Jan 5, 2012

I worked at Memorial in the morning after I cleaned the bit of snow off my car. The math class was good and I spent my time reading Bear Grylls's book and watching the snow melt outside.

I wanted to shoot something so I went to the lake and happened upon two swans and this odd looking duck. They provided some nice subjects and after people started showing up to scare them off I left and went to hang out at Kate's for a bit.

Ryan and I went to the gym for one of our last circuits before we change up exercises. I came home and watched some things before bed.

Jan 4, 2012

Kate and I picked up Laura on the way to Philly and then found a place to park before walking to the hole in the fence by the old tunnels under Pennsylvania Ave.

There was a lot of graffiti that made the concrete posts look really great against the dull background. I shot some photos and we walked down the train tracks a bit.

The tracks went into a tunnel that turned pitch black so we took the bigger, more well-lit tunnel to the left and walked up it a bit. It goes right up to the police station, so we didn't take it all the way, but it was a cool visual. It was only a little scary as we passed a random guy hiding his face on the way out.

We went to Whole Foods to get lunch and look up other places we should go. It's been way too long since I've had their hot bar. We found a few places we wanted to check out and some places that seemed like they would be too difficult to enter.

We went to this burnt out school in north Philly and took a walk around it. The building is beautiful on the outside. I really wanted to go inside, but there weren't easy entrances and I wasn't really interested in being arrested. We stopped by the Divine Lorraine, but didn't try to get in this time. Maybe next time we'll have more luck.

I went to the Oar House when I got back to meet Ben from Turtle Stone Brewing, a new brewery from Vineland. We sat and chatted for a while and had a beer. It was a little awkward since he was there with his wife and some younger people that he didn't really explain. I thought it would be more of an interview.

I met everyone at Applebee's for Quizzo, where we didn't do very well. It was a good time anyway.

Jan 3, 2012

I spent the day with Kate doing some errands and we went to get Chinese at the Shop Rite buffet since we were both craving it last night. Good stuff.

I met my mom at Kawa for dinner and had the cashew chicken. It was very good and my mom enjoyed the curry she had for the first time. We had a good talk and hung out there for a while after eating.

I went to the gym with Ryan a little later and then went to his house to play a fun game that relied mostly on logic to collect puzzle pieces. Some parts were really difficult to figure out.

Jan 2, 2012

I went to the gym with Ryan early in the day and went through the usual workout before going to Dick's on the way home to check out new running shoes. I got a full workup from the gentlemen who worked in the department. He helped me figure out which type of shoes I should get for my foot type. Very helpful, actually.

Not much else to speak of until later when I met up with Kate and we went to Target to buy some essentials and Marshalls to look for shoes, which were not really there. We spent the rest of the evening at her house playing Mario Kart online with people all around the world.

Jan 1, 2012

Kate's aunt had the family over for a late Christmas thing and lunch. There were plenty of hilarious stories being told about the younger crowd and good sandwiches to boot.

Ryan and I planned to start the year off right with a long distance run at Parvins. We headed over and looked at possible routes then took off. I took part of the normal trail followed by a large, paved loop in the back area that I've only been on briefly before.

After two laps on the paved route and two times around the lake I finally looked at my GPS to find that I was almost at ten miles, which was my goal. I happily ran the last bit and was surprised at how easy it felt to do it. We went to Moe's after our run, as we were both starving at that point.

Later we didn't know what to do so we met Laura at the Oar House and had a couple of beers, including one free one because we had a nice waitress, and talked for an hour or two.

It was a fairly quiet evening, but I was very happy with the results of my first run of 2012. I'm looking forward to a productive year!

Dec 31, 2011

I went to Kate's early and it was a beautiful day out. No way we could pass it up to be outside. We took a walk on the trails behind her house that led to a dirt road and eventually brought us back out to Carmel Rd. It was a nice, long walk.

We were both really hungry after that so we went to Peking Tokyo for lunch and got a few rolls to share. The Crunchy Roll was great. That was filling. And we had an exuberant waiter that kept us entertained.

My dad invited us down to hang out and play pool for a while so we went down there. I didn't beat him at all. I am not that good. I played a few games with Kate and I don't even think I won any of those.

Later, Kate, Chuck, Marsha, and I went up to Jeff and Sam's place to have a New Year's Eve party. There were plenty of veggies and snacks out and Sam was making vegan pizzas so all was good. We stood around in the kitchen talking for a while drinking the variety of beers we brought.

After a while we got down to business playing Telestrations. It got weird during a lot of the rounds. I don't even know what was being attempted here. As always, there was a lot of laughing and looks of astonishment when we found out what was being drawn.

We scrambled to get outside to the fire around midnight. I never really cared for the countdown so much. I don't think we even did one, but we did light sparklers and run around the yard for a while.

We stayed out in the cold for a while until the fire was dying down and we decided we'd like to be warm again and play more games.

We stayed around for a while longer, had another slice of pizza and another drink. This was the lineup of empty bottles when I left. We did pretty well. And quite an array of craft beers at that.

The drive home wasn't bad at all. The roads were clear somehow. Maybe we were too soon after midnight for people to have left their parties yet. Either way, happy 2012!

Dec 30, 2011

I met up with Jen in the morning to take a walk around Parvins and catch up in person before she headed back to London. We walked to a bench and sat there discussing our options for online employment and becoming authors.

After leaving the lake I went to Ryan's to head up to the rock climbing gym in Cherry Hill. We were there and hour before they opened, but the guy was there and he was nice enough to let us come in early and climb. We had the place to ourselves.

We did the bouldering section without harnesses. They are lower and have pads below. Even the easy paths were really hard. We spent an hour or so climbing around all the different walls. Some I couldn't do at all, but I was able to get up a few of them. I have a lot of work to do before I'm good at this it seems.

Tracy and I went up to Philly and checked on set times then headed to Manny Brown's for some drinks. I had a sour ale and tried a few others. The Lagunitas Sucks is an awesome holiday IPA. And a great name.

When it was show time we left the bar and headed back down to the TLA. This is the last time I'll see this name on the marquee. (maybe?)

mewithoutYou was great and fun. They played a lot of new songs that I don't know as well, but there were plenty of old ones mixed in. They played for a good long while.

Thursday began their last US show ever playing the same set list as the other night except they added in "Paris in Flames," which I actually said I really wish they had played before.

The rest of the set went as it did at Starland, but it was great to hear the songs one more time for their last show. I have seen them probably around thirty times over the last ten years and it has been amazing almost every time. The holidays won't seem the same without them playing a show.

It was a sad but amazing farewell show. I will remember the intensity of their live shows every time I listen to them turned up loud in the car.