Adventures of Mike and Sophie

In 2005 we revisited the old Vegas stomping grounds again, this time for my birthday. This trip held a series of firsts–my first time dining at Nobu, and first time staying at THEHotel at Mandalay bay. Firsts of many times I hope!
Ever since a few friends of mine got me the Nobu cookbook […]

Despite the fact that I don’t gamble hard, drink hard, or party hard, I actually love las vegas. Which is good because given its proximity to the bay area, a group of friends typically make an annual weekend long trip there. This trip included a tasty trip to Samba, the brazilian barbecue place and a […]

The thing I love most about new york is the abundance of character you can find in the simplest of things. While gentrification is a fact of life and encourages efficiency and sets expectations, I find that New York is one of the places where the lack of standardization is mostly delightful. For one thing, […]

Somewhere about 40 minutes north of SF on highway 1 is an other-worldly small chapel, plucked and dropped suddenly next to the highway in the middle of a grassy field.
The chapel was built by a stonemason, architect, woodworker, and tile-layer–I think it was one person–and it was an expression of his or her love for […]

The last time I was in the grand canyon it was as part of a field trip for the “Olympics of the mind” national championship I went in 5th grade. Aside from some vague memories about the actual championship, I can remember that it was my first trip to Circus Circus, and that we drove […]

Having been born in NY, raised in Boston, and now living in San Fransico, I hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to travel of the parts of the US bordered by shore. Although Chicago can’t really be determined as a true part of middle america…it was a good place to meet j, r, and […]

Memorial Day 2003–c and I took a trip down to the warm and beautiful San Diego, by way of Tijuana, Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island, and finishing off with a lovely dinner at Cliff House in the ritzy town of La Jolla. The trip was a bit spur of the moment–the weekend before […]

March 2003, I was still learning how to snowboard at this time and getting tutored by someone with personal incentives in me picking it up. A few of us hit the slopes together, staying close to Reno during one night of the two day trip so that we could follow a frustrating day of […]

A few weeks after my 25th birthday, I took a trip to vegas with a few good friends of mine from childhood, who met me in this relatively central location from Michigan. We were tagging along with some avid gambler friends from the bay area who, found a us deal for $39 dollar rooms, […]