It was a normal Thursday evening, more or less like any other one. I was on irc, and happened to browse the web specials on Alaska Airlines website. Often, they have good deals to various destinations if you only go for the weekend and purchase your tickets on the spur of the moment.

I ordinarily check both the Seattle and Portland airports for specials, since it's just about equal distance either way. As it happened, there was a special for $59 between Portland and Reno. So I sent a private message to my friend barkode, to let him know that I'd found a special that evening and asking if he wanted me to visit. "I'm driving to Reno tonight" was his reply, and I bought my ticket online.

There was only one problem. It was 5:00, and my flight left Portland at 7:30. I very hurriedly packed, and my friend Jesse arrived. He readily agreed to drive me to the airport, and I caught the shuttle to Seattle, connecting to a Reno flight. The whole thing was surprisingly uneventful, despite having only 10 minutes to catch the plane in Portland, and losing my sweatshirt at the security checkpoint in Seattle.

At around 11:30 PM, I finally arrived in Reno. Barkode was tired, and told me that I was driving back to Sacramento, where he lives. He had apparently managed to nearly wreck his car, slip in the snow, and get soaking wet at Donner Pass on the way, and was very tired. On the way back, barkode casually mentioned that he'd been thinking of visiting our mutual associate teklord in San Diego. I said, "Sure, let's go tonight!" This isn't quite what barkode had in mind, but he did call logicbox, who lives in Sunnyvale. After much discussion, it was agreed that we'd go to Sunnyvale that evening, crash at logicbox's house, and continue to San Diego the following morning.

Well, we did just that. It took a little longer than expected, due to my poor navigation resulting in a wrong turn somewhere south of San Jose, but barkode more than made up for it by driving 90 miles per hour most of the way. If you listen to the widely syndicated Tom Leykis Show, you know that Fridays are "Flash Fridays." We made a sign and tried to get the rich Beverly Hills and Hollywood women to flash us (barkode and logicbox are both breeders), but were unsuccessful.

Traffic was a bear for awhile, even though it was only 3:30 in the afternoon, but eventually we hit a carpool lane and were at least moving. We would have moved faster if people didn't insist on driving in the carpool lane with only one person in the car (when I saw this, I wondered aloud what made them think that they were more important than everyone else stuck in traffic), but we eventually arrived in San Diego.

Once we arrived, we had a problem. We didn't know where teklord lived, and the cellular phone was dying. Barkode called and got directions to his place, and after some confusion, we finally found it. Teklord is an interesting individual to say the least. We arrived at his place, and there were approximately 20 people there, with a party in progress. Apparently teklord is heavily involved in role playing games and raves. There were a large number of both sorts of individuals there. We were all somewhat taken by surprise, since we'd been told by teklord that he would have a quiet place for us to crash. Less than 30 people in the house and relative quiet for 6 hours out of 24 appeared to be his standard of quiet.

We were supposed to meet up with some other people, including logicbox's friend pinguino. So we went to the Mission Valley Mall to wait around for them, since they were supposed to come meet us. An hour later, we were still waiting, so logicbox went with some people to find out where they were. Another hour went by, we still weren't sure where anyone was, barkode and I were both hungry, and we were all tired and annoyed. It didn't help that we had two 15 year old girls along, who were both carrying on about something in piercing shrieks while they inhaled cancer sticks.

Eventually, we left, and literally drove around in circles until we found Papa John's Pizza. Pinguino assaulted barkode violently, in an apparently friendly way that sent a large garbage can careening across the sidewalk and him into a wall.

Eventually, we headed back to teklord's place. I went with barkode to Lucky, where we procured some wine coolers and Captain Morgan rum. After swinging through Del Taco, we went back to teklord's place. On the way back up, we observed a crack deal going down at the bottom of his stairs. Teklord apparently didn't live in a great neighbourhood.

We proceeded to drink. Teklord drank about 6 shots of rum, and gave some random guy some of my rum as well since apparently he owed the random guy a favor. There was a little bit left for us when he got done (teklord is a big guy). The random guy acted like a flaming queer in look and demeanor, except that all of his words were those of an extremely heterosexual person. I found him very confusing--though he was yucky anyway so I really didn't care. The random guy busied himself with feeding brandy-soaked Bing cherries to every girl he could find, while I started talking to a moderately cute raverboy. We discussed the prices of various illicit substances in the San Diego area, and I eventually found out that he was only 17, which put a big damper on flirting with him.

Eventually, nearly everyone left to go to a rave, including logicbox and pinguino--unsurprising, because they are best friends and appear to be joined by a very strong epoxy compound when they're together. Barkode and I hung out with teklord for awhile as he became progressively more intoxicated, and we finally crashed. Meanwhile, barkode had been talking to a girl named Brandie the majority of the evening. The two of them whispered to each other all night, and by the next morning they were kissing and holding hands.

During the evening, everyone who claimed to be going elsewhere to crash came into teklord's apartment, until there were a total of about 20 people crashing in the apartment. Each group made noise, and everyone was annoyed that there weren't enough blankets--which seemed odd, since there had been no plans for them to crash there in the first place. Apparently, though, this was a relatively common occurrence at teklord's. He had, earlier in the evening, expressed relief that he'd been evicted and was moving, since he was not telling anyone his new address and they'd all have to live somewhere else.

The following morning--bright and early at 6:30--I went with barkode to a donut shop. We got some donuts, came back and made some coffee, and discussed the plans for the day. I wanted to go to Tijuana, since it was so close, but apparently it was the "Day of the Dead," a massive Mexican festival, and barkode was somewhat ambivolent. We eventually left with teklord to help him evict someone from his new home, and get some money from his grandparents since by that point teklord owed me about $20. While we were getting gas at Circle K, we spontaneously decided to go to Mexico.

The border was only about 30 minutes away, so we headed down. Eventually, we arrived. Crossing into Mexico is pretty interesting--you drive up to the border, stop at a stoplight marked "please wait your turn," and when it turns green after about 3 seconds, a border guard waves you across. Once you're across the border, you definitely know you're in Mexico. The nicer parts of Tijuana look like bad parts of American cities. People assault your vehicle with squeegees in the streets, and soap the windshield. They'll wipe it off if you give them a tip.

Traffic is pretty crazy down there, which made me wonder if it was really a good idea to be driving around uninsured. Teklord must have thought the same thing, since the first parking garage we arrived at, he pulled into. It was right in the middle of downtown Tijuana, a city with over a million residents, and cost a whopping 60 cents an hour. Interestingly, the peso-dollar exchange rate was 10 pesos to the dollar, which made it easy to do business in US dollars. Dollars were readily accepted everywhere in Tijuana.

Teklord was hungry, so we went to a small taqueria where they didn't speak English very well and I didn't see a single "gringo". The signs were all in Spanish, and the tortillas were handmade. Granted, that is a sign of excellent Mexican food, but I wondered what the possibility was of becoming ill. I played things on the safe side and ordered a quesadilla and a taco without guacamole. I ended up getting them with guacamole, but suffered no ill effects. Surprisingly, no one else suffered any ill effects either, despite being more adventurous than me and eating some of the fresh vegetables. We got bottles of Coke, which tastes a bit more syrupy and sweeter in Mexico than it the US. They cost a whopping 40 cents each.

We entered a bazaar through a huge liquor store. Liquor prices in Tijuana were insanely cheap. A bottle of Cuervo tequila cost about $5, while it costs $13 here. A bottle of grain alcohol (190 proof) was about $3. There aren't any prices in the bazaars--all prices are set by bargaining. I didn't see anything particularly interesting, but teklord bought a pen-knife for $20.

After awhile of shopping, teklord decided that he wanted to go to a strip bar. Given that I'm queer, the idea wasn't very appealing to me, and I somewhat resented being dragged into such a situation. Logicbox didn't want to go in either, so I told him that I'd be back in a half-hour to see whether everyone was done. I went to a store catering to Japanese tourists and visited their restroom.

A half-hour later, I arrived back at the tittie-bar (called "Peanuts & Beer"--I thought "Titties & Beer" would have been more appropriate), and logicbox was nowhere to be found. So I endured extensive scrutiny to my identification, and went in to see if everyone was still there or if I'd been ditched. Immediately upon my entry, a waiter told logicbox "gimme $20." I wasn't sure what all that was about, until we left--I found out that he had bet the waiter $20 that I wouldn't go in. Oops. Meanwhile, teklord was in the midst of receiving a lap dance from a stripper. She came back and sat down next to barkode, and after some quiet negotiations teklord went back with the stripper to receive a blowjob.

While all of this was going on, some vile wench came and sat in my lap, despite my obvious lack of interest. Eventually, I turned to logicbox and asked if we were leaving. The wench got the idea and went away. We trailed out of the strip club, and waited around for awhile for teklord to finish getting his blowjob. I busied myself with the TelNor payphones. There appeared to be two types, one which read cards and had a digital display, and one which did not and looked like American COCOTs. Eventually Teklord arrived, and he was in a hurry--which is unusual, because Teklord is a big guy. "She wanted to fuck me, dude!" was his greeting, as he rushed us off in another direction. According to teklord, refusing a prostitute in Mexico is a bad idea, and leaving in a hurry is wise if one does such a thing.

We made our way back to the liquor store, and I purchased a bottle of Kahlua for $7, which would have cost about $18.50 at a Washington state liquor store. After getting lost on the way back to the border, and finding our way to the Otay crossing via a circuitous route, we arrived in the border lineup. By this time, logicbox was pretty annoyed, since we were going to Anaheim to meet with pinguino at a comics place, and we had less than 2 hours to get there.

The return side is a marked contrast to Mexico's lax entry procedures. All along the Mexican side, there are human spammers, purveying a wide variety of goods including everything from cars to furniture to carpets. Immediately after crossing the border, the Customs Service has drug dogs sniff your car, and border guards check identification and ask questions. We didn't encounter any hassles, since we looked like nice young properly-identified gringos, and since we weren't smuggling any drugs, we didn't have any hassles with the dogs. Just past the Immigration booth, there are Jersey barriers arranged in a crazy obstacle course, obviously designed to prevent people from "running the border."

We drove to Anaheim, and miraculously found Mile High Comics, where pinguino was promoting one of her comic books. Logicbox was relieved, since he got some time to visit. I sat and read my email at the Internet terminal, and simultaneously admired the cute guy who was working behind the counter. Eventually, we went to Boston Market and got some food. When we returned to the store, teklord and his friends had arrived. They'd had some trouble finding the place, and we had initially been worried that they'd ditched us, so were glad that they arrived.

The plan was that we were going to get a motel room in Anaheim, and that logicbox and I would go to sleep, while barkode went to a club with teklord & company. However, there were some problems which occurred.

• The motel we planned to go had changed its name, unbeknownst to us
• Brandie was under 18, and could not have gone
• Teklord followed the wrong car onto the freeway
• We were all operating on 8 hours of sleep over the last 3 days

When Teklord followed the wrong car, Barkode thought that we'd spent too long trying to find the motel. This led him to believe that teklord had ditched us, which made him pretty upset. I was pissed off by that point too, since I'd spent over $100 on the trip so far and didn't want to pay a lot of money for a closer hotel room. After awhile of being generally pissed off at one another, generally brought on by fatigue, we drove to the Super 8 motel near Disneyland and got a room.

Meanwhile, Teklord figured out that he'd followed the wrong car, and he and his friends went all up and down the Disneyland strip looking for us. They spent perhaps an hour searching, could not find us, gave up, and went to Hollywood. As it happened, the club they wanted to go to was awful anyway, so they drove back to San Diego. And back in the motel room, Barkode and Brandie were busy fondling each other, while I did my laundry. They were still at it when I got back, but I relaxed and fell asleep to heavy breathing and slurping sounds. While it is one of the stranger ways I've fallen asleep, I was so tired at that point that I could probably have fallen asleep with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards tearing apart the motel room next door. Logicbox apparently couldn't handle the ruckus, so he got his own room and also got a good night's sleep.

In the morning, barkode had to drive Brandie back to San Diego, so I went with logicbox to Denny's for some breakfast. I proceeded to clumsily spill orange juice all over him. For some reason, he didn't seem to mind that much.

By the time we were done eating, it was time to check out, and barkode was back from San Diego. The drive back was mostly uneventful--we took the gorgeous drive along Hwy 101, stopping at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo to visit one of barkode's friends. While we could have stayed and eaten dinner at the cafeteria, dubbed the "Vomit Garden," we opted to continue to Sunnyvale to drop off logicbox.

Logicbox had been worried that his parents would find out he was in San Diego, since he believed that they didn't want him to go there. When we arrived, his mother had found out where he was, and was--against everyone's expectations--completely fine with the idea. His mother only asked that the next time he went somewhere, he tell them.

Barkode had me drive back, and fell asleep along the way. He didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep, until I woke him up in Sacramento. Monday, we took the gorgeous drive to Reno over the Sierra Nevada, and I flew back to Portland.