NOLA pics!

Ok, here you go.

Part one: I happened upon an amazing jazz band just chillin in the middle of Royal Street. Like it was their job. Well, I'm pretty sure it was their job cuz they were selling CDs. At any rate, here's the crew:

They even brought their own tap dancer! (on the left).

Well as I'm sure you know, these guys were mostly just awesome. Two of them in particular had really awesome personalities that showed through in both their musical styles and their interactions with the crowd - the bass player and the tenor sax dude with the aviators.

They also brought a tiny dog to their jam session (you can see him between the tenor sax and the trumpet). Good times.

Part 2: I went for a walk down Canal Street. I may or may not have been trying to do that cool trendy hipster thing with my camera where you make the entire picture be black and white except for just the one color but I'm not entirely sure if it worked. Anyway, here are some pictures I took:

Awesome50's style Walgreens:

Soooooo awesome. Want to go back. Also Jason paid me $5 for eating all of the powdered sugar of my plate of biegnets at Cafe du Monde. Most delicious $5 ever.

DC Trip and Other Interesting Tidbits

As some of you may know, I went to DC last weekend. I saw an awesome Norman Rockwell Exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Norman Rockwell has always been one of my favorite artists and it was really great to see some of his work up close, and without 3,000 of my closest friends (we went about 90 mins before close on a Friday, so the crowd was pretty sparse).

On Saturday morning we went to visit the National Cathedral. The place was huge. I did not realize that it took almost a century from concept to completion. The main reason was financing - no public money was used for the cathedral, it was financed entirely by donations. Kind of blows my mind that so much money can be raised in this day and age to construct something that benefits everyone. On a related note, I don't believe in taking pictures in churches. Or really in any places where it says no photography, even though 98% of tourists don't respect those signs. Rude!

After that we hit up the Newseum, which I have been fantasizing about since it opened 5 years ago. Long story short, it was AMAZING. The staff was great and incredibly helpful and knowledgeable. And there was SO MUCH TO SEE! A ticket is good for two days, and we definitely used it both days. There are so may great artifacts that tell both the story of news and the story of America, and it's really amazing to see how development of the news influenced the course of history. Definitely worth the trip, and totally worth the $20 ticket price that some folks complain about. If you ever make it there, be sure to check out one of the best views of Washington on the 6th floor terrace.

After Newseum round 2 on Sunday, I checked out the National Museum of American History. I had about 90 mins to kill before my train so I caught a few exhibits. The ones I enjoyed the most were the First Ladies exhibit and the Apollo Theatre exhibit. There were a ton of people at the museum and most of them were in line for the Star Spangled Banner and the American Pop Culture exhibits (I skipped them as this was my third visit to this museum in 5 years). While I enjoyed everything I saw at this museum, the experience was slightly less than pleasant. There were a lot of people that day and everyone seemed to be aggravated - cutting in line/being cut off in line, grumbling about lines, kids running everywhere, fingerprint smudges on all the glass and just a general bad mood in the museum. Kind of sad. I felt that a lot of the guests were being disrespectful of what the stuff was and where they were; that they saw it more as "stuff" than as something that has been so instrumental in what our nation is about. Or maybe I just have a different idea of what museums should be.

At any rate, I'm back now. The return flight was good, and my scotch on the rocks was DELICIOUS. Plans are stacking up for this week, which is good and bad. I just can never seem to catch up on sleep! Also, I'm seeking topics for further blog posts. Maybe like reader questions or something like that. So feel free to ask away, or send in questions that you've always wondered the answer to.

First up: Sasquatch: Fact or Fiction?

Stay tuned...

On Making New Friends

First off, I apologize. I had 2ish somewhat "regular" posts and then nothing for two weeks. Anyway, I'm back now and have a few life-changing concepts staring me in the face, so hopefully I'll get my act together one of these days, and hopefully one of the positive offshoots of these life-changing concepts will be regular blog posts. You best keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway...

Have you ever thought of how you actually made friends? Like what moment or common appreciation bonded you with another being? I have been thinking about this a lot lately:

1. I had the one-year anniversary of meeting a now very dear friend of mine at Bastille Days a few weeks ago. I remember the exact moment I first saw her come into my line of sight (and the day about 6 months earlier when she warned me not to go into a treacherous closet). We now have regular discussions of cat-lady-ness and trips to Target, not to mention a shared love of Buffalo Mac (mac and cheese spirals + buffalo sauce + some variation of meltey gooey cheese product).

2. I distinctly remember the first time I met a second now-dear friend, which was supposedly the same night that I met the friend listed in #1 above, though neither he nor I can remember meeting on night #1. Instead, we both remember meeting a week later at The Garage, where I attempted to cast him in a movie, but he refused to take off of work.

3. I told the story earlier tonight of how I should have been serial killed (yes, this is a verb) by a third now very close friend whom I met on twitter. Please note that I am not currently, nor have I ever been a zombie. Buy me a beer sometime, I'll tell you the story.

So what brought all of these thoughts and memories about tonight? I was invited to a very lovely Girls' Night by a great person who had decided to plan a monthly get-together as one of her New Years' resolutions. She knows a lot of people, and thinks they're all awesome, and decided to get them all together and rock out. It was awesome.

You know how you meet new people, and you go through the formalities, like where do you work, and are you originally from here, and strain to find some common ground? I did not strain a single bit to find conversation topics with these folks. They were all AWESOME. I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to hang out with them tonight, and will be patiently waiting for the next 29 days until the next Girls Night. yay.

As far as updates on the rest of my life, here goes:

Vegas is HOT. It's a desert. Yes, really. I was there during an "Excessive Heat Warning." That meant that it was hotter than normal in the desert. Why people willingly go here in the middle of summer (which is fairly pleasant in most other parts of our great nation) is beyond me. I liked it, but I will not go back until November, when it is palatable (and the overnight low is less than 89 degrees).

Goals: I'm bringing these up again. Not so much to bore you all, but more to nag myself. I had my wellness assessment today (annual health screening that my company gives us for free) and I'm not terribly thrilled with the results. The diet [re]starts tomorrow. Seriously. Monroe Cheese Days might get skipped this year. I have 1.5 bottles of ranch dressing that might find a new home in the garbage. Deep fried cheese, I love you, but we may have to take a break. This week/end is a wash (mostly because of that ugly pile of wash that keeps growing), but next week I will make my triumphant (?) return to the Downtown Y. (If you want to see something funny, watch how red my face gets after I work out...). I'll also be attempting to do at least a few push-ups every day. Today I did 15. Yes, they were the girlie ones.

Other than that, all seems pretty good for right now. Bridgi touched down at O'Hare today from Deutschland and I'm more than a little excited to see her. I bought hazelnut coffee and Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce to welcome the ex-pat and her bf back to The Good Land.

Speaking of The Good Land, I'm still pretty much infatuated with this city. Are two Milwaukee tattoos too many? I'm beginning to get a very vague idea of what my next tattoo will be, and kind of want to incorporate "The Good Land" into it somehow. Maybe. Putting that one back into the circular file.

Looking forward, I'm going to be in DC for the weekend. I'm pretty excited to see my friend Joe and to (finally) check out the Newseum, and may also have an impromptu reunion with my old car dealership boss from 2004. That's a looong time ago. Still looking forward to it.

As for now, I need to go to bed. I hope I don't have any crazy dreams about trippy 90s triangle carpeting like I had last week.

Any ideas on how to avoid deep fried cheese and ranch dressing are welcome, as are any thoughts/memories on making new friends.

Friday Night

So on Friday night, at about 11:00 PM, I'm walking through the Red Light District in Amsterdam, which is quite an interesting mix of tourists wandering around trying to see working girls and interesting-looking guys trying to cut a deal with the working girls (supposedly the going rate is 50-80 Euro for 15 mins).

Anyway, we turn down another pedestrian street with a kebap shop, a frites shop, a sex toy shop and a few bars. One bar is packed, and the entire crowd is singing one song...



Ok there weren't quite that many people there, and Noel and Liam weren't playing live, but it still sounded kind of awesome. I suppose I should also say that 80% of the time I hear that song, something ridiculous happens (nothing of note on this trip though...).

At any rate, I am now back, but make no promises of uploading my pics anytime soon, seeings how I still have not uploaded my pics from last summer's Germany and Spain trips. It feels a bit strange to be in my own apartment, and I have to go grocery shopping so I can cook my own food again (I am thrilled at the thought that I will not get a dirty look for using my credit card to pay for something less than 50 Euro... apparently they hate the fees over there). I was channel surfing (glad to see America didn't explode after the DTV conversion) and almost left it on Telemundo because I still find it somewhat odd to hear people on the street speaking English.

Anyway, it's good to be back. Not really looking forward to work tomorrow, but c'est la vie.