It's been a while..

Seeing if I still got it.  I've gotta be a little more careful now, I'm a little more mature. I'm married, smarter, older, wiser, have a nice new house... I can't be presidential and say something stupid and get myself in trouble.

Snow Storms

Along with most people, I get agitated over snow storm hype. Just this week newscasters were calling the upcoming snowstorm historic before it even happened. If anything was historic, it was how absolutely wrong they were in their predictions.  We didn't get the foot of snow they were predicting (which is not historic by any means anyway) nor did we even get an inch or two.
The other thing they are way off base about is people freaking out about getting milk and bread and eggs at the grocery store.  First of all, if the power went out at my house, I think I have a months worth of pasta sitting in my cupboard.  And after that pasta is gone, I probably have another three months of beans and miscellaneous eats to sustain me.  I mean, I love bread, and pretty much always have eggs in my fridge, but if I hear there is an impending snowstorm, those are the last food items I am thinking about.  I would raid the grocery store for chicken wings, tostitos, salsa, anything to make nachos, and junk food! Booze also goes without saying. Just saying.

Getting your eggs frozen

What happens if you miss a payment at your fertility clinic where they have your eggs cryogenically frozen? Do they move it to the refrigerator? Miss two months and they put it on the counter?

Vegans

I'll preface this post by stating that I have no qualms with vegans. Everyone is entitled to eat what they want, and I surely don't want anyone telling me what I should and shouldn't be eating.  But I will say that in my opinion, vegan is just a euphemism for pain in the ass. 
I think it would be interesting to go the opposite way and be a straight carnivore. Nothing but meat.  A meatatarian... Imagine going to the restaurant and saying "I have an 'anything but meat' allergy" and see what happens.  "well we have steak...chicken..." "okay, is that chicken breaded? I don't want any breading on that... is it fried? because I don't want to use any vegetable oil or corn oil or canola oil.. but you can fry it in chicken fat only." "excuse me, this steak has peppercorns on it... i specifically said i am against the unethical treatment of pepper plants. Was this marinated in soy? It can only be marinated in bacon grease."  There is a piece of parsley on my plate!

North 28th gets Stephen Powers art piece

Overall project

Look at that art piece!

Our North 28th project at, you guessed it North 28th Street, in Brewerytown got a sweet new art installation by noted artist Stephen Powers.  You may recognize his work riding along the Market Frankford El trains. He did all the Philly love letters.  I'm not sure what this particular piece is about, but it looks to me like it's some sort of engagement. Guy on one knee with a pizza? Or is that an abstract diamond?  Either way, it's still pretty cool.

Designer rugs

I don't know how or why I thought about this the other day, but  I did.  People have those bear skin rugs with the heads still on.  I think it would be cool to have a giraffe skin rug.  Those long spindly legs and that long neck could make a nice stair runner.  Think about it. 

No Questions Asked

My bike was stolen off my front porch yesterday along with two of my neighbors bikes.  Pretty ballsy to steal something off my front porch, especially when a lot of my neighbors are home all day everyday. But I have a feeling I know who it was.  I've felt like my house was being staked out a few days ago by some thug kids. By thug kids I mean kids in their early twenties with no jobs.  I want to post some "Stolen bike" signs around my neighborhood and post a reward... no questions asked. Then first thing I would do if someone came forward to return it is ask them why they stole it.  I'd be like, i was kidding about the no questions asked part.... and the reward part.  And then punchasize their face... for free.

Supermarket shopping

Anyone who really knows me, knows that I love supermarket shopping.  I love to eat, and a store that is full of food is right up my alley.  All the possibilities! I have to admit though that I kinda hate Wegman's.  Sure it has quality food, and the cheese selection is great and their seafood is better than other supermarkets.  But I can't stand their aisle arrangement. It takes me twice as long to find the things I usually buy. For one, it's not laid out logically like a normal supermarket with like things near each other, or things that complement each other next to each other. Like they have peanut butter and jelly listed on the aisle markers. They shouldn't do that.  The aisle markers should only be for categories, such as Condiments.  Peanut butter and jelly needs to be with all the other condiments like ketchup, and mustard, or they should have some near the bread aisle. Good luck finding anything.
Anyway, I am getting tired of the "foodie" culture.  The other day I went to Talula's Garden in the city.  It's a fancy-schmantzy place on Washington Square that serves great local fare. I was just really put off by all the food stories the waitress was telling us, like "this cheese is locally sourced from free range cows in lancaster county where the farmer milks his own cows and goats and they are hormone free, and we get them once a week by a little old amish guy"  But every cheese had a story.  I was waiting for her to tell me that the "cheese had a good time on it's way here, and likes nothing more to be spread onto bread gently by a tiny cheese knife, and just can't wait to be eaten."

But going back to the point, I saw this in the bagel aisle and was put off by it. "Ancient grain?" ancient grain my ass. I wanted to ask how old it was.  Is that in bagel years? Aren't all grains pretty ancient? As far as I know, my ancestors were eating all sorts of grains 3,000 years ago. Just because you were eating Wonder Bread up until 3 years ago doesn't mean I was.

Biggie smalls

"Earth day was the worst day.... now we sip champagne when we thirstay!"

Baller

As far as vacations go, this one didn't feel like much of a vacation.  This was hard work for an out of shape slug like me.  I wouldn't recommend a trip to Peru to many people; maybe world class athletes, adventure seekers and masochists. The Inca trail was awesome though. 26 miles of stairs... 14000 feet in the air; stairs up, and stairs down. Amazing that people could build that trail out of huge stones in that terrain using no animals or iron tools. The reward of Machu Picchu at the end made it worthwhile.

in case you didn't know where it was on a map.

some girl and her llama

a band rolled through cusco

the last 400 feet of a 6000 ft ascent

surreal

our crew. john, brittany,will,dan, sarah, me

Had this thought the other day

A friend from my office recently got back from Hong Kong and brought us some cookies.  I was surprised at how similar they were to Italian biscotti.  Then I got to thinking about how American kids get super excited when someone brings them a fresh hot plate of chocolate chip cookies straight outta the oven.  Do you think Chinese kids ever get plates full of fresh soft batch fortune cookies? I've never seen that before.

Me

I have gotten a lot of requests from my fans to see what I look like in a bathing suit.  This is it.

Vegas Trip

Being the closet baller that I am, I recently went to Las Vegas for my buddy PJ's bachelor party. I am definitely getting too old to be going to wild bachelor parties, and luckily I didn't go crazy.  Slept through most of it honestly, which was fine by me.  But I was able to take a few good snaps. Mostly of all the same things I saw last time I was there. It's easy to take good pictures in Vegas, and even easier with Instagram. 

AIA NAPKIN SKETCH COMPETITION

Each year the AIA holds their annual napkin sketch competition.  The competition is designed to encourage architects to show off their talents in some kind of sketchy way (which doesn't really sound right now that I think of it). The competition has become more crazy as of late with mixed media submissions and submissions which allow the sketcher to have things project from the napkin.  It's morphed from ideas, to overdone composed drawings. I kinda wanted to turn that on it's head and just do a real napkin sketch and get it back to its roots.  This is what came to my mind with a conventional C-towel.  I hope I win.

Shameless Self Promotion

This is a project I have been working on for the better part of the last two and a half years.  It's finally getting built as we speak at the corner of Broad and South Streets in Philly.  This was in last week's daily Metro Paper. Look for it in the press.  Right now it's just a hole in the ground, but the foundations are going up quickly and should be out of the ground in a month probably.  The project is called Southstar Lofts for Dranoff Properties.

Winnie the Pooh?

I really don't know how my mind works sometimes, but I was thinking about Winnie the Pooh the other day and how I really have no clue how he got his name.  Winnie the Pooh... pooh? I was thinking okay, pooh is a cute little name that every little kid knows and can say. But was it because Winnie was a thug and he wanted kids to know it but he couldn't just come out and say "Yo, I am Winnie and I'm the shit!" So he just made it accessible to kids "yo, I am Winnie the Pooh!" Think about it.  It all makes sense.  Even Tigger sounds like a thug nickname. Christopher "robin'" "eeyore"
"kanga" "roo," ....man, all his friends had gangland style nicknames.  Winnie was the pooh! He'll steal your honey.

Mayfair

The weather is always nice too.

It's been on my list of things to do each year for the past three or four years, and this year I am finally doing it.  I will be exhibiting at my town's annual Mayfair...fair.  If you don't know already, get out from under your rock. Collingswood is the shit, and their Mayfair is the bomb diggity for people in the know.  Anyway, I will be selling some of my sketches, hopefully all of them for copious amounts of money.  It's on Saturday May 25th all day long.  I really want you to be there!There will be tons of people as usual and good food and live music.  Maybe afterwards you can all come to my house and enjoy some beers... on me!

I'm sorry but...

What's the world coming to when we think about a mop and a bowling ball having sex? and we think it's cute? Come on! Have we really accepted this? Is this what people think about? mops and bowling balls having sex? This was a good idea?

Things that make you go Hmmm?

A few months ago I think I told you about the time my mom was over and she was identifying pop songs on the radio with relative ease and a matter of factness that surprised me.  Like "oh this is Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars."  Well, the other day she was listening to Lady Gaga again and I was like "seriously mom? you are listening to Lady Gaga?" and her response really surprised me.  She said she was listening to an interview with her and that she really liked what she had to say and that "she stood for something" and freedom of expression yadda yadda yadda and her songs were catchy.  Ok. Fair enough.  I agree.
But then I was cleaning out my dad's car yesterday and in the seat back pocket I found a Ke$ha cd.  Wow.  Nothing surprises me anymore.  Are my parents really cooler than I give them credit for?  

Nawlins'

Ninth Ward

beads in the trees

catfish po'boys

crawfish

Jackson Square

John Boutte at DBA

Superdome

Just confirming my closet baller status... I took a weekend jaunt down to New Orleans to visit a dear college friend of mine.  She showed me the ropes, and all that is good about the Crescent City.  My itinerary was to eat, drink and listen to jazz.  Check, Check, and Chizzeck.  If you've never been, it's probably not what you expect.  It's got beautiful houses, colorful people, great food, great drinks, and not too humid weather this time of year. And Crawfish! I really fell in love with New Orleans.
beignets, etouffe, po'boys, char grilled oysters, raw oysters, gumbo, shrimp remoulade, abita.