On The Road

For me, most holiday’s come and go without much attention paid to them. I’m not real big into them for some reason, they’re just another day come and gone. Today was St. Patrick’s day and since I only brought one pair of pants and they happen to be green, I appeared to be in the spirit. Around Denver there seemed to be plenty of revelers wearing green shirts and green wigs and all manner of green accessories. It was a pretty fun atmosphere. Sam, John, Tyler, and I walked around downtown for a bit so that I could see some cool stuff in Denver. To sum it up, it was cool.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the smaller points of the day because there is plenty to cover from six o’clock onward. Basically it was a fun day and I saw stuff.

Moving along to around the six o’clock hour we (Sam, John, Tyler, and I) made our way over to Casa Bonita. Now if you’ve never heard of Casa Bonita or haven’t seen the South Park episode about it, I highly suggest you look it up. Casa Bonita is touted as the Disneyland of restaurants which seemed like a hefty title to live up to but I can say that it lives up to that title and then some. Casa Bonita is freakin sweet!!! The excitement and adrenaline is still fresh in my system so I find it difficult to express just how awesome it is there at this time. I will post pictures to hopefully portray the incredible dining establishment that is Casa Bonita.

Because of the sheer number of pictures I took, I’ll post as many as I can and put them at the end of the post so they don’t clog everything up. Casa Bonita has Black Bart’s cave, cliff divers, a gift shop, seating for a billion and so much more. We also learned that when the restaurant was built in 1973, no blueprints were used… and it shows.

The one thing that you should know before you go there is that the food is horrible. My food had three different ‘flavors’ and colors of reconstituted cheese powder stuff all over it. I’m not a picky eater so I ate plenty. The other highlight of the meal is the free sopapillas that you get. Just raise the little flag on the table and your waiter magically appears and you ask for more. Awesome. We spent a while there after dinner just exploring the restaurant. Totally Awesome.

After that we all felt ill but happy and went over to Tyler’s house for a little party. That was around 10:30, I just got home and am writing this post at 6:00 a.m. so it was pretty fun. I’m still awake and had people not started to go to bed I’d still be over there. It was a bunch of Sam’s friends who were pretty cool and fun was had by all. There were random games throughout the night like Flippy Cups, What If…, and of course Guitar Hero II. We also wandered through downtown Arvada for a little while and only had to run from the cops once. It’s too bad I won’t see any of those people till the next time Sam decides to drive back out here and feels like inviting me along. There are definitely some that I wouldn’t mind hanging out with again.

Well, it’s late and we’re driving back to Utah tomorrow so that’s all for now.

Tonight I arrived in Denver. It’s been a while since I’ve been here so I’m looking forward to spending a day or two here. Sam drove out on Thursday night to visit with friends and since I couldn’t get Friday off, I decided to fly out here.

Carter drove me to the airport for a flight to Phoenix. The flight was oversold by four and I was number five on the standby list but knowing that crazier things have happened, I stuck around to see if I could get on… and I did. In Phoenix it was pretty much the same story. I got my flight to Denver where I sat in the last row in the middle. I am not exaggerating when I say that my shoulders were wider than the seat. I’m not very big at all but I had trouble sitting in that seat. I swear it’s smaller than normal.

On top of the cramped conditions there were no air vents. America West (US Airways) is the only airline I’ve ever seen that purchased planes that have no vents on them. Not fun. I guess beggars can’t be choosers and I’m very grateful for the generosity of Veronica for giving me these flight benefits, but seriously, they should just take out the last row and let little kids play back there or something. It’s inhumane.

I wasn’t feeling good when I landed and I think it’s allergies. The past few days my eyes have been burning and I’ve just attributed it to the total of four or five hours of sleep I get each night (six on a good night). I’ve also had a sore throat and runny nose but I didn’t connect them all until tonight. I have no idea what I’m allergic to, but since it’s been really nice in Utah I’ve had these symptoms. I assume it’s some seasonal crap and I’m not happy about it. I can’t take decongestants because sudophedrene makes me hallucinate and I can’t take anything with a sleep aide because I’ll be bouncing off the walls and be more irritable than usual. Hopefully McKenzie can give me some advice since she’s the allergy queen.

Anyway, after finding my way out of the Denver airport, which is more difficult than it sounds, and finally finding the right curb to wait at, Sam finished his eleventeenth loop of the airport and picked me up. Now we’re at his parent’s house in lovely Arvada where all of the stoplights just flash yellow or red at night. It seems to me that this would incite chaos and mass hysteria but Sam assures me that it’s normal and awesome.

With a lack travel updates here’s a smattering of things that have been happening that will be of little interest to most:

Ryan and I have embarked on making a few shirts and finished our first test batch of silk screening and spray painting different articles of clothing and a few things around the warehouse at work. They seem to have turned out alright. We learned a few things to make the next ones better, and I’ve contacted the artist for permission to make a small number of the shirts with his artwork and was given the go ahead. If you’re interested let me know. (They’re not free though. Updates will be forthcoming on paintjunkie.net)

On a completely unrelated note, don’t pour massive amounts of a flammable liquid on top of the only thing you have to extinguish a fire and then light it on fire. Admittedly it’s interesting for the first little bit but then what do you do when it doesn’t go out? Hope for the best, that’s what. (And laugh) If you want to play with flammable liquids, pour them directly onto the fire in an approved fire pit. Um, well, maybe that’s not a good idea either. K, how about ‘Throw flammable liquids from a safe distance onto a fire’? Much better. Now be safe.

Lastly, certain shenanigans at work seem to come back on me much more severely than anticipated. Work is a place for pranks. Pranks ranging from putting a cell phone in the drop ceiling (twice), cutting holes in pop cans so that it spills on you when you try to drink from it, throwing or pouring things from the roof on arriving co-workers, or even putting someone’s car up for sale when they leave the store for a delivery that’s over 100 miles away with their cell phone number on the sign. These have all been done at work at least once (per day sometimes). Since I work at a paint store, wiping paint on someone is also common. (Captain Peter pictured at right)

The other day I held my paint covered finger out as my boss passed by and it got on his arm. No big deal, we get paint on our hands and all the time and now there was a bit on his arm too. In retaliation I got the bung (plug) from a five gallon bucket thrown at me and then the paint smeared on my shirt. Overkill I thought.

Today I continued to press my luck and marked him with a Sharpie as he walked by. Of course doing the same in return is not his style so I armed myself with a can of red spray paint as a defense, unsure of what was to come. When I set the can down he walked up behind me with a very fat Marks A Lot and drew a line down the back of my head. I was rather shocked that he followed through on that one. I didn’t think he would do it. I asked the customer at the counter if he really did mark me and he just laughed. (Yes, there were customers in the store during all of this cause that’s how we roll.) Anyway, after letting Krud Kutter (like Formula 409) soak into my head the marker was removed, but not till after I sat around for a while saying, “I can’t help customers like this, you have to do my work now Pete, you should have thought of that before.”

In the end I wasn’t ticked or anything because after getting a stapler thrown at me and lodging a staple in my palm and having my head cut as a paint can opener was thrown from across the store are some of the risks of playing games at work. It’s all fun and games. I’m mean c’mon, I chose to come back and work here.

Oh, and I’m attempting a trip tomorrow (Friday), so if the standby gods smile upon me, then I’ll be updating from a city that I haven’t been to in about fifteen years.

The whole trip seems a distant past as I sit here in cold, snow covered Utah, but I will do my best to wrap up the final events of the trip.

So the next day included a fair amount of shopping and what not. I’m not a fan of shopping but I was a sport about it and actually found a pair of sweet pants for $4.99. Right in my price range. We also stumbled upon a Saleen dealership. Now if you don’t know much about Saleen, I suggest you educate yourself. Jon and I talked to the dealer for a little while, the whole time standing next to a Saleen S7. So if someone could lend me, three, maybe four hundred thousand dollars, they have a reasonably priced used S7. How could you go without 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and 0-200 in 23 seconds? It’s fairly necessary I think.

After that, we tried to find something to give to Tessa’s parents as a thank you. Jon, Sam, Holly (who flew in the night before), and I tried to find something at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, which almost completely fell apart, but we finally found a nice candle and what not. The trip to the store was preceded by a stop at In N Out where, my idea to put stickers on someone’s head backfired so I sat as stickers were affixed to my head. I kept them on my face as we walked around Bed, Bath, and Beyond to extend the fun of the experience.

Later we went up to Los Angeles to some Sushi place (which, despite the rave reviews, I thought was average at best) and then went to dessert at a really really good frozen yogurt place called Pinkberry. It was really good yogurt and a bunch of fresh fruit and cereal for toppings. Simple but really good.

So wrapping things up… The next day we did more shopping, well, they did, I bought a hat then hung out outside the stores. Afterwards we got some sweet Cuban food. Then we drove back, without stopping in Vegas at In N Out, crap, then got back to Provo at like three or four thirty Tuesday morning. Then I got up and tried to get to work at seven, but it ended up being more like seven thirty.

So that’s the trip in a nutshell.