TRAVELING LONLINESS

I experienced this lonliness a couple of years ago and it was only for about 7 days then. I was traveling through Mexico alone. Going from one state to another and arriving early in the morning when there is no one on the streets, but cabs and drunks.
Here in Detroit at least I have familiar faces, but it is still lonely. Yes we work together and share meals and some fun together, but at the end of the day we all go back to our rooms. These are our homes for the next 14 days or so. It's been our home on and off for the last 3 weeks.
What makes it harder is that I am so far away from my family. We talk on the phone frequently but it is still lonely.
I am not whining.
It is a feeling that though I may be enjoying certain aspects of the trip; like the trip to the game, the gourmet dinner at a fine dining place, etc. Nothing is the same if I don't have my family here.
This is a great experience for me in terms of my professional career and I would probably do it again, perhaps not for this length of time.
I suppose that the more you do it, the more you get used to it. In the meantime, like Melissa, I am counting the days.
14

Lookin out my window

Lookin out my window
Originally uploaded by Ciscokid1

Here I find myself after a short day at work. (7 hours). Once again I am tired and it is nice outside. I decided to show you what my view consists of.

Days 4 through 9

It has gotten very busy with work here. Working 6 days a week with a lot going on in between.
In between, I have moved into the new hotel, I have moved out of the hotel and back into the old one.
On Sunday we went to see the Detroit Lions play, they won the opening home game, it was good with the result being decided in Overtime.


Over the weekend we also found "Mexicantown" with not very good results. 4 of us went to dinner and we happened to walk into a restaurant with a DJ on the lower floor and a small dance floor. However through the "grapevine" we found out that there was a third floor where there was another DJ with a much larger floor for dancing and sitting. we went up there and it turned out to be very much like the place that I work at in Vegas. On the way back, there were no cabs that would come to pick us up, so we ended up walking back to our hotel. If you've been to Detroit you will know that there are some areas that not even the devil would walk through. However we made it safely back into a major avenue where a passing taxi picked us up.
The same attitudes prevail amongst the "snobs" that I wrote about last week. There are some people that I have talked to one evening over dinner or at the bar and the next day they don't even glance your way even when you are standing in front of them.


I have also found that there are a lot of good people here in this town despite the prevalent look of depression around the city.
I have yet to venture out into the suburbs, then again after working 10 to 12 hours sometimes, the only thing I can do when I get back to the hotel is pass out from exhaustion.
A couple of nights ago while we were in the new hotel, the fire alarm went off at 4:00 AM. We had to evacuate the hotel, luckily I was on the sixth floor. Though it is kind of strange to be with a bunch of strangers in the middle of the night while dressed in the first thing the could get their hands on. It turned out to be a false alarm. It was hard getting back to sleep and to top it off, the alarm went off again at about 5:00AM. This time we all stayed put.


Oh yeah!. The TVs did not work in the hotel and there were no services or anyplace to go after work.

The highlight of trip since I've been here was the following.
6 of us were invited to one of Michael Mina's Restaurants to sample a "tasting". He has two in the hotel; Bourbon Steak and Saltwater. The invitation was for the steak house but when we got there, they were busy with people also attending their invitation to try out the new menu as well as to train their staff. So we ended up walking next door to Salt water, their seafood restaurant. They were also training but none were eating, so they sat us at a long table close to where their staff were going over their menu.

The tasting was wonderful. After eating bar food, fried food and mostly anything else out of our hotel's cafeteria, sampling such succulent dishes was heaven sent.
We had; foie gras, figs with prosciutto, perch, salmon, scallops, terrines with caviar and to top it off, since we had been originally invited to the steak house, the chef from Bourbon Steak brought us a flat iron kobe steak to finish our meal. The steak was not a "tasting" size it was a full 16 oz of perfectly cooked juicy and tender piece of beef.
That made up for everything else.
I talk to my family everyday at least twice a day. However I still miss them all every moment of every day.
Till next time.

DAY 3

So far so good.
The place looks great and the management team looks strong enough. We have been received with open arms so that helps towards achieving our goals. The place opens in about 3 weeks so we have a lot of training to do.
The more time I spend with my co-workers the more I learn about them. These are people that I have been working with for the last two years without them knowing me or me knowing them. It is all in passing. we know faces but not our names. Yet while we are all stuck with each other here, we are "forced" to deal with each other, whether we want to or not. The exception are the "snubs" who get in their little groups and end up doing their own thing day in and day out. Then again, maybe they feel left out because we do not ask them to go with "us". Not that I'm invited either but I just tag along. I think I have more of a bond or attachments with the "back of the house" staff than the "front of the house" staff.

Detroit is quite a unique town. We are staying in a hotel in downtown and everything around us is empty and "dead" It seems as though the plague went through town and left all these old and new buildings completely empty. There are some where on their roofs, there are trees growing on top of them. They almost look like Italian Terrazzos, with plants and trees growing on top of their roofs, but they just have been abandoned for a long time. There are signs of construction and improvement, which is the reason why we are here, but I think it still is going to be a while before this whole areas comes back to look like Manhattan or downtown Chicago.

Till then, enjoy the pictures.

Day 2

This morning I was woken up by a furious tapping on the window, which initially I thought it was a ghost typing on my laptop. It turned out to be rain. Rain of the kind that you don't see in Las Vegas.

It was a cool day 7o's average. What a difference that makes for someone who's been dealing with 100+ for the last 2-3 months.
I met some noew people today at work and aside from the ones I am working with, I ran into someone I used to work and knew about 22 years ago. There was an awkard silences as we looked at each other and tried to figure out who this persaon was. I was first to remember his name. He had to get my help. All I had to mention was Westin Bonaventure, Skiing and Palm Springs, since we used to hang out together. This was before I had even gone back to school, when I was just living "La Vida Loca" Now it turns out that he is a VP of a company that consults with our company.- Definitely a small world.

See you!

DETROIT ROCK CITY

So I find myself in a new strange land without my family.
I am in Detroit, Michigan. A mere 4 hours from home and yet so far away. I am on work assignment and will be here for a "few" days. I rather look at it like that as opposed to weeks or months. My little family was left behind but it's all for the good of the family.

I will be taking pictures and posting about the working trip so stay tuned.

Family......I love you and miss you already.

UPDATE

So much going on around the world and even here in our own little part of the world. A couple of nights ago we had such thunderstorms with lots of rain throughout the valley, that it seemed we were in another part of the country all together. This happened in the middle of the night to the point that people got up and watched from their windows. I got home at about 3:00AM and Melissa was up, so we just sat outside for a while just watching the lightning. Eventually she got too scared and went back inside.
Of course there was some flooding around the strip area, which is the lowest part of our valley.
Now we are back to our normal weather pattern-Hot, Hot, Hot. However, soon the hot weather will subside and welcome the cool weather.

BACK FROM VACATION

The day has come to return to work.

It's been a wonderful week. The kids had a great time in Disneyland as much as I did. I may not have sounded too happy before leaving, but once you get there, what do you do. Make the best of it and have as much fun as possible.

To begin with, as soon as we got there and after riding our first ride (Pirates of the Caribean) we were handed a set of "fastpass" lanyards. These were for the most popular rides and to use whenever we wanted for that day. No waiting in line, just straight to the front. They were handing these out at random, so we were very lucky since I did not see that many people with them.


The worst part of the day was waiting an hour and a half to ride the new Finding Nemo ride, the old submarine ride. Pretty much the same as before with the added new graphics and computer images underwater, otherwise same ride. We rode the traditional; Star Tours, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Thunder Railroad, etc. Some of them more than two or three times, including the kiddie rides.



There were a lot of people throughout the days we were there. Friday was probably the best day. There did not seem to be as many people people as Thursday or Saturday. The family had fun. By Saturday, I think we've all had it and ended up leaving early. The kids hang out by the pool and later in the evening we drove to Huntington Beach for dinner.

On Sunday we stopped by the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena before heading for home. The trip was an outstanding success.



See my flickr page for more pictures of the trip, including some "people watching" pictures.

Olivia Singing, Again.

At church this past Sunday. I was able to at least record this. I had just come home from working all night and instead of going to bed when I got home, I just got in the shower, made coffee and got ready for church. by the tmie we got home, it was already 11:30, so I had a "two hour" nap before heading for work again at 2:00.
It has been a sleepless weekend, but I am looking forward to leaving town tomorrow.


"CISCO, IN THE LAST 48 HOURS YOU HAVE JUST SLEPT FOR FOUR HOURS, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NEXT?...."


I AM GOING TO DISNEYLAND!

A QUICK ROADTRIP

So, no kids on Thursday (my only day off) and what to do.
Melissa spoke of driving up north into Utah and I thought about driving to L.A. Instead we took the road south into Arizona. We started by going over Hoover Dam (Lots of traffic there due to TRANSFORMERS being filmed there, tourists and all that) Once we got over the dam, we continued driving south, no hurries no destination. The initial idea was to drive and find roads that would take us into old mining towns. Along the way we saw some thunderstorms that were too far to get us or the car wet.
We did veer into a road that lead to Chloride, an old mining town founded back in the 1860's. Mellisa did not want to have anything to do with this town, it did look deserted and silent. We were looking for "Yesterday's restaurant", but it turned out that they were on vacation. We turned around and left the town quickly and back onto the highway. The next stop was Kingman AZ. This was no small mining town. We had lunch at a place we'd rather not mention except that on its wall there was a note form their health department which had placed them on a "Needs Improvement" status.
From Kingman the choices widened. Go into the Grand Canyon a mere 2 hours away, Further south into Sedona (about 4 hours) or West towards L.A. Given that it was already about 3:00PM, we decided to go west along the famous Route 66.
From Kingman it quickly headed towards the mountains. Mountains on this side of the country are nothing but giant boulders of rocks. There are no pine trees or other large trees growing here. Only sage bushes, saguaros and plenty of dessert grass and flowers. A beautiful site considering the minimal rain that has fallen in this part of the dessert.

The road turned into a two lane road with very sharp turns into the hills. Surprisingly there were a lot of homes (mobile, trailers and such)throughout the road. It did not take too long to reach the top. On the way we stopped a few times to take pictures. Once we began to descend, the road was the same; colorful and still with dizzying sharp turns. At some spots, you could see signs of old mines as well as some that seemed operational.
The highlight of the trip was a town called Oatman. Right along the center of the road, there were donkeys meandering around as if they owned the town. There were plenty of tourists (Of course we were tourists at that point too) feeding carrots to the donkeys, some seem a bit aggressive, while some others just laid on the ground.






Once we left this town, we headed towards Bullhead City. By this time it was already about 6:30PM and since we had nothing else to do at home, we decided to spend the night in Laughlin.


Melissa and I had come full circle.
One of our first outings as a dating couple was here in Laughlin and we actually stayed at the same place.

RAIN

It's been raining most of the morning here. What a difference from yesterday to today. The heat has this way of getting to you where you feel hot and just miserable so waking up to thunder and lightning is a blessing. It is now about noon and it is sprinkling still.
Olivia is in San Francisco with her "auntie." Anthony is in Southern California with his grandmother and family, so this week Melissa and I are without the kids this week. It is very strange not to have them here and hear their voices, singing or playfulness's around. When they get back, we are all going to Disneyland for a few days. Not my favorite place, but it will be very nice to be there with them. I must admit I am kind of looking forward to it, perhaps just to get away from work(ers).

Love Affair

Not the kind that you're thinking of.

I began my love affair with computers back in 94-95. This was during college where if you did not have your own computer, you had to rely on the computer lab at school and hope that it was not full when you got there to type your final paper, prior to turning it in two hours later.

Way back in 1990, i had already been introduced to and playing with the old game of "Where is Carmen San Diego" in the old 5" discs, remember the big square ones? No graphics there, only the black screen with green letters. a few squares, rectangles and funky green graphics to stare at.

So I bought an Macintosh Performa. The kind that has the monitor and the hard rive integrated in one unit. It came with only 80 megs of memory, which at that time was enough for writing college papers and other minimal stuff. The great thing about the computer then, it came with a free connection to the school's Internet portal. The old BOL, or Bruin On Line. Of course at hat time the basic connection was with a phone line, which would disconnect each time a call came through (you could also disable call waiting).

Now in the garage

That is when I was truly introduced to the Internet. Apart from researching for school and other stuff, I began surfing for mundane information. Eventually I signed up with AOL. Then came all the chat rooms, pop ups, profiles, then yahoo and the rest is history.

My second computer was a Presario Laptop, which I still use form time to time. On my desk sits a Sony Vaio, which hold most of my music, pictures and work files.

My favorite toy though is my Dell Inspiron, which I use mostly for work. If there is one aspect of the Internet that I could have lived without, it had to be AOL.

Now computers are so much more common and mundane that they are like house phones ten years ago. Everyone had one in their rooms.

Kids are so adept to using them and they see them as something that has always been there, along with the TV and cable box.

The love affair is still going strong, though it is not like at the begining, when every waking moment was spent on the computer....

That is a good thing.

NIGHTCLUB

On Friday and Saturday nights, our restaurant turns into a night club. Here are some shots of the place.

What's Important in LIfe

For the last two weeks, I haven't been blogging much. I have been working and doing stuff with family. My Mom is here again after going back to Mexico for a few months. I guess she must like it here since she came back so quickly, maybe she just wanted to get away from my brother....

She was in L.A. for about three weeks and now she is here in Vegas, of course she is staying at my brother's, who is right now in Mexico with all his family.

The kids are out of school and will not be going back till the begining of the new school year.

Is this all a routine?..

Am I getting bored with my rutine?

Is Melissa?

How much of what we do everyday is just routine?

How do you tackle what is routine and mundane or just "the same thing everyday"?

Melissa mentioned it this morning:

Get up, shower, get dressed, brush your teeth, blow dry your hair, get your shoes on, kiss your boyfriend good bye.---That is supposedly her routine, well

I kind of broke it by walking her downstairs and to the door naked.

"Have a great day at work"

SHORTHAND TRANSLATED

Is that what it was called?.
When "bosses" dictated to their secretaries?..... Bunch of lines, squigles, etc. If that was short hand, what do you call this?....

From somewhere in the blogworld.....

" i no no1 reads dis but im gunna say stuf anyway on da uva hand if peeps red dis den i most prob wudnt write in it! im so clever i no wot im not guna do, loli dont mean al da stuff i say but im gona say it anyway.anyway, b4 i get 2 random... da girls in skoo, r obsesd wit boys. its a ll dey eva talk about.ma frend bex fancy dis boy curtis who is a real beep i cant stand da guy. hes seriously anoyin. jemz has even gon 2 hit him loads of time but he dus his stupid laf nd runs away like a little kid.jemz is no beta. she fancys a bucktooth freak cald kyle. hes been a proper beep to her but she still likes him! im meen, common sense dat a 17 yr old only wants 1 fing, and i aint gona let my 14 yr old bff giv it 2 him. no beep treats ma friend like beep. i rekon hes cheatin on her anyways, cos he lives miles away from us.anyway, if u woz bord enuf 2 read dis i feel sorry 4 u. "

SENSATIONSALISM

I thought the dramatic graphics and sensationalism was only for TV. Now you also find it on the Internet.

On today's main yahoo page, you have this news that there was a shooting at a casino in Las Vegas. The latest news is that the people who were shot are OK. the shooter is under custody and will more than likely be going to jail. This post though is about the pictures and graphics that are intended to catch your attention so you can be "hooked" to read or at least look at it.
They have them every year and for every disaster imaginable:
"THE CHALLENGER DISASTER"
"THE FLOODS OF 2007"
"KATRINA AND KILLER TORNADOES"
"THE SUMMER FIRES OF 05"

They actually almost make it all seem and sound like a movie title. I think they are obnoxious and pathetic. Notice the cross hairs (or telescopic sight) added as to the picture? The picture also shows where the shooting took place, but in real life, the place does not look that Orange/red dramatic color.
Get ready next year for:

"2008 THE YEAR BUSH ABOLISHED THE CONSTITUTION"

Sunrise

Sunrise
Originally uploaded by Ciscokid1

One of the great things about working an overnight shift is driving home while the sun is coming up. This picture was taken last Sunday morning instead of going home to sleep and since I had my camera in the car, I decided to take some pictures. For more pictures go to my flickr page.

Enjoy!

UPDATE

All is well in my little world.

I guess sometimes your are either too busy to blog or just don't feel like it. I have actually been barely on line. I did find this new software that has allowed me to find some new (and old) songs without the restrictions of i-tunes, so that has kept me busy.
Tomorrow Melissa and I celebrate another anniversary of being together. We'll be going out tonight to celebrate since I am actually working tomorrow and of course I do nto get out until midnight.
Olivia and Anthony were at "camp" last week begining on Wednesday. Melissa was there too and they did not get back untill Sunday afternoon. I did not do much other than rest. We've had a fairly busy week at work. Speaking of work.

Do you have manners when you go out to eat?
Do you order form the menu or make up your own stuff?
Do you complain about the littlest thing?

Are you a picky eater?

TAGGED

As Tags go (Thanks Yamell) Here is another one.


Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog with their 7 things as well as these rules. You need to tag 7 others and list their names on your blog. Remember to leave a comment for them letting them know they have been tagged and to read your blog.

1. I grew up in Mexico City 'till I was 19
2. I have now been in the states longer than I have been in Mexico.
3. I have been as fars South as New Orleans, as far north/east as Vermont. I have been northwest to Seattle and of course as far southwest as San Diego and further south.
4. I learned the hard way that to start a business, you need to cross all your T's and dot all your I's.
5. I have landed on my feet despite all set backs.
6. I have a woman whom I believe loves me.
7. I run about 4 miles (if and when I get motivated to do it)

Anyone else who stops here and would like to participate...Go ahead.

LATE NEWS

I had just posted the previous blog when I ran accross this.

Lindsay Cancels Party