In a sea of useless, “everybody wants to be a star” podcasts, we have found this little gem. We have quite possibly found the best talk radio podcast out there and we might just be addicted. There’s nothing mediocre about it. Listen for yourself….

I’m packed and ready to go! Okay, let’s be honest, I never actually unpacked, I just pulled my dirty clothes out and washed them but regardless, I will be getting on a Chicago bound plane in the morning.

On the agenda: Irazu Oatmeal Shake (in case I haven’t mentioned this 1000 times, nothing compares), Millenium Park, the Pitchfork Music Festival and Flosstradamus / Chromeo afterparty, the Beach (aka Lake Michigan) and whatever other adventure I can find!
This will be my first time (I think ever) flying United. I will try my best to keep you posted!

I have so much to tell about my experiences but I have been super overwhelmed since my return and I am heading out again on Thursday for Chicago. I wasn’t expecting to be this busy on my return but we now have the shaving Cream and the long awaited new packaging on a few of the products – finally! And we are so, so, very close to getting the new site up.

We’ve got new products in the works…. we need your travel stories for inspiration and for the labels… send them to me!

a

above: the Fremont District in Seattle

Above: Delta’s New Fancy Cocktails

Above: They didn’t have one single Destee Nation t-shirt[hair not by Destination Nation- - yet]

Above: The Ballard Locks

Above: The Seattle Aquarium

Above: Team Regrets was born in Portland – And this entire summer has been part of the dubbed “Summer of Bad Decisions Tour” – I also think I set a record for the dirtiest my hair has ever been.

Above: Portland to Seattle….hippy style

Above: Big Kids, Little Cars

Above: Amusement

Above: sleep!

Eerie Feeling. I don’t know if Delta Airlines is aware of it but their boarding music today while I was getting on my flight from Atlanta to Seattle was the theme music from the HBO series Six Feet Under. I am sure that was really comforting to anyone that may have been afraid to fly. Was it a joke? An oversite?

I do have to give Delta some credit though. I an attempt to gain a market advantage, they have made a few minor changes and are expected to place monitors in all of their seat head rests so everyone can clearly view the in-flight movie. In addition, and perhaps the thing I a the most excited about, Delta has teamed up with Randy Gerber of Midnight Oil Campany to create what they call Midnight Sky, a new signature cocktail program exclusivly for Delta.

I can’t wait to try the "Mile High Mojito", a passion fruit mojito. 

I’m about to fly the friendly skies again tomorrow. This time I will be heading to the Pacific Northwest. My plane should land in Seattle around 11 am and then, who knows?

This is one of those kind of trips that has very little structure and planning and a whole lot of excitement and suspense. Here’s pretty much all I know…. after arriving in Seattle I will head to Ballard to enjoy some friend time. I have a few friends there yet I have no idea who I will be staying with or what we will be doing for the first few days.

After a few days, my friends and I will be boarding a bus, uhm, this bus… (wish me luck)…

and heading south down I-5 to Portland for…. you guessed it, another comic book convention..errr, I mean moped rally.

This time, the Portland branch of the Moped Army, The Puddle Cutters, will be the hosts. This is their first rally ever so I really have no idea what to expect. In addition to being able to see a lot of my friends, I think this rally will be a great opportunity to experience Portland. I know I go to a lot of rallies but I really think its a great way to experience places… and trust me, you really do experience them when you’re moving at 30 mph.

After the rally, I will spend a couple more days in Seattle before boarding that plane back to reality. I hope to get the opportunity to stop by Hotel Max during that time to check out the artwork in the lobby.

So, needless to say, I doubt I will be posting over the next week but I will be checking back here often so if you have any cool ideas of stuff to do while in Seattle or Portland (or anywhere in between) let me know.

Rest assured, I am sure I will have lots to talk about upon my return. Until then…

-a

Richmond is a town of history. Everything is historic… the streets, the buildings, the canals, the houses.. its almost overload to the point where there’s so much history no one really pays attention to it on a daily basis because its just there.

About a decade ago, I began hearing stories out of Richmond East-enders about Richmond’s Lost City. Although no two stories were alike, the basic gist of it was that during World War II, Richmond created a fake city a few miles east of the airport and during potential air raids, they would blackout the actual city and airport and turn the lights on at the decoy in hopes that from the air, the bombers would unknowingly bomb the decoy and Richmond would be saved.

At one point, years ago, someone actually drove me out near that area, showed me the starting point of the road which was barricaded and explained to me the “dangers” of going back there. This is where everything gets interesting. Among the stories, there’s accounts of a range of odd things that happened beyond that concrete barricade: armed guards with machine guns, a government secret bunker, CIA and/or FBI secret training center, Nuclear Testing area , and people have even claimed an alien detention center.

The oddest thing about all of this is Richmond’s lack of information about it. We are so rich and full of history yet no one seems to know the truth about what it is, what it has become, etc.. There appears to be nothing about it in the Richmond history books – only stories and legends passed down over the last sixty years. So, after years of hearing these stories about this mysterious piece of land, I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to see for myself even if it meant braving armed guards with machine guns, aliens and the possibility of a trespassing ticket.

Before leaving the city, I did my homework and signed up my friend Tasha as an accomplice. I read everything I could possibly find on the internet (which wasn’t much) and planned the trip accordingly. I did find a couple of accounts of people going out there and while they we’re walking in the woods beyond the barricades, their car was towed away. I used Google Maps to survey the area and create a plan for where we could park and the best way to enter the area. The Infineon micro-chip plant borders the area so I knew if we went in or came out in that area we would surely get a trespassing ticket. After realizing that other than Infineon there was really no place to park for miles, I decided we would ride mopeds out there which would allow us easy access, beyond the barricades and the evidence our presence would not be sitting along side the road. Prepared with a map, a flashlight (mind you it was in the middle of the day), and some bug spray we headed out.

I have to admit, the suspense of what might happen was a little thrilling. Could we get away with this or would we be caught? What would we find?

The ride out there turned out to be an adventure in itself. I guess I should have looked at Google Maps for the entire route because unannounced to us, the road we took turned into a stretch of highway, without warning, once we got just passed the city. Riding a moped on a four lane highway all of a sudden began to seem much more insane than our plan to explore the wilderness so by the time we arrived at our location, all of the suspense was kind of over shadowed.

We drove down the street past Infineon, which is now named Qimonda, and found the road entrance with the welcoming concrete barricade and we quickly hopped the curb and maneuvered around it. Things instantly became weird and eerie most likely because it seemed almost too easy for us to get back there and the thought of some stranger hopping out from behind a tree with a machine gun sat restlessly in the back of my mind.

Some of the internet account that I had read talked about trees being down across the roadway “as if they were deliberately placed there.” We did notice several trees down that crossed the road at various places but it was clear that the trees had fallen there. Trees were down all over, not just blocking the road, and if you take into consideration the damage this area received just in recent years from Hurricane Isabel and Gaston, it makes sense.

The roads weren’t so much roads anymore – as to be expected. A sixty year old unmaintained road becomes a pathway overgrown with weeds over a half century. It was a good enough surface that we could ride our mopeds and maneuver around fallen trees and other obstacles but it certainly wasn’t a place I would recommend for skateboarding.

The first thing we noticed were the curbs and drainage system. Every road we went down was properly lined with a curb and an occasional fire hydrant and at parts a pedestrian sidewalk. We rode around and explored for awhile just to get our bearings and see what we were getting into. I knew from the other web accounts and Google Maps that there was a water tower so after getting a feel for the area, we decided to seek it out. The water tower was recognizable on Google Maps although at first glance it appeared as a white dot easily confused with a bad pixel. A couple of the web accounts said that the water tower served as a good reference point and you could see it just past the tops of the trees. We did not find this to be true. Its possible they were there in late fall or early spring but in the middle of the summer, the water tower cannot be seen until you are just about at it. Keep in mind this area is over 2000 acres.

We walked around for a bit, found a few disheveled buildings that appeared to be more maintenance sheds than habitats. We found the water tower and a lot of evidence of improper trash disposal and an occasional wilderness party spot. We were able to cover a lot of the road territory pretty quickly via moped and we spent sufficient time on foot to see if there was anything we could unearth that hadn’t previously been mentioned.

After a few hours and seeing everything we needed to see (or perhaps I should say NOT seeing everything we needed to see) we headed back to the city without incident. No armed guards, no aliens, not even a little nuclear contamination.

Our final conclusion: Its more like a lost sidewalk than a lost city. Sure it was kind of neat to explore it and see it first hand but all and all, there are plenty of places in America where roads were paved and then abandoned. We have experienced much more interesting things – there’s really not much there besides chunks of concrete, a few fire hydrants and an old water tower. For this reason, I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures – the woods looked like woods and the fire hydrants looked like fire hydrants – all pretty self explanatory and uninteresting.

Would we do it again? It was great to be able to finally see the legendary land and today was a great sunny day for a 35 mile moped ride but no, we would not go out there again because there’s really nothing to see.

I have drawn some conclusions and gathered some facts about the area that I will share below for any of you still interested in knowing more. To clarify, I will write the facts in blue text. The other stuff is heresay, unconfirmed, or my opinion (which at times happens to be the most logical explanation).

The 1940′s:

During World War II, Virginia became one of the most prosperous states in America. The ship yards east of Richmond in Norfolk provided the war ships and a very busy port for combat soldiers and the areas numerous military bases made it a hub for military operations. Richmond, at the time, played a very important role. The Richmond airport, then named the Byrd Airport served as a landing for many military operations. I find this funny because Richmond is such a small airport today.

It makes sense that Richmond would want to protect its city. The 1940′s would have been the first time that Richmond really started to prosper since that time we burnt our own city down during the Civil War. To protect against a nocturnal air raid by the Japanese or Germans, they built a decoy airport and put a system into place that would blackout Richmond while simutaneously lighting up the decoy. However, I do not believe they built an entire fake city at that time. First of all, with as many remanants of streets, curbs, gutters and fire hydrants, there is really no sign of buildings aside from the small cinder block sheds. Secondly, city and state decision makers may not be the smartest bunch of people but I highly doubt if they were making a fake city for the sole purpose of it being destroyed by the enemy they would go through the time and expense of creating a sewer/drainage system and put in sidewalks. A decoy airport and city would only work at night – so details wouldn’t be important… lights and buildings would be.

Here is a picture of a post war map that declares the area “for bombing practice.”

The 1950′s:

It has been said that after the war, the state was ready to use some of the land and a proposed hospital was slated to take it. This hospital was supposedly needed to fix the problem of overcrowding in the then segregated black hospitals and prison hospitals. I think this is a much better explanation for the roads, water tower, sidewalks and sewage system. This area of land would have been way outside of Richmond by 1950′s standards and the government would need to do something to entice the development to happen. For whatever reason that deal fell through. This information is supported by the fact that Central State Hospital in Petersburg added five buildings in the mid 1950′s – one of which, according to the Central State Hospital website, was a Maximum Security Forensic Unit was built for the evaluation and treatment of patients referred by the courts.

Its also important to mention that the year 1953 is clearly cast into all of the fire hydrants that were present.

Once the deal fell through, the land was again put up for sale by the state but in an attempt to recover their development expenses, they did not accept any of the bids they received and the after the last rejected bid came arrived in 1963, Elko Tract fell from the new headlines.

The 1960′s – 1980′s -

This is the time when stories became weird. No one seems to really know what transpired here during this time and aside from teenagers trying to park or party there, it became a largely ignored piece of land.

My theory… some of the internet accounts and things I noticed included strange landscaping. There appeared to be dirt walls built up in places, strange holes dug in the earth and other things that were clearly not natural occurances in dirt. I think its very possible that the government or military used the land for reasons we may never know as it is obviously classified.

The CIA/FBI theory: I don’t have reason to believe that it was a CIA or FBI training facility as again, aside from the maintenance shed type buildings and the decoy airport hanger, there really isn’t anything there. Besides, the CIA and FBI have actual training centers really close to this area.

The Nuclear Testing Theory: Nope, I don’t think so. It may be outside the city of Richmond but its still too close for setting off bombs unnoticed.

The Armed Guards: Yes, I believe these stories are true. If there was military activities taking place in that area that were unclassified, do you really think they would let people walk up to it?

Aliens: The X-Files may have wrapped their plot around strange things happening in Virginia but if we found aliens would we keep them out in the woods? Wouldn’t we be better off “storing” aliens someplace with a fence or in places where there are at least a lot of accounts of alien activity? I don’t believe Richmond is high on that list… we’re too busy talking about historic ghosts.

An Underground bunker: Ok, this one could be true. We know there are bunkers around the country and with Richmond’s close proximity to DC, its possible. They could fly into Richmond airport and quickly get to this location.

In all honesty, I have my own theory. I know that Virginia had many Missle Silos during the cold war. Missle Silos are underground vertical cylindrical containers for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles. They typically have the missile some distance under the surface, protected by a large blast door on top. These areas would have been protected and the governement certainly wouldn’t want to announce their locations. It would only alarm the public and put us in danger should the Russians somehow attack these sites. This theory explains the mysterious holes in the ground and the armed guards.

The 1990′s

In 1995, Virginia Governor, George F. Allen, announced that Virginia would be selling off surplus land in Virginia to raise money for more state prisons. Interestingly enough, this is just a few years after the end of the Cold War. In 1996, the decoy airport hanger was demolished and by the end of the 90′s things were in place for Infineon Technologies to take a portion of the land.

It has been said that the government spent millions of dollars developing the land so Infineon could build there. Tearing down an old airport hanger and paving a new road shouldn’t require that much money. Especially considering the sewage system was at least somewhat already in place.

I am sure that if there was something hiding below the surface, it was thouroughly removed before the land was brought back into the news. Perhaps, someday, there will be a declassification of information and we will know exactly what took place on this infamous chunk of land. Until then, we are only left to speculate but I can certainly say, the legendary stories are much better than the bits of concrete and forest that remain today.

The Water Tower

Some other internet accounts from Elko Tract:

Portugue Road – Ghost Town

WAG: Lost City Found

LOST CITY OF RICHMOND FOUND

Well, Avis has just introduced WIFI service throughout it’s United States fleet of cars. For a small daily fee, anyone renting a car can surf the internet no matter where they are. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can see the usefulness in the service. I really like that it can be removed from the car and used in your hotels room or wherever else you might end up and I can think of many times while riding along with someone where being able to send some emails or look at Google maps would have been a fantastic amenity but I just can’t fully accept that this is a good thing.

In the back of my mind, I imagine someone driving down a congested highway, checking their MySpace page or stock quotes instead of paying attention to the road ahead. This makes cell phone usage while driving seem so easy. Its a great concept and good technology but Avis has no way of controlling the driver’s responsibility for safety and it seems like it would have a much better place on Amtrak or Greyhound.

I honestly do believe that Avis is trying harder, I just fear for what’s to come. What do you think?

What did you think?

In 1999, while employed at a fancy-schmancy spa, I attended a class on the spa’s behalf about sun damage and aging skin. I am sure the spa’s owners sent me with the idea that I would come back and sell a bottle of sunscreen to every customer that walked through the door and by the end of the year, they would be able to vacation from those profits at some remote resort never thinking about me… boy were they wrong.

I have always been a bit of a skin purist. I feel like the skin care industry works on the insecurities of the general population and that many of the products out there sell a false sense of hope, producing no results, therefore making the buyer feel even more insecure that their skin is bad or their problem cannot be fixed. There are product lines out there that contain well over 100 SKUs. Are we really to believe that we need 100 products to make our skin look good?

So, back to this class. During the class I was presented with an enormous amount of information on what the sun does and how it does it and why its so bad. The repeated message was “SPF, all day everyday” and attendees were encouraged to sell their clients all kinds of sunscreen products and advise them to use it everyday regardless of their activities because “the sun is everywhere”, “the sun makes us look old”, “the sun is evil”, blah blah blah. Maybe it was the skin purist in me or maybe I am quick to think of conspiracy theories but something to me seemed a little off with this message. I spent my early teens growing up in sunny Florida. I didn’t know the meaning of sunscreen, nor did I care and to this day I can still pass as a good 5 or so years younger than I actually am. These sunscreen companies were trying to sell something and its a great marketing scheme – if people use more sunscreen, they will sell more sunscreen.

Upon my return home from this class, I knew I couldn’t go to the spa owners that spent money to send me out of state to this class and say “I won’t do it.” I pulled out all of the material I received and began my own investigation. It was then that I realized that cancer, of all kinds, had a lower rate the further south you traveled. Aha! I was onto something. I then realized that as higher SPF’s became available to the market, their protection numbers continued to increase almost identical to the way skin cancer rates rose in the years following. I also realized a similar rise in Seasonal Affective Disorder as SPF numbers increased. I gathered as much information as I could and went to work the next day prepared to take a stand: I will not push sunscreen on every client.

Since that day, I have advised my clients to only use sunscreen if they are putting themselves in a scenario where they have the ability to burn.

Let me further explain my thoughts.

I am not saying there is no place for sunscreen. In fact, I think it is often necessary during the summer month’s activities. But, if you use sunscreen all day, everyday, you are not allowing your skin to build up a natural tolerance to the sun. Without a natural tolerance to the sun, you are more likely to burn. Without a natural tolerance, when that SPF wears off or you forget it one day you are way more likely to burn. Sunscreen also prevents us from getting a good source of vitamin D which is an essential vitamin in maintaining organ systems and preventing Seasonal Affective Disorder. This means that every person has their own limit to how much sun they can get. My roommate, for example, has strawberry blond hair and quite possibly the fairest skin I have ever seen. I don’t think she needs to wear sunscreen all the time, but I do think she should have a bottle nearby should she need/decide to spend a little extra time outdoors on a sunny day. On the other hand, I do not have a tendency to burn and the last time I wore sunscreen was last summer while spending the day on a boat.

Burning is bad. Having a sunburn severely dehydrates the skin and in extreme cases can damage the formative skin cells. The “aging” that is related to the sun is more an issue of dehydration and not replacing the skin’s vital moisture and nutrients.

That doesn’t mean go tanning. My stance is more of an “anything in moderation” stance. I am not in anyway shape or form saying hang out in the tanning bed or at the beach until you look like that lady from There’s Something About Mary.

There you have it. As you can imagine, I have been scolded by just about every other skin care professional I know. I have been told by my own mother that my theory is crazy and I have had clients think that maybe I just didn’t know as much about the skin and products as everyone says I do.

Until this week!

Research published this week in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has determined that that vitamin D (also known as the sunshine vitamin) cuts the risk of several different types of cancer (not just skin) by 60 percent. The sun is our best form of vitamin D. The skin makes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight’s ultraviolet rays. Multivitamins usually carry a much weaker variant known as D2.

“The findings … are a breakthrough of great medical and public health importance,” said Cedric Garland, a prominent vitamin D researcher at the University of California at San Diego. “No other method to prevent cancer has been identified that has such a powerful impact.”

So there you have it.

My final advice: Go have fun in the sun! Buy a bottle of sunscreen and use it only when necessary and make sure it doesn’t contain any parabens.

Read more about it here:

The Washington Times

NBC5.com Chicago

My trip began with a flight into O’Hare Airport to one of my favorite cities in the US, Chicago. I didn’t spend much time in Chicago this trip but I did get the opportunity to go to Irazu for one of their delicious Oatmeal shakes. Ok, twice. If you haven’t been to Irazu, they have some of the best Costa Rican food on earth (possibly better than in Costa Rica?) but the real draw is their oatmeal shake. In fact, I Googled oatmeal shake the other day to see if I could find a recipe and about all I found was articles on Irazu. So if you’re in Chicago, check it out, its on Milwaukee in Bucktown.

The rest of my time in Chicago was spent at Warbux Mopeds which is new to Chicago and recently opened by a friend of mine. It was a very busy day there even though the shop was technically closed in preparation of Kalamazoo. The Chicago “moped gangs” named Peddy Cash, The Flooze and Murder Club were pretty much all there making last minute modifications and repairs to their mopeds.

The next day, we made the three hour trip to Kalamazoo. There’s nothing fascinating about the trip from Chicago to Kalamazoo. The only real landmark I recall is a truckstop somewhere in southwestern Michigan but I did get to smell the delicious smell of chocolate while leaving the city. For those of you who don’t know, Chicago smells like chocolate in certain parts thanks to the Blommer Chocolate Factory . Other parts smell like urine and vomit.

Every Memorial Day, Kalamazoo hosts the biggest moped rally in the nation and this year was no exception. In its tenth year, with record attendance numbers, moped enthusiasts and Moped Army members from around the country swarmed upon the tiny little town with the funny name. The weekend includes moped riding, lots of insane parties, music and so much more.

Its taken me over a week to begin writing this post and I still believe I am at a loss for words. It was an amazing trip. I had the opportunity to see my friends from all over the country (Tempe, AZ, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, Louisville, and Cincinnati to name a few) as well as make some new ones. The premiere of the Moped to South America movie took place during the rally weekend and everywhere you turned there was another moped. There was an article written in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. You can read it HERE.

I’m going to let the pictures speak their 1000 words. Here’s the link to my Flickr Set. Enjoy!

After the weekend, I returned to Chicago for a day. Completely exhausted, I managed to pull myself together enough to get to the airport in time for my flight home. I can’t wait to do it again.

Next trip, the Pacific Northwest.