2008 Travel

 Wanderlust   

Out of curiosity, I tallied up all of this year’s travel.

47965 miles on American
5676 miles on Hawaiian
5212 miles on Continental
1544 miles on Delta
11 segments on Southwest

95 nights at various Hiltons across the country
3 nights in Las Vegas
3 nights at the Peabody Memphis
5 nights in San Jose
7 nights in two different timeshares in Hawaii

Places I went that I had never been to before:
Memphis, TN
Newport News, VA
Ft. Wayne, IN
Kona, HI

Travel is supposed to slow down for me at work next year. We’ll see how that shakes out. I’m already going to be gone 3 weeks out of January for work. As far as personal travel, I have a quick trip to SF at the end of January and a week in Maui in September. I will make it back to NOLA this year - a couple of different possibilities there. And who knows where else? I have a couple of ideas bouncing around, so we shall see.

Best in Show 2008

 Rawk Shows   

Finally, I feel like writing so I have to run down my favorite shows of 2008. (links are to the original show posts)

DIOYY at Casbah
I had such a great time at this show. Does It Offend You, Yeah? is one of my favorite new bands and their debut album was on my top 5 of the year. This show (even though they weren’t the headliners) was intense. Probably the best time I had at the Casbah all year.

Rilo Kiley at Viejas Concerts in the Park
Every Rilo Kiley show I’ve ever been to was good, and this one was no exception. I think that being outside was really one of the reasons why this show stood out for me.

Mates of State - Granada Dallas
I didn’t catch very many shows in Dallas this year, but the ones I did catch were worth it. Kory and Jason were in rare form and I just had a lot of fun dancing around and enjoying the new tunes from their latest album.

Coheed and Cambria at Viejas Concerts in the Park
I love Coheed better live for sure. Claudio was amazing that night and I just rocked out in bliss.

The Faint at SOMA
You know I love me some Faint - they never disappoint.

NIN at American Airlines Center Dallas
NIN at Inglewood Forum
NIN at Voodoo Music Experience NOLA
I’m not going to pick from the three NIN shows I saw this year. Trent and the crew outdid themselves on this tour and I know that years from now, I will look back at these shows as some of the best I have seen in my lifetime.

My Morning Jacket at SDSU Open Air
MMJ is at their best live - seeing them at one of my favorite venues and up close and personal gets this on the list.

Stars at HOB Anaheim
Damn them for not coming to SD, but making the trip to the OC was worth it.

Kings of Leon at The Joint (Las Vegas)
Opening night of their tour in Vegas was electric.

Jack’s Mannequin at HOB SD
This early show on Halloween was great - Andrew was in excellent form.

She and Him at HOB Anaheim
Zooey and M. Ward were great - so glad I was able to check them out.

36 Birthdays - 36 Albums

 Blow Out The Candles    Rawk Classics   

I got the idea to run this post on my birthday this year, even though the post that inspired me (on GvB) was posted in July.

The concept here is to pick your favorite album from every year since you were born. Those first few years I chose albums that were most likely playing in my house that I still love. I mostly picked albums that I still love and listen to even now. I did take some license (as noted below).

1972 Al Green I’m Still in Love with You
1973 Marvin Gaye Let’s Get It On
1974 Barry White Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe
1975 ABBA ABBA
1976 Blondie Blondie
1977 Fleetwood Mac Rumours
1978 Siouxsie and the BansheesThe Scream (no, I wasn’t listening to Siouxsie in 1978, but this album of hers was so important to me in my HS days, it would be wrong not to put it here.)
1979 Michael Jackson Off the Wall
1980 Xanadu (soundtrack by Olivia Newton-John, Electric Light Orchestra) (I remember buying this with my birthday money. I still have it.)
1981 Prince Controversy
1982 Depeche Mode A Broken Frame (we moved back to CA at this point and I had a cousin that listened to KROQ and loved her Brit bands)
1983 Culture Club Kissing to Be Clever
1984 Prince Purple Rain
1985 The Cure The Head on the Door
1986 Depeche Mode Black Celebration
1987 New Order Substance
1988 The Sugarcubes Life’s Too Good
1989 Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine (I remember buying this at Tower on Sports Arena.)
1990 Cocteau Twins Heaven or Las Vegas
1991 My Bloody Valentine Loveless
1992 Green Day Kerplunk
1993 The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream
1994 Hole Live Through This
1995 Garbage Garbage
1996 Beck Odelay
1997 Pixies Death to the Pixies
1998 Jeff Buckley Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk
1999 Jimmy Eat World Clarity
2000 PJ Harvey Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
2001 Jimmy Eat World Bleed American (later retitled Jimmy Eat World)
2002 Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights
2003 Brand New Deja Entendu
2004 Rilo Kiley More Adventurous
2005 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Howl
2006 Silversun Pickups Carnavas
2007 Stars In Our Bedroom After The War
2008 Kings of Leon Only By The Night

If you want to do your own list, this is a good reference.

Hope to see ya local peeps out tonight...you should know where to find me.

Year End Hot Picks

 Rawk Radio   

I don’t know if I’ll get around to picking my top whatever of the year, but I did peruse the year end Hot Picks via All Access. Here’s a sampling with some commentary (of course!):

Rick Brewer - Head Of Promotion (ATO Records/Red Light Management)
The Whigs Mission Control
My Morning Jacket Evil Urges
Kate Nash Made Of Bricks
Flight Of The Conchords Flight Of The Conchords
Radiohead In Rainbows

I did really like that Kate Nash record.

Christine Chiappetta - VP/Modern Rock Promotion (Island Records)
Kings Of Leon Only By The Night
The Ting Tings We Started Nothing
Ludo You’re Awful, I Love You
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals Cardinology
The Killers Day & Age

KOL, and Ting Tings, check. I’m not a huge Ryan Adams fan - I like him better when he rocks. So I do really love the single “Magick” from his album. 

Garett Michaels - PD KBZT/San Diego, CA
Radiohead In Rainbows
The Hold Steady Stay Positive
TV On the Radio Dear Science
My Morning Jacket Evil Urges
Dead Confederate Wrecking Ball

Solid picks from the G-man.

Aaron Axelsen - APD/MD KITS/San Francisco, CA
Glasvegas Glasvegas
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
MGMT Oracular Spectacular
Cut Copy In Ghost Colours
Death Cab For Cutie Narrow Stairs

The DCFC album was a grower for me. Now I can’t stop listening to it. And Glasvegas. Yes, we need some of that on the radio.

Mark Hamilton - PD KNRK/Portland, OR
Duffy Rockferry
Coldplay Viva La Vida
Santogold Santogold
Radiohead In Rainbows
Carolina Liar Coming To Terms

I did really love the Coldplay. And love for Santi is great.

Lazlo - PD KRBZ/Kansas City, MO
The Gaslight Anthem The ‘59 Sound
Tom Morello the Night Watchman The Fabled City
Death Cab For Cutie Narrow Stairs
Ben Folds Way To Normal
Beck Modern Guilt

Gaslight Anthem is made for radio and is definitely a band to watch for next year.

Jason Ulanet - APD/MD KRBZ/Kansas City, MO
Wolf Parade At Mount Zoomer
The Duke Spirit Neptune
Kings Of Leon Only By The Night
Coldplay Viva La Vida
Firewater The Golden Hour

A little indie love on the first two picks.

Lisa Worden - MD KROQ/Los Angeles, CA
Kings Of Leon Only By The Night
MGMT Oracular Spectacular
Coldplay Viva La Vida
Radiohead In Rainbows
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals Cardinology

Marco Collins - Middays KYSR/Los Angeles, CA
MGMT Oracular Spectacular
The Raconteurs Consolers Of The Lonely
Greg Laswell Three Flights From Alto Nido
Bloc Party Intimacy
M83 Saturday= Youth

I’ve been listening to the Bloc Party album a lot - I like it much better than their last one.

Edie Lundeen - Dir. Artist Development & Promotion (RED)
Ting Tings We Started Nothing
The Kills Midnight Boom
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
Butch Walker Sycamore Meadows
Does It Offend You, Yeah? You Have No Idea What You Are Getting Yourself Into

RED has sent me a lot of good music over the last year. DIOYY is one of my favorite discoveries of the year.

Gregg Steele - VP/Rock Programming SIRIUS/Alt. Nation
Electric Touch Electric Touch
The Killers Day & Age
MGMT Oracular Spectacular
The Ting Tings We Started Nothing
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend

Annrae Fitzgerald - PD X1FM
The Raconteurs Consolers Of The Lonely
MGMT Oracular Spectacular
Radiohead In Rainbows
Jack Johnson Sleeping Through The Static
One Day As A Lion One Day As A Lion

Capone - PD XTRA-F (91X)/San Diego, CA
The Gaslight Anthem The ‘59 Sound
Kings Of Leon Only By The Night
Atmosphere When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
Alkaline Trio Agony & Irony
The Raconteurs Consolers Of The Lonely

I hate to say it, but I’m digging the Atmosphere and Alkaline Trio picks.

So, yeah, a lot of the usualy suspects came up, but I have to say it wasn’t a bad year for music.

The Road to Hana - Part Two

 Wanderlust   

Right before you get to Hana proper, you can check out Wai’anapanapa State Park. This is the home of a black sand beach. Gorgeous.

(facing south)

(facing northeast - so weird to have the beach on the east)

(black sand)

This was definitely my favorite stop on the entire trip.

Next we had lunch at the Hana Ranch. The town itself is no big deal. We had lunch and pressed on. The next stop was Wailua Falls.

The big highlight of the trip was supposed to be O’heo Gulch, but I thought it was meh. There was a cool Banyan Tree on the hike to the Gulch.

But the swimming hole was closed. (not that I swim...)

Otherwise the view was pretty much the same as other stops along the way.

Oh, before I forget, throughout this trip, we drove over bridges like this one.

Stone bridges, typically built in 1910’s.

Past the Gulch, here is an unpaved road for about 4 miles which takes you on the backside of Haleakala and has gorgeous views that I can’t do justice with words or photos. I did manage one through the bus window that I liked.

Once the road is paved, you start turning around the south side of Maui where the last lava flow from an eruption in 1780 can be seen.

Definitely not as dramatic as on the big island.

Seeing Haleakala from this side is cool.

I didn’t take any other photos on Pillani Hwy back towards civilization, kinda over myself at that point. If you want to see all the photos from today, check them here.

The Road to Hana - Part One

 Wanderlust   

I’ve been busy the last two days. Today, I took the trip to Hana. I went on a tour so I didn’t have to drive and it was awesome. You would really miss out on a lot of stuff if you tried doing this on your own. So the geeky map.

View Larger Map

This was a popular beach for surfers and our first stop on the way to Hana.

We stopped at Kaumahina State Wayside Park which gave us a preview of things to come.

This is down on the beach on the other side of the previous photo.

Lava rocks on the beach

Just past the state park is the Wailua Overlook. You walk up these steps to get to the top.

Then at the top you can see to the ocean on the east. There are also taro fields on that side.

Alright, end of part one. Next post to have the rest of the trip.

Waimea and Kohala

 Wanderlust   

A long day since this was my last full day on the Big Island. My trip was centered around lunch at Merriman’s, one of those fancy local foods places. My lunch was just okay, I yelped about it here, if you want to see the food critic in me. Again, with the nerd map:

View Larger Map

After lunch, I drove 4 miles up Kohala Mountain road to see the view at the lookout point. The clouds had rolled in, so not the greatest view, but you get the picture.

(Kohala Mtn Lookout - about 4000 ft above sea level)

I could have continued up the mountain to end up in Hale, but I went back down and took the 270 up the coast. I was looking for the Hamakua Macadamia Nut Factory because unlike most macadamia candy, all of their macadamias are grown and processed in Hawaii. Of course, I kinda didn’t know where I was going, so I ended up on a few detours.

First was Kawaihae Harbor. I saw this from the top of the mountain and wanted to check it out. Kinda weird there - next to a cement factory. But there were people hanging out and you could rent a kayak if you so desired.

(Kawaihae Harbor)

So I kept driving and went past one of the big ranches and knew I had gone too far. So then I had to figure out somewhere to turn around. I stopped at Mahukona Beach Park. It’s a harbor that has a sugar processing building, along with a Hawaii Railway station, both long abandoned.

(abandoned sugar factory)

But the view was nice.

(Mahukona Beach Park)

So I made my way back south and figured out where I missed turning off for the mac nut place. That was actually really cool - they have a bunch of different flavors of macs (jalapeno along with butter and garlic) and some awesome different chocolates. I bought the Pineapple Snow Macs (which aren’t on their website, dammit.)

Then back down the 19 through the lava fields. I kept looking for a place to turn off to take photos, but never found a good spot. The fields are amazing - just this awesome black rock and then some sort of grass growing on top of some of it. And then there is coral graffitti. There are a couple of photos on flickr if you want to see what I am taking about here and here. (They don’t really do them justice, but like I said, there is nowhere to stop to take photos, so no doubt those photos were taken out of a moving car window.)

Round trip including lunch was 5 hours. Tiring. BTW, if you know anything about the Big Island, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t go see the volcanoes. I just didn’t want to drive the 2.5 hours each way. It’s exhausting to drive unfamiliar terrain and you’re driving through mountains, so it’s not easy driving. Maybe next time.

Alright, off to drink the rest of the beer in my fridge. See you from Maui tomorrow.

P.S. A trick on the google map - scroll down into the map (follow highway 19 south) and you can see the lava fields. It looks really cool.