BrandonoBrien.com

Brandon O'Brien

Travel and Adventure Journal

I wanted a place to journal all my travels and adventures around the world. I always enjoy going back and reflecting on my past travels and getting to relive them through my words and photos.

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Cruising through Key West and Cozumel

Cruising through Key West and Cozumel

Tuesday, December 25, 2007 @ 12:00 PM in General Travel

This year my parents decided to book a four-day cruise for the family. The cruise stopped in Key West and Cozumel, Mexico each for a day and then we had a day at sea on the way back to Tampa. The cruise was a lot of fun aside from some of the huge lines we had to wait in to get on and off the ship in the ports. The ship was the Royal Caribbean "Grandeur of the Sea" and was a little smaller than the cruise we went on a few years ago (this one didn't have the putt-putt course on the 9th floor).

In Key West we went on the "Conch Train"... a tour through the island that pointed out different historical facts and showed various aspects of the island. The tour guide was funny and informative and made the tour fun. After that we walked up and down Duvaul street (the main drag in Key West) and went into a lot of the little shops. There were a lot of bums/street performers lining most of Duvaul street. Some of the better ones were the people who dress up like statues and pose. That night was formal night on the cruise, so we had to leave the island a little early to get dressed up and do photos and everything. The food was good and we had some wine with dinner.

The second stop was Cozumel, Mexico. When we got off the boat we took a taxi to Chankanaab State Park where we planned to relax on the beach and snorkel. When we got there, we picked out some seats and rented some snorkeling gear and got into the water. The water was surprisingly clear and warm. We stayed there for a few hours and then got a taxi back into town where we walked through some shops. The shops mostly had the same things over and over... if you saw one store, you saw about 95% of them. Instead of eating on the boat we grabbed dinner at a restaurant overlooking the main street and ocean.

Our last day on the ship was spent at sea. I spent most of this day laying out on the deck or in the hot tub. When not relaxing I was usually eating. All the free food on the ship was definitely cool and I got my fare share of food on the trip.

The trip went by pretty fast but it was still fun. Hopefully next time we won't have to wait in lines like we did this time and we can cruise for a few more days.

I uploaded some of the photos I took from the cruise. Check them out by clicking on the image above or the photo icon below.

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Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Hike through some extinct volcanoes

Hike through some extinct volcanoes

Saturday, April 28, 2007 @ 12:00 PM in Miscellaneous

I'm trying to take one day each week and go on a few mile hike and explore the area around Albuquerque. Today I decided I'd go up to the top of the three extinct volcanoes just west of Albuquerque. They're located in the same Petroglyph National Monument that I went hiking in last weekend.

The day was perfect. There were very few clouds in the sky and it was probably 80 degrees with a little bit of wind. The hike I took went through all 3 of the big volcano cones and was probably about a 3 mile hike. The views were pretty neat from up at the peaks and completely different than what you find down in the city or over at the Sandias.

The hike lasted a couple hours and I took about 140 pics with my Nikon D50. There were very few people out when I was there... in fact, I went about an hour without seeing any other people. It was a nice relaxing hike. I think next week I'm going to hit up the La Luz trail over on the north side of the Sandias.

I uploaded some of the photos I took from the hike. Check them out by clicking on the image above or the photo icon below.

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Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Hike through the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque

Hike through the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque

Sunday, April 22, 2007 @ 12:00 PM in Miscellaneous

Today I was working on some website stuff and kept looking out my window and getting distracted by how nice it was. After wrapping a few things up I decided to take my Nikon D50 out to the Petroglyph National Monument here in Albuquerque to check it out.

I got there at about 2:30 and saw there was a sign in the parking lot saying the gates closed at 5:00. I was thinking about trying to get all the way to the Volcanic cones, but realized that was a lot farther than I had time to go. The temperature was perfect, but it started to cloud over after I had been walking for a while. The hike was mostly on sand with some desert brush and a lot of basalt rocks laying everywhere.

On the rocks there are Petroglyphs that were carved into the rocks from the natives between 1300-1600AD. Unfortunately there has been some vandalism around them (people carving their initials into the rocks next to the petroglyphs), but there are some that have been left untouched. I ended up walking for about two hours, which I'm guessing was probably 3-4 miles (considering I was taking a lot of pictures).

I uploaded some of the photos I took from the hike. Check them out by clicking on the image above or the photo icon below. Also, I did use the appropriate color profile on these, so they're much brighter and vivid than the previous sets I've uploaded.

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Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Hiking in the Sandia Foothills

Hiking in the Sandia Foothills

Saturday, April 14, 2007 @ 12:00 PM in Miscellaneous

My parents are in town visiting from Tampa, FL and we planned on taking a hike today in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains here in Albuquerque. The weather had been pretty crappy the last few days (rain and snow) and the weather was calling for today to be nice. We crossed our fingers and hoped the rain wouldn't make the trails all messy and muddy. Luckily by the time we got up to the trails the sun had burnt off most of the water and the clouds had parted.

The weather was pretty much perfect when we got there. It was sunny with a few clouds and probably about 65 degrees. As we were walking I was taking pictures with my Nikon D50 and new Sigma 10-20mm lens. I got some really nice shots and uploaded them to the gallery here. We ended up hiking around 2 miles and got to see some great views (and even a few rabbits).

The trails we hiked at can be reached by going east on Montgomery until it turns into a one lane road (this is past Tramway). Turn left on Glenwood Hills and go about a half mile. Turn right on Trailhead and you'll reach a big parking lot. There were a lot of mountain bikers up there as well as hikers and joggers.

After the hike we drove a little farther south in the foothills to look at some condos I saw online. I'm totally going to have to find a place in the foothills so I can be right at the mountains and trails. If anyone knows of a place around there, let me know.

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Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Wii-venture at Walmart

Wednesday, December 6, 2006 @ 12:00 PM in Miscellaneous

Eric, Matt and I just completed one of the single nerdiest things I've ever done in my life. We camped out at Walmart for a Nintendo Wii. I'm not a console fanboy or anything, but the Wii seems like it's a pretty solid piece of hardware and has some cool games so I figured I'd wait with them. I called Walmart last night to find out how many they had and they told us around 30.

Our original plan was to show up to Walmart around midnight and wait in line. We went by around 9:30 to check out the situation and the lady told us we'd have to wait outside for a while, then we could go inside. Eric and I came back home and put on our cold weather clothes and then met up with Matt again at Walmart. By now it was around 11 and we went to sit outside.

I went inside to double check that we were in the right place and discovered about 5 people waiting in the Lawn and Garden section. They had a sign up sheet and everything. I quickly called Matt and Eric and told them to come inside. We got there, signed up and waited, and waited, and waited.

We talked a lot with the other people, played Simpsons trivia, watched movies, slept (or tried to... as much as you can on a cold concrete floor). The 30th person finally showed up around 4:15 in the morning. Walmart wasn't doing anything to help with the flow of people or organization, so we all took it into our own hands to make sure a riot didn't break out.

The first few hours went by pretty quick, but the last two seemed to take forever. Finally a Walmart manager came over, gave everyone tickets and had us go buy our Wii's. I got Zelda with mine. I probably wont be able to play it for at least a week due to moving and everything.

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Interview in Albuquerque

Interview in Albuquerque

Saturday, November 4, 2006 @ 12:00 PM in General Travel

I just got back from my trip to Albuquerque, NM to interview with Eclipse Aviation for the Webmaster / Graphic Designer position. My old roommate Ramy works out there and let me know about the position opening and got me in contact with Eclipse.

I flew out Thursday afternoon and got into Albuquerque around 3:00 local time. I got to the car rental place and then went and checked into the hotel. After getting settled in, I got a hold of Ramy and met up with him after he got off work. We went downtown and had a few drinks, then met up with one of his friends from work and ate at Gardunos. I had the Flautas which were really good, and a Margarita which was also quite excellent. After eating, I went back to my hotel and went to bed so I could get up early for my interview Friday morning.

On Friday, I woke up, took a shower, ironed my clothes that got all wrinkled from the trip, ate breakfast and then headed over to Eclipse. I got there a few minutes early and checked in. The interviews started at 9 and I was in interviews until 3:00 that afternoon. I talked with several people and they also took me out to lunch at a nice Greek place (which was also part of the interviews). The lunch interview was with the IT guys and we talked about IIS, Apache, ASP, PHP, servers, programming, Vi, Pico and a lot of other awesome stuff :o. I was also shown around the facilities and got to meet a lot of people who work for Eclipse. All in all, I think the interviews went well and will hear back one way or another sometime this week about the position.

On Friday night, Ramy, one of his coworkers and I went to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The movie was awesome and I recommend everyone see it. Ramy and I have known about Borat since our sophomore years of college and have introduced many many people to it. After the movie we went to Frontier (a restaurant on the UNM campus that's open 24/7 and serves a mixed variety of food). I wasn't too hungry so I just had a lemonade. After that I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

I slept in on Saturday and then drove down to Old Town in Albuquerque. Old Town has a bunch of shops and restaurants, plus a lot of museums. I ended up eating breakfast/lunch outside at a sidewalk cafe type place. They had something called "Pizzadillas" on their menu, so I tried that. It's basically a quesadilla with pepperoni inside as well. They served some chips and salsa with the meal and I kinda relaxed there for a while. After walking around some more in Old Town, I went up to the airport. In Albuquerque, they have an "Aircraft Viewing Area" by the airport and I sat there for a while and watched the planes take off and land. It was a great place to relax because you have the view of the mountains in the background. Check out the photo gallery to see some of the pics I took of the area.

After that, I went back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit before Ramy and I met up for dinner. We had a late lunch / early dinner at Kelly's Brew Pub, then went up to the top of the Sandia Crest and got to see the view. From the top, you could see Albuquerque on one side, and off in the distance on the other you could see Santa Fe. It was a really neat place. We got there right at sunset and it was neat seeing the city lit up. After coming down from the mountain, we met up with some of Ramy's friends at an italian place. After that we went bowling and the 7 of us split a few pitchers of beer. We got about 5 rounds of bowling in and the best I got was a 148 I think. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the amount of beer consumed and the improvement of our game... go figure. The first game I only got in the 90s, then the second I broke 100 and it went up. By the last game, we all kinda gave up and were just messing around rolling the balls grandma style or seeing how fast we could launch them down the aisle. I got back to the hotel around midnight and went to bed.

I woke up at 5:30 this morning because my flight left at 8 and I needed to get to the airport early for security and everything. Plus I had to take a shower, check out of the hotel and return the rental car. The flights back were fine. I had a long flight to Ohare, then a short one from Ohare to Indy. I slept most of the way on both flights since I didn't have a book with me.

I have another phone interview with Apple at 8:00am tomorrow which should be cool. That means I should probably wrap this up and head off to bed soon since I'm still a little tired from traveling all day.

Be sure to click the link below to view some of the photos I took while I was there.

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Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

WEMF 2006

Monday, July 24, 2006 @ 12:00 AM in General Travel

I just got back from the World Electronic Music Festival up in Tweed, Ontario this weekend. Scott and I drove up from Indy on Friday night. We left his house around 9 at night and drove straight through for the 13 hour trip. We got up there around 10:00 in the morning but couldn't get in until Noon because that was the time they would switch the ticket prices from the 3 day to 2 day price (a savings of 50 bucks). So we ended up just sitting around for a few hours and waited to get in.

Once we got in the gates, we had to find a place to park and set up camp. We drove around for a bit and ended up finding a spot that was in a pretty central location to all the stages. We walked around a bit and realized most of the people were still passed out from the night before and none of the music would really start up again until about 5-6:00 at night. Since we had been running on no sleep and were hungry, we made some sandwiches and then slept in the car for an hour.

After the nap, it was almost time for the music to start up again. I changed into my I <3 Boobs shirt and we started walking around. Almost immediately people started coming up to me and saying stuff like "hell yeah man, me too" or "nice shirt, don't we all!" This lasted the entire night and was pretty funny that so many people came up and talked to me because of the shirt. I ended up running into OTer DittoAlex because he recognized the shirt.

They had a few different stages set up. There was a Hardcore stage, Trance stage, Drum and Bass stage and an Alternative stage. Each one had a different crowd that followed it. It was pretty funny to see the different types of people who like the different types of music. Scott and I basically walked around all of them since all the music was pretty good.

We ended up staying up unitl around 3:00am and then decided we should probably try to get some sleep before heading home. We slept until about 8:00 in the morning and then packed up the car and started our journey home. The way back only took about 11 and a half hours. The drive back was really nice. It was partly cloudy through most of Ontario which made for an easy drive.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos because it's hard to carry a camera around when there are 5,000+ people jumping around.

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Spring Break Skiing in Colorado

Sunday, March 19, 2006 @ 12:00 PM in General Travel

This year for spring break, instead of doing the whole beach thing, I went out to Colorado with my family to visit my Aunt and to go skiing out at Keystone.

Before I left for break I had to find a bag to put my skis and poles in. I went to Rusted Moon Outfitters in Broadripple but they were already sold out for the season. They recommended that I try Play it Again Sports. Sure enough, I went over there and found a used bag for $15. It wasn't anything fancy but it got my skis out and back. I left Indy around 8:00pm Monday for Denver. I flew on Frontier Airlines where they had the LCD screens on the seat backs and you could watch your progress live. I listened to Armin van Buuren and read Backpacker Magazine. About 2 hours later I arrived at Denver.

My family was already out there (they flew in a few hours earlier and went to my Aunts house). I called my dad when I got in and he came and picked me up. My aunt had made some really good pasta with meatballs and sausage and I warmed some of that up when I got to her place then went to bed.

The next morning we woke up and ate a quick breakfast and headed out towards Keystone. The drive took about 2 hours but it was awesome. The drive started just outside of Denver and took us up into the mountains. We got up to Keystone around 1:00 I believe and stopped at a rental place so my brother and sister could pick up some skis. We had been planning on skiing Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but the people at the rental place informed us that there would be no Night Skiing on Tuesday. So we just went to the condo early and hung around for a while then ate some dinner. You could see the slopes from our window and we were almost within walking distance to the slopes (it was a tough walk in ski boots). After dinner we went to bed a little early so we could wake up right away and go skiing.

We woke up on Wednesday and it was a little cloudy, but we geared up and headed out to the slopes where we stayed on Peak 1 the whole day getting used to the really long runs (one of them was 3.5 miles long and took a good 15-20 minutes to get down). We skiied until about noon when we went back to the condo for lunch. By that time it had really started to snow hard and we couldn't even see the mountains from our window. We waited around for a little while for the snow to let up a bit. I had a New Castle Brown Ale before I took off for the slopes again to help warm me up a bit. My brother, sister and I skiied for the rest of the day until we came back for dinner. My mom made some Chicken Casserole and broccoli for dinner. After eating my brother and sister were too tired to go skiing at night, so I took off around 6:00 and pretty much had the slopes to myself until 8:00 when I came back in. I had another beer and went off to bed so I could get up and take some pictures because the weather said it was supposed to be great on Thursday.

After waking up the next morning and seeing just how awesome it was outside, I got my snow suit on, got my camera and headed out alone to the mountains. My sister was going to try and get my mom off the bunny slopes and my brother wanted to stick to some of the terrain park areas on peak 1.

I made my way up to the top of Peak 1 and started taking photos. The blue run I took to peak 2 was pretty neat. It was a lot harder (read more fun) than the ones that we were doing the previous day. To get all the way over to peak 3 I had to go up and down peak 1, then up and down peak 2, and finally up peak 3. The sky was an intense blue and I was snapping pics the whole time. It was probably some of the most fun skiing I've ever had. The views were incredible and the runs were challenging, but not too difficult where I couldn't do them.

After I got to peak 3, I headed back to peak 1 where I was going to meet up with my brother and sister again. When I finally got back, it was about 11:30 so we just decided to go back for some lunch. My dad had smoked some pork back home and they brought it with them so we could have pork sandwiches for lunch. They were really good and my brother and sister and I headed back out to the slopes. We went all over peak 1 but stuck mostly to the terrain park areas where we were taking some crazy jumps and having fun. We tried doing some skiing through the trees but my skis were just too long (186cm) and it wasn't working too well.

After getting a few more good hours of skiing in, we went back for some dinner. We went to a place called the Old Dillon Inn that my dad had found out about when he saw the menu in a magazine or something. The food was alright but a little expensive. When we finished eating we put our boots back on for some night skiing. We knew that our ski trip was almost coming to an end because we had to leave for Denver again on Friday afternoon.

The night skiing was awesome on Thursday night. There wasn't any snow blowing and the temperature was at the perfect level. We stuck mostly to a run called the Spring Dipper because it wasn't too crowded and there was a nice mix of steep fast runs as well as relaxing sections. We skiied until about 8:30 that night and then went in so we could get up early and get to ski for a few hours in the morning.

We got up early once again and packed up all of our suitcases and got into our ski gear because we had to be out of the condo by 10:00. We had a good time skiing for a few hours and then met up with our parents to head back to Denver where we were going to have dinner with our Aunt.

When we got back to my Aunt's house we all talked for a while since we didn't really have much time to on Monday when we all arrived. I was able to check teh internets for the first time in almost a week but the only thing in my inbox was spam.

We left for dinner around 5:30 and went to a really nice European restaurant. One of my dads business buddies was there and we all sat at the bar and talked for a good hour or so. When it came time to order, I ended up getting the Veal Parmesean with french onion soup which was really really good. After all was said and done, we ended up leaving the restaurant around 10:30 and made our way back home.

When we got back, we all went to bed because we had to catch our flights back home in the morning. My parents had to drive to an airport that was about an hour and a half away so they left around 10:00 in the morning. My aunt was going to drop me off at the Denver airport so we left her place around 11:00 and had some breakfast. I got to the airport pretty early because my flight didn't leave until 2:55. I sat there and edited some of the photos i took on my laptop until my battery died. About an hour and a half later I boarded the plane and headed back to Indy and then drove back to Purdue.

Overall the whole vacation was awesome. I'm definitely going to try to get back out there this summer for some backpacking. I also decided that one of these days I'm going to move out there. There's just so much to do out there with all the mountains. You can go mountain biking, rock climbing, skiing, rafting, etc, etc.

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

Moving Day

Friday, January 6, 2006 @ 12:00 PM in Miscellaneous

I've spent all day getting a great workout, even though it was unintentional. Lifting boxes, beds, couches, TVs, tables and more have left Eric and I completely worn out while moving into our new apartment. Even though the apartment is just around the corner from my old place, it has still taken the good part of a day to get both of our things moved into the new place.

Eric and his dad showed up around 11:30 with the Uhaul and we signed the lease and got the keys to the new apartment. After unloading all of Eric's things, we went to my apartment to grab the big items like the couches, kitchen table, my desk and a few things that are just a little bit too big to fit in my car.

The new apartment, which is located at Blackbird Farms is very nice. There is a lot of room for everything and we even have a huge storage closet that would be big enough for someone to put a desk in there and turn it into a tiny workcenter. The bedrooms are a little different in size, but it doesn't seem too noticeable and the bathroom even has a nice closet so we don't have to store everything on a metal rack. We even have a really nice view outside our balcony of a field. The view at my old place was of a retirement home.

Tags: old blog

Posted from: United States

EAA AirVenture 2005

EAA AirVenture 2005

Monday, August 1, 2005 @ 12:00 PM in General Travel

I flew up to the EAA AirVenture 2005 in Oshkosh, WI with Scott, Tomas and Tyler. We took one of Purdue's 4 seat Archers and it took about 2.5 hours to get there from West Lafayette.

The show was amazing. They had every type of aircraft you could ever think of. We got to see the White Knight and SpaceShip One up close and even got to see it fly. We stayed there July 30-31st. On the night of the 30th we went back into the show after all the tents and exhibits had closed. As we were walking around we came across SpaceShip One. The only people there were a few photographers and security guards. I really wish I would have brought my camera because the view of Spaceship One with the stars in the background was awesome.

We brought a tent and camped out under the plane. At 6:15 in the morning planes started taking off and it's really hard to sleep through that, so we all ended waking up after only about 5 hours of sleep. Other than being tired and sore, everything was very fun.

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Tags: airventure, old blog

Posted from: United States