6 posts tagged “richmond”
U.S. cities promote bicycling as gas prices soar
Come on Richmond....catch the trend.
I've seen a few more people out riding with me but more seem to be choosing scooters than peddling their fat lazy asses anywhere.
Who needs exercise when you're American?
i think i might stay around richmond for life
i thought a lot this weekend and realized i feel home here
the woods here are my woods
and i feel at home wandering them
i decided that moving around doesn't really make you feel better
i was originally thinking if things were feeling weird still later that i would just move
and try and find something
but i decided i would be happier to embrace something which i know
This is my stomping grounds.
VitaNuovaJon: Stomp all over
I think I have somewhat decided my future plans for a little while. I am going to go ahead and renew my lease here in the (not very) west end for another 6 months. It will give me more time to look around for what I do want and my roommate more time to figure out what he's going to do. When this new lease is up (around May 08) I am going to try and move into a place in the Carytown area of Richmond.
I have decided that I like the city, and I like the country, its the in-between (where I am) that I can't stand. I hate the chain stores and sprawling suburbia. In the city I can bike or walk nearly everywhere I want to go, I am right close to all the parks I have been talking about loving so much, I am near the river, good music, and pretty much everything thats happening. I hope to find a 1.5 bedroom place to live in by myself with the dog. I can have a separate room for music (spawned from Brandon's sweet setup), sleep in one room, then have the living room/kitchen for everything else. I am really ready for some space of my own, where I can do absolutely anything I want, however loud I want, whenever I want. I wish I could get into it now, but the wait will be necessary and good. It will be awesome when I move to the new place though, then will really be the time to come visit and really enjoy being in the heart of this city that is growing on me so much.
I will probably have to continue to rent for a little while so I can build up some money to buy something. If the job is still going well by then and I have enough money, I will probably actually buy something in the city even though I have always talked about buying in the country away from everything. That can be for way later. Buying in the city will really only be an investment. I have high hopes for Richmond's continued growth and cleanup. Even now anything that you would buy in the nicer areas of the city is only going to appreciate and I will really only be investing in something I can sell for the same or more than what I put into it. Then when I want to a long way into the future I can sell that place and purchase something somewhere else.
I am excited about this plan. I wrote it mainly for me just to get it down, but if you are interested, there ya go. It seems a good ways off now but the way time is passing these days it will be happening in absolutely no time.
Wooosh
I am falling in love with this place. This morning I had an amazing experience wondering around the park system in the city. Seriously it was spiritual, I don't really get it, but I felt it, and it was awesome.
I started off just taking Cheyenne to the dog park, which turned out to be better than I thought. The park is awesome and there are tons of dogs there running around with each other. Cheyenne surprised me and was really really good with the other dogs. I will definitely be stopping by there more often now.
So after I left the park I just went wondering around Byrd park with Cheyenne. It was a hot but beautiful day. We walked around Dogwood Dell and checked out the awesome tower. Then I wondered around behind it and got on this trail that was unmarked just wondering where it went. I started walking it and ended up way back in the woods. An awesome little secluded area in the middle of the city in between parks that it seemed no one wondered. I eventually popped out in front of another park that I have been meaning to go visit/explore, Pumphouse - 3-Mile Loch Park.
www.jamesriverpark.org says: "This complex includes the first operatingl canal system in the United States - opened in 1789, as well as a beautiful stone building that looks like a church on the outside, a castle on the inside and has a public ballroom on the second floor. These are being restored." This place was amazing. There were only a couple of people there, it is one of those parks that no one seems to talk about. Everyone knows about Byrd and Maymont, but who goes to Pumphouse? I wondered around nearly every squarefoot of it. The park runs along the old canal system. There are three canals. Two were for boats and one was the water supply for the city. (Now the new pump house sits right next to the old and still feeds the city as it did 150 years ago.) In the park is the old pumphouse which is entirely made of granite and absolutely beautiful. The pumphouse was downstairs and upstairs was a huge open air dance hall. Just looking at it you can see what it used to be like 150 years ago. It is incredible. People used to come up in a boat on the canal, get out and go to the fancy dress dance upstairs. I was having self-created flashbacks in my head like in a movie with all the people dressed up and arriving and dancing with music playing up on the dance floor overlooking the canal when it was well kept and in service. Richmond park service has it in their longterm plan to restore the place to its original function. (That will be amazing!) I can't really explain what I experienced but it was incredible walking around and feeling the history and beauty of the place.
Richmond is full of places like this. There are parks everywhere in the city and millions of trails which are ready to be explored. The history in this city is awe-some. People live here nearly their whole lives (my parents) and never explore what this city is built around/on. I am falling in love with this place.
When I was in Europe, particularly Germany, I wondered around a lot of the parks there in the middle of the cities and I loved it. I was thinking to myself how awesome it would be to live in a city like this. Why aren't our cities like this? Well what do you know Richmond has an incredible park system right in the middle of it and 90% of the people who live here have only explored 2% of it.
This city used to be the capital of the South and it was beautiful and amazing. Sometime in the last 100 years majority of the people who could afford it moved out into the suburbs and left the city to dissolve. People need to get out there and explore this place and they will fall in love with it too and the desire will build within the people to restore this place to what it was and what it could be.
I want to move into the city. There is an empty apartment next to my buddies right in Carytown which is incredible. I hope that I am able to get into it. I want to keep exploring this place and become a part of it.
Life is good.
I think I am going to start using this heavily to post brief reviews of the books I read. Which could end up being ridiculous considering I read 5 in the 2.5 weeks I was in Europe. We will see...I just like books...BOOKS! Anyway i'll probably forget tomorrow. (To see my books scroll down and click the images of books at the bottom right of the page...this is where they hide them. You can click "view more of my books" to see older ones I have posted.)
On another note...I really love my job and am very happy to be back where I was. I feel like I work with just a big group of friends. Pretty awesome. There is a constant intra-cubical rubber band war over the entire office, so much so, people actually have post it notes with arrows on the inside of their cubical of where to aim exactly to hit someone in the head while they are at their computer 4 cubicals away.
Richmond has been fun as anything so far. Blinton lives about 14 minutes away which is fantastic. Friday we went to Keller Williams (for free), Saturday the Beer and Seafood festival, Sunday bluegrass at legends. Hopefully I can have another person sold on Richmond soon so that I am not the only one in the world who thinks it is a pretty cool place to live.
Speaking of being sold... I am SOLD on bluegrass at Legends on Sunday evenings. I will be a regular for as long as I live here. Amazing microbrewery beer and fantastic bluegrass with a great view of the city over the river and excellent burgers. So much for nutrition on those days its probably going to be 3 beers and a burger every Sunday for years to come.
Welp... I am back from Europe now. My last months have been ridiculous. I need to go on an extended sabbatical and try and figure out who I am now. Everyone knows the last month of school was weird. I spent 3 or 4 days a week camping in the woods for the last four weeks. Then graduated and practically the next day left for a 2.5 week extreme Europe tour. I came home to a new life waiting for me. With my own house, own bills, own every sort of responsibility. I live with an old (elementary school) friend. It is pretty awesome. I like my place a lot, its simple and good. I just feel incredibly weird though. I am looking forward to starting work and regaining some kind of schedule to structure myself around to some degree (but not too much). I had to fill out forms on the plane and for the first time in my life when it said "Occupation:" i didn't write "student" but "Civil Engineer" ... thats bizarre. Anyway I have some friends scattered through out the area and that is good. I need to get up with people. I have spent the last two days recovering from jet lag and looking at my wounded bank account.
On another note there are some great things happening this summer which i am looking forward to. Here is a schedule of where you might expect to find me on a lot of weekends.
::Friday Cheers 6:30-9:30::
-KELLER WILLIAMS THIS FRIDAY CHEERS JUNE 8th
-June 9th Beer and Seafood festival with 5 bands
-June 15 - AAE with Crucial Elements (reggae)
-June 16-17 James River Adventure Games
-June 22 - Drive by truckers
-June 29 - The Slip
-Oct 12-14 National Folk Festival
Sunday nights Bluegrass at Legends
