San Francisco to Minneapolis to Atlanta (5/1 – 5/10)

It’s been a flurry of travel these past couple weeks.  The 1st of May I flew from SF to Minneapolis for Midwest Lindy Fest.  I flew overnight on Sun Country – an airline that only flies in and out of Minneapolis and arrived at 5am Central Time (it was 3am Pacific Time for me).  I trucked my luggage across a parking lot to the light rail which shuttled me across the city to the Warehouse District.  Andrew picked me up and I proceeded to sleep for half the day.

I got up, grabbed some coffee, found out Jo wasn’t going to get in until after rehearsal for the show.  We hadn’t practiced or even run our routine since Lindy Focus and we had hoped for an afternoon to drill it back into our heads.  Instead we got about an hour in between changing, eating and rushing to the venue.

Thankfully Davis and I had time to practice our Do No Evil routine which went off quite well.  Despite being short the lighting and costuming (thanks for the shirt Peter) fit perfectly and it’s our goal to finish it and perform it again.

I haven’t been part of a full scale show that has felt this professional in a while.  Competition performance is an entirely different affair than putting on a show.  In a show it’s not just about which tricks you perform or how complex your routine or how bad-ass you look (although that helps) it’s about taking the audience with you on your story.

And it’s all pieced together by the M.C. – this one did an exceptional job.  I forget his name… A something.

It’s a rare experience to get to work on a show with such exceptional characters like Stefan & Bethany, Falty & Casey, Adam, and many more.  Some of them have a lot of show experience and some have very little (me) but the encouragement and professionalism more experienced performers exhibit draws the rest of the performers in.

Anyways, Midwest Lindy Fest was a blast.  One of the best small events I’ve been to in a while and I haven’t danced that hard for months.  The bands were killer (particularly the Southside Aces) and we even got a late night jam going Saturday night where Robert Bell joined us for a bit.

I got to spend Monday mostly on my own as Andrew worked late.  I spent about 8 hours in Espresso Royale, a cafe about a block down from the apartment.  It entertains me when I see two shifts of staff come in and out of an establishment.  If you are ever in Minneapolis I recommend trying the breve latte.  Deliciously sweet and seductive.

I went out in the evening to Famous Dave’s BBQ for dinner (at around 10pm) and to see the band there with a couple dancers.  The band was playing Rockabilly – poorly – and I think they should have stuck to the bluegrass country sound they played well.  As for Famous Dave’s… I recommend the happy hour appetizers (2$ for nearly any appetizer) and their ribs were pretty good, I’ve yet to find a place that truly tops Dinosaur BBQ in Rochester, NY though.

Tuesday I flew out to Atlanta in the afternoon.  I had the opportunity to be driven by Clay Collins, one of my favorite internet people.  He used to run a successful lifestyle design blog but abandoned it when he didn’t feel it fit him anymore.  Instead he created Finance Your Freedom and Project Mojave just launched today.  It’s a project with an excellent array of faculty to help you create an online business to free you from the burdens of a typical job.

Enough proselytizing.  Clay was kind enough to meet up and drive me to the airport and I’m bummed we didn’t have the chance to sit down for a proper drink and chat.  We talked the entire way to the airport, asking questions, talking about business, and the life paths we had chosen (why we lived where we did  – or in my case out of a suitcase).  It’s always great to meet someone who has that curiousity.  I look forward to our next meeting.

Best compliment he gave me (to gloat a moment): “you’re the real deal.”

My flight to Atlanta was smooth and even early (fancy that considering I’m writing this while I sit on a bus that is running approximately 5 hours late).  Lindsay picked me up from the airport and we got to chat for a second.  I was staying at Jo’s while Jo was off chasing the Marbles in NC.

I had the place to myself for a couple days which was nice.  Wednesday I spent the day working, writing and cooking for myself.  I made a delicious dinner of broiled salmon on a bed of wilted dandelion greens with a beet reduction and shaved beets on the side.  Alongside a bottle of wine it was a great way to recharge on my own.

My Thursday was not so calm and even though I got up relatively early I had a bunch of people to see.  I had a short coffee with Gina.  I miss hanging out with Gina, she’s got such great energy and cracks me up.  We caught up since we haven’t had the chance to talk much recently (since I’ve been busy working/traveling and she just got her PhD).

Then off to the Marta for a 2 hour tap private with Terrence.  He proceeded to give me a little scare at the Marta station – funny enough but I had a moment of panic when I got a text “why?” in response to my arrival at where we were supposed to meet.  We caught up (I love doing that) and then he worked me for 2 hours.  If you measure how successful your privates are by how much you sweat through your shirt – I filled the cup.  It was intense.

He drove me back to the Publix near Jo’s and his little boy Dominic was with us (he takes martial arts in the same building that Terrence has his studio).  When Dominic found out that I didn’t have a home and was traveling around, he kept saying I was homeless and then demanded Terrence give me money.  It was exceptionally cute (minus the being threatened by a 4 year old cause I wouldn’t take his money ) and generous manner.  I have to say I’m very impressed at how Terrence deals with his kid and I hope someday if I become a father I can have that much success with it as well.

My day, not being over yet, I picked up steak and some veggies for dinner with Lindsay back at Jo’s.  While Jo was home by then, she would be out at Swing Soulstice, so I had the apartment to myself still.  Lindsay came by and I cooked her dinner and we caught up.  I have to say the people I’ve met along the road so far have become some of my favorite people.  They are warm, talented, driven and each unique.

We enjoyed some thin steak – herb encrusted – seared and broiled, along with wilted spinach and mushrooms, and a side of sweet potato.  Along with a nice bottle of wine and some dark chocolate with mint leaves we had a relaxing evening, even lounging on the porch.  It would have been nice to get a bit more time with Lindsay but she had to get up early to teach.

So I finished my busy Thursday with about five hours of intensive work on Project Mojave and Slacker Reform writing.  [These days I feel like a workaholic without a job.]

Friday I got to spend time with Jo.  We walked our routine to keep it fresh (I think that will be the plan from now on when we see each other) and I cracked down to do a bit more work (what can I say but repeat – I’m becoming a workaholic).  Brooks stopped by and we headed out to meet friends Nick and Morgan for some Thai food.

I love Thai food.  Green curry, red curry, pad thai, pad see ewe, drunken noodle, I’m an all in kind of guy when it comes to Thai food.  The place we went wasn’t very good however and even though I got the pad see ewe with chicken and shrimp I neglected most of the noodles and would have preferred a bit more vegetable in my meal.  The sauce was mediocre.

Anyways, we wandered over to the Starbucks attached to the Barnes & Noble – books and coffee, that’s really hard to go wrong even if it is Starbucks.  As we wondered through the B&N to coffee I snagged Ramit’s new book I Will Teach You To Be Rich.  I had read excerpts and it has been promoted by Tim Ferriss – and being the consumer of information that I am and working to turn around my financial life into a successful and hopefully rich future it made sense to buy it.

We headed back to Nick’s to play some Rock Band which actually turned into Settlers of Catan and then watching two episodes of Rome.  Now Settlers was fun and I managed to score the Longest Road victory card however I boxed myself in early and didn’t make out well otherwise.  Rome had a diligent following when it came out on HBO but I really could care less.  Minus the gratuitous sex and violence on top of world class deception and manipulation… okay, I did sort of enjoy it.  That and I kept myself more entertained with Fring on my iPhone and chatting with Corinne for most of the evening.

Really though, I wanted to be home and working.  I’d been reading Seth Godin’s Purple Cow during the day and I wanted to get home and write.  Truly remarkable.

Saturday I invited Jo to the second half of my tap private with Terrence.  While I don’t think I got as much out of it, I definitely worked hard.  It’s more intense one-on-one and Jo obviously has a lot more tap experience than I do, so she can pick up steps and routines swiftly while I struggle along a bit.  The steps just aren’t in my muscle memory yet.

However we ended the lesson with some improvisation.  This is where I love it.  I can’t help but improvise even if I only know five steps.  I hear rhythms and want to shape them.  It’s something that I started early on in my tap career (it’s still exceptionally young).  I was maybe two lessons in with two weeks of practicing my basic shuffles and flaps when I went to my first tap jam which was entirely improvisation.  Scary, yes.  Thrilling, hell yeah.

After tap we cleaned up, had about an hour then headed to Ginzy’s, an RIT friend of Jo’s who had recently moved to Atlanta.  The plan was to hit the grocery store pick up a leg of lamb and some other food to cook.  While grocery shopping went swiftly the cooking process managed to labor out four about four more hours.  By the time dinner was served from the outdoor grills most of us were starving.  It was almost painful.

To mitigate there were some exceptional shots of espresso produced by an AeroPress.  Ginzy seemed quite interesting as well, someone who I think I’d like to get a chance to chat with again.  However I’m not one for the corporate life and some of the other guys at the dinner all worked at Oracle – there’s just something depressing about it when I see people in that kind of atmosphere.  Who really wants to be a cubicle bound drone working for a MegaCorp.  Can’t we get away from our Gibson induced future now?

Dinner was leg of lamb glazed with a pomegranate reduction and twice baked potato.  If you notice there are no greens, no vegetables at all, and I want my greens.  Jo and Ginzy’s philosophy though – meat first, all else secondary.  While the meat was cooked to perfection there really wasn’t much else to the flavor.  Lamb is lamb and what really would have made it is the pomegranate reduction with herbs and spices to season once it was on the plate, perhaps a bit of paprika or garnish to the potato and something else to round out the meal.

Sometimes I’m just particular but I’ve grown out of the slab of meat diet.  I want courses or at least a variety of flavors with my food.