With the lights out, it's less dangerous

But not on a Greyhound bus.
I just arrived in Chicago after a two day bus ride that was the most uncomfortable I've ever been.

Seattle was pretty good.
On my first day I went and checked out the Space Needle and went to a local show with some people I met at the hostel.
The second day I was taken to check out Jimi Hendrix's grave site and also the house that Kurt Cobain lived. I believe they call it the dead guys tour.
I checked out Pike Place Market and went along the Waterfront and had a coffee from the original Starbucks.
That night I went out again with people at the hostel for a chilli dog and way too many beers.
The hostel had an acoustic guitar so I got to play both nights when we got in which was nice.

After Chicago it's Niagara Falls then back to New York to go home.


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Portland is leaving

My night in San Francisco got a little messy after my last post, but I met some cool people and we ended up staying up and watching the sunrise over the Bay Bridge at around 7:15am.

Most of my day following I was too tired to really appreciate my surroundings but I did sit on the north beach area and have a bit of a sleep in the sunshine for a while after walking through Chinatown and also the financial district.
San Francisco in hindsight isn't as nice a city as I expected it to be, it's quite dirty.

Portland in contrast might be the most beautiful place I've been to yet. I'm staying in the Nob Hill area and it's how I always hoped an American town would be.
I'm almost sorry that I've only got one day but I think I've seen most of what I'd like to.
I would definitely recommend Powells Bookstore, it's crazy!!

Tomorrow I'm going to Seattle so that's another state I'll be adding to the list (Washington - lost count!)


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Do you know the way to San Jose?

I'm now in San Francisco, it's quite cold and not at all the California I've grown accustomed to, but it's nice and I like that the streets are smaller. It reminds me of how I always thought Seattle would be.

The New Found Glory show I went to was one of the best I've ever seen. A german guy from my hostel came along too so I had some company.
Yesterday I went to Santa Monica via Venice but didn't get to stay too long because it took ages to get there on the bus and I had to get back to go to the Brian Fallon (gaslight anthem) show that night at Troubadour in West Hollywood.
That show was pretty good, I especially enjoyed the support - Joe Sib (I think that's how it's spelled), he did a Reading from his book "California Calling", which I'll definitely be picking up.

I confused myself on the bus back to Hollywood an ended up almost downtown at 1am which was VERY scary for a few minutes.

I'm going to explore San Francisco tomorrow before leaving for Portland tomorrow night. Tonight, being Saturday I might have a few drinks at the hostel.


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California

When I left Vegas my gambling total was at +$10 (not including Atlantic City), I was disappointed because at one point I was way up, but at least I didn't lose any money.
I liked Vegas despite it's seedy side, I checked out Caesars and the shops in there and it was great.
The casino I spent most of my gambling time in was full of truckers and real wild west types, and they took to me and my new tattoo. It was good fun.

Hollywood is the coolest place I've ever been, with the coolest people living here. It's amazing, the one place I've been so far that i've thought that I could actually live. Maybe one day..

Went out last night for St Patricks Day to an Irish bar with some Australian guys from my hostel, they're cool even if they do insist I look like Justin Long.
Tonight I'm going to see New Found Glory at House Of Blues on Sunset Strip and tomorrow I'm going to go to Venice and Santa Monica and Beverly Hills before going to see Brian Fallon from the Gaslight Anthem play at the Troubadour in West Hollywood.

Should be another good day....



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Viva

My time in Kansas City was great and I was quite sad to leave.

I'm in Vegas and up to eighteen states now. My legs are tired since I walked the whole strip this afternoon / tonight.
I'm going to go down to do a little gambling in a while then have an early night.
Vegas has some pretty seedy undertones, it's lonely.



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I've been everywhere maaan

Well, fourteen states of the USA and counting.
It's been a rough ride but I'm finally in Overland Park, MO. Right near Kansas City and the Kansas state border.

The day after my last post I was so burned, the pain and sickness was unbearable,
Maybe it makes you do things you wouldn't usually do, like wander along to Miami Ink and get your first tattoo on a spur of the moment thing. I'm kind of glad I did, I never really thought of myself as the kind of guy to have a tattoo, someone in my hostel in Miami even commented on that.

It was a conversation starter anyway, I took in the pain and went for a night out in the south beach bars with a few people from the hostel which was good fun and an enjoyable night. It's nice to make new friends when traveling.
I left Miami the next day for my trip to Kansas City, it was a thirty-four hour bus ride!
Not the least bit enjoyable as there weren't so many landmarks to see, last night there was a lot of lightning that was okay to watch, but it would have been more fun had I not been surrounded with hillbilly types.
I passed the time with a couple of audiobooks and some good tunes.

I'm here for a few days and it's nice and relaxing with some great company!

Today we went out and saw some buffalo and elk and wild turkeys and then to an italian fast food place called Fazoli's, it's unreal! The servings are huge! I ate all of mine, but was so full.
Then we went to Louisburg cider mill for cider doughnuts and hot cider to drink, that was great too!


Next stop is Las Vegas.

Welcome to Miami

Since I last wrote on here I've been in 7 states, albeit many of them were just passing through and stopping for an hour or so, bit I feel they still count.
I arrived in Baltimore on Thursday night and got a cab to the hostel I was staying at.
The hostel was just a 5-10 minute drive from downtown on the west side.
My first and lasting impressions of the city was that I had seriously misjudged it. It's a very classy city with some great looking buildings (I'm rarely into that stuff). The city on a whole was really clean and the people were quite friendly.
I ate at a corner store (burrito's) and then went to a comfortable bed.
In the morning when I left the hostel I walked along to check out the city hall building. If I said that my main reason for visiting Baltimore wasn't the tv show 'the wire' I'd be lying, so there were a few areas and places of interest that I had to check out.
I went to the inner harbour which is amazing and then sat in the visitors centre for a while because my feet had swolen so bad I couldn't walk. I watched a movie they had on in there about the history of Baltimore which I actually enjoyed.
Baltimore has a very distinct accent really, never hear anything like it before and my trip there was also the first time I ever really saw steam coming out of the pavements on the streets like in films, I enjoyed that, it's everywhere in Baltimore.
I went and checked out the view from federal hill park which was cool and then walked my way back to the bus station.
I got there early and had quite a wait for my 28 hour bus ride to Miami.

The bus stopped through D.C (I saw most of the places you'd want to see in the capital, from a distance) and on to Richmond Virginia, Fayetteville North Carolina, somewhere in South Carolina, somewhere in Georgia and then all through Florida (Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Orlando, etc) until I got to Miami.
I got a lift to my hostel from a guy on the bus and his wife which was a big help.

I arrived on South Beach late last night, it's an amazing place, had something to eat and went to bed, got up early this morning, walked a little (visited Miami ink) and stayed on the beach most of the day, I'm exhausted and starting to feel a bit burned though I thought I'd been very careful.
I'm going to do the same tomorrow and then the following day it's a long trip to Kansas City.




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Maybe everything that dies someday comes back

I'm currently on a Greyhound bus to Baltimore, they're suprisingly comfortable with free wi-fi and power sockets.
Today I visited Atlantic City, I'm not sure if it's what I expected the place to be. First impressions were amazing entering the bus terminal inside the trump plaza and stepping inside, I had a quick bite to eat in one of their restaurants and then walked into the casino with my $25 token. The staff there were really great, everyone is so talkative over here you don't know how to feel, in the casino though it was great. I headed to the blackjack tables and turned the 25 into 80 quickly, had a look around and then left with the winnings.
Went to get my bus tickets and walked to the far east side and down to the boardwalk where I went in to the house of blues venue. I've always wanted to visit one of those so my only regret was that I couldn't catch a show.
The rest of the day involved Caesars and the Tropicana and a sit on the beach and a impromptu tarot card reading that was a total waste of money and time.
The bottoms of my feet and the backs of my knee's hurt so bad.

To B-More!


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Marching Bands Of Manhattan

My first steps in Manhattan were out of the subway at Rockefeller Centre at around 10pm, the first thing I noticed was Radio City music hall, it looked amazing.
Having traveled for around 22 hours at that point I had no bearing of where I needed to go to get to where I'm staying in Harlem so I hailed a yellow cab, something I took as a great achievement at the time.
The next morning I got up early and checked out Harlem. Not my favourite place in Manhattan by a long shot. I walked through central park on the west side and then down through Times Square and right along to the west side through Greenwich Village and Tribeca.
I then checked out the world trade center site and liberty island and went back to my hostel via the financial district and Wall street.
Had sort of a quiet night due to being pretty much unable to walk.
Not too impressed with the food over here compared to back home but it's probably just the places I've been going. Met a few people at the hostel that seem cool, I'll be leaving New York tomorrow anyway to go to Atlantic City and Baltimore.

Today I went to Coney Island which was a long ride. The place is really run down but I'm sure it's better during the warmer months. When I got back to Manhattan I walked through Chinatown and Bowery up to Madison and Park Ave and went up the Empire State Building and then to Rockefeller Centre to check it out properly.
I'm now back at the hostel chilling out.

Later


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The world has turned and left me here .....

I turned twenty-two a couple of days ago.
I don't think it can have much to do with that but I feel older, more grown, more calm and in-tune with where I'm going.
I'll most likely look back at this and laugh at what I've just said, but that would be normal.


Everything seems to be falling in place this time.
It's looking like this new venue is going to go ahead, and I haven't felt any kind of emotional attachment to it like I have in the past. This time it's just business and I'm letting it be.

Six days time I'll be in New York facing what I hope will be a trying month and anticipating whatever lies ahead of that.

Fast Car ......

I'm viewing a possible venue in the city centre on Friday.
I'm quite hopeful for it, though it's likely to require a change-of-use and then there the licensing to get through.
It has a good location and I have a feeling that the place is going to have a lot of potential for what I'm looking for.

All going well on Friday I'll appoint the planning consultancy that I've used previously to get to work on the change-of-use for the building and I'll work out the financial side of it so everyone can get to work while I'm away.

It's less than two weeks now until I leave for America. Starting to really look forward to it!

Evil Dead

So I leave for New York on the 1st of March and the traveling plans are coming along well.
I'm hoping to view a couple of possible venues before I go and I've just got some extra HeartRock Live shows booked in for when I return.

Not a lot else really to report at the moment.
Everything is steady.

Jack

Day Four: Remember that it's all in your head

My disappointment at not getting the music venue that I'd been working on led me to consider traveling.
It's something that I've always wanted to do and would have done before now had it not been for taking the touring musician route a few years ago (which I suppose was a different sort of traveling).

I had to consider a few things before making up my mind on whether or not to do it.
The main thing was how my girlfriend would feel about the situation, secondly was how comfortable I'd be leaving my business in the hands of someone else for any period of time, and the third was whether I could keep my other job open while I was away.

After addressing each of these considerations I've decided to take a month off to travel America, from next month.
If I didn't do it now then when would I do it?

Day Two: It Ain't Me Babe ...

A couple of hours after my post yesterday I received the disappointing news that a higher bid had come in for the property that I wanted to use for my venue. I had to consider not how much that venue would have been worth to me personally in the short term but how much it was worth as a business. Sadly, I couldn't justify raising a higher offer for a place that was only held on a three year lease with no strong indication that there would be a renewal after that period.
Last night was a time for me to reflect on what I'd done over the last year and to plan where I'm going next.
I've got a couple of places that I'm now enquiring about as possible replacements but no firm idea yet as to their level of suitability. I've just got to keep believing that eventually I will get to where I want to be, through hard work and persistence, and when I do get there then it will feel even sweeter for the setbacks.

Day One: Cat Stevens

It's been some-time since I've written a blog on anything, but I'm in the mood for it today and I have nothing else particularly constructive to be getting on with, other than reading the book 'Egonomics' by David Marcum & Steven Smith, which is worth a look if you're into business progression or just improving yourself.

I've always been someone with great interest in ways that I can improve my own being and I think I can safely say that managing 'Ego' is one of the most difficult things I've ever come across. It's really a tricky thing to do, for me anyway. The book seems to state that you can't get to the peak of your personal growth until you can control your ego and look at the big picture instead of just what your aspirations are for your own world. I know that I'm not there yet, and I find it difficult to imagine a future me that can REALLY look at the big picture, I have so many material dreams that I want to accomplish and my ego tells me that before I can even think about what goes on outside of my own world that I need to get to these first, but maybe what I need to be aware of is that unless I work harder on the 'big picture' then I won't have the capability to progress to these material dreams of buying things like super-cars and penthouse apartments.
The book also shows that a balanced ego is a good thing, which is good news .....


A bit over four months ago I decided (or thought) that I was ready to move my business onto the next big step of it's progression. I can't bear to go over the small details and plans but after a hundred issues, complications, location changes and sleepless nights I've submitted my offer to take over the place that I want to open up my first (emphasis on the first) music venue.
I've spent the last three days waiting to find out whether I'm going to get the place, upping bids and pacing so much that I've probably had more exercise than I had all of last year.
I really had to do something to take my mind off of things.
In times like this I always turn back to something that's kept me going in the past, music.
And what better way to do that than to create a list of your top-10 all-time songs ...
For some people this might not take so long, or maybe they wouldn't take it as seriously as I did.
It took a lot of narrowing down but here are my all time top-10,
(If you're reading this feel free to add your own, I'd love to hear them whatever you're into)


1. God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
2. Trouble - Cat Stevens
3. My Back Pages - Byrds (Dylan Cover)
4. Hallelujah - Rufus Wainright (Cohen Cover)
5. Flesh & Blood - Johnny Cash
6. You Get What You Give - New Radicals
7. Tiny Dancer - Elton John
8. Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen
9. New York Groove - Kiss (cover)
10. Drift Away - Dobie Gray




Maybe next time I'll think about film ...