boston pictures

Using a new program to upload the blog and pictures, so there arent any side comments. But I think Ive got it figured out for next time. Thanks for everything Catherine!!

boston triple

He said I think Ill go to Boston. That’s not how the song goes, but that is what I said. So after Bosnia again, I decided to hit up the old bean town again. I have a standing invite, so I took advantage once more.

Thursday

Why its good to be me? Why its good to be me you might ask is that Im Executive Platinum on American Airlines. That means I get unlimited domestic upgrades. Fly first class to Dallas and fly first class to Boston. Tucson to Dallas is pretty easy, no one really flys there. So getting that upgrade is pretty easy. When I checked in at the airport my upgrade in Dallas hadn’t cleared. She said 7 EPs requested, but I was at the top of list. W00t, sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. When I got to DFW I walked over to the desk. I was standing behind this lady who was irate about not getting an upgrade. Do you know who I am, do you know how much I fly, do you know Ive been EP since such and such date? Its nice to be reminded to never turn into a crappy stuck up white bitch. “Self, see that….yes…..dont ever become that….roger” I waited my turn and went up there and smile and said Im here for my upgrade. Certainly, Sir. Ahh, the power of patience and politeness. Itll get you far!!! The flight to Dallas is a little over 3 hours, so being up there is quite nice. They showed the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox. I could listen to George Clooney talk all day, maybe not act, but voice-over, sure. I guess Im 1% gayer for saying that now. Ahh well. They served us this awesome sandwich up in the bourgeoisie, I like. Got to Boston and picked up my luggage, but no Catherine. Waiting and waiting outside by the curb and no Catherine. Finally, I hear the quick step of flip flops pounding the pavement and BAM, Im hug tackled. Hey there you are, I was waiting inside, oooohhh. So were off. Driving through Boston, we pass Fenway and Catherine says take a good look cuz that’s probably the only time you will see it this trip. Okay I say. We get back to her place and I say whats up to her roommate Meredith. In the few weeks leading up to this trip I had told Catherine to expect the greatest gift of all time. Riiiiight, she says. It better not be you, because you aren’t all that. What could it be because you’ve already been to Bosnia 4 times? I don’t want anymore crap from there. I keep egging her on and on until I get to her place. Tell me tell me tell me Tell me tell me tell me Tell me tell me tell me Tell me tell me tell me Tell me tell me tell me Tell me tell me tell me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jeez okay! So I give her an Easter Card. WTF is this S?!!?!?!? Easy potty mouth. Open it already. Out slide two tickets to opening night, Red Sox v. Yankees. OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!! OMG!!!!

I know, I know, Im greatest gift giver in the world. I think she Facebooked that to the world. Then we had voka and chili, we keep it classy.

Friday

This was actually the day I was most looking forward to, I really don’t give a crap about baseball. I just like getting drunk at Fenway, but I always thought it would be cool to go to an opening day (or night in this case), plus I can check off the list of sporting events to do list, Yankees v. Red Sox. So back to Friday. We were going to New Hampshire, not that exciting you might say. no……………….NO. I have never been to New Hampshire, so since I plan to go to every place at least once, I was more than overjoyed to go to New Hampshire and see where Catherine and all of her K.Diddies went to school. It’s a very nice campus. It might even beat the architecture of UTEP. Its totally different, trees and growth and green as opposed to Juarez and Bhutan. It was neat to see a more traditional looking campus with fraternity and sorority houses and people doing gay shit like frisbeeing and reading books on the lawn. Ay yay, muy chingon We stopped by some of her favorite places to hang out and eat, I saw the KD house. Good trip. Then we were off to the Red Hook Brewery. Nothing like celebrating Good Friday then to get drunk and go on a brewery tour. Red Hook is pretty tasty if you haven’t tried it before. Food is okay, but the beer is good and so is the tour. We had a limpy bearded short guy, who knew his stuff. Gave a good history of beer and the red hook brewery. I recommend. Next we were off to the New Hampshire State Liquor store. You cant buy liquor unless you are there. They are these big warehouses along the highway, one in each direction. I guess its cheaper to buy there because you definitely want to take some to go and as soon as you get the heck out of Mass. you want to buy some. Who knew hampshireans were such lushes!!! So, were on our way back to Bahston and Im not sober; that can only mean one thing. DJ Eggo in the hiz house. I confiscated Catherines ipod and proceeded to only play jams from circa 1997-1999. I was feeling nostalgic. I finally got a hold of Bobby. He said he was busy with admissions at work, I say no go, but I was happy to hear from him. I was shouting at him if I remember correctly, inebriation will do that to a person. I told him I was in town for the weekend and that we should totally meet up that night. He concurred. So that night I forced Catherine to watch Bruno. She must not be a fan of the cock, there is more penis in that movie then any non porno should have. She kept leaving the room and I was dying laughing. We ate our leftovers from WildCat Pizza. Everyone was ranting and raving about this place, OMG WCP, OMG WCP. It was just pizza, not bad not good, just omg, but not OMG. So we got ready. I got booted up, because what else do you do when you meet strangers for drinks, you put on your highest heels and shake what your momma gave you. There are an inordinate amount of homosexual references in this blog. Whew, it’s a long day at work. Yes, Im writing this at work. So we are at some bar near Fenway. I get to see Adam and Heather, they are a pretty awesome newly wed couple. We hang out and talk bar talk. At one point we got to talking about Mexican food. Adam loves him some Mexican food, but you have three Mexican food experts who are setting him straight. Adam may be the whitest Mexican I know though. Boy loves lengua, carnitas, barbacoa, I really only eat tacos, but since I grew up in EP Im an expert. Then we got to talking about how Bobby is going to have Mariachis at his wedding. We stared singing mariachi loco, Bobby did the dance. Then we got to talking about chest hair. Yeah, we were comparing wolfmaness. Adam has a tri force. I have a treasure trail, Bobby only has hairy nipples. Hahahahahah. Good times. So that was about it for Friday, I think. I always tell myself not to write these things 3 months after the fact.

Saturday

Got up and went out drinking. This time we made our way to the Harpoon Brewery. They had a really good brewery tour and a pretty good tasting room. They had about 13 beers on tap. All pretty tasty. After the tour we made our pilgrimage to Legal Seafood. Again I missed out on soft shell crab sandwiches. Those little fuckers aren’t in season yet. So I settled for a Lobster Roll. It’s a big messy mayonnaise Lobster awesome sandwich. We walked around for a while and got back on the subway. I think I fell asleep. Theres something about a moving transport, that, if im not driving, I fall asleep. Later that evening we met Joanna and her roommates. We went to this bar that had a humongous beer selection. It took me about 10 minutes to decide. I think they had about 100 beers to choose from. The service was pretty bad so we went to this other bar down the street. It was a nice place, it was bricky and they had pool tables. I tried to impress the girls with stories of my trips around the world, but they weren’t. They didn’t have a bad time, but they weren’t as excited as I was. On the way home we passed by a Shabu Shabu restaurant. I told Catherine she definitely needs to hit that up. She probably forgot and is now just remembering this part of the adventure. (You are, aren’t you‼!) Go ahead and roll your eyes at me.

Sunday

Easter Sunday or in Catherines world, Renegade Easter. I called it Revolution Easter because I couldn’t remember the right r word. Renegade Easter is where you have a meal, have some wine, have some nice company, and then watch an inappropriate movie. We watched Role Models, with the subtitles on, Catherine didn’t like the idea. You get to have visual and aural cursing. Her friend Jeneen was totally on board. She even gave me a fist bump. The lunch/dinner was good. I was voluntold to carve the ham, it’s a spiral ham, so it’s already kind of pre-cut for you. I had a heck of time cutting it, there are pictures, I wasn’t particularly manly in this outing. Jeneen was cool, she liked my stories. After the movie we cleaned up a little bit and then we took Jeneen home. We got on the subway and headed out to Fenway. Everyone and their mother was there. I don’t think that many people were actually going to the game, but they just like to party. I was told that Cask’n Flagon was rated #1 sports bar in America by ESPN. Everyone was there, so we went somewhere else. This other bar, it was nice, we had some drinks, met one of Catherines other friends; she is in school doing some stuff. I was getting a little antsy, I was ready to get to my seat and see all that was “OPENING NIGHT IN AMERICA” Pedro Martinez threw out the inaugural pitch. And there was much rejoicing. Keri Hilson, sang the Star Spangled Banner. And there was much rejoicing. We had these two jets hit the afterburners after the anthem was over. And there was much rejoicing. We booed all the Yankees when they came out. There was of course Yankee suck chants, there were Yankee fans in the stands, being their charming selves, they were quickly removed. And there was much rejoicing. So this was mostly just a gift for Catherine, like I said, baseball schmaseball, but then someone pulled up on their phone that they thought Neil Diamond was going to sing Sweet Caroline in between the Eighth Inning. I told Catherine if that’s true, this will be the greatest day of my life. For the Seventh Inning Stretch Steven Tyler and one of his daughters came out to sing Take me Out to the Ball Game and God Bless America. He was wasted and butchered the song. He had to look at the jumbotron to see which words were coming up. Another inning passed and then it was time. Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome Neil Diamond. FUCK YEAH. Jacob please sing at the top of your lungs. Check….and also FUCK YEAH. He didn’t sing the recorded version which I think is better, but it was still cool as hell to experience that. So there was also a game and the Red Sox won, I think they came back from being down too. They played Love that dirty water. So I just got the 110% Fenway experience. It took a long time to get home. Our train didn’t show up for like 30 minutes, and we were almost the last stop on the train too, but it was cool. Promptly went to bed.

Monday

Flew home, got upgraded both times. All was well. Drove home. And there was much rejoicing.

Go Sox,

Jacob

bosnia x 4

My goodness what’s left to write about Bosnia after your fourth visit? Well if you know me and stories, I’m sure I’ll find something mundane to write about. So before we even get to talking about Bosnia let’s talk about British Airways. Their flights attendants were on strike so before we even left our flight was cancelled from London to Munich.

Friday

We left on Friday because the staff doesn’t want us getting there with any time to spare. We aren’t that important I guess. Nothing really out of the ordinary about our flight.

Saturday

It was interesting being in Heathrow on a Saturday. That place was dead. Normally we go through there on a Friday or Sunday; it’s a huge circus, but it was eerily quiet. Since our flight was cancelled and rebooked on jet2.com airlines. Its like the southwest of Europe I guess. Very economical, no frills, and you get only water. The seats are very aluminum, most of the plane is pretty aluminum come to think of it, but luckily it was only an hour or so flight. We landed in Munich where we were staying for the night. Before I even checked in, I ditched my friends and headed over to the donner place. Mmmm munich airport donner!! When I got to the hotel, they weren’t even checked in yet, so I hadn’t missed much. Went to my room and devoured it, then we were on the train headed to downtown Munich. We went straight to the Haufbrau House and had some litres of beer. Had some food, then we went for a walk. Found another beer hall, and did what, yeah that. By this time though, my eyelids were getting heavy as were everyone elses. We got back on the train and headed home.

Sunday

Went down to breakfast but it turns out the buffet was not included with our stay. Well it was 30 euros for the breakfast buffet, which is 40 some odd dollars US. I said nein and went down to the mcdonalds near the airport. Everything was in German go figure. But they did have this new ATM like ordering device, I ordered their version of the Egg McMuffin, two of them, had some orange juice, got my ticket and gave it to the guy. Gotsta love technology. A couple of my coworkers stumbled in and we ate together. Most of the people on the flight to Sarajevo were people we knew. Landed in Sarajevo and were at our hotel in about 15 minutes. We were in a new hotel this time. A much better hotel than the Holiday Inn. This one was also war torn and tattered, but it had been rebuilt. I had a much nicer room, much nicer bed, and much more comforting pillows. We had to get straight to work since Monday was the pre-conference. We were introducing some new software to make our lives easier. This didn’t go accordingly to plan like we had hoped. But at least we had happy lemon cola gummies to get us through. That night we went to a brewery for dinner. It was pretty rocking, the Sarajevo beer is not really good, but at the brewery you can order the dark beer. Its super delicious.

Monday

This was actually the first time I showered in the place, I know, Im such a pig boy. Well the bathroom was huge, two sinks, a bidet, a toilet, and standalone bathtub showering place. It was a tub with glass walls erected around it. I put the shower head in its holder above, so it could be used like a shower instead of some sort of body rinser. Well when I flipped the switch for shower, the amount of pressure coming out of the hose tilted it and it soaked the ceiling and the mirror and some clothes I set out to wear. It really felt like an I love lucy episode, because I tried to diver the water and then move my clothes, all the while the water is still coming. Then I came to my senses and switched the water off. For the rest of the week I had to use the shower like a hose.

Tuesday

This was the start of the meeting and like always they did the roll call of nations. Afterwards though, they gave a brief on sexual harassment. It was the most awkward thing I have ever sat through. First off, Sergeant First Class boring gave a really bad briefing. Secondly, most of these nations don’t have a concept of sexual harassment. Women aren’t equals, women don’t have rights, women are second class citizens in these countries. A lot of times women are there to make babies, serve their men, and be domesticated. So of course, for the participants who speak really good English, sexual harassment became the joke of the week. Hey don’t look at me, hey no touching, don’t speak to me, don’t look at me like that. It was pretty funny. Europeans as a whole are really touchy anyways, they are handshaky, huggy, pat on your backy, touch your shouldery, get close in your facey. That’s how they roll. This is an international consortium of cultures, its primarily US funded, but not US run. I didn’t really agree with the statement being given in this situation or to this audience. Tuesday night was the ice breaker. It was held at the officers club. A really nice place with cool paintings, big vaulted ceiling. They had some pretty good food and really nice liquor. My coworkers wanted to keep drinking so we went back to that brewery and had some more awesome beer. Had about two litres and was feeling good. Walked home with my arms spread wide like I was a plane.

Wednesday

Ohh not as big a hangover as I thought. I knew I hadn’t lost it, stupid toxic Armenian beer. Did some more work and just chilled near the hotel. Didn’t feel like taking a taxi downtown. Had a chickenburger at a restaurant within walking distance.

Thursday

Again just kicked it at work and didn’t really do much, or at least anything I can remember. Although, our hotel did have bowling in it. So, after dinner, a couple of coworkers went bowling. Poor little fellas, a lot of them slipped on the oil. The lone girl in the group, who we all dogged, ended up coming in the pack door and beating us. Im an avid shit talker and she just smiled coyly at me like she knew what she was doing all along. Cheeky bastard!!

Friday

We closed up shop this day, we didn’t have an out briefing. Nor did we have a cultural tour or cultural dinner. That pissed me off, yes we weren’t supposed to go to Bosnia, but that fact changed two months prior. I can plan a party for 200 people in two months. You just find a big hall, get your army band, and get some caterers, how hard, HOW HARD???? So instead of getting dressed up for those things, we went to old town, walked around, shopped a little, and then went back to the brewery. It sounds kind of weak to keep patronizing a restaurant, but it was super delicious, and it’s pretty easy. Again, due to the British Airways strike our flight was cancelled again. Instead of having an overnight in Germany which I was generally looking forward to, we were going to go all the way to London. So what does that mean, party with Nina Cocina.

Saturday

Slept in a little bit and headed up to breakfast. Went to the top of the building and took some pictures. Then we flew to Munich. I really hate, and Im going to say this again, getting off an airplane, getting to the terminal and having to go through security again. I didn’t get unsecure in my 1000 ft journey. Well the entire plane was transferring somewhere in Europe, but we actually had to change terminals. Which meant going through customs and getting more passport stamps, MY FAVORITE. Well, going through Munich airport is one of my favorite things because that means another chance to get some delicious donner. After we chowed down we headed to the British Airways terminal and flew to London. I was landing about 4 pm and figured I would need at least two hours to get luggage, go through customs, get to the Hilton and then make it down to London where I would meet Nina. Well I needed two hours to do all of that, but it still left me with an hour train ride to downtown. So I found myself in Picadilly Circus and no Nina. I told Nina 7ish and it was 750. Not exactly 7ish. So I walked around a little, hoping that I would be able to find her, but alas, no Nina. So I walked around and got lost in Chinatown. A delicious mistake, ended up at Mr. Wu’s Grand Buffet. It was super tasty, my goodness it was super tasty. Got back to the hotel about 10 and went to bed.

Sunday

Our flight wasn’t super early. I got up about 6 and was down in the lobby about 7. We were leaving around 1030. Stopped at the Krispy Kreme and grabbed a nice juicy delicious frosted chocolate cake donut. I went ahead, took the liberty, and check my entire team in through the first class check in. Yeah, life is good. The real first class passengers weren’t upset as I thought they would, this batch must not have been huge assholes. The flights were pretty easy, nothing really happened. I didn’t sleep too much, I think I might have watched about 4 movies maybe 5 movies.

So, to who it may concern, this trip to Bosnia was much better than the three previous. I highly recommend not going to Bosnia, but if you must, just don’t do it four times. I didn’t get to see Nina which sucked, but it was still a pretty good trip.

So see you next time in Boston.

Love,

jakester

khiones pictures

khiones pictures

Photos from skiing 2010



san fran




alcatraz




that street




das wharf




the professor




no nickname yet





nacho lasagna




nom nom nom





swish




blizzard lunch




tahoe




steamy




deadly




i could totally do it




ski JUMP




its not that far




the flame

i want to go to there

see you next year khione

love

jacob

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