Life in the key of E flat minor

I was supposed to go to Boston this April to watch my cousin run the Boston Marathon. Yet, due to my Uncle’s wedding the group who were going to go decide to put all of our resources into the California trip.  Luckily, my cousin made good time and qualified for next year’s Boston Marathon with his time this year. North Portal façade Instead of returning my vacation days back to my pool, I decided to keep them and be a tourist in my own town.   I took a tour of Philadelphia City Hall, one of the many fascinating points of interest in my hometown that I never visited.  The $10 tour, which is volunteer-led, took me and the group around and throughout the building on a two hour tour including the statuary, architectural elements, Mayor’s reception room, tower, Supreme Court chambers and a six-person elevator ride to the observation platform immediately below the William Penn statue. One of the four corners of the Earth capitals  My volunteer, Mike, moved to ...

I’m watching what I’m eating and working out in order to get ready for a trip to Ireland. I’m using LoseIt.com to help me monitor what I eat and improve my eating habits. Since it’s summer, I hate cooking, so I usually do a lot of salads since vegetables are plentiful. A fresh summer salad I’m bringing this all up because I have a peculiar rule of thumb for making a salad.  Loosely said, I won’t eat a salad unless it has three ingredients.  That’s how I define a salad compared to Merriam -Webster’s definition: Any of various usually cold dishes: as a : raw greens (as lettuce) often combined with other vegetables and toppings and served especially with dressing b : small pieces of food (as pasta, meat, fruit, or vegetables) usually mixed with a dressing (as mayonnaise) or set in gelatin. However, I’m specific.  Three different greens (say romaine, arugula and spinach) mixed together, does not a salad make.  Forgetting the whole genre of salads mixed with a d...

I would say that an iconic image of Greece is the image of the two blue domed churches in Oia on Santorini. When I was on Mykonos, this church caught my eye and it left such an impact on me that I made it my Holiday card for 2010. (Don't worry if you didn't get one, I didn't send them out.) The variation of red instead of the stereotypical blue resonated with me as a wonderful new bend on my own feelings toward Greece. From this trip, my pics from Mykonos are the ones that say Greece to me. I hope to share more on the Thursdays that follow. 

I need to give a shout out to my friend, Denise, who told me about her favorite ice cream place in the Mission over three years ago. Like every red-blooded American, I love ice cream.  I’ve been known even to down a pint for dinner – not necessarily healthy, but damn right satisfying.  So when my friend, Denise, moved back into the area, she made sure that I knew of Humphry Slocombe for I would be ready to visit on my next trip to San Francisco. “You need to try the olive oil ice cream, and if they have it, the foie gras,” she mused. “Really, Foie gras? Sounds rich.” “Oh, it is.” A sample of Humphry Slocombe's twitter feed - usually menu announcements  It’s not accurate or fair to say that Humphry Slocombe makes odd or weird flavors of ice cream.  There’s thought and whimsy in these flavor profiles.  Some of the flavors focus on rich savories in a sweet base, like foie gras, prosciutto or even balsamic caramel.  Others pair heat with cool...

Two Saturdays ago, we had our monthly meeting of Bookclub.  The book was The Splendor of Silence by Indu Sundaresan.  It was a rich tale about two cultures clashing, two people meeting and the lifetime they shared in four days and its repercussions.  So our theme was Indian food and the specialty drink was a gimlet. (There were vodka gimlets available for those who didn’t want gin.) After we thoroughly talked about the book, someone in the group mentioned going on vacation en masse in Europe.  This idea expounds on our proposed weekend in Washington, DC, when we read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol .   We would read the book for bookclub and instead of meeting we would spend a day in DC at some of the sites in the book chatting about the novel – a fun idea. The Capitol Rotunda, Washington, DC If going to DC would be a fun idea, going to Europe would be fantastic. At length, we discussed in detail whether or not we all could travel with each other.  We ...

What is now the city of San Diego started out as Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo’s San Miguel, named when he sailed into San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542. The Portuguese explorer claimed the land for Spain, but Spain ignored the area for sixty years and all proof of Cabrillo’s claim had weathered away. Sebastián Vizcaíno made landfall in San Diego Bay as well, and he renamed the area after San Diego de Alcalá on November 10, 1602. It would be another 167 years before the Spanish returned to San Diego. (Sounds like the Spanish modus operandi .) During the entire Spanish conquistador period, Spain had been establishing missions to convert the natives in New Spain to Catholicism in order to colonize the lands. Yet, it took the movements of Russia eyeing up the western coast of North America with Peter I the Great asking Vitus Bering to command an expedition of the Kamchatka peninsula and the subsequent discovery of additional lands east of Siberia across the now eponymously-named Bering Stra...

When I finally got into Union Station, I checked in, tweeting that I don’t mind traveling; I just hate travelers. I love to travel and its twofold journey: the process of getting to a destination and the exploration of that destination.  This love of the trek helps to explains why I understand Songlines.  However, travelers, on the other hand, can really tick me off. When I travel, I am mindful of my actions and that my actions can affect others.  As common travelers, we’re packed into tight planes and crowded train platforms. We’re driving up and down the same congested freeways. We’re waiting in line for the same outcome.  I wanted to take a few moments to vent about the lack of travel etiquette and remind my follow travelers to make the trip enjoyable for all, including your neighbors.  I wish that the in-flight magazines and Arrive: The Magazine for Northeast Business Travelers (Amtrak’s magazine) would explicitly have an etiquette column to...

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi, UAE Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is located in Abu Dhabi, and its construction was initiated by the late President of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan . Thought of as the father of the UAE, he has been laid to rest in a tomb located on the grounds. While the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center encourages visitors to take pictures of the grounds, photography of the tomb is not permitted. I used this picture as the wallpaper on my iPhone for my locked screen, and the phone wonderfully cropped to accentuate the minaret in the archway.  Finally, the mosque has many noteworthy architectural and design features. The carpet in the main prayer hall is the world's largest carpet. There are seven chandeliers which incorporate millions of Swarovski crystals, and the chandelier in the main prayer hall is the largest known chandelier inside a mosque. The mosque is lit at night to reflect the phases of the moon:...

In Austin, there is a great restaurant that is its own small chain, Chuy’s .  To comment on their food and restaurant philosophy, I need to phrase it in the company’s own words, “if you’ve seen one Chuy’s, you’ve seen one Chuy’s.”  I’ve seen only one Chuy’s, the first one on Barton Spring Road in Austin.  It’s been love at first order.  I was led to this Chuy’s by the “big as yo’ face” burrito 5 years this upcoming February when my travel companion wanted to show off a Tex-Mex burrito since I champion a Mission-style burrito as the world’s best. (Still I religiously go to El Farolito at 2779 Mission Street whenever I visit San Francisco).  The line was long in the restaurant – about a 45 minute wait – and we were starving from driving up from San Antonio.  We perused the menu to come up with our order: two burritos and some chips and salsa. I thought about it.  If the burrito was truly as big as yo’ face, that was going to be a lot of burrito for tw...

I’m looking to sandwich a weekend jaunt during August between my big California family and friends vacation and my big Ireland vacation with my folks.  My gut is to schedule around the usual Bookclub weekend, the third weekend of the month, since we take a break from Bookclub in August.  I’m looking to go somewhere a short flight away that I haven’t been to and just spend a weekend there, solo, taking in the culture, sites and some social life.  Charming Hamilton, Bermuda The quandary is I can’t find an affordable location at this time in the game.  Flights to Montréal and Ottawa are hovering around $450 for the weekend, and the affordable flights are to places I’ve been before like Raleigh and Pittsburgh.  There are cheap flights to Bermuda coming up, but they will be during my Ireland trip.  I’m looking for a place that doesn’t need a car too much and the airport’s an affordable taxi ride away (or accessible via public transportation).  I eve...

One of the reasons I travel is my always present desire to learn.  To the end, history has always been a topic of interest for me.  I will do the historic tours of locations and places. I benefit from learning the ways that politics, social conditions and reality-changing events influence the people in their locales. While history tends to be written by the victors, the places can still speak on the events that have happened there. Only in the last few years I have been exposed to Texas, and my first visit to the state was accidentally as I missed a connection at IAH for my trip to Trinidad and Tobago for my cousin’s wedding. Since that overnight in 2006, I have returned to Texas nearly 10 times, including a recent unexpected overnight in IAH, yet again. (That just happened during my latest trip to a family wedding – the above-mentioned cousin’s father’s, a.k.a. my uncle’s wedding.) A co-worker and I had to take a drive from Houston and to Dallas between our two events in Te...

Yesterday was the first time in months that I used the locker room at my gym. Lately I’ve been either going directly home after a work out, using a hotel fitness center or not working out at all. I had a work event after business hours and I wanted to get to the gym yesterday since I want to shape up for Ireland this September. I ducked into Pottruck late during work hours, did my cardio and headed to the showers to clean up before the event. Lo and behold, there were individual stalls in the showers in the locker room. The last time I showered in the gym, it was a big communal shower with two lonely individual stalls at the end. I am so excited about this new feature because I will never have to take part in one of the most uncomfortable experiences in my life: conversations while naked in the shower. For me, being naked is simply a utilitarian need in order to get clean, and not a state that one should maintain for prolonged periods in a quasi-public forum (or public for that m...

On the suggestion of one of my blogging peers, I'm going to post photos that I like from photos I took on my iPhone .  I might choose the photo for the subject material, the composition or what have you, but it will be something that strikes my fancy. I was trying to get photos of  my niece, nephew and my 1st cousin once removed during Easter. I was running around in circles in the yard because three children, all excited for finding the Easter Bunny's trove, explode in bounds of energy when we let them start.  I love this picture I took of my niece on Easter as she diligently searches for eggs.  However I think that my computer improved it when I set it up as my background image and it cropped it into this. Her little, soon-to-be-full, basket is now the focal point of the photo as she starts on her quest for Easter goodies.  The bright pink is in such contract to her white dress and the rich verdant grass, and it's always a cheerful sight to see on my com...

When I travel or in my own city, I always find foods that taste so incredible or that are prepared in innovative ways that I always remember that they are special.  They can be from a friend’s recommendation or a serendipitous find at a hole-in-the-wall.  So as a self-proclaimed foodie, I have my favorite places to go and I am always looking for new suggestions. When I checked in with foursquare and announced: Got the pretzel challah! Can't wait to have a bite. (@ Got Kosher) http://4sq.com/lfU3l6 , a few followers wanted to know about the bread. When I saw Wendy earlier in my trip to Los Angeles, she kept telling me that I needed to try some pretzel challah.  I kept hearing “I need to take you to glatt kosher to get this incredible pretzel challah.”  I understood the meaning of each individual word, but I couldn’t glean a meaning when they were strung together.  I inherently trust Wendy’s taste in food, so I didn’t worry about going to some kosher deli ...

Except for a wonderful family vacation in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, for my cousin’s wedding, I haven’t been to the Caribbean.  It’s the closest international area around the US outside of Canada and Mexico, but I haven’t spent any time there.  However, there is a destination that really intrigues me and that’s Saint Martin.  Saint Martin is a divided island in the Lesser Antilles; it is the smallest consistently inhabited divided sea island in the world.  Just over 3/5 of the island belongs to the Collectivity of Saint-Martin, which is an overseas collectivity of France like its neighbor, St. Barts.  The remainder of the island comprises Sint Maarten and is one of four constituent countries that forms the Kingdom of the Netherlands, like Scotland is a home country of the United Kingdom. Ah, Serenity! While French and Dutch cultures are strong on their appropriate sides of the island – including using euros and Netherlands Antillean guilders (soon...

I’m developing a schedule for my blog to give me the structure I need to stay focused to write. Currently, my contribution schedule to Frankly Penn is set up that I’m blogging for work about once every two weeks.  Every fourth Tuesday I deliver Locust Walk Talk to the blog and every fourth Friday I post My Top Penn list, a Penn-themed top ten list.  These two cycles are staggered which leads to my biweekly blogging.  To keep me motivated to write, I want to develop a few topics for blog series. First off, I’m establishing the series, Freeform Forum.  It's that topic that I can write about anything.  It’s my potpourri topic title.  Secondly, I want to solicit anyone for ideas for my titles for the two topics that I’m going to start writing about to get my personal blog to three entries a week. I need help with the names, and I’m currently stuck in alliterative mood. Topic one and tentative name: Food Flight Entries will focus on finding foods that are...

I have been periodically contributing to the Penn Alumni blog, Frankly Penn , and I have always liked the exercise of writing.  I like to be creative with my words, and I do write well.  (Though, I can’t always proofread, spell or catch typos well.)  My past demonstrates that words are my medium.  While overnighting in Houston due to a cancelled flight, I ruminated on how much I should be writing again. I thought about returning to my blog. However, my first attempt at a blog was unorganized.  I just wrote paragraphs. I tried to be thoughtful; I tried to be funny.  In hindsight, I was treating my blog entries like my status updates on facebook.  They were observations on the world, comments about pop culture, rants about people close to me and kudos for loved ones.  In short, when should have been microblogging, I tried to stretch them out into a marcoblog.  Still I like the name of my blog and I didn’t think that everything was lost. ...