Today I spotted a Twitt directed to be by @somnambulant saying he saw me on the An Event Apart website. Damn, I am so excited and honored to be in that photo!! Also in that photo you can see, to my left, @@jaymyers and my dear friend @jimdoran who I had the pleasure to meet at the WordCamp, a couple of days previous do An Event Apart!

I hope this year I manage to go again to San Francisco for the ‘09 WordCamp… Wanna Join me?

Peace and much love ;)

The road trip is about to end… but I’m just half-way into my vacation! Let me tell you what happened so far:

I left Pismo beach, which was awful, and headed down to Los Angeles! It was a beautiful road-trip, got to see the ocean side and even had some sushi in a little town called Carpinteria, east of Santa Barbara, where the waitress asked me if Portugal was to the north or to the south of where we were… hahahhaha!

When I got to L.A. I was excited about it – The city where dreams come true! But I found a chaotic little inferno! Anyway, I managed to head down to the Hollywood Bowl for the Donna Summer concert! W-O-W the woman still has a fantastic voice (although she’s old and fat) – she rocked the house!

When the concert ended the hell lit up again: it took me more than an hour to get to the Hotel (it was pretty close) – the traffic was unbelievable!

That day ended with a proposition for a three-some (with a friend of a friend who I’ve never even met), which I politely refused, and let myself fall asleep on the fabulous bed on my fabulous hotel in fabulous West Hollywood!

Next day I got a call by that same guy, who was really embarrassed by last nights proposal, and we agreed to get together for breakfast! He took me to this little charming bakery called Champagne, were we got to know each other and talk about L.A. and our friend in common (a Portuguese friend who lived there some years ago). I told him my plans for the day – to go see the Santa Monica Beach and peer, maybe see downtown, etc – and he promptly said “those things are too normal. You need to go to this bar, than that bar and there you’ll meet these kind of people and have *caugh* fun, bla, bla , bla”… GOD! Can you believe this??? Don’t get me wrong, the guy was super nice and friendly, but just because I’m a gay man, do I need to do that kind of program while I’m visiting a new city????

So, I decided to simply do my original plan and Go to Santa Monica beach and peer. Well… what a mistake! It took me forever to get there. Then, when I did, it was so crowded I felt nauseous and decided to get back which, guess what, took me forever! So, I went to the Hotel, got to the Hotel’s pool and relaxed the whole afternoon! So my L.A. experience sums up to Santa Monica Boulevard, The Hollywood Bowl, Santa Monica peer and the delicious hotel Ramada West Hollywood!

I guess it’s safe to say I HATED L.A.!

The next day, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough! Went to Starbucks for a coffee and hit the road down the 405 Freeway to San Diego!

On the way decided to stop by Laguna Beach and Newport Beach (”welcome to The O.C. bitch!”), just to check it out since I’m suck a big fan of the tv series “The O.C.”!!!! It was beautiful! OMG I wish I was filthy rich to have a villa there!

Continued my trip ’till I got to San Diego at about 3pm. Oh man, I’ve missed this! Got to the Studio 819 – the same apart-hotel I stayed back in 2002 – and went directly to the local Whole Foods Marked to stock up my fridge! All set up I decided to head down to the Culture Shock Dance Center, where I got to see Angie and Joe! It was so good seeing them again after 6 years! The day ended with me having a wonderful dinner at Mo’s (former Burger Mary’s where I used to hang out while I was here) with this cute guy I met online – Brian. He was fun to talk to and we had a great time having dinner. Oh, the photo you see above is of the word map they have at Mo’s where they placed my polaroid to represent Portugal! I was mapped!

Today began with me almost suffocating in my room (no AC here), then headed down to an Outlet Shopping close to the Mexican border, supposedly to buy some Adidas sneakers… instead I ended up buying a pair of jeans and a really cool Sony DSC-H50 digital still camera! (oh, and it was soooo cheap!!!)

After that I kinda got a bit stressed trying to come back because of the fuckin’ GPS, but I eventually got to the Culture Shock Dance Center to have a meeting with the directors. It looks like I’ll be teaming up with them to build their new website! I’m super excited!

Now is time to get my things in order because tomorow I check out of the hotel, and in the evening will drop my buddy – the Mazda 6 car I rented for this trip – and get on a flight to NYC for the rest of my vacation!

Again, you can always follow me on Flickr and Twitter!

Peace and much love ;)

So, my dear readers, I’ve been extremely careless about this blog!

As you might have already noticed, I’m away on my 2008 Dream Trip across the United States! It all started a week ago and so much has happened!!

Here’s a drill down on what I have been doing:

• Got to San Francisco
• Attended WordCamp (view photos)
• Attended An Event Apart (view photos)
• Had a wonderful time in San Francisco (view photos), including a visit to the Museum of Modern Art (view photos)
• Rented a car a drove to Santa Cruz (view photos)
• Continued my road-trip (view photos), down the 101, untill Prismo Beach, where I am right now!

Tomorrow I’m heading down to L.A., gonna see a Donna Summer concert and more news and photos will follow!

You can check out my Flickr account (a new found love). See and comment my photos as I post them daily! I’ll try to keep up with updates here on the blog, but the Flickr account will be updated daily! Oh, I’m also trying to update my twitter as much as possible, so join me up there! ;)

Peace and much much love ;)

Today I’m at the WordCamp 2008, in San Francisco – a conference for Wordpress developers and users.

The conference is amazing and i’ve been meeting amazing people! Jim is one of these amazing people I’ve just met and, after we found they had some wordpress logo fake tattoos for everybody, he had the idea of replacing the “W” on my “Mr.WannaB” tattoo, with the fake sticker tattoo of the Wordpress logo “W”! Check out the Flickr group to see other users tattoos!

What do you think of it?? Are we geeks enough? hahahah!

Later I’ll write about my trip to San Francisco…

Peace and much love ;)

In 7hours… California here I come! :D

What a concert! Words cannot express the river of emotions I felt!

So, as you might now, I came to Amsterdam to see my dear miss Jill Scott preform at the Paradiso concert hall. We got there and I was presented with this amazing hall, intimate and with a “homely” feeling to it, perfect for this kind of concert. The tension built as the time for the performace was coming up… I was standing center stage, with only a couple of people between me and Jill’s feet!!!

It was a perfect concert! Even better than the one I saw in Zürich back in November last year! She blinked at me (oh, I feel like a grupie!!!!) as the small group of us in the front sang the first verses of “Crown Royal on Ice” under her watchfull eye!! It was magical!

Unfortunately for you guys, I did not make a long clip as I did last time… but I needed to enjoy the concert without the distraction of the camera!!!!

Here it is… my edit on the clips of the concert:

Please comment on it, rate it, share it!

Here are some of the photos I took that day…

The Paradiso Concert Hall, right before the concert starts

The side of Paradiso, with Jill's backup singer standing there!

The stage at Paradiso, about 1 hour before the concert

My ticket to the concert

Jill Scott on stage

That’s it! It was one of those moments, oh so special, that will stay in my heart! Thank you Jill, again, for making me feel so good!

Peace and much love ;)

What a rollercoster of emotions! Had a wonderful time in the bellissima Verona, city of Romeo & Juliet, lovely! The top was near the end, when I got a taste of “The Temple of Wellbeing”, a Spa treatment that is extremelly special and emotional! More on this sometime in the future!

Now in Amsterdam, once again, this time (amongst other things) to see “my” dear Jill Scott perform live at the Paradiso concert hall! I’m sure it will be as amazing as the time I saw her in Zürich!

Here are some of today’s highlights:

After the rain

...comes the rainbow

and an amazing sunset

Peace and much love ;)

Here we go again! hehe!

Yesterday I got on a early morning flight to Milan, Italy. From there, by car, I got to a small town close to Verona and, even though I was terribly tired, I was taken out to dinner (delicious pizza) and to a lovely pool-side party!

I’m here for some training in an area that’s not my own, but good things will come out of this! (Plus, friday I’m spending the whole afternoon at the spa!).

Check out some of the photos:

View from the skies - photo taken on the flight from Lisbon to Milan

Arrival at the Milan Airport

On the Road from Milan to Verona (What a terrible terrible drive)

More news coming soon!

Peace and much love ;)