4th of July - Swimming in the Rain
More photos and videos here
Road Trip Photos - Up
I have uploaded the Road Trip 2008 photos onto my flickr. I still need to sort through the actual bachelor party sets and upload a combined album. I also want to aggregate all the twitter posts onto a page as a road trip log.
Filed under Auto • events • friends • On the Go • photography • Travel • (PermaLink)
So, How was it?
Sorry about leaving everyone hanging about my scottish stories! The trip was amazing. We flew into Edinburgh on the overnight flight and got in early Sunday morning. We rented a massive 9 person mercedes van (for 4 of us) to fit all of our luggage and four sets of golf clubs. We then drove to St. Andrews, about an hour and a half drive, on the wrong side of the road.
Although I don’t have any pictures yet (I will upload them when I get them from my buddy gary who brought a camera), St. Andrews was as picturesque as all the photos and golf tournaments make it out to be. The St. Andrews links trust runs the 7 courses that make up St. Andrews links with the Old Course being the oldest and most prestigious. The Old Course was formed and first played in the 15th century (although this is debated) and the first ever golf course. All the courses we played were public as are the majority of the courses in Scotland. The caddies we had, in fact, made fun of americans a bit for having such a snobbish attitude toward golf with all the country club elitist nonsense. The courses there were open for all. If you wanted to go for an afternoon walk on the Old Course with your dog - thats totally fine, just watch out for golf balls.
The Old Course was the only course that had any requirements at all to play. They required a handicap of 24 or better to play to help keep the pace of play high enough as the demand to play the course far outweighs the availability. I, of course, had to fake my handicap as I had only played one or two real rounds of golf in my entire life much less had a real handicap. Gary got us memberships at a club in Washington State and I was able to post fake scores via the internet and they mailed me a member card with with my handicap.
Other than St. Andrews we only played one other course - the championship at Carnoustie or also known as “The Beast”. It is consistently rated in the top 5 hardest courses in the world with over 120 impossible to exit sand traps. We each had a caddie for this round, and boy did I need his help digging out my balls from every nook and cranny on the course. He didn’t give me too hard a time for my terrible play, but he did laugh when I broke the second of two clubs. The clubs I was borrowing from Amy’s dad, nonetheless. I hit two nice shots with his 6 and 7 iron and the club heads just went flying! Just what I needed.
Outside of the golfing we were able to sample many whiskeys and drink a good share of cold beer at the clubhouses. The trip was awesome and I can’t wait to put some photos up here for everyone to see!
Bloggers are back
Jeremy is back at it with Quasidaily.com
Mike is finding his online voice over at digitalbohn.com
Engaged!
For those of you who don’t know - amy and I got engaged this past weekend. We are looking forward to celebrating with everyone in the upcoming days and weeks.
Boomer!
The sooners defeated the # 1 ranked Missouri Tigers tonight in a 38 - 17 victory in the big 12 championship game.
We had the Progressive Interactive christmas party at Brother Jimmys with the whole company (4 of us) and the wives/girlfriends in tow. We had a great time eating our faces and stomachs full of BBQ and PBR, watching OU take home the title/
heading to aruba
Amy and I are off to Aruba for the Thanksgiving holiday! This is my first time to take a real vacation on a holiday… either I am traveling home or staying in NY for the festivities. It couldn’t come at a better time as NY is getting their first snowfall this morning while Aruba’s high is around 90F today. I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving!
If you want to be jealous and aren’t yet, you can view some photos of aruba here
Monterey and back
I am back and settled in after a nice getaway in california. I had always heard how amazingly beautiful Monterey and the surrounding areas (big sur, carmel, pebble beach, etc...) were, but, not until we went did I really understand. I did do one thing that I have wanted to do for a very long time, and that was to see a giant redwood tree. I have seen photos and heard stories about these giants but never seen one up close. We went on a tour of Big Sur and on the way home we made a quick stop at a nice redwood grove.
The trip was great and I was able to spend some quality time with both my parents and just relax for a few days. I was able to learn a bit more about my dads company and some of the challenges that a completely foreign industry to me faces. Also during the trip I had the pleasure of getting to know some of my dads coworkers who were in monterey for the annual John Deere conference. Below is a photo of the group at Hogs Breath Inn, apparently owned by Clint Eastwood. 
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From left to right: Kim, Paul, Amy, Steve, Me, My Amy, My old man, and Barb.
ps. if you find yourself at hogs breath inn - do you and your table a favor and order up a few bowls of their castroville artichoke soup. You can thank me when you return.
update: more photos of the trip here and here - most notably this one.
Back from the hills
Amy took me on a great trip this past weekend. We went fly fishing in the housatonic, went to the warren fall festival… about as small town as you can get, wine tasting at two beautiful vineyards and had sunday brunch at an amazing Inn on the edge of a lake. 
for the photos you didn’t see or I didn’t link to - see them here
Birthday wishes
I wanted to thank everyone for all the gifts and cards. This is the first year that the majority of cards and birthday wishes I received were digital. I had an inbox full of ecards this year, as compared to very few in years passed. Ecards seem to be the way - you can do it instantly… its typically free - AND you can say so much more with a dancing frog!
My birthday was a busy one… in the morning I met a group of friends for our bi-weekly adverting brodown breakfast, then shot uptown to meet brian for the morning work session. We then hit Geronimo for their beer and burger lunch special. Returning to the office (read: my kitchen table) for a few hours of work before meeting our company accountant to setup our new scorp. We are changing our company name and company type from an LLC to an SCorp. After signing the dotted line we went to the NY Tech meetup where Amy and Robert (my business partner) joined us. After watching 6 tech startups pitch their company and a few handshakes of people we knew… the 4 of us went to Sea, a thai restaurant in the east village, for a birthday dinner.
A great day!
back from the sooner state
Mike and I are back from Oklahoma - after a long weekend of working and talking with advertising/marketing students. The conference was great with a decent attendance by the marketing students. We had a number of students who were really engaged with learning what the world of digital marketing is like and how it works. We received really positive feedback from the professors and students which made the event all the more worthwhile. I would offer to put up the slides we made but the were really more talking points than leave behinds.
Although we do have some video of an amazing night at the hotel bar and their karaoke night. The highlights were trumped by a guy named Frant (yes Frant with an F) and his electric guitar he carried around the bar with his little pocket amp clipped to his belt. Stay tuned for videos and photos.
Lake George photos and a rundown
I have uploaded some of the photos that were taken by mike and dave to my flickr account - View them HERE.
In the photos you will see a few things:
- A huge orange tent
- Small yellow tent (orlandos)
- 2 Homeland Security urban titanium camo knives (for hunting bears)
- 4 smaller pocket knives (for shotgunning beers)
- 1 $6.49 walmart machete (for carving up trails in the forest)
- 1 $30.00 walmart spring loaded red ryder bb gun - for shooting beer cans - and the chipmunk dave caught eating our food
- Fish on hooks - we caught around 5 to 10 fish each over the 2 days
- Lots of beer - we each took a 30 pack and finished it. Except for Craig who brought 24 bottles.
- Spears, which we widdled with the gaggle of knives in arsenal
- One spider infested outhouse that orlando was brave enough to use
The weekend was such a blast and I can’t wait to do it again. Being out in the woods and on the water really makes you forget about all the things going on and lets you escape for a little bit.
if I go missing
If I go missing - I am leaving for a camping trip to lake george in a few hours. Mike, Orlando (of the now defunct ostatus.com), Dave, Craig and I are going to tackle the great outdoors this weekend.
Facts about the trip:
Our campsite is on an island
We had to rent a pontoon boat to get to the campsite
I bought a smith & wessen homeland security rambo knife to stab bears
I am not bringing any food as I will live off gods green earth
first trip I have not taken my laptop in many years
If I go missing - its because I built a house out of fallen trees and now live in the woods.
worth 1000 words
back and (almost) settled
After 15 days away from my 400 square feet of nyc concrete paradise I am almost settled back in. After I sit down to go through my bills, stack of magazines and unpack everything will be back to normal. Until that is, I move - just over a month from now.