I'm Just Here for the Crab Cakes

 For the past week I've been staying at the Otesaga Resort in Cooperstown, NY. It’s a hotel that overlooks a lake and a golf course.  During the week, we were the only ones staying at the hotel, so we pretty much had free reign over the whole place.  It’s a very old building that reminds me a lot of the hotel in the movie The Shining. The highlight of the week was roaming the corridors in complete darkness waiting for 2 little dead girls to pop out and say “Come play with us.” 

This weekend two different companies held functions at the hotel.  One of the companies was Ducks Unlimited, which is a corporation focused on the preservation of wetlands and swamps.  Last night they had a fundraising event at the hotel. At one point during the night there was a fireworks display over the lake. 

 I noticed the fireworks from my window and I went downstairs to get a better view from outside. The elevator doors opened to an extravagant party taking place in the lobby.  There were circulating hors d'oeuvres, a band playing, and a silent auction with baseball memorabilia.  I mingled with the crowd for a short while. However, my polo shirt and corduroys didn’t quite fit with the formal attire of the other guests.   It worried me when the hotel staff started to suspiciously eyeball me.  However I came up with a quick solution.  Whenever I got a dirty look from a staff member or a guest, I took my camera out and asked the closest group of people or couple if I could take a picture for the website. 

Lovely Evening

That’s all for now.

-Charlie

Interaction of the day:

-Hi....Jeff....Vermont Chapter

-Hi, I'm Charlie

-This is my wife Sarah.

-Pleased to meet you.

-So what chapter are you from?

-Oh, I'm not with you guys, I'm just here for the crab cakes.

Yo Mama Joke of the Day:

Yo mama is so fat, she stepped on a duck and made duck sauce.

Awkwardness at Alcatraz

Following new years, I traveled to San Francisco with the GH crew.  On the drive I enjoyed seeing  the oddly named towns  and the never-ending  stretches of flat land  across the country.   

I was in California for 2 weeks and filmed at 2 different locations.  One was Alcatraz and the other was a dilapidated juvenile delinquent school that was attended by children that would eventually go to Alcatraz.

A lot of good memories came from those 2 weeks. 

This one sticks out:

I was on my lunch break on one of the days that I was filming on Alcatraz and a couple of the National Park guides gave us a tour of some of the areas of the prison.  At one point they gave us an opportunity to get locked in the cells.  We all went into separate cells , then they locked the doors.   As I was in the cell, one of National Parks guide, a woman in her mid-sixties, came up to my cell and said something like, “Pretty nifty, huh?”  She had been working on the island as a tour guide for 20 years.  She began talking about how the island has changed since she first started.  Then she started talking about how her duties had changed.  Then she started to talk about how her work has affected her day to day schedule and her social life.  Then she started telling me how her Nephew started his own pet grooming business.  The level of detail of the conversation had quickly exceeded my attention span.  So I decided to say something that would somewhat comment on what she was saying but more importantly stamp some finality on the discussion.  I said something along the lines of ,“Well, you gotta do, what you gotta do!” or “Well, to each his own!”.  However once I said that , a funny thing happened.  It occurred to me where I was.  I was locked in a 5 by 9 foot space.  There wasn’t an opportunity for me to casually walk away from the conversation.  I was stuck there.  So I had to listen to this lady tell me about her nephew’s high profile cliental, until finally one of the other guards opened the cells.   It made me think about being in prison and how being locked up would present many awkward scenarios, similar to the one at hand. 

That’s all for now.

-Charlie

Haiku of the day:

If you go to jail

Don’t be the troublemaker

Be the bar tender.

Yo Mama Joke of the Day:

Yo mama is so ugly, she was kept at the zoo for the first 3 years of her life because she was thought to be a maldeveloping baby rhinoceros.

Christmas Consistency

Last post I talked about the importance of winter memories, so to build on that thesis statement:

I had a great 2 week’s off from work at Christmas time.  Highlights included: the 6^th annual Abazaba Christmas Party(an exhilarating and bizarre event as always), got a Where’s Waldo book for Christmas(it was a French/Canadian version called Où est Charlie?, that I once saw on the back of a box of Life cereal when I was camping in Canada when I was 5, I don’t know how Santa found it),

and lastly I went to the 3^rd annual Four Year Strong holiday show at the Palladium(they debued 3 new songs, I got kicked in face, without a doubt best xmas show ever)

A lot of people think Christmas is about one thing or another, but I’d argue that consistency is an almost essential aspect to all Christmas experiences.   Every year you hear the same music playing over the radio. Every year you bring a pine tree into your house.  Every year your Uncle Ephrem will get hyped on eggnog at the Christmas party and do something embarrassing like curse at the dinner table or kick the cat. The most important Christmases are never the ones where you do something new or go someplace different.  The essential Christmases come from doing the same things you do every year.

For some people(including myself), Christmas is one of the few constants that glues any changes in their lives together.

 

Quote of the day:

“The more snow that falls on Christmas Eve, the more Christmas magic there is. The more bourbon in the eggnog, the further Uncle Ephrem kicks the cat.”

Yo Grandma Jokeof the day:

Yo Grandma is so fat, she was walking home from our house on Christmas Eve and ran over a Reindeer.   Now there is no such thing as Santa.