Kenny ://

Traveling tale

I travel quite a bit now and can't really take a bike with me everywhere I go to get in a good workout. Instead, I've started taking running shoes, shorts and a "high-performance, sweat wicking, woman attracting" sport shirt. I have also decided that smelly clothes in the luggage sucks so I'm also traveling with a little bottle of Woolite. Does the trick in the bathroom sink after a run.

Speaking of which . . .

I've been on the treadmill quite a bit lately. I hate running on the treadmill. 4 or 5 miles is ok but 7 or 8? It gets boring, monotonous, and downright angering. I like to find ways to mix it up while running on the treadmill, like boosting the speed to 9.5 or 10 mph to see how long I can last before I feel like I'm about to be spit out then I'll bring it back down to a quick 3.0 mph for a few minutes.  Speed work, you know? 

Anyway, this morning I decided I'd switch it up just a little and run the stairwell 5 times. It's a 16 story hotel in Stamford, CT, and the stairwells go 2-flights-per-floor. Lots of turning and relatively steep climb. I thought I was in pretty good shape until I made it up the 2nd time and felt like my stomach was doing circles around my @$$.  I ran up, walked back down half way then picked up the pace going down the other half. 

Here's something that broke that constant gray wall view for me. I think whomever did this was probably either following orders or goofing on someone when they painted the sign on the Mezzanine door.  I think I have my new Hip Hop stage name - Messy B.

I guess you could say I made it

I finally made it to Charleston and instead of boring you with words and clever witticisms about the journey, I'll narrow it down to a handful of bullet points and some pictures.

• Loretta Lynn's Dude Ranch is more of a buffet than a ranch. 
• Zack can get you kicked out of ANYWHERE - go ahead, try him 
• East TN has some of the most beautiful mtb trails and scenery to be found 
• Joe's Liquors has the best sign in the world 
• Olivia and Hudson are pretty hard to beat when it comes to cute niece and nephew awards 
• Taco Boy in Charleston has unbelievable mahi mahi tacos 
• SATCO in Nashville on a pretty afternoon can't be beat   

I'm lucky to have such good friends.

I will not be updating for a few days. I'm sitting in a parking lot waiting to get served on the trails with Jason and then headed to the woods for a few days. Stay tuned for some cobbles together bee ess about the journey. I think I'm halfway to Charleston in just over two days. Yay me.

First impressions of the weekend in Charleston

I got to Charleston Friday afternoon, dropped my stuff off at the hotel and headed to Folly 

Beach. 

Flying in, you get a chance to see the "low country":

The surf was rough rough rough and I'm glad I went. Found the place to rent a board again and gave it a go. I have to say after 40 mins and not standing more than twice, I earned those 2 times.  Waves yesterday:

I have to admit, coming from Memphis where traffic planning probably isn't thought out more than, "I dunno, you think we should turn this road leff at that tree? It really don't make me no nevermind." I was surprised more than once to discover, when trying to enter the interstate, plan on being in the right lane regardless of where you are. No driving-under-the-overpass-and-turning-left-onto-the-interstate.  Also, if you use your blinker to get over, expect people to speed up to jam around you on the right hand cutting off your efforts to get to the on-ramp. 

No matter, nothing has more ground clearance or accelerates faster than a rental, right? 

Sailing Lake Michigan

I finally got to get back out on the water for the first time in a VERY long time; 8-10 years or so. Tuesday I arrived in Chicago around 10:30 AM or so and made my way into town to check into my hotel after dropping a few co-workers off at their hotels. It took a while and I didn't get to mine until around 12:30 which was frustrating because the three of us are all staying in hotels within 10 blocks of each other. That's what you get when you drive in downtown Chicago, beetchez.  

I didn't have any time to dilly-dally, either. I had a meeting scheduled with one of our vendors here in the windy city to go through their facility and sit and talk about potential growths in our partnership on several different levels ranging the entire spectrum of B2B offerings.

And now we get to the payoff. We said our goodbyes in their offices southwest of town and I made my way back to my hotel to change into some boat-friendly shoes (vans, of course) and shorts and meet them at the marina.  We sailed for about 5 hours and I got some fantastic shots from the boat of downtown chicago making the transition from day to night.  When I say "we sailed," what I should have said is that I actually sailed the boat, a 1969 32' single mast with both gib and main sail out the whole time. The wind and weather were perfect for a night out and the other three guys, one of whom owns the boat, sat and ate and drank beer the whole time.  Every now and then I'd give out a few commands ("reef the main," "coming about," etc.) and Matt, the owner, would oblige. 

A few shots:

This time next year . . .

This time next year I plan to have finished graduate school and be on a 3 week motorcycle tour of Europe.  The second stop? One of these lovely lagos in Italia after crossing over the alps from France.

Is there no shame?

I'm in South Beach, Miami FL, and it appears you're required to check your shame and self-loathing at the door when you cross the border into Miami. Now, far be it from me to complain about girls being topless, but the last straw was when a woman who was a biscuit shy of 450lbs and acting like she was on girls gone wild - what ever happened to good old self-hate and loathing in the states?

Airport or ghost town?

You know what I like about Boston's Logan airport this morning? The fact that it took me more time to walk to the security checkpoint than it took me to walk THROUGH it. This place is empty as a church in the redlight district on a Wednesday morning.

Posted from my iPhone beetchez

23 more days till a great day for Kenny

What's so great about 23 days from now, Kenny? I'm so glad you asked that question. 23 days from now actually marks a week, not just a huge significant day. Sure, 23 days from now is April 4th and I'm looking forward to that day more than most, but that week is significant for a few reasons.

One of those reasons is that a friend I haven't seen in far too long is visiting that weekend and I'll get to hang out with her for a bit.  Can't wait to see you, Johnna.

Another reason is that that will be the first week post-play that I'll have had to myself in a while.  3.5 months to be exact. I don't know what I'll do when I get home from classes that week. Oh, yes I do. I'll do homework. But the good thing about that is that I won't be doing homework starting at 11.00 PM when I get home from rehearsals.

Sunday was our first dress rehearsal and the first thing a fellow cast member said to me when I was getting into costume was "Damn, you are as red as a stoplight!" I should mention that my costume is a pair of shorts. Full stop. That's all it is. I've been to the tanning booth since I'm a pasty german/irish kid who, for this role, is supposed to look hispanic to be a cabana boy. It's the first time I've ever been to a tanning salon and if you've never been, which I expect is true of most of my southern friends, it's a weird experience.

I walk in the first day expecting someone behind the counter to be able to riff off about 80 things I need to know about a tanning salon but instead have someone saying, "What do you think your skin type is?"

"I dunno, sweety, you tell me. This is what you do, after all."

I mean, seriously, ask me about the marketing plan and pre-launch campaign for any sort of program or product launch including but not limited to any subset of technology vendors, interactive agencies, back-end reporting and fulfillment and response-boosting marketing vehicles and I can probably recite the marketing and execution bible but put me in a tanning salon and I fall to pieces. Shouldn't someone who works there be able to look me up and down and realize I'm a pasty white maux faux on the tail end of Winter and be able to recommend that I go for no more than 4-6 minutes for at least the first few weeks before cranking it up to "burn yo ass"???

I guess not.

As a result, let me ask you to join me on a little narrative. Close your eyes and picture a coca-cola can. Not put dark hair and green blue eyes on that coca-cola can. You have a picture of Kenny. Because I don't want to expose my you-know-what to those rays, I wear boxers and now look like that coca-cola can, red all over except for one swervy stripe cutting me in half.

Theater kills, people. Theater kills.

(the good pat? I'm getting into better shape than I've been for a few years in an effort to look like a fit cabana boy - does that sound gay?)

This just in

I just got back from the midwest. The day I flew in, it was -11 degrees. Fahrenheit. Actual temperature. Wind chill pushed it to -30 degrees F. Let me tell you, there's no amount of preparation a southerner can do for that wind. I felt like someone had just sucker punched me in the solar plexis with a battering ram when I first stepped foot out into that wind at 10:30 in the morning.

I got a few tips on how to prepare and Jen, you were absolutely right, the hotel was hot as a murf so I didn't dare put my heavy coat on until I was on my way to the car in the parking lot. Here's a bonus, though, I got to make a snow angel. Haven't done that since, oh, 1982.

I really like the midwest and here's one huge difference between where I was and where I live. People there use their turn signals judiciously. Seriously, I saw people left and right even using them to turn into parking spaces in the parking garage. When no one else was trying to swoop in and steal their spots. They just use them regularly.

It kind of threw me at first. Like, I was thinking, "Are these people doing this for me to make a good impression? Because it's working!" The sad fact is that it wasn't for me. It was just how polite all the people I saw were. Merging on the interstate? You may as well drive a tank - people swerve across three lanes to make it to their exit. But they're using their turn signals. Here? In Memphis? Someone will be in the right lane of a 3-lane street and you know they're going to turn right because they swerve left real far as if the street intersections just aren't as wide as they used to be and they need that extra room to actually make it onto the street they're entering. No turn signals involved in those.

Also, while at dinner with the gang last night, we had a large group - ~15. Some people got their dinner while others were still waiting and everyone just started digging in. I had my food really quickly and was waiting for everyone to get theirs before starting in on it and three people at different times said, "I know you're from the south because you have that southern politeness that makes you wait for everyone to have their food before you eat. How very gentlemanly." Now, 2 of those were genuine compliments, for which I was proud to be "southern gentlemanly" and enjoyed the compliment. The third was from a guy who was being an ass, who had maybe 2 good teeth in his whole head and by the end of the 3 day event I felt like he looked - smelly, dirty and worn out. So I didn't pay much attention to him.

I like Minneapolis. I just wish there weren't 8 months of butt ass cold winter there - I could live in a place with courteous drivers.