Creativity Galore

The best part about downtime- from life, from work, from school- is trying new things.

I've been doing small projects for my Dad, but I still have a tremendous amount of free time in my unemployed state. This has given me the opportunity to focus on my creative outlets... writing, singing, painting, creating personalized greeting cards like these...






And the newest addition- acting.

This past week I had two consecutive night shoots as an extra for Anna Faris' latest flick "What's Your Number?" It was really interesting seeing how much behind the scenes work goes into a movie. Plus, I got to see Anna Faris and meet Joel McHale!! IMDb says the movie will be released in 2011- so I'll let you know if I'm seen at all....... big screen style.

Road Trip Goals

Our goals on this grand road trip were simple- save&enjoy.

What does that mean?

Save.
Free lodging. The entire 2 week trip we stayed with family and friends... and sometimes friends of friends of friends.

Sometimes halfway into our 16-hour driving days we thought, Wait, we don't know anyone in [fill in city name].

And that's where social media came in.



And it worked like magic every time. We never had to pay for a hotel. Thanks friends! (And friends of friends of friends)

Enjoy.
With the money we saved, we did awesome things! Like buying crepes in Haight/Ashbury... and purchasing $13 dresses at a thrift store for Vegas... and grabbing fresh produce at roadside stands.

Roadtrip 2010- California Style

Amy and I decided to go on a 2 week cross-ish-country roadtrip in this general route: Chicago, Omaha, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, San Francisco, Newport, San Diego, Vegas, Flagstaff, Amarillo, Waco, Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago.



Please enjoy our video from California- eating food, enjoying the scenery, catching up with friends and being the ultimate tourists. Mission: Go South for Coachella tickets.



But sometimes when "foolproof" plans... well, fool us... we get to make new and equally exciting plans. After missing out on Coachella tickets (if you watched the video), we called my friend Adam and stayed with him in Newport for the weekend. We spent the weekend at the beach instead of the desert and had mimosas instead of bottles of water. Sadly, the days in California were over. Next stop: Vegas.

Here are some shots from Newport.

Leave it beaver

Sometimes I'm amazed by just how little control I have over travel circumstances.

Like a good, traveled road tripper, before embarking on my 3 week cross-country roadtrip, I got the car checked out- making sure it was prepared for the journey.

But alas on the first day, almost out of PA, I heard a thud and immediately lost my power steering and brakes. There goes the belt.

So a majority of my day was spent people watching truckers... And trucks. And trucks on trucks- like a truck dance party.


But an awesome thing: I got to drive through Scranton, PA- home of The Office.


Even better, the car shop had it fixed the next day, in time to make it to Chicago for a good old deep dish pizza pie. Delish.

Cook Like the Thais

One thing I wanted to accomplish in Thailand is to learn to cook Thai food. It was coming down to my last month in Thailand, so I thought Now or never.



I took a course through Baan Thai in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After a trip to the local Thai market to learn about the produce I would cook with, the course began with a meet and greet accompanied by refreshing Thai snacks.



It was a great course, because I was able to choose exactly what I wanted to make...

Pad Thai


Chicken in Coconut Milk Soup


Penang Curry


Spring Rolls

Red Shirt Frenzy

Right now, there's a lot of political tension in Bangkok from the Red Shirt Party. At Government House yesterday they spilled 1,000,000 cc's of blood, donated by the Red Shirt protesters. They dumped blood again this morning at the Prime Minister's house, begging him to step down.

There were constantly parades going stopping traffic all over Bangkok, and I was interested to see what these rallies were all about. So I headed down to Government House to spend a day in the heat with the Red Shirt Party.

Below are some photos I took...

100,000 protesters at Government House


Carting jugs of blood through the cheering crowd


Showing me where they had blood drawn that morning


Party card-holders

Chiang Rai Excitement

I took a day-trip from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai, which is the Northern-most part in Thailand.

First I went to the White Temple, a famous recently-built temple signifying Heaven and Hell. In Hell, people are reaching up trying to get out. Inside the temple there are disturbing paintings with references to modern culture (9/11, etc) on the walls showing Buddha conquering all.




I traveled to what's known as "The Golden Triangle," where Thailand meets Burma and Laos. I got a border pass to Laos where I had to try their famous Laos whiskey. I could choose between some killer "flavors" if you will: tiger fur, lizard or cobra. With options like that, how could I go wrong? I opted not to have a hair ball coughing fit later and stuck with "cobra".



Then I went to a tribal village, where I met the Long Neck Tribe, famous for growing their necks up to a foot long. They were really welcoming to me and let me try on one of their neck braces. In exchange for their kindness, I bought some hand-woven scarves.