Events
The Ryan Rave
I first read about Ryan Meetups back in March It sounded like the coolest thing, but that meet up was in New York and I had already missed it. It sounded like a fantastic experience. I was curious on how the social dynamics change in the room when you know everyone’s name. As time went on the article faded into the past, that is, until August 4 when this video was shared with me:
Dare I fly to LA for the Ryan Rave? That just sounded so absurd, I mean, who just does something like that. Apparently, I do! I him-hawwed around, half joking/half serious about flying out to LA until I found round trip tickets for $130 which cemented the deal, I was flying to LA for the Ryan Rave!
My flight was on Spirit, an airline that apparently would charge you to use the bathroom if they could. Luckily, I only had a personal item, my small bag with an iPad, Bluetooth Keyboard, a USB battery, a charger, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. That’s all I needed for my evening trip to LA. They wanted to charge be ~$20 to choose my seat, but I let fate decide where I was sitting. And to my delight, I was sitting by my new best friend Tiffany. She flies out several times a year to visit her sister. For this trip she was going to see Beyonce. I was going to the Ryan Rave, so it was a toss up on who was going to the coolest activity. She made the flight go by really fast, we talked the entire 4 hours!
I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and an iPad bag. The Ryan Meetup Discord gave the directions for the best way to get to the Rave, and that was by taking a bus to downtown and then an Uber over to the Rave. The bus was pretty easy to find, and I took it to some bus stop downtown. I had no idea where I was, but I had an address of where I was going, so I ordered an Uber. He drove me to what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse district, a couple of blocks over from Skid Row. The GPS put us a couple of blocks past the Rave, so when the driver said we were there, I looked around and it was like something out of a zombie movie after everyone I left. I hesitate for a second and then got out. The attitude this trip was going to be to take a leap of faith and see what happens. So here I was, somewhere in downtown LA, walking around like the tourist I was. I knew the address of the Rave, so I started walking in the direction of where I thought it was. As I came across an open garage door, someone inside yelled out “Ryan?” and I knew I was home. It was currently 5:00pm PST and the Rave didn’t start until 7, but I had nothing else I could do or place to go, so I started hanging out with a few of the Ryans that were already there.
Jet lag was real, since it was past 8pm my time and I hadn’t eaten since noon, I was ready for some supper. Oh, and travel tip, don’t use the word supper around Californians unless you want to be made fun of. I got them back by making fun of them calling pop soda though.
As the night progressed, every new person was greeted with a loud rambunctious “RYAN!”.
I was pretty jealous I got there so early, I almost left so I could come back and get the royal treatment.
By the end of the night, the rave was a real deal with about 350 people all named Ryan. The youngest was a 6 year old girl who it appeared was a little overwhelmed at the spectacle of it all. Another old Ryan and I talked about the oldest Ryan there, which it turned out to be me. The name didn’t become the popular name it is today until about 5-10 years after I was born. How do I know it wasn’t popular? You know when you go on vacation and they have those racks of license plates with your name? Growing up they never had Ryan. In fact, they never even had a place for Ryan.
At the end I met several Ryan’s I still stay in contact with. There’s Vegas Ryan, with an air of coolness that no one can match. Cleveland Ryan who has this fascination with asking IG every day about a banana that is at different degrees of ripeness. Out in California is City Councilman Ryan, a 20 year old who is on city council of his town. Near the end I met comedian Ryan, who I found out was going to be in Columbus in December so I told him I’d be heading to the show. Did I make it? You’ll have to wait for the December 2023 Checkup!
Uber was hilarious as people were leaving. They would pull up asking for Ryan, and we all had a good laugh. I shared an Uber with Maryland Ryan back to LAX. He was at terminal 2 and I was leaving from terminal 5, so we just had the Uber driver drop us off at 2 and I would just walk to my terminal. I guess I didn’t know the size of LAX because terminal 5 was a 2 mile walk from 2. It was almost 1am PST (4am for me), and my flight didn’t leave for another 5 hours so the walk did give me something to do.
Once I got to my terminal I was flabbergasted to find out that there was nothing open and no vending machines. So I got to sit around and try to nap until things opened at 5am PST.
On my flight back Spirit only wanted $6 to choose my seat, so I went for it and got a window seat. When I boarded the plane, a couple had already shifted over to my seat and they weren’t happy that I arrived to take the window seat. I fell asleep for a little while and when I woke up they were gone, so they must have moved to better accommodations and in the process gave me all three seats to myself.
I arrived back in Columbus around 1pm, meaning I did the whole LA trip in 23 hours.
Other events
The Hardin County Fair was the week of September 5-10. I love my fair food, and this year I also had a booth.
Althauser Honey Farm was no longer setting up a booth, so I took it over and set up a bunch of vintage electronics. It was pretty popular, especially for those that wanted to print out posters with PrintShop. Oregon Trail was also pretty popular.
On September 23rd I DJed the KHS Homecoming Dance. There was also an Ohio State game, which I think was almost more popular.
Near the end of the month was the last Sweet Harvest out at Althauser Honey Farms. A full weekend of pumpkin picking, friend greeting, and general merriment.
Tara and I traveled to Marysville for Caylee’s tennis match with Jerry and Joel and ate Culver’s afterwards.
On the 29th Tara, Joel, and I headed over to Kirby to eat at The Blue Room with Amy A. and some work friends.
Also, during the month of September Katie turned 20.
Movies
- World War Z: It seems like I watch this movie every couple of months. The movie is at the cusp of being a great movie, but it seems like there were too many committee decisions made in the making of it. I’ve heard the book is better, I probably should read it some time.
- Legally Blonde: “Like, is it hard?” is a quote that I like to use from time to time, and after I said it in September I decided to watch Legally Blonde again.
- Cannonball Run: We were flipping through one of the free TV streaming services when we caught that this was on. It has been a long time since I’ve seen it, so I was basically watching it for the first time. It feels a lot like an Adam Sandler movie, except in this one Burt Reynolds gets to hang out with his friends and make a movie.
TV
- Ahsoka (5) – The previews made me feel like this was going to be another season of Rebels and I wasn’t disappointed.
- Airwolf (2) – I just love the absurdity of trying to fit needing a battle helicopter into a scenerio every week.
- Cheers (9)
- Just Shoot Me (1)
- King of Queens (3)
- Parks and Recreation (10)
- Star Trek The Next Generation (2)
- The King of Queens (8)
- The Neighborhood (3)
- The Office (1)
- The Office Superfan (5)
- Wednesday (1)
- Wings (5)
Health
- Average Steps/day: 14,975
- Most steps in a day: 18,515
- Min steps in a day: 12,830
- Resting Heart Rate: 53
- Average Time Asleep: 7hr 22min
- Miles walked: 99.2
- Miles ran: 96.7
Potpourri
You may remember back in July how I said that we traveled more miles that month than ever. Well, my little trip to LA let me travel 4,547 miles in the month of September, 4,005 of those by jet.