Time well wasted

Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Opener
Arizona is pretty sweet. It's my first trip to the SW of the country and I've got to say I like it. Weather is fantastic. People are fun. My first night I did my usual routine in a new city. Took some pictures around where I'm staying - this at my hotel.



I then proceeded to Village Inn for my conference-opening late night coffee and pie. Google maps once again let me down in their directions to the nearest Village Inn, it was actually a mere 1/2 mi from my hotel. I took a bus to northern Mesa before realizing this. However my bus ride was quite fun. I was the only person at first. Then entered Sam and Lily. They were obviously not acquainted. Lily sat the row behind me on the other side, noticed the hog on the back of my hat and started a conversation about AR (where her daughter lives). She is a nurse in Mesa, has lived here for most of her life and loves the weather.

At some point the driver of the bus jumped in and started talking, found out he's from Springfield, MO which is very close to where I grew up. He was a little scary. But very nice considering the bus was apparently on a different route than I thought due to construction of a light rail. He drove a block out of his way to get me closer to where I wanted to go (which still happened to be no where near where I actually wanted to go). I'd put Sam around my age.

I would have taken pictures of my new friends as I had my camera out but Sam is the kinda guy that is about the size where people start to stare. He was a very big guy. And I did not want to offend/embarrass him. Our conversation was short. He asked me if I knew a flower that started with a C that was red. Carnation came to mind, but I think they're pink. And then calla lily came to mind - I was only about 50% sure that was even a flower. This was right before I got off, so I told Sam my only ideas and wished him luck on his inquiry.

I walked 4 or 5 blocks to find no Village Inn. I started walking back to my hotel and was almost there when I found it (it was actually right across the street from where Sam and Lily got on but I was not paying attention). My waitress brought me an entire hobble of coffee, which meant one of three things, either:



a) I looked like I needed a cup of coffee like Kiera Knightly needs a sandwich
b) I look way too awesome to be coffee/pieing it on my own (spell check did not disagree with my spelling of pieing so I'm assuming there's an alternate definition, but I am referring to the eating of pie)
c) Bitch did not want to get me a refill

The pie was, as usual, fantastic.

I then went to the liquor store next door and grabbed a 4 pack of Dogfish Head IPA. According to Esquire it's the best IPA in America (according to it's own label). It's not that great.


Yesterday we had a meeting from 9:30-10:30am. The rest of the day was Ron and Brian's most excellent desert adventure. Here's a teaser. More (and better) to follow.
posted by Brian @ 10:40 PM  
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