Category: adventures

new habits to replace old ones

brian1 Comment

once it’s been over a month i get some serious blog-guilt. sorry handful of friends i’ve let down by not relaying my adventures.

VEGAS, though. jessica’s birthday provided the occasion, and over a dozen friends provided the party. man, it was a good one. afternoon poolside, evening eating and drinking, late night money-evaporating… all the good things we rely on sin city to provide every year or so when we visit. not sure if there were any great hilarious stories this trip (at least not until the ride home, which i’ll save for tomorrow), but it was certainly a long, full weekend of fun. i will say this though: if you are looking for something outside the typically pedestrian casino-attached meal options, take the short drive or cab ride out to firefly for tapas. holy balls, i don’t think we had anything that wasn’t just good, but delightful. and all for very reasonable prices.

so, now we’re back. and did i mention i’m quitting smoking? it will probably help to make that as public as possible so there can be a nice mountain of shame to prevent me from slipping up. in fact, i’ve been trying to look for replacement distractions to partake of when i get the urge to go out and smoke, so maybe blogging can be one of my new crutches? i do have a wordpress app for my iphone, so maybe a good plan would be to step outside, write a paragraph, and come back to my desk. expect a lot of short, scattered thoughts if that plan ends up working.

i’ll also accept as many possible words with friends games — as many as i have friends with words with friends, if i have any that read this — so please, help me out fellow nerds. i need a break from normal web surfing.

awesome sale

brian1 Comment

walking back from breakfast on haight street this past sunday — a gorgeous sunny san francisco morning helped along mightily by the hangover-fighting effects of a wrap full of eggs and cheese and spicy sausage — the sign across the street said, ‘AWESOME SALE!’ in neon bubble letters, and i joked to josh that if we were running low on awesome after the previous day’s extensive barbecuing and beer drinking, now was our time to fill up.

of course at that particular moment we just laughed. ha ha, no need for awesome here, we’re having a great weekend in san fran with a bunch of college buddies. the weather’s perfect, we’re having a great time, we’ve got awesome pretty much covered. (heck, i even won a bunch of games of beer pong, which i never do; as much fun as i find that immature game, and how often i indulge, i never seem to get any better at matching ball to cup. this weekend though, i was on fire. maybe away games are my specialty?).

so yeah, it was an awesome weekend. it usually is when all the guys decide to do these road trip reunions once or twice a year.

but what about the rest of the time? i think i need more awesome, and possibly less comfortable. i mean, i have two blogs, neither of which i’ve written on in over a month — and i like writing. what’s the deal there? i watch too much tv and don’t read enough. i should probably find more ways to activate my brain instead of just stimulate it. i should probably learn new skills and do impressive things with them. i should probably get a new something and get rid of an old something i’ve had for too long, just to break the routine. i should take my girlfriend out on a fancy date to a place we’ve never been to celebrate once i’ve done whatever awesome thing i can.

i just have to figure out what that thing is first, and get down to it.

treasure hunting in downtown LA

brian

partially because i wanted to post again in this new format as i work out the kinks, partially because i didn’t want to leave it unrecorded, let me tell you what i did two weekends ago.

through work, one of our vendor companies invited us out to a sunday afternoon scavenger hunt, so a handful of coworkers and i showed up around noon outside the LA public library. but this wasn’t your old-fashioned ‘find as many obscure items on this list as you can’ scavenger hunt. this was a well-orchestrated adventure chase more in the style of the amazing race, with cryptic clues that led to each next step of the game. to get through as many steps (and earn as many points) as possible, we had to crack codes, solve riddles, figure out hidden messages with disappearing ink or blacklights, talk to undercover agents milling around like regular people, all while running like crazy people around a roughly 10-block radius up and down the streets and many, many stairs of downtown. what i was tempted to skip because it sounded lame and was taking up my sunday turned out to be the most fun i’ve had in ages.

of course, the vendor in question also paid for the bar tab afterward, which didn’t hurt, but that part can’t help you. what could is that the company they hired to put on this game, ravenchase, also does public events or can be hired for your own private games. just saying, anyone planning corporate events or themed parties might want to look this up. also, anyone who hears about an event from these guys or any other public scavenger hunt game and thinks it all sounds cheesy may be right, but just accept the cheese and go with it, because it’s a blast.

side note: jessica, who is a huge fan of amazing race, was so jealous she couldn’t come that i had to promise to go to a future public race after gushing about the experience once i returned.

other side note: did i mention my team won and we got $100 each, AND a trophy for our office? seriously, if you’re doing one of these and want a pro on your team, you know who to call. just saying.