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Just as a heads up for folks who haven’t heard, today marks probably my last day behind a computer for about the next 20 days. Sure, I have the laptop and I could always borrow Sarah’s laptop, but as a whole, I won’t be signing onto a computer and doing a lot of really deep computer posts here. I might draft some on paper and write them up later when I get on, and I’m certain that I’ll update from my cell phone, but still, just nothing too much that you can expect from me.

As an aside, though I do guarantee that I’ll keep up with my Sunday Share posts, because I’ve got a few of those drafted up to cover every week from now till I’ll be online again. Not bad, huh? Hah! And beyond that too, I’ve asked writers who have covered for me in the past that if they have the time, to please do the same and jot a post or two if they think it’d be interesting to my readers.

I’ll update after the move is over, but you’ll be able to see pictures and random statuses while we’re on the road on my Facebook, I’m sure, as well as I have a feeling I’ll do a few mobile updates here and there on here.

All the best, my friends… I’ll be seeing you around…

Well, this is the first time I’m doing this here, but usually after a show, I wait a few days and write up how I felt about it. I used to do that on my MySpace blog because its music related, but seeing this is my main blog, well, its only fitting that I put it here…

First off, let me thank everyone for coming out. I honestly can’t thank you enough for showing up, even if it was for a short time… That’s all I could ever ask for: my friends there with me to share the final moments that I took to the stage.

So, as I had panned about it before, let’s go on the setlist and go each side of the setlist by each side. Sean Evan opened off the night starting around 8:40 or so, and played a nice rocking 45 minute set or so. Definitely looking forward to hearing his band and how things go with that as time progresses.

Early on in the evening

At about 9:30, I took to the stage for the first time of the night, and my first set was as follows:

Naked
Granny - Dave Matthews Band
Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen
Orange (Remember My Name)
Everything is Beautiful
Gray
I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
Down (Alone Now)
Fifteen (Emergency)
Three Foot Voices
Running to Stand Still - U2
Found Out About You - Gin Blossoms
Growing
Second Rate Superhero

A few notes about this first set:
1) I botched up “Granny” hardcore. I completely forgot the “bridge/chorus” part of it on guitar, but I made up for it with the next cover. I should have started covering Springsteen a long time ago because I think that one sounded really good.
2) “Everything Is Beautiful” was sped up a little and rearranged, seeing I don’t remember all of the lyrics, but the way it flowed and sounded was fairly smooth and enjoyable as a whole. I like playing that one.
3) “Down” had its usual “live fade out” exit, and after all of these years? I’ve still got it.
4) “Fifteen” had a lyrics change from “24″ to “25″ on the opening line, I felt it was appropriate and the song sounded pretty good.
5) “Three Foot Voices” was more of a tease of half of the song as a lead in/intro for the U2 cover, seeing its the same exact chord progression.
6) During “Found Out About You,” I dropped my pick. In the process of heavy strumming, I bruised my right middle finger right by the thumb. Nice blood blister on the side of my nail. Its sorta funny and weird looking.
7) “Growing” sounded phenomenal. Or maybe that was just me. I’m looking forward to hearing input on that one because I have a lot of high hopes for that song.
8) “Second Rate Superhero” was by far the best close that I could have chosen to pull off for the first set. I haven’t played that one in ages, but it felt good.

After the 40ish minutes or so that I was rocking out there, there was a mini set by me, Sean, and John. See, Mikey D was supposed to be there that evening but he’s had some stuff come up and wasn’t able to make it, so we did an impromptu filler set for him:

Toast
Alone
Superhero

And it was completely unrehearsed. Sean and I split the vocal duties with Sean doing the vocals on “Alone” and I took the other two. Seeing Mikey and I have played as a duo in the past, I’m used to multiple guitar arrangements of his songs, and I think these sounded quite good. They were definitely a treat and I think that if Mikey had a chance to hear them, he would have been proud.

Next up on stage was Mr. Ketcham. While I’m disappointed that even with showing him his own chords to his song “Long Way Home” that he didn’t play it (which happens to be my favorite song of his), I always love hearing his set because of his technical prowess as a guitarist. Beautiful. Just simply beautiful.

And at about 11:30, I took to the stage again for the final time of the night and the final time in Orlando. To step up there and start? I had to start at the beginning, so I reflected that with my final set:

And I Said
Entrophy
Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
Echo
Tonic & Gin
Not Another Butterfly
Normal Life - July for Kings
Lucky - 7M3
Running Back to You
The Fall Of Autumn
Four
Orion
Pictures - Unsung Zeros
Radiance - Athenaeum
Don’t Stop Believing - Journey
Trying So Hard

And with this set, I accomplished a lot and have a lot of little notes to add to it:
1) “And I Said” is the oldest song of mine that I’ve written that I still play, so I think it was very fitting to put it in there; on the same note, “Entrophy” was played for the first time solo ever there. Not many folks are around who have heard it live in its original version, and I’m glad I could play it with a smile.
2) I wore my usual Kangol cap only once the whole night, during “Slide.” It felt appropriate to me. Also, if you didn’t notice, I was wearing a UCF t-shirt with Knightro on it. One of the few UCF shirts that actually looks very cool.
3) For “Tonic & Gin,” I used a slowed down intro on it that I’ve been playing often, and I really thought it was a nice one to use for it this time.
4) This was the first time that I can recall playing the acoustic arrangement of “Not Another Butterfly.” And the only recorded versions of it are electric. So it was a little treat for those out there to hear a new version of it.
5) On “Running Back to You,” no, I did not do the old school “running in place” that I used to do live. I was feeling sort of tired at this point.
6) I botched up the lyrics a little on “Four,” and completely forgot the second verse and adlibbed something in its place. Oh, and an interesting trivia note which I mentioned that night: the only album of mine that I played in its entirety on Friday night was “The Four EP.” And I didn’t even touch any songs on my “Running Away From Myself Again EP.” So there you go.
7) “Pictures” is a fun cover that I should have started playing much sooner in my time on stages, but even still, it worked well as a lead off of the final covers. Which is why I had to play “Radiance”–it wouldn’t be a farewell show without an Athenaeum cover. Oh, and during my Journey cover? Even the baristas were singing along. I like that one. Really really like it.
8) There was no other way at all that I could have ever closed out the evening other than “Trying So Hard.” And if you expected any other way, well, I couldn’t think of it, so please let me know for the future. But this version clocked in probably close to 15 minutes, with extended intros and outros… It was just right.

All said and done, I ended my second set around 12:50am. A good hour and fifteen minutes since getting up there. It was all I could play, all I could do, and as soon as I had finished, well, I was done. Finis. I couldn’t have played any more because my voice went right after I got off the stage.

So, I’d like to again thank everyone who did come out, and thank you to my friend Katy who took all of the great pictures you see here (and if anyone else has pictures, please e-mail me), and to all who just have been around in one way or another in one capacity or another. It means a lot to me.

One final note: I had folks ask me about the tip jar that I was going to put out there. In my haste to leave, I didn’t bring one with me. So if you still wanted to contribute to that, please do so on my Discography page through PayPal. All the help on our move with paying for diesel is a help.

Thanks friends… Thanks for 6 great years of support on the Orlando scene and I’ll be seeing you…

Summing up 6 years with just over 6 chords...

Instead of my usual link or cool item for the day, I thought that I’d actually post a freebee that I found on HIF today. Well, yeah, I wrote the entry for it and I posted it, but still.

If you head to Thomas Friedman’s website–particularly this page–you can sign up for his e-mail list and for a free download of his book The World Is Flat. I actually sat down and read this book a year or two back and really enjoyed it, despite the fact that it didn’t really do anything to explain the problem but just diagnosed the situation.

And to get it for free? Well, can’t really beat that. Being an audiobook too, you can enjoy it on a long roadtrip, like the one I have ahead of me.

Oh, and by the way, follow my instructions on the link to HIF so you don’t have to wait for the additional parts. It’ll save you some time there. But hurry: this is only good till August 4th!

A Farewell to Farewell Shows - July 25, 2008 - 8pm

The special guests for the night are some of my favorite friends to share the stage with, so you should know all of them and be familiar with their acts… I’ve got over 2 hours of stuff from me planned, so this’ll be fun. I know that you’ve known about this one for a while, but I wanted to have a flyer for it, and I figured a candid shot that I took of my keychain was a nice one for it…

Hope to see some friends out there for it…

With this Friday being the last time that I take to the stage in Orlando, I thought I’d share an interesting show that I had on my hard drive that I’ve debated releasing for a few years now… Everytime that I listen to this show, a smile creeps across my face at just skimming the set and looking at what I played and how I played it.

On February 24, 2003, I took to the stage at Liquid Cellar Bar and Bistro across the street from UCF. I remember that with their venue, they were just starting out their open mics, so I was given an opening hour long set there. At Natura a few months later, I would be given a similar offer before they got busier and had to cut it down. Not bad, to say the least.

Open mics are tricky things to do, I always thought. You have three songs to play at a place where noone really cares about what you’re playing and they’re just there to drink their beers and sit with their friends. Or, they’re in a band and looking for someone new for their band. Still, they’re not the best things in the world. I used to think they were, but I loved doing my opening sets because it was like weekly shows.

That was the case with this night. Being the opening act at an open mic night like this, I got to play what I wanted and not my three songs in 15 minutes and run off stage without people knowing who I am. And that being said:

1) Introduction - Again, here’s me separating out talking from the tracks. So if you want to loop me introducing myself? You’ve got thirteen seconds here to do so in.
2) “Consistency” - A cover of Ari Hest’s song, I enjoyed playing this one live for a while. It was always something fun to mess around with. And this is back from the days that I didn’t really adjust a song to my voice but just let it loose on what I felt sounded good. Boy, was I wrong.
3) “Grain of Salt” - This original was an interesting one. It was the first time that I started really writing solo and thinking of a band after the breakup of Mindflux. While I thought that I might find another band soon, I intended this to be the “breakout” song. I only played it for a few months, and I’ve since forgotten how to play it. Maybe I’ll relearn it sometime.
4) “Down (Alone Now)” - I wrote this one about a month and a half prior to playing it, and it was the big song that I always played at open mics back then. It was the first piece that I wrote in the breakup of Mindflux and I thought that this was the redefinition of me. From this one, I had the courage to write and start doing the music thing again, because I was fairly devastated at the breakup of the band. I started thinking that maybe I could actually go somewhere, and I tried to enjoy it with this one. By the way, the fadeout on this one? That’s all live, baby. No effects.
5) “Trying So Hard” - Most people know this one and have heard this one from me, but there’s something different about this one, and its why I wanted to share this show. This show marks the very first time that this song was played. At this point, I had written it just over a week before and I thought it was alright and somewhat catchy, but I wasn’t sure where it would go and how it would survive in the long-run. Of course, as most people know, this is “the song” for me. Its interesting to listen to it there and then think of how it’s evolved since then. Definitely a “collectors item” to hear.
6) “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” - With all of these generic pop-rock tracks that I write, you wouldn’t really know that I’m a huge fan of the blues and a huge SRV fan. I used to work this cover into my sets back in the day. While my voice wasn’t there for it, the guitar work always was fun to do. It was a nice change of pace from the poppy other stuff that I’m known for.
7) “In Too Deep” - A rock piece that I wrote just after leaving high school, its the oldest song of mine that I played that night. I wanted to bring it out and I enjoyed playing it. Has a nice twist with the pre-chorus and a strong “sing-along” style chorus.
8) “Waiting For Change” - After the breakup of Mindflux–which I know I keep referring to, was just about 3 months prior–I didn’t want to play “Second Rate Superhero” because I hadn’t taken it back and made it mine. I pushed it aside and ended up writing this track to use as my “big ballad” of the night.
9) “Radiance” - I loved playing this cover and closing my night with it back in the day. The closing track to the album of the same name by Athenaeum, it was the first song of theirs that I learned how to play. I loved closing off the night and just letting this one ride and pouring it all out into the music and just letting it all go.

So there you have an interesting diverse set with some tracks that you don’t hear everyday from me… Something not really what you’d expect, but I think the variety of it and my naïvety helped make it a fun little night there.

Download Adam J. Cohen - ‘February 24, 2003, Live at Liquid Cellar Bar and Bistro’

And again, remember you need to have an account and be logged in… If your account isn’t working, well, let me know.

Following off of my post from Friday about my old computer, I need to share one of the best resources that I think most people know about but I want to post about it here…

OldVersion.com

Yup, anywhere and everywhere on this site you can find anything from Version 3.0 of Internet Explorer to the original download of GAIM. All of these are mostly pointless and unnecessary, until you actually need them. Sorta like me this past week.

Alright, I’ve got nothing else, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Ages upon ages ago when Sarah and I started dating, she had an old laptop. To give you an idea when I say “old laptop” what I mean, try doing a Google search for a laptop called “UMAX,” specifically an “Action Book 320T.” As you can see, Pentium I, 3 gig HD, Windows 95, 32 meg RAM. All of that fun stuff.

Well, when she and I first started dating, this was her only computer. And while she had it and it had an ethernet adapter and a modem and all of that fun stuff? It just wouldn’t work. Whenever you’d try to load up Internet Explorer (which was so old on the initial install of the upgraded Windows 98 SE, it was just “Window’s Version), it would give you an error message. Just wasn’t cool, to say the least.

I decided that with us spending a few weeks at her parents and at mine, well, I would be going through internet withdrawals if I had to share a computer and have limited time. Much greater than that, how would I update all of my friends here on my blog? Or even scarier, sync up my iPod nano?

I’m being facetious here. I am addicted, just not that addicted.

So, I set to it last night, starting to see if I could figure out what was going wrong with it. I suspected that there was an issue with the internet driver, so I started plugging away at the old 3Com Fast Etherlink XL card (3C-575TX, for those keeping score on models and all of that fun stuff), and I finally made a breakthrough when I got the computer to do something wonderfully awesome.

Yes, my friends, I got it stuck in an endless reboot loop. You can’t top that.

I broke the loop with a safe-boot to the DOS prompt and then? I tanked the sucker with a reformat. It hadn’t been used since 2003 sometime, so it worked well, to say the least.

All of that accomplished, I had a fresh install with Windows 98 SE running just an hour or so later, and then I put it aside for the evening after updating the ethernet driver and limping around online with Firefox 1.5.

This morning, I picked it up again and started plugging away and figuring out what I could and couldn’t do. I’ve got a few ideas that I might put the laptop to use for, but I got Open Office 1.1, GAIM 2.0, IE 5.5 (because 5.0 wouldn’t run Gmail), and Classic FTP all installed with a few more tricks up my sleeve to apply, and here I am.

Yes, here I am. I’m actually typing this from the laptop. So you can expect that if we stop at a hotel with free internet in the room that I’ll actually be online.

Even if I am limping along with an amazing Pentium machine. Its not like I can sync my iPod nano to it anyways, you know? There’s sort of this issue with the fact that my nano has 4 gigs of space and this HD only has 2.4 gigs free… Yeah, might be a small problem…

MSNBC, I think we have a problem...

I know I just posted, but still, I saw this on TV. I saw the poll posted earlier and something didn’t seem right as I was listening and looking out of the corner of my eye, but now that I looked at it again, well, it all makes sense now.

I guess this explains why McCain spoke to the NAACP today: he must have watched Face/Off last night…

Just wanted to pop in with a little note as I take a break before practicing a little more for my upcoming farewell show on the 25th:

1) My final grade posted online with UCF and its official: I am a Class of Summer 2008 alumni from the University of Central Florida (BA English, BSBA Management). I made the numerical requirement for Dean’s List, but because I didn’t take 12 credit hours for summer, I don’t believe it counts. Still, I’m happy with it.

2) If anyone tried downloading the show from yesterday, I figured out what I did wrong about posting it. See, WordPress had an upgrade to 2.6, so then I had to upgrade my Download Manager plug-in. I upgraded it, but didn’t appropriately upgrade the permalinks and database. Soooo, that being said, I took care of that this morning and it should be working now.

3) I’m looking for a few plugins, if anyone knows of them:
a) Phone/Audio posting similar to what LJ does on their site, if there exists something like that for WordPress?
b) Mobile Picture posting? Something where I can text in a picture from my phone to post it here on the blog?
I’m looking for both of them so I can upgrade on our moving trip in a few weeks.

And a note or two on that in a few days whenever I get around to it.

I started thinking with my farewell show coming up, it might be sort of cool to actually dig into my archive and on this Tuesday and next Tuesday, release some of the old shows that I have sitting around on my computer or on CD. I’ve got 6 or 7 shows here or there. While these are all extremely rough and shows me in my early development stages and some of them I’m a little embarassed about? I’ll take it. Hell, these are all live, so might as well let them loose.

So here, I’ll start off with one from Mindflux: February 22, 2002 at Wack-A-Doo’s on campus.

Mindflux was my first band here at UCF, with Harry Ticer on violin and Lorn Miller on bass and backing vocals. We played shows from about January 2002 through November 2002, breaking up after being together for just about a year. We never really released any albums, but we did release a few live shows, including this one initially.

For this show, I remember there was a lot of anxiety from me. Wack-A-Doo’s just started a live musician feature on Friday nights and we were the first band to really do that at all. This was only like the second or third show for us, and we were still a little rough around the edges. Add to that the fact that a lot could have gone wrong.

See, Wack-A-Doo’s told us that to play we needed to play acoustic. I only had a regular acoustic guitar, meaning that I’d need a pickup for my guitar and couldn’t use my usual Epiphone Les Paul. Yeah, it was only a cheap Special II model, but it was all I used to that point. So with that in mind, I went to Sam Ash that day and bought a soundhole pickup for my guitar. And also with that in mind, I bought my very own microphone and stand, just to ensure that I’d have something that worked right and that I knew how it’d work. I’d learned with my limited show experience to that point that a microphone could make or break my voice, and I wanted to have that in my hands.

So with all of that in mind, I had dropped about $150 before the show, we practiced, and this is how it turned out. And from there, I think it’s only fitting to talk a little about the set:

1) “Entrophy” - This was the first song we wrote and had a moving solo/interlude section where we all were featured soloists. Fairly simple on the words and melody, it was something that I wrote on the fly to go with the riff that we wrote. The cool part is the interplay of the three instruments: its what we based the whole band off of.
2) “One More Time” - I always lead into it with that joke and yeah, I know it gets annoying just listening to it once there, but I thought it was good. By the way, notice something interesting about the guitar? I’ll explain shortly…
3) Change in Plans - I was a fan of splitting tracks initially to keep talking to a minimum before and after the tracks, so this is just a spot where we stopped and talked about the set.
4) “Wack-A-Doo’s (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)” - Just as it says in the parenthesis, this is a cover song. I thought it would be clever to joke about them being called “Loco’s” at one point, seeing the restaurant had just been renamed. Yeah, its not. I know. God, I was young.
5) “And I Said” - This is the oldest song that I still play to this date, and if you notice there’s actually a guitar solo. Notice the distortion? That’s distortion on an acoustic guitar. I was running my guitar through a Fender Frontman 25R amp, the same as Harry (our violinist) used and I just kicked on the second channel and let it rip. And yes, as you can tell from the recording, it wasn’t the only time that I did that during the night.
6) Thank You’s - Just another brief shoutout and thanks for the “venue.”
7) “Look At Me” - This one was still in development at this point in time of the Mindflux “career.” I had just written it about a week or so before and we had drilled the practice down and made sure we had everyone’s cues in place. As you can hear in the track before, I still hadn’t even learned the lyrics because I requested a chair to put them on. That’s why I think I mumbled the lyrics through half of it. Also, if you’ve heard my song “Naked,” you can tell that it eventually evolved and became that. They have a similar progression, minus the capo on the latter.
8) Request for an Encore - I think they looked over at us from behind the bar and asked us to do another. You can hear shouting for “Second Rate Superhero,” which I ignored. We hadn’t rehearsed it that much and I didn’t want to do two slow songs back to back. You can hear the word “Watchtower” shot out and then Lorn laughing.
9) “All Along the Watchtower” - A cover that we did well, we took elements from Dave Matthews and Jimi Hendrix and melded them together. The thing that always keeps me in awe with this recording is Harry’s solo that starts around 3:45 and goes till 4:49. The key phrase in that solo is at the points between 4:32 and 4:49 that closes it off. Why? If you go back to Hendrix’s studio version of the song, you’ll hear the same exact phrase between 2:16 and 2:31 with some elements from 2:45-2:49. Harry was a HUGE Hendrix fan and studied his phrases and transcribed them for violin and they were just phenomenally done. Because of this, his wah and distortion and other effects on his violin? He could pull off a hell of an impersonation.

That being said, I hope you enjoy this one. I’ll have another one on next Tuesday from an interesting show in my solo history… But for now:

Download Mindflux - ‘February 22, 2002, Live at Wack-A-Doo’s’

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I never really made many people mix-tapes. I’ve made one friend here or there one of sorts, but I remember growing up how I used to sit by the radio and carefully wait for the few songs that I wanted and do my damndest to record them off of the radio to make my own mixes. Why? So I could hear all of the songs that I wanted to hear, without having to wait three hours to hear it on the radio again. Yup, all of my hits, back to back to back. And you wonder why I love the 90’s so much?

That’s what makes this site so great:

CassetteFromMyEx.com

A bunch of folks found their old mixtapes that old boyfriends or girlfriends made for them and share not only the music in beautiful grainy tape quality, but the stories and memories associated with these analog relics.

Poetry in music if I ever heard of it, if you ask me… And a great way to get a ton of free music too!

Yesterday and today have been different sort of days from the past seven years.

Each and every day over the past seven years, I’ve woken up and thought about what class I’ve got this week, next week, coming up this semester or the one about to start. I’ve worried about grades, sat in front of my computer checking for e-mails for class projects, or just stared at a blank Word document, working on parts of a paper in my mind and letting it slowly write itself.

The truth is, now that school is all done? I don’t know what I really have to do, honestly.

The future is something that will scare me a little bit because I’m not walking out and into a job. I’m still working on that end and finishing off the retooling of my resume, but seeing I wouldn’t be able to interview for anything until after August 19th when we’re moved into our new place and hopefully somewhat setup, well, I’ve got to schedule things up till then.

Its different, that’s for sure. And knowing how much things will change, much more than I initially expected or posted about in the past. I still haven’t taken the time to really post about the true changes now, seeing that master plan changed, but I don’t even feel ready for it yet. I think I might do that shortly after I take to the stage a final time in Orlando.

And that alone is scary for me. On July 25th, I’ll be returning to an Orlando stage for my “Farewell Show.” I know that I’ve had almost more of these suckers than KISS and The Rolling Stones combined, but even still, knowing that this isn’t something where I’m heading back to my apartment and talking to the same musical friends across town gives this one a different sort of weight.

With that weight, I’ve got an interesting night planned at Natura. Starting at 8pm, I’ve got a veritable pantheon of my musical friends all sharing a stage with me for one last time. Sure, I couldn’t get Mike Brooks or Gina Riggio or Harry Ticer or Lorn Miller or Rob Somers to be back up there with me, but other than the big names that people remember seeing with me, the only obvious other ones will be beside me that night as I truck through some of the best things I’ve written and some covers that I’ll butcher. And covers there will be.

Matter of fact, head over to my music page if you’ll be heading to the show and feel free to request anything from my back catalog. Don’t forget that they’re all free downloads, just sign up for an account. And if your prior account that you’ve signed up for doesn’t work? Let me know.

If you remember me playing it and its not there? Again, go ahead and request it. I’m trying to make sure I play all that my friends want to hear (and some they probably don’t too) just to make sure that I feel like I “vindicate” myself in the end of it all. Covers too. I don’t care, I want to do what I’ve always intended on doing: walking up to that stage, playing my heart out, and seeing someone smiling and nodding along. And that’s why this last show is going to have so many requests.

This time, it will be the last time.

Natura Coffee and Tea, Orlando, FL
Friday, July 25th, 2008
Starts at 8pm, goes till we’re done and my fingers are bleeding
No cover, tips are always welcome (including “get a haircut” and “get a job”, but money preferred)

When you think of Judaism, quite often you hear the classic stereotype with no pork or bacon.

That could never be me.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a foodie because I’ll eat anything that’s placed on my plate. I’ll try everything at least once, and from there if I really like it, well, I’ll have it again. And I truly enjoy ethnic food–and not just the stereotypical “Jew walks into a Chinese restaurant” ethnic food.

Sarah and I frequent a few Thai restaurants regularly, have a favorite sushi joint (or two), love heading across to a good Indian restaurant, and head out to a few Spanish restaurants from time to time. The catch to eating ethnic food isn’t calling Taco Bell Mexican or Panda Express Chinese. Its about delving into the restaurants where you see those of that ethnicity eating and feeding that hankering when you have it.

And for me, today that hankering was Cuban.

Being raised in Spring Hill, Florida, there was a great little restaurant over in Masaryktown just down the road that served Cuban sandwiches and shoestring potato fries. You know, the really thin fries like what you find at Steak and Shake? Well, those.

And from this, with an amazingly rich flavor and the perfect combination of all of the ingredients that are so lovely and un-Kosher, well, I couldn’t be an Orthodox Jew.

Here in Orlando, I was lucky enough to find a great Cuban restaurant a few years ago. I was working for a telemarketing company for outbound timeshare sales and on my lunch break, I stumbled upon a Cuban restaurant that I could bike to from work: Adita’s Cuban Bakery. Right off of University by (what’s now a closed down) Krispy Kreme, they had a small storefront, but an awesome menu. And I’d stop by once a week and get a Mamey shake and a regular Cuban sandwich. It’d run me just about $10, and I’d always throw in a few bucks on top of that as a tip because I really liked the joint. Adita (I presume that’s her name because she was the main woman running it and it would only make sense) would always give me samples or this or that pastry to try, and as I noticed, it was usually about the same price as the tip I’d leave. Sneaky woman. Even still, I loved heading there. Everytime I walked in, I was treated like I was family. She remembered me.

Flash forward to today. With Sarah and I moving soon, I’ve thought about heading back there, but I just haven’t had the time. I’ve been craving that sandwich for a while. And today, I realized that inside the Chick-Fil-A on campus across from the printing shop and next to the Bookstore in the John T. Washington Center? They’d converted a whole counter space of the Chick-Fil-A into a small version of Adita’s shop! I had seen the sign outside for a while and thought they were just advertising their off-campus presence, but I had no idea they were right there, right in front of my nose!

After not visiting the restaurant for over a year, I saw a familiar face behind the counter who looked at me with a huge smile and said “Where have you been?”

Folks, let me tell you. If you can find a restaurant that they remember you and you haven’t been there in well over a year? And that they’re just as friendly as the first day you were there? And you can tell that the food was made with love and care and with respect for the ingredients because while simple it tastes great?

Don’t let a place like that slip out of your grips.

They’re one of the many things I’ll miss about this area… Great restaurant, great people, and I’m glad that I had a chance to meet them. Maybe I can work out some sort of deal to have her ship me a sandwich a week…

Free?

I figure for this Sunday Share that I’d actually fully talk about something that I keep referring to from time to time here, there, and everywhere else.

Back a few years ago while I was working the RHAP shift one night, I got bored and I started Googling about getting freebees. I mean, hell, I’m a college kid (something I can’t say much longer), so I might as well get anything that I can for free. And that, is when I found Hey Its Free.

HeyItsFree.net

Goob runs an awesome site, and there is a nice little family on the forums there. One of the sites that I truly enjoy visiting and always like talking with the folks on the board.

And yes, I may be a writer for the site, but I wasn’t paid at all for this endorsement. :)

On this day in my history, I’ve done everything from parties with friends, to sitting at home quietly…

But the one thing I strive not to do is discuss politics today. In all honesty, this is a day we remember our country for how great it is. We overlook the faults of those leading it, and celebrate the legacy since 1776, and we remember all of those who have sacrificed for what we have today. With names that ring true through all of American history, this is a day to stop and remember and celebrate freedom.

This, is our Independence Day.

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About The Site


Thanks for stopping by, folks! My name is Adam J. Cohen, and I'm a guitarist/songwriter in Champaign, IL, recently relocated from Orlando, FL where I'm a UCF grad. Here, you'll find vignettes on my life, setlists from open mics and reviews, and whatever else crosses my mind. Enjoy!

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