Journey Rules!

the end... for now

2005-10-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

ok, heres the deal. and by the way i noticed my last post was a while back; i had meant to be more dilligent than that - my apologies. so since i last wrote i went to el paso, which was nice, and then spent six nights in austin. its a great city, and i very well may end up there, but i couldnt make the decision to commit that quickly, not to mention i was living in a hotel spending money quickly. so i decided to come back to new york, at least for a little while, get some rest, maybe make some money, and figure out exactly what it is im looking for.

but obviously austin to new york takes more than a day, so i went from austin to birmingham, alabama for one night. go look at a map for a second... it was a personal best - over 800 miles in aboot 13 hours, crossing half of texas, louisiana, mississippi, and half of alabama. the ultimate goal was to make it all the way to atlanta (wouldve been 1000 miles) but i just got too tired and sleepy, so i stopped in birmingham.

obviously with the goal of going to atlanta, the next morning i arrived at mikes house. it was an unplanned visit, so it just consisted of lunch, afternoon drinking, and going out drinking at night - but it was excellent, as visiting mike always is.

the next morning i left the atl and drove to north carolina to check out atoms new digs. it was very nice and he seems to be enjoying himself there. we hung out for a bit in chapel hill and later went to a massive state fair, which was bizarre but fun. i had a fried twinkie, which started out tasty, but by the end i really wanted it to be gone from my tummy.

i had made a motel reservation in southern new jersey, aboot seven hours from atoms, but when i got there it looked like a crackhouse. so i searched around maple shade, nj for an alternative lodging, but found nothing good. i went into a quality inn which looked just ok, but they wanted 80 bucks, so i just decided to soldier on home. it was supposed to be two-and-a-half more hours, but as the approaching-new-york traffic makes the rules, it took almost four. but i made it back in one piece, and put a fitting end on a journey that took me almost eleven-thousand miles and sixty days across the country. i hope you all have enjoyed reading this; ive certainly enjoyed both experienceing and writing aboot it all... im just wondering what the next adventure might be.

tombstone blues

2005-10-12T19:55:00.000-07:00

right now im in tucson, arizona. its not a bad place; everything is very tan and that faded sunbleached pink. phoenix (where i stayed last night), on the other hand, i did not like at all. it seemed like a city full of crazy people. then again, they are forced to deal with 120 degree heat occasionally. back in vegas there was a record store called zia that i really liked, and i found out they originated in arizona and had seven other locations in phoenix, tucson, and points in between. so, yesterday and today, i went to all seven. they were ok.

im excited aboot tomorrow. im going to tombstone! the site of the famous shootout at the ok corral between the rustling clampett gang and wyatt earp and his law-upholding posse. 'the town too tough to die' they call it. the ramones have a great album called 'too tough to die'. its not a westerny album at all, so its unrelated as far as i can tell, but great nonetheless.

tomorrow night ill stay in el paso, which is basically the texas/new mexico/mexico border. its also memorialized in song, this time by marty robbins.

tonight i went to get some ice and noticed something in the vending machine... a cinnamon roll for a dollar, marked on the front with the words 'pastry of the year'. obviously i had to verify this. well unfortunately the only reason it even claimed 'pastry of the day' was because the rest of the day was particularly pastry-free. the lesson is beware of outrageous claims, especially when credited to (im not joking) the 'automatic merchandiser readers choice awards'.

i do believe ive had enough

2005-10-10T20:36:00.000-07:00

after a few days of apartment/soul searching, ive decided to pack it in as far as la is concerned. theres just too much compromise attached to living here. allow me to explain: decent - and only decent - places to live around here are way out of my price range. in order to survive (briefly) id have to live in a tiny studio for like 900 bucks a month in an undesirable (dangerous) area. im not interested in not wanting to step outside of an apartment at night, worrying aboot my place and car getting broken into, etc. and even to afford that id have to have two jobs i bet. and to do something im actually interested in id probably have to work for little-to-no pay, which id be happy to do, except id be homeless in three months. i could always borrow a little money, but that would be stemming a tide rather than solving a problem. and living within thirty miles of a beach is even more cost-prohibitive. its not a place im in love with anyway. its got its good parts and bad. some things are super-cool, but also ill be giving up wildfires, earthquakes, smog, and freeway snipers (five incidents since ive been here).

tonight is my last night in california, in pasadena, which is one of the nicer communities in the greater la area. but of course, its super expensive and pretty far inland.

one nice thing is there were a couple further south locations that couldnt be visited on my way out here... tomorrow i go to joshua tree national park and then phoenix and tucson for a couple nights. after that ill be "down in the west texas town of el paso" and then im gonna go back to austin for a while. it was probably my favorite place on my trip, so perhaps ill stay. everything there adds up - apartment costs are reasonable, its pretty safe, job prospects are good, and its big into independent film.

one thing im really looking forward to is some more open road. ive been in the la area for two weeks now, and ive grown to miss driving long distances. i did go to san diego twice while i was here, which is a two hour drive, but its different cuz of all the traffic. i cant wait to drive five hours through a desert with no one around.

sorry everyone

2005-10-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

so... i wouldn't call this the end of the blog, just a slow-down. hopefully i haven't completely lost my audience. since last time, i went to san diego to see cousin megan, which was great. shes got a super-cool kid whos just shy of two years. i also saw my just-starting-college cousin, ryan. hes great too. san diego is a nice area, i wouldnt mind going back sometime in the near future.

anyway, i think im gonna stick around here, at least for a while. its a little difficult figuring out the order in which to accomplish things. first of all, housing is expensive, so i need a job soon. but do i go to ny and get my stuff? do i commit to an apartment first? do i get a job and then risk not being able to have time to go to ny and drive my stuff across the country in the next few months? theres a one month hotel/apartment i could get, but id need a job by the end of that, so i dont know if that helps me any. if anyone has any advice, id be glad to hear it.

ive looked at a few apartments so far - the dollar doesnt go too far around here. ive already resigned myself to get a crappy place for a year and just hope i can afford a nicer one by next year.

ive also run out of minutes on my phone and gone over by thirty or so. at 40c/minute, im using it as little as possible until the tenth, when my new minutes start. ive already upped my plan for next month.

so this is just a quick update, ive got some more apartment appointments today. this is a stressful time; i hope everything works out ok soon. hope everyone is doing well.

hooray for hollywood

2005-09-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

the end of the road?

new fires on the other side of the valley!

ok ive yet to be engulfed in flames... but this area smells like a musty fireplace and ash is flying everywhere. ive gotten used to it though. anyway, yesterday i checked out hollywood and beverly hills and such. it was great! in hollywood i found the greatest record store ever (apologies to waterloo in austin, which just a few weeks ago won the 'greatest-record-store' title; it must now move into second) called amoeba records. its huge and, like i said, totally awesome. i also walked around hollywood boulevard a bit and drove around some of the more famous areas, like rodeo and melrose. i got a chili dog from pink's, which is one of those disgusting-but-delicious late night eateries.

today i explored some of the east valley cities, like sherman oaks and burbank. i went to universal city for a while but didnt go in the theme park, and then i went to warner and took the studio tour. i guess it was silly of me to think the tour would focus on my favorite films of theirs from the 40s to 70s; it was mostly aboot current tv shows, which i couldnt care less aboot. but it was kinda fun anyway. afterwards i went to downtown burbank, which is where that fire picture comes from. now the coolest thing was i didnt even hear on the news that there were new fires in that area, i just noticed as i was driving aboot some fire on the mountain (did i just start singing a grateful dead song?). so i got as close as i could, and i think i went to the right spot cuz there were a bunch of people standing around taking pictures. and i became one of them for a few minutes.

tomorrow im going to check out some of the northern/central beach communities - malibu, santa monica, venice and marina del ray. im staying one night in del ray and then going to san diego to see my cousins on sunday. ill be back here on tuesday to get some more exploring done. its taking a long time - this place is huge! and after all that... who knows?

los angeles is burning

2005-09-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

i was proud of myself this morning - i accomplished the particularly difficult goal of leaving las vegas by 8am. so i rolled into the la area around noon, first stopping at san bernardino. well apparently they were going through some sort of wind storm, because there were huge palm branches flying around the street. i also actually saw a tumbleweed going down the middle of the street - it was like an old western. but anyway, that area isnt that nice (i think i saw a gang - black guys standing outside a convenience store in huge white t-shirts, right?). afterwards, i went to pasadena, which is really nice.

on my way to my hotel in van nuys - in the san fernando valley (anyone remember the movie 'valley girl'?), i got stuck in some of that notorious la traffic. also, in the western distance i could see huge plumes of smoke extending for miles. because im stupid, i thought to myself 'golly, there really is a lot of air pollution here'. but once i got to my hotel, all over the news were reports of huge wildfires coming our way. theyve yet to be contained, but theyre still a good 10 miles from me. but the area over there has undergone a mandatory evacuation, and the newly homeless folks have been sent this way. remember the san bernardino windstorm i mentioned earlier? well thats not helping matters - apparently the wind has gotten up to 50mph and dragged fires with it. also, it hit 100 degrees today. if all goes as it seems to be going, ill be on fire in a few hours.

tomorrow im going to explore the hollywood / beverly hills area. i think i have more than a days worth of stuff id like to see there, but ill do my best. then friday id like to explore around the valley, which has some towns youve probably heard of (like burbank, studio city, sherman oaks, encino, etc). i only have this hotel for three nights, and then im thinking of going to san diego to see two cousins saturday, but the cousin with a house (and hopefully a couch) has yet to call me back. after that i think ill come back here for a few days to explore more west and south la stuff that i wont have time for before saturday. you know, like compton.

viva las vegas!

2005-09-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

view of the mid-strip from the stratosphere tower

three feet from a 400 pound lioness at mgm grand

shark tank at mandalay bay

alright... here i am in vegas. i had hoped to blog a little more often here, cuz theres lots to say, buts its actually hard to find a connection in vegas - if it doesnt have to do with gambling or shopping, they dont want you wasting time on it. seriously, you need major directional skills (of which i have none) just to get out of one of these casino-complexes. and just because two casinos are across the street from each other, dont think it wont take you twenty minutes to get between the two.

anyway, the drive to vegas was my favorite so far. i had spent saturday night in st george, utah, aboot eight miles from the arizona border. once in arizona, you descend some mountains, which is a lot of fun. then theres aboot 80 miles of nevada to go before vegas. but aboot fifteen miles before vegas, you pass a mountain, and the town just appears. its a neat trick. a few miles before the city i stopped at a gas station to pee and get a newspaper - it was like gas was an afterthought for them though. more like they were saying 'you want gas? are you sure you dont mean slot machines and hookers?'.

anyway, so i got into town with a little time to kill before checking into my hotel, so i went to see the corpse bride. obviously one cant see it without comparing it to a nightmare before christmas, and its nowhere near is good. as with any tim burton film, production design is awesome, but aside from that i found it a little boring. plus, they smoothed out the stop-motion, which makes it look more like cgi, which is bad.

i spent my first night on fremont street, which is the old vegas section, north of the strip. it was awesome. i urge anyone coming to vegas not to skip this section. they have a six block closed street with a ceiling that has light shows every hour. and theres dingy old casinos and junk stores a-plenty. my favorite place was called la bayou, which was a slots-only casino, but had the most delicious frozen drinks in yard glasses.

yesterday morning i finally made my way to the strip and started with the north section. the stratosphere has a 112 story tower with a roller coaster on top. at over 1100 feet, its the highest one in the world. im not super into roller coasters, but i figured i couldnt pass up the opportunity. its a very weird feeling to be whirling around outside when youre up that high. later i went to the souuth strip area, where i stayed at the tropicana. the casinos here are nice - i went to mgm grand, mandalay bay, the luxor, new york, new york, etc.

today i went to the mid strip, which is where the nicest casinos are. i went to paris, the venetian, caesars, bellagio, etc. all nice, but its a lot of walking around. like i said earlier, just crossing the street can be a major chore. tonight im staying at the excalibur, which i visited last night and liked a lot.

im reminded of a comedy routine of patton oswalts in which he compared los angeles to a demon-cock. but he said at least its not vegas, which is a demon-cock dunked in glitter and deep-fried. anyway, tomorrow i go to la. hope its nice demon-cock.

like lion in zion

2005-09-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

look what jesus made!

for the past three saturdays ive been in small towns... its just kinda worked out that way. two weeks ago was texarkana, last week was wichita, and tonight, the smallest of all - st george, utah. im in a motel 6 - i stayed in a hotel of theirs in wichita and hated it. yet i managed to avoid cheesey jokes like 'i bet motels one through five were condemned'. anyway, this one isnt so bad. its also 50% more expensive than the wichita one. go figure.

today i left slc and drove to zion national park, which is aboot a half-hour northeast of where i am now. it was amazing how much the landscape changed from northern to southern utah. zion was like a mountainy desert. pretty cool looking, but it got a little samey after a while. but today was free-national-parks day (normally would have been twenty bucks) so no complaints. i was hoping to see some snakes or mountain lions (or some very lost and overheated bears) but all i got was tiny lizards and giant flies.

im hoping tomorrows city is one of the highlights of my trip - las vegas. im staying in a downtown hotel tomorrow night, the plaza, then monday and tuesday i move to the strip, staying in the tropicana and excalibur, respectively. im also gonna do my best to see the corpse bride tomorrow. anybody wanna join me?

slc day 2

2005-09-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

a lake, a beach, and a mountain

hi everybody (dr. nick voice)! today i went to visit saltair, the doomed resort, on the shores of the great salt lake. i had heard before the lake was smelley, but it defies explanation - it must be experienced. apparently the brine is the smelley stuff, and theres plenty of that. so that trip wasnt all that impressive, its an enormous lake surrounded by mountains, so its cool, but not super-cool. BUT, after that i went to antelope island, which is inside the lake, after a seven mile causeway, and that was awesome. its very scenic and pretty and has beautiful beaches and cliffs and stuff. i saw some lizards and buffalo and a herd of, well... antelope. they all just hang out on the island. very cool. after that i went to a decent record store in the city and got yet another tom waits cd.

this is one of those cities that thinks pedestrians should take precedence over cars. i hate that. in new york, if you want to cross a street, you had better hurry - or die. in these pedestrian-friendly cities, youre always fucking yielding to them, and they have no incentive to walk fast. they just mosey on by. see, the car is a much faster mode of transport, so it should get to go first. a person will have to wait less time for a car to pass than a car has to wait for a person to pass. makes sense right?

similarly, no one here drives like they have something to do. i realize that driving rudely and fast probably only gets me to my destination thirty seconds sooner, but dammit, i can use those thirty seconds! folks around here are like 'the light just turned yellow and im twenty feet away, ahh, i might as well stop' and 'oh the speed limit is 40, umm, 30 seems much more reasonable'. very frustrating.

so heres the next sitch: i had planned to go to vegas tomorrow, but i hadnt booked a hotel, so i went to do that recently and realized if i wait to go to vegas until sunday the hotel rates are basically cut in half or less. so thats the plan. ill spend tomorrow night in salt lake city again, which is fine cuz its really nice here, and saturday im going a little more than halfway to vegas, to st george, utah, where i will go to zion national park. it was recommended i go to moab and arches national park, but its like 200 miles off my route, where zion is like 30 miles. i hope i made the right choice.

mormon headquarters

2005-09-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

millers competition, but makers of the fine blue moon beer

down in utah the guys and i dig a city called salt lake

i find myself in salt lake city, utah at the moment, but well get to that shortly. yesterday ken and i went out aboot downtown denver, which was fun - its not a large city, and nothing in particular stands out, but i liked it. i liked boulder better, which is where kenny works, and where the university is. it looks like a great place to go to school. anyway, after denver we went out to golden to see the coors brewery. i wish it was the miller brewery, but it was still a lot of fun. you get a wristband for three free drinks at the end, and since ken doesnt drink i was able to have five (he had one coors non-alcoholic). i got a little buzz and got to try one of my new favorite beers - blue moon. its an orange flavored hefe-weisen. my second favorite beer (after miller lite of course) was always the john harvards hefe-weisen, but its been off their menu for a good year now, so i think ill call that my 'historical second favorite' and move blue moon into the current second favorite. cuz its important. anyway, after coors, we went to see buffalo bills gravesite on top of lookout mountain.

i left denver this morning and drove aboot 350 miles through southern wyoming. what an unusual place. the terrain is beautiful and quite varied. but the highway is a lot of up and down mountain stuff, which my cruise control kept getting upset aboot. when i got hungry for lunch i had to wait an extra eighty miles or so before i saw a mcdonalds sign. and it was on a dirt road. a long time ago, a friend and i had the crazy idea that living there would be a good idea. i wonder what people do there.

once i got to this shitty quality (by what standards?) inn, i went to the actual city of salt lake, which is just east of where im staying. its remarkably clean and very pretty. it has large towers, not quite skyscrapers, but everything is pretty wide and open, so everywhere you look you can see the surrounding mountains, which are very impressive. its just too bad the city is founded by and filled with crazy people. a lot of markings on buildings and stuff say 'lds' - latter day saints = mormons. but i really wonder how much of the city and area is mormon, and how the culture as a whole is affected by it. i dont know how to find that out though.

tomorrow i go to the lake itself and an island inside it. ill tell you all how that goes.

things to do in denver (or slightly northwest of...)

2005-09-20T02:23:00.000-07:00

ken helcoski, wingzone professional

rocky mountain high, colorado

its very early tuesday morning; im awake now because i want to be able to spend as much time as possible with my friends at the expense of sleep. ill sleep tomorrow night in salt lake city... maybe. yesterday kenny, joy, and i went to rocky mountain national park for a good part of the day. its awesome, and enormous. today kenny and i are going to explore denver for a bit, but by early evening he has to work. joys family came in last night, so i assume shell be entertaining them most of the time. so right now there are nine people living in this house, and not one had to sleep on a floor. thats impressive. another neat thing is this house has three bathrooms, which is kind of like a monkey with four asses. and by that i mean its excellent.

not much else is new as of now. yesterday kenny noticed a nail in my tire, which i believe to have been present since early kansas; were going to try to get that repaired this morning. also, if we have time, were gonna hit the coors brewery tour.

im having a hard time thinking right now... around 11pm i went back to wingzone to hang out with kenny, and stayed there until closing time. after that we went back to his house and drank a couple beers and had cigars outside. i hadnt done that in quite some time.

tomorrow i drive through southern wyoming to get to salt lake city, utah.

hello from denver

2005-09-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

so not two days ago i was in austin, texas. 1100 miles and sixteen hours of driving later i find myself in denver with ken and joy. if anyone wasnt aware, ken is having a baby! actually his wife is, but from what i understand he is at least partially responsible. also, he is the proud owner of a wingzone - i am writing from inside the store. its not at all smelley, which surprises me.

today i had a couple of minor mileage-milestones (can i coin a term here? - 'mileagestones') first, my car passed 25000 miles today, and shortly thereafter my trip passed its 4000th mile. and the last one is the neatest, in my opinion: when i bought my car it had 16967 miles on it - when i left on my trip it had 21054. that means between march and august i drove 4087 miles. well since i left on my trip ive driven more than that. i think thats pretty fucking cool.

i spent last night in wichita, kansas. what a dump! i stayed at the nastiest motel 6 on earth (ive never stayed at one before, so perhaps theyre all nasty - for thirty bucks a night i wasnt expecting much, but it didnt even live up to that low expectation). i swear the blanket on my bed gave me smallpox. but i got some famous daves bbq and a good nights sleep, so im satisfied.

so if kenny can pry himself away from work at some point in the next two days, were gonna do some fun denver-exploration and perhaps some rocky-mountain climbing. but im actually having a pretty good time at his wingzone. and hey, free wings...

austin stories

2005-09-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

the austin real world house, partially disassembled already

my hotel room - to be referenced shortly

first off, i forgot to mention something fun... nine days ago in atlanta, a bunch of us finally got to play trivia (remember we tried the previous two nights but didnt end up going? of course you dont). we ended up having a trivial run for the ages, getting every single question correct until the last one, which we missed and ended up coming in third place. but mike says hes never had a trivia night like that, and he used to play a lot. it was great. i should have mentioned it the day after it happened, but i forgot. i guess i was too busy admiring the atlanta-to-memphis landscapes.

so up there is a picture of the real world house, which i forgot was here until yesterdays comment aboot it. you can see it doesnt have the austin sign on it and the glass doors are gone. ive always had a strange relationship with the real world. sometimes ill watch it if i can find absolutely nothing else on, but once i do, ill be dying to see the next few episodes. then ill quickly stop caring again. so i watched the austin one just a little bit. it had the dude whose mom died and the girl who always wants to bone him, and the ugly dude who thought he was all that, and the spicy latina temptress. one weird thing aboot this real world is that it had three people who were not at all interesting. usually each season has one person like that (id cite examples, but they were uninteresting, so i dont remember their names). and its usually 'the freaky one' who isnt interesting. but this time it was army nurse girl, black guy, and midwestern virgin weirdo.

today i went to maybe the greatest record store ive ever been to, and ive been to quite a few. its called waterloo. i cant describe why its so great, it just is. i couldve spent all day there, and now im thinking of going back. i bought five tom waits albums. ive had his two greatest hits for a few years now, but i realized on the way to memphis (while listening to him of course) that i like him more than that, so ive moved him up to a buy-every-album type artist. well, hes in a probation period i guess: ill listen to those five albums, which are supposed to be his best, and if i like them enough, which i of course plan to, ill buy everything. another place i went was a fast food chain called whataburger (which id been to a few times before in these last couple weeks), which i urge everyone to try if theyre ever in this part of the world.

so the second picture you see is of my room. i now have a huge bruise on my left knee, and ill tell you why. anyone that knows me well knows that i often like to try to jump over things, figure things out, lift things, see if things hurt, etc. any circumstance that pits me against an inanimate object is one i relish and want to conquer. examples are past events such as hurdling a bush with dave (fourteen inch leg scar), bb-gun ass-shooting with frank (bb in ass for two days), ice bag whacking with mike (too drunk to sustain any noticeable damage), and the mother of them all, the monkeyboy incident at penn state (dual shin scars and remnant pain nine years later). anyway, you can see that next to my bed, there is a inner window into the kitchen. i decided i needed to jump through that window to get into the kitchen rather than walk around the area to the door. why you ask? because it was there. of course it went horribly wrong and i whaled my knee against the bottom of the window. hence the bruise and sore knee im sporting today. this goes to show that even though i am 27, i need constant supervision. but it was acknowledged many years ago that im an idiot, so ive learned nothing from this experience.

i have been to the batcave

2005-09-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

many times in my life ive heard this question posed: what does the spontaneous emergence of 1.5 million bats look like? well tonight i went to the congress avenue bridge to find out the answer. see, between april and november, the mexican freetail bat makes its home underneath this bridge. and each night they all emerge to go out looking for dinner (they eat 30,000 pounds of insects a night!). it was said that they tend to emerge before sundown, and i was looking forward to giving everyone a visual representation of this phenomenon, but alas, the bats, never much for showmanship, waited until it was dark to come out. so my pictures are too dark to post. anyway, the bat thing was pretty impressive, and drew quite a crowd (which it apparently draws nightly). one thing to note is that where there are bats, there are mosquitos, and where there is keith, there is a lifelong aversion to remembering insect repellent. i must have a mental block; it was sitting in my car which was 30 feet away, but instead i have a legfull of itchy red bumps. and perhaps less blood than i had prior to tonight. and maybe more disease.
anyway, i got up pretty early today, and went to check out austin. it took me a little while (a day) to warm up to austin, but now i think its pretty cool. one neat thing aboot this trip is within a day of being in a place ive learned all its directions and road names and stuff, but once i leave i forget them for the most part. but austin took the longest to get comfortable driving in; its unusually complicated.
in any event, i started with the lower city area. they have a nice park called zilker park, which is their central park i guess (every city has one, but none are as great). they also have one of those ultimate party streets like beale street, honky tonk row, bourbon street (a few weeks ago at least), sunset strip, times square, etc. but its just called sixth street. it had literally fifty bars down a eight or so block stretch. itd be more fun if i were there with some friends. later i checked out the u/t campus, which is large but looks like a fun place to go to school. i also saw their imfamous tower upon which charles whitman shot and killed sixteen people in 1966 (wounding thirty more in an uninterrupted 96-minute spree), one day after stabbing and murdering his mother and wife.
tomorrow i plan to visit some highly recommended music stores (rolling stone called austin the fourth most awesome music town in america - which would be an even more ringing endorsement if rolling stone werent completely gay). then saturday i get to drive almost nine to hours to americas greatest city, its sparkling midwestern diamond and center of cultural relevancy and accomplishment - wichita, kansas!

austin, tx

2005-09-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

not much to say here yet. drove out of san antonio this morning, passed a tanger center aboot half way and had to stop to do a little shopping. actually, i had begun to notice a lack of plain t-shirts in my car/house, so thats what i was going for. then arrived in austin around noon and spent three fucking hours driving around trying to find a place for lunch. seriously. austin is remarkably frustrating for driving if youre not from around here and dont have a good map. and theres not a goddamn eatery anywhere near my hotel. i ended up settling for jack in the box (which is actually pretty good - once you get away from new england theres all these great regional drive-thru places, much more satisfying than the mcdonalds/subway variety, its one thing the new york area is truly missing - of course, i probably give more weight to this issue than the normal person because im at least half-retarded). anyway, like i said, not doing much today, ill be exploring tomorrow and friday. im gonna go get dinner at a place called threadgills, which is supposed to be quite good. thats all. by the way, its 95 degrees today. i love it.

paseo del rio

2005-09-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

san antonio's riverwalk - beautiful... if a little smelley

so i went to this burrito place called chipotle last night, which mike and shelley say is the mcdonalds of burrito places (theres lots of them). we sampled a lot of the burrito places in atlanta, which i loved, but we never made it to chipotle. anyway, i ordered a burrito and wanted some chips and salsa with it. the guy said chips would be ten minutes; they werent ready. i said id live without them, being only aboot as disappointed as youd imagine a guy who wanted chips and didnt get them would be (by that i mean not very disappointed). anyway, since i wanted something they didnt have, the guy said my meal was free. so, chipotle rules!

today i went to brackenridge park, which was nothing special, and then tried to find the sbc center, where the world champion spurs play (by the way, i read today that san antonio is the tenth largest city in america - wtf? - and how do they have only one sports franchise?). the road the sbc center is on was all closed and had all these detours through really scary areas, so i gave up after a while. it was impossible to know if i had passed it or not. but im sure its just a building, i dont actually know why i wanted to see it. anyway, then i went back to market square and bought another six dollar mexican blanket and a super cool candleholder. im a sucker for that crap.

with nothing left to do for the day, i walked down to the riverwalk. for those who are not familiar, its a river that flows kind of below the city and has walkways around it. the popular section (it has stores and restaurants) is aboot two miles long. and it was a mile away from my hotel. so at around 2pm, in 98 degree heat, i decide to walk four miles. pretty uncomfortable. but it was fun. by the walk home the back of my shirt was soaking wet, which was a little embarrassing. ive since changed shirts.

tonight i decided to go back to chipotle and actually (maybe) pay for my meal, since they were so nice yesterday. tomorow i make the 1 hour drive to austin. im excited aboot that, and quite excited to not have a long driving day until saturday.

theres no basement in the alamo!

2005-09-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

Texan: Do you remember anything?
Pee-wee: I remember... the Alamo.

ok yesterday i did the seven hour drive from texarkana to san antonio. i came to san antonio one day earlier than i had originally intended, so i got a different hotel. it was on the other side of town, near sea world, away from all the stuff i wanted to see, so i just hung out at the hotel all night and went to bed early. driving to san antonio went well until i was aboot 100 miles away and it started to pour. apparently this area is not prepared for rain (?) because the highways have no drainage whatsoever. they also have lots of peaks and valleys, so all the dips turned into big waterparks. im glad i have an suv, cuz the people in sedans were having a hell of a time. not that i didnt find it difficult - i almost pulled over for a while. anyway, now im in a la quinta inn right in the heart of san antonio. its not a bad city, it has its nice parts and bad looking parts. i went to market square today, which is this mexican market where they all sell the same crap. but i bought one of those neat mexican blankets for six bucks and a weird ceramic frog thing for eight. i also went to the rivercenter mall and saw 'aliens of the deep' at the imax. it was pretty cool. and then i went to the alamo. i was expecting something much more grand. it was tiny. but the history part of it is pretty awesome, so im satisfied. my hotel is across the street from this place called 'la margarita', which is supposed to have great margaritas and mexican food. so thats what im having tonight. i hope i get drunk, that sounds like fun.

saturday night in texarkana

2005-09-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

one of a very few places that can make a legitimate claim to being the birthplace of rock-n-roll

so this morning i woke up in memphis and began my way here to texarkana. i started by driving around downtown memphis for a bit, past sun studios, the fedex forum, beale street, the pyramid, etc. i then crossed over the mighty mississipp'. its impressive looking. it seems america uses the mississippi river as a marker to deliniate east and west, so i guess today is the first day i can say im 'out west'. anyway, here i am in texarkana, which is a town on the border of texas and arkansas. get it - tex-arkana? these folks are clever. actually, driving through arkansas i also passed a town called 'arkadelphia'. so i guess arkansas city planners just like to stick parts of the word arkansas onto city names. i found arkadelphia to be a lot like philadephia, except it sucks and its in arkansas. im just kidding, i didnt go into town - just passed it on the highway - but i bet it sucks anyway. one neato thing aboot texarkana is theres a road called 'state line avenue' which is actually the texas/arkansas state line. i knew my hotel was on this road, but didnt know which side of the street it was on, and therefore didnt know what state i was staying in. ill have you know im staying in texas. but this town is kind of a shithole. its the smallest town i think ill be staying in on my trip. so if i had to guess, id say this is the place im most likely to be referred to as 'city boy' and get my ass kicked. ive already been made to squeal like a pig three times today. it sucks. but tonight im gonna check out a local chain called 'tico taco' and hope i dont get sick. one thing i forgot to mention yesterday is i tried some fried dill pickles, which is a not-that-common bbq delicacy (memphis being one of the established four corners of the bbq world - others: north carolina, texas and kansas city). they were tasty. anyway, this place is just a stopover, tomorrow is a seven hour drive to (hopefully) lovely san antonio, which i can only hope is not overrun by angry 'fugees.

hail to the king

2005-09-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

the king's badass turquoise heater

apparently elvis loved the cock so much he got two put in.

graceland... what can i say? this guy was the shit. everything is so decked out in great 60's technology and weird knick-knacks like a huge ceramic monkey and dual peacock stained glass windows. and heavy shag carpet on everything - walls and ceilings included. also, there was a lounge area with three tvs going (elvis liked to watch triple-tv cuz he heard lyndon johnson was fond of the practice) and one of them was playing dr. strangelove for some reason. i had hoped i could just walk around the area and not go inside (ie. free), but i had to take the tour to see anything good, so there goes 25 bucks. but it was so worth it. also, i wanted to pick up something at the gift shop, but everything is ridiculously priced. however, theres like a shitty bargain elvis store down the road (elvis presley boulevard that is) at which i got a mug and an ashtray for three dollars. anyway, after the tour i was walking around taking pictures and a new zealander approached me to ask if id like him to take one of me. i figured i wasnt supposed to say no, so now i have a cheesy and poorly framed picture of me standing in a walkway. then he made me take a picture of him with his camera. it was a real give-and-take situation. when we were done taking pictures, we both ended up walking back to our cars, which were like 500 feet away and right next to each other. he went first, so he might have thought i was following him. it was awkward.

in other news, this is the first place ive been where ive seen some 'fugees. lots of louisiana and alabama and mississippi license plates around. one of them asked me for change and i gave him 75 cents. now im part of the relief effort i guess. id like to give money to the red cross, but im pretty strapped now. plus, gas is now aboot 20% more expensive than i had anticipated, and i need a lot of it. poor me.

walking in memphis

2005-09-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

this is a picture of beloved singer-songwriter marc cohn. if one were to create a timeline of the significant events in marc's life, it might look something like this:

1991: the smash hit "walking in memphis" earns marc a grammy and international superstardom
2005: marc is shot in the head in denver in an attempted carjacking

anyway, im in memphis now, so it got me thinking aboot marc cohn. today was just a driving day; i left atlanta around 10am and got here seven hours later, which, in an odd turn of events, was not 5pm, as you might expect, but rather 4pm due to something referred to as 'time zones'. yeah, ive never heard of them either. but i was tired already, and now i have to wait an extra hour until its a reasonable time to go to bed. the problems i must face... anyway, i have no plans for the rest of the night, and its only six. i came to memphis kind of by accident, so i didnt get to research fun things to do around here. im gonna check out graceland tomorrow. oh, by the way, marc is alive and well. its a rare dude that survives a head shot.

dellamore rules!

2005-09-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

this is filamena. she makes sauce. she was born in italy but later moved to brooklyn, ny. she shares a name and a family line with my friend frank.

its my last day in atlanta now. many thanks to mike and shelley for letting me stay at their place so long and for entertaining me so well. its been fun; i love coming here. ill be heading to memphis in the morning. i wonder what thatll be like. anyway, i just got back from meeting mike and shelley for lunch (theyre both working today) at burrito brothers. ive been to that place twice and absolutely love it. i took a picture of that as well. in other news, tonight is the third night in a row we're planning to go to trivia - but the last two nights it hasnt happened for various reasons. so it is of the utmost importance tonight that nothing gets in our way. stay tuned to find out what happens.

repairs

2005-09-06T15:54:00.000-07:00

heres a picture of a car crash i was stuck next to for a couple of minutes in nashville. i didnt get to see it happen though. i dont think anyone was hurt. the reason i put it here is that i havent taken many pictures lately, but i wanted to maintain the audio-visual theme of this blog.

today was mike and shelleys first day of work since ive been here. so things are a little more boring now, but im also catching up on fixing my new orleans diversion plans. also, i water-sealed mikes deck, which was a little bit fun. it never looks good until it dries, but im banking on it looking good, cuz im not yet convinced. i also had a publix sandwich today, which if y'all ever get the chance to get, is awesome. but their mac salad leaves something to be desired.
after all that, i finalized my post-atlanta plans, which now include two nights in memphis, one in texarkana, and then arrive in san antonio a day early. should work out ok.
now im waiting for mike and shelley to get home so we can go to dinner/trivia night. the place we planned on going last night wasnt doing trivia due to labor day (though it wasnt explained how they relate) so we went to a burrito place and then saw the 40 year old virgin, which was very funny.

delayed recovery

2005-09-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

hey, so its been two days since i blogged, but as far as sleeping goes for me, its only been one. we had that barbecue saturday and everyone was partying well into the night. but one by one they dropped out until by 5 am it was just me and mikes friend john. we were determined to keep drinking, and he made the claim that he wouldnt fall asleep before me - i was up for the challenge. ultimately, i failed, but not before drinking until after 10 am. unfortunately, not more than two hours later i had to wake up because enston and heather (the ones with the sense to go to bed at a reasonable time) were awake and hungry. so we went to waffle house, one of the finest southern breakfast establishments around. after that i just caught some more sleep until people came over to watch nascar. nascar as far as racing isnt interesting to me at all, but i like getting together and drinking and grilling and such, so i enjoyed that. but due to exhaustion and hard-partying the night before, i didnt get all that drunk. but i did stay up and watch a bunch of tv with mike after everyone went to bed.
then this morning we had to get up at 9 to take enston and heather to the airport. its too bad they were here so briefly - it was great to hang out, though they could both brush up on their staying-up-late-partying skills. but all in all a great weekend with them. after the airport, shelley departed for some whitewater rafting. mike and i considered going, but it would have meant missing tonights music trivia, so it was out of the question. so thats what we have planned tonight, but not til 8. right now mike is sitting next to me playing his brand new nascar game that he picked up today. i tried it; perhaps ill try again later, but its not something i can do for long periods of time. i dont understand the draw. but i try intermittently, and thats all mike can ask.

day 2 hotlanta

2005-09-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

last night after picking up brian and heather we went straight to one of my favorite bars ever, famous. it has a longer name than that, but i dont know what it is. enston gets sleepy easily, so we left around 3. mike and i had a couple more beers and went to bed around five.

today mike and shelley are hosting a bbq in their backyard. but first - lunch! wait, but first - wait for mike to get out of bed and take a shower. but anyway, we didnt wake up too long ago, so not much is yet new today, so im gonna take this opportunity to tell everyone aboot mike and shelleys lovely dogs. youll find a picture of them to your right. lets introduce... on the right is sadie the sheltie, and on the left is a welsh terrier named mr. pickles. but i wanted to discuss them because they complement each other so well. sadie is reserved and polite and takes a while to warm up to new people, while mr pickles is insane and friendly and slightly dim. you could literally do anything to this dog - if you were to punch him in the head, he would just have a look on his face like 'you could do that again if you want, i dont mind'. you could probably do anything to sadie too, she doesnt get mad or anything, but shed be more apt to just walk away. i hope someday i get dogs as cool. it can be a gamble, sometimes dogs are jerks, just like some people. well, this is a boring post, huh?

hotlanta v1

2005-09-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

so one thing i have to deal with now is that i intended to leave atlanta on tuesday, heading for the mississippi gulf for two nights followed by two nights in new orleans. that is obviously now out of the question. so ive been thinking of a backup plan. i think im gonna hold out here until thursday, then head to memphis for two nights (ill get to see graceland, which is nice), then dallas for a night, then head to san antonio a day early. then ill be back on schedule. but im pretty sad - i could do without the mississippi gulf, but i was real excited to see new orleans. but i guess theyre dealing with bigger problems than i am.
anyway, today we just did some going-around-atlanta stuff. we sampled two competing burrito places - burrito brothers for lunch and willys for dinner - both excellent. now were hanging out at mikes place waiting to get enston and heather at the airport. for whatever reason they got a flight that gets them in at 11pm on a friday night. but well go straight to the bar from there and do our best to get drunk. good luck to us...

chattanooga choo choo

2005-09-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

you are!

hey people. here i am in atlanta, pretty drunk by now. today i woke up in nashville, and on the way to atlanta, stopped at the chattanooga aquarium. it was pretty cool; it cost eighteen bucks, but i enjoyed it enough. one thing i was disappointed in a bit was that there were three sharks total in the whole place. i was expecting a little more. but anyway, i made my way to atlanta where i hooked up with mike and shelley to play some team trivia. we came in third place. in particular, i got a question aboot p. diddy correct. way to go. after that me and mike drank a bunch of beers in his backyard, and i now find myself ready for bed after that. enston arrives tomorrow! goodnight kids.

bye bye nashville

2005-08-31T20:28:00.000-07:00

perhaps he should have watched his speed

whats new everyone? one thing id like to discuss momentarily is chili over pasta. when i told my friend sarah i was going to lexington kentucky, she said i had to try this concoction. apparently its a cincinnatti thing, but it has spread south. heres the thing - they take a plate of spaghetti, cover it with chili, and then dump cheese on it. its called a 'chili 3-way'. adding either onions or beans makes it a '4-way' and adding both would be a '5-way'. get it? ok so i was excited to try it in lexington, but i arrived on a sunday evening and they were closed. so on my way out of town monday morning i tried it. didnt like it. but today, i noticed another regional chain had it, so i gave it another shot and kind of enjoyed it. so i recommend at least trying it if youre ever in this weird part of the country.
nashville is actually a hell of a town; im enjoying it immensely. its fairly spead out and theres a lot of traffic, but its much prettier than i expected. today i started by going to the bicentennial mall park, which is in the government district of downtown. its a fairly new park, and it details the history and landscape of tennessee. its really cool. i then went to riverfront park, which is on the cumberland river. its less a park and more an ampitheater, but it looks like a great place to see a concert. it has stadium seating made of grass (seriously). unfortunately, it also has a bunch of bums sleeping in it. it seemed to be in the 'bad' part of town. then i walked around the city, mostly on honky tonk row and 2nd street. they seem like fun places to go out for some beers and live music.
following the city i went to the nashville zoo, which is just ok as far as zoos go. it was definitely fun and interesting, but ive probably been spoiled living so cose to the bronx zoo all my life. not a bad way to spend a couple hours though. zoos are smellly.
finally, i went to j percy priest lake and dam, which was just a huge lake. theres not much to say aboot that.
so unfortunately, thats aboot it for nashville. i hope i get to come back here sometime, cuz i like it a lot.
tomorrow i head to hotlanta to see mike and shelley. enston and heather fly in friday. thats gonna be great, but one thing im not looking forward to doing this weekend is figuring out where im going once i leave atlanta. see, i had two nights booked on the mississippi gulf coast, followed by two nights in new orleans. bad timing. ill tell you how that ends up going soon. be good...

you may say i aint free, but it dont worry me...

2005-08-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

nashvilles parthenon in centennial park - a massive structure and full size replica of the ancient greek building.

well i promised daily blogging (to whom i wonder?), but its been two days. my one excuse is that there is no internet in this hotel. BUT, quality inn across the way is nice enough to have a strong signal, so if i keep my door open (this is an exterior corridor hotel) i can get online. anyway, yesterday started with some news-watching, after which i decided to head to nashville and at least beat the storm there and then ride it out. at this point predictions were still dire. the drive was pretty bad due to torrential rain, but otherwise uneventful. after checking in, i went to opry mills center and the grand ole opry, both of which were neato. then i went back to the hotel and prepared myself for the storm of the century - which consisted of me getting the flashlight out of my car. predictions were we would get a fierce tropical storm this morning lasting into the early afternoon. well, i woke up at nine and it wasnt even raining. it was a little windy and a bunch of leaves were on the ground. but like i said, this is an exterior corridor hotel, so a major storm would have woke me up. i hate how weather channels have to make everything sound like its going to kill you. so i had expected to spend today reading by flashlight and watching movies on my portable dvd player, but like i said, no rain, so i made the ballsy move of going out for the day, even though the badass hurricane was overhead! i went outside of town to beautiful radnor lake preserve, which is a giant lake with trails around it. i hiked aboot five miles and took a bunch of pictures. then i went to centennial park, of which a piicture is above. it wasnt a nice day or anything, with intermittent rain, but i had fun. afterwards i drove around some more and got dinner from steak-n-shake, a regional chain. i cant remember where i read it was great, but it sucked. i dont like milkshakes, but it was the best part. i figured i had to get one at steak-n-shake. anyway, its now 12:30, and i have a big day of nashville-exploration planned, so im out. im sure nobodys reading this.

hi!

2005-08-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

me, angel, rob, and bagel on the front steps of hartranft hall, where we all lived and met in summer '96.

ok. here we go...
tonight i find myself in lexington kentucky, worrying aboot some stupid weather system. but let's backtrack a couple days for the moment. i had intended to post every day, but i got distracted. so ill just do a brief timeline here and then pickup from where i am now.

friday- drove to beautiful penn sate university. met old friends rob, angel, and bagel, and new friend mike. as expected, we started drinking as early as possible, and continued until late. several bars followed by college pizza. one fun thing i forgot aboot psu is that every downtown night of drinking is finished by getting a slice of either acme or college pizza, both at the reasonable (and surprisingly stable) price of one dollar. thats that.

saturday- i woke up significantly earlier than everyone, so i took a walk around town. half the stuff i remembered isnt there anymore. three of four favorite record stores are gone. sad... met back up with everyone and took a bagel-guided campus tour with a brief stop at sunset park. some of my best psu memories are at that park; it was nice to see it hasnt changed much. campus is a little different - we just drove through most of it due to time and bad weather. ideally i would have liked to just walk around campus for a day, but we had to get drinking. some things are more important. we started our evening with dinner and drinks at the rathskeller, minus angel who was at a bachelorette party. food there is awesome - i would eat there every day if i could. we then went to the greatest bar ever, the phyrst. heres the recipe: cheap beer, silly band of old people singing bluegrassy songs, and tables pitted against each other in rhythmic shouting wars. awesome. the angel-attended bachelorette party ended up meeting us there. the bride apparently remembers me from when i was a student, but i could not do the same for her. she was fun and very drunk; towards the evenings end she ordered me to buy her a shot of tequila, then proceeded to throw up and leave the bar before doing the shot - so i made rob do it. the rest of the night was uneventful - closed the bar down, got college pizza again, and went to bed.

sunday aka today- woke up way earlier than everyone, which i had intended to do. had to shower and leave without saying goodbye. i would have loved to stay for breakfast and goodbyes, but i had a nine hour drive to do. so nine hours drives are fucking boring. also, i had four hours sleep after being bombed, so i got very tired and had to stop for coffee and peeing four times. but i got to lexington at 6pm. i turned on the tv to check things out and was bombarded by the most dire of storm warnings. apparently new orleans is going away forever. geraldo keeps calling the storm 'biblical in proportion'. hes a massive douche. so i went to check out lexington a little, visiting campus and the town. but it was getting dark so i picked up some dairy queen dinner and went back to my lovely baymont inn. ok, dairy queen is gross. i tried their new chili lime chicken strips, which i had been excited aboot ever since seeing the commercial (not sure why). it tasted like a vagina. anyway, im supposed to go to nashville tomorrow, which is in the extended projected storm path, so im gonna wait for tomorrow mornings news and figure it out from there. i might have to head east to avoid being blown away.

anyway, i hope to post to this daily (semi-daily?) from here on in i hope this takes less the form of a list, like this post, and more of ramblings and musings. well see how that goes. goodnight.