9 posts tagged “travel”
This one is a MAJOR pet peeve. This is a menu from a Venice Beach restaurant. I almost ordered a 20 ounce beer, but then realized that it would be a better deal to get a 16 oz instead. That's right- you're actually spending more money per ounce if you order the bigger one. Shouldn't it be safe to assume that buying in quantity will be fiscally prudent? Fabulous Fern's restaurant in St. Paul has a similar scam going on. And they don't print the drink prices on your menu, so you don't notice until you get your bill. Makes me very angry...
Venice Beach by bike
I'm a planner. As much as I'd like to be a spontaneous person, my brain just doesn't function that way. So this past weekend was quite a departure for me. Mike sent me a text message a couple weeks ago, saying he found a cheap flight to San Francisco for the weekend. He was heading out there to spend a couple days with Eric before he heads off to Thailand. (And to see Matt & Joy, obviously.) I quickly checked flights, and they were pretty expensive. Plus, I haven't earned much vacation time yet, so I really didn't want to have to take a day off.
Jen had two college girlfriends coming into town for the weekend, and they would be taking the car up to the mountains. So, I'd be stuck at home without transportation, meaning I wouldn't even be able to go skiing. It sure seemed like a perfect weekend to cruise out of town.
Luckily, Jen found me a cheap flight on Southwest, leaving Denver at 8 PM on Friday, and then leaving Oakland at 5 PM on Sunday. I jumped on it, and it ended up being a great decision.
The flight got in a little early, and I hopped on AirBART, the $3 bus shuttle from the Oakland airport to the BART (light rail) stop right outside the Oakland McAfee Coliseum, home to the Raiders and A's. From there it was a 20-minute BART ride to the Embarcadero stop, where Eric and Matt were waiting for me. Pretty smooth! We cruised out to the San Francisco airport to pick up Mikey, then headed out for some beers and pizza.
The weather over the weekend was absolutely fantastic- 66 degrees, sunny, clear, no wind. We headed towards Muir Woods, and tried to visit the famed Tourist Club, but they were closed for repairs. After a short hike, we decided to head down to Stinson Beach. Man, that water is cold!
After heading back to Matt & Joy's place to shower, we ordered some Indian food for delivery, then headed out to The Independent to see the North Mississippi Allstars. I was bummed that we missed the opener, Alvin Youngblood Hart, but he came out and jammed with the boys for a few songs. The highlight of the show was a cover of Dylan's "Masters of War," followed by an "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" jam.
As I mentioned the other day, there I things I intended to write about, but never got around to. Well, it's time to do some house cleaning- the half-eaten cookies may be getting moldy, but I've got to finish them off. In case you're unaware of what the title of this blog refers to, allow me to explain.
A half-eaten cookie usually occurs during conversation. I have a tendency to wander a bit when I'm speaking. The danger of going off on tangents is that sometimes I forget to finish my main point- usually I forget to wrap up lots of different pieces of conversation.
You know when you're eating a cookie (or a slice of pizza, or drinking a can of soda), and you set it down somewhere, before you're completely finished with it, and then forget about it, but then later something is gnawing at the back of your brain? Then you realize "I never finished that cookie!" And you absolutely must find that cookie, otherwise it will drive you crazy for days and days? No? Well, maybe it's just me. The worst is when you've actually finished said cookie, but you don't remember finishing it. In any case, somewhere deep in my brain, Jonny is looking for closure, apparently.
So here's my first installment of "things I meant to blog about a long time ago, but didn't have the time, then it got so far past the event I was going to blog about that I decided not to blog about it, but I'm going to blog about it now, dammit!"
Jen and I flew to Playa del Carmen, Mexico in February of this year, just after our one-year anniversary. We returned to the place where we got married, and spent almost a week with Matt & Joy- getting sun, diving, eating good food, and relaxing. It was an awesome trip. I never really wrote about it, though, and I was just looking through pictures and videos. Here are a few of my favorites:
We had to listen to this guy play the cheesiest keyboard music ever during dinner:
Have you ever wondered what Pink Floyd would have sounded like if they moved to Mexico, and replaced David Gilmore with the Scream guy?
Remember when Budweiser started promoting their "born-on date" for beer, so you would know it hasn't been sitting in a warehouse for years? They don't do that in Mexico. I was drinking a Modelo, and noticed the Baltimore Ravens logo on the back. Interesting...
When we were in Playa for our wedding, the Blue Parrot beach bar had just reopened, after burning down when a fire performer got careless. We got to see the full show this time, which was pretty cool.
This cute doggie was enamored with Jenny. It found her wherever she went. She thought about smuggling him baclkto the US.
Steph and I were talking about my upcoming journey to Denver the other day, and she suggested that I blast Tapes n Tapes' "Omaha" as I drive past the city. I also thought of "We're An American Band":
Four young chaquitas in Omaha,
Was waitin for the band to return from the show.
Feelin good, feelin right, its saturday night,
The hotel detective -- he was out-a-sight.
Now, these fine ladies, they had a plan,
They was out to meet the boys in the band.
They said, come on, dudes, lets get it on,
And we proceeded to tear that hotel down.
Unfortunately, I don't have any Grand Funk Railroad on my iPod. And, needless to say, we're not tearing this hotel down. But I did come up with some other fitting songs:
If you've never listened to Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska," you owe it to yourself to give it a listen or two. I've always loved the bare-bones production of Nebraska (Bruce ended up releasing the demo versions of the songs, when he wasn't satisfied with the full-band production sound), and hearing a bunch of interesting artists offer up their interpretations is a lot of fun.
OK- now it's 3:51 AM, and I really have to go to sleep.
We got the call yesterday informing us where we would be picking up our 17-foot moving truck: Coon Rapids. That's right, Coon Freaking Rapids, which is 30 minutes north of our house. These jokers (U-Haul, Penske/Budgest, etc.) get away with murder, as far as shitty customer service goes. It was a damn good thing we had recently decided not to tow the car, because dude informed Jen over the phone that there weren't any car trailers available. Even though we had reserved one. You figure it out. Last night I was told that Ryder is the one reputable company in this line of bidness. I guess I'll try them next time.
Kara and Andy threw us a great farewell shindig last night, complete with a French theme (in honor of Bastille Day)- Tam even made 7 CD mixes full of French music (and Rush's Bastille Day, of course). It was a lot of fun- one final night to hang out with good friends before we move away.
This afternoon, we had a ton of help loading the truck, which made it an extremely efficient endeavor. The 17-foot truck was barely big enough for all of our stuff (minus a dresser and a bed frame, both of which Jen's been trying to get rid for a few years). We must have had a 24 or 27-footer when we moved from the Twin Cities to Denver the first time. We've gotten rid of so much stuff, but there was pretty much no room to spare in the end. The foosball table just barely made the cut. I felt bad telling Andy that we changed our minds, and were taking it with us instead of giving it to him, but it makes me happy knowing it's on its way to the Mile High City with us.
We finished packing so quickly (thanks to all the "hired" help, and the preparation Jen and I did), that we ended up having some time to kill, which allowed us to eat at Turtle Bread one final time, and spend some time with family, especially all the nieces and nephews, who don't really have a concept of what us "moving to Denver" means. Sidney told us that she was going over to grandma and grampa's, and asked us if we'd like to come. When we told her we couldn't, because we were moving to Denver she asked "Will you come over to grandma and grampa's after you go to Denver?" Awwwwww- gotta love those kiddos. Somebody should create a tv show, where it's all about the darned cute things that kids say. Someone like, I don't know- Bill Cosby?
I digress. We finally got on the road (after stopping in Burnsville to bid adieu to Jen's 'rents, and also pilfer their cupboards) at a little before 7 PM. The drive to Omaha was great- hardly any construction, and only a tiny bit of weather. After Des Moines, we saw incredible lighting on the horizon for a long time, then all around us, until it finally started downpouring. But it only lasted a short while, which was a good thing. At its strongest, the storm made visibility almost nonexistent.
There are many times that I'm not a big fan of cellphones (click here for an example), but this situation is one where I absolutely LOVE them. Since Jen and I are in separate vehicles, it allows us to communicate very easily (unlike the walkie-talkie experiment the first time we moved to D-Town). Plus, if I'm getting bored, I can call someone, and have a conversation while driving down the road (using the hands-free equipment, of course)- it's like having someone sitting in the passenger seat!
(Good God, this post is a doozy. Driving through middle America must put me in a blogging mood. It's 3 AM, I'm in a Omaha motel room, and I'm sitting in the dark, typing on my laptop. What the fuck is wrong with me? Time to wrap this up.)
When Matt was home recently, he brought me his Griffin iTrip, which allows you to listen to your iPod on any radio, by tuning it to an unused frequency. Matt was fed up with it, because it hadn't worked very well for him. The problem with using it on a road trip is that you're constantly moving, so just because 93.5 is open in Albert Lea doesn't mean that it still be when you're driving past Mason City. When you start getting interference (which sounds absolutely horrible), you have to pause the iPod, and scan through FM frequencies one-by-one until you find another spot that seems good. Then you have to tune the iTrip to this frequency, and test it. Sometimes it seems like it will be perfect, yet it sounds like crap. I got it working pretty well for a while, though.
I also heard some great stuff on the radio: Jen called to alert me to a program all about Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, that was really cool. It's called The Two Sides of Sgt. Pepper: An Honest Appraisal. Lots of good interviews, including some people who think the album is the Greatest, and others who think it's totally overrated. What I found fascinating was the descriptions of the songwriting, recording, and production tactics. Tons of stuff I've never noticed before. I'm not going to get into it right now, but maybe I'll dedicate a post to this later (I'm sure you can't wait, oh loyal reader. Wait! No one read this far? You assholes!) Notice how I'm cursing more? That's the new Jon Moore Flanagan- 100% attitude, 101% of the time. Just wait until you see my mohawk! In any case, you should click the link above- I'm pretty sure there's a way to listen to it for free online.
Yikes- it's now 3:30 AM, and I believe the plan is to get up at 8:30 and hit the road- 7 hours or so to Denver. The deadly combo of Mountain Dew and nervous/excited energy is not what the doctor ordered. I'm finishing up another post about music, and then I guess I'll try to sleep. Gotta have energy to find a place to live once we arrive in D-town!
As I mentioned before, I got a horrible head cold/flu kind of thing the week before heading out to Portland. I was as sick as I've been in a few years, at least. I left work early twice, and then stayed home sick three days in a row. In the meantime, we had sod to lay, so Jen did 99% of that by herself. We also had to make sure the house was ready for showings, and drop the kitty cat off to be boarded for the weekend.
What this meant was I didn't think a whole lot about the trip until we were actually at the airport, ready to leave. We had short layovers in Salt Lake City both ways, which was actually pretty cool, since the views flying to that airport are awesome. The city is pretty much surrounded by mountains, and the Great Salt Lake and salt flats nearby are cool to see from the window of an airplane, as well.
My nose/ears/sinuses were completely congested, which made for a pretty uncomfortable flight, dealing with the pressure changes. I've dealt with this while diving, but this was the first time on a plane. Extremely painful at times. Gotta remember Sudafed next time...
Steve and Marnie picked us up from the airport, and we headed back to their house to drop our stuff off, then walked across the street for an early dinner at La Buca. We got to this relatively intimate, popular joint just in time, as there were quite a few people waiting for tables as we ate. My food looked quite delicious, but I honestly couldn't taste a damn thing, due to my congestion :( The area where they live is really cool- lots of bars and restaurants within walking distance. We ended up at Beulahland, a cool little bar about 50 feet from their front door. It has a tabletop Galaga machine, a Sopranos pinball machine, a pool table, and a good beer selection (moderately priced, too)- what more could you ask for? And I think it's within house arrest/ankle bracelet range. So if Steve ever gets in trouble with the law...
Thursday night, Steve and Marnie had a people over in their newly carpeted backyard. (Dammit, how did I not get any pictures of that?) It was great to see lots of people I haven't seen in quite some time (especially pregnant Mrs. Flynn), as well as meeting some new folks. I think there were 25 people over there or so. Good times, including some heated washer toss games, which game owner Red called "Moose Luck." Are backyard games making a major renaissance, or is that just among my group of friends? Beanbag Toss/Corn Hole, Ladder Golf/Slapnuts, Washer Toss/Moose Luck/Texas Horseshoes...these are games that I had never seen in my life, and now I'm addicted to all of them!
Since Tamara was arriving very late from MN (2:30?), we decided to wait for her arrival before heading off to bed. Daynia nearly stuck it out, but grabbed a cab home shortly before Tam arrived. She kept Steve and I entertained down the stretch, though!
Next up: Sasquatch!
I do feel bad that I didn't take a single picture in Portland. And I only took a few at the Gorge. Oh well- what can you do?
As I mentioned before, Manu Chao blew us all away. But what do you expect, when he's got Steve-O (from Jackass) and Robert De Niro in his band?
We'll be boarding a flight Wednesday afternoon to head out to one of my favorite cities, Portland, OR, for a few days & nights with great friends, then off to the spectacular Gorge Amphitheater for the Sasquatch Music Festival! Yippee!
I'm (hopefully) getting over a nasty head cold just in time. The weather outlook is great, and I'm so damn excited to see people I haven't seen in a while, and to see a whole ton of bands I've never seen before (and a few I have seen). If I had to rank the order of bands I'm most excited to see, it would look something like this:
1. Beastie Boys!!!!!
2. Arcade Fire
3. Spoon
4. Polyphonic Spree
5. Ozomatli
6. Manu Chao
7. Two Gallants
8. The Hold Steady
9. Blackalicious
10. Spearhead
11. Neko Case
12. Bjork
13. The Slip
And the list goes on...
I hope to discover some cool bands, as well. I've listened to songs from nearly every artist present (thank you, MySpace), but it's going to be a bit overwhelming. I'll try and do some moblogging along the way, with some grainy cell phone pictures and commentary, when possible. After I get back, I'll try and write up a detailed review of the festivities.
Say it with me: "FESTIVAAALLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
