4th of jul

just purchased a ticket on American:

 

Jul 3

Arrive JAN at 2:30 PM on AA 3439

 

Jul 7

Depart JAN at 7:10 AM on AA 3560

 

Here we go V-burg

One of the reasons I love living in OB

SpongeBob on the balcony...

just hanging out in CLT for a 3 hour layover on my way to sarasota, fl.  last night's red-eye was pretty smooth - i shut my eyes before we lifted off in SD and didn't open them up again until i felt the brakes on the tarmac in charlotte.  still landed at like 3:30am pacific though, so i'm kind of beat.  no clever vegas thoughts on this layover - just simple coffee lovin and email checkin.

good 'ole philly

wow, i picked up some hell of a kind of cold back in philly.  finally just shaking loose of it now - been battling it for days - even had to stay home from work some to just try sleeping it off.  that and pound the nyquil...  yikes.  training went right out the window - so no good.  but then at the same time my buddies jonathan and jacob were both in town - but at separate times - for work.  absolutely ridiculous.  they're in town, i'm under the weather, but the weather was nice and we got some sweet fish tacos, knocked some volleyball around, etc anyway.  wow.  and now i fly out tomorrow night to florida for the 2nd weekend in a row of family reunions!  this time my mom's side for my grandfather's 90th birthday.  nice!  and pretty soon i've got to start planning a trip for the 3rd family reunion - with the reid side - the closest non-family family that i've got - more to come on that later...

so i'm flying back from philly on usair, and we just got done watching 'the astronaut farmer'.  totally brought a tear to my eye when he finally lifted off.  just such a beautiful moment...  following your dreams and never giving up is everything to me.

 

speaking about moments, this weekend was - well, i won't say perfect - all of our flights were delayed at one point or another - but we all made it and it was 'right on time.'  i've never spent any amount of time with any of my extended family on my dad's side - just never really knew them.  i guess maybe when my brother and i were still young and living in pennsylvania maybe we saw our cousins every now and then - but nothing that i remember - and we left pa for ms before i was 6.  then my parents got divorced a couple years later and maybe that sealed the split from that side of the family.  anyway, the only time i remember meeting any of the cousins/aunt/uncle was when my granny mucha passed away back during my freshman year at tech (spring break 1996 - i was 18 years old).  we met them at the funeral parlor and then had a light dinner afterwards.  now of course, we were a bit pre-occupied - it was a funeral after all - but i just remember feeling awkward the entire time - just kind of like - who are these people?  i've never met you before - i don't really feel any attachment to you - i don't even know what to say to you.  we left that funeral and never stayed connected.  nothing.

 

fast forward a couple years and i'm done with grad school.  i decide to move up to philly to pursue rowing and (eventually) find an engineering job - that was from august 2001 to july 2002 - 24/25 years old.  a whole year in philly and i never ever tried to contact anyone who lived there.  why?  i don't know - i guess it just wasn't the right time - i guess i just didn't have the guts - i guess i just wasn't ready yet.

 

fast forward a couple more years and now i'm 30 years old.  out of the blue, my cousin leslie emails my brother and i and invites us to philly for a grand 70th surprise party for her mother - my aunt anna.  there was a small piece of trepidation in the back reaches of my mind, but jason and i jumped on it - of course we would come.  i flew in early, jason came in a bit later, but dad almost missed the whole thing due to cancelled/delayed flights.  we went from the airport straight to leslie's brownstone and got there a little bit late, but luckily aunt anna was just a little bit later.  AKA 'appointed timing'.

 

but what about that elusive moment?  we walked in to leslie's place, and that was it.  no tension in the air.  no awkwardness.  genuine gladness that we were all there together and that maybe we could start anew.  and that was it.  aunt anna came in moments later, and was genuinely surprised.  we and the cousins talked and talked and talked.  dinner was catered and was - of course - excellent.  afterwards, our cousins bobby and elissa went out for drinks with jason and i and just kept on going.  leslie was ready to burst with a baby and tara had child duties, so they couldn't join us.  but i can honestly say that we just cut through the bs and just started acting like family again.  man, it was really beautiful.

 

so now - of course - the responsibility is to keep it going.  keep in contact.  etc.  that won't be a problem...  not any more.

so we ended up getting here to philly only a little over an hour and a half late.  no worries.  time to get a breakfast cheese steak.

so this is just totally officially awesome time now.  flight was supposed to go at 11:59 pm, but there was a 'slight' delay.  were going to board at 12:45 am now.  yeah, then they come on the intercom - actually, didn't even use the intercom, it was broken - announcing that there would be an hour and a half delay til the flight went off.  broken plane.  man, this is starting to get ugly...  you know, sleeping on the red-eye was going to be one thing, but just being restless in the airport is totally not so good.  and if this flight gets all up in our faces and decides to break our noses, then the next one out isn't til 8:30 am getting in to phil town at 4:30 pm.  totally unsat.  so now i'm just posting blogs, uploading some myspace photos, blah, lah, crappity crap.  maybe i'll try a nap.

layover in vegas baby on the way to motown philly.

terminal looks like this:

slot city. lame. too bad it doesn't look more like this:

outside coyote ugly at new york, new york hotel/casino
a couple weeks ago.

catching a red-eye to philly tonight.  yep.

so it's a surprise 70th birthday thingy for an aunt on my dad's side - aunt anna.  dad and bro are flying in tomorrow afternoon, and then we'll all form up like voltron for the dinner party.  should be pretty cool - i haven't seen these relatives since my grandmother on my dad's side passed away - 11 years ago - freshman year in college.  yeah...

 

the only bummer is that one of my best buddies - jonathan snow - is actually in san diego this weekend for work.  absolutely ridiculous!  i'm always flying out to dc for this or that, but the one time he actually comes out here, and i'm out of town.  it's all good though - he doesn't fly out til tuesday morning, so we'll have to tear it up a lil bit on sunday and monday.  yeh!

so i raced bikes this past sunday up at. ontario. just a standard flat, 4-corner, 90 minute crit in the hot summer sun. nothing special, except that it was pretty much the first crit i've done since i crashed really badly last year and broke my jaw. sure, i jumped right back on the track bike after i healed up last year, but i didn't do any road racing - it just wasn't in the plan for that time of the year. anyway, did the race and you know there was a crash, and you know it happened just about 4 bike lengths right in front of me, and you know i had to lock up my brakes and avoid people sprawled out on the pavement and bikes flying everywhere. just ridiculous - it was like a 7 or 8 guy pile-up. no one was seriously injured - just road rash - but man was i freaked out. when you're racing bikes, that fear section is just a part of the brain that you have to switch off because you can't ride scared - that just makes it worse.

so a teammate of mine actually had a helmet cam on during the race, and he got a tiny bit of the crash (before it became a pile-up) on video. most of the vid is somewhat boring - just look at the last 1 minute - that's where the crash occurs...

on the plus side of the race, my teammates dana and daggs got 9th and 11th and so we took home some cash - enough to pay for the gas for the car ride to the race - awesome...

so i just created a myspace page, and i can already tell that's gonna be a total time suck.  yeah, gotta turn it out, bling it out, etc...

http://www.myspace.com/hardqore

so i got a check for $16.24 in the mail from State Farm - my auto insurance company.  they mailed a refund due to a "change in length of driving experience."  so i guess i traded in my 20's for my 30's and 16 dollars and 24 cents.  awesome.