abka: painting of daffodils and pear (Default)
( May. 8th, 2008 10:21 pm)
Tuesday morning I handed in my dissertation proposal, had lunch with [livejournal.com profile] bayleaf and [livejournal.com profile] trixiesfic, and then headed to Philly for the My Chemical Romance concert.

See a few weeks ago I was in the mood for a loud, shouty concert (not my usual concert MO, but something about spring and adrenaline I guess). [livejournal.com profile] bayleaf said that she had a friend who had an extra ticket and so MCR fit the bill.

I drove down with [livejournal.com profile] trixiesfic. She was an excellent traveling partner and we had a nice mix of chatting and dozing (well I dozed since she was driving) on the way down. We didn't hit any traffic and made it to the Electric Company around 3:30. We found [livejournal.com profile] giddygeek and a big chunk of the internet and had a nice time hanging out in line. We got lucky with the weather, it started out really hot and sunny, but then cloudy, we had a little rain, but it didn't downpour and cloudy was much better than the sun. [livejournal.com profile] bayleaf and the other 4 people in her car arrived a couple hours after us (they did hit traffic).

Around 6:30 [livejournal.com profile] trixiesfic and I got into the venue. The Electric Company has a big open floor, then a second floor with bar and stools around the balcony. [livejournal.com profile] trixiesfic and I were seated in a raised section in the middle of the first floor. We were pretty close, had a great view of the stage (especially when the tall people standing in front of us moved), and I got to sit down!

The first band was Drive By and they were fine. Not bad, not great. The second I didn't recognize but they were phenomenal and I found out later that it was Taking Back Sunday. After that it began to get really cold, then they turned on a fan behind us, so even colder. And I started to get hungry and wondered if all the driving and waiting was worth it (this is why I don't go to concerts much I remembered.)

MCR came on and they were awesome!!! The show well exceeded my expectations, it had all the dancing, singing, and screaming I was looking forward to (although I actually didn't scream all that much). Oh and the lighting was fantastic. I had a few moments where I wanted to be on the floor, but then I would have sacrificed my view (not to mention the seat). Later we found out that the crowd was shoving a lot and it was very uncomfortable so I'm glad I stayed where I was. We left town around 11:30 ([livejournal.com profile] trixiesfic drove all the way back, bless her) and I got home around 2:30am exhausted and dehydrated.

I spent much of Wednesday brain dead but it was so worth it.
abka: painting of daffodils and pear (Default)
( Feb. 16th, 2008 09:47 pm)
D. and I did the Valentine's Day Ravenchase in Philly today. It was the perfect (February) day to race, blue sky, cold but not inappropriately so (30s), and only a little wind. It was a little like our very first Ravenchase together in Baltimore which was also freezing. The major difference being that ellen_fremedon was also on our team then.

The race was a nice mix of locations (public buildings, park, plaza, and commercial art gallery, no cemetery woo!), clue types (find the plaque, puzzles--including one monster 4-part clue with a varying backward Cesar shift that took us a bit to solve, dig in the leaves for stuff, and talk to the actor, actually also sing to the actor and then he took our picture in front of the LOVE statue, awesome!), and group types (us, a veteran team that's done almost all the Philly races, some couples, a family, a birthday party, and a monster bachelorette party).

This is the first race that D. and I have done together, just the two of us. I was slightly concerned, but we worked very well together and had a great day.

As an extra-special bonus we came in first!

We solved all of the clues without any hints and were the first to the bar. The race was very well written as all the teams came in around the same time (within a half hour of each other I think). I think we might try to do some more by this couple. They do the northeast so Philly, Princeton, NYC, etc.

On our way out of town we stopped at Jim's and got cheesesteaks. I had never had a cheesesteak before in my life, isn't that strange? Anyway, they were really yummy and set us up well for the drive home.
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abka: painting of daffodils and pear (Default)
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