Back in Costa Rica -- For a Week

Back to the BETonSPORTS campus in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Not sure if it is the 14-hour days, being confined to the Mall of San Pedro, or just knowing that there is so much more to this country to see that I am not getting to even scratch the service on, but for some reason I am dredding my time down here more and more, but at least this time I am only down here for a week, and considering all the upsides to this job, that is a small price to pay in the longrun, and I realize it.

Super Bowl XL

Well I can honestly say that my first visit to Detroit lived up to its expectations, considering that my expectations were about as low as they can go doesn't say much for the impression the city left on me.

Can't rip on it too much because I would imagine the city leaves probably the same impression on outsiders who visit STL and can't explore much more than what is within a 10-15 block radius of their hotel, as was my case with the Motor City.

Some of highlights included:
* Getting to see Joe Louis Arena, and getting to see the Blues play there none the less, even though they suck you-know-what right now it is always good to see the Note play on the road, and they hung with one of the league's best teams for two whole periods.
* Getting to see a ton of celebrities in my hotel and the greater hotel complex, the Marriott I was at was connected to the media center, where SportsCenter and every other media outlet was set up at, so there were celebrities always coming and going from doing interviews, among the highlights:
John Heder (Napoleon dynamite)
Joe Montana
Michael Irvin ("Make sure you hide the crack pipe" I yelled as I walked by a group mobbing him late and night, and yes, I was drunk!!)
And the list goes on and on.
To view a slideshow from my trip to the Motor City, click here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/celticcommunications/slideshow?.dir=/7d39&.src=ph

A Small Bite Out of the Big Apple

Back from a busy week of work (and one day of fun) from New York. This trip was a little more enjoyable though as instead of going back to an empty hotel room or trying to find things to keep me busy I had a great travel companion in my girlfriend Kelly.
The great thing about New York is that she was able to keep herself more than busy during the day while I was tending to business and then in the evening (and sometimes early afternoon) we were able to hook up and see some of the sites. I was able to work my schedule so that I didn't have any meetings on Thursday so we spent an extremely warm day throughout the city. We started with a long stroll through Central Park and saw most of the highlights of the famous area (the fountain, the dairy, the castle, the statues, it was very nice I must say). We then walked up and down 5th Ave, checked out diamond row, St. Patrick's cathedral, Rock Center, and then back to the hotel for a quick change before a stroll through So-Ho, the Village and a great dinner at Provence (French place in So-Ho, and I highly recommend it).
Other highlights of the week included:
Getting to see a live taping of the Late Show with David Letterman
A tour of the United Nations headquarters in New York
Walks through Times Square, Grand Central Station, Broadway, and 5th Ave.
Links to the photo album will be posted soon.
To view a slideshow from the NY trip click here (but be warned there are a ton of pics -- many taken by Kelly during the day while I was in meetings and so forth, but there are some good ones):
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/celticcommunications/slideshow?.dir=/e75b&.src=ph

A Day For Ray

Well this marks two non-travel related posts in a row but oh well (and it might be a month or so before another post as my travel plate looks clean for a while).

It is nearly 2 a.m. on Monday morning and my good friend Ray Lindewirth will be buried in about 9 hours from now. I have been asked to deliver the eulogy at his funeral mass and while I know what I want to say I have been having trouble sleeping lately because a) I don't want to mess up my talk, and b) I hope to give him the respect and honor that is due to him.

The visitation was Sunday and it was good to meet up with a bunch of friends and fellow Knights beforehand for dinner and to share Ray stories, I know he was with us as we laughed and remembered him, that was the kind of stuff that Ray loved most, just hanging out with friends and visiting.

Drop me a line to say hello (kevins@betonsports.com) and have a happy holidays and a happy New Year.

Next travel posts will likely be New York-related, but more info on that after the first of the year.

An Up and Down Day

Wow, what a 30 minute span I had last night.

First the good:
Long story short, at about 8:20 I get a call that I have FREE VIP tickets to go see U2 on one of their final shows of the Vertigo tour in STL.

Then the bad:
My excitement of getting to go see one of my favorite bands (for free none the less) was brought down in a hurry as while I was driving to pickup my gal for the concert (and my hookup for the tickets) I got a call that one of my dear friends Ray Lindewirth had passed away that evening. I was going to not go to the concert but was encouraged by my friend to go and see the show since there was nothing much I could do that evening.

I will miss Ray dearly, as he was a great friend and was my first captain when I started throwing darts years ago and he was my mentor of sorts, as I took over the reigns of being the captain as he hung up his darts a few years ago.

Wave Runners Rock

Well I am back from the Bahamas and the cold weather in STL has put me right back in my place.

The conference was good and getting to see everyone was a big plus. Had a wonderful evening out with one of my favorite people I used to work with (Dawn) and her husband Dave, who came down to the Bahamas for some R&R with his honey! The three of us and Sue (my former boss at RCG) went to a local hangout in the Bahamas (The Fish Fry) and had a decent dinner and then found a local bar that had a live band that no run down would do justice, you would have to see them to believe them, but needless to say that was a highlight of the trip.

The night out was after my one day at the beach to sit back and chill. Sue and I managed to take some wave runners out for an hour or so (I took mine out for longer than I was supposed to), and I have to say riding wave runners is one of my favorite things. It was amazing how much smoother the ride was in the ocean than it is at the Lake of the Ozarks.

The trip also included a stop at the Atlantis resort which has a great marina and aquarium. Pictures will be posted soon of that stuff, in the meantime, there are a few of the view I had from my room (and the beach) here:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/smittyk17/slideshow?.dir=/410d&.src=ph

Crazy Travel Day

Well it was a crazy travel day today.

Not sure if you heard on the news or not, but there was a crazy dude running around the airport in Miami saying stuff like he was going to blow up the plane and the airport, guess what?, they don't mess around with that kind of stuff, and the dude was shot and killed in the jetway outside the gate. The gate just happen to be 41 at terminal D in Miami.

The shooting happened a few hours after I was through Miami en route to the Bahamas, but I just happened to land at gate D43 from STL and was sent to gate D35 for my connecting flight, just gives you pause to how close things can be in life.

River City Group, my former employer, is putting on a two-day, heavy intensive conferecne about the online poker industry, which is what has brought me here, I am looking forward to seeing a lot of my friends in the business, hopefully learning some new stuff, and of course, hitting the beach.