Valley of the Sun..... and tacos

It sucks being sick. Being in one big room at work with little circulation tends to let germs sit around and get you sick. It was bad timing too since i had already planned to take time off to go to my best friend's wedding! So it looked like i took a 5 day vacation (but it's not like i didn't enjoy the time off). Wednesday i got hit by a sledgehammer of sick and it just sidelined me till Monday. But hey it was Mike and i haven't seen him in ages and he was getting married! Plus i bought my plane tickets already so that didn't help. ha ha. Man it's been ages since i went on a trip like this. Having to get a hotel, a rental car, trip planning. Dude that stuff is expensive! The rental car was cheap, but taxes added almost 100% to the cost! Damn i'm glad i usually only go to LA when i travel.

It was good to see Mike again (all 20 minutes of it since he was busy entertaining). I didn't actually get a chance to talk to his wife Angela (or even get introduced to her) but Mike and his mom have both raved about what a great woman she is. The best example i can think of (this might be slightly inaccurate since I don't know all the details) is that she is appox 32 years old and has 2 daughters, 18 and 19. Yeah you read that right. She saw these two orphaned Russian girls who completely captured her heart so she adopted them. It's amazing to think that someone in their 20s would adopt 2 girls and raise them by herself and disregard what other people would think of her in that situation. I don't know if I could do it so I know that Mike is in great hands and i wish him and his family (and his new family) the best.

I made sure to make the most of the trip since I don't think i've been to Phoenix before (i think my family and i drove through but i can't remember if we stayed in the city or not, it's been a long time ha ha). I went to the Cracker Barrel which is best described as an even WHITER version of IHOP. There were a million white people, 3 black people and me there. Strangely enough, they gave me the only non white waitress there (chinese no less). Man it's hard to leave that place hungry! They've got some big ass portions of food and it's goooooood. I also went to Panchos Mexican Buffet. It's that special type of mexican food that's greasy enough to lubricate an engine. It's cheap, it's low quality, but dammit you get to "raise the flag" to get your next helping. See here

Due to being sick and having time constraints, I wasn't able to go to the Heart Attack Grill made famous by their Quadruple bypass burger and the "nurses". I took a picture of the outside, but I was so full from the Cracker Barrel if I had attempted to eat anything there i probably would have burst.

The scary thing about going back to work today (Tuesday) is that it felt good to "sleep in" till 6 am this morning. Lately i've been going in at 6:30 which required me to get up by 5:30 which i actually go used to if you can believe that (but i'd make up for it by sleeping till noon on the weekends :)

So it's back to grind and i hope to get the creative juices flowing soon because my brain is still stuck in neutral from being sick.