A Month.

it’s been a month now and no tragedies to speak of. Of course I am discounting the little tremors and aftershocks of the heart, but those aren’t leveling any tangible cities and my unnatural disasters aren’t quite making the 10 o’clock news.

There have been some good things lately. In the wake of this year I’m going to skip over the pummeling and just bring some sunshine for a change. I’m moving away, but I’ll save that bit for the end. I’ve been trying my hand at some design work lately. And I bought some new motorcycle helmets.

To Protect Heads.

Check this one.

A few weeks ago, I got a chance to finally see my friend Dave’s house in Scottsdale. It was a drive, but it’s a beautiful place and he has the greatest phone ever. Problem is, it only dials the Corleone’s house.

I think Melinda missed her calling.

Last weekend I got to see a friend of mine that I have been neglecting.

I jumped in the car after a rousing game of Sloshball and drove for Californ-eye-ay. For those of you who neglected to attend the Cypress Challenge, you missed a rousing fight and lots of beer. A sandwich in my stomach and several hundred miles behind me, I retired to the passenger seat to let my copilot Justin drive the rest of the way. Sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. the A/C decided to stop working. This will come into play later.

Through Justin’s unshakable path-finding skills and a little help from Google we dauntlessly sailed the concrete seas of Los Angeles; a place that, try as I might, I will always associate with one lost little girl. She followed me around that weekend. made it a little hard to see straight, but Nina’s company was made all the more enjoyable by comparison. No mean feat as Nina is the last truly benevolent person within a hundred miles of Los Angeles. Consider that this includes many millions of people and you start to get an idea of her greatness.

We pulled Nina out of be a little after midnight on Saturday night and stayed up chatting until about 2 at which point everyone was a little ruined. Nina has been in the process of moving back to Chicago for about 6 months and in doing so has sold much of her furniture and packed many of her belongings, so the beautifully decorated and furnished condo that I remember has a few less frills and less places to sit and sleep. Justin gets the floor and Nina and I crash in her room while her… roommate(?)… sleeps on the couch.

Nina and I spend whispered moments exhaling details and inhaling each others fears and hopes surrounding this year of our lives. We giggle a little about the past and cry a little too. Eventually sleep takes me after I hear Nina’s breathing settle into a rhythm that assures me that she is no longer available for conversation at this hour.

We woke up the next morning to the upstairs Armenians trying to eliminate their pest problem with hammers. Well, Nina woke up. I slept in a little longer. Coffee and California sunshine for breakfast. Now the secondary purpose of the trip, to buy suits. Nina has a fantastic idea to make a video montage of Justin and I trying on all these suits and modeling and such. Sadly, we did not do that. After a couple different stores, we both finally found a suit that fit our budgets and our tastes. Wound up buying them from the Armenian Mafia. No kidding.

Anyways…

This past weekend I got the rare opportunity to meet a singular source of sunshine in my life for the last 4 years. Joanne, the Black Berries girl, is my unsung cheerleader. This woman has more positive energy than the rest of the people i know combined. Everyone should have a friend like this, but most people don’t deserve it. As an added bonus, Ryan (The Rock), is with her and I finally get to meet the husband she is so crazy about. 10 years, 5 kids, and they are still rocking.

True to form, Joanne has organized a crazy day. Skydiving, race car driving, and sword fights. In Vegas. As you are reading this, you can assume that I survived and have at least retained partial use of my extremities.

We got to jump from 15,000 feet on Saturday morning. Prior to jumping I met a lady in a red formal dress, a guy in a kilt, a man with no neck, and the lost member of ZZ Top. If anyone was more excited about jumping, then it was Joanne. at least until we got in the air. then I started getting more excited the higher we got. This exchange of roles culminated in Joanne falling out of the plane after saying this on camera.

Instructor: Are you ready to go?

Joanne: Nononononononono AAAAAAAaaaaaahhhh….

Priceless. We landed safely and I chatted with Ryan for a while about my car and it’s picky transmission. He informed me it drives just like alot of the big trucks he works with and near identical to performance race cars like lamborghini, etc where the transmissions eschew synchros. And here i thought my car was just being bitchy.

Off we go to the race track.

For an hour or so we watched, farrari’s, lamborghinis, lotus, and all manner of amazing cars fly around the road course outside of Parumph, NV. Parumph is best known as the home for the famed Chicken Ranch, but more recently has had a fantastic racing club take root and really brighten the area up.

After watching the races for a while, a friend of a friend, Orin, parks and asks if I want to go for a ride. We flew around this track well in excess of 120 mph, even through 300 degree turns. I haven’t heard of shit like this outside of Gran Turismo. This was the most amazing driving experience I have ever had.

The swordfight thing at the excalibur was fun, but I was dog tired by that point. Afterwards i dumped everyone off at the hotel and went to the couples place I was couchsurfing at for the night ( Thank You, Freedmans!) and chatted until i fell asleep.

Now, I’m back in Phoenix and packing and exorcising the demons. Finally getting rid of the Jetta this week. This has been a long time coming. The end of an era one might say. I’m so assited!!!