Dave's Thoughts of the Day: December 16th

Well here it is!  Only a few more days until winter break for those of us at the workplace!!

I'm happy fellas... do the dance!  This weekend I went on a pub crawl down Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica.  It didn't go as well as we hoped.  All the bars were overcrowded and most of them had long lines to get in.  The ones we got into were still overrun with patrons.   We actually spent a good amount of time at "Earth Wind and Flour," a pizza restaurant.  It was listed as one of the spots on the pub crawl, and it had a bar, but it was definitely not anyone's first choice, but we made the most of it.  We seemed to get the most beverages there.  The lady with the glasses was kind enough to get us all our snacks and drinks in quick order.

They would always tell you about beer farts, but even with that in mind I was mesmerized how gassy I was the next morning.  I felt like a charged up hot air balloon most of the day.   Farts everywhere... thankfully for Coach he was out of town for the midday.  I took care of most of the release in the bathroom.

The next night, our swim club had a holiday party at the Pauley Pavilion club underneath the floor at the arena.   It's a VIP lounge but we were all there kibitzing for the end of year festivities.   Really good time.   A neat little quick about the place, there's a replica scoreboard just above the bar at the Pavilion club and it is accurate to the letter with the scoreboard up above center court above it.  It showed the final score of last night's UCLA game:  UCLA 95, Prarie View A&M 71.  It was really good to chat w/ everyone once again, although I definitely missed talking to some familiar faces.  There were a whole lot of people there and a limited amount of time so I realized I was going to miss saying hi to everybody.

It was also last night that I could sense the people who enjoyed my company and the ones who, hahahahaah, let's say "tolerated it."  Now the former greatly outweighs the latter, and thank goodness for that.  But I think we've all run into those people.  Guys and girls who you say hello to and they say hello back and just move somewhere else.  Usually at that point you're like "I can take a hint" and you don't bother the rest of the way.  I was actually surprised how many people overall were engaged in a conversation with me.  I never realized I captured peoples interest like that.

In fact, I was at a table with some of my buddies and I went into the story of how my friend went on "Jeopardy!" and won on the show, and everybody was on the edge of my seat.  When I saw that I was like "WHOAH BABY" on the inside, but that moment was very cool.  It's exceedingly rare to weave a tale and have everyone hang on your every word and I just wanted to make sure I delivered a good finish!  I thought the conversation went well... those were good times.

Speaking of "kibitzing" I went to Canter's Deli in Hollywood on Friday night, after an eventful drive there, and I finally went to the place they called the "Kibitz Room."  I thought it was some incredible show room like they'd have in Vegas or something, but all it really was was a dive bar that was housed within the dining room of the existing Canter's Deli.  It wasn't terribly big.... think of it like your typical, dimly lit, depressing dive bar built into an old deli.  It had a tiny stage within there too... you go into the Kibitz room and you get taken back to every small town in America, including that one dive bar we went to in Banning a while ago.

Guns 'n Roses got their start there at the Kibitz room... who would have guessed they'd go from that to international fame and fortune?   Everybody's gotta start somewhere.   Presumably other bands play at the Kibitz room today, but nobody terribly famous, and for good reason.  It's a small place, so you really only would ever get some lower end acts in there.   I suppose GNR was the rare fluke gem that hit the rough?

I was about to check out, pay the bill, and all, and saw a pile of these books about Guns 'n Roses at the Kibitz Room.. boy somebody's really milking that detail isn't he?  The real star of the show, in my opinion, was the corned beef sandwich.  It was such an amazing sandwich!  Once again, the meat just came apart and melted with juice.   Worthy every penny.

Christmas shopping is done, do the dance again!!   With that now completed, I can focus on prepping for trips and other goodies, plus finishing out my work for the year at my day job.  It's a great time ahead, time to have some fun!

Catch you all on Tuesday.