Weekend of Oct. 31, 2009
San Clemente, CA
One of the many advantages of being cool like me is that you don't get eaten by cannibals. Well... that, and the fact that Hogan and I were given the opportunity to live on an Aircraft Carrier for a week. Not many people get to do something like that, not unless you join the Navy at least. The carrier we would be staying on was the USS Truman, which would leave port from Norfolk, VA. So we literally got paid to drive down to LA, fly out to Virginia, and learn all we can about jet engines/engine testing/pilot maneuvers/whatever on an AIRCRAFT CARRIER, and then come back to resume our regular jobs at the base in California. I... am... ok with this.
We got our tickets for the east coast for Nov. 1, which means we had an extra day to spend. We decided to visit our friend Nick, also an EEDP with an assignment in CA. He lived in San Clemente, in Orange County, just south of LA. That's right. We spent Halloween in beautiful Orange County. I am jealous of my past self.
Perfect weather and 72 degrees? ALL the time? COME ON, BOSTON, AT LEAST TRY TO COMPETE
Hogan and I drove down after work Friday, had some In N' Out (obviously), and basically just went to bed once we got to Nick's place. Fairly uneventful, except that I think we watched a bunch of Always Sunny that night. Good times. The next morning we got up and strolled down to the beach. It was a perfect day and I was boogie boarding in the Pacific Ocean on Halloween. I honestly thought that I would die before I ever uttered such a phrase. But no. That is a real thing.
This is the first time I have ever built a sandcastle on Halloween. It is also the first time I had built a sandcastle since I was 12. (We ended up hurling rocks at it until it was destroyed, so no worries)
Then we got some lunch somewhere along the beach and drove around the Pacific Coast Highway for a bit, checking out Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, and some other gorgeous, quintessential Golden Coast locations. When we got back to Nick's place, it was time to get serious about Halloween. Deathly serious. For starters, we all bought fake mustaches. You KNOW we're serious when we start buying fake mustaches. We also had pizza. Not really part of the Halloween costume process, but it is still very important. But Nick went as... I'm not quite sure what, but it included a fake mustache and an unbuttoned shirt, so it counts. Hogan was Buster Bluthe from Arrested Development. And I was trying out my Greenman costume for the first time...
There was a lot of ridiculous Greenman dancing
I immediately noticed how difficult bathroom excursions were in this suit. Also, Hogan had to hold my wallet and shit because there are no pockets. ALSO, eating a burger is a messy endeavor. Even taking the hood down, my hands got all kinds of gross. But it was totally worth it. Greenman was the hit at the first bar we went to. In fact, I actually came in second place in a costume contest that I DIDN'T EVEN ENTER. There was a pub crawl costume contest going on, and the bar we happened to be at was the last segment. They were about to send the contestants around to be judged when the bar chanted for me to get into the contest as well. So hell yeah, I got up and started air punching and Greenman dancing all over the place. You know, really making a fool of myself. It was great. The judge said that the only reason I didn't come in first was because he would have felt bad giving it to someone who didn't pay to join the contest. So... I didn't win a surf board that night. But oh man, what a great night. I got fake arrested by a bunch of ladies wearing cop costumes and we had a pretty fantastic time at a few other bars.
Buster never had a mustache, but you can't blame Hogan for wanting to wear a fake mustache, now can you?!
The punchline of the story is that at some point during the night Hogan and I both turned our alarms off. Either that or we slept right through them. Luckily Nick woke us up in time for us to book it to LAX to catch our flights for the east coast. Oh man, that could have turned out poorly.
No comments:
Post a Comment