LeahAndMark.com

These are the latest entreprenuers to receive loans from LeahAndMark.com! thru Kiva.org - I decided to change things up this time - instead of choosing people who were already close to meeting their requested loan amounts - I chose people who had just started taking lenders and still had a substantial way to go.

(Our first entry and summary on this subject HERE.)

While I admit this is partly a distraction from other things on my mind - I suppose there are arguably worse things I could be doing with both my time and money. And yes, I am definitely at the very least, going to make the suggestion that you should consider signing up with Kiva and loan out the minimum $25 to one of our two people up above! (You’re so cool.)

Clearly you’ll receive no pressure from us on this matter - just try to keep it in the back of your head the next time someone ask you for money - someone as in that guy on the street corner, or even another NonProfit effort where a substantial portion of donated monies go to paying for the huge overhead/infrastructure of running such an organization - and the fact that you are guaranteed to never see that money again - whereas with Kiva - you have a 99.97% chance of getting all of your money back… so you can send it back out again to help someone else.

And if you do sign up - let us know ’cause that’s awesome and we can be Kiva Friends.

Oh. Our Kiva profile is HERE.

In case you didn’t notice, we recently included a translation button bar at the top of each post! It’s kind of fun in a rosetta stone/engrish/chinglish sort of way. Clicking on the french translation and reading how the google algorithm decides to translate certain phrases, and which ones it just gives up on and simply uses what we typed is… well.. kind of interesting?

Chinese would be fun too - except reading chinese is a lot harder than reading french or spanish.

The underground project I’ve been working on should be complete this week (hopefully) and that means that both of us will soon have iPhones! Leah will be getting the 8gig and I’ll get the 16gig. My contract with Sprint finally runs out this month so I’m free from that and while I thought about getting a new and improved blackberry… ah forget, the fact is that if I did I know I’ll just wish I had gotten an iPhone. So. I’ll just give into that.

Okay. After this I’m done for a while with the China materials. We’ve got a backlog of Atlanta stuff and I’ma try my hand at making an ‘Atlanta’ video - ha, and the people who live outside the perimeter (in the suburbs) can see what it’s like to live ITP and in the neighborhoods… but first! I started out making this video and then quickly realized that it was going to require a gabillion cuts… and then eventually I stopped and told myself that I’d just work on it a little at a time everyday… and then I stopped… so I’m really stopping now - so it’ll just forever be unfinished… but I suppose that’s good… cause we’re clearly not finished traveling. And although leaving the country for a month or more at a time always seems like it’s going to be a challenge… we have no doubt that we’ll be doing it regularly… until we eventually make the actual leap and move abroad.

Sam’s Town in China - Unfinished Forever from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

Last night was a Yelp Elite party - sadly, Leah couldn’t make it. Too much school work and reading that she needed to catch up on for class. I however made the time sacrifice and decided to go get some… terrible free drinks and then a glass of wine provided by our friend Lauren. Oh. I also won two free tickets to a German Bierfest! that’s being held in Woodruff Park in Downtown Atlanta this year. Score? What’s funny is that to us (LeahAndMark) Woodruff Park is nothing but the hangout spot for all of our homeless/soon to be homeless youth that we see at StandUp for Kids. I mean, obviously they’re going to block off the area since they’re selling tickets but still… that’s our perspective of the place. Whatever. It’s beer I suppose.

So a few weeks ago I signed up to receive the brochure from this guided travel tour group - Intrepid Travels - and wow. If you need any motivation, or ideas on where you’d like to go… you should go sign up and get a brochure. If you read our blog, you probably want to travel abroad at this point after seeing so many photos (or you have the other reaction and never want to go to China.) But wow, we started looking at the brochure and saw all of these planned trips across several countries and it really got us thinking. Now, obviously we’re all for not going on guided tours because of the schedule and the whole rigid nature of the thing… but there are benefits to it.

And before you think that we’re plugging something (god we totally would if we could get free stuff… but the only people that give us free stuff is Deanna from Yelp! - and she gives everyone free stuff) - the reason I started even looking at Intrepid Travels was for ideas. And then I realized that for people like us, who wouldn’t really mind being dropped in the middle of a country without reservations - these travel tours are as close to a relaxing all inclusive resort as we ever really want to be. Obviously the price is slightly more in some cases than what we would end up spending on our own (and in others less) but when you take a trip like the 40 days across all of India - the hassle and trouble is easily paid for - and with this group the max number of people is 15 - but trips are guaranteed once at least one person pays in full - and apparently there are instances where it’s only a handful of people in your group. It’s just… would be fine for a first tour of such a vast and overwhelming country such as India. Or one of the month-long southeast Asia trips that covers 8 countries - it’s a very good overview and introduction to eventually doing your own travels.

But… since the bank of LeahAndMark is currently running on a limited cashflow supply - these trips will have to wait - besides, we’re saving up for a honeymoon in Belize!

Great things on the horizon and although there is that saying ‘when it rains it pours’ - it’s happening in a good way for me. This week? The potential goodness is overwhelming and it’s as if everything was being held back for the last 3 months and now it’s all happening at once. I cannot wait to be able to let you in on the the breakthrough. Oh. And hello to our friends Rick D. & Liz A. whom I met (again) last night at the Yelp Elite party - y’all are nice and awesome and thank you.

*Note!: …and now that I read that line about the breakthrough - it sounds like I’m a Scientologist and I’ve finally reached a higher Thetan level or something (Tom Cruise here I come!) - or that I’ve delved into the world of The Secret and I’m finally law of attracting things into my life… ummm… it’s not like that. It’s just normal not really crazy good stuff.

So. Next time we’ll just reach out to our extended friends of friends and ride one of their horses. Even if we have to make new friends to accomplish this. Sunny Farms North? Generally disappointing. Sure we were probably a bit naive to think it would be anything more than the trail rides offered by… stables of this sort… but damn, their website does specifically say:

“We have fast horses for people who like to ride fast. We have slow horses for people who like to ride slow. We have big horses for big folks & we have little horses for little folks. For those who have never ridden before, we have horses that have never been ridden”.

So I like to think that we had at least some reason for thinking that Leah could at least take off for a short run and not do the usual horse follow horse follow horse routine. Generally disappointing all around. Mind you, I’m probably just bitter about the whole thing - compounded by the fact that we were grouped with other people (and while the people were fine and awesome and no problem at all - it’s a F*cken annoyance when you don’t think that you’re signing up for a group activity. If we wanted a group adventure, we probably would have gone looking for something else instead.)

Basically, if you’ve never ever ever ever ridden a horse, or have kids and want them to ride the type of sad stable horses you feel sorry for - take them here. I could say more, but I have to stop because it’d just all come out really, really mean and completely biased - biased by nothing more than my actual experience with Sunny Farms North in Dahlonega, Ga., just past the end of 400. Oh yes. In order for you to truly get the picture - as Leah was getting onto her horse Max, the owner was holding the reigns - and then Max tried to bite him. Okay, I’m not so naive that I’m surprised by any ‘animal’ trying to bite a human - but this guy, grabs the horses head and loud enough for Leah to hear clearly, in effect says, “If she wasn’t already sitting on you I’d beat your f*cken brains out of your skull” - and you kind of get the feeling that he’s not one to kid about such things. Now, I’m probably out of line and this is how everyone in the um, horse-world treats their animals, but I don’t know. 

After our awesome trail ride we decided to drive into downtown Dahlonega and on our way there we saw this guy selling boiled peanuts on the side of the road! These were exactly how boiled peanuts should be. Their greatness was compounded by the fact (or due to?) that they were prepared on the side of the road, in a huge pot, and with a propane heat source. We’ve been fortunate enough to find one of these both times we’ve gone to Dahlonega - it makes the drive back to Atlanta so much better.

The other ‘event’ we went to last Saturday was the Festival of India - held by the… Indian group of Atlanta… well, that’s not their official name but whatever. Seriously. Like me, you probably understand the depth and general cultural richness of India - so you would expect that a ‘Festival of India’ run by the Indian American Cultural Association - to be better than a sad collection of booths selling cell phone cards, insurance, & vacations. If anything - you would probably think that they’d have some interesting food - and not just 3 sub-par indian restaurants and 1 decent indian restaurant selling up the common goods that the Indian branch of Panda Express will undoubtedly sell at the mall food court in the near future.

Granted - there were a lot of Indians that attended the Festival of India… I’m hoping that they were as disappointed in it as I was. I don’t see how they could find any real value in the whole thing since Anime conventions are more representative of Japan than this was of India. Of course, I could be wrong.

With high hopes for this event, Leah did wear her salwar kameez that she got in Nepal. See? We were totally hoping this would at least be better than the dealer’s room at a SciFi con. Next.

What did make the day better was that our friends Anna & Chris called us and invited us out to dinner with them. First we tried the Vortex down the street in L5P - that was a no go with the 45 minute wait (we don’t wait 45 minutes - not with SO MANY other places in Atlanta to go to). So then we drove over to Los Loros and had some good mexican food. That was our Saturday and Sunday was quite easy and sleepy and like I say every weekend - here comes Monday.

I know. I know. I know! I’ve been day dreaming and forever trying to not be present - because it’s just been… I don’t know what it’s been. Still. We’re here today to give you an update. Okay not really, but to post some photos of us, Atlanta, and our friends here. New and Old. Up above? from our sushi dinner with the SuperCute! -1 due to circumstances. Still. An awesome time.

I am quite sure that Shelli will be very pleased that I posted this photo of her. This was taken… last week? the week before? But I also ran into them tonight while at the Kroger getting some food. It’s like a magical Kroger where we actually run into people we know. Okay look, I’m not used to really knowing a lot of people, so that meant my chances of running into someone I knew was waaay low. But now? I know (sort of) more people so we run into more people we know. It’s all fun - but don’t tell anyone I’m anywhere near nice or friendly.

While Leah was in Phoenix, I went to a birthday party for our friend Lauren. A few days before the party she painted one of her walls with chalkboard paint. So… I wrote on it. Dot Com!

This would normally be a photo of OneTwo cuddled up with Leah, but this time it’s ThreeFour! He’s a big cat too and he seems to only want to drink warm water as it drips, right out of the faucet. And we believe that’s partly why he got a UTI soon after we moved here. He just wasn’t drinking much water. (Our old place did have a small dripping faucet that he would always drink from  - here? well this is a good place so no dripping faucets.) So now, every morning when I wake up I spend a few minutes letting him drink as much as he wants with his head under the faucet. And then if he tells us, again in the afternoon. I’ll eventually get a dripper and set it up to recycle the water in a self contained unit (instead of those water fall automatic water things that they already sell for pets.)

Ah. I can’t resist. Anyways, time for some vague-talk.

Something’s gotta happen soon. I’ve been waiting for a few months now and still. I will admit that I’ve gotten a bit more help but… So anyways, Leah’s starting school and I’m continuing school and it’s crazy hectic again. Oh yeah. Horseback riding on Saturday and then the India Festival! Saturday nigh will probably consists of us staying home because we’ll be so tired. But who knows. Oh. Leah used to ride horses quite often and I’ve gone riding… maybe twice? This is gonna rock! ha. Well, hopefully this ranch is exactly like their website feels/looks and everything goes well. Sunny Farms North.

All I gotta say is… I am not giving up coffee anytime soon.

1. Nepal
2. Tibet
3. India
4. Japan
5. Peru
6. Thailand
7. Laos
8. Turkey
9. Phillipines
10. Italy
11. France
12. New Zealand
13. Australia
14. South Korea
15. Cambodia
16. Malaysia
17. Indonesia
18. Singapore
19. Vietnam
20. Switzerland
21. Fiji
22. Greece
23. Morocco
24. Tunisia
25. Mongolia
26. Spain
27. Iceland
28. Argentina
29. Cuba
30. Denmark
31. Belize
32. Ireland

This is the immediate list of countries that we want are going to visit. Although not in the exact order, I think we’d mostly be okay with this order (of course we haven’t plotted out a logistical plan so you could probably group most of South East Asia all on the same trip, or at least two trips.

Still. We both figured that we needed to at least ‘put it out there’ so that just in case ya know, if someone all powerful (well, with money) sees our list and is like wow these two really enjoy their travels and they don’t just eat at the local equivalent of f*cken AppleBees. I think I should fund one of their trips. Now we just need a paypal button and ummm.. ha. Still. You don’t get what you don’t ask for right? Not that we’re asking. However, the intention must be put out there or else it will never ever ever ever have a chance at becoming reality. This photo set up above is literally One Photo from Each Day we were in China and in order - 24 in all.

Tonight’s episode of No Reservations (with Anthony Bourdain!) covered Japan (well, Tokyo and Kyoto.) I enjoyed this episode a bit. While it’s easy for me to say that his best shows are anything in Asia (true) that’s not always the case. He has some really awesome shows that aren’t in Asia at all. Off the top of my head, San Paolo, Peru, Sicily, Puerto Rico, Mexico/US Border, India, Uzbekistan, French Polynesia, South Carolina, Tuscany, and Loas. That’s my general list of good episodes that take place outside of China/Southeast Asia.

Most of western Europe was pretty boring (London/Edinburgh, Berlin, Iceland, Ireland) - and I generally feel that it’s only a 50/50 chance that any episode in America will be anything more than some contrived setup full of skits that only work by the thinnest of margins - check episodes Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and the latest U.S. Southwest as examples of shows you can skip and not really miss out on anything.

I should write an episode guide. I should. I will. Just watch.

Have any places to add to the list? Tell us!

So. While we had a big long adventure yesterday (Sunday) that involved a boat on Lake Allatoona, said boat’s engine not starting after we were out in the middle of the lake, and then eventually (and I do mean eventually) getting another boat to slowly tow us back to dock - we’ll get to that later I suppose.

After the past weekend and everything else, we had kind of decided to lock ourselves in this week and generally be hermits and not go out at all. However, early this afternoon we received an email from the SuperCute! group to meet up for Sushi tomorrow night - which would be totally cool since well, you know, we’ve never actually met these people in real life… unless you count me staring at the three of them staring at Leah and me as we pass each other in the cleaning supply aisle at the grocery… and not saying anything to each other.

Still. The earlier entry mentioning the occasion is HERE at the bottom of the entry.

Has watching the Olympics and all of the coverage on China/Culture/Beijing/Life made you want to go visit China at all? We’ve done so much lately, and if I was any sort of reporter you’d totally get a day to day up to date account of everything we’ve been doing. But in reality? There are only a few main things that take up the majority of space in my blockhead these days. More than half of them I cannot mention or speak of until some official knowledge is made known. So until then. I’m just gonna have to fabricate better entries… starting tomorrow.

I’m back in Atlanta after a whirlwind trip to Phoenix, which for the most part was great.  It was wonderful to reconnect with so many of my Phoenix friends, even though I still didn’t get to see everyone I wanted to!  But lots of excitement indeed at seeing Brandy’s new house, feeling Skye’s first contractions, seeing the new and improved HomeBase (where I used to work), and marveling at Melanie’s adorable, entertaining genius of a daughter.  Oh!  And dinner and Wii with Mark’s familia was awesome.  Great food, thanks to Myra and Mark’s mom.  Ryan is a rockstar at the Wii games.  And Mark’s BFF Amy always cracks me up.  I love all y’all!!  Can’t wait to see you in December, this time with Mark in tow.

I had the video camera, not the digital one, so you’ll have to wait for a Video Spectacular later!

Last night we went to a party!  Cuz we are fancy party people.  That pic up there is the view of the city from our new friends’, Ramit and Madhura’s, balcony.  Pretty cool, huh?  It was a little scary at first, but then we got used to it.  Well, sort of.  Mark didn’t really get totally used to being up on the 28th Floor…

Wheee.  We’re high in the sky.  We got to spy on all the pretentious folks at the W strutting around and trying to feel cool.  Oh, if you were at the W Midtown last night, that doesn’t apply to you.  Just everyone else.

It was a fun night.  Lots of good food, too!  Homemade hummus, delicious Indian nibbles that made me miss wandering around Delhi and Varanasi, and lots of nice new people to converse with.  I even found another White American Person that can speak Chinese!  Really well!  We like how people think we’re all cool for speaking Chinese when in actuality it’s a way easier language than French or Spanish.  Hah.  But go ahead and think we’re totally awesome.  We don’t mind.

Alright- time to get ready for a day at the lake.  Ciao!