9/31-10/2 - All That and Then Some, Ready for my new ones

Friday
First Day of Russ B'Day Weekend. I arrived at home, fixed the sound on the telly and ate my dinner of steak and greens. Ernesto had arrived to hang so we chatted some and I looked at peeps that he pulled up on the net before moving on to the bathroom and cutting my hair and then crossing to the other side of the house and doing the shower and wardrobe change. The Jimmy and Stephen arrived and we all hung out a bit while fielding phone calls from Kevin before heading across BK to drive to the aforementioned and wave him over to the Land Rover. There were four of us across the backseat, sitting like bad school kids but we arrived in the isle of Manhat alive and even drove the two boys up to midtown and dropped them off on the west side and 34th street. After that we headed back downtown and looked for parking. We passed all of the one way streets and ended up parking on 17th street in a nice space that had a knocked down sign in the space. After I got out and moved the metal signpost with sign attached, Stephen finished parking the Land Rover and everyone disembarked. After some heady decision I decided to stay on 17th street while the other guys headed up to Krash (Club Deep). I was intrigued but eventually decided to stay with the guarantee of some level of enjoyment at Splash. I walked in, headed downstairs and after not recognizing any bartenders I headed back upstairs and found my bartender of the past 2 weeks upstairs at the back bar. I started off with a Mandarin and cranberry and watched the crowd for a bit. The place wasn't fully packed yet but still plenty of people packing the floor and even dancing on stage. I finished the first drink and headed downstairs for a helping of Smirnoff Ice over ice with a splash of Grenadine. Back upstairs I said hello to Robbie manning his box in front of the stage and danced next to a skinny girl and her out of shape and clingy so-called "agent". Robbie of course wanted me to introduce but after a brief chat and changing sides of the stage I decided it was too much trouble and he could do his own matchmaking. After hearing the Chus and Ceballos mix of "Dirtyfilthy" I headed outside to pick up a bottle of water and was intrigued by the flyer guy handing out business cards touting the after-hours but dressed as if it was the middle of December (hoodie pulled up and a coat over that). All he was missing was the gloves and earmuffs. Anyway after crossing and recrossing the street with my water and heading back inside I hung out with the crowd some more before heading downstairs and taking a trip to the mens room. on my way out I decided to walk out of the opposite side of the space than I came in and ran into J and his main man. We chatted briefly before we parted ways and they headed back upstairs to the dancefloor while I stayed downstairs to get another drink. I walked back up the front stairs and on my way to the dancefloor I looked over the guys once again and noticed all of the interesting touristy types populating the different areas but none holding my attention too long before I was back up on the stage and dancing to Mariah Carey "We belong Together". It was strange how DJ Alex kept segueing back and forth between out-there new music and what was definitely familiar and still all danceable. I enjoyed myself of course but reached my true epiphany as I took to the speaker around 3am myself and danced on the box in front of the stage. I danced to some song with a pretty good beat and contemplated getting down but then I heard the DJ throw on one of my favorite club tunes and re-furled the lights and danced with my hands still aglow to "Solid Textures". That song is so minty fresh each and every time I hear it in the club. I stopped myself from overindulging in the drinks and proceeded to just dance for the last hour and 15 min but finally was over it all and headed outside at 4:15. Lacking in some sort of telephonic contact with the rest of my crew I wandered in the street for a bit ostensibly to go to the store before finally receiving a call from Pais and meeting him on a convenient street corner as he drove up in his taxi and we headed back to BK. I was pretty well recovered from my earlier bingeing and headed home with a well danced out self and was happy to fall into my bed for a well worked for rest.

Saturday
I woke up around noon, showered and dressed and prepared myself to head out to the gym. While still messing around in the house the tone rang from the lobby and i ran downstairs (buzzer broken) to get whoever it was and see them downstairs. Ernesto had arrived to pick up his vehicle and had to use the facilities before his long trip back to LI. He had hung out at Roxy and skated for a bit with Kevin before heading over to Krash and the boys and dancing for a bit but was not able to muster up as much fun at his second venue as I had enjoyed at my first (and only). We wished each other a good day and he headed back out on his way back to LI and I greeted the newly awakened Russ as he started watching baseball on the HD. After seeing the Yankees take an early lead I was ready to head out and make my way to the gym. I let the breakfast delivery guy and a couple of building denizens into the building on my way out and headed out into the 70 degree day. For some reason I misplaced my ipod shuffle and so I was forced to listen to the full size ipod while at the gym. It still worked out OK as my ipod has its own level of intelligence and played the appropriate songs while I went through my Saturday workout. Unfortunately I headed back home without eating any lunch as I usually would and arrived back home to no food and sustained myself on an orange before we finally received delivery dinner and I had a meal of chicken caesar salad. I cleaned up the place a bit, vacuumed under the bed and over the lampshades next to the bed before vacuuming the living room as we prepared for the rest of the evening watching DVR programming and Fox block of Cops. After showering and cleaning up a bit I watched a bit of Surface on NBC since I had def not watched any episodes in its regular time slot. The show showed some promise but the end of the episode floored me with the giant sea monster eating first half of a shark that was being fished out of the ocean and then coming up from underneath the boat and eating the whole boat. The shot was filmed most scarily and I scared Russ from the other room as my incredulity was loudly broadcast throughout the demesne. Shortly afterwards our first set of evening visitors arrived with Bruce and Phil coming over bearing freshly picked orchard apples and we watched college football and other various programming on the HD. The Jimmy arrived shortly after and after consuming a few drinks and preparing ourselves as much as we could we headed out into the night.

We said good eve to Phil and Bruce at the cars and the rest of us piled into the Explorer and headed downhill to the highway. We got onto the BQE and merged into traffic and finally convinced the Jimmy to take the Manhattan Bridge rather than the Bklyn Bridge because of the level of congestion and he actually listened and was pleasantly surprised. The trip across town on Canal street was uneventful and we headed up the West side in a nice flow of traffic and found nice parking on 19th street when some outgoing hockey players loaded up and left two spots empty for us. We parked the car and then headed down street to the club, pausing briefly to admire a makeshift sculpture inside of a fire-station callbox on the corner of 10th and 18th. Cute. The line was moving in front of the club and the cool night air was a nice change from the heat we had enjoyed over the summer. Not cold enough for a jacket yet but that appeared to be coming up soon. We got inside, debated on asking the computer list guy on whether Russ should speak of his lost JB card but decided to save it for another week. The Jimmy had a long conversation with his cashier holding up that particular line for a bit (the lines were a little longer than usual) before we all headed inside and I walked up to barmistress Cathy to inquire on something missing but she anticipated my question and told me the two bad boys were sent to the back bar for the evening. Barman Barker and Matt were holding court in the rear of the building this eve but the change of venue was OK for me as I was able to look over the place without all the hustle and bustle of the front bar, plus it was much easier to get my barman's attention. Our Roxy night was truly started off with a round of drinks for us plus one and I pondered over the new sounding DJ Hex Hector for the eve. The music was good but lacked a certain cohesion as he appeared to be trying for a different sound than his previous club appearances. I had missed the two readily accessible Madonna mixes upon my arrival and was listening to the rest of the music for a while before the floor slowly filled and I said hi to Dave before heading onto the dancefloor myself and dancing in the still empty space near the front with drink in hand. I finished the drink off, danced some more and then headed back to the back bar to see where the boys had gotten off to. We chatted some and then I felt the need to wake myself up with a little dancing and made an appearance on the speaker in the asian section. While dancing I picked up a few new fans (of course) and met some new peoples (a girl named Stone, like Angie) and was nice and heated up before heading back to the back bar and talking some more with the boys before proceeding with the rest of the night. I will say the DJ went out of his way to keep the boys anticipating what he would do next but I was not particularly impressed and was kind of happy that my friend from work had begged off and made a rain date for two weeks away (for DJ Manny Lehman) I was still very much looking forward to my two weeks in a row of entertaining friends from work and was hoping for good music nights from both. Despite the seeming slow start the beats throughout the night progressed nicely and we stayed in the place until around 4:30am. Russ flagged down a taxi outside and we were back in Bklyn and the welcome rest I deserved without too much drama. Another night of dancing complete.

Sunday I awoke in the afternoon and enjoyed a delivery breakfast. Despite my hard partying efforts from the night before I was well recovered and after sufficient recording at the laptop I was ready to head out and go shopping; for food and other things. We stopped first at the ghetto mall on Fulton Street in downtown BK but I just could not find a priceworthy copy of Lil Kim's new album "The Naked Truth" with some out of control spots charging 15.99 for a CD (in its first week that is just plain stab and robbery). I eventually gave up on the no name stores after the last store offered the CD for 11.99 with a $40 purchase, as if I could actually find $40 worth of stuff to buy at some hole like Record Express or whatever the hell hole it was. Since I was in the neighborhood we did Wendy's for lunch, a nice Big Bacon Classic and was so happy once again. Russ and I left the downtown and headed through the traffic (street fair that day) to park next to the Baskin Robbins while I headed into the PC Richard (no longer sells CDs) and into Target (Sold out) and decided I had to pick it up at the mall in NJ the next day (Thanks FYE at $13.99 - f/ that $2 rebate). I settled on not wasting the trip and picked up a few things at the Vitamin Shoppe. After that we headed back down the street and turned over to Pathmark and picked up the necessities such as milk, juice and soda. We had decided on a dinner of Lasagna and I made sure to have all of the fixings for that (still have to remember Olive Oil for the next time tho) but after returning home and bringing the bags home in the borrowed shopping cart (from the Lobby) it was all domestic stuff from there. I cooked the dinner and watched football and other television. As most of Fox Block was repeats we ended up watching DVR programming and then Curb at 10 followed by Extras which stopped DVR recording just when it was getting good at the end. Anyway the rest of the night was just more DVR programming (Inuyasha and the like) and we wound down sufficiently so we could start the new week and prepare for the next.

Until then, I will do better and better until I am the only one, The Best.