The Blackjack Birthday: Hailey's Vegas Adventure

I wish I could say I took credit for coming up with going to Vegas for Hailey's 21st birthday, but I can't. It was all her parents' doing. Which was totally cool, because they made the trip what it was.

This is the first sign you know you're leaving Bakersfield

Welcome to nowhere!

Stare down. 

So...Planet Hollywood is pretty rad. 

All green for the birthday girl! 

The Linq's block area is one of my favorite areas. Really feels like the Grove in LA. 

Family! 

St. Patty's day in Vegas is probably one of the funnest things I've done in my short adult life. Also, it was never intended that my father in law and I matched.

Me and my lady <3

We had to sit around and wait for 12:00am to hit so she could order her first drink! Waitress wanted a photo taken to celebrate. 

Mama and daughter. 

First gamble! 

The next set of photos was really fun to try and capture. Hailey had no idea, but I had gotten ahold of our friend Alison, who lives in NorCal, and she was going to be in Vegas at the same time we were, so I surprised Hailey with meeting up with her! Tears were had.

After this....

Shots! This entire trip, Hailey didn't pay for a single drink. 

Next morning..

Birthday girl all dressed up in green! 

Fremont Street! 

This was the first time I've ever been down here, and I must say, it rocked. Didn't have time to go back at night, so I guess we gotta go back. 

Military drill for St. Patricks Day.

Hard to see, but there was a celtic band, too.

Big screen is big.

Only in Vegas will you see a senior citizen in a Borat thong.

And duct tape pasties.

Had lunch here, and..

OHMYGOSH. Easily one of the BEST burgers I've ever had. It was the most tender hamburger, and loaded with a over easy egg, and DUCK bacon. 

DUCK.

BACON.

Bacon is great, but DUCK BACON. COME ON! 

I could get used to a view like this. 

Did I mention St. Patricks Day in Vegas is great?

Birthday Dinner! 

This was shot shortly after dinner at Margaritaville. Hailey landed a balloon had, and Steve and Kristy (family who live in the area) came down to meet up with us! 

Hey look! It's a grown up Yogurtland! ;) 

Old Vegas is still beautiful. 

Couldn't not see this. 

Not World of Color, but man is it beautiful and elegant. 

They were near inseparable. 

There were two ladies who lived in a shoe...

And then the weird dude who sat in one too...

Junebug! 

Bartenders getting in on the St. Patty's Day action with us too. 

Next day before we left, we went out to this place for Kelly to check out some furniture for her company. Never been inside until now, but it's AWESOME. Really cool (but uber expensive) stuff here.

We don't wanna leave! 

Vegas as a grown up is a lot of fun. Next time we want to check out a show or two, and spend more time, but as a first time trip to drink and gamble, it was a total blast. Definitely the best way to kick of Hailey's 21st year of birth. I gotta give major props to my in-laws for planning this, and going all out for Hailey. It was such a great time. Now onto the next time....

A Year Later...

It's been a year of marriage. It's insane how fast 365 days go. Yes, I know all the older couples reading this are scoffing and going "just wait until 10, 15, 25, 45 years of marriage". Also, props to whoever's married for 45 years and reading this. Congrats, you're a minority in your group to be on social media.

Anyways, I'm ecstatic. This past year has been amazing. Starting off with getting married, and honeymooning in New York City and Disneyland, then kicking it off with finding our own little place in the world with our apartment. Traveling, spending time with friends and family, mixed with working full time and overloading on units at school to graduate early, one could say we're more than busy.

Which is why I'm really thankful Hailey planned this anniversary trip. I had no idea what we were going to do until we got there. We spent the weekend at the central coast doing basically nothing. We began the weekend with couples massages and facials, which I have to admit, was amazing. I've never been a guy that's all gung-ho for getting oils and lotions rubbed all over. I'd rather just throw a towel on the beach, put on Jack Johnson and take a nap. But that changed thanks to my wife.

After we did that, we grabbed some lunch, and then went to check into our bed and breakfast, yet another first for me. It's a weird concept to me that someone will renovate a few rooms in their house and then charge people to stay there. But, it was still a lot of fun. We had this room tucked away in the trees with a private patio, and all the amenities any other hotel would have.

Haley's great at planning things. She usually picks out things we haven't done yet, and this was a weekend filled with it. New restaurants, food I haven't tried, and wine tastings! I know, this is long winded, but I'll shut up and just post the photos now.

She's 21! But seriously, she only got carded twice the entire weekend. 

This stuff was goooood. 

Clavo had great wines...but this guy totally stole the show. 

He's apparently the bosses new puppy. Took everything in me not to take this little retriever home with us.

California is one ugly state. I mean, look at this. 

Little town, but lots of fun. 

First dinner, Off The Hook, right on the water. 

After a really good dinner, which I forgot to take pictures of, I grabbed my camera and walked around taking some long exposure shots of the bay. 

Then, drove out to the rock to get the other side of the view! 

Next day, we just did a bunch of hanging out, playing games, and then before dinner, drove out and took some photos. Yay for tripod and self-timer on my camera! 

She makes me look way better than I deserve to look. 

I'll always be her groom, she'll always be my bride. 

Seriously. She's beautiful. 

The hottie with the dork in a button up. 

DOLPHIN! 

Mine?

Yup. Mine. 

Now for dinner at Giancarlo's. Here's the deal. The dude in the middle, he's Giancarlo Cucumo. He's 100% Italian, from Italy. Hailey's aunt married this guy, and we're all thankful for it, because he cooks like a damn god sent from the heavens. 

Pork belly. Never had it until that evening. But now I want it every evening. 

Can't say the same about oysters, however they did taste good. Again, new first for me. 

Butternut Squash raviolis. Sweeter than I thought they'd be. But man were they great. 

Pinwheel ham and cheese pasta...thing. I can't remember the official name of this, but it was probably my favorite. 

Steak, palenta, and a bed of gnocchi pasta. YESPLEASETHANKYOU. 

Family! Darian, me, Hailey, Lauri and Giancarlo. Really really thankful for the meal they gave us for our anniversary. Seriously. If you're ever in Morro Bay, you've GOT to check this place out. It's absolutely stellar.

Also, can't end an anniversary/birthday trip without dessert! 

Tiramisu good. Diabetes bad. Still worth it. 

Bed and breakfast stairs photo. That's the best caption I've got. 

Also, thrift shop/antiquing. New favorite thing to do. Y'know, because you find snoopy phones..

Weird Mickey record players..

And $8.00 buttons you can still get at Disneyland. But hey, I guess paying $8 to say you went over $125 to get in to the parks is worth lying to some..

Driving back home, we had to stop and shoot photos. Y'know, because this isn't Bakersfield and there's actual colors here. 

BAMBI!

So, that was our anniversary trip. We had a lot of fun, and it was really relaxing and much needed after hectic school schedules, work, and the drone of regular life. But now we're back in Bakersfield and saving up for the next excursion. Thanks for reading this far down, I really appreciate it. I know I type a lot, but this is my blog and I do what I want. Until next time, thanks for reading. 

Notes from Jake's iPhone #1

College is an interesting place. We go to a campus that's essentially its own mini city. Campus food, campus housing, campus police. If you get in trouble you face college court with the dean. If you excel you get a recognition from the president of the campus. With that, you get unique people. You thought high school had stereotypes? Ha! That was nothing compared to the variety of people and groups of people in college. 

That said, I love watching people. Observing who they are. Listening to where they've come from in life, making up who they are. It's fascinating to me and I enjoy getting to know everyone. There's people you agree with, disagree with. Connect with or intentionally avoid. But it's a wonderful experience because you get to find out yourself amidst others who are doing the same thing in their own way. It's the coolest and at the same time, oddest dichotomy. We're together in finding our individuality. 

Being a communication major I think I pay more attention to this than others, because a lot of what I study is metrics. So I'm constantly watching others. What they like or don't like, what the majority opinion is on topics, etc. And the other day in class, we had a discussion about the future. Sounds vague, I know. But our professor spent time to tell us that we actually do matter, aren't just a number, yadda yadda. We're two weeks out from finishing the quarter, but that speech solidified the fact that even he's checked out of the quarter too. It's cool, we all are over it at this point too, professor. 

What caught my eye about this particular conversation though was the responses to his speech and PowerPoint. Most didn't agree with him that it takes work to get somewhere of relative success in life. 

It took a lot of effort on my part to subtly pick my jaw up off the ground. 

I couldn't believe it. I mean, I know my generation is lazy and self-entitled, but to actually stand up and say that against someone who's trying to motivate us? It was shocking to me that someone would actually do that on a topic that really isn't controversial. This isn't like we were debating abortion rights or something. It was just a speech on how to land a job that will pay well so we could live a good life. 

But this student decided to say "nope, I'd rather rely on blind luck that someone will offer me a job and I can then go from there. But I'm not going to seek anything out". 

I'm writing this because I come from a place of hard work. Anything I've wanted in life I've been told I had to work for it. Nothing comes free and everything has a price. It comes down to how bad you want it before you get it. It could take days, months, weeks, years or even decades, but if you want it, you have to work to get it. 

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure that's how any corporation is, too. Ask any CEO from any company that does an effective job, and 9 out 10 will say they had to work their butts off to get where they are today. Sure, not everyone will be a CEO, or even a manager, but shouldn't you work your hardest and best at anything you ever do? 

I guess this student expects someone to hand a job to them, and I'm assuming they're going to wait a long time before something decent comes along their way. But this generational mentality scares me. Why should we expect others to just do stuff for us? Why can't we learn to do it ourselves? Sure it takes hard work, but I don't think there's ever been a person in the history of ever that said it wasn't a good payoff once the job was completed. 

We're the next leaders of the world in many capacities. Parents of the upcoming generation, leaders of the current companies, voters for the next leaders of the country, and much more. It seems like not many of my age take this as seriously as they should. Why else do we have teen parents going to jail for child abuse, or record lows at the poll booths? I'm not writing this with the intent to offend, I'm writing this with the intent to inspire and think about what our world is, and what we can do to make it better. Life won't get better if you don't decide to make a change. You can't lose weight by just not eating Twinkies anymore. You have to go to the gym to exercise and burn the fat off. You can't be smarter by leaving a book on the shelf. You have to pick it up and study, or you have to seek those who are smarter and have been there before you to understand the concepts and theories. It takes work. It takes dedication and discipline. That's what will impress others. That's what will help land a good job. That's what will give you a better life, because you worked hard to get to a good point. 

I guess I'm "old fashioned". But I want to be the best, and I know that the best don't stop at "just okay", and they never settle. My generation needs to wake up and stop twiddling their thumbs expecting to be vine famous. Our parents thought 15 minutes of fame was fast. Our generation is even faster. Ask anyone where today's viral hits are now that they aren't viral anymore. Even then, to maintain that level of fame is intensive work. Jerome Jarre, famous French viner now has his own team to help him assemble his vines and Instagram photos/videos literally frame by frame to make sure it'll be a hit. They spend hours a day filming and refilming six second clips. He isn't just good at going on the fly with his work. It's planned and worked on before people see it. But all people think about is getting millions of views off a video. They don't consider the work that has to go into the production of it. Yet it comes as a shock when they see just how much they have to do to be a legitimate success. Why not realize this before you want a well off life, and work on having a strong work ethic before you even do anything of relative success? Personal opinion, but I have a feeling that if you premeditate your level of work before you do it, you'll be more successful in actually doing it. 

Anyway, I know this is long winded writing, but I like to type my thoughts out loud. Thank you to those of you who have read all the way to this point. You rock. Really, you do. 

Big Plane for a Big Sky

Thanks to a friend at the airport, Hailey and I were able to go out onto the tarmac after hours and check out the massive AH-124 that landed in Bakersfield. It was really cool getting to walk all around it and see just how big this plane really is!

Wingspan from tip to tip is 80 yards wide!

68 feet high from ground to tip. 

Huge. Just...huge. 

It takes 300,000 pounds of thrust to get it off the ground. 

And, because the clouds were gorgeous too, I had to get a shot of Hangar Six.  

Married Life Is Weird Life

It's weird. It just is. Like, how crazy is the concept of marriage. You wander around through life by yourself, searching for someone to love. Going out with friends who set you up with someone they think is good for you, and they're not. They spend the time to try and pick someone out, and half the time you end up looking at your friends wondering if they really know you at all, because the person they picked out is the worst thing ever for you. Or you e-date and find out that half the people on those sites are psycho basement dwellers. Rinse and repeat that until someday when you least expect it, you crash into some other human on this rock that catches your attention. Stumble through your words and somehow convince them that you're worth their time to spend money on a meal and maybe a movie or something, and if you're lucky, you get a second chance to spend time with this new interesting person, and if you make it through the rounds, you end up becoming an 'item'. Exclusive and unavailable to everyone else.

Then over time, your feelings escalate, climbing each level of the emotional stories through the building of your mind faster than anything's ever moved in your mind before, and somehow you find yourself buying gifts for them, becoming twitter pated and all giggly and googly-eyed over this one-in-seven-billion-person, and as time passes on, you feel like you want to pick this one over anyone else to spend the rest of your life with. They're the best you want, the best you need, and the best you crave. No one else matters as much as them, and even if Emma Watson or Bradley Cooper walked in the door and begged you to date them, you'd still be stuck and fixated on the one person that you're smitten over.

Eventually you have this sunshiny and rainbowy epiphany when the clouds part, heaven sings and cherubs are pointing your way to a giant wake up sign above your person that says 'they're the one. Pick this one!'. Then you go through the hoops of signing off on a loan to buy a rock wrapped ontop of some metal, only to take this person out to someplace on this earth that's significant to only you two for some romantic reason, you get on a knee and ask them to sign their life away to you and stick it side by side with you, never to part and forever to be together. Because they're the person you realize you want to go through everything together. No matter what. Thick and thin, good times and bad, whether you're rich as Donald Trump or poor as Detroit, you're in it together.

After the proposal, you decide to stand in front of the other friends and family, have a guy tell you to repeat after him and symbolically declare your love to each other, sign off a contract saying you're responsible for each other, and then go off on a vacation to celebrate by having sex and laying around for a few days before returning to reality.

Yet as life moves on, you create other little humans, buy a dog, pay for a house, and live a life with another person you picked out of the crowd as your favorite person in the world. Someone who once was a complete stranger and you never knew, but somehow became attracted to and chose to stay with forever. Unless of course you're stuck with parents who decide to arrange your marriage. Then you're screwed being stuck with someone you have no choice to be with or not because someone else took that responsibility upon themselves to do because they thought you weren't capable of picking out the right stranger. So at least there's that happy ending...