St. Louis

I'm going to go ahead and start off this post with my highlight of the trip. If you are a male in your mid to late 20s, you grew up on professional wrestling. Personally, I grew up idolizing (and I use this term incredibly loosely) guys like Hulk Hogan, Sting, Lex Luger, and Bill Goldberg. Now, a majority of these guys are washed-up losers who are either doing coke in a Denny's bathroom, trying to make a "comeback" in a high school gymnasium somewhere, or killing themselves/girlfriends/children/etc. That being said, I never really imagined I would be too excited to run into any of these guys somewhere. That couldn't be further from the truth on my flight to St. Louis (by way of Detroit).


As I was trying to find an overhead compartment to stow my carry-on, I saw the bummiest looking camouflage duffle bag taking up way too much space. I reached for it, tempted to toss it out the window, but I decided to be a nice guy and ask the gentleman seated below the overhead compartment if he would mind if I moved his bag. I looked down and saw the scariest man I've ever seen in my life. Nasty mustache, huge nose, the most defined jaw bone you've ever seen, and a throwback WWF hat. That's right, it was none other than Sargent Slaughter.

How the hell am I supposed to address a man who made a living literally slaughtering people? "Excuse me...Mr. Slaughter?" That doesn't sound right. So, I stumbled over my words and politely asked him if I could move his bag to make room for mine. Silence. He looked up at me and said, "That'll cost you $5." Epic. Sargent Slaughter just cracked a joke to me. Being the consummate funny guy that I am, I had to come back with something solid. Hmmm...make a wisecrack about that time he beat the Ultimate Warrior to win the heavyweight belt? Bust his chops and ask if he'd like to put me in the Cobra Clutch? Nah, I just responded, "Cool! I'll get you on the way out" and he cracked a half-hearted smile. The remainder of the flight was spent staring at him to make sure he didn't snap and threaten to wrestle me.

The picture to the left is a snapshot from my window seat of one of the wings on our plane. If you're anything like me, as soon as you board a plane you become an Inspector Gadget of airplane safety. As soon as I get settled, I'm taking mental notes of every passenger on the plane in the event that that the plane crashes and I'm the only survivor. I want to be able to recreate the landscape for the book and movie, of course. I also take it upon myself to let the flight crew know if anything appears off with the mechanics of the plane. Ya' know, if I see a screw missing or if one of the tires is flat. Something that anyone with eyes and a brain could do. That being said, what the hell is with this wing? It looks like something Doc Brown and Marty McFly threw together in a barn somewhere in the 80s. The least they could do is paint it for Christ's sake. Anyways, if you are reading this I guess the wing was good enough to get us to Detroit.

Speaking of Detroit, what a nice airport they have. I'm not going to make any sort of wisecracks regarding the irony in this since I'm from a city that is relentlessly poked fun of in the media, let's just say I was pleasantly surprised. A quality transit system, nice televisions everywhere, and a ton of restaurants. That being said, I'll need more than a sales pitch from Eminem to get me to venture outside of the airport into the city. Fortunately for me, my final destination was not the Motor City. Unfortunately for me, St. Louis wasn't anything to write home about...

I was only in St. Louis for 2 days but I feel like I got a good idea of everything the city has to offer. On one end of the city you have the football arena and on the other end you have the baseball stadium. Between that, you've got the Gateway Arch, a bunch of boring looking buildings, and countless Nelly look-alikes. The baseball stadium is phenomenal. From the street level, you can actually see into the stadium. After seeing the layout and the location of the stadium, I certainly understand why they say St. Louis is the best place to see a baseball game.

 

Don't let the picture above fool you, the gondola tour of the Gateway Arch was an utter disappointment. There was no tour involved whatsoever. You take a 3 minute ride to the top in a windowless pod (for Star Wars fan, I would liken this to the pod that Princess Leia escapes in in the The Empire Strikes Back), and you have about 6 tiny windows to enjoy the view once you get to the top. If you want a view of the city, buy a postcard--don't waste the $10 it costs to get to the top of the arch. Making the trip to the top a bit more disappointing was the fact that I dropped what I thought to be a hysterical joke (about watching a baseball game from the moon) that got crickets. I managed to salvage my comedic prowess on the way down:

(The gondola lands at the ground level, and I exit. Immediately outside of the gondolas is a fresh group of 30-35 tourists waiting to get on)

Lady: Wow!  looks like a time machine! (she is about 15 feet from me, and had no idea that I heard her comment)

Me: Hi! (reaching my hand out to her) I'm from the future.  Nice to meet you! (Place goes bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S)

I also took the time to check out a tour of the Anheuser Busch brewery. That was definitely worth the price of admission (free). I always wanted to shake the hand of the man who helped me lose my virginity, and this is the closest I'll come. I'm not a big fan of history museums or tours per say, but if you tell me I'm getting free beers at the end, I'm all in. The tour wraps up in a "hospitality room" where there are 2 bartenders standing next to taps literally waiting to serve you. You merely walk up to them, take your choice of the 8 or 10 draught beers they have (I chose Shock Top, which I hadn't even realized was an Anheuser Busch beer) and sit down. Supposedly they limit you to 2 beers, but I'm sure they've encountered many a meatball who came in there and tried to make an afternoon of it. On a related note, if my boss finds out that I was tipping back some suds on a Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. on a business trip, I may be terminated.


All in all, I enjoyed my time in St. Louis. The only reason I would go back to the city on my own dime is to attend a baseball game. Other than that, I believe I've seen all there is to the city. Don't get me wrong, if the St. Lunatics announce some sort of reunion show that takes place in the Gateway City, you know where to find me.



 

San Francisco

Before heading to San Fran, I had a layover in Denver. While our plane was getting ready to hit the Tarmac from Charlotte to Denver, they announced that the mechanics had to change one of our tires (After taking a peak out my window, I was able to see that our plane had 2 giant tires on each side--I'll get back to this). After waiting about 25 minutes for the crew to change our tire, I noticed one of the mechanics looking up at me. My guess is that he was the proverbial boner of the group and didn't have much to offer the team so he just stood there pretending to know what was going on.  As I prayed to the lord that the crew was competent enough to replace the tire, my mind began racing: What if, immediately after we took off, the crew realized that the tire they replaced wouldn't hold up for our landing (Per my previous note, this new tire represents 25% of our landing gear and 100% of my fate). What the hell would the airline do? Tell the pilot to land on water? Crash-landing in a field somewhere in Iowa? Risk landing with three tires? Once I got past the point of planning my own death and coming to terms with it, I realized how awesome of a movie it'd be. Con Air meets Snakes on a Plane meets Air Force One. I can already picture the most gripping scene in the movie right now: Samuel L. Jackson interrupts Nick Cage and Harrison Ford in the middle of a "how to save the most passengers" argument..."Im'a get these mother fuckers on the mother fuckin' ground!"

Needless to say, the plane landed without incident (sorry Michael Bay) and my layover in Denver was entirely uneventful. I landed in San Fran a few hours later...

I putzed around Berkeley for a couple days (and uhhh... did...."work") before venturing into the City by the Bay.  Berkeley is home to one of the bigger University of Cal campuses and least amount of parking spots per square mile. Highlight of Berkeley:

-I ate at an Italian restaurant on campus one night and they had the below "if you don't get laid after taking a girl here, you won't ever get laid" menu item: 

I'm wondering how many unplanned pregnancies and subsequent failed marriages stemmed from this Pandora's box of disaster.


After arriving in San Fran, I parked at Fisherman's Wharf and walked south into the city. Since I have absolutely no sense of direction, I decided to find a nearby landmark to use as a marker for where I parked. I made the mistake of using a bike shop that said "Bike tours to the Golden Gate Bridge" as my point of reference (a later Google search returned 78 hits for "Golden Gate bike tours").  Fifteen miles later, I made it back to my car. Highlights of my journey:

-While waiting at a crosswalk, a slight breeze came through the area. A woman looked at me with the universal "brrrr, it's cold" look (shoulders shrugged,  blowing into cupped hands) and said "boy, I feel bad for the homeless TONIGHT!" (with a firm emphasis on TONIGHT). Good point lady.  I was sold on the whole idea of homelessness until you mentioned the cold. 

-A guy working the cable car tried to convince a 12 year old Chinese girl that he was a better basketball player than Michael Jordan. His exact line? Well, if you go into the "archives", you'll see he was always "gliding at the top of the key". Listen, pal. This girl (and the rest of the cable car, for that matter) cares about your basketball skills about as much as Charlie Sheen cares about doing coke with someone other than a porn star and/or hooker.

-I saw a rainbow. What does it mean?

-I got insanely lost in San Francisco.  This was actually part of the plan--I wanted to see as much of the city as possible, and wandering around with no idea as to where I was or where I was going seemed like the best idea.  Needless to say, I had plenty of time to...well...just watch the below video and you'll have an idea of exactly how much time I had on my hands.

All in all, I liked San Fran a lot. Not sure I could make it out there given the high cost of living, number of steep hills to walk within the city, and the overwhelming number of hippies, but it's a great place to visit. Also, say what you will about the whole "East Coast Bias" when it comes to the time of the day events occur, but I've got no problem watching college football starting at 9 a.m. on Saturdays, having my Sunday night NFL game wrap up before 9 p.m. and watching daily NBA match-ups starting at 4 p.m.