She's Got a way

FRIDAY
Wow a free day to do nothing see know one be know where. How could this be. Man how nice. I loved it. I did something ever day of the week so it was awesome to just veg for a day :-)

SATURDAY
Fun weekend. I got to do one of my favorite things that i so love to do SING :-) I love that I can throw karaoke events with some great people who also love to sing. Anyways it was an awesome night but the best part was i got my new toy where i can record me and my friends singing. I love this new toy. I wish i could post some of my friends voices on here. They sounded oh so good :-)


Yusef Funny Photos
MORE PHOTOS



She has a way about her - song by mikey

SUNDAY
Nice relaxing day in the pool with friends. Oh man it was nice. we played with a ball throwing it back and fourth and some how we were amused for hours with this simple toy hehe :-)

Corporate Greed

Someone posted this article below on the meetin web site and i thought it was a really good read. Its about how Costco treats its employees customers and share holders compared to Walmart. Costcos CEO seems like a really good guy. Most of these corporation are all about greed and the profit. They take everything leaving the common person who often does the hard work with nothing why the CEO of these companies rake in millions. The whole thought that you can not get rich with out abusing people is absurd to me. Why does my win have to be someone else loss. I always admired people who worked with there hands, worked hard and put in there time to made millions. usually the guys who makes billions ended up doing so only because they messed someone over. They let greed get to them and take them over. Not everything in life is about money. This is the concept I love most about sites like craig list and MEETin.org.

End result shop at Costco DO NOT SHOP WalMart because profit and greed is not what we want in our communities and some times you have to look out for each other as a community. Open the door for someone so they may open the door for someone else. A wise friend of mine used to always say to me "you do not want to be the richest man in the grave yard" and I agree with him 100%. :-)

READ THE COSTCO WRITE UP

Dreams - Just Do it

Its funny when i was a little kid maybe 14 years old I remember I wanted a VCR. They costed so much ( $200 back in 1987 ) but i saved and did it. I was the first person in my family to have one. Then I wanted a car worked hard and got it. Then I wanted to buy a home and after allot of hard work I did it. Then I wanted to teach my self how to program and build web sites so I could earn a good living. I just did it. I wanted to meet some new friends in the DC area and well let just say i did that too:-) Then I wanted to get into real estate more and well I did it. recently I wanted to buy a building to open a cafe a dream I have had for many years since I worked as a buss boy in a restaurant as a kid at age 14. With a little hard work, saving , planning and bargaining I did it.

What it all comes down to is if you set your mind to what you want its not hard to do it. No one can hold you back from your dreams. We all can do what ever it is we want to. Our dreams are only beginning. But doing it is the finish. If you have a dream to do something write it down on paper. Come up with a plan on how you plan to get there. Then JUST DO IT!!. Its not hard to do in fact its very easy. Anything we can image we can do. Just start figuring out where you want to go and get going :-)

Nike had it right JUST DO IT

4th of July Fun

Had a really good 4th of July. Had about 15 peeps over to my place for a nice small get together. We had so much good food it was not even funny. I think way to much. But it was oh so yummy. The high light of the day was everyone just hangin out on my front porch drinking a beer eating some great food talking and smoking a cigar. Lots of fun.

Then I headed over to my boys Brandon and Candice's house for a small while. Brought my swim trunks in case peeps were in the pool but when i got there they were just starting on the food part and I was so stuff from my bbq. No one was in the pool and everyone was looking to play some games. So got to say hi real fast and decided to join some other friends in down town DC to watch the fireworks from a roof top get together. We started off with some bubbly and I got to meet some peeps i did not know that were really nice. Ended up being a great fireworks display and then we all hung out in my friends place and chilled out afterworlds eating some awesome raspberry cup cakes and waited for the traffic to die down some.

ITS WAS A GREAT 4TH OF JULY :-)

WASHINGTON DC FIREWORKS GRAND FINALLY

Future Cafe of Norfolk / Va Beach

ITS FINAL I GOT IT
Well I finally signed on the dotted line to buy my new place in VA beach. I plan to open a cafe with in this place. my pops will run it and has so many great ideas on what he wants to do. The place is really awesome has an upstairs 2 bed room apartment that is already rented out. Pretty sweet little place. Can not wait until we can open it.

No dream can be held back if you work hard :-)

REMNANTS OF AN OLD DREAM
Back in 2004 my dad had a dream of opening a cafe in DC. We had the cafe built and ready to go until the DC zoning would not give us the final Pass on it because they wanted a second bathroom. That would have costed in 20k area to build and we did not own the building. So the even after having everything done we never opened PHOTOS. So now we are back but this time I have the building and we will open :-)


VIDEO OF THE BUILDING

VA Beach Weekend 2007

I did a va beach pool party camping trip that as always blows me away. Just nothing but hangin out relaxing with my friends and some new peeps. It was amazing as always. This has been my third year doing this and each time it only gets better. We swam, we danced , we played games and we eat such good food thanks to the grill queen ( Mellisa and Chad ) all and all this is my favorite event all year long :-)

Thanks everyone for coming and thanks or just being great friends :-)



MORE PHOTOS

VIDEO

Bye Bye To Sibely

Tonight I went out to dinner with my good friend Sibel. She has just accepted a job in New York and is moving :-( Sad to see her go but this is life. It seems in my generation moving to another city for jobs or better opportunity is part of life. I know some day my day will come most likely too as I have already thought about it allot. But not for a little while still some more good years left in this old city of mine. DC baby :-)

Crazy Water Rapids ( West VA Gauley River )

Wow what a weekend. This weekend I went went white water rafting on the Gauley river in West Va. I have never done white water rapids before. It was a thrill. I did not quite know what I was getting myself into when I said sure I will go but I am sure glad I went. I drove up Friday night Jon to camp Friday night then do the rapids Saturday day , camp out Sat night to return Sunday. I got to drive up with Jon a friend I have known for years. But it was really fun driving up with him because we had 5 hours to kill and talk allot about all kinds of different things we never had a chance to talk about before. So got to know quite allot about Jon that i never knew before. The tree's were so amazing. As we went down the river ever where you looked it was breath taking. The boat did tip over , we jumped off a 20 foot cliff into the water just for the fun of it and we went down 5 series of class 5 rapids some of them almost hitting huge rocks. It was so much fun. I will be back next year :-)

PS: Note for camping next time. Bring a sleeping bag or blankets, always bring jackets and do not forget a towel. In other words bring more camping things hehe

I Almost Got My Cafe

I know I have told some of my friends the good news but now its almost official. I got my loan all done for my new place. All I have to do is sign the contract at the end of this month. Its a cute little shop in Norfolk down near va beach near ODU. my pops will run the cafe and will partner up with me on it as i will still be in Northern va for a while. But chances are I may move to Va beach some day. Maybe not for a while still it all depends. Life can change fast. I should be closing the 30th of this month. I have had 3 deals that almost happen so this is one sweet victory for me to finally have a real shop. I plan to make it really nice inside and yes welcome the MEETin peeps in va beach into it with open arms. Not to mention the ODU campus and yes my huge family I have in va beach ( yes the Irish side of the family :-)

I GOT IT...Did closing last Friday.

Some Cool New Press

UPDATED 06/20/2007 new update the articles came out. I think both were pretty darn cool. So fare in DC alone we got about 500 new members this month most of it related to the article. This is great news as it means more people will meet up with some friends and by this time next year maybe met someone they will call a life long friend. Life is strange that way you never know what turn you will take that could change your life for ever.

WASHINGTON POST
BUSINESS WEEK


Wow looks like the MEETin press circuit is heating up again. last week I was contacted by a really nice Washington post reporter for the style section. She wanted to do an article on meetin. We did an hour interview near my work and then she headed over to visit members at a typical event ( Romel's rock climbing ). I think the article should come out in the next week or so.

That being said I was just contacted by BusinessWeek a magazine I have been reading since i was 16 to do an article. How sweet. I told them I was a huge fan and would be honored. I guess they are doing an article on social networks in general.

Man I we still do not have a press kit. We need to get one some day. I guess press just has not been something we have ever looked for. I do wonder like what press is to much press. How could it change MEETin? would it be a good thing or a bad thing. keeping MEETin a grass roots thing is very important but on the flip side if more people find out about it and they too are looking for friends who are we to say no.

Anyways it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

UPDATE: 06/05/07 Got an interview tonight with a reporter from BusinessWeek at 5pm. How sweet ya. I love that
Mag always have.

UPDATE: 06/06/07 Interview with buinessweek went very well. I also forwarded the reporter on to some admins in other cities in the US and Europe. Not sure when this will be published.

UPDATE: 06/08/07 Washington Post write up should come out next friday so I hear.

Rock climbing @ joel, christine, and mel's

Man this Sunday was a real treat. My good friends Joel, Mel and Christine all had there b-days the same day. They all turned 21 and are legal now :-) hehe but really this was an awesome BBQ. Many awesome people just chilin out talking and catching up. I reall got to catch up with many people I have not been able to for a while. But the best part was my boy Joel rented this rock climbing wall. It was really fun seeing how fast you could go up. Great time. But as always a video says it better then words.

ROCK CLIMBING VIDEO



BBQ VIDEO

It's Been An Awesome 4 years :-)

Its been 4 years and the fun never stops. This years anniversary party was the best ever. We had people come from 15 cities to party with us including people from London and Paris. I mean how cool is that. My good buddy Huy came out from Seattle and many many more like the Philly crew and The Harrisburg Crew. What a blast. We had an awesome party and an Awesome after party. Thanks everyone for a great 4 years. I will never forget all of the wonderful people I have met over the last 4 years :-) ( Photo: Philly Meeps )



(PHOTOS)

PJ PARTY VIDEO


PJ IHOPE AFTER PARTY VIDEO

American Idol 2007

AMERICAN IDOL 2007
Ok so we have now this evnet three years in a row and this one is definitely the best we have had yet to date. I think the reason why is because Jon lent us his back yard and no doubt this added to the show so much. Made it feel like the real show. (PHOTOS). Yes we did get the cops called out on us:-) I felt really bad about this. It also happened just as we ended so we were so close LOL. But this event is back to the basic of why MEETin was founded. We had a ton of new people that were able to experience the fun then we also had allot of the hardcore members who welcome new people in with open arms and showed them a a great time. You put two and two together and the result is pure magic. Every new person who came up to me was like this was so fun. When you hear this it makes all of the work of putting something this big together worth it. I mean its allot of hard work. You have to make sure all of the people playing parts show up, get the equipment to the location , make sure all of the parts of the puzzle come together. But what happens if it all works out is pure magic . And the smiles on people faces is all of the payment any of us ever needed.

Huge shout out to all the peeps who help make it happen and yes 419 baby :-)


VIDEO PART 1 - funny stuff



VIDEO PART 1 - finals - ending

HR-57 Jazz Baby

HR-57 True Jazz
This event is one of my favorites and i hope it lives on. The idea is simple there is this club called HR-57 in DC on 14th street. You can go onto the place and pay a $11 cover and bring anything you want to drink. Like tonight I brought in my own 12 pack of honey brow beer. Wayne and crew brought in tons of food and drinks for everyone it looked like we had our own MEETin bar. We had about 30 people come and yes we took over the place as always. It just feels like family coming together hangin out and listening to some awesome Jazz. Fun night. ( Photos is of Wayne at the MEETin Bar )

More about HR57 Click here

VIDEO OF HR57

Spider 3 He's Back

I saw it as I guess so did most of America. I thought it was decent. Not bad I think it was way better then movie 2. If you have seen the Apple vs PC ads this is a spoof off it :-) I still think Batman Returns was the better of all of these movies.



If this video was not funny let me know :-)

YouTube Event - Office Space

My boy Jon had this awesome event. What a good idea. Basically you invite people to come over to watch the funnest and best of the Youtube.com videos. This was really funny. We had some awesome entries. I strongly suggest trying this in your city. One my favorites videos they shows was the Office Space recut. The idea is a ad as if Office space was a thriller movie. If you have seen Office space you will crack up at the video below. Enjoy.

OFFICE SPACE VIDEO

To Give With Out Conditions

TO GIVE WITH OUT CONDITIONS
What is giving with out conditions. I remember when i was a kid there was always a conditions for giving. my mom would be like you do this and i will do that. Even now as I am way older I have had fights with my bros over this. My bro will come in and tell me I will do this for you only if you do that for me. Like I will cook dinner but you must wash the dishes. hehe i mean ya I know this is a no brainier but do you even need to ask. Similar things have come up on a post on meetin the other day. Basically some users said in the post they would donate if I ran the site the way they wanted me to. I will donate if you follow my conditions. The funny thing is I have never asked for a donation ever from anyone. Sure we ask via a message twice a year but i mean really ask. Like personally say hey please give me money. But so fare I have had cities like Portland , Philly , Phoenix and Denver who believe in this idea. They do not give me condition and they let me run the site the way i see fit. I think this is not only liberating but I am truly honored that these people have given to me with out setting any conditions on how I should run things. if they only knew how cheap I was with the money they would know there investment is safe. hehe because I am cheap. Sure i have made some minor mistakes with donation but very minor. Some of my mistakes were also from pressure from others that I should do things the way they wanted me to. For example the convention T-shirts we bought 3 years ago. They cost MEETin a $1000. Sure I ultimately decide to spend the money so the buck stops with me but many others offered to sell them and help take care of this time wise. Low and behold we had someone steal allot of the money and meetin did not sell the t-shirts it needed to make up for this. I learned allot from this. One do not make things bigger then they have to be. Now I always tell chapters that want to buy t-shirts for there city USE pre-order. I also learn i should not cave into pressure to do things the way a small group of people ask for it to be done. I always want to make sure everyone is satisfied and happy and some times this just can not be done. I know now I can not make everyone happy. There will always be someone who is mad thing were not done the way they wanted it done. I also learned when it comes to volunteers why many have done wonderful things some may say i will do this for you and then walk away and not finish what they set out to do leaving me holding the bag. I did end up making all of MEETin money back over time. I have been giving a free t-shirt away to large donors effectively making all money back into the MEETin coffer.

NEVER FOLLOW THE MOB WHEN IT COMES TO BUSINESS
Running a free all volunteer site is allot harder then it looks. I get people all of the time willing to help me out. But the big question is will these people have the same dedication in one years time. Most of the time its no. I mean I understand we are not paying them. They do it out of the kindness of there heart. But I must be careful not to implement new work thinking they will do it to only have it fall back on me. For example I could get some IT guy that says let make MEETin run on Linux and not windows its better. But then I ask who is going to maintain this after you leave. I guess my rule of thumb has to be never over extend the site past what i can do myself because I am not a 100% sure I can relay on others to the degree I can rely on myself. Many people have wanted to turn meetin into a full time job not just for me but for a crew of people. Let's set up committees and make more work and more work and do this and do that. The only question I have these days is A) why does it have to be so hard do we really need to create more work? and B) what happens when i set it up as you say and this talented person is no longer able to help out. ( who knows the real job gets busy the mom gets sick and you have to move ) all kinds of reasons come up for why people can no longer help. I guess I only relay on myself. I know this limits things. But so fare I do not see a better way with out having full time employees and that would cost allot of money. Why do we need 20 people in the back office doing reports and trying to figure this out and make up that rule. Frankly i say keep it simple. The people have done wonderful thing with MEETin with just some basic rules. No need to put more rules on anyone or create more work. Just keep things simple.

KEEP MEETin EVENTS FREE
The beauty of MEETin events is they are always free. Sure there are some pay events that people do at cost. Some times this is very un-clear what these at cost are. I look at it this way if it cost to much from your point of view then do not go. Its always a safe bet. But what happens when an event planner decides to take on the risks of doing some costly event on there own. We had one year in DC one new years. The message board lit up. Let do a fancy New Years party we will rent out a club and dress up all nice. I did not like this idea to much myself because I was worried some of my friends would not be able to afford it. But I kept this to myself and supporting it by telling all of my friends you got to go this is going to be awesome. The message board went crazy. All kinds of people said this will be great. So one of the event planners decided to rent a club set it all up and sell tickets. well as time went by apparently the person setting this up over estimated how many people would buy tickets. i think they were a $100 maybe a little less or more. I told all of my friends to go not sure what else i could have done. I heard later that this person lost money and after so wanted me to peddle calendars with the MEETin logo on it to help make this money back. I felt bad. but frankly you have to understand not everyone will pay a $100 for a party. There is a market that will and one that will not. Its easy to get people to go to a free party the rules change when you have to pay a $100. I did learn a lesson that year. keep events free if you want everyone to come if not then just expect some people will not be able to make it. Also move the big pay for new years events off meetin. Post them on an e-vite endless you are really sure enough people are down for it. Frankly it was an awesome new years. I mean like I think 80 people went instead of the 100 they needed. It was an awesome time just felt bad for people taking these risks on this event as I think they lost money. because we do not use donation money for one cities events. That would not be fare to other cities.

I have learned quit allot about people through running all of these chapters. Just think of the minor issues one city may have and then amplify it by 90 cities and you will see my point. but do not get me wrong I love seeing all of the great things we do and the words of encouragement always keeps not just me going but the many others who spend there time making this all work.

IN CLOSING
In closing on this I must say I have met some of the most awesome people who have given with out ever asking for something in return. Not just donations I am talking about posting events , welcoming people and opening up there hearts and minds to strangers. Sure there are some who post events because they want to brag that they had the best event or they do it to be praised by others. But I am talking about the people who just do it for the fun of it. Who do it with out ever asking for anything in return from the people they do it for. These people make me smile.

Costume Karaoke

Wow what a weekend. This weekend was insane. I went on a photo trek and got sun burned. Went to MD day and eat bad food and still had enough energy to have a "Costume Karaoke" event. This event was sweet. Everyone dressed up in different costumes. It was sweet. I love doing Karaoke because its so fun to see people just crack up dance and sing. Its the best way to bring people together for a fun time. I have the coolest people that come to this event. They are so full of life. I get allot of repeat people and everyone is so fun.

I mean lets face it y'all life is short so spend it with people you love to hang with and having a fun time :-)

Your Song

YOUR SONG
Is one of my favorite songs no doubt. I think the reason why I love this song so much is it reminds me of my dad. In fact i think my dad looks like Elton John allot. I have sang this song so many times i got it memorized. I figure I would post a blog in tribute to this song. I have two recording below. Both at karaoke bars. the first one was done at a bar in va beach. Sound recording is a little low but if you turn it up its not bad for a karaoke bar. The second one we all sang together me and many of my awesome friends i got the lucky chance to meet in Europe. This video recording of it was sung at a karaoke bar in Paris. I am so exciting a bunch of these peeps are coming out here in May to hang out with us at the PJ party. Going to be sooo fun.

Music is art and art is always a great thing :-)






VA BEACH BAR RECORDING





SINGIN AT A PARIS BAR



THE LEGEND HIMSELF


Moulin Rouge - Your Song

Cali Trip Episode 1 ( San Fran )

I left my heart in San Fran. Well not really but it was great to see all of the old places. I check out my old house at 90 Webster street. Got a great burrito from my old place. Checked out the beach and yes Twin Peaks. Packed as much as I could in one day of sight seeing but whats the point of words. My video blog is much better at explaining it all. I will add my video from the farm soon also.

One of the cool things i got to do was visit my moms new business making signs. They are really cool. I video some of it but she did not want it posted as she has some trade secrets. But the work she is doing is very cool and very artys. Got to love art its an awesome thing.



Note: In the video it was not my high school it was my middle school hehe :-)

Poor Country Farm Boy Goes Home

HAYFORK THE LAST DAYS
Its been 20 years since I have been back to the place i grew up as a kid. The place my brothers and sister refer to as "THE LAND". The last time i saw the place I was 13 and some officers were looking for me and my friend Matt who was one of my closes friends on the farm. The police drove up and me and Matt ran to the hills like scared little kids. The second time a friend of the family came out to find us and assure us the police meant no harm. We were dirty poor mountain kids hehe really. I mean we knew that land like the back of our hands. No one was going to come take us away with out us going. But we did go. The police picked us up and took us away. Now I will be coming back and I am not sure what to expect. I think of going back now and all i want to do is climb the mountain and sit in the woods and think. When I was a kid at night we would here the coyotes yell back and forth as they were trying to find each other. Almost as if they were looking for each other. One would yell on one side of the mountain the others would yell back. it was amazing and it was nature.

ALL GROWN UP - OR SO HE SAYS:-)
I left a kid 13 years old scared and not knowing where I would end up. the first thing I got when i left the land was a new pair of shoes. I never remembered having a white pair of shoes that looked like this in my life. All of my shoes were always used hand me downs. I left with a dream to do something with my life. To be someone. To maybe some day have a care and maybe make a semi decent living. I wanted so badly to not worry about where i would get my next meal from or ever being Hungary again. Now I look back and can not believe i was ever that kid. I can not believe where I came from. I have no idea how i got to where I am now. I look in the mirror and wonder some times if that was ever me or was it some strange dream. I will say one thing I never regretted anything that happen in my life. Be it good or bad. I leaned so much. When i buy something I always enjoy it. How many people can say that. A simple cup of hot coco to a new TV. What ever it is i get I enjoy so much because to this day I still remember what things were like and how lucky I am to this day. How I have when many have nothing. I am thankful for this and feel oh so blessed. Sure maybe I still can not spell but I can do almost anything else I have ever put my mind too and for this I am for ever grateful.

Making Dumplings

Tonight I leaned to make dumplings with my friend Sharon and new friend Karen. Both were so very nice to open up there home and show a rag tag group of dc peeps how to make them. Yes there was a big contraversary who makes better dumpling the Korean style of the Chinese style. I have to admit i loved the Chinese style dumplings with the Korean sauce. Hmm so good. The video tells the story of the making of the dumplings. Hmm Hmmm sooo good :-)

SURPRISE!! - Bonnies Surprise party

WOW WHAT A NIGHT
Once a year of for at least the last 3 years we had had the best time ever surprising one of our really good friends. Why should this year be any different. it was all planned out a small quite dinner with a couple friends. She had no idea what was in store. I was to pick Bonnie up and head over to Kavitha's to pick her up for reservation at 8:00. But when we walked in the door well a bunch of friends jump out. The sweet part about this is like many people Bonnie never has done anything crazy for her b-day. So I think we hit her heart extra good this year. Thanks to all of you who helps make this work. After the surprise the fun just started. We went out to a club dance allot and had a blast then headed to MCy'Ds for a 2am food stop. Now as the legend goes I made fun of how she would be acting at 2am. Lo and behold she remembered this and started a new trend at least among us where we all do this "Grrrr" thingy. Man it was so funny. Well you have to see the shorten down surprise b-day video to understand how funny it was.

Happy B-day Bonnie. I think I have known you for about 2 years now i am for one among many others are proud to have know you as a great friend and someone I have gone and seen many things with including some awesome road trips ( PARIS ) . Thanks for being there for me also all of these years. Cheers :-)

Modernism Art Exhibit at the Corcoran

FONDUE
I went to the Modernism Art Exhibit at the Corcoran last night. This was a big opening for the Corcoran art gallery. These opening are always really nice. Everyone was dressed up all fancy like in nice clothes. Great food and open bar. But my favorite by fare was the Fondue. Yes you heard it right Fondue. They had all of the free Fondue you could eat. I know I should be talking about art here but the Fondue was so good. I dipped the following in chocolate, caramel and even cream

Strawberries
Bananas
Marshmallows
Doughnut holes
Apples
Short cake
Chocolate cookies

Was there more to dip into chocolate yes but that was about all I could eat. i think I downed 2000 calories or more.

THE ART
As for the art I really liked the adding of movies. They played a bunch of films strips of the 1930s from different countries. These films were spread around different rooms as you walk through them. But some of the art did not move me that much. I love to be moved by art. To look at it and have it move something inside of me. Not many of the pieces i saw last night did this. Maybe I was thinking about the god food to much to get into the art. The reason we were all there :-)

Doubt

THE AFTER PARTY
Last night I went to the grand opening of the new Broadway play called "Doubt" in DC. it was a great play. I scored some tickets from my older brother who is now the house manager for the national theater. The play was awesome, i mean really good. But even better was after the play ended we got a little tour of the back office to see the offices where my brother works. We then went to the cast party where we got to hang out with the cast. They had an open bar tons of awesome fancy food and yes deserts that could kill you. It was really fun talking over the show with others drinking wine. Felt like a true night on the town.

MY REVIEW
Doubt written by John Patrick Shanley. The show itself was really well written. Its the first show I ever saw where you think writing was as important as the actors. It was so well written it reminded me of a really good movie but you are seeing it live in front of you. The point of the play is to cast doubt in people, things and actions. To show there is no clear answer to what you think you may know is the truth. Where one person saw one thing someone else may see another. We all think we know the answers in our heads based on what our bias's are and things we grew up with. The play makes you walk away and really think about it long after you left the theater. In fact i am still thinking about it now. Great play John very well done.

Top of the Morning to Ya

SHAMROCK FEST
Oh boy Saturday was a good' old Irish time. I went to the shamrock fest at the RFK stadium and let just saw i had a blast. I mean wow. Lots of people walking around great music and pretty much you ran into friends everywhere you go. I think because of MEETin we have so many people who are in the group over the years that when you go to big festivals you end up just running into people ever where. I will definitely go again next year. Fun times

Love To Ski

Went skiing today with a bunch of friends. Man it was really fun. I have only skied 3 times in my life and ever time i do it I am like i need to do this more. Last year I bought some boots but then lost them. I need to get some boots and skis but i here they run in the $400 range and if i do not go that much not sure its worth it. If I can go more then it would be worth it. Anyways I was able to get some video going down the mountain so check out the video.

SKI VIDEO

Philly and Chili

Philly In the Hizoues

Wow what a week I had. It all started out at 12pm on Friday. I got off work early to head up to Philly to hang out with Philly Mike and my boy Willi and his girl. The short story is I got to Philly at 4pm hung out with Janet and John ( my host family for the night ) who I had never met before this trip. We headed to happy hour at about 6pm to meet up with the crew. From there with chilled until 10 and then went to this club that had some awesome hip hop sounds. After that at about 2ish we headed to go eat at a dinner ( Philly cheese ) then off to bed at about 3am. Woke up at 12 and got on the road to back to DC for an event I had ( Chili cook off ) at 5pm. From the cook off we went to a bar in old town afterwards and well did not end up getting home until am. What a trip. I met at least 50 new people in one weekend. It was crazy. But so worth it. So glad I got to hang with Philly Mike and everyone. You guys are such an awesome city. Open hearts and open minds. I did get to mingle with the group and there were many new members. I find it so cool to talk to new members and see the different types of people who come and give meetin a chance. One lady told me how sad she was before she found meetin and met some of her best friends. It so amazing to me that I here this same story no matter what city I go to. People all over this country are just looking for others to connect with and share a beer and just be out of there house. Its so great that we can help them do this and more. Mike and crew are performing a service in philly that is touching many peoples lives. I hope they know how much people appreciate all of this hard work.

John and Janet
These two kids were awesome. Huge shout out for letting me crash at there place first off. But it was great to hang out with these two for a while and get to talk to them. I never met them before and yet I have felt like I knew them pretty well. Janet a very smart gal who has done so much in so little time. John this guy is a great building , creator and artist. I can tell by looking at the construction he has done on his house. He definitely has a knack for building. They are only 22 and 23 and yet they have bought there own house and really have there life planned out. Much props to you guys you keep it up.

Videos below of the journey. You can see how fun the club was in Philly. Great music :-) great dancing

"Meeps" is a combination word, combining "MEETin", a proper noun, with "peeps", a regular noun.

PHILLY TRIP





CHILI COOK OFF
all i can say is wow look at the video. So much food so good so fun. Thi was my 4th chili cook off and the best :-)

My Heroes

My heroes

I read a thread a while back that said "who was your favorite hero". I thought about this for a while. Everyone on this planet has heroes. People they admire and want to be like. I think as humans we are very social creatures. We learn how to act toward people and how to socialize with people based on our surroundings and our biggest teachers our family. So I wanted to devote this post to who my heroes are. I broke it down to people in public ( history ) and people in private ( my family )

PUBLIC

By fare my number one public hero is Martin Luther King. He waged a cause knowing how it would end his life. He talked about something no one talks about today but still is worth talking about as much as anything. Brining people together from all walks of life. Martin knew that he would die for what he believe in ye he still kept on fighting. He was a man who brought a national together against hate. To change hate into love I think is a very hard thing to do. All you have to do is look at all videos of the marches and the dogs to see what he was up against. He never gave up and never sank to there level. How could someone being punched down so much over and over keep his head high. One reason i beelive he did this was he understood people only hated because they were raised to hate. Because they were shown this as little kids. he knew he could change this and today we can now see he was right. His dreams lives on and on and only gets brighter each passing year.

A couple other hero's to me.

1) WWII solders. These men and woman were very brave. Storming a beach with bullets flying at you from every direction. When you watch a movie about this you wonder what would i do if that was me. How could I be that brave. What would have come of the world if WWII was lost? Would we still have any kind of freedom if it were not for these people who stood up and defended us. Thank god we do not have to find out.
2) George Washington. - One thing I think was remarkable about George Washington was that after he was finished being president he left office and let someone else take over. This may seem like no big deal but it set a tone for this country an the word that about the transfer of power. My dad once told me yours leadership skills are not proven why you are doing the job, its proven by how well everything runs after you leave.

To me a hero is not someone who has nothing to lose stands up but someone who has everything to lose and still stands up.

FAMILY

My Mom
There is so much I love about my mom I could write all day but the one thing I learned and love that I got from her was the kill of the deal. I learned from my mom how to get a good deal and make it better. My mom can bargain and negotiate better then anyone i ever met. I am always shocked by the deals she makes. She is a truly good business woman. I received allot of my business savvy from her.

My Dad
I love my dads kindness. My dad is someone who would give his last shirt on his back to you if he saw you needed it. He always loves to help people. I remember as a kid having homeless people come to the door asking for my dad by name for money because he would always give it to them. Evan when he does not have he gives. He has showed me allot about giving to doing good.

Poor Country Farm Boy

I went to a poetry slam this Monday and there was this native American Chief who got up and spoke. He talked about people on the Indian reservation and how bad conditions where there. he talked about the cold and hunger. This made me think of my childhood. I grew up on a farm until age 13. When I say farm maybe you could say it was more like a commune because we lived on this farm with other families. The condition would be considered bad to anyone living in a city. I mean I met some poor kids in my life like friends in high school who grew up in the projects and they had allot more then I ever had as a kid. We had no running water, no electricity no TV and not allot of food. My mom was on welfare and lived of of about $350 a month I believe. We never went Hungary to many times but I have felt the sting of an empty stomach. Our diets consisted of mostly rice and oatmeal cooked on an open fire. Not sure if you have ever had oatmeal cooked on an open fire in a cast-iron pan but take my word for it there was allot of black stuff in the food and it did not taste good. We did not have sugar or anything to make it taste better. I remember as a kid me and my good friend ( Matt ) would walk 5 miles to town and collect cans and trade them in for 50 cents and buy some sugar. I am sure my mom never knew about this but yes sugar can go along way with the same old oat meal day after day. To us a dinner with hot dogs was a luxury. However we did not know we were that poor. We did not know what this meant. Later on in life when I saw kids who were growing up in the projects killing them selves for a pare of shoes or money to buy a car or gold rings I never understood this. I always said to myself who cares if you are poor. Family friends and having something to eat was all you needed. But yet kid after kid would pull a trigger for money. I never understood this and even now after being a self made person who could pretty much retire and stop working, being able to have anything I want I still never buy anything that outrageous or try to show off by buying expensive things. I have a theory on this. if you are poor and do not know what you are missing you do not care. Its only when you are poor and see others around you with more then you that you start to care. When I was a kid, super poor I never was un-happy or felt bad about being poor. So money can not buy you happiness. But it can make you happy in the short turn spending it on something cool I guess. But that is short lived compared to friends and family.

THE POOR THEORY
When you grow up poor you either do one of two things. When you get out of being poor you either spend ever cent you have trying to make up for the fact that you were poor. Trying to hide being poor. Buying nice cares and anything else nice. Never having money in the bank. Always spending it. or you do like me and save and invest it with because some where in the back of your mind you are afraid to be poor again. its like my dad once told me he always has to have a full refrigerator because because as kids they never had anything in the refrig and having it empty makes him feel really bad. my pops always grew up very poor in va beach. His dad who I never knew was in the navy. As a little kid this was me. Always afraid of not having anything again. I thank my mom for this gift however because everything I have. All of the great things I can buy I truly enjoy ever minute of it all. Some people would grow up being so rich and never truly understanding this or truly feeling lucky. I feel lucky ever day of my life for the luck I have had.

WHY I HATE FISH
Ok people always ask me why I hate fish it belongs in the country boy blog post. In California they have a place near the rivers called fish hatcheries. Basically the government take salmon and pulls the eggs out and gives the fish away so they can bread more fish and put them back into the wild. Well my mom had us wait in life to get the free fish. As kids we would each hold a place in line. Get as much fish as you could get. I have vivid memories of cleaning the fish with my hands in the extremely cold weather. Hands so cold I could not feel them. We canned the fish with out any flavoring. Oh my got I can taste it still. So bad not fit for a human. Maybe it was the way we cooked it maybe it was just because there was no seasoning but it was nasty. I used to not like rice for a long time also but man who can stay mad at rice :-)

( photos - me digging a ditch with my older bro in the back ground. we worked from sun up to sun down. Very hard labor. First thing in the morning going to fetch water a good hike away in the oh so bitter cold. yes I am very dirty in the photo we did not have showers so we often were extremely dirty. )

So many childhood stories I will have to write more as i can think of them.

London Baby Here They Come

I am crazy silly siked today. I just found out that all of our friends from London are coming to the US to visit us. I had the pleasure of meeting most of the people coming on my London/Paris trip last year. We were also able to move the yearly anniversary party to this day so this means Philly Mike and others can visit them all at one time. One of the sweetest things to me about this site is the ability to meet people in fare off countries and have them show you around and then when they visit you, you get the pleasure of showing them around. its like spreading the love around all over the country. Being able to do good deeds for people and showing them your culture and communities. So lets look at how closed we really all do live together.

MEETin Spreading good deeds
Here is one example I love. One friend of ours Huy from MEETinBoise ( well he is a friend now since we met him in London ) was flying to Paris for the convention. He was in a bike accident before he left from Boise. I guess in flight to Paris his leg started to act up. he had to go to the hospital when he landed. Some of the MEETinParis people , people he never met in his life came to the hospital only after Huys girl friend post on the message he was stuck in the hospital. The hanged out with him in the hospital. How cool is that you go to a city and country to never met anyone and people come and visit you. When we arrived from DC my friend Charann had her credit card stopped. Our new friend ( Xavier ) from Paris not only brought us to his home to call for free America he also brought us to an awesome French restaurant in his area that was sooo good. When Xavier visited DC I repaid the favor by taking him to a personal tour of George Washington's house a very hard to find tourist attraction to find if you are visiting from out of town with out a car. Also when we went to Portland a few months ago Huy who since moved to MEETinSeattle now drove us to see some awesome nature sites in Portland. my point being is we are a very small world. This shows just how connected we really are. The borders are slowly going away and Good deeds always come back to you :-)

So if you ever travel be sure to stop by your local MEETin you never know what awesome new friends you may meet.

( photo from MEETinLONDON happy hour we went to while in London - lots of new friends were met :-)

Public Art, Private Parts

I went to an art exhibit this weekend of a very good friend of mine I could say she is almost like a sister to me and B-dog a brother. You got to love extended family. But Ming is a fantastic artist with a wonderful soul. She is the first person I ever met in MEETin and in some ways Ming and Jamie are like my two MEETin sisters. B-dog also is a great artist and he made the movie. Check the video below if you want to see it. its really awesome. Anyways just wanted to say on here how proud I am of you guys and your work. You are true art lovers and you truly stuck to it and never gave up on your art. its a hard business to make it in so a huge congrads for keeping it real. I used to be an artist back in the day but now my art is building web pages. I know that sounds funny "web pages art" but i kind of see it that way :-) Art is simply a form of expression right. lol

( Photos Ming on left BBrandon on right )

Video of Mings work below


Another one of B-s movies below

Up In The Club

H2O
Ok I went out dancing in the club on Friday night. A place called H2O in dc here. I am not a big fan of this place. Last time I went to H2O I brought 275 of my friends hehe no I am not joking. Its a cool place but the guys are super aggressive here. Every single second you feel like your friends are being grabbed. Last time I was at the place I was trying to keep them off my one friends and literally had to block dudes hands from grabbing her ass to the point where he grabbed my hand. I felt like saying "how do you do sir" as if we were shaking. Anyways Friday was not as bad but one of the ladies with us definitely had to tell a guy off pretty much once ever 5 minutes or so. This was extremely funny. It was like watching them all line up to ask her out and she had to keep saying I am not here for a date just to dance.

Love to Dance

I truly do love to dance. I have never felt so alive then when I am dancing in the club with some good friends and some awesome music. I mean its almost like a high. I think this comes from when I was a kid I grew up in a mostly black area of San Francisco ( Fillmore area and HP [ Hunters Point ] School distract ). I used to go to the school dances and get down. This is one reason I love to throw big parties. I mean where else can you get a bunch of your friends all on the dance floor at the same time. I love that. Like at all of the big parties I throw dancing is just going to happen. We will always get the dance floor heated up every time. Let face it at big parties you can catch up with your friends a little but dancing is what's its all about. Anyways we did make it out of H2O. I think my friend Christine is going to drag me to out dancing again before I can catch my breath. I tell she is an awesome dancer and never seems to stop. I guess allot of the people I hang with really love dancing. Bonnie, Anji, Kavitha, Charann my brother Willi and Jay we all like to get up on the floor sooner or later and if we have not done it for a while you can get after the next happy hour we will be "UP IN THE CLUB" :-)

The Plane Goes Down

Our parents had it so much easier. They fell in love with someone they got married and live together forever. Real love, True love.

Our generation we hide our feeling and do not know how to love. We walk away from love because we are so scared of it. We are so scared of it that we feel we will fail so we never open up or event try.

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I'm leaving your town again love
But I'm over the quilt that you've spinning
And I'm up in the air, so baby hell yeah
Oh honey I can see your house from here
If the plane goes down, damn
I'll remember where the love was found
If the plane goes down, damn

You keep me high minded
You get me high

Flax seeds, well they tear me open
And supposedly you can crawl right through me
Taste these teeth please
And undress me from these sweaters better hurry
Cause I'm keeping upward bound now
Oh maybe I'll build my house in your cloud
Here I'm tumbling for you
Stumbling through the work that I have to do
Don't mean to harm you

By leaving your town again love
But I'm over the ground that you've been spinning
But I'm up in the air, said baby hell yeah
Oh honey I can see your house from here
If the plane goes down, damn
I'll remember where the love was found
If the plane goes down, damn
I'll remember where the love was found
If the plane goes down, damn
Well I'll remember where the love was found
If the plane goes down, damn

Who do you
Think you are, are, are, are
To keep me so oh cold, cold
You keep me high minded
You keep me high minded

You get me high minded
You get me high

By JASON MRAZ

The Streets of New York / Inland Empire - David Lynch

The Streets of New York
Ok so today we have some fun things to do. Stopping by the "The Streets of New York" exhibit at the national gallery to see some photos taken back in the 30's and 50's. I love photography so this is right down my alley. I really like it. The photos were interesting. A couple of them were "Moved me" photos. These are photos I can really look into the persons eyes in the photos and maybe feel a little bit of what they felt like. Try to understand dreams , pain and maybe a little bit about their life. Their were a couple photos you could see no doubt.

Inland Empire - David Lynch
I went to see "Inland Empire " with Sharon. One thing i like about my friend Sharon she always thinks of really good movies to watch. This movie was very very strange. Why would someone expect less from David. I asked the guy sitting next to me if he knew what the movie was about he said "this is my second time seeing it and I have no idea". After seeing the movie I had a pretty good idea to what Dave was saying. I do not want to spoil it here so I will not but let me say this movie should have been cut down into 1.5 hours instead of 2 hours. To many repeats of the same person running down a hallways looking scared. Ok we get it she is scared she is running down a hallways with a hand chasing her. After the movie Dave Lynch came out and let members of the audience ask question about his movie making style. it was cool listening to him as he was humorous and had a very artsy way of looking at his film making. Would I say this movie was bad. I always say it depends what you like. Main stream American will never get into this type of art form but he has his fans and thats all that counts. I think the funnest part of it all is how much people kiss up to the people in the movie biz. Everyone wants to be a star. Not sure why but people seem to want to be in the lime light. As fare as I am concern you can take it. Why would you want people to never be real around you? I mean every acts so fake. He is just a person just like Brad Pitt or anyone else. It just kind of amuses me to see how people will act some times around "Famous people".

About Me

WHY MY GRAMMAR SUCKS
Ok not going to go into a long life story because well its a long long story. I will explain really quickly my spelling is not so great. I started school at 13 after growing up on a farm and well at age 13 I could not read or write. That being said I am pretty much up to par with most others living and breathing in the real world but let's just say my grammar is not the best.

WHY I DECIDED TO WRITE A BLOG
I have been on the most amazing journey over the last 4 years. I wish I started this years ago. The stories I could tell. However I did not and so I must start now so at least I can capture some of my crazy adventures.

THE QUICK STORY OF MEETIN.ORG
I will have to write a longer story about MEETin.org but in order to understand allot of my adventures you would have to understand this crazy experiment called MEETin.org. The quick of it was I moved to DC from San Fran about 13 years ago. I moved to DC to escape a bad break up with my high school sweetheart. Let just say she found another guy why we were dating. Anyways back to MEETin I was like many who move looking to make some new friends and found it very hard to do so in the DC area. I knew there were many people like me out their but had no idea how to find them. I got involved in some yahoo groups some of them were very specific on where you had to come from in order to join others were more like posting boards where you may have little chance of meeting someone. I decided to start my own with a very simple rules set. If you posted an event you had to be there. This would cut out all of the people who were trying to promote some event but really had no intention on helping people make friends. Also all events had to be from ones heart in other words you can not profit from it. This means people will make friends with out the idea of profiting from it. So I set out to start a yahoo group called MEETinDC. This yahoo group blew up. I mean we had parties with hundreds of people we had happy hours with hundreds of people. Apparently there were many people in this city just like me. At this point I started 16 other yahoo groups including major cities like San Fran, LA, New York, Seattle , Portland and many more. This also grew and grew so much I had to build a site to bring all of these cities together. So I set out to build a site un-like any other site and MEETin.org was born. We call this a social experiment back then and I would still call it this today. I will refer to this experiment allot through out this blog. Some day I will have to write a book about this but ya with my writing its not likely lol.