Saturday, January 30, 2010

Philly and Boston Part 1

The past 4 days I've been to Philadelphia and Boston. Never been to either before.

There are a lot of things I could write about: the hotels, the cities, the people, the experience, the toll roads, the history...

Let's start with the cities.

Philadelphia:

The city was built pretty compact (at least in the area I was in). There were a lot of skyscrapers, underground parking garages, historical sites, museums and entertainment centers built all within a 2 or 3 mile circumfrence. You could start at Independence Hall and walk 4 blocks and be at the State House. Looking from the State House you could look in all directions at very modern (and tall) skyscrapers. Walk another 4 blocks and you would be in the heart of the edcuation district, with libraries, parks/monuments, museums and art institutes.



The people were fairly friendly in Philadelphia...although one lady me and Beau ran into made a fairly poor assumption. Let's just keep it at that...

I think that Philly will give DC and Miami a run for their money for having the least patient drivers. They love their horns. It's like drag racing, where its a reflex of green light to gas pedal. In Philadelphia, its green light to horn reaction time.

We did get to see Body Worlds 2 at the Franklin Museum. Kind of creepy, but definitly an experience you should have if you go to Philly between now and April 18. Not as long to get through as I was thinking it would (took us about 75 minutes, and we were going slow) but for $19, it's not bad.

And I can say I had an authentic philly cheesesteak sandwhich. It was good.

Boston:

Boston is much more spread out than Philly. And there seems to be at least 20 universities and colleges just in Boston. We spent our time mostly in the financial district (give a mile in any direction from there). Never got to get over to the MIT side of Boston, but I made it a priority to see Fenway Park first. When there are baseball games there, it must be a madhouse. Fenway probably takes up less room than Capital City Stadium in Columbia, SC, is lined with restraunts, bars, and even a high school directly across from the stadium (I would have never passed high school had I gone there).

I got to walk the city by myself on Thursday and saw a few historical sites. Also got to see where the Bruins and Celtics play. We did get slammed by a snow storm Thursday night, but it was actually pretty cool.



Surprisingly, there are quite a few parts of downtown Boston where it's quiet. Kind of eerie. But judging by the cars parked along the road and the way the townhouses look, you need to have a net worth in excess of $2 million to live in that area...just my guess.

Personally, I liked Boston better than Philly, but maybe I'm biased being a Red Sox fan. And in neither city did I ever feel unsafe. I actually felt safer walking the streets of these cities than I do walking up Gervais Street in front of the State House in Columbia (then again, these were the very upscale areas). Go figure...

Toll Roads:

I got to say that there is no way I could have spent less than $70 on toll fees. The roads are very well kept on these roads, but damn...cut me some slack! Aren't these roads originally paved with taxpayer dollars through the Federal Highway Funds which are taxed through gasoline taxes? Maybe the idea behind it is to keep gridlock down, charge drivers to use the roads, which will cut down on unnecessary trips. I don't know, but I know this: To hell with toll roads.

Well, it's 1 a.m. and I am very tired. No sleep last night and drove for 8 hours today. I'll finish the rest of this later...probably on Monday.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

To the north, to the north...

Well, I'm in DC right now...been watching the football games all day and so far am very pleased at the outcomes (I was pulling for Indy and am HOPING the vikings can pull out a victory).

It has been raining all day so there really hasn't been much I could do. Yesterday I went into DC...walked around all the touristy places (the big pointy thing and the white building with the dome on it) and also went to the Library of Congress. Never had been there before but have to say I was very impressed. They had a 5 panel map from China from like 1602 of the world...and it was VERY accurate. I was shocked.

Also found out how to take a tour of the white building with the dome on it (aka capitol building). You can go in person or click here to go to the website.

Tomorrow me and Beau are heading to Philly. We are staying at more of a bed and breakfast called Society Hill Hotel. I know absolutely nothing about Philly, the area, or where this hotel is...but I know it's gonna be fun!

I'll try to get some pictures up as well. But until then...

Monday, January 18, 2010

Hilarious

The Sleep Talkin' Man...

Northeast Expedition

So looks like I have my trip to the Northeast planned finally. I will be going to DC (Jan 22 - 24), Philly (Jan 25, 26), Boston (Jan 27, 28), back to DC (Jan 29) and then Ocean City, MD (Jan 30 - Feb 1).

Should be a lot of fun...never been to either Philly or Boston before. Then the Frank Turner/Flogging Molly concert in Charlotte is on February 19...following that up with my flight to Taiwan (which I finally booked). Leaving for Taiwan on February 21! More to come on that though...

Sunday, January 10, 2010

New Toy

So I have been looking for an instrument to USB cord for awhile and today I finally found one. I went to target and got one for $45, which compared to the "bundle packages" I've seen at Best Buy and others (which included software and other crap) this was not a bad deal. The cable was a First Act 10-foot cable.

I went ahead and bought the cable and downloaded both Audacity and Cool Edit Pro (free music creating software) and my only current problem is that the sound card on my laptop will switch between the speakers and the USB cable. So in order to hear what I just played out of the laptop speakers, I need to unplug the USB cable. I see future difficulties (and repair bills) but it works for now.


Whats cool about the Cool Edit Pro software is that it will also allow me to layer sounds too...so if I were to add a microphone and/or another instrument, I can layer them to sound like it was a full band playing. Pretty cool I think.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Oil Reserves

So I have been doing some catch-up reading on some older The Economist magazines. Came across something I thought was interesting. This is from the June 13 - 19, 2009 issue, page 101:

Although the price of oil peaked at $147 a barrel in 2008, the world's proven oil reserves - thoses that are known and recoverable with existing technolog - fell only slightly, to 1,258 billion barrels, according to BP, a British oil company. That is 18% higher than in 1998. OPEC tightened its grip slightly in 2008, and commands slightly more than three-quarters of proven reserves. Saudi Arabia and Iran together account for almost one-third of the total. Venezuela, with nealy 8%, has the largest share of any non-Middle Eastern country. BP reckons that if the world continues to produce oil at the same rate as lst year, global supplies will last another 42 years, even if no more oil reserves are found.


I find it amazing how oil reserves in the past 10 years have actually GROWN by 18%, but the price of oil (and as of today, its spot price is $82.66/barrel) has grown by over 400%!