omaha: a small world after all

the last time i saw dean, it must have been deep in the a.m. while we were ending the night with some kebabs. he and this kid dean kept doing handstands out in the middle of budapest and kept taking turns carrying each other across the empty streets. i had met dean while i was staying at the 'suite' hostel in budapest, which is one of the best hostels i've ever stayed in. i had just recently gotten off a train from brasov, romania-also known as transylvania- and all i wanted to do is take a warm shower and find a bed. but something about the mix of people in that hostel had me finding my bed later than what i expected. i met two megan's, a caroline, and one kim.

well, long story short, dean fell for one of the megans and two years later, dean and megan are living together in omaha! it was funny seeing dean without his mullet and black eye. he picked me up from my hotel and we headed to this place called 'old chicago'. after a few wrong turns driving into the opposite side of the street, we were there. we had some beers and this interesting thai pizza. megan's brother, andy, who works there hooked it up big time. later, andy took us to this place called 'jays' it was cool spot with pool and billiards. typical midwest bar i guess, where all of the creighton college students hung.

i felt so old, dean felt the same way but it was all good, we caught up and had a great time. dean didn't bust any handstands that night, but we're hanging out again tonight. i'm pretty sure it'll come back.

crisis of the day: blue or grey?

just another relapse.

the day before my birthday was supposed to mark the last day of being an intern for this music magazine called filter.  during the last minutes of my long day running errands and shipping boxes, i was offered a contract position assisting with promotional tours that the magazine sponsored across the united states. the up-coming tour would be 2 weeks long and would have me driving from los angeles to nashville, nashville to omaha, and finally omaha to salt lake city.
and ever since then, in order to offset the 2 weeks that i'll be away, i've picked up about 80 extra hours at my job with virgin america.
i am exhausted.

july has been a blur. it's consisted of 16-hour back to back shifts, sleeping inside the back of a honda coupe, 5 hours of sleep, coffee, and strange eating habits. why am i doing this? i still don't have a definitive answer but i think it mostly stems from my fear of boredom.
and boredom is exactly what i am trying to avoid.

boredom truly is the devil and i definitely do not need idle hands. because when i do get idly, i begin to relapse; the memories which i've buried start to become alive. buried deep enough where my eyes can't see though shallow enough where my ears are still keen. this morning i definitely keened into a memory from the last seven years and it wasn't fun. it also wasn't pretty, but like the sting of a fat mosquito, it felt great scratching it.

well, i got an iPad

during the course of these next few sentences and those from the batch before, something phenomenal has entered my life. no, it's not a girl, and no it's not a dude. romance cloaked in the form of a sheek metallic 9.50 x 7.31 inch bundle has broken the walls of my cold heart. yes, the iPad and i are now official. for a moment there 2011 was looking bleak. but not so, i mean i did get the chance to travel quite extensively so i can't really complain...still, something was missing.
it was during one of these travels, while trying to find comfort inside a boeing 747, that my life changed. a young man seated an isle seat in front of me reached into his backpack and pulled out his iPad.
at first, the shiny looking thing didn't interest me much, so i dozed off. when i woke, the dude had himself another shiny looking thing on his tray table. it wasn't until a few minutes that i realized he was holding the exact same iPad.
plopped open was the iPad laying panoramically on this keyboard that acted as the mount; i could not contain myself. so much so that my arm jerked outwardly towards the dude with the pad. he quickly turned and out spewed my questions about the device. a few weeks went by.
i thought i could shake it off, but i couldn't. at work, on the streets, in my dreams, it was there; taunting me.
well, i finally got one. and it's great. we traveled for the first time last week to boston and we had a great time. i also had a good time with my friends, andy and joe. hopefully i'll be writing a bit more with this thing; i go on these dryspells and i do not like it.

i also just realized my complete disregard for cuba from the last post...umm i'm sorry. i will say this; cuba is a place for those who are looking to be surprised. and surprise is truly around each corner. from the kids playing in the middle of the streets, to the immigration officers interogating your origins, to that floating bottle of rum being offered to you by a smiling cuban on the beach, the island of cuba is for those who have no inhibitions about politics, race, and religion. all of that goes out the window when you land