Random thoughts on the J-Unit Weekend Extravaganza

I'm back home in Virginia, which means that my first J-Unit Weekend Extravaganza in the Durty South has come to end. I'm still basking in that post-vacation glow, so here are a collection of random thoughts from my four days in Atlanta:

1. I don't spend enough time with my friends
2. Airtran rules - roundtrip to Atlanta for under $100
3. Chilled Southern Comfort is a great shot
4. There are a lot of beautiful women in Georgia
5. Everyone needs to move closer to Robb
6. I still remember how to smoke a cigarette
7. Robb's daughter is the coolest, funniest 11-year old I have ever met
8. It's tough to communicate when you lose your voice
9. I need to learn not to talk politics with women - it only leaves everyone frustrated
10. I'm no John Travolta, but I'm not as bad a dancer as I tell myself that I am
11. Nothing beats snuggling with a beautiful woman
12. Wild Bill's is flipping huge
13. Apple soda from China tastes like a kamikaze shot
14. "Messy" is a relative term
15. Skinny-dipping in hotel pools doesn't only happen in the movies
16. Nothing puts a smile on my face like seeing a beautiful pair of breasts
17. Trampolines are fun to jump on
18. Dane Cook is f-ing hilarious
19. There is no mandatory retirement age for strippers - there should be
20. Sometimes running into an old friend can be exactly what you need
21. Akitas shed a lot...a whole lot
22. It's hard to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew
23. Nothing feels better after a long night of drinking than pizza and a shower
24. You'll be surprised what some people will do for a dollar
25. Pulling into a driveway with a cop car in it is a good way to sober up
26. Nothing beats a woman with a "good situation"
27. Sometimes wondering "what if"can be better than actually finding out
28. Everyone smokes in Georgia
29. High school was a long time ago
30. A tattoo isn't something you get on a whim
31. Temptation can be intoxicating
32. Fate can be very ironic
33. No place is colder than a Waffle House at 4 in the morning

Dinner at the Divits

Thursday night was great - Robb & I finally got to meet Lilith in person, and we all had a great time eating and drinking at Spondivits.

Lilith was the shots queen of the night - three shots of Patron! Here's a picture of #3 going down:

Me & Lilith both had the coconut shrimp, which was awesome. Here's Lilith enjoying hers:

Yes, Lilith can even make eating a sensual experience - you go girl!

All in all, we had a great time - it was weird how well it seemed like we knew each other before we even met. It was like we had known each other for years...which I guess makes sense because we've shared years of stories. So my first in-person blogger meeting was a huge success.

And a post about our night wouldn't be complete with mentioning our waitress...I forget her name, but she rocked - she was hot, she was funny, and she kept bringing us beers and shots - what more can you ask for?

This picture doesn't do her justice at all - she was much cuter in person, and we all agreed she had a great ass. I forgot to get a picture of that. But speaking of asses, we did catch the ass of the girl sitting at the bar.

Now if only I had got a picture of the midget dancing man...

The devil went down to Georgia

24 hours to go...

By this time tomorrow, I will be in Atlanta to enjoy four whole days of doing nothing but hanging out with my good friend Robb. I was going to make a list of all the things I wanted to do while I'm down there, but I'm lazy, and the whole point of getting away is so that I don't have to do any thinking for a few days. So I'm soliciting suggestions from everyone - what would would you do if you had four days to spend in Atlanta, a good friend to hang with, and a wad of cash?

I'll get the list started:

1. Meet a new friend for dinner at Spondivits
2. Catch a shoe show
3. Drink heavily (yes, I know this is a given but I needed at least 3 ideas of my own!)
4. ???

The best suggestions will be added to my official "to-do" list. Bonus points will be awarded for creativity!!

Things I've gotten away with #1

Inspired by Vixen's post asking about what crazy things you got away with when you were young, I was inspired to tell this story of adolescent behavior. This is going to be a long one, but a good one (if I had a dollar for every time I had to someone that...)

It's freshman year in high school, and me and my buddy Matt decide to sneak out and go see our girlfriends in the middle of the night. And in true high school style, we decide we should get our drink on first, so we each down a giant "littla" - you know, a little of this, a little of that, so hopefully the parents won't notice that the levels of every bottle in the liquor cabinet has gone down a little. Thank god my parents never really drank, or they might have noticed that every weekend every bottle got a little bit emptier.

So having a buzz going, we were ready to go, except for one minor detail: we didn't have a car (or even learner's permits) to drive, and the women were about 5 miles away. But we did have bicycles. Obviously, we were drunker than we thought, because it seemed like a perfectly good idea to get on our 10-speeds and pedal over to the girls house. On public streets. drunk. Looking back now, there are so many ways we could have gotten caught, or gotten ourselves hurt or killed. But you just don't think about these things when you're 15 and hopped up on scotch, bourbon, rum, sake, gin and cokes!

We get to the house, and I throw rocks at my girlfriend's window - which of course is on the top level of a three-level townhouse. And since we're trying not to wake up her parents, the only way to get into her bedroom is to climb a tree up to the third floor and then into her bedroom. I was never that good at climbing trees, especially while drunk, so let's just say this was not easy or fun, and the branch at the top we had to climb on to actually get through the window didn't feel very sturdy...

But we both finally make it into the room without falling to our deaths or waking anyone up, and after some idle chit-chat we both start making out with our girlfriends. Now I don't know if it was just the awkwardness of having two couples in the same room, or if it really was, as the ladies told us, "that time of the month" for both of them, but it quickly became apparent that there wasn't going to be anything more than some kissing and groping, and my girlfriend knew her dad would be getting up soon (it was 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning by then), so everyone agreed that maybe we should go. My buddy loses the coin toss and gets to go out the window first.

Everything is going fine for the first few feet, but then he loses his grip and proceeds to fall two and a half floors, and lands on the gas grill and some potted plants. While these did break Matt's fall, he also broke a few of the pots, knocked over the grill, and made a hell of a lot of noise. Lights start coming on all over the house, and my girlfriend throws me out of her room and pushes me down the stairs to her older brother's room, who lives on the ground floor. He must have been used to this drill, because he meets me in the hallway, throws me into his closet, and gives me the single finger to the lip, accompanied by one of the angriest stares I've ever seen - the universal sign for "Shut the fuck up and don't make a sound or I will kill you!"

So now the parents are awake, walking around trying to figure out what the noise was. My girlfriend, always the quick thinker, said that it was thunder. I don't even know if it had been raining that night, but I'm praying her parents believe the cover story. Her dad comes downstairs and knocks on her brother's door:

Dad: "Did you hear anything?"
Brother: "It was raining pretty hard a while ago"
Dad: "Raining, huh?"
Brother: "Yup - raining"

I'm not sure whether her dad really believes the rain and thunder explantion, but he goes back upstairs. I'm relieved that I didn't get busted, but I'm getting scared of what her brother is going to do to me. Another five minutes go by and I'm really starting to freak out in the dark closet. Then the closet door opens, and her brother is in my face: "My dad's in the shower so you've got 5 minutes to get the hell out of here. And if I ever see you around here again, it's your ass!"

My momma didn't raise no dummy, so I'm out of there. I get out of the back yard, and there's Matt at the end of the street laughing his ass off. I wasn't in such a good mood, so with our buzzes wearing off and the realization that we were both going to have to get up in a few hours and go to school sinking in, we pedal our way home, again miraculously avoiding local law enforcement. It's amazing how empty roads are at 4:00 in the morning during the week.

So that's the first story of something crazy I got away with when I was young. There will be more to follow...

Jump into the water

Friday night I got to see one of my favorite local bands, Emmet Swimming, at the 9:30 club in D.C. Emmet hasn't played a show in almost a year, and I haven't caught them in probably five years, so this was very cool. Plus I got to hang out with a good friend who I haven't seen anywhere near enough lately. They played for over two hours, and even though I didn't get home until 4:00 in the morning, it was soo worth it!

Next stop - Atlanta in three days!!!

Pray for the Big Easy

My thoughts are with everyone in and around New Orleans riding out Hurricane Katrina. The Big Easy holds a special place in my heart - I even spent my honeymoon there - and the thought of the Crescent City being devastated by the forces of nature is really getting me down this morning. So I pray for the safety of the great city of New Orleans, its people, and everyone else dealing with a pissed-off Mother Nature.

Thought for the day - August 25th, 2005

Today marks the third straight week I've worked out at least 4 days a week - 5 days if you count my Sunday treadmilling. So I thought this quote was particularly relevant:

"Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense." -- Thomas Arnold Bennett

I have no idea who Thomas Arnold Bennett is or was, but I liked that quote, because I have felt a gain in my self-confidence after three weeks of working out (and frankly I needed it!), so I can only wait to see how I'll feel after three months of working out - I'll be one cocky mother scratcher!!!

Getting out of a rut

Part of why I haven't posted this week is that I felt like I've been in a rut all week. Somebody told me once that a rut is just a coffin with the ends knocked out, and that's how I've felt, at least until today.

Most of it's because it's been a bad week at work. Yes, I know work isn't supposed to be fun so I'm not going to whine about how rough I have it, because honestly I have it pretty good - I'm not over-worked and really, I'm probably overpaid (so sleep better tonight knowing that some of your tax dollars are going into my pocket). But this week it really sunk in that the majority of my job now consists of paperwork - not really doing anything, but reading document after document and responding to a never ending stream of reporting requirements and data calls that other parts of the government require but that I know nobody will ever probably read. So my career has turned into checking the right boxes and answering the right questions. I spend more time figuring out how to write up what we're supposedly doing than actually doing anything. I think I might be facing the ugly truth that I'm turning into a bureaucrat. I've been pushing for a promotion here at work, but now I'm not sure if I want it - sure, it would be more money, but it would also mean more of this crap - instead of doing anything I'd be making sure other people were doing things. I can't believe that I thought I wanted to move up into management...

So that's why the Nebbitt has been in a funk all week - but I'm not giving in without a fight! Since I've given so much of my time to the job this week, I'm taking a little for myself and blogging on the clock! And I'm going to take an extra long lunch and get in an extra-long workout today! And I might even go for a walk, just for spite! I think everyone should join me in protest and slack off at work today!!!

I can relate

I was flipping through last Sunday's Washington Post magazine, which I usually only do to get my Dilbert fix, when I stumbled across a story by Joel Achenback called The Tail That Wags the Blog. It's a good read; my favorite part is where he describes the kind of people who blog:

"America, it turns out, is full of smart, clever, creative people who happen to have no interest in working and whose employers have unwisely given them Internet access."

I couldn't agree more - I've met some of the most interesting people over the last few months since I started my on-line venting. But I'm curious, how many of you fit the description above and do most of your blogging at work on the company's dime? I know I sure do, and if I go a week without posting (like this week) then it's only because I'm actually working hard for a change. So let me know if you're an on-the-clock blogger. And don't worry - your secret will be safe with me!

Everything comes in threes

Reading over Robb's latest post, I looked back on my life, and just like Robb I discovered that there have only been three women in my life that I have felt strongly enough about to consider "settling down" with.

The first one was my first real "girlfriend" - I had just moved to a new state, I was going into 8th grade, and she was one of the first people I met on the bus to school. Looking back now, I can't remember what initially attracted me to her, but I remember she had a great smile. She went on to become my first steady girlfriend (I was a late bloomer), my first real kiss, and if it had been up to me, she would have been my first to go "all the way" with. But it wasn't meant to be - her dad was in the milatary and got stationed overseas, so our relationship came to an end. But we stayed in touch while she was overseas, and we would always try to make sure we saw each other whenever she came back to the States. I even flew halfway around the world to visit her my senior year in high school - but ironically we ended up fighting the whole time I was there, so I started to wonder if we were meant to be together after all. But we kept in touch, and we had an unwritten rule that even if we were dating other people, we would still hook up whenever we saw each other. She ended up going to school half a country away, and I stayed on the East Coast

The second one I met during high school - she was a good friend's little sister. We met when she tagged along with her sister to a party at a friend's house, and we instantly hit it off. And even though there was a slight age difference (I was a senior and she was a freshman), we totally connected emotionally. She was definitely ahead of her time (physically and emotionally) - she was more mature at 15 than I was at 18. I'm not sure whether that's a compliment to her or an insult to me, but she is by far one of the smartest people I have ever met...the kind of person who you actually believe could do anything and be anything they wanted to be. Looking back it's a miracle we ever ended up together, because during high school I was busy trying to prove to the world that I was the complete opposite of her - I was the stereotypical headbanger who was fighting "the system" - you now the type...the long hair having, jean-jacket and black Metallica T-shirt wearing, cigarette and other substance smoking, Rebel without a clue that flourished during the 80's and early 90's. But she always saw past all that and saw the true potential in me, and always pushed me to be a better person. I think in some ways I was a challenge for her, somebody who needed to be fixed and made better. We dated on and off for about a year, and then went our separate ways when I went off to college. She ended up going to college in California, but we ended up running into each other a few years later after I had just gotten out of a serious relationship, and we tried dating again, and for a few months it was amazing, including some of the most amazing sex I've ever had. But she was determinined to live on the West Coast, and I wasn't ready to leave the East Coast.

The third I met while I was in college. She was working as a waitress at a restaurant me and my friends used to go to all the time while she put herself through nursing school. She always took all the crap we gave her and gave as good as she got, and I started eating at this restaurant more and more. And since the food wasn't that great, I realized that wasn't why I kept coming back. Soon we were dating, and for the next two years or so there was never a dull moment. She was a redhead, and it's true what they say about their tempers. And she had a lot of messed-up things happen to her in the past, and the more I learned, the more I was amazed she was able to go on at all. And then she had a number of medical problems, culminating in having to have one of the valves in her heart replaced. She was always jealous of how easy she thought everything in my life had been, and I was always in awe of how normal she was able to be given all that had happened to her. We eventually got to that point where the relationship either had to go to the next level or go away.

So how did it all work out? Two of the great loves of my life are gone - they both ended up marrying Navy men and I'm sure they're doing fine. The third one I'm married to right now.

Zodiacs

For some reason, the daily horoscopes in the Washington Post Express I read on the Metro every day have been eerily appropriate for the last week or so. After a talk w/ my wife on Sunday revealed that what she really wants from me is to not bring up any of our problems for a while so we can get some distance from them, I get this horoscope on Monday:

It's essential that you play the role of good guy, despite your resistance to certain developments talking place.

I can't wait to see what today's column holds for me...