Yes. It is Saturday night. And I am writing a blog post and beginning a sentence with a conjunction, two things that most people shouldn't do. However, some guy named Noah knocked on my front door a few minutes ago, looking for a donkey, as he had only one of the mandatory pair. In layman's terms, Nashville is waterlogged, and here I sit.
Over the last month or so, I've traveled the country. From Nashville to Chattanooga to Los Angeles to Tampa. The following are the highlights...
Chattanooga. Where my father spent his early childhood, I spent a week of my [I have no idea what to call this stage of my life]. Chat-town was actually a pretty interesting place, and we didn't even see the aquarium. We did, however, eat at a hippie Jewish restaurant. For all my UTC readers, that was your shout-out to the Yellow Deli, where you can eat a lamb sandwich while listening to the gentle tones of a harpsichord. While it was a nice little city, as it turns out, I was there to work, and work I did. As such, we kept the highlights to a minimum.
Los Angeles. Ok, so it was actually Thousand Oaks, but it's just an hour away, and in LA traffic, that's saying something. I know what you're thinking. Sadly, I didn't even fly into LAX. I took my dream and my cardigan just in case there was a problem at the Bob Hope Airport and we were forced to land at LAX... No dice. Anyway, I was there for 2 weeks. Worked from 8 to 5. This left me with ample time each day to do what I wanted to do in Southern California. For the first week and a half, it was 80 degrees and sunny. In Nashville. It was sunny in California too, but it was about 60. I sucked it up. I would like to share that the Creator of the universe really outdid himself about 20 minutes from my Hampton Inn. I drove my rented Hyundai Elantra through some of the most beautiful mountains and canyons. While I was taking it in at 45 mph, I was being tailed by a few locals who were not happy with my adherence to the speed limit. As such, when I exited the final canyon, I went a little faster than I normally would... only to discover that I had to take a hard left turn or hope the guy who rented the Elantra before me had caulked the car and paid the Indians to ford the ocean, as the beautiful mountains immediately gave way to the ocean. It was pretty awesome.
Tampa. From the West Coast to the Gulf Coast. In case you tuned in to hear me complain about my job, I apologize. Tampa was nice. Wonderful weather. Doubletree on the beach. It didn't even smell like oil until Thursday. I didn't mention it before, but the closest I got to someone famous in LA was at lunch one day with some of the staff from the hospital I was working at. While enjoying my burger, one of the guys said to me, "You know the guy O.J. killed?" Allegedly. "He's buried behind you." That was it. Ron Goldman's grave was 200 yards away... All of this was redeemed at the Tampa airport on Friday. A fellow auditor turned to me and said, "You know John Cena?" As I am 24 and have cable television, while I may not watch it religiously, I am still familiar with professional wrestling, so this question was basically rhetorical. Cena may have been wearing headbands around his biceps, but if he was, it was under his dress shirt. The man was dressed to a T - whatever that means. He was huge though. Almost as big as the Southwest employee scanning boarding passes. Sorry to disappoint, but I did not get his autograph, I did not arm wrestle him as one co-worker suggested, and I did not even do his patented "You can't see me" hand motion at him. On the bright side, his intro music was stuck in my head for the duration of the flight.
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Well, on a couple of occasions, I have considered writing on this thing with consistency. You can see how well that has worked out. I'm about to take the plunge and link it to my facebook. Not really sure if that will change how often I write or not. We shall see.
