Day 5 from San Diego

Nothing really to report from yesterday. Seriously, after a trip to Tijuana, everything seems pretty tame, downright boring.

So I'll leave you with something that's bothering me today. I read an article at The Onion's AV Club that mentioned that a bunch of bands covered Gnarls Barkley's Crazy at the latest Lollapalooza. This song appears to be pretty damn popular, so I gave it a listen. Is it just me, or does that song suck ass? It's not just me, right? It's boring as hell! Maybe I'm still in Tijuana mode.

San Diego - Day 4 - T.J.!!!

It's really Day 5 right now, but I'm just now getting around to posting day 4 info. Sorry about that, but tough poop, pal.

Training was pretty good yesterday, but I missed a fair amount of it while taking care of the MS patches for work (it was patch Tuesday in case you didn't know). Once training was done, we were off.

We hustled back to our rooms and dropped off our training stuff, then immediately headed towards the trolley station. We were at the border a little after 7:00. A fairly short walk later, we were in Tijuana.

We were fortunate to meet a guy who was American, but lived in Mexico. We were looking for a good tourist-type area where we could get some good food, drinks, and do some shopping for tacky shit we wouldn't normally buy. He pointed us in the right direction, and gave us some great advice about what part of town to avoid.

Before getting to the main drag, we decided to stop and have a cerveza. The restaurant was a sidewalk joint and we had a Corona for $1 each. Not bad. Looking up, I noticed that the edge of the roof had writing on it that read "do not feed the dog". Huh? What dog? Then I saw the dog. There was a chihuahua on the roof. Just walking around and looking down at people walking by...



File that under "things you don't see in Chico, CA". This guy that walked by noticed the dog and said, "hey dog, you don't have to make a run for the border any more, you're already there!". After downing the beer, we made our way to our main destination. When we got to the main drag, we veered left (heading right would take us into the red light district, which we had no desire to visit) and started looking around.

If you've never been to Tijuana, let me paint a picture for you. It's like a combination of Vegas & Bourbon Street, but much dirtier. And it smells pretty bad, unless you walk by a good restaurant.

In front of every business, one or two guys are trying to get you to come inside to sell you something. Whether it's some cheap souvenir, food, booze, or topless women. It's non-stop. If we happened to be there on a busy day, like a Saturday, it wouldn't be so bad because there would be a ton of other tourists for them to focus on. We were there on a Tuesday evening, and were pretty much the only people around. We were absolutely inundated with dudes trying to hustle us.

But we had fun with it. We even bought a few things. My friend found some nice jewelry for his girlfriend and I got a cool flask. We also bought some nice Cuban cigars (legal in Mexico) that we were going to take back with us. There are three things you need to know to survive in T.J.:

1. Always haggle. Their prices are always high to start. Decide what you're willing to pay for something, and eventually that's what you'll pay. For example, the flask. He wanted $48 for it, which was way too much. I offered $15. He came back with $36. This went on for a while. He was pouring us shots of tequila throughout the process and shmoozing us completely, talking up the quality, yada yada yada. So, I started to leave. That's when the price drops. Not as much as I wanted, though. I kept starting to leave, and eventually, I got it for $15. This is true for every vendor.

2. Before you agree to anything, whether it be a meal, a drink, ANYTHING, find out how much it will cost first (hint: Spanish word for "how much" is cuánto). They will try to screw you over, folks. I promise you. Get the money established, then proceed.

3. If you don't have exact change, count the money that is handed back to you before letting the guy leave. They will short change you without batting an eyelash.

We walked around for a few hours, then took a cab back to the border so we could catch the last trolley back home. Your last stop before hitting US soil is customs. Like the dipshit that I am, I had our Cubans in my hand when I walked through. The guy stops me and asks what I'm carrying and promptly confiscates them. $20 down the drain. Why I didn't just put them in my pocket, I will never know. That was the only bad part of the trip.

We found our trolley and made it back home before Midnight. All in all, it was a lot of fun, but not something I would want to do very often.

Day 3 from San Diego

Today was pretty mellow. Nothing really going on after partying last night. I slept in a bit and skipped breakfast, which sucks anyway. Training was pretty boring overall, but we did get some good tidbits of info here and there. Lunch sucked. Dinner sucked. Salad is about the only safe food here. I'm staying in tonight and being a little angel. But, if I know myself, I'm pretty sure I'll be doing a late night run to J in da B again. OK, enough of the filler, let's talk about TOMORROW.

We are on for Tijuana, folks. It looks like only two of us will be making the trip down. Some of the other guys all pussed out, saying they were afraid, basically. Sheesh. It's freaking TJ, man. It's right on the border.

Anyway, we're heading out on the trolley immediately after training, around 5:30. We should get there around 7:00, and will have about 3 hours of party time before we need to cross back over the border. We should be back in the dorms by midnight.

I'm not sure what we'll do while we're there, as I haven't been there in many, many years. So we'll play it by ear and try to have a good time.

A report will be posted tomorrow night or Wednesday morning!

Day 2 from San Diego

I know this is technically Monday morning, but I just got back from visiting downtown San Diego (more on that in a minute). This report is on day one of my training here at SDSU.

As I previously mentioned, the accommodations at the home of the Aztecs are less than stellar. When I wrote that, it was before I actually tried to sleep in the bed that they provided. As I said before, the mattress resembles a Walmart chaise lounge cushion. In hindsight, that was a little unfair to Walmart chaise lounge cushions. You see, at least Walmart's cushions are somewhat soft. Not this death slab. This mattress is so hard, I might as well sleep on the ground. And it's only 3 feet wide. So no room for tossing and turning.

OK, now that I remembered to mention that, time to discuss tonight's festivities. Myself and a fellow Chico dude decided to go downtown and hit some bars. He was hoping to see a friend that he's known for a long time, who also happens to be a waitress at a downtown bar. I was hoping to get a little drunk. I hate to keep you in suspense, so let me just say that I accomplished my goal.

One of our classmates told us about the trolley, which is similar to BART. It runs pretty often, right from campus to downtown and back. And it's cheap. Sweet! So we jump on the trolley and head downtown. Quick ride, maybe 20 minutes in all. It moves pretty fast.

We hang out at one nice joint, then move on to his friend's place. And she's working! They have a cool catch-up session and the drinks are flowing, and she hooks us up with cheap drinks, yada yada yada (keep in mind, the beers here are $6-$7, while in Chico, they're $1-$2). We get out the door after drinking multiple shots and beers for $50. Nice!

We decide it's time to head back to SDSU, and walk back to the train station. We get on the trolley and start heading back. The trolley stops at Qualcomm Stadium (home of the San Diego Chargers, but screw them), which is still a few stops away from our final destination. We sit for a while. Not moving. I notice the woman who drives the trolley standing outside smoking, so I head out for a smoke myself. We start chatting about the fact that the trolley goes all the way to Tijuana (more to come on that lovely little fact tomorrow), and I'm talking about SDSU, and she says, "you know that this is the last stop on Sunday night, right?". F*&k me running.

We now have two options. Stay at Qualcomm and try to hail a cab, or head all the way back to old town SD and get a cab there, which would cost two arms and three legs to take to SDSU.

We decide it would be better to get a cab from the stadium, and then proceed to walk around the outside of the stadium in the dark looking for an exit or anything we can use as a landmark for cabbie directions. We get through to Yellow cab (God bless them) and they pick us up. We even go through Jack in the Box before heading home, all for $20. Not bad.

I'm freaking tired, man. Good night.

P.S. - T.J. Tuesday!

P.P.S. - The training so far is OK. Not much I can use, but good to know.

San Diego

Hey folks,

I'm in San Diego today through next Saturday at a training session. Now, San Diego sounds pretty freaking sweet when the weather in Chico has been hanging around the mid-90's for the last two weeks, right? Mid-70's in San Diego! Sweeeeeeeet! Right?

Well, sort of. The problem is, the conference is being held at San Diego State University, and instead of putting us in nice hotels, we're staying in the residence halls on campus. Those of you who have lived in college residence halls just winced. You know you did.

The rooms are 10'x6', give or take a few inches. The beds appear to be military issue. The sheets, pillow, and blanket? Well, I don't even want to think what's on these things. Semen, puke, and who knows what. Ugh.

No alarm clocks, no wake up calls. I'm hoping my cell phone alarm will be enough to get my tired ass out of bed in the morning. But I'm not expecting deep sleep on this bed, which has a mattress that reminds me of a Walmart-brand chaise lounge cushion.

No soap, shampoo, or anything nice like that. Had to bring all that stuff. I'm sharing a bathroom with a few other dudes. The toilet paper in said bathroom appears to be fine grade sandpaper. Fortunately, we made a trip to the local Ralph's and purchased something a little nicer on the hiney.

I also purchased some bottled water, since they only have tap water, soda, and of course, a 12er of Pacifico. They do have a fridge in the common area of our suite. I'm hoping none of these other dudes swipes my brewskies.

So, today we flew in from Sac and registered. We're eating all of our meals in the dining hall at the residence halls. Today's dinner wasn't bad, so maybe it won't be so horrible in all aspects. Tomorrow, we start training. Training every day through next Saturday, then back to Sactown!

The only saving grace, each room has its own 10Mb Internet connection. Woo hoo!

A brand new blog!

I've been contemplating doing this for some time now. I remember spending a few lazy weekend afternoons with friends at the bar thumbing through the local weekly paper. This paper has a personal ads section. Actually, it has two sections. One contained your standard, run of the mill personal ads. But the section we always enjoyed was the “spicy personals” section. We would read the spicy ones and always have a good laugh. It was a damn good time.

I recently found myself perusing the spicy personals and thought it might be fun to dedicate a blog to personal ads. Not just the spicy ones, mind you, because even the tame ones can be pretty damn funny.

I present my new blog. I will be going through the local rags and some popular Internet sites (Yahoo, for example) for my material. I will try my best to give all groups attention (women seeking men, men seeking women, women seeking women, men seeking men, plus the other varieties), but I imagine the majority of my entries will be women seeking men, since I’m a man and I have a better perspective in that area.

Before you get your undies in a bunch, let me say that I am well aware that these people are lonely and are out on a limb by advertising in a newspaper or on the Internet for a relationship. It’s downright gutsy. Believe me, I’m thankful I’m not in the position to have to do so myself. I don’t think less of anyone that uses personal ads to try to find love. Hey, to each his own. I’m only having fun with the text of the ads. So leave me alone.

Huh?

Head On - apply directly to forehead
Head On - apply directly to forehead
Head On - apply directly to forehead

WTF is "Head On" and why don't they tell you in the commercial?

All I know is, I'm not rubbing some crap on my forehead no matter what it is.

Jim's book recommendation

Just the other day, I saw something that reminded me of one of my favorite children's books. I got this book for my son about 5 years ago. This wonderful book covers the topic of farts. It's called "The Gas We Pass - The Story of Farts" by Shinta Cho.

If your sense of humor is similar to mine (sophomoric at best), you'll die laughing reading this book. You'll also learn a thing or two about your body, so pay attention!

Do yourself a favor. Go to Amazon, throw down a few bucks and get the book. You can also preview the cover and some of the pages. Click here to see one of the inside pages. On this page, the text reads "when an elephant farts, the farts are really big". I just love how it's knocking over the people standing behind the elephant.