I’m back in Salt Lake, the laundry from the weeks festivities is being done, the cats have calmed the fuck down, and now I’m sitting down to write about my experiences from this particular visit.

Leaving Salt Lake City International was pretty uneventful. Oh wait, no, it was par for the course for me. I got stopped and searched, like I always fucking do. At least this time they offered me a “privacy room” to conduct their search. I declined. No buddy, if you are going to grab my ass and balls, you can do it in front of the world. I have no shame. I always tell my girls to be prepared for this because it always happens to me. I swear to God that I’m on a “list” somewhere. My girls always laugh and brush me off until we get to the airport and it happens. Seeing the look on their faces makes the search worthwhile for me. That look of, “Holy shit, Rob’s not kidding.” Funny thing is, it only happens at Salt Lake International when I’m trying to go somewhere else. Philly when I was coming back? Nope, get the fuck outta here. San Diego in the past? Nope. Get the fuck outta here. Fucking Oakland, when I had a declared firearm in my luggage? Nope, fuck outta here. And the list goes on. Apparently Salt Lake doesn’t like me leaving or something. “That Rob motherfucker is trying to leave again? Even though we hate him and everything he stands for, we gotta delay that motherfucker.”

So after the cavity search and the ball-groping I was able to get on my flight and a few hours later I’m in Philly. Problem is, Jack Napier isn’t here yet. Not like for another two hours. We’re Ubering in together to meet up with Vince later, so what do?

This:

I sat at an airport bar and ended up meeting a guy from Minnesota. First thing I thought was, “Oh so you know Aaron Clarey.” Yeah he had no clue who he was. Apparently Minnesota is bigger than I thought. When he told me he had no idea who I was talking about, all I could say was, “Better you don’t know him, it’s for the best.” We ended up sitting there, drinking, talking shit, talking about jobs, women and lays, drugs and booze. You know, the stuff that normal guys typically talk about when they meet each other in a bar, especially when they are strangers.

What? You’ve never had that experience? I thought that was the norm. Sucks to be you, I guess.

Jack finally showed up and there was two things I told him right off the bat:

1. “You’re not that tall.”
2. “I saw you coming out the door and recognized you immediately. You better hope no one ever targets you for assassination, because the hitman will recognize you immediately.”

From the airport we caught an Uber and headed into Philly itself to meet up with Vincent.

I want to preface what I’m going to say next with this:

Vincent is one of the most generous, kind, and thoughtful souls I have ever met. The guy has a talent for logistics that would make a club promoter weep in shame. He was the one who arranged for the AirBnb, had all of the places lined up that we were going to visit during the week, and he literally never asked for a dime from either of us. He even bought all of our meals on a couple of occasions. So if you ever hear that Vincent is “selfish,” whoever is telling you that has an axe to grind and is straight up lying to you. Don’t buy it for a moment.

Now that being said:

Stairs.

There were a lot of stairs.

My feet are still crying.

I went up and down flights of stairs more times in this last week than I have in a year. I’m going to have to replace my Chuck Taylor’s because the tread is pretty much gone from all the stairs and all of the walking that we did over the course of the week. Honestly, I’m not bitching though. It was good cardio and it was a great way to keep things affordable, and it was also a way to interact with the natives and admire the women that were out and about.

Speaking of the wahmen, Jack is a total “people person.” He’s definitely an extrovert and when we would go out, the man got this kick of energy that was unreal. Watching him do his thing, he was like a puppy off the leash, but it was awesome. Watching Jack on Red Evening, you have to understand that he’s just waking up and hasn’t gotten his caffeine fix or his sun fix. He seems pretty mellow on the show and that’s because he’s still half asleep. Once the sun comes up and he drinks a cup or two and hits the road, he comes alive.

*Girl across the street from us, looks over.*

Jack: “Hi!” Waves and gives her a big ass smile.

Girl: *Smirks and scoffs and goes about her business.*

Girl 1, Jack 0.

Yep, Jack got blown the fuck out. But do you know what? Honestly it was the only “blow out” that I saw. He approached a couple of others in one of the outside bars that we went to and they responded to him. One wasn’t “really my type” (Jack’s words, not mine) but he opened her and she responded positively enough from my observation point. The other girl was sitting by herself and responded very positively to Jack, until the gorilla that was the guy, came back with their drinks.

Jack also knows how to be a wingman too.

He opens a third woman as we are leaving the outdoor bar and she responds, but she was far more interested in Vincent and Jack knew when to gracefully bow out. You can’t buy that guys, you just can’t. Jack may be almost 20 years younger than me, but he can wing for me any time.

We ended up going to bar one day after breakfast and we all ended up chatting the Puerto Rican bartender, Jazzy, up. We would dunk on each other, shit talk like guys do and banter/flirt with her. She was genuinely enjoying herself, and here it wasn’t even noon. I think she was a little sad when we decided to leave and go on our way.

She even said, “You guys should do a podcast or something.” Honey, if you only knew.

One of the days we did a thing:

This was Jack’s first visit to the United States. We had to do the “tourist thing.” Honestly it was a blast. You guys should get out, meet people, and do stuff more often. No really, you should. Don’t be a sperg and maybe I’ll meet up with you one day and I’ll be writing about our adventures. But if you start in with jargon, statistics, and “Rollo-ism’s,” dude, it’s been real, it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.

I’ve waxed poetic enough, and I’ve got laundry to do, cats to calm the fuck down, and there are certain memories and conversations that I’m going to keep for myself. “What happens in Philly, stays in Philly.” But I’m going to wrap it up with some more pictures and this:

I’ve enjoyed every meetup I have had so far, especially the Masculine Geek meetups. This one by far has been my favorite. To quote Vincent, “Your friends are bullshit. Get some good friends.”