Happy Belated Thanksgiving

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I’ve been at Disneyland for the past several days have been meaning to post, but I’ve been too busy and wiped out to post. I will say that people watching at Disneyland is almost as much fun as the park itself. There is no way to capture

Number of days spent in Anaheim - 3.75 days (Sunday night through Wednesday night)
Number of combined hours at the park - approximately 40.
Number of combined hours of sleep - approximately 25.
Number of calories consumed over the 3+ days - approximately 23,000.
Number of crying kids - 1,008.
Number of hot guys with ugly wives - 2.
Number of ugly guys with hot wives - easily over 100. (Someone help me understand this phenomenon)
Number of children presumably conceived after being slipped a roofie - see answer immediately preceding above.
Number of celebrities spotted - 2 (Seal and Heidi Klum)
Number of obvious strippers spotted - 2.
Number of guys clearly on steroids spotted - lost count.
Number of frosted mullets spotted - 1 (this mullet spotting is in the running for highlight of the trip).
Number of fake boobs spotted - uhh, I didn’t notice.
Number of time I rode on Pirates of the Caribbean - 3.
Number of times we rode “Autopia” (i.e., the go-cart attraction where kids get to actually drive the car) - 7.
Total number of churros consumed by the family - 6.
Total number of tacos consumed by me - also 6.
Most money spent on a single serving of plain coffee - $5 (includes commemorative plastic mug!).
Cost to rent an “electronic convenience vehicle” (i.e., driving device which helps the immobile get around the park) - $55.
Number of people spotted riding said “electronic convenience vehicle” - 50 (conservative estimate).
Number of annoying/harassing/demeaning email I got from my boss on Monday - I stopped counting at 12.
Number of my boss’ annoying/harassing/demeaning email to which I responded - 0.
Number of smile and happy memories - infinity*.

* Note: my editor made me insert that last item, insisting that there’s no way this blog goes IPO if I don’t clean it up and stop using terms such as “fuckwit” and “assmunch.”

Other random thoughts and observations ….

* While on the 4th or 5th go-cart ride, I noticed that the person in the car next t me was a middle-aged adult. Without a child with them. As in, he was driving the go-cart by himself. I was like “What the fuck are you doing? Do you not get enough time behind the wheel of an actual car as it is?” Jesus Christ, what is wrong with people?

* Visual highlight of the trip -- is it: (a) the hot woman in the tight t-shirt who just got drenched on the Splash Mountain ride, or (b) the middle-aged woman driving her electronic assistance vehicle wildly who crashed into a curb and almost lurched over the handlebars? I gotta go with the latter. That shit was fucking hi-larious. Top notch stuff.

* Flying on Thanksgiving is awesome. I flew out on Thursday around noon and it was fantastic. There are no lines, people are laid back and nice, and it is acceptable to drink early because it’s a holiday. Plus, flying out of Orange County/Santa Ana Airport is awesome.

(Side note: I refuse to call OC/SA Airport by its current name, “John Wayne Airport.” Similarly, I refuse to call “National Airport” in D.C. by its current name, “Ronald Reagan.” Fucking annoying.).

I'm Back

So real quick, I made it back from my vacation to Ireland (had a good time but am exhausted) and then I found out that my dad had a kidney transplant the day I was returning (he's doing okay). So while there's a lot to write about, I'm not much in the mood. Sorry about that, but I will write further shortly.

Pass the Vicodin Please

I know I sound like a broken record, but again I have to apologize for the utter lack of posting on this site in recent weeks. First, it was the birthday weekend. The birthday debauchery weekend was followed by my rugby team’s second trip to Maggotfest in Missoula, MT (more to follow below). I returned from Missoula after midnight on Sunday night. After a one day respite, I’m on another plane which is headed towards St. Louis, MO (fuck yeah!!). Oh well, at least I get free coffee and frequent flyer miles.

Maggotfest this year was fun, but not outstanding. The rugby games overall were somewhat mixed. We arrived Thursday night and went straight to the pitch in Missoula to play a “friendly” game against the home team. We traveled about 10 hours that day to get there and we arrived at the pitch (a/k/a the field) about 10 minutes before we were supposed to play. I was expecting and hoping for the advertised “friendly” game since we were traveling with only 16 players (you need 15 to play rugby) of which only 4 of them were starters. We were all exhausted and some of us had been drinking on the 3+ hour drive from Spokane to Missoula, so I figured that it was going to be ugly.

And I was correct. The Maggots absolutely rolled us. It was the most lopsided rugby loss that I had ever participated in. I scored our only try (worth 5 points), while the Maggots scored 100+ points. They stopped keeping track on the scoreboard. Most of our team quit midway in the game and the other team just kept running at us. I really don’t fault them for continuing to play, but they probably could have subbed out some of their key players earlier.

The lowlight of Thursday was followed by the Friday highlight of river rafting on the Lochsa River in Idaho. I had a total blast. The enjoyment was mitigated somewhat by the fellow rafter who insisted on yelling “Wooo hooo!!” EVERY time we hit a rapid and who complained that his feet were freezing. No shit, the river water is in the low 40s. Everyone’s cold and wet, stop being such a pussy.

Saturday’s games represented a better showing, although we had trouble scoring points all day. It was frustrating knowing we had a better team but playing down to the lower standards of the other teams. After the second game, I was counting down the minutes until my flight left on Sunday.

The highlight on Saturday was reuniting with some of my friends from Colorado to play against a ridiculously good team from Park City, UT. Like our game on Thursday, Fort Collins was playing against a team that was way out of its league. Unlike our team, though, Ft. Collins played with a lot of heart. They still lost, but they played hard and never quit. I got to “whore on” late in the second half, right before one of their players entirely faked me out and beat me to the corner to score a try. Good times. I did manage to tackle a U.S. Eagle rugby player (meaning a player who plays international level rugby for the United States) without breaking anything further on my body.

Sunday came and saw one final game, which most participants played hung-over to a 0-0 tie. Ahh, rugby at its highest. The highlight of Sunday was one of our large players (280+ lb.) who managed to play most of the game in a Winnie the Pooh costume. Classic. We headed out to the airport shortly after finishing our last game and bid a fond adieu to Montana.

Five games in four days + whitewater rafting - adequate sleep = a tired David James. I caught some sleep on the flight to St. Louis and managed to fall asleep again this evening in my hotel room but still feel exhausted. I’m putting the official over-under on my total caffeine intake at “a lot.” Keep your fingers crossed dear readers.

Pictures and more fun stuff to follow ....

My Week in a Nutshell

A lot has transpired in the past week. Basically, my company shut down the satellite office in San Francisco where I was working. This sucked for a number of reasons:

1) I had to pack up my office and I am a total pack rat.
2) I don't have a home office at home. I don't have a desk, dedicated work area ... hell, I don't even have a home phone or Internet connection. To date, I've been rely on the charity of a neighbor that has graciously donated free WiFi to me. And by "graciously" I mean "unknowingly."
3) I *really* like working in the city and love the people, pace, restaurants, etc. that comes with it. Yeah, I could have done without the tofu hot dog experience, but all in all I far prefer working in an office as compared to home.

So I've worked from home all this week (rather than drive 80+ minutes to our Silicon Valley offices) and, so far, working from home has been a bit of a challenge. Sure the commute is a piece of cake, but I've not been properly set up to work from home. I'm sure that working from my couch hunched over my coffee table hasn't been fantastic for my back. It also doesn't help that I seem to eat every 20 minutes on cue.

Yesterday, I finally fixed the situation by setting up the office, assembling a desk, setting up the computer, printer, etc. and establishing home phone service. This has pretty much eaten my work productivity, but the set up is pretty nice now. It's really quiet here and I've moved my work area away from the kitchen. It's in a corner of one of my bedrooms which overlooks some trees:



If you look closely, you can see that I'm browsing some non-work related website. Ahh, some things never change.

Back to work, at least for today. I head to DC/NY next week for my annual birthday debauchery trip with DerekB, VMD and Cap'n Tears. Hope to post something soon.