7 come 11

I’m back in California. Yippee… Can’t complain too much – it’s much nicer weather... Amazingly enough, the Pussy Wagon actually started. She was poised and ready when I hopped off the LAX Park Place shuttle and had no issues during the ride back to Camarillo. The power was out on the CSUCI campus when I arrived although everything was cool once I returned from getting a bite to eat at Chuy’s. Chris was hanging out there and I decided to meet up with him and get myself some food and a beer…

I realize that it’s been a while since I last posted anything on this blog (perhaps that accounts for a large part of its dwindling readership…) although the reason for this isn’t that I’ve decided to abandon my remaining audience. On the contrary – I LOVE anyone that’s actually continued to read my silly rants and raves since returning from Europe (you see, that’s apparently when a large number of people decided that my postings were no longer interesting…). My feeling is that you and I are kindred souls and I would never abandon a kindred soul … I’ve just been a bit busy as of late. That and the fact that I’m perpetually lazy make updates to the blog more of a rarity…

What, exactly, has been eating up my time lately? Well, life I guess… Just the general day-to-day “things” that need to be done – nothing extremely important I suppose – just those standard tasks that one needs to do to survive… I did, however, make it back to Colorado for the holidays and that was cool. Wasn’t able to get back to Michigan this year (first time in my life, I think…) but did make it back to Longmont. It was nice to see that my house was still standing (not a shot against you, Todd, just a statement) and I was able to get back to some of my old routines. You know – playing a few DPT tournaments (I actually won at Buenos Tiempos!); switching my sleep schedule 180º and becoming pretty much nocturnal (I think Todd’s nocturnal by nature); meaning to do things (visit friends, go skiing, get the oil changed in Betsy, negotiate peace in the Middle East, etc…) but never getting around to actually doing them – stuff like that…

There was one night (well, morning to be more precise) that ended up being a bit interesting. Todd and I returned home after heading down to Long Shots for their regular Saturday evening poker tournament (DPT – I played poorly and Todd dealt). I was planning on hitting the sack at a reasonable hour – that was the plan – however, once the Jäger came out, my plans were inevitably altered. I think it was sometime around 7:00am when I finally stumbled to bed. Todd was crashed out in the hallway… I ended up with close to an hour of video from that night (most from my camera and some from Todd’s) and am actually planning to create the next Coriolis Video Blog (episode #75, if I am not mistaken) from it although I don’t know when I’ll get around to editing. And believe me, editing is required – I don’t think anybody should be subjected to some of the madness that was captured on the raw footage…

I also got some photos and video from the New Year’s Eve festivities at Buenos Tiempos although, if memory serves me correctly, nothing extremely interesting was captured. A bunch of video of people playing poker and your standard still shots of various people – all of which, I believe, have been posted to Todd’s MySpace page (the photos that is…). I most likely posted a couple along with this blog as well (meaning that I am planning to, but one never knows…) just to make all those out there that missed the party jealous. Of course poker was played (I came in second on the main tournament – won a $15 gift certificate), a Mexican buffet was served and the New Year was ushered in by a bunch of long-time friends … and me. It actually ended up being a rather good, if somewhat sedated party and, in my opinion, that’s exactly what you want for New Year’s Eve. It is, after all, amateur night for many a drunk driver and the cops are well aware of this. I wasn’t about to attempt to cover the 20 miles between the bar and my house impaired in any way whatsoever – I’ve been far too lucky thus far with my dice-rolls and figure that the probabilities are bound to play out – you can’t roll 7’s every time…

In fact I got a bit of a wake-up call a couple days before heading home for the holidays. It was the Friday before the holiday break and wine was served here at work. Everyone gathered in the kitchen for some festivities and I’ll admit that I had a few glasses of the ole fermented grape juice. I then headed over to TGI Friday’s and had a large Guinness and an appetizer before stopping by Bandit’s Grill and Bar for a rather large Coors Light (or maybe it was a Bud Light, either way…) on my way home. Now don’t get me wrong here, I wasn’t smashed or anything. I think it was around 7 or 8 o’clock when I finally left work and it was well past midnight when the cops pulled me over…

The front left headlight was out on the Pussy Wagon (this I was unaware of) and I was traveling at a speed somewhere around 10-15 MPH over the posted speed limit (nothing out of the ordinary here in California…). That’s when the headlights of the car that was speeding up behind me started flashing. It was then that I decided to see what the Pussy Wagon had in her and slammed the pedal to the metal to begin the chase. I figured that my 1990 Corolla was more than enough car to give these cops a run for their money.

Okay, so I’m embellishing a bit. What I actually did was immediately pull over to the side of the road, lowered the volume of my radio, rolled down my window and patiently waited for the nice officer to approach. This he did and, after requesting that I show him my driver’s license and registration, inquired as to whether I had had anything to drink that evening. I replied that I had drunk a couple of beers and was then politely asked to shut the car down and step out. I believe it was as I was following his instructions that I was informed that my left headlight was out. News to me…

They (there were actually two officers, one was standing by the passenger side of my car and I didn’t notice him until I got out) then began the standard routine of asking what I was doing in California (I have a Colorado license) and where I was heading that evening. I explained that I was out here on a contract job and was currently on my way home to the CSUCI campus about a mile or so away from where we were. Perhaps these officers were in the Christmas spirit as, after having me follow a light with my eyes a couple of times, they let me go. I didn’t receive any citation for the burnt out headlight nor the excessive speed. They just told me to go straight home and, as I was already heading there to begin with, I had no problem following their advice.

Okay, so I didn’t roll a 7 that time … however I was lucky enough to hit an 11. Something tells me that I would have been in a world of shit if those officers decided to give me a breathalyzer. I believe that I was perfectly fine to be driving (and I think the officers saw that) however, with the ever-lowering legal blood alcohol content figure these days, I probably would have blown higher. I think nowadays that the mere thought of alcohol is enough to get one arrested if this thought occurs whilst driving a vehicle. Whatever happened to individual aptitude? Isn’t it possible that some people can handle their alcohol better than others? But that would lead back to the actual problem – personal stupidity. I guess it’s just so much easier to turn everyone into criminals…

bis später,

Coriolis

Bah-Humbug!

Once again, it’s the Christmas (oh wait, I’m sorry … “Holiday”) Season and this, of course, means it’s time to shop! At least that’s the messages that all these commercials are shoving down our throats; and I’ve noticed something a bit interesting this year – apparently the perfect gift to purchase your loved ones is a brand new automobile. I mean, come on, a fucking car – for Christmas!? Are there really that many people that can afford to actually purchase a car these days? I think not…

No … what these salesmen are trying to sell you is a brand new 5-year (often as long as 6-year these days) loan. Yeah, that adheres to the whole idea behind the gift-giving premise – “Here honey, I bought us a new $500 per month payment for the next 5 years – Merry Christmas!!” I mean do these car companies think we’re stupid enough to fall for that? So, perhaps you’re losing your house to one of those nasty little foreclosures this year; hell, why not buy a car for Christmas? That’ll fix everything…

Am I the only one that’s noticed this apparent large increase in “buy a brand new vehicle for Christmas” commercials this year? Perhaps this is just a southern California thing and it happens like this every year; however I swear that 1 out of 4 commercials (both TV and radio) are inevitably telling you that you really should purchase a new car (as a gift, mind you…) this year for Christmas. I can tell you this much – I won’t be doing that…

And another thing that’s been bugging me lately is this stupid iPhone craze. So far, I do not believe that I know anybody that’s purchased this “Tickle Me Elmo” for 2007; however the marketing campaign for this product is making it appear that it’s only a matter of time before not owning one will get you shunned from civilized society. The question I have for Apple is why do we “need” this over-priced cell phone (because that’s what it is – a cell phone…)? So, you can watch movies on it, play MP3s, and even surf the net – whipty-freekin-do! I can already do these tasks (with much higher bandwidth and clarity) using my home computer and home theater. It is most definitely my opinion that the only useful feature of this iPhone gadget is the phone – and I already have a cell phone that works just fine, thank you…

But I guess that’s just the way the American consumer appears to big business this time of year – lemmings that can easily be suckered into disposing of their hard-earned money on a bunch of crap that they don’t need. Yeah, go ahead and buy your wife that BMW; make sure all of your children receive their shiny new iPhones – it’s the best gift that these corporations can get.

Merry Christmas to all; and to all that buy an iPhone – get bent!

bis später,

Coriolis

craigslist

So I purchased my vacation flights for Christmas. Well, “vacation” seems like a strange word to use here as I will be flying home for Christmas – I guess you could call it a reverse-vacation… The bad part is that I am not going to be able to get back to Detroit (well, Allen Park, but the Detroit area…) this year. I believe that this will be the first time I won’t be spending Christmas with my family. Unfortunately circumstances – as the currently are – are making the trip undoable. That’s okay though … at least I’ll be getting out of California for a bit.

The “home” that I mentioned flying to is actually my house in Colorado. Granted it’s not what is usually meant by “home for the holidays”, but a more literal translation of the phrase. It’s cool though, I can spend some time with my new family (Todd) and complete a few tasks that I need to do – fun stuff like gathering documents needed for taxes and registering this car that I bought prior to the California registration expiring. It’ll also give me a chance to hit the slopes, which is cool. I haven’t gone skiing in years…

Of course going skiing might not be such a great idea for me. I’m still chugging along with absolutely no health insurance. Knowing my luck, I’ll end up breaking a vital bone or two and spend the rest of my life paying the outrageous costs of emergency medical coverage that we lowly un-insured are charged. I don’t know … I used to be rather skilled in the Alpine arts. I’m hoping that it’s like riding a bike and the techniques will quickly come back to me prior to my slamming full-speed into a tree or something. Wouldn’t want to pull the ole “Sonny Bono”…

So I went back and read some of the earlier posts on this blog – you know, back when this blog actually had a few readers – and can’t help but feel as though I have let those few readers down. It’s rather apparent to me now what used to make this blog interesting – basically sex and drugs. Well, I am sorry to inform you that the “drugs” aspect will not be returning. I quit all that since returning to the States… Don’t get me wrong here – it’s not like I am trying to say that, in the words of Mr. Garrison, “Drugs are bad…”; however, with me, I came to the conclusion that I needed to stop. My brain needed the rest…

As for the “sex” aspect, the game’s changed a bit since leaving Europe. You see, I’ve basically attempted to go straight with the romantic (well, sexual…) aspects of my life and yes, a driving force behind this decision is the fact that “sex for hire” is a bit of a more complicated task here in America. Not only that, but it is also illegal in 98% of our states. That being said, it is still obtainable…

Now anybody that knows me is well aware that my legitimate dating skills are at best sub-par. “Nonexistent” is probably a better diagnosis … although I have actually been attempting to work on them lately. Unfortunately I find myself on yet another extended business trip alone and hitting the “hot spots” as a lone individual can be difficult for even the ordinary people … suffice it to say that it’s much harder for me… Oh I have tried – lord help me, I’ve tried – and have thus far, apart from a few interesting interactions that I would never have had previous, succeeded in very little.

Once again I feel that I need to clarify my position prior to informing you exactly what I did about it – I am a guy. Also, as I have made perfectly clear in my postings from Europe, I am rather fond of sex. Not that I’m any good at obtaining it, but I sure as hell am fond of it… What does one, such as myself, do when confronted with a conundrum such as this? One word – “craigslist”.

I believe that I have already mentioned that you can find anything on craigslist – and I do mean “anything”… As a case in point, there are “escorts” listed on craigslist that, for a price, will gladly spend some time with a guy as a companion. Do I recommend utilizing these services? Hell no, but I seem to have a hard time when it comes to following my own recommendations. I have, since heading out to California, purchased these “escort” services – twice in fact… Am I proud of this? Nope … but it’s been a while for me and, being that I don’t have much else to do in my free-time out here, I figured I’d give it a try… I met up with Summer at a La Quinta hotel…

There are several codes that you need to be aware of whilst browsing the escorts listed. The main one (apart from making sure that it is a w4m – woman for man – as opposed to something that you might not want … beware of the Crying Game…) is whether the escort is offering incall or outcall services. An incall is a service where the customer needs to meet the escort somewhere (it was a hotel room with Summer) and an outcall is where the escort will travel to the customer’s location. It seems that a majority of the women offer either and just put a bit of a premium on the cost of outcall service. Some, however, don’t – as I found with Summer – she only offered incall service…

When I headed out to the address that Summer gave me on the phone, I actually wasn’t aware that I was heading to a hotel room. Seems like it would have simplified things a bit if she had told me, but maybe she just assumed I would have known. But I didn’t know and was actually assuming that I was heading to her house (or apartment) and drove directly past the La Quinta. Ends up I had to call her for clarification before she told me that it was a hotel room. We finally got the directions figured out and I headed into the La Quinta parking lot and drove around to the back. She said that she would come out and meet me…

I was a bit shocked when I saw her. She was young (her posting was claiming 19) but that was expected. The unexpected aspect was that she was pregnant. And I’m not just talking a “little” pregnant … I found out upon speaking with her that she was 7 months pregnant! Oh well, that was an interesting twist. I can now add “pregnant” to the varieties of women that I’ve had sex with…

I’m not going to get into the details of our encounter as I have in the past. There’s really nothing new here anyway (except for the bun in the oven aspect…). She had her rules – no mouth kissing and no cunnilingus – and protection was mandatory (and I had no problem with that…). I suppose the good news for me was that my ED is gone. All in all it was an interesting way to pass some time (about an hour, but I wasn’t keeping track…) and that’s really all I have to say about that.

In fact, that’s basically all I have to say for today. I’ll probably get around to posting the story about my other venture into the craigslist’s “services –erotic” realm although I doubt that there will be any more. It’s much more expensive here in the States and not really worth the risk… I think I’m better off sticking to my plan of going legit, right…?

bis später,

Coriolis

How Not to Behave on Christmas

So, last Friday the company that I am currently contracted to here in Germany threw their annual Christmas (Weihnachten) party. I didn’t go. Turns out, I believe, that ended up being a good decision on my part. For one thing, the entire thing (I guess they had a band there) was done in German. As I am sure most of you are already aware, I do not speak (or understand) German. Yeah, I know, that’s nobody’s fault but my own – the fact remains that I am completely unable (well, “unwilling” at least) to comprehend things when they are delivered to me in Deutsch.

Also, I saved myself €20 by not attending. You see, the party is free to the full-time employees of this company; however, if we contractors wanted to attend, we needed to shell out €20 (€30 if you wanted to bring a guest). I actually asked Julie if she wanted to attend this party to get a bit of insight into the corporate world that she will soon enough be entering (Oh, by the way, congratulations are due for Julie as she has just recently been accepted to the University of Florida on a “full-ride” academic scholarship! Way to go, girl!) although she decided against it. That’s cool – saved me €30 since I decided not to attend myself – and I really doubt that we would have had very much fun. Corporate Christmas parties are always questionable on the amount of fun offered – usually they turn into just one more opportunity for the “pets” of the bosses to, once again, grab hold of a buttock and pucker up. Since kissing ass is something that I do not do, I usually need to find fun by other means and an open bar can become dangerous…

My first experience with this was back when I was still living at the Theta Tau house and working at Ticketmaster. We had a Christmas party; and, being that it was Ticketmaster (pretty much the only place that you could get tickets for any show in the southeast Michigan area), the party was held at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit. Not only was it held there, but we (well Ticketmaster) had the entire venue to ourselves. The bar, unfortunately for me, was open – wide open – and I took advantage of it…

At the time, my drink of choice was a Tom Collins. I lost count of exactly how many Tom Collins I had that night, but I know it was a large number. How I know this is from the results. It was another night of, as Dave Attell puts it, “time traveling”. One minute I was sitting at a table drinking my Tom Collins and, what seemed at the time like one minute later, I was waking up in my bed back at the frat house. Exactly what happened between these two seemingly unrelated events was completely unknown to me. It wasn’t until I returned to work the following evening that the stories started coming out.

Turns out that I was the last person to leave the Fox Theater that evening. In fact, the staff of the theater must have noticed my car in the parking lot (after locking me in, I would guess) and needed to head back in to find me. The worst part about it all was that I was allowed to drive home. Luckily for me, the Fox Theater is actually rather close to the Theta Tau house and I was somehow able to make it home in one piece. My car had a new, and very large, dent (well, if you could actually call the body being so bent out of shape that the driver-side door couldn’t be opened a “dent”) right between the front left tire and driver-side door. How that happened is still a mystery; however nobody’s come “looking for me” so I’m thinking that I somehow did it on my own…

This, my friends, is not the way to behave – the fact that it was at a corporate Christmas party just makes it that much worse. Of course this was just a computer operator’s job at Ticketmaster, so I really wasn’t too worried about any negative repercussions. When I was working for Avant!, however, I should have been somewhat more concerned…

The Avant! Christmas party (at least for the Colorado employees) was held down in Colorado Springs. Now Colorado Springs is a bit of a drive from Broomfield (where I was living at the time) – about 2 hours or so… It was decided that I would head down there with my buddy Doug (who was working in sales for Avant!). He picked me up in the “Dad Van” and we (Doug, his family and I) headed down to the Springs for the party. Since it was scheduled to be an evening party, we all got ourselves hotel rooms … you know – to put off the drive back until the next day. After checking into our rooms, we headed to this bar/restaurant (I have no idea what the name was…) where the party was scheduled to be. Once again – open bar…

I really don’t remember very much of that evening; however, sufficed to say, I once again awoke in my hotel bed with absolutely no knowledge of how I had gotten there. This time, however, my wallet was nowhere to be found. So … not only was I waking up with confusion and a serious hang over, I also suddenly had a mystery to solve – I needed to find out where my wallet ended up. Unfortunately I was unable to solve this mystery before we needed to start heading home; so I boarded the “Dad Van” with Doug and his family and traveled back to Broomfield … sans wallet.

Luckily for me, I received a phone call later that evening from this club down in Colorado Springs. They had my wallet. After a short (2 hour) drive back down to the Springs, I was able to retrieve my wallet (with everything in it, amazingly…) and repeat the drive back home. Talk about a long day…

Well people, I guess the reason that I am writing up these stories is really nothing more than a bit of an exhortation for everybody to, unlike me, take care this holiday season. If you’re heading to a Christmas party this year (perhaps for work) and are planning on doing a little drinking, be careful. I got lucky on both of the incidents mentioned above; however things, very easily, could have ended much worse – it’s amazing I haven’t killed myself (or even worse – somebody else) yet. If I end up being stupid enough to continue doing such careless things, I’m pretty sure that I will. Lives can very easily be destroyed at any moment – it’s up to us to make sure that we limit this possibility as much as we can. So please take heed this holiday season and remember that you take sole responsibility for your actions. Think before you do and don’t do what I did… Besides, experiences are just so much more rewarding when you actually remember them.

bis später,

Coriolis

'Tis the Season!

Well, here it is once again – the holiday season! Christmas! The portion of the year that is designed for happiness. It can become stressful for some (okay, pretty much everyone) but we need to be careful not to let these stresses take over and ruin this opportunity. It is my belief that the reason for the season is to let everyone take a break from the everyday chaos that is life and get together with friends and family in an effort to keep the insanity figures from getting a bit out of control. The smart people will understand this and heed the advice. The ignorant will get lost in the stresses and turn this time into no more than another choir.

Of course the retail sector is aware of the season – I think they start paying close attention to it earlier and earlier each year. Yeah, the day after Thanksgiving is the official start to the number crunching; however I think that the non-official beginning for the Christmas shopping season starts a bit earlier – somewhere around the 4th of July it seems… The thing that one must remember is this: Christmas is not about the amount of money that one spends; it’s about getting the chance to spend time with those you actually want to spend time with. Buy these people gifts if you want; however the time spent with them is completely free and a hell of a lot more rewarding than a new tie or a pair of socks.

You see, Christmas is the grand daddy of ‘em all. It’s the holiday that trumps all other holidays. (No offense to Chanukah, Kwanzaa or even Festivus but I consider these to be no more than Christmas renamed…) Whatever you call this part of the year, the meaning remains the same – happiness and cheer! After all, I am an atheist and even I understand the need for this time. Do I believe that, a couple thousand years ago, a child was born (to a virgin, none the less) that was the one and only son of god? Hell no! Many do, but I don’t. Does this change the fact that every year, around this time, I am presented with the perfect opportunity to head back home for a bit to meet up with people that I am always happy to see? No! And so far I have always taken advantage of the opportunity and taken that trip back to my hometown. I’m sure that I would survive if, for some unknown reason, I was unable to head home for the holidays; however my heart would be there even if my physical body wasn’t.

As I mentioned in my Now What? blog post, I am once again heading home for the holidays. I’ve made it home before from Florida (once) and from Colorado (many many times) but those trips were simple – a few hours on a plane. It’s a bit different from Germany – a much longer trip and quite a bit more expensive – but the trip will be made. It would be stupid of me not to go. I’m looking very forward to a couple weeks where my life is once again my own. It’ll give me a chance to relax a bit and get back in touch with people who have “been there” throughout my life. These are the important people and time spent with them is absolutely priceless.

It’s actually very interesting being in Germany at this time of the year. Not to be too hard on us Americans, but the Europeans seem to have a better fundamental understanding of the holiday season. The Christmas markets have been erected and opened in all of the major cities (there’s a rather interesting one in Braunschweig) and the crowds have been flocking. People are gathering, glühwein is flowing and sweets and trinkets are being bought and sold. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. Perhaps I am not seeing it, but the hectic shopping frenzy that is Christmas in America appears to be toned down quite a bit over here. Granted I might get a different opinion if I were to actually participate in the Christmas shopping here; however I am definitely not feeling the pressure to go out and spend money that seems to be ever-present in the states at this time. Who knows, maybe not knowing the language is an advantage here…?

I will say this though – I now understand the existence of Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland (the “World’s Largest Christmas Store”) up in Frankenmuth, Michigan. I always wondered why such a large Christmas themed store was associated with a city whose motto is “Michigan’s Little Bavaria”. Granted I am actually living in Lower Saxony here in Braunschweig; but if Bavaria is anything like Lower Saxony then I completely understand it. Christmas is a big thing over here in Germany… (Bronner’s, by the way, is a well known place – I remember seeing a billboard for it on I-75 in Florida. It said something like “1300 miles ahead”…)

Anyway, here’s to you on this Christmas season! Try to enjoy your time and don’t let the little hassles become more important than the true meaning of the season. Remember that, although the commercials will be telling you otherwise, it’s not the actual gift that matters – it really is the thought that counts. Remember that when you receive a “bad” gift from someone. Be happy in receiving the gift – for the gift that you are actually receiving is the comfort that comes from knowing that the person giving you the gift was thinking about you. And really, could you ask for anything more?

bis später,

Coriolis