Philly!

OHEMGEE! Where do I even start??

Speed Round 1

Ummm… so almost one month ago now… Brian and I went to Philadelphia! We paid a whopping 5 bucks for a round trip on the Megabus! They have super sweet deals… including free round trips if you catch them at the right time! Check them out!

We stayed with our very generous friend David Emery in his sweet apartment across from the Philadelphia Museum of Art! (Not visible from this view… patience.)

We saw the Liberty Bell (always fo frizzle)

Ran into some awesome Folk Art on the street.

Watched a single peacock pursue 5 completely uninterested peahens at the zoo… for 10 minutes.

Oh wait. REWIND! Brian, David and I got into the Philadelphia Zoo all for the price of 1 child! That’s $39 dollars in savings! The trick here is to linger sketchily outside of the Zoo entrance for an extended period of time with your friends… huddle over a map and point out all the things you wish you could see. The manager will be totally weirded out that he will come over to ask what you’re doing. All you have to do is look up at him with sad puppy dog eyes and say that you love animals so much but can’t afford the entrance fee. Voila! …So maybe that’s not exaaactly what happened… but it’s actually pretty close!

Then we dragged our gimpy good friend David Emery out for a walk along the Schuylkill River. There are sculptures all over that city! What a dream! (This one is a bit more phallic than dreamy… but yeah.)

And we of course went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for some eye candy. Balllerrrr. And since it was the first Sunday of the month... admission was suggested donation!


Umm and RODIN MUSEUM ANYONE? (Also suggested donation)

A fine establishment indeed.

Here is Brian as one of The Three Shades

End.

Frank Turna

Frank Turner in store on Tuesday was a good time! In case you're not in the know, sometimes musicians stop by a local record shop (in this case Generation Records) to play some songs for free typically before they play a show that night. I guess it's free because you don't get the full concert experience, it's usually just a short acoustic set. This means for some artists you get to hear them play unique acoustic sets of your favorite songs and for others you get to hear them sound basically like they will that night. Frank Turner was more the latter. Just a man, his guitar and a crowded record shop. Be ready to show up early for in stores, record shops don't have a big capacity and you know, they're free.

Oh look someone recorded it!



Also, I think I was hanging out next to the guys in Gaslight Anthem, so there's that. They seemed like real nice dudes. Same with Mr. Turner. Solid dudes.

Road to Fondwa

Last week I braved some stormy weather and headed to NYU Poly in Brooklyn for an event called Rediscovering Haiti. Not only did it sound interesting, but it was hosted by their student chapter of Engineers Without Borders! I love those guys!

The event started with a historical overview of Haiti. I had no idea they were the first independent black republic, and I never considered what effects that may have on their GDP. Turns out slave ownin folk don't like to do business with a country of free slaves, whoda thunk it.

After some context we watched the excellent documentary Road to Fondwa.





If you haven't seen it I recommend you do. It's only about 30 min long and you can watch it in its entirety here. The film takes place before the earthquake and discusses the many grassroots efforts in the Fondwa region of Haiti that the community developed over the last 20 years. It is really great! As I mentioned before, you can watch it here.

After the screening we Skyped with one of the producers of the film! He was in Miami and had just returned from Haiti and he described the devastation he witnessed in the country. He also reminded us that the rainy season is about to begin, making a horrible situation, horribler. But while the buildings of Fondwa were destroyed, I'm sure the knowledge of the community will enable them to rebound and continue after this tragedy.

Hopefully I'll have the chance to get involved with the work EWB is doing in Haiti and beyond, and I would encourage all of you to find out a way that you can get involved. Additionally, I used the event for networking just like I'm supposed to do! Also, I ate lots of free food :) Now I'm sure you tire of hearing about all the free food so I'll just tell you that it included Cola Champagne!

Oh yeah and go watch the movie and tell me what you think!

Happy New Year!

If any of you have been watching the news lately, I'm sure you know it's the year of the Tiger



What you may not know is that it is also the year of the tiger in the Chinese Zodiac.



In celebration of this, Windnie and I went to the Chinatown Parade and Cultural Festival last weekend! We got there right in time to see the dancing dragon heads being pushed away on little carts :/



The sun was a-shinin'



The wind was a blowin'



And the poppers were a poppin'



And there were all sorts of adorable children around.



So we actually didn't make it in time for many of the performances/festivities... but we did get to wander around amongst the rubble of what was left of the celebration...



and eat a very delicious lunch! $3 for 12 very large and savory dumplings, what whaaaaaat.



.... WHAAAT IS GOING ON HERE??