One Great Weekend, Return of the Greyhound.

Oh, Boston. Responsible for greatness. Like this. And this. Some of the best ballads ever. But you didn't come to Chronicles today to hear about an aging rock band, but for the dramatic finale of One Great Weekend! and what a finale it is!

My day started on Sunday October 11, at 5:30 AM when i turned off my alarm and laid back down on the hardwood floor i was sleeping on. My day restarted at 6:42 AM when i woke up with a jump and realized i had 18 minutes to get to a bus stop almost 80 blocks away.

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So i quickly threw everything in my backpack, put on my soon to be NLCS Champion Dodgers tshirt and bolted out the door. I looked silly in my basketball shorts, my disheveled hair and black rim glasses as i ran through the streets looking for a cab that was going my way. Luckily a yellow cab took pity on my haggard state and pulled over. When i told him where i needed to be and when i needed to be there, my poor Pakistani chauffeur was a bit taken aback, and politely let me know that the chances of me getting to the bus on time were as about as good as the chances Barack Obama would win the Nobel Peace prize after 8 months in office and not much to show for it. Who would guessed those odds were pretty good?!? and i made it to the bus just as the last people were getting on. Sadly my good friend Garrett didn't make it to the bus to join me in Boston, so it was just me and some kid who seemed really thrilled to be sitting next to an unshowered, kinda sweaty and pretty out of breath weary traveller for the next three hours and change.

The trip was pleasant and i got to see states id never seen before! lets let google show you my route!
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look at all those miles!

I finally arrived in Boston, and i was definitely under dressed... basketball shorts and a tshirt are no match for weather in the low 60's, especially for a wussy CA boy like me! luckily i only had to wait in the bitter cold for a little while when my old coworker and good friend Ryan picked me up. He took me back to his house where he lives with his wife Piper, who i grew up with in Rancho Cucamonga. They have a great apt in the south side! it was fun to catch up with them, and go on a grand tour of Boston!

Our first stop was in Cambridge, where we saw a grand parade of all sorts of hippies! here you can see Ryan and me and in the background some of the stuff they were carrying around at the parade.



We went to Harvard too.

You can tell i was really excited to be there! Ryan told me some good will hunting joke, but since i have never seen that movie, i had no clue what he was talking about... but i really felt intellectual, almost transcendental, so i needed something to push me over the edge...

so we went to Walden's Pond!
The place where Walden wrote one of the best works of literature/best sleep aids known to man. we paid homage to the man of many words in the best way we knew how. By imitating a statue erected in his honor.

I often wondered what compelled Thoreau to move out into the middle of the woods and live in a shack for two years. i wondered if it was the trees, or the ants, or just the close proximity of a sparkling pond nearby that gave him adequate privacy to skinny dip... but the real reason was the absolute comfort he lived in.

I don't know if it was the fact that i had slept on a hardwood floor the night before, or that i had only slept on that floor for about 4 hours that made this old dirty bed so comfortable. i woulda stayed there longer but I'm sure the park service didn't want me trancendentalizing much longer on my man Henry's bed.

we walked down to the pond, which was remarkably very clean! and beautiful! No amount of words could describe that setting (i know this because Thoreau tried... and he has a long book that doesn't quite do it justice....)

Piper and I at Walden Pond.

We then walked through Back bay and the Garden and Boston Commons. The locals (ryan and piper) tell me this is the most photographed locale in Boston!


Little did you all know that me and Ryan had started a business together.

Ryan Johnston and Jeff Murphy.

We walked through the downtown, i saw the State House, with its real gold dome, Samuel Adams' grave, and the oldest marketplace in the US! Boston is an old,almost ancient place, but unlike most old things, its clean, smells nice and serves a purpose in society.

That night we ate at Rob Lowe's favorite pizza place, Pizzeria Regina! it was really delicious, so delicious Danny ainge even likes it. See there i dropped two big names, so you know its good!

early the next morning, i had to leave Boston and make the trek from Boston to dc... one last time we will let google show you...
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I really enjoyed my stay in Boston and i want to go back for longer than 20 hours next time. Boston seems like a big city that is actually livable. NYC on the other hand is a nice place for the weekend...

the trip back wasn't too bad. i rode the greyhound from NYC back to DC and even got on an early bus out! our bus driver was pretty hardcore though. he told us if we broke the rules he would have no qualms about pulling over and kicking us out in the middle of nowhere. Also while he was giving his spiel these ladies were chatting to each other and he stopped what he was saying and told them to shut their mouths until he was finished talking. it was pretty exciting, i made sure to mind my p's and q's... but other than that, no strange odors and no coughing. i still wont ever "go greyhound" again.

so i feel like i really made the most of my long weekend. It was tons of fun and great to get out and see the many many many things there are around this country! I look forward to more great weekends while I'm here and ill keep you posted on the jmurph chronicles.

Touch My Body (Tuts My Barreh) / Karaoke Fail (English subtitles)

One Great Weekend. Part Duex.

Okay so, 11 oclock rolls around and its time to do some more touristy stuff! so we decided to hop on the subway and head downtown and see the statue of liberty! well, we got off a little too early, but we ran into a bunch of fun stuff that we intended to see, but hadnt planned on at that moment!

We saw the bull on wall street! heres hoping to a bull market!

As you can probably tell, thats not me. In fact i dont know who that is. I googled a picture of the bull because mark took all the pics of us there and im too lazy to get them from him right now. Just imagine thats me pointing at the bull, as you all know i would.

we walked by ground zero, and the trinity church from national treasure and then went over to battery park. i always imagine battery park was called such because people were battered there... i dunno why but thats just what i conjured up in my mind. anyhow we looked to see if there were some tickets to the island, but it was a no-go so we took the staten island ferry instead!

heres some fotos from the ferry!

Anyhow, that was fun. and then we went to lunch at this place really specific to new york city. Its got this garden of olives, and they have a deal where you can get unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks for around 10 bucks. Im sure you all wish you had one of those in every city in america! after our tasty repast, it was off to hunt for tickets to some shows! being the shrewd students we are, we looked for the best deals in town. we managed to find a bunch of tickets to mary poppins for 35 bucks and one ticket to chicago for 35. so i took the chicago ticket and a bunch of the other interns went to mary poppins.

Chicago was really good, great dancing, the music was incredible... it was a bit racy at times, but it truly is broadways "sure thing". very entertaining, all that jazz.

so we stayed at my roommate devin's old college roommates apartment uptown. it was really nice, in a quiet part of town. it was nice to be able to lie down, especially after going strong for about 36 hours...

the next morning, i had a chance to sleep in a little bit and walk around downtown. i went to all the box offices to see who was selling student tickets on the cheap! we went to a matinee of "finians rainbow". it was a fun show, with good music and a lot of jokes that were funny now, even tho the play was first put on in the forties(you might wanna check wikipedia on that one). we got box seats for cheap!

It was a really good show, i highly recommend it!

After that we went to another local eatery that claims when youre there its always friday! isnt that charming?! why dont these restaraunts branch out!?! anyhow after that we went to see Shrek! it was also very good, with great production value! the set was outta this world and king farquahd(sp) was really funny! hes on his knees almost the entire show! it was a great sight gag!

here you can see shrek advertised on the screens in times square! it was fun and we had a good group of us there. I woulda posted the group photo, but once again laziness overcomes me and i dont know who has it anyway... after the show we hungout around town and went home to prepare for our next big day. Just like im going to now! till next time,stay tuned for the conclusion of our thrill-ogy, One Great Weekend.

One Great Weekend. Part I

So our usual Friday class got cancelled, and thanks to that evil man who gave all the indians small pox and discovered America (and as my friend ben pointed out hes a member of the church by proxy...), I got to enjoy a four day weekend! What better way to spend 4 days of freedom than by going up north to NYC and Boston!?!? It was very specatacular and i will do my best to capture all the joy i had on this trip in a simple blog...

My friend Mark Williams and I decided to leave Thursday night/Friday morning (depending on how you look at it) and take the 1:00 am bus to NYC.
On our way to the bus station, we ran to our fair share of hooligans...

This is how I learned lesson #1- Dont ever do anything a drunk person tells you.


Here we can see the wine-bibbers in their natural habitat... the last train outta metro center... anyhow they asked me to slap their catatonic looking friend in the face to wake him up. i wasnt about to be a part of that, which led the ringleader to remark "look a little more manly with those signs...." What signs you may be asking? Why the signs we had made in order to get us on the TODAY Show!!! and thats why were taking the late/early bus, so we could arrive just in time for the taping!

so we got to the greyhound station, and there is already about 25 people in line, including a group of korean students, who dont even know im spying on them and translating to mark. Anyhow the bus finally arrives and about 20 people get off and get in the reboarding line... now im starting to get nervous. The line starts moving and we get closer and closer. finally we get to the front and the bus driver takes our tickets and the tickets of two people behind us and we get on the bus! when we get up there, there are no seats, except for a big bench of three in the very back. so i walk back there and sit down and as i breath in, my nose is stung with the vile stench of port-o-potty... which brings me to lesson #2- dont be the last one on a greyhound bus or else you will have sit in the back and it smells like pee. After i learned that lesson i figured i had learned enough and stopped writing down the life lessons i was learning.

Mark was lucky enough to sit right next to the bathroom....

The bus ride went well with just a few hiccups, like how everyone was coughing like they had the swine flu, how everytime the bathroom door opened i wanted to barf and the time i woke up and thought mark had been replaced with someone else. We arrived safely to NYC and the first thing i did was wash my hands, there is no telling what kind of germs i contracted! then we headed over to rockefeller center to get ready for our national tv debut!

Heres me with my sign (created by the talented mark jensen)!

so we got there around 615 and the TODAY show started taping at 7. around 7:20 al roker came out and said hello and i yelled and hooted and hollered and at around 7:40 Al set up the shot right in front of us AND- lets go to the tape!




Pretty much awesome.

So we hung out at Today for a while, met and shook hands with all the anchors. When Meredith Viera came out i asked her for a kiss! and she gave me a peck right on the cheek! they were all really nice and it was a great experience! i would do it again in a hearbeat!

after the today show we went over to a really neat Cathedral called St Peters(?)... anyhow while we there i saw the archbishop walking around with some dudes in suits. I walked over to get a better a look and much to my surprise there was Elder Richard G. Scott and Elder Jensen!It was pretty cool to see them and talk with them for a little bit. Usually when you see general authorities they are being thronged in much the same way me and mark thronged them, but there is just more people. they were really nice and it was a great experience! so when that was all done it was about 10 am and it was time to do more! but right now its 12:45 and its time for me to go to sleep! there will be much more to come! stay tuned!

I have a lot to write about, but first this gem, brought to you by Eddie Barfield.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXxvsShaAoA&feature=player_embedded#

Things to do in "The District"

The best part about living in DC is that there is a ton of stuff to do. But even with all that stuff, its still like Provo cause its often hard to get anyone else to do it with you. Luckily I have found somef fun people that like to go on adventures! Here are some highlights.

#1. Baseball

Now, Washington is definitely a football city. It seems that most people eat, sleep, and die Redskins. Even if they lose to the worst football team in the league (which technically cant happen since teams cant play themselves....) people still cheer for them and pay a ton of money to do so. Anyhow, my point in all this is, the Nationals are awful. And because of their sheer pitifulness, no one goes to their games, so you can buy a cheap 5 or 10 dollar ticket and sit way close and enjoy a good game of baseball.

I got to see the Phillies, the Braves and the team with the best record in the National League, the NL West Champion Los Angeles Dodgers!
Here me and Aubrey are at Nationals field. She agreed to come to the Dodgers game if I went to the Braves game...




Here is my man Man-Ram. Steroids and all, I love him! He ain't Albert Pujols. Thank heavens.

the game was fun, and exciting, but here's how it ended up.

Dodgers lost...

And then at the Braves game, the Nationals lost and Aubrey was so excited cause the team of her childhood won! I granted her permission to roll.



Oh and the best part about the games is this.




#2 Eat.

There are a lot of great places to eat here in our nations capital. besides the obvious McDonald's and Burger Kings that are a staple of every Americans diet, there is a myriad of eclectic and special foods! Even heads of state like our very own Barack Obama eats food in The District. One very unique place to DC is Ben's Chili Bowl and it is real good!

The thing to get is a half smokey, as seen below. Its a sausage covered in chili with onions and mustard! and it is tasty and delicious. When President Obama ate here he had a half smokey with cheese fries... i am almost presidential in my meal.. but not quite.
This had me saying mmm mmm mmm! Barack Hussein Obama really liked this place for good reason!

Kelli, Mara (like Sara) and I were just ecstatic!


Kit here (with Britney) was amazed at how much i could eat! He didn't think i could finish such a large meal but somehow i got it all in!

#3 Dancing.

Most people know I'm from the mean streets of Rancho Cucamonga, and i have seen a lot of moves in my day. But i am amazed everyday by the incredible dancing of the people of DC. here Mara demonstrates the 'jerk'. I'm pretty good at it. but i wont bore you with pictures of me making a fool of myself.

#4 People watching, and becoming subjects of people watching...

subways are a great place to find people and for people to find you!

If you make a face like this:

people like this will look at you strangely:
Similarly, if you take a picture over you shoulder at just the right moment, you may catch the person behind you looking at what they just found in their nasal cavity.

And finally if you look like this and you are sitting in front of the white house, I will take a picture of you.
(I heard this was the African doctor that signed President Obama's birth certificate.)

Anyhow there are lots of other things that i am doing besides these subversive activities, I promise. But in the meantime i hope you enjoyed your stay here with the Chronicles and check back often for more excitement soon!

Where I Live/Work

Well I have been in DC for a month, so I figure I let you all know where I live and work.

First off, I live at the Barlow Center! It's a cool place for cool kids, but occasionally they let in riffraff like me! If you want to send me mail or a care package (because you care), its 2520 L Street NW #308, Washington, DC 20037! Anyhow here is my room -

The door on the left is to the bathroom me and my roomie share. Further left of the picture is our fridge and microwave. you can see that little yellow box? thats my plastic silverware. I havent had to wash a dish the entire time ive been here. and i dont plan on doing any the rest of the time i here either.


Heres my desk and my bed is on the left... they make sure we are living in style as you can tell. I have a good view of a parking lot out the window... although every now and then a cute intern takes the trash out of one of the buildings next door every now and then. She has nice shoes.

I work at the Federal Judicial Center, in the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building. Heres a picture -

Security is surprisingly pretty tight where i work. I have to go through two security checkpoints! i feel pretty legit as a federal employee. if you plan on attacking me make sure you do it when im not on official business or you will be convicted of a federal crime. boo ya.

I work in a cubicle with a UTE. Sounds awful i know, but we get along pretty well. in fact we are the only people that talked for the first 3 weeks of the internship... but little by little things are getting more lively. Except this one intern that does web and automation. I dont know what his problem is. He always wears inappropriate clothing and uses vulgar slurs. but its great!


I have two chairs. and a headset.

Anyhow its a great time to be an intern! come out and visit and ill show you how i run this city like jay-z.

Washington DC/Philly

Hello all! I have been in DC now for about three weeks! It feels like I have been here forever! First off let me show you where I live.
My roommate is named Barack Obama, but we just call him Barry. Anyhow, DC is great and i have been enjoying myself! Recently, we took a trip up to Philadelphia and Valley Forge. Valley Forge, as you all know is the place where nothing happened of consequence during the revolutionary war. Washingtons army stayed there during the winter, which was very mild, and no one was shot, or froze to death. No one even died of smallpox. Pretty lackluster stuff eh? It rained most the time we were there but i will show you some highlights!



This glorious abode is the place where George Washingon lived during the stay at Valley Forge. It is the only thing original still at Valley Forge. It was a pretty nice little home if i say so myself.
After touring Valley Forge, we went back to our where we were staying and had dinner and then had a friendly visit with General Washington. He should a girl in our group to do the minuet.
We stayed overnight at some dorms on this complex near Valley Forge and in the morning we went to Philadelphia, PA.

Our first stop was the Liberty Bell.



Then we went across the street to, as our tour guide called it, the most historic building, in the most historic square mile, in the most historic state in the country; Independence Hall.

Heres where they wrote the consitution. Pretty sweet. I later climbed up on the roof and found a pair of spectacles that illuminated the path i needed to take to find a national treasure.

Following our tour of Independance Hall we were free to do whatever we wanted. and so I did what i usually want to do.

now you see it.


Now you dont.
we went to Jims and had the phillycheesesteak with cheezwhiz and onions. It was quite a delectable treat. as we left, the line was going out the door and wrapping around the store, so you know we made the right decision.

following that bit of greasy heaven, we did what most sane people would do when in the city of brotherly love, we went to the rocky steps and saw the rocky statue. But along the way, we were sidetracked! we were in a taxi and we look over and see a huge float and big parade of people surrounding it, so i through the money to the cabbie and we hop out of the car as we are stopped in at a light and go join the parade!




So the Hare Krishnas were having a huge party which included a free feast! but the feast had about 1000 people lined up for it... so Devin(my roommate) and I walk up to the people doing the feast and just start helping them. Eventually we get some plastic gloves and aprons and we end up serving the food at the hare krishna festival!

Heres Devin scooping rice.
I made Hare Krishna salad with this man. He went to CalPolyPomona and was engineer, went back to India, and now hes back in Philly.
FREE FEAST!
We did finally make it to the Rocky Steps. We ran to the top...

And then we punched Rocky for making us run up those steps.

I think city hall is the coolest building in Philly.
Well it was a fun trip to Philly and it has been great being here in DC. I will have to take some pictures of where i work and where i live so you all can get a good dose of what it is like out here! im having a blast!