Beer: A Taste of Indiana

By brian November 21, 2010America, Beer, Travel

I have been on the road the last few days for work, attending a conference in Indianapolis. As is my custom when I travel. I tried to limit myself to…

Improv with The Smokes

By brian September 2, 2010Comedy, Travel

On my recent trip to L.A., I pretty much had only one night on my own. The other three nights either involved conference activities or plans with a co-worker. So…

Hotel Living

By brian August 31, 2010Columns, Travel

This has certainly been the summer of travel. Whether for work or fun or some combination of the two, I have visited the beach, New York, Washington, and Los Angeles in the past two months.

I traveled to the last destination just last week for a conference, which luckily included a bunch of free time in the evenings. That helped me remember one important thing about travel.

I love hotel living.

Navigation Champion

By brian August 27, 2010Columns, Travel

Since we are getting closer to celebrating our 15^th anniversary, it’s pretty obvious my wife and I are pretty compatible.

We do have a lot of the same interests, but just enough different ones to give each of us an opportunity to have some alone time. But when we went on our recent trip to Washington, D.C., I think I discovered our greatest compatibility.

We really complement each other well when planning and executing a trip. It’s almost scary.

Pack It In

By brian August 18, 2010Columns, Things I Hate, Travel

Maria and I went on a trip recently. Nothing fancy, just a weekend in Washington, D.C., to see some tennis and have a celebration for our 15^th anniversary a couple of months early.
As is our usual custom, we flew by the seat of our pants for most of our plans. That meant enjoying lunch the first night at a pub we just happen to read about in a guide book that afternoon.

I love this part of traveling. You never know what you will find when you stop for a meal in a city like D.C. In fact, on the next night, we ended up meeting the brother of a guy I went to high school with at our dinner spot.

That coincidence, however, paled in comparison to what happened on our first night. We had settled in our booth with a couple of drinks and waited for our sandwiches when I saw it.

At first, I could not believe my eyes. It had been a long day, and I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but there was no mistaking it. A family of four walked into the bar and the father, probably about five to 10 years older than me, wore something that made my jaw drop.

A fanny pack.

Visiting Washington, D.C.

By brian August 11, 2010Food, Tennis, Travel

My wife and I have had a tradition of traveling for our wedding anniversary. We have had some really great trips, but fell off the wagon the past few years. Since our 15th anniversary is this October, I wanted to resume the fun.

Luckily, we have had a very flexible definition of when an anniversary trip can take place. We headed up to New York in 2007, the last time we took one of these trips, to see a couple days of U.S. Open tennis action. Maria loves tennis, and we had a great time. I thought about repeating that trip, but then we came up with another idea.

One of the tournaments preceding the Open takes place in Washington, D.C. We have never made it down for that event, the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, so we set our sights on making that our 2010 anniversary trip.

We got tickets for evening sessions on Friday and Saturday, booked a hotel room and planned for a little sightseeing. Since D.C. is just about a two-hour drive from our house, it made for a nice little getaway.

Details after the jump

Time Zone Troubles

By brian December 8, 2009America, Columns, Travel

Most of the time, I enjoy change. I like experiencing new things and seeing what I may have previously missed.

But there are kinds of change I don’t like. I recently discovered one of them when I had to travel for business. I hate changing time zones.

I’m not talking about heading to Illinois for a few days and having to remember that everything is one hour off. I went to Vancouver on the west coast and had to suffer through that three-hour swing.

Yes, I said suffer because not only did my body not know what time it was, all the TV stations were different, it rained the whole time, and I couldn’t access web sites like Hulu to entertain me in my hotel room. That’s just cruel.

On my last night, I noticed a distinct change in the clientèle at Imperial Palace. After some research, I discovered that a roller derby convention started on Wednesday. Let’s just say that the hookers who troll the casinos wouldn’t have any competition from these “ladies.” Mullets and tattoos everywhere.
Besides the drunken idiot I described in my poker post, I saw two other incidents in poker rooms. One night at the IP, a guy went all in and his trip queens lost to someone else’s trip kings. The loser pounded on the table not once, but twice before storming off. Good thing he lost all his stack because I don’t think he would have been welcome there any more. The funny thing is, he was never ahead in the hand so I don’t see why he got so upset. Sometimes, good cards beat you. The second incident came at Harrah’s during my first tournament there. At a cash game next to us, a guy and a chick were arguing non-stop. She said he was being sexist and demeaning. He said he was just having fun. I did hear a few things he said that weren’t so kosher, but she just wouldn’t let it go and eventually started accusing him of saying stuff when he never said anything. The floor people and dealer did a great job keeping things from escalating.