i’m not really one for family and all that crap, but i do enjoy the holidays. if you’ve read my blog at all before you know that i love to travel, and traveling is generally a large part of the holiday experience. almost all of my family lives here in ohio, so i usually don’t have to travel far. i tend to like driving though (as long as the traffic isn’t too bad) and have lived here long enough to realize when are good and bad days to drive around the holidays

take this upcoming thanksgiving for example. most of the jerks around here will be trying to get out of town tonight, and get back here on sunday. i tried that once like 8 years ago and i’ll never do it again. so now i drive home thanksgiving morning and come back on saturday. this has lead me to never have to wait in traffic for upwards of 2 or 3 hours (each way).

i generally like the feeling you have around the holidays. yeah, it can be a stressful time, but it can also be very relaxing. i, of course, love the time off work. who doesn’t?

this year for christmas i’m making a trip with the girlfriend to her native lands of florida. it’ll be the first time in my life where i’ve not spent actual christmas day with my family. i’m not really upset about that though, as i’ll be in sunny florida (and i won’t have to attend the yearly christmas eve service my mother guilts us all into every year). i’m looking forward to meeting some of her family and whatnot, and of course spending time in a warmer clime than i’m used to.

along with not seeing my family for christmas day, this will also be the first year i’m flying very near to the 25th. only one other time i have flown near christmas was actually after the 25th (something like the 28th) with a return trip in early january. that experience wasn’t too bad actually. this time we’re flying down there on the 20th and coming back here on the 26th. i’m interested to see what it’s like.

i have a friend. he got married. well, technically i have more than one friend but this one is the only one to get married recently (i have another one getting married soon too, but that’s a whole other thing — oh and one more that recently got engaged *congrats btw*). the wedding was nice. i got to see an old friend from high school that i hadn’t seen in a long time. mostly i’m not intersted in seeing anyone from high school, but there are a couple people i wouldn’t mind catching up with. he was one of them.

getting married is a big deal. i used to be completely, utterly against it. now, i dunno, i think it could be pretty great. i used to think that all marriage did was ruin a relationship, but as i’ve gotten older i’ve come to realize that it can really enhance and encourage growth in a relationship. i think that most people have at least one person who they can be very happy with for the rest of their lives. at the same time i think that a lot of people don’t fully appreciate the challenge it is to be married to someone, and once they do they decide they don’t want to deal with it. i think that’s what leads to most problems. anyway, i’m happy for my friend and i’m happy for everyone else i know who recently did get married or will in the future.

while i was in the airport in charlotte, nc i met this cool german dude. we spent about two hours discussing myriad things, from politics to travel to cultural differences between the us and europe. he told me he was moving to charlotte soon to open a new factory for his company. he’d brought his wife with him to see the area, see if she liked it, whatever. they’d gone out with some of his new business associates and their wives to dinner. talk turned to, as it often does once you’re older, families. now this particular german dude had no kids and when asked he responded as such. to which the first reply was “well, i have a great doctor you can see in town.”

as he tells me this story i can tell that he was taken aback by that comment. he was amazed at the audacity of someone to pry into his private life like that, and seemed rather amused that they assumed there was something physically wrong with him. we talked about the american concern with “family” and “family values.” we talked about the assumption americans make if you aren’t married by the time you’re 35 or don’t have kids that there is something wrong with you, either mentally or physically. i told him not to take it personally, that while most americans are offended if you talk about fucking, they’d love to get down and dirty talking about methods to get pregnant (as long as you don’t stray into cocks and pussies that is). he was a very cool guy, and i always love to talk to foreigners about their experiences in the us and their views on stuff.

so the wedding was in san francisco, a city i’ve never been to before. i love going to new places. travel is always great. my impressions on the city are as such:

1. the hills look great, but fuck living there. and parking on those things? holy shit. also, the city is a lot smaller than i expected.

2. everything there is expensive. yes i realize it’s california, but wtf?

3. where do people work in this city? it just seemed like there were tons and tons of houses, and other than the financial district down market street i didn’t really see anywhere for people to make the hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars it would take to live in the city

4. cable cars are overrated.

5. fucking great sushi.

6. haight ashbury. nuff said.

there are only two things that we didn’t do that i would’ve liked to. take a tour of alcatraz and go to the ripley’s believe it or not museum. maybe some other time. i’d love to go back again sometime though and see those two places, get some more great food, and just wander around more.

all in all, a great trip.