We talk about quite a few serious things on here, I figure its about time for this. What was the single best day in your life, what happened to make it that amazing. For me personally, I think the best day in my life was my 5th day in London when I met a friend and she my brother and I went to Camden and had a great time. We went to a little cafe then on the way back we hit up several beer gardens in alleyways. Its one of those days I vividly remember and it was one of those chance meetings I still think about even though it happened 6 years ago. Focus What was the single best day of your life? Alt-Focus If you had to imagine the perfect day, what would it be, where are you, what are you doing?
25th birthday. The girl took me to Mohegan sun for an awesome dinner, hour long couples massage, a good show, and then at around 9 when went back to our room and all my friends were there to surprise me. The day could not be spoiled. Bump.
Focus: 22nd birthday. Had about 10 friends over during the day and evening for drinks before going out. Got chatting to my neighbour (just moved in) and her friend who were waiting for a cab. They joined us for drinks, then shared cabs with us to our destination. Once at the bar, my neighbours friend paid for all of my drinks (shots, beers, scotch, etc). At 2am she gives me her number and says "I'm staying at "the neighbours" place, let me know when you get home and I'll come over for some fun". Needless to say, good friends and good booze topped of with the easiest lay of my life.
My Cross-Country Solo flight when I was 17 is way up there. In order to get your pilot license, you have to do a 3-leg, 2 stop "distance" flight, by yourself. It's a big fucking deal... you're part scared out of your gourd and part exhilarated beyond belief.
As corny as it sounds, I've had so many good days I couldn't identify one day as being the best day ever. Alt. focus: Since we're "imagining" I'm going to resurrect my dead father. I pick Dad up bright and early and we hit our favorite greasy spoon for breakfast. We then head up to the lake for a few hours of fishing. After filling the stringer, we head home, stopping for lunch - a meatball sub at the Italian place up the road. Then my Dad, my best friend and my brother in law hit the links for 18 holes, or as many as we can get in before I take my Dad, my daughter and my wife to a night game - Yankees-Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. A few dogs, a few more beers and an 18-2 Yankees victory later we head home, stopping in at "my" bar for quick beer on the way.
Ive written about it here before. Green Beer Day my "super senior" year of college. It was my school's alternate St Patrick's Day since the holiday was purposefully scheduled over Spring Break each year. Unseasonably warm day, woke up at 5am to one of my roommates bursting into my room with a whiskey bottle, shots and then to bars where we posted up at a table with a few other guys, next to the window overlooking the main street in the town. Watched the sun come up as we took down our 4th or 5th beer, left shortly after to have pancakes at his gf's house, before passing out around 10. 3 hour nap, and awake to a full on house party on our deck. Spend the next 8 hours playing drinking games, dancing, and other assorted college fuckery in the 70 degree March sunshine on our deck before making our way inside the house where a dance party broke out in my roommates bedroom and someone suggested everyone take their shirts off...which was surprisingly enforced enthusiastically by the girls in attendance. We all ended up pairing off and went back to my bedroom to drunkenly hookup with a really attractive sophomore with a bubble butt. I may have woken up around 2AM to dry heave painfully for an hour, cause I didn't each much else after those pancakes, but that was the next day technically, so it wouldn't damage perfection. Honorable mention is the first night of my first EDC festival with my friends 2 years ago. Just so much euphoria and sensory overload with a couple of guys I don't get to see nearly enough. It really is just something I'll never forget.
I am making the assumption this does not include the birth of children or weddings as of course that would be my best days ever. January 1, 1978, My father and I had gotten a pair of free tickets to the Rose Bowl game. We left our house at 6am drove to Pasadena (about 5 hours) We sat through all pregame, saw a great football game and then got into my truck and drove back home getting there just before midnight. It was the fact that I was going to be turning 21 in a few weeks, and this was really the first time that my father and I got to do something together as adults without my mom or sisters involved. We talked about life, dreams, the future, commented on the difference between USC and Michigan cheerleaders (and coeds there) and just stuff that I remember all these decades later. It always will be my best day ever.
Focus: My husband's last birthday. It was while we were on our honeymoon in Maui. We woke up and had an amazing breakfast. Then we went down to the beach and spent the morning walking and hanging out there. After that we drove to Paia and spent the day walking around shops and watching a surfing competition. We had a reservation for a late lunch at a fancy shmancy seafood place and drove back to our beach for a sunset cruise. It was fun, relaxing and hopefully made his birthday extra special. Both of us agree that it was our favorite day of the trip.
One day I spent in Corfu, Greece on Contiki. First half of the day was spent on a private boat cruising around the islands. Weather was perfect, our tour guide was a sleezy old Greek man that had everyone laughing all day, good tunes, and beer and food flowing all day. Honestly, if that was all we did for the day, it would've been close to best day ever by itself. But afterwards we had a toga party in a Greek mansion, which was a self-explanatory good time. I'm smiling just typing this day out.
Not sure if it's my best day ever, but it's up there. Spring of 2001, I flew up to NYC and met up with a college friend in the Army from Long Island who was about to leave for his first deployment. We were both new Lieutenants only a few months out of our respective commissioning and training programs. He was the first of our group from college to deploy. His older brother worked in the Twin Towers and the three of us went into Manhattan for lunch at a Hooters followed by cigars and more beer at Bryant Park next to the NYC Library. Nothing specific about the day stands out as special, but to this day all three of us will occasionally remark about how great a day it was. The fact that four months later the world went sideways for us all probably has a lot to do with it. Thankfully, his brother was not at work on 9/11, but my buddy who was still in Kosovo did not find that out until the next morning.
I've had so many great days its hard to pick one. Getting married, birth of our sons, etc. But a couple others popped out. The first was when we bought the land that is across from our home. It originally went with the property but was parceled off years before we bought the house. We moved in figuring we would make an offer on the land in a year or two when we were settled. A year later my wife calls me to tell me someone was over there. After a series of phone calls I found out the people walking around were looking at it to buy. I called the owner who confirmed the people were buying it. I told him if it fell through to call me immediately. No shit, a week later wife calls me at work to tell play the message ( owner had a thick accent she couldn't understand him ) but the jist of it was the buyer wasnt returning his calls and he wanted it sold before he left the country for 6 months. I told him to give me a couple hours, but it was good as sold. I hung up, told the boss I had to leave and why, and then went begging and borrowing to come up with the money. Waiting for the call from the loan officer to tell me the loan was approved was the longest afternoon in my life. And when she called and said "Come get your money." it was the best. Less than a week later it was ours. The other day that stands out was St Patrick's Day 2013. Returned from a four day weekend tour with the band and played to a hometown crowd that had people talking for weeks. Wall to wall people, breaking any and all fire codes and crowd size limits... We played for huge crowds before but never at home, and I can't tell you how awesome that felt.
Skipping over the obvious weddings and childbirth, a few that come to mind are: When I was in 9th grade, that was the only time in my shy and reserved childhood when I had multiple friends who weren't shitty. I was on a military base in Germany and one day our class took a field trip to the Kris Kringle Markt in Mannheim. It was just one of those perfect days where everything about it was delightful. Back when my now-husband and I were dating, we went to Shore Leave (sci fi convention) in Maryland and it was the only time I've cosplayed for one of these things. I was in the old-school Star Trek red dress uniform (not any particular character - I kind of wanted to be Dax from Trials and Tribbleations, but I hated my hair up in a bun) and he went as Data (he did a great job with the hair - he's normally blonde - and the gold skin). It was a lot of fun and I got to have my picture taken with George Takei. A few years ago my daughter and I went to Orlando and my favorite part was when we went to Harry Potter World. It was freaking awesome and we both want to do it again so badly.
If you read the hunting forum you have seen this before but in 2013 I got drawn to hunt desert bighorn sheep, this is really a once in a lifetime hunt as you can only harvest one in your lifetime in Arizona, it was a lottery style drawing that people put in for many years before getting drawn, I was lucky enough to get it after 3 years with a cost to me of about $300.00. These hunts go for up to $50k at auctions so I was happy to have the chance to do it for way less. The hunt was in a section of Arizona that bordered Nevada, it was a 20 mile by 20 mile square of very rugged country and they gave me all of December to hunt and there was only one other hunter in that unit for me to deal with. I did not want to pay a guide 5,000 to find me a ram so my brother in law and I had scouted the area for 5 days before the hunt, driving and glassing countless miles of desert terrain, it was nasty stuff with 1000 foot drops and huge as mountains. In the course of scouting we had only got our eyes on 2 rams, one was very small and the other we were 3 miles away from and could not tell so I was ready for a long hunt. After bartending Saturday night and getting 3 hours of sleep Sunday December 1st came and I made the 4 hour drive to my unit, my brother in law followed me up in his truck and another one of my friends met us up there, the planned on staying for 2 days and then I was on my own. We found a high point to start glassing and looked around for a few hours not seeing anything except the game wardens truck, I called him and told him where I was as he needed to check my tag. The warden told me that I had a very hard tag to fill and that there were not a lot of sheep in the area and I would need at least 10 days of hunting to find one, he had no information to give me and wished me luck. I did not like that guy. We made a 5 mile move to look at some other mountains and still did not see anything so about 4:30 as the sun was setting we called it a day and started driving to the hotel, 2 minutes later the guy in the back seat says stop, there is a ram. Out of the truck I go with my binos and I can't find it on the side of the mountain, my buddy says at the top and there it was skylined against the sunset, the biggest ram I had ever seen. Evidently I let out quite a string of profanity trying to get my gun and bullets out of my truck, I thought it was 400 yards away but when we put a laser on the ram it was 209 straight up the mountain. I tried to get comfortable on a chair to get a shot but it was not steady enough so I opted for the bed of my truck, it took 30 seconds for me to get my heart rate under control and stop shaking before I could send a round up the hill, you are supposed to squeeze the trigger but when I had the crosshairs on the heart I jerked that motherfucker. After recovering from the concussion of the 300wsm I got the ram back in my scope in time to see him turn his head and open his mouth like he was yawning, another string of profanity came from me as I was ramming another shell in my gun because I had missed, but as I swore the ram reared up like a horse and fell over backward dead. I don't get excited about much but I ran around my truck hugging the 2 guys I was with and jumping up and down like 13 year old who just learned to jerk off. I had so much adrenaline that it took me 2 days before I could sleep for more than a few hours.
I took a risk and bought a 25' sailboat on Ebay, sight unseen, without the knowing the first thing about sailing. I just knew I wanted to do it. I bought a book and spent the rest of the winter researching everything I could find to do with sailing. When Spring came, I called the marina and had them prep it and launch it. A few days later I showed up with my girlfriend, my book and a truck load of new gear. The next day, my best day, we motored out into the Chesapeake bay and hoisted sails and started something that would become a huge part of our lives. The weather was perfect, the boat, despite my purchasing it without inspecting it, was in great shape and we had box wine and Busch heavy. We sailed around and learned and loved every second of it. That day has led to so many things and places and trips for us. The people we've met have been amazing, only a few assholes. Now, the day after that... we were nearly killed by a storm.
Aside from children being born... I don't know. The past six years have been the best years of my life. Happy. Fulfilled. Challenging. I can name a handful of amazing days. We spent the day rolling up and down the coast line - we hit Big Sur and then did some light hiking, then went and had drinks and watched the sun set over the Pacific. After that we went back to our hotel and did what newlyweds do. We spent a day driving around Oahu during a storm, ultimately pulling over at Waimea Beach and standing in the rain, watching enormous waves pound the beach. This was after stopping at a roadside restaurant and sitting out on the patio listening to the ocean crash while we drank beers and ate chips and salsa. For our first anniversary, he was in south Texas, and I didn't think he could come up - he surprised me while fireworks were going off over the gym. All of the days we've spent in bed together - hanging out, eating, watching netflix, laughing at one another. All in all, we have more good days than bad, and life is pretty awesome. My perfect day? A beach, a hammock, some music, some good beer, and The Husband.