“Oklahoma City is actually very green,” my friend Venus told me over the phone a few days before I headed down there to visit.
Turns out that the color of the landscape would not be the only misconception I had that would be dispelled. Never having been to the Sooner State and having seen few images of it, everything I had imagined about Oklahoma and its capital was based on what I read in Grapes of Wrath
“New years always start well for me,” I told my folks in the waning weeks of 2008. “It’s usually towards the end of the year I start to lose steam.”
At least the last couple years have followed this pattern. I started off 2007 with a memorable Spanish-learning, Panamanian vacation with Tori followed by intensive studying for (and passing) the Professional Engineering Exam. The first half of 2008 included French classes, a New England and southeastern Canada trip, the Boston Marathon, a 100-mile run, a Floridian wedding, and the Tour Divide. I can’t really recall what happened in the last few months of those years but the first halves made up for them.
Likewise, I intended to start out 2009 with a bang beginning with a southern U.S. trip. But it didn’t turn out quite as I expected. Continue reading »
Colorado scenery is lovely during so many weeks of the calendar that having to pick one’s favorite time of year can be mentally wrenching. Trying to do so is like trying to decide whether Scarlett Johannson is more attractive than Natalie Portman or Jessica Alba or Deanna Russo. Like the Colorado seasons, all are beautiful but in different ways.
Yet, whenever October rolls around, I usually find myself thinking at some point or another, “this is Colorado at its finest…” Continue reading »
I don’t know about you, but when I used to hear the word “Miami,” an image would pop into my head of a guy named Don Johnson wearing a cheesy white suit hopping into a Ferrari Testarossa kit car to hunt down criminals and prostitutes. Other times I might have thought about of a tropical storm battering skyscrapers with rivers of water while palm trees swayed to the side at 45 degree angles. Or, if it was football season, I might have recalled how Dan Marino was able to throw for so many touchdowns but could never get back to the Super Bowl after losing to the San Francisco 49ers in his rookie year.
Clearly, then, I had never actually been to Miami. Until now. That is, when I flew down there to be a groomsman at my buddy Dan’s wedding. Continue reading »
When Dan asked me to be a groomsman at his wedding in Miami, Florida, I was excited for a number of reasons: 1) my buddy Dan was getting married to a wonderful woman, Susan; 2) I’d get to see Dan and Susan for the first time in over a year; and 3) for the first time in my life, I’d be visiting the Sunshine State. So in June 2008, I pushed aside my preconceptions about what I heard about Florida (e.g., hurricanes, humidity, flat land, old people, bad drivers) and hopped on a jet to Fort Lauderdale. Continue reading »
