3,311 miles in 9 days plus five days at Comic-Con. And I have pictures. And I have articles.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

I have downtime today! I slept 9 hours and gave myself 10 hours to take a 4 hour trip! I needed this slight break, I'm beat to fuck.

The road trip's been great. I'm in Grants, New Mexico now and driving out to Flagstaff today.I get to see the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, and Meteor Crater on the way - nice!  I'm going to see The Dark Knight today, too. There's been two articles posted on DCist so far so far and the third's going up today.

Everything's fine, I'm re-energized, I'm meeting tons of cool people, and I have no regrets.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

So I have enough encouragement and interest in an article or a series of articles that feature a grounds-eye view of comics from coast-to-coast. I’m going to be doing it while on my San Diego road trip, making stops along the way to chat with fans, creators, and retailers to talk to them about how (and if) the comics’ boom is effecting them. Get a feel for how comics’ growth and mainstream acceptance is perceived outside of the East/West coast.

I can’t talk specifics about where this is going to be published, yet, I do have some interest and I need to start casting a wider net to bring folks in so I’m not doing it last minute. So here’re the major cities I’ll be cutting through:

Roanoke, VA
Knoxville, TN (Spending the night – July 15th)
Nashville, TN
Memphis, TN (Spending two nights – July 16th and 17th)
Little Rock, AR
Oklahoma City, OK (Spending the night – July 18th)
(Time Permitting) Tulsa, OK
Albuquerque, NM (Spending the night – July 19th)
Santa Fe, NM (Spending the night – July 20th)
Flagstaff, AZ (Spending the night – July 21st)
Phoenix, AZ (Spending the night – July 22nd)
Yuma, AZ
San Diego, CA (Spending four nights (July 23rd – July 26th)

If you know someone in those cities or situated between those cities, I’d love to see if I can squeeze them in. A little talk, grab a bite to eat with them, have a drink, take a tour of their comic shop, go see Dark Knight Returns (I’ll probably be in OK City the night it comes out), hook me up with some internet access, reading session…I’m open for suggestions. I already have some appointments in some of those cities but, as stated, I’m going to try to squeeze in as much as I can.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

Three weeks from today I’ll be driving from Albuquerque to Flagstaff. I have it in my head that this will be the prettiest segment of the road trip since I’m taking a slight detour to cut through the petrified forest and the painted desert.

I used to go to Arizona as a kid to visit my Uncle Alex. I’ve been to Old Tucson, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon but the petrified forest and the painted desert were two places I never got to visit because they were always kind of out of the way. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited to finally get to check them out.

There are other great sites along the way, but I have the meteor crater pretty high on my list of must-sees. Then there’s “Standing on the Corner” Park in Winslow, Arizona that celebrates the Eagle’s catchy pop-tune “Take it Easy.”

I’m staying at a hostel in Flagstaff, my final hostel of the trip, I believe.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

Three weeks from day and I’ll be going from Santa Fe to Albuquerque. I’ll probably be leaving Santa Fe a little on the earlier side. I’ve always wanted to see Albuquerque and along the way the Bonezone, the Tinkertown Museum, Chevy on a Stick and the Atomic Canyon. I think, for the most part, I just want to get down there for dinner, hang around a little while in the AM, and then take the ultra-scenic portion of the drive. Looking forward to it.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

Three weeks from today I'll be driving from OK City to Santa Fe where my friends Bram and Monica will be putting my up for the evening. It's my longest leg at 8 hours and probably the one leg with the most stuff to stop of and see. I'll need to leave OK City early on Saturday, try to get on the road at 7AM or so, and just start driving.

What am I most excited about? Elvis Stayed Here Hotel? The Blarney Stone? The Devil's Rope Museum? The 19-story Cross? The Swimming Pool Shaped Like Texas? The Helium Centennial Time Columns Monument? Cadillac Ranch? Some of Route 66's best scenes? Or something that I'm not even aware of?

It'll be a long, incredibly fun, day of driving. I'm very much looking forward to it.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

Three weeks from today I’ll be driving from Memphis to Oklahoma City, the third-longest leg of my trip at seven hours. Three weeks from today The Dark Knight is released. I’m sure you can see my dilemma.

The way I see it, I have three options. I can catch an IMAX screening in Little Rock. The only problem with that plan is that I planned on grabbing lunch with my friend Elton Pruitt while in Little Rock. That, combined with a movie, would be a hug chunk of my day and there’s some great scenic driving en route to Oklahoma I don’t want to miss.

So the IMAX thing is probably out. Oh, what’s that? See the IMAX screening in Oklahoma City? I would do that but, you see, there apparently isn’t an IMAX theater in the ENTIRE STATE OF OKLAHOMA. Oh well.

There is a pretty cool-looking drive-in, however, that seems to play recent movies. I’m really hoping they have The Dark Knight showing since I’ve never been to a drive-in before. If they’re not showing it, it looks like I’ll be seeing it in some plain-ole Movie Theater. You may call it a wasted night for the road trip but, come on, we’re talking The Dark Fucking Knight here.

So, that dilemma aside, what else do I have to look forward to three weeks from today? The William J. Clinton Library in Little Rock, of course. I still have a soft-spot for that old pervert. A statue of Popeye in Alma. The home of Woodie Guthrie in Okemah. A whole lot of scenic driving. And, of course, some OK City attractions such as Flaming Lips Alley where I have to imagine I’ll be able to pick up some LSD.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

Three weeks from today I’ll be spending my second day in Memphis.

I’m trying not to set-up too much of an agenda for Memphis, honestly. I know I’ll be spending my evening on Beale Street and I know I’ll be going to the Stax Museum and Graceland. I’ll probably spend as much time as needed at the Public Library’s Music Collection and try to dig through articles from the 50s and 60s to help get a feel for the growing soul community down there.

I’m mainly trying to get a backdrop for the Sam Cooke book I’m working on.

And then there’s the barbeque, of course. Every meal will likely be pig slathered in barbeque sauce.

I’m really looking forward to Memphis. I’ll probably find myself going back down there sometime this winter so I’m just getting a little taste for now.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

Three weeks from today I’ll be making the trip from Knoxville to Memphis. I’m actually spending two nights in Memphis; there’s way too much to do there to simply spend one evening. Barbeque, soul music, and Elvis – Memphis is the city I’m most excited about.

Before getting to Memphis, however, I have to pass through Nashville. I want to have a picnic in front of the Parthenon, a replica of the Parthenon in Rome housed in the southwest corner of the city. If I make good time I’m going to stop at the Country Music Hall of Fame before lunch and wander the halls a bit. I’m not a hugs country music fan but, you know, when in Nashville.

Before getting to Memphis I’d like to stop off at the Rock-a-Billy Hall of Fame – a bit more my speed. That’s in Jackson, Tennessee. From there it’s a quick trip down to Memphis where I’ll be spending two nights in a hostel and my daytimes and evenings eating and touring. I’ll write more about my Memphis plans tomorrow.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

In three weeks I’ll be making the trip from Washington DC to Knoxville, Tennessee. According to Google Maps the trip should take a little under eight hours.

I’ll be stopping in Roanoke for lunch – I’d like to have a little picnic at Center In the Square before going over to see Mini-Graceland. I’m kind of psyched to see Mini-Graceland since I’ll be seeing the real one when I get to Memphis. It seems the landmark was in disarray for a while but it’s slowly getting put back together. I’m not sure what state it’ll be in when I get there.

Continuing on there’s the Big Pencil in Wytheville, Virginia. I figure that since this is a writing pilgrimage/research trip stopping off to pick up some new supplies at the Wytheville Office Supply shop that houses the Big Pencil would be a good idea.

A little passed Wytheville is the grave of Dr. Pepper. There’s really not much of a reason to stop there except to say I stopped at Dr. Pepper’s grave. I don’t even really like Dr. Pepper all that much.

That’s really all I have planned as far as the first leg of my trip goes. Time permitting I’d like to stop at some wineries on the way. I’m more excited about the view – it’s a pretty scenic route all the way down. I’ll be staying at a hostel in Knoxville for the night and some point before leaving Knoxville I’ll be sure to check out the Sunsphere because, according to The Simpsons, that’s all Knoxville has. I’ll also be checking out the world’s largest Rubic’s Cube, of course.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

I have lots of pictures and lots of stories and I've only been here for one day...

Real quick: I got back to the hotel at 6PM to power nap and accidentally slept until midnight. Thinking my night was fucked I went out for a quick bite and a beer. I met some awesome locals and ended up stumbling home at 6AM. Good times, now I'm trying to wake up so I can go see some museums today.

Labels: travel

Well, I'm off to Munich tomorrow. Communication will be sporadic. I'll keep an online travel journal but I'll be traveling solo for the most part so I don't know how exciting the trip will be. I know how to communicate at a beer garden so I should be good.

Labels: travel

Oh boy…

So everyone that knows me knows that I’m a bit of a, how shall I say it…I’m a prissy. Look, I like nice things. I like expensive foods and four-star hotels and large plasma TVs for my high-def DVDs, X-Box 360, Wii, digital cable, etc. I like nice clothes and comfortable furniture and Old World Wine. It’s just how I am…

So I was thinking about my hotel situation. You see, this trip is going to be expensive. Anyone who’s ever been to Comic-Con knows that I’ll be spending at least a grand over the four days in San Diego alone (including the return flight home, of course). Combine that with the rental car, the gas, the food, entertainment money, and the hotels for the 8 days I’m driving to the convention and, well, even I have my limits.

Even the cheap hotels would be $40-$50 per night and I’ll be staying on some highway away from the city, most likely. Getting bedbugs. So I looked into camping – if I’m going to be away from the cities I might as well have some fresh air and friendly neighbors. But it’s just not worth it – it’s like $25-$30 a night for a campsite and I’d have to actually, you know, buy camping equipment. Oh – forgot to mention – I’ve never been camping before.

So I decided to look into hostels and I was amazed to find that they actually exist in America.

So I booked hostels for my overnights in Knoxville, Memphis, and Flagstaff. Four of the eight nights will cost me $15-$17 and all I need to do is share a room with several dudes.

Ok – there’s the practical thing again. I’m saving some dough. Probably around $40 a night for those four nights. And I get to do it while staying within the city limits. Awesome!

But, again, there’s also the real reason I should be doing this. Why lock myself up in some hotel room where I won’t meet anyone? Isn’t the point of this trip to meet folks, have an adventure, and hear some stories (so I can steal them)? I need to put myself in a position to do that…

I’ll be staying at the Knoxville Hostel, the Pilgrim House Hostel, and the Grand Canyon International Hostel. I looked into hostels for my nights in Albuquerque and Santa Fe but there seems to be only one place available in both of those cities and the reviews are mixed but the bad ones are…well…fucking frightening.

Never stayed at a hostel before. No idea what to expect. The best part is that staying in a hostel for four nights will loosen up my budget a tad for the other four nights. Maybe I’ll stay at a Days Inn!

My hotel in San Diego is gorgeous. There’s always that. I can go back to being my shallow self once the driving is done.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

I was planning my yearly trip to San Diego Comic-Con. I already had my hotel; I booked it last year. My pro registration was sent in. Random House took care of the Eisner nomination stuff for Postcards; I was getting the groundwork laid out for some new books. The only thing I didn’t do was book my flight.

And I said, “Hey – I should drive to San Diego this year.”

There are practical reasons behind driving out there. My main character in The Know It All takes a cross-country trip, for instance, and seeing the route he would take is probably a bit of a necessity. I can also stop in Memphis and soak in some soul music; it’ll only help with the Sam Cooke book. Those two reasons, combined with the fact that I’m going to San Diego for Comic-Con, makes this trip a nice, fat tax deduction.

So, like I said, practical.

And then there are the real reasons.

For starters, I’ve simply never done anything like this. I went from high school to college working every summer, never really took a spring break excursion, and started working the week after I graduated. I’ve taken vacations, of course, but those were always so structured. Get on the plane, fly somewhere, see the sites, fly home and go back to work. I’ve taken road trips, I guess, but the furthest I’ve ever traveled by car as an adult was 7 hours and that was all on I-95. As a kid I took trips down to Florida with the family.

But this is different. I’m going solo. There’s something about pulling that safety net out from under you. On all my other trips I had the comfort of home by my side at all times – I didn’t have to pay attention to my surroundings if I didn’t want to. On this trip, however, I’m forced to mingle with the locals and other travelers or else I’m going to have a very lonely 8 days on the road. And I like that.

There’s also that romantic idea behind centering yourself. Let’s be honest, this time one year ago I was on top of the world. I recently proposed to Robin and Postcards was turned into the printer – I had the galleys in my hand. One year later and I feel like I’ve taken two steps backwards. Is that a bad thing? Not really – it didn’t turn out the way I wanted the first time so I’ll just have to try it again. But does it still bug me a bit? Of course it does. And centering at a time like this is always a good idea and nothing centers a person like 3,000 miles of road.

So I’ve heard, at least.

So I’m going. I rented a car. I took the time off of work. I plotted a route and have tentative stops:

• Tuesday, July 15th – Knoxville, TN
• Wednesday, July 16th – Memphis, TN
• Thursday, July 17th – Memphis, TN
• Friday, July 18th – Oklahoma City, OK
• Saturday, July 19th – Santa Fe, NM
• Sunday, July 20th – Albuquerque, NM
• Monday, July 21st – Flagstaff, AZ
• Tuesday, July 22nd – La Quinta, CA

I plotted those stops on Google Maps along with road side attractions I should keep my eyes open for:


View Larger Map

I even started making my rules for the trip…

1) Photograph everything
2) Video tape as much as you can
3) Use the voice record constantly
4) Write everything in a journal
5) Talk to someone everywhere you stop

There will be more, I’m sure.

I have a shopping list. I need a good tripod. A cooler that I wouldn’t mind leaving behind in San Diego. Postcard stamps. I need to get some audio books from the library.

I looked up AAA approved hotels along the way, just in case.

I have goals. I’ll update Twitter constantly. I’ll try and update Flickr and this blog every night. I’ll edit a video journal when I get back.

I still have more planning to do. More stuff to buy and more ideas for the road to come up with. But I’m doing this. And I’m very excited.

This just feels right.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

Also posted on the Eximious Press blog.

I have plenty of pictures up over here – go check them out. Report time…


I got into town at around noon. Robin and I took a cab to the Sofia Hotel. The Sofia was remodeled In January 2007 and it’s now a nice and swanky spot only seven blocks from the convention center and three blocks from Ralph’s. We ran into James W. Powell and Jason Copland at the hotel – it’s odd that out of all of the hotels in San Diego I book one at the same place that my assistant editor (James) and frequent collaborator (Jason) are in. It's even weirder that none of us even realized we were in the same place and that we showed up at the exact same time. San Diego Comic-Con may have had 140,000 attendees this year but it’s still a small world over there.

After checking in Robin and I went to Sea World. I don’t care if you laugh, I love Sea World. Love it. I can watch fish swim for hours (especially eels, barracudas, and sharks). I love how you can feed and touch the dolphins and the sting rays. I love how the park is owned by Anheuser-Busch and you can get free beers at the hospitality tent. You’re only allowed two per visit but you get around that by visiting the tent every hour or so.

After Sea World Robin went back to the hotel to take a nap and I went to the convention center to check out preview night. I went straight to the Random House booth to see what kind of press they had out for us. They had a nice poster up at the Villard section, a preview copy of the book, and a flyer advertising the four signings we head set up. I can’t complain about that.

I walked around the hall for a while. I dropped some books off with Gia-Bao Tran and the Gigantic Graphic Novel guys (Rick Spears and Rob G) to sell at their respective tables.

After the show I went out to dinner with a couple of folks: my fiancée, Robin, Josh Fialkov and his lovely fiancée (and POSTCARDS II history-editor) Christina Rice, POSTCARDS artist Tony Fleecs, screenwriters Marc Wheaton (THE MESSENGERS) and Gary Dauberman (DEADMAN), and Sam Cooke artist Rob Guillory and his wife, April. We went to a nice little Italian place.

We were going to head over to the Hyatt afterwards but first I had to take Tony to his hotel in Gary’s car. I rented a POSTCARDS Crash Room for anyone that didn’t have a place to stay and wanted to make sure that Tony could check it into it since he was the first one to use it. It took us close to twenty minutes to get to the hotel, the only street that passed by it was a one-way street that seconded as the off-ramp to a highway. By the time we returned Gary’s car it was already past eleven and we were about a half-mile from the Hyatt and tired. Robin, Tony, Gary, and I went out for some drinks closer to our hotels.

The first bar we went to was alright. We were attracted to the outdoor patio and then they closed it. Some Santana cover band was playing the wrong songs too loud inside the bar so we bolted. We went to some dive bar on Tony’s suggestion and it ended up being the greatest two hours of the convention by my recollection.

It was cheap, for starters. Two-dollar beers and well drinks all night, every night. The bartender was hysterical. When we commented on how cheap the beers were she proceeded to tell us the price of every drink behind the bar. She joked with us, made fun of us, took pictures with us. When someone came in with a big box of XL-or-larger restaurant shirts, she encouraged us to take them. Tony got it started, digging through the box and putting different shirts on. Eventually, everyone was wearing the free shirts. People would come through the door and we’d throw a shirt at them. Joshua Dysart comes in and I say, “Joshua! Where’s your shirt?” It was a drunken mess but a good mess.

Ralph’s, then hotel – Preview Night was over.


I had breakfast with Josh Fialkov and Christina Rice. While Josh and I talked about our futures, Christina read POSTCARDS. No joke – she cried, in front of us, after reading Phil Hester’s story. Anyway, I think several decisions where made over breakfast that’ll be playing out over the next several months.

Afterwards I went to the Horton Plaza mall to get some new sunglasses and hat – I already had mild sunburn on my bald patch from the trip to Sea World. Robin’s friend, Julie, flew into town while we were shopping and the three of us went to Old Town together from some lunch. We had some decent Mexican food and caught up a bit before heading out to the convention.

I had my first meeting of the show with Paul Benjamin, one of the writers for POSTCARDS II. I stacked most of them during Friday and Saturday (huge mistake – I’ll tell you why later). After the meeting I made my way to the Villard panel. It went well; I’d say about 60 people showed up. Kazu was insightful, as always, and Josh and I cracked jokes, mainly. The audience seemed to be entertained and at least four people came up to me and bought a book during one of my signings, mentioning that they loved the panel. Sales!

After the panel Josh and I walked around a bit before heading out to the Random House dinner. Good conversation and good food – horrible service, though. We were there for three hours, which is fine, but a lot of that time was spent waiting for stuff. Like drinks. And forks. But, hey, I’m not one to complain about a free meal – especially if it’s good.

We headed over to the Circle of Confusion party after that and met up with Gary, Tony, Mark, Christina, Robin, and Julie. There were too many people there to recount each and every one but I did run into POSTCARDS contributors Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos. It was a great party at any rate, and I took full advantage of the free booze and downed a combination of Red Bull-Vodkas, scotch, and beer before heading over to the Hyatt.

Being party night the Hyatt was kind of dead and I’m not going to complain about that. We met up with James Powell, Jason Copland, Caleb Monroe, Drew Melbourne, and Elton Pruitt and listened to Tony Fleecs tell stories all night. Tony can keep an audience attentive for hours on end – it makes me wish he’ll hurry up and get to IN MY LIFETIME #2.

The bar closed and Robin, Julie, and I went back to the hotel (after a trip to Ralph’s, of course). I was pretty sick but luckily the need to pass out was greater than the need to notice that the room was spinning.


I started my Friday with breakfast at the Marriott with Josh Fialkov, Christina Rice, Tony Fleecs, Mark Wheaton, Rob Guillory and wife, April, Kody Chamberlain, Phil Hester, Colleen Coover, and Paul Tobin. I got to check out Paul and Colleen’s newest graphic novel and it’s gorgeous. I headed out to get to my 10AM meeting. The convention, however, opened at 10:30 – making me a half-hour late and setting the precedent for late, missed, or canceled meetings. It’s great that there’re 140,000 people attending Comic-Con but those people make it impossible to keep a schedule. It’s my fault, really, scheduling so many back-to-backs, but it was still annoying.

Luckily I had nothing solid planned after the first meeting – I was still able to catch some of the Image Founders Panel. It was fun but definitely didn’t have the drama I was hoping for. It did make me appreciate Jim Lee more, however. His move to Image really shook the comic industry up. I can’t think of a single person working today that could have a similar impact on the comic industry by simply moving to an upstart company.

I had a couple of short meetings before my Random House signing with Josh Fialkov. We sold a couple of books, signed them nice, and then went our separate ways. I had lunch with James Powell and Christina Rice at Dick’s Last Resort. We talked about POSTCARDS II – where we stood and the way forward. There’s work to be done, folks. Lots of it.

Lunch ended early and I had forty minutes of downtime. I sat in the convention lobby and started to read PULP HOPE. It’s not the kind of book you read while burnt out and in a noisy convention center so I just salivated over the gorgeous artwork.

After the quick break I went to Comic Relief for another POSTCARDS signing. We had Tom Beland, Jason Copland, Micah Farritor, Antony Johnston, Ande Parks, Rick Spears, Rob G, Gia-Bao Tran, Matt Kindt, and Joseph Bergin III all signings books. A couple of folks bought some books, a couple of folks brought their own, and I had the crew sign a box of books I’ll be using for promotion. There wasn’t as many people as I would have liked but it wasn’t horrible, at least.

After the signing I went out for a quiet dinner with Robin and Julie. We went back to the hotel and waited for my friend PJ to show up. PJ’s a college buddy, now in LA, working for DreamWorks Animation. The four of us went straight to the Hyatt where we drank all night. Tony told stories, again, and the whispered discussion amongst me and several friends revolved around an interesting turn or events from the day before and what I should do about it. The answer was, essentially, “get paper” but everyone had a different idea as to how said paper would be getted.

I also introduced myself to Frank Miller that evening. Gary Dauberman and I walked up to Mr. Miller and his entourage…it seems like he has a bodyguard these days, by the way. Shook Frank’s hand – he smiled and said, “Nice to meet you.” When we started telling him what we did his eyes glassed over…I don’t know, you’d think the fact that Gary’s writing DEADMAN for Warner Brothers and working with Guillermo Del Toro would at least be interesting to him. I guess he’s just too Hollywood for us.

Ralph’s and then the hotel, as per usual.


Breakfast with Josh Fialkov, Phil Hester, and some guys from Harris comics. After breakfast I went back to the hotel room and napped until 12:30, canceling two meetings because it just wasn’t worth trying to fight the crowd. The cancelled parties had no objections, and we agreed to chat at the Hyatt Saturday night. Comic-Con had already worn me down.

Signed at the Random House booth with Phil Hester for an hour. It went well; we sold some books and met some cool folks. Robin and Julie came to the convention afterwards and the three of us walked around – this was my first and only time really taking it all in. I picked up THE HOMELESS CHANNEL, BLACK METAL, SUPER SPY, and the absolute best find of the show. Let me explain…

Matt Kindt made signed-and-numbered, limited-edition Super Spy mini-comics called THE TREASURE. The comic is 70-some-odd panels long and each panel is on a piece of paper and placed into a hand-made box. Also in the box is a treasure map that tells you how to position the panels so you can read the entire story. The box is tied up and Matt put a little sketch on the back. Ten bucks.



FANTASTIC.



If you didn’t buy it you really missed out.

At 2PM we had our second POSTCARDS signing at Comic Relief. This time is was Michael Gaydos, Stuart Moore, Phil Hester, Matt Kindt, Josh Fialkov, Tom Beland, James Powell, and Tony Fleecs. Much better turn out this time and we helped Comic Relief go through a chunk of their stock. I also got to meet up with an editor at NPR and talk to her a bit about the book. She seemed interested so even if it doesn’t get on the radio it’s nice to know it had a chance.

We went to dinner with around 14 folks afterwards, the usual crew – Chinese food. The crispy duck was delicious. One final romp at the Hyatt and I only spent an hours there before making my rounds and saying goodbye to everyone. I became really good at goodbyes – you just need to get in there, shake the hand, and run off before they can stop you. Josh started an hour before me and I caught up to him in the corridor in-between the two bars. Twenty minutes later I finished up the second bar and then I was gone. Just the hotel – no Ralph’s. Robin and I had the room to ourselves Saturday night, after all.


Breakfast, packing, cab to the airport, and a comfortable flight to Chicago that allowed me to finish Harry Potter and sleep – two great things. An hour delay in Chicago, thirty minutes on the tarmac in DC, half hour waiting for our luggage, and another twenty minutes waiting for a taxi, however, got me home a little past 2AM. So – a horrible ending to a great week.

In case you want to see what Robin’s signed copy of POSTCARDS looks like, here you go:



I know you wish you want one…luckily I have ten more just like it:



I’m going to start giving them out on this website every month-to-six weeks or so. First one this week sometime. Keep your eyes open for any upcoming promotions.

Labels: news, postcards, travel

Last time I talked about all the steps we took just to get to Italy. Today I pick up where I left off.

At Fumicino we made our way to the baggage claim, picked up our bags, and went through customs. We walked towards the Leonardo Express, the train that’ll take us into Rome. Proving my street savvy, I almost fell for the gypsy that claimed I had to buy train tickets off of him. Luckily Robin was there to smack me on the back of the head and we made our way to the real ticket counter where we purchased out tickets. We validated them as our eyes darted around from one group of people to the next. We were warned of the gypsies in Italy and we were dead set on making it through this whole trip without anything being stolen. We were vigilant, watching each others back constantly and making sure that our backpacks were never susceptible to little gypsy hands.

It was thirty minutes on the Leonardo Express, taking in the country side which was covered in graffiti and shanty towns – it was like being back in New York. Robin and I went through our phrase book and studied the map of Termini and its surrounding neighborhood. We charted a course to our hotel so we can simply plow through with our bags, protecting us from, you know, gypsies.

We got off at Termini and were overwhelmed with the size of the station and the amount of people in it. As we exited the station, we started walking in the direction we thought the hotel was in, looking for street signs but finding none. We didn’t slow down, however; we didn’t stop. We kept moving, suitcase dragged behind us, map in hand, screaming, “Where’re the street signs? Where are the fucking street signs!”

Ok, I’m exaggerating. There was no screaming. But it certainly took us a couple of blocks to realize that the street signs were integrated into the buildings. We got our bearing straight and realized we were only several blocks from the hotel.

The Hotel Diocleziano - our first stop. Friendly concierge, gorgeous little lobby, a bar off to the side. The concierge spoke English (as most service people do in the big cities), and the bellhop showed us to our room. I honesty thought they made a mistake. This hotel was the second cheapest of the four we were staying at. I didn’t understand why we had a spacious, gorgeous room with a fancy, fancy shower that seconded as a Jacuzzi, and a private patio that was about twice as big as our hotel room. We apparently got all of this because I paid a couple of extra bucks for the deluxe room combined with a little bit of luck as far as the large patio went.

At any rate, our trip was off to a great start.

We showered and rested for a little while, trying to decide where to go and how to get there. We decided to walk towards the Spanish Steps, get lost a little bit, and had to stop and get some dinner on the way.

We were amazed, while walking around, how much Rome was built on food. Restaurants and cafes everywhere and everyone wanted you to have a seat. We finally picked a restaurant with a name I forget in an area that I wasn’t familiar with. We sat outside, got our menus, and picked out what we wanted. The waitress came over and asked, “Antipasti?” I ordered the mozzarella in carrozza. She turned to Robin and said, “And for you?”

Robin ordered something off of the prima patti menu causing the waitress to ask, “And?” Robin told her that was all and I ordered off of the secondi patti menu. We each ordered a side. The waitress, a little annoyed now, asked us what we wanted for dessert. We were confused and said, “Nothing yet.” We ordered some wine (by the glass) and the waitress was off. Later on, we learned how you’re supposed to order at a restaurante.

Ideally, you’re each supposed to order an antipasti, prima patti, secondi patti, sides, and dessert. Now, no-one will get mad at you if you don’t order every course (which is good because, if you do, you’ll end up spending close to 70 euros per person). But each person should at least order 3 of the five courses. At any rate we got our food and enjoyed our meals and toasted Italy with every new glass of wine. With all of the wine we bought, it would have made more sense for each of us to purchase our own bottle. We enjoyed our first meal and we set off to get lost again…

We walked around Piazza di Spagna. Sat on the Spanish Steps. Ate some gelato. Window shopped. Held hands, kissed, took pictures – we were falling in love with the city. We were also getting tired, the only sleep we had was on the plane to London. So we eventually started walking in the direction of the hotel. We decided to stop for another drink at this American bar. Sat down, realized there was a table fee (along with the fact that we were in, you know, and American Bar), and left before ordering a drink. We made our way to a wine bar near the hotel, had a half-carafe each, and talked about how beautiful the city was.

We headed back to our hotel and feel asleep…eventually.

The second day was more than just food and wine. We got up kind of early, got on a bus, and went out to the Vatican. We weren’t sure where to buy our bus tickets and every time we asked someone they tried to sell us tickets to the tourist buses like the Christian Bus – a double-decker decorated with bright colors and images of Jesus. I heard rumors that they hand out t-shirts on that bus that say, “Please rip me off,” but I doubt it – that would be overkill. We eventually discovered that you buy your bus tickets at the newsstands – we bought a day pass and were on our way.

The Vatican was overwhelming. You walk into St. Peter’s square and you instantly appreciate how much history happened here, good or bad. The fountain, the statues lining the perimeter and, of course, the cathedral itself. Robin and I spent a half-hour just staring and taking pictures before heading into the cathedral. We walked through the tombs of the old popes, first, saw the tomb of St. Peter and Pope John Paul II – he had a handful of mourners kneeling in front of his tomb, praying and crying.

Then we did the actual cathedral. The architecture and artwork were remarkable. An early Michelangelo piece, the tombs and statues of certain popes – the altars off to the side of the main altar where priests were going about their everyday business – holding mass, baptizing babies, keeping confession. I asked Robin if she wanted to make confession at the Vatican and we both decided it was a very bad idea – we’d likely spend the rest of our vacation undergoing penance. We did stop off at a side alter to pray and reflect for a little while, however, and we touched the feet of St. Peter like every good lapsed Catholic making a pilgrimage to the Holiest of Holies.

We hopped outside for some water and a slice of pizza before going to the Pope’s blessing. I purchased some rosary beads for my mom so I can have them on me when the Pope does his blessing – that’s the kind of gift me mom would love. The Pope came out, said something in Latin, and then addressed the crowd in Italian, English, Spanish, German, Russian, and French. Every time he switched up his language the crowd went wild. He was calling out parishes that were visiting from distant countries and the people attending would cheer and hoist their banners into the air – it was quite a sight. It’s just amazing how there can be so many people there, adoring this man that they’ve never met. I have to give it to the Pope, he was charming and funny. I can see how folks would get behind him.

After the blessing Robin and I walked to the Vatican Museum only to find that it’s closed on Sundays. At least I got to buy some sunglasses on the way up there. The guys selling illegal items in Italy are a trip. They have these cases that transform into tables – they can set up in seconds and leave just as quick. You see one guy running down the street, away from the police, and everyone picks up their gear and starts huffing after him. If you happen to be trying something on at the time, it’ll likely be yours, free of charge.

Robin and I quickly realized that it’s best to avoid eye contact when we hear one of the three pitches: “You want to know how much?” “Good price,” and, “On sale.” My absolute favorite moment was when Robin said she wanted a fake Coach bag. I walked up to the guy selling it, and he asked, “You want to know how much?”

I say, “How much?”

And he says, “Good price. On sale.” It’s like these guys are programmed to bring Americans to them. We did the barter thing. “Twenty.”

“Twenty? I can get a real one for thirty.”

“No…no. Twenty.”

“Ten – all I got.”

“No...twenty.”

I open my wallet. There’s ten euros in there. “Look – ten. All I got.”

He says 15, I walk away, and he calls me back and gives it to me for ten. I wish the guys knew more English. I’d love to be able to call them out. “Is 20 the sale price or the retail price? Because if it’s the sale price I’d like to know what the retail price is. Or is there not a sale? Were you lying to me?”

We walked to Castel St. Angelo a medieval castle that used to be connected to the Vatican via a series of underground tunnels. Admission was a bit steep but it was worth it for the view of the city and the statue of Michael the Archangel on top.

After the castle, we walked across the river and wound up near the alleys the surround Campo de Fiori. We walked around and got lost, ended up at a restaurant in a back alley because they had some musicians playing music out front. We were seated after ten minutes – fifteen minutes later no-one even asked us what kind of wine we wanted and one of the waiters shooed away the musicians so we snuck out. We ended up finding a fabulous pizza shop with cheap Peroni and we had a seat outside, enjoyed the nice weather, and ate pizza and drank beer.

We went back to the hotel afterwards. Robin napped as I sat on the patio with a bottle of Chianti, reading Rick Veitch’s Maximortal. I didn’t really get into it, sadly.

That evening Robin and I went to the Pantheon and Piazza Navona – we got off the bus near these excavated ruins that have been turned into a cat sanctuary – that was instantly added to our site-seeing agenda for the next day. We walked up to the Pantheon, got dinner at this nice little place with a view. Cheaper food than the night before and nice, big portions. Seafood, too, and it was real good. Half-liter of wine for me and a liter of Peroni for Robin.

We just sat and ate and drank and talked – two people in love, watching the people walk by. We went to a famous gelati place afterwards; we each got a three scoop, and then took side streets to Piazza Navona where we found an American bar with a table outside. We were both amazed by the waiter’s flawless English – he claimed to be born and raised in Italy. Some of the people at the bar seemed to know him, and their conversations led us to believe that the waiter was, indeed, Italian, and that he just happened to learn accent-less English somehow.

A flower guy came around, like they always do, and I tried to convince him that I can’t buy a flower because Robin’s allergic. And, yes, I tried to do that in Italian. We got into a conversation with some other Americans afterwards about the best way to chase off flower guys. Afterwards we hailed a cab and got RIPPED OFF like mad. I don’t know what that guy was doing but we certainly paid way too much.

Went to bed…eventually. We tried out the jacuzzi, first.

I’ll continue with Rome and start up Venice next time.

Labels: italy, mitc, travel

I never really did a comprehensive travel report of our recent trip to Italy. Since this site is supposed to be a storytelling blog, and I kind of want to record the details of the trip so I have them when I’m all senile and what not, I figure this is as good a time as any to start jotting it all down. This will be in multiple parts, with pictures when possible. Today will just be about everything that went down before we actually got to Italy.

I’ve wanted to go to Italy for a long, long time. It’s been my dream vacation for as long as I can remember. Robin and I talked about doing it for some time but we never really had the money for it. Last year, however, I got a hefty bonus, one that was enough to cover airfare, hotels, and rail passes for close to two weeks in Italy for Robin and I, and instead of doing what I always do and put it into savings, I booked us a trip.

We booked our airfare before we even knew where in Italy we’d be going. Ten nights, roundtrip from Dulles to Rome, that’s all we knew. We tried to get discounted tickets but all of the flights had impossible stopovers – either less than one hour (in Heathrow – impossible) or greater than eight hours. We decided we were adults, now, approaching 30 with money in the bank – let’s get the flight we wanted. So we booked roundtrip on British Airway for a little but more than the discounted fares we were seeing. Of course, the week after we booked it British Airway had a sale to Rome that would have saved us around $200 per ticket. And, no, they wouldn’t give it to us retroactively. And thus begins the circumstances behind our decision to never use British Airways again. The rest will unfold along with the story and, of course, “never” means “never…unless there’s a great sale.”

We had to pick our cities. Our initial idea was Rome, Venice, and Naples. Robin wanted to spend some time on the beach and I was willing to lie out in the sun as long as Peroni would be present. Whenever we told anyone our plan, however, they’d always say, “Naples? Naples is a dump.” On the recommendation of several friends we decided to go with Florence. Good wine and cheese – that’s why I wanted to go to Italy in the first place.

So we booked hotels for the three cities – three nights in Rome at a hotel near the train terminal, two nights in Venice right on St. Mark’s Square, three nights in Florence at a hotel near Ponte Vecchio, and two final nights in Rome at a hotel near the Pantheon.

Plane booked. Hotels booked. I purchased first class train fare for Robin and me, so we can go from city to city. We weren’t being stingy with this trip at all. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip as far as we were concerned and we wanted to make sure it had the potential to be as fantastic as it could possibly be.

Everything was ready to go. I scheduled my vacation time at my job, we got the pet-sitting taken care off (Robin’s friend watched Becky while we were away and the cats had a sitter). I made sure James Powell knew what was coming up and what needed to be done for Postcards while I was away.

We bought our DK guidebooks. One for Italy and one for each city we were going to be in. We bought a new suitcase since we only had one medium sized bag and neither of us wanted to carry our large suitcase around. We looked into renting a car while were in Florence so we can get out to Chianti on our own schedule but realized we needed to start planning for that particular aspect quite some time ago – special licenses or something to that extent. We got the vacuum sealed clothing bags, an extra SD card for the camera, some new clothes that fit comfortably, and new walking shoes so we don’t spend the evenings complaining about our feet hurting. We researched the mass transit and cab situation in all of the cities we were going to, we picked out some good restaurants and sites that we absolutely had to see, and we researched the local wines so we knew what we had to get and what we had to bring home with us (answer: Chianti).

We were ready to go – we had everything we needed. Almost.

About two months before we were about to go to Italy I decided to propose to Robin. We’ve been together for eight years and, honestly, I’ve run out of excuses. She definitely wanted to get married – she no longer answered that question with, “Eventually.” Eventually has come. It was time.

So I started asking around. I looked at local jewelry shops, saw what they had. I knew Robin wanted something that looked or was antique. She wanted platinum, too. And that’s basically all I had to go with. There weren’t a lot of great options in DC. One dealer, however, pointed me towards several jewelers that make rings like the ones I was looking for. Two of these places had online storefronts and friendly customer service people and I found a ring I liked at each of them. One of them was out of my price range and one of them was not.

Now…I had a book coming out. I had an advance coming to me which, truthfully, was essentially already spent between creators, designers, editors, agents, and marketing. But…technically…I could scrape a little bit out of my company’s share of the money and that would, in essence, get the other ring, the nicer one, into my price range. So I decided to wait…

And wait…

Advances, well, they can get delayed at times. And that’s exactly what happened with my advance. Two weeks to go before the trip and I still didn’t have the ring. I wanted to take advantage of this trip so I ordered the smaller one. It was still a gorgeous ring. Edwardian inspired platinum, a nice rock in the middle with little diamonds on the side. I had to pay for express sizing and express delivery but it was worth it – I wanted to propose.

I had a plan. For some reason, I thought Venice had a Faberge egg thing. So I bought a ring box that looked like a Faberge egg. I was going to pretend I picked it up from a cart or something, open it up, surprise! I planted it! Imagine my surprise and frustration when I found out Venice had nothing to do with Faberge eggs. At least it was a nice ring box, I guess…

Literally the next day Robin and I are at our favorite Italian restaurant in Georgetown for my birthday. During dinner Robin drops a subtle hint. She says, “You know, I think it would be romantic to get engaged in Venice.”

Now – I was rip shit. RIP. SHIT. Who says something like that two weeks before the trip? If you wanted to hint at it, there are much more subtle ways of doing it without risking completely ruining the surprise if it was, indeed, going to happen. So, I lied. I lied hard and took advantage of the fact that she can’t get mad at me on my birthday. I told her I don’t think I want to get married, yet. That I thought we still have some issues we need to work out before making that commitment. That with the book coming out I can’t divert my attention or money to a wedding. I laid it on. And she bought it. And I might have paid for it during the weeks leading up to the trip but at least I had my surprise.

The ring took a while to get to me. I called the jeweler a week after ordering it to make sure it was shipped to me. The jeweler took this very condescending attitude and told me that they realize they need to get it to me before I leave on my trip and that if there’s anything wrong they’ll call me. On the Wednesday before my trip (we were to leave on Friday) I still have not received my shipping notification or my ring. I called the jeweler up to see what was going on and got the same snooty customer relations woman. She said, “Like I told you, Mr. Rodriguez, if there’s a problem we’ll call you.”

I told her that I was leaving in two days and I’d like to have verification that the ring has at least shipped. She reluctantly put me through to shipping. I gave shipping my information and they put me on hold. Five minutes later they get back on the phone, apologized their asses off, and promise me that they are shipping it over night right now. I wanted to get the customer relations lady back on and give her a piece of my mind but I figured it wasn’t worth getting upset over – at least I’ll have the ring.

The ring didn’t come to my job until 4PM Wednesday afternoon – I was getting nervous. But the receptionist brought it into my boss’s office while I was meeting there with another coworker. They made me open the ring right there, I showed it to everyone and they were all pretty excited. I left work shortly afterwards and went home – ready to finish packing and get moving.

I reserved a town car to take us to the airport the next day. The guy picked us up and headed out to Dulles – the two of us were so ready to go. We checked in, checked our bags, and had dinner at the Gordon Biersch in the airport. I excused myself and said I had to go to the bathroom. I went to call Robin’s father to ask for his permission to marry his daughter and, of course, get the answering machine. I needed to get his cell phone, so I text messaged Robin’s brother to get it. He, of course, gave me the wrong number. I texted him to give me the right one and went back to dinner so Robin wouldn’t get suspicious. Her brother sent me the right number and I called her father up and, of course, got his voicemail. I went back to the table.

Five minutes later Robin’s father called me. I excused myself again and told Robin it was Josh Fialkov on the phone – we were finishing up a pitch that he had to get out while I was gone. I answered the phone, Robin’s dad asked what’s up, and I asked for his permission to marry his daughter…

Silence.

After ten seconds or so I asked “So…is it ok?”

He gave me an enthusiastic “yes” and said how happy he was and told us to have a good vacation etc, etc. I apologized for asking so late, but I didn’t want Robin’s mom to find out because she can’t keep a secret. He understood. Recharged and ready to get engaged, I go back to the dinner table. Five minutes later, Robin’s mom called me. I excuse myself, again, saying it was Josh, again, and answered the phone. Robin’s mom asked if everything is alright because I left a message. I told her not to worry about it, I wanted to talk to John, and I’ll talk to her later. She said ok, likely knowing what was going on, and wished us a good trip.

We boarded the plane and took off. We drank some wine, ate some snacks, watched some movies, and slept for a while. When we woke up we were close to London. The plane landed and we made our way through the nightmare that is Heathrow. Brushed our teeth, got some coffee, and walked around the airport a bit – sampling shots of scotch and watching the flight board for any updates.

On the plane to Rome I went through the guidebook a bit and practice my Italian. It was a nice, short flight to Fiumicino airport. We could hardly contain ourselves as we lined up to get off of our plane. Several minutes later we were in the airport – ready for our trip.

And that continues next time.

Labels: mitc, travel

The best part about my first job out of college was all the business traveling. Robin was in Boston for that first year, after all, so it was either stay home, alone, or eat steaks and hang out at strip clubs every night, all on the tax-payers dollar. Some destinations were more fun than others (to this day I have a burning hatred in my soul for Aberdeen, Maryland) and some were supposed to be fun but I never had a chance to go out and play.

Fortunately, Cape Canaveral was one of those cities that were supposed to be fun and we ALWAYS found the time to play. And we went there quite often.

We didn’t stay in Cape Canaveral; we actually stayed in Cocoa Beach. Not the most family friendly beach, due to the fact that it’s kind of nasty and the strip is lined with strip clubs, but a great place for a bunch of dudes on per diem. The hotel we stayed at was a resort hotel where all the cruise lines sent people who had pre-cruise overnights. The government rate, for some reason, was retarded low – it was along the lines of sixty-and-change a night if I’m remembering correctly for a place with a huge pool, Jacuzzi, and pool-side bar for socializing. One of the better hotels I’ve ever stayed at on the company dime, the best one likely being some joint in Boca Raton that had an amazing on-site Cuban restaurant and a pimped out suite where the x-rated videos were actually, you know, rated x and not filled with simulated sex (although simulated blowjobs are really funny to watch when you’re drunk).

As far as the work we did out there – we spent the entire time on a Navy base working on a ship that goes out to sea and records the sounds submarines make when they pass underneath it. We’d do all our work in Virginia, bring it there and test it. Sometimes these tests would only take a couple of hours a day and we’d be free for the rest of the afternoon/evening to go boogie-boarding, eat fish plucked right from the ocean, and get some titties in our faces.

On one trip down there all of our shit got lost in the mail – it was delayed by three days. So we had a little vacation down in Cocoa Beach without any stress from work. We were riding go-carts at noon and lying out on the beach for hours. Hanging out at the pool-side bar and getting bombed.

One time at the pool area some chick joins me and a coworker in the Jacuzzi and starts getting super close to us. She’s in town on business, lonely – just telling us all about herself and making sure we know she’s single. Telling us about her trip to the strip club the night before. It was pretty obvious she wanted one (or both) of us. My coworker could tell I wasn’t down, I’ve never cheated on Robin, and it kind of killed the whole mood in the Jacuzzi. She eventually left and worked the pool-side bar instead. Part of me was like, “Fuck – missed opportunity at a three way” but then the other part of me was like, “Oh – with two dudes, though.” Probably why it was easy to turn her away.

Across from the hotel was a huge adult bookstore. I’d make my way there the first night of every trip and get some porno mags to keep in the bathroom. It was always weird going there, because it’s almost a guarantee you’ll see a coworker there. Fuck, sometimes you go with one, you know? And there’s nothing more awkward than finding out what kind of porn your boss likes, let me tell you. My boss – skinny white dude with glasses – apparently loved black chicks.

Brown sugar, baby. Brown sugar.

The food was great, too. Fresh fish was all I ate for dinner. For lunch we went to Frankie’s for Buffalo wings – 10 levels of hotness. I was able to comfortably eat level-7. I tried level ten’s sauce once and almost died. For the fish – I was all about the mahi. One time I ordered it and the waitress said they were out. She then looked out the window and said, “Hold on”. Two minutes later I see her outside the window, buying mahi off of the back of some guy’s boat. I get that shit on my plate about a half-hour later.

And then there were the strip clubs. The one we went to always got packed. Every fucking night. And I’d know because we went every fucking night. One time we went with the VP of the company. This was our third night on the trip, some coworkers and I went the previous two nights. Anyway, this fucking guy walks in like he owns the place – telling us he’s going to show us how to party. Two minutes into the excursion and I’m sitting in the corner getting a multi-song lap-dance from two girls at the same time. Taking turns, rubbing up on me and each other, giving that little giggle strippers do to drive mother fuckers NUTS. Eventually the VP, who spent the second half of the night sitting at the stage and wasting dollars, tells us he’s going to go back to the hotel. I have a stripper sitting next to me as I remind him not to be late for work the next day.

Light weight.

The funniest part about the strip club is that locals would troll the floor and try to give lap dances for five bucks. Nasty women, no teeth and bad breath. Some people would even take them up on the offer. What the fuck, for ten bucks more you get that stripper skin and that smell – oh god that smell – I don’t get the folks who’d rather have grandma ride them for five bucks less.

Cape Canaveral was always a good time. It was the model of consistency. And it’s always nice to establish the baseline before spending several weeks on the OTHER places I’ve visited.

Labels: mitc, travel

It might not seem possible, but the trip from Spain back to the states was about as horrible as the trip from the states to Spain. I was leaving a day earlier than Robin but we were both scheduled to land in Boston at the same time. Figure that one out.

Robin went with me to the airport. We make our way to the British Airway counter for my flight to Manchester only to find out they canceled my reservation. Since I ended up getting a direct US Air flight to Madrid (as a result of my US-to-Manchester flight being cancelled) and missing my Manchester-to-Madrid British Airway flight, they assumed I booked a round-trip ticket just to take advantage of the fact that it’s cheaper than getting a one-way ticket. And that’s against company policy.

I spent a good ten minutes repeatedly going over my story – about how my plane was cancelled and they put me on a direct flight and yada-yada-yada. British Airways finally decided to reinstate my ticket; I breathed a sigh of relief, kissed Robin goodbye, and made my way to my plane.

I get to Manchester and make preparations for what will become my 10-hour stopover. I purchase some food, a new book (Catch-22), a couple of magazines. I make my way to a bench in the 24-hour section of the airport and just start reading. With about 5-hours to go before my flight I decide to take a nap, tie my duffle bag to my arm and use it as a pillow, fasten my book bag to my legs and tuck it into my crotch – I catch about five hours of sleep on an airport bench.

It was a very, very, very uncomfortable sleep.

I sleep most of the way home, land in Philly. I have one more flight to Boston which is, of course, delayed. A couple of hours later I’m in Boston – hanging out with Robin and her family.

The next day we pack the U-Haul truck. Our new apartment back in DC, which Robin hasn’t seen at this point, is already pretty crowded – I had no idea how we planned on fitting a second moving truck filled with shit in it.

We’re about to get on the road – Robin’s father pulls me aside and tells me that if I mistreat his daughter he’ll kill me. That was fun.

We begin the seven hour drive – stop off in Connecticut to visit my Uncle Chris and Aunt Jacinda – they just had a baby, Jack, and it was our first time seeing him. I didn’t tell Robin that my entire loud-ass Puerto Rican family was there – she was a little pissed that I surprised her with that one, mainly because she wanted to be there for a half-hour and then get back on the road.

Instead we were there for about two hours.

We get back on the highway and have a smooth trip into DC. I drove the truck from Jersey on. I only had my permit at the time (I didn’t get my license until I was 25) and this was my first time driving on the highway although I told Robin I’ve done it a “bunch of times”. I’m a dick; I think we’ve established that already.

By the time we get to the apartment it’s too late to unpack the truck. We go straight upstairs and Robin sees the place for the first time. I put up these “Welcome Home” signs and what not; she seemed to have liked that. There were also dead roaches in the sink; she didn’t like that at all. Overtime we’ll both begin to hate the apartment, but Robin can always claim she hated it the moment she saw it.

The next day we unloaded the truck and started unpacking boxes – ready to get this whole “new life together” thing started. We even bought a mattress – for the past year and a half I had nothing but the futon. New life, new mattress – we took the U-Haul truck to Costco and picked one up. We also picked up a variety of roach killing products, none of which made a difference over the six months we lived in that place.

After unpacking everything Robin decided she wanted to walk around and see the neighborhood. She quickly realized I moved us into the ghetto. About seven blocks north was the Mall, the Air and Space Museum, to be exact. That was cool – Smithsonian trips and classes were a quick walk away. But a block south was government subsidized housing, a ghetto strip mall, and this weird ice-cream truck that only came around late at night, no markings on it, and now kids going up to it.

Luckily we only ended up spending another five months there.

Labels: mitc, travel

Spain was great – I loved Spain despite the horrible trip out there. Madrid is a gorgeous city – I met the people who were putting Robin up for the several months she was out there, shared a hookah with her friends. We shacked up at a hostel right downtown, private room with a balcony – not much for amenities but we had plenty of bars and restaurants around us.

Did the touristy thing – saw the castles and the churches – drank sangria, discovered Spanish calamari is nothing like American calamari. Visited the erotic museum where some perverted old man hung out at the final exhibit which, I believe, was the porno exhibit. Cuban restaurants with sexy Cuban entertainers, drinks that were served out of volcanoes, a late night cafe that served up hot cups of fudge with your churro.

I fell in love with Madrid. I thought it was the greatest city I’ve ever visited (not saying much, considering this is my first real vacation)…until we went to Barcelona.

We flew out to Barcelona – the airport in Madrid was a mad house and when we finally went to get our boarding passes they told us that they were out of seats so they needed to bump one of us to first class. Robin obviously wanted it but I decided to be a bit of a dick, complained about my horrible trip to Madrid to begin with, and got the upgrade. It was an hour flight or so, you know, whatever. She was only pissed for about five minutes.

We get to Barcelona – we’re staying in a hotel right by the water, not at all far from the beach. We check in, change into our bathing suits, and walk right to the waterfront. We purchase some beers from a vendor, pick out a spot, and lay out. When in Rome, as they say – Robin takes off her top and I find it to be a bit of a turn-on. I mean, there are plenty of tits exposed on the beach but Robin’s where nice AND she didn’t have hairy pits – part of me imagined the guys were checking out my lady and that made me feel a bit like The Man.

But that’s what Barcelona was – a bit of freedom for us, a place where no-one knows us, where we’re taking our first vacation, we both finished with college and we have money for the first time in our lives – no worries. And we did whatever the fuck we wanted.

Every night we ended up at the same restaurant, eating mussels and paella and watching the street performers while drinking bottle after bottle of wine. We went to the aquarium – the beach everyday – we even went to a Six Flags park out there. It rained the whole time but we had a blast, rode all the roller coasters, stayed for the fireworks.

I fucked up on the last night, though. Pretty badly.

I was drunk. A lot of you who read this blog have shared drinks with me – most of you have seen Jason the funny drunk, only. The one that cracks-wise, makes fun of people to their faces, and occasionally rips the underwear off of my body without taking my pants off. Some of you, unfortunately, have met the completely irresponsible, violent, and depressed drunken Jason. He’s not a nice guy.

He came out that last night in Barcelona. We called some street performers to our table; they were a guitar/singer combo from California. We bought them wine, shared our food, and exchanged stories. They had some friends come sit with us, girls and guys – we all had a great evening. But it was a weird evening – I think signals were crossed the whole night and at different times different people were expecting different things, the alcohol not helping at all. I don’t know what was supposed to happen but I know what did happen – Robin and I went back to the hotel and she passed out.

And I got angry. Really fucking angry.

I became fixated on the stupidest thing – watching the sunrise. When Robin was in Ibiza she told me that her and her friends danced all night and watched the sunrise. To me that sounded like fun, and for some fucking reason, I wanted that.

I had a bit of a problem back then – I used to equate fun with sex; a fun night is one where you have sex. If you’re having fun it means you’re having sex. If I ended up not having sex, like that last evening in Barcelona, I’d attempt to substitute it with something else, usually the first thing that pops into my head. I don’t really do that anymore, thanks to a couple of therapists, now I associate a lack of fun with not having sex. It might sound like the same thing but for me it makes a huge difference.

Anyway, background aside, I was obsessed with this fucking sunrise. I stayed awake for hours, lying in bed, breathing heavy, until finally I woke Robin up and told her that I wanted to see the sunrise.

She had no idea what was going on but here I was, dragging her ass down to the water.

The sunrises – I don’t know what I was expecting – fucking angels to come down from the heavens or some shit, but it certainly didn’t fill this fun void I was having. So, instead, I started to tell Robin I was having second doubts about her moving to DC with me.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Jason Rodriguez, and I’m the biggest asshole you’ll ever meet.

(Or was the biggest asshole, anyway).

Fuck it, though. If I wasn’t having fun, no-one was having fun.

Robin told me she didn’t feel the same way and somehow maneuvered out of the conversation and got me back to the hotel and into bed, which was probably a good call. I have to hand it to her – she puts up with a lot of my shit. There we were, together for over two years, she’s a week away from moving to a brand fucking new city to live with me, we’re on a vacation, and I’m giving her the break-up prelude. But she knew I was drunk and stupid and just found a way to get me to shut-up and see if I felt the same way in the morning.

I didn’t, obviously.

The next day we were back to Madrid. The last couple of days in Madrid were uneventful – just beer and eating, really – we were beat.

Robin and I – here we are, seven-plus years together – I grew up a lot, thankfully, but I almost threw it all away one morning in Barcelona. Luckily for me, Robin’s too strong of a woman to let that happen.

Labels: mitc, travel

Spain was my first vacation. I’ve done the family thing before, sure – trips down to Florida to visit my Nanny coupled with a few days in Disney World. But as far as those week-long vacations to destinations we couldn’t drive to in order to do something besides visit family, never really had one of those. Not even in college – never did the spring break thing, I had fun hanging with my boys back in Brooklyn. Occasional weekend road trips but that’s it. I just never had the money for a vacation – my family never had that kind of bread (my parents still haven’t had a honeymoon) and working the grill at the dorm’s dining hall doesn’t really pay all that much.

I went to Spain a year after college – sort of a reward for kicking ass at TAO the first year. I was getting paid well, I wasn’t going out that much, Robin was already in Spain (after finishing her schooling at BU she did several months abroad to get a Spanish minor), and I was more than prepared to kick back and have some fun. There were some complications, of course – delays in getting my passport and the fact that I somehow fucked-up booking my airfare but both problems worked themselves out and I was off to Madrid.

Now, the full plan was to leave for Spain from DC and come back, with Robin (but different flight), to Boston. We were then going to pack a U-Haul and drive down to DC together. In order to do this and stay within budget, my trip wasn’t exactly straight forward. The cheapest airfare I could find on such short notice was from Dulles airport to Manchester, England with a stopover in Philadelphia – that was on US Air. From there, I flew British Airways from Manchester to Madrid, Spain. The time between the two flights was close to 8 hours, so any delays wouldn’t really kill me. On the way back, I had all three flights plus an additional one-way flight from Dulles to Boston.

A lot of room for something to go terribly wrong.

DC to Philly was no problem at all – forty-five minutes up and down. I get to Philly; find my way to my gate and my plane’s on time. I crack open BRAVE NEW WORLD and get to reading.

If I remember correctly, my plane was supposed to leave at around 5PM. I think the first delay was only for an hour. The plan hasn’t arrived yet – a common reason for delay. I decide to go and get a beer – there’s a little Mexican restaurant/bar near the gate. I continue to read my book.

The second delay was much longer – two hours or so. Weather was causing the whole system to fuck-up. I wasn’t worried – this was just eating-in to my 8-hour stopover, I had some more beers and some Mexican food to go along with it. Called Robin, told her I was delayed. She just got back from going out with some friends and was excited to see me the next day (late afternoon, I believe, was when I was supposed to get in).

The plane kept getting delayed. First there was no crew available. Then there was a problem with some part. It was a little passed 11PM when they announced they’ll be boarding us shortly (by then I was drunk and I finished reading Brave New World – a great book to read drunk, by the way) – over six hours delayed – and it was about ten minutes later when they told us they were canceling the flight.

I was devastated. I wanted to call Robin but I realized that I needed to get my ass to the ticketing counter before the hundred or so people who just had their flight canceled.

I fucking ran my ass off.

I was probably third online. I realized that I was going to miss my flight from Manchester to Madrid which was by a different airline – I was fucked and, most likely, the airline wouldn’t care. It was time to act and, as I learned in college, I wasn’t that bad at it.

I get to the counter and I’m not fuming, not yelling – my voice is shaky as I give the following sob story (paraphrasing, of course):

“Hi. Listen. I’m not mad the plane was cancelled – I understand – these things happen. But I was going to Madrid, there was a British Airways’ flight I was connecting with that was going to take me there. I’m going to miss it now. In my bag is an engagement ring – I was planning on proposing to my girlfriend in Spain. I have theater tickets, reservations at a very exclusive and expensive restaurant – everything was perfect. This was all going down Friday night (which would basically mean I’d need to get to get to Madrid no later than 24 hours beyond when I was supposed to get there). I can’t fly to Manchester and get stuck there. I’m begging you, please, get me to Madrid.”

The woman behind the airline is feeling it – who knows why. Maybe she recently lost a loved one, maybe at one point in her life the man of her dreams got away because of fucked-up chance – don’t know what it was, don’t care. But I had a 3PM direct flight to Madrid the next day which was at least double the price of my flight to Manchester when I was booking airfare.

I got the complimentary hotel and two meals, as well – took the shuttle there, checked into my room. Showered off, I was smoky, drunk, and depressed. I called Robin, at this point I was supposed to be in Spain in a couple of hours. Told her the bad news, that I was still in Philly – she starts crying. It’s such a lonely thing – being in a hotel by yourself in a city you don’t want to be in, hours away from seeing the love your life whom you haven’t seen for over two months, only to have her crying on the phone because you won’t be seeing her for about another 20 hours. She was excited – excited to see me, excited for me to meet her friends, they even had dinner plans set, got all her Spain friends together, and we were going to go out dancing afterwards.

I calm her down – tell her I’m coming soon. I ask her not to cry because it’s breaking my heart – she holds it back. I tell her I love her and hang up – go to bed.

The next day I need to check out of the hotel by noon. I spend some time in the pool, eat my comp breakfast, and make my way to the airport with three hours to go. This time everything goes smoothly, the plan takes off on time and I’m off to Madrid. I wanted to sleep on the plane but, unfortunately, I got stuck in the back row. My seat didn’t recline and I had an aisle, deadly combination for wanting to sleep. I instead watched movies the whole way there, read some books, talked to the girl who had the window until she passed out.

By the time I got to Madrid I was beat. But I gathered my bags, went through customs, and got the first stamp on my passport. I jogged through the airport, calling Robin to tell her that I made it and I’ll be outside at any moment. She was waiting outside for me, I guess international flights got filtered out a secure door – she was beaming. Huge fucking smile. She runs, jumps into my arms, starts kissing my neck and my face – all over, really.

Took almost an extra day but I was finally in Madrid, with my baby, ready to take my first vacation.

Oh, yeah, and five years later and I still haven't proposed. Fuck you, US Air.

Labels: mitc, travel

Long Island: Night in White Satin

Back-to-Back stories! Aren’t you guys hooked the fuck up?
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After MH’s contract went over budget by 10-million dollars the whole thing sort of fell apart. TAO’s money got ramped down and eventually disappeared – we got the stop-work order from MH and never looked back. They just couldn’t afford to pay us anymore.

So that contract was dead and I moved on to bigger and better things, mainly firing canons and mortars in the desert.

A couple of months after the contract ends Roger from MH contacts me and tells me there’s a marketing opportunity at some company in Rhode Island (who we’ll call RI) and he wants me to go with him to sell our portion of the now dead contract.

I had no desire to go but my boss thought it was a good idea so I make plans to go.

Now, the area we’re going towards isn’t really accessible by anything but cars and I still didn’t have my license. I couldn’t rent a car, in other words. The plan that we came up with had disaster written all over it but it was really the only option available to my non-driving ass.

Roger lived in Connecticut. At the end of his day on Wednesday, he was going to swing by JFK and pick me up. I was going to go with him to his house in Connecticut, spend the night there, and drive to Rhode Island with him early the next morning.

If you think that sounds bad, it gets worse.

Roger and I have nothing in common. He’s easily late-50, big guy – so much ear hair that he could braid it. He’s essentially the stereotypical dad. Our drive to Connecticut is excruciating (and puzzling, he made that commute everyday). We get to his house and it looks like the Cleavers live there it’s so fucking homely. His wife is this older, chipper woman that’s dressed like “Housewife Barbie”.

I get introduced and the three of us sit around the table and drink lemonade – she has these horrendous crocheted coasters for me to put my glass on top of. There are religious pictures and stuffed ducks all over the house. It’s just seriously freaky. Roger’s telling me all about his son who cuts down trees for a living and you almost get this vibe that he’s viewing me as what he wanted his son to be.

Seriously. Fucking. Freaky.

I finish my lemonade and Roger tells me about the festivities we have planned for the night.

Church School!

You see, he teaches a bible class. So I had to sit in on his class. Afterwards, we hung around because members of the church brought various foods to eat. So I got to munch on some sausage and peppers with a bunch of Jesus freaks who insisted on knowing whether or not I’ve accepted Christ as my savior.

I just told them “yes”. I love me the Savior Christ.

So, after the riveting two hours spent in a church basement I went back to Roger’s house. They were watching TV in the living room, the news – it was the only TV in the house. I watch with them for a little bit, they ask me if I’d rather watch something else and I decline repeatedly. With my luck one of the characters on a TV show I put on would say something about sex and Roger and his wife would perform a fucking exorcism on me.

I want to back-track a second and remind you all about something – this guy has been trying to recruit me for over a year. This whole night was likely part of his plan.

I decide to go to bed – it’s like 8:30. They show me to the guest room and…

…that’s right, white satin sheets. I wanted to ask if they had, you know, cotton sheets, but it wasn’t worth it. But seriously – who really uses satin sheets? And who puts them in the guest room? I thought the stuffed ducks were as tacky as you can get, but white satin sheets in the guest room takes the cake.

So I stick to the sheets all night, drive with him to RI the next day – a horribly long drive complete with traffic. We get there, meet some people and sit down for this supposed marketing opportunity.

Well, they spent about three hours marketing their products to us and ten minutes listening to us. It was a fucking joke – a complete waste of time. Anyone with half a brain would have seen that there was no opening to market anything to these guys.

I left that building pissed off. I told Roger to drop me off at the nearest Greyhound terminal – the guys at RI tell us where the closest one is, it’s only ten minutes away. I get out of his car and call my boss, tell him I won’t be in on Friday and they’ll still reimburse me for my airfare. I take two buses but finally get to Boston and spend the weekend with Robin. I have some fun and then fly back home on Sunday. On Monday I tell my boss off, saying he should have looked into this marketing opportunity more. I tell him I’m done with this project and with Roger.

Later that Christmas I get a card from Roger. That’s the last I ever hear from him.

Labels: mitc, travel

Seven Harvey Nominations for ELK'S RUN. Told you the book was good. I think this a good time to remind everyone that I'm available for editing gigs.

I owe you guys a story – wouldn’t want to slack off too much. Believe me, I have great reasons. 8 issues of Elk’s Run needed to be tweaked and proofed and delivered and exciting POSTCARDS related news has added substantially to my workload but it’ll pay off. Combine that with my broken AC and the fact that this DC fucking humidity is making my office into a sauna and I have a ton of great excuses.

But excuses only go so far so it’s story time…

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The Long Island situation came to a head when Roger, from MH, approved additional funds for us but wanted me in Long Island full-time. I was at the meeting where he laid this new plan down and I actually said, “No fucking way.” My boss put his hand on my shoulder to get me to chill out.

It was sort of the breaking point for me. I was tired of going to Long Island, it was lonely. Robin was in Boston and I didn’t get to visit her nearly as much as I’d of liked to because of the constant trips. I already got my raise and my bonus. I told TAO that I want off the project unless they hire somebody else that can alternate these trips with me – that’s how I got my friend since the second grade, James, to join up at TAO.

The first trip we went together – one week on Long Island – so I can introduce him to everybody. Since we were both traveling at the same time (and renting a car), and since we couldn’t get the weekly rate at the Extended Stay America (and the nightly was a hundred and change), we just got rooms at some cheap motel for the four nights we were down there.

We check in that first night – they only take cash and the room’s 40 bucks a night. I give them money and ask for a receipt and the woman behind the counter gives me a blank receipt to fill out on my own.

Let me explain per diem to you. You see, the government only allows you to spend x-dollars per day on hotels and x-dollars per day on meals and incidentals. Every job I worked for so far doesn’t require M&I receipts provided no meals go over 20 bucks. Since the M&I rate rarely goes above 50 bucks, you just say you spent 50 bucks a day on three meals and nothing was over 20 bucks. If you’re diligent you can pocket some extra cash but usually the excess (and then some) gets blown on alcohol and strippers.

Hotels, on the other hand – you need to hand in receipts. The per diem for the area of Long Island we were in, at the time, if I remember correctly, was around 90 bucks per night. You better believe I put $80 dollars on that receipt. You better believe I asked for extra receipts (and the lady behind the counter obliged) and you better believe I turned those receipts in every night I stayed in Long Island, even over weekends when I stayed at my parents house.

If MH was going to trap me in Long Island, I was going to juice them for every fucking penny in our contract.

A two-week trip would total 11 nights in a hotel room, of which I’d actually spend 8 nights there. At 40 bucks a night it would end up costing me $320. I’d turn in $880 dollars worth of receipts, however, and every trip down there would net me an extra $560 just by cheating the hotel system.

I figured how to cheat the taxi system, too – I’d collect blank taxi receipts and fill them out for transfers between the airport and the hotel for 50 bucks. Then I’d take the train out for a couple of bucks and take a taxi from the train station to the hotel for five.

It became a little side business – I’d challenge myself. I’d eat a muffin in the morning, steal people’s lunches, drink nothing but water and have a small pizza for dinner and charge the full 50 for M&I. Every trip to Long Island would fund two trips to Boston to see Robin.

And the best part?

There were five subs working on that contract plus MH, the prime – it was supposed to be a 20-million dollar effort. I went up for the briefing to the admiral in charge of the project and watched MH struggle as they told him that they were currently 50% (10-million dollars!) over budget. But my little piece was under-budget and ahead of schedule.

And the real kick-in-the ass?

I was introduced to the admiral before that meeting by a coworker. At the meeting, as everyone’s going around and introducing themselves and the admiral’s giving them a shit look, he gives me a smile and mini-conversation when they get to me, holding up the meeting and the introduction process.

I looked like King Shit of the group and had the numbers and performance to match.

The project died shortly after that, but not after one last trip and one last attempt to hire me. This one took place at Roger’s home, however, and will forever go down as the worst recruiting attempt of all time.

But that’s for another day.

Labels: mitc, travel

About a month after rescuing a project and getting its budget quadrupled I was off to Long Island for the first of my many two-week long business trips. These trips will end up becoming the loneliest chunks of time I’ve yet to live through.

I didn’t have a license. I just got my license three years ago. Part laziness, partly no need to get one, but the fact remains that I couldn’t rent a car. So I took a taxicab from JFK to the office out in Long Island, a trip that ended up coming close to a hundred-bucks (with tip) and left me hoping that TAO would reimburse me (for subsequent trips I reserved a town car – much cheaper).

I get to the office and Roger assigns me to a cubicle which was a pleasant break from the roomy office I had back in DC (that was internet-sarcasm, doesn’t always work well). Thankfully, over the past seven years, MH was the only company to put me in a cubicle. When I ended up applying for my second job my requests were “X-dollars per year and an office” (I got a signing bonus, too, though).

I don’t even know what I ended up doing in Long Island. Same shit I’d end up doing in DC except without any friends, honestly. It was pretty obvious having me work on Long Island was Roger’s grand plan to get me to leave TAO to work for MH and I think it goes on the record as being the worst plan of all time. You want to steal a 22-year-old kid who impressed the shit out of you away from his current employer? Truckloads of money. Don’t take him away from his home for weeks at a time and constantly ask him if he’d like to move down here for good. Money. That’s how my second job won me over. I went into TAO to tell them I was leaving, my boss said they’d like to make a counter-offer, I told them what the new job was paying, and my boss said, “Fuck – that’s a lot of money.” That’s all MH had to do.

Anyway, after work one of the guys from MH dropped me off at my hotel – an Extended Stay America. ESA – no bar attached, no pool – nothing. A snack machine. Two blocks away was a Costco and a Hostess outlet (does that make sense – do they even have Hostess outlets?) A couple of blocks further on and you had a diner and a Wendy’s. And that was it. I was done with work by six or so and had nothing to do but go to Wendy’s or the diner for dinner. I couldn’t even go to Costco’s since I didn’t have a membership.

I watched a lot of TV. Ordered Domino’s. Drank a six-pack daily to wash the “two packs of smokes” taste out of my mouth. Called Robin almost every night. She was back in Boston at this point, finishing up her last year of school. I’d call my parents, read a book at the diner. I didn’t have a laptop at this point so that took out the possibility of playing video games or watching DVDs. It was honest-to-shit the most depressing two weeks imaginable. Luckily I have plenty of family and friends in Brooklyn because Friday I hopped on the LIR and spent the weekend having some fun.

Masturbated a lot, obviously. Had to use my imagination, though, since the room didn’t have pay-per-view porn. There wasn’t even a convenience store nearby where I could get a porno mag. Want to know what the definition of pathetic is? Guessing what potential porno phone-line numbers could be so I can have something to spank to. I’ve never called a porno line but here I was dialing 888-123-4CUM because it could have been one.

It was sad. Sad, sad, sad.

I didn’t know the rules of reimbursement – if I was going to be paid back for cab rides. First business trip and all, you get worried, you know? So I just stayed in that hotel room and watched Seinfeld reruns.

I took baths. I’m not a bath guy. I’ll take a cold one on occasion if it’s wicked hot out but here I was, in an Extended Stay America, taking a bath to pass the time.

No bubbles. Just bath water.

One time I go to the ATM outside of the Wendy’s. The girl in front of me leaves her card in the machine. I get so excited; I think this is my chance to make a friend. I take her card out and flag her down. Give her the card and tell her she left it in the machine, try to let her know I’m a nice guy.

“You didn’t take any money out, right?”

“What? No!”

“You know they got cameras on there and they’ll find you?”

“I didn’t take any money out!”

“Better not.”

She storms off. I get a chicken sandwich from Wendy’s.

That’s it. Two weeks out of every month. No-one at GH got really friendly with me; they didn’t understand why I was there. I wasn’t an employee and all Roger did was say how great I was. I didn’t understand why I was there. My second trip down there they invited me to join their Wallyball league. I’m a decent Volleyball player but the whole time playing Walleyball consisted of me fucking up and my team rolling their eyes.

A couple of months into it all Roger suggested I stay down in Long Island full-time. Thankfully my boss stuck up for me on that one. I swear, I was ready to leave my job, fuck the bonuses and the raises.

Thank God for James coming on-board. That’s when Long Island got a little more fun. That’s when we discovered how to make money on these business trips, too. Fuck it, if we were going to get shipped out to LI every month we might as well make some paper doing it, right?

Labels: mitc, travel

Two months into my job at TAO and my boss decided to see if I was worth my salary. They put me on a lame-duck project – I was doing some work for a major contractor, we’ll call them MH. It was actually a fairly large programming project for the Navy, the guy at our company that was working on it up and quit about a month before it was due.

He did nothing.

TAO believed our involvement in the project will come to an end shortly, since we spent a chunk of money to do jack shit, so they put me as the main guy on it in order to get me used to heading a project.

I had to write code – something I’ve never done in the past. But I looked at all the shit we had, read some books, and after a month I put something together that was thoroughly incomplete but looked decent. I also put together a balls-to-the-wall presentation that was 80% marketing, 20% progress report.

One of my bosses (Bob) and ADEA (pronounced ah-dea and stood for A.D. Eats Ass, A.D. being ADEA’s real name – he’ll be in the peanut gallery eventually), and I flew down to Long Island to meet with MH. We rent a car, drive down to MH and check in with security. Roger, the prime on the project, shakes our hands and shows us to the conference room. We all sit down, get comfortable, and Roger starts the meeting off by saying:

“I want to get this straight. TAO will no longer be working on this project. This meeting is solely so you can transition the software to us. We will only release enough funds to transition the software.”

Bob, ADEA and I were, well, speechless. Bob gathers his composure and gives his little update about where we are, money-wise, and then introduces me.

Here I am with this marketing presentation when just ten minutes ago Roger tells us we’re done working on this project. I figure, “what the fuck,” and I just go for it.

I spend an hour up there, giving my presentation and answering questions. Honestly. If any of the MH guys asked if we can do something and we couldn’t do it – I’d tell them “no” but say what we can do. I was just on the ball – commanding the room.

When I was done we decided to take a fifteen minute break. I was in the bathroom taking a leak when Roger asked me if I wanted to work for them. I politely told him “no”, said I was happy with TAO, and if he wanted to keep me on the project he’d need to send us some more funds.

When we reconvened for the remainder of the meeting, the tone was much different.

We had 60k left on our contract. They upped it to 250k and added more work for us to do. Our transition meeting turned into a planning meeting. Afterwards we shook hands, Roger offered me a job one last time, within earshot of my boss, and we were on our way.

The plus side? I got a ten-percent raise and a ten-percent bonus. I also got to hire my friend James to work on the project which got me a 5k referral bonus and a buddy at work. Between bonuses, raises and referrals that little trip netted me an extra 15k that year and job security for as long as I wanted to stay there. 22 year-old kid not only rescues a project but quadruples the budget.

The downside, in an effort to get me to work for them, Roger put a clause in the contract that stated I needed to spend two weeks out of every month working onsite at MH. For about eight months I spent half my time in Long Island. And there’s no amount of money in the world that’s worth that.

Labels: mitc, travel

EDIT: I'm getting emails asking me about Speakeasy. You should go to Josh's blog for anything about the fate of Elk's Run. As far as my own opinions and what I'm getting from all this, I learn from it - just like I always do.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I had a blast at NYCC – and I was there on Saturday, the day everyone got turned away, fire marshals showed up and people were waiting on line for hours to get back onto the convention floor. I stole an exhibitor badge so I can come in and out freely, only got held up on a line once, and we were passing exhibitor and press badges back to the outside to sneak folks in. If I was one to trivialize struggle and elevate the importance of 32 pages of excessive cleavage I’d say we were like the NYCC Underground Railroad. But I won’t, ‘cause I’m not that guy.

But it was good, talked to a lot of people about the book I’m putting together, got a couple of people to commit to the project and have a couple of people at (hopefully) a halfway point. One cat in particular would be a dream come true, so much so I’m holding off on following up with anyone else until I hear back from him.

Pop Culture Shock’s after party was pretty dope, good turn out – good people. DJ was bangin’ and I always thought white people dancing was funny because, you know, I’ve seen video of myself dancing and it’s all my momma’s side, but goddamn there’s nothing funnier than white comic fans dancing. They were spinning some funk towards the end of the night and this one cat looked like James Brown doing the Humpty Dance while having an elliptic seizure.

And we'll do a little old school Moose style story, why the hell not...

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I got to hang out with my cousin RJ all day Saturday at the con which was a blast. I don’t get to see the dude enough and it’s too bad, we’ve been through a lot of shit together. Back when his brother got sick, me, RJ and Luis used to chill every Friday at my place and just watch stupid B-horror movies until three in the morning.

Some good, some bad. The best call we made back then was renting SALEM’S LOT. Not that it was a good movie by any means, but some dude dubbed over the VHS copy of the movie at the video store. He did it well too; it took us a little bit to catch-on as to exactly what the fuck was going on.

For instance, when the opening title came on you heard the guy say, “Salem’s Lot: The Movie. Staring George Duzunddrada…” We were sitting around and wondering why the guy reading the credits didn’t even bother to pronounce the actor’s name right. During the opening scene a car whizzes by the camera and you hear, “Mee-meep! Hi!”

We couldn’t stop laughing, you know? We just figured it was the worst fucking movie ever made. It wasn’t until the old dude “farted” that we realized some genius laid his own audio embellishments down. Pegasus Video closed down recently; I wanted to stop by and buy the dubbed SALEM’S LOT but kept forgetting to.

We found other gems, of course. 976-EVIL PART 2 was a favorite of ours – the scene when the nerd on the moped says, “See ya later, doll” and then crashes. Good shit, right there, many a laugh. Of course there was the Jerry Springer TOO HOT FOR TV joint, the scene when the redneck says, “Oh dang, I’m falling!” as he’s falling. We watched that scene about fifty times in one night, 49 of them in slow-motion.

We’d always get into arguments over the movies we watched. RJ and I firmly believed STAR WARS was the greatest trilogy of all time. Luis thought it was POLICE ACADEMY, despite the fact that there were six of them made at that point. But there was one thing we always agreed on, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM would be better if it was called THE LAIR OF THE WHITE DILL.

Ah, inside jokes.

But it was all escapism, you know what I mean? We were teenagers, we could have went out on Friday nights and prowled the streets of Brooklyn, we occasionally did, but at home – ragging on shitty movies and eating calzones from the House of Pizza – it was the kind of entertainment that was guaranteed to take your mind off of what was going on in the family at the time. We all needed it, RJ the most, and the time spent hanging with cousins on a Friday evening will always be one of my favorite memories from my teenage years.

The night Steven took a turn for the worse, RJ was over my place. I remembered pretending to sleep on the floor when my mom got him, I remember him stepping over me and trying not to wake us up. Shortly after Steven passed away – it just goes to show you that escapism only takes you so far. When life wants to be fucked up, it just gets fucked up.

Sorry for depressing you all – but at the heart of it, RJ and I can still get together for 15 hours at a crowded convention and the whole time act like we did over thirteen years ago – a couple of goofy kids obsessed with pop-culture and hell-bent on making fun of everything and everybody. You take something away from all your experiences in life; I took a friend out of this particular one. Hanging with him now-a-days just brings it all back – you’re not supposed to forget shit like this and you’re not supposed to hide it, know what I mean?

Labels: mitc, travel

Let’s start with a little secret project hint, shall we:


Ok, moving along. Yesterday was my birthday. I didn’t do much – I had to work and Robin had class until 10. Plus I had a ton of fun at the DCC meeting on Sunday and that held me over fine. Tonight I’m getting dinner at Ray’s the Steaks, the best steak joint in the DC area that’s conveniently located next door to me and yet I’ve never been there. So, you know, happy birthday to me.

June is going to be crazy – I’m going to be in Cleveland, Chicago, Fort Madison and San Diego. Robin will be in all four of those cities plus she’s spending two and a half weeks in Malaysia and Singapore.

It’s just weird – I never really traveled as a kid, you know? Parents just didn’t have the money; vacations were limited to the occasional 20-hour drive down I-95 to visit my Nanny in New Port Ritchie, Florida. Every so often we’d stop off at Disney World and brave the long lines and the sweltering heat – a rare treat that resulted in a weekend of fun for me and a year’s worth of debt for my dad.

That was most of our vacations, though – visiting family somewhere. Titi Sophie moved to Virginia and that became a popular vacation spot for us. We’d sometimes couple the drive to Richmond with a trip to Virginia Beach – it was during one of these trips that I slept through the gunshots, helicopter noise and looting that is now known as the Greek Fest Riots.

My dad, like all men who struggle to get by while trying to make a good life for their children, got offered opportunities that seemed like dreams come true but in reality there was some sleazy guy in a knock-off suit behind it all. My dad finds out he’s in the running for a free car and we just need to spend a weekend at Outdoor World to see if we’ve won – hear a pitch about their timeshare program.

Two months later we’re locked into some multi-generation contract where we pay monthly fees for the right to rent poorly constructed log cabins in such beautiful locals like Southern New Jersey and The Poconos. My father goes into it because it seems like a good way to get the kids out of the city for a while, vacations close by that are relatively cheaper than Disney World and Virginia Beach. Years go by and we stop going to Outdoor World and there’s basically no way out – I remember my dad on the phone with these guys, trying to find out how he can get out of this contract, and even then you can sense that feeling of being trapped – again – lied to again.

My parents never even took a honeymoon – this January was their 30th wedding anniversary and they never even went away to some island for a week and sucked slushy pina coladas out of coconuts. When I first started working, out of college and all, there was a pang of guilt that went with every trip. Most of them were business trips so you chalk that up as paying bills, but after my first year of working I went to Spain for two weeks. The following summer it was St. Lucia. Than Robin and I started doing two vacations a year, cruises, visiting London a couple of times – just going to cities we’ve never been to on a whim, four or five mini-vacations and one long vacation each year.

Sometimes I wouldn’t even tell my parents we were traveling. If it was a weekend trip I figured it would be better to just keep it to myself. I’d accidentally let it slip occasionally, my parents would ask me what I was doing for the weekend and I’d say, “Going to Miami – oh – I told you that, I think, yeah?”

Anyway, with the house sold and money in their pockets I think they’ll finally be going on that honeymoon soon – maybe my mom will leave the country for the first time – even if it’s just to an island. It’s funny, even my 16-year-old sister is going to Eastern Europe in a couple of months, her first time leaving the country. It’s just a testament to how my parents always put their kids ahead of themselves.

And on that note it’s bedtime. I did end up having a nice dinner tonight, actually, Robin got home from class early and took me to Il Radiccio, got me some of the best Italian food the DC Metro area can offer. I’m going to bed well-sexed and stinking like garlic – 28-years-old and feeling confident about the coming year.

Labels: mitc, travel

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