Friday, June 25, 2010

Bare essentials of safety from Air New Zealand

Really? Body Paint? This may be false advertising.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Pictures of Maine

So here are the two pictures that I wanted to share with you from Maine. First is the lobster shaped pager that they gave me so that I would know when my order was ready.


AND...the awesomest sign EVER from Soakology.
Yes, it's a moose sipping tea and soaking his feet...errr...hooves.

Sidenote: Plan for State domination has been derailed do for some unforeseen circumstances. 1) Black raspberries are in season in PA and so my mom and grandma will be baking pies together in PA this weekend...it's like the stars have aligned. 2) There are still plenty of seats available to good places like the Bahamas and San Juan and stuff for July 4th weekend. Who are these people that are staying home? AirTran is offering really cheap flights...go somewhere.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Maine Points

Wow...look how my bloggage has gone up due to AirTran's inflight Wifi. It does promote productivity afterall! (PS In business class again...WOO). So here are some thoughts from Maine.

1) I really don't like lobster that much. It's not even the whole lookin' like an animal thing. I just don't like it so much. I'd much rather have scallops or crab or something.
2) Foot sanctuary = awesome. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. I have a picture of the sign that I'm going to post when I get home (it's going to be almost like a picture book blog post so that I can just post all the pictures that I couldn't post when I was on the road).
3) Portland is kinda a weird city. Kinda weird in that it has that New Englandy charm about it, but is also kinda trashy and citylike. There's graffiti and trash all over the place and super aggressive street people. I saw a beggar heckling a woman with a baby stroller. That's like hardcore.
4) New Hampshire had a sign about the size of a county line sign when you crossed the border that just said "New Hampshire." Really? That's the best you could do. Why doesn't Vermont just swallow you up and put you out of your misery?

My plan for state domination might be derailed as I'm contemplating going back to PA next weekend cause my mom will be there. Also the 6:15 flight to Memphis isn't looking so great, so I'd have to leave at like 11:30 pm and get in WAY past my bedtime. If I do go to Memphis, is it obligatory to visit Graceland?

Friday, June 18, 2010

Lobster Update

I went for it (and I'd post a picture of the lobster shaped pager if I had brought the cable for my camera). Ordered a full boiled lobster dinner at the Portland Lobster Company (and actually the picture on the top of their website is pretty much where I sat and that's what my lobster looked like-- without the mussels though). Grossed me out to a point that I can not even describe. I ate it though, but NEVER AGAIN. And now I smell like lobster. Ew ew ew ew.
The First Blog from 30,000 Feet

I'm on the plane to Portland, Maine (AirTran has WiFi on all of it's airplanes...yes, that was a gratuitous AirTran plug.) I got upgraded to business class. WHICH IS AWESOME. Flying for free in business class? Are you kidding me? The thing I love most about business class is that instead of getting handed the bag of pretzels or peanuts or biscuit cookie thing, they show you a basket of goodies that you get to pick from, so I had a granola bar and some Pepperidge Farm Milanos. Oh yeah, the free booze is pretty nice too.
Psychotic Thought of The Day

This isn't so much a psychotic thought of the day as it is a psychotic realization/confession of the day. Whenever I type/write the word bananas, I sing "Hollaback Girl" (aka the "This Shit is Bananas" song) in my head to make sure I spelled it correctly. Thank you, Gwen Stefani.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

My Plan For State Domination

On my bucket list (which you will know all about if you read my blog posts from China...ahem) is to visit all 50 states. I currently sit at 25, but expect that number to drastically shoot up as I plan a conquest of 8 states in 3 weekends.

Here is an outline of my plan. The lynch pin of everything is flying into a city that is relatively close to a bordering state.

This weekend Portland, Maine and catch New Hampshire along the way. (Side note: I'm having a lobster dilemma. One of my classmates recommendations while in Maine was to just eat as many variations of lobster dishes as possible. Duly noted, but...and I can't believe I haven't blogged about this before...food that resembles the animal it came from grosses me out. Meat with bones in it, crab claws, etc. I'd rather someone process the shit out of it and then give it to me. Shrimp with tails are the only ones that I'm pretty ok with and I'm not sure why that is. Standard preparation of lobster tail is boiled and served in the tail part. I'm scared I'm going to order it, and it's going to creep me out too much to actually eat it....I'll keep you posted..ha, posted, cause it's a blog).

Next weekend: Memphis, TN The power city because I can also rock out Mississippi (how fun is that word to type!) and Arkansas.

The following Monday, I'm supposedly going on a business trip to Milwaukee. I say supposedly because I was told to put it on my calendar, but haven't really heard much more about it. If not, I'll just pick up Wisconsin at another point this summer.

Fourth of July weekend, I was originally thinking of going back to PA, but I just found out that the majority of my fam is not going to be there...plus I have to continue to roll through states...so that might not happen (also flights into MDT aren't looking very promising). I have two other plans for the holiday weekend, so that I have flexibility in case the flights turn into a bucket of hell when everyone realizes they have a four day weekend. Option 1) Kansas City, MO and pick up Kansas or 2) Wichita, KS and pick up Oklahoma. I know. Neither of these are real thrilling, but really...isn't that why they're still on my list to begin with (and also why there's like 50 seats available on their flights on a holiday weekend)?

So that's the plan. That will bring me up to 33 states hopefully with trips to some part of Texas, Seattle, and Minneapolis looming in July.

Friday, June 11, 2010

The Rest of the Concert

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport right now hoping to get to Orlando tonight. It's funny because I'm simultaneously hoping people made their flights and missed their flights. (Made their flights earlier, missed the flights I'm trying to get on (or their connectors to get to Atlanta.) I thought I'd tell you about the rest of the Styx/Foreigner concert.

The concert venue was BIZARRE. It was an amphitheater in a park. The weird part was that it was "table" seating, which meant that there were plastic tables in between the rows of seats and people brought full picnic lunches some complete with centerpieces. I'm really going to have to step up my picnicking game next time). The other weird part was that no one seemed to really care that there was a concert going on. Everyone was just chatting away (or dancing ridiculously). When I picked up our tickets at Will Call normally, if there's backstage passes included (which there were), there's a little slip of paper telling us where to go. This time...nada. So I did a little investigation and found out that as I had thought even though our passes said "After Concert" it actually meant after Foreigner's set. So we listened to Kansas who was first...ehhh...the Foreigner, but mostly we talked to Ralph, the gay guy that was sitting next to us.

We headed backstage, and it was also a different meet and greet than I had ever been too. First of all, there was only like ten total people there to meet the band. No one really gave us instructions (unlike REO Speedwagon where there are practically orders). There was food set up for the band. Some of the band members just kinda wandered in and got some food and sat at a table. Joy and I played it cool and while everyone else raided the fridge for drinks (Not ok) we sat there and waited patiently. One of the random people who had come backstage, took the one random weird watermelon soda that was in the fridge. You know that was in some one's contract and shit was going to hit the fan later. All the caterers gave each other a sideways look every time someone reached into the fridge. Eventually Jason Sutter the drummer came over (it's funny because when I requested tickets, I actually thought Jason Bonham was the drummer, but he's apparently now one of the 28 former members of Foreigner...not kidding, 28...check wikipedia), and we chatted and took pictures. He was very nice. On the way out, Styx was actually already on stage. That was kinda cool because we could see the band from the side of the stage. We didn't really stay for Styx (even though I still have a mega crush on Tommy Shaw.) It was past my bedtime and I was in some random part of Atlanta, so I decided to head home instead.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Foreigner Concert

I have more to post about this concert, but for the moment I'll share with you possibly the single most entertaining moment of the evening. Sorry, it's sideways. I'll work on fixing that.


Sunday, June 06, 2010

Night Out in the ATL

After a semi-rough week at the new internship, it was good to have a night out on the town. Originally it just started off with dinner plans with Lauren, a friend from Wake who is also interning in Atlanta. After hanging out on her screened in porch for a while eating veggies, drinking beer and having her dog lick my toes, we decided to go find something for dinner. We ended up at this place called Neighbor's because they had a great patio, and it was a beautiful night in Atlanta. I discovered my new favorite beer, Stillwater Blue, which is a blueberry flavored beer...really? blueberries and beer all in one bottle? Genius!

After finishing dinner and a few beers, the interesting part of the night really kicked in. There was a summer fest down the block and so we went to check that out, but it was already over. Onto plan 2, buy beer at a nearby convenience store and walk back to Lauren's. It was apparently, unbeknownst to us, 12:01am, and they would not sell us beer because it was officially Sunday. Grrr. Plan 3: Lauren says she has "some beer" back at her apartment which I decide is probably more than enough since I eventually am going to need to drive home. On the walk back to Lauren's, we are flagged down by random guys in the street who invite us to a party at a house. We go to the party, and it is an all out party. There's a professional DJ and two disco balls hung on plywood over the patio with spotlights strategically shown on them and a whole slew of kegs. We got more beer, and I spent the next hour or so talking to a guy who's an environmental consultant which was both entertaining and educational (I know, right? me talking about the environment? crazy!) Got home about 1:45 am. Great night.