Americans are all pyro-maniacs at heart. Nashville had millions of people staring at the same point in the city, drooling over flashing colors. Where else can you find that? Hundreds of other cities across the U.S.A. Count me among the pyros.
Taking a break from the drama of trying to spend more money than I have made life-to-date, let’s talk about America’s birthday. We have a family at church that owns a parking lot downtown. They are kind enough to donate their enormous patch of blacktop every year for “food, fellowship, fireworks, and alliteration.” That might not be the exact title, but it’s close. Riverwood (that would be my church home, and thus, is mentioned first) and Northside have been doing this for a few years now. This year, we invited Jackson Park to join in on the good times.
We showed up a little early to help set everything up. Good news is, the bouncy house people also showed up early to drop off the two Moon Bounces. We got everything set up in record time and set out for the bouncy house. Sure, the youth minister and I probably each exceeded the overall weight limit for these things. However, Independence Day must be a big day for the party rental place, so no one was there to enforce the rules. Having never done a front flip, cartwheel, back flip, or a handstand, I was suddenly presented with the perfect opportunity to achieve all four.
As a twenty-four year old male, I have discovered a bouncy house hangover is nothing to joke about. I failed at all of my four inflatable missions. Having failed at the front flip with a couple of hops to build up inertia, I decided that perhaps I should try a flat-footed back flip. Apparently there is an invisible table located outside the entrance of the Moon Bounce where you must check your logic. As I landed on my face on my one back flip attempt, I discovered I was in pain. Not in my face per se, more the toe I had apparently gotten caught on the netting and then slammed into the floor of the blow-up mansion. I chalked it up as a mild sprain and continued bouncing.
Here I lounge on my July 5th holiday, icing my foot and trying to massage the pain out of the neck I landed on countless times. Lesson learned. Until next year.
Regardless of my pain, a good time was had last night. Plenty of hamburgers and hotdogs, youth group kids conquering their fear of port-o-potties, a little concert, a period of worship consisting of old folks mumbling through newfangled devotional songs, children happily bouncing in the puddles of sweat and blood we left for them in the bouncy houses, catching up with old friends and church league rivals, 4 visits to the dessert table, 93 degrees, 84 ounces of fluid, one folding chair that was far too small for me, and lots of explosions. Like I said, a good time.
Hey, America, let’s do this again next year. Even if China has taken over by then, we’ll be alright – they make all the fireworks anyway.
7.05.2010
Home Shopping - Networking
So, due to the success of houses 1-3, more internet listings head my way. I pick a fresh round of 3. As I take some pride in knowing where most gang violence is likely to occur in East Nashville, I decided to take a drive around to explore the potential neighborhoods. Small problem: the little sticker that held Australian Karen, my Garmin, in place was affected by the change in temperature and stopped being sticky. As such, I left Australian Karen in the air-conditioned comfort of the rental house. Additionally, I didn’t feel it worth my while to pull over, pick up my phone, and look up the addresses.
Using my stellar navigational skills, I managed to locate 33% of the houses. Found all 3 streets. Only one house. Sweet, going into the house showing completely uninformed.
House 4: This was the one house I found in my pregame study. That’s because it’s literally one minute from where I live now. Nice house. If you like the feeling of being on the inside of a hand-rolled cigarette. Luckily I do like that feeling. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
House 5: This was a quaint little house that was listed for half of the property assessor’s 2009 value. I figured I’d check it out. Nice little neighborhood. We are walking through the house – it’s nice enough. A little smaller than all the other joints we’ve looked at, but looks relatively fresh. Rea has these sheets that have a little more info than the sheets she’s sent me. As we’re walking around the basement of house 5, she reads (aloud), “Suffered foundation damage in the flood.” Anyone know the quickest way out of a strange basement? There’s a reason kidnappers don’t tell their hostages that there was structural damage to the foundation of their dungeon. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
House 6: So, we’re on our way to house 6. I knew where the road was. And, due to my affinity for not getting carjacked, I knew I wanted to turn left onto that road as we approached it. Right it is. [Note: 97% sure they just bleeped out the word “crap” on Holmes on Homes.] So, we drive past the 3rd sketchiest market in Metro Nashville, and arrive at house 6. Rea pulls in the driveway, beside a teenage gentleman sitting in his car. He apparently was a member of the neighborhood watch. Or the Mexican Mafia. So we exchange pleasantries: “Hey, how’s it going?” (silent stare). We take a look around this house – by far, the biggest house I’d looked at. Not bad, but the neighborhood was a little suspect. In fact, the guy in the driveway was probably a little suspect in some felony somewhere. One feature of house 6: the stone mini-amphitheatre in the backyard. I decided it was either a Greco-Roman bathing area or a ping-pong arena. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
House 6 gets 2 paragraphs. Big time. So, I liked the house part of house 6, but wanted to check into the surrounding environment. I called up an old friend. And by called up, I mean facebook messaged. [Note: Again, I acknowledge my error, but feel free to harass anyway.] I will await her reply. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
At this point, I’m beginning to tire of being in the background of an episode of Cops, nearly being crushed by a house, and coming up with new ways of saying, “I’m sorry for risking your life, Rea, to look at a house I no longer have any interest in.” My internal conversation went a little like this:
Me: “Rea’s probably getting a little annoyed showing you all these cheap houses in the hood.”
Me: “Well, turns out she’s in the personal service industry. She can suck it up.”
Me: “Yeah, but seriously…”
Then Rea cut me off when she told me that the last person she found a house for looked at 30 houses before she found the one. At that point I decided I’d cut my eyes out before I’d look at 30 houses. Color me encouraged.
The sentence you are reading right now is designed to foreshadow the foreshadowing. Maybe something positive would happen on trip #3.
Using my stellar navigational skills, I managed to locate 33% of the houses. Found all 3 streets. Only one house. Sweet, going into the house showing completely uninformed.
House 4: This was the one house I found in my pregame study. That’s because it’s literally one minute from where I live now. Nice house. If you like the feeling of being on the inside of a hand-rolled cigarette. Luckily I do like that feeling. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
House 5: This was a quaint little house that was listed for half of the property assessor’s 2009 value. I figured I’d check it out. Nice little neighborhood. We are walking through the house – it’s nice enough. A little smaller than all the other joints we’ve looked at, but looks relatively fresh. Rea has these sheets that have a little more info than the sheets she’s sent me. As we’re walking around the basement of house 5, she reads (aloud), “Suffered foundation damage in the flood.” Anyone know the quickest way out of a strange basement? There’s a reason kidnappers don’t tell their hostages that there was structural damage to the foundation of their dungeon. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
House 6: So, we’re on our way to house 6. I knew where the road was. And, due to my affinity for not getting carjacked, I knew I wanted to turn left onto that road as we approached it. Right it is. [Note: 97% sure they just bleeped out the word “crap” on Holmes on Homes.] So, we drive past the 3rd sketchiest market in Metro Nashville, and arrive at house 6. Rea pulls in the driveway, beside a teenage gentleman sitting in his car. He apparently was a member of the neighborhood watch. Or the Mexican Mafia. So we exchange pleasantries: “Hey, how’s it going?” (silent stare). We take a look around this house – by far, the biggest house I’d looked at. Not bad, but the neighborhood was a little suspect. In fact, the guy in the driveway was probably a little suspect in some felony somewhere. One feature of house 6: the stone mini-amphitheatre in the backyard. I decided it was either a Greco-Roman bathing area or a ping-pong arena. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
House 6 gets 2 paragraphs. Big time. So, I liked the house part of house 6, but wanted to check into the surrounding environment. I called up an old friend. And by called up, I mean facebook messaged. [Note: Again, I acknowledge my error, but feel free to harass anyway.] I will await her reply. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
At this point, I’m beginning to tire of being in the background of an episode of Cops, nearly being crushed by a house, and coming up with new ways of saying, “I’m sorry for risking your life, Rea, to look at a house I no longer have any interest in.” My internal conversation went a little like this:
Me: “Rea’s probably getting a little annoyed showing you all these cheap houses in the hood.”
Me: “Well, turns out she’s in the personal service industry. She can suck it up.”
Me: “Yeah, but seriously…”
Then Rea cut me off when she told me that the last person she found a house for looked at 30 houses before she found the one. At that point I decided I’d cut my eyes out before I’d look at 30 houses. Color me encouraged.
The sentence you are reading right now is designed to foreshadow the foreshadowing. Maybe something positive would happen on trip #3.
7.02.2010
Bartender: One House, Please
Once upon a time, I decided it was time to stop paying rent. In lieu of facing a civil suit from my best friend’s sister and brother-in-law (my landpeople), I decided to drop a few thousand dollars on a house. Besides, it would have been really awkward serving communion on Sunday to the people who were serving me a summons on Monday.
Turns out, buying a house involves a little bit of effort… unless you just won Powerball. [Note: I discovered winning Powerball involves getting all the numbers right. When you get half the numbers, you do not get half the jackpot.] So, I got a real estate agent. Mainly so I could say I have a real estate agent, but also to facilitate the buying of a house. While I trust the safety of the worldwide web as much as anyone, I choose not to disclose my real estate agent’s name. We’ll call her Rea… Give it a second.
So Rea began sending me listings. Now before you get too excited, realize that the listings I was getting sent my way looked nothing like House Hunters on HGTV. [Note: Yes, I have watched way more than my share of HGTV since this process began. In fact, it’s on right now. Make jokes if you so choose, but I acknowledge my weakness.] My preferred home-buying budget led me to get a lot of listings that could have doubled an antique barn or perhaps a meth-lab. So from these listings, I weeded out the barns and started picking houses to physically visit. Old school, I know, but they don’t offer many virtual tours of houses that haven’t been lived in since a Roosevelt was president.
House 1: So I hadn’t met with Rea in person regarding the house hunt yet. As such, when I pulled onto the street, I felt a little bad that, instead of being greeted by fancy stone columns of a nice gated community, Rea would pull into the neighborhood with a Budget Brakes on her left and a Missionary Baptist church in the basement of a Discount Liquor on her right – Pillars of the community. Realizing this was a house I was looking to live in and these were the neighborhoods I might end up in, I stopped feeling a little bad... Until I pulled in the driveway and saw Rea in her Mercedes coupe. She got out and informed me she might have been a little scared to get out of the car before I got there. Superhero moment. Anyway, to use a Wordly Wise word, house one was dilapidated. I almost made it out unscathed, but I bumped my head on the rusty overhang that led to the basement. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus.
House 2: We drove from house one to house two. Logical progression if you will. The listing indicated house 2 was currently being rented. No big deal. They requested 2 hours notice before showing: Rea gave them 24 hours. “You see a car back there?” “Yeah, at least one.” “Ok, well, hopefully they’re not here, but we’ll knock in case.” It was at this point in the conversation we arrived at the front door. And heard a child crying inside. Awesome. So, we stood awkwardly on the front porch deciding whether or not to go in. We settled on knocking. Renter man opened the door. “We’re here to take a look at the house if that’s ok.” Rental man nods his head, opens the door, and proceeds to take off chasing his completely naked child who has just run through the living room. Good start. We make our way through the house quite quickly, but being sure to see all the rooms. Well, I take that back. I let Rea look at one room on my behalf. Primarily because there was a gentleman asleep in the aforementioned room. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus. Naked people seen: 1.
House 3: Closing out day one of home-viewing, we went to my internet-favorite house. We go in through the (formerly) finished basement. The carpets were all rolled up to the middle of the floor. Flood damaged - Welcome to my home hunt. We proceeded upstairs. I liked it. Really, I did. I liked it a lot. I could handle the basement damage – it would give me a project to make all this HGTV viewing worth it. We take a lap around the outside of the house, where we casually discover that instead of putting gutters on the carport, the preferred means of water evacuation was to collect it in a giant heavy-duty receptacle. Seems it was full of standing water. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus and West Nile. Naked people seen: 1.
Like I said, I really liked house 3. I tell Rea that I’m cautious to move too soon, but I did like it. She says she’ll look into it a little more and see if there are any similar listings. Within 2 hours, Rea tells me house 3 was theoretically sold when we looked at it. That’s not Realtor-speak for “You really liked it. It’s a good deal. I think we can make this work.” No, that means the house was sold when we looked at it.
This is going to be a good time.
Turns out, buying a house involves a little bit of effort… unless you just won Powerball. [Note: I discovered winning Powerball involves getting all the numbers right. When you get half the numbers, you do not get half the jackpot.] So, I got a real estate agent. Mainly so I could say I have a real estate agent, but also to facilitate the buying of a house. While I trust the safety of the worldwide web as much as anyone, I choose not to disclose my real estate agent’s name. We’ll call her Rea… Give it a second.
So Rea began sending me listings. Now before you get too excited, realize that the listings I was getting sent my way looked nothing like House Hunters on HGTV. [Note: Yes, I have watched way more than my share of HGTV since this process began. In fact, it’s on right now. Make jokes if you so choose, but I acknowledge my weakness.] My preferred home-buying budget led me to get a lot of listings that could have doubled an antique barn or perhaps a meth-lab. So from these listings, I weeded out the barns and started picking houses to physically visit. Old school, I know, but they don’t offer many virtual tours of houses that haven’t been lived in since a Roosevelt was president.
House 1: So I hadn’t met with Rea in person regarding the house hunt yet. As such, when I pulled onto the street, I felt a little bad that, instead of being greeted by fancy stone columns of a nice gated community, Rea would pull into the neighborhood with a Budget Brakes on her left and a Missionary Baptist church in the basement of a Discount Liquor on her right – Pillars of the community. Realizing this was a house I was looking to live in and these were the neighborhoods I might end up in, I stopped feeling a little bad... Until I pulled in the driveway and saw Rea in her Mercedes coupe. She got out and informed me she might have been a little scared to get out of the car before I got there. Superhero moment. Anyway, to use a Wordly Wise word, house one was dilapidated. I almost made it out unscathed, but I bumped my head on the rusty overhang that led to the basement. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus.
House 2: We drove from house one to house two. Logical progression if you will. The listing indicated house 2 was currently being rented. No big deal. They requested 2 hours notice before showing: Rea gave them 24 hours. “You see a car back there?” “Yeah, at least one.” “Ok, well, hopefully they’re not here, but we’ll knock in case.” It was at this point in the conversation we arrived at the front door. And heard a child crying inside. Awesome. So, we stood awkwardly on the front porch deciding whether or not to go in. We settled on knocking. Renter man opened the door. “We’re here to take a look at the house if that’s ok.” Rental man nods his head, opens the door, and proceeds to take off chasing his completely naked child who has just run through the living room. Good start. We make our way through the house quite quickly, but being sure to see all the rooms. Well, I take that back. I let Rea look at one room on my behalf. Primarily because there was a gentleman asleep in the aforementioned room. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus. Naked people seen: 1.
House 3: Closing out day one of home-viewing, we went to my internet-favorite house. We go in through the (formerly) finished basement. The carpets were all rolled up to the middle of the floor. Flood damaged - Welcome to my home hunt. We proceeded upstairs. I liked it. Really, I did. I liked it a lot. I could handle the basement damage – it would give me a project to make all this HGTV viewing worth it. We take a lap around the outside of the house, where we casually discover that instead of putting gutters on the carport, the preferred means of water evacuation was to collect it in a giant heavy-duty receptacle. Seems it was full of standing water. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus and West Nile. Naked people seen: 1.
Like I said, I really liked house 3. I tell Rea that I’m cautious to move too soon, but I did like it. She says she’ll look into it a little more and see if there are any similar listings. Within 2 hours, Rea tells me house 3 was theoretically sold when we looked at it. That’s not Realtor-speak for “You really liked it. It’s a good deal. I think we can make this work.” No, that means the house was sold when we looked at it.
This is going to be a good time.
6.18.2010
Excuse Me Sir, Is That a Back Tattoo?
,,,No, it's a nicotine patch.
When last we left our heroes, they had left the thrill and excitement of Memphis and were heading for Tunica. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a marble lobby, reportedly comparable to the foyer at the Blankmore. Needless to say, it was a little change of pace from the most boring roadways in the Southeast. We dropped the stuff off in the hotel rooms and headed for the casino floor. It was 1:00 in the morning. I see 1 a.m., on average, 3 times a year, and one of those three times is spent on the toilet. That average was about to skyrocket.
Let me take this opportunity to thank Tennessee, or Nashville, or whoever it was that outlawed cigarettes in public buildings. As I’m typing this, I’m getting sized for my trachea hole that I will be breathing through for the remainder of my life due to the amount of nicotine coating my lungs. Fairly confident that for one weekend my lungs were being covered in tar faster than the Gulf of Mexico. Sorry, BP, you got second place. Anyhoo, everyone in that place actually brought their mother so that they could smoke two times the amount of cigarettes they could without the extra puffer.
We entered the haze of the casino, and, admittedly, we were a little shell-shocked. Collectively, we headed for the penny slots. High rollers indeed. After the one-hit-wonder managed to win $50 on two spins of the penny slots, a couple of the less frugal members of the wedding party cracked open the wallets and hit the blackjack tables. Nothing eventful to report from morning one in the casino. Turns out, private school kids are fairly low-key in a Casino environment.
Saturday afternoon three of the eight travelers determined that there was one game in the casino that was impossible to lose at… craps. To be honest, it looked like they were right – no matter what the man voted “most patient” in high school rolled, they kept giving him chips. Maybe they were on to something… Regardless, I’m off to the penny slots again.
We eat, swim, and watch soccer in no particular order for the remainder of the afternoon. As the evening gambling session begins, I leave the true gamblers to their blackjack and craps and head for the comfort of the penny slots. Fairly quickly, groomsmen begin coming up to me… early reports indicate craps is not unloseable. Go figure. Yep, turns out there’s a reason 7 is the number that stops the game – it just so happens to be mathematical. Anyway, after reality came crashing down, and broke the backs of the high horses, the low rollers went and watched a few of our number play some blackjack…
It seems when you are the youngest people in a place that is predominately cranky, smoky, and wrinkly, you have the eye of the pitbosses. If you manage to ride that wave, and travel in packs, cracking jokes, providing applause, and generally raising Cain (I’ve never really typed that out – the capitalization, while accurate per Wikipedia, appears awkward), aforementioned pitbosses determine you are good for business and offer to provide you a complimentary steak and lobster buffet. Count it.
In summary, money was won. Money was lost. Food was eaten. Second hand smoke was inhaled. Poker tournaments were entered. Soccer games ended in ties, and thus could have never been played and would have made the exact same impact on history. Lungs were forever damaged. Groomsmen were cursed by dealers. And fun was had. Count it all as time well wasted (Paisley, 2005).
I know you’re wondering. It’s ok to go ahead and ask… Yeah, I came out on top. Up $18. Take that, gambling.
Next time’s topic – how I used my gambling winnings to buy a house.
When last we left our heroes, they had left the thrill and excitement of Memphis and were heading for Tunica. Upon arrival, we were greeted by a marble lobby, reportedly comparable to the foyer at the Blankmore. Needless to say, it was a little change of pace from the most boring roadways in the Southeast. We dropped the stuff off in the hotel rooms and headed for the casino floor. It was 1:00 in the morning. I see 1 a.m., on average, 3 times a year, and one of those three times is spent on the toilet. That average was about to skyrocket.
Let me take this opportunity to thank Tennessee, or Nashville, or whoever it was that outlawed cigarettes in public buildings. As I’m typing this, I’m getting sized for my trachea hole that I will be breathing through for the remainder of my life due to the amount of nicotine coating my lungs. Fairly confident that for one weekend my lungs were being covered in tar faster than the Gulf of Mexico. Sorry, BP, you got second place. Anyhoo, everyone in that place actually brought their mother so that they could smoke two times the amount of cigarettes they could without the extra puffer.
We entered the haze of the casino, and, admittedly, we were a little shell-shocked. Collectively, we headed for the penny slots. High rollers indeed. After the one-hit-wonder managed to win $50 on two spins of the penny slots, a couple of the less frugal members of the wedding party cracked open the wallets and hit the blackjack tables. Nothing eventful to report from morning one in the casino. Turns out, private school kids are fairly low-key in a Casino environment.
Saturday afternoon three of the eight travelers determined that there was one game in the casino that was impossible to lose at… craps. To be honest, it looked like they were right – no matter what the man voted “most patient” in high school rolled, they kept giving him chips. Maybe they were on to something… Regardless, I’m off to the penny slots again.
We eat, swim, and watch soccer in no particular order for the remainder of the afternoon. As the evening gambling session begins, I leave the true gamblers to their blackjack and craps and head for the comfort of the penny slots. Fairly quickly, groomsmen begin coming up to me… early reports indicate craps is not unloseable. Go figure. Yep, turns out there’s a reason 7 is the number that stops the game – it just so happens to be mathematical. Anyway, after reality came crashing down, and broke the backs of the high horses, the low rollers went and watched a few of our number play some blackjack…
It seems when you are the youngest people in a place that is predominately cranky, smoky, and wrinkly, you have the eye of the pitbosses. If you manage to ride that wave, and travel in packs, cracking jokes, providing applause, and generally raising Cain (I’ve never really typed that out – the capitalization, while accurate per Wikipedia, appears awkward), aforementioned pitbosses determine you are good for business and offer to provide you a complimentary steak and lobster buffet. Count it.
In summary, money was won. Money was lost. Food was eaten. Second hand smoke was inhaled. Poker tournaments were entered. Soccer games ended in ties, and thus could have never been played and would have made the exact same impact on history. Lungs were forever damaged. Groomsmen were cursed by dealers. And fun was had. Count it all as time well wasted (Paisley, 2005).
I know you’re wondering. It’s ok to go ahead and ask… Yeah, I came out on top. Up $18. Take that, gambling.
Next time’s topic – how I used my gambling winnings to buy a house.
6.13.2010
Jello Syringe - I Don't Want It, But I Get It
I apologize in advance for the length of this, but it’s a blog. You don’t have to read it. Stop now if you want. Welcome to part one of to-be-determined…
I’m fairly confident I burned at least 1,500 calories this weekend merely by pulling my ID out of my back pocket. After work on Friday, I set out to meet up with the other three members of Car B, the late departure for bachelor weekend. Eight young men in their prime, determined to roll high, brush off golddiggers, and hit on 19… heading to Tunica. One small problem: Australian Karen, who lives in my Garmin, was unable to locate the address for the Gold Strike Casino… No worries, we’ll just start driving and see what happens.
Before we can get carded in Redneck Vegas, we decide to get carded in Memphis. Car A took off to Tunica, checked everyone in to the hotel, and backtracked to Memphis. We in Car B headed straight for Beale Street. Looking to be a pedestrian on the most popular street in West Tennessee? Please stand in line to verify your age and to be checked with a metal detector by a man whose sense of humor was lost somewhere in the first 2,000 groins he patted down before he got to mine. Good news: I was over 21 when I got carded in the middle of Beale Street.
I have now been to Beale Street. As such, I never have to return. It was approximately 95 degrees. At 10:00 at night. As some groomsmen in training may have wanted to whet their whistles, we decide to go into Club 152. Don’t worry, my streak of never having been in a club did not come to a screeching halt. This was a bar with 2 floors above it that allegedly qualified it to be a club. A later discovery would determine that club status cannot be achieved if the only people on your 2nd and 3rd floors are bouncers. In order to make that discovery, we first had to get in. For your reference, basketball shorts are not classy enough to get into a Beale Street finger-quote club. However, Ronald McDonald taught Grimace to be accepting before he put him in a yellow shirt and sent him to be the doorman at Club 152… Because all my buddies were going in, the man who, earlier in the day, swallowed Shrek whole graciously allowed me to pay him my $10 cover. Such a sweetheart. His silent partner then checked my ID. Still over 21. Boom (Graves, 2009). [NOTE: Please do not be alarmed if, going forward, you see in-text citations in MLA format.]
While basketball shorts are clearly a fashion faux-pas, double lip rings, back murals and pedophile moustaches are all acceptable accessories. Anyways, after our 45 minutes of talking to one another like we would do anywhere else, only at a higher volume, we headed out. Out past the people leaving the GWAR concert covered in blood, past the Ab-Belt guy flipping down the middle of the road, past 74 policemen, and back to the cars to take the party down to Tunica.
Tune in next time for the Mississippi part of our Mississippi adventure...
I’m fairly confident I burned at least 1,500 calories this weekend merely by pulling my ID out of my back pocket. After work on Friday, I set out to meet up with the other three members of Car B, the late departure for bachelor weekend. Eight young men in their prime, determined to roll high, brush off golddiggers, and hit on 19… heading to Tunica. One small problem: Australian Karen, who lives in my Garmin, was unable to locate the address for the Gold Strike Casino… No worries, we’ll just start driving and see what happens.
Before we can get carded in Redneck Vegas, we decide to get carded in Memphis. Car A took off to Tunica, checked everyone in to the hotel, and backtracked to Memphis. We in Car B headed straight for Beale Street. Looking to be a pedestrian on the most popular street in West Tennessee? Please stand in line to verify your age and to be checked with a metal detector by a man whose sense of humor was lost somewhere in the first 2,000 groins he patted down before he got to mine. Good news: I was over 21 when I got carded in the middle of Beale Street.
I have now been to Beale Street. As such, I never have to return. It was approximately 95 degrees. At 10:00 at night. As some groomsmen in training may have wanted to whet their whistles, we decide to go into Club 152. Don’t worry, my streak of never having been in a club did not come to a screeching halt. This was a bar with 2 floors above it that allegedly qualified it to be a club. A later discovery would determine that club status cannot be achieved if the only people on your 2nd and 3rd floors are bouncers. In order to make that discovery, we first had to get in. For your reference, basketball shorts are not classy enough to get into a Beale Street finger-quote club. However, Ronald McDonald taught Grimace to be accepting before he put him in a yellow shirt and sent him to be the doorman at Club 152… Because all my buddies were going in, the man who, earlier in the day, swallowed Shrek whole graciously allowed me to pay him my $10 cover. Such a sweetheart. His silent partner then checked my ID. Still over 21. Boom (Graves, 2009). [NOTE: Please do not be alarmed if, going forward, you see in-text citations in MLA format.]
While basketball shorts are clearly a fashion faux-pas, double lip rings, back murals and pedophile moustaches are all acceptable accessories. Anyways, after our 45 minutes of talking to one another like we would do anywhere else, only at a higher volume, we headed out. Out past the people leaving the GWAR concert covered in blood, past the Ab-Belt guy flipping down the middle of the road, past 74 policemen, and back to the cars to take the party down to Tunica.
Tune in next time for the Mississippi part of our Mississippi adventure...
6.06.2010
Save the World. NBD.
To the educational professional faction of my readership, allow me to apologize on behalf of America and the 160 character text limit. In the youth class I help teach at church, we had a little test – before you get all worked up, this was merely an opportunity for the kids to display their knowledge in an attempt to win prizes… We haven’t gone off the deep end and implemented some type of system that encourages kids to actually learn the Bible. I’m not sure if that was sarcastic or not. Regardless, it was only a means to tell you this – More than one teenage male in the class physically wrote the following response: “IDK.” Seriously… Seriously?
In an age where grown men can sit silently and send a message that reads “LOL”, this is getting out of hand. While I respect a man that can have radioactive beams shot into his scrotum, I’ve never been a big Lance Armstrong fan. However, as I’m watching Jesus Shuttlesworth light up Los Angeles like the spotlights the cocky FBI guy aims at Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard, I find myself agreeing with every word from the mouth of pantsless Lance - No male over 30 should ever use a colon-dash-close-parenthesis.
In order to try to fulfill Ms. Tracy’s expectations from high school English and weave a common thread throughout my writing, do you really think John McClane would write “Hans looked sooo >:-0 when I threw him off the roof. LOL. TTYL” to Sergeant Al Powell (formerly Lieutenant Carl Winslow)? The man ran barefoot over 15 feet of glass shards while dodging Eastern European machine gun fire. If they had invented text messaging by the second time John and Holly got back together, he would be exactly 100% more likely to text “Yipee-Kay-Yay, Mister Falcon” than anything involving a smiley face.
Now Lucy McClane may be somewhat excused if she sends the occasional less-than-three to the awkward kid from the Mac commercials during Die Hard 4. I’m not saying I dislike it any less, but I’m not exactly going to talk trash to the officer’s daughter after he shot himself through the shoulder in order to get a bullet into the guy who had him in a choke hold.
Think how much harder it would have been for Zeus to figure out how to get exactly 4 gallons of water using only a 3-gallon jug and a 5-gallon jug at the elephant fountain if Simon Gruber had sent the riddle to him in 13-year-old-girl-text… New York City would have exploded. Bottom line.
I don’t expect you to observe all of the obscure rules of American grammar, but allow me to kindly request that we, as one nation, under God, indivisible, use actual words with liberty and justice for all.
Remember: only you can prevent the country’s most famous cities from being attacked by terrorists.
In an age where grown men can sit silently and send a message that reads “LOL”, this is getting out of hand. While I respect a man that can have radioactive beams shot into his scrotum, I’ve never been a big Lance Armstrong fan. However, as I’m watching Jesus Shuttlesworth light up Los Angeles like the spotlights the cocky FBI guy aims at Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard, I find myself agreeing with every word from the mouth of pantsless Lance - No male over 30 should ever use a colon-dash-close-parenthesis.
In order to try to fulfill Ms. Tracy’s expectations from high school English and weave a common thread throughout my writing, do you really think John McClane would write “Hans looked sooo >:-0 when I threw him off the roof. LOL. TTYL” to Sergeant Al Powell (formerly Lieutenant Carl Winslow)? The man ran barefoot over 15 feet of glass shards while dodging Eastern European machine gun fire. If they had invented text messaging by the second time John and Holly got back together, he would be exactly 100% more likely to text “Yipee-Kay-Yay, Mister Falcon” than anything involving a smiley face.
Now Lucy McClane may be somewhat excused if she sends the occasional less-than-three to the awkward kid from the Mac commercials during Die Hard 4. I’m not saying I dislike it any less, but I’m not exactly going to talk trash to the officer’s daughter after he shot himself through the shoulder in order to get a bullet into the guy who had him in a choke hold.
Think how much harder it would have been for Zeus to figure out how to get exactly 4 gallons of water using only a 3-gallon jug and a 5-gallon jug at the elephant fountain if Simon Gruber had sent the riddle to him in 13-year-old-girl-text… New York City would have exploded. Bottom line.
I don’t expect you to observe all of the obscure rules of American grammar, but allow me to kindly request that we, as one nation, under God, indivisible, use actual words with liberty and justice for all.
Remember: only you can prevent the country’s most famous cities from being attacked by terrorists.
5.01.2010
The Champ is Here
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.
________________________________________________
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.
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.
________________________________________________
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.
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