Monday, April 19, 2010

Jamaican Wedding

Continuing with my tradition to procrastinate, I'll blog about the past few days instead of check email and do work. This past weekend I was in Jamaica for my cousins wedding. Absolutely amazing time. I'll start from the beginning though.

The first part of this is going to mirror another blog post I've recently read. I feel I need to discuss how stupid some people are though. Here it is, my travelling by plane rants. So everyone, let's talk about how to get ready for a trip somewhere. First, the clothes you will wear to the airport. I don't care if you wear pajamas, or a business suit, whatever you are most comfortable flying in, wear it. You shouldn't wear lots of metal jewelry though, or put hidden trinkets in your 20 pockets. If you set off the metal detector more than once, I think you deserve a shot to the kidneys.

I had to wait 5 minutes for a woman and her child to get through the damn metal detector in security. The only reason I got through that quickly was because I lapped them. Yes, after each had gone through no less than 3 times each, I ignored line protocol, and just walked past them to get through. It's not like there have been radical changes to the security process. It's been AT LEAST 7 years, of shoes off, computers in a bin, all metal objects in the bin, the only thing going through should be yourself, and the clothes on your back. No accessories. I know I'm fortunate enough to travel around and have my security process down to an efficient routine, but this was ridiculous.

Next gripe, getting onto the plane. I have two issues here. 1.) People who pack more than one carry on bag, and 2.) Switching seats. We'll start with the first. Ladies and Gentlemen, you are allowed ONE carry on bag and ONE personal item. Let me clarify that for you, you can have ONE small suitcase, and ONE item that fits underneath the seat in front of you. The small item means a laptop bag (not one of those huge ones), purse, or handbag. That does not mean you should be 2 XXL Vera Wang, or whatever the hell those bags are, onto the plane to stuff into the overhead bins. I actually blame the airlines for this little gem of stress for charging to check bags. Just standardize across the industry to add $25 to ticket prices. This nickel & dime stuff is killing me.

Still on to carry on items. When placing them in the overhead bins, use the bins near y our seat. I don't care that you packed 50lb weights in your bag. I really don't. Carry your bags to the back of the plane where your seats are, don't just toss them in the first bin you see because it's open. Maybe if you walked that extra distance with your oversized carry ons, you wouldn't have to purchase 2 seats because you are overflowing into the seat next to you. We are becoming a society were being lazy, overweight, and self-entitled to things that don't belong to us are common place and accepted. People should be called out on this, and flogged in public. And you know what, if I have any of these traits, I would hope I get called out on it. It makes you a better person. Noose called me out the other day saying I don't run the garbage disposal enough and I'm the one who should be running it since I put food down the sink. You know what happens now? I run it at least once to twice a week, and the kitchen smells better. Everyone wins.

The final gripe, clapping when the plane lands. I don't get an applause when I do my job at work. In fact, there's a good chance, I might get chewed out for not responding to emails while on vacation. I don't own a crackberry for this reason. So don't clap when a pilot lands, don't sing, don't do anything. Act like he's supposed to do it, because well, he's supposed to. I will leave a caveat for this though. I was on a flight with returning soldiers from Iraq who hadn't seen their family in over 1 year. They were on their final flight home, and only had to walk off the plane and to baggage claim before seeing their loved ones. I joined them when they started clapping for joy when those wheels touched down. Support our troops.

As you can tell the trip down was pretty eventful. The wedding was in Ocho Rios and I was greeted in the terminal by my driver who was taking me. Once I got into the car, I asked my driver how long of a drive it was. "90 minutes man" was his reply. Well damn. So it was an hour and a half of silence as we drove the winding rodes of Jamaica. I'm usually talkative, but I'd been up since 4am, exhausted, and really just not in the mood to talk. Plus the scenery was breathtaking and I was taking it in.

The Royal Plantation, our resort, was amazing. Everyone was extremely accommodating, and all I had to do was ask and my wishes were granted. As is traditional with most weddings, a round of golf was played. We played Friday morning, and I was pair with my dad, older brother, and uncle to cousin (from his mom's side). This wound up being one of the most frustrating, enjoyable games of golf I've ever played. We were all using rental clubs, which will be my excuse for poor play. Per usual, my game was poor, with spurts of greatness. My greatest moment, and the one that will allow me want to play again, was being 5 yds shy of hitting my ball onto the green in 2, on a Par 5. Somehow I managed to string together a perfect drive (between 2 trees and cutting the corner of a dogleg), and then drilling a fairway shot with my 5 wood. Unfortunately, I took a bad chip, and 2 puts to pull off a legit par, but I was so pleased with the first two shots that I'll be coming back for more.

Fun fact about my family, they love martinis. How much so? In 3 days we drank the resort out of Beefeater Gin. The resort said they'd never seen anything like it.

The wedding and reception were gorgeous. I'll try to post some photos later. I managed to keep myself in check the entire weekend, only drinking beer with the occasional shot. I made the mistake once of trying to keep up with my cousins. I'm still at an amateur status, and had to pace myself through the night. I managed to stay up until 2am with most of the grooms friends celebrating after the reception when one comes up to me, "Dan! Think they still are doing shots?" I had to assume yes, so we checked, found out whiskey was all that was left for the night, and we rounded up 12 shots of Jameson. I don't normally drink whiskey, but Jameson was mighty fine and goes down smooth.

The worst part about the trip was getting up at 4am today to leave and spending the whole day coming back to Chicago. It's good to be back though. Unfortunately though, I turned my work computer on, and have no less than 20 important messages, including missing time and expense reports and scorecards. Perfect. I'll be up for a few hours catching up. This is honestly the worst part about vacation, I have to get back to the real world and play catch up for 2 days.

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