*** The pics for this story were taken with the Canon S90 and the Nikon D90 ***

I went down to Savannah to attend the IXDA10 convention for interaction design, basically a convention of information architects and UX designers. Also it was another opportunity for me to visit a corner of the country I hadn’t seen yet. Luckily my cousin was going to SCAD, the university that was hosting the conference, so I was able to visit the city on the cheap.

Before I get into the rest of the story there was one particular incident that I just have to mention, it illustrates that you should never judge a book by it’s cover and you never know who you are sitting next to until you make the effort to talk to them. Cutting to the chase, I started a conversation with a person met while in Savannah and found out that she was the inventor of the Snuggie. I know, not exactly the most amazing claim to fame, but still it’s kinda funny to think about it – you never know where those wacky “As Seen on TV” product come from. She was a very modest woman and almost was not going to tell me about her famous invention, when she heard that I work in advertising she couldn’t keep her secret to herself because she was interested in talking about marketing and her experience selling the product. As I mentioned, she is very modest and she likes her anonymity so I didn’t take a picture of her. In her words keeping shut and just cashing the checks has been the best decision she has made (no random people asking her for loans).

Day 1

I spent the first day in Savannah just walking around town and getting my bearings, I discovered that you can see pretty much all of downtown Savannah in about an hour.

While walking around I happened upon Lady and Sons, I’ve heard mixed things from people. Like most celebrity restaurants, people complain about lengthy waits for food that barely justified the inconvenience. I decided to ask, out of curiosity, how long the wait would take and was surprised to find myself seated within 5 minutes. I ended up ordering the chicken pot pie, which was excellent but definitely artery clogging – I can only imagine how much heavy cream and butter went into making it.

After a day of walking around I went back to my cousins apartment to catch up with him. I hadn’t had a chance to meet him yet since he was in school for the entire day. He is studying his masters in special effects at SCAD with a focus on lighting and rendering. He’s also an amazing photographer, check out his flickr page here.

Day 2

The first day of the conference was spent at the Hyatt taking a wireframing workshop. Actually it ended up being more like a contest to see what kind of ideas we could generate with a limited amount of time. We were all split into groups depending on the wireframing tool of choice that we were going to use (I’m and Omnigraffle user). After splitting up we were given information on the client, a couple of personas and some business requirements to begin working.

The client was a non-profit called Loan4Life, they provide micro loans to families that need to pay for Autism related treatments. The challenge was to build a new homepage, which would enable users to search for people who need help and to donate to these people. The session started off with a round of 8-up thumbnail sketches and a quick round of group critique. After picking elements from all the thumbnails that we liked the next step was to sketch out 1-up sketches of a few key pages and present them as a group to another group. Following this round we had to create a final wireframe in 30 minutes using the program of our choice and present the concept to the entire group.

While I didn’t particularly learn anything new, it was interesting to be able to compare my approach and skill level with other IA’s. I’m completely self taught and usually have no other people to use as references to compare my work with – so it was a welcome change to work in a group of other people who do the same thing for a living.

I wanted to take my cousin out for a meal that evening and he hadn’t been to Lady and Sons. This time he got the pot pie and I tried the bacon wrapped shrimp. The pot pie was better, either way you’re going to get a heart attack. Later on that evening there was a quick after party at a local bar, Moon River.

I stayed for a little while and then headed out to catch up with my cousin and visit some other bars that he recommended. I guess two of the big hotspots are Seed and Saya. Both were pretty cool, Saya had a very lounge feel to it with an Asian theme. Seed was more of an upscale bar.

Day 3

The second day of the conference were lectures that lasted from 10:00 to 5:00PM. All he lectures were spread out over the downtown SCAD campus in four of it’s venues, I won’t go through every lecture but subjects varied from the practical to the theoretical.

That night we had an event organized at the SCAD trustee’s garden. Among the highlights were Microsoft Surface tables, which were these touch sensitive coffee tables that you could play games on. Also they had set up an oyster-shucking table. Initially I was skeptical about the wisdom of providing open bar AND shucking knives to complete newbie’s (myself included) but I actually ended up learning how to shuck an oyster without killing myself.

Day 4

The next day I took an architectural tour of Savannah during lunch, the day ended up being kind of miserable with off and on rain. The tour itself was fantastic and was lead by the chair of architecture at SCAD. A few of the interesting facts learned were that Savannah is the largest port south of the mason Dixon line on the east coast. Also, the entire city is rested on a sand bar and the cobblestones that make up the port area were actually ballast from old ships that were loading up cargo n the 1700s. The city itself is actually elaborately panned in a series of squares with open public spaces/gardens that are laid out in a grid throughout the city.

That evening I tried the Shrimp with Grits at Vic’s on the River. The grits in this case were pretty amazing, light and creamy, they almost tasted like scrambled eggs. Actually they reminded me a lot of the spoon bread I had in California. I need the recipe, I tried duplicating the spoon bread a bunch of times and it never came out right.

That night Microsoft organized a party at the SCAD design center. I guess this is the building that the industrial design students take their cases at. There were student exhibits on display and it was amazing the amount of work that these kids put into their designs. I’ve said it before but if I could invent a time machine I’d go back and switch my major to Industrial Design.

Day 5

The final day of the conference was pretty low key for me, honestly attending sessions all day long and staying up late definitely gets to you after a while. Luckily this was sort of a half day event, it also happened to be the day of the Superbowl. Later on that evening I went out to a bar called JJ Boners (seriously) and caught the game surrounded by strangers. Actually it was pretty good because there were a bunch of Indy fans and the game ended up being kinda soul shattering for them.

Day 6

The last day of my say in Savannah was mostly spent walking round taking pictures. I was a bit obsessed with getting some pictures of the Spanish moss on the trees, an excellent time to break out the 50mm and play around with the DOF. After taking endless amounts of pictures, I headed down to the Wilkes house for what was promised to be the best food Savannah had to offer.

The Wilkes house is definitely a unique concept; basically it is southern cooking served in a communal family style. You walk in and get seated (no paying up front) you end up sitting with random strangers and get served a 10 course comfort food meal. It was an amazing experience, the first time in years that I had fried chicken. The atmosphere was completely unique and it was a fitting meal to end my trip on. I ended up taking it easy that night because of the plane I had to catch the next morning. Definitely good times though…

The last thing I did in Savannah was to get out at night and take some pics of the statues in the square. There is definitely an eery feeling about Savannah in the middle of the night, the atmosphere definitely has a ghostly quality to it.

I’ve had this tradition to catch a Bills-Patriots game for a few years now. It started back when I just got out of college, my first job was working for a subsidiary of the Kraft Group and my office was inside Gillette Stadium. Back then I used to be able to get tickets to just about any Patriots game, one of my roommates was from Buffalo so we made it a point to see the Bills play in Foxboro. My buddy, Rob, recently moved back to Buffalo and we made plans to take the trek up to visit him and see a Patriots game in Ralph Wilson Stadium.

We spent the first night at a bar called Coles, just down the street from where Rob lives (ladies, you know where he’s at). The food was decent and the bar area was a good scene. The thing to order were the burgers, I got a Cajun-something or other, it was good. The bar was pretty packed and it kinda looked like a toy store at Christmas with all of the decorations – a toy store that serve’s alcohol…

After this we went a few blocks down to another bar called JP Bullfeathers, this one had a pretty decent scene and there were plenty of girls hanging around to talk to. Actually, that’s one thing about upstate New York – the girls are pretty down to earth and approachable. Definitely way more approachable than girls in Boston. I’m not sure why that is, but I guess it’s a good reason to move. The camera got passed around a bit and at some point the ISO got bumped up to 3200… I converted a lot of the shots to B&W, also I tried split toning some of the shots to give it a slightly kodachrome look.

Finally, on the way back home we stopped by this late-night taco place. Definitely hit the spot, it brought back memories of living in Davis Sq and stumbling into Anna’s before it shut down. Something about taco’s, they just hit the spot after a night in the town.

The next day we were all fairly under the weather. Rob promised us actual-bonafide buffalo wings. Supposedly Anchor Bar is a tourist trap, the real deal (he promised) was at Gabriel’s Gate (I checked Yelp! when I got back home and I guess a lot of the locals agree). The restaurant itself is pretty cool it almost had a New Orleans vibe to it with the antique tiled ceiling. The wings were good, but I feel the need to try a few other Buffalo restaurants before I’m willing to concede any titles (maybe next time I’ll do a more thorough taste test). I also had the club sandwich which was so gigantic I was unable to finish it – I guess value is no problem over here.

Ok so here’s is probably the best story from the entire trip. Let me introduce you to “Tron”, we named him that after the Chappele Show recurring character “Tron Carter”.

While we were eating this guy walks into the bar and just starts shooting the shit with anyone. Everyone turns around to look at him because he was so loud that he made himself the center of attention. He also uttered some of the weirdest/best lines of dialogue that I have personally ever heard. My friends and I were trying to figure out if he was a pimp, a bookie, a dealer or all three combined.

So he starts off by talking about football and how much money he has on the different games. Another patron at the bar gets sucked into this conversation and then notices the watch Tron is wearing. The conversation went something like this:

Man: “That’s a nice watch you got there, what is is?”
Tron: “It’s a Omega. Look here” [Tron pulls up his sleeve]. “Platinum!” “And look at this.” [pulls out a roll of money] “Bam! Hundred dollar bills!” “Man, I’m working not to work. You dig?”

Tron then orders a drink from the bartender…

Bartender: “What do you want”
Tron: “You tell me, you the one that knows. I want you to do what you do best. I’ll do what I do best, and I want you to do what you do best”

Somehow the conversation turns to Tron’s personal life..

Tron: “I have 4 wives…. They take care of me.”

And then things get violent…

Tron: “I was there man, I saw it! I saw her when she got fucked up. Seriously man, they found her naked in the attic, she had to have 87 stitches. I seen it.”

We were all quiet while all of this was going on, but we wanted to laugh so hard. On the way out of the restaurant one of the waitresses begged us to take her with us. Apparently the guy is a regular and once he starts talking he doesn’t stop for hours. My only regret is that I didn’t (a) take a picture or (b) video tape the entire conversation. Thus you’ll have to settle for my crudely drawn illustration of Tron and imagine the scene for yourself… When we got out of the car and started driving back to Rob’s apartment, we couldn’t stop quoting Tron and cracking up about it. Seriously, I nearly pissed myself laughing. The only way it could have been better is if Tron said “Look at me America! Look how Tron is living for the citaay!”

That night we went out to a Buffalo Sabres game, this was my first time going to a NHL game ever (yep, I’ve never seen the Bruins play). Before heading into the stadium we grabbed a quick drink at the “Pearl St Grill” which was pretty big (kinda reminded me of Jillian’s but more of a sports bar). The Sabres were playing the Penguins, apparently a lot of Pittsburgh fans don’t mind the drive up to Buffalo because the stadium was rough 60-40 Sabres-Penguins fans. There were also a lot of Canadians in participation. We tease Rob about him actually being a Canadian, he didn’t help himself when the first national anthem that was played at the game was the Canadian one. The Sabres ended up loosing the game, the cool thing was that it went into a penalty shootout. After the game we went to a random dive bar with a presidential/historical theme. It was actually a good time and a pretty neat bar – though I can’t remember the name of it.

The next day we got up early to tailgate before the Bills game… The weather was in the 20’s but windchill brought the temperature further down into the teens. Of course, the idiot that I am, I forget to bring my gloves and the extra pair of socks. Luckily a guy was selling Bills glove (yes, I had to suck up my pride and buy them – it was worth it) also my buddy Greg has a pair of feet warmers that kept my toes alive (I needed those too). Tailgating is tailgating, I guess there is not much I can say about it. Well, except that a girl ended up squatting behind Ed’s car to go to the bathroom – Buffalo girls definitely are different than Boston girls.

The game itself was pretty good, we had great seats about 120 feet from the field and on one of the corners of the stadium. You could see both sides of the field easily with a perfect 3/4 view and no obstructions. I was trying my best ot be the unassuming fan of the opposing team, Chris was doing his best to be the Pats fan he is and crawl under the skin of every Bills fan that he could. A lot of people were wearing hunter orange… some of these guys own guns and I wouldn’t want to piss them off.

After the game we went back to Rob’s apartment, it was our last night so we bought some Chinese food and settled in early before the long ride home to Boston the next morning.

I’m a lazy blogger, I took these shots over Thanksgiving break while my brother was in town. I’ve been trying to do more portrait photography and to learn more about lighting. I’m trying to follow the Strobist coursework, but I definitely procrastinate more than Id like to admit. Ultimately I’m going to start taking more self portraits, but for now I needed to wait until I had another person to shoot.

This is a simple setup, basically one strobe with a shoot through umbrella that is placed on camera left with the umbrella pointing down at the subject at about 45 degrees. I placed the subject against the fireplace to add some texture to the background (and because it’s the coolest spot in our house). I was striving for a lot of shadows and contrast for this shoot, mimicking some of the pics I took during the A Camp concert.

The camera I used was my Nikon D90 with my 50mm f/1.4D lens. I also had two light stands (ended up mostly using one) with SB-26 flashes. Originally my hope was to use the Cactus radio trigger I had bought, but alas the tigger broke when I dropped it. I ended up putting the camera in Commander mode, with the hope of using the in-built optical slave of the SB-26 to set off the flash. Luckily for me this worked, even though I guess this should really not have worked at all. Also, because I was using the commander mode I effectively actually added some additional light, directly facing the subject.

I’m pretty happy with the results. I also tried processing black and white and split-tone to get a sort of Kodachrome green.

I’ve been a fan of The Cardigans for 10+ years now, I heard about them back in the mid 90’s after Lovefool broke out in the US. I was a member of BMG (remember buying music through mail-in catalogs?) and I soon purchased “First Band On the Moon” and “Life”. For some reason I never got a chance to see The Cardigans perform, even though I’m sure they came by the Boston area plenty of times.

As the years went by the popularity of the band in the states waned. The last time they announced a concert was a couple of years ago, but the Boston date got canceled due to a lack of ticket purchases (my loss, that would have been my first Cardigans concert).

Nina is now playing in her (former) side project A Camp, which I mispronounce as A-Camp (like A-Team). Again I missed them perform in Boston earlier this year because I was traveling to San Francisco, so when they announced their last tour date of 2009 in NYC, I made sure to buy myself a ticket.

The albums themselves are pretty awesome, it’s good to hear Nina’s voice again and I appreciate the complex mixture of melancholy and love that marks much of her writing. Personally out of A Camp’s two albums I actually prefer “Colonia”, their newest release. My favorite tracks are probably “Golden Teeth and Silver Medals” and “Love Has Left the Room”. From their self-titled debut my favorite tracks are “I Can Buy You” and “Song For the Leftovers”.

The concert was billed as an intimate night with the band. I’ve never been to this venue myself but it was pretty cool, right on Bleecker St in the middle of all the action of Greenwich Village. The venue was setup with tables surrounding the stage going about 4 rows deep, beyond that was more room for people who wanted to standup. By the time I go to the venue there was already a line around the block of people waiting to get in. Luckily for me I spotted an empty seat at one of the tables and asked if I could join the people there. Lucky for me, I had my S90 with me and I was right dead center of the stage about 15 feet away.

A Camp is comprised of three people, Nina (vocals and occasional harmonica), Nathan Larson (bass and spousal support) and Nicklas Frisk (guitar). Also they had a full backing band including James Iha on rhythm guitar, remember him? This was pretty cool for me, I’m a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan as well and the two times I went to see them he was not their guitarist (this was recently, after the breakup of the original lineup). There was also a backing band consisting of drums, cello, saxophone and keyboards.

The show itself was great but I felt it was kind of short as well, maybe I was just having too good a time? The band performed songs from both albums and also ended the show with a fantastic cover of Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them”. Nina has an amazing voice, a testament that any Cardigans fan will be quick to confirm. After their last song, the Nina quickly ducked out and left for the green room. The venue dispersed and a few of the backing band stayed behind to mill around with the crowd and help sell some merch. Definitely a good performance.

Finally, this last shot is probably my favorite one from the concert. It’s the same picture as the first one on this post except I cropped the picture to isolate Nathan and Nina. I also changed the picture to grayscale (obviously) and painted out some of the highlights that I wanted to avoid (like the spotlight above Nina’s head). I wish I was as good at lighting to make pictures look this good myself – I guess that’s the next area I need to focus on.

I decided to head out to NYC this past week because I wanted to see A Camp perform their final show of the year, also I wanted an excuse to get out and take pictures of stuff. So before I get through the rest of the post let me tell you a couple of good deals if you are heading off to NYC for the weekend.

First, if you are in Boston then definitely consider booking a trip with Lucky Star. Lucky Star is one of those low budget, Asian owned, bus companies that offer daily routes between Boston and New York. The Fung Wah used to be the king of discount service, but Lucky Star has one-upped them with internet rates as low as $1 for a one-way ticket. I ended up spending $16 for my trip ($15 to get to NYC and $1 to get back). Sure you might have to worry about the occasional bus catching fire, and breakdowns can happen (more on that later) but at fares this low you really can’t beat it with anything else.

Second, if you are traveling by yourself and you know you really don’t need to spend a boatload of cash on a hotel room you’ll barely even see then consider booking a bed at a hostel. I managed to book 2 nights at the Hostel International New York hostel, the rate was $26/night in a 10 bed shared room. While that sounds like a lot of people, keep in mind that if you are like me you’ll be out till 4:00 AM and won’t have a problem sleeping when you get back. Make sure to bring a padlock and some shower slippers and you’ll be all set for your trip. The hostel is located pretty far uptown (around 103rd and Amsterdam), and it’s only a block from the nearest MTA station.

I had not been to NYC in over 2 years; it’s an amazing city that blows you away every time you visit it. I’m from Boston, and the scale of the place is just completely different. Boston’s a great town, very tourist friendly and walkable but New York is world class on a different level. Since I had been in town before I didn’t have the rush to explore everything like I did on my previous trip. The MO this time was to see the show, eat at a few top restaurants and check out Brooklyn.

I spent most of the day just walking around and talking pictures of anything that seemed inspiring to me. I honestly felt that the muse wasn’t talking to me on the first day. I try to push myself but I have a log way to go to take my photography to the next level, sometimes the shots just don’t get composed properly or become too cliché. And then other times you get back home and look through everything during processing and every now and then a few pictures seem to leap out at you.

After a few hours of doing this I decided it was time to head towards the hostel and check in. I was determined to check out Brooklyn that night so I wanted to drop off some of the extra gear before the night. On my way to the hostel I saw a French restaurant on Broadway and I was hungry so I decided to check it out. The restaurant was called L’Express and it was decent food. I ordered the Blood Sausage as an appetizer (I grew up in Europe and hadn’t eaten one of those in ages). For the Entrée I went safe and got the Wild Mushroom Ravioli, which was good but seemed a bit under seasoned for my taste. All in all I think my dining experience was about average here.

I started walking up North again on Broadway when lo and behold the next block was one of the Les Halles restaurants owned by Anthony Bourdain. I loved Kitchen Confidential and his show enough to buy the Les Halles cookbook, which has taught me some French cooking. Even though I was practically stuffed I decided to stop in for a quick bite since I was already there. I grabbed a glass of port and decided to order something that I couldn’t make at home, which ended up being the foie gras steeped in calvados. The food was great and it had a pretty down to earth atmosphere, I was getting there right during the after hours crowd but before the place got too packed.

After the meal I continued on towards the hostel to check my stuff and take a quick shower before heading out to Brooklyn. I stopped by Times Sq to take a few pictures before heading north to the hostel.

I was told to take the L train to Williamsburg, as that was a pretty safe and hip area, keep in mind that this was on a Monday so I wasn’t expecting too much craziness. Brooklyn reminded me of Davis Sq, a up and coming part of greater Boston that I’ve been living in for the last 3 years. The bars have a neighborhood feel to them but they are pretty friendly and fun. I went to three bars while in Williamsburg: Cyn Lounge, Spike Hill and The Charleston. Out of the three I’d say the Charleston was my favorite, I liked the divvy décor and the people that were there were the kind of people I could see my self-hanging out with. Plus the atmosphere was just too cool, for every beer purchase you would get a free cheese pizza, also they were playing great music on the jukebox and awesome movies. It turns out I really like drinking a beer with my free cheese pizza, while watching Clue on mute and listening to David Bowie in the background. Good times.

I decided during the previous day that two of the “touristy” things I needed to do on this trip were (a) visit MOMA and (b) check out the NBC studio tour. As it turns out MOMA is closed on Tuesdays so it was the studio tour by default.

One of the rules of the studio tour is that you can’t take any pictures. I figured that this would be an interesting diversion because I’m always interested in learning more about production, TV and film production have been around for so long that everything is a science. I work as an interactive producer, so I kind of geek out when I can learn more about how TV shows and movies are produced (definitely some parallels and lessons that can be learned). The tour lasted about an hour and consisted on walking through the news broadcast studio, a green screen studio (very interesting) and learning about makeup/costumes for SNL. It sort of made me wish that I came on a Saturday so I could sit in for a SNL broadcast or rehearsal – something to add to the “to do” list.

After this I went to the Apple store on 5th and 57th, not much to report here…. Just buying some earphones that are designed to fail every 4 months. I also wanted to take a few pictures of the store with my D90 and the Tokina 11-16mm, last time I came here I only had a compact.

I made plans to catch up with a friend of mine at Lupa’s, one of Mario Battali’s restaurants. I had looked forward to eating here but I had also heard some mixed reviews about the food and service falling off the cliff ever since Battali became famous. Like most celeb-chef restaurants a crowd of people are lining to show up any day of the week, so service and the food sometimes takes a back seat. I guess I’m partially to blame for this since I decided to eat there, to be honest the best meals I’ve had were at local established places or up and coming restaurants that haven’t achieved fame yet.

We ended up being seated at the community table located at the front of the restaurant, initially I was worried that it would be too loud but we got through the meal without too much trouble. We were sitting next to an elderly couple that we ended up befriending, I felt like we were on a cruise making friends with the patrons – nothing wrong with it but it’s just the impression that I got.

So, back to the food… I decided to be adventurous to my detriment and ordered the test, which is headcheese. What is headcheese? It’s all the miscellaneous meat and fat from the head of a sheep or cow that is packaged into a terrine and sliced to serve (I know, sounds great). I had never had it, nor would I ever make it and Andrew Zimmerman seems to rave about the stuff (yep, bad choice). The headcheese didn’t taste foul; it just didn’t taste that great – sort of like mushy/fatty cold cuts of roast beef. For our entrée’s I ordered the pork shoulder and Lauren ordered the tortellini (a good safe option). My pork shoulder tasted good but it was mostly fat, it had an acidic taste too it like a NC style vinegar sauce. Lauren’s tortellini was good, but it seemed a bit subtle on the flavor. So I experienced a Batalli restaurant, next time I think I’ll hunt harder for an up and coming restaurant or some place satisfying and cheaper.

After a couple of drinks I parted ways with Lauren and headed off to the concert. I was going to see A Camp, a band that I had missed earlier in the year when I took my vacation to San Francisco. I got into the band because I’ve been a Cardigans fan for quite a while now but I never had a chance to see them play while they were actively touring. When I found out about Nina Persson’s side project I stated getting into her new band. I think she is a pretty awesome singer, one of her qualities is that it seems as if she is singing directly to you. I was psyched to see her perform. Here are a few select pics but if you want to know more about the show click here to read my article/review on it.

This is really Day 2.5 as I had to head home to Boston this evening. I packed my stuff up and checked out of the hostel, the first stop would be to check out MOMA and then a bite to eat before catching the bus back home. One other thing, I woke up to find my D90 completely out of batteries – it must have been on the night before while I was out at the concert. Luckily I had my S90 with my as backup camera.

Last time I didn’t have time to check out MOMA, since this was a half-day and I had done most of the super touristy things already I figured it would good to chill out and look at some art. 2 things ended up happening at MOMA that I did not expect (1) there was a Tim Burton exhibit showing off some of his photography and illustrations and (2) Tim Burton was going to be at MOMA for a book signing. I didn’t realize the second part of this until I noticed a mass of people waiting in line at the first floor of the museum. When he arrived for the book signing I caught a fleeting glimpse of him from about 200 ft away, but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to snap his picture. Besides Tim Burton there was an awesome exhibit about the Bauhaus movement on the 6th floor – very interesting. I don’t have a ton of pictures from MOMA because some of the areas were restricted from photography.

After the museum I decided to check out Grammercy Tavern near the Flatiron area, when I got there I found out that I missed lunch and that it was formal attire required. Luckily Craftbar was around the corner from there and I figured it would be worth the stop. I ended up having the risotto balls as an appetizer and went with the veal meatballs w/ linguini as my main course (I learned a lesson about being too adventurous the night before). Both dishes were good but they didn’t bowl me over with flavor. Still couldn’t complain, I think some of my problem is that I need a little bit of spice and I was expecting the pasta to have some kick to it. Usually I don’t hesitate to pour on the Tabasco sauce, but I never really do that when dining at a fancy joint because I want to taste the dish the way it was intended. Honestly that’s kind of a stupid practice on my part.

Finally I get back to Chinatown to hop back on the Lucky Star bus. I fall asleep pretty quickly and before long we make the mandatory stop at Arby’s somewhere in the middle of CT. I swear that Lucky Star owns this Arby’s and it is a genius profit making rouse to consistently deliver 20-30 customers every hour, on the hour, to their own business for food. Pretty industrious. Either way we hop back on the bus and continue along until suddenly the driver pulls over under an overpass. Shit, I thought, the bus must be on fire or something. True to their ways, the driver never tells any of us what is going on. So we sit there waiting for 20 minutes for an explanation in broken English, some hand gestures or just obvious body language to let us know what is happening. He starts the bus again finally but we never top 20 MPH, I guess he must have blown his transmission. Finally the bus an hour behind us catches up and we all are able to transfer over to get a ride home. I wonder if Lucky Star is making a profit with these cheap fares and grueling touring schedule, I guess it all depends on limiting the amount of buses that have engine failure… Still I can’t complain, my sunk costs for this trip amount to about $68 – not bad for 2.5 days in New York.

One quick note which applies to every product here… everything I bought was practically brand new, there wasn’t so much as a finger print on any of these devices and I felt like I was committing highway robbery when I bought them

1) Macbook Pro

I’ve been drooling over one of these for the past year or so, I work in advertising and it seems like everyone except for me is on a mac. I was on the fence about getting one for a while, considering the price difference between a capable windows machine and a Macbook Pro. Still I decided to make the jump after I found out about this deal.

Long story short, definitely look for refurbished mac’s, they are basically brand new and come with everything you would normally get except for the original box (who cares). I bought my refurbished Macbook directly from Apple, yes they sell refurbished items too but they kind of hide it on their site.

Here’s the link directly to their refurbished store: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

As you can see they sell all kinds of Macs from just about every line that they carry. Cheaper deals are usually found on older models.

Personally I went with the late 2008 15″ Macbook Pro w/ 512MB 9600M GT – this is the one with the unibody aluminum shell that had the removable battery (not the built in 7 hour battery that this year’s models have – though it looks identical from the outside). What did I pay? $1,599 – which is pricey but not too bad compared to the $2,300 price tag the same model had when it came out less than a year ago.

Apple constantly updates this page, basically when a refurbished unit is available it gets posted until someone purchases it, so you might check the site out a couple of times only to find what you wanted is gone Still they seem to have a constant flow of refurbished products so you won’t have to wait long till your next chance at buying one. Buying refurbished from Apple is great, I’m not sure if I would have made the same refurbished purchase through a third party site.

2) Nikon D90

Ok, so you know I’m into photography. I have been using a Nikon D40 for about a year know and slowly growing my lens collection. While I love the D40 I did feel that the lack of a autofocus motor in the body was a huge letdown. Basically the newest (and in many cases the most expensive) lenses from Nikon have internal motors that will work with the D40, but older Nikons or 3rd party lenses don’t have this. Also the 3 point autofocus system was kind of a letdown when you need to compose a shot quickly and the camera just keeps hunting.

D90’s these days are getting more affordable to most consumers. You can buy a new D90 (body only) for $809.99 from BHPhoto – this is probably the best deal I have found for a brand new copy. However, BHphoto also has a used/refurbished section of their site where they sell everything for a significant discount. This applies to any photographer out there, not just fellow Nikon SLR enthusiasts.

Here’s the link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/SLR-Digital-Cameras/ci/15488/N/4294182649

I got my D90 for $679! A couple of notes, BHPhoto does not keep these in stock so you have to be lucky and check this site after they have finished refurbishing a camera and listed it on sale. The D90 is very popular and so it rarely pops up on the site, but when it does it is usually listed for $679-$699. BHPhoto is a trusted reseller, so have confidence with any purchase you make through them.

3) Garmin nüvi 255W 4.3-Inch GPS Navigator

I have this joke about myself: I’m like a bird with a magnet stuck to it’s head, I can’t tell which way is North.

Having a GPS unit is like a sea change for me, I was the person who either had to do a complete recon with Google maps and driving directions before heading out, or risk being lost at sea until the winds of fate happened to get me in the right direction. In either case I was wasting a lot of time either before the trip or during it. My life since GPS has been quite different, the only thing I check for is the address I need to go to and then I wing it from there.

If you have a car you NEED a GPS, even if you are good with directions you will be surprised at the quicker ways to get to your destination that you never knew about.

I ended up going with this unit because it was the entry model which had text-to-speech directions (it will speak to you the street names you need to make turns at). Originally I was going to buy this brand new for about $165, until I came across a link to a refurbished version of the same model. I got my GPS for about $120, Amazon seems to fluctuate the price on these from week to week.

Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-4-3-Inch-Widescreen-Navigator-Refurbished/dp/B001PLOTWS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258140071&sr=8-1

I pretty much buy everything from Amazon without much hesitation, and I am sure you do as well. The great thing about this product is that you will get a visual indicator showing you the next turn you will have to do and it will also estimate your time of arrival (very convenient if you are letting people know when to expect you). When I got this I tested it out by driving 4hrs to Burlington, VT – this is something that would have normally required a lot of map scanning and looking at directions. Also, if you go to the Garmin website within 60 days of registering this product then you can download the most updated map (usually costs $50) for free.

A couple of my friends played their last show as a band last night, here are some pics of their set. All pictures were taken with a Nikon D90, the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens and available light.

…And things were going great until Ben had to gross everyone out by doing this…

This is probably my favorite pic from the shoot, I took it with the Tokina 11-16mm during “magic hour”. It was cold but worth it.

Three different variations of the above picture: playing with the color processing controls, black & white and the original image out of the camera.