My Big, Fat, Exciting Summer Vacation

Well, it starts tomorrow. I get on a plane to L.A. at 11:30... here's the approximate schedule:

Thursday, 6/28: Arrive in L.A. around 1:00, get a rental car, drive to North Hollywood, and hang out until my friends get done with work and stuff. Steph, Travis, Chris, Shannon and I will be eating Pastrami from The Hat and playing games (I believe All For One is on the docket!). After that I'm staying at Steph's, which undoubtedly means Guitar Hero.

Friday, 6/29: My parents arrive in Pasadena, and my sister and Matt arrive in Burbank. I suppose I'll meet up with them at the hotel, and greet other assorted cousins and family I don't really know. Friday night there's a rehearsal dinner at Beckham Grill, which I'm sure is a fancy shmancy restaurant. My tolerance and appreciation for fancy shmancy restaurants has grown... so I am looking forward to that.

Saturday 6/30: I actually have no idea what I'm doing on Saturday. I originally thought the wedding would be Saturday, but like any good Jewish wedding, it's actually on Sunday. If I'd realized that I might have traveled on different days, or maybe tried to play the first day of Potlatch up in Seattle before coming down to L.A. Oh well... Maybe I'll find some pickup frisbee on Saturday - there must be some pickup frisbee in the greater L.A. area on a Saturday!

Sunday 7/1: The wedding isn't until 5:30 pm, so I imagine it's family time until then.

Monday 7/2, Tuesday 7/3: I imagine it'll be Monday that my family and I head south to San Diego. I've not been there since Renee lived there, which is like 4 years ago now. My grandma will be joining us in SD for some nice family reunion time with Renee and Matt - who will likely spend much of the time visiting their old friends in San Diego. I just hope this weekend I'll get a chance to visit with my sister as well...

Wednesday 7/4 - Friday 7/6: I hop a plane coast-to-coast to spend the 4th of July with my cousin Rachel who I never visit. I've never been to New York City before, and I finally piled up the excuses to go: visit Rachel, and attend the monthly playtest session of some friends of mine from the BGDF who live in and around New York. They meet in Albany, which I believe is abut as far from NYC as Phoenix is from Tucson. I.e. "not very". One BGDF member is from Uruguay, but he';ll be in NYC that week as well, so I intend to meet up with him in NYC and we'll drive to Albany together.

Saturday 7/7: "Spielbany" - the Albany playtest session with Jeff Warrender and other BGDF members I know online but not in real life (yet). Unfortunately, Origins (a big game convention) is the same weekend, so people like Zev from Z-man games and some of the BGDF people that would normally attend will be in Ohio for that :/ Timing could have been better I suppose, but hey, how often do I get a chance to meet a friend from Uruguay?

Sunday 7/8: I'll be playing it by ear at this point. I sort of hope an impromptu day 2 of the playtest thing will happen, but I sort of doubt it. I would have flown home on Sunday, but I wasn't sure where I'd be or what the plan would be.

Monday 7/9: Finally I head home at 8:something am. Due to the time zone difference, I';ll be back in Tucson in time to get to work right after lunch (after 7 or 8 hours of travel) - so I'll be able to get a glimpse of what piled up on my desk while I was gone!