DropKnees.com Blog

My parents were in Hanover, NH for a wedding and we were able to meet up with them for dinner on the drive from VT to Maine.  It was great to see the family.  Maine somewhat feels like a second home.  We spent about one week a year in York, Maine, every summer with the Gaults.  So, I definitely know my way around.  The weekend was very relaxed.  My parents and sister showed up after the wedding on Sunday.  And Brian’s brother Patrick was up from Boston.  We got a lobstah dinner at Chauncey’s and just chilled on the beach all day Monday. 

We drove through the night and through Ohio and New York to get to Middlebury by Thursday.  Our buddy Ryan was staying at Lake Dunmore with his mom for his sister’s college graduation.  Brian and Ryan had graduated from Middlebury a few years ago.  So it was sort of a homecoming for them.  We spent most of the day fishing and swimming on Lake Dunmore.  I caught the smallest fish on a spin rod with a lure.  It was a Brook Trout.  That evening, we feasted and sat around a fire chillin.

We took a long road trip last week.  Myself and B. Gault set out for Maine, from Chicago, on Tuesday.  The first stop was Detroit.  We landed in Detroit for the perfect storm.  My two best friends from Villanova were in town.  Ryan lives in Detroit and Joe was there for work (Ecos Consulting).  The evening was fun.  The next day, before setting out for the long drive to Vermont, we stopped at The Heidelberg Project.  This is a very very unique art project that started a few years ago.  Essentially, there are a few city blocks with vacant and lived in homes that these artists transformed into their own canvas.  These pictures may do better at explaining things.

The other day, I went to the Jerry Springer show and sat in the crowd.  But that’s the most that I can write about that because I felt like I had to go to Church the following Sunday to try and purge all of the bad things that I was exposed to.  My roommate and I took a short 1.5 hour drive to Milwaukee.  Its a great little town just north of Chicago on Lake Michigan.  We had a cultural day.  First, we went to the Milwaukee Museum of Art.  Santiago Calatrava, a famous architect, designed the annex into the existing art museum.  It looks like a space ship, pictures are below.  The next stop was the Harley Davidson Museum.  This place was really really interesting.  It is amazing what Harley Davidson has accomplished as a company and as a brand.  The exhibits show the lineage of motorcycles and teaches you everything that you need to know about their unique twin valve engines and the motorcyle culture.  The last stop was Miller Park, the home of the Brewers.  Its a great stadium because it has a retractable roof overtop and the people in Wisconsin love baseball.  Overall, it was a great day to be in such a neat city.

Its certainly one of those things that you need to check off of your list of “Things to Do” in life.  The Kentucky Derby was a blast.  I will be back to this event.  We rolled through Miami University in Ohio on our way to the derby.  Once we arrived, the fun began.  It cost $40 to get into the infield of the race track at Churchill Downs.  The infield is where nothing but weird things happen.  Its like a mix between a formal prom and a crazy Halloween costume party.  People are dressed to impress and dressed to scare the world.  The only issue with being on the infield is the lack of perspective of the race.  You get a limited point of view of the actual horses racing, but that doesn’t necessarily effect the good time going on in the infield.  Here are a few pics from the Derby.

I rarely get a chance to explore and check out the ‘South.’  In April, I was able to cruise down to Nashville for a weekend and participate in a half marathon.  I basically made the decision to run at the last minute.  My roommate’s parents live in Nashville and work at Vanderbilt.  So, room and board was taken care of.  The Run…the run was crowded, but the course was challenging and the crowd was fun.  The Town…Nashville is an unbelievable city with a lot of culture to offer.  The music scene there is like no other city in the country.  There is an abundance of live music there.  Essentially, I left Nashville with the notion that I would prefer to go there for a bachelor party over Vegas, any day of the week.

It rained today.  Normally, I would be stuck to a couch watching football or something lame.  The roommate and I decided to travel a great distance to the SouthSide of Chicago, to the museum of science and industry in Hyde Park. This place is enormous and I am so jealous of kids today.  Museums and exhibits have become so much more fun these days.  I feel like when I was growing up they were always boring and not interactive.  These days, its a blast.  There is a sustainable, green, house on the lawn of the museum as an exhibit.  The house is a pre-fabricated building that displays the 5 elements for a ’smart home:’ Smart Design, Material Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Water Efficiency, and Healthy Environment.  The other big thing was the Omni-max movie about the Great Lakes.  The Great Lakes obtain over 20% of the world’s fresh water supply.  These lakes have suffered a lot over the years from many pollutants.  It’s great now because far more eyes are concerned with the well being of the lakes.

Here are some pictures throughout the day:

Thursday night was a blast.  My buddy Jason runs Angel’s & King’s, it’s this bar that is in downtown Chicago.  He had hung out with Kiefer Sutherland the night before and had a blast.  He gave me a call and told me to come down on Thursday night.  First, this amazing hair band played an acoustic set.  Steel Panther is a hilarious band.  The are much like Metal Gods in Salt Lake, except they right there own songs and make the audience laugh a whole lot more.  They were hysterical.  After this, I was introduced to Jack Bauer.  We did a shot of J&B and we talked about the CTU, the CTA, and the CVS.  It was an amazing evening.

I had not been back east (home) since Thanksgiving.  I had a nice opportunity to go home for Easter last weekend.  It was great to spend some time in the city and see the family out on Long Island.  I did two really cultural things while home.  The first, was going to Yale’s museum for the British arts.  Mom, Dad, and I drove up to New Haven to check out this great Darwin exhibit.  The exhibit and architecture of the building were fascinating.  The other cultural thing on my plate, was a feminist vegetarian restaurant.  So, I have been to veggie restaurants before (plenty of them), but never have I been to a feminist restaurant before.  The irony is that this place is 5 minutes from my parents house.  The BloodRoot is a phenomenal place to eat with a unique approach.  It is run by all women, there is no such thing as a waitress there, and the food is great cuisine.  Apparently, this place has been in business for the past 30 years; which is a testament for how great of a place this is.  People travel from great distances to eat just minutes from home.

I was fortunate enough to get a long weekend in Park City.  This weekend had all the fun of a crazy pond skimming contest and two powder days.  Utah got pounded with a ton of snow that week.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of us skiing the pow because it was too much fun.  But I did take a few of us clowning around at the pond and afterward, at the Wailers concert.  Here is just, one…