Jpatrickm

I just returned from Puerto Vallarta last night. I was there from Monday afternoon through Thursday afternoon. It was awesome… that’s the only word I can find to describe it… almost surreal. The entire time I was just thinking to myself, I’m not really here, this is too nice! lol I went down by myself to just unwind and relax. I had the week off from work and I knew if I stayed at home I would just sit in front of the computer.

The only problem is that I forgot my camera So all I had was my little camera phone, which I guess is better then nothing. I took a few pictures and also managed to grab a few video clips of the place I was staying.

I stayed in a little exclusive place called Casa Cupula. The entire place only has 10 rooms so it is very exclusive, tucked away on a back hillside overlooking the bay. I am friends with the owner and the manager, who are both American and used to live in Seattle. They just opened up for this season on Monday so I was one of their first guests for the winter. They also upgraded me to one of the nicer suites, with a nice king size bed and huge double-headed shower, which was just a reminder to myself that I was traveling alone. They have a full staff and you and you can drink and eat anytime of day. There was only 1 other guest staying there for most of my visit so it was like having the entire house to myself.

During the day I just sat by the pool or walked down to the beach and sat under the umbrellas and drank a few beers. The locals are very friendly, outgoing and very cute. As an example of how outgoing they are, I arrived on Monday afternoon and decided to walk down to a local cafe to get some food. I sat down at a table and noticed a little scooter drive by with a very cute guy on it. A few minutes later the scooter returned and parked out front. He came in and chatted with the staff for a few minutes, clearly friends with all of them. After about 10 minutes he left, smiling to me as he jumped back on his scooter and sped off. The waiter (who was also one of the cutest guys I’ve ever seen) then came over to me and handed me a little handwritten note along with my check. The note said:

Hi Cutie, how are you?
I think u r so handsome.
I saw u b4.
This is my phone number ### ### ## #####.
– Eduardo.

I just smiled and thought to myself… damn I love this city! lol How perfect is that. I’m there for less then a few hours and I’m getting notes from really cute boys. This stuff NEVER happens to me.

Anyway, that set the tone of my entire stay. People are very friendly and very outgoing and it was nice to meet and chat with all sorts of people. I also noticed that being on my own made me much more outgoing, which usually is not the case normally. I’m soooo ready to move there

The rest of my trip was fairly low-key (I don’t kiss and tell) haha The pictures and video clips are below. If you’re thinking about getting away to Puerto Vallarta, definitely consider Casa Cupula. Tell them Joe sent you haha

Click the “continue” link below to jump to the pictures and videos. The pictures are hosted at Flickr. The videos are below linked through YouTube.com.

Continue to the rest of this post »

Leave a comment

ME!! That’s what! History repeats itself. Here I am stuck overnight, AGAIN, in Manchester, NH sitting in a hotel room eating pizza. After waiting for almost 4 hours at the airport today, my flight back to San Diego was cancelled. The VERY last time I was in NH, I flew through Manchester and my flight was cancelled then as well, although last time it was because of a spring blizzard. I blogged about it then too (click here to read Snowbound) Today the reason was a combination of factors. First, the flight was delayed for a maintenance issue, which ended up being nothing. Then it was delayed due to air traffic congestion in Atlanta, which is where I was connecting through. THEN, the delay lasted so long that the flight crew went past their allowable flight time and couldn’t continue on. The next available flight was at 7 am so rather then have my mother drive the 2 hours roundtrip to the airport and back, I just decided to use the hotel voucher from the airline and stay local. So here I am wasting a perfectly good Friday night sitting in a hotel eating crappy pizza and watching CNN… THANKS Delta Airlines!

You would think in this day and age with all of our advanced technology and modern travel achievements that we would be better at this. Why on earth does it take 12+ hours to get across the country??… and that’s when everything goes exactly to schedule. It’s ridiculous. Oh yeah, sure, everyone will say that air travel is still the most efficient way to get places and that it’s better then taking the train or a covered wagon across mountain passes like they did a hundred years ago. Well you can stick it. I’m not asking for anything that isn’t already possible. We can’t get across the country faster and easier because nobody cares enough to make it happen. The airlines CHOOSE to route us through hub after hub in order to save money and consolidate expenses. I can’t find a non-stop flight these days to save my life. Sure, I fully understand the airlines are all bankrupt and need to fly their equipment at capacity and not waste resources but it just seems like $400 should get you a little more these days. In an era of instant communication and information at the speed of light, it just seems insane that it takes a full day (sometimes 2!) just to go 4-5 hours of actual flying time.

What if you spent $400 to reserve a nice hotel room and you showed up and they said, "sorry, we don’t have any rooms left… we thought we were going to but we don’t. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow at 7 AM to get your room." Why are we forced to tolerate this crappy service and inefficient system? It’s enough to make you wanna just say screw it and not go anywhere anymore.

Oh yeah, stay tuned… I fly to Puerto Vallarta on Monday.

Leave a comment

As Bob Dylan once sang, "For the times they are a-changin’". And so they are. A lot has been going on lately and lots of changes have taken place. I think often about writing things here in my blog and then other times I think, why bother… who the hell cares lol It makes me think of this new recently published book about blogging called, "No One Cares What You Had for Lunch" (hover over link for info). So when I think about blogging, I think, what the hell do I possibly have to write about?

Oh well, that being said… I’m on vacation right now in New Hampshire. Actually I’m in Maine since my mom and sister live there now and that’s who I’m staying with. I grew up in NH so my standard answer to everyone is always that I’m heading to NH. I’ve been here since Monday and I head back to San Diego tomorrow (Friday). It’s been almost two years since I visited the east coast, so it’s good to be back and clock in some time with the fam.

I’m on vacation because I’m between jobs… again. In just the last 3 months, I’ve switched jobs twice. Back in July I left the web design company I was working for to accept a programming position with the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine. Well, in spite of working in the same office as my super-duper-cool roommate Dylan, I realized that it wasn’t really a good fit for me and that I was more suited to the business & e-commerce web world. E-commerce, blogs and business solutions is all I’ve ever done. I guess I confused not liking client-based work with just having too much to do. With the new job I’ll have more control over my workload and my own destiny. So back I go to the original design company. They gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse It’s work that I’m familiar with and since I already worked there, I know the people and the clients. I start there on October 16th. So until then I’m putting my feet up and getting in a little relaxation time.

Next Monday the 9th I head off on my own to Puerto Vallarta for 4 days to REALLY relax and shut my brain off. Actually, I’m intentionally sequestering myself in hopes of doing some writing. I’ve had some story ideas that I want to turn into a screenplay and I figured it would be a good chance to get some peace and quiet and organize my thoughts. Of course what will probably happen is I’ll end up at Blue Chairs all day buying shots of tequila and dancing at Paco Paco’s all damn night

So times they are a-changin. I have a long list of personal projects and goals that I want to get back to. One of them is to keep this blog up-to-date more frequently. I have several other little web and business projects that all came to a screeching halt since I went to work for the University. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to some of them. We’ll see… I’ll keep you posted.

Should I bring a camera to Mexico with me? hmmmm… some things are best left untold haha

Leave a comment