dallas!

dallas was a great time.



i got in around 2:00 on wednesday, showed up at the dallas office of my company, and finally met so many of my co-workers that i'd talked to on a daily basis but never met in person. it was a great time. first off, the dallas office is fucking incredible. it's this old loft space that used to be a radio station back in the 50s. it's absolutely gorgeous inside and being there made me realize just how fully lame my office is.



i worked for a few hours, catching up on the shit i missed while i was airborne. after work, a few of us headed over to this bar called the pearl, which was right near the office. this is yet another amazing perk of working in dallas. the nearest bar to my office in richmond is a fucking outback steakhouse.

so i got approval from my boss to buy some drinks, which i gladly did.. and we all proceeded to get drunk and talk shit and gossip about our wonderful company. it was definitely a good time.

afterwards, i got a ride back to my hotel with my co-worker becky. about a block away from the hotel, i mentioned the fact that i forgot to make plans to go see the book depository building and the grassy knoll, the site of kennedy's assassination. becky did a u-turn, and at midnight, we ended up being late night tourists. we're walking around looking at the various landmarks when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this homeless dude appears and starts giving us the most AMAZING tour. he has all the facts, he knows all the conspiracy theories. he starts telling us the most crazy shit about how jack ruby owed money to the mafia.. and the mafia was in bed with the CIA.. and how lee harvey oswald was just a patsy in the whole thing. fucking CRAZY. i was just drunk enough and just amazed enough at our crazy homeless knowledgeable tourguide that i gave him a $20.



so how do you celebrate getting quite possibly the best tour of an assassination site in your life? well, you continue the festivities by heading to a bar called "lee harvey's", which is exactly what we did. a few more beers later, and i'm thoroughly drunk, thoroughly tired and ready to head back to the hotel.

now, the hotel i'm staying in is fancy. and by fancy i mean, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that a person like me should be staying there. but because my company likes to throw money at things, i somehow ended up with a room there. i don't question it.



now, i'm drunk and i show up to the hotel at 1:00am and i drunkenly request my room and all that. i inquire about the pool being open, and i am told that sadly it is closed for the night. bummer. i get my room key, 362, and head up to the third floor.

i arrive to the third floor and look to my right to see the doors to the fancy named suites and then to my left where all the other rooms are. i start trudging down the hall with my giant luggage and look for my room. i get all the way to the end of the hall and the last room is 361.

WHAT THE FUCK?

i look all around trying to find my mysterious room, but the hall literally ends one number short.

my first assumption is that the desk guy saw that i was drunk and he was fucking with me. i have to admit, it would have been a pretty funny joke. so i start heading back to the elevators, about to go downstairs and congratulate the guy on his well-executed prank. well, as i'm standing there in the hallway, i notice that the named suites have numbers as well... and goddamnit if there isn't one with a 362 on it.

somehow for some crazy reason, i got upgraded to a suite without my prior knowledge.

i go into this suite, drunk and tired, and i am absolutely blown away by the radness of this hotel room. it's designed to look like a fancy new york city apartment. there's a gigantic king-size bed, a giant flat screen HDTV, an executive desk, various chairs to lounge in, a gigantic mirror, and a terry cloth robe waiting for me on the bed. HOLY SHIT.



i took a bunch of pictures before i fucked it all up, crawled into bed and just laughed at how awesome this hotel rooom was.. and what a shame it was that i didn't have a beautiful girl to impress with it.

i fell asleep, woke up to a delicious gourmet breakfast in my room (shit cost me $20!!) and took a shower in the ridiculous giant four-person sized shower.



i came crashing back to reality when i left the hotel, went back to work, and of course, got slammed with the various day-to-day work shit that i deal with. then at 2:00 it was back to the airport where i plugged in and worked a few more hours. i even did an hour or so of work on the plane, since i had nothing else to do.

i got home around 10:30pm to find richmond in the middle of a giant storm. it was nice though. after the sun and heat of san diego and dallas, it was nice to get a little gloomy.

all in all, a pretty awesome trip. i hope i get to travel again soon, because i could get used to staying in fancy hotels and not having to pay for any of my meals.