The last couple of weeks I’ve added something to the challenges of having a team member sitting in Singapore, which is exactly 12 hours ahead of us: “extra-curriculars.” These are passion projects akin to the 50 billion clubs I was a member of in college, or high school. You’re still doing work in the corporate world&151;just not the stuff they pay you to do.

So do those hours put me past the 40, giving me work to gripe about, or should I just accept that it’s a part of my personality to always need to be bustling about and suck it up?

I’m going to Denver in June to see the absolutely amazing Miss Brynn, because sometimes what a friendship needs is a little FACE TO FACE. And sometimes what life needs is some mountains, fresh air, and a ride on a new to me airlines (Southwest).

And, because I’ve finally nailed down a vacation date and requested time off, other people are asking about trips around the same time frame.

Sometimes I wish it wouldn’t be like this: 2 weeks with nothing happening and then 3 invitations for the same evening. But, then again, there’s nothing nicer than being swept away* when the floodgates open.

Anyone have must-see or must-dos for the Denver area? I may also do a day trip up to Cheyenne because, why not? It’s right there!

I’ve never been to Wyoming, and they’ve got a military base, some walking tours, and three yarn shops. That sounds pretty legit. But perhaps you know of something better?

Bison cuddling will, of course, be attempted.

*While remaining employed, because these trips don’t finance themselves. It’s a fine line.

In honor of National Poem in Your Pocket Day, I give to you one of my favorite poems which also incorporates one of my obsessions. I adore candles, and burning them. They give off such beautiful light, and warmth (cheap heating tip!). Every time I blow one out I think of birthday parties, a little wistfully.

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

That also seems pretty obvious.

But the minute the website reaches “checkout” or someone says “how about this Saturday, does that work?” People hesitate.

I’m included this category.

Initially my weekend plans were to go to Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, every other beach town in Florida, or even San Francisco this weekend for under $300, $350 max. Current plans? My parents are going to drive down to see the townhouse I moved into at the beginning of the month. There may be dim sum involved.

After all the hours of research, emails, phone calls, text messages, and conversations, why is this?

Part of it is costs, my friends want as cheap of a vacation as possible, understandably, and the idea was borne from a cheap flight email. But you need flexibility and decisiveness to catch deals. When everyone finally agreed to buy the tickets, prices had risen $40 a person. Admittedly, it’s not a huge amount, but it’s something. It was enough.

It fell through because we couldn’t decide in time. Because we just couldn’t click “submit” and make it happen. There was so much to research, so many variables, so many unknowns, and so much money that had to change hands.

So my new tactic is to look further ahead, more research upfront, and disclose as many costs as possible. I feel a bit like a glorified travel agent, but you cannot say you weren’t well informed. There is a benchmark, these prices are variable, and we can customize the package.

The downside is that the further out in advance, the less flexibility you have. No one wants to commit to blocking out a weekend two months from now.

So my backup?

Traveling solo.

I’ve been trying to cut down on stuff since before the move, and in general, and boxing or otherwise making stuff fit into as few trips as possible between apartment A and townhouse B. Don’t worry, I’m still renting, and luckily there is still too much room.

But that might be a mixed blessing. I’m like a goldfish: I grow to fit my container. Maybe being minimalistic in decor will keep the clutter and accumulation down. Otherwise, it’s to the dumpster at the next move!

Mamma Mia! itself was fun, but nothing too exciting. The sound engineer(s) were slacking so the vocals were sometimes too loud and sometimes drowned out, but the actors all seemed to be having fun. And honestly, how could you not?

It is an improbably silly story about a girl getting married who wants to find her father and have him walk her down the aisle. Catch is, she doesn’t know who her father is, so she invites all three possibilities to the remote Grecian island where she and Mamma live to attend the wedding. It’s about love: finding it, losing it, and stumbling across it when you least expected it. It was not a dramatic masterpiece, or even necessarily brilliant musical theatre (not that I’m much of a connoisseur of either), but the songs were catchy and the costumes colorful.

And isn’t that all we really want as an audience? We want a good show that also confirms the existence of that mythical job which engages you as a person. So maybe doing the 2pm matinee doesn’t carry the same prestige as opening night, but according to the Playbill one of the actors had a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from UC-Something, and now she’s singing on Broadway. You’ve gotta figure that was a win-win situation too.

Reading Terminal Market

Flying Monkey Bakery – Apparently their red velvet whoopie pies are pretty good, they have individual plastic cases for them!

Nangellini - Fabulous yarn and yarn-art to the right.

Not pictured, but definitely worth a visit, is also Phantom Hand, an independent art and/or print gallery with very affordable prices.

This is an apology for underestimating and taking things at face values; for being to quick to think I’d seen you all after a few day trips and time spent with drunk Eagles fans.

And, for the record, if I had to, I would take your crazy baseball fans over the football ones. If only because ex-baseball players are generally less likely to beat me to a pulp without breaking a sweat. It’s only fair you sweat a little if I’m going to bleed!

But a few Saturdays ago I got to see more of you than just Reading Terminal Market, a place that, admittedly, I would live in.

That Saturday I finally went to Philly with a local. Yes, it sounds so basic, but the thing is, your big sister, NYC? She’s so raucous and anarchic that, as long as you’re wandering around the right general area, you’re bound to find something to do.

Conversely, I’ve wandered through your streets at midnight on a Saturday in summer and been unable to find a place to dance.

Don’t laugh.

I know you’re not that big, but you’re like an ogre, or an onion, you’ve got layers. I had to head down the right alleys, at the right times, and then suddenly there was the LGBT bookstore, opened in the 70s, and the anarchist bookstore, where today’s revolutionaries wear oversized trenchcoats and give regular clientele the stink eye. You’ve got niches upon niches and art sprinkled throughout.

There were buskers outside Reading Terminal, street art, and multi-faceted sculptures of mirrored mosaic. You had some covered in regular tile too, and the infamous LOVE sculpture down the road from those steps Rocky scaled to a grand crescendo.

You let me wander your streets and sent Tom the security director with an impromptu history lesson on the oldest banks in Philadelphia, one of which I was attempting to photograph and the other of which was now the hotel he managed. From the penthouse floor of the Loews Hotel I was able to see your entire skyline and from one of the best views of the city, free.

So thank you, Philly, for your hospitality, for your art, and, most of all, for being patient while I slowly made my way to your hidden places.

I’ll be back.

Love,

yoli

There is something nice about flipping through what I’ve done and reliving those times.

My attention span is notoriously short, so a week can be a century, and a year? If I hadn’t sat down and did the 2011 tally I’d done earlier this year, there’s a high chance I would’ve forgotten completely what I’d done.

And now, in addition to a Google calendar archive, I’ll have pictures. Especially with the focus of this blog being on travel and exciting adventures, the mundane everyday often falls to the wayside. It’s a holding area until I’m jetting off somewhere else. But a place I spend so much time in deserves to be recognized in its own right.

A friend’s father passed away earlier this week, and I was home last night for my own father’s birthday. And there was something so nice about just sitting down at the table, eating leftovers, and joining him for his nightly run. These aren’t things I normally photograph, but these are the things I will remember most about him when his time comes. It makes a lot of sense to have mementos of them too.

1. It has a decent camera! I won’t have to carry my DSLR all the time, and can continue shooting in JPG. (I know, DSLRs are wasted on people like me.)
2. You can thread text messages!!!! Entire conversations, on one screen!!!!
3. It’ll synch my calendar. ♥ I have a better chance of knowing what I’m doing, and when.
4. There will be a GPS that won’t crash 4x in the cold or make me switch settings if I want to travel to Pennsylvania. It might not even insist on taking scenic back roads in the dark either.
5. I can solve the stupid “what do you want to eat” debate with Yelp on demand.
6. If I have my email on me all the time, I don’t have to worry about missing messages! Or something. I can email people pictures I take with my phone! Speaking of which, I can send pictures to my sister’s phone! It’s an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile, things get strange but iMessage images send just fine.

I am, simply put, the least “IT” person working in IT. I have two 20+” monitors at my desk at work, and up until last Saturday my phone’s selling point was the slide out full QWERTY keyboard. But, now I can be a proper hipster with a full suite of Mac gadgets!

And yes, that is Instagramed, complete with one-touch filtering. You can follow my Instagrams under the username somefrills (of course), although I will post highlights here. I’m attempting one of those 365 Projects, and they won’t be all that interesting. However, last Saturday I went to the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show of NY and took this beauty, more DSLR shots forthcoming when I have a chance to sit down and sift through them: