Jabronies and Buffets

 Just a few weeks after declaring I was done running around for awhile, I once again found myself running around with an opportunity too good to pass up last week. This time I traveled out to San Fran. to see some good friends and ski at Heavenly in Lake Tahoe for a travel writing assignment.

A lot of our trip though was spent off the slopes given the unfortunate ski season (the worst in probably 100 years) and more of the action centered on the après-ski. One of the perks of our journalist hook up was a $125/day per diem and VIP ("very important" as in didn't pay any cover) access to the Opal night club. Here I flush out two aspects of our experience and a reflection on two *important take-aways from the trip: Jabronies and buffets.

*actually not important

Jabronis (or Jabronie)

I actually started using this word more often a few months back when I was in Africa after my Kiwi roommate told me she didn't know what it was. I always thought a jabroni is a dude who is a A) duche bag B) super bro-like C) condescending jerk D) something that thinks they are really cool but is actually really lame or E) All of the above. Here is how the urban dictionary breaks it down:

juh broh nee 
–noun 
someone who is about to get owned. 

-adjective 
used to decribe a person or action lacking judgment or sense.

-Love is for jabronies. 
-The Rock is about to lay a smack down on that jabronie. 
-You locked your keys in the car? Well that was a jabronie thing to do.

The reason I bring this up is because night clubs are often full of jabronies. I actually sometimes do enjoy night clubs, and often find that if you go with a bunch of friends or can find other cool people who like to dance and also kind of hate the whole night club "scene" it can even be tolerable. The Opal nightclub at Montbleu Casino Resort was somewhat like Atlanta's recent storm, a "wintry" mix. There were some moments of fun, the right crowd level (busy not too jammed), and good music with a decent overall ambiance, but there were enough jabronies to force my early 1:20 am departure.

I found at least 2 or 3 fun groups of girls to dance with only to be pushed out by jabronies each time. Being short, a night club is the type of place that really puts height in perspective, and really I'm guessing any insecurity someone has about themselves. I was actually pushed out of spots and possibly at one point even had one jabronie deliberately put their hand and push off on my face to take my place, obviously no apologies necessary. These same people would often grab the girl's hips they only just saw for the first time and begin grinding whether the girl seemed into it or not. I'm not against grinding or meeting people at clubs but it's this way that it's done that I don't like. Can you read the signs? Maybe take a minute to feel out the situation? Despite the inherent awkwardness of this moment, inhibitions are either low enough because of lots of alcohol or people want "it" that bad they go along with what's been socially conditioned and approved. Or they don't. My guess is the reality is more often that this type of move works like 1 out of 10 times and that's what keeps these jabronies going. I guess I give them some credit for either not caring about rejection or just having huge balls but more likely it has something to do with the way they view and think about woman. Furthermore, most people, whether they admit it or not, probably don't actually like the way clubs work currently but it's not an easy culture to change when there are so many jabronis around.  

Lesson on nightclubs: Go with a girlfriend or change your expectations. If you think about it, nightclubs are weird places to begin with. Some people, like myself, legitimately like to dance, but it seems the majority are trying to get with someone and dancing with someone you usually can't easily have a real conversation is the way to "meet" them. Of course some people don't actually care about the "meeting" part.        

Buffet

We decided to check out the Montbleu (where we were staying) casino/hotel's Friday night seafood buffet. My big take-away (and reminder) from this experience is that buffet's almost always suck and are kind of disgusting. It's kind of like getting too drunk, it's good to do every once and while just to remind yourself why you shouldn't do it. Now I know some people may disagree but even those who do probably end up feeling sick and overeating 90% of the time. It’s hard to not get excited about thinking you can have everything (and as much as you want of it) and you don’t have to make that difficult choice about what you actually want to eat tonight.  

It's not just about finding the right strategy (starving yourself for 8 hours before going, pacing yourself, choosing more carefully, eating in a particular order, I've heard them all), I might argue that most of the time there is no actual winning strategy, just ones that make it not as bad. The problem with the buffet is that you think you get everything when in fact you usually get nothing. This is because even when there are a few actually really good items in a buffet (there usually aren't unless you are paying a crazy amount of money), by the time you find them you are already stuffed. You basically have to try most things at least once to know what's up and the stomach is not necessarily made to eat, or rather compartmentalized for mashed potatoes, crab legs, chicken wings, seaweed salad, and clam chowder. You also get fuller faster than you usually realize and by the time you do realize it’s too late. In the Hunger Game's the elite at the Capital solve this problem by forcing themselves to vomit so they can continue eating. Now that might be a winning strategy!

Lesson on buffets: Unless you truly are starving and/or excited about feeling sick later just stay away.

Buffet Addendum

The truth is that I might be a bit biased when it comes to buffets. It was sometime during my sophomore or perhaps junior year after a Macalester tennis match that this bias originates. I remember it well in part because it was my birthday. We went to old country buffet which is obviously not a very good buffet but potentially not the worst (debatable?). I came in feeling sick that night and asked the waiter if I could just take a little food home in a small instead of eating there. It was told it was against the restaurant policy and not possible. Rather than starve, I tried to force a few bites of a few things from the buffet. Within minutes I was feeling sick. Looking for the closest exit I burst out running through entrance to the restaurant before depositing food everywhere just outside the place. As I started vomiting someone entering the restaurant jokingly asked me “food not so good?” I definitely made a few people worry as they entered OCB that day. My teammate Nick saw the whole thing and ran back inside to yell to the team “Wreck’s yacking” Wreck’s yacking” over and over. And that’s how that story ended.

Going for a bike ride to the Golden Gate Bridge

Snowmageddon

I arrived in Atlanta just two weeks ago now and am getting settled. The road trip was fun as always. Within a few days of arriving in Atlanta we had the now infamous snowpacolopyse or snowmageddon. Lots of people have given it different names and Jon Stewart gave the city a good punch. But everyone agrees it was a mess. I wanted to write about it on my blog as reminder of how I arrived in Atlanta.

When I heard the storm was coming and that there might be two inches of snow, being from Vermont, I had no worries. Two inches is a light dusting and I can still check out that apartment and grab a pizza. Within minutes driving on the road I realize this was a different situation happening in a different place. Intersection were full with scattered cars and any slope (this city actually surprisingly does have a lot of hills) had people paralyzed in fear, starting and stopping, spinning their wheels to get up only to slide down seconds later, breaking while descending only to slam into another car. To be fair the roads were slippery but people were driving like the world was coming to an end. Driving in my honda accord with no winter tires or 4 wheel drive I really was having no problem. I couldn't understand what it was with these cars moving in every which way and really not moving at all. As people abandoned their cars and left them in the middle of the road, I drove around them weaving in every which way really just not understanding. Hasn't anybody heard of D1 and lower gears even in an automatic? After successfully checking out the apartment, picking up the pizza, and not helping anybody (had to keep the pizza warm), I arrived back home with no problems.

When I got home I watched the news and I saw that a serious situation was developing. Every major highway was completely backed up and no car was moving. The scenes from the road were horrifying and unexpected. Beyond the point of Southerners not experiencing snow very much I also learned something about politics in my new State. Democratic blue Atlanta apparently fights quite a bit with the rest of the State's more conservative and tightly fiscally controlled politicians. Letting everyone out of work early at the same time also didn't help.

People were walking everywhere and leaving their cars behind

Atlanta google traffic map during the storm

I'm glad to say that I was not part of the memorableness of this event. It will however serve as a good marker for how I arrived. We are now hearing about "Atlanta snow part deux" or "iceocolypse" and my flight for a trip to San. Fran. tomorrow has already been cancelled. Let's hope it's not a repeat experience.

More pics. here: www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/01/snow-storms-hit-the-south/100671/