25 Things I Learned In Puerto Rico

1. Nipple chafing as a result of boogey boarding is real.
2. There are no churros here. Or moose. This is Puerto Rico, not Mexico or Canada.
3. If you walk on the beach at night, you will get mugged. And you will die.
4. If you want to see old white people dance, go to The Ritz.
5. The only towel necessary for vacationing is a hand towel. For both the beach and the showers.
6. Mofongo, though incredibly delicious, is very difficult to replicate. Do not add a banana.
7. While watching fire dancers perform on the beach, look out for the man dressed as a clown, for he will try to get your money.
   
8. Just because a jazz music festival is over does not mean it is time to leave. Often, this is the best time to arrive, since you can stick your beers in the leftover ice dumped on the ground from the festival vendors.
9. Octopus pizza is not one of those pizzas that tastes better cold the next morning.
10. There are no other Chinese people in Puerto Rico.
11. While watching someone teach another how to boogey board, it looks like there is much crossover between boogey boarding and having sex. Except the nipple chafing part. Usually.
    
12. If there is no hot water and you are forced to take a cold shower, do not blast the air conditioner.
13. While leaning backwards in a kayak to avoid hitting your head on a low-hanging branch you deem dangerous, make sure you lean far enough back to avoid the branch below it as well.
14. When directing lost hikers back to their car, do not follow them once you have directed them to the road. You will walk 30 minutes in one direction, rather than 10 feet in the correct one.
15. Bioluminescent dinoflagellates will make you feel like Nicolas Cage.
16. If you urinate in a public restroom “urinal table,” make sure you stand outside of the splash zone when rinsing off the table of all residue.
17. All animals hate me and want to kill me, but jumping a fence seems to keep me safe from the deadly fangs of small dogs.
18. The restaurant’s name is “Lupi’s,” not “Lupis.”
    
19. If the sign says the historic landmark has 98 steps, it has 98 steps. Don’t bother spending the time counting them out for yourself or trying to convince other tourists that they counted wrong.
20. Catering to the American tradition, each hiking trail in the rainforest features a burger stand somewhere along the trail.
21. Eight years old is the correct age to board a party bus.
22. Any restaurant claiming to have the “best Chinese food in the area” probably shouldn’t be trusted.
23. If you give of the vibe of not having any money, you can ride the bus for free.
24. The smoke shop does NOT carry illegal substances and does NOT know where to get them.
25. The gift shop sells hard liquor in Capri Sun pouches.

Ten Things To Do During An Airport Layover

1. Try to find the cheapest, tastiest meal in the airport.
We all know that airports will charge you your first-born child and their older sibling if you want to acquire any foodstuffs during your travels, but sometimes it will be necessary and your children will have to be sacrificed. For the sake of your family tree, when this moment arrives, it is best to peruse the menus in search of the cheapest meal that will leave you full and with the most of your offspring intact. Was that condiment-less hot dog cheaper at the stand near gate 8 or the one near gate 37? When you are dealing with a layover, there is no such thing as opportunity cost.

2. Try to pick someone up.
What better place is there to pick someone up than at an airport? After all, everyone always wears their sexiest, most suggestive sweatpants to these things. It’s almost as if an airport is a breeding ground for successful first dates. The best way to go about this is to find a gate for a destination you would never want to go to and try to talk the person you are trying to pick up out of going to that destination. No one’s really at the airport to travel anyway. On another note, it’s always fun to run around and lift people in the air and then run away giggling.

3. Go to the bathroom.
This one is crucial. Let’s face it, the last thing anyone wants to do is poop 30,000 miles in the air. You never know who is listening in on you when you are shut up in that plane stall. Plus, pooping with turbulence is never a good idea to begin with. It’s best to take care of these bowel movements when you know which direction they will be dropping once they exit your body.

4. Make phone calls.
Unless you are Alec Baldwin and want to be escorted off of your flight, you should get all of your calls and Words With Friends addictions taken care of while on the ground. Plus, I, as an airport civilian, love to hear you telling your friends about the wild night you had yesterday, involving a staple gun, a historical re-enactment, and a pizza delivery guy. Airport phone calls are the fuel source for many an interesting blog post.

5. Steal something.
Every single person traveling through an airport probably has some sort of laptop, smartphone, or tablet. Think of all the money you could make by snagging these devices when they inevitably go to the bathroom before their flight. Oh, you want me to watch your bags while you relieve yourself? I’d love to. This is a perfectly sound business model. Just bring an empty suitcase with you to the airport and you are set. Let’s kickstarter this shit.

6. Buy a digital camera.
For some reason, these Best Buy Express vending machines have been popping up at airports around the world. I’m slightly skeptical that an airport will give me the best deal on a camera, but I guess there are enough photo-worthy moments in airports to justify this purchase. How else will you forever capture your memories of that baby spitting up all over the man in the suit, the elderly woman clipping her toenails, of the hoodlum boy stealing the Justin Bieber magazine at the bookstore?

7. Indulge yourself with airport sushi.
Don’t. Just. Don’t.

8. Get hammered.
You do this every time you end up in a confined space with a lot of strangers with music blaring in the background, so why limit yourself? It can be just as much fun going this in preparation for sitting in a confined space with a lot of strangers in pure silence. I think this is actually what airplanes are intended for, as every seat comes equipped with it’s own little barf bag. Don’t hold back!

9. Sit and stare.
I once had a nine-hour layover at an airport (don’t ask why) where I literally just sat in a chair and stared at nothing. I didn’t even fall asleep. I just sat and stared. Every few hours I switched seats, but the main concept remained the same. It is a surprisingly effective time suck if all else fails.

10. Write a blog post.
Bet ya didn’t see that one coming.

Weird Games I Used To Play As A Kid (Part 1)

Let’s face it. Kids’ imaginations are incredible. They find ways to entertain themselves with nothing more than free time and whatever happens to be around them at the time. Give a kid a pencil and a piece of paper and you’ve just booked the next few hours of their time.

Back when my sister and our friends were just wee little tots, I daresay we were these types of kids. When we weren’t watching TV or playing video games during out daily allotted “hour of electronics,” we had to do something, so we came up with weird games. Looking back, they were a little bit of genius, and I don’t think I could have ever come up with them as the 20-something I am today. Here are some of the weird games that we played during our messed-up childhood.

The Mail Game

The Mail Game was a game I played with my sister, my best friend, and his brother. Essentially, the premise of this game was that my best friend and I would be seated on one side of a barricade, while my sister and my friend’s brother were on the other side.  The only communication between both sides of the barricade was through a plastic toy mailbox wedged into the middle of the barricade.

While sitting on opposite sides of the barricade, each group would engage in some sort of “work,” which consisted of drawing new Mario Party maps or drawing pictures of new room additions to an imaginary restaurant/casino/movie theater/one-stop-shop for everything that we dreamed of creating in the future. We drew pictures of kitchens, lobbies, theaters, dance floors, swimming pools, and other rooms we would have featured in our massive communities. Ours also had a science lab for “testing,” whatever that meant to a kid. My friend and I named our establishment “Dots,” to which my sister and my friend’s brother responded by creating “Squares.” Being the competitive children that we were, we then had to create “Super Dots,” followed by “Super Duper Dots,” and finally “Super Duper Pooper Dots.” I don’t know why we thought “Pooper” was something that anyone would want in a restaurant name, but maybe we were just innovators of our time.

The mailbox component of the game came into play when we decided to send messages to each other, or in some cases, tests. My friend’s brother had this thing called a “Big Box Test,” and a “Little Box Test,” and to this day I do not know what the difference between the two was. I think each test was simply some kind of picture or question that we would respond with another random picture or word, and he would fill in a progress bar on the top of the test, giving us a score as a response.  We mostly spent The Mail Game creating new Dot’s rooms and Mario Party maps, though.

One thing that this game foreshadowed was my tyrant-like tendencies, as I monopolized our only fan to keep cool and our only tent to do my work in. I don’t know why I felt that the tent was the best place to get work done during the hot, sweltering summer, but it was mine and I would not give it up no matter how much my best friend begged. That fan and tent somehow made me the boss of our side of the barricade, and I made him do all of his work outside of the tent in the heat.

The Shopping Cart Game

This game was slightly more violent than The Mail Game, but what’s a childhood game without some violence? This game had to be played with a large group of people, and we ended up playing it in my friends’ basement. The Shopping Cart Game was basically the classic game of tag, but instead of running around and touching someone to make them “it,” you had to push around a plastic shopping cart and ram into them. The catch was that this game also involved a ball, which, if thrown into the shopping cart, would make whoever was pushing the cart around freeze for a few seconds, allowing everyone else to reposition themselves from shopping cart doom.

I don’t remember who came up with this game, but at least it gave us a good bit of exercise. I don’t think anybody ever got hurt playing this, but I’m sure we all foster a mild fear of plastic shopping carts since this game’s origins. This wasn’t a game we played very often, but there is a special place in my heart for ramming my friends with plastic shopping carts.

The Lantern Game

Now, this game was played almost every time we had a big get-together at my house. Again, this is a remake of tag, but had to be played in a small, confined room. Or any room at all, I suppose, as long as it was in a room.

This game had to be played in complete darkness, barring one green plastic lantern to light the room. The person who was “it” was in charge of the lantern, and could do whatever they liked with it, though I think the common consensus was that it had to be on for the majority of the time. Also, the person who was “it” had to have their eyes closed the entire game, while everyone trying to not get touched by “it” was able to have their eyes open.  Naturally, this meant that, unlike a game of tag, there was very little running done during The Lantern Game. The closed eyes meant that whoever was “it” had to rely on their sense of sound (or smell, I suppose) to locate where other people were in the room to tag. Being the nice kids we were, we also decided that if the person who was “it” was headed towards a wall, we would warn them before any impact was made, which also gave them a sense of where everyone in the room might be.

When I said that whatever was done with the lantern was up to the person who was “it,” I mean anything went. Sometimes, we would put the lantern down in the middle of the room and just walk around, trying to find someone to tag, but many other times it was a lot more interesting. I recall holding the lantern up to my face and making funny faces while walking around the room, which probably made me look like a fool, but also made it incredibly hard not to laugh for my victims if I were headed straight towards them. There’s something about a completely dark room and a mad man walking directly towards you with the only light that makes kids want to crack up. I think once someone put the lantern down in the middle of the room and started jumping around the room screaming “Michael Jackson! Jackson Michael!” over and over again, which also warranted small bits of laughter. Jokes were told, and conversations were had between “it” and the others, but it was still pretty darn hard to find someone to tag. Occasionally, someone would hold the lantern in one hand and swing it violently around the room, trying to hit someone. We stopped this when it crashed into the wall and made a slight dent.

The Popsicle Stick Game

When I was a kid, I was pretty into arts and crafts projects, and as a result, my mother bought a large bag of colored popsicle sticks to make things with. Needless to say, I may have made one Jewish star (I don’t know why) and maybe one reindeer head out of the sticks before a fun and dangerous game was invented.

The Popsicle Stick Game was your basic attack game. What I mean by this is that we probably had over 750 popsicle sticks, so we divided them equally between two teams (one consisting of my friend and I, while the other consisted of my sister and my friend’s brother). After splitting up the popsicle sticks, we made a line through the center of the room we were playing in, and declared that neither team would be able to cross the line onto the other team’s side. After doing this, we were given a few minutes to make a complete mess of our respective sides of the room, creating barricades and protection forts for the battle to come.

After both sides were set up, all hell broke loose. With about 375 popsicle sticks per side, we would immediately start chucking them as hard as we could at each other. There was no winner or loser of this game, though I suppose the winners just ended up being whoever got the least hurt throughout the attacks. If you don’t think popsicle sticks hurt, try bunching a few of them together in a handful and throwing them as hard as you can at another kid. That shit hurts. It’s amazing we didn’t put out any eyes, but at least we weren’t too crazy and we didn’t create something called The Sharp And Pointy Rock Game.

How To Have An Adventure

Start off without a plan.  Have a general idea about what you want to do, but plans are restrictive and constraining—better to just let the adventure unfold naturally once it begins.  Make sure your idea is specific enough that you know what you’re doing, but vague enough that no one else might.  Make it beautiful.

Tell everybody about it before you start.  This way, you can’t decide to forgo your adventure for something time-sucking, like Netflix or sleeping.  While both of these vices are amazing and necessary, they turn potential adventures into future regrets of idleness.  Make sure the world knows you are going to do something grand, and then actually do it.

Pack a bag.  Or pack a suitcase.  Or your pockets.  Make sure you pack something, at least, so you don’t end up walking aimlessly around your block and back into your apartment for Netflix and sleep.  I find that if you take the time to pack some stuff, you are about using that stuff to do…more stuff.  Adventures probably start with stuff.  Make sure your bag is durable enough to withstand whatever trials may be presented during your epic adventure, but also make sure you don’t care if you don’t bring any of it back.  Adventures sometimes make you sacrifice your stuff.

Follow Robert Frost into the forest.

Take a risk.  It’s not really an adventure if you’ve done it before, and risks tend to be adventures you’ve avoided in the past.  Do something out of the ordinary, and make it into a memory.  Make it into a story.  Make sure you’re not the person in the retirement home who can only tell stories that everyone else can as well.  Do something unique.

Spare no expense.  While you should be reasonable about the amount of money you spend, don’t miss out on some life-changing experience just because you don’t want to hand over a few extra pieces of paper.  You can always make more money later, and when you are on an adventure, sometimes opportunities arise that are rare and special.  Don’t miss them.  Don’t go on too many adventures that you go broke, either.

Travel to Mordor.  Enter the Matrix.  Ford the river.  Take a picture, make a memory, write a story.  Destroy the Deathstar.  Accept an offer you can’t refuse.  Click your red heels together to go home.  Do something you’ve always wanted to do just for the sake of doing it.  Go to White Castle.  Look for One-Eyed Willie’s treasure.  Steal the Declaration of Independence.  Do something that will make you proud.

Best Super Bowl Ever

I’ve seen many Super Bowls in my time, but this year’s was one of the greatest.  From the beginning rock, paper, scissors match to decide who would get first possession, I could tell the Falcons had this in the bag.  They came out skating strong, and their slapshots were flawless.  The 76ers didn’t stand a chance, even with their star pitcher, Allen Iverson on the mound.

The first half of the match, the Falcons were completely dominating, protecting their wickets when necessary while knocking over the 76ers’ wickets when the opportunities arose.  Which was a lot.  Did you even see Michael Jordon grab that snitch on his Nimbus 2000?  He certainly scored a few birdies and even an eagle, if I recall correctly.

The 76ers did not go goal-less in the first half, however.  Their defense and offense were lacking, but they managed to score a few goals as a result of a Falcons hand-ball penalty.  Thank God for that, too, or else the first half may have been incredibly boring to watch.  I don’t think I saw one gutter ball in that entire half.

Things really started to get interesting in the second half, however, after an amazing half-time performance by my favorite band, One Direction.  Those British kids really brought down the house, since the power went out in the Boston Garden for a while, postponing much of the 3^rd quarter for a little, and giving the 76ers a chance to rest up for an epic comeback.

Once the lights were back on, the 76ers rallied and got a few unanswered homeruns, bringing the game from a complete no-hitter all the way to a one-possession nail-biter.  Unfortunately for the 76ers, the Falcons were able to sink some clinch free throws in the last few minutes of the game, preventing the 76ers from getting a slam dunk in the last lap.

After the game was all done, the MVP award was given to Roger Clemens, though I really thought it should have gone to Tiger Woods.  He seems like a really solid guy.

Stages of Rain

It starts off with a soft pitter patter, drops falling slowly and gently on your skin as your strides start to quicken.  It’s not a big deal, just a few light drops.  You have an umbrella in your bag, but you decide to play chicken with Mother Nature and see how much she can dish out.  Your destination is still far away, but she hasn’t thrown anything at you yet that might make you even consider ducking away for shelter.  ‘Tis the calm before the storm.

The pitter patters slowly become heavier, with more volume per pit and pat.  Your jacket seems to be insulating your body well enough, though, and a hat on top of your head protects the rest of your exposed regions.  Is that the best you’ve got Mother Nature?  You’ve definitely felt worse before, and it doesn’t seem like a big deal.  You continue to walk towards your destination, unscathed.

But then it all starts to pick up.  The clouds’ tears are no long ignorable, soaking your hat and dampening your jacket.  Pits and pats are rapidly descending from the heavens, like bullets raining from the sky.  Guess I should probably take out that umbrella about now.  You reach into your bag and open your rain deterrent device, letting it act as a shield towards the skies.  You are not dry, but at least you are no longer getting wet.  Your destination is far, but you proceed with the utmost of confidence.

The bullets turn into streams, flowing freely towards the ground, towards your umbrella, and pouring off the edges.  This is getting pretty serious, I hope it doesn’t get too much worse.  The umbrella seems to be doing a good job of protecting you, as long as you don’t walk too fast.  Otherwise, the streams of water would trickle off the edge of your umbrella and head towards your body.  Slowly but surely, you walk with caution, hoping it doesn’t get worse.

The wind starts to blow more violently, sideways even.  You try to hold your umbrella at an angle to protect you from the violent snakes of water winding their way towards you, but their bite is hard and their venom courses through your clothes.  Is it even possible to stay dry in this type of weather?  Your umbrella breaks, leaving you helpless and wet.  You look at it in mourning and decide to leave it in the next trash can you happen to pass by.  Your jacket is water resistant, but not waterproof, and your hat has become a soggy mess.  You still have about 10 minutes to get home, so you start to run, hoping to preserve the tiny bit of dryness you still have going for you.

Running in a massive downpour, it seems, is not the best idea for staying dry.  The best course of action would be to be inside, but you are determined to make it home.  Running is making you tired, and you eventually decide to just walk at a steady pace, letting the rain take you over.  I’m completely soaked now, might as well embrace the water.  You stop caring about being wet and cold, oddly warming you up a bit.  You let the rain flow down your face, into your clothes, under your skin.  It begins to feel natural, like it would be the wrong thing to try to be dry.  You are one with the water, and it is a part of you.  The rest of your walk home is spent in complete bliss, enjoying every second of soaked goodness.  You have completely given yourself up to the rain.

You enter your apartment and immediately begin to feel like your skin doesn’t fit.  I wish I were back outside in the rain.  It doesn’t make any sense, but the lack of rain makes you long for the outdoors again.  You can’t sit on any of your furniture for fear of making your entire apartment wet.  Instead, you get into the tub and shower yourself with warm salvation, becoming one again with your greatest enemy and your newfound friend.

That Time I Stayed At The Office Until 11 PM

There are so many differences between you and me, but maybe those differences come with years.  You were a 40-year-old desktop engineer, and I was a technical writer, fresh out of college.  You worked at home most of the year because it helped you focus.  I worked at home sometimes so I could be more comfortable.  You took this job because you wanted a challenge.  I took this job because it paid the bills.  You stayed until you wanted to leave, and I left after my nine hours were up.  You loved your job, and I did mine.

Sometimes changes take time.  Sometimes they sort of creep into your life, slowly infiltrating whatever rut you happen to find yourself in, settling in a warm and comfy corner of your agenda.  But sometimes changes happen overnight.  Sometimes, you meet the right people at the right times, and something incredible happens.

You were a remote employee, working from the safety of your own home somewhere in Oklahoma, and I was a DC-based employee tired of the business-casual way of life.  I’d seen you around the office a few times, and I think you were hired a week or so after I joined the firm, but we’d never really talked much.  Our work never intersected, and I had no reason to reach out to a member of another team, especially if you weren’t in the office for most of the year.

But by some chance of fate, we shared a cubicle this week.

The last man to sit where you sat made a lasting impression.  Maybe it’s the spot, or maybe it’s the people we choose to hire, but that seat has yet to produce someone who hasn’t taught me some kind of lesson.

The week started off with a series of new assignments, like any other week.  On Monday, I did my job and left after 9 hours of work, like any other Monday.  You were there when I arrived and you were there when I left.  Jokingly, as I left, I told you to not work too hard, and to get back to your hotel to rest up for the next day of work.

On Tuesday, you were there when I arrived and you were there when I left.  That morning, you told me you had been in the office until 10 PM the night before, and I told you I had never heard of such a thing.  I left after 9 hours of work, and I told you not to work too hard.

On Wednesday, you were there when I arrived.  You told me you had worked until 9 PM the night before, and you gave me another heart attack.  I told you that on this particular Wednesday, you would not be there when I left.  I vowed to stay and work however late you happened to stay.

We ended up staying in the office until 11 PM that night, and I regret none of it.

At first, you thought I was joking—everyone thought I was joking.  You were known for your insanely high work ethic, and whenever you stayed late, you braved the empty office alone.  But when my 9 hours of work came and went, you began to see that I was serious.

Soon, the office was empty except for the two of us.

Throughout the evening, I made a point to make conversation, and got to know you a little better because of it.  You never graduated from college, which I found incredibly surprising given how brilliant you were.  In the 90s, you started your own computing company out your garage, convincing a major tech company to acquire you.  You learned everything you knew by reading on your own time, and your thirst for knowledge was limitless.  You moved your way through the ranks at the tech company, eventually creating one-of-a-kind software that made you invaluable.  And you left your old company to join ours because you wanted more challenge, more knowledge.  You were perpetually searching out the unknown, and it seemed you wouldn’t stop until you learned everything there was to know.  Your backstory alone was fit for an inspirational monologue, but that wasn’t all I got out of the night.

You were working on finding a fix to a problem that had been unsolvable for the past two days, and the focus you possessed was otherworldly.  I had never seen anyone come up with so many possible ways to solve a problem, persevering throughout the late hours of the night when each potential solution was met with failure.  I had never seen anyone start talking to themselves out loud whenever they were reasoning through why a solution failed and what the next steps they wanted to take would be.  I had never seen anyone insult themselves out loud when they became frustrated with their work, pumping themselves up for the next round of trial-and-error.  I had never seen anyone pace back and forth with such vigor, calling his boss in 30 minute increments to provide status updates.  I had never seen a boss so receptive to an employee calling at such odd hours of the night.

And I had never seen anyone display as much triumph after finally figuring out a solution that worked.

That time I stayed at the office until 11 PM with you, I learned a valuable lesson.  You get so much more out of a job if you look at it as more than a job.  If you invest more than simply the 9 hours you are required to work, the rewards are noticeable, and not just the monetary ones.  If you buy into the work you are doing, you get more of those triumphant feelings that you got at the end of the night.  You care about what you are doing, and you start to do it better.  Work stops becoming a chore and starts becoming something you enjoy.  If you are thirsty for knowledge and experience, you will drink the whole lake.

So I’m turning over a new leaf.  I’m staying late when I’m on a roll, and I’m not counting down the minutes until 9 hours of work have passed.  I’m starting to care about what I’m doing and take pride in the work I complete.  I’m taking on more responsibility and buying in.

And that’s why you should stay in the office until 11 PM sometime.