Where you should only find mountains and scorpions, there's giant fountains spraying water several stories into the air.
Where there should be cactuses, slot machines.
We've imported some of the world's most famous monuments, just to have them in one spot.
The marketing "what happens in Vegas" calls to people's terrible intentions. Everyone wants to live out The Hangover or Bachelor Party. Do a little coke and party with Mike Tyson.
I was reading through some of my old writings recently and some of the "daily life" irritations I would add to a story to sort of ground a character in realism don't exist anymore. I couldn't decide if I spend time updating my stories, or if I finish it as is as some sort of nostalgia grab.
In one story, the titular character is frustrated with the way the day went. He had corded headphones on and somehow catches the cord on a drawer handle in the kitchen and rips the ear buds out of his ears.
He grew most of his own food. Guys garden made me feel inadequate. But with all gardens, you can only eat so much. So several times every summer we'd find baggies of hot peppers or okra on our porch.
I hate being in a car. I hate dealing with all the other people on the road. If you ride with me, you'll at least hear me dress down another driver for some boneheaded move once during the adventure.
I also hate being a passenger. I get car sick, so I have to look straight ahead. No phone, no sleeping. And since I'm looking straight on, I get nervous if you're more of a cavalier driver. I'm a phantom brake pedal-er.
We rode the train in Germany from Hamburg to Osnabrück and Osnabrück to Berlin. It was fantastic. We got there quicker than by car, there was no traffic, I got to read the entire time, and I drank a beer on the way back. Fantastic. Loved it.
Same riding the train from Chicago to St. Louis. Beer, microwave pizza, tons of Switch, and all of a sudden, I was in Chicago.
I just want to ride a train or light rail everywhere.
Sal somehow scored six tickets to Taylor Swift in Nashville. It took her 8 hours of waiting on line, patiently, for everyone else to give up at 5 pm when work was over, but she did it.
We could've made roughly $3000 selling them on the secondhand market, but Sal's not a monster, and let her friends buy tickets for face value.
A lot of these companies hire psychologists who's specialty is gambling addictions. They don't do it to help you stop being addicted, they do it so they know exactly how to make you addicted to checking those sides and feeds all the time.
And one of the things they found is most successful at getting you to come back is RAGE! It's something Fox News discovered in the early 2000s, it's something Twitter built into their algorithm a decade ago, it's something Facebook introduced the moment they added a news feed.
If you are pissed off about something, you will engage with the site and posts more often. So the angrier you are, the more money they make off collecting and selling your data and advertising to you.
I'm of the last generation that knows what is was like before the wide use of the internet. Granted, I was a kid, but I remember being much happier then. I wonder if older generations feel the same?
Ryan, Jake, and I would scrap up all of the change and allowance we had, beg our parents for more, to blow it all on ride tickets and winning little choochkies made in China.
We would run around in the neon lights until midnight, laughing, being daredevils, and winning posters with sexy ladies on them.
Been thinking about death a lot lately. You know, a real light subject to be dwelling on."Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist." - Epicurus
There's a few factors at play. Sal and I just celebrated 15 years together which is a long period of time considering I still feel like our relationship is new. Partly because I'm approaching 40. Partly because it's been so gloomy. Basically, I'm getting older, people around me are getting older, so it's mid-life crisis time. Instead of buying a convertible for my mid-life crisis, I've just been discussing a lot of philosophy.
Once we approached the 10th anniversary, we thought, maybe we do something special. We've made it much further than a lot of people.
That was 2018, and Sal and I had planned a trip to Napa for our 10th anniversary. The planet had other plans for our 10th. If you remember 2018, most of California was on fire. Therefore, no wine for us.
In 2021, we had talked about throwing a huge 13th anniversary party in honor of the insanely bad luck we've had. But karma looked us in the face and laughed and continued a global pandemic. A lot of the restaurants we wanted to rent out weren't open for dinning yet.
So fast forward to the 15th, a nice multiple of 5. Feels like an important year. It's the year you're supposed to give something crystal to your significant other. We're halfway to 30 years. 15 feels like a good year to finally celebrate.
Taking a little break from my little jaunt down memory road celebrating 15 years of marriage because we finally have the Corona virus in our house.
I was feeling proud of us having the nearly 3 year streak of not getting it. The masking up, social distancing, vaccines were proving to be effective. We had even managed to go on long airplane trips without getting it.
We're pretty sure we know who patient zero was. It was one of those moments where we let our guard down.
Fifteen years can really sneak up on a person. I can't believe Sal and I are already at this milestone. In my brain it still feels like we're sitting pretty around year eight or so.
I was looking for the oldest picture I have of Sal and I together. I know a couple exist when we were dating, but I apparently don't have any of them. Instead, I have this picture from our first wedding, in the back of Willikers in St. Charles, which is permanently closed because of mold.
Sal looks great for having literally gotten off a plane and getting married. I on the other hand took terrible advice and shaved my beard and look like a potato head.
It all started innocent enough. AOL Instant Messenger. (AIM)
We didn't want to go home yet, so picked one last destination to round out the week. We wanted to start heading back toward home, so it didn't leave a ton of options. It was basically Branson or Memphis.
We had both been through Memphis very quickly before, so we didn't necessarily need to stay for a long time, but we did want enough time to actually unpack our bags for once.
We stayed in a hotel called, "Arrive, Memphis." It was this very cool concept where they built the hotel in an old factory. And instead of the room having hard installed walls, there were walls on rollers everywhere in the room so you could sort of customize your layout.
