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