Pittsburgh - Day 3

The previous night's activity accomplished that which we had all set out to do in Pittsburgh, namely, marry off one Emily Petrack to one Kimmer Graham. That being done, everything to follow was just gravy. And those who know me can attest that if there's one thing I love, it's gravy. Mmmmmmmm... gravy.

We had breakfast (hotel buffet) with the Meyers, before seeing them to a taxi. Finally free of the excess baggage of other wedding-goers, Kelsey and I were left to begin the tourist checklist for the greater Pittsburgh area. Our only concern was the whole transportation thing, which had shown to be somewhat, um... problematic in days past. Fortunately, many of the suggested points of interest were within walking distance of the hotel.

We both had the idea of seeing the Andy Warhol Museum, so that was the first stop. Appropriately, we walked across the pedestrian path of the Andy Warhol Bridge (the middle of the Three Sisters Bridges) to get there. The museum itself was quit an interesting place. I'm finding it difficult to conjure up the language to best capture it's essence, but I did really enjoy it. The building is actually on a rather small footprint, but there are at least 7 floors of exhibits. Thinking back upon my experience, I'm realizing that the first floor is pretty tame - showing a lot of his iconic pop works - but things get increasingly strange and bizzare as you ascend each flight of stairs - with the upper floors exhibiting his forays into film, and, yes, taxidermy.

in the lobby of the Andy Warhol Museum

From there we strolled the few blocks between the museum and PNC Park. Turns out there wasn't a great deal to see besides a few very uninteresting bars in the bottom floor of commercial buildings. We spent some time lounging about the riverside boardwalk and parks, before crossing back to the downtown side of the river. A game was in sessions, so we got to walk across the closed-to-traffic bridge (The Roberto Clemente?) on the way to find food downtown. I have to admit walking on the closed off bridges never got old for me. Easily one of my favorite things about Pittsburgh.

riverfront parks; looking downtown

Our quest to find food quickly turned into a circuitous walk to the oft-visited Primanti Brothers. This was not our first choice, or even on the list at all really. But for whatever reason, every interesting place our smartphones pointed us to was shuttered or appeared to never exist. This reminded me a lot of my experience in Jacksonville this winter, I wondered if this was a recent development due to the economic downturn (though there did seem to be a considerable effort to improve the downtown area). In any case, we had a quick bite and pint and went back to the hotel to regroup before the evening.

kelsey amusing herself; the bright spot of our dining search

It was decided that we would walk over to the incline around dusk, and then continue on to the Southside for dinner and whatnot. There are two inclines that ferry riders up and down the hillside of Mt. Washington on pairs of tracked vehicles. It's a pretty neat concept, and the cars and stations are a very well-maintained piece of history. Of course, we had to walk over yet another bridge to get there, which was fine by me.

Upon arriving at the unmanned bottom station, we came to learn that exact change was required, of which we were just the tiniest bit short. Not only that, but we didn't even have any bills small enough to be accepted by the change-making machine there. Not to worry, as we passed an outdoor mall and dining center just a couple blocks back. Or so I thought, because as this was a Sunday, the mall and all of the small shops conducive to gum purchasing and change making were closed. Left with no other choice, we stepped into the gift shop of the Pittsburgh Hard Rock Cafe. As you might expect if you've been to a Fill-In-The-Blank Hard Rock Cafe gift shop, it's actually hard to get change there because even the smallest items in there will tend to require all of your larger bills and leave you with very little of that all important change. Sigh. I ended up the proud new owner of an $8 applique patch that I will never sew, pin, or glue onto anything. Actually, Kelsey is the proud owner, I believe. But nevertheless, we did obtain that elusive exact change required for our voyage up the Monongahela Incline, and all of the previous paragraph considered, I've got to say it was probably worth it.

The ride is actually quite a bit longer than I surmised from the bottom (as is often the case), and one is afforded what is likely the best view in the city as the counterweight of the oppositely directed car pulls you uphill. A block up from the top station is an overhanging lookout where tourists like us can congregate for a prime photo op.

approaching top station

After taking full advantage of the lookout opportunties given us, we rode the incline down (should it be a decline from this perspective?). We had hoped to come across a cab at the mall at the bottom in spite of all that we had learned in the previous three days. Our hopes dashed, we enlisted the help of the concierge desk at the hotel nearby. After calling us a cab, the concierge informed us at just how awful was the cab situation in town. No kidding. But we did get a ride to the Southside and had a really good dinner at The Double Wide Grill (after some wait - Kelsey was getting very worried we wouldn't get food) and stopped in Fatheads a few blocks down for a pint before calling it a night. Somehow we lucked into a cab ride back to the hotel without too much wait, and retired to the room exhausted. But not too exhausted to sample the Graham/Petrack commemorative wine.

More pics. You know where.

Pittsburgh - Day 2

Last I left you , Kelsey had just ordered the ill-conceived Perogie Pizza. I was, perhaps, the minority opinion in my distaste for this dish, but in all fairness, the girls only liked it once they poured / spilled a half bottle of hot sauce on it. It is my opinion that once you put a half bottle of hot sauce on something, it retains very little of its own essence and becomes just a vessel for the sauce caliente. And by this rationale, I arrive at the conclusion that only my opinion matters. Per usual.

Which brings us to the big day. Well the big day for Emily and Kimmer. My "big day" was actually the baseball game the night before. I kid, I kid. I was very much looking forward to the wedding and had a great time. Mostly.

See the thing about Pittsburgh cab drivers is, they suck. Well, to be more accurate, they suck unless you're giving them a large fare to/from the airport. We got turned down by two different cabs trying to get from the hotel to the wedding. Apparently the cabmen were reluctant to remove their piles of junk from the front passenger seat, insisting that they could only take three (this is not legal by the way, but we didn't have time to file a lawsuit). Mind you these were both Yellow Cab drivers; the much smaller outfit Classy Cab was much more accommodating. So we called Classy Cab and had a ride shortly thereafter.

The wedding was set a beautiful but understated church in a quaint neighborhood eight miles from downtown. It was a very nice ceremony, and things (from my perspective, anyway) seemed to go off without a hitch. Wait, they did get hitched. Let me rephrase... Things seemed to have went without incident.

for better or worse (my money's on on better)

bubble time

The incidents would be for us, after the ceremony. As we out-of-towners had taken a cab out, when people started to depart for the reception, we called for another cab. The once reliable Classy Cab refused our fare based on that we weren't headed back into the city, but to the reception. Yellow Cab agreed, but only after I got an earful on how the person before me had given them an alternate address for the same location (turns out the other party was using the other street - church was on a corner). So wait we did for the 30 minutes Yellow Cab said it would take for the car to arrive. Check that, we waited for 20 minutes at which point Kelsey became impatient and called back the cab company.

patience is a virtue... but not a requirement

Turns out this wasn't a bad thing, as the dispatcher informed us that the cab sent for us had turned around. Apparently another Ryan had called back and said he would be at the Shell Station? Yes, this is what we were told. They promised to send another cab out, and we started the waiting game again. For those of you who don't know, I'll inform you, and for those of you who do, I'll remind you that Brian and my dates are not, how do you say, long on patience. Things were getting tense. Fifteen minutes go by, at which time friends of Kelsey's turn back into the church parking lot, unsuccessful in their attempt to navigate the winding roads of Western PA.

No problem. In exchange for a ride, I was happy to provide directions from my iPhone's GPS feature. I punched in the address for the reception, but, sadly, this bit of technology only made a marginal improvement to the situation. Driving through a light rain through multiple detours and me guessing at directions from the backseat of the minivan unable to see road signs, we eventually arrive at what we think is the Masonic Center, but, perplexingly, no sign of any other wedding attendees, save one couple in a pickup who say this is where their GPS directed them as well.

At this point, I decide it best to kick it old school and look at the directions provided from church to reception hall. Turns out, we were at a Masonic Center... just not the one we're looking for. Reading the directions over, I realize that the correct location is just a short ways from the church, not the eight additional miles away from town as my phone believed. I manage to direct us back along the right path with the other wedding-goers following behind. While everyone else in the van was figuring we would be obscenely late (this is well beyond fashionably late) to the reception, I figured things would be all right. So how surprised were they all to see that just blocks from the destination, the trolley carrying the wedding party peels off the highway and directly in front of us. Perfect. Timing. I knew it all along.

sure, it's funny now

Finally at the reception, we had a grand time, dancing and eating and drinking and reveling through the night. Kimmer and Emily are such a fun couple, and the whole day was a perfect reflection of that. And they provided bus service back to the hotel to boot, so we were quit thankful for that. Although, I'm pretty sad still that Kelsey left our cookie box in our seats (also perhaps her jacket, but I'm personally less sad about that - jackets taste awful).

picture of us (for Mom)

dancing the night away

she's lost that loving feeling

Kimmer and Emily used several of the photos Kelsey and I took
at Christmas for their guestbook; I played it cool with Kelsey
then, but secretly I felt honored

The party went on into the night back at the hotel, though I admit, I did not sustain until the end. Though, Kelsey and I did provide sustenance to those who did by going out on what might be the best pizza run of all time.

best of luck, Grahams

More pics here (again).

Pittsburgh - Day 1

Well May came and went. I did a lot of stuff, but haven't been able to finish a single post. But in my defense, you don't write this blog, so shut up. So in an effort to keep this blog somewhat current, I'm starting with the latest May activities, and I'll have to fill in the earlier stuff at a later time as "retro" blog posts.

Last weekend, Kelsey and I met in Pittsburgh for a wedding. We decided to extend our trip a couple days beyond the wedding since we were both taking the time to fly in. We (I) arranged our flights to arrive as close as possible, so we were able to share a cab ride from the airport to our hotel downtown. There we met Kelsey's co-BFF, Stacy, and her husband, Brian, with whom we would be attending the Pirates game later, and generally spending the weekend... once Kelsey and Stacy stopped shrieking and hopping and hugging.

Hungry before the game and preferring not to get gouged by ballpark food prices (even though we would later anyway), we walked over to Primanti Brothers, whose gimmick seems to be "a meal in a sandwich." Ultimately what this means is that they put what would normally be considered "sides" in the between the bread. Interesting, to be sure.

bff's

The ballpark was just a ten minute walk from there, across the river. A very cool thing about Pirates games is that the bridge between downtown and the ballpark is shut down for motorists to allow game-goers to walk across. PNC Park is one of the newer fields in the league and is now ranked annually as one of the best places to experience a MLB game. I'm assuming this is based solely on the aesthetics and features of the park and not the actual play of the Pirates. The best evidence of this being that our $25 tickets were about 15 rows from the field between home and first.

over the river and to the game

the cheap seats

The game was great fun (Braves won handily), highlighted by two Jumbotron appearances: Kelsey and Stacy dancing between innings, and Brian and Stacy on the Kiss Cam. Also some dude may or may not have one a sweet Andy Van Slyke jersey, so that's pretty cool.

jumbotron!

kiss cam!

After the game we met some other wedding goers and Kelsey ordered one of the strangest pizzas I've ever had. Then back to the hotel to rest up for the next day's wedding festivities.

More pics.

Monkeys, Possums, Baseball, Records, and Other Crap

Lately, my day-to-day life has been largely routine. The addition of regular exercise to my schedule is eating into some of the time that I used to spend on my hobbies and projects. Yes, that still leanves me most of the weekend, but my weekends are often unproductive. Who can say why? But since you're all dying to know, I will share a few little things I've done or that have happened recently.

A couple weeks ago I received my recent Random Crap (aka Bag of Crap, BOC, etc.) order from Woot!. You might recall how awesomely crappy my last Crap was. Or the usefully crappy first crap. Or maybe not. This crap (my third crap) was not nearly as awesome or useful. While my previous craps were consisted largely of second-hand crap, this crap was (almost?) entirely new. So while condition-wise it was less crappy, it was, in the end, crappier crap. [Sigh]... Crap.

crap: blank brown tee, pink Lego brick style iPod speaker,
mini tripod, Jonas Brothers branded PMP case

This was, to my recollection, the only crap I managed to get by non-riddled methods. I got it fair and square in the latest Woot! off. Thanks Growl! Maybe my crappy success has gone to my head, but this is actually not the item I anticipated most during the Woot! off. That honor belongs to the much rumored Glow-In-The-Dark Superfly Monkey With Woot! Cape. Phew. That's a mouthful. Er... a keyboard full? But alas, it was not to be as the Woot! off came and went sans monkeys. But, mere days later the albino idol popped up in the entertaining Woot! Your Own Adventure, and through wise decisions and internet-ty perseverance, I scored a few. "In for three" as the Woot!-ers say. If you missed 'em, they can be had on eBay or the like at a significant mark up (very non-Woot! behavior).

GITDSMWWC hanging out on my desk with
gnome and hula girl (get it? hanging?)

doing what GITDSMWWCs do best on my dresser

Perhaps the growing collection of caped primates are attracting other wildlife to my apartment because as I stepped out of my truck early one evening last week, I was startled by the hissings of a baby possum. I'm sure he was rabies-laden (Myth! Rabies kills three people every year!), but he was kinda awesome-looking nonetheless. Had a real nice look going with that crazy white spikey do.

with my iPhone after i got out of my truck

went into grab my big camera, but he decided to run off

then he changed directions and ran into the pile of crap in my car port

I caught my first baseball game of the year. Erik and I drove out to Irvine to see the first game of a 3-game series with CSU Fullerton. We sat out in the General Admission lawn (parking was more expensive than the game ticket) and saw a back-and-forth battle ending in an Anteaters walk-off homer. Since Emily and Jack were out of town, I also managed to get Erik out to a Pinkie's beer dinner and other bachelor activities.

UCI vs CSUF: earth bleachers

Saturday I jumped in the way back machine and strode in the doors of my local audio purveyor for National Record Store Day. (What? You didn't know?) And, yes, I actually threw done a few bones for actual vinyl. I've been wanting to get some more after Kelsey got me that sweet Tom Petty Live anthology for Christmas. I grabbed The Best Of The Band (by The Band, duh) and Wilco's Sky Blue Sky. Now all I need is an actual record player. Anyone know when that holiday is?

like a real record store, man

fresh wax (is that lingo right?)

Funny thing about this record store is it's on the corner of a street that is only about a half block long in its entirety, but somehow is home to what had to be at least 10 hair-related shops. A salon oasis of sorts. Very odd, but I enjoyed it.

see?!?!?!

I typed this entire blog while watching the Cardinals game with my new MLB.TV subscription. I bought it this weekend and was really pumped until I tried to tune into Saturday's game. Apparently due to national TV contracts all weekend games are blacked out online. Ridiculous. Sure it's right there in the fine print, but who reads that? This bummed me out for a couple days, but I talked myself into it tonight, figuring if I can get 30-40 games this summer it will be money well spent. The streaming quality is much better than last year's postseason, except it stalls completely when I upload pictures to this here blog, so I put all that off until..... now.

Again! Again!

When I sat down to write this post, the first thing I did was look back at my last post. Funny enough, this post is about nearly the exact same subject. Simply replace Kelsey's winter recess with Kelsey's spring break, and voila! So this could be taken to mean that either a) my whole life revolves around my girlfriend now or b) my girlfriend takes up so much of my time that I rarely get to blog. The answer is actually none of the above. In actuality, I am writing fewer posts in attempt to shrink time. By writing the same number of posts in two months time that used to be polished off in a week, I am projecting the 6-8 weeks between dates to the mere matter of a few days. And this works because, as we all know, my life truly revolves around my blog. Did any of that make sense? No? Good.

With the undeniable similarity if these two trips I thought it only appropriate that we took a do-over jaunt to Santa Barbara. (In truth I only set up our trip there to provide the witty blog intro you read above.) If you recall, the New Year's trip there did not turn out so well, what with me vomiting violently and all. The plan was to take a couple nice hikes I researched that week, then head in to town for dinner and a night on the town. The "night on the town" part being surprise tickets to see Zac Brown Band in concert. My plan was to just happen along the concert after dinner and smoothly pull the tickets out of my pocket, but I ruined all that, naturally, by forgetting the tickets in the hotel room when we left for dinner. Whoops. While unimpressed with my execution of it, I believe she did appreciate the sentiment.

hiking through the flowers

hanging out in Gaviota wind caves

cave with an ocean view

zac brown band

Although I may lack executive skill, the planning of these things should undoubtedly be left to me, as Kelsey's only suggestion during the trip was a side trip to the Old Dutch town of Solvang. It took us 90 minutes and two ice cream cones to recognize it for the tourist trap that it is.

Dutch Town

The remainder of Kelsey's visit seemed to revolve mostly around eating unhealthy foods (probably my fault), but we did take a lot of walks (Kelsey's influence). Among the places we feasted were: world's best donuts at Randy's, the perfect meal at Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles, burgers, ice cream sandwiches and friends at Umami Burger, trays of delicious raw fish at Club Sushi, and incredible piles of flapjacks at the Original Pancake House. But best of all, Chef Kelsey cooked a delicious dinner one night, proving that she is an excellent cook and that my oven works.

top chef

Kelsey, please come back any time, as much as you like. Just give me a few hours notice so I can pick up all my dirty laundry.

More pics.

The Real L.A.

Coming back to LA after Christmas this year, I had a lot more than I left with, good and bad. Bad being that my bag was ten pounds over weight which meant a $90 fee (on top of the normal checking fee), and good being Kelsey came along with me for a visit. Ma and Pa Brown were generous enough to include airfare as part of Kelsey's Christmas gift. So she got to spend a week or so of her winter break out here with me.

Kelsey had been here before, and was less than impressed. Actually, other than a few insulting monikers, the only thing she seemed to remember about L. A. was the awful traffic. Clearly it was up to me to defend the honor of Southern California. In short introduce her to "Ryan's L. A."

An integral part of "Ryan's L. A." is, of course, Ryan's peeps. Justin and Jill met us for dinner one night (though I can't remember where), and then we came back to my place and all played on our iPhones. Come to find out the three of them also do the YMCA while I'm in the bathroom.

i don't know; it's what they do i guess

For New Year's Eve, we met Matt and Beth up in Santa Barbara. I drove us up through Malibu and along the coast, arriving in town a little early to walk around State St. and enjoy the afternoon. We met Matt and Beth at our hotel, just across the street from the beach. We all chatted for a while (I seem to recall everyone was picking on me) then retired the rooms to change in preparation for the evening festivities. The plan was to have dinner at the steakhouse in the resort, then head downtown to ring in the new year. Dinner was an excellent 4-course prix fixe (steak was fantastic, though I won't order the meringue again). The four of us hopped a cab, and the cabbie dropped us at his recommended watering hole, Joe's Cafe. We sidled up to the bar to grab a round. It was there we met the coaches for New Zealand's Under-20 rugby team who proceeded to bug us the rest of the night. Still we had a ball and with much effort found a cab to take us back after midnight.

revelers at joe's cafe, santa barbara

...Which is right when things took a turn for the worse. The stomach flu had raged through my family and Kelsey the week before. I had been lucky enough to avoid during my visit home. Apparently, only just that long as I began vomiting immediately upon arriving back at the hotel. As this thing goes, I continued to vomit for the next 24 hours, including the 2-hour drive back to LA (Kelsey drove admirably if a little nervous). She also sat patiently with me that day as we loafed around my apartment, me just moaning on the couch or dry heaving in the bathroom (sorry, no pics from that day). Some vacation, eh, Kels? And sorry I had to cancel the camping, I'll make it up to you.

But the next morning I was fine again, so we went out for a BIG breakfast at The Ketle (I think I still managed to eat less than Kelsey, evn though I was starving from not eating the previous day) and took a walk around Manhattan Beach. Then I took us for a drive around the becahes and cliffs of Palos Verdes and down to San Pedro to kick around the parks (Pt. Fermin and Korean Bell). Then stopped home to grab some sodas and root beers and up north to one of my favorite spots, Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Park. It's a pretty, green park in the middle of an oil and industrial area, an oasis of sorts, and has a spectacular view of downtown L.A. and the Hollywood Hills. The view that day was spectacularly clear as recent rains had washed away the particulate layer that hovers over the city. We just layed around for a couple hours, talking and goofing off with the cameras. All that goofing off really worked up our appetites, fortunately it was just a short drive to Father's Office 2 from there for the world's best burger (seriously).

manhattan beach pier (and kelsey)

picnicking at hahn srp (downtown in background)

again (hollywood in back)

life-altering burger

From there the days all run together for me, but I do remember seeing Avatar in IMAX 3D (Kelsey's a huge nerd), meeting the work group for lunch at Rinaldi's, dinner at El Tarasco with Gwen, and spending an afternoon walking around Laguna Beach. So, yeah, pretty great visit. Can't wait to do it again in about two weeks.

laguna beach

playing in the sand

As always, more pics.

Home For Christmas

Christmas is easily one of my favorite times of the year. I get to go home and see all my family and some friends. This year was just that much better because I got to visit a special friend (hint, she's a girl, yes!). I know Christmas was about six weeks ago (happy Valentine's Day), and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it, but hey, get off my back. I've been real busy. Besides, don't you all have something better to do? No? OK, read on then...

It was so good to be back home and see all the familiar faces. Actually, because they are growing so fast, a couple faces are only just familiar (and not the same old faces I see every year - I kid, I kid). Rease is changing and growing fast. And she is getting to where she is really developing her own personality (and not a boring newborn that just lays there and sleeps and cries - ay, this post is taking on a harsh tone, oh well, roll with it). She's actually pretty cute and kind of hilarious sometimes. And Riley well, he's just growing into more personality. Gotta love the kid though. Actually, if you're Kelsey, you could love him a little less. Talking about your boyfriend a little more, and not so much of the Riley. Kapeesh?

the kids

The Tuttles weren't the only family around though. We were fortunate to have Ivens (our former foreign exchange student) and the Gomes family in town for a few days. They spent Christmas with us and took part in all the yelling, laughing, eating, pinata breaking, and other traditional Christmas activities. I also spent considerable time at the Browns, who were very generous and welcoming and an all around pleasure to be around. They are, after all, the only ones who help me keep Kelsey in check (not so at the Tuttle home - everyone gangs up on me poor me). Kelsey was also gracious enough to bring me around to meet some of her friends, who all welcomed me very warmly. Thank you.

mealtime with the tuttles and gomes

the browns: bruce, reta, bear

post-christmas haps

christmas pinata

All in all, it was a great time, and I only wish it could last longer. I miss all of you. More photos.