Still Here

Hey everyone.  I didn't forget about the blog, again.  I'm still playing catch up from vacation and have been exhausted, but FEAR NOT, for I am back in the mix.  There is sooooo much to tell about the week we had out west and I wish I could do it in such a way that you could experience everything as we did.  My limited space on this site wont even allow me to post the video slide show I made, but since its free I can't really complain.  So here I sit, eating some horrid tasting frozen dinner, replaying the trip in my head trying to think of the special things that stuck out.

Well for starters we spent a grand total of 79 hours in the car, traveling almost 5,000 miles and passing through about 10 states.  Spent $650 on gas between 2 people and killed about a million-million and a half bugs with the front end of my car.  And some of those bastards were big; every once in a while it was like my windshield was shot with a paintball gun.  These things would explode into all sorts of colors and pieces would trail up the windshield until they flew off the car.  My car packed on about 10 pounds of insect guts over the trip. Enough about bugs, lets get to the fun stuff.

DAY 1
Other than the quick entry I did on my tablet prior to this one Day 1 was full of driving, getting gas, sleeping for twenty minute intervals, more driving, eating greasy shit food, using disgusting rat infested bathrooms, coffee, and we listened to the Howard Stern show for most of the trip because laughing our asses off helped keep us awake driving through about a thousand miles of straight roads and fields, and fields, and fucking fields.  Once we got past Chicago and the Amish flash mob, that's what we go to look at until we crossed into Colorado.

Colorado is two hours behind us here in New York, and we pulled into Denver at 11:30 Mountain time (1:30 Eastern time for any one too lazy to do math).  We had driven the first length straight and we left at 5:00 Friday night and arriving 11:30 Saturday night, all math included we drove for about 32 hours.  So we looked and felt like shit.  We pull into the hotel that we called ahead and reserved when we got to the end of Nebraska and first thing I see is some skinny little shit in khaki shorts and a windbreaker screaming at the desk lady because he wanted to park in front and a car took up 2 spaces and he paid and blah blah blah.  He was gonna call the cops, because that's what cops want to deal with; some screaming entitled little whiny shit who's mad he had to park behind the hotel instead of in front.  Fuck that guy.  The woman said she'll take care of it and he stomped out into the parking lot, in the words of Rose Dewitt Bukater from Titanic, "wait for an absolution that would never come."  Because that clerk looked at me, I said "Asshole", she laughed and checked me in with a smile.  We parked our car and walked our bags in from the back of the hotel, where there were plenty of spaces, past the whiney bitchy creep kid still standing with his arms folded near the car parked in two spots.  I hope he found some justice...or got his ass kicked by someone.

We were both shot from the drive and not sleeping, so of course we changed and found the nearest bar and walked there.  It was the first of many breweries we would experience that week.  Being on no sleep and at such a high elevation we didn't figure that the two beers and two shots we would have would fuck us up so quick...but it did.  We ended up making our way back to the hotel after about an hour at the bar of talking to people and finding out what to do in Denver.  We got some good tips and places to check out and slept like fucking rocks.  The adventure was taking some serious form, and it finally hit us we were in Colorado!

   Just crossed the border into Colorado and filled up.  Notice the bugs the size of bats.

I Almost Called This "And So It Begins..."

So this is it, my first post in my first blog ever; and only after years of telling myself, "Yeah, I'm gonna make one of those."  This recent wave of "I think I'll start a blog today..." lasted about two weeks, not a record for procrastination by any means, but here it finally is.  The process began, as it almost has once or twice before, by sitting in front of my computer trying to overcome the mental anguish that is picking a cool and catchy title, the perfect font, the most eye pleasing layout, bells and whistles, and which Jing Tinglers, Flu Floopers, Who Hoovers and Blum Bloopers to use.  Then I saw the pattern starting over and I almost frustrated myself out of the whole thing...again.  Reminding myself this isn't supposed to be that hard, and before I got too obsessive with the little details, I decided to start writing before "I'll do it tomorrow" became the new title of some dream blog I write in my head while driving to work every day.  Reluctantly, I dragged my mouse up to the new post button, pushing back the feelings of "what if it's not exactly, perfectly, to a T" anxiety that began to subtly form in the back of my head (side note: I've read and re read this paragraph fifty goddamn times, from here on out I'm just going to type and not look back) and clicked.

I arrive at the writing screen thinking I'm finally going to start this thing and get sucker punched by one final question to throw off my blog writing zen: "Title of Post".  UUURRRGGGHHHHH, ok, fine, title of post.
Well, it's my first post, so lets start off with a clever intro title, something to get people interested, welcome them in a creative way.  And the words "And So It Begins..." manifest themselves in the type box and I'm thinking I'm a freaking genius.  At this point I decide I have earned myself a cup of coffee and get up to go get myself one.  From the time I stood to the time I sat back down to to begin (a grand total of about two minutes) I had developed a severe bruise from kicking myself in the ass.  "And So It Begins..."? Really Steve, that's your clever title?  Like every hipster, melodramatic asshole to ever write a blog didn't begin with something like that thinking they were oozing with originality and setting themselves up for the blog of the year award (my sincerest apologies if I just lumped you into such a category unjustly).  Stop it, you're better than that I tell myself, but now I gotta think of another title; or do I?  Some quotation marks and a self pat on the back later the title that resides atop this master work is born; full of cleverness and wit and awesomeness.  At least I think so, but please feel free to shoot me down in the comments section...if there is one...I really did minimal research about this blog thing.  I just know this site is free and wont spam the shit out of my inbox.

Now, what else?  I got my feet wet, I'm gonna ease myself into the water I guess.  No need to ramble just to fill space.  That's the great thing about blogs, isn't it?  There are virtually no constraints or expectations on what has to be entered into the void.  You can write what you want, when you want, how you want.  No grades, no requirements, and best of all no pressure.  I don't have to try to impress anyone or prove anyone's point, I can write what I'm thinking and if no one reads it, whoopty doo I still got to do it, and being an English major I feel like I just got out of prison.  A dark prison where life sentences equal never ending bibliographies that no one ever looks at, and your not even really sure how to use because MLA keeps changing the fucking format for some unknown reason.  Where getting assigned a 30 page research paper is like dropping the soap and your expected to pick it up with a smile.  Sure, prisons might have overall better food and living conditions than most dormitories, but I digress, and I think you get my point.  I'm outta creative Shawshank, wooooooo!!!

So to wrap up my first, aptly titled *pats self on back...twice this time*, blog post I just want to say I hope you at least enjoy reading the things I have to write.  For those of you who know me, you know the things that can come out of my mouth can be potentially cringe inducing and, in the very least, politically incorrect, but I'll try and keep it as contained as possible for as long as possible (notice I kept it PG-13 and only said fuck once, er...twice).  For those of you who found your way here randomly, I guess I hope you enjoyed yourself...?  Either way the flood gates are open and I'm gonna do my best to keep up with this thing and post a few times a week.

And look at that, my first post is done and the font style and layout didn't make a difference, the world didn't end.  This is almost like therapy, this is great and it came without ribbons! It came without tags!  It came without packages, boxes or bags!  Sorry about that I just wanted to finish up in an English major-y way of coming full circle with things by finishing off with another part of an earlier reference I used.  I don't really know if it worked I just hope it made sense I guess.  But hey, I'm not getting graded and it makes sense to me, kinda. And oh what the hell, just because I can, here's my bibliography:

Me, Myself, and I. My head because I'm a grown ass man. 
     1st. Wherever the hell I push post entry: My laptop, 
     2013. Print.