Ehh.. perhaps monthly

So, lets just go for a blah generic monthly update for the 3 readers I still have. The new job is going very well. You would think 5 o'clock meetings every Friday would suck, but when beer is provided, they seem a lot better.

Well, let's get to the important stuff, sports. Notre Dame. Yeah, well, we pretty much suck this year. I'm glad we're finally moving to Sharpley. Granted the ceiling is higher on Clausen, but sorry, the kid just ain't that good. We could probably live with this if there was anyone else on our team who knew how to play football, but unfortunately this isn't the case. Anyway, I'm headed out for the Navy game (um, if ever there was a year for the streak to end...lets just not think of this). I still have extra ticket if anyone's interested.

How about my good teams. The Red Sox were doing real well up until the ALCS. This is a fairly accurate representation of my feelings on this series, except for the Joe Buck/Tim McCarver thing. I wasn't that big a fan of TBS coverage, but it was still better than those to morons. Anyway, we only have one good starting pitcher, one fewer good relievers than Cleveland, and 5 guys in our lineup who can't hit. It's a bad combination. I picked a helluva time to start dating someone from Cleveland. (She's also a domer).

Moving on to a team I don't have any doubts about, the Patriots. I feel like this is like watching a High School prep team taking on the local public high school every week. It's nice to be able to sit down and watch a game, and not just know that you'll win, but that you're going to kick ass. That's all for now. I still have delusions of blogging more often, but lets hope I least keep this up monthly.

Remember when I used to blog?

Yeah, sorry about that. Let's do this chonologically.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on leaving ESPN.

To top things off, on my last day I worked until 8 pm. I meant to blog when I had a week off between jobs, but I took my decompressiosn very seriously, and did an amazing amount of nothing, combined with almost finishing the addiction that kind of kept me from blogging the past two months, Final Fantasy XII.

Anyway, I started my new job Monday. I was the next to last person to leave my office, at 6:15. Amazing. I rarely did that at ESPN. The day starts at 8:30, which is a little earlier than I like, but I get free breakfast, so I can deal.

Anyway, with normal hours, and my final fantasy addiction temporarily dried up, I don't see any reason I can't blog at least weekly, but don't take me off the the "Are you still alive" column just yet.

A "normal" week

Finally, a week where I should really have to work late, and I get to come home and have a little more free time in the evening, and where I can do things I've been neglectful of (such as blogging).

So yes, lets get to the major news. I've given notice to the worldwide leader. No, I don't have another job yet, but thankfully I'm in a career where freelancing is a viable option. I discovered shortly before I left for camp that there are jobs out there I'm totally qualified for that would give me about a 50% raise. That was the kick in the butt that made me decide that sticking around to the end of the year wasn't worth it, combined with the fact that I stopped getting lip service to my complaints made it clear that it was time for me to go. So September 7 is my last day....at least in marketing and sales.

Now I have to field the "what do you want to get into?" question. This is really hard, because I don't really care as long as I can play with and learn new programming languages, and that it is not in an ad sales environment. Whatever, it'll be nice to start regaining my soul. (I may be a dick, but that doesn't mean I don't have principles.) Now I just need to figure out how to stay motivated for another 2ish months.

Other news: Two weekends ago a one of my good friends from ND got married out in Chicago. The first night I was in the city, and started to lose some of my anti-Chicagoness. I'm still anti-Midwest, but I could probably deal with Chicago since I realized last weekend I probably have a better group of friends there than I do in NYC. The wedding itself was enjoyable, but it was kind of weird for me to see someone I spent so much time with during what can be argues as 4 of the most important years of anyone's life, grow up and get married. Now this is only the second wedding I've been to where I was friend's with one of the people getting married. The first one I went to was for someone a few years older than me and we weren't super close, so I was just kinda there and enjoyed the experience. This time though, I knew a lot more people there, and it was just weird to see someone I was really good friends with take that step. I think part of it for me is that marriage is so far away from where I am in life right now.

music: jesus jones - right here, right now

A month late, Part 2

Sorry about the delayed response. My life has been busy and has taken some interesting turns as of late. Details will come whenever I get around to posting again.

When I woke up the next morning (after like 4 hours of sleep) I actually debated going to the hotel gym and working out since I knew my friends had adjusted a little better to the local time (and were much drunker then i when we went to bed) to kill some time, but ended up deciding against and they managed to wake up not too long after me. We spent most of the day hanging out by the lazy river at the MGM Grand pool. It was pretty solid except for the few spots where I missed with the sunscreen.

Later in the afternoon we decided to go gamble. As a group its the worst we've ever done. I was the highpoint and ended up like $13. It just wasn't our day at the poker tables. After giving up the fruitless gambling, I think we chilled for a bit and then went out to the a club that night (I think it was the Jungle Room, but I don't remember completely because I'm doing this a month late.) I'm generally not one for clubs, but this wasn't too bad since there was a decent variety of music played, there was some occasional trapeze entertainment, and there were actually several people there i liked, which is usually not the case on those off days i end up in a club.

As the night wound down, we had some drunken munchies and decided to hit up McDonald's. About 6 spots ahead of us in line, some guys decided to be assholes and buy 99 Cheeseburgers. (99 because that's the max the computer would allow). This caused us to sit in line for 20 minutes as the late night crew churned out 99 cheeseburgers. I'm pretty sure half the line wanted to kick the crap out of them.

The next day was a low key day where we rented a cabana at the Palms and hung out by the pool. If you have enough people and the money, i highly recommend cabanas, particularly if you're sunburned and theres 100 degree desert heat. After a day of doing mostly nothing (which was very nice), we went out to see Cirque du Soleil that night. The one we saw was La Reve (sorry I can't find a good link) which was pretty much the most amazing set I've ever seen in my life. I HIGHLY recommend it next time anyone finds him or herself in Vegas.

After a I drink I parted ways with everyone and embarked on my red eye flight back to NY (since I had to work Monday). I was hoping to be tired enough to sleep all the way through. Unfortunately some idiot woman in front of who brought her cat on the plane, let it out of the carrier. This had the flight crew chasing this cat around the cabin for 15 minutes as those of us who had been sleeping were roused.

Anyway, I made it back to NY alive, and was at work by 10 am on Monday. A little late, but acceptable. I was actually surprised how well I functioned through the day, though I was pretty much exhausted by the time I made it home from work.

That's the end of the Vegas story. Hopefully this week will be light enough that I will get home and not be completely drained which will allow me to update everyone on the other interesting things going on in my life.

Eventually

Eventually I will get around to posting part 2. But I'm too lazy to type it right now. I'm busy the next 2 night, and then I'm hopefully leaving town Friday night for my one good deed of the year. Hopefully I'll get to this shortly after I return.

Viva Las Vegas: Part 1

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless of course you're with a mixed group that has a lot of cameras, in which case, I think the only solution is to blog about it.

Originally, I was supposed to get in to Las Vegas around 6:15 local time. My flight left the gate at Laguardia pretty much on time. Unfortunately because of this cluster fuck I proceeded to spend the next 2 hours IN THE PLANE, ON THE RUNWAY. It's never a good sign when the captain comes on the speaker and says something to the effect of "I can't tell how many planes are in front of us." F-ing fantastic. Since it was pretty obvious we weren't going anywhere for a while we were allowed to use cell phones. After about an hour, I decided to call my friends and let them know I may not make it to Vegas on time, or maybe at all. I also tried to call the airline to see if I could put myself at the top of the standby list for when I got to Midway. I tried to start with "I'm delayed coming out of New York, and I don't think I'm going to make my next flight." To this I got the response "You're flight has only been delayed 8 minutes." No, sorry honey, I've been sitting on the runway for an hour already with no end in sight, this flight is delayed a lot more than 8 minutes. Anyway after reaching the "They'll take care of you in Chicago" point of the conversation (not really what i was looking for, but it was a futile conversation from start to finish anyway), I moved on to call everyone I knew who would be traveling and let them know they're pretty much screwed.

Anyway, eventually I did make it to Midway, where I discovered my connecting flight had also been delayed, which considered good news. Now, when I arrived (5ish local time) the flight was supposed to leave at 9:30. More time than I really need, but it's nice to have time to eat some dinner, and leaving at that time should still get me to my destination around midnight, which is fine for Vegas. Well, after dinner and finishing my remaining reading material, and power walking around the terminal, I recheck my flight since it seems like it should be near boarding time, only to discover it has been pushed back an hour. Grr... So, I go to the bar, have another beer, buy a book of crossword puzzles, and around what seems like it should be boarding time, I recheck the monitor and discover the flight as been pushed back another hour.

This process more or less repeats itself until a plane arrives at midnight that we can use. Just one little problem, apparently there is no flight crew for this. ::Bangs head against the wall:: After ANOTHER hour we finally get a flight crew. I end up arriving in Vegas around 3am local time. I get to the Palms where my friends were partying and they go out for some drunken munchies. After said meal the boys and I head to the MGM Grand, and go to sleep about 6 am local time. With the exception of some dozing on the plane, I've been up for 25 hours.

Ok, I should think about going to bed. Part 2 will come later this week.

Another Day

Another Red Sox win. Another Yankees loss. Needless to say, it is a good day. Speaking of the Yankees loss, it involved a steal of home, which in this day and age of baseball is almost as rare as a no hitter. In fact, I would argue that stealing home is the most exciting play in baseball, since it involves what I would consider to be the highest risk and highest reward. I think its a play that needs to be tried more often. Of course, that would also require everyone to tell their respective manager to sack up and take a risk even if you don't have a player named Jose Reyes.

Continuing on the sports theme, Cleveland, I must say, I'm very disappointed in you. Now, I'm certainly not that big of an NBA fan, but c'mon, your team is in the Eastern Conference Finals, you have one best young stars in the game (even if his competitive edge isn't ideal), but that arena sure as hell didn't seem like it was sold out. What, did you all stay home to watch the Indians lose to my Sox at Fenway?

For the 3 or 4 of you that still read my blog, you may remember me mentioning being locked in an office on New Years Eve. Well now there is video proof...with a few artistic liberties.