Friday, July 09, 2004

Under the Boardwalk..........

Travelling without a car is such a luxury in the NYC metropolitan region. Leaving Brooklyn on Thursday at around 12:30PM (I had breakfast with Peter and then went back to his place to read the paper while he went off to work) and walked four blocks to the subway station. I waited five minutes for a 2/3 train which took me directly to Penn Station. A $10.05 (why the extra nickel??) NJ Transit train ticket and a wait of 15 minutes, I was on my way back to my beloved state of New Jersey. An hour later, Jim J (a former Lville colleague) picked me up at the newly finished Hamilton train station and I was at my destination. Total travel time? Two and a half hours. Much better than the Baltimore to Washington journey of earlier in the week.

Jim and I played golf at the Lville course. Now you have to realize that one of the foundation of my friendship with Jim is sports and gambling. Since we are fairly even in golfing ability, the game was to beat the other person on a hole so the loser had to carry the golf bag on the next hole. This theme will continue. I will report that I was off my game (I carried on 6 holes) and had some bad luck (none of the six holes were par 3's).

That evening, I went to my dear friend Tim A. home (he's traded up homes since I last saw him here in NJ in 1998) where I had dinner with his friends Elvin and Patrick. Tim and I have a history and he always makes me laugh. I slept at Tim's house.

In the morning, I went to visit another friend in Doylestown, PA. I tried being smart and taking the back roads from Princeton to Doylestown but ended up getting lost a couple of times and the actual distance between the two places is much farther than I though.

The afternoon was spent "down the shore" as Jim and I fed our gambling itches and went to Atlantic City. We arrived around 2PM, played Spanish 21 (a alternative form of Blackjack) and I won money immediately. Unfortunately, if I win money to quick, the itch to play has not been fully dealt with so I continue to play. Alas, by the time Jim and I walked away, I was only up $25, having at one point been up at least $150. I started with $100.

Jim and I then went down to the beach, stuck our feet in the sand and also waded in the Atlantic Ocean. The New Jersey shore is gorgeous and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Jim and I returned to the tables for a second round of Spanish 21. We gave ourselves a time limit and when we walked away, Jim won $5 and I won $55. Not too shabby.

On the way home, Jim and I continued our betting ways but making proposition bets. An example, would the next car that passed us be driven by a male or a female? Will the next overpass have a street name that begun with the letter A-L or M-Z. You get the picture.

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