Handstands Across America » Friends

It’s nice outside

Sam E. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:59:00 +0000

So, today was pretty dreary on and off, but I had a good day none the less. I made a “checklist” to start my day, and got through most everything. I went for a run, I made a doctors appointment, did my laundry and so forth. I also went out tonight and saw a bunch of people I haven’t seen in a long time. It was a good day, and I complement it on mixing things up, and getting off our butts to go do something. Sure, we’re nerds and we can still “Tweet” or “Blog” about it, but it certainly provides better content than “I watched a re-run of ‘Everyone Loves Raymond’” :-p

I met up with my friend Travis, Lisa and Z, as well as their friends Liz and Sam at Fodo’s in Chinatown.

I Then managed to truck it out to Jammin Java in Vienna to see Stanley Chong’s band “Taking Saturn”. These guys are good. Drummer = Best one I know, Guitarist = Awesome, Singer & Bassist = Really good. They were really tight and put on a good show. I also liked the fact that they were genuine and nice. I thought they sounded like a mix of Blue October and Linkin Park. When I told people they sounded like Blue October after the show I got some weird faces, but hey, it’s what I thought.

Check them out: http://www.myspace.com/takingsaturn

UPDATE: TwitPic is HIGHLY unreliable, this is now on flickr.

April 2009 "12 of 12"

Sam E. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:19:00 +0000

April’s 12 of 12 was on Easter Sunday. I mostly spent the day cleaning, and hanging out. It was a nice and sunny day, although it was slightly chilly at the same time. My cell phone failed on me and the pictures I did take didn’t save correctly. This means no picture from playing tennis around noon, and no picture of Dan I jamming around after dinner. In any case, here is my official 12 of 12 for April. It was created using a new php script I just wrote!

10:10am | Breakfast [Flickr]
Mom was so nice to have made breakfast and left it for us lazy kids who slept in!

11:17am | Dad and “Kitty” [Flickr]
They have a understanding.

1:16pm | A well used piece of plastic. [Flickr]
I attempted to organize my electronics using this dresser because I have them scattered all over the place!

3:37pm | Grapes, a healthy snack. [Flickr]

4:35pm | Catnap [Flickr]
It definitely seemed like this would be a good idea, but I never got a chance to take one.

4:50pm | Dirty Car? [Flickr]
Today was overall cleaning day, and car cleaning was not left out.

7:27pm | Sunday Potluck [Flickr]
The food is always delicious and bountiful. It is always a highlight of the week

7:29pm | Running away from the camera [Flickr]
“J” wanted to run away from the camera, and thoroughly like this game. He didn’t like the idea not being able to play with the camera himself though.

7:32pm | Dan and Conor [Flickr]
They are always up to something.

8:17pm | Light games [Flickr]
Dan shows his perfected skills of light painting after dinner.

8:24pm | “Kids” [Flickr]
Here are most all of the kids of the Sunday potlucks. Lots of fun.

10:08pm | On the Bluetooth for a late call [Flickr]
I found my Bluetooth headset today while cleaning and put it to go use!

Backstage at the 930 Club

Sam E. — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:44:00 +0000

Getting to hang out backstage at the 930 club while Thievery Corporation was definitely a highlight of my life. I hold 930 club as the most intimate place to see a show in D.C., especially for seeing bigger acts, but it was even more special when you get to see it from a new perspective.

Reasons for awesomeness:

Watching a huge crowd from the artists perspective.
Seeing the band up close and personal.
Free drinks.
The awesome feeling of being “special”.

Shoutouts to Andy, Mike, Annie, Marc, Mike and Ben’s Chili Bowl. Had an awesome time! We went on January 30th, 2009.

Blast From the Past – East Coast Beach Trip 2007

Sam E. — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:38:00 +0000

I’m deleting my wordpress blog that had 2 posts. Here is one of them from August 22nd, 2007.

Stop 1, Badin Lake Campground in the great state of North Carolina.
It was sooo hot here at night. They had nice facilities and a cool lake to swim in, but we didn’t manage to get any lake pictures.

Stop 2, Surfside Beach, SC.

We stayed the Holiday Inn here which I personally thought was great because it was away from the crowds we saw as we drove through myrtle, and hey, we weren’t camping

Stop 4, Buck Hall Recreation Area in South Carolina.

We drove very quickly out of our campsite and straight to Charleston for the night .

Stop 5, Charleston, South Carolina

Stop 6, Hilton Head Island

The Holiday Inn (Oceanfront) is where we stated on Hilton Head Island, SC for two days. The first night there, we got suckered into a timeshare pitch which allowed us to eat dinner at The Crazy Crab.

Stop 7, Savannah, Georgia

Stop 8, Jacksonville, Flordia

Got to hang out w/my best friend from High School, Fred down in the JAX. Nightclubs on JAX Beach, Downtown, and a little Dave and Busters never hurt anyone. It was a blast!

There’s a new face in Washington

Sam E. — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:26:00 +0000

New face in Washington:

OHHH you probably thought I was gonna show you a picture of THIS guy:

Christmas week was great with friends and family. If you didn’t get to see the Union Station Christmas tree or the National Christmas tree, here they are:

Union Station:

National Tree:

And of course…

Other Handstanders

Sam E. — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:44:00 +0000

I was looking through my pictures and realized I should pay tribute to some other friends who are awesome:

Jason (Shacks Beach, Puerto Rico):

Brian (“The Summit”, Not quite sure):

Jill (Roosevelt Island, New York):

Rebecca (Cove Campground, Gore, VA):

The Truth is Out There (Roswell, NM)

Sam E. — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:21:00 +0000

My friend Kelly is kinda? obsessed with the X-Files and even met Gillian Anderson (Scully) on the set of the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”.

So I looked around for anything X-Files and didn’t find too much. Just 4 posters in the UFO museum.

I did however find a green blow up martian at the car dealership.

Street Lamps with Alien Heads

And a real alien

Portland, Oregon (Days 44-46)

Sam E. — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:33:00 +0000

Kelly and I at the Paul Bunyan Statue

Awesome Car on Hawthorne St.

Perspective?

Lend a helping hand to a neighbor

Lightroom lets you make fun pictures!

Multnomah Falls! 2nd longest in the lower 48

Our cool new water bottles (Mike on right)

Cool boat on the Columbia River

Mike and Kelly

Word up

Convincing?

Multnomah Falls from the bridge

Cheese!

Awww

Seattle

Sam E. — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:04:00 +0000

I have gone a lot of miles, even through olympic national park…

to find “Nasty” chinese food…

I’ve had to take ferries…

right hand turns…

walk on my hands at Tiger Mountain…

all the way down this…

AND this.

Luckily, on this journey I have found very important things, like these black tail deer…

this abandoned greyhound bus…

and those wonderful geeks from Penny Arcade Expo 2008 (PAX08) playing magic the gathering.

All of this has led to one course of action. To change in a bold way.

I let my hair grow a little…

And attempted to style it…

and that gave me a lovely view from seattle, 19 floors above the streets.

That was quite a tale! The REAL story is, I got to Seattle this past Wednesday and had 2.5 awesome days with Martha and the gang. (thanks guys!) Then I headed even further downtown and stayed with Dan, and enjoyed the view from the 19th floor apartment, 1 block from the convention center. Just after going to “mutton chops” for about 10 minutes, I was cleanly shaven. It’s sad, but quite nice

I think Seattle is a pretty nice place. There is lots of culture for sure… maybe too much? Only had internet for a moment, on my way to mount Rainier by way of an Oil Change!

What is going on? Day 4

Sam E. — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:27:00 +0000

I fudged the dates with blogger so that the days will stay in order. The following two post are both brand new as well! (Within the last 12 hours)

Not too much to report for day 4, and not even any pictures, except for being hungover, helping Will’s friend Emily pack her moving truck, A delicious Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard, A delicious home cooked meal from Will and Elizabeth, and the viewing of a great movie!

I’m not a movie buff, but Dark Knight was pretty amazing. Heath Ledger was outstanding, and it was just well put together. Oh yeah, and has ANYONE ever seen a movie staring Morgan Freeman that wasn’t good? He’s one of my favorite actors just because he never lets you down.

So it turns out that 3/4 of the way through the movie, the movie theatre was struck by lightning and power went out. Mildly annoying, but wasn’t too bad. I was really just totally amazed by the quality of the projection (being the geek that I am). I don’t see movies much, and certainly not at decent theatres (ones in “rural” Virginia), but this was really good quality, and used some sort of DLP projector. I will definitely have to get myself an HDTV at some point to just zone out and watch pretty things on a screen

Today I am headed off to Chicago after laundry is finished and a few errands! Thanks “Dieter” for letting me stay at your place!

Day Two

Sam E. — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Stepping back to Friday…

After relaxing a little in the morning, I went and met Jamie for lunch at the Dayton Children’s hospital. It was nice to catch up because I hadn’t seen her since high school. I took a picture of us and totally somehow deleted it, ahh! Oh well, it was a pleasure! Jamie called up her grandma who always seemed to like me and STILL asks about me, and I spoke to her. She was tickled pink and I thought it was too cute. What a nice lady.

Anyways, off to the Air Force Museum next.

It was huge and had planes outside…

…and inside (SR71).

It even had rockets inside…

…and the same plane? or at least same model that dropped the a-bomb over in Hirosima, Japan. It was kind of ridiculous to think about how much that changed the world…

…with such a little bomb (that looked just like this)…

…and these are the huge props of the airplane that took them there. A lot of the planes are cool, but unless you can put them into some sort of story or context, you just don’t understand or appreciate it (i feel at least). This was one of the biggest things I’ll remember because I can really tie it to a story, rather than just seeing a big shiny plane.

This plane was cool too.

A side note: I took these next two pictures for Cecil (my flying instructor). This is a link trainer which is what he used for training (if i remember correctly). It is linked to controls that an instructor has and allows the student to simulate flying.

I figured this was about right too. Cecil is yelling at me after running the plane into the ground and busting the prop. haha

Anyways… cool airplanes, everywhere…

Three hangars worth… even an airship…

So I liked the museum. I was told I needed all day, and in order to appreciate it I would have, but I did a walk around in about 2 hours, and decided it was time to hit the road for Illinois so I’d get there at 7:30pm as promised. (I’d actually be getting there at 8:30pm but I tried time travel and it worked right around the indiana/illinois border, go figure!?)

On the way out of Dayton, I saw the needs of their citizens…

and said goodbye to Ohio…

and hello to Indiana.

Having gotten a little turned around in Indianapolis and wanting to make sure Indiana was handstanded. I stopped in the little town of Crawfordsville and got this pic.

I arrived at Will’s house right on time. It was great to see him and his girl Elizabeth. We stopped and I got some taco bell and headed over to Taylor’s to see Batman Begins (in order to prepare for sunday when we would see Dark Knight).

Go!

Sam E. — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:45:00 +0000

Car is packed, for the most part, a little left to do.

Leaving about 11am, kinda crazy!

Today I plan to at least do a handstand in Morgantown, WV maybe? We’ll have to see how good of time I am making. Off to Dayton I go, and I have been told “not to eat” so I am ready for dinner That’s what I call hospitality.

Thanks to Mom, Dad, Dan, Kristen, Paul and Cecil for the good luck wishes as I leave!

Vacation, Engage!

Sam E. — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:18:00 +0000

No more work! (For a whole 3 months) I finally finished working after a marathon of report writing over the past few days.

Tomorrow (well, today now) will consist of cleaning/packing and organize, and on Thursday I will hit the road.

News: It looks like Chicago is going to happen! I have gotten in contact with Will’s awesome friend Emily and hopefully will figure out the details for staying in the windy city!

Matt for the win

Sam E. — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:21:00 +0000

So I talked to my friend Matt that I haven’t seen in just over a year. Got to catch up and found out that he went on a very similar cross country trip this past summer. Check out his pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mluxvt07.

Definite highlights he recommends are:

Arches National Park
Zion National Park
Badlands National Park
Glacier National Park
Olympia National Park
UT-12