Premiere of Black & White Wednesdays

To go along with our Travelog Thursdays, this week is the premiere of Black & White Wednesdays. The concept is simple, I'll be posting some black and white photographs of mine (or other artists). Enjoy!
~Mike

The Tale of Two Matches ~ Travelog Thursday

Have you ever had a profound experience in your life that returns in smaller pieces later on in your life, almost continuing to remind you of that first initially amazing experience? Not de ja vu. Not anything abnormal, but just a moment in time that brings you back. I’m almost certain people have these occur to them quite often, because let’s face it, our mind makes connections with images, sounds, tastes, smells, and other stimuli with prior experiential things.

I’ve wanted to write a blog about all the different and specific places or moments in my life that a song reminds me of.  It’s a common thing for some people to write about as it is quite personal but yet interesting. But I am going to hold off with that topic and talk about an experience I had last weekend.

But instead of telling you both stories from most recent to longer ago, I’m going to splice it, going back and forth between last weekend and eight months ago where I had an incredibly similar experience.

Last weekend: I had gotten tickets to a soccer match between the USA men’s national team and Argentina at the New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. My girlfriend and I went with her two friends, and their boyfriends. 

Lionel Messi, World's Best Player two years running, takes the kickoff for Argentina.

In June: I had gotten tickets to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa with my good friend Colin, his girlfriend Kelsey and her best friend Emily.

Last weekend: Before the Saturday match, I decided to head up to Hoboken to visit my best friend Drew and hang out for a handful of days, catch up with friends in New York City and have a good time going out and seeing parts of the city. I was to start work the next week, so I wanted to take advantage of my last few free weekdays I had.

New Meadowlands jumbo screen with Landon.

Our emotional captain Landon, versus Argentina's great Lionel.

One Night in Brooklyn ~ Travelog Thursday

Many times I find lyrics in music that click with moments in my life, like anyone. Sometimes randomly, sometimes with precise detail to my life. But there is a lyric that I connected with that made me think back on my past year and change. The line is from hip-hop artist Mos Def:

"sometimes I sit back and just reflect,

Watch the world go by and my thoughts connect, 

I think about the time past and the time to come..."

Back in September I was in New York on my journey down from New Hampshire to Baltimore. I spent about a month going from one friend's bed to another friend's futon throughout Hoboken, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Baltimore, etc. The night before my birthday I traveled out to Brooklyn to do a photo shoot of the three musical members of NYC indie band, Ghost Ghost! 

Karl, Kevin, and Tim had asked me to take some photos of them to promote their gig they were playing at the CMJ Music Marathon in October. The idea was to actually make the photographs capture them "training for the marathon" as the humor was that the marathon was actually of auditory nature and nothing to do with physical endurance. Once that idea clicked, then the idea of adding 80's style attire and attitude was too perfect to ignore.

May Your Madness be Meaningful... and Mad ~ Travelog Thursday

As I sit in my living room with the patio doors open pouring in fresh spring air, i have two laptops on my desk and our tv on rotation with three of the four NCAA basketball games on every possible way. A mirage of sounds are coming out of apartment 2B; shoes squeaking, cheerleaders making out-of-rhythm cheers from all the 9 teams currently playing , in-depth announcers spatting out the plays, and crowds roaring at various big plays. What is in front of me? My brackets ridden with cross-outs, fill-ins, and highlight marks. A warrior's prep kit sits in front of me; a glass of Crystal Lite to get hydrated before the holiday of drunkenness commences tonight and my St. Patrick's green clothing folded on my coffee table, ready to be adorn shortly. Today is March 17^th. Most would consider this a glorious day for the Irish and alcohol lovers, but for me, that plays second fiddle to the unofficial holiday I am celebrating today. This is bigger than Christmas, it's more exciting. It's more significant than Thanksgiving, it's more meaningful. This is more patriotic than Independence Day, fireworks happen sporadically and not in an organized finale.

My set up for the first day of the NCAA tourney. Two computers, several brackets, HD tv, and a glass of Crystal Lite. Yup.

This is the first day of March Madness. If there has been a consistent sporting event that I have written about throughout my life, it has been the NCAA tournament. I remember the very first time I filled out a bracket for my dad's pool. I knew a little bit about college basketball as a 12 year old, but that moment it clicked. My first tournament pool and my first victory against adults. It was invigorating. From then on I have filled out a bracket; at 13 I made two and wrote a poem about how fun it was, at 14 I had three brackets and spent hours on research, by high school it was a full-fledged addiction. I skipped school and took “sick days” for the first two days of the tourney. At 15 I sat and watched every game with the each timeout break giving live updates on the start of America's war in Afghanistan. It was a memory I will always have, having the thrilling excitement of the first games and brackets being tested but the lows of teenage friends having to watch as our country embarked on war. Once college tipped off, it was not even a question, classes took a backseat.

So I had ten years of pure ecstasy of the tournament and then I left to live abroad in Thailand. College basketball was nearly impossible to find on television in The Land of Smiles and so I did not pay very much attention to the regular season other than my favorite Tar Heels of North Carolina. The regular season came and went and I got my usual college basketball tournament invitations. A tradition is a tradition so I absolutely signed up.

Just Keep Running

It's been nearly nine months since my return back into America and the spoiled life that I lived in Thailand for more than two years has caught up with me. While in Thailand, it's sort of the unwritten law that men lose weight if living there for a significant amount of time and women typically gain weight. This was a great surprise my first time living in Thailand for 6 months back in 2006. But when I knew I was going back to Thailand in 2008, I pigged out, knowing full well that I would be able to shed the weight easily in Thailand. I didn't used to be like this, as my old habits of exercise used to be great and I truly enjoyed the daily physical activity. Now I just feel old and slowly gaining back the weight I lost in Thailand. My last days in Thailand were my thinnest in a LONG time simply because I had just finished ordaining as a Buddhist monk for a month and lived by a strict diet which lost me about 12 pounds in just a month.

Here enjoying my first meal back to Lay life after Buddhist ordination for one month and losing nearly 12 pounds. This is about as skinny as I have been in a long time.

The culprit that brought my love for food back on a vicious track, "chao ping" and chicken with peppers; China 2's specialities. 

Finally the time has come where my old exercising habits are needed, so for the first time since training to climb Mt. Kinabalu back in October of 2009, I went for a run. It was not much of a run, but I mapped out a route and hit the road. Baltimore is still a bit cold out, but the weather was sunny (with an extra hour of daylight) and so I gave it a shot. The brisk chill didn't bother my legs or bare arms but more so my expanding lungs. That tight burning in the chest wouldn't go away. At first it felt great to have it again considering that I only got the feeling the past two years from high altitude climbing but by mile one, the fun was over and the pain was glaring. But just as all my coaches in high school used to say, "just run through it".

Once getting to the last leg of my run, I was unhappily surprised by the one road I did not know of named Concordia Drive. Come to find, Concordia Dr. was not too flat, but rather my own "Heartbreak Hill" of my loop. This mile long road was the final part of my run and although not extremely steep my out of shape body was telling me that what I was doing to it was a sick joke and it wanted to go back to fasting for a month on rice and tea instead of running anymore. And as much as I would enjoy that as well, that is (and was) not an option. I finished the run and it beat me up, but beneath the sore knees and fast-appearing blisters, I sense a small taste of excitement to get back in shape and keep running.