Lollapalooza 2009

After Coachella Catherine caught the festival bug which now makes the 2 of us!! Perfect!

So we have booked up for Lollapalooza which is being held in Grant Park Downtown Chicago this year August 7th to the 9th!

http://2009.lollapalooza.com/

Depeche Mode Tool The Killers Jane's Addiction Beastie Boys Kings of Leon
Lou Reed Ben Harper and Relentless7 Thievery Corporation Snoop Dogg Rise Against Andrew Bird TV on the Radio
Vampire Weekend The Decemberists Neko Case STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9) Animal Collective Band of Horses Of Montreal
Arctic Monkeys Coheed and Cambria Ben Folds Fleet Foxes Silversun Pickups Kaiser Chiefs Crystal Castles Bon Iver Santigold Atmosphere Dan Auerbach Cold War Kids Deerhunter Lykke Li Robert Earl Keen Peter Bjorn and John Heartless Bastards Gomez Glasvegas Federico Aubele Dan Deacon Passion Pit Zap Mama The Raveonettes The Gaslight Anthem
The Airborne Toxic Event White Lies Ra Ra Riot No Age Asher Roth Los Campesinos! Bat For Lashes Chairlift Gang Gang Dance Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears The Virgins Amazing Baby Portugal. The Man The Knux Ida Maria Delta Spirit Friendly Fires Manchester Orchestra Constantines Ezra Furman & The Harpoons Hockey Miike Snow Alberta Cross Hey Champ Sam Roberts Band The Henry Clay People Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam Cage the Elephant Living Things The Low Anthem Blind Pilot Langhorne Slim Other Lives The Builders and The Butchers Eric Church Joe Pug Kevin Devine The Greencards Carney Thenewno2 Gringo Star KE$HA Esser Neon Hitch Dirty Sweet Mike's Pawn Shop April Smith Band of Skulls Perry Farrell Ralph's World Paul Green's School of Rock All Stars Secret Agent 23 Skidoo Zach Gill (from ALO) Lunch Money Frances England Peter DiStefano & Tor Q Brothers Care Bears on Fire Quinn Sullivan Yuto Miyazawa
And spinning at PERRY'S
Bassnectar MSTRKRFT Simian Mobile Disco (DJ Set) Deadmau5 Diplo Boys Noize KiD CuDi Crookers A-Trak Hercules and Love Affair (DJ Set) The Bloody Beetroots (DJ Set) LA Riots Kaskade The Glitch Mob Hollywood Holt Rye Rye La Roux He Say, She Say Car Stereo (Wars) DJ Mel Dark Wave Disco Moneypenny Yello Fever Animal Collective (DJ Set) Prophit

A little background on Lollapalooza, it was conceived and created in 1991 by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for his band, Lollapalooza ran annually until 1997, and was revived in 2003. From its inception through 1997, and its revival in 2003, the festival toured North America. In 2004, the festival organizers decided to expand the dates to two days per city.

And here we are 2009! Can't wait!!

Update Part 2 - Oklahoma Weekend

We took a weekend break to Oklahoma in May with Craig and Lauren to a place called Broken Bow

This is a small town about 4 hours drive from Dallas just over the the Texas-Oklahoma border which has a large National Park and Lake.

People are drawn to the area to stay in the small log cabins in the National Park and get back to basics with nature...

We rented a large well equipped cabin out side the national park, I introduce you to Archie's Retreat!



It was a two level cabin which slept 10, had a wrap around porch and outdoor hot tub!

It was in a secluded area surrounded by woods, well when I say surrounded by woods there were lots of trees in between our cabin and the next one and in the dark it looked like we were surround by woods with no one around us!

It felt like we were getting back in touch with nature.....while we were sitting in the hot tub... drinking beer....











The plan for the weekend was to spend time in the great outdoors.... however major storms came through the whole weekend so we were treated to mass flooding and a lightening show.

But that didn't dampen the weekend at all! We had a great time drinking beer, playing rock band and sitting in the hot tub!!

We had such a great time that we forgot to take pictures!

It's been too long...... Update Part 1 Coachella 2009

So I looked at my blog and realized that it has been way too long since I last updated it so I think we have a lot to catch up with....

So what have I been up to? Well let's start from where I left off in March

At the end of April Catherine and I packed up our backpacks and jumped on a plane to the Palm Desert California for the Coachella music festival.

This is my 3rd year attending and there were some real class acts this year



We flew out straight from work on Thursday and stayed at a hotel next to Ontario Airport. We picked up the car and headed to the festival the next morning and boy was that a sweet set of wheels we had.... Very rock star and fitting of a music festival don't you think??



This was Catherine's fist experience of music festival and what a place to start! You are in the middle of the desert surrounded by palm tress with temperatures approaching 100F and the mountains are still snow capped!

I had decided to leave the 8 man tent from the previous years as Catherine and I are only wee ones so a 2 man was spacious for us! Plus I had enough of a problem trying put this tent up never mind one 4 times the size!! I'm sure Catherine was about to crack a tent pole over my head at one point during the construction but we made it!









After rocking out on Friday and Saturday we had to leave on Sunday to make it back for work on Monday. Instead of lying in we got up around 6am, showered packed up the tent and headed toward the coast.

We first arrived at Dana Point got out the car and took a walk along the beach.

This is one of my favorite places in all of the US and if my company would stop being so tight and give my the 70% cost of living that is required to move from Dallas to Orange County I would be living there now!!

Everything is really geared towards lifestyle and the outdoors, working to live not living to work... Any way after the beach we set course for Laguna Beach and found a Fish Taco joint, grabbed some lunch and a cold beer then made our way back to the airport, good times!



This was another amazing trip to Coachella, the best yet!!

Boys, I am laying down the challenge for next year, Coachella 2010 with Catherine and I??

Busy Bee - I ain't doing this much work and not sharing it with you!!

Well since I last wrote the old travel schedule has been hotting up with trips to Staunton Virginia, that really all I can say about there.....Ohio, Kentucky and Houston twice but in between that I went to Catherine's parents house and worked my DIY magic again with some help from my wee friend.

There had recently been a flood in the basement of the house and it had ruined the carpet. So we decided that it would be a good time to rip up the carpet and why not stain the concrete floor!

This is where the fun started...

To set the scene Catherine and I had to move everything from the room which was a gym and tanning room and for a couple of wee ones it went pretty well. We managed this with no major mishaps apart from me nearly chopping Catherine's hand off but I really don't want to talk about that...

A picture of the room before

Then me etching the floor with acid, yes gloves and a mask makes me look like I am back in the old Rezurrection days!!


The finished product

It was actually fun to do, so much so that we have decided to do the same in the main room of the basement!! I bore you with the details of that once it is finished

From Powdered Mash in Paisley to Scallops at Gordon Ramsay's

So who would have thought it, me going from fine dinning such as powdered mash potatoes in the Neilston Road Flat (occasionally with some grated cheese melted into it, I know, fancy..) to cooking scallops at the London Hotel in NYC, home to a good friend of mine Gordon Ramsay!

What I hear you say??

Well part of the previously blogged trip to NYC was dinner at the Chef's table at Gordon Ramsays NYC.

So the 6 of us got suited and booted and sat waiting to be fed...

L-R Lauren, Craig, Ross, Gillian, Catherine, Me (AKA Chef Bellshaw)

The menu was amazing and the wine matched perfectly, funny that as we did a wine pairing.....anyway the menu looked like this

And the items on the menu looked like this

1.Selection of Canapes
2. Loin of Pacific Yellow Fin Tuna, Battera Kombu, Jimica, Steamed Shitake, Yuzu Glaze
3. Pressed Hudson Valley Foie Gras Quince and Black Pepper Sherbet, Crispy Amaranth, Marocan Almonds
4. Sauteed Maine Diver Scallops with Braised Veal Cheeks, Tahitian Vanilla, Parsnip Cream
5. Slow Cooked Sablefish with Butternut Squash Carpaccio, Preserved Cucumber and Red Wine Vinaigerette
6. Carmalized Duck Breast with Spiced Anjou Pear Glaze, Beluga Lentils, Chicken Liver Rillette
7. Selection of Cheeses from the trolly
8. Olive Oil Gelato on Pistachio Sponge
9. Earl Grey Souffle with Milk Ice Cream, Apple Tarte Tarin with Vanilla Ice Cream, Single-Origin Venezuelan Chocolate Mousse, Passion Fruit, Balsamic Reduction and Yogurt Sorbet

The best by far was course number 4, which was the one the whole gang got to cook. Obviously led by Chef Bellshaw!

So the chefs gathered us for our instructions and off we went to cook!!


Ross and I were on the front of service preparing the plates and putting the final touches before it was served, I think this is normally the head chefs job!!







And the luckiest person of them all was Catherine who got to shout "service!" and I thought I was the birthday boy!! :)


But true talent shone through and I was asked back to make desert!

Everyone did say that the Earl Grey Souffle with Milk Ice Cream was their favorite desert (I think just to keep me quiet!)

Life Begins at 30, Right??

So today I'm just back to work after four days in New York City for mine and Ross's 29 and 12 month b'days.

Our traveling group consisted of Me and Catherine, Ross and Gillian and Lauren and Craig. I have to say that I had an amazing time with really great company and we all seamed to get on well. Thanks to all Y'all!!

We arrived at LaGuardia airport after about 1 1/2 hours of delays in Dallas and NYC, jumped in a cab and arrived at our hotel around 1:15 am. We were both exhausted from working and traveling all day so we decided just to go to bed and save

So as we only had four day in NYC we had a to pack alot of things in. So it pretty much went like this

Day 1 (Ross' actual birthday):
-Times Square


-Ground Zero


-St. Paul's Chapel

-Statue of Liberty

-Drinks at The Shoreham

-Dinner at Riki-Yakiniku Izakaya (really great Japanese BBQ place)
-More drinks at The Shoreham


Day 2:
-Macy's

-Wall Street

-New York Stock Exchange

-The Bull


-China Town

-Drinks and Dinner at Gordon Ramsey's which was amazing but more to come on this and the start of Chef Bellshaw's career!!


Day 3:
-Site where John Lennon was shot

-Strawberry Fields

-Central Park

-Museum of Natural History


-The Guggenheim

-Ice skating in Central Park (trust me it is not like riding a bike! Just think Bambi and you will get the picture!


-M&M world


-Biggest McDonald's in the world


-Dinner at Becco (great little Italian restaurant)

-Drinks at Deacon Brodies (Andy Adair friend runs this bar)


Day 4:
-Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)


-Rockefeller Center


-Top of The Rock




Next time, Chef Bellshaw!!