{"id":2539,"date":"2013-07-15T20:30:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T04:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/?p=2539"},"modified":"2013-07-18T21:32:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T05:32:12","slug":"b-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/?p=2539","title":{"rendered":"B Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For about six months I\u2019ve been planning Byron\u2019s bachelor party with his groomsmen. On Friday, he finally walked off the plane and the party started.<\/p>\n

Byron was so excited for all of this that he created a custom tumblr page for pre\/during\/post event media:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Obviously most of the photos in this post are cell phone camera photos that were uploaded to the site. \u00a0Other than a few shots when we got moving on the boat I didn’t really take out my camera much.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to the beginning:<\/p>\n

We first went to Paco\u2019s Tacos<\/a> for dinner after picking up half the groomsmen at LAX. \u00a0Afterwards we headed to Yamashiro<\/a> and listened to Byron (and each of us) reminisce about how he’d met us and each other and how we all fit together into his life. \u00a0Apparently Yamashiro closes at midnight, who knew?<\/p>\n

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There was a lot of excitement for the weekend so there wasn\u2019t much time left for sleeping before heading off to our next destination Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

For breakfast we met up at 26 Beach<\/a> in Venice.<\/p>\n

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Afterwards we headed down the road to Venice beach for surfing lessons.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Our instructors were a little late so we spent some time “studying” the other surfers from the pier.<\/p>\n

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The surfing was the only surprise we were able to keep from Byron, so he was pretty excited when he found out.<\/p>\n

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When we finally got our wetsuits on and a cursory dry fundamentals lesson hitting the waves was relaxing, at first.\u00a0 Most of us gave up on paddling and fighting the waves after the first hour or so, we were just too tired.\u00a0 Even so, a few of us (myself included) were able to stand up and ride a wave or two.\u00a0 Surfing seems (at least with the smaller waves) a bit easier than I thought.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure if we had more energy everyone would have caught a wave.<\/p>\n

In addition to learning how to surf I learned another important lesson: never bring your watch surfing as it won\u2019t come back with you. \u00a0The last few days after losing my watch have been the strangest time warp situation as I normally check the time often and now all I see in response to my question are some hairs and veins.\u00a0 This time warp began and got especially weird at our next event.<\/p>\n

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After surfing we headed to the marina where we\u2019d rented a boat and a captain (pilot? Navigator? Skipper?).<\/p>\n

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We’d originally rented a different boat, but it was sold, so they gave us a bigger better one; a Beneteau 40<\/a>. \u00a0It had two bathrooms and three beds, which would ironically really come in handy later.<\/p>\n

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He took us out into the ocean, which strangely had turned from sunny an hour earlier to overcast and choppy.<\/p>\n

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I didn’t take any shots out there, these are all still in the marina.<\/p>\n

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On our way north past Santa Monica half of the party (including the bachelor himself) had to run to the bathroom to depart with the sea water we\u2019d all swallowed a few hours ago. I didn\u2019t vomit, I never do, but I did spend some time on my side in one of the beds. When we turned around and headed back to the dock the going was a little easier, and by the time we stopped the boat we were all hungry again.\u00a0 We ate homemade tacos and swapped stories (and turns taking naps for those who were able) for about three hours before turning in the keys and heading off.<\/p>\n

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Our next stop was Abbott Kinney Boulevard around 11pm.\u00a0 Sam and I have been to the blvd many times for art shows, but never this late.\u00a0 It\u2019s a different (and thinner and hipster-er) crowd bar-hopping in that area.\u00a0 We first stopped at Gjelina<\/a> for drinks and dessert.\u00a0 We became eerily aware that the area was a celebrity haunt at this time of night as areas in the restaurants became closed off to the normal folk like us. \u00a0It became a little more obvious when some “celebrity” was on a rooftop shouting at girls to flash him. \u00a0I don’t know who he was, but apparently one of the girls’ boyfriends recognized him as a “fuckin’ celebrity asshole.”<\/p>\n

After Gjelina we headed to a completely packed bar down the street called The Other Room<\/a> until last call at 2am before heading home; a good 45 minutes away.<\/p>\n

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Sunday I finally got up at 11am. I don\u2019t know the last time I\u2019ve been in the United States and slept until 11am. \u00a0I was probably a lazy high schooler on summer vacation the last time I slept that late. That’s the kind of sleep that happens after flying to Thailand. And even after that I was still tired the next day because 5am to 11am is still only 6 hours. \u00a0From Thursday morning to Sunday at 5am I’d probably gotten a total of 6 or 7 hours of sleep. \u00a0Not each night; total over an almost 72 hour period. \u00a0I got at least seven or more hours Sunday night, but added up that’s still only 14 or so hours of sleep in a 96 hour period. \u00a0This resulted in my first experience with vertigo on Monday morning. \u00a0Which would have been fun I guess except that I’d hit my head on the boat Saturday and, like the closet hypochondriac I am, I started to think I’d gotten a concussion. \u00a0Thank goodness I get to work before most of my peers, or they would have thought I came to work drunk the way I was staggering around that morning.<\/p>\n

But I’ve skipped over the last chapter.<\/p>\n

After freshening up on Sunday morning we headed to The Griddle<\/a> for some overwhelmingly good and plentiful brunch food. \u00a0It is not an exaggeration when people talk about how huge the pancakes are, the pancakes are the size of pizzas. \u00a0I got the Chicago something or other which is like a mashed up omelette full of great stuff. \u00a0We gorged on this food after the last two exhausting days and downed a gallon of mimosas in the process.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t have anything in the schedule to fill the gap between brunch and returning Byron to the airport later in the afternoon so it was suggested we go to Manhattan Beach.\u00a0 It was a beautiful day, perfect for visiting the beach, but unfortunately everyone else in Los Angeles thought the same thing.\u00a0 After crawling the public parking for a while we decided to abandon that plan and go back to one of the groomsmen\u2019s apartments nearby to swim in the pool and hang out with his wife and daughter, which, in a way, turned out to be a much better plan.\u00a0 We ate left over chips and drinks and chatted or swam until it was time to go.<\/p>\n

An addendum to the weekend was that one of the groomsmen stayed at my place for a few more days. \u00a0On Monday I joined him and another mutual friend at Beer Belly<\/a> in KoreaTown, which holds the distinction of probably being the only great food place NOT serving Korean food. \u00a0They have one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches anywhere, and everything (yes, they have the oreos too) EVERYTHING is fried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For about six months I\u2019ve been planning Byron\u2019s bachelor party with his groomsmen. On Friday, he finally walked off the plane and the party started. Byron was so excited for all of this that he created a custom tumblr page for pre\/during\/post event media:   Obviously most of the photos in this post are cell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2543,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}