New endeavors

For the handful of you who are not reading this blog for the first time, welcome back. For those landing here for the first time, welcome. For those who decided to avoid Twitter during the #WorldCup and #LeBronsPersonalDecisions, The US team is still subpar and LeBron has chosen Chipotle over Qdoba because Chipotle can "put together a more complete burrito bowl for him."

"Uh, Mr. President, sir, can you please not point at my beans?" 

You can get entirely caught up with this entire blog by reading just a few (mildly) entertaining posts about iPhones, tattoos, and how dangerous it is to find good Memphis barbecue. I’ve decided to dust off the blog (by hitting the Forgot My Password button) and start writing again.

I originally used the blog to chronicle my road trip to San Francisco to embark on a PhD program at UCSF; now I’d like to chronicle the next chapter of my life. If you know me, you might be asking me, “Kurt, what do you mean new chapter? Are you already done with your program in only 2 years?"

Does a bear shit in your hammock?

Okay fine. Do most bears shit in your hammock?

That's right, no, I did not complete my PhD program. Yet.

And that’s the whole of it, more or less. I will reserve the details for future posts, but I will be taking year off from school to pursue other interests. In the meantime, I will be reevaluating my relationship with science and will be open to finding a better fit for my thesis research in the future. I am happy that I am living in San Francisco, and the BMS program has been nothing but a positive influence and support structure for me during these past two years.

Which, besides some struggles with the science, were an awesome two years. A lot happened. For one, I forgot how to cut my hair (and the NHL playoffs did the rest):

I think I knew how bad that picture was going to look. 

I also started playing disc golf all the time:

Not pictured: beers, ethics and mountain goats.

The New York Rangers made an incredible run to the Stanley Cup Final, only to lose the series 4-1. 

Henrik Lundqvist (bottom) after learning he lost lost the King of Swag 
award to Dwyane Wade at the Kid’s Choice Sports Awards. 

Okay, so not everything was good. But lastly, and by no means least, I became an uncle. I am so proud of my brother-in-law and sister, who recently brought Nora into the world:

Is she already holding a little iPhone up to her ear? 

So all in all, a lot of good has happened to me the past couple years. I sometimes wish SF was closer to my family and it didn’t require a transcontinental flight to see them. I sometimes miss Pittsburgh. But I love it out here. It is a vibrant, diverse community with a positive attitude. On top of that, I’ve met a lot of great people and I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Probably dress up less. This was an 80s party.

I’ve decided to take a year off, during which I’m going to pursue the development of a speed reading technology that I am creating. So far, I have taken all the right steps (with the help and support of many!) during the development of this idea, and it is rapidly progressing. I have big hopes for it, and I think it can go places. However, as I have learned all too well at the science bench, success is seldom, and much of life is spent mitigating failure. So we’ll see.

So what am I creating? I’d like to think I’m going to revolutionize reading, but I think I’m just a fringe participator in the revolution that has already started. This past spring, a Boston-based start-up called Spritz came public with a speed reading technology that quickly trended on social media. Spritz touted super fast reading speeds and headlines caught readers with “Read Harry Potter in 90 minutes!” and “Read it twice in 180 minutes!” Or even the new advertising scheme: “Read like Lucy!” Well, why in the world would anyone want to read this fast?

Just think how many backs of shampoo bottles you could get through. 

I, too, was skeptical of Spritz’s claims, but I've started to buy in. The technology of presenting one word at a time in rapid succession has been around since the 1960s, but has gained popularity more recently due to our heavy use of smartphones, tablets, and now smart watches. Spritz claims to have maximized the efficiency of the technology by offsetting each word appropriately so that our eyes can focus on the correct portion of the word without moving at all. This, then, reduces eye movements nearly completely, and allows for rapid speed with improved comprehension (keep in mind, however, that there is a speed limit for every person). If you’d like to learn more, or try out the technology, head to the Spritz official website or Readsy to Spritz any text of PDF file.

The highly touted uses for this technology have been email, news, and other productivity tasks. I can't wait for this; instead of ignoring your coworkers' email and leaving it unopened in the dark recesses of your inbox, you can now read it at 45,000 words per minute first, and then ignore it and leave it in the dark recesses of your email.

Interestingly, many avid readers of novels have been speaking out against the utility of Spritz for reading full-length books. They often cite certain hypothetical troubles, such as how if you speed read you might miss the implied, subtle hint of sarcasm in that one word in that one line of that one chapter where the dark, mysterious protagonist first begins to show signs of inner change. Dude, even Woody Allen had the foresight to create a zinger to be used against spritzing (yes, it’s call spritzing, deal with it):

I've never read it, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be a fair fight. 

In all seriousness, I get it: you would not want to speed through a literary work of art. However, after having to read about how Brienne bumbled around Westeros for about a thousand pages, I sure as heck wouldn’t have minded to speed that up a little.

Brienne's travels. I heard George RR Martin is considering an 8th book since she's still wandering around. 

The short of it is this: Spritz wasn’t the first to do it, but by releasing their SDKs and encouraging developers to implement their technology, they may be the first to make it stick. Personally, I think this is less “speed” reading and more “new” reading. It’s just different. I recently had a short discussion about this with someone on twitter, who thought that speed reading was “missing the point” of reading. Yes, speed reading would probably make you ”miss the point” of Shakespeare. It will probably also make you miss all 100 points on your next Shakespeare exam.

"That's what I did on the exam, professor!"

Just because it is “new” doesn’t mean it’s bad or ineffective. It also doesn’t mean it will replace anything. Letters are for letters. Email is for email. Reading is reading. Spritz is Spritz.

But wait, what IS Spritz? I think it will be a lot of things in a lot of different forms, in a lot of different settings. During the next year (plus), I’d like to create one of those, and I think I can. In a nutshell, I want to create a platform that will present eBooks using Spritz and enhance the experience with dynamic background colors and sounds. This will create a "new" form of reading. It will blur the boundaries between film and reading, and in fact it will use the quantitative relationships between the two to create the presentations in an automated way.

Without further ado, here is the link to my demo:

http://youtu.be/Cv9Lu6zv5rA

I have chosen the excerpt from the first Harry Potter book where Harry receives the Invisibility Cloak for Christmas and decides (naturally) to test it out that night. Knowing he can go anywhere without being seen, Harry goes to the library. He was such a freshman.

Make sure to wear headphones, keep focused on the highlighted letter, and just relax. This type of reading gets much easier with just a few minutes of practice and relaxation. Let me know what you like or dislike in the comments section!

Top 5 Uses for an iPhone on a Road Trip

I'm sure you've all heard your grandparents talk about their three-mile walk to and from school, in the snow, uphill both ways, right? When you stop to think about it, do you think any person, no matter how old, has actually believed that they used to walk uphill both ways to get to school? Probably not.

Unless this was their school.

Of course, the "uphill both ways" story is a hyperbole, meant to exaggerate in order to prove the point that getting to school was way harder before school buses. And the thing is, we have no counterpoints once our grandparents begin complaining about how hard life was "back in the day." Because it was really hard. Walking to school? Writing in cursive? Writing at all? No thanks.

We (and by "we" I mean "people my age") happen to be lucky enough to live in an era where our GPS system confirms that, indeed, it is not uphill both ways to school. We also live in a world where people use robots to vacuum their living rooms.

Just wait until all of the Roombas become self-aware on Judgment Day. Hope you're not allergic to dust.

All kidding aside, we do live in an amazing time. So far, I feel that I have been able to keep up with the exponential increase in the capacity and complexity of technology, although I do believe one day we will be saying to our grandchildren, "We used to have to actually drive our cars." At which point they will probably continue staring at us blankly, and we will be unsure whether they are looking at us or watching a movie from a chip implanted into their corneas.

You won't even need corneas to drive cars in the future. Or hands. Or legs.

But for now, I pretty much know what's going on. I can check my email, hook up a DVD player to a TV, and, for the most part, figure out how to start a gentle wash cycle on the washing machine. But one of the most amazing pieces of technology, in my opinion, is the iPhone. Forget about what it was like to live without the Internet or cell phones (because I honestly cannot remember), but what was it like to live without smartphones? This unusual and hard-to-fathom world was reality only a handful of years of ago. But now, I have become reliant on my iPhone. And this phenomenon was extremely evident during my road trip. After all, we had planned almost nothing and managed to travel almost 4,000 miles over 8 days.

It looks a lot shorter when you look at it like this.

Having our iPhones took almost all of the "fun" out of road tripping. You know, the getting lost, getting mad, and yelling at your friends type of fun. Instead, we were able to use the time normally allotted for raising cortisol levels in the blood to play Angry Birds and look up exactly what the RV Museum and Hall of Fame at exit 353 in the middle of Louisiana was all about.

Sorry, it was actually Indiana.

So, because I am an expert at road tripping now, I am going to tell you why you should only ever road trip if you have an iPhone by discussing the top 5 uses we had for our iPhones during the road trip:

5. Staying connected with friends and work, and off each other's nerves

Remember back in the day when you would leave on vacation, and actually go on vacation? How dumb does that sound? Nowadays, we make sure that we can stay on top of our social and work lives from back home. No need to let any beach or sunshine get in the way of those TPS reports.

At least he's not wearing shoes.

And indeed, iPhones can be a culprit in this aspect, making it ever so easy to check email and keep in touch with people. However, I found that being able to stay connected, for example through Facebook, actually made the trip smoother. Why? Because it made me not realize that I was stuck in a car with the same two people for eight days straight. This is no disrespect to George or Anthony, but anytime three people are within 10 feet of each other for eight days straight, things can get on people's nerves. Cue Facebook and iMessages and tweets and blog posts, and all of a sudden you have 443 friends instead of just the two in your car.

How do I know the iPhone helped us stay off each other's nerves? Because we didn't get pissed at each other. And when we didn't want to talk to each other, what were we doing? We were on our phones:

That's Anthony on his phone. I think George is plugging his into the charger.

Sure, sometimes I would ask Anthony or George a question and wait for a response, only to realize I will never get one because they didn't hear a word I had said. But that's okay, at least we weren't trying to kill each other. Instead, they were too busy killing zombies, which brings me to the next use for the iPhone...

4. Keeping yourself occupied, and not looking at the scenery

I remember as a kid one of the most exciting parts about packing for a long trip was packing all the entertainment. Back then, though, this wasn't as easy as packing an iPhone and a charger. See, there weren't devices that could do everything really well, there were only devices that did one thing really well. In essence, this meant that you had to had to bring a bunch of stuff. You also had to prioritize and somehow guess what you'd be in the mood to do during the trip because your backpack was only so big and the things you wanted to pack were usually pretty large:

Now with Retina display.

I would always pack my Gameboy, and stuff the case with as many games as I could fit. Although, inevitably halfway through the vacation I would want to play one of the games I had left at home. Then I would bring my portable CD player (remember CDs?) as well as some type of bulky headphones with foam around the earpiece that would, without fail, start to rip and fall off after about a week of use. Of course, you had to bring actual CDs as well, which meant, once again, you had to prioritize and guess what you'd want to listen to a week later. Oh, and don't forget the batteries for both the Gameboy and CD player.

Maybe you liked to read? Well, bring a book. But what if you don't like that book? Okay, bring two books, just in case. You might want to play some games with people too, right? No problem, just bring some cards and a game or two. Like to draw or write? Bring a pad of paper and some pens. Now fit everything in your backpack.

Now find the Gameboy.

Luckily, the iPhone negates all of this hassle. In fact, the iPhone can do just about anything. Want to listen to music? No problem. Want to listen to radio that chooses songs that it knows you will like? No problem. Want to read a book? No problem. Want to draw something? No problem. Want to play an ultra-realistic, zombie-killing game, cooperatively with your friend sitting next to you? No problem.

They kind of look like Nicolas Cage zombies.

This is precisely what Anthony and George played, non-stop, whenever I was driving. I've played this game a few times on the Xbox, so I am familiar with the concept of the game. Basically, you must fend off hordes of zombies by shooting them in the head. There is actually no end to the game, just more rooms to unlock and larger hordes of zombies to kill. This was a typical conversation in my car while I was driving:

Anthony: "George come upstairs."

Five minutes of silence.

George: "Nice, should I spend 1000 and open the door?"

Anthony: "Yeah, I want to use my money to buy the better gun."

George: "Jerk...Damn I'm dying help me!"

Anthony: "George! Come on. Where are you?

George: "I'm downstairs in the room with the three windows."

Anthony: "Okay, hold on a sec."

Five more minutes of silence.

Kurt: "Yo guys look at that mountain over there!"

Five more minutes of silence.

Even though they ignored me sometimes, it was okay. It showed how well the iPhone can entertain. I have to admit, there were times where I was in my own world playing a game where a little dude flies around on a jetpack and avoids getting shot down by missiles. Anything to keep from being bored. But if we weren't playing games, we were definitely...

3. Taking pictures and videos

Back in the day, another thing you had to add the backpack was a camera and film. And if you wanted to take any videos, you'd also have to bring a camcorder:

"A what?" you may ask. That's right, you had be ready to point and shoot with something that weighed a metric ton. And since film was expensive and hard drives were tiny, you had to be pretty picky about what you were photographing. For instance, this probably would not have cut it:

With 64GB of space, why not take a picture of a store that repairs iPhones and uses a South Park-style Jesus Christ as its logo?

Here's a bold prediction I have: because so many people have iPhones, which take excellent photos and high-quality videos, souvenir stores that sell keychains and magnets will go out of business. Why? Because instead of taking the restaurant's coasters as a souvenir, why not just take a video of you being there? Or how about a random video of a cool dog and a guy playing the banjo in Chicago?

Since we had our iPhones, we (Anthony) took a bunch of pictures and videos that will allow us to forever remember our trip. And, by far, the one thing we photographed the most was the food we ate. Which brings us to...

2. Finding great places to eat

Before smartphones, you would have to either (a) already know a place you wanted to eat before you left on the trip, (b) take a recommendation from a friend or (c) take a recommendation from the concierge at the front desk of the hotel. As you already know, these are all risky propositions. In comes the iPhone.

If we weren't playing games or taking pictures of random scenery, like this,

then we were most likely looking up places to eat. Being able to use the iPhone to find good eats is like having a cheat guide when playing a video game. It takes a lot of the hard work out of it, but you know you'll win in the end. We were able to look up popular places and read hundreds of reviews from people who have eaten there. Of course, this method isn't fool proof, but the opinions of hundreds weigh greater than the opinion of one person (who told us not to go to that great burger place in Austin). We were even able to find great (the only) food in the middle of nowhere:

Chicken fajita nachos.

So my advice to you: go with what the iPhone says, not what the person at the front desk says. And now, the number one reason to use an iPhone on a road trip is...

1. Not getting lost

When I first got my car about five years ago, my mom bought me a map of the county we lived in and put it in the glove box. I have used that map exactly zero times (although it is still in my car). The issue with having a map of your town is that is the place you know best and get lost the least. Now, when you drive across the country, that's a little different. You need maps. And I couldn't imagine road tripping without an iPhone. It might've meant I would've had to actually plan my trip.

But in all seriousness, I believe the map and GPS feature of an iPhone has revolutionized traveling. It reduces stress, saves time, and reduces arguments.

"Is he serious? I'm just going to ask someone."

You can't argue with an iPhone. If it says you're going the wrong way, well guess what buddy, you are. Time to turn around. And this isn't to say we didn't get lost at all on our trip. But as soon as we did, we knew it and we fixed it.

It even allowed us to adventure off the beaten path to find food or go see something we hadn't planned on. Like when we stopped for food in Coleman, Texas, where I swear I thought we would be shot:

Us Northerners just didn't fit in down these here parts.

So what's my overall advice? Why did I even write this article, besides to waste your time? Get a smartphone and go on a road trip. It's actually pretty easy. If Anthony, George and I were able to do it, so can you. In fact, it was one of the coolest trips I've ever been on, and thanks to the iPhone's ability to blog and take great pictures, I (and you) will remember it forever.

Oh and one more piece of advice: Make sure you bring your charger.

With that, this blog is complete. It's possible, but not probable, that I will post on this in the future. I hope you all liked it, I know I did. It was fun to write and it allowed me a way to express myself and share my trip with everyone. I wish all of my friends could've come, but there will be more road trip opportunities in the future. Anthony and George, thank you so much for taking off work to come with me on the trip. So far, I like my new situation in San Francisco, and every day it feels a little bit more comfortable. I hope to see you all again very soon. 

The Last Chapter: Vegas, Hollywood, and SF

And just like that, it's over. It started with a trip to Peace, Love and Little Donuts on Meyran Ave. last Friday morning, and ended yesterday in San Francisco. As George put it, "Welcome home."

Before I get all emotional, let me tell you about the last couple days of my trip. It started with us arriving in Vegas around 7 AM on Thursday, just in time to see the stragglers leaving the craps tables from the night before. If you'll remember from one of my first posts, I mentioned that we would not, under any circumstances, eat a buffet in Vegas. However, since we had gotten there so early, we concluded that a breakfast buffet was permissible since there would be ample time for digestion. So, we stuffed our faces.

After breakfast, Anthony and I took a glorious nap, while George hit the poker tables. When we woke up and met up again with Gamblin' George, he informed us that he had crushed his table and was up $331. More than covered his tattoo.

Coincidentally, Anthony's mom was in town for a fashion convention, and she kindly took us out to an early dinner (we still love free meals from parents). We ate an early dinner so that we would be ready for one of the highlights of the trip (for me): LOVE. For those who don't know, LOVE is a Cirque du Soleil show that uses Beatles music to put on the best show I've ever seen. And I've seen it three times now.

I've also taken this picture three times.

Why is LOVE so good, and why in the world would you want to see it three times? Well, first off, it's Beatles music. But it's also mixed and mashed up Beatles music, incorporating samples from hundreds of their tracks over the hour and a half show. The stage is circular, and the spectators surround the stage. The sound quality in the theater is near perfect, which is almost necessary for a show like this one. It is half story, half circus, and wholly entertaining. There's dancing, rope tricks, psychedelic bubble scenes, a bed sheet that extends over the entire crowd, and more. In a word, it is awesome. Even if you are not the biggest Beatles fan, I highly suggest you check it out.

You know that feeling when you leave a movie and your brain has to reacquaint itself with reality? Well that really had to happen in this case. It was an unusual feeling coming out of the LOVE ecosystem and walk right into a hustling and bustling casino. And then we had to get ready to "do Vegas" and go out.

Which we did. This was us on our way down to the lobby to catch a cab:

We were pretty excited to notice all the little renovations to the MGM Grand. Including the mirrored elevators.

Once we got to the Palms, George told the bouncer that we were on the list, courtesy of Pasquale. This name rang a bell to the bouncer, although he could not find us on the list. He asked George if he had a text message from Pasquale. This is what George had on his phone:

At which point, the bouncer said, "Who the fuck is Uncle Norman?" As soon as we all started to explain the situation at the same time, the bouncer then said, "Whatever, you can go in."

And so we did. Although the drinks were expensive (too expensive), this was the view from the bar:

Although we spent only one night there, it ended up being a great night in Vegas. In the morning, we dropped Anthony off at the airport so he could head home and go back to work (lame). It was another sad goodbye for me, and I really wish he could've stayed with us all the way to California. But I am also glad that he made it how far that he did, and as you'll see, he didn't miss anything too crazy since George and I were so tired from this trip.

We arrived at USC to visit with George's sister, Brianna. She had just arrived on campus and she gave us the best tour she could for having been there only a couple days. The campus looked just like Pitt:

Just kidding.

I then made sure to take a picture of the siblings next to the Trojan statue:

Apparently the sculptor made sure he was flexing every single muscle. Including his "sword."

It was unusual being surrounded by new freshmen, and it reminded me of the feeling I had when I first arrived on Pitt's campus. Who would've thought I would be in San Francisco right now after road tripping the entire country? It's cool to think about all that lies ahead for these young students.

We then met up with my friend Natalie who lives in Burbank. She's working in TV production and was kind enough to let us crash at her place. This whole trip, George and I had aspirations to go to some cool party in LA, but when all was said and done, we were just too damn tired. We got dinner in North Hollywood (didn't see anyone famous) and caught up with Natalie. We then called it an early night and, in the morning, made the trek to SF.

We stopped at our last gas station/rest stop, after having stopped at way too many along the way:

We also stopped at the best fast food hamburger joint, In-N-Out. Notice the McDonald's arches trying to peek through:

Advice: animal style everything.

And then I arrived. And here I am. This is my house:

And this is the view from my family room:

Then the Weather Channel app on asked me about San Francisco:

Why yes, thank you.

So far, I've met one of my roommates, and there's still some transitioning going on so some of the current tenants are still moving out. But I really like my place. Now I just need my furniture to come.

Last  night, I took George down to Fisherman's Wharf to try and get some nice pictures of the bridges and Alcatraz. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, windy, and 54 degrees. I should've just stayed in Pittsburgh.

We then had one last meal, this one a burrito in the Mission District. I had already had these, and knew how good they were (better than Chipotle). George tried it and agreed. But even though it was so good, I couldn't even finish:

I cannot wait to not eat out anymore.

And so here I am. In a little bit I will be driving George to the Oakland airport so he can get back to Pittsburgh. I'm incredibly sad. I'm incredibly excited. I'm incredibly nervous. And I'm incredibly happy. There will definitely be a transition period, but I am ready. I think San Francisco will be a great place to live and work. I also can't wait for my family and friends to visit me. Again, I will never forget Pittsburgh and all that it meant to me. This move is not a "goodbye," but rather a "see you later." And I will.

Okay, the emotional stuff is over. If you've been reading this blog, thank you. It's been fun writing. I do have one more post in mind, so stay tuned. I think you'll like it.

Reality check #... A lot

As the road trip is nearing its end, the reality of my move has set in more and more. At one point along the trip, I mentioned something about home and Anthony promptly replied with, "You don't have a home." Of course, he was only joking, but in a way it was true. I have officially left Pittsburgh.

Then, just now, I noticed that my computer was still set for eastern standard time. As I changed it to the correct time zone, it dawned on me that it was a permanent change. This is it, I have arrived to the west coast.

I apologize for not posting yesterday about our time in Las Vegas. In a word, it was awesome. I will tell you all about it, but right now I don't have the time to do the trip justice. It's currently Saturday morning in Hollywood, CA, and George and I are about to embark on the last leg of our journey to the Bay area.

Stay tuned for a couple more posts once I arrive in SF. I need to show you pictures from Vegas and LA, as well my new city, San Francisco. I will also write a post about what we learned on this road trip, and give you some pointers in case you're ever dumb enough to drive across the country when you can just fly.

With that, I'll leave you with the winner for "the road name with the highest ratio of difficulty of pronunciation to length of the word." Too bad you can't use proper nouns in Scrabble.

24 hours of driving, and we didn't kill each other

We're finally back in civilization! Actually, I'm not sure that you can classify Las Vegas as "civilization." Vegas has musical water fountains, roller coasters, near free-fall jumps off of hotels, and canals inside hotels, all because it can. So it's not actually "real life." But regardless of whether or not Vegas is a good representation of modern society, the fact is that we are finally back in an area populated with more than 200 human beings. And although it's nice to experience the barren wilderness of the southwest, it's also nice to be back in the Sin City.

You may ask, How did you guys enjoy the Grand Canyon? Well, after a long and taxing 19-hour drive through the pitch black night skies interrupted only by enormous lightning strikes from violent thunderstorms, we had made it to the Canyon:

Just kidding! We didn't even make it to the Grand Canyon! In fact, as you may have already guessed, that is not a picture of the Grand Canyon at all, but rather the Hoover Dam. That's right, we drove all that way and never even saw it. Unfortunately, the rain was steady and before we headed north to Grand Canyon Village, we decided it would not be worth the extra driving so that we could trek through the mud, only to stare at rain clouds (we could've stayed in Pittsburgh to do that). Instead, we continued on to Vegas. It's disheartening that we could not get to one of the sights that we looked so forward to seeing, but as the saying goes, "When one door closes, another spot at the blackjack table in Vegas opens."

We stopped briefly at the Hoover Dam to admire the unfathomable power that humans have over nature, and then we drove into Vegas for the first time (normally we do like most sane people and fly for five hours, instead of driving for six days). We asked for a room upgrade (why not?) and they almost put us in the penthouse suite. Actually, they didn't have any available upgrades, but they did give us a better view:

Last year we had a nice view of the Hooters hotel.

And what's even better is this room was completely comped. Free. That's right, we're big rollers (thank you George!), and they know it. They were going to roll out the red carpet for us but since our plans changed and we arrived early, they weren't ready. Okay, maybe we're only one step up from the bottom of the Vegas totem pole, but our room is still pretty nice:

I think being in Vegas makes any room seem nicer.

So, with this, the days of the long drives are behind us. I'm much closer to San Francisco, and reality is starting to set in. Luckily, Las Vegas is pretty good at making you forget about reality, so it should be a great night. It is Anthony's last night on this road trip; he'll be leaving in the morning and flying back home. I wish he could stay for the rest of the trip, but I'm also glad he joined us for the majority of it.

It's now time to relax, get some food, and maybe take a nap. Then an early dinner, LOVE, and VIP access at the Palms. I'll let you know how it goes in the morning. Actually, make that the afternoon.

Greetings from Area 51

Okay, so we're probably not in Area 51, but we are in New Mexico so, maybe. Who knows.

It's been a relatively uneventful day thus far. We've been driving now for about 11 hours but it hasn't seemed that long. It's starting to get dark now, though, so the driving will get harder. Might be time to catch up on some sleep.

I've started to notice that one cool outcome of a road trip, which is not easily predicted until you've been on one yourself, is how much you get better at road tripping itself. Each morning we know exactly how to pack the car. Depending on your seating position in the car, you have different jobs. You in the driver's seat? Better be ready to drive, monitor the amount of gasoline left, and keep us safe.

How about the passenger seat? Well this is a good seat to have since you get the best views and don't have to keep an eye on the road. But it also means you might have to take pictures on the spur of the moment while also using your iPhone to play music. It also gets a little warm since the sun shines in unimpeded. But then again, you have much easier access to the car phone charger compared to the schmuck sitting in the back seat.

So what about that schmuck in the back seat? What's his responsibility? Actually, he holds the most important responsibility of all: the food. In fact, the food is accessible almost exclusively to the back seat. So it can be tough, always taking orders for Gatorades and Chex Mix. But the beauty of the back seat is that it's the best temperature and set up for sleeping. Just hope people aren't too hungry.

So there are clearly pros and cons to each seat. All three of us have gotten pretty good at the tasks at hand for each seat. I, just now, polled Anthony and George to see what their overall favorite seat is:

George: The back seat.

Anthony: The back seat.

Me: I'll go out on a limb and say the driver's seat. I'm the most aware of my surroundings and I see a lot more of the terrain, which is one of the coolest parts of this road trip. Although, since right now it's late and dark and time to sleep, I'm glad I'm in the back seat.

Thus far today we've been gauging our progress by the amount of towns we pass. You know, those places where people live and do things. There's not a lot of them out here, and every 40 or 50 miles it's time to slow down from 70 MPH to 35 MPH to go through downtown. Which takes 30 seconds. "Well, we pass two more towns before we get to the border of New Mexico" was spoken about 145 miles from the border.

We stopped at one of these local towns for lunch, this one called Coleman, Texas. We got lost, had to do a couple U-turns, and with my bright-lettered Party Rock tshirt and George's Harvard sweatpants, I think we looked like complete aliens to the locals. But we did find a restaurant and had some delicious Mexican food. The outsiders (us) didn't stay long enough to find out what happens to them once their welcome runs out, and we left town and got back on the highway.

Overall, driving across Texas and the whole southwest has been a very cool experience. The vastness of our country is hard to believe until you see (drive) it.

Well, it's time for bed for me. I apologize for the lack of photos on this post. As far as I can tell (I'm no professional blogger, though), the iPhone app that I'm using to post these allows me to attach only one picture per post. And I don't think I can add a caption. And that's my favorite part.

So with this post's one picture, I present you a picture of a landscape. This was in Texas, taken out of the passenger seat window while I was on photo duty. I like this picture because I was trying to include the oil rig (pictured in the center). However, I snapped the picture a little late and, instead of seeing the side of it, the perspective was directly behind the rig, giving it the form of a cross (which are fairly common along the highways in the south).

Have a good night, I look forward to sharing a picture from the Grand Canyon in the morning.

The best hamburger I've ever ingested

When this trip started, we were pretty excited for Austin. In fact, Austin was the last city chosen, beating out Fort Worth and San Antonio for our Texas stop. At the top of our list for Austin activities was live music. We were looking forward to getting a few drinks at a music club and staying up late jamming out to some great music. Unfortunately, Chicago well exceeded our expectations, we didn't die in Memphis, and, as you may know from my last post, New Orleans was a pretty epic night. Thus, nothing that could even possibly happen in Austin could actually live up to our expectations, right?

Wrong. In what seemed to be little more than an attempt to grab a good bison burger and entertain ourselves around dinnertime, turned out to be the best hamburger I've ever eaten. Okay, I know that's a strong group of words. And I bet that as soon as you saw that you began thinking about the best hamburger you've ever eaten.

And I guarantee you it wasn't this.

Sure, I've had great hamburgers in the past. But this hamburger was at least good enough to be in consideration. And it didn't come easy, either. Our first task was trying to figure out the antiquated parking meter technology:

Where's the touch screen?

Once we successfully inserted the $5 into the small slit, we completed the transaction by pushing the money further into the box with a small piece of metal (also known as a "bill stuffer") that was hanging by a string off of the machine. At which point, since we received no beeping or talking confirmation that the process was completed, we wondered if we had done it right. It appeared that we had completed all four steps of the parking meter process, so we continued on. 

The burger place was called Hopdoddy Burger Bar. Normally at this place, most customers stand in line and order their burgers from a long list of specialty burgers, including beef, bison, and lamb burgers. Then, they wait for their food and find an open seat, cafeteria-style. However, when we arrived the line was out the door and around the block. At this point, most people (tourists) would probably just wait in the line, but not us. We're seasoned veterans at avoiding long lines for food.

Flashback to Las Vegas last summer with George, Anthony, and Eric. You think it's easy to acquire a round of buffet like this?

No wonder we were too full to go to the bars after this.

Well it's not. The lines to enter Las Vegas buffets are generally long, sometimes reaching two hours. Add the fact that we had to walk through the desert and, at one point, climb up a highway overpass to get there faster, and you can imagine we were pretty disheartened to see a long line once we arrived.

I think this was taken right after we scaled the the overpass.

But we were smart and saw a sign that mentioned something about an "extra fee" and "next in line." So  we shadily meandered through this hallway, which turned out to be the exit for customers leaving the buffet. We then arrived to the side of the hostess' desk, where we paid an extra $10 to get a seat immediately. Was it worth the extra $10, you might ask? Take a look at the picture of the food again.

So the point is, we've had some experience with skipping lines and getting a lot of of disgruntled glares from unhappy line-dwellers. 

This is pretty much what we did here, too. Only this time, the trick was to find an open spot at the bar, order a beer, and then have the bartender take your order. And serve it to you. No need to stand in line and wait around for your food without a beer, and then scramble to find an empty table. So this is what we did. 

Unfortunately, we then had to choose which hamburger we wanted to order. This is an especially difficult task when every single one sounded delicious. Anthony and I struck a deal to split two different kinds, at which point George expressed his anger at his exclusion (Sorry, it's just too hard to split a hamburger in thirds, in my opinion).

Luckily, all worries washed away when we received the food and began eating. I ate half of a spicy bison burger, with pepper jack cheese, a few peppers, onions, salsa, and chipotle mayo. The other half hamburger I chose was a spicy BBQ Angus beef burger, complete with cheddar cheese and jalapeños. We've done a good job about photographing all our meals, but we were too hungry and the burgers were too good. This is how long it took us to remember:

The burger was so good there was just no time to drink the beer.

Anthony and George topped off their meals with homemade milkshakes. Caramel chocolate pretzel and raspberry Nutella white chocolate, or some crazy flavor combination like that. They looked good though (maybe someday there will be a cure for nut allergies):

Again, we were off our picture-taking game.

All in all, Austin did not (could not) live up to our previous stops. But the hamburgers tried to help it out. They would definitely make the top 5 of my hamburger list if I had one. After dinner, we made it to Sixth Street and walked around a bit. Here it is:

Looks like a typical street with bars.

Austin looked like it would be a lot of fun, especially late at night. I can't really say I know how fun it is, though. We were exhausted, and we went back at the hotel room to relax. Why are we relaxing in the hotel at all, you might ask, as opposed to getting out and seeing as much as possible? Well, this morning we embark on a 19-hour drive to the Grand Canyon. We will arrive tomorrow morning around sunrise, and Anthony and George will see the Grand Canyon for the first time in their lives. Then we travel another 4+ hours to Las Vegas, just in time to enjoy dinner, a Cirque du Soleil show, and VIP access to some bars in the Palms Hotel. With that journey in mind, we will happily catch up on sleep and rest for now. 

Stay tuned for more, shorter posts tomorrow and throughout our time at the Grand Canyon and Vegas. I will be in the car for a very, very long time. And we have a car charger for our iPhones. I just hope there's 3G service for the whole ride. Can't imagine what I'd do with my time without that.