Wednesday, August 29, 2007

I'M BAAAAAAAACK!



Holy Crap that was a long vacation!

We had an absolute blast, I want to send a big thanks to all of my dear friends that let us crash at their place, drove us around, showed us cool stuff that we never would have found on our own, and generally put up with us. Thanks guys, you made this trip more than worth it.

I took a lot of pictures. 980 to be precise. Each picture was awesome and could win me several awards in photography, however I have decided to only post the cream of the crop. Believe me, when it's ALL cream it's hard to pick the creamiest.

I'm going to break the trip up into a blog for each place we stayed. Those places would be:

Seattle
San Francisco
Sunnyvale
Monterrey
San Simeon
Los Angeles

Today we will start with Seattle. I can't just jump right into Seattle, because getting there was such a nightmare. I have decided that LaGuardia, at one point, had a program where they hired a mentally challenged person to work there. Over the years they entirely took over the airport. LGA is by far the worst run piece of shit airport in all of these United States. I've never had a pleasant experience leaving New York. I totally know what Snake Plissken felt like.

My wife said it's because it's a very small airport, and they get a shit load of traffic. I'm no civil engineer, but it seems almost painfully obvious that maybe they need to expand the size of this airport. I'm also not a statistics taking person, but I would wager that New York is one of the most visited cities in the world. Nick get mad at airport ARRRRRRRGH!

Our flight was at 6:45, which meant we had to get up at 5 am. I don't even think God gets up that early. We finally got to the airport only to have to wait in the longest, most ill constructed line I've ever seen. It honestly seemed like this was the first time they have ever had people at the airport. A sassy black woman with a walkie talkie was yelling at everyone to change the shape of the line, as if it was our job to know exactly how to fit over 200 people in a space not constructed to hold over 200 people.

We finally made it through the long ass security line, as our tummies grumbled, yearning for high cholesterol laden, hastily prepared, heart attack enducing breakfast foods. We rounded the corner only to be greeted by the 2nd longest, most ill conceived line ever. The line in front of the Burger King counter. Here's one of the math problems on the Burger King application form:

50 people in line + three registers = only use one register.

It took 15 minutes to get through 10 people in line. Again, I can't say enough how it seemed like it was the first time they had ever had people in the airport. We finally received our breakfast sandwiches and walked to the gate, only to be informed that our flight was very delayed. That of course screwed-up our connecting flight. I wasn't that upset because I thought they would just put us on the next flight out in Indianapolis. Nancy has traveled more than me so she was not as calm. She immediately got on the cell phone and tried to track down a number for Orbitz.



I immediately made fun of her, and pretended to talk on my cell phone. She was not very happy with me at this point in the trip.



I convinced her that we needed to talk to the gate attendee, so we waited in another line. Luckily we got the one "regular" person that all the retarded airport workers are required to hire. She was fucking awesome. We said maybe three words to her and she started maddly typing on her computer for what seemed like 10 minutes. She got us on another flight to Minneapolis, which I kept called Mindianapolis, because my brain wasn't working that early.

But the best part was she put us in first class for the second flight. Nancy had never flown first class and she was jazzed. We barely made that connecting flight, but sure enough we were in first class. Free hot food and as much booze as you could hold down. Here I am enjoying my hot sandwich.



The clouds are even prettier in first class.



We finally arrived in Seattle, only 4 hours late. My really good buddy Aaron, who let us stay with him, met us at the airport. He was surprised to see how fat I had gotten.



Aaron drove us straight to the seaport to check out the guys that throw fish around. Unfortunately, or fortunately, when we got there all the dudes that throw fish around had packed it all up and when home, to dream of throwing fish around another day. We weren't too upset about missing it, mainly because I didn't want some dude to throw a fish at me.



The first thing me and the wife did was buy a cup of coffee, because we were in Seattle, and why do anything original when you travel. We went to a place called Tully's, which is apparently the main Starbucks competitor in Seattle. The coffee was awesome. Here is a picture of Nancy drinking her hot cup of Tully's coffee in front of the first Starbucks. Suck on that Mr. Starbuck!



Look at the sadness in his eyes.



I can't remember what this thing was called...



No truffles in there buddy!



OK I have to stop for a while. I'll finish Seattle tomorrow. It's good to be home, but I'd rather be on vacation.

1 comment:

tom said...

Dude, that was the funniest thing I've seen all week! You totally made my day with that.

(I miss you)