nyc

hi all! well i'm here in nyc. we've been here for about a month and have now officially reached professional driver status. driving around manhattan five hours a day is pretty stressful. we've still managed to see a lot of the city. we've been to coney island a few times (me mainly because i love the beach), the cooper-hewitt museum of design, out a few times in williamsburg, park slope, greenwich village, and the lower east side and have walked across the brooklyn bridge. i also went to my friend courtney's wedding, which was in chicago and then home to see my girlfriends and daddy-o. here are some pics from the past few weeks. enjoy and i hope everyone is doing just great! oh, and i'll also put a snapfish album together again because it's quicker and i get to add more photos!

breakwall at Brighton beach (near Coney Island)


The girls in front of the Chicago River


The group at Jack Johnson (blossom)


Top of the Brooklyn Bridge at Dusk

Me in front of the city from Brooklyn Bridge

Baltimore Pics

Hey there!

Well I was going to post pics of Jazz Fest and Baltimore here but I think I'm going to create and album on Snapfish and send that out instead. It's just a lot easier.

But, to update you a bit... I really enjoyed my time in Baltimore and will probably be back again soon. We arrived in New York City yesterday and moved into our Brooklyn apartment. It's on the third floor of a building in which a couple and their baby live on the first 2 floors. It has a lot of space in the living room, a kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. There is a pull out couch and an air mattress in a separate room. So everyone is welcome for a visit because there is plenty of room. The person who owns the apartment is in Europe for the summer doing sound for a band, so he has lots of musical equipment here. Like lots of guitars, drums, a keyboard, a few turn tables and about 500 vinyl albums. So, it has a very nice atmosphere. Especially for a music lover like me!

Ok, if you view this and don't get my snapfish album, give me a holler and I'll send them your way.

Hope all is well with everyone and you have wonderful summers!

Sorry...

Hey ya'll. Sorry, I've been super bad about the blog since I've arrived in Baltimore (pronounced Baldamore by the locals). I have lots of pictures from Baltimore and New Orleans and I will post them soon. We're going to be busy for the next couple weeks as we try and finish up Baltimore and Washington DC before June 1. We will then be moving on to NYC. We have a place in Brooklyn with places to sleep for all sorts of guests. So, come visit!!! Hope you're all doing well. I'll be home in June for a few days after Courtney's wedding (I'll be in Cleveland June 15 - June 18). Hopefully I can catch up with a lot of you, even though it is for a short period of time. Ok, well take care and I'll post pics soon.

The South

Hi all!

I'm not sure if anyone even looks at this anymore. But I'll go ahead and post some pics anyways. Since I last posted, we finished up Knoxville, moved to Little Rock, took a 3-day trip to Dallas to have a new mount put on our car, finished up Little Rock and moved to Baltimore. On our long trip from Little Rock to Baltimore, we stopped by and visited Elizabeth, a very dear friend of mine who is expecting a little baby boy in July. It was great to see her and Jeremy.

My mom is up for a visit right now in Baltimore, which has been nice. We're going to see an exhibit on maps today at an art museum here and then going out for tapas tonight. I think we might go to the symphony tomorrow night, which is something different for us all!

Here are some pics from The South. I have to admit that I tried the ya'll thing out and it sounds a lot better in my head than it does when I speak it. I guess I'm just a northerner. People would call me out as soon as I opened my mouth!


Appalachian Music in Knoxville


St. Pat's Day in Hot Spring, AR


Origami birds hanging in The Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas


Cow statues in Dallas (I'm telling him a secret!)


Emily putting our camera on the new mount in Dallas


Central High School in Little Rock


Visiting Elizabeth in Greenville

That's all I have for now. I hope everyone is doing well. I also hope it's warming up for everyone. It was warm here the day we moved in, but now it's cold! Ok, well I'll try and post some Baltimore photos in a few weeks. Much love!

Tennessee, Tennessee, there ain't no place I'd rather be

So, I'm in Knoxville right now and it's snowing. But I hear the weather up in C-town has been absolutely horrible - I hope it clears up for you guys soon. So, I have to discuss Columbia and Knoxville. We've been here in Knoxville for exactly a week and will probably be here until next Friday before heading off to Little Rock with a stop in Memphis on the way.


Sesquicentennial State Park outside of Columbia

Columbia is a very southern, bible-belt, debutante type of place. We went out to dinner one night and didn't bring our purses because we didn't want to deal with them (because we were planning on going dancing afterwards) and the hostess at the restaurant commented on it - I guess it's a big no no to not carry a purse around that city or something. Overall, it's a nice city - there are a lot of parks and in the summer, I'm sure it's nice because of the 3 rivers that run through it. I was also able to get a really nice pedicure and massage a la my sister for my birthday. It was also nice to talk to everyone on my birthday - thanks for all of the calls!


Many miles hiked along the Congaree River


How can you not love the name Bojangles?

Emily was really sick, so I spent a lot of my time that first week hiking along the Congaree and Broad Rivers and drinking free wine at the Residence Inn's social hour. We stayed at the Residence Inn for about a week and then moved to a lake house on Lake Murray. The lake house was really nice and quaint. Our friends from Atlanta came to visit for a night, which was fun because visitors are hard to come by! We also ate at Antonina's a few times out at Lake Murray, which was great.


Kathy, Emily and I at dinner on Lake Murray


Sunset on Lake Murray

We then moved on to Knoxville, which is right outside the Smoky Mountains. On our first day here, we drove down and collected the road that leads through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg into the Smoky Mountains. That drive just cracks me up because these two places are the biggest tourist traps I've ever seen. The Smoky Mountains are the most visited national park in the country - more people go there every year than Yosemite or Yellowstone, but I was kind of concerned that more people go down for the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum than to actually enjoy the beauty of the Smokies. Either way, we enjoyed the Smokies with a nice hike up to Laurel Falls. We also rode a ski-lift type of thing up to the top of a mountain in Gatlinburg, so I guess I'm probably just like everyone else. It was just hard to say no to that ski lift!


View from hike to Laurel Falls

Knoxville has a really nice visitor's center that has a blue plate lunch special every Monday - Friday at 12pm. There really isn't food, but free music for an hour everyday, so we are now going there for our lunch breaks. It's a nice place. There's also a cool part of town called The Old City, which I think we're going to go to tonight for dinner. There's also a collection of Appalachian music going on downtown tonight, so we're going to do that too.


Knoxville skyline from bridge crossing the Tennessee River

Lastly, we went to Asheville, NC yesterday to see the Benevento/Russo Duo and Grace Potter play at the Orange Peel and to celebrate my birthday (since Emily was so sick on my actual birthday). I kind of forgot we were celebrating my birthday, so I was very surprised when I came out of the bathroom in Asheville to a cake with candles, a bottle of champagne and presents. It was very nice - thank you, Emily! We then went to the show, which was very good. I've always wanted to see live music in Asheville, so I'm glad I got to. The town is really cool too - it's like Athens on steroids. Very hippie, with good food and natural stores, etc.


My birthday brownie/cheesecake cake

Oh, I almost forgot the best part - on the way to Asheville, we stopped by the Pisgah National Forest and hiked to the top of Max Patch, which was absolutely gorgeous - very Sound of Music meets Appalachian Mountains. The peak used to be used for grazing back in the day, so the trees were cut down and it's been maintained since then. The Appalachian trial runs through it and it gives some of the best views of the Smoky Mountains. Since there are no trees obstructing your views, you can see 360 degrees around the peak. Very breathtaking and little people know about it. Thanks, Kevin for the great tip.


On top of Max Patch.


View from top.


Experimenting with my camera.

Alright, well this has turned into a very long post - sorry about that. I just never update this, so when I do, there's a lot to say! Ok, I hope all is well with everyone and please visit us this summer. We have a nice little row house in Baltimore from April 1 - May 12 (I'll be down in NOLA though from April 25 - May 5). Then I'm pretty sure it's off to NYC. Much love!

Finished up Atlanta, On to Columbia, SC

Hey All! So, we left Atlanta on Friday and moved on to Columbia, SC, which is where the University of South Carolina is located. It's about 10 degrees warmer here than in Atlanta, so that is nice. I've already been to a few parks - Riverfront Park today, which has a long path that runs along the Broad River and the Congaree River. Yesterday, we went to Sesquicentennial State Park, which was really nice as well. We also went out in the Vista on Friday night, but that was kind of weird, apart from the awesome food we ate.

So, Atlanta is a really cool city that I would recommend to anyone for a visit. Also, if you ever get any kind of job there and are if-y about taking it because you don't want to move to Atlanta - you should think again because I would definitely consider living there. Lots of friendly people, cool neighborhoods, good music scene, good food, etc.


Five Points Skyline from our Apartment - we could see all 3 Atlanta Skylines from our balcony.

Let's see, what did I do there. We went to the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, the High Museum of Art, went on the CNN tour, and to the Fernbank Museum of History. I would recommend the Aquarium because it's the largest in the country and they have beluga whales, which are super cool to watch.


Jellies at the Aquarium


Beluga Whale at Aquarium

I also loved the World of Coca-Cola - it was really fun. They have an awesome 4-D movie, a really funny movie in the beginning of the tour thing and you get to taste Coke products from all over the world. I also got to write a story on how I got my Coke shirt, so that was exciting. The High Museum of Art was really good. Definitely a must see - lots of classic pieces and good exhibits. The Fernbank Museum of History was definitely more for kids. They had a nice Sea-shell exhibit, but that's about it! And the CNN tour was surprisingly fun and very informative. Oh, and I got to ride the world's tallest free-standing escalator, so that was an accomplishment.


Me at World of Coke (very refreshing!)


Lebron at World of Coca-Cola - I also got to see him kick some Hawks butt! Go Cavs.

Stone Mountain is also located near Atlanta - it's the largest granite face in the world. You can hike to the top, which we did. And during most months, except February of course, there are gondolas that you can ride up and a laser light show. We didn't get to do either of those things because they were closed in February for maintenance.


On top of Stone Mountain

We also got to see lots of good music. I might have mentioned some of it already, but Grace Potter and the Nocturnals (she's amazingly wonderful and everyone should check them out), the Greyboy Allstars (gotta love that Karl D action) and Mofro (it was my first time seeing them and they were great)! Atlanta was also fun because we got to hang out with other people! I met some peeps on Jam Cruise who are from Atlanta so it was fun to be able to go to shows with them. Oh, and Paul's Restaurant is a really good place to eat in Buckhead if anyone is ever in the area.

Ok, well I will keep you posted on South Carolina. After we leave here, we'll be headed to Knoxville, TN (probably around March 1), then off to Little Rock (probably from March 10 - March 30). Then to Baltimore for the month of April and then to New York City (most likely) for May and June! Yay. So, come visit any of those places if you can. And a side trip to New Orleans in April/May for Jazz Fest. Hope all is well with everyone.

I travel a lot

Hi everyone. So, I've realized that in the past 3 months I've been to a lot of places. Just to give you a little run down from November to the present... Kansas City to Cleveland to Portland back to Kansas City to Memphis to California (Lemoore, Los Angeles, Long Beach) back to Memphis to Atlanta to Jam Cruise (Ft. Lauderdale, Roatan and Cozumel) back to Atlanta to Colorado (El Jebel, Aspen, Breckenridge, Denver) back to Atlanta and the moving on to Little Rock in a week or so. Just thought I'd share. Here are some pics from Cali because I never posted any before.


Candyce and Paul Christmas Morning


Little Paulie after a bath - he's just so cute!


Jacqui, Emily and I in Santa Monica


Me in Venice Beach (love this place)


Palm Trees in Long Beach

So, we haven't done many touristy things in Atlanta yet because we found out you can buy this City Pass for a big discount to do a lot of the things we want to do, but it's only valid for 12 days so we weren't going to purchase it until our last 12 days. But now we think we might be done early, so we might buy it soon. We've eaten some good food (MF Sushi, Thai Palate), we've been to some cool neighborhoods (Little Five Points, Virginia Highlands, Northside) and have seen and will be seeing some good music (Grace Potter two weekends ago, the Greyboy Allstars tonight, the Fiery Furnaces tomorrow, and JJ Grey and Mofro on Saturday). So, Atlanta pics to come soon!

I also went out to Colorado over this past weekend to hang out with some friends for the X-games. It sure is beautiful out there. We've requested to go there for work (to Denver), so we're thinking we will find our way there in June. Also, we're supposed to get our spring schedule late this week. so I will keep you posted. Hope everyone is enjoying themselves. Also, Happy Birthday to Allison and Congratulations to Chris and Whitney! Here are some x-games photos.


Kt and me at the huge Friday night house party!


Beautiful sunset in CO


Ice sculpture in Breckenridge

Here are a few more Graceland pics (with Elvis in them) per Sheila!


Pic of Elvis at Graceland - he was a handsome one!


Jumpsuit worn at a Cleveland performance.

Talk to ya'll soon! Peace and love.

Jam Cruise and Memphis Pics

Hello everyone.

Not as much detail, more pictures. That is my new blog motto. So, Jam Cruise was absolutely incredible. The best time of my life, ever. Great music, great people, great weather, great times. I'm only sad now because I don't think I will be able to go next year. I guess we can't have it all. Or can we? I was bad and didn't take too many pics, but here are some of the incredible five days I had on the MSC Lirica.


Emily and I on the pool deck.


Lauren, Emily, and I in Roatan.


Toots and the Maytals on the Pool Deck.


New friends are what Jam Cruise is all about. That and the best music ever.

So, I don't think I posted any pics of Memphis, so here are some. You've already heard all about it, so I won't tell you anything more!

Sunset on the Mississippi.


I'm going to Graceland, Graceland; In Memphis, Tennessee.


Drying guitars at Gibson Guitar Factory.


Fully loaded Buggie Bug by the river.

Pics of Cali coming soon. Also, we're actually starting to explore Atlanta now, so I'll have more on the ATL soon. (it takes some time to recover from the best time of your life). Enjoy! Oh, and I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year. Peace and love.

Memphis, Cali and going on Jam Cruise!!!!!

Hola. Sorry, I've been really bad about keeping this updated. I hope this finds everyone having a nice holiday season. Memphis was a really fun city. I would recommend it to anyone taking a trip down to the south. I think three days would be good. My recommendations include Graceland, the Rock and Soul Museum, Sun Studio, Memphis BBQ (we went to The BBQ Shop in Midtown, but any of it would be good) and of course, Beale St. We also hit up the National Ornamental Metals Museum, the Gibson Guitar Factory Tour, the National Civil Rights Museum, and the Pink Palace. We've also been really good about going to school - trading off and on between GIS and Spanish.

So, the Elvis people really know how to put on a tour. Graceland was presented in a really nice way with an audio tour. You didn't have to listen to real people tour guides and you got to pick and choose what parts of the house you wanted more details about. It was really cool being able to see his house (not the upstairs though because that's his personal space), the property, his trophy house, cars, and planes. The animal room and downstairs billiards rooms were my favorite rooms. I also really liked the car museum. Oh, and if you go there, be sure to not buy any souvenirs right away because there are lots of different gift shops and some are better than others.

The Rock and Soul museum gave a background on all of the musicians that came out of Memphis, minus Justin Timberlake. They included Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King etc. It also included a lot of info on Sun Studios, Stax Records and Hi Records. There is also the Stax Museum (another music museum in Memphis), but we decided to go to the Rock and Soul Museum because it's located close to Beale St. and is open until 7 every evening. Our visit to Sun Studios was short. We decided not to go on the tour because we had learned so much about it already, so we just took some pics and went to the gift shop. We actually liked the Sun Studios products better at Graceland because they used the original rooster logo that Sam Phillips used versus the guitar logo that is now property of the building.

So, Beale St. is pretty crazy. You can always find full bars, live music, and friendly people. I can't even imagine what it's like in the summer. Some of the bar patios are twice as big as the indoor bars, but they were all closed for the season. So, there is no open container law on Beale St., probably because they close off the streets to cars at 11am every morning and don't open them back up til 6am the following morning. So, we had to be sure to collect that street first thing in the morning. Also, all of the bars are open til 5am on weekends and 3am on weekdays. Our favorite bar ended up being Alfred's on the corner of Beale and 3rd I think. I'd also recommend Rum Boogie Cafe, BB Kings, or Blues City Cafe if you want to hear some Blues and eat some Cajun food.

My favorite bar though was just a block off Beale St. on Peabody Pl. and 2nd St. - The Flying Saucer. It's a chain in the south, but doesn't feel like a chain at all. They serve TONS of different beers and you can join the UFO club. To get your name on a saucer on the wall, you have to drink 200 different beers. We didn't have enough time. We've also gotten really in to Team Trivia and have played it at a couple different locations. Hopefully we can find more in Atlanta too.

Right now I'm out in Lemoore with my mom, sister, and her kids, Candyce and Paul. They are so so so cute and I'm so glad I got to visit for so long. I think my sister and I are going out to a bar in Hanford tonight - it's the closest city to Lemoore, so I'll see how it compares! I leave here on Sunday to go meet Emily in LA for New Years. I have no clue what we're doing, but probably something low key since we've decided to go on Jam Cruise! I cannot wait! We leave January 4 and return January 9 from Atlanta. We'll be flying back to Memphis on January 2 and then driving straight to Atlanta.

That's it for now. Oh, and we saw the ducks at Peabody hotel too - really weird tradition. I'll post pics another time. The connection here is really slow and it would take forever! Again, I hope everyone had a nice holiday and I'll talk to you soon! Peace out.

Its One for the Money, Two for the Show

I'm in Memphis, Now Go, Cat, Go.

I've been here for a few days. We're planning on hitting up all of the Memphis attractions, which encompasses ducks, metal, civil rights, BBQ, Gibson guitars, recording studios, and of course, Elvis. We should be done here right before Christmas, at which time I'll be heading to California to see my momma and sis and her kiddies. I hope everyone is staying warm this December and stay posted for more Memphis tales.

And if anyone has the desire to get out of wherever you happen to be in January and February, I'll be in Hotlanta. Ciao.

p.s. Happy Birthday - there are a lot of you with birthdays right now.

Kansas City

Hi Everyone. I'm in the Kansas City airport right now waiting to board my flight home to Cleveland for Thanksgiving. I'll be home from tonight through Monday and then will be flying to Portland for the next week for an all-team meeting. Should be good times through then.

On our way to KC, we stopped in Columbia, MO, which is where the University of Missouri main campus is located. It was a recommendation by our innkeeper in St. Louis and Google boy. We had a nice lunch in a quaint tea house and then went hiking in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park, which had some caves we were able to explore. Cute little town and nice hiking.



So, Kansas City was good. I really had no idea what to expect in almost the exact middle of the country. My favorite area is Westport, which is the "entertainment" district. Basically just a lot of bars and cute shops and restaurants. There's also an art school near by and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, so there are lots of different types of people there as well. Westport is just north of Country Club Plaza, which was built as a shopping district almost 100 years ago using Moorish-type architecture. Nowadays, there are lots of shops you'd see in Beechwood Place, so I was turned off by it at first, thinking it was recently built to look like an older establishment, but now I have much more respect knowing it was built that way a while ago. Also, I'm excited to go back there at night after I get back to KC after our 11-day break because they decorate the whole plaza with over 80 miles of lights. They light them up on Thanksgiving night.

We were able to go to a few museums - the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City. The actual art museum (Nelson-Atkins) was enjoyable. They have a huge sculpture park with huge birdie statues (as in badminton). We really only strolled through one wing because it was pretty big and getting late. There was also a huge reflecting pond outside, which I really liked. The contemporary museum was very manageable in size, which made it very enjoyable. There was an exhibit on display of Michael Vasquez's work. You should really check out his work if you have time. We saw a sign for the Toy and Miniature museum one day and figured we had to go there. It was actually pretty cool. We really dig the miniatures (which are exact replicas of real-life things - different than a toy) and the doll houses they had on display. Oh, and we went to the National Heritage Museum to learn about the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. I was really just hoping to find copies of the Oregon Trail computer game, but had no such luck.





We've also experienced the two things Kansas City is most known for (at least from what I've picked up on) - BBQ and Jazz. We ate at 2 BBQ restaurants and Gates BBQ is my favorite. You can buy the BBQ sauce at any grocery store. We also now know the difference between a short end and long end of ribs. We went to the Historic 18th and Vine Jazz district and checked out the Jazz Museum there, saw some live Jazz, and ate at the Peachtree, which is an upscale soul food restaurant - delicious is all I have to say!



Emily celebrated her 24th birthday here. We went to breakfast at Waffle House (something she's wanted to do for quite some time) and went out to a nice dinner (thanks to her momma) at Figlio Italian Restaurant on the Plaza. We then saw some live reggae. We also went to Lawrence, KS (recommended by Pam and Katie O.) to see Old Crow Medicine Show. Another good show and a very cute little college town.



Alright, well I think that sums up most of what we did here in KC. I hope to see a lot of people while I'm home for Thanksgiving. But if I don't - hope you have a wonderful holiday! Oh, and I'll have to keep you posted on where I'm going next. Right now I don't know, but should find out when I go to Portland. And below you will find a pic I like to call "Another day on the job".