Running Diary: Drive to Vegas

7:57 PM: Biggie, Forrest Whitaker, and Abe Froman were just all referenced in the same short conversation.



7:39 PM: We're in the middle of the desert now, and we've been in the car long enough that we're starting to get a little loopy. It's also dark, so it's hard to type. Not sure how many more updates I've got in me. Anyways, just wanted to say that an Elton John song on the radio prompted one member of the road trip crew to use the term "Butt Bongo Soundtrack."



6:11 PM: Well, we finally made it through Bakersfield. We should be half-way now. While in Bakersfield Chris wanted to stop and say a quick hello to his children. We told him he could but we weren't stopping the car. So we pulled a "Little Miss Sunshine." We slowed way down, Chris jumped out with the van still moving, we circled the cul-du-sac a few times, Chris got back in and we hit the road. While the circling was taking place every neighbor quickly shut and locked their doors and windows. Probably had something to do with the whole "guy jumping out of van, van still circling, and if they saw in the van they just saw Aaron drinking a tall boy" thing. (Side note: Ross became the driver at the first bathroom stop). The high light of Bakersfield was definitely the sign that read "Hand Wash and Lube." Not much more explanation needed there. For those interested, we are driving a Kia Sadona. According to Edmunds.com, its highlights are "lots of cupholders and storage bins" and its cons are "Handling and steering response could be better." I think that speaks for itself.



5:21 PM: Made our first bathroom stop awhile back, some people decided to change outfits also. Aaron, Ross, and myself would like to thank our grandparents for making this portion of the drive possible. For Christmas they game us Exxon gift cards, problem is there are no Exxon's anywhere near the Bay Area. Well, we just stopped for gas in Bakersfield and guess what, an Exxon. The three of us could not whip out our Exxon cards (not a euphemism) fast enough. So far the biggest hit on the playlist has been "Africa" by Toto, one of Aaron's favorite songs ever.



4:08 PM: After a nap and some internet connection issues, we're back. It's important to get into the swing of the mid-afternoon nap for a long weekend in Vegas. We survived the Gilroy smell awhile (Gilroy is the garlic capital of the world, so the min van reaked of garlic for awhile) but not are immersed in central valley smell (As Aaron put it, it smells like an evil petting zoo). For those who wagered on any of the prop bets, the under covered the "when will the first alcohol be drank" (2:46 by heavy favorite Ted). We learned something very intimate about Ted - his goal during the next ten years is to beat the game "Jaws" on Nintendo. This is probably a good time to mention Ted turned 30 a few months ago. Chris was nice enough to organize a group "flip off" of a driver going to slow and blocking "3 lanes like this was Talladega Nights." We've got the good music going now via the mp3 player. Bon Jovi's "raise Your Hands" made an appearance on the playlist which lead to a discussion on which one of our co-workers looked most like Barf from Spaceballs (Chris, Ted, and I had a unanimous decision on that). We had a brief slow down for what Aaron said was a "completely burnt tractor trailer" but turned out to only be a van on it's side. We back to our cruising speed now though.


2:37 PM: We're on 152 now cutting through Gilroy over to highway 5. I just ate my sandwich so there's a chance there's a nap is coming on soon. We just passed a sign that read "free fruit baskets for bus drivers." We're tempted to start to see if Aaron qualifies for the free fruit basket. Ross divulged recently that he stopped by his office on the way to pick us up to get some brackets for the NCAA pool. Aaron is apparently "holding onto" that money for Ross. We'll see if that money makes it back into the pool or not. Speaking of NCAA pools, Ted and I had this exchange a few minutes ago:
    Ted: How many ESPN brackets did you fill out.
    Neil: Was there a limit to the number you could fill out?
    Ted: No. Six.
Aaron asked us if we saw the mini van's dvd player, reached over to pop up a console in te center of the front dash, only the console was completely empty. I'm pretty sure Ted wanted to punch him in the back of the head. Anyways, we discovering that Gilroy "has a lot of Mexican stations targeting Mexican Americans" (thanks Chris) so I'm gonna go setup the mp3 player to play us some real music. Back later.


1:48 PM: We are official on the road. A few minutes late, but not too bad. Depending on who you talk to the hold up was due to either a) The car rental place having bad service or b) Ross needing McDonalds. I'm going to go with "b". Aaron is driving right now, and doing an ample job of it. The early talk is pretty uninteresting, mostly basketball and filling in brackets. So far the internet connection is very good, so we'll have more later.

Preamble to a Road Trip

Last year about this time a bunch of friends and I made the trip to Vegas for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. It was amazing. It was fantastic. We had high expectations for the weekend and our expectaions were exceeded. The weekend started with a miraculous BC cover in the first game (double OT as 10 point favorites) and ended with my little brother Ross passing out in the plane's bathroom on the flight back. None of us could imagine not going back for the same weekend this year. Although we decided to take it up a notch this year and are tacking my buddy Brendan's bachelor party on the same weekend. Also, 5 of us (me, my brother Aaron, Ross, and my friends Ted and Chris) have decided to rent a mini van and drive to Vegas on Wednesday afternoon. This decission was made becasue a) I had never driven to Vegas and b) it's only going to cost each road trip participant about $30 each now to get to Vegas which means about an extra $100 to bet against Michigan State. Now, I am not silly enough to ever blog about the happenings of a guys weekend in Vegas, much less a bachelor party, but the plan is to use my laptop and wireless dial-up card to post here every hour or so on the drive out there so the home viewer can follow along. Now, there is a chance that through most of the central valley of California my wireless card will not find a signal and there will be no running diary of the trip at all. I am including that so that all the moms, wives, girlfriends, and nieces don't panic if there are no updates thinking we've landed in a ravine or something. Odds are my wireless card just is not playing nice. Also, for that same group of concerned people, please note that we will have a scrict policy that no one who has had any alcohol as a passenger will be allowed to drive at all. Those intoxicated will be limited to incohearent posts in this space. We will also be answering reader's questions from the road. If you have a question for us on our drive, please send the question to roadtriptovegas@gmail.com.

Before we get to the actual blogging, here are some proposition bets I've come up with to help entertain those following along at home:

(For time related bets, we plan on leaving San Mateo, CA at 1:30 PM)

- Number of times the mini van has to be aired out due to gasious odors filling the cabin: O/U 5.5
- Number of phone calls from moms, wives, girlfriends "checking in": O/U 4.5
- Time the first person will take the first sip of alcohol: O/U 3:30 PM.
- Who will be the first person to drink on the ride:
    Aaron 1/10
    Ted 1/10
    Neil 5/1
    Ross 8/1
    Chris 10000/1
- Time the first person will urinate in a recepticle inside the Mini Van: O/U 9:30
- Who will be the first person to urinate in some sort of container in the mini van:
    Ross 1/1
    Aaron 5/4
    Ted 3/1
    Neil 20/1
    Chris 100/1
    No One 5000/1
- Time we will stop at In & Out for dinner: O/U 7:10
- Time we will actually arrive in Vegas O/U 10:30
- Odds that someone will be so drunk upon arrival they will have to go right to bed: 10/1
- Amount of time Chris is the driver: O/U 4.5 hours

Super Bowl suXLI

Just some lingering thoughts at the conclusion of Super Bowl XLI...

- What a sloppy, unfun game that was. Even the commercials were just sort of unmemorable.
- Best part of the game day experience for me: cornholing. Apparently cornhole is big in Ohio. It's not what you're thinking though. It is sort of like horseshoes for dummies. Board with a whole in it, small bags filled with corn, throw the bag and get it to land on the board or in the hole. Not nearly as boring as I just made it sound. Lots of fun. I'm already looking forward to the rumored cornhole tournament that is supposedly taking place this summer.
- Another highlight of the game for me, when my mom called my little brother Ross and they had this conversation:
Mom: Can you kick a 3 pointer from anywhere you want?
Ross: Um....3 pointer???....sure...
Mom: And do they keep booing that guy (Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuushin Muhammad) because he is Muslim?
- You know it's a bad game when it will be remembered more for how bad one of the QBs played rather than how good anyone else played.
- I know Rex's interceptions were bad, but his worst two players were when the Bears were only down by two and had second and one in Colts territory and he tripped over his own feet two plays in a row!!!
- The real MVP of that game for the Colts was Grossman. But since that might have been an awkward trophy presentation it should have gone to some combo of Rhodes and/or Addai. You could almost argue that the Colts made it through this entire playoff run in spite of Manning.
- Again, it is never a good Super Bowl when the overall feel is that one of the teams lost the game rather than a team actually going out and winning it.
- Jeff Garcia could make the Bears a legitimate contender next year.

Let's hope the highlights of Super Bowl XLII do not involve the word "cornhole," unless of course I am watching the game in Vegas.

Rosco Started the Fire

(sung to the tune of "Ryan Started the Fire" by Dwight Schrute)



Some quick background info for those of you in the "don't know." I've been living with my brothers for the past ten months. At this time last year my two friends who I have been living with for the last eight years or so were both in the process of getting engaged and moving in with the fiancees/girlfriends. I did not really want to look for new roommates but at the same time our apartment was pretty sweet and I did not want to give it up yet. At about the same time, my younger brothers decided to start their post college lives by moving to San Francisco. When the arrived in San Francisco they both found jobs pretty quickly, but were having difficulty finding an apartment. So since I had two roommates moving out and two brothers moving to San Francisco, it just made sense that my brothers move in with me. And honestly it has been pretty enjoyful so far. Yes, we still fight over the last pinwheel like we did twenty years ago, but so far no broken windows, no one has hosed down the living room yet (although there was an iced tea incident that was eerily similar a couple of weekends ago), and most importantly no one has come away from any disagreements with bruises inside the canal of their ear.

Fast forward to this past Sunday. It is around 6 PM. The three of us have been in the living room for about twenty minutes watching the Sunday night football game. There's even a lasagna in the over that's going to be ready for us in about thirty minutes. As you can tell we're about to settle into a nice relaxing evening. The windows in the living room were open because when the stove was heated for the lasagna there was something in the over burning off and the place got a little smokey and the smoke detectors went off so we needed to open the windows to get the smoke out. At this point in the evening the smoke was long gone so Aaron gets off the couch to shut the windows because he was getting a little chilly. While he's up, Aaron figures he'll take a leak. Aaron's bedroom is the loft, so it is on the top floor of our place, a staircase above the living room. He's got his own deck and bathroom, if he ever meets a girl she'll be thoroughly impressed. Anyways, Aaron gets about six stairs up, says "holy sh*t," Ross and I look at him, and by stair eight he says "My room's on fire, get me some water." At this point Ross and I look at him like he's speaking Swahili, and he gives us the most serious look back and says "Get me some buckets!" and sprints up the stairs.

At this point I'm fairly curious as to what's going on so I'm up off the couch and peaking up Aaron's staircase. I see what looks like a candle flickering in his bathroom and by the time I am two steps up on the staircase I can see that his bathroom is in fact on fire. Ross sees me sprint towards the kitchen and follows me. We both grab a a pan and turn on the faucet to start filling them with water. Little do I know that at this point Ross is panicking and saying to himself "Is there any way this is not my fault?" More on that later. The water pressure in out kitchen is horrendous. And by horrendous, I mean it would take about 45 seconds to fill a little pan you would use to make a box of macaroni and cheese. I realize this is not going to work so I tell Ross we should go upstairs and use the faucet outside on Aaron's deck, which has awesome pressure because it is one you would hook a garden house to. I sprint towards Aaron's stairs with a quarter filled pan of water, slip going around the corner, fall, spill my water all over the wall, slam my elbow into the concrete floor, get up, sprint up the stairs, run past the burning bathroom, end up outside on the deck, fill my bucket, and head back towards the bathroom. By the time I get to the bathroom Aaron has the fire out and my water is not needed. Aaron, who pretty much is the best at all practical and every day tasks out of almost anyone I know, rivaling my father at this point, some how had the presence of mind to soak one of his towels in the shower and then use that to smother the fire. And by fire I mean half of his plastic trash can was completely missing, the other half was completely charred, and the toilet paper had caught on fire on the roll. Also the wall was charred and starting to burn a little bit. At this point not only were our smoke detectors going off, but the main fire alarms throughout the building were going off.

So how did this all start, you're probably wondering. Once Aaron had the fire out we were actually having a pretty good laugh about the whole thing. I mean, five or ten more minutes of us not noticing could have been a disaster. What if we would have gone out? We got pretty lucky. Apparently, about forty minutes before all this, Ross was up in Aaron's room. For the sake of the law, let's say he found one of his friend's finished cigarettes in Aaron's room. Ross thought he would clean up a little and throw the cigarette away in Aaron's bathroom trash for him. What Ross did not realize was that the ash within the cigarette was still really hot from being lit recently. Aaron's bathroom trash can, like most bathroom trash cans, was filled with various paper, tissue, and cardboard products. Some my call that a giant container of "kindling" actually. Anyways, Ross' hot ash "reacted" well with said bin of flammable products. Hence the reason Ross was thinking to himself "Is there any way this is not my fault?" Very doubtful Ross. Unless someone sneaked into Aaron's room via his deck and decided to light his trash can on fire, and then leave, it was probably you. But at least Ross was trying to do something he never did when we lived together the first go-round, cleaning up after himself without being told. Mom will be proud.

Uncle Jesse

It has recently come to my attention that not everyone is aware that Uncle Jesse was an active participant of The Beach Boys for several years. I thought this was common knowledge that everyone around my age (say... born between 1974 and 1984) was privileged to. Then, this happened:

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Mountain View, California at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. The occasion was the 20th Annual Bridge School Benefit, an all-day acoustic show organized by Neil Young that usually has an amazing lineup. Between sets me, my little brother Ross, and my friend that completes me Ben decided to go look for ice cream because, hey, after eight hours of beer drinking it's nice to add some heavy dairy products to the stomach. After about 15 minutes of searching we find a food hut that is advertising "ice cream bars" so we hop in line. While waiting in line, we hear the next act start playing and it is none other than Brian Wilson, father of Wilson Phillips. After Brian belts out three consecutive Beach Boy hits while we wait in line, the following exchange takes place (not 100% accurate due to the eight hours of drinking mentioned above, but pretty darn close):

Neil: I guess he's just going to play all the Beach Boys hits. That's not so bad.
Ross: Yeah, the only thing that would make it better would be if Uncle Jesse was on stage with him when we get back to our seats.
Ben: Uncle Jesse?
Ross: Yeah, remember how Uncle Jesse was in some of their videos and the Beach Boys always showed up on different episodes?
Ben: Unc...from...Duk...
Neil: No, not Uncle Jesse from Dukes of Hazzard, Uncle Jesse from Full House. Remember he was in the Kokomo video playing the bongos?
Ben: Shut up. Stop messing with me. Uncle Jesse was not a member of the Beach Boys.
Ross: Yes he was. John Stamos. Why do you think the Beach Boys were in one episode a season? Remember when the Beach Boys showed up in a limo and took them all to a concert and they got to go on stage? It wasn't because the Beach Boys had nothing better to do, it was because Uncle Jesse was in the band.
Ben: Shut up, you guys are just messing with me.

This went on the entire walk back to our seats. Ross and I trying to give more examples of the Beach Boys on Full House and Uncle Jesse in their videos, and Ben in disbelief and completely doubting us. Ben even asked a complete stranger if John Stamos/Uncle Jesse was ever a member of the beach boys and she said "no" and left it at that.

We get back to our seats and I asked my brother Aaron what he thinks of Brian Wilson and he responds "He's pretty good but it would be better if Uncle Jesse would come out for a song." Ross then asks his friend Julie (If you want to remember her as "Jules" because she has "eyes like jewels" that's fine but it's a story for another day) if she knew that Uncle Jesse was a member of the Beach Boys, and she claims she had no idea. Frankly I was a little shocked. Julie probably wanted to be DJ Tanner back in the day, how could she not know Uncle Jesse was a member of the Beach Boys' band? I guess this information is not as well known as I thought, or Ben, Julie, and stranger in cowboy hat are just special needs in terms of pop culture.




That being said, Uncle Jesse was in fact a member of the Beach Boys band. Photographic proof exists here, here (indisputable, same as the video above), and here. Historical proof exists here and here. Next for all you non-believers, I'll prove that David Hasselhoff was once on a little show called "Knight Rider."