Shane Life

So I’m back from Jamaica.

Alli and I and the rest of the family have been at Beaches Negril since last Saturday. While we were there, my brother and his lovely significant other Kelly got hitched on the beach on Tuesday afternoon. Both families were there as were a bunch of Jake’s friends and we had a great time. After an all-day journey yesterday, we’re back in Kansas City, away from the island humidity.

It looks as though the internet didn’t break while I was gone, although I  did win a contest and my biography was posted on Brad’s site. It looks like everything else is as it was. 

I read two books while I was gone, finally finishing Wild at Heart by John Eldridge and quickly consuming Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. I’ll post reviews soon.

As far as the rest of the week…I’m taking the rest of the week off from work. I may tackle a redesign of my own site if I can do it quickly. We’ll see.

How are you?

I wrote the following while I was on my way to New Orleans last Thursday and thought I’d throw it out to the Internets to see how you like it. It’s been edited, but mostly it was my gut reaction as we flew toward the Crescent City…

I oftentimes forget that people travel to New Orleans because of its history. And it is a city very rich with history. Unfortunately, that’s been tainted by years and years of poverty piled on top of the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

The first time was in 1993. I remember the year because we went for the Final Four. Kansas was playing in one of the most stacked final weekends of the tournament ever, with Michigan, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Kansas lost their semifinal game to the Tarheels, who were led by Eric Montross.

North Carolina went on to win the National Championship, defeating Michigan in a game that would go down in infamy as the one where Chris Webber called a timeout at the end of the game that the Wolverines didn’t have, resulting in a game-sealing technical foul.

What I remember of New Orleans from when I was 16 was really more the spectacle than anything. I remember traveling to the Tulane campus with David Rowe and visiting Frankie & Johnny’s for my first experience with crawfish. We saw Bourbon Street and the debauchery in all its glory on the first night, the streets packed with fans from all four schools milling around from bar to bar, from strip club to strip club, drinking and generally just making asses out of themselves.

We toured the French quarter during the day, which is really when people should see it. Bourbon Street is too much to take, but the rest of the quarter is intriguing, filled with art shops and tarot card readers along the streets.

I was reminded of this New Orleans today as I sat on the plane returning to the city that I’ve grown to dislike very much. It is rich with history, sure, but the smell of sewage in the city casts an overwhelming. I’ve not been back since Hurricane Katrina hit and I’m interested to see what’s been done to overcome that tragedy.

The woman across the small plane from me was sifting through her “Walking Tour Guide” and other assorted New Orleans tourism maps and such. She reminded me that some people (myself not included) still visit this city at the mouth of the Mississippi because it’s fascinating. There really is a lot to see if you want to find it. You just have to ignore the smells and the other negative things that go along with a city that has endured what New Orleans has.

This is my fifth trip to the city. While my first experience was amazing, being led around by a former native, going to the Final Four, etc., my following experiences (outside of the amazing food) have been less than stellar. There’s no reason I could point to particularly…I just remember the city being dirty and less impressive with each additional viewing.

—

Now I realize that like I said earlier, what I don’t like about New Orleans is that it seems like a city with a lot of potential, but it just can’t get it together. Something horrible happened to the city, but the government has thrown TONS of money there, but it still is a ways from being right again and I don’t know if it ever will be because the people in charge have about as much of a clue as to how to run a city as those running Kansas City, Missouri proper.

Either way, I just don’t see myself ever going back there to visit. I’ll go when I absolutely have to for a conference or whatever, but I’m not going to voluntarily go back. It would take some serious motivation for me to do so.

I’ve was in New Orleans Thursday through Saturday for a conference. As we drove back to the airport, I summed up the trip as such:

“I just can’t understand why anyone would want to live in New Orleans. I barely ever want to even visit here.”

And it’s the truth. Sure, the food is great (it really is) and the music is good, but the negatives vastly outweigh the positives there. The town has been very slow to recover from Hurricane Katrina, but frankly, I didn’t think it was that great before the disaster. Any major city that situates itself 2 to 6 meters below sea level isn’t making good decisions, if you ask me.

Add that to the overwhelming smell of sewage, the high violent crime rate (4 times the homicides of Kansas City), and the vast poverty and you’re looking at a city that isn’t really appealing to me.

The food is pretty darn good though.

The first night, we ate at Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House, an upscale seafood place right on Bourbon Street. I ate raw oysters (teetering on the edge between gross and intriguing) and an absolutely amazing entree of crawfish-crusted Gulf fish (see below). That meal was by far the best I had, although the Shrimp Po-Boy I had at Landry’s for lunch the next day was pretty tasty too.

I’m glad to be home. We flew ExpressJet and had to actually walk out on the Tarmac to get on our plane. To call it small is an understatement. One seat, aisle, two seats. That’s it. The Bose QC2 Noise-Cancelling Headphones made the flight a lot easier. It was weird getting back from the 80 degree weather of Louisiana to the high 30 degree weather in KC. You gotta love the midwest.

I’ll be traveling to Atlanta on Friday for the second time this year. I’ll actually be on the ground only for about 24 hours, giving a flurry of 20-minute presentations (8 in 4 hours) and then attending a couple round table meetings before returning home Saturday night.

I wasn’t mad about Atlanta the first time and it’s not like I’ll be experiencing the city this time around. The conference could be in Hoboken or Phoenix or El Paso and I wouldn’t know the difference. The conference is being held at the Airport Westin, so I won’t be venturing more than a mile from the airport.

So it is in the crazy world of the Marketing Specialist.

If you haven’t guessed, Alli and I are back after spending the last three weeks in France and Italy. Much more to come.

I’ll just say this…trip of a lifetime.

I will be away from the blogosphere for the next few weeks. I hope that everyone has a great few weeks without my musings. Please come back to the blog when I return.

Alli and I have been researching planning for our trip to Italy this summer for our trip to Italy this summer for Alli’s 30th Birthday. We are so excited. I’ve never been to Italy and Alli’s never been outside the country save our honeymoon in St. Lucia and a trip to Grand Cayman when she was in college.

When I was a junior in college, my parents took my brother and me to Europe for a short 15-day trip. Alli and I will be in Italy for almost 3 weeks. When I went with my parents, we spent a couple days in Brussels (best Pommes Frites ANYWHERE), a couple days in Amsterdam (cool city, but I don’t think we were there nearly long enough to appreciate it), a few days in London (awesome…loved London), and several days in Paris and Le Mans in France (for the 24-hour race that a friend of my dad’s was participating in).

Anyway, our time in Paris seemed really rushed and I am really excited to spend some time there looking around the city. Alli and I are scheduled to go to the Louvre on the first of the month in July…the Louvre offers free admission on the first of the month. Very cool. That’s one thing that we didn’t get to see when we were in Paris the first time. I am kind of glad in a way because I’ll get to experience it for the first time with Alli who will help me with appreciating the vastness of the museum.

So we are flying in and out of Paris and in between, we are spending some time in Venice, Florence, Rome, and the Amalfi Coast. Everything I’ve heard about Amalfi is that we won’t regret being there.

Planning for a trip of this magnitude is stressful, though. Especially if you are like me and you lose your passport just as you are getting ready to book your tickets (no worries, I found it today…PHEW!).

I know that there are a couple people out there who’ve been to Italy…any suggestions or pointers on places to see?

So for nearly the last two weeks, I have been home alone here. Alli has been in Ohio since the morning of January 10th. It is now January 21st and is easily the longest time that we have been apart since we’ve been married.

When she departed almost 2 weeks ago, she was originally scheduled to return less than a week later. However, complications with her grandmother’s illness kept her and her mom out there a little longer. In addition, the winter storm we received last night isn’t helping matters any, since flights into and out of Chicago-Midway are delayed. She was kept on the ground until just after 2:00 p.m. EST for her flight that was supposed to leave at 1:00. The problem is that she was scheduled to catch a flight in Chicago at 2:00 p.m. CST (20 min ago) and it just left. On time.

Ugh.

Anyway, so I’ve taken stock of all the remaining flights from Chicago to Kansas City. Thankfully, there are FIVE more. Only one is delayed. She had been told by one of the Southwest agents that the 3:50 (the next flight, which actually departs at 4:10) was full, but hopefully she’ll be able to get on that one so she’ll be home by 5:35. If not, there’s a 4:25 that arrives only 20 minutes later.

After that, we’ve got three more chances to get her out of Chicago and into my arms.

I pray she gets home today. I don’t think I could take another day by myself. I find that I talk with Dreyfuss as if he could have a conversation with me (sidebar: wouldn’t that be awesome?). I’m listless and I dawdle at everything. I eat out way too much (what’s the point in cooking for one?) and when I eat at home, I have only one meal: grilled cheese. I could make other things, but it’s too much work.

I really miss her and I hope that the next time that we spend this much time apart is, well…NEVER.

What’s amazing is that TONS has happened since she left. My desk got installed. Our bed was delivered. Our curtains got done. She’s going to be coming home to a much different house. Which reminds me…I’d better finish cleaning.

UPDATE: She made the 3:50 (which leaves at 4:10). I am so excited!

Vegas baby. Vegas.

So we surprised my buddy Jason for his 30th birthday with a trip to Vegas. 10 of us piled into two rooms for the weekend at Harrahs. He was unbelievably surprised…it was so much fun.

Alli’s post pretty much sums it up. Great trip. Awesome surprise. Well done, Brooke.

I’ve experienced such amazingly bad luck in a trip to a casino. I played poker with Jason one night and I’ll tell you what…I didn’t get but maybe 2 hands that I could play. When I finally went all-in, I had K-J, which was by far my best hand of the night. Guy called me with A-J and his A won. That’s weak.

I would win some money at the nickel slots (I think I won about 50 bucks…not bad for nickels!), but I got worked over playing Let it Ride.

One of the highlights to the trip (besides the trip itself) was getting to go see The Beatles’ themed Cirque de Soleil show at the Mirage, LOVE.

It was so unique and brilliant and it featured such incredible music and told a great story. Totally worth the money to go. We all really enjoyed seeing it. My dad will absolutely love it when he finally gets to see it.

Other funny highlights of the trip:

• Stalking Coach K in the high-limit slots at Harrah’s
• Watching Stowell go on perhaps the best blackjack run I’ve ever seen
• Brooke getting hooked on high-limit slots
• Brooke being “too tired to eat” on Sunday morning
• Taking naps at the pool on the first day because our room wasn’t ready (in our normal clothes)
• My 7-team parlay that would have paid me $1000 if I wouldn’t have missed 4 of the games (stupid KU, Penn State, Saints and Chiefs!)
• The random girls from Chicago that our girls met in the bathroom
• Seeing Kevin Richardson from the Backstreet Boys at Caesars
• Seeing Old Downtown Vegas for the first time (no, seriously, we can walk there…really, Jason?)
• Seeing why no one goes to Old Downtown (what a hole!)
• The free ceiling show in Old Downtown
• “Who is that guy? Is he famous?”
  “He must be, he’s driving a Bentley!”
• “Jason, thanks for last night…signed, Vegas Showgirl at Harrah’s” funniest picture
• High fives all around to the casino
• Almost getting kicked out of Chipotle thanks to Brooke
• Watching the Bellagio fountains…seriously never gets old…so incredible
• Not winning a single sports bet that I made (out of 4)
• …so many more

Great trip all around. Fun stuff. When’s the next one?