Looking for a nice place to have a getaway but can’t leave the town? Might I suggest the Drury Plaza Broadview Hotel?

Here I am relaxing in the worlds most comfortable chair, day dreaming at this great view.

Next, I’m going to walk down to the lobby an cash in my free drink ticket and chomp on some appetizers.

Even though I didn’t leave the city, I am relaxing like I flew 500 miles away. Everyone deserves some down time and this is how I choose to do it.

In your town, what’s the best place that you like to enjoy a little ‘me time’?

The way that Fab works is they have sales on quarky, out of the box and designer created products that go on for 2 days at a time. You can find furniture, kitchen wear, jewelry, home decor, books, magazine subscriptions and more.

My first purchase was a year-long Dwell magazine subscription for only $6. My second purchase a Simple Living book that will teach you to grow your own food and utilize it in cooking (something I really want in my life but have no clue where to start.) That book, only $12.

Then yesterday, I found a bundle of deals and things that I badly wanted:

All of this cost me about $40.

Another thing that I will mention about this website is that they have the most amazing customer service. I had noticed that my Simple Living book was supposed to arrive by July 19, 2011 at the latest and on July 20, 2011 it dawned on me that I still hadn’t received it. I sent them a quick email asking what the hold up was and that I was worried that I wouldn’t get the rest of my purchases either. Within the hour, a man named Rick emailed me back. He told me that the books were on a bit of a delay from the original seller and that they were going out this week. He was going to send me a new confirmation number. My worries were over and I was completely happy with the honesty but more excited about the timeliness of his email. THAT is how online customer service should be.

I’ve been so happy with Fab that I think you would be too. Here’s my personal invite for you: FAB!

Now in 2011 I am putting together my brand new and shiny Google+ profile. Oh how excited and giddy I am! I start placing my peeps into circles, I am updating with random nonsense and then I get a red box with the number 1 in it.

“For me?!”  I say to myself silently.

I click on it and there it is, my first rando who has added me to their “People I’m going to perve on” circle. I don’t in fact know if that’s the name of the circle, but I’m thinking I’m right because of the following information: His name? Big Hunk. His occupation? Hunking.

My thoughts? Confused. Why oh why is this always happening to me.

Now, because I love everything about Google and refuse to MySpace them out of my life (yes, it’s perfectly fine to use MySpace as an adjective to describe the act of eliminating something from your life based on it’s ability to suck at everything,) I will continue with Google+.

I will, however, be cautious and utilize these circles to the fullest when referring to Big on Google+. As Antoine Dodson says, “Hide Yo Kids and Hide Yo Wife [ because the Google+ Pervo is coming to get you*]“

*I added that in there. I’m assuming he’s going to add that when he does the greatest hits of the remixes done on the remix of his interview.

The End.

In response to the question and many of the twitterers who also shared the same concern, yes this is in fact ironic.

For those who are confused on what irony actually is, dictionary.com explains it as, “a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.” For those who are still confused, one would suggest to listen to Alanis Morrisette’s song, Ironic, however her song really doesn’t have any irony in it- is that ironic? Again, yes.

Back to the photo at question. By Willow Smith wearing a t-shirt that says, “Fresh” on it, @seancamore would be correct when he states that the word, “Fresh” is in fact misused and overused. Because of its 1980s adoption to be a common and often used slang word of “Cool,” the word within itself has an ironic theme.

There is another ironic theme to this photo, but you’ll have to follow closely to understand it. Willow Smith is wearing a shirt that says, “Fresh” with her father, Will Smith’s face. Will Smith, AKA The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, was a popular figure for the word Fresh. Fresh in it literal meaning is “new, not previously known, to seek fresh experiences.” So by her wearing a shirt, with the “Fresh Prince of Bel Aire” and a shirt that says, “Fresh” she is not: 1) Displaying something new. Fresh is a word that has it’s own literal meaning and can be traced before the year 900, 2)stating something that is not previously known. It is the year 2011, her father is previously known as the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire and finally 3) One could say that she is not seeking fresh experiences by wearing this shirt, unless someone asks her to Whip her Hair Back and Forth while skydiving because they recognized her dad on the shirt. At least I don’t think she has done that yet.

So you see ladies and gentlement, this shirt is in fact ironic. The real crime here, is Jayden’s pants. The End.

For those who don’t know about redheads, they tend to burn easily. I don’t include myself in that bunch as I was lucky in my family genome that no one really stuck to the oh-so-untold-code of ‘sticking with like people,” thus allowing me the ability to tan. In other words, my family members over the past thousands of years haven’t discriminated against getting with anyone. After doing my own investigation through the family tree and asking around, I am a German, Irish, Polish/Bohemian, Maybe Scottish, English, French Canadian, Cherokee Indian.

I am also one of a handful of redheads my family has popped out and every single one of us has had the ability to tan- or obtain enough freckles to where it seems as if we are tan. Although many people would classify me as a ‘daywalker’ I still do have a tendency to burn at least once a summer. I try to get this out of the way as soon as possible, because the earlier on it is, the more I can cover it up with out being completely uncomfortable in 50 layers of clothes. Also, once I get my lobster moment on that means that I can enjoy the rest of the summer turning a golden shade of brown like every other normal person on this planet. Cool down skin cancer peeps- I don’t condone the action of purposely burning. But it’s either get all done once or suffer all summer long with burns. No matter the amount of sunscreen I apply, it will happen either way.

Now that you have this background info, it’s time for the real story.

This past weekend was Memorial Day Weekend. I was fully prepared to get my burn on Saturday through Monday, however those plans went straight out the window as soon as the weather decided to be a jerk and only be sun-shiny on Sunday. That only meant that I had to cake on the burn as much as possible- I only had this one chance before summer officially begins and I was not going to waste it.

So from 11 a.m. Sunday morning to about 6 p.m. Sunday night I sat in direct sunlight. No shade, no coverings. I sat away from everyone so they wouldn’t block my light. I was also sure to Matrix-move myself out of the way of any sunscreen spray headed in my direction. Believe me, this process was quite exhausting. However, by the end of the evening, I was happy to find that when I first looked in the mirror I was a nice shade of devil red. I could have cooked an egg on my shoulder. I wish I had a photo to prove it, but you have an imagination- so use it.

While the aloe vera makes my shirts stick to my shoulders and I will smell like Bullfrog the next 3 days, it was well worth it. I can now freely enjoy the sunshine without the fear of this happening again.

For all those redheads out there who don’t tan, I’m sorry. That sucks for you. But you just be lucky that you’re not a German, Irish, Polish/Bohemian, Maybe Scottish, English, French Canadian, Cherokee Indian, Redheaded Lobster.

There are tons of statues hidden around Botanica. I especially liked this one, found in the Shakespeare Garden. The girl with the basket, is surrounded perfectly by plants that you could see someone picking.

Anywho, I took my mom to Botanica for Mother’s day.  Botanica was free that day so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for us to experience something that had literally been in our backyard for more than 10 years. We got there early enough and we were able to travel through free from the overly large crowds that billowed in as we left.

Although I remembered my experience from Botanica as a 12-year-old, I really forgot how breathe-taking the atmosphere really is. While Riverside is a beautiful area, the inside of Botanica is like walking into a whole new world; really inspiring.

We were able to look at the building plans which included a kids corner, a giant tree house and a lizard pond.

I have been unable the last few years to really stop and smell the flowers (literally and figuratively) due to my overload of classes and multiple jobs. Now that I am only working the one job, I was intrigued by Botanica to venture to the other Forgotten Worlds around Kansas. Hopefully this will be a new segment for me– stay tuned!

One occasion where I dance, is my weekly event, #GangsterMusicThursday. Those who follow me on Twitter, may have seen this hashtag before. Now I am welcoming you to join me.

On Thursdays I open my Pandora to my Tupac, Dr. Dre, Twista or Beastie Boy playlist. Usually between these e choices I can find everything I’d want to listen to that’s dubbed gangster in my book.

Thursday was declared Gangster Music day because it just so happened to be the day of the week that I really wanted to listen to gangster jams. That’s it. No real story there.

Anywho, I am now declaring it Gangster Music Day. I think anyone with the desire to be a badass needs a day where they can get down, get dirty and get gangster. So please, won’t you help spread the word?

I have this magnet next to my desk. It reminds me every Thursday that it is a Gangster sort of day. I also hoped that it would be a conversation piece, but no one comes into my office anyway.

First, before I go any further, MobiBrix is a DBA of Lowen Sign Company, which is a part of Lowen Corporation, which is the company I work for as a communication specialist. Ipso Facto, I am the one who created projectShare and manage MobiBrix’s Facebook page among the other Lowen social media pages. So I guess you could say, that I am the guinea pig for my own project, but I am quite ok with this because I really wanted to do it anyway.

Now that I’ve disclosed that information, let me tell you what I am doing. See this here?

This is a MobiBrix Reusable QR Code on this well designed flap of paper. (Ok… scratch well designed, but my mom would definitely hang it on her fridge, mmm k?) I have created 10 MobiBrix Reusable QR Codes. I will have 10 different codes around Wichita, placed in different areas. Here’s what I want you to do when you find them:

1. Scan it playa! I will be leading you back to some of my favorite websites, blog posts and photos.
2. Tweet me @jaywalker20 and let me know that you found one of my codes. Give me the alphanumeric code when you tweet me (for example the code above is 3J0NEF)
3. After you tweet me, I will change the URL to the code and keep the sharing from that location a-movin
4. After that, if we’re not already following one another on Twitter, then we’ll begin the process of becoming buds where we’ll RT and Tweet and DM all day long.

Of course this is semi-promoting how you can change the URL to the MobiBrix QR Codes, without having to create a code, but it’s also promoting Sharing with others. Now we share by liking on Facebook, retweeting messages on Twitter, passing along hilarious videos on YouTube and updating blogs to give people an insight to our interests. Well, I’m taking the share function out into the wild and I want you to do the same!

Please feel free to tweet or comment if you have any questions!

Update- it has rained a bunch around Wichita and I don’t think my codes have survived the storms. Starting June 10 I will be out placing them again, so keep a look out if you see it. They aren’t hidden like easter eggs or in a tree stump, under a coke can like the Riverfest Medallion. Enjoy!

After staring at it enough, I started to create little quips that seemed fitting. This was my latest one. And yes, that was a real thought that went through my head during this part of filming.

Totally normal– until I got closer to Burrton. I started to see piles of remains and I immediately thought, “Poor Turtle, never saw it coming.” However, these were no turtle remains. They were clothing– and lots of it!

Shoes, pants, shirts and underwear, lots and lots of underwear, were spread down the highway for at least 8 miles. No I didn’t keep track of the exact mileage, but there was particles of clothing all the way until the Mount Hope Hill. Perhaps someone’s box of clothing got loose in the back of a truck while moving or perhaps someone was angry at their ex and decided to dump all their clothes down the highway as they blasted “Yous a Ho” by Ludacris. I don’t believe that either of these are the answer though. I think we had a gang of streakers running down K-96 this morning.

So, if you see a bunch of naked people running down the street, probably around the Hutchinson area, please let them know that their clothes are really inconvenient for those of us driving to work and we’d all appreciate it if they would pick their stuff up. Also, if someone doesn’t claim the clothes soon, I will be taking the red Pumas. They looked like my size.