Snowed In Out East

As you’ve probably heard, the East Coast was blanketed in 9″ – 30″ of snow the day after Christmas. I happened to be out east visiting my dad which resulted in me getting snowed in for a day to leave for my vacation to Central America.

On Sunday I ran in to NYC for the morning, right before the storm hit. It took us 45m to get and 2 hours to get back. I shot some photos of the city as it started to get hit.

View from 1540 Broadway, 17th floor:

View walking up Broadway:

I managed to get out last night via White Plains instead of the original Newark to Atlanta, spent the night in Atlanta and am now waiting back at the Atlanta airport to head out. The flight out of White Plains (Westchester County) was pretty harrowing. The 40+mph gusts on the ground made for huge snow drifts, causing it look like we were about to take off of an ice shelf in Antartica. Here are a few pictures as we boarded the plane:

Thankfully everybody is safe and thanks to my dad for driving me up to the airport, I’m ready to go down to Belize and Guatemala and enjoy the sun!

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Track of the Week: Christmas Sarajevo 12/24 by Trans-Siberian Orchestra

This week’s track is fitting for the coming Christmas weekend, Christmas Sarajevo 12/24 by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, off of their first album Christmas Eve and Other Stories. It’s basically a metal cover of Carol of the Bells, and who doesn’t love metal covers of old folk songs? I think I first heard this song in high school and if memory serves it was one of the first MP3s I ever downloaded (along with Oasis, Ace of Base and Quad City DJs). Every year, come Christmas-time, this song pops in to my heads as timeless and epic.

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Track of the Week: Lights by Ellie Goulding

This week’s track is Lights by Ellie Goulding, off of either her American debut An Introduction to Ellie Goulding EP, or her British debut Bright Lights. I first found this track on the Hype Machine twitter top tracks. I’d never heard of Ellie Goulding but a quick set of searches revealed she’s sort of a big deal in the UK, having topped the BBC’s Sound of 2010 chart and some other accolades.

This particular song is a great synthpop (or better yet folktronica!). The track opens with some nice synth tones (best to listen in headphones to get the full effect). It builds slowly adding in the vocals and a drum beat to hold the song together. The songwriting is enjoyable as is the Ellie Goulding’s raspy, reaching, vocals. Her voice stands great alone, and fills out the entire song when overdubbed.

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Track of the Week: Tron Legacy (End Titles)

This week’s track is Tron Legacy (End Titles) by Daft Punk off of the Tron Legacy Soundtrack. It’s Tron. It’s Daft Punk. It’s pretty epic. Based on the visuals from the trailers and the epic and soaring music from Daft Punk I’m pretty sure the movie will be a sight to see. The eponymous track is probably the most Daft Punk-y of the tracks with a quick tempo and pulsing beats, and easily has the most single appeal of the tracks of the album. I highly recommend the entire album.

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