I’m not sure exactly when I decided that I liked electronic music.  When Ricky and I started dating, I quickly found out that he had a love for the genre.  I remember listening to it at his place and thinking what I’d always thought, that it was just repetitive beats that got old quickly.

At some point, I found out that some other friends of mine were also pretty into electronic music and were planning on going to see a DJ that I’d never heard of, Paul van Dyk, at a local club, Talbott Street.  When Ricky found out, he decided to see if he could get tickets.  He writes for IndyConcerts.com and is often given press passes to concerts and show so that he can write about them for the website.  He got passes, and I went with him.  We got there pretty early and laid claim to spots right up in front of the stage.  I remember that once the music started and everyone around me started dancing, I started thinking that maybe I understood now why people liked electronic music.  And maybe, just maybe, I could get into it after all.

Once Ricky discovered that I had somewhat of an interest in electronic music, we started making plans to see more DJs.  At first, I hadn’t heard of many of them, but quickly became familiar with the bigger names such as Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, and Paul Oakenfold.  Now I’ve seen each of them live and even had the opportunity to randomly meet Armin.  I loved his show in Chicago that we went to.  It was a great venue, at the Aragon, and the crowd really got into it.  I can’t help but think that everyone felt a sense of community dancing together to the beats.

When I think back to how I really got to loving this genre of music, several times come to mind.  The Paul van Dyk show at Talbott Street, of course, and the Armin van Buuren show in Chicago.  When we went to Las Vegas last year (my first time there), Ricky had gotten tickets to some clubs.  We didn’t realize until we were there that Paul Oakenfold was actually going to be at one of them, Rain, while we were there.  We jumped on the opportunity to see him mix beats live.  That ended up topping my list of experiences as well.

One show I will never forget is seeing David Guetta at BoMA in Columbus, Ohio.  When Ricky introduced me to David Guetta, I almost immediately fell in love with his music.  Honestly, I think that the best word I can use to describe it is “fun”.  Guetta isn’t for everyone, but if you like to dance, and you just like music that is easy to get into – he’s great.  I have all of his albums on my iPod, and I think I know the words to almost all the songs.  He has become one of my favorite ways to get my day going or as a pick-me-up when I’m in a bad mood.

Armin was probably my first venture into the world of trance.  I remember being at home and trying to focus on some reading I had to get done for school one day.  I had just downloaded one of Armin’s albums, so I started listening to it while I was reading.  I loved it!  The music just put me into a, well, trance.  I can see why it’s called that.  It just got me in the groove, made it easier to focus on the reading.  Great music to play in the background while you are working as well.  I have several fellow programmer friends that I know listen to electronic music while they are coding, and I can see why that is.  It gets you going without being distracting.  It’s almost like a state of Zen sometimes.

So now, I’m hooked.  I listen to almost exclusively electronic music most of the time.  So when I heard that several of my favorite DJs as well as some recent discoveries I’ve made were going to be at a music festival that went all day for two days in New York City, of COURSE I wanted to go.  And so did Ricky.  So we acquired passes, bought a plane ticket, booked a hotel, and later this afternoon will be on our way.  Friday evening is my one chance to see New York City (my first trip there as well), as I will be spending most of Saturday and Sunday dancing my face off to the beats of some of my favorite DJs.

This is only the second year for Electric Zoo, but it has already established a following and appears to be very well organized.  It’s held on Randall’s Island, an island smack dab in the middle of New York, just a ferry ride away from Manhattan.  I can’t wait to enjoy the music with the epic skyline of the Big Apple in the background.  Last year’s festival brought 15,000 people on Saturday and 11,000 on Sunday, with this year even more tickets already purchased!

So I hear I go… only a few more hours until I board a plane and head to the city to meet some DJs, make some new friends, and get my dance on.  Electric Zoo, here I come!

Some of you may have heard of or subscribe to the RSS feed for the website 1000awesomethings.com.  I actually don’t follow the RSS feed, but every once in a while, a post from there pops up in my Google Reader shared items, usually shared by Isha.  I don’t remember how I found out, but I realized that the author of this site recently published a book containing some of his “awesome things”, called The Book of Awesome.  I love this concept, both of the book and the site… basically just taking note of some of the great things that make you happy in this world.  Simple things that can take a bad mood and completely turn it around or at least improve it a little.  The book and website both list very specific things, a lot of times things that happen, such as “when the thing you were going to buy is already on sale” or “finding your keys after looking forever”.  While I do think these things are pretty awesome, I have my own list of things that make me happy, and a lot of them are very simple everyday things, things that when I think about them or do them or partake in them, it makes me feel better or improves my day.  So I decided to list a few of these things for my faithful readers.

Coffee and Coffee Shops

While I like the taste of coffee, I think that a big thing that I really like it for is the ritual.  Drinking coffee is a daily morning ritual for a lot of people.  It’s something you can look forward to when you get up, or something you can look forward to in the middle of a busy day.  It’s something that can get you going or something you can relax with.  It’s a simple daily pleasure.  I stop almost every day at Starbucks on my way to work to get a cup.  Part of the reason is to get coffee, of course, but part of it is also just to stop in to the coffee shop.  I like seeing friendly barista faces and having the break in my day.  It just adds something to it.  I also love the ambiance in coffee shops.  There’s no better place to meet a friend just to chat, or to take some time to read a book, or to work on writing or doing homework.  And Starbucks has made this even better lately with their free Wi-Fi.

Bookstores

I own way too many books.  Well, maybe not.  I’m not sure you can ever own too many.  But honestly, I probably own more than I will ever read.  And I still love to visit bookstores and 99% of the time will not be able to leave without purchasing something.  One of my favorite things to do on my lunch break at work is to go visit Borders.  I love going in, grabbing a cup of coffee from the cafe there, and then browsing to see what there is to see, from the newest bestseller to what is on the bargain rack, it all fascinates me.  There is something calming about being able to go there and browse the racks of books and absorb yourself in knowledge.

Traveling

Traveling has to be one of my most favorite things in the world.  I didn’t travel too much as a kid.  Our family vacations were usually short trips to Kings Island or to visit family in Kentucky or Oklahoma.  Now, as an adult, since I have started flying places and trying to visit more distant lands, I am totally in love with traveling.  I like every part of it, from flying, to road trips (although for long distances, I prefer flying over a bunch of hours in the car), to hotels, to trying new places to visit and eat.  When I know I am planning a trip, I will go crazy just researching where I am going.  I look things up on Google Maps.  I find out what there is to do in a place via Wikitravel.  It’s actually pretty obsessive, but I love it all.  I’m lucky I’m with someone who loves travelling as much as I do, otherwise they would get left at home a lot!

Apple

I know the first thought that probably pops into your head when I say that.  It’s that I’m a fanboy (or fangirl, in my case) just like so many others.  And I will admit, in some ways, that probably is true.  Do I want an iPad? Sure.  Do I want an iPhone 4?  Duh.  But, I also have my reasons for not getting them (which is another blog post entirely).  But I love Apple’s aethetics.  I love the way things work on my iPhone 3GS.  I love visiting the Apple website just to see what the latest fun product they have is.  And I like visiting the Apple store just to play with everything.  I have been the owner of multiple iPods, and am now considering buying my first Mac (whoa!).  Even though I have heard the language absolutely sucks, the thought of attempting to write an iPhone app brings back my programmer roots.  Apple is just a lot of fun to me.

Superman

I think this fascination may have started when I was a teenager.  One of my favorite shows was Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.  And while I haven’t kept up that well with it, I also have several seasons of Smallville on DVD.  I don’t know if it’s the mythology of this famous superhero, what with his secret identity and goal of rescuing people from the perils of this world, or if it’s the muscles and the red and blue cape and costume.  Honestly, maybe it’s just the tall, dark, and handsomeness of Dean Cain that first won me over.  But the whole story of this seemingly nerdy journalist that secretly saves the world while falling in love with his cute co-worker is one of my favorite stories ever.

These are really just a few of the things that I get excited about.  When I first started thinking about it, I immediately came up with a list of twenty just off the top of my head.  So now it’s your turn… tell me, what are a few of your favorite things?

If you are friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you’ve likely already grown tired of hearing about the trip to Hawaii that I’m taking next weekend.  If you’re not, well, then maybe you’ll actually be interested in this post.  I’m hoping to do sort of a travel blog about the trip while I’m there (including plenty of pictures), so I thought I would start with a post before I go about how this trip came about and what has been planned for it.

Sometime shortly after I started this semester, I started already thinking about spring break.  I’m not sure how much time off I will get from school this year, so I thought maybe it might be a good idea to take advantage of time off while I get it.  I didn’t think Ricky would be interested in going with me, since he pretty much already had his vacation planned out for the year, so I thought I would be going by myself, and among my destinations (all somewhere warmer than here) were San Francisco or San Diego.  I thought at first I would only be planning for a shorter trip of only a few days.  I got to thinking more about it, and decided… hmm… if I’m going as far as California, why not think a little bigger?  Hawaii has always seemed like a fun place, and somewhere I’d like to go someday – why not see how much it costs and go for it?

And the planning began.  The more I researched Hawaii, the more I wanted to go there.  So I decided to go, whether it meant only a few days by myself there, or, as it turned out, a week there with Ricky.  I was able to talk him into using up some of his precious vacation time for a week with me in paradise.  (Wouldn’t you go too??)

We started out deciding to only go to Oahu, and to stay near Waikiki (our hotel is only a 5-minute walk from the beach) and rent a car to explore the rest of the island during our stay.  Since then, however, we’ve ended up splurging and paying for a flight to the “big island” (Hawaii) to see the volcanoes on one day of our trip.  Other plans include a luau on Wednesday night (what better way to spend St. Patrick’s Day?) and a trip to Ocean’s 808 on Friday night.

I simply could not be more excited.  Hawaii has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.  I wrote a report about it for school in 5th grade, which my mom found the other day.  My family never traveled much or went on too many vacations, so to me, getting to explore as many places as I have the opportunity to now as an adult is simply a dream come true, something I never imagined I would be able to do.

Another fun part of the trip that we are planning to do is visit some LOST filming locations.  Most of the TV show LOST is filmed on Oahu, and we plan on hunting down some of the locations they have filmed and seeing some of these places that we have only previous seen on screen.  Yes, I realize we are dorks.  But if you are a true LOST fan, is there really anything much cooler than getting your picture taken in Dharmaville?  (You can actually see “Dharmaville”, or the Others camp, on Google Maps Street View here.  It’s a YMCA camp on Honolulu, Camp Erdman.)

So we are steadily counting down the days (as of today, only 6 left!) until we hop on that plane and take our three-leg, sixteen-hour journey to paradise.  Can I make it through this week without exploding with anticipation?  We’ll see… but on Saturday morning, paradise here I come!