M@ Around The World

Another adventure on the high seas... On Sun, November 12, my dad, step-mom, sister, and grand mother took to the high seas on another Princess cruise.  This time we were sailing through the eastern Caribbean to see the islands of St. Maarten , St. Thomas , and Princess Cays (in the Bahamas ).  11/13 & 11/4 :: Two days at sea The first two days of the cruise were spent sailing to St. Maarten.  It was simply our little (4300 occupant) ship (the Caribbean Princess ) and the open ocean.  I spent most of this time decompressing.  It had been a long year since the last time I was on board a cruise ship and over the course of these two days I let it all seep out.  Part of what helped me accomplish this goal was going to get a hot rock massage at the spa, going to see a couple movies (both at the local theatre as well as at the outdoors theatre), and spending time soaking in a hot tub.  Collins (my sister) and I also had our run of the ship at nights go...

Haha so I'm sorry to post a silly blog entry, but I'm SOOOOO excited to go on the family cruise tomorrow.    Everything is going so well right now.  The CAS Pilot was a success (should hopefully get good news on Tues, 14-NOV), this week back at work was calm, Democrats are back in charge of the House and Senate , next week is the cruise , I return to NY for Thanksgiving right after the cruise, Jason is coming to visit Atlanta the first week of December, and I was asked by my boss today to be his acting replacement for year-end operations!  * Happy Days are Here Again *!!! M@

Another quick trip out to LA... Thursday night, Sept 28, I hopped a flight back out to LA to visit Logan .  Approximately five hours later I was sitting in the Lexus SUV that he borrowed from work and we were speeding away to get something to eat before calling it a night.  Old friends, new friends, and NBC... On Friday we had plans to go to Burbank to meet up with one of my long-time friends, Cathy.  Cathy just moved to LA to work for NBC Universal .  I was able to get tickets for the three of us, plus Cathy's fiance, to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno with the help of a new friend of mine that I met at the Out & Equal Workplace Summit , Robin.  Before going into the show, Robin took Logan and I around the NBC Burbank lot giving us a "behind the scenes" tour.  It was fascinating to see how open and different the style of the site was.  There were all kinds of people around, also, even ones that didn't work there.  Either visitors...

Out & Equal Workplace Summit On Wednesday, September 13, myself and several co-workers converged on Chicago, IL for the 2006 Out & Equal Workplace Summit . Almost 200 companies sent a combination of over 1700 GLBT employees there in order to share best practices about workplace policies for inclusiveness, learn about trainings and other information about laws etc concerning GLBTs, and in order to network and meet people from all over the world. The summit itself was the 14th - 16th, but the day before (13-SEPT) GE had its own GE GLBT Alliance national meeting. Just trying to get there was half the fun... The trip just to get out to Chicago from Atlanta was half the fun of the trip. Yes, I am being sarcastic... :-) My comrades from Atlanta and I were scheduled to be on a Delta flight to the Midway (MDW) airport in Chicago leaving at 8a. Now having been the one that setup these plans, I figured that we'd have plenty of time to get to our GE meeting (which started a...

A long rewarding trip, and some vacation time to boot... After two more weeks of fun and debauchery in good ole Upstate NY, I finally returned back to Atlanta on Monday, August 14, 2006 after being away for a whole month .  Happy reunion in the most unlikely of places... As a follow up to my midway post , I was able to go down to Danbury, CT and act as a reviewer for our junior IMLP Boot Camp class.  Because I can't turn down a good time, and hence was out until after 2a the night before, I took a nap that afternoon to recover a little.  In order to get to Danbury in time on Friday, I had to be up at 4a to get ready and drive down, so a bit of exhaustion I'm sure was expected :-) With some shut eye obtained and now an empty stomach to satisfy, myself and three comrades went down to one of my favorite sushi places in the United States, Sushi Express (which just so happens to be located in Danbury).  It was a relaxing dinner with lots of food, plum wine, and laughs!...

Two weeks in NY... ...and two more to go before I head back down south.  It's been a lot of fun so far.  I can't believe my trip is already half over!  In the past couple weeks I have been able to: see a bunch of friends and family go out to the WaterWorks celebrate my mom's birthday hang out with my brothers who are also in town Later this week I'll be: going down to Danbury, CT to review IMLP boot camp final presentations meeting up with friends from GE around the world getting to see Joseph G who will be in town from Germany attending the IMLP Global Conference celebrating my father's birthday Today my dad, step-mom, brother, his girlfriend, and a bunch of other friends were supposed to go to the famous Saratoga Race Track to watch horse racing, but for the first time in ages the track was closed due to excessive heat!  Most of the North East is currently under a heat warning from the National Weather Service and people are being urged to stay inside.  The...

It's been a little while since I've updated this guy, but here's what's been going on the past few months... April: 4/14 - 4/16: One of my best friends, Craig , came down to visit me in the 404 (well, actually the 770 but close enough ;-).  He, Maneesh , and I had an awesome time.  The highlight of that weekend was when the three of us, Megan , and Jme went to the Jungle for the Babylon Tour party where Tony Moran was DJing and got in for free.  We got there early before they opened and hung out with Adam , Andrew , and Becca :-) 4/21 - 4/23: Flew to NYC for the 4th Annual Tarot Reader's Studio and met my A. Sue and the rest of the gang from the Tarot Community that I only get to see once a year!  Debbie Lake, Gail Wood , James Wells , Johanna Gargiulo-Sherman , Rachel Pollack , Mary Greer , Elizabeth Genco , Wald and Ruth Ann Amberstone (who run the Tarot School and this event), and many more were all there.  I had a great time seeing familiar old fa...

Gulf Coast Family Fun My younger brother, David , moved to Sarasota, FL back in Feb (2006) for an FMP rotation with GE (yes we all work for GE... :).  Although he found it challenging to get people to come visit him when he lived in Louisville, KY , the family jumped at the chance to come down to Florida ...I wonder why... ;-)  Before he even moved, Mom, Bill, and I all planned to meet up down there the weekend before Easter for our now annual spring family vacation.  Ready for the warmth, ocean vista, and change of scenery for a few days, I hopped in the car on Wed (4/5/06) afternoon and away I went! 4/5 :: A Long Drive Well Worth It Having lived right off of one of the exits for I-75 for the past two years, I've come to appreciate how many places this interstate highway is connected to!  I can drive just over 400 miles to the north and end up at a friend's apartment in Cincinnati, OH , or I can drive just over 500 miles to the south and end up at David's fr...

A Weekend in Sunny California... My good friend Logan moved out to Redondo Beach, CA (outside of Los Angeles ) in June 2005.  Since then we've been talking about when I could take my first real trip to California (for more than a couple hours over night) :-)  The opportunity surfaced at the last minute one night in the middle of March so I thought to myself, "Why not!  Let's do it!" and to the Internet I went to acquire passage on one of Delta's finest airborne transports to the West Coast .  3/31 :: Welcome to LA! I took off at 10:30a on Friday for the ~five hour flight to LA and through the miracles of time zones , arrived only two hours later in LAX .  Logan swung by in a Toyota Yaris that he was borrowing from work to pick me up.  Now, not to take a small segway or anything, but let me tell you about this little bugger!  It can zip in and out of traffic like a humming bird ; it can turn on a dime; and it's also great when flying ...

Return to the Nasti... I rolled up into the Nasti after a 6.25 hour car ride from Atlanta on the afternoon of March 3.  Once again work had brought me back for a "work out" in Evil...I mean Evendale for the coming Mon - Wed.  What better time, then, to come up a few days early and visit with the infamous Clifton and all his friends up north!  It had been 5 months since my last trip up there and we didn't get a chance that time to even go out to the bars/clubs actually in Cincinnati, so I was looking forward to seeing more what a regular Clifton weekend was like.  A Night on the Town in the CVG... After hanging around and relaxing for a little while, we started to get ready to meet Clifton's friend Greg to go get something to eat and possibly meet up with a bunch of work friends at a bar called "Mulligans".  "Mulligans" was a mad house!  We couldn't find a place to park the car let alone were we about to wait in the line that...