Vacation Recap - Day 6 – Wednesday, July 6

The morning brought some more driving. We rolled out of Hyannis around lunch time, stopping at Spanky’s on the way out. Sandy was interested in some more Fried Clams. This was good thinking, as we were heading inland for the remainder of the voyage. We rolled into Hartford, CT in the early afternoon. The Sheraton that we were staying in there was actually really nice. We hit the free snacks they have for “Preferred Guests” at the end of our floor. Sandy has like super-mega-awesome status or whatever, so we were living in style.

Again, I had to run alone due to Sandy’s injury. Thankfully, I found an awesome path right next to the hotel. It ran through a park and right along the Connecticut River. I got to about the 6 mile mark and it started to pour. I still had 1 mile to go, so I just kept going in the downpour. At first, it felt great because it was a relief from the horrid humidity. By the end though, I was absolutely soaked and more than ready to be done. I had to walk in through the lobby looking sort of crazy and soaked head to toe. I got a couple of looks but just kept on going.

After I got dry and took a shower, it was time to get our gamble on. We took the drive down to the fabled Foxwoods Casino. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip for a couple of reasons. First, I just wanted to play some poker. Second, I had read a lot about Foxwoods and the poker room there. Driving to Foxwoods made one thing clear. It really is in the middle of nowhere. You’re driving through these nothing towns out into the woods. Then, you get there and it’s unbelievably huge and there are a million cars. It’s just unreal. It’s the one casino outside Vegas that I’ve been too that even approaches a Vegas feel. Clearly, nowhere else is Vegas, but Foxwoods feels like you could be in somewhere like say NYNY.

Of course, comparisons to most of Vegas end when you get to the poker room. It’s absolutely huge. It’s the biggest poker room I’ve been to, I’m sure. After you figure out who to tell you want a game, they put you on an electronic list that is projected on to these huge screens. Then, you know where you are at all the time. None of the whiteboard and sharpie method you see elsewhere, if you are lucky. Most of the time the list is on some clipboard that the room director is carrying around. The other cool thing is that they have $2 chips. So if you are playing say $2/$4 or $4/$8 limit, you don’t have to be making change all the time. In Vegas, they are still mostly trapped in the $1 and $5 chips of yesterday. I was very impressed with the $2 chips and I still can’t figure out why Vegas poker rooms aren’t hip to this. The room in general, was off the charts. They were spreading tons of games, the whole place was packed on a Wednesday night, it was awesome.

So when I finally sat down to play, it was about 8 o’clock. Sandy and I ended up at different tables, so that was less than optimal. I won’t recount any hands that I played for the sake of brevity and I’m not remembering anything too significant, outside of hitting trip queens on the river to suck out on two guys who had sucked out on me with K9 and KJ, making my QQ 3rd best after the turn card came a queen. My table was the most loose/passive table I’ve been at. Lots of people who liked to call a lot. This is always a profitable situation. I ended up winning $82 in the four hours. This is actually a decent win in that span of time for a $2/$4 game but if I wouldn’t have been continually unlucky(outside of spiking my 3rd queen), I could have won $300. Clearly then, I was simultaneously happy and sad about the outcome. At about midnight, I had such a headache that I couldn’t keep playing. This came on at about 10 but I just played through. It was a great table! I couldn’t just get up. Sandy also did well, and won $41. She was up much more but her table got short-handed for a while and she ended up on the losing side of things there. Still, we both won! It was a good night.

The drive back was kind of long, with my headache and everything. We ended up doing loops around this one area 3 times because we couldn’t figure out how to get to our exit. After we got that all worked out though, we were golden.

Vacation Recap - Day 5 – Tuesday, July 5

We kicked off Day 5 by catching the Hyline Cruises ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. This left straight out of Hyannis, so it was fairly convenient for us to get there. It took over an hour to get out there though. Martha’s Vineyard is an island, for those of you that might not be aware. We got to the island right around lunch time and we were absolutely starving. There are numerous places to shop and eat in Oak Bluffs, the largest town on Martha’s Vineyard. This is where they drop you off. We hit a little café for some lighter fare. We ended up splitting a veggie sandwich and a pizza. I’d rank the place about a B-, and I can’t remember it’s name. After cruising around the shops a little bit, I thought it might be a good idea to rent one of the mopeds that are available.

After some initial moped lesson communication difficulties and 2 laps around the block, we gave up and rented bicycles. The moped kept stalling on me. We were renting it kind of late too, due to going to lunch upon arrival. We weren’t getting the 1st round draft pick of mopeds, let’s just say that. So anyway, the bicycles seemed to work out great. We hopped on and rode a few miles up the road to Edgarton. It was the definition of a “cute little town”. There were some truly fantastic houses about and the town was pretty cool. We didn’t really find any cool places to shop or anything though, so we basically just rode around a little bit and then turned it around.

The bike ride there and back was just beautiful. We had the beach on one side and some lakes, ponds, and other beautiful scenery inland. We spent the bulk of our time on the island just riding our bikes through it. It wasn’t a day wasted, to be sure.

When we got back to Oak Bluffs. We had to check out the “gingerbread houses” we were hearing so much about. There was like a whole neighborhood of these. I was expecting singing maidens and some oompa loompas to jump out at any time. It was like you died and woke up in a Disney movie or something. I’m not sure how this whole trend got started, but it’s definitely a site to see. The pictures don’t really do the whole thing justice. After the gingerbread houses, I got some yummy ice cream. Our ferry then got delayed an extra hour so we did some more shopping around. Sandy got herself a new travelling bag which is lovely.

The ferry ride back was nice and relaxing. I was pretty tired and I caught a sunburn. After we got back, we stopped in Spanky’s Clam Shack for a side of fried clams. We just ate them on the walk back to the hotel. They were awesome. I’m just about positive that this was Sandy’s favorite part of the day.

We were both tired out so we caught a little tv and iced Sandy’s leg. She obviously couldn’t go running, so I had to head out in the dark for 3 miles on my own. I went through some wooded neighborhoods in the dark (always creepy) before heading back on to Main Street and the hotel. After the run, we went to a restaurant called The Paddock. I asked for a quiet table and they put us right next to just about the only table in the whole place with people at it. The food turned out to be pretty good. The people next to us though were absolute freaks and way too loud. By the end of dinner, I was ready to run up out of there with the quickness. That was it for the night and for Hyannis. Bye, bye Cape Cod. You were lovely.

I'm lazy....

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I actually wrote up two more days of vacation for the blog like 4-7 days ago. I wanted to get some pictures in there, but I've been kind of lazy on doing that. It's been a busy little while. Anyway, I'm putting them up now, but the pictures will have to wait a little bit.

Sox, Sox, and Socks

Friday night, I got to go to the Red Sox/White Sox game at U.S. Cellular Field (a.k.a. The Cell). Not only that, but they handed out two free pairs (one male, one female) of white tube socks with the White Sox logo on them to everyone. Not only that, but I got to sit in a 200 level skybox. Thanks again to Sandy's employer, Bridge Healthcare Finance, and their legal team.

If you are going to see a game at the Cell, this is the way to do it. We had hot dogs, wings, all kinds of snacky stuff, and free booze. Then, they bring the dessert tray around. Wow! I had a piece of Snickers Pie and some triple chocolate cheesecake. I didn't finish both, but they were awesome. I don't really sweat calories right now, due to the marathon training so I feel justified going for two desserts.

The game was decent, but the White Sox won. I was cheering for the BoSox, though quietly. It was great to see the Wakefield/Garland match up. Wakefield had the knuckle ball working for the first 4 innings but then it absolutely refused to "knuckle" anymore. We also got to see a flamethrower named Bobby Jenks pitch for the White Sox. This guy looks like a 22 year old Rod Beck with a 100 mph fastball. He was impressive.

On the way home, there were some idiot Red Sox fans insulting everyone, swearing, and make completely rude comments. One of them nearly got into a rumble with a drunken, belligerant south-sider right there on the red line. It was the most insane train ride of all time. I was just happy to make it to the Fullerton stop without incident.

My new socks would be great, if I could just figure out how to get that Sox logo off of them.

Loss

I just today got some bad news about a guy from my hometown. Kevin Dziadon past away recently in Belgium at the age of 28. As far as I know, he was the third person we've lost from my high school class of just under 400. I don't know anything about the circumstances of his death, but it doesn't much matter.

Kevin was a guy that I played He-Man with in 2nd grade. He lived close by my parents house and had the absolutely coolest toys. He just had absolutely everything. I think he was kind of spoiled. He played on our high school tennis team with me for a while and he was ridiculously good on the bass guitar. He generally seemed like a good-hearted if at times cocky guy to me, in the time that I knew him. I haven't really seen him since college. Still, it wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest to see him turn up in the next hot indie band. He could really, really play. Another chap I know from childhood did a good job of writing about Kevin and his life here.

Who runs at midnight?

I was running along Lincoln Park West last night on the way back home during my run. A guy in an SUV with the window down asked me that question. Well buddy, it sure looks like I do. I just raised my hand on the way by and said "me". Who talks to a person that's running at midnight from the window of their car? That's my question. In retrospect, that's what I should have said. You don't know me. Mind your business.

So that was last night. The night before I had a drunk and stumbly woman tell me as I ran past her that she idolized me. Well, thanks. I guess that when you run late at night, this is the kind of stuff you have to deal with. I don't mind so much.

It's so hot and humid during the day, I'm totally opposed to running any time that the sun is out. That's why I'm out there with the inquisitive and inebriated. Of course, I pick the hottest, most humid summer in years to train for the marathon. The lesson as always, I'm an idiot.

Vacation Recap – Day 4 – Monday, July 4rd

The fourth day of the trip was Independence Day! We woke up for the last time in the lovely town of Woburn. I caught a little bit of the Woburn city hall meeting. I love when they put city hall meetings on tv. When I used to live in Warrenville, IL during an Accenture project, they used to put them on out there too. It restores my faith in a part of our population when I see people really doing there civic duty. There was a guy in Woburn that talked in front of the city council for about 45 minutes. He knew everything about the past and present town governments and he wasn’t afraid to hold back his thoughts. It was really cool.

Anyway, after we got moving, we ended up eating in Faneuil Hall at a couple of little stops. We had planned on hitting Chinatown for dim sum, but the Boston Chinatown is less than inspirational. I also scooped up two shirts for my brother. One of them was a Red Sox shirt that I already gave him and the other was a Harvard shirt that I’m saving for his birthday.

After lunch, we drove the 80 miles out to Hyannis in Cape Cod. We stayed at a Four Points by Sheraton which seemed to me to be the best hotel in town. After getting squared away with the room, we caught a little parade that was going on in the town. The parade had tons of people there. I have no idea where they all came from. Hyannis just isn’t that big. It was interesting in what was really an all-american town graced frequently by the Kennedys to see so many people with scary tattoos, piercings, and what not. I mean it wasn’t the majority or anything, but there were definitely some people out that scared me quite a bit. The parade brought all kinds of wondrous sites too. Not least of which was the classic Chevy limo.

We did some shopping during the parade also. I scooped up a Red Sox hat for myself, mostly because it looks good on me and few hats do.

After the parade, we hit Tugboats Restaurant on Hyannis Marina. Sandy got the special with lobster bisque (her favorite) and a lobster roll (like a hot dog bun with lobster salad in it). I had some stellar pasta with monster scallops, shrimp, and lobster. The food was great. It was a perfect Cape Cod dinner.

After dinner we hung out for just a little bit before we finally decided to drive up to Provincetown, the only place in the Cape with fireworks. The traffic left us in a tight spot. We ended up catching about 20 minutes of the fireworks, though we missed the beginning. We found a great parking spot afterwards though. There are about a million stores in Ptown, so Sandy was pumped. I didn’t know a lot about Provincetown before we got there. It has to be heaven if you are gay though. It’s like our Chicago Boystown times 10 and in absolutely gorgeous scenery. Sandy ended up buying some cool glass flowers for her crib. It was her first real purchase of the voyage, so she was pumped.

We rolled out of Ptown at about 11. I was completely wiped and not really looking forward to the drive home. I was actually pretty tired when we left Hyannis, so you could imagine how I was feeling 4 hours later. Of course then, we hit the most frustrating traffic in the history of the world. There’s basically two lanes heading out of Provincetown and there were not one, not two, but three accidents on the way back. The traffic would just completely stop for 10-20 minutes each time. The ambulances would come by. Basically, they would just block the street entirely to deal with the accident. I now appreciate Chicago much more. At least, we can deal with these situations. We’d be driving through and around the accident in about 180 seconds in this situation. In Cape Cod, forget about it. It was a great day all around, but I was so happy to hit the pillow.

Vacation Recap – Day 3 – Sunday, July 3rd

The beginning of our 3rd day brought at least to me, a feeling that our vacation had begun. We would be in Boston for the whole day without having to really drive anywhere. This couldn’t be beat. We ended up getting a later start than we wanted, but we again found a free parking spot. We headed over to where the Chowderfest was being held. There were a bunch of people handing out free samples, including Dunkin Donuts, Odwalla, and my personal favorite – Haagen – Dazs. All of those samples were good, with the exception of the Dunkin Donuts coffee which was horribly bitter and awful. Come on DD, more sugar! Anyway, we paid our money to get at the Chowder and it was a disappointment. There were only 3 entries this year. I had been to Chowderfest once before about 5 years ago, and there were at least 8. I really liked this one chowder though from Skipper’s so I had about eight small dishes of that. That really made up for the triflin’ chowdah that Ned DeVine’s and the friggin’ US Navy were dishing out. Skipper’s wasn’t even a Boston restaurant, they’re from the Cape. I’m not sure who ended up winning (you vote for the best one), but it really better have been Skipper’s.

After the Chowder, we took off through Boston. We stopped off to see the graves of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, among others. We checked out a park, and did a little boat ride. After that, we were off to do some shopping and general poking around before a quick trip through Chinatown. After walking most of the city, we got a little bit hungry. As such, we went off to Redbones in another suburb, Northridge. This was a recommendation of my man Yagan, a former and future Bostonian. We dug into some serious hunks of meat. I had the brisket and 3 types of ribs. I think they were something like Texas, Memphis, and St. Louis or something. They were all good. The Texas style were absolutely huge beef ribs. I really could have used some vegetation after this. Anyway, great call by Mr. Yagan on this spot. I got a little lost going there, but once we arrived, it was absolutely worth it.

After dinner we went back out to Woburn. After a little while, we had to get suited up to run 13 miles. We elected to drive over by Harvard and run along the Charles. Seeing Fenway on the way, I was a little bummed that I didn’t pony up the $300 it would have cost us to get tickets. It was too late at that point though. I guess we’ll hook that up next time. We parked the car and took off. Right away, Sandy was having an issue with her leg. This isn’t good when you have 12.9 miles to go, to be sure. She trudged on like a trooper and we circled the Charles and ran past Boston College and on towards the city. She was basically one legged the whole time. We got about 4.5 miles out and ran into a dead end. We headed back and quickened the pace a bit. I was really worried for Sandy and I could tell things weren’t good. When we got back to the car she couldn’t take it anymore, and had to stop at the 9 mile mark. I decided to stop too, rather than finish and leave her in the car in the dark in a strange city. Somehow, that just didn’t seem right. We got back to the hotel and started icing her leg, which didn’t look horrific, but you could see something was off. This icing ritual would continue for the remainder of our trip and is still persisting.

Vacation Recap – Day 2 – Saturday, July 2nd

Day 2 involved some more driving, but only about 5 hours thanks to our getting ahead the night before. We cruised into Woburn (a suburb of Boston, 10 minutes from downtown prounounced Woo-burn) in the early afternoon. Our marathon training dictated a 6 mile run. We were going to go out for dinner at 8. It seemed like the best thing to do, was to run the 6 miles in the sweltering heat of the afternoon. We took off through Woburn, which wasn’t exactly what I would call scenic. The humidity was high and the layout of the town was quite screwy. Somehow we managed to get lost and find our way back to the hotel at exactly the 6 mile mark, which was impressive.

After getting cleaned up and what not. We headed into Boston and found a street parking spot near Faneuil Hall downtown. It was a great night and fairly breezy. We had 8 o’ clock reservations at Legal Seafoods, so we hung out on the water for a while. Looking back, this is one of the few times on the trip where we just sat and chilled without some meal being involved. It was that kind of trip.

They got us into Legal pretty close to on time. It was a zoo there though, as a million people without reservations were trying to get outdoor seating. We sat inside and got into some fried seafood, chowder, and lobster bisque in a hurry. We both had dishes with assortments of scallops, shrimp, and lobster. It was definitely yummy. Legal harvests their own food from the sea, so it’s guaranteed to be wicked fresh. There was a little mix up with our order though, and they lost our ticket. We ended up waiting about an hour for our food. They gave us a free dessert to make up for it though, but neither of us needed it, of course. After dinner, we just went home and crashed out. All that driving can wear a person down.

Vacation Recap – Day 1 – Friday, July 1st

This will be the first in a series of posts recounting my recent travels. I hope you enjoy them. If not, I'm sorry!

Our cross-country vacation started out with a hell of a lot of driving. If you like driving, this was the trip for you. We ended up getting started at around 9 am. Thankfully, the traffic gods blessed us and we cruised right out of Chicago in my Camry.

There isn’t much to report from this portion of the trip. We saw a lot of cornfields and trees, winding our way through Indiana and Ohio. It was not the most scenic. Once we got into Ohio, I was assured by Sandy that “all of the rest areas in Ohio have Paneras”. This sounded great, so we drove on and on delaying lunch. We probably passed 8 of the rest areas before we finally sat down for lunch at a Panera about two hours after we were planning on it. Apparently the term “all”, was used loosely.

I crashed out for a while before we hit Buffalo. I actually got 3 hours of sleep. This was the only time that Sandy got behind the wheel on the trip. I was wiped, but when we rolled into Buffalo, it was all good. We caught some glimpses of the HSBC Arena and headed to Anchor Bar for dinner. This is allegedly where Buffalo Wings originated. I had been there before, and I thought the wings were reasonably solid, so I figured Sandy should experience where they began. I’m just a sucker for stuff like that. I’m also a sucker for “house specialties”, but that’s another story. Anyway, we both weren’t feeling like 50 wings so we just got a few and some sandwiches and what not. We probably should have stuck to the wings though, as that turned out to be the best part of the meal.

This was the only part of the trip where we didn’t have a hotel beforehand. As Buffalo was none too exciting and we wanted to get to Boston faster, we drove another two hours into New York finally settling in Syracuse. Did you know that Syracuse was home to the Division I and Division II men’s college lacrosse champions in the same year? Now you do!

I'm back and some congratulations...

What's up people? I'm back after my many travels through the east coast and Canada. I had internet access for about 2 minutes on the trip, so I apologize for not taking the time to post too much. I hope to be fairly prolific with my posts over the course of this week though to outline my vacation and how everything went down. I actually got back on Sunday night, but I had to turn around and go to a lovely conference in New York City about Email Authentication. That was a solid time, but not exactly timely for me in a lot of ways. I was totally wiped from the voyage and I had loads of work waiting for me when I got back.

The trip did allow me to do something that I don't get to do often enough. I got to meet up with my man Sam Yagan. Sam's a great cat that I've known since grade school and we've stayed friends over all the years. His wedding photos can be found in my gallery. It was interesting talking to Sam as he's the CEO of a P2P company, and the MGM v. Grokster decision just put sort of a cloud over the whole P2P space. Sam is in great spirits though, despite that. We had a great time eating at Ruby Foo's and just hanging out with my man Rich Gemma from work and talking about the usual crap that guys talk about.

Sam's great spirits might have been coming from his recent graduation from Stanford business school. His wife Jess graduated with a Stanford MBA also. I wanted to send out congratuations to the both of them. I especially wanted to send "big ups" to Sam for graduating 1st in his class! If you were so inclined, you could read about that here.

I made a speech at Sam's wedding where I expressed my belief that he is the smartest guy I know. Despite his disagreement and that of more than a couple of people on hand, he does nothing but continue to bolster his case.