Tag Archives: Washington DC

Eastbound and Down

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May 29th I will be taking flight to the East Coast with a singular purpose, to see you New Yorkers. This jaunt will be followed by a trip down to visit my friends in Washington DC before heading back west June 6. It’s a short trip but I plan to fill it with oceans of fun.

New York City Skyline

I would love to see you all my New York City friends and my Washington DC friends on this trip. I think the easiest way for us to do that is to choose a night to all meet up for dinner, drinks and debauchery. There are only a couple of nights in New York City that this can happen but I will also be free during the day for coffees, lunches, museums, etc.

Take a look at that schedule and let me know when you’re free to hang out. Feel free to suggest things I should do, places I should eat and bars where I should have a drink. As far as New York City, I still have never seen a Broadway show, gasp, and have only been to a couple of museums. So if either of those whet your appetite, let’s make it happen! Looking forward to seeing you guys.

Washington DC and the White House

As far as my time in Washington DC, well I have a lot more of it. So let’s get creative about the time we share together in The District. I’m even tempted to add on a night in Philadelphia but with the tight schedule I have, that might not be possible.

A Quick Trip to the East Coast

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I’ll be jetting off to Washington DC and New York City in a couple of weeks. I’ll be in NYC for work and in Washington DC for fun. It’s been years since I saw Landon, which is crazy. I actually cannot really remember the last time I saw him only that I think it was for a mutual friend’s graduation back in 2009. I sure hope it hasn’t been that long!

The White HouseOctober 11th I fly from San Francisco to Washington DC. I hang out there for a few days and then take Amtrak on the 13th to New York City. The morning of the 14th I’ll be around Times Square to hit up the Today Show and Fox and Friends for work. I might have to make another trip to the area on Saturday but otherwise I’ll be pretty free. While in the Big Appel I’ll be staying with my friend Ian.

Having friends in cities like New York, Chicago, Washington DC, etc is great. They all know they can stay with me anytime here in San Francisco and in exchange, there is a chance I can stay with them while in their city. It’s like the ultimate in couch surfing, only no worries about being the victim of organ theft in your sleep. Nothing like waking up in a bathtub full of ice to ruin a trip to NYC.

It will be nice to visit the east coast for a while. Sometimes I wonder if living on the Left Coast is changing me. Not nearly as much hustle and bustle out here. It’s substituted with hoodies, web-startup parties and wine. The last time I was in New York (besides flights connecting to Europe) was with Ryan back in 2009!

Ryan at Times Square

During the limited free time I’ll have, I’d love to meetup with my Twitter friends. Let me know if anyone is up for it! I’d love to meet some more of my East Coasters.

The Seattle Public Library is a Beautiful Building

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One of the things that stuck out during our trip to Seattle was the architecture. When I think of cities that have really awesome or unique architecture, in America, I think of places like Chicago, New York City, Washington DC and Charleston North Carolina.

I never think of Seattle and architecture in the same sentence. Well, at least, I didn’t.

What’s great about visiting a city where you have a friend is getting the not for tourists guide to a city. Whether it’s hitting up hole-in-the-wall diners or visiting the local library, there are all these little treasures you wouldn’t ordinarily get to see.

In this case, it’s the library. The Seattle Public Library is awesome. At the top you’re catching a glimpse of what it is like to look down from the highest point in the library, down to the ground floor stacks. I think we were 10 stories up when I took that photo. Being that high up got Sam and I both a little anxious. But the views were worth it. Continue reading →

Letter to United Airlines

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I feel the need to open up about a few things on my flight from Washington DC to Paris.

First off, United. I know we’re in an economic crisis but if you could update your Boeing 777s, that would be great. Here are a few of my, why the hell, thoughts.

Why the hell…

  1. Don’t you have standard power outlets for everyone on the plane. I’ve ridden busses with more amenities.
  2. Don’t you have wifi on your airplanes. If a budget airline like Southwest and Virgin can handle it, I’m pretty sure and old, established and relatively premium outlook like you guys could swing it. Hell, for a flight this long I’d pay as much as $50 for access to high speed Internet access. I’m really only asking for 512kbps here.
  3. Do you have your seats so close together that if the person in front of my leans back, I can’t see my little video screen, use my food tray or even THINK of using my laptop comfortably.
  4. Are your headphone outputs boosted so much? I know I have high quality, high sensitivity Klipsch headphones but even my Sennheiser headphones with higher impedance could barely handle it.
  5. Did my video screen, audio, map, light, flight attendant call, volume, channel, brightness control module die? I’m stuck looking at a over bight map, playing way too loud pop music, in the dark.
  6. Did you make the aisles so thing, the space between chairs so narrow and the seats so flimsy? I know this is more of a Boeing and economics question but, seriously. If I can feel the every move of the people in front and behind me. If someone walking down the aisle means I get rammed into, we’ve got problems.
  7. Aren’t there rules on who gets to fly on these planes. I know this one is a little silly but if people can’t mind themselves, stay at home. If you feel the need to constantly move your chair up and down, talk loudly to no one in particular, go to the lavatory every thirty minutes or any other absurdly annoying habit… Stay at home. I don’t want to deal with your issues and France certainly doesn’t either.
  8. Aren’t there warm cookies?
  9. Would you choose these color schemes?
  10. Wouldn’t you tell me about the above so I could have known to fly Air France or British Airways?

Ah, but it isn’t all bed. My seat is comfortable, despite the seemingly epileptic person sitting in front of me. The person next to me keeps to himself. The cabin temperature is just perfect. Oh and best of all, my flight attendant is the definition of a beautiful French man. He’s very nice, attentive and fabulously dressed.

Oh, and thanks for creating Business Class so that most of that stuff above doesn’t pertain to me anymore.

Cheers!

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Packing My Bags, I’m Ready to Go!

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In just an hour and thirty minutes the bus will pick me up to bring me to the airport in St Louis.  From there I’ll fly to Washington DC, then to Paris France!  I’ll meet up with the family in Paris for Christmas, travel around the country to various friends’ for celebration, fun and catching up.   Then I’ll be off to Bahrain for New Years!  Really excited about that.  After Bahrain I’ll be jetting off to Saudi Arabia, exploring around the country, making photos, having an awesome time.

I am all sorts of excited about the trip and hope to keep you all informed of my adventures here and on my Twitter. Wanna help?  Leave me some suggested sites to visit in the comments!

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The Farmers’ Market

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It was just a few months ago as I walked through the Farmers’ Market with my Washington DC friends.  The sun was high in the sky this Sunday, just an hour before we would head to brunch.  One of my friends, Christina, was starting her site Christina’s Table.  Christina is one of these people that seem to be successful at everything.  She’s hilarious, knowledgeable, talented and a blast to hang out with.  Imagine Karen Walker with the vodka minus the pills (well, some).

Christina asked me to walk through the market and shoot some quick, candid, shots of the foods for her site.  Basically a whiz-bam stock photography shoot.

So here’s what we ended up with.  All said and done, this took less than 20 minutes.  That’s pretty impressive, to me at least!

I thought I’d share the photos, make everyone hungry. 😀
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Lady Gaga, Savior

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As an artist, I hate the idea of someone spreading my work around the world before it’s ready to be seen by the masses.  And I totally feel for Lady Gaga for having her latest music video, Paparazzi, leaked out onto the internet earlier than she had hoped.

In the end, though, maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.  Thousands of people are twittering about the video and from what I can tell, they all seem to love it.

I feel like I came to the Lady Gaga scene a little bit later than some of my friends who were seeing her in clubs in Washington DC and New York City years ago, but it wasn’t long after I heard her music, especially her live, a cappella performances, that I realized she was the real deal.

We’ve seen so many new artists come out of the woodwork with little skill beyond one particular dance move they do over and over again, some sexy look they have or whatever magic audio engineers are able to pull off with the amazing abilities provided by the autotune.

Lady Gaga is a classically trained singer, dancer and pianist.  I know Chase will give me shit for a week for liking her.  The name alone, “Lady Gaga”, is pretty silly and her fashion sense is, to put it kindly, extreme.  But it all comes together into this beautiful package.

Gaga breaches the established gender and sexual lines; she is what many, and I can’t believe I’m going to type this, gay guys need right now.

Madonna is getting old; seriously, she is starting to, ghasp, look her age.  Plus, what kind of beacon of inspiration can she be?  Leaving her husband for another man who is also married while in the midst of adopting another foreign baby?  Madonna, your acts in the 1980s, 1990s were cute, rebellious and fun.  But now you’ve got a family to think of. Come on Madge, go back to who you were just three years ago. Ok? Thanks.

Brittany is, while not nearly as crazy as she was in the last few years, definitely not a singer or performer.  Her music is catchy and great to dance to and sometimes even has substance but please, lord help us all, do not let her go out and sing and dance live.  Holy shit.

Is that all we’ve got?  Nah, we’ve got Beyonce but she’s getting too big for her Cartier.  Pink? Nah, she’s cool but doesn’t pump out the dance hits or diva ballads like she used to.  She’s our political girl for sure.  Christina? Sing? Yes. Dance? Yes. Beauty? Yes. Style… Well… It’s definitely better than it was in the early 2000s!

So really, who do the gay guys in the world have?

Lady Gaga.  She’s new, fresh, clean, fun, has style galore, sings like most pop singers after they are autotuned (herself without the need for autotuning), can dance and… well you get the picture.

All that being said… I can’t believe how much I like her music, her style and her… je ne sais que

Here’s her latest music video, yeah that leaked one.  It’s one of the biggest singles off her debut album.

[flv:Lady_Gaga-Paparazzi.flv 500 378]

The video every bit as fantastic as I had heard around the internet.  It’s like an old Michael Jackson music video mixed with a little Gwen Stefani and a whole lot of high fashion.  Pop music gold.

I don’t feel nearly so bad about posting this video, the audio is off by a second or two which makes it a totally different experience as when it will be officially launched.  It’s good enough as is that I’ll be buying it from iTunes the moment it is put into the iTunes Music Store.  Also, at least it is given a nice home here right?  Centered, a nice intro image… (see how I’m trying to convince myself of something?!)

Cheers, g’night all!

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