As is the case for over 99% of my time I am thinking about vacation.  And if I had one lifestyle consulting tip to pass on to the readers here it would be to take as many vacations as you can feasibly fit into your schedule and budget.  Now, while I'm not opposed to the Chevy Chase style, pack up the family truckster, tie the dog to the rear bumper, ramp a station wagon 50 feet over a "road closed" sign, tie your Aunt Edna to the roof of your car, dance with a bologna sandwhich, hold up John Candy at Wally world, type vacation.  I will say that going the all-inclusive resort route is 100% bohogan approved.  Whether its the Carribean, Mexico, South America, France or Indonesia, a good all-inclusive resort just drips with opportunity to live a bohogan lifestyle.  If you've never been or if you are considering going again, below are my 10 unsolicited tips to guarantee you have the best vacation ever. Even better then packing up the wagon queen family truckster and traveling 3,000 miles across country to see a God damn moose.  PRAISE MARTY MOOSE!!!!!

1.) Selection of the resort is of the utmost importance.  I don't know about you, but when I'm on vacation without my kids (I guess this is all my vacations since my three kids with three different women all know me as the "guy who sends the checks"  **Note: I'm just kidding, I really don't have any kids.....that I know of) I certainly don't want to vacation with other peoples kids.  The only guy I know that likes to find the "child friendly" resort while traveling alone is now in jail.  Guess why??  Pervert.  Adults only is the way to go.  The really cool bonus about adults only is sometimes "adults only" means like hedinism or is some type of soft porn resort.  This one time, my soon to be fiance' and I walked into a resort only to be greeted by an orgasm contest at the pool.  Classy.

2.) Even if you've never really been a big tipper, the first time you go to the resort bar make sure you give the bar tender a nice fat Benjamin.  Twenty bucks may seem like a big tip for two "free" drinks but in the long run, it'll work out for you.  See, you basically just paid for the guys rent so he'll definitely take it upon himself to make sure regardless of where you are in line, or what you actually order, he'll reward you immediately with a drink that's strong as kerosene.  A couple of those and you'll be ready to participate in tequila volleyball where the losers have to walk naked around the pool.  Why don't they tell you the rules before you sign up for crying out loud.  How embarrassing....for those idiots that play tequila volleyball.  Last bartender tip is make sure you don't speak really loud and slow to the bartender even if he doesn't speak English.  Chances are he can understand it there chief.

3.) Don't drink the water

4.) Whatever you do, disregard the people who are up late at night or up early in the morning putting their towels on pool side chairs to "save" them for the next day.  This is one of the most annoying things about these type of resorts.  Generally, people like to lay by the pool on vacation so naturally they want the "good" spot that's in the sun or shade.  I have an easy way to circumvent the process.  Get up when you normally would, walk down to the pool, find an empty chair that suits your liking and then throw the towel that occupies the chair into the ocean.  A.) You don't have to get up early or stay up late. B.) You get a great spot C.) Nobody can prove anything because some shark probably has ate the towel.  Genius!!!

5.) Always visit the local downtown area closest to where you are staying.  Go to the especially touristy joints, where you get the yard long beers and they come around blowing whistles pouring tequila in your mouth.  Great people watching and you get real hammered.

6.) All inclusive resorts are a people watchers paradise in of themselves.  Make certain you leave plenty of  time and expend plenty of effort each day to come up with nicknames for other guests.  You stay four, five, six days somewhere that's all inclusive and you probably are running into the same people over and over again.  Make great friends with these people.  Consider inviting them to your wedding.  If you see a guy in the gift shop buying a white linen shirt and white linen pants call him "Linen on linen".  If you see a guy whose obviously with his girl friend at the resort but spends his day by the pool checking out other chicks call him "head on a swivel".  If you are in the jacuzzi with a nice lady and she gets out and only has one leg call her "stumpy".  Make sure you spend the rest of the trip referring to these people by nickname to your partner.  "Hey honey, I was at the pool and saw Linen on Linen all hammered at the bar and Head on a Swivel was making out with Stumpy."

7.) Drink a sh*t load everyday for free.  Except for the twenty bucks up front.  See #2.

8.) Avoid buying weed from Rasta looking guys on the street corner.  That sh*t ain't real.  It may look like Jamaican but it's really ground up palm leaves.  If you are a big weed smoker and you are in the Caribbean and they are playing Bob Marley, I understand the temptation.  If you are hard up, go find the guy named "Fin" who hangs out on the beach all day, not trying to sell things, but just sitting there all spaced out.  He probably can hook you up.  **Note: None of these stories are from personal experience.  Believe me, I'd never nickname someone "stumpy". That's rude.

9.) Don't expect that the dinner buffets are going to be as good or safe as a KFC all you can eat buffet.  Honestly, give me one second to pick one restaurant and I'll pick KFC buffet every time.  60% of the time, that place is great every time.  The point here is, be careful what you eat at these buffets.  Avoid the exotic foods, and avoid calamari or any other strange seafood that you typically wouldn't eat.  I'm two for two on food poisoning after eating calamari in the Caribbean.  Maybe it has something more to do with a food allergy now that I think about it.  Sh*t, I'm allergic to calamari.  Son of a b*tch!!!

10.) Don't be afraid to get involved in all the activities that the friendly staff pushes on you.  I never would of thought I'd be doing water aerobics every morning with "Spit and Swallow" my two gay friends from New Jersey.  While it may seem intruding that some staff member is blowing a whistle in your face while you are napping on the beach, they really are just super stoked to get you in the beach volleyball game.  I hate to let people down so I'm always a willing participant.  Plus, you get to make a lot of great friends and come up with a lot of great nicknames that will last a life time.

I just returned from a long weekend trip to New York city where I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law who had recently bought a new apartment in the upper west side of Manhattan.  I feel compelled to blog a bit about my experience in order to impress on our readership the uniqueness of living a NYC life style and potentially consult you on how best to maximize the precious time you have in the big city. 

First and foremost, if and when you see a large gathering of people making a lot of noise and you see a lot of fist pumping and unbridled enthusiasm make sure you make a bee line to that area and throw yourself into the experience.  Let me cite a few examples of what I encountered this past weekend:

Example A:  Friday afternoon in Manhattan, after taking the subway to the lower east side to hit up the half price Broadway ticket stand, to my dismay all the naked shows were sold out, we came upon a large gathering of people.  Not exactly an odd occurrence in the city, but two of the ring leaders in the center of the crowd had bull horns, and were wearing referee shirts while standing in an inflated ring filled with apple sauce.  Picture Will Farrell in old school officiating the K-Y jelly wresting contest which unfortunately caused Joseph "Blue" Palowski to go down effectively ending his stint as the best character in the entire show, maybe even comedy history. (See picture above for visual reference to what over stimulated ol' Blue)  I digress.  After pressing closer to see what was happening, it became apparent that the 50 or so people standing around the ring screaming and yelling and chanting weren't really apple sauce wresting enthusiasts but rather extras in the filming of a "TRUTH.com" segment.  If you aren't familiar with that organization, they do the anti-smoking bits which I found rather ironic seeing that the majority of the "actors" were firing back heaters, that's smokes for you mental midgets, in between takes!!  At any rate, what a great experience on my first day in the city to see an actual commercial set.  I joined in the chants, gave a few high fives and bummed a few smokes from the cast and crew.

Example B:  Sunday afternoon, browsing the over priced Banana Republic sued shoe collection, I noticed a large group of people all dressed in green and white gathering outside of the bar across the street.  I looked closer and it is absolute bedlam.  This group of guys was obviously celebrating something with no regard for pedestrians or oncoming vehicles as they spilled out into the street.  I sprinted to investigate and it turns out they were all watching the Rugby world cup and their team had obviously garnered an impressive victory.  I found myself embracing grown men, in green striped boxers and wife beaters and putting little kids on my shoulders.  I'm not sure where they were from but I've never seen a group of people more happy to be drunk as pigs at 11:00am on a Sunday.  Obviously I was impressed, and followed them back into the bar at the orders of the NYPD, and joined in the post game celebration.  Irish car bombs for everyone!!! 

My second take away from my visit to the big apple is you should always plan your trip close to some type of major holiday.  This doubles the chance that you'll get to experience some sort of bizarre situation or illicit road side activities of some sort.  Being in NYC so close to St. Patrick's Day, which happens to be my second favorite holiday of the year after Flag Day, was also a life altering experience.  On Friday night, as we closed in on the 4th or 5th bar of our unplanned mini-bar crawl, we entered the oldest bar in NYC which happens to be an Irish pub.  As you can imagine, it was assholes to elbows in that joint and we only got a table because one of the workers remembers my sister as the big chested blonde (he actually referred to her in this context).  The table we got happened to be directly next to the coal burning stove that they used to heat the entire place.  We were just happy to have a seat so we didn't complain.  That is until my brother-in-law was suffering from dehydration literally within minutes of sitting down due to the unbearable heat that this archaic heating device was throwing out.  Sweltering isn't even close to being a powerful enough adjective.  The good news was they serve 2 pints per man at a time and the beers were coming fast and furious.  If it weren't for the onslaught of beers that came our direction, I'm certain we would have gave in to the 3rd degree burns we all were suffering from.  Aside from the heat, this place was awesome.  Just pure debauchery, with every patron getting tanked on light or dark draft beer.  Those were the two options.  Not Smithwicks, or Guinness, or Harp or Bass.  Just light or dark.  It seemed like the entire bar would break out into song every 15 minutes or so.  I was stunned at one point as I removed my cap and joined in the singing of the national anthem almost moved to tears.  The irony of singing the Star Spangled Banner in an authentic Irish bar owned by real life Irishmen made it all the more impressive.  There was one bid of sound and imagery that was less then impressive but I have to stamp it as the comedic pennacle of the entire trip.  Watch the youtube video attached below to take it all in but to give the quick background.  After complaining a bit, and threatening the drunken worker who offended my sister with a sexual harassment law suit we were placed at a better table by the front door.  Next to us sat a group of guys all surrounding one lady who apparently had a skill that you wouldn't think would be utilized in an Irish bar with piss drunk people.  From time to time, the guys would start pleading with her and then she'd just stop and break out in full fledged opera style singing.  At one point, her biggest adoring fan even gave an eyes closed arm pump that was from the depths of his soul.  The video clip sets the scene as you can really capture how proud her table mates were of her opera voice, often shushing the crowd, while our table reacted in the appropriate manner....appalled!! 

In summary, NYC in March close to St. Patti's day, or any time of the year for that matter is a wonderful experience.  Remember, to always join the mob and throw your inhibitions to the wind and in case you ever hear opera in an Irish pub, feel free to act accordingly which means lots of disgusted head shakes and general mocking of the situation.