Category Archives: Travel

Sometimes I get out and about, details of my travels appear here

2011 In Photos

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I joined Instagram a little over a year ago, say what you will about the filters but as a platform for sharing photos with friends and quickly posting them to the social network du jour it’s wonderful. The power of the camera in the iPhone 4 family is pretty astounding given it’s size, there was a time I’d at least carry a point-and-shoot everywhere I went just in case but I’m glad that I can get the same quality of photos my Canon SD800 gave me in something I carry in my pocket anyway.

With a lot of traveling and stories this year I felt it would be good to take a look at my feed from the past year, and pull out a few favorites and compile a short gallery of photos showing some highlights.

Click below to see the complete collection, and if you’re on Instagram – feel free to add me @shrtstck

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Return To Vermont

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Phish Vermont Flood Benefit PosterIt has been since Coventry in 2004 since I was last in Vermont but this week, in addition to another return visit to Rochester, NY that I was able to make my way back to Vermont again. Appropriately, the return visit was to see Phish playing a post-hurricane flood benefit at the Champlain Valley Expo.

The show took place at a small (by Phish show standards) 10,000 person venue, quite a bit different from the near 100,000 in attendance at Coventry, and thankfully the shows were a lot more enjoyable not just for the fact that it was 1/10th the size but also the band sounding better than they did four years earlier.

…and as expected on any trip of my there food involved.

To make a financial contribution to Phish’s Mockingbird Foundation to help raise awareness and bring help to the residents of Vermont please click here to donate [via PayPal]

View the Trip Photo Album Here [via Flickr]

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Video : Distal @ Bass Church

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Hurry up and wait seems to be the theme around here lately. I have a number of updates for the website pending but have been busy the past few weeks both in and outside of Atlanta. After a heinous 7 hr drive to Charlotte, NC (typically 4 hr maximum) Distal and I finally arrived at The Fillmore for an interesting night at Bass Church hosted by Mindelixir.

I stitched together some clips of the evening in the video linked on Vimeo below, with clips of Distal’s ‘Angry Acid’ and ‘French Science’ both forthcoming on Tectonic as well as a deep collab cut from Commodo and Lurka

Thanks to all our Charlotte crew, Jorge, KT Caustic, Buckmaster, BLNGxBDGT and everybody else who helped make it a huge night for us visiting.

Distal – Live at Bass Church from Owen / shrtstck on Vimeo.

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Two Toronto Trips

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It has been a number of days since my last update here, and not for lack of updates. As noted in the previous post, I have been fortunate enough to step away from real life for a moment and enjoy some much-needed and well overdue vacation time visiting friends in NYC, Western NY and two forays into Toronto.

It was excellent to have an opportunity to get to Rochester and eat a bunch of local cuisine, as well as getting to Toronto and being able to stay in both The Drake Hotel and Thompson Hotel Toronto. These trips gave me ample opportunity to see the city, eat at The Black Hoof twice, and be able to catch one of the few James Blake live shows on this side of the Atlantic.  Many thanks to Kim- for carting me around the whole time, and providing some valuable insight from someone who has made the Toronto trip before.

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Vacation Update

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It has been a matter of days since I have been in front of a computer long enough to provide a recap of the first half of my vacation but here goes.

Thursday night, before leaving, things got started as Mount Kimbie performed live in Atlanta at the King Plow Arts Center. I had the fortunate chance to play after the headlining set, a portion of which is downloadable as this month’s 1111 Agency Podcast.

Arriving in NYC early Friday evening I linked up with Bassfaced, and Hirshi and Kroba from Archie Pelago and headed down to The Bunker’s ‘Bass Mutations’ party at Brooklyn’s Public Assembly. An event that is a part of the NYC side of Unsound Festival, it was a night that featured DJ and Live sets from the likes of Dave Q, Badawi, Lone, Sepalcure, Dorian Concept, Kode9, Appleblim, Kink, and more. Arriving at the club at 11PM, Dave Q was getting things warmed up nicely in the backroom with a set that reached across a wide range of BPMs, and gave me the opportunity to hear a number of Distal tracks on a more than ample soundsystem. Additionally, the night gave me an opportunity to finally link up with Nihal, Wheez-ie, Sonkin, and a handful of other northeastern based music friends that I had yet to meet in the flesh. All and all an excellent night out with amazing sets from everybody I had the opportunity to see, there is nothing that I can add that probably hasn’t already been said a thousand times before.

Saturday, starting off slow after an eight-hour club excursion, found us at Dough sampling some gourmet doughnuts to get the day started before heading over to Halcyon for some record shopping then up to New Paltz to DJ with Rodan and Bloom. A good evening there with the Victory Beer crew and us three tagging off loungier house and techno tracks all night long. Definitely a different vibe than the last time I visited town, but as enjoyable nonetheless.

Monday, after a sushi lunch with some old Avara/Distributed.net crew, we made our way to Cielo for the 8th year birthday celebration of Deep Space NYC hosted by Francois K with special guest JOYO (née Joy Orbison), who played an intense 2+ hr set that was a perfect cap to my time in the city.

Now, I am laying low in western NY – brewing beer with kim-, and chumprock, enjoying a nice change of pace from nearly a straight week of clubbing in NYC and New Paltz, and laying low before heading to Toronto on Thursday afternoon. I am sure more will follow soon!

Oh, and if you are in Atlanta, get over to King Plow tonight for the Surefire Showcase featuring Moldy, Pearson Sound / Ramadanman, Zed Bias / Maddslinky, and Distal.

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Vacation Time

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After a lengthy day and evening last night, and the wonderful opportunity to play after an excellent peformance by Mount Kimbie, I will be heading to NYC this afternoon.

First on tap will be Bass Mutations, a part of this year’s Unsound Festival, bringing together the likes of Kode9, Appleblim, Badawi, and the list of names on the left. Any way you slice it, it’s a definite who’s who in bass music currently.

Saturday night I am headed up to New Paltz to play a show with Rodan and Bloom, I’d post a link to the Facebook event but the iPad editing on wordpress doesn’t make that super easy. More to follow!

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Nerd out on OBD-II Car Data in iOS

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For the few of you out there who are actually hypermiling, or for anybody who thinks that the information from Fuelly isn’t sufficient, Griffin Technologies has developed a Bluetooth enabled OBD-II adapter for tapping into that port sitting beneath your car that you likely forget exists except that one time a year you go to get your emission sticker renewed.

The device, named CarTrip, connects to your automobile’s OBD-II port, which is in all cars made in the past 15 years – giving you a glimpse at fuel consumption, speed and acceleration information, as well as demystifying that nagging “Check Engine” light you’ve been seeing.

Whether you have a legitimate use for something like this, or am just a fan of useless statistics and technology like myself, pretty cool stuff here.

CarTrip from Griffin Technology

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RIP: The Fourth Amendment (1791-2010)

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“Nobody likes to have their 4th Amendment violated going through a security line, but truth of the matter is, we’re gonna have to do it”

Their words, not mine. If this doesn’t make you angry or scared….

We need to take our country and privacy back from thugs like the TSA, FEMA, and DHS. I am all for some Hope and Change but it needs to come from the populace, not any current political administrations or organizations. This is America, we are a Republic – remind your elected officials that we hold the power, not them.

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Flying In The Security Theater

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I haven’t flown since these policies were put into place, so let me be state early that I cannot speak from my own experience. (I’m sure when that changes you will hear all about it) What I can comment on however, is being treated like a criminal when there is no evidence. I hate people asking for my receipt when walk 15 yards from a register to a door leaving a retailer, and I detest the notion of other people looking under my clothes or touching my person in the name of “protection” and safety. I go to a lot of large music concerts, and yes I understand the need to search for contraband and alcohol brought in from the outside however never in my years of attending these and similar events have I seen a widespread complaint, let alone entire movements outlining overarching privacy concerns and sentiments of widespread feelings of violation. Wasting my time and destroying my privacy and assuming I’m a hellbent terrorist until proven otherwise does not make me feel safer. Innocent until proven guilty, unless you want to board this plane.

I’m not going to get into a long tirade about the nebulous health issues regarding the use of backscatter radiation to screen passengers or widespread groping occurring in our nation’s airports. These topics have been covered at great length by numerous other more informed and reputable sources than myself. I would however like to take a moment to at least bring the issue to light here and provide some links to some informative websites and groups that are mobilizing travelers, airline employees, and concerned citizens alike as encouragement to readers to take advantage of their voice, and experience the benefits of observing successful efficacy. It’s about time the notions of “social networking” and “crowd sourcing” were leveraged to bring about some substantial and relevant change within society.

Nude TSA Photos Leak Online [via Gizmodo]
The TSA is not compulsory [via Washington Examiner]
TSA Accosts Three Year Old Girl
Full Frontal Nudity Does Not Make Us Safer: Abolish The TSA [via Forbes]
National Opt-Out Day ( Website | Twitter )
DontScanMe
File a Report With EPIC

If anybody has their own stories or opinions to share here, I’d love to hear some first-hand accounts (no pun intended) in the comments if you feel so inclined. Oh the TSA also runs a blog, while not highly informative they have at least have an Agency approved troll thread

Edit: Thanks to my good friend @chumprock over on Twitter for linking an article from Jeffrey Goldberg posted this time two years ago outlining just how easy these ‘rules’ are to circumvent

Read ‘The Things He Carried‘ [via The Atlantic]

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Saharan Mobile Music (Mix)

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Much thanks to Boomnoise for directing me towards this via Twitter. What we are presented with here is a mix tape of music taken from trading music and memory cards through Saharan Africa. A trip that originally began as field recordings quickly turned into another equally as exciting experiment. Much thanks to Sahel Sounds for making this available, I have absolutely no idea what to expect when listening to this, and that is I’m most excited about.

Get the complete info and partial tracklist from Shael Sounds

Download The Mixtape [via Mediafire]

For some even more striking realism, also be sure to check out their section on Video From Saharan Cellphones.

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