Quest for 50

Travel, travel, travel. Seems like I'm always on the run (cue the Kravitz). This month has been pretty epic for travel though. Epic in the sense that this weekend I was able to knock off my third of the 14 untraveled states left on the list on my quest to visit all 50 of the United States.

I started November with 14 unvisited states left on my quest for 50, that number including Hawaii and Alaska.  Earlier in the month I went to Tennessee and there aint no place I'd rather be (cue the Dead). Well, there are plenty of places I'd rather be but the bbq pulled pork sandwich I had at Golly Whoppers at least made me I was happy I was there at that point in time.  I just wanted to make the Dead reference.  A week later, I was headed to Minnesoooota, as the locals would pronounce it.  Didnt really get to see the full Mall of America but I did have a few good meals, one being a burger that was almost better than the one I had at Burger & Beer Joint recently.  This puppy had a burger patty with shredded lettuce, cheese, pulled pork, AND bacon on top of it!!  My sales rep and I ate at a couple of sports bars out in Minnesota and the food was surprisingly good as was the service, something you never really get here in Miami.

The last state knocked off in November was Biloxi, Mississippi.  This trip was pure pleasure though, no work involved.  Why Biloxi?  Good question.  As I may have stated a few times on this blog, I love to gamble.  The MGM group knows this because I have their players card and play often at their casinos when Im in Vegas.  Well, they decided to mail me a postcard offering a free flight, transportation, and hotel for 2 nights for me and a companion to check out their Beau Rivage casino in Biloxi.  At first I ignored it because it seemed like one of those "too good to be true" deals.  Then, they called me and left a voicemail about the promo and sent another postcard.  I called my cousin, who also loves gambling as much as I do, and asked him if he was down to go.  They had also been sending him postcards and calls about the deal so we decided we would each take one of our buddies and head to Biloxi for a dudes weekend.  I'm not going to go into detail but lets just say that it was a full weekend of over-the-top debauchery.  Extravagant meals, a lot of drinking, and a lot of gambling.  Oh, and I got shitfaced and fell asleep at a blackjack table for about 10 minutes which the casino staff all got a great laugh out of not only on that night but when they told me about it the next day as well.  I had no recollection of that.  Yay!

Biloxi was a great time with lots of hilarious memories.  The casino was actually really nice and probably the closest outside-of-Vegas casino that I've been to that actually resembled a Vegas casino.  The only buzzkill of the trip was that we didnt get to take a drive to New Orleans on Saturday, mainly because the rental car company had no vehicles but also because none of us were in any sort of position to drive, let alone sit in a car for 2 hours.  Louisiana is one of the 11 states I now have left to visit.  Wouldve been nice to knock that one off but oh well.  There's always next year...

Inequality - get over it

Im watching ESPN and theyre talking about the lack of black coaches in college football Im sick of this shit already. Do we ever hear complaints about the lack of white players in basketball? No. Why? Because there arent as many white players that are better than the black players that dominate the game. Im a long time hoops fan and I still get a laugh when there are more than 2 white dudes on the court at the same time. Im not bitter about it though. Perhaps there arent many black coaches because they just arent any good? Maybe they are at a slight disadvantage, not because of color, but because they havent established the right relationships? Bottom line is that Im tired of the goddamn race card coming up as a cop out. Prove your better and EARN the fuckin job.

You know, I cant help what happened hundreds of years ago with the slaves. Im not Doc or Marty McFly and I cant go back in time in the Delorian to change history. Im tired of hearing about it. Granted there are a lot of people who still look at other races as "inferior", but those people are jealous and scared to admit that they are the inferior ones. On the flip side, the ones who usually play the race card are usually the lazy ones looking for a handout. Get over it.

At least ESPN made up for it by airing the Tony LaRussa DUI tape from his arrest in Jupiter, FL. It was awesome! He was stumbling all over the place and after his rendition of the alphabet I expected the cop to pull a David Spade and say, "Excuse me, did I catch a "niner" in there?"