My Recent Company Sponsored Adventures

About a month ago I talked my boss into letting me go on installations in two cities I had yet to visit. I'm basically a jet setting construction worker, as one of my fork-tongued ex's pointed out. During the day I toil in the hot sun alongside all the Mexicans, tightening bolts, lifting metal, cursing in Spanish, and getting a third degree sunburn. But at night and before I fly out, I get to explore new territory on the company dime. The first stop was San Luis Obispo, California.

San Luis Obispo is almost halfway between LA and San Francisco on the coast. California Polytechnic Institute (Cal Poly) is there, making it a college town 8 miles from the beach. It's like the hotter, sluttier, older sister of the college I went to. I flew in (first picture), rented a car, and drove straight to the beach.

The weather was perfect, the scenery was breathtaking and with no one to share it with, I considered dropping my pants and releasing a school of knuckle children into the sea. Instead I went to sleep, and got woken up at 6:00 by a man who looked like Gimli the Dwarf to be his labor bitch for an entire day.

He loved using sugarcoated phrases like such:

Gimli: "Ok let's pack up the truck."

Translation: "I'm going to stand here and watch you slip a disc putting these two hundred pound toolboxes into my truck."

"Truck"

Translation: "Windowless molester van. Try to contaminate the evidence while you're back there."

Basically, the jist of the lingo was that we or us = you. "Why don't we..." You get the picture. It sucked. By the end of the first 13 hour day I was too exhausted to drink. So instead, in a stroke of brilliance, I emailed the Alumni Advisor at Cal Poly for my fraternity and set up drinking for Tuesday night. Oh yeah, in case they ask, I'm like 23 and just graduated in May.

At work on Tuesday I got to squirm (there is no other word to describe it) on my back into a 12 inch gap between a puddle of parking lot oil and a 5,000 lb. reflector perched on cracked cinderblocks to tighten bolts. My arm cramped up on several occasions and I had to be extracted back through the puddle of oil, which ruined my jeans. I swung by Banana Republic on the way home, picked some up, and got beer to head to the Cal Poly frat compound and relive college oooooone more time.

The Cal Poly guys were awesome. Two of them and their dreamgirl were turning 21 that night, so everyone was out. I got an insider's tour of the best places to drink in SLO with just a handshake and code phrase, and made about a dozen new friends. And met a lot of hot sorority girls. Everyone who turned 21 ended up puking in the street by the end of the night; I was truly back in a college town. My last day I saw a hippie protest and took pictures, but I don't have them anymore because I smashed my camera, AGAIN, and couldn't get them off. San Luis Obispo was a lot of fun, but not nearly as much fun as the next week in San Antonio.