One of the biggest stumbling blocks for me when times get busy and my backlog of mental posts starts to outweigh my actual posts is the need I feel to play catch-up of past events before posting about new events. Avoiding this hindrance is something I’m still working on. To be brief, during the past month-or-so I’ve not had any opportunity to make posts during work (the obvious time for them to be made) since:
1. We had our lease wide Reliability Audit at the beginning of October (to which the previous post referred to), which kept me very busy.
2. I spent two weeks working with our mechanics out in the oil fields, learning how the machines work and how they are torn apart and rebuilt.
3. I spent a few days in town doing job training which consisted of watching films and playing games (just like class used to be).
I’m finally back in the office and back for more postings. I had a fun weekend this past….well, weekend. I went back to the old stomping grounds in LA to visit some friends. I went out Friday night to go swing dancing with Natalie and Jessica and others. Sadly, my attempt to coerce any members from the USC Dance Club only drew 2 guys. But the night was fun anyway, and I realized just how out-of-shape I am to keep up with the dances. Granted the band was a Dixieland group that played fast songs that seemingly went on for forever. We all had a good time, except for moments the creepy guys were on the prowl, where I ended up trying to protect 4 girls.
The next night I saw myself back in my old apartment with my old roommate and someone else in my stead. It’s a very weird feeling to be back in a place you’ve lived before and everything is the same but different. The setup was near exact from the bedroom to even the organization of the cupboards in the kitchen, and yet it felt weird because none of my stuff was there and things just felt like they were missing.
Like I said, I met up with Nate that night and after driving to Hollywood to check out a jazz club, finding no parking and eventually no jazz, we found our way towards the Yardhouse in Pasadena. Those of you with
good memories might recall that this was where I celebrated my 21st birthday with my family. So Nate and I each ordered a half-yard (I got the Gosser dark again, which after drinking beer for over a year now I can appreciate how smooth and delicious it is). You people with good memories also might recall that when Nate and I get together to drink we often dare each other to keep drinking, so with one half-yard down I offered the challenge to Nate that I would drink another half-yard if he did.
And so we set about looking for our second beer from the menu. This time we had narrowed down the choices to two based off name. One was called something like “Arrogant Bastard” and after inquiring about it to the bartender, he told us that because of its potency, they are not allowed to serve half-yards of that beer. This intrigued us, but wanting the half-yard, we moved on to our second choice (the name escapes me) and continued in our night of debauchery. In case you were wondering, a yard of beer (our 2 half-yards) comes out to about 64 oz. You math majors know that’s 4 pints of beer or half a gallon each. Putting it into that perspective makes me think of the milk gallons at the grocery store and seeing those full of beer for people to drink. Could you imagine buying something like that at the grocery store for your family? The thought both intrigues me and sickens me.
Anyway, by the time we got back Nate wanted to make cookies and so we each ate like 4 cookies in a bowl of ice-cream (mind you that at the Yardhouse we both split an appetizer, all this after having a full dinner too). The plan was to wake up early the next day to go to The Pantry for breakfast, but as it turned out neither of us was in the mood to do much eating the next morning. As I was leaving the apartment for home I ran into 2 MEs I graduated with randomly off campus. It’s weird how sometimes things felt like they never changed. The whole weekend felt like I was going back home and felt like everything was the same.
Of course, I’m writing a web post when I should be working so perhaps nothing really did change.
