My Summer Vacation

Back.

I'm not going to waste time with the usual litany of excuses this time, either. Let's just move forward and get straight to recapping the latter half of summer, shall we?

It seems like I spent said summer alternating between a fairly rigorous work schedule and a thrilling-but-tiring travel schedule. Time has flown by, the football season is here, and fall is in full swing.

And with that, as usual, its time to play catch up here at the Lord of the Funboys.


There are several trips to work through, all of which deserve their own monster post. My laxness, however, has prevented anything like that from happening. So I've decided to just riff a little, do a basic outline of the various trips, expand here and there where I may, provide a few photo links, and just see what happens. Gwen's blog will have most of the details anyway, should anyone reading this find themselves curious.

Anyway - let's do this.


San Diego




Time Frame: Early August

Synopsis: Gwen and I spent 6 days in sunny so-cal hanging with my peeps. The purpose of the trip was two-fold. One was to show Gwen the town of San Diego itself, a place she had never been to. The second reason was our fantasy football draft, which occurs annually as part of the famed Best Day Ever (Tm), which itself is a part of Best Weekend Ever (Tm), a yearly festival of my friends. (And yes, it IS that important to travel to a 9-hour difference time zone for a mere six days to do a fantasy football draft. Next question.)

Highlights:

-San Diego

It rocks. I love it, I love going back, and I'd really like to live there again someday (just under two years anyone?). Seeing my friends there pushes me to a near-euphoric state just about every time. When I'm there I laugh more than anywhere else. I'm constantly smiling. The group dynamic is spectacular and we have fun doing just about anything. I love it every time. What else can I say? I feel like I'm never in a bad mood there - as long as bowling isn't involved.


-Best Day Ever 2007 (Tm).

Picture this: You wake up one morning to perfect southern California weather. First on the agenda, a drive to La Jolla and a pick up football game on the beach with 7 of your closest friends. You go out, start tossing the football around, pretend to stretch, and make about 4000 jokes about being old and getting hurt while smiling the whole time. You pick teams and start playing a game of beach football on a perfect day. Plays are drawn up on people's chests in makeshift huddles, passes are caught and dropped, people fall and giggle, occasionally someone scores - everyone has a blast.

By the end somebody wins though you don't remember who (actually it was Norm, Eryn, half of Justin and I this year - schooled 'em). There's a group photo afterwards where all the smiles are about as genuine as it gets. Next up you head back to a sick house in La Jolla (thanks Norm/Teri connection!) and hose down, jump in the pool, hang out, and then start the BBQ process. The boys' respective ladies and kids arrive and you start barbecuing food and hanging out by the pool and the beach. You grab your first beer. People start making comments about fantasy football. Various GM's start talking trades and holdovers while chowing down on dogs and burgers as anticipation for the upcoming football season builds. Some people start running around with a camera and pictures are taken commemorating the day.

Then its time to get serious. You hunker down with the various fantasy football research materials you've assembled and take one more quick glance through. The women are shooed elsewhere for a time and have a sewing circle or who knows what - it doesn't matter because its Man Time now. A giant draft board is drawn up. The trade talks heat up as people toy with their holdover options. The league rules are discussed and modified as needed and then finally the holdovers are announced and the the draft is ready to go.

And then it starts - a live fantasy football draft, one of the top 10 funnest things to do - in life - period. Slowly (very slowly when Iwan or Little Buhr is picking) the board fills up with players and the rosters for the year start to be set. Some peoples' picks are stolen, some envied, others chastised, and then a few hours later Mr. Irrelevant is drafted and the whole thing is over.

By now its gotten late and some dinner is arranged. There is more hot tub and pool time and a lot of post-draft commentary. After dinner its time to head out and begin the final phase of Best Day Ever 2007 - video game night. Waiting at a buddy's house is an old school Nintendo 64 and an even older school Super Nintendo. You fire up a bunch of 4-player games that ruled the day 10 years ago and have a blast. There's the perennial all-time pantheon game - NHL '94, along with Mario Kart and a WWF-style Wrassling game on the N64 that suck up the rest of the night. The games start and then the laughs start. Goals are scored, racers are out-distanced, and various home-erotic looking 'wrasslers' are pinned and taunted.

At some point later, someone realizes how late it is and then its done. You settle back into bed that night, realizing how awesome the day you just had was. You're fired up you're in San Diego, hanging with your friends. You lie in bed knowing you just had a kick-ass day and just before you fall sleep, you grin and realize you're already looking forward to next year.


-Catching up with Zemsky (Sushi, Sarcasm, and a 6-year old Ninja)

-San Diego Zoo (Hey, it's world famous. And two words: Zebra Penis)




San Diego Pics:

Photo Link 1: Norm's Photos (Have to scroll down to Aug 4th, 2007, Draft Day entry)

Photo Link 2: Eryn's Photos

Photo Link 3: Our Photos

Photo Link 4: Adam's Photos




Croatia (mid-August)

After spending four days sunning myself on the Adriatic in the land of Grand-Papa Stup, I must say that in my book Croatia is strongly vying for best destination - ever. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been, it retains its sense of the exotic (barely any Americans, Brits, or other native English speakers, though everyone manages to speak English) and mixes in a low-cost super unique vacation experience. Thousands of islands, perfect water temperature, brilliant scenery, and did I mention its the land of Stup?

One of my favorite parts about this trip was that my name had some sort of kingly association. I felt like I was C-3PO encountering the Ewoks every time I dropped it (which I did with reckless abandon I might add). People's faces would light up, and then they would extoll the virtues of some other Stuparich (yes, there are more than four in the world!) that they'd known. (Clearly my favorite running joke of the trip was saying something like, "We don't need to pay. I'm Stuparich," in the same sort of tone that Will Ferrell from Anchorman used to declare, "I'm... kind of a big deal.")

There was a general consensus among the Croatian commoners that the Stup namesake had much to do with the sea - there was a famous line of sea captains all named Stuparich - this was awesome to learn. (Later my dad told me that my own grandfather was being trained as a sea captain himself before World War II hit - more in a minute). Another guy told me of a "great artist" named Stuparich, which I found amusing and actually quite appropriate given my skill at doodling a profiled figure smoking a cigarette. Now I know where that comes from.

Even at dinner one night, we sat down and I dropped my name to the waiter in the village of Veli Losinj (which is THEE home village). The waiter looked taken aback and then mentioned "Hey, there's some old guy named Stuparich who takes his nightly walk down here just about every night." Well, that set our table abuzz. Maybe we were related! And not five minutes later, the waiter shows up at our table and looks out pointing, "It's him!". Then he runs over and corrals the guy, who's out for his evening walk, bringing him over to our table, and we introduce ourselves, exchange some pleasantries, and revel in the fact that we had the same name and form part of the island's most powerful family. It was awesome. I swear he even looked like my grandfather.

Speaking of my grandfather - a cool story. He was conscripted into Mussolini's Navy (famous sea captain in the making that he was) in the 1930's when Italy was huge and owned a lot of the Balkan region, including Croatia. Apparently Grand-Papa Stup wasn't cool with no Fascist Military Service, so he literally jumped ship off the coast of New York City, swam to shore, and started over. How cool is that? Take that Il Duce!

There was even a memorial Church built on a high bluff overlooking the Adriatic that was "in memory" of some Antonio Stuparich. I'm not sure who he was, only that he rocked and rocked hard and was probably some sort of great-great-etc-grandfather.

Anyway, the combination of a perfect place and the fact that such a sweet place was also an ancestral homeland was really cool to me. I'm definitely going back.

Croatia Pics


Paris (late August)




My buddy Marc "Fwats" rolled out to Paris on some business adventure for a long weekend, and I was able to get off the call schedule and roll out to meet him for a few nights.

Fwats and I go way back- to high school to be exact. He unfortunately missed out on our fantasy draft (and Best Day Ever) this year, so it was nice to get to see him another way.

I think of anyone I know, I have more private jokes and random quotes with Fwats than anyone else. This is a product of spending a lot of time together in high school, obsessing over science fiction and eighties movies, and watching way too much Mystery Science Theater 3000. As a result, we still rattle off the most inane quotes at the drop of hat like we were 15 all over again - in some ways we haven't changed at all.

Anyway, I got in late Friday night and hung with Fwats and some of his work peeps (including some real live Frenchies!) until the wee hours of the night at some outdoor bar. We must have been up until at least 3 in the morning, but to judge by the amount of people out and the overall "electricity" of the place, it kept feeling like 9 at night. The weather was perfect. Good times.

Paris is a great city. Sure, its fun to bash the French (and I'll do this at the drop of a hat, mind you), but I have to admit that Paris is one of only a handful of cities that has a palpable energy to it, like the city is alive in itself. Other cities in this category from my experience include basically New York and Tokyo, and maybe Berlin on a good day. Its just a huge energetic city and it rocks, in spite of its French-ness.

And we were actually treated well by the locals, none of the snobby attitude that I was expecting and maybe even hoping for a little (its all about the stories, people).

We cruised around on the Saturday, stopped for a few meals, and then I dragged Marc to a fantasy football draft at a Paris internet Cafe. (One of my four fantasy leagues this year - of which I'm currently a cumulative 5-11 in - ugh - more on this obsession in a later post).

Afterwards we had a kick-ass dinner at some no-name sidewalk bistro and just enjoyed each other's company and catching up. Wow that sounded a little romantic. OK, maybe it was a little. So sue us. After dinner we walked to Notre Dame and cruised further around the city, ending up by the river having drinks at some hopping bar.

Sunday morning Fwats went to the airport at the crack of dawn, and I drove back to Germany, and our little getaway was over.

But we'll always have Paris.




The Wine Road (France) (Early September)

Gwen and I took a two day, two night vacation into the wine country region of south-east France, relatively close to where we live. The trip feature good scenery, good food, beautiful countryside....and wine. It's mostly a white wine region, and we prefer reds, but we indulged nevertheless and it was a good time. Gwen has a good post about this trip, and I'll defer to her for the rest.

Photos

Seattle (Mid September)

I headed back to the Pacific Northwest for the first time since residency for about ten days. I went because work sent me; the reasons for this are long and boring, but the upside is that I got to head back to Madigan, catch up with old colleagues from work as well as old family and friends still in the area, and stuff my face full of more sushi, seafood, and Rosebud than you shake a stick at.

It was great to see people like John, Trish, Yanni, and others I hadn't seen in years. It was definitely interesting to stroll through the "halls of residency" once again, this time as a slightly more hardened staff character. Returning to the medicine residents' area (affectionately known as the sushi bar) was especially trippy, mostly because a suction cup Spider-Man I had originally brought to the place was still hanging on one of the windows.

I got to have a few dinners with John, an evening with Yanni and Trish, a different dinner with Nate and Charles, and also a nice rendezvous with my Northwest Family - my (second?) cousin Cynthia, her husband Mike, and their children Heidi (w/ husband Marcus and new baby), Justin, and of course, the notorious cousin Heath (good show!). It was definitely great to catch up with those guys, who always provided me a nice get-away-from-it-all refuge during the holidays and such in my residency days.

On the Saturday Eryn flew up and we hung for the weekend, tooling around town. Seattle is a great city, definitely top 5 on my list in the US. The food is the BEST (even better than New Orleans given my personal tastes), and the entire city is even better now because, unlike when I was living there, it's smoke free. This means that some of my old favorite bars, formerly tolerated despite a heavy smoke load, were now even more enjoyable.

I walked past my old apartment, which is now being sold as condo (along with every other unit in the building), and also cruised around the old neighborhood. I ended up walking around half the town again, which was cool and brought back good memories.

Eryn and I went out Saturday night, meeting Heath and some of his peeps. I ended up getting slammed on jack and cokes - more drunk than I'd been since New Year's in Berlin and I paid for it on Sunday morning. (Not sure what is about Eryn's presence - guy just drives me to drink I guess.)

My hangover, however, couldn't quell my enjoyment of watching NFL football in a sports bar at the appropriate time again - for the first time in over two years I might add. Despite the loss of all four of my fantasy teams AND my Giants that weekend (which is hard to do), I still enjoyed going to the old place I used to spend Sunday's, lounging around and just watching endless football.

(Note - I gave the camera a rest in Seattle - sorry no pics.)



And that's that. My summer. Last weekend Gwen and I headed to Dusseldorf and Amsterdam to meet up with her step-mom, but we're venturing clear into fall territory now, and I'll defer to her blog for the details. Anne Frank house was cool and sobering as expected. The lesson again is that Nazis are jerks. I'd like to spend some more time in Amsterdam again at some point.



And I think that's enough. Hopefully this post will jump-start this place a little. Once you do one post, its easy to come back for more. Until I fall behind....again.