Miah's Travels

Quick update on trip

2007-06-13T11:19:00.000-04:00

Wow, I have been home for almost two months now. I just wanted to get up a rundown of the parts of the trip that I never got around to blogging about. So my idea was to post a timeline and map of the trip.
Timeline:
January 5th - February 14th (blogged about) : Cleveland to San Diego
Feb. 14 - Feb. 20 : Continued in San Diego
Feb. 20 - Feb. 22 : Los Angeles
Feb. 22 - Feb. 24 : Route 1
Feb. 24 - Feb. 26 : San Francisco
Feb. 26 - March 1 : Lake Tahoe
March 1 - March 8 : San Francisco
March 9 - March 10 : Redwood Forest
March 10 - March 14 : Portland
March 14 - March 21 : Seattle
March 21 - March 23 : Moscow, ID
March 23 - March 24 : Boise
March 24 - March 26 : Salt Lake City
March 26 - March 27 : Zion National Park
March 27 - April 1 : Las Vegas
April 1 - April 7 : Grand Canyon National Park
April 7 - April 10 : Las Vegas
April 10 - April 11 : Grand Junction, CO
April 11 - April 13 : Boulder
April 13 - April 14 : Mount Rushmore & Rapid City, SD
April 14 - April 16 : Minneapolis
April 16 - April 18 : Milwaulkee
April 18 - April 20 : Chicago
April 20 : Back in Cleveland

A Grand week out

2007-04-01T00:09:00.000-04:00

This coming week, I am going to be hiking the Grand Canyon with Mike D, Jill and her Dad. While there, I hope to spend some down time catching up on my posts with a pen and notebook. If this actually happens, I will then transfer it to the computer after we are back.

Two days that went unphotographed

2007-04-01T00:08:00.000-04:00

Wednesday Feb. 14th-
I woke up at the hotel after Liz and Jamie had left... leaving me to check out of the room. Liz had conference stuff to do and Jamie was flying out that morning. I had made plans to meet up with Natasha to go run that morning. I made my way over to her place and she suggested running 6 miles down at/on Coronado. I said sure, actually thinking "man, I have only been running 5k each time I go out, I am going to embarrass myself out there". We got down there and parked near the Hotel del Coronado. We started running one way on the beach, got stopped by some guard as if the rest of the beach was military property and then we turned around and started running the other way on the beach until we hit a fence that stopped us from entering another part of the beach that belonged to the military. Our run was at a good pace and the scenery was awesome. We finished by running a bit on the street and by the time we were done my Nike+ said we ran near 4.5 miles, not bad and I did not have to embarrass myself. We got back to her place, showered and had some Wahoo's fish tacos for lunch.

Later that day I got ahold of Liz by cell and we attempted to make some plans for our Valentines day evening together. I realized that any place that might serve a nice dinner would probably be quite busy. So I suggested cheap fast food and a movie. Liz countered my suggestion with decent fast food and a movie. We eventually got cheap pizza and saw Pan's Labyrinth. The movie was quite strange and more gruesome than necessary, but I am not complaining.

I have got to say, Tuesday I started to feel a bit under the weather again. Another sore throat and sinus pain. It would continue through the weekend.

Thursday Feb. 15th-
Not feeling on top of my game, I just hung around Bob's through the afternoon. I got ahold of Liz later in the day. We made plans for me to pick her up after returning her car at the airport and then grab some dinner before picking up Kevin (Deuco) back at the airport. After picking up Liz, we drove around Point Loma looking for a place to get some grub. We eventually drove out a peninsula and found a few hotels with restaurants attached. Being that we were both dressed down, with hoodies and jeans, I was skeptical of our ability to get through the door of any of these restaurants. Through Liz's convincing, I stopped at a place I believe was called Humphrey's by the bay... we were seated there and the service was very good. We had some great food and shared a bottle of wine. It was our Valentines dinner a day late. Afterwards, we made our way back to the airport and picked up Deuco who drove us back to his parents house. After meeting his rents and chilling for a while talking with Liz, Kevin and his sister Megan I eventually drove the 45 minutes back to Bob's place.

Hangin' with Balboa

2007-03-19T14:28:00.000-04:00

Monday Feb. 12th-
I had heard about a nice disc golf course from Wernet that I wanted to go check out. It was down in Balboa park, so I made the 30 minute drive down there. I had checked out their website and I knew that it was going to cost $2.50 to play, which is a reasonable fee for a decent course. When I got there, I was asked to pay $3... I asked if it was a holiday and the guy said that it was. I guess even though it was not Presidents Day, Lincoln's birthday is considered a holiday to them. The course was nice, each hole had 3 to 6 different pin positions. This is nice for people who play the course regularly as the difficulty and playability of the holes change weekly.

After disc golf I went back to Bob's. We met up with Dave that evening to have a going away dinner for him. He was heading out on ship for a while so we had some mexican food and chilled on the beach for a bit. We got back to Bob's and he got busy packing his stuff because he was going to be spending the rest of the week in the field at Camp Pendleton.

Tuesday Feb. 13th-
Bob had left for the field real early in the morning, he would not be back around until Friday. Sandra left for LA for a couple of days, so it was just me at the apartment for a while. One strange thing about that morning was that only one wall of outlets were working in the apartment with the one for the fridge not being one of them. I called Bob and left a message on his voicemail so he could let his landlord know.

Liz (from Texas) was in town for a conference and she brought her friend Jamie so that they would be able to take care of some wedding stuff while in town as well. We planned on meeting up at the San Diego Zoo later in the afternoon after they had taken care of their business for the day. So it was back to Balboa Park for me, being that the zoo was located there as well. I got there around 2pm, had some lunch and waited around for and hour until I met up with Liz and Jamie by the orangutans at 3pm. The park closed at 4pm but the grounds closed at 5pm... which means they don't allow anyone in after 4pm but the guests can stay until 5pm. So with that we had 2 hours to enjoy as much of the park as we could. For the first part there were a bunch of birds, but then we got to the bears and then the koalas. From there we saw the elephants and rhinoceroses. We walked up a hill and saw the giraffes which seemed to be an arms length away, with no fence in between them and the guests, but just a small ditch. The other exciting animals we saw were the hippopotamus, we were able to see them in their tank right against the glass. These animals are quite huge and graceful under water at the same time. By that time we needed to head for the exit. One thing I really enjoyed about the zoo is the wooded environment that it is located in. Where the Cleveland zoo seems very open and spacious, the SD Zoo was jungle like while still being rather large and providing plenty of space for the animals.

After the zoo, it was about time for sunset and the girls were interested in hitting a beach. with my little knowledge of the SD, I suggested going to sunset cliffs which we were not too far from. Unfortunately, that time of the day was not the best to be traveling across the city and by the time we got there, there was barely much of a sunset for us the view. After that we went up to La Jolla and got some thai food for dinner, it was yummy. After that we split ways with them going back to their hotel and me driving back to Bob's. Not having any plans I drove up the coast instead of the highway just to enjoy the drive. I went to the local coffee shop in Carlsbad and got some chai tea. When I got back to Bob's there was no electricity in the apartment complex at all. There was a note on the door that said the electricity would be back by 6pm, but the fact that it was 10pm did not make me fell good about those prospects. I called Liz and they said I should spend the night at the hotel with them. By the time I got the Liz was passed out and Jamie was nearly there as well.

Chillin' in SD

2007-03-16T18:16:00.000-04:00

Friday, Bob went to get his friend Sandra from the airport after leaving me at Natasha's. A group of us were going to get some sushi and sake bombs at a place in Carlsbad. Emily was there with her boyfriend along with Frank and his roommate Aaron. A few others met up with us and it turned out to be a blast. The sake bombs were a first for me and they were not as bad as I had expected. Bob and Sandra eventually met up with us and went dancing shortly afterwards. We all had a great time that night.

Saturday Sandra, Bob and I drove out to the Wild Animal Park and met up with Frank. The four of us walked around the park checking out the gorillas, tigers, lions, flamingos, and elephants. All of the animals at the park seemed to have plenty of land to run around on... it seemed as though they were all pretty well taken care of. It was a good time hanging out with the animals. Afterwards we got some Chinese for lunch and went back to Bob's. Once there we hit the beach with a disc and threw around for a while. That evening we went to downtown SD with the plan of going to some fancy club... sports coat required type of places. I have got to say that I have never owned a blazer and never been to a place that required one. Bob's buddy Dave had a couple that Bob and I were going to borrow, we were meeting up with him at a hotel that he had gotten that evening so that we could just stay down there. As it turned out, we got going a bit latter that we had planned and ditched the idea of the fancy nightclub. Frank and Aaron met up with us and we made our way to a place in the gas lamp district that had an 80's band. We met some traveling nurses there, but no one managed to prosper from it. Dave, Bob, Sandra and myself stayed at the hotel that night while Frank and Aaron went home.

Sunday we went and drove around Point Loma and checked out Sunset Cliffs. From there we went to Pipes Cafe to pick up brunch, which we took back to Bob's. Later that day Bob went to get a haircut and while at the barbers I decided to join in on the fun and get my hairs cut as well. Up to that point I had been letting my hair go crazy for a while and had not shaved for about two months. All of the guys there were Marines and and they all were giving me some interesting looks, kinda like "who is this guy with his hippy style in our barbershop". From there we went to Target where I got some clippers to trim my facial hair and then went to Trader Joe's to get some stuff for dinner. Dave came over for dinner and I cooked some pad thai and overcooked some edamame.

Back on track (happy 311 day)

2007-03-11T10:40:00.000-04:00

Thursday Feb 8th, I went down to Point Loma for a seafood lunch. It was fried and good. Afterwards I drove the three miles over to Sunset Cliffs to take some photos and enjoy the view of the Pacific. Bob and I met up after he was done with work and went climbing at the rock gym out near Vista, just a bit east of his place. The place was empty when we got there and the two guys working there were cleaning some of the holds and changing a few of the routes. I don't think it affected my enjoyment of climbing. I managed to find some easy routes and challenged myself on a few, It was quite a workout. Afterwards we went home for dinner before going over to Natasha's. She is a friend of Bob and Frank, who happened to be there as well along with her roommate Emily. So even though they told us they would have eaten by the time we showed up, they had not and even had a plate full of food waiting for us to share... how generous. We sat around and talked for a while and listened to Frand read aloud from some dude's blog. It was a hoot, with him doing voices for the different people. That night Bob drove the Prius home and it hit 5000 miles since leaving Cleveland. That was our Thursday.

As I am keeping rather busy while visiting people, I keep on slacking on the blog. I constantly am thinking to myself that if I could only work on the blog while driving, I would be able to get a bunch done while I have nothing else going on. Having driven the past two days from San Francisco to Portland, through the Red Wood Forest, I might have come up with a solution... I have the ability to record to my iPod. So, I have vocally expressed my thoughts through the end of San Diego and have them waiting on my iPod to get transcribed. Hopefully I can find the time while here in Portland to get those taken care of.

Forte

2007-03-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

Well, it is not writing... I have to admit I was sick with a cough/sore throat twice while in San Diego. That on top of being busy doing stuff is what got me so behind on this blog. I wanted to start writing about the day after the Late Late Show, but I just can't recall what happened that day. I think I started feeling a bit better that day and I went for a 5k run. Bob came home from work, we ate some sort of dinner. Went to the coffee shop to play around on the internet and we made it home so I could watch Lost. Nothing too exciting.

For those interested, this past week I spent a few days with my cousin Lisa and her husband Conrad in Truckee, CA near Tahoe. I am now in San Fran hanging out with Lamarca.

More on SD soon.

Ferguson gets booted from Bunny party

2007-02-26T23:17:00.000-05:00

Thats right, I have turned this ship around and this blog will from now on be a tabloid.

OK, not really. Feb 6th the Tuesday after the Super Bowl, I made a day trip up to Los Angeles. I had gotten a ticket online to see a taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. By the time I got up to LA, I had just under an hour to get to CBS studios. I found some parking at The Grove, a Legacy Village type of shopping center but a bit more upscale. The shopping center is adjacent to the studio property, so I felt as though I could get a nice Hollywood lunch... FYI the Chipotle tastes just the same in the City of Angels. I got to the studio and had to wait about 10 minutes outside of the gate until we were lined up and sorted between 6 benches, I got on the second. That would be the order we were paraded into the building. After 20 minutes of waiting on the benches, our warmup act showed up. He is a comedian that helps the near 100 of us get into the mood of clapping and laughing. He even told us that we were not audience members but "Show Enhancers". He also let us know that it is alright and almost required that we laugh at jokes even if they were not funny or even of questionable taste. I had easily been there for over an hour before we went inside. Once inside there was a bit more waiting and then we were finally seated, not that we could just sit anywhere we wanted... there was a lady putting groups of people where she felt they would best fit in the audience. Somehow I got seated directly in the front row! We sat around for a bit longer, maybe close to 2 hours had gone by since first arriving to CBS until Craig first came out. This was their first show back in LA since the Super Bowl. In his monologue, Craig mentioned that he made the headlines by getting in an argument at the Playboy party in Miami. On the cameras were off, he approached the audience and said that the headline was true. He said he had been really busy and people at Playboy kept on calling to try to get him to come to the party, he kept on telling them he was busy and then he finally gave in and made his way over to the party. Once there, Craig was stopped at the door and he was told that his name was not on the guest list. That was when he told them to "Fuck off". Those were the words (or close enough to) that came out of his mouth while I was sitting in the audience no less than 10 feet away from him. The guests on the show were:
Oscar Nominated Peter O'Toole, Mena Suvari, Author Lawrence Block, and The Naked Trucker and T-Bones
Looking at websites to confirm this, it appears as though on air Gloria Estefan replaced Peter O'Toole in the lineup that evening. Peter appears to have aired a week later, that seems interesting. I had a really great time participating in the taping. Once I finally left the studios, I had spent nearly 4 hours there.

I wanted to finish off my evening by going to a concert while up in the LA area. I had found a punk show at the House of Blues in Anaheim that evening. Pennywise being opened by the legendary group the Circle Jerks. The HOB was located on the Disney property and after half an hour of driving around not realizing that fact, I finally parked in the Disney lot and headed to the venue. Once there, the tickets had been sold out and I had not been smart enough to reserve mine online. So I quickly exited the Disney property.

By this time it was around 8pm and I had still not eaten dinner. I pulled out the good ol' $40 a Day book and looked for something nearby. I found a place in Laguna Beach which was not directly on the way home but would make for a lovely drive. I got to the Sundried Tomato Café right before the kitchen closed and had a fabulous dinner. I even got a white russian that was made with whipped cream and shaken instead of half & half. I asked the bartender about this variation on the drink and he said that he will do that if they don't have half & half on hand instead of milk to give the drink it's proper creaminess. I had a coffee before I left while talking to a couple of the staff while they were cleaning up for the evening. I finished my day by driving home along the ocean.

Bad Carl

2007-02-26T21:43:00.000-05:00

So, again it has been a while since I have gotten around to updating this blog, I hope that people have been checking out my photographs on flicker... those seem to be keeping a more up to date account of my happenings. I feel lucky to have spent nearly two and a half weeks in the San Diego area, it is a very beautiful section of the country. Bob introduced me to a bunch of great people, and the good times had, were countless.

I arrived in Carlsbad on the Friday before the super bowl. It is a town in the North County section of San Diego, only Oceanside separates it and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton to the north. My first thoughts were "why did I have to get stationed at Camp Lejeune in the middle of nowhere North Carolina?". Out here it is absolutely beautiful, with the beaches and the palm trees, the surfers in the bright blue water and the running women wearing hardly anything. In Cleveland these women have gone into hibernation until late May or even August. I met up with Bob at his place which is but a block and a half from the beach and just a bit more from "Downtown Carlsbad". His place was a decent one bedroom with absolutely no furniture except for his bed. That first evening we just walked to the downtown area and grabbed some cheap pizza. That evening we met up with Bob's friend Frank. He is also an officer at Camp Pendleton, they were just a year apart at the Naval Academy and shockingly they both went to the same high school. We went dancing at a place in Carlsbad and met up with two of Frank's roommates, a married couple. The next day (Saturday)... we went to Old Town area and purchased a convertible couch that I could sleep on. I would not arrive until Monday. From there we headed to the Gas Lamp District and just walked around. After a bit of a walk we decided to grab some lunch, but had a terrible time deciding where to eat. While trying to decide I stopped into a Volcom store and found nothing to purchase, but I did ask the people working there what they liked to eat in the area. They suggested a deli that appears to be nothing more than a liquor store. The sign on the out side just states:

MARKET
DELI
ATM

The sandwiches were nothing to write home about... Later Bob and I got some pretty good thai food in La Jolla and met up with Frank and two of his female friends at the Comedy Store. The comedians were quite funny & enjoyable. The next day, I got up early and went to get the ingredients to make a whole bunch of guacamole to take over Frank's where there would be ~15 people to watch the Super Bowl at 3:30pm. The guac was a hit and we all had a great time watching the game, to bad the commercials were not up to par this year. Bob got a haircut that evening while I just chilled back at his place. Monday I went running and did some laundry, waited for the couch to show up and went to go see Smokin' Aces while Bob continued to wait for the couch.

(I have slowly been working on this posting since Valentines Day.)

Yucca = Joshua

2007-02-14T18:43:00.001-05:00

Happy V-Day.

The 1st of February, I had left Phoenix with a destination of the Joshua Tree National Park. Leaving Arizona, my clock got pushed back once again. But that did not help with getting to the park before the sun set. The moon was near full and quite bright with no clouds in the sky. Driving through the park at night always worries me sometimes with a fear of hitting an animal and doing severe damage to it or my car. The drive from the southern entrance to the campground I had chosen was nearly an hour. Along the way there were groupings of rocks sticking out of the ground right next to the street, with the moonlight they almost had an animal nature to them... they kind of freaked me out a bit. I got to my campground near the trail I was planing on hiking the next day. I set up my tent and didn't bother staking it down because without a mallet the stakes were not going anywhere. After getting the tent set up, it was time for dinner, another Backpackers Pantry meal with the help of my Jetboil. It was a bit chilly that evening so I had some hot coaco before bed. Once in bed it was a rough night I would wake up occasionally with a running nose and a bit colder than tolerable. I remembered that I had a sleeping bag liner in the trunk but there was no way I was going to get there to improve my comfort level without suffering even more so it went unused.

I woke up the next morning with the sun, but it was hidden behind the mountain that I was going to shortly conquer. That meant that it was still chilly and there was even frost on my tent and car. I packed up my stuff and my half frozen tent got thrown in the back seat of my car with plans on washing it out soon, frost + sand = bad news. I made my way over to the Ryan Mountain trail somewhere between 3-4 mile hike with a 1000+ foot elevation change. I had my trail mix with me for breakfast and I think my lack of real nutrition really hurt my climb. Once at the top it was a different story though, I was energized by the stunning views of the park, the deserts, the mountains. I could even hear the rings of artillery coming from the Marine Corps base 29 Palms just to the north. The only creatures I saw while on the trail were a couple of white tailed rabbits. The hike down was much easier. Once at my car I raced to get out of the park so to get some cell service to give my Pops a call for his birthday before he got to work since I had missed giving him a call the day before. There was even a Starbucks calling my name once out of the park. I made it into Carlsbad in time for a late lunch before meeting up with Kevin, who will be referred to as Bob for here on.

5 weeks & 5000 miles

2007-02-09T20:42:00.000-05:00

I have been attempting to get this blog up to date. Today marks 5 weeks since I left Cleveland and while driving home last night I put 5000 miles on the Prius in that amount of time. Coming soon are updates on Joshua Tree National Forest and the past week in San Diego.

Phoenix rising

2007-02-07T15:24:00.000-05:00

Monday was a slow day in Phoenix for me. I got some lunch at a thai place near Bailey's. I spent most of the day playing with Google Earth trying to figure out my route through California to maximize coverage. That evening Bailey, Erin and I met up with one of their climbing buddies Jason at On the Border for some yummy margaritas.

So, Tuesday I decided I would make my way to Taliesin West, the Arizona home of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I understand there was a period when he was not doing well getting work designing buildings and such, so by the suggestion of his wife he started a school out of his studio in Wisconsin. He bought some property "out west" and would transport his students to Arizona for the winters. They were the ones that helped design and build Taliesin West. The location became the schools winter studio and continues to serve that function. It is now also the home of the FLW Foundation.

That evening I met up with Bailey at the Phoenix Rock Gym. It had been almost six years since I had done this activity my only time. I was able to complete the training wall rather easily and then completed 90% of the next two more challenging climbs and finished with a completion on my final climb. I got a little exhausted belaying, I have this stupid bone growth on my shoulder bone which can bother my deltoid with extended use. Otherwise I had a really good time out climbing.

Wednesday was an overcast day in Phoenix. My plan was to go for a hike in the Superstition Mountains. I chose the Peralta Trail supposedly around a 7 mile trail if my memory serves correctly. The trail was well defined, being one of the most trekked in the state according to some random website. I assembled my pack by bringing my rain jacket and pants, I also brought the Jetboil and a pouch of Backpackers Pantry pad thai to prepare along the trail. I also brought some of my new favorite trail mix, stuff I had picked up at target. I forget the name of it but it has craisins, sunflower seeds, pepitas, and other yummy goodness, it was quite enjoyable. Along the trail I took the photo that is at the top of this post, it is now my desktop... feel free to do the same. Along the way it started to drizzle and I put on the jacket. About an hour and a half in it started to rain a bit heavier. I found some cover under a rather huge rock and pulled out my rain pants (one of my more expensive purchases at REI) I was glad to have them. I then cooked up my pad thai although it would have been returned if it was given to me at a thai restaurant. After eating I returned to the trail and went back the way I had come so to not get stuck in any worse weather. I returned to Bailey's and we hung out at home that evening.

Thursday I got lunch at Pita Jungle, I felt granola, it made me feel good. I then made my way to the University of Phoenix stadium where the NFL Arizona Cardinals play. It is a state of art stadium with a field that moves in and out of the stadium. When football is not being played the floor can be used for concerts, conventions and swap meets (if needed, I guess). My plan was to get a ticket to tour the stadium, well I got there too late for a ticket so I was able to take photos of the outside of the stadium and one of the inside from the store.

After being let down at the stadium I headed to California. My night would be spent at the Joshua Tree National Park.

The Festival of the New Year

2007-02-07T13:44:00.000-05:00

The drive to Phoenix was pleasantly uneventful. I finished listening to "The Life and Times of the Thunderblot Kid" by Bill Bryson, my third of his books since leaving Cleveland including "A Walk in the Woods" and "I'm a Stranger Here Myself". I must say I left Texas after two weeks in the state and I could not have been happier to finally be rid of it. The temperature stared getting better as well as my mpg. I had been getting ~42.6 and around the time I entered New Mexico I was getting no less that 50mpg on the freeway.

I stayed at Bailey's that night. She is staying with two other teachers, Erin and Tami who are in the same district as her. They also do a bunch of climbing together, from what I understand. Friday morning I was able to get some laundry done and Bailey called off work due to not felling too well. I boosted her up by getting some Bruegger's and we eventually made our way to my new favorite store REI, I picked up some Clif Shot drink mix for the tournament that coming weekend. I convinced her to throw the disc around with me a bit before she headed off for a doctors appointment. I went back to her place to pack. I stayed the weekend with Wernet's buddy Al who lives much closer to the fields. Bailey and Erin picked me up that evening for dinner and drinks at Casey Moore's We meet up with a few of their climbing buddies there, it seemed like quite a pleasant group, not too different from a bunch of ultimate players. They eventually dropped me off back at Al's so I could get some sleep for a big weekend of ultimate.

The tournament, New Year Fest was at a new location that I was unfamiliar with. The old location, Diablo fields has been turned into luscious green baseball diamonds. I guess MLB will be using them for spring training. Well our fileds were a pleasant brown dry grass, it was surprisingly full and handled cleats much better than turfs which just slid on the grass. I meet up with my team which consisted of a couple of guys from Philly, half a dozen from the Bay area and a few other stragglers such as myself from elsewhere across the country. A total of 13, we seemed to cover the mid to late 20 to early 30 age group. We also had some decent talent with a few players who had been to either college or mixed club nationals (that I knew of). We had been seeded 4th or 5th out of the seven top open teams at the tournament. Over the next two days we would play six games against those other teams, with the top two playing in a finals afterwards. We had four games on Saturday and only scored around 6 in each of our first three of the day, those would have been against Sprawl from Phoenix, UCSD and Arson from Tucson. Our fourth game we started gelling a bit more it was against a very lubricated One Degrees a team comprised of BAT, Machine & Ring players. They were drinking quite a bit more than we were and still scoring on ridiculous hammer and behind the back throws. We clamped down, stopped making stupid turnovers and got ahead to make it 12 vs. 10 in a game to 13. They found a few of their players who were less drunk and managed to pull out the victory.

I left the fields and got some Filiberto's before getting a shower at Al's. I took a short nap and then headed over to the tournament party. I hung out with Peine for a while before starting a marathon of shuffle board games with a few of my teammates. At one point I was playing against Will D and Jason from ZippO, I so rarely play the game but I have got to say the only reason I left the table was due to my teammates incompetence.

Sunday at the tournament we played Mamabird first, they were all college kids from U of Colorado. This is a very competitive college team full of players with a lot of athleticism most with varying levels of ultimate awareness. They were able to beat us deep pretty a couple of times, our zone confused them a bit and playing man I was able to grab a callahan off a dump/swing throw. We still lost only scoring 8. Our final game was against the number one seeded team at the tournament ZippO a bunch of guys from the UPA Club Championships semi-finalists Johnny Bravo along with a few older guys from Colorado and Phoenix. I have no idea what the final score was but I think we managed to score a few against them, I probably threw and caught at least one each (it would help if I weren't doing this write up two weeks later). Well, those two teams we played that day were the two that played in the finals against each other. I was able to get a few photos and finally figured out the setting on my camera that was making my photos blue.

After the tournament I showered at Al's again and packed up my stuff. I went back to Bailey's to spend a few more days in the valley.

Big Cold Bend

2007-02-07T11:25:00.000-05:00

I got into Big Bend National Park late Tuesday afternoon and made my way to to the center of the park where I thought I would be camping... unfortunately, that turned out to be in the frozen mountains. So I took a few photos and made my way to a lower elevation at the far eastern side of the park. I figured I could camp here my fist night do some hiking and then set up camp on the western side (the direction I am heading) the next night. I set up camp and then cooked myself a bag of dehydrated dinner. It is amazing how being alone makes camping a lot less exciting, it got dark early and I eventually hit the hay around 9pm. It was a chilly night but I was able to sleep pretty well.

I woke up the next morning just after the sun and went for a hike near the campgrounds a trail called Rio Grande Village Nature Trail. It was a short .75 mile hike to get the blood flowing. I got back, packed up the car and made my way over to the Boquillas Canyon Trail a 1.4 mile hike to check out the Rio Grande. I then drove back into the frozen mountains for the hike of the day, a 4.8 mile roundtrip hike they call the The Lost Mine Trail. I have got to say that while the park is not empty it was rather quiet. The campgrounds that I stayed at were getting a bit of use, maybe 40% capacity. I got to The Lost Mine Trail around 11:30 and ran into a couple on their way out of the trail and then I only saw one other person on the entire trail also on his way down just after I started. The clouds were hanging heavily o the mountains only briefly at some point would I be able to see any views of the other nearby peaks. I climaxed at 12:30 and lit up my Jetboil to prepare my lunch and a cup of hot cocoa. As I made my descent, I was able to take a few more photos and I decided that instead of camping on the west end of the park I would just drive over there, check it out and make my way westward. It was probably a desire to sleep in a nice warm bed after spending the day freezing my tail off. I eventually got off the trail at 2pm.

I drove through the park along a lovely long and winding road and around 3:30 got to the end of the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive. This was another location where I was able to check out the Rio Grand where it had carved a canyon in the cliffs along the US/Mexican border. I got out to check it out and noticed a trail that went across a stream and into the canyon. It was the 1.7 mile Santa Elena Canyon Trail. I decided to hop on it to get a few photos. Although I was not particularly interested in hiking much more I wound up doing around 75% of the trail. Walking along the Rio Grand was fairly intriguing to me because although I was in the US at the time I was just the rivers width away from a foreign country.

I eventually exited the park around 5pm and headed towards El Paso. It was quite a bit of driving after my already full day. Most of it was along straight two lane roads with a speed limit of 70mph. Except for the rare city the drive was rather dark, I was only able to see what my headlights were illuminating. There were a few altitude changes and a bit of snow on the fields lining the road. At one point I came upon a field on my left with an illuminated bright white aircraft of some sort. My imagination was racing and I started thinking that it could be an alien ship. It was in a fenced in military area and I was afraid for my life to stop and take a photo. I later found it on Google Earth, it appears to be a weather blimp, it's coordinates are:
30°26'4.15"N & 104°19'14.56"W
I got into El Paso around 10pm after crossing into the Mountain time zone. I had decided to pass up both Carlsbad Caverns & Guadalupe Mountains National Park due to the sever chill that was passing through that part of the country. I would instead be heading to Phoenix and get in a day earlier than I had planned. But that would have to wait until I got some sleep in El Paso.

On the Texas road

2007-02-07T10:45:00.000-05:00

Man am I getting behind... I guess I have been real busy. I have actually made my way to San Diego and will be here at least through Presidents Day. I hope to get to that soon enough though.

That brings me back to Monday the 22nd. I left Austin for San Antonio. My first stop was the Alamo, it is a piece of Tex-Mex history surrounded by the city. I then made my way along the river-walk an almost Venice aspect of the city, with boat rides down a bar and shop laden river. I finished my day with a trip up the Tower of the Americas which resembles the Space Needle in Seattle. It was quite a windy day and the observation deck at the top is somewhat open to the elements. I had to stick my hat under my jacket to ensure it not blowing away.

That night I drove to Del Rio to shorten my drive to Big Bend the next day.

Tuesday I headed out of Del Rio ready to spend a few days in our nations parks. The drive along the southern border of Texas was quite pleasant, parts even reminded me of driving through the mountains of Pennsylvania just with different flora & fauna. Also the occasional border patrol stop is something one would not come across up north.

Austin City Limits

2007-01-31T23:27:00.000-05:00

Friday in Austin I found a restaurant that had been reviewed by Rachael Ray called Cafe Josie which served food from the "American Tropics". I went for the soup of the day, a sweet corn & crab meat chowder and off the lunch menu:

PEPITA REDFISH WITH MANGO HABANERO BUTTER
Pepita and Spice Crusted and served on Poblano Rice and Cotija Black Beans with Tomatillo Chile, Ancho Chile, Spicy Pepitas and fresh Vegetable

I have got to say this was the best meal that I have had while on the road so far. The food was spiced and cooked perfectly and the ingredients seemed very fresh. The side of vegetables were steamed just the way I like them, leaving valuable nutrients and plenty of crunch.

With a full belly, I made my way to the Austin Museum of Art which had a show consisting of mid to late century NYC artists of the Abstract Expressionist era. There were a bunch of pieces that were outside of conventional theories of art at their time. I could see how a lot of these artists contributed to the type of work that my fellow art students had been doing.

I managed to waste time with some adventures in commerce before meeting up with Cindy, Reid and Amy at Chuy's for some excellent tex-mex. They all play ultimate in Austin and we all had meet in Hawaii a year earlier. The next day I was to meet up with them to play in their winter league, but when I got up it was 40° and raining. I did not feel adequately equipped for playing in that kind of weather... so I went back to sleep. That evening Patrick, Jamie and I Watched the Illusionist, a rather interesting movie about a magician.

Sunday my hosts were throwing a birthday party for their daughter at some party center. I went and got some Sonic and prepared to watch a couple of games of football. I was bummed that the Saints were not able to take care of the Bears and glad that New England is not going to Miami.

Wraping up Houston

2007-01-30T20:13:00.000-05:00

Well here I am catching up a bit. So I last left off on Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday. So I will pick up from there.

Tuesday was a slow day for me... I washed my car and went up to Houston to meet up with Liz & Kevin. We went to the Galleria (the largest mall in Texas) and had a creole dinner at a place called Woodrows.

Wednesday was to be my last full day in the Houston area so I determined that the Space Center Houston would be on my itinerary. I am sometimes skeptical of really touristy locations due to the high likelihood of lameness. Well in that aspect, I was not let down. With the small amount of people there it did not seem as though there was much to take away from the experience. Then I realized there was a tram that toured the base. It took us to the now out of use control room from the time of Apollo 13 and to a training area where the astronauts could familiarize themselves with the equipment they would be using in space. Later on, I meet up with Liz & Kevin for dinner in "LJ" and then went over to Ben's place for some video games before hitting the hay.

Thursday I packed up my car and headed to Houston to have lunch with Liz & Kevin. We had some rather good chinese food at a place that they seem to frequent occasionally. It was great to be able to spend a week with the two of them. Liz and I were practically roommates for three years and Kevin and I were teammates for even longer.

After parting ways, I went over to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston which had some pretty neat exhibits on a couple of artists from the area. From there I went to get my first oil change on the Prius and mad my way towards Austin where I would be staying the weekend with Liz's brother Patrick and his wife/ Liz's best friend Jamie and their two year old daughter "M" spelled Iym (I think, please correct me if I am wrong).

Quick update

2007-01-26T10:48:00.000-05:00

I am apparently somewhere close to 10 days behind, I will try to get postings of that time up shortly. Of course my photos are pretty much up to date, for those interested.

As for now, I got into Phoenix yesterday and spent the night at Bailey's. I am going to be playing at New Year Fest this weekend. I plan on making my way to San Diego in time to watch the Super Bowl next weekend with Bob.

I would like to thank everyone who is supporting me along my journeys.

MLKJRBDNH

2007-01-23T01:34:00.000-05:00

Liz and Kevin were off on Monday due to the holiday, but Liz was inclined to stay home and get some work done while Kevin and I ventured out to the island town of Galveston. This was to be the first of quite a few cold days in the not so sunny state of Texas. The downtown area of Galveston was unusually quiet for a national holiday. Kevin and I bundled up and made our way up the cold and breezy street. The place appeared to be gearing up for Mardi Gras celebrations with beads for sale in all of the stores including the military surplus store we spent nearly half an hour in. We eventually hopped back in the car and went to The Spot for burgers. After a breakfast of IHOP and then the burgers, it all settled rather heavy in both of our stomachs. We weren't quite ready to leave this chilly resort town yet so we headed to Moody Gardens which is comprised of three glass pyramids, one with an aquarium, the next with a rain forest and the third with a science exhibit. We forked out our cash to check out the rain forest. Besides the trees and plants, we were treated to views of exotic birds, humongous fish and bats with rather large testicles.

We eventually made our way back to "LJ" where Liz had some sort of mexican casserole waiting for us.

"The City of Enchantment" Pt. 2

2007-01-23T01:28:00.000-05:00

Sunday was another day of watching NFL Divisional Championship games. In the morning Liz & Kevin went to church while I continued my running routine which I had been putting off until I reached a warmer climate. Liz directed me to a path in a nearby park, it was nice and wooded running next to a river. One thing that caught my attention was the regular signs to "watch out for alligators and snakes". I had a constant urge to both locate a gator and to get out as soon as possible.

Before Liz and Kevin got back, I managed to shower and make some guacamole for us to enjoy while watching football. After the first game, we went over Liz's brother Ben's house. I got to meet Ben, his wife Renee, and their two sons Mikey and Joey. We put off watching the second game to play a little tee ball with the boys.

After that we we were able to watch a bit of the game before grabbing dinner with Liz's dad and Ben's family. After dinner we went back to Ben's to play some video games on his projection screen and then moved to his Wii in another room. Kevin and I had a blast fooling around with the video games before heading home for bed.

"The City of Enchantment"

2007-01-21T17:50:00.000-05:00

Friday I got into Houston around 3:30. I meet up with Liz at Rice and she showed me around the campus while we waited for Kevin to to get off work. Around 5pm we made our way to the other side of campus where Kevin works and then continued on to a tapas restaurant just around the corner. Both Liz and Kevin are working at Rice University in Houston but they both live in Lake Jackson which is about an hour south of the city. So after dinner we made our way down to "LJ" where I would be staying with Kevin. We had a quiet evening with plans to wake up early and play ultimate league back in the city in the morning.

We all managed to roll out of bed early (well, early for me) and got up to Houston just in time for the first of two games. Their team was missing a few of their better players and I was introduced as the temporary replacement for all of them. Unfortunately I did not live up to the hype, be it being out of shape or my unfamiliarity with the other players. We did not manage to win either of the games. I think we all had a good time though. For some reason Kevin felt the need to curse the entire country of Canada.

After ultimate we made our way back to "LJ" and I was introduced to the gas/wash/dine-omatic mega store that is Buc-ee's. We followed our stop at the gas station with an evening of watching the two NFL Divisional Championships games. We had dinner at a local sandwich shop called "The Local" it was quite tasty.

It's getting hot in here...

2007-01-17T00:10:00.000-05:00

From KJ's I made my way down into Arkansas. I headed towards the city of Hot Springs where the Hot Springs National Park is located. I got into the city just after dark and navigated to the campgrounds in the park. There were around 30 sites and only 5 or 6 were taken. I found a site next to a creek and paid my $10 at the check-in cabin. I was able to set up my tent under a dim street lamp and then I moved it to a clearing closer to the creek. After I had thrown all of my sleeping stuff into the tent, I started boiling some water to prepare one of my camping dinners. After eating, it was an early night to bed.

In the morning at the campgrounds, I woke up early and got everything packed away. I headed out from there to go and find the actual hot springs that the town and park are named after. On the main street of the town there are a number of bath houses that are actually located within the park. The bath houses regulate the temperature of the water so that people are not cooking themselves in the springs. Just down the street from the houses is a fountain where the hot water is collected. This was about all I was able to locate as far as springs go, but it lent itself for some good photos.

Shortly after checking out the springs, I headed out of town to meet up with Liz and Kevin down in Houston.

Travels so far

2007-01-16T14:01:00.000-05:00

October

November

December

January

Missouri loves company

2007-01-13T09:25:00.000-05:00

Tuesday I left Cincinnati for St. Louis. The drive was rather uneventful. I got into the Gateway city and had the urge to be much higher. So I found a parking spot and made my way over to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Gateway Arch. The structure is pretty awe inspiring, and as I made my way towards it I started to get amusement park excited. The entrance to the arch is underneath, so the museum and gift shop are under the ground directly below the arch. With my national parks pass I was able to save $3 off of the $10 ticket cost for the ride to the top of the arch. I approached the elevator with excitement only to find 8 separate cars. The cars are an egg shaped pod that remind me of a tea cup ride out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, each only sit 5 adults (rather tightly). Luckily, it was a slow day and my ride up was with only one other guy. The ride actually reminded me of a ferris wheel. Once at the top and at 630 feet there was a hallway with a few windows on the east and west side of the arch. The west side looks over the city of St. Louis and the east looks over the Mississippi river. I understand that on a clear day the visibility is around 30 miles. Being up there was quite amazing. My cell phone had perfect service up there and I was even able to make two phone calls. My trip down was all by myself, which was nice. From there I made my way over to my friend KJ's house.

I spent the rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursady morning with KJ, her husband Rodney, their ~two year old son Trey, and their baby daughter Caroline. Wednesday, KJ drove me and Caroline around town to show me some of the exciting stuff about town. One of the things we drove past was the City Museum, I wish that I had the opportunity to get inside and outside of it to check it out. We had lunch at Blueberry Hill with Rodney, we all had burgers and the food was quite good. Wednesday after breakfast I said goodbye, on my way to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Sin-cinnati

2007-01-10T01:33:00.000-05:00

I left Cleveland this past Friday, January 5th on my way westward. My first stop was Cincinnati. I spent the weekend at Roy's. He and his wife Tiffany were wonderful hosts. Their 1 year old daughter, Hazel was a sweetie too.

Roy and I went to the Contemporary Arts Museum where they had an exhibition that included graphic designer Malcolm Grear. It was pretty exciting to have stumbled across this show. Grear's work that was on display included logos for the Veterans Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services and Vanderbilt University. It was also exciting to see the work he did for the '96 Olympics (check out his site to see his contributions).

The rest of Saturday and Sunday was devoted to watching football. Monday I managed to get downtown again and took some photos of the city. Later that evening Roy took me out to play some indoor ultimate. We played 6 on 6, all of the guys were competitive and for the most part we were playing savage. It was great to be out playing ultimate, I look forward to more of it soon.

Catsup

2007-01-08T12:20:00.002-05:00

Since I am so behind on the East-coast trip, I am going to list a few highlights. If anything was worth it, I may come back to it at a later time.

Playing for 7+ hours and defeating Gears of War. 2 lobster dinner for $15. Ping pong & beer pong. Hanging with Mariah. Harvard Square. Driving to Salem and Marblehead. Parking with Hung. Mexican and cupcakes with Natalie & Chris. The best pizza I have ever had at Frank Pepe's in New Haven. Visiting Yale's art school. Visiting the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Walking around NYC with the family. Top of the Empire State Building. A jazz show at the Birdland. A 3.5 hour, 35 mile drive from Jersey to Brooklyn to play ultimate. The Lebowski Fest in Queens with Sean and Schenck. Monday Night Football with Peine in DC. Visiting MICA (the Maryland Institute of Art) in Baltimore. Dinner at Jaleo with Peine and Damon. And finally home on Dec. 20th.

I hope to get posting about my latest trip which started this past Friday very soon.

Goodnight, you princes of Maine. You kings of New England.

2006-12-24T11:18:00.000-05:00

From where I left off... It is now Thursday in Boston. I ventured downtown with no real agenda and paked ma ca not too fa from a ba. I got lunch at some bar and asked the twenty-something female bartender what I should check out. She pointed me in the direction of the Granary Burial Ground which is where the parents of Benjamin Franklin as well as Paul Revere are buried. One interesting thing about the cemetery, which is probably not unique, is that a bunch of the tombstones have skulls carved on them. I spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering around the streets of Boston.

That evening Visco and I got all pumped up for Thursday Night Football, the defending Superbowl Champions Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Dazed and Confused Cleveland Browns. Visco must have fallen down as a child because he is a Steelers fan so he threw on a jersey of some football player that played for the Steelers while I put on my #80 Winslow jersey and we went out to watch the game at the Sports Depot.

Well, the Browns got crushed in one of their worst performances of the year. I felt sick to my stomach as we left the bar. And where did all of these Steelers fans come from in Boston?

Friday was my day to go for a drive. While in this area of the country, I figured "why not make my way further north". So I went to Maine. My family used to go there for reunions while I was in elementary school, so I was looking to see some of the sights that I might remember from my childhood. My first stop was Kennebunkport. I didn't remember the snow from my childhood, but once I got my barrings, I started to remember some of the stores and stuff like the Ben & Jerry's in the house across the street from the strip of stores. The town was very nicely decorated for the holidays, they even had a tree with little bobbies hanging on it.

My next stop in Maine was Freeport, where L.L. Bean has it's 24 hour retail store as well as an outlet store. The town has been turned into one big outlet mall including stores from Ann Klein to the Yankee Candle Company. I did not spend a lot of time in the stores.

Before heading back to Boston, I decided to stop and grab some dinner in Portland. I looked online to see if Rachael Ray had stopped in Maine for one of her shows. She had, and she had gone to a place called the Pepperclub. So, that was where I decided to have dinner myself. The food was excellent.

To finish up the evening, I meet up with Visco and his buddies at Jillian's in downtown Boston. It was a crazy place, it had 4 stories with bowling on the 3rd. Good times were had.

Boss town

2006-12-16T00:27:00.000-05:00

Well, it has been a while since I have gotten around to posting... but I will try to continue where I left off.

Tuesday evening I got into Visco's in Boston and we had a pretty chill night of sitting around not doing much. That continued right into the next day for me. Visco lives in a house with four other guys whom he was in the same fraternity with at MIT. The thing is they have all been graduated for 10+ years. Visco said of his household that, "We have an actual 'Real World' house". I think that was mostly in reference to one of his roommates homosexuality. Later in the week, after getting to know the guys a bit better, I stated that "The house would surely make one interesting sit-com".

Wednesday evening, Visco and I got dinner at a BBQ joint called Red Bones. We sat at a counter right in front of the kitchen where we were able to chat with the cooks for a while. We ordered fried catfish and buffalo shrimp as appetizers and the the BBQ sampler to share for dinner. While waiting for apps one of the cooks passed us some catfish and sausage just for being cool I guess. Visco was in the process of kicking a cold so we just went home that evening and chilled.

More to come soon... I promise.

There were many roads, but no island

2006-12-06T14:15:00.000-05:00

On Monday the 4th I left Cleveland for part 2 of my east coast trip. This time I am mixing work and play. The work I am doing during this part of my trip is going to be to check out some graduate schools on the east coast. I have been putting some serious thought into continuing my education. On top of delving further into design research, I would like to eventually teach at the college level.

The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence was first on my list. they were having an open house at 8:45am on the 5th. I felt with an early start like that, I would have to get myself to Providence the night before. That meant a full day of driving from Cleveland, 11 hours to be exact. I had Pricelined a hotel for $75 and it turned out to be a fancy $250 room. After driving all day I got a pretty good nights sleep in the fancy room.

The open house/tour turned out to be very informative. It sounds like most grad students get teaching assistantships and there is even an opportunity to get certified at Brown (a neighboring school) through a program which includes teaching lectures. The graphic design department seemed very inclusive and there appeared to be a nice dynamic between the grad and undergrad students. The departments facilities appeared to be rather nice, if not at least adequate. It was nice to see that most to all thesis project were presented in book form. That is not to say that all of the thesis projects were a book, but the information and images were gathered into book form.

After all of the planed activities were done, I felt as though this could be a place that I could see myself spending two years advancing my level of education. I then felt a hunger in my stomach. My buddy James, who went to Brown suggested a place called Geoff's for lunch. The sandwich I got there was rather superb and they also had free pickles, rather nice of them. From there I checked out some of Brown's campus on my way to RISD's art museum. The museum had a rather interesting exhibit on rock posters from Providence from the past three decades (or a similar time frame). I finished up my day by stopping by RISD's letterpress room that there was apparently no time to go to during our tour of the facilities.

I left Providence and mad my way up to Boston where I will be staying for the next week. Grad schools will continue with Yale (13th) and then the School of Visual Arts in NYC (15th) and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (19th) before heading back to Cleveland for the holidays.

Doing my part for the environment

2006-12-06T13:53:00.000-05:00

On Thursday Nov. 30th, I picked up my new car. For the past month and a half, I had been waiting for my new Prius to arrive at the dealership and it finally came. Beside the gas savings, one of the things that I am most excited about is the Intelligent Key System. I no longer have to pull out my keys to unlock the doors or even to push a button that unlocks the doors. At the same time my keys can just rest in my pocket while I push the Start button to get the car going. When I finally decide to leave my car, again no keys are needed to lock my baby up. I just make sure they are still with me and then hit the button on the handle and my car is all locked up again. All of that along with navigation (to tell me where I am going), Bluetooth (so I no longer have to fiddle with my phone or headsets while driving), and a Hybrid engine (so that the car manufactures can get the message that Americans really do want more fuel efficient cars). This lucky car is going to get to see whole bunch of the country.

Thank You, Lord, for Sending Me the F Train (part 2)

2006-11-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

After spending the afternoon at Emmalee's; Sean, Schenck and I meet up with Natalie, Chris H., Natalie's friend, and eventually Hung at a restaurant called Panorama. They served good Italian food. The three of us ditched the others and made our way back to Brooklyn to a frisbee party. As for the party... the place was nice, good music, decent conversation. When we got there, I had no trouble finding the liquor but the mixers were another issue. I eventually opened a bottle of wine and started with that. Later on, I found some Coke and and made a Captain's & Coke. Even later, I found some cider in the fridge and decided that would go great with the Captain's. I eventually had two of those. The next day I found out that the cider had already been spiked and that probably explained my severe hangover. The three of us stumbled home.

Sunday was the day we had planned to watch NFL and Sean and Schenck thought eating nacho's was a necessity for football viewing. We eventually made our way to some crappy bar in Manhattan near NYU. There was a $15 minimum per head and none of us were drinking beer, that meant for a lot of cheese & fried food. We consumed two orders of nacho's there. We were planning on going somewhere else for the 4pm games but one thing that made this place exceptionally bad was the fact that they switched off the Brown's game with 45 seconds left in the game to turn on a 4pm game. In our attempt to find our next drinking hole we came across a bar and walked in. It turned out to be a Steeler's backers bar, we walked out pretty quickly. Our next location advertised all NFL games on Sunday, but had none on even though all the 4pm games had already started. We then made our way to the west village to a place called the Barrow Street Ale House. This place was very pleasant with good service and food. We stayed through three quarters of the Sunday night game and had at least one order of nacho's there. I believe I had my first "celebrity" sighting at the bar. A guy with some friends sat in the booth next to us and for some reason he looked very familiar. After asking Sean and Schenck if he looked familiar to them, which he didn't, it came to me where I recognized him from. I could not think of his name at the time, but I believe this was Harold form Top Chef on Bravo. Whoever he was, he was probably creeped out by how much I was looking at him.

We had planned on watching Monday Night Football as well. The other guys had to go to work, which meant I was on my own in NYC. While still at their place, I got a call from a place that hires designers to do logo's all through an online system where the designers have no real contact with the client, but they can go on to the companies site and choose as much or as little work as they like. I logged on to the site and chose my first job that day. I then made my way into the city and grabbed lunch near Madison and E 57th. I checked out the new 5th Ave Apple Store, it was around 3pm and it was very busy. There was a long line for purchases but the computers were all being used as though it were a library in there. I then went to take some picture and went to Central Park and Times Square. I eventually meet up with Sean and we went to McSorley's to meet up with Schenck. Our MNF viewing happened at a place called Central Bar(the same place that had no games on the previous day) it seemed to me that we were the only people in the bar that were actually interested in watching football. The bar is an Irish bar and the clientele seem the type that would rather watch fótball than football. The food at this bar was very good, two orders of nacho's, both Sean and Schenck had burgers while I had lamb stew. The monday night football game was a sleeper and luckily the Cavs were playing the Knicks that evening and that game was on as well, and the Cavs won. We all made our way back to Brooklyn and before going to bed, I told the guys I would be seeing them again soon since I will be making my way back to NYC in December.

Thank You, Lord, for Sending Me the F Train (part 1)

2006-11-16T01:02:00.000-05:00

I got into Brooklyn at 9:30am Saturday morning to meet up with Sean and Schenck. From their place we hopped onto the train to Manhattan to meet up with Schooney, his girlfriend, his sister, and his girlfriend's sister (Emmalee), who lives in Manhattan. We meet up near Central Park went to Bryant Park, Times Square, Central Park, and finished our stroll at Emmalee's somewhere near 81st and 1st Ave. We eventually walked about a mile for each of us. Schooney and his two girls could not get out of the city quicker as they pulled away from Emmalee's around 3:30pm. That left me and my two boy's at Emmalee's. The four of us spent the rest of the afternoon in her apartment talking and eventually eating an entire package of Oreo's.

To be continued...

Schedule

2006-11-14T09:50:00.000-05:00

I spent the past weekend in NYC and I am making my way back to Cleveland today. I will be in Michigan this coming weekend and I hope to spend an extra day or two in Ann Arbor. Looking forward, December looks like I might head to Boston come back to NYC and then I was thinking about hitting DC again before heading home for the holidays. More to come about this past weekend in NYC soon.

Hiding in the Bushes

2006-11-13T12:03:00.000-05:00

My last full day in DC was quite eventful. I started the day by taking the Metro out to Woodley Park. I grabbed some lunch and then made my way to the National Zoo. The zoo was nice, not all of the animals were out even though the weather was nice enough that I had wished I had worn shorts. Sometimes when I think of zoo's, I think of animals in cages... a common thought I am sure. Well, it seemed to me that at the National Zoo, there were less "cages" and more areas where the animals seemed to be in their own environment with only a fence or a sheet of glass separating them from the on-lookers. I know that this is not a new concept and I have seen this implemented at other zoo's, it is just nice to see confined animals being treated well.

Peine and I had dinner with her roommate at a Chinese fusion restaurant in Eastern Market, very nice. We then made our way out to Arlington to a place called Car Pool. We were meeting some of her teammates there to celebrate Bertha's birthday. I spent most of my time there watching the Louisville vs. Rutgers football game, I was amazed that Rutgers was able to pull out the win. We then hitched a ride with Margalit back to the District. She was heading back home and then out to Adams Morgan. We decided to tag along. This wound up being pretty much the same area that I was in earlier when at the zoo. To me it seems like a very lovely area of DC to live in, very nice neighborhood. Then we finally made our way to Adams Morgan and I was blown away with the departure form nice neighborhood into crazy nightlife street. It was a very nice evening of drinking and chilling.

The next day I was heading to Hightstown, NJ. Before I left, Peine and I made our way out to Georgetown. We needed lunch before doing some shopping. I was having a hard time on deciding on where to get some food. We eventually walked into a place that might have been called The Guard, it was a very ol' timey type of pub/bar. We sat at the bar where the guys next to me were smoking what could have been their last cigarettes in that particular bar. I felt at anytime we were going to get kicked out because we did not have Country Club memberships and/or were not card carrying members of the GOP. The food was decent the service was slightly less decent. It was definitely an experience. That evening I had a good time hanging out with the Bobiak's in NJ.

The District Sleeps Alone

2006-11-09T11:14:00.000-05:00

Things I have seen in the past couple days while in DC, in chronological order. 11.06.06: The Korean War, WWII, & FDR Memorials. 11.07.06: The Building Museum (check out The Green House), The International Spy Museum, The National Portrait Gallery (The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006 was particularly interesting) & Smithsonian American Art Museum. 11.08.06: Borat (the movie).

In the past few days a couple of significant dates have passed; 11.05.06: one month without Rima and 11.07.06: our four month anniversary. It is a difficult thing to even think about sometimes. For five years, Rima was always there when I was doing anything. Even if she was not directly there, she was the person that I could call and just talk to about what was going on. My process right now for dealing, is to be on the road and visiting with friends from across the country. It is nice to be out of the comforts that was our home, and my time here in DC has been very chill.

I will be making my way home next week and I am sure there is a bunch of stuff waiting there for me to take care of. But it won't be too long before I'm on the road again.

A Long Weekend

2006-11-06T23:46:00.000-05:00

I got into the hotel that my team was staying at in Wilmington, DE around 8pm. It turns out that I would be the first one there by a few hours. I got all my stuff situated and ordered food to be picked up, I had found a place with Paella on the menu and it called my name. After getting lost on the way to the restaurant and eventually getting back to the hotel, the food wound up being fairly average tasting.

That evening I was fully exhausted and just watched the two season finales of Project Runway, a show that Rima and I had watched together all season. I had a strong urge to see Michael do well in the final with all the good work he had been doing through the season, but after seeing what he brought to the finale it just did not feel as strong as some of the other work he had done previously. Being that MIchael did not win PR I was happy that Jeffrey did. Where as the other designers had specific types of dresses that were their standards Jeffery was all over the place with the types of clothes that he designed. On top of that, his "rock" style added a nice twist to the garments he presented.

The reason for the hotel in Delaware was an Ultimate tournament called PADA Mosh just over the border in Pennsylvania. The team was a Case Ultimate reunion team. This was my first time to the tournament, but RIma has been before since her mom lives nearby. We were even able to get Vilija to come out and play on Saturday. The team is comprised of players at various levels of competitive ultimate commitment. I would say the majority of the team is on the less to none commitment to competitive ultimate side, but all had been at least at the college level recently. The tournament is broken into two divisions, Competitive and Beer. We had asked to be in the Beer division but instead got seeded 8 out of 12 in the Competitive division. I understand that the previous year the team was doing more competing and less beer drinking which might have been the reason for the placement. A lot of the teams at the tournament are comprised of players from various areas mostly on the east coast. Our team was Cleveland, NYC, Boston and Jersey. The teams we were playing against it seemed as though there were Nationals level players scattered throughout them all. It just seems more likely to run into an ultimate player on the east coast that has been to nationals than in Ohio. Maybe that will change someday. The team finished with two wins and one loss on the first day. Even though I am terribly out of shape, I felt as though I could really contribute to the teams success. Sunday we again went 2-1. Our final rank was probably 5th or 6th. It was a very nice if a bit chilly weekend of ultimate. I was really happy to be playing with this group of people. I look forward to getting out and playing more.

The miles are adding up

2006-11-03T23:23:00.000-05:00

I am ready to be done with being in such a rush to get to places. I left Cleveland last Tuesday to get to Sarasota on Wednesday evening. I left Florida this Wednesday to get to Philly by Friday evening. I have traveled more than 2400 miles, and I have probably spent somewhere near two days in my car just driving. After this weekend, I have two weeks until I need to be anywhere so I feel that I should be able to slow down a bit and hang out places a bit longer. After Philly, I plan on heading down to DC for a few days then maybe up to NYC for a little while.

Sweet Tea

2006-11-02T13:44:00.000-05:00

Being in the south, I am surprised that I have not come across more Sonic Drive-Ins. As I currently eat my lunch at Panera somewhere off of 85 in South Carolina, i fell as though my drink choices have become simpler here in the south. When I lived in North Carolina for four years, I fell in love with sweet tea. I continue to enjoy the drink very much and I feel it is unfortunate that it pretty much does not exist in Cleveland.

Tired again.

2006-11-02T00:13:00.000-05:00

I got into Atlanta today around 4pm and met up with Fred. He gave me some suggestions of what to do including the Louvre exhibit at the High Museum and/or the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. After walking to the museum, I found out it closed at 5pm which would have given me 30 minutes there before getting booted, so I passed it up. Although as it turns out, starting on November first the Botanical Gardens closed at 5pm as well. So I did not get to check anything cool out in Atlanta today. Instead I walked back to Fred's place and got on my running shoes. I went for a 30 minute run through Piedmont Park. I managed to get in 3.5 miles, it felt good.

Fred and I got some good pizza for dinner, Jerk Chicken pizza with chicken and pineapple. It was quite tasty. While at the pizza joint we watched the first half on the Cavs game. We left to go watch the second half at Joy & O-Towns. It was raining on our walk to their place and my new rain coat was sitting unused in my car. The Cavs won! It was no longer raining by the time we made our way home.

Scared of Rollercoasters?

2006-10-31T23:33:00.000-05:00

It is currently 11:40pm. I am in some hotel in Lake City, FL and extremely exhausted. I woke up this morning and said goodbye to Brandi who was hosting me last night, I decided that I would allow her to concentrate on her work and just be on my way rather than imposing on her parents for a second night.

My plan for today... go to Busch Gardens in Tampa. On my way there I could not quite figure out why I was going. I have never been one to get excited about rollercoasters. I worked at Geauga Lake in high school and it was not until then that I started riding rollercoasters. The last time I remember riding one was when my buddy Drew took me and his girlfriend from Yale to Cedar Point over 6 years ago. It was something that Rima and I had never done together. But I understood that BG (Busch Gardens) is more than just rollercoasters, they have quite an assortment of animals and other attractions. So i figured if anything, I would at least be able to take a few photos.

I got there around 11am and paid the 9 dollars to park then another 50 or so to get in. I did not pick up a map at the gate, I figured that I would just find my way around, but halfway into the day I wound up with a map just because the place is pretty confusing. The first coaster I came to was a wooden one called Gwazi. I figured that since my first one at Geauga Lake was the Big Dipper (another wooden coaster) I would start off with that one at BG. The wait was about half an hour and the ride was shaky but bearable. In between rides, I would come across some animals and took a few photos of them. The next coaster I came across was the Python. There was no wait for this ride. It was corkscrew style the ride was nice and smooth and very short. But that was the one that got me really warmed up for the bigger coasters. The next was Kumba, I waited for one car to board in front of me. This one is very similar to the Python in that the cars where the kind where passengers are sitting in the car, but the thing that stood out about this one was the ride was much longer and intricate. Instead of just twisting, there was also loops and some spins. I found this ride to be quite enjoyable and road it twice in a row. I had locked my stuff at the Python so I went back and rode it once again before picking my stuff up. I made my way all the way across the park to Montu. This coaster is of the style in which the ridders legs dangle. It has quite a few loops and twists and there are many times when I felt as though my legs were rather close to getting chopped off. I rode this one twice in a row as well with no wait for either ride. I made my way back to Gwazi and rode it again with no wait this time. I did not enjoy it as much as I was the metal coasters. From the time of my first ride on Gwazi I saw a coaster that had a 90 degree drop after the first lift. I told myself that I would not be getting on that ride. One interesting thing about that ride is that after some loops and a second drop of similar degrees the car goes through a pool and though the passengers never really get wet, anyone standing in that area gets soaked. I made a decision that my coaster enjoyment would not be complete without riding it at least once. And ride it once I did. This ride is of the style where the passengers are sitting on top but not in cars, they are pretty much open seats with the restraint coming over from the back. For the rest of the day I had no wait on any of the rides. I finished it off with another ride on Kumba and two more on Montu.

Reflections

2006-10-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

I am spending this evening at a friends house in Tampa, she is currently working hard to keep a mediocre job she just started today.

On my way from Sarasota to Tampa today I had some time to think about this previous weekend.

Getting to Sarasota was made easier with the help of two audiobooks. The first was Open by John Feinstein, about the 2002 USGA Open Championships at Bethpage Black (the first to be held at a truly public course). My interest in golf kept me into the book, it would probably be more difficult for those not interested in the sport. The second audiobook, which I have yet to finish was Gasping for Airtime by comedian Jay Mohr. This book was about his two years with Saturday Night Live. The book is actually read by the author who was known for his impersonations, especially that of Christopher Walken, which he does a few times during the reading of the book.

Being away from home can be difficult at times, especially trying to cope with the loss of the "love of my life". While I was watching the tournament this weekend there were a lot of times when I felt very alone even though I was surrounded by hundreds of people. I had always imagined traveling to Sarasota to watch the Championships with Rima it was tough not having her there to turn to when I had something stupid to say. When they were not playing I did get to hang out with Peine and Damon and even though they managed to create some drama over the weekend I enjoyed the time I got to spend with them. Peine's team, Bnogo put me up for the weekend and even though I did not get a chance to get to know them all well, they made me feel very welcomed into their group. My take on the team: KK really made things happen, even though she was not playing she seemed like a huge part of the team. Sarah appeared to be "all business" most of the time. Cookie looks best with no shirt on. Jenny "Can I use your computer?" Fey got a dozen D's in one point that I watched, she seemed to be a pretty strong offensive player as well. Lex was probably trying to get some of her work done during the games. While Allie was actually doing work during the finals. Kris "Could you have any more spirit?" Gizzle has all of my respect. Dawn & Kevin seemed to enjoy their time away from their baby especially on their trips to buy cleats (from what I hear). Alex & Marie I am sorry that you got stuck with me as a roommate. Kerry "We have Wal-Mart" Lutz seemed to have no inhibitions (I hope she washed her hands after picking up that fish). I think Iris was actually only at nationals to flirt with guys. Liz "Goldie" Goldberg when I did not have Peine to talk to she was there to listen to my rambling, I hope she is not too distraught that the Steelers lost to Oakland. I know that I am missing a bunch but they were all great. I was able to cook them a dinner Friday night, the menu: Homemade salsa & chips, Bacon wrapped dates, Chicken & Steak tacos with Fajita toppings and not quite ripe avacados, and Cilantro & Lime rice. I have got to say that everyone seemed to enjoy the dates... it was actually my first time making them. I had just had them in Atlanta and only previously had them this past winter at Wouter's Belgium dinner party. Saturday's dinner (I understand they could not compete) was not so good pizza, watching people dip their crust in buckets of grease about made me sick.

I was also able to meet and hang out with most of the UPA staff. Through doing the website this year I had been in contact with them for the past couple of months and it was nice to be able to spend time with them. Matthew Bourland I had already known since he played in nearby Pittsburgh. I also spent some time at Kent with his wife Jess. It was nice to catch up on times with Matt. Ryan John I meet for the first time. It turns out he is from Massillon, "Go Tigers". He also went to Kent but he was there while I was in high-school. He only heard of ultimate two years ago, he previously worked at the HQ for foosball or racket ball or something like that. We watched the last two minutes of the Browns game together and then saw the Steelers loose, it was quite an enjoyable time we shared. Sandie I only briefly met but she seemed like a strong confident woman. Will Deaver helped his team break that quarter finals barrier and made it to the semis for the first time. I got an awesome picture of him mid-air doing a scissor chop with his arms. He is the man behind the championships tournament. Thanks to him there was a blurb about Rima in the programs, and between the Mixed and Women's finals they had a moment of silence for her and two other players. I was amazed the person on the mic pronounced Rima Viliamas-Boncha entirely correct. It was a nice moment.

Being in Sarasota was wonderful. The weather was great, too great at times. Since I spent most of my summer indoors I felt as though my skin was going to get fried on multiple occasions. While watching I also ran into a few other ultimate people that I knew. Josie and Lyrica (who Rima knew much better that I do) were playing with Nemesis. Sasha and Stacy (Phil was there too) were playing with Backhoe. Cara Crouch, who I only met this past February in Hawaii was playing with Showdown. Colin McIntyre whom I have played with at Gender Blender was playing with Big Ass Truck. Sarah Lima was there even though her dept. at school might have not been too happy about it. I had no idea she was going to be there myself and I tried to freak her at the bar one night while she was in Halloween make-up, once I figured out that it was her I felt pretty bad. We eventually got talking about Rima and she almost made me cry at the bar saying that she her play in the game to make it to nationals was dedicated to Rima and she said that it was the best game that she had ever played. I also ran into April Hansgate who was watching the tournament as well. Some of these people I got to talk to more than the others, but it was nice to run into them all.

3 out of 5

2006-10-29T23:52:00.000-05:00

After watching the Women's and Open finals, I spent the evening chilling with the fine folks from UPA HQ.

Looks like I am going to finish this fantasy football week with 3 wins out the 5 leagues that I am in. Also the Browns won & the Steelers lost to the worst team in the league!

Trigger Happy

2006-10-27T23:50:00.000-04:00

I have been trying to take some good photos while watching the UPA Championships. The only problem is that I find myself doing more "work" trying to get a good photo rather than actually watching the games. Anyways, there are some new photos up on my Flicker account, check 'em out.

High of 84°

2006-10-26T08:57:00.000-04:00

Looks to be a beautiful day here is sunny Sarasota. I am about to head out to enjoy the first day of ultimate here at the UPA championships. My run this morning was 3 miles in 30 minutes (I feel seriously out of shape).

Sonic, mmmmm

2006-10-25T20:18:00.000-04:00

I stopped in Georgia for lunch and I came across my first Sonic Drive-In on my trip. Lunch was good.

Getting to Hotlanta

2006-10-25T00:13:00.000-04:00

I left Cleveland around 9:15am this morning thinking that I was going for a 14 hour drive to Atlanta GA. Six hour into my drive I realized that Google had calculated the time poorly and I had already traveled halfway there. I got to Joy & Otto's at 9:15pm. We went out for Tapas & drinks. I guess today was a chilly day here the high was 55... people wearing wither coats, if they only knew.

White Halloween

2006-10-23T16:20:00.000-04:00

It started snowing in Cleveland today. I am packing to start my trip to Sarasota to watch the Ultimate Players Association 2006 Club Ultimate Championships.

New Design coming soon...

2006-10-23T16:16:00.000-04:00

This is a temporary(cookie cutter) site design. I plan on getting something better designed up soon.