How I Spent My Summer Vacation...

With the battle against writers block at least temporarily won… I sit at my keyboard… Fingertips hunting and pecking away… I’m pickin’ ‘em up and puttin’ ‘em down as fast as I can…

As Labor Day weekend draws to a close and American school children all across this wonderful country return to the classroom… I also have returned to the classroom… So in a show of solidarity with students everywhere and for those who fondly or not so fondly remember giving these reports… I have affectionately titled this column…

“How I Spent My Summer Vacation”

How I spent my summer vacation… On the first day of my summer vacation… I hung out… On the second day of my summer vacation… I hung out… Etc, etc, etc…

I’m not really sure what day of my summer vacation my wife finally said… “Hey, Einstein why don’t you look for a job!!!”

So this Beach Boy caught a wave and on August 30th of this seemingly Endless Summer found himself sitting in a classroom in Idaho Falls, ID… Not quite the top of the world, but at almost a mile above sea level, surrounded by even higher mountain ranges and fairly far north… Pretty damn close…

Not quite the Beverly Hillbillies… We had loaded up the car a week earlier and driven cross-country from Pultneyville, NY to Idaho Falls, ID… Including a stretch across Canada on the first leg of our trip… Intent, of course, to minimize our drive time through the scenic and aromatic wonder of Indiana…

Continuing west through South Dakota… And the South Dakota Badlands… Stopping for dinner the third day of our trip in Wall, SD and discovering… The right front wheel bearing shot and needing to be replaced… Necessitating a more than 2 day lay over in scenic Wall… Including missing a scheduled gig in Great Falls, MT on the way to Idaho Falls… One more day and I would have needed some Wall Drugs…

Not that our time in Wall was uneventful as we awaited repairs… Ever the city girl… My Long Island wife decided she would walk the three blocks from the hotel to the restaurant and back our last night in Wall, in high heels… Ever the fashion statement she is… They offered her little to no protection against the rattlesnake sunning himself in the afternoon sun in the middle of the sidewalk on our return to the hotel…

Grabbing her right arm and steering her across the street… We avoided a trip to Wall Drug for a snakebite kit…

After short stops for pictures at Mt. Rushmore and Devils Tower, Wyoming we put the pedal to the medal… Racing across Wyoming in time to brave the gravel pass through the Tetons in the dark and in the rain… Lest we need to spend another night short of our intended destination…

Arriving in Idaho Falls 1am Saturday morning we were up early enough to drive through town, do a drive by of the home we hope to purchase and to drop her off at the Idaho Falls Regional Airport to continue her well documented travel adventure…

Now at 54years old, I find myself sitting in a classroom for three months at the Idaho National Laboratory… Learning the basics for a new job at the Materials and fuels Complex of the INL… I am looking forward to the challenge…

An hour bus ride west from Idaho Falls… Idaho National Laboratory is a place of much nuclear energy history and my only regret is I wasn’t here more than twenty years ago to have been a part of some of it… But as they say on the history channel… “History is made everyday…”

Unfortunately, algebra and trigonometry is ancient history to me… Nutritionists have shown that if you eat Big Macs you’ll wake up one day with a McTumor… Math class at my age… Made my head feel like I was growing a mathtumor… The only equation I solved was Algebra + Trigonometry = Migraine…

And I hadn’t even figured out the calculator yet… This long weekend was a great way to end my first week back into this world… A Friday night stop for a sixpack helped heal some over worked brain cells…

Tuesday night after work I move into my studio apartment… It’ll be my home while waiting for my house in San Diego, California to sell and we purchase one here in Idaho Falls… So Eileen and my boys can join me here… Referring to herself as bi-coastal now… I’m just trying not to go bi-postal…

Until then, in a scene right out of The Jetson’s we stay in touch using “Skype” video phone… It’s pretty entertaining to watch the dogs try to figure out where I am when they hear my voice… But unfortunately, it’s against the rules to show some “ta-ta” using Skype…

My two long weekends a month I am filling with as much comedy work as possible… Especially while travel through the mountains is still snow free… We’ll see what the winter brings to this part of the country…

I will be home the last two weeks of December for Christmas and New Years and hope to secure a few shows while I'm there... Are you reading this Dan Liberto???

Next Saturday on 9/11 I’ll be doing a show at the VFW in Ft. Benton, Montana… About 6.5hrs north of Idaho Falls… I can’t wait… The Ft. Benton militia will love what I have to say…