Saturday started off quietly as James and I awoke to our iPhone alarms at 8:30. We packed up our things and made sure not to disturb Lee, Rebecca or Michael on the way out.

The beauty of Louisville shined though the gray overcast morning as we wandered the streets. Knowing our next destination, Nashville, was only three hours away we decided to take some time to explore before rolling out.

First things first we head over to the Louisville Slugger factory to get the tour. We were suprised to find they also have a mini Norman Rockwell exhibit there as well and we spent some time learning about both baseball and art.

From there we made a stop off to Cake Flour bakery for a quick bite to eat and suddenly we found ourselves caught in a torrential downpour. We watched from inside as the street began to flood and it began to look like the dead of night at 11 am EST and decided it as our cue to get out of town ASAP.

Sure enough we passed right through the storm on the road but otherwise the trip to Nashville was uneventful. Turns out the Nashville beer festival was sold out so we met up with my friend Robin and decided to grab some BBQ then head over to Arrington Vineyards for a wine tasting. We sat beneath the trees overlooking some gorgeous Tennessee hills sipping wine and talking about video production and laughing like idiots.

After some sobering up we blared some pop music and drove towards the city to show James Yazoo Brewery. Yazoo is a local Tennessee beer company with a wide variety of beers and an excellent brewpub. We relaxed there sampling beers as the sun went down sharing old stories and laughing at dumb jokes.

From there we head downtown where Robin described the damage of the flood that hit Nashville last year and we met a homeless gentleman, Ernie. He told us about swimming in the river and hopping fences. Somehow it came up that we were headed to New Orleans and he told us that is where he’s from originally, he then launched into detailed suggestions of things to do there, specifically citing that the French Quarter is overhyped and we need to make sure we explore the whole city.

After wandering the strip for a while we ended the night in a dueling piano bar off of Broadway before heading back to Robin’s place for the evening. All in all it was a laid back and carefree day. I couldn’t have asked for a better time.

We’re now solidly on the road to Birmingham for lunch and New Orleans this evening. Until tomorrow true believers, enjoy the photos!

About 11 o’clock this morning we set off from Chicago, south towards Louisville.  James brought along some playlists of funk music and snacks for the road and our good friend Lee had decided to join us for this leg. Coincidentally Lee’s girlfriend Rebecca is going to be in Louisville this weekend so it made sense for him to join us. The three of us relaxed and joked around on the road and it wasn’t long before we were stopping to photograph windmills and “Hell Is Real” signs indicating we were definitely deep into the great state of Indiana.

We posed the question of where we should stop for lunch to our Twitter followers and  the awesome @JennFree suggested Scotty’s Brewhouse in Indianapolis. Her pitch was compelling and seeing as how I’m on a never-ending quest to try as many different beers as possible, any place with “Brewhouse” in the title immediately appeals to me. Luckily the guys were happy with it too.

When we arrived in Indianapolis we were struck by the beauty of the city. With it’s many beautiful monuments and circles, the downtown area is simply gorgeous. We wandered around a bit, checking out a smoke shop and a vintage styled Dunkin’ Donuts. We stopped off at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument and were instantly taken aback by it’s beauty and size. The entry on Gowalla for it mentions it being comparable to anything in DC and I’d say it’s formidable by my memory. Sadly the structure is under restoration but that didn’t prevent us from enjoying it nonetheless.

Scotty’s was a very large sports bar / pub with outdoor seating and a fairly typical menu but a reasonably sized beer selection. Lee and I each tried a local brew and chat a bit before hitting the road again. Lee proposed that the city would be suitable for another visit sometime. I definitely agree. It didn’t hurt our impression though that we arrived there to our first real taste of summer weather (a refreshing change from chilly Chicago.)

From there, it was straight on through to Louisville without stopping. Upon our arrival we hit up local music shop EarX-tacy and then went for some BBQ at Mark’s Feed Store on the suggestion of the wonderful Ms. Amy Guth. The atmosphere was friendly, and the food was okay. The three of us were mostly happy to have arrived.

Tonight we are staying with a friend of Lee and Rebecca’s and tomorrow James and I will bid them adieu and head to Nashville hopefully in time for the East Nashville Beer Festival.

For now, we’re going to hit the local bar scene. Good night folks enjoy the photos!

A week ago I had my final day at Apple Inc.

As much as I deeply love Apple it was one of those things where it was just time for me to move on. The constraints of working a retail job have been a challenge to my personal creative pursuits for some time so after six and a half year I’ve decided to move on (for now at least).

Today marks the beginning of something else entirely. Today I am leaving on what I hope to be the first of many road trips across the United States, during which my goal will be to write and publish a photo set daily from the road.

On this trip I will be accompanied by the always awesome and always funky fresh James Vest. The two of us will be exploring our way down to New Orleans and back over the course of 8 days.

We’ll be reaching out on Twitter to crowd-source the things we do in each city and others are welcome to meet up with us if they so choose.

I have to cut this short as I still have a few things to take care of before hitting the road. Expect another blog later today but in the meantime here is how you can follow us:

John
Twitter | Flickr | FourSquare | Gowalla

James
Twitter

This year marked my second visit to Austin, Texas for the South By Southwest Interactive conference. While I very much enjoyed myself and having only attended in ’09 I can tell you that things have changed, perhaps not for the better.

Two years ago I attended presentations almost every hour, nearly all were in the Convention Center, they were all higher quality and it was relatively easy to navigate which I wanted to go to.

This year there was too much. You would scroll through long listings picking out sessions and then realize all of that was just the 2 pm hour. Also, a large number of sessions were offsite in hotel conference rooms. It’s bad enough that to walk from one end of the conference center takes about 10-15 minutes, some of the sessions I wanted to go to were as far as a mile away from the convention center.

To make matters worse, a multitude of the sessions were redundant panels with poorly prepared presenters, the bulk of which were still fixating of the importance of “social media” and other buzz words. The kind of stuff you would already have to be aware of if you’re attending SXSW in the first place. Utter wastes of time. By the end of day one I had pretty much given up on panels to spend time with my friends and meet new people.

The idea of having a conference for “interactive” is beginning to feel short sighted. It’s grown so large and out of control it’s simply untenable. Marketers, designers, programmers and content creators are coming together under the banner of “interactive” while many of these people have little in common. With the common thread of the internet becoming so ubiquitous in American life it seems absurd to blanket everything under one banner.

Imagine if we held a conference for all the industries who use paper in any way shape or form, there would be panels on restaurant menu design, proper cardboard box construction and buzz-worded up bullshit like “aerodynamic efficiency in paper airplane design”. Still many of those things would have about as much in common as the sessions at SXSWi.

At the same time, the split between the Film and Interactive portions of the conference seems more and more arbitrary as the line between amateur and professional continues to blur.

The focus this year for me was less on the panels and more about the partying, networking and actual human interaction. This is perhaps evidenced best by the multitude of panels discussing how to best party at SXSW. I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a bad thing. It seems the label of “Interactive” has taken on a new meaning and it seems to be less about the technology and more about social interaction. The thing is though, if that’s the case, why even buy a badge when I can party for free anyway and get about the same?

Every adventure has a beginning. Some start slow and build into the excitement. Others kick right into action within the first few moments. Either way there is still a setup, some pretext that the story is founded on. My training from iO and Second City has taught me that it’s better to start a scene in the middle and to dispense with the back story things tend to be more interesting that way as we can watch the story unfold in front of us.

At this very moment my heart is starting to slow down from a rapid pace. My brain and endocrine system are finally starting to relax from the rush of adrenaline that pumped through me earlier. I’m just happy to be here in my aisle seat electric chair typing away and listening to my favorite Mountain Goats record.

I’m heading to Austin for South by Southwest Interactive where, for the next week, I will indulge in copious amounts of learning, networking and imbibing. When I return from Austin I will only have 8 more days of work at my job of the past 6.5 years. There is a mixture of excitement and discomfort in the fact I am willfully joining the ranks of the unemployed during a recession.

My heart rate continues to slow as I sip my complementary apple juice and snack on my peanuts. I just took a minute to revised the first paragraph. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” just came on. I love this song, I don’t really even know why, I just do.

I could tell the story about nearly missing my flight this morning, being told they were booked through the weekend and how someone I’ve never met volunteered to give up her seat making her my personal, yet thankless hero. But aside from me running unshod through Midway airport, the story really doesn’t have that much anecdotal value.

I’m looking forward to the next few days in Texas, catching up with old friends, making new ones and eating amazing food. That said, I am not quite sure what to expect. I did this once before and it was extremely enriching, even life changing, will it be again?

We’ve landed in Nashville to refuel and swap passengers before continuing on to Austin. No more Mountain Goats, moved on to Gaslight Anthem now. Stop, revise. I am fully relaxed now. Another revision.

I’ll be back in Nashville a month from yesterday if only for a day. It feels like an eternity away.

The problem with the aforementioned storytelling lesson is that it’s one of the few things from improvisation that can’t be mapped directly to life. We don’t get to just cut to the action, we’re forced to endure each beginning as even the smallest detail can be a catalyst that ripples through all of what follows. In life it’s the transitions that shape everything. The blur before something ends and another begins is arguably the most interesting moment, anything could happen that will affect the future and how we perceive of the past.

I ponder my own situation as I rewrite, revise and delete. I’m mildly frustrated that this, like many pieces I write, may sit in “drafts” forever awaiting a perfection that may never come. I switch the music again to Streetlight Manifesto to get a lyric trapped in my head out.

“We’ve all been there once before and it looks like we’ve returned once more. So is this the beginning or the end?”

I don’t know what will happen, I just know we’re landing and it’s almost time to close my MacBook.

I wanted to say something sooner but I have been super busy and I wanted to give Len the spotlight first and space out our entries for maximum visibility.

As you may or may not have heard. My good friend Len Kendall and I have been chosen to participate in the first ever Mercedes Benz Tweet Race. What is this you may ask? Well basically the good folks at Mercedes Benz have chosen four teams of two to drive cars from different locations across the USA in a Twitter powered adventure. Our destination? Dallas, Texas just in time for a big sporting event that we may have a hookup to acquire tickets for.

The race takes place from Feb 2nd – Feb 4th and aside from just being a ton of fun, it’s got a lot of incentives and for a good cause. Our team is going to be “coached” by Yankee outfielder Nick Swisher and will be playing to win ourselves brand new 2012 Mercedes Benz C-class cars and money to go to “Swish’s Wishes,” a children’s charity that enriches lives and lifts the spirits of children with vital health issues, a cause I think we can all get behind. Lastly, if that isn’t enough there is a selfish incentive to help us! By joining our “team” on Facebook you are entered into a drawing to win a prize which could include a V.I.P. trip to the US Open, Mercedes Benz Fashion week or The PGA Championship. Pretty sweet right?

So what can you do to help? Well first off, join our “team” on Facebook here. That gets you entered to win all the cool prizes. Len and I have been assigned the Twitter hashtag #MBteamE. So from Feb 2nd – Feb 4th they are going to gauge how many people tweet for us using that tag, the more tweets, the more points we get. The more points, the better chance we have of winning.

So I decided to make this super easy for you my friends, I set up a Twtvite here. So all you need to do is login, RSVP and have it post a tweet for it. Ideally we want you to do that starting on the 2nd but if you want to help raise awareness now that would be awesome too.

Now you know me folks, I’m going to be having a blast with this. Expect plenty of adventures and photos right here and throughout the various social networks. I look forward to sharing it with all of you.

Lastly, what would a road trip be without awesome music right? Len and I are letting you choose the soundtrack! Pick out some awesome tunes and add them to our playlist and we’ll make sure to rock out to them on the road. If you let us know which are your tunes we’ll try to give you a shoutout of where we are when we hear them!

While in NY for Thanksgiving. I took the opportunity to visit a landmark of the town I grew up in: St. Paul’s School.

Built in 1879 by Cornelia Stewart, in memory of her husband and the founder of Garden City, Alexander Turney Stewart. St. Paul’s is a glorious example of High Victorian Gothic architecture and stands out among Long Island’s many cultural landmarks. However the school has been closed since 1991 and the building has fallen into disrepair.

There are some calling for it’s demolition. Not so surprisingly this is largely a group of individuals (I won’t name names but they aren’t hard to find on Google) who stand to make a lot of money on construction contracts and other deals if they are able to tear down the building and sell the land for other purposes.

Despite the overwhelming majority of Garden City residents voting against the demolition of St. Paul’s, the proposal to demolish it is presented as the popular option due to Garden City’s board of Trustees propping up two other undesirable options that they know residents will be split on.

St. Paul’s future remains in question but things look pretty grim.

You can learn more about the cause to save St. Paul’s here.

And you can check out my photo set here.

I’ve got a lot going on and a few new and exciting things up my sleeve but I wanted to post a quick note that I just published a few new photos from my Thailand trip back in April to Flickr.

A lot more are on the way. Sorry about the delays. Thanks for your patience. The best part of working part time is the ability to get through your backlog of stuff you’ve always wanted to do.

Here is the link: Kanchanaburi – April ’10 on Flickr

This morning at 10:30 AM I did my first ever live media appearance for WGN 720 AM on ChicagoNow Radio. It was a real pleasure and I was way more comfortable than I expected I would be. I think there are probably two clear reasons for this:

One of the hosts was a friend of mine: Amy Guth. Amy is stellar and that made it a lot easier than talking to a complete stranger.

The classes I’ve been taking at IO have really done the trick! It’s already made me more comfortable in a performance atmosphere. Specifically helping me maintain my composure and gaining an ability to think on my feet.

We talked about my new blog on ChicagoNow: Focal Points. As well as my experiences in Berlin, and last weekend’s Journey to the End of the Night event. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Listen here!

Alright, so it’s finally happening, this is quite the week!

In addition to launching my new ChicagoNow blog: Focal Points. I’m getting started on my Thailand photos! I was able to get through 26 photos from my first day in Bangkok.

Hopefully I’ll be posting more daily until I’ve cranked them all out. Thailand, and my Tokyo blog entry are my #1 priorities for this blog in the next few weeks. I’m planning on going back and retroactively adding photos to the existing entries, like so. After that I’ve got a host of other things I cannot wait to share with you folks as well!

Thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy.

Bangkok Part 1 on Flickr