This Memorial Day weekend I experienced the Sasquatch 2012 music festival at the Gorge Amphitheater near Quincy, Washington. What a stellar event! I had such an amazing weekend with some truly amazing people. I experienced so many new things, lost something that broke my heart, and enjoyed some fantastic music.

I’m so glad I took the opportunity to come to this event. I went up with my girlfriend Cassie and my friend Dan and went back with my friends Dan and Cassie, and spent most of the weekend with them and a number of new and old friends.

This weekend definitely gave me a lot to think about and also gave me a good chance to think about things that were bothering me. Hopefully I can resolve a number of issues i’m dealing with over the next few weeks, especially with Florida coming up on the 17th of June.

Here’s a listing of some of the performers I had the chance to see live:

• Tenacious D
• Beck
• Jack White
• Bon Iver
• Pretty Lights
• The Shins
• Beirut
• Girl Talk
• The Head & The Heart
• Feist
• Silversun Pickups
• Metric
• Nero
• Wolfgang Gartner
• Of Monsters and Men
• Little Dragon
• tUnE-yArDs
• Beats Antique
• fun.
• Little People
• Alabama Shakes
• Gardens & Villa
• Sol
• John C. Reilly
• and many many more…

I had such a great time that i’m definitely planning to go next year if things line up to do so.

Hopefully you can go and enjoy it too!

What about you? – What music festivals are the best that you’ve been to see?

–Jason Read the rest of this entry

During the month of April, while I was between jobs, I took a trip to Vegas and a trip to Denver/Boulder, Colorado.  Both of these trips were a blast and I’m so glad I was able to take the time to complete them.

Vegas!

My trip to Vegas was just a few days from the 10th-13th as I needed to get back to host a couple parties that weekend. I met up with one of my best friends, Brant and we stayed in a two-bed suite in the Hard Rock Hotel.  Brant, like myself, has been to Vegas a number of times before so we kept this trip pretty low key.  Avoided the clubs, wondering around the strip and expensive shows and instead just played the table games, laid on “the beach” and watched some baseball.

I always enjoy gambling with Brant cause he is great to learn from when it comes to the games. He also usually gambles with more money than I do so his strategy tends to be different and enjoyable to watch too. This trip was relaxing and fun. I did get to enjoy one show while I was there called “X Burlesque.”  The show was a modern day show that has been on the strip since last year.  It was quite a good time.  Full of laughter and lots of girls 🙂

I also Ended up trying a couple good restaurants while I was there. Check them out on the artofforking.com.

The trip was also profitable as I walked away winning a few hundred bucks playing blackjack and betting on some baseball. Always great to leave Vegas a winner.

Denver and Boulder, Colorado

My trip to Colorado has been most excellent. I left on the 24th and am in the Seattle airport writing this entry now heading back to Portland on the morning of the 29th. This trip was just me traveling, but I met up with a number of friends along the way and made new ones while exploring the area. The main reason for going to Colorado in the first place was to see some couch surfers I hosted at the end of the year. A couple Turkish girls who are living in Denver.

The timing of the trip was perfect as Hande was leaving on the 27th back to Turkey.  I was able to hang out with her a few times before her departure. She will truly be missed. The other reason to go was that  I’d never been to Colorado and I like to explore new places. Most of my time was spent in Denver as this was where the Turkish girls lived and where I was being hosted by an awesome couch surfing host, Scott.  Scott is a software developer like myself and works from home or wherever he has his computer on the project Triple Jack Poker.  Being able to work remotely wherever I am is definitely something I want to try doing one of these days with my time.

Scott and the girls gave me a great overview of Denver and Boulder.  We went to a number of restaurants and fantastic locations while I was in the cities. I was able to see and enjoy the following:

• Dinner with a great view of the city skyline
• The Red Rocks Amphitheater
• Biking around Denver on the amazing bike paths they have
• Enjoying a pint in downtown Denver while watching some baseball
• Dinner with a bunch of people including my friend Lenay, creator of Whim And Fancy.
• Coors Brewery Tour in Golden
• Poker, craps, blackjack and roulette winning $150 in a casino in Black Hawk
• Enjoying the awesome atmosphere of a Denver speak easy called Green Russell
• Making use of the Denver/Boulder transit system by taking the buses and light rail from Denver to Boulder
• Meeting up and drinking most of the day with my friend Anthony and his roommate Jerrad
• Hanging out around the Pearl Mall area of Boulder until late in the night
• Hiking up Mt. Sanitas which is part of the Rocky Mountains
• Going to a Rockies baseball game – though they lost 🙁
• Hanging out with some amazing people while I was there adventuring around Colorado

The trip was fantastic and I couldn’t have asked for more amazing people to make my trip awesome.  I didn’t get to see some people while I was there: my friend Cameron, and my cousins Jeremy and Chad, but I’ll see you all again later down the road.

Thanks to Hande, Duysal, Scott, Julia, Anthony, Jerrad, and everyone else I had the pleasure of spending my time with and meeting up with while I was in town.  You guys made my trip soooooooooo amazing.

Until my next adventure – coming up – Sasquatch at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington coming Memorial Day Weekend.
Keep up the adventures! – Jason

I love traveling – getting away to far places seeing what the world holds.  This last week I had another chance to get out in the world this year and went down to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  What a trip!  Full of excitement and fun being with some of my favorite people.  There wasn’t a lot I would have changed about this trip, but I did learn a few things.

Lessons Learned From Traveling
 

I’ve got on a few trips this year, and I’ve found that when you travel and you stay at a resort, it is much better to go with someone to be romantic with than with a bud.  Not that I didn’t have a blast with my friend Lewis, it was just that we would have had a much better time staying at a hostle with him than at a resort.  These are meant for couples or families.  Quite easy to tell this by the people we saw.

When I do travel with a group, much easier to have everyone be single or all in relationships than be a single with a couple.  Not that you can’t have fun together, just means that they’re going to want to have their alone time.  Also, when you are together at a beautiful place like Puerto Vallarta, it gets you really thinking about how single you really are.  🙂

Another thing about traveling with one or more friends – be sure you know up front where you stand.  This mainly comes into play when a guy is traveling with a lady.  Without knowing where things stand – easy to assume one way and have it be the other.  This isn’t related to this trip, but good to state.

Puerto Vallarta Adventures
 

I’m not listing everything I did in Mexico and I’m also not going into a ton of detail because there is too much to say.  I will say however that Puerto Vallarta was beautiful and a place I’ll definitely go back to, but not for a while.  I’ve got many more places to go to first.  Here are a number of things that I partook in while traveling around:

• Walked on the beach
• Swam in the ocean
• Swam in the resort pool
• Ate lots of food
• Drank lots of booze
• Haggled with the locals
• Smoked Cuban cigars
• Went to clubs
• Explored the city
• Enjoyed the board walk
• Went boating
• Snorkeling
• Zip lining
• Rappelling
• Rode a mule
• And much more!

I’d be happy to share more of my adventures in more detail if you’d like.  Just message me or meet up with me in person!

Below are pictures from my trip!

I got home Monday night (October 10th) from a nice 14 hours of flying back from Europe (actually is was cramped at tiring, but part of traveling) where I spent two weeks traveling with a good friend from high school, Janel, and had an amazing adventure.

Rather than splitting up my trip into three parts; one for Munich, one for Paris, and one for South Ireland, or writing a bunch of daily posts on how it all went, I’ve decided to just give a summary of my trip and allow for people to ask questions.  The pictures included in the post will be more useful than anything else.  Hopefully you can find the info if not enjoyable, perhaps useful!

Now to start talking about my trip… Read the rest of this entry

I can’t believe the time is already upon us for me and my friend Janel to depart off to Europe.  It’ll be our first trip to Europe for both of us and I’m sure it’ll be an absolute blast.

A short itinerary: (More details on travel here at TripIt.)

• Depart Portland at 1:30pm 9/27.
• Arrive into Europe through Amsterdam at 8:30am 9/28.
• Depart Amsterdam at 11:30am and arrive into Munich at 1:30pm 9/28.
• Enjoy the rest of the day getting settled into Munich at my friend Huy’s brother’s place.
• Thursday morning, 9/29, head over to Oktoberfest early enough to enjoy the festivities and hopefully meet some wonderful people to let us share share table.
• Spend most all of the day there.
• Not sure what else Munich holds for us other than seeing some amazing castles and driving on the autobahn.
• Depart by train to Paris on 10/2.
• Arrive in Paris and stay with an awesome CouchSurfer.
• Enjoy all that Paris can offer in just four nights.
• Depart by plane to Dublin on 10/6.
• Make it to Guinness for a tour and hopefully make it to Jameson.
• Go on a south island tour of Ireland from 10/7-10/9.
• Spend one last night pub crawling around Dublin. 10/9.
• Depart to Portland on 10/10 at 12:30pm.
• Get into Portland at 7:20pm.

What a trip it’ll be!  If you have any advice or things for us to see – leave a comment!!!

See you in two weeks!!!