like that.