Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Great Friends, Great Town, Great Food, Great Times

May 10th, 2010

A disjointed recap of my weekend in Santa Barbara, in a nut-shell, with a few pictures, which I randomly decided to put just at the bottom.  Keep in mind that these pictures were all taken with my old crappy cell-phone:

I had a class on Friday (adobe illustrator) that starts really early, and because of this gets out early in the afternoon.  I always feel like I have missed an opportunity if I don’t take advantage of the earlier release, and beat traffic heading out of town.

I thought about going to one of my 2 favorite stand-by destinations, Las Vegas or Santa Barbara, and packed a bag on Thursday night, just in case I had the courage for a long drive on Friday.

Friday came, and I hit the road.  Four hours later I was in beautiful Santa Barbara.  I love this town.  It is very relaxed, easy going, the people are mostly really nice, and it has sweet views, and fabulous restaurants and bars.  Other than its political slant, seedy underbelly, and oil rigs, what’s not to love?  And best of all, some of my best friends still live there.  It is always a blessing to go to Santa Barbara, and always wonderful to be with my friends.

I had a lot of fun, but as usual, could have used more sleep and more time there.  I wish my trips to SB could be longer, as I never get enough or any time with some of my friends there.  But every trip is cherished.

I got up there, and was super tired.  So I went to East beach and napped (or tried to) for an hour.  I love doing that at East Beach because you have an option of watching people play volleyball (they have like 30 nets setup, and last week had the pro tour there) and also, the beach has an incline about 20 yards from the water.  So if you lie there, its really comfortable, and not really “flat” on your back.

I then went downtown, to Borders/Barnes and Noble, and bought the highly recommended book, Predictably Irrational, in case i found myself lying on the beach again this weekend.  I have many fond memories of this Borders.  I can’t imagine however, it surviving much longer.

Following that I met Ryan who had been golfing, at the golf course for a drink.  Ryan, Chase, and their friends whom Ryan had just golfed with, for a drink at the bar that lines the course while watching people play the 10th hole.  Ryan is an easy going guy that I met towards the end of college.  We love to laugh, talk sports, and play golf together.  I had the privlege of being in his wedding, and will always have a special place in my heart for him.

Went home (to the Throops’), showered and changed, and then went downtown for dinner to a steak house.  We went to Holdren’s and there was an hour wait.  Ryan name-dropped the owners name, and we went to sit at the bar for appetizers and wine.  About 5 minutes later, we miraculously had a table.  Great work Ryan!  Boy was this meal yummy, large and filling.   Cajun-fried calimari, bacon-wrapped shrimp, fried jalepenos, twice-stuffed baked potato and a 24 oz. bone-in ribeye.  As we were leaving there, some random foreigners was asking Chase, and then me, if we’d buy them tequila.  I told them we were going down the street to Joe’s for a drink, and if they  showed up there id get them some,.

At Joe’s for a drink, eventually the foreigners arrived and the four of us had a tequila shot (4 patron shots–$40).  Met some people that worked for someone I knew back in college (Maury Hayashida), and one of them knew my sister and had lived on the same floor as her.

At about 11:30 we left Joe’s to go home to bed.  I didn’t sleep great, and woke up tired.

Ryan was going outta town (to see his mom/family), around 7am.  So when I got up around 9am,  Chase and I went to a breakfast place that I had never known of.  This place was right on the beach therefore it was breathtaking, and the food was delicious.

Following breakfast, I packed up my things from the Throop’s and went over to be with Kevin and the Sturm’s (sounds like a singing quartet).  Kevin and I sat around on his recently swept, awesomely self-made patio and talked about life and business and the challenges and joy’s of both.  Kevin was my college roommate for 2 years, and we ran college cross country with each other and have had years of shared experiences, the highs and the lows.

Kevin had some great, fortuitous news that the Wold’s were driving down from the Bay area, to take their children to Disneyland, and were gonna stop by for a couple hours for lunch.  What an added bonus to my trip!.  Although David is a phd, chemical engineer, and a country music loving fan, we will always be close.  I value his insight, his levels of sensitivity, and his deep loyalty.  We had homemade margaritas and sandwiches.  I loved having time with everyone.

After they left, I was pooped so my afternoon was spent half falling asleep, half playing wii with Brody, Kevin’s 5 year old son.

That evening, we went out to dinner where I got the chance to celebrate Kevin’s wife, Chrystal’s birthday.   Following dinner, we returned the two children home, had a baby-sitter arrive, and then went downtown to see the movie, Iron Man 2.  We were about an hour early to the movie, so we walked around downtown and into some of the shops.  One of the stores we walked through, I just recently reviewed on yelp, called Random.  This store name completely fits, as everything in it is RANDOM!  From old doorways and hinges, to neat ceramic olive plates, this store has it all covered.  Iron fencing, leather chairs, old signs, knickknacks.  One of the coolest stores to just walk through and look at things.

We went to the movie at the Arlington Theater.  This theater was built in 1931 and seats over 2,000 people.  It has an old style marquee, and an old ticket booth that leads down a large foye into the building.  I would occasionally attend church in this building back in college, and it hosts film festivals, concerts and movies now.

The movie got out around 12:15 and went back to bed at the Sturm’s.  They had put their 2 year-old (Mianna) in Brody’s room and I had the bed in the Mia’s room. Well, apparently Mia had been causing a stir since 4am.  So at about 7:30 or 8, Kevin woke me saying he had to kick me out of the room–cause they needed for her try her own crib/room.

With Chrystal back in bed, Brody me and Kevin were now up, and off to breakfast at a lil bagel place.

Then around 9:45 am, I started my drive home.  The overall trip in my car was about 440 miles, with about 125 songs played, not to mention the few I kept hitting repeat on.  The drive home was relatively easy, taking me barely over 3 hours.  I didn’t take a lot of pictures on the trip, but the ones I included in here were mainly the ones I had tweeted.

I love my friends.  I love Santa Barbara.

(click on an image for a larger view)

The New Dork

March 11th, 2010

I know I have been video heavy lately, but here is another good one!

Pay Way

January 9th, 2010

I had a fun little exchange via twitter with the restruant Pei Wei yesterday.

peiwei1

peiwei2

peiwei3

peiwei4

peiwei5

Horn Tooting

November 19th, 2009

I know this is sorta tooting my own horn, but I cracked myself up.  I’m still laughing at two tweets I sent last night.  Juan is in town and we were having a cocktail and hanging out.  I ended up having more than one.  While drinking some rum & cokes (mt. gay) I sent these two tweets:

friend
http://twitter.com/ty_frank/status/5850313158

and then, about 20 minutes later, I sent this tweet:

hate
http://twitter.com/ty_frank/status/5850586397

It Was The Sound Of A Crescendo

June 26th, 2009

As He Came Into The Window
It Was The Sound Of A Crescendo
He Came Into Her Apartment
He Left The Bloodstains On The Carpet
She Ran Underneath The Table
He Could See She Was Unable
So She Ran Into The Bedroom
She Was Struck Down, It Was Her Doom

billie-jean-jacksonYesterday afternoon at approximately 3:00 PM pacific time, the “King of Pop” passed away.  Michael Jackson was a tortured soul and must have lived both a thrilling and a stressful, worried-filled life.  While learning his A-B-C’s as a child, he seemed to take no greater joy than being on stage performing.  He was a smiling, dancing, happy kid.

After becoming “King of the World” you could see a person that both wanted to heal the world (perhaps as Captain EO), yet despite his success, he had to retreat and isolate himself.  He would have to remind himself that he was not alone.

He had odd moments with marriages, odd moments with his own children, and questioned moments with other children.

He was both one of the most celebrated and revered musical artists not just of our time, but in the entire history of the world.  But he was also a little off the wall, and confusing to the world.  The part that confused me the most, was the fact that by the end of his life, you really couldn’t tell if his appearance was black or white, human or alien.  He had multiple surgeries on his face.  He just couldn’t help it.  He could no longer recognize the man in the mirror.

mjgloveNo matter your perspective–whether your view of him is of a musical dancing genius, or whether you see him as a bad, deranged man– the fact remains that he was a global icon.  His popularity went further then just the girl named Billie Jean, but stretched throughout the world.  The girls were his, the men were his, the world was his.  At the height of his popularity, he could do no wrong.  He was invincible.  He could even walk on the moon.

He is gone too soon.

News of his death quickly passed around the eInternet and it even caused sites to go down.

News of Jackson’s death spread quickly online, causing many websites to experience technical difficulties under the unanticipated swell of users. Google announced technical difficulties after a sudden swell in searches for “Michael Jackson” led the company to believe it was under attack from hackers, while social networking site Twitter reported a crash after record numbers of users used the site to spread the news of Jackson’s death.  Wikipedia itself had temporarily experienced technical difficulties and crashed at 3:15 PDT reportedly due to excessive edits and user overload. Many news organizations were generally very cautious about the initial reports of his death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson#2009:_Death

mjleanAs I heard the news, and quickly reflected on his life and death I wondered if he would be remembered as Elvis or Buddy Holly are remembered.  Author Samuel Roy has argued: “Elvis’ death did occur at a time when it could only help his reputation. Just before his death, Elvis had been forgotten by society.”  You could probably say the same about Michael Jackson.  He had become an anomaly to culture.  Hopefully his death will make people remember the time when they danced, sang, and just couldn’t get enough of his music rather than the disfigured man, sharing wine and beds with boys, trying to free willy.  Will Neverland Ranch become his Graceland?

As I contemplated his legacy, I at first thought that although I viewed him as filthy (in the baseball sense–amazingly good), I didn’t have any sort of connection or tie to his music.  But then as I thought about it more, I realized that I have 2 (actually, just thought of a third) vivid memories of his music.

The first was when I was only six years old.  It was late 1982 and my family was renting a winter cabin for a week or weekend in the mountains.  When I was younger this was kind of a tradition.  We had another family come visit and share our time for a few days.  One of my brothers friends (I think it was Tyler Monroe), brought with him the new Thriller album.  We listened to the album non-stop and even pretended we were making a video for it.  I also remember being scared and having nightmares of the title track.  It was really a freaky song for a newly six year old boy in a dark musty cabin.

mjperformingMy next vivid memory (both of these memories I can still see very clearly in my mind’s eye), took place when I was in junior high school.  It was a Sunday morning, and I was waiting in our Volvo (Volvo for life), for my dad to finish chatting with people after church.  It was parked on Martincoit road, along the street, right outside my former elementary school that housed our church.  I was sitting there listening to the radio, and Casey Casem’s top 40 countdown.  The number one song that day was Man in the Mirror.  It was a spiritual moment for me, as I sang and cried to the song.  It inspired me that day, to want to make myself a better person, to want to help people, and to focus on my own problems, rather than the faults of others.  It’s a trait that I have hung onto and grown my entire life–within each problem, fight, scenario that I might encounter, I look to see where I could have blame so that I can attempt to change that pattern in the future.  I think this is sometimes a detriment to myself, as I too often claim more blame than I should.  But overall I think it is a good concept.  Why blame others and hurt them with anger, when I can find and fix the role I played and build up the esteem of the other person?

michaeljacksongloveThe third vivid memory that I have in my photographic memory (or would it now be called a videographic memory?), is my senior year in college.  It was a week before school started, and I was hanging out preparing for the year with the other R.A’s in my dorm–Erin, Erin, Angeline, Rebecca and Jon.  We were setting up our R.A office (does anyone remember “the Dugout?”), using bleach to clean out the mold in the refrigerator from a long summer.  We were setting up our pet miniature illegal turtles (what did we name them?  M.J was one I think), and getting the entire dorm prepared for the rush of students and the new year.  Our dorm,V.K, was shaped similar to how you might view a Motel 6.  It was two stories, rectangle in shape, that all surrounded a large green courtyard with cement walkways.  While we were busting our humps cleaning, laughing and enjoying new friendships and experiences, we were blasting in the courtyard Jackson’s album, HIStory.  We just couldn’t get enough.  It was a precious moment in my life, and along with laughter, love, and hope, Jackson was providing the soundtrack.

There are probably many other moments of my life that Michael Jackson provided soundtrack to.  But these 3 are the most vivid.  I remember them so crisply and can picture them on a loop in my head.  Whether I am 6, 12, 21 or now practically 33, his music and life have been integrated with mine.

Will you (if I have any readers) share any specific memories, moments, or flashbacks that you may have had with Jackson and or his songs?  How did he make you feel?

michael-jackson

mjreagan

President Ronald Reagan and Nancy in 1984 before receiving an award for his contribution to a drunk driving awareness program.

mjthriller

Tagging

March 30th, 2009

Let the record state…

…I disagree with tagging Twitter when you are linking to a friends specific tweet.

This Week I'm Thinking About: Heather Weir