Went to Tokyo last week/weekend for business, and had a good time.. the last night Kevan and I went out and got shitfaced, just walking around and going to random bars in Shibuya. It was a good time; wasn’t too happy the morning after though. We stayed out as long as the bars stayed open, which was about 4am.. then Kevan passed out in the bathroom. Only got a few photos from the night though.
I know it’s a bit late but I thought I’d post some photos.. I went on a trip to Scotland over the holidays (Dec 25-Jan 1) with Marisa and a few friends from Omaha. I posted a bunch of pictures on my Flickr page: Edinburgh New Years.
It was a great trip, and the first time I’d been to Europe. Damn, people in Scotland talk really fast. It’s very hard to understand and usually we had to tell people to slow down. The weather was pretty crappy and the main event, the Hogmanay street party, was cancelled due to gale force winds, but we still had a great time. The thing I miss most: the delicious cask ales they serve everywhere.
My cousins Scott and Casey have been planning a trip to Scotland for New Years. When they first told me a few months ago, I didn’t think much of it because I don’t have much vacation time with my new job and don’t have much extra money thanks to buying lots of toys. Then, a few days ago, Casey told me a little more.. apparently this is the biggest and best New Year’s party in the world. It’s an annual tradition called Hogmanay. Basically what happens is they sell about 100,000 tickets to this event, then a few days before New Years they shut down the city and only let people in who have tickets.. and everyone parties for days. Perfect, sign me up, fly me to Europe and give me a few bottles of scotch. It’ll be even more fun because we have 10 people going and we’re going to rent a flat in the city for the week. Marisa and I bought our tickets yesterday.
We did it again; for the 8th consecutive summer, my friends and I had a successful trip to the north woods of Wisconsin. This year we had Scott, Casey, Trev, and Corey, who all flew up in the Bowen’s Cessna; Buras surprised us by taking a last minute flight to Madison and driving north; and Marisa and I flew into Chicago, drove up for the weekend, then spent a few days in the city afterwards.
All in all, it was a great trip. Because we have a tradition of having at least one or two injuries each year, I decided to get that out of the way early by taking a hot shard of glass in the leg. We were drinking beer and sitting around a campfire the first night when we started playing with the fire, trying to melt beer bottles in it and stuff. Then someone had the brilliant idea of pouring some water into a beer bottle then screwing the cap back on, and putting that in the fire. Casey and I decided that was a bad idea and we went inside to get more beer, rather than waiting for the thing to explode or whatever.. unfortunately, when we came back out it hadn’t exploded yet and we had forgotten all about it. Moments later there was a huge CRACK and pieces of glass went flying everywhere. Luckily my leg got the worst of it (see photo below), but some shards came dangerously close to Marisa’s eyes.
I think we were spared from any major injuries after that point. The weather was perfect and we had a great time on the lake wakeboarding, tubing, and cruising in the pontoon boat. Scott took us up in the Cessna for an aerial tour of the north woods; it was really cool seeing our lake and house from the air, but sadly I didn’t bring my camera.
Feasting on Mom’s cooking:
Pontooning:
Fun on the lake:
Marisa and I drove back to Chicago on Labor Day, through heavy traffic and pouring rain (once we got into Illinois there was a huge storm). We had a great time seeing the city, going to a Cubs game, and eating delicious deep dish pizza, thanks to our great hosts, Mark and Renee.
More pictures are on my Flickr account.
Ever wonder when the best time to buy tickets is for your upcoming trip? Check out this site, Farecast. It’s got lots of AJAX-ey dials and knobs and you can use to find the tickets you’re looking for, and then it will plot a graph of prices for those tickets over the past few months. I’ll definitely check this out next time I’ve got a big trip I’m planning.
via Sound Money Tips