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July 13th, 2010 can’t come soon enough

Not sure what was going on but there was a gaggle of these guys acting drunk

This never happens when we go to my Grandmother-in-law’s!

I’m in Siesta Keys with my wife and some friends and it’s been pretty fun so far. I’m not a huge fan of the beach. I love the nature aspect - the birds, the dolphins, etc. I just don’t care about laying around on the beach. Surprisingly though, I’ve had a lot of fun and I’m warming up to it.

The picture above is one of my favorites that I took of these seabirds (anyone know what kind they are?). I walked up to a group of birds and they parted like the Red Sea and these two (one from each group) walked over towards each other and stood their ground. Their wings aren’t normally like that but when you would get near (I think that’s what causes it) they would put them out like they were holding two guns ready to stick you if you got any closer. I loved it. They were walking around the group like, “Don’t move punk.”

I ended up feeding them some white bread by holding it up in the air and letting them swarm me and swoop in to grab it from my hand. One of the birds just hovered in front of me, staring me in the eyes and squawking. It was very intimidating but awesome.

To see some more pictures from the trip, go here.

Friday night was pretty fun. I hadn’t had a fun night like that in awhile. It just seems that whenever I hang out with my friends we end up just going somewhere to eat and then the night just fizzles out… not this night though. Woo boy did we have fun.

Not really. It was just a different night than normal and this blog entry is for my new *girlfriend* Meridith to show her what a good night in Cleveland is all about.

The night started out at my house with me making a CD - Dave’s car does not accomodate an iPod well:

Then Dave and Stephen picked me and Mark up and we were on our way to Patty’s:

We got to Patty’s and went to the roof and then her apartment:

We picked up Patty and went to the Sculture Center where we met Paul and looked at an art installation about oil:

We left the Sculpture Center and went to Tommy’s for dinner:

Then, Paul and I went to see his girl Dana at Caribou to get some free drinks (and also to see her):

Then we left to meet back up with the rest of the gang at Patty’s house to round off the night:

Then I went to bed:

It was a great night. Wished you were there with us..

I decided that I would do it. I would put my bank account in the hole (way in the hole) and trek off to NYC for a chance to meet Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Nintendogs, etc. Basically, the man responsible for how games are made today.

As usual, I decided to bring a camera along and document the trip. And, as usual, I got lazy and just took pictures whenever I thought of it. Here is that trip:

The start of the night. I convinced my parents to drop me off and pick me up at the bus station for my trip. My dad and I went and got medicine for my grandma, talked about the hurricane and nonsense with my grandpa and then went and got a meal at what my parents dub, “the greatest chinese restaurant in Cleveland.” I forget what it’s called but it’s right next to playhouse square and in a cool kind of way, it reminded me of little restaurants I’ve seen in NY on TV - a sort of prep for things to come. Anyway, those two pictures are of my dad. One with his eyes closed and one of him looking at the salt shaker.

Some of the sights from the bus station to the Nintendo World store. I should’ve taken some more pictures but I didn’t. There’s one of the Laugh Factory which is a comedy club of course. No reason for taking it other than I’m into comedy. I didn’t see anyone coming that I cared about though. Also, a picture of News Corporation - the man, right? And one last one of what I thought was Times Square. I’m still pretty sure it is because I ended walking through it later but just to be safe I’m not going to say it is - that way no one can say I’m a jack ass.

Everyone better be watching this show.

Hey, I made it!

These signs kind of scared me. I was afraid that people were going to show up like mad and I would get pushed out or something. Luckily, no one was there when I got there except:

You know what? I’ve just decided in the middle of this blog entry that I don’t want to go through and post 96 more pictures of my weekend. It’s not fun to do and it wouldn’t be fun to read. I was going to post pictures of the Today Show crowd and talk about different kinds of irony I encountered while in NYC but I’ve decided against it. Instead, here are some pictures of celebrities and some tat I picked up. And also, I’ve mixed in some pics of people I met.

There you have it!