Man it’s been a long time since I’ve written. My bad. Things have been insane since I brought the snow to Colorado. Since I couldn’t cross the rockies, due to rain, snow, and highs around 35, I had to turn around and head south back into New Mexico. I left on a Wednesday under mostly cloudy skies and was getting rained on within 5 miles. It didn’t stop until I hit New Mexico and was so gnarly that I had to stop and buy the “warmest gloves you have for sale”.
It rained off and on all the way to my destination of Tesuque Village just north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. I stopped there because that’s where the only person I knew between Colorado and Vegas along the 40 lived. My friend Katy who I’ve known since I moved to Vegas and has made an appearance in this blog moved to this little town, a “magical vortex”, a while back and loves it. She’s managing the Tesuque Village Market, this little hippie store that is a small market, bakery, restaurant, and bar. The night I got there is when this Welsh vintner with vineyards in Colorado was having some function thing. I posted up at the bar, drank organic margaritas, eventually tasted some wine, and had a great time. Very neat special unique corner of the world.
The next day I hauled ass across the Southwest and made it back to Vegas in one piece. Trip complete! Over 10,500 miles, two sets of tires, three oil changes, one roll of duct tape, and three sets of gloves. It was the most amazing journey of my life, and I strongly recommend anybody to take a trip somewhere by yourself. You don’t have to be by yourself the whole time, but the solo traveling really gives you opportunity to clear your head and think about things.
Gladly home, I reluctantly started the process of moving out of the house. I got screwed by roomies in the last few months, and moving out was a super pain. We didn’t even come close to cleaning the place.
Over the weekend Jared and I drove down to LA for our 10 year high school reunion, and that was an interesting experience. We realized quickly that if we buy drinks and stand by the bar we’ll eventually talk to everybody we’re interested in seeing :). About five years ago one of my best friends, Anthony Casturita, died in a car accident. He went to Iraq, came back, and died on the freeway. On the way to the reunion Jared and I drove by his old apartment and gave like a “rip homie.” We got there, and he showed up. Jared grabs me and drags me in front of Anthony. He’s put on about 50 pounds, I read the nametag, and am like, what? “I thought you were dead?” He laughs and says, “You’re like the 8th person that’s said that already. WTF?” Turns out his cousin, Eric Casturita, is who the victim was, and somehow it circulated through our class that it was Anthony. He was disconnected enough, living in San Pedro, married, etc, that nobody ever talked to him and we all thought he was toast. Pretty awesome news having one of your best friends effectively come back to life.
So back to Vegas, move all week, ugh.. and then head off to Aruba. Shelley and I flew out of Vegas at 6:30am trying to keep our schedules somewhat normal which is a difficult thing to do when flying to the Caribbean from the West coast. About an hour into the flight some dude passed out. The flight attendants get on the intercom and ask if there is a doctor on board. Turns out the dude that passed out was the doctor on board. LOL. Partied all night in Vegas then got on the plane. Fortunately we didn’t have to land in Flagstaff and we made it all the way to Miami. With a 5 hour layover. Not sure how I planned that one but whooops. We took a cab to South Beach, and it was way overrated imo. Maybe we weren’t in the right spot but the strip right on the beach was meh, every place felt the same. The beach and water was sweet though. Shelley packed sand in her shorts all the way back to Aruba. That trip went like this:
Night one: Get there, have a few drinks at the circle bar, which is actually a square, and we re-name it the square bar.
Night two: Welcome party. Vinny Favorito made fun of my Hawaiian shirt. A few of us jumped in the pool. Then we threw the rest of the pros in the pool. Then Phil Helmuth says, “I have $500 each for the first two women that jump in the pool naked.” . . Splash! There was less than 2 seconds from end of his speech to splash. I have no clue how she did it. Then we threw some more people into the pool, Nick and Mike Binger threw everybody else into the pool, and the rest of the night is a blur.
Day three: hung on the beach all day. Got to sleep early.
Day four: Played day 1 of the main event. Couldn’t get anything going really. My table was Spanish only while the hand is not in play. I told them that I speak Spanish somewhere around 15 minutes left in the day. Shelley went out with the Jolly Pirates.
Day five: Day 2. I busted in less than 30 mins. Nothing I could do. I lost some chips to Nick Binger, and he lost them all by the end of the first level. Atta kid. A bunch of us went to lunch, the drinking began, and then five of us took a cab to downtown Oranjestad. We wandered around a bit, Nick, Shelley, and I wanted to drink, Court and Melissa wanted to shop, so we split when we found the bar neighborhood. We started bar hopping, had two beers (they’re 8oz there because they get warm so fast) at the first bar, one at the second, and then at the third, Iguana Joe’s or something like that, I asked the bartender to make us three of what he’s best at. He comes up with these green things in carafes that are delicious. Awesome. Lets have another one.
It’s dark already? Man those things are big. Ok. Working on 2nd. This cigar keeps going out. Why am I talking politics with this dude? What are Nick and Shelley talking about? It seems serious. Yeah let’s go home. Honey let’s go to sleep. … ugh. What time is it? 1:30am. I’m hungry. “I want pizza.” Honey they only have hot dogs here. I’m going to go find food. Want me to bring you something back or you wanna come. “I want pizza. I’ll come.” Where’s my other sandal? There’s only one sandal in this room. “I think you walked back barefoot.” Shocker not the first time. I lost my sandals in St. Maarten. Was barefoot for 24 hours or so. So we walk from the Occidental to the Raddison, I’m barefoot, and we find my other sandal on the concrete by the pool at the Occidental. *shrug*. Sweet! Back to the room, put sandals on, go find hot dogs, she never did find pizza, sleep.
Day 6: Hungover. I’m not so bad, but Shelley’s a wreck. Hang on the beach all day. She eventually comes out around 5pm. VIP booze cruise that night, Cantu’s “most miserable experience.” Stuck on a boat in Aruba with free booze.
Day 7: Business. I meet with all the UB Pros and a bunch of the product design staff for a round table discussion. I really like where things look like they’re going. Meet with Katie my agent/manager/heroine, she goes over the details of the offer I’ve been offered, I renegotiate, go to dinner with Paul Legget and a bunch of other UB peeps, then back for party. That night was the Phil Helmuth penthouse party, and it was insane. I can’t post many of the pics, but here are a few to give you a jist of the flavor:
Day 8: Hungover, final table, beach, rum and coke, Justin Young, beach, closing party award ceremony. Throw people into the pool. Shelley was given warning to change or be thrown in. She got thrown in dress and all. The Dan Band played and were fun. Somebody shot a pic of me walking through the pool with a tray of beer. I put them on the stage for ez access.
Day 9: return. Traveling was just fine. American Airlines gets A+ Awesome. And now Shelley, Ruth, Bobo, and myself are pulling into Laughlin. So I’m going to stop writing. But not post this yet cause I gotta get pics in this thing. Peace!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
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