Archive for the 'Travel, trips, and such' Category

So last year we had Operation Fuddy Dutty to get Rob back to Tech, and out of his Fuddy Dutty ways for the weekend, and that was a small task compared to what we had to undergo this year. Vivek got married, and as the best man I was in charge of planning a bachelor party of epic proportion. A bachelor party that would be up to Viv’s standards, and a bachelor party that we will talk about for years to come. The Bachelor party to kick all the other bachelor parties in the stones.

My first challenge was the he wanted a trip bachelor party like we did for Blake. He didn’t want just a night out on the town, food, drink, half naked girls and one dollar bills…. He wanted to spend a few days somewhere with the boys and have a good time, but we had some constraints to work with concerning $$$$ since Blake and I just bought homes, John moved to Grand Cayman to work and live, and in general the group was low on cash. We ended up going with Grand Cayman for a few reasons. First of all John lived down there so we could crash with him and save big bucks. Also several of us were able to call in some favors and get free flights (yay air miles!!!). We even got Viv’s ticket covered for free (thanks Dad!). Thus we could get several of us down there at low cost, including Viv, and just have to come up with come $$$ for the time we were there. The next challenge was me just wanting to be evil. Those of you who know Viv, know he is a control freak. He likes to get things his way and likes to be in charge. So I thought it would be fun to not let him know where we were going until the last possible second. Now, understand this isn’t easy with his personality, or with anyone concerning an international trip. But we were successfully, and he did not know our final destination until the final leg of our flight. When we left Miami for Cayman, he got onto the plane thinking we were going to San Salvador, El Salvador; he did not realize where we were going until we were over the middle of the ocean half way to Cayman. Lucky for us, he totally took the bait on a faint I planned when we landed in Miami and was trying to figure out if we had security set up for our stay in El Salvidor (score one for the home team!). I could write all the things we did to keep him from knowing where he was going…but that might make this post a little too long.

Cayman was pretty fantastic!!!! John’s apartment (read extended stay motel) was right on the water. When I say right on the water, I mean it was probably 30-40 yards to the water, and 10-20 yards to the beach. BEAUTIFUL view, with a huge patio. We had a great time while we were down there. We spent a lot of time snorkeling and in the water, a lot of time drinking, a lot of time hanging out, and just had fun in general. One of the highlights for me was the fishing trip we took early on Ryan’s last day. We went out to the reef to do some fishing and swimming. The water is so crystal clear, and it was so beautiful out there. I think Viv really enjoyed that as well. In fact I think we all did (Fu@kn’ Rob!!!).

We got to meet some crazy cats who work down there from all over the world! I tried to hook John up with a few locals by being a good wingman, but we were not successful. I learned that most Canadians don’t get John’s or humor and just htink he’s an ass. But, if you look at the pics in the gallery, there is one Canadian I caught sharing a moment with John hint hint and she’s hot and got his humor. As of last check, he still doesn’t have her number. Sigh…what am I going to do with you John! And last but not least, I got to have a margarita at Margaritaville. As a mild parrot-head, that was pretty cool.

Good times were had by all! I think it was a great trip we will all remember when we are old men smoking cigars reminiscing on the good old days.

Port A 2006
Ahhhh sweet success. I guess we can say that the fall Port A skydivers trip has been officially revitalized. I look forward to our Port A trip every year, but over the past few years the trip has been slowly been losing participants and it’s origional flare. But this year….this year we put some gasoline on the forest fire and got things going again. I didn’t make it to the first Port A, but my understanding is that it was a 4 day weekend trip over Labor Day weekend to Port Aransas with about 15 or so skydivers renting a beach house. We soon learned that the prices for beach houses go down about %60 if you wait until after Labor day, and since then have been going down at the end of September. I think this is the 7th or 8th anual trip.

What better to do when you have 7 hours to kill in the back of a car heading home from vacation. Port Aransas, Skydives Vacation 2006 has come to a fantastic conclusion. I’ll try not to get bogged down with too many details and just hit some of the highlights (that almost never really happens, but I like to say it anyway…makes me feel better). The big overriding highlight is the fact that it really revitalized the traditional trip and got a lot of the old school players back into the game. The other really cool thing was how many people ended up coming at the last second, and those who traveled from across the country to make it down to the beach with us. The group of people who make it to the trip has always been the key factor in the trip, and this trip was epic in that regard. As a quick aside, next year I hope to have it even more epic with more people and back to a full week down there.

The week went quickly, but also as smoothly as could be hoped for. We consumed more food and more booze than should be humanly possible. One of the things I noticed is that our power drinking skills seem to be more honed and refined now. There were not many hangovers and I don’t think anyone had to sit out a day. I never remember so much Gatoraid and water being consumed to help prolong the drinking and stave off the ill effects of our game. Everybody was ready for their 9 a.m. Ke Ke and OJ, and the games were going in earnest by noon every day.

One of the first highlights and memories I’ll keep with me was just after we showed up on the island. Nikki and I made a trip to the store and ran down to the beach while we were waiting on everyone else to make it down and get checked into the house. We bought a six pack of 16ozers but soon realized we didn’t have a cooler… It’s a party foul to let your beer get warm at the beach, so before lunch, we made sure to dispose of the beers before they got warm.

During the rest of our trip we went to the beach a few times to swim. Marcus jinxed himself one night by saying that he’d never seen any stinging jellyfish in Port A. One decided to introduce himself to Marcus the next day while he was swimming by wraping around his neck. The water was warm, and the weather was pretty fantastic. This time of year weather is always hit or miss (hence the %65 price reduction on renting beach houses). We were very fortunate this year in that regard; last year we were evacuated half way into our trip because of Hurricane Rita, and in several years we have had cold or raining days. We made it to a few of the bars and restaurants in town, some of the group had great success fishing (pics to come I hope). We danced and listened to good music. The last night dancing usually meant making sure that Ron didn’t fall over, but it was dancing none the less!

That night, and our last night of the trip were also pretty amazing. Ron brought one if his big fire caldrons and tons of wood down to the beach. There is something about being out on the beach at night with your friends that is hard to explain. Just being out there under the stars, with the warm sea breeze and blazing fire creates an atmosphere that is hard to beat. The first night we went out to the beach was during the week so we were totally alone out there on our; it really seemed like we had a private beach. Times like those are the moments that you can’t plan into a vacation, but in themselves make the trip worth while.

Jesus did smile down on me the second night we were out there. I should have filleted my foot into about 1000 scraps of meat, but walked out pretty unscathed. The only way for me to get where I needed to go was by walking between the two Harleys that were parked about 3 feet apart. Between the bikes was a cooler that I had to step over in such a way that once I made the big step, all of my weight was going to be on my front foot. Well, in the dark I wasn’t able to see the empty beer bottle that someone left next to the tire of Dane’s bike. I stepped on it bare footed about as squarely as you could. I didn’t break it into a few pieces, I shattered that thing into about 200 schards directly under my bare foot.. When I swept my hand across the bottom of my foot to check for damage, about 6 big pieces of glass fell to the floor. Not good. I ended up with a hand full of blood. After I washed it off, all I was able to find was one very small puncture wound and the bleeding stopped.. Maybe someone upstairs knew I still had more partying to do that night, but I defiantly got out lucky.

What a great trip it turned out to be. We revitalized the Port A trip and got a great group of old friends together to chill out and enjoy 4 days on the beach. I’m pretty sure it’s say to say that everyone had a great time.