Well, I didn’t get the job with UP, but I sure had a good weekend, despite being sick.

Sunday afternoon I drove over to Dave’s house. As I was turning onto his street I noticed that James was right in front of me–what good timing. The three of us left immediately.

We drove around Discovery Bay for awhile, getting gas and beer and Copenhagen, that sort of thing. It was 4:30pm when we finally got on the highway.

There was no traffic on 5 and 80, so we flew up to Truckee. It was just before 7pm when we got to the cabin. Dave was ready to drink. I have been fighting some mystery illness for the last couple days, so I wasn’t in the mood to drink at all. In fact, I was pretty darn tired–all I really felt like doing was sleeping. But I fought through it.

The cabin is sooooo sweet. It’s located on the North side of Truckee, just across the river and train tracks, and on up into the hills. The cabin is a very steep A-frame style, two storey, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, loft, fully remodled kitchen, wood burning stove, satellite TV, washer/dryer, the works. Only 20 minutes from gambling. Super damn close to ski resorts such as Boreal and Northstar. It’s situated on maybe a quarter acre of wooded pine forest. There was still a bit of snow on the ground when we got there.

I started the coals for the BBQ while Dave made some rice and James prepped the tri-tip. We had so much meat it was silly. Tri-tip and chicken and hot links…

After dinner we settled in for a little poker and some shots of Southern Comfort.  I called a taxi and we were soon on our way to Stateline for a little gambling.

It was just after midnight when we walked into our first casino. Three hours later we were stumbling out to the taxi. I didn’t lose any money–Dave was up a few hundred from Blackjack.

Back at the cabin we found a plastic snowsled, and soon we were walking through the meadow to the last patch of snow. Dave took a running start and jumped onto the sled, headfirst, and flew down the hill. And kept going. He ended up in the ditch next to the road, soaking wet, covered in dirt and snow and ice, howling in pain. It was 4am.

Back inside we listened to some classic country tunes and hit the wet bar pretty hard. Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort, Belvedere, and several different kinds of beer. It was 6am when we finally crashed out. Our tee-time was 11am in Auburn–we weren’t going to make it.

Two hours later Dave comes in my room and starts beating me with his wet socks. “Tom. Tom! TOM! How come the only thing I remember about last night was being on a sled?”

“Jesus, Dave, it’s 8am. Take your drunk ass back upstairs and go back to sleep.”

At 10am I finally give up on sleeping. The phone has been ringing all morning, the woodpeckers are wreaking havoc on the side of the cabin, someone’s started up a leaf blower, everyone in the house has been snoring all morning, all of our cell phones are ringing, and every room in the house is soooo bright since there aren’t any window blinds or shades. It’s pointless, I just can’t do it.

We clean up the cabin, take out the garbage, get ourselves cleaned up, and leave for Auburn. Good thing I rescheduled our tee time for 1pm.

Darkhorse Golf Club in Auburn, CA is by far the most beautiful course I’ve ever played, and also the most difficult. I practically lost an entire case of balls. I played terrible–I ended up with a score somewhere in the 115-ish range. I wish I wasn’t so sick, and I was wish I had gotten at least a few hours of sleep. I still had a great time though. At the end of round Dave and James were so hammered there was no was I was going to let either of them drive, so I took the keys.

While waiting for those two knuckleheads I put my digital camera on the bumper of Dave’s truck. I had taken close to 150 pictures over the last 24 hours, from Discovery Bay to Truckee to gambling to sledding to the golf course. So many memories, so many photos… In my half asleep state and stricken with the sickness I forgot about the camera, and drove off. Blah. It was only $100 camera, I care more about the pictures I took. Today I called the golf course, after thinking about things and finally figuring it out–nobody had turned in a camera. So I’m sure it’s long gone.

Anyway, I ended up driving all the way back to Discovery Bay to Dave’s house. Then I drove alllllll the way up to Chico. I checked into my hotel around midnight, slept a few hours, and went to my UP hiring session. It went terribly. I was exhausted, tired and sleepy, and still sick. At the end of the day they said that they’d call me before 5pm on Wednesday if I got the job.

They didn’t call.