Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Viva Las Vegas

Well, the holiday season has come and gone. Although, if you are Pin@y, it continues until the Three Kings Day. Three Kings Day is when the three magi visit and give gifts to Jesus the baby. In the Philippines, it is a legitimate holiday. And let us not forget he of the derby hat, Jose Rizal. His day was on December 30.

The holiday was preceded by a rush job at work. My group had to lower our cases. I managed to close five out of twelve, which is not bad considering the picky nature of justice. I tell you, sometimes, I wonder what I am doing in law. You work hard only to have someone tell you what is wrong with your work in the truly marginal way.

Had to take two days off without pay because of the lack of vacation hours. Not bad at all. We began the trek to Las Vegas the evening of the 22nd of Dec when Cal played some team for the Las Vegas Bowl. Yup, we missed the game by one day. We stayed up pretty late and woke up on the 23rd at 8:30 AM. Err, we were supposed to pick up our friend at 8AM. We finally managed to pack and get on the road by 11AM. I stood there and realized that we were off and will arrive in Vegas at 11PM. This was going to be long.

I have now been driving 1.5 years. This has allowed me to break my fear of driving over 65 mph. During the drive to Vegas, I was actually touching 100 mph in some stretches of the road. Of course, I would suddenly slow down after actually hitting 100 mph.

The trip was uneventful except for the fog that greeted us on Tehachapi mountain. That was a twilight zone moment. Visibility was down to fifty feet. Taillights and headlights disappeared in the fog. The fog was as thick as pea soup. I was scared. Scared of hitting another car or person on the road. To make matters worse, my penchant for speeding made me miss the entrance to the South 99 freeway. Next thing I know, there is not another exit until 6 miles. I had to drive through the whole fog again. Nasty.

We arrived in Vegas in one piece though.

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