An Sionnach

Well the journey west has begun. For all my life I have lived along the East coast. I was born in the great city of Boston, to shortly thereafter at the age of 5 move to New York, where I spent 25 years of my life. I had the opportunity to live in my Moms and Grandfathers hometown, Bangor Maine. It was then on to Philadelphia. Shortly after 9/11 I took a job working with adjudicated youth and lived in a tent for 2 years on a mountain just outside of Hendersonville, NC. The mountains grabbed me so much I decided to stick around and moved up to the city of Asheville, and spent almost 6 years driving through the mountainside. Never in my life has a place impacted me so much as the mountains of Western NC. Anyone who knows me has always said I am most at home when in the woods and mountains. Maybe it’s my the earthy element of my Celtic heritage. I knew these mountains, I even walked them from end to end in 1999.

But today I am leaving these mountains and taking another 2000 mile journey to Los Angeles. When I hiked the Appalachian Trail and reached the end I wondered where to now. As I looked past the terminus sign I saw blazes that led along the knifes edge, those blazes led down the mountain, to the yellow and white blazes of the highway. The Appalachian Trail never ends, because no matter where you look there are more white blazes leading along life’s trail. So while those mountains will sorely be missed I now journey West to another milestone in my life, marriage. Everything I have experienced and learned in my life in the East I am now going to share with my wonderful wife in the west. This seems to be the theme of my life. When it came to studying my faith it was a combination of East and West. Matter of fact it was something that Huw and I had named our combined blog.

This seems to be the theme of my life, it seems that life finds it’s balances. It’s Yin and Yang. When I have spent most of my time in the city it brings me to the woods, when in the woods to the city. Life in the East brings me to life in the West. The first half of my life was spent single or celibate as a Franciscan, the second half marriage. Is not God amazing?

So here I am 1/3rd of the way there. The past few weeks have been exhausting as I have finished up work, continued with classes, as have managed to eliminate so many things so as to get what I can could into my pickup. My 1st day on the road was short, very short. It was mostly to just get going. I stopped along the AT to see if I might run into any of the thru hikers for the year, the next day I drove 800 miles to a small hotel just on the border of Oklahoma. I thought about going another leg, but I saw the 36.95 sign with wireless and a bed called me. I was a little sketchy. I remember many of the 36 dollar hotels on the AT. But Interstate Motel had clean rooms and bathroom, cable TV, WiFi, and breakfast. The pillows could have had a bit more pillow to them. Combine the two, fold em, worked ok. But I advise bringing your own. The front wall is just single pane glass, so as the trucks roll by it sounds like the window is open. But for this tired kitsu, sleep was not a problem.

Well… Westward!!

Land of the Sky? I wonder why.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach
Well I woke up this morning to an absolutely kicking sunrise. As you can see the sky is filled with a myriad of reds and oranges that reflect upon the foliage. And it gets better. =)
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Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

A graphic put together as a proposal for the Asheville Tourists. The site proposal would include a team forum, 3d stadium view, ticket sales, and a newsletter.

Graphic Design.

Needless to say the tourists did not take the proposal.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

A pMachine driven website for the local Asheville Muslim community. pMachine allows for easily updatable website content by the user, so as to eliminate the need of a webmaster to constantly build pages for the site.

Graphic Design, CSS, Layout & Template Design, HTML, PHP, Forums, Javascript, PDF, Search Engine Optimization.

After some domain issues this site will be going back up again using WordPress.  You can find the new site here.

Well… Interesting night last night. Thanks to a Northern friend of mine, I was introduced to the Hookah. So last night a friend and I headed out to Hookah Joes located in Asheville. We decided to hit the happy hour with half priced hookahs, and a very nice selection of beer. It was quiet when we walked in into this sub basement establishment. Matter of fact there was only two other people there other than the bartender. This gave us plenty of time to talk about the Hookah Bar a little, and it’s club prices. This seemed odd at first, but NC has a law that says that if a bar does not serve food or makes more money on liquor than food it must be considered a club, or face heavy fees. So Joe’s charges a simple $3 to become a member for the year, this keeps you from having to pay the $1 entry fee for non club members have to pay each time they visit. so for $3 bucks we scooped up a membership figuring I would probably use it at least to more times this year, and wouldn’t have to worry about finding a member to sign me in as a guest.

So once we went through the details it was time to get the hookah ready. Joes has a huge selection of flavors of some really nice tobacco. It was pretty difficult to choose, but we finally agreed on a mixture of Arabian Coffee and Butterscotch. The butterscotch was a real nice compliment to the coffee as it smoothed it out, and the coffee kept the butterscotch from being overly sweet.

By the time we finished our first hookah, the place was buzzing. I would say at least 30 of the patrons were first time smokers. So the hookah tender (whatever they are called), assisted each group with getting theirs started with a brief education. He seemed pretty knowledgeable, and knew his tobaccos, wines and beers well. About 50% of the smokers were what I call retro-cyber-beatnicks, while the remainder was a mix of your typical Ashevillians.

So it was time for our second hookah, this time we tried something much smoother, and I would have to say very relaxing. Hazelnut and Pistachio. This was clearly our favorite, so we settled into our low cushioned sofas, and enjoyed the nutty flavors of this awesome blend.

Hookah Joes is a great place to just come in and relax. There is no smoking, well except the hookahs, which is a very clean smoke, and disipates quickly. The crowd is friendly, and the place just has a great feel to it. So if your ever in Asheville, make sure you stop in for some after dinner cocktails, and a Hookah.

Be sure to check out the live webcam on Fri and Sat nights after 8, for an inside look into the establishment