Posts Tagged ‘ city ’

“black nashville flag” t-shirt

blackflagtee

somewhere between being called the “it city” and now, nashville got really really annoying.  more people moved here.  more condos were built.  more people.  more cranes.  more people…you get the idea.  we are a growing city on steroids.  it’s madness.

with this influx of people and traffic came this weird obsession with showing pride in nashville.  hats and clothing popped up out of nowhere bearing nashville’s name or likeness.  most of it i’ve shrugged at, but last week i saw a shirt that i absolutely had to have: this black nashville flag shirt from project 615.  kudos to the designer that came up with it.  if you don’t know the band black flag and their iconic logo, here’s what the original looks like:

blackflag2

black flag were one of the founding fathers of hardcore punk.  like most other punk bands, they were all about a little anarchy.  in the early 2000’s, nashville had some of that same rebel spirit which is a big reason why people started calling nashville “cool” and the “it city.”  we’ve lost that in recent years.  my hope is that one day we’ll get some of that swagger back that made us so special in the first place.  this may be just a clever t-shirt, but i like to think it’s a homage to the pre-boomtown nashville.  whatever it is i dig it and will wear it with pride.

48 hours in new england

48hoursinnewenglad

my lady and i took a trip to new england last september.  it was epic and really the beginning of this whole 48 hours concept.  how did we do it you ask?  well, i’ll tell you.

we landed in boston around 5:30 friday afternoon and rushed our asses to the rental car terminal.

travel tip #1: it was a good 20-30 minute ride on the airport bus to get there and then another 25 minutes to get the car because really old people love that part of the country and they ask a lot of questions at the rental car kiosks.

the reason the time was important was because we had red sox tickets for the 7:05 game.

travel tip #2: if the rental car company offers you the auto-pay toll doohickey, take it.  there are 1 billion toll roads in new england.  one billion!
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48 hours in las vegas

vivaslasvegas

i think this 48 hours in fill-in-the-blank city could become a thing.  i’m really really enjoying it.  it gives me an excuse to travel more and to try a bunch of new places.  i used to go to cities with no plan.  now i’ve got all kinds of plans.

one of my biggest travel complaints is that it’s hard to find the best stuff to do in cities.  you can google, but most of the stuff you find is written for the masses and we are not the masses.

this weekend i took on vegas for the super bowl.  i’ve been to las vegas a lot.  in fact, i’ve been so much that i don’t feel like throwing out a number.  i have a love / hate relationship with that city.  i used to joke that i’ll just send them a check once a year for $1000 and skip the hangovers and long plane flight.  with that said, each year i go i feel like i get better at it and with this last trip now in the books, i can safely say i’ve finally got it down.

since there were three of us this past weekend, we stayed at the venetian.  hat tip to the venetian for being awesome – not super expensive for 3; easy check in; huge room with 2 queen size beds and a pullout sofa; convenient to most of the other casinos; and easy checkout.  boom!  what more could you want. Continue reading

48 hours in charleston

what do you do when you have 48 hours in charleston?  you eat and you drink.

restaurants

we made the most of charleston this past weekend – as you can see above.  i’m honestly glad to be home with as much money as we spent eating and drinking.  my body and wallet both needed the rest.

if you plan on making a weekend trip to charleston sometime soon, this is a nice little rundown on some places you should try.  i love lists, so i will do my best not to go into any sort of great details regarding the above restaurants.

first and foremost, stay downtown on king or meeting street.  we stayed at the king charles inn which is an incredible location, but our room was old, small, and stinky.  (i think it used to be a smoking room.)  i wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.  the grand bohemian was next store.  if you have the cash, stay there.

quick note on shopping…shopping in charleston is not great except for one exception: indigo & cotton.  that place was a very pleasant surprise.  it’s a couple of blocks from king st and carries gitman bros vintage, engineered garments and several other hard to find menswear staples.  the dude working there couldn’t have been any nicer as well.  i also really enjoyed a candle store called candlefish which needs to be in nashville.  (yeah i fucks with candles.)

here’s where you should and shouldn’t eat:  Continue reading