Life is a highway...

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about my preference of driving to flying. I now realize that this is because I grew up in the east and you can get anywhere by driving because places are closer together and you can save a lot of money usually. I also realize this because I now live in the south/southwest and you can't really get anywhere without flying. Houston is only 45 minutes to 1-hour from the Gulf/beach, 3 hours from San Antonio & Austin, 4 hours from Dallas/Ft. Worth and 5 hours from New Orleans. Otherwise, you're flying somewhere. Anyway, evenutally our conversation started to drift towards where we've been and where we'd like to go. I started to think about all the places I've driven and it turns out that I've driven a lot of places! If anyone cares to know, here's the list of where I've been:

New York (all over the state), New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire (I don't care if it only takes 30 minutes to go from Mass. to Maine, I've been there!), Maine, Delaware (see NH, except it goes from Maryland to PA), Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia (all over, not just around DC), Washington, DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida (all over, not just to Disneyworld!), Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California (from Vegas to LA then I-10 towards Phoenix), Ohio (all over, I got around in OH!), Indiana (wow is it flat out there!), Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska & finally Hawaii (Maui & the Big Island).

As far as cities, I’ve driven in or to New York twice , Chicago twice, Philadelphia three times, Baltimore three times, Houston (obviously!), Phoenix once, LA once, Knoxville three times, Nashville once, Memphis once, Little Rock once, Oklahoma City once, Boston twice, DC too many times to count, Albuquerque once (it is beautiful out there!), Bangor, ME once, Birmingham three times, Charlotte three times, Biloxi twice, Mobile twice, Atlanta twice, Cleveland (I lived there!), Cincinnati twice, Columbus once, Toledo four times, Buffalo (obviously), Rochester numerous times, Syracuse numerous times, Houston (again, obviously!), San Antonio twice, Vegas once – can’t wait to get back, Tucson once, El Paso once, Jacksonville twice, Greensboro five or six times, Raleigh-Durham twice, Richmond numerous times, Pittsburgh way too many times, Akron/Canton a lot, Omaha once, Des Moines once, Portland, Maine twice (ugh), Cape Cod once, but I’m trying to go again this summer, Hartford four times, Providence once, New Haven, CT three times (woo hoo!), Kona, HI while I visited, Roanoke numerous times & Charleston, SC once. I've also driven to and from Toronto on numerous occasions, when I lived in Buffalo. (For the grammar nazi’s out there - yes I know that was a long run on sentence - bite me!)

If you’re counting, that’s 33 states, our nation’s capitol, a lot of major and mid-sized cities, as well as one major international city. That leaves:

Michigan (is there anything to see there?), Vermont, Kentucky (I’ve been there, I just wasn’t driving), Missouri (Although I’m taking care of that in two weeks!), Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, North & South Dakota, Kansas, Colorado, Utah (wow, I cannot wait to meet the Mormon’s, they’re gonna LOVE me!), Oregon, Washington state, & Alaska.

I’d say for someone my age, with not a lot of money and very little time, I’ve been fairly well traveled in the U.S.

I love driving. I drove cross-country 2 summers ago with Brian (for part of it), the anniversary of which is coming up in 26 days (not that I’m counting) and I had a blast. I liken it to the section of Forrest Gump when he runs cross-country. I saw things that I had yet to see and hope to see again someday, sort of like he did. I also found it very spiritual for me as well. I found parts of myself that I don’t know I would’ve discovered if I hadn’t done that. To me, there is nothing like filling up the tank (which nowadays empties your wallet!), putting the windows down, powering up the iPod (with all 4055 songs currently on there) and blasting the music, all while venturing out into places I've only dreamed of, not yet covered by my tires and not yet seen by my eyes.

I think my heart is itching for a road trip. Hey Brian, Dave, are you two free this summer?

When he was a kid, he'd be up at five. Take shots till eight. Out after school, back on ice. That was his life, he was gonna play in the Big League.

For whoever still comes here to read the posts I put up, I thought I would share a more personal post with you than I usually do.

Some people may know that my “screen name”- goal10der – comes from the fact that I play ice hockey and that my position is, well, goaltender! I can hear people now going “goal-10-der, oh, NOW I get it!” Anyway, I’ve been playing hockey for as long as I can remember. I started skating around the age of 2 and I think started playing organized around 5, but my dad could tell you for sure. I love hockey. I wish I could explain it in more detail, but that’s it – I love hockey. For baseball fans, you can relate this way: you love the smells in the ballpark, the grass, the hot dogs, the peanuts; I love the smell of the rink, the fresh smell of a clean sheet of ice. For football fans, we love the contact and the intensity. For basketball fans, well, sorry basketball fans, that sport is just stupid and I don’t understand how a team can have so many timeouts in one game! I don’t mind shooting hoops, I used to be pretty good at it, but basketball is not a sport I enjoy at all. All that being said, basketball players are special athletes that are in tremendous shape and do some incredible things, I don’t take that away from them, I just don’t like the game.

Ok, that’s a whole different rant in itself, so where was I again? Oh yes, hockey. A couple months ago, at one of our league games, we had to wait for the Zamboni (the machine that cleans the ice) to work it’s magic and a friend and I were sitting on the bench patiently waiting. About ¾ of the way through the cleaning, he turned to me and said, “I love soccer, but I was born to play hockey. Every time I see a fresh sheet of ice, it reminds me of how much I love the game.” I think that accurately sums it up for me too, but it also goes so much deeper than that.

My father played hockey, my uncle played hockey and was a goaltender as well. One of my first memories as a child is going to my first hockey game in Buffalo with my dad. I’m not sure how old I was at this time, but I know the details. He had season tickets in the Oranges, the top section of the old Aud. Center ice, literally right on the red line. They were almost all the way at the top, which in the old buildings was still right on top of the ice. The Sabres were playing the Minnesota North Stars. Don Beaupre played goal for them, Bob Suave played for the Sabres. The rest of the details didn’t really matter; I only wanted to watch the goalies! Years have passed, I’ve been to 50 games or so in that time, I sat 13 rows from the ice during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals in '99, but I still remember that first one over all the others.

Last weekend, when I was back in Buffalo, my dad and I got the opportunity to sit down and watch the Sabres come from behind to beat the Montreal Canadiens. It was a pretty special night, dad and I drinking a couple beers, watching, talking and living for nothing but the hockey game. The comments we made throughout the game were observations and thoughts stemming from years of playing and watching intently how the game has evolved and in many ways become better. We had a lot of fun and I wish I could do that more often, but living so far away from him now makes it very difficult.

At any rate, I’ve completely gone off course from where I intended this post to go, so let me right myself now. Since moving to Houston, I've joined 2 leagues, some of the same guys are on both teams, but they are decidedly different. The one team that I'm going to concentrate on here is a great group of guys who I just started playing with last summer. This team has really changed in the last 32 games. Most of them have been together for a long time and the team had it’s share of ups and downs. We started out last season as an OK team, winning some and losing some, but never really playing with much confidence or emotion. We made the playoffs in December, seeding ourselves 6th. To our fortune, the 2nd seed fell in the first round and we shutout our opponents. Having an easier game than we might have had if the 2nd seed had won, we cruised through the 2nd round as well putting us on our way to the championship game against the #1 seed. We played them close, but their youth and speed overwhelmed us in the 3rd period and we lost 3-1. In those 3 playoff games however, we became a team, more than we had been all season.

The season that began in January had us changing our name to a new sponsor, Houston Strength. With a name change, new uniforms and a newfound “team”, we set out to have a successful season; and we did. We started out 7-0-1, but stumbled late, going 2-3-1 in our last 6 games to finish at 9-3-2. We were seeded 2nd going into the playoffs, which began last night. We watched the excitement in the game before us with a shootout ending that wound up with the 8th seed defeating the 1st seed 1-0 in the shootout. We knew our game would be tough as well.

Are you wondering where I’m headed with this? Well, keep reading, its coming up right now.

I mentioned how we became a team in the last playoffs. This is one of those things that I’m sure other sports are similar in, but for me, its hockey and this is one of the many reasons I love it. It’s all about the team. Last night, we had 3 players who showed and played sick. I’m not talking, “I’ve got a stomach ache.” I’m saying they were vomiting, had diarrhea, fever and cold sweats. They were dehydrated and their muscles were aching; that kind of sick. Nevertheless, they came and they played anyway. They left whatever energy they had out on the ice and played their asses off. They didn’t even look healthy. They knew how much it meant to the team that they play though. They were willing to give up their bodies to play a game; to be a part of the team.

I get a lot of accolades for playing goal. Sometimes I can single-handedly win a game or keep us in a game when we shouldn’t be close. Sometimes I don’t make a big difference, but this team congratulates me either way and I give them their credit as well. It’s all part of being a team. I’m not big on being the focal point because I only want to win (no, I’m not competitive at all!) and I don’t care if I make 50 saves or 5. Last night, I played well, I made some big saves to keep us in it, but despite all my efforts, we lost. Despite all of these other 3 guys efforts, we lost. Did we lose because of them? Hell no. As I said, they played their hearts out, the whole team did, but we just didn’t play well enough to win.

I can’t quite put into words how I felt after the game. On the one hand, I felt a huge amount of disappointment. The 2nd seeded team loses a game they should’ve won. I took my share of the blame as well; I could’ve saved at least 2 of their goals, but as a team, nobody really stepped up. On the other hand, I felt this amazing sense of pride. We had a great season. We played well all season and won a couple games that maybe we shouldn’t have. But the one overwhelming feeling I had was the sense the we are a team in every sense of the word. Three players come to play sick, knowing their not at even 60%, they played anyway. The rest of the team didn’t make excuses after the game because we didn’t have our best team on the ice. In my view, we had more than our best team on the ice; those guys played with some serious heart and I am so proud to be able to say those are my teammates.

We're buying and selling your history. How we go about it is no mystery

In my international business class a couple weeks ago, we were discussing how many foreign-based companies produce things that Americans believe to be made by American owned companies. I piped up with the fact that we have a $8.5 TRILLION dollar national debt and while a lot of that is owed to U.S. based companies, a great portion of it is also owed to foreign countries/companies. So this begs the question, "What does America really own if we are in this much debt?" Hence, this cartoon:

Who's the smart guy at the wheel, running out of gas? He likes to wear a flight suit and fly around for laughs

Seriously, this is one of the best emails I've read in a long time. A friend sent this to me today.

http://houston.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/144019002.html

In other news, I give up on trying to get my NYC blogs finished! It's been almost a month and I'm just too busy to try to write. Maybe over the weekend, but I doubt it.

You bring me closer to God

First off, Day 3 of the NYC is coming, hold on a day or so more. My final papers are due in my classes, so this week has been busy. I was just reading this article and I think it speaks for itself..

Study fails to show healing power of prayer
By Michael Conlon

Fri Mar 31, 9:49 AM ET

A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said Thursday.
In fact, the study found some of the patients who knew they were being prayed for did worse than others who were only told they might be prayed for -- though those who did the study said they could not explain why.

The patients in the study at six U.S. hospitals included 604 who were actually prayed for after being told they might or might not be; another 597 patients who were not prayed for after being told they might or might not be; and a group of 601 who were prayed for and told they would be the subject of such prayer.

The praying was done by members of three Christian groups in monasteries and elsewhere -- two Catholic and one Protestant -- who were given written prayers and the first name and initial of the last name of the prayer subjects. The prayers started on the eve of or day of surgery and lasted for two weeks.

Among the first group -- who were prayed for but only told they might be -- 52 percent had post-surgical complications compared to 51 percent in the second group, the ones who were not prayed for though told they might be. In the third group, who knew they were being prayed for, 59 percent had complications.

After 30 days, however, the death rates and incidence of major complications was about the same across all three groups, said the study published in the American Heart Journal.

COMPLICATIONS AFTER SURGERY

"Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on whether complications occurred (and) patients who were certain that intercessors would pray for them had a higher rate of complications than patients who were uncertain but did receive intercessory prayer," the study said.

There is "no clear explanation" for the latter finding, it added.

The study -- called the largest of its kind -- was designed only to try to measure the impact of intercessory prayer on heart surgery patients, an intervention that some earlier reports had showed seemed to be beneficial.

"Our study was never intended to address the existence of God or the presence or absence of intelligent design in the universe" or to compare the efficacy of one prayer form over another, said the Rev. Dean Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic, one of the authors.

The patients in the study had similar religious profiles with most believing in spiritual healing and almost all also thinking that friends or relatives would be praying for them as well, he said.

"One caveat is that with so many individuals receiving prayer from friends and family, as well as personal prayer, it may be impossible to disentangle the effects of study prayer from background prayer," Manoj Jain of Baptist Memorial Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, another author of the report.

The authors said one possible limitation to their study was that those doing the special praying had no connection or acquaintance with the subjects of their prayer, which would not usually be the norm.

"Private or family prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, and the results of this study do not challenge this belief," the report concluded.

Oh my starry eyed surprise, sundown to sunrise

Waking up at 10am, I hear Brian tell me, “Oh, I forgot to give you a pillow.” That hardly stirred me as I took the pillow and fell back into a good sleep. When I finally awoke from my alcohol-induced slumber at noon, I got up and tapped on Brian’s door to see if he was up, which he was. We reminisced about the things we could recall, filling each other in on events we had forgotten, even though they had only occurred in the previous 12 hours. Also, at some point in the middle of the night, although I have no idea when, I got up, went to my bag and without throwing everything out of it, pulled my pajamas out and changed into them. My jeans and sneakers were lying on the couch and apparently, I had the presence of mind to not sleep in them the whole night. The things we do when we’re drunk!

We had originally planned to do so many things on Friday. He was going to show me where his office is; ground zero; take the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty, maybe see Central Park, since it was such a nice day out, 75 degrees the first week of March. However, our late start to the day pretty much cancelled all of that out. Or, was it the fact that we had the hangover blahs? We didn’t have the “sick” type of hangovers, where we’re throwing up all day, with headaches and what not. We just didn’t feel “right”. Eventually, we pulled ourselves together, showered and went for some food at the Neptune Diner.

Once we finished breakfast/lunch around 3 pm, we headed back over to his apartment to drop a couple things off and then head into the city. Our plan now was to go get the key to E’s apartment to grab some blankets for Dave’s arrival later that night. We got a little sidetracked however, when we sat down on the couch and started watching the ACC tournament.

While we watched the games, we had a great conversation about God/religion/atheism/the existence of prophets and many of the things that I’ve been dealing with either here or over here. This is a typical conversation when Brian and I get together, although there is usually more alcohol involved at the time. Needless to say, at 515, we needed to get going!

We walked to the subway and called Dave to tell him to get on his horse and get down here already! We took the train in and walked to meet E at her office building, which is right up the street from Radio City Music Hall. After she met us outside, we took the subway back to her apartment, picked up the blankets, convinced her to meet us for dinner and headed off to get Dave from Grand Central Station.

We arrived minutes before Dave did and were waiting for him when he exited the train. He was a little groggy from working all day and then taking a nap on the ride in, but we knew that would soon change!

We headed back to Brian’s apartment to drop off everything, Dave’s bags and the blankets and headed right back out to meet E and J.K. for dinner.

Dinner was really good, but uneventful, except for when Dave told the waitress that the last slice of Pizza was going to be her tip!

After dinner, E was departing us so that we could have a guys night out. Nap was supposed to meet us at some point, so we were awaiting his call, but in the meantime, we went to 2nd Avenue and walked a ways to find a bar. The first place we went was cool, but emptied out quickly after we arrived. We left there and headed to a bar where we hoped a friend was working, The Joshua Tree.

After carefully navigating the crowd of obnoxiously drunk guys and decent-looking, but drunk girls, we found our buddy and hung out there. Brian and I headed to the bar for beers and attempted the journey back through the crowd without spilling any on either us or someone else. No sooner than 5 steps away from bar did someone bump Brian and he spilled a fair amount down the shoulder and arm of this girl who must have either been really hot (temperature wise) or just so damned drunk that she didn’t notice! I know she had a lot on her because when I tried to slide by, my arm rubbed against where he spilled the beer and she was soaked. She didn’t even flinch and I wasn’t about to say anything, so I kept on walking. We arrived back with Dave, but J.K. had headed home because he had a long ride back and we had early plans for Saturday morning of which he was an integral, sober part (more on that later).

We tried coaxing Dave into talking to some girls, hoping he would at least get a couple numbers, but he wouldn’t. There was this one pretty hot girl in a black dress and I told him I would buy his drinks the rest of the night if he would just go talk to her, but he was having none of it. Eventually, our friend got the cute waitress (a different cute waitress than the previous night) to come over and introduced her to Dave. They didn’t say much, but it was a start at least.

After finishing our beers, we were soaked with sweat and some beer that splashed on us as well, and wanted to head out, so we started heading towards the door, when Dave decides he wants to start talking to the waitress! Brian was already halfway across the bar and I was standing there like an idiot waiting for Dave, so I started heading for the door as well. Brian and I waited for a few minutes and eventually Dave saunters out, sans phone number though.

I had mentioned to Brian earlier in the day that I’d never been to Times Square, so what better time to go there than on a Friday night at 100 am? So we started walking in that direction when Nap finally calls! He had fallen asleep and wasn’t going to come out, since it was so late. We gave him plenty of shit for that, but we were pleased with how the night was headed so far, so there was no need to add mayhem to it. Little did we know…

We arrived at Times Square around 130 am, snapped some pictures (pay no attention to the time on the pics since my camera was still in Central time) and decided we were hungry. Lets find some food! We tried locating a Gray’s Papaya, but we didn’t know where one was close by, so we thought we’d head back towards Brian’s apartment and get something closer to there.

While on the subway, we decided that Dave needed to experience Café Bar, so we exited and walked over there around 215 am. Once we arrived, we decided to call Nap. Remember, he only lives a few blocks away, he needed to get up and come visit because we found our favorite waitress working, or at least our favorite from last night, Tanya. She remembered us and even asked where our friend was. She wanted him, it was obvious. I was able to coax Nap into coming with the fabulous line of, “How often am I in NYC? Get your ass over here!” Or something very close to that. About 10 minutes later, Dave and Brian both got text messages that he was on his way! Dave, Brian and I grabbed the cards and poker chips and proceeded to start playing some Texas Hold ‘Em, albeit not very well! Nap arrived, much to Tanya’s delight and the night has now begun.

We dealt him in, drank some beers, had lively conversation, of course, Nap flirted with Tanya and we actually kept it pretty tame – drink-wise, compared to the night before, although you might not know it by this picture! We all agreed that we really liked this bar and that we were much more comfortable here than at Joshua Tree, plus have I mentioned the great music they play? That is, until Dave requested Enigma – just kidding Dave!

At 415 am, you’re thinking this night has got to be over right? Not so fast!

Since we were still hungry, we wanted to find an all night diner to get some food. Following Nap’s poor advice, we wandered from street to street looking, but none of the diner’s he was thinking of were still open, so we headed back towards Neptune Diner, for Brian and I, the second time in 15 hours!

During the walk over there, we passed a house that had this on their porch. Who keeps these things on their porch? We had to sneak into the gated area to get that picture, but it was so worth it!

We finally arrived at Neptune Diner and Brian and Nap got the best seats in house as we were right by the door and they got to watch all the cute, drunk, skimpy-dressed girls come in and leave. (E – Brian was only looking for Dave, not for himself, don’t be mad at him! They don’t hold a candle to you anyway ;)) Dave got a good rear-view, but not much else.

We ate heartily, especially for 515 am, except for Nap, since he spent most of the night asleep. We paid up and headed out, with the dawn beginning to break. We arrived back at Brian’s apartment in a few minutes and said our goodbyes to Nap because he wouldn’t be joining us for Day 3’s festivities. Dave wanted to see the roof, so I took him up there and as I reached for my pocket to take a picture, I realized I left my camera in the Diner – OH NO!

Dave and I got the key to the apartment from Brian and raced back over there. They had my camera stored for me. I thanked them and we returned to the apartment building. Upon trying to enter, Dave was having some problems figuring out which key to use. After trying them all and having one almost get stuck on him, I took a turn. After a couple minutes of me toiling with the lock, Dave looked at the door and realized we were at the wrong entrance! We seem to have a lot of that problem, but this time we were pretty sober! After getting inside the first door, I started trying the keys on the inside door and although one of them fit, it wouldn’t turn. After a minute of fooling with it, I remembered that this door wasn’t locked – D’OH!

Dave and I headed back up to the roof to take some pictures, because it was now 545 am and since we were up…

Finally at a few minutes after 6 am, we all settled in for a few hours of sleep to prepare for Day 3.

Day 2 – the fun has just begun!

NYC
Friends

Just a little patience, yeaaaahhhh.

I know everyone is waiting for days 2 & 3 from NYC, because they were good stories, but I was crazy busy at work last week and my rough draft for my paper was due tonight, so the only writing I've been doing is for that. I'm finished now and Monday is a light day at work, so check back Monday afternoon sometime and at the very least, day 2 should be up and ready for your reading discomfort.