Friday Already!

I really cant believe that it is Friday. This week has flown by. Well its not that bad of a thing since work has been less than desirable. If anyone that reads this is looking for a job just comment here with your email address and I'll give you the 411. Well hope everyone has a safe New Year Celebration and for the love of God please dont drink and drive I garauntee whatever city your in is going to have a free taxi service USE IT.

Whew that was fun!!

Well back to reality. Arriving in Vegas yesterday at 9:00 was to say the least a necessary evil. Its back to the grind for another 4 months before another time away from this town. But enough of that you may be asking "How was Cancun you gloating bastard"?

Let me first start off by saying that Mexico is well Mexico and you either love it or hate it. We begin our arduous journey Friday night at 10:45 in the PM. Which is always a joy. But wait we are supposed to leave at 10:45 but due to FAA regulations the crew must take a mandatory 45 minute rest period. Yea for them. Finally off the ground and land in Philly. Now starts the panic of finding out if the delay in Vegas will cause us to miss our flight connection in philly since we didnt have much of a layover. Must find gate. After finding the screens for the departures we realize that HEH we are leaving out of the same gate and on the same plane as we entered. Jackasses didnt even give us the courtesy of telling us that we will have to deplane but to stick around since this is our plane. Oh well. Take off and reach Cancun safely.

Now the Fun begins. OK for those of you who havent ventured to Mexico let me preface this all by saying they run things a little bit differently there. Ok with that out of the way heres a pic of an Airport Cancun style. Hundreds of semi-english speaking mexicans everywhere trying to get you to where they are at for a million different reasons. Some want you to go on a trip through their agency some want you to take their taxi to where you are going and some hey they just want to take your bag and want you to pay them for doing it for no apparant reason. Oh yea i forgot to mention ONE EXIT so you are being funneled through this onslaught of yelling of "hey come here" and "hey american come buy my crap" so that is always fun (especially after 10 hours in the air ((redeye to boot)).

OK so we get to the Hotel and we are way early (the prize for taking the "cheaper" redeye flight) so we get to wonder around the hotel dripping with sweat because you cant change out of your travelling clothes (temp in vegas when we left approx 40 degrees). All the while your bags are outside waiting to be taken up to your room. Closely gaurded by Jose "2 dollars an hour" Rodriguez. The comfort zone in this country is sometimes at reeeeeeeealy low levels. But even with our bodies producing gallons of sweat the beach and ocean look damn good.

So we get in our rooms and shred basically every article of clothing we were saturating and we are greeted with two twin beds. Hey thats cool if this was the fifties. So instead of waiting for Juan Pablo to find us another room we just scoot the beds together and voila we have a super california king. (see pics for more).

As for the Hotel everything is as good as can be expected for something that got hit by a category 5 hurricane 2 months ago. Who knew but them mexicans can work damn hard and damn fast. And its all inclusive so drink and eat to your hearts content but be forewarned everything in Mexico has a "Wang" its hard to explain but you drink a Pepsi and your like hhmmmm that tastes close to Pepsi buuuuut hmmmm. Oh and if it says tortilla chip they mean tortilla chip not our tostitos rendition.

So besides a few days here and there of sitting on the pseudo beach (again see pics) and doing nothing all day we did visit a couple of places. First was Chitchen Itza which is a really fascinating Mayan experience and well worth the money. On friday we took a five minute ride down the street to their version of sea world (again a little of the "Cancun style"). We were able to swim with some baby dolphins (but they are pretty big for babies) that were currently being trained (another "mexican" tweak to things). Oh and I almost lost a finger by a dolphin that supposedly doesnt bite. Those trainers dont fool me these are wild ass creatures if they bite I aint gonna sit back and say they went nuts, they just went dolphin (insert favorite Chris Rock Seigfred and Roy joke here).

All in all a good trip. Smoked a Cuban cigar. Watched a mariachi band. Looked at hundreds and hundreds of "almost free" knick knacks. Saw some bare breasts on the beach (sorry no pics of that). Climbed their rock wall (not that hard). Did some ...... well you can use your imagination on that. And came back with a bigger appreciation for the FDA, Better Business Bureau, and any other organization that regulates the quality of what ends up in the consumers hands (or stomachs).

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Pics

Hotel

The countdown is Basically over

Wahoo. As I am typing this blog I am preparing to take a shower so that I dont reek something fierce on our flight outta this place. Beautiful Cancun here we come. Hope you all have a great Christmas and I be talkin again when we get back.

Thanks

Well a sincere thanks to those of you who called me yesterday to wish me a happy birthday. It is nice knowing that people still remember that stuff and are inclined enough to call you and say hi. Well the count down to Cancun is in the single digits and everything is going according to plan the only thing we need to watch for is the weather in philly. If that place starts to go downhill and we get snowed in our something well I don't know what I'll do but I know I'll be pretty freakin pissed.
Aight I'm outta here.

I hate that damn Murphy

There is no real way to explain the situation other than just putting it out there. One of my employees has a pregnant wife. This would be the second pregnancy that they are experiencing in their young marriage. The first however did not go past 1 month if I remember correctly. Very sad for them and being a manager there is no manual on how you console someone through that time. As tough as that was we (our workplace) were surprised to hear of this second pregnancy. Going into the second or third month of the second pregnancy there seemed to be hope for this child. But as I write this He and his wife are in an hospital room awaiting the inevitable removal of a lifeless fetus. A week ago this Friday they found out (while at the ultrasound) that their baby had no heartbeat. I sit here and contemplate how fortunate I am not to be in his position. My heart is heavy and it is hard to think of what he could be going through. I have a 10 o'clock flight to California tomorrow and it seems that no matter how stressful I may think it is knowing my store will be shorthanded my only qualified (and only bilingual) counter person will be staring blankly into his suffering wifes eyes in a hospital wondering what happened to his baby and what he did to deserve this wishing his biggest worry was a store closing properly. I can only pray for him and hope that he comes through this with no long term mental anguish.

I feel smarter

Everyday on my jount of a drive to work I get to see literally thousands of cars lined up along the I-15 southbound freeway. It makes me wonder why is it that there is always a backup due to an accident or cop activity? Are the people that travel that direction in the morning just not that smart? Why is the traffic (with equal amounts of cars mind you) that is travelling northbound that much faster? Are we smarter and are causing less accidents being pulled over less and gawking less at any such accidents or cops? It boggles my mind that so consistantly the traffic is so clogged going south, for those of you who are strong evolution supporters that right there should be proof enough that that theory is crap. I should say though that I am definetly not complaining as I am a benefactor of the faster traffic but those people are allowed to vote.... that scares me.

Freaky Deaky!

Today I was driving home from a session at the gym and before I could text a friend of mine I saw a car coming right at me. Well the car hit the raised portion that holds the streetlight post and went airborne and smacked into sed streetlight post. If you look at a "streetlight" post you'll notice they are slightly more beefy than that of a "light" post. Which is good for me since this car was going fast enough to topple a regular post and given my position I would have been screwed. So that was fun. I called 911 like a good samaritan and then swiftly went about my own business. I almost didnt make it to Capriati's in time before they closed.