November 22, 2007
Current Location: Key West, FL
Next Destination: Miami, FL
Miles Driven: 6782 miles
Happy Tukey Day to y'all! I'm sure you are all chowing down some great food and enjoying the company of your family and/or friends. Likewise, I'm here in Key West, FL enjoying my thanksgiving with my family...Korean style. Instead of turkey, we got gal-bi and instead of side dishes, we got 3 types of kimchee and all kinds of Korean side dishes. That's right. My parents vacumm-packed all the meat and side dishes and brought them all the way from Orange County. That's how my family rolls. We are so FOB-ULOUS, I dig it. Anyways, it doesn't feel much like thanksgiving being in Key West where the temperature is hovering somewhere around the low 80's, nonetheless, it's great to eat good Korean food (the Korean restaurant in Minneapolis didn't do justice to fine Korean cuisine) and more importantly, to be with my family. Maybe it's the solitude of traveling alone for the past 2 months but I've never missed my folks this much in awhile.
I've come down with a bad case of what feels like a cold about 2 days ago and haven't been quite 100%. In fact, I'm a little drugged out with cold medicine right now so don't blame me if I don't make much sense. I felt ok yesterday but I'm not feeling so hot again today after speding the whole morning fishing in the Atlantic ocean with my dad. No regrets though. It was a beautiful day and it was the first time I've ever fished the Atlantic so I was pretty stoked. I do have to admit though, I think I'm a Pacific ocean fan. The fishes weren't as plentiful nor were they as big as the fishes in the Pacific, but they were more beautiful here though. Ahhh...the tropical ocean. Some fishes looked too pretty to eat. At times, I seriously felt like we were fishing out of an aquarium. Too bad, they are being sashimied on a chopping board by my dad as we are speaking. Mmmmm.....sashimi. My dad is a fish man. The man has a taste for all and every kind of fish, and of course, he wouldn't eat it any other way than raw; in fact, I think that's where I get my love for seafood from. He gets gitty about a nice fish as I do about a nice chunk of steak or a rack of ribs. Anyways, it's always so funny going fishing with my dad on a charter boat. We always get the "look" when we get back to the dock cuz we'll keep anything we catch regardless of species, size, or what Americans consider as "good eats". Sometime we would keep fishes that we didn't even catch ourselves. In fact, there was a time when we even brought home the bait to eat. We were using spanish mackeral for bait though....that's some serious good eat if you are into oily, fishy fish. If you are a mackeral fan, ask the sushi chef to serve you some Aji. You'll get their respect cuz only the fish veterans will enjoy their sophiscated flavors. To no failure, we kept a fish (btw, which I caught) the deckhand considered "non-edible". Ha..what does he know! It ended up being my family's favorite sashimi tonight. Thank god that was the only sizable fish I caught all day today. What I lacked in man's providability today, I made up for it in quality.
Anyways, let's get back to where I left off....Nashville, TN.
October 31, 2007
The first night we were in Nashville, Mark, Eytan, and I went out dressed up as a triplet. OK, now that sounds weird out of context. It was halloween! This turned out to be a great idea. I'm so glad we decided not to go with our original idea of going as triplet babies dressed in nothing but adult diapers and pacifiers with baby bottles filled with whiskey. It probably would've been pretty fuckin' hilarious but I'm just not sure if it would've flown very well in Tennessee. Anyways, our story was that we were separated at birth and were adopted by different foreign parents,we found out about our past and decided to unite and do an American road trip to bring us back together, and our mother had an affair with a mail man at some point and he was Asian and that's how the non-white brother came about. Wow, I just had a revelation. I can't believe it never occurred to me until now. That story doesn't make any sense. There couldn't be a different race brother in a triple unless we were fraternal triplet in which our white mom was double teamed by a white man and a yellow man and more than 1 but no more than 3 eggs were released and the white and yellow sperms reached the cervix (or womb? where are the eggs fertilized?) at the same time....anyways, this is irrelevant to the rest of the story, so let's move on. So we went out drinking, took a picture with random people, played my first-ever trick-or-treat and got myself a free drink, partied with cute southern bartenders, watched Eytan dip with a beautiful baby (you are a sick man Eytan), met a "guy you can count on", and to end the night, we decided to eat at a place called, I shit you not, Trailer Park Resort. I don't know why but in my drunken state, I decided to go for the spam sandwich and corn dog combo....horrible idea as my digestive system confirmed the next morning.
Time of Sleep: 4am
November 1, 2007
While Mark was registering at Net Impact, Eytan and I walked around downtown and went to country music hall of fame. We only had an hour to check it out and man, I wish I had more time to look at things more closely. If any of you come through Nashville, this place is definitely worth the visit even if you are not a country music fan. You will get to see Elvis' old car which I'm convinced is the reason shows like "Pimp my Ride" exists now (he had a tv, car phone, a full surround system, and gold trim and rims on his custom extended cadillac in 1920's), Ray Charles doing a cover of Jackson on Johnny Cash Show, Ray Charles' subscription to Playboy (yes it's written in braille...not exactly sure how the center spread works in braille), a display of thousands of platinum albums, just name a few. The place is cool. Afterwards, we joined Mark at the reception dinner for Net Impact. Man...people there were just so "business" for the lack of better words. I just couldn't get use to it. I mean...yeah I understand that this is a network conference but most people just seemed to be too serious about impressing others. Dude, I don't care where you went to undergrad or where you are doing your MBA now. Tell me about your interest, what you dressed up as for halloween, what you think of the shitty musician they had playing for the dinner, how the dinner had only beer and cheese, etc. Fuckin' tools. Not everyone was as uptight though.
We met this canadian chick named Melissa at the Net Impact oritentation dinner. Right after the dinner, we went back to McFadden together and man, that girl was the best wing woman a man could ask for. She would open up tables and bring girls over to our tables and if things didn't work out, she would bring in a whole new set of girls. God bless that girl. Too bad I'm taken. Mark and Eytan were having a great time, and she and I were having a bitch session about being involved in long distance relationships. I guess she has me beat. Her bf lives in Senegal. Anyways, we met up with Mark & Eytan's buddies from school, Dusty and Scott at McFadden's as well. Two classic characters, fun dudes to party with. They didn't stick around for long this night, but we lived to party another night in Nashville. The highlight of this bar was watching 30 girls dance on the bar at the end of the night and our boy Mark going down the bar slapping girls' asses like he was playing bongoes. The quote of the night: "I LOVE NASHVILLE!" by Mark on top of his lung after his little "drumming" session. By the way, did I mention that McFadden's had all you can drink beer for $10? Needless to say, we got drunk....we got BUDWEISER drunk! After McFadden's got old, we headed to this place called "The Stage". This was a whole different place. This is what I expected Nashville to be like. A huge stage with a rockin'-out country band, girls in tight tanktops and cowboy hats....this was the place to be. More budweiser took place, a bit of dancing, more budweiser, dancing with some country girls, more budweiser, then Mark and I went across the street back to the Trailer Park Resort for some food. The place next to it had a rockin' band playing so after the food, we headed over and that's where I met my almost future wife. The bartender of the place was this hot, friendly, cool, hapa chick with a thick southern accent. I almost asked her to marry me right there and then. But then I found out that she was half Japanese. In the great words of Weezer, "God damn you half Japanese girls....do it to me every time."
Time of sleep: 4:30am
November 2, 2007
I don't exactly remember what we did during the day but then again our day once again didn't start till noon. That would make it 6th day that we woke up at noon. Well Mark had to get up early to go to Net Impact. (Early being something like 10am by the way when the classes and meetings began at 8am) Sucker! Oh yeah..during the day, I went to go pick up Bertha. She was in the shop the whole time we were in Nashville because I thgoutht the injection pump had failed again but apparently, she started up just fine and ran just fine when she got to the shop. So I went to go pick her up from the shop, found a local distributor for Racor filters so bought enough filters to last me through the rest of the trip (I used CarQuest filter before my injection pump failed. It's just a hunch but mixture of using hydrogenated oil and using bad quality filter might have caused my injection pump to fail the first time.), changed the filter for WVO, and drove her back to the hotel we were staying in. After I got back from the shop, it was already around 5. See the day seems so short when it starts at noon.
Eytan and I went to go eat lasagna and debated what to do until Mark was done with Net Impact. Strip club, of course....conviniently, there was a strip club across the parking lot from the hotel called the Visions, so here we went. The place wasn't open yet. Of course not. It was only 7pm. The manager told us that if we came back before 9, we would waive us of the cover charge. WORD! Another cool thing was that we could bring our own booze. I don't get this one. The manager said that it's illegal for them to sell booze at a place where girls get completely nude, so you would much rather have people bring their own booze so they can get shitty for cheaper? Where's the logic in that? Anyways, E and I went back to the room for a bit, bought some beers, and headed to Visions. The place was empty but hey free cover, had a 6-pack to drink, and this time we didn't have to "hang-out" with the strippers. The place was no centerfolds but this was definitely a step up from our Louisville experience. After awhile, these two strippers came over and started hanging out with us. I decided to share our beer with the dancers so I asked the bartender for 2 empty cups. $5/each.....WHAT? So we have to buy cups to share our own beer? Fuckin' strip clubs. Well it wasn't $20/drink like it was back in Louisville, so we decided to get them, watched them strip, hung out for a bit, and before we knew, Mark was out of his dinner with Net Impact and showed up at Visions. They wouldn't let him in without cover so we all decided to leave. Before I left though, the stripper I was talking to hinted that I go to the champagne room with her friend Jaime for $130 and I would be able to take my clothes off there. Are you serious? Then what? She said the rest was up to my imagination. Are all strip clubs in the south just another brothel? Unbelievable! Anyways, we left the place and headed over to meet up with Dusty, Scott and some supposedly Tennessee Titan cheerleaders that lived in the same complex as Dusty. This was starting to sound very promising.
We took a taxi ride to Dusty's place (by the way, every cab driver in Nashville is Somalian...random, huh?) which was about 10 min from downtown. They have been pre-partying for a bit already by the time we showed up. We pre-partied for a bit and headed out to some bar/club I can't remember the name of right now. By the way, these alleged cheerleaders were no cheerleaders. They were very nice, attractive, southern sorority girls from Vanderbilt. Kappa girls, I might add. Not that there's anything wrong with that...but definitely reminded me of Kappa girls back in Cal. I personally found them kinda boring and couldn't really find anything interesting to talk them about for the rest of the night, so I spent the rest of the night riding mechanical bulls, partaking in illegal substance, talking to random people in the bar, drinking too much for my own good, watching southern country white people dance badly to hiphop and watching Dusty do somersaults on the dance floor instead. (Dusty used to be a gymnast.) At the end of the night, Eytan decided to stick around a little longer to hang out with these two chicks that he had initially completely ruined his chances with (or so we thought) the night before by mentioning the game called the Stoneface (if you've never heard of it, ask me sometime...I'll tell you all about it...it sounds like it requires quite the "poker" face and skills to win it.) Mark and I were just not into it, so Mark, Dusty, Scott and I went back to Dusty's place to smoke a joint and call it a night.
The rest of the night at Dusty's a little hazy (all pun intended), but we sat around, listened to some music, smoked a joint, watched some soccer highlights, had laughs....just kicked it for awhile then it happened. I haven't been that annoyed in a long fuckin' time. Dusty's roomate, who we were at the bar with earlier, came back home with one of the sorority girls and that's when I found out that she was actually the girlfriend of this douche bag. This guy was obviously very drunk but he was just straight fuckin' obnoxious and you would not believe some of the shit he was saying to his girlfriend. He was calling her all these names, calling her a fag (which doesn't even fuckin' make sense), just making all these un-neccesarily insulting, un-funny things to her like "she actually looks good under those clothes...but with those soccer shorts and t-shirt, she looks like a fuckin' ugly fag right now" or "she's fuckin' useless...she can't do anything without her tits." and just on and on. It was funny at first (well not really) and I laughed cuz everyone else was laughing and maybe that's just the way they joke in their relationship, but it all stopped being funny real fast when this guy just would not stop. I started to feel bad for this girl and I could just feel this rage/annoyance building up inside of me. But the weirdest part was that she was laughing right along with it saying how that's how they joke and it's ok because they've known each other forever. I just could not believe she was ok with it. Maybe you two deserve each other. I don't know maybe I was over-reacting but man, I couldn't bare to stay there a second longer and listen to this fuckin' douche bag insult his girlfriend and think it's funny. If you two think that kind of shit is funny, be my fuckin' guest but I just couldn't handle it. Best of luck to ya both...I can't wait to see you two get married someday, have children, and watch them grow up with that sense of humor. By the way, your boyfriend is a fuckin' douche bag. I bid Scott and Dusty a farewell and we got a cab back to our hotel.
When we got back to our hotel, Eytan was outside talking to those 2 chicks that he had been hanging out with. Mark and I talked to them for a bit and I was done. I could feel my eyes close as I was talking. So I came up, Mark shortly followed, but no Eytan. Right on brother! Let's just say, Eytan returned home the next morning with sexy results.
Time of sleep: 5am?...maybe even close to 6am.
November 3, 2007
Once again, Eytan and I got up at noon. Mark was at the conference already by the time we got up. Who goes to business network conference after drinking till 4 am every day for the past 6 days, doing drugs, and going to strip clubs? That would be us, 3-man wrecking crew. Today was the last day of the conference, so we had to shoot all the footage we needed. While Mark was in a meeting, Eytan and I went out recorded ourselves (well mostly me cuz he was filming...yeah me....have I mentioned how I haven't cut my hair or shaved in last 3 months...not exactly "business" looking) talking to all kinds of random people (very business looking) from all over the country, talking about yellow green excursion, running cars on WVO, talking about their choice of business school, mentioning MIIS (Monterey Institute of International Studies...that's Mark and Eytan's school that we are making this admission film for), etc. etc. I think I got used to recording myself on camcorder on this trip, I felt totally comfortable in front of the camera when Eytan was shooting. I can't wait to see that video. I don't know shit about MIIS but I can't even tell you how many times I had mentioned that school in our footage. I mean after all, the dean did give us a $2500 grant so whatever...I'll say whatever you want me to say about the school. God I'm such a sell-out.
Anyways, after we shot all the footage we needed and the conference was over, we headed out for the final celebratory dinner. Even though Net Impact had a final dinner set up for all the participants, but we were too hungry and couldn't wait till dinner, so what to eat? Beef, of course. We went to a steak house and feasted. Full steak with lobster tail, salad, beer...we tried to order buffalo wings to keep on with our tradition on this journey but they only had boneless buffalo wings. Fuck that! This was by far the best we've eaten in over a week....the best I've ever eaten on this trip. Thank you Dean once again. After dinner, we came back to our room to chill for a bit before going to the conference dinner. After the steaks have settled in, the last thing we wanted to do was go to this conference dinner and mingle with business people....at least for me. But we needed get the footage of one of Net Impact staff members talking on camera, so Eytan and Mark manned up and went to the dinner. I stayed back, watched some football, took a nap, pretty much just bummed around until they got back.
We had this elaborate plan of going out on our last night in Nashville and partying like it was 1999 with Dusty and Scott for one last time. Well, sorry if we sound like pussies, but after they got back from the dinner, the last thing we wanted to do was to go out and party. We've been partying our asses off for the past 8 nights, and it was finally starting to take a toll on us. Mark was getting sick, I was seriously running on almost empty at this point, Eytan was in the best shape out of all of us but not enough to go out on his own either, so we ordered some buffalo wings (we just had to...we must have killed at least 50 chickens to provide all the chicken wings we ate on this journey) and pizza, ate, and went to bed early like wounded soldiers. We had to get up early to go to the airport anyway the next morning.
Time of Sleep: MIDNIGHT...it's a fuckin' miracle!
November 4, 2007
Our last day as a 3-man wrecking crew. We all woke up feeling like hell from past 9 days of our debauchery. I was running at almost 30% at this point. We had some breakfast, packed up our shit, gave each other an understood nod and a hug for making it through the past 9 days together, and we went on our separate ways. It's been good boys. Thank for coming out. It wouldn't have been the same without you guys, and good bye Nashville. You have been wonderful. We'll meet again, I promise.
I drove Mark to the airport as he had a flight to catch at 10, Eytan stayed behind since he wasn't leaving till afternoon, and I hit the road as I had 12 hours of driving ahead of me to Washinton DC where my wonderful Betty was anxiously waiting for me. Honestly, the sound of being in my woman's arms sounded so good at this point, I probably should've done that drive over a 2-day period but there was no fuckin' way that was happening. I was gonna be in bed with my woman next to me at the end of today...I was determined, so I trekked on. The drive from Nashville to D.C. wasn't anything too spectacular. Well, I was also driving through interstate and by the time I got to Virginia, it was already pretty dark. I did see a lot of confederate flags driving through Tennessee and that's about it. By the way, for some of you who don't know this about me, West Virginia have been my dream place to live since the first time I visited the East Coast which was back in 12th grade. This was where I was gonna raise horses and live on an estate. Since coming on this trip, Montana has replaced it as my dream estate location. Anyways, so I drove, drove, and drove some more. This was the 2nd longest stretch of drive I've done since I left Berkeley. (The first one was from Broadus, MT to Minneapolis, MN....but I wasn't as burnt out from over-partying back then) Finally, I got into DC around 11pm.
All I wanted to do was go see my woman but that would be a bit boring so I decided to play a little joke on her. I had gotten her address from Kiri (Good work Kiri by the way), parked Bertha in front of her house, called Betty and told her that Bertha had broken down and I wasn't gonna be able to make it tonight (I've been talking to her along the whole drive so she was definitely expecting my arrival), and that she would have to wait till tomorrow. I could just hear the heart-breaking disappointment over the phone as I said this to her. HAHAH....e-x-e-l-l-e-n-t!!! Yeah I'm an evil bastard, but see this way....she's that much more excited when I make the surprise appearance. 5 minutes later I knocked on her door and the half anger, half surprised joy on her face was priceless. HAHAHA. Yeah I got a twisted sense of humor. Anyways, seeing Betty come out through that front door was the most beautiful thing I've seen. First of all, I don't know if it's not seeing her for 2.5 months, or if there's something in the water here in DC, maybe a little from column A and a little from column B, but man Betty looked fuckin' good. In fact, I think this was the best she's ever looked. Not that I thought she was beat before but man, let me just tell you, she was looking good. All joking aside, it was just so good to see her. It was everything I needed and wanted. After not having seen her for 2.5 months, I couldn't believe that I was actually standing on her front porch holding her in my arms. Needless to say, what happened after that was...uh hum.....not really for the public eyes or the ears so I'll leave that up to your imagination.
Yes, I made it. I marked the first 1/3 of the yellow green excursion. I logged 5000 miles on my drive from Nashville to DC too. I went to bed this night feeling like a million bucks in every way possible and had one of the most wonderful night of sleep with my woman in my arms.
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