BOS DAY 2: We are here.

And loving it. Boston is cool. But, we're heading back to the west coast tomorrow. We covered a lot of ground today with very few breaks, so it's late and I'm sleepy. But, there needs to be a mention of how amazing the Red Sox game we attended tonight was... just unbelievable! The energy in that stadium was out of this world.

Much more to come on our experiences here...

An interesting tidbit...

I ended up submitting my pics and a short review of the shows we just saw and they are now online (woot!):

Visit BlocParty.com and click "Journal" at the top. The review falls under the McCarren Park Pool show, while my photos are published with the Asbury Park Stone Pony post. =) Or you can follow the links below:

Fan review...McCarren Park Pool, 29.07.06
Fan review...The Stone Pony, 27.07.06

NYC DAY 3: A pool party.

We decided to take it easy in Brooklyn for our final day in NYC. Started out with brunch at a cool little bar/eatery called Enid's in Greenpoint. The place was full of character and the strawberry pancakes were mmm-mmm good.

After brunching, we decided that we deserved a beer. =) So, we walked on over to the Brooklyn Brewery for a tour and tasting. We were disappointed that the tour did not include free samples (unlike Seattle breweries), but the tasting room offered up cheap drinks and a laid-back atmosphere.

It was super hot (and we aren't acclimated to humid weather anymore!), so we decided to go back to Scott's for a bit after the brewery to rest and enjoy some A/C. On the way, we wandered by the site of the evening's show--McCarren Pool--to see how it looked. In the process, we ended up getting to say hello to BP's lead singer, Kele. Back at the pool later in the evening, we realized that this was a much larger scale production than originally imagined. While Thursday's gig had approximately 1,600 in attendance, there easily may have been 5,000 people shoved into this pool. Overall, the sound was much better, there were zero technical problems, and both Mew and BP were flawless. Secret Machines, however, bored us completely. And, of course, the show ended with my knee-knocking, feeling-like-a-teenager-again handshake. Good times.

After the show, we found out how Brooklynites live it up at night. We hit a bevy of fine bars with an old college friend, Britpop Jim. There were three stops in all--Matchless, Barcade, and the Alligator Lounge. The Alligator's business model is pretty genius. As the "World's First Free Pizza Bar", a free small pizza is served with each beer you purchase. Perfect for our post-show appetites! Barcade was a total hit with Shawn, too. It's full of classic stand-up arcade games (QBert, Star Wars, Tapper, Robotron, and dozens of others) AND they serve fine microbrews. We would totally live in this place if it were in Seattle. Overall, we found that Brooklyn's pretty happening and really enjoyed the day. Glad we got to experience it for sure...

Photos from our pool party just below...

NYC DAY 3: Pool party photos.

The venue, McCarren Pool in Brooklyn


That's right--we stood in a pool to watch the show!


Mew's singer, Jonas


Mew's mustached-guitarist (this one's for Eric!)


BP's Kele


BP's Russell (awfully reminiscent of a younger Shawn...)


Barcade, Brooklyn

NYC DAY 3: Awww yeah.

I'm never washing my right hand again. Only because it shook Russell's hand (see photo in day 1 post) at the show tonight. Ha ha!

Okay, so I'm kidding. It's already washed. ;) We had an amazing time at McCarren Pool tonight after spending the majority of the day wandering around Brooklyn. However, it's pretty late so the rest of the story won't come until tomorrow... after we arrive in Baw-ston!

NYC DAY 2: A subway city.

Today was non-stop walking... walking around Little Italy, Soho, the Guggenheim, Brooklyn. Also full of subway rides. Scott told us the night we arrived that radio is dead in New York--it's a subway city full of iPod-users. We fully experienced that today and given the amount of crazies on the train, it's no wonder why you'd want to keep your ears plugged. We saw beggers, buskers, and candy bar vendors all riding alongside us. My personal favorite was a bongo player who simulaneously performed a spoken word piece with revelations such as "Life goes by fast. Sometimes, the train goes fast, too!" Ha! How profound.

Anyhow, we ate an amazing lunch of a near-perfect Spaghetti Carbonara in Little Italy at Casa Bella. Mmm, mmm. Finally got to taste the sweetness that is Il Laboratorio del Gelato, as well. So, so good. It's way hot here, so all this food was a bit heavy. But, hey, it had to be done. =)

After lunch, we headed to Soho where we toured Shawn's "New York office". His IT manager showed us around and introduced him to everyone. He is moving to Seattle in the winter/spring and is very excited about working alongside Shawn. =) Back out into the wild, there was another minor thunderstorm soon after, so we headed to the Guggenheim for a bit to enjoy a little art.

Tonight's show was at the Irving Plaza--Editors from the UK. They were great, but let's face it, we were a little pooped after all the walking today! So, Scott has gone out for some drinks after the show and we are trying to relax a bit, regenerating for tomorrow's big finale--Bloc Party, Secret Machines, and Mew playing inside a pool just down the street from Scotty's house. We don't really understand how it's all going to work, but I'm guessing it'll all be too surreal...

NYC DAY 1: No sleep til Brooklyn!

BP's Kele


BP's Russell, the next Johnny Greenwood

Day 1 of our "summer of rock" is over... Joe is living his out in Chi-town, we've come to NYC for 3 solid days of good music and hot weather.

To start our day, we shopped the city in a jet-lagged haze, picking up some awesome England gear on clearance now that World Cup is over. Score! We met Scott back in Brooklyn before heading out on the road to the Garden State, New Jersey, in our little rental car. Shawn successfully drove right through Chinatown and Soho to get us out of Manhattan. Truly amazing. And, honestly, traffic in NYC doesn't seem like much now that we live in Seattle.

Our first gig of the weekend was in Asbury Park. We blasted the Garden State soundtrack along the way, paying homage to our favorite TV doctor and NJ native, Zach Braff. After about 2 hours (mostly traffic), we arrived in Asbury Park. What a surreal place! It seems to be a shell of the seaside resort it once was. There was an amazing old hotel and seaside pavilion just sitting there in tatters, reminding me of Brighton, England, but in ghost-town form. Very odd.

The club was right along the Atlantic Ocean. We were pretty late (or so we thought) so we didn't get a chance to dip our toes. Sigh. The show was outdoors, though, so we enjoyed the sounds of Mew and Bloc Party while a cool, salty breeze kept us cool. That was pretty sweet. Mew was incredible--a delicious mix of Autolux, My Bloody Valentine, Sigur Ros, and Mogwai. All good stuff. BP were on it despite some technical problems. We were right up front again and my pics (see above) are much more rewarding this time. Unfortunately, the show was cut one song short as an electrical storm rolled in just at the start of BP's encore. Oh, well. I was pretty satisfied anyhow... ;)

Up for today: Visiting Shawn's "New York office", Greenwich Village, Soho, and so on.
Tonight: Editors at Irving Plaza. Awesome!

Current thoughts.

So other than being excited about checking out the big east coast towns this week, I'm currently obsessing over:

-My impending-promotion to as-yet-untitled Muze Tech Support Manager
-Getting to see The State's own Michael Showalter (aka, Doug) last weekend
-Being annoyed that WAMU's bill-pay has been down for "scheduled maintenance" for almost 24 hours
-The announcement that Real Madrid (starring David Beckham) will be playing DC United here in Seattle next month

Good times!

Amazing {another cat post}.

Two Sundays ago, this genius piece of marketing was inserted into our newspaper. We've tortured the cats with it ever since and see an impending gallery just of amusing "amazing" shots on the horizon.

Duane is heading home tonight. We're out of here in a few days for some NYC-BOS insanity. Hopefully we can get some rest in the next couple of months before heading home at Labor Day...

Cupcakes and bouncy balls.

Just hit our beloved Cupcake Royale with our newest visitor, Duane. =) Man, who ever knew that a cakey little treat like these could make us so happy.

Also, Duane just showed us a really cool commercial from the UK. It involves around half a million bouncy balls in the streets of San Fran. Pretty cool stuff. Check it out at Sony's website.

Bluebee, you can drive my car.

As I was driving to work this morning, I noticed something funny going on in the car in front of me. A snowshoe cat, looking nearly identical to our Blue, was reclining on the front dash in the sunshine. Snowshoes aren't terribly common, and I don't normally see loose cats riding in cars, so this struck me as bizarre. This little guy was just riding along, facing upright towards the back of the car, staring directly at me. Same white boots, same little mask, probably the same Siamese attitude.

Random funny.

Not much going on here. We are chilling. Thought I'd share this random pic from our trip to the Peninsula back in June. We found the mecca of statues at one place... not only was there a giant hamburger, but a gi-normous pepsi, california grape, weird baseball man, and an array of other fine atrocities. Shawn loved it.

We are tired.

Very, very tired. The house is quiet again... for at least another 7 days.
Hoping to have time to catch up on email...


Our little meatloaf sure will miss Bill, though.
Every time he's around, she really loves his shoes.

Sun-day.

Yesterday was crazy sunny here in Seattle. Amazingly warm and all around gorgeous. We started off our morning at The George & Dragon for the World Cup final. Italy walked away with a win, I left with a wacky sunburn (regardless of the sunblock I lathered on before leaving!). It was a fun way to start the day, though... 500 people singing, cheering on their team, and having an all-around good time.

We showed Bill & Jenny some of the northside sights and ended up with a smores cookout on the beach at sunset. Bill and Auri built a "Survivor"-style fire for our marshmallow-roasting pleasure and Shawn busted out some metal ballads on his acoustic guitar. We came home smelling just like our little campfire, all yummy and toasted.

Visiting Seattle.

Bill and Jenny are visiting from Chicago this weekend, our 15th set of houseguests since we moved here last September. To commemorate these visits, I created a little book (shown above) to record when we have guests, where our friends/family travel from, and what we do together during their stay. This little book now has an online counterpart under our Photo Albums on the right. I've also added a little gallery of projects like this one for those who are interested...

Online Guestbook
H's Project Gallery

Last weekend...

We went whale watching and saw many orcas.



We went to the top of Mount Constitution with my parents for a view.


We relaxed in our room at The Kingfish Inn.


We celebrated our anniversary with a nice dinner.


We returned to a sunny, pretty Seattle.

I heart the UPS man.

UPS has done right by us today--delivering not one, but TWO sets of tickets for our impending summer of rock-and-roll. =) We are off in 21 days to start our trip to NYC and Boston. As of right now, we're catching Bloc Party twice with an Editors gig sandwiched in between, followed by a trip to Boston where we will see the Red Sox play at Fenway. All shared with Scott in Brooklyn and Dave in Beantown. I just can't wait...

We are here.

Well, we were here (above in the San Juan Islands). Now, we are back in Seattle and in the middle of back-to-back houseguests... So, I'm behind on email and keeping this blog up-to-date. As usual, there are many photos to share from our trip this past weekend and I'm hoping to get them up soon...