philly

Nashville

I found out earlier today that one of my best friends from college [down in DC at American University], who is currently finishing up grad school at Cornell's top notch Hotel Administration school, will be settling down in Tennessee. He's taken some pretty cool trips in his two years and was interviewing all over the US for the last couple of months.

I'm incredibly happy for him. I'm happy for me too, it's another place for me to visit a friend! I've never been down there before. Maybe it'll be the next spot where the DC crew spends July 4th. A few of us have been celebrating our nation's independence each year in a different city where one of us has moved to since college. One of us may be out of the country for the summer though. A road trip to Tennessee would be pretty cool. I've always wanted to sample some TN BBQ. I hear that shit's the bomb.

Schmaps

I was contacted by Schmap!! a couple days ago about usage of some of my photos of Philadelphia. Schmap!! is a company that makes these downloadable travel/city guides that are searchable and printable complete with photos of locations. I downloaded the NYC guide and fooled around for a bit. Pretty cool.

The photos are displayed in the top right. If there is more than one shot, it continues through a looping slideshow. And if you click on the photo[s] you are taken to the flickr page where that photo resides - pretty cool. The flickr api has been getting some pretty cool uses, just like Google's. But actually, this could just simply be some hard coding of links.

No money for this, but I just think it's pretty cool. They asked for nineteen of my shots of Rittenhouse Square, 76ers games, Love Park, restaurants and other locations around town. And according to this thread on the Philadelphia flickr discussion forum, many others have been contacted as well. Cool.

The Philly guide is due out sometime in April.

Vacation

It would be really cool to be able to take off for a few days, a week even, on a vacation. The month of unemployment I gave myself was nice in that I had some time to recharge my batteries, but not so nice in that I was worrying about getting a job to keep paying those bills. If I had to do it all over again, I would have. I hated my job. I didn't hate my employer, I hated the job. I just wasn't cut out for sales. Quitting that job did give me a "vacation" but not one that was worry free.

I want to take a week off and go travel. Rent a car, drive in some direction for three days and then turn around and come back to Philly. Get on a plane to visit the West Coast for once; or return to Europe and revist Prague or go someplace new like Madrid or Berlin or Dublin or Amsterdam; or head someplace warm like Bermuda and visit some college friends.

But I won't be doing any of that anytime soon.

Fact-Finding Tour of the South

The crew from Philly IMC are in the middle of a fortnight of traveling through the South to see for themselves exactly what is going on in the Gulf Coast region post-Katrina. Philly IMC is traveling with the Poverty Initiative and seeing things that the rest of us haven't seen. Telling us what the MSM aren't telling. Trying to help where the Fed has forgotten or turned away.

An excerpt from Day 5:

At an update stop at a nearby café, we interviewed an activist-academic from Texas who is studying the needs, stories and conditions of Latino day laborers in the Gulf. The stories he told were frightening. He said that contractors are recruiting many day laborers from Texas cities like Austin and Houston. These workers are from Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, and other countries in Central and South America. Contractors lure them to the Gulf Coast with promises of high pay and housing, and for many men, who have families to support, lucrative employment is hard to find; the offer is irresistible. Yet when they arrive in the Gulf, many laborers find themselves in a highly precarious situation. Contractors reduce pay by deducting fees for housing, food, and transportation. Or, they may pay them late or not at all. Many men are provided nowhere to stay, so they sleep on the streets or anywhere they can. Workplace conditions for the workers are often very unsafe and they are not provided the protective gear they need for cleaning up toxic debris. Also, many contractors prohibit workers from seeing doctors if they become sick or injured, insisting that their workers only see doctors employed by the contractors themselves. These men have basically no bargaining power and are mostly at the mercy of their employers. Of course, you don't really hear anything about this in the mainstream media, which often portrays the cleanup effort with scenes of professional cleanup crews exiting homes wearing masks and those white protective suits.

The PhillyIMC is doing some great reporting.

Roadtrip to ATL?

So I got an email from my now engaged friend about an engagement party in March, in Atlanta. She's currently in law school down in Florida and they plan to move to the ATL after she graduates in May and tie that knot. Lady and I are thinking of taking a road trip.

About 800 miles one way ~ 16 hours according to this Google Map. We're thinking maybe take Friday off and drive down. Maybe stay overnight in North Carolina one night [Brian & Ruby :) !?] and see what's up in Greensboro. Then leave Saturday morning and get to ATL for the par-tay in the 'burbs.

It's expensive. Gas for 1600 miles will be a doozy, around $150 I'd say. Plus ~$300 for the car rental for four days including the full coverage insurance [you GOTTA get that shit]. There's time to save and think about it for now though. But the prospect of a fun trip is very exciting!

I've never been to the ATL and I'd love to go. I know that I'm gonna be there for the wedding when that comes around, but I'd love to see it in March.

On South America

Law school blogger, world traveller, college roommate and friend AK has posted a year in review on South America. Stuff he's learned through the years simply being politically aware and sharpened in his seven or so months in South America last year. It's a nice crib sheet to read. Me, I don't pretend to sound like I know what the fuck I'm talking about when it comes to matters in South America, but now, after reading his post, I can.

So who wants to discuss El Chino's jailterm and the possible consequences it will have on Argentina's Copa Mundial chances?

Heading Home

I'm headed out of work in about thirty minutes to go home, pack up my final things and head over to Market East to catch the 4.45p or 5.06p trains back to NY via NJT. I'm bringing home my headphones in hopes that I'll have an .mp3 player for my trip back. Ooooh wouldn't that be nice.

The office is just about empty.

Christmas Presents

Did a nice chunk of Christmas shopping last night. Lady and I had our early Christmas together last night. We went out to La Fourno [South/6th] to cash in the free entrees we got for my referral of her's to join 12th St Gym. Deeee-licious. A review will come sooner than later for La Fourno. We exchanged gifts too. I got her a photo album and an 8" x 10" frame. She's been wanting an album to file her piles and piles of photos. Now, she can have 150 of them organized. For the 8" x 10", she picked this shot, which is also one of my favorite shots. She got me what felt like a tiny pillow. It was rectangular and soft. I opened it up and to my delight, it was a 365-day calendar of America: The Book, the book The Daily Show put out about a year and a half ago. Awesome. I was actually thinking of getting her a similar gift of Bush-isms. That would've been reminiscent of the Christmas where we got each other THE SAME EXACT GIFT of Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart. Now that was funny. We were both cracking up for a good long while.

I've decided to give photos as presents to most of the fam. For my Mom & Dad, I printed an 8" x 10" of them at my sister's wedding and a nice Umbra box frame with a floating triple mat I picked up at Matthew Izzo [Pine/9th]. For my sister and brother in law, I picked up Fahrenheit 9/11 on DVD from TLA Video [Spruce/16th]. I also prepared a wedding photo album for them with eight 8" x 10" shots and about twenty 4" x 6" shots. Still finalizing the layout for that one. And I gotta spray mount them to the pages tonight.

For my nephew, I got him a Gameboy Advance game. Apparently, he's all into Star Wars and his Gameboy. They're also going on a trip to Disney World on Christmas Day so I figured a game would kill three birds with one stone. I got him the Revenge of the Sith game which will hopefully occupy him on the planeride and any boring parts of the trip. I still don't know what to get my neice, arg. For my brother and sis in law, I printed out an 8" x 10" of their family from my sister's wedding, I'll be getting another frame from Matthew Izzo tonight after work [they're having a sale!].

For my cousin Jee Young, she sent out a wishlist of books. I'm headed over to Robin's to see what they have in stock from her list. I also got her a 5" x 7" of her and her younger twin brothers at my sister's wedding. For the twins, they get 5" x 7" framed photos of that same photo to bring back to their fan-cay Ivy League schools. I dunno what to get their parents though. My mom's asked me to get a mock turtleneck sweater for my grandma, but I have no idea what/where to get one of those. I don't pay attention to sweaters in stores, I don't wear them. Maybe I'll pick one up on my mom's recommendation back in NY.

And it just hit me that I'll have to hoof it from Penn Station over to Grand Central on Friday night when I get into NYC on the train. With all these presents, plus a bag of luggage, plus my laptop, plus my photo gear. Hrmph. Maybe I'll cab it. Maybe the transit strike will be over and I'll be able to take the 7/S.

Back From Thanksgiving in NY

Back from Thanksgiving in Long Island with the fam. I took the train [SEPTA to NJT] to NYC and hopped on the subway out to Astoria to my sis and bro-in-law's new place to hitch a ride out to Manhasset Hills to meet up with about thirty-five or forty of my family members for a huge feast. Tons of delicious Korean food [nothing like home cooking!] and some turkey [it was dry and I only had a bite] and tons of alcohol. Good grief they drank a shitload of scotch. They finished off a bottle fo Glennlivet 12 and a bottle of Dalwhinnie 15. I was too stuffed to eat. I took a shitload of photos throughout the night that I now have to go through and email out to the fam.

Fool For The City

A matter of cities. From Mark's post on a cities meme...

5 Favorite Cities

1. Philadelphia: I absolutely love it here. I fell in love with it within the first gorgeous May summer week I moved down here in 2004.
2. New York City: The first and biggest city I've ever been to and the first city I fell in love with. The City will always call to me, but for now and for who knows how long, I have a new home in Philly.
3. Paris: I was there for all of three days and three nights when I was about fourteen fresh off of my third semester of French classes. I was there with my parents, but still had a wonderful time. It was like a dream sequence there, my first trip out of the continent.
4. Venice: Back to Europe in my seventeenth year and did the tour of the Old Boot and Venice stuck out like no other. An entire city of water. Amazing. None of that garbage stink either!

5 Cities I Would Live In [other than Philly]

1. New York City: If I could afford it, I'd do it.
2. Montreal: All that Franco-Euro snobbiness that I love and hate at the same time and universal healthcare! I'd get to use my seven years of French classes as well.
3. Toronto: I hear it's an ¨ber hip cosmopolitan city up north. I've never been, but I already want to move there. Once again, universal healthcare people! The needle looks cool too.
4. Prague: I went there around sixteen I'd say with my family minus my brother and that city was like a dream sequence as well. So old and so new at the same time. A technologically advanced city with some centuries old charm.
5. Honolulu: Must I actually state reasons?

5 Least Favorite Cities

1. Bahston: As much as I love talking with an overly fake Bahston accent and as much as I love them crazy Kennedys, good god I can't stand that city. Reason 1: The Freedom Trail. I may be ready to give it another try in a couple of years.
2. Baltimore: Oh man is that one nasty city. Ever set foot outside of the four blocks of the Inner Harbor?
3. Athens, Greece and Rome, Italy: What is the deeeeal with all those cats? I like history, but seeing a 3000 year old ionic column every five meters is a bit much for me.
4. Washington, DC: Don't get me wrong, I love to go there to visit my friends and for protests and all, but the city itself, not for me. Everything is about which Senator or Representative you work for on The Hill and that damn Madam's Organ bar, stupid.
5. Cleveland: Good god, Cleveland does not rock. At least not for me.

::tag:: you're it.