Big Wheels Keep on Turnin'....

Hi Bloggy Friends,

I haven't written in a while, so there is a lot to catch up on. Here are some of the most exciting things that have been happening in my life over the past couple of weeks:

Of course, I've been keeping really busy with assignments at my internship and school, though I find it much more manageable than I did in the beginning. I post most of the work on Facebook and Twitter, so hopefully you've had a chance to check out some of the stuff I've been doing. My most exciting break so far was having the chance to do the cover story for City Paper's annual style issue. Julia West and I teamed up to talk to local fashion insiders about what trends will make up the next decade. I thought the article turned out beautifully and to top it off our names made the cover. I was in heaven for a whole week. City Paper has afforded me so many exciting opportunities. This week I interviewed queer performance artist Justin Bond and I'm waiting on an response from comedian Chelsea Handler any minute now. Call me, girl!

As far as home life goes, Alan and I have continued to spruce up our place for spring. We've bought several plants to decorate our windows and the patio, and have taken on a few art projects to bring some pizzaz to the inside as well. One of my most recent side jobs was to paint a gold framed mirror we picked up at a yard sale a few years back. I've never been too crazy about the gold color, so I finally pepped it up with a little turquoise. Do you like it? You may also notice the tall-horned gazelle head we picked up a few weeks ago. I love how it looks in front of the mirror. It's amazing how the little things can make such a huge difference in your living space. Artwork and greenery make everything feel so alive. I'm so gay....

Our social calendar has been pretty happening lately too. This weekend we hit up a new restaurant in Old City called Chifa with a few of Alan's colleagues. The eatery specializes in Peruvian inspired small plates, so we had a chance to try a variety of delectables, like salmon ceviche, pork belly buns and a rich lobster bowl. The food was wonderful, but my favorite part, of course, was the three bottles of Argentinian wine we plowed through. Hello!

I've also found myself spending more time with my "colleagues" at school. One of the best things about my final semester is the camaraderie that has formed between us. Here I am pictured with (L-R) Stephanie, Trenae and Michelle. We've been climbing the ranks of classes together for several semesters now and we can all sympathize about the struggles we may be having in our senior capstone (MURL) class. It's really not so bad but most of us, myself included, will take any chance to bitch about something every now and then, right? Holler.

And finally, the biggest news I have to report is that Alan and I are taking off for a two week trip to Europe after I graduate. It will be an amazing topper offer to the almost five years of schooling I've put in. When not busy with work, we've been spending our spare time shuffling through guide books and listening to travel podcasts to get ideas about the places we're going. Paris and Amsterdam is where we'll spend most of our time and we plan to take a few days in the Belgian cities of Brussells and Bruges. We're both really excited about it.

I hope you all have a nice rest of the week. Thanks for stopping by today. I'll chat with you soon.

Love, Josh

Valentine's Gay: How We Met

Happy Valentine's Day Bloggy Friends,

I hope this post finds you well and deeply in love. We're not typically the mushy Valentine's Day types, but we like to play along as much as we can. If we were a hetero couple it probably wouldn't be a big deal, but since we're gay we're whoopin' it up just because we can. We may be denied the basic right to make our relationship "legal," but no one can tell me that I can't call Alan my Valentine.

Did you do anything special for the holiday? We decided to celebrate last night so we could take it easy and bypass the crowds (and the set priced menus) on Sunday. We tried a new restaurant called AUGUST, an Italian infusion BYOB just around the corner from our house. Our meal was phenomenal. We started with a bottle of Pinot Noir and an appetizer made with artichoke hearts and sauteed, sun-dried tomatoes. For an entree I had the pan seared tilapia and Alan had a striped sea bass dish. They were both fantastic, but I think I chose the winning plate. My fish was so rich, tender and just flat out mouth-watering. I loved every bite. We finished the evening with a shot of espresso each and a chocolate truffle torte. The experience couldn't have been more perfect.

Today we did our usual chores and now we're home waiting for dinner and listening to Nina. Alan is making barbecue salmon with mashed sweet potatoes and a brussel sprout/cauliflower concoction. Lately we've been trying a lot of different salmon recipes but barbecue salmon is how Salmy Sunday began, so we thought the throwback would be a nice way to celebrate. It's hard to believe, but this will be our sixth year together. Valentine's Day may be a cheesy, marketed holiday but it does remind you to think about what you have and to trace the steps backward in the attempt to remember how it all began:

For us it started while I was working in a raw foods juice bar in San Francisco. Alan strolled in, struck up a conversation and invited me to see a Dolly Parton cover band later that night. He had me at Dolly Parton, but another intriguing aspect to our relationship is that we grew up within 200 miles of one another and ended up living in three of the same cities at the exact same time, but didn't meet until we were both in San Francisco. Funny, huh?

So much has changed since then, but one thing remains unaltered: I am so thankful he walked in that night. I can't speak for him, but I can truly say that he has enriched my life in an innumerable amount of ways and I love him tremendously.

Have a great night Bloggy Friends. I'll chat with you very soon.

Love,
Josh

In case you missed it, here's some of the work I did for City Paper this week!:

Neighborhood Watch - Fashion Blog

Art Phag - LGBT Event Round-Up

Valentine's Day Event Round-Up

Interfaith Breakfast with Rev. Chris Glaser

The Mentalist with Kate Wallace-Watson

My Interview with Rufus Wainwright

Thanksgiving Exturkeyganza!!!

Hello Bloggy Friends!!! It's great to see you guys back after the long, holiday weekend. We had such a terrific time on Thanksgiving. I must say, that this is probably one of my favorite Thanksgivings since I left home. This is also the very first Thanksgiving Alan and I spent together. It was great.

Thanks to Bloggy Friend Bill, we found out about a Thanksgiving dinner at a local restaurant called The Valley Green Inn. Let me tell you, it was the perfect place to spend the holiday. The weather was out of this world gorgeous and the food was double delicious!! The Green Valley Inn is nestled in the Wissahickon Valley of Fairmount Park, so the scenery was breathtaking. The colorful trees were shedding their leaves, the creek was flowing gently and there was a constant hum of happy people milling about the grounds. After we cleaned our plates we took advantage of the park area, hiking along trails and crossing cobblestone bridges - not to mention stopping to bust a move every now and then!!!

I have so much to be thankful for, Bloggy Friends, and I spent every minute of Thanksgiving day reflecting on that. I hope you did the same, because I know you are all very blessed and grateful as well.

I guess I should take this opportunity to say thanks to all of you who stop by to see my blog everyday and thank those of you who write your own blogs, providing me the perfect diversion from a hectic day! It's always nice to stop and smell the bloggy friends!

Have a great day and I'll see you soon!

Love, Josh

Time-Warp Tuesday: Three Year Sugarversary!

Hey Bloggy Friends! I sure missed you over the past few days!

This weekend Alan and I celebrated our three year anniversary, or Sugar-versary, together! We aren't sure when the exact date is, so once upon a time we decided that we would recognize the second Saturday in September as the official day. This way it will always be on a Saturday!

This year it actually crept up on us unexpectedly, so we didn't put a lot of thought into planning anything spectacular. We have so much going on right now, with the move and all, that we seem to be oblivious to what day of the week it is! So, we decided on a movie and a superb dinner at a restaurant we have been meaning to try called Destino. We had a great night as we put all of our responsibilities behind us for the evening to relax and enjoy some time together.

I can't believe it has been three years. Time really does fly. The Time-Warp Tuesday bloggy video of the week is a look back over the past three years. I have added some snapshots and a few videos that I hope you will enjoy. It was a lot of fun for me to look back through the pictures we have taken. We have done so much together and have changed so much even in this short amount of time. I look forward to this new journey we are about to embark on together, and all things the future has in store!

Enjoy bloggy friends!

Love, Josh

Singin' & Eatin' With Good Friends!

Hey Bloggy Friends!

Yesterday my friend Kelly came in from Santa Cruz, so we decided to meet up and do one of the things we love most - go to The Mint for karaoke! My friend Nicole, who you have met before, came along too. We had a ton of fun being silly and acting like divas! I've been going to The Mint for about a year now, it's kind of like my "Cheers." I have several friends there and it's always nice to stop in and sing a song, or sixty, from time to time with everyone.

Afterwards Alan met up with us and we went to one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Memphis Minnie's. Memphis Minnie's is famous for it's scrumptious, down home, soul food! Kelly has been asking me to take her for a while, so I took the opportunity when she came back into town. It was so good!

Here is a video I posted of our afternoon. For full versions of my duet with Kimi click HERE, and for my duet with Aldo, click HERE.

Have a great day Bloggy Friends!

Love, Josh

Making The Rounds: The Tamale Lady!

Since I have been living in San Francisco I have been hearing talk of this citywide icon known as "The Tamale Lady." The Tamale Lady lives and works all over The Mission, but where to find her exactly is a mystery! Rumor has it that she makes the best tamales in all of San Francicso. She's famous to the locals and even has her own write up, along with countless other restaurants in San Francisco, on yelp.com. She'll pop up at a local bar, maybe she'll set up a stand on 16th & Valencia, you just never know where you might run into her. Though some say she always knows where she's needed most - and that's usually at a local bar full of the drunk and ravenously hungry! I have always been very curious about this special Tamale Lady, though I have never worked too hard to seek her out. I'm not like a huge tamale fan or anything, but I have always hoped that one day our paths would cross.

This week after checking out at Trader Joe's that day finally came! There she stood, as we walked out the door, with her little cart and tamale in hand. She was just as cute and spunky as I could have imagined. "Want a tamale?" the magic words gleefully spilled from her mouth.

"Yes I do!"

Boy was it worth it! When we shelled out our $2, unwrapped the outer corn layer and sank our teeth into that warm, moist tamale I instantly understood what all the fuss was about! Mmmmmm Mmmmm! This lady has magic in her fingers and today was my lucky day! I couldn't stand there admiring her too long, though, before I knew it people were pushing me out of the way to have their daily dose of the tamale lady's delectable treat. They all knew that if they didn't catch her now, there was no telling when she might pop up next.

Thank you tamale lady for being there before I left San Francisco. It would have been sad to have left, never knowing the pleasure of your sweet, sweet goodness!

House Guests: Paloma's Cha Cha - Cha's

One of my favorite people on the planet, Paloma, visited town last night. Several of us met up at a tapas restaurant in The Mission called Cha Cha Cha's. We had an awesome time drinking sangria and chowing down on some delicious tapas. After dinner we all traveled down the street to a place called Beauty Bar where we continued our merry drinking festivities and some lively conversation.

Paloma just returned from a trip to Afghanistan with the band she is currently in, she also had the opportunity to visit Dubai. It was fun listening to the stories she had to tell about these exotic locales. She plays the violin and has backed up such famous groups as The Eels & Gnarls Barkley to name a few. We met several years ago when I was living in Chicago, I used to frequent a vegetarian restaurant she worked in called Blind Faith. We also had a chance to work together briefly at Chicago Diner before she moved away to L.A. after college. I always love spending time with her and was thrilled that she came to town before I leave in September. She has several friends here from high school so she visits rather frequently. Here is a mish-mash of videos and pictures that I took last night. Hope you enjoy!

I posted more PICTURES on my Flickr page - check it out!


Love, Josh



There are more pictures on my Flickr page check out http://flickr.com/photos/justjoshfunk1/sets/72157601289042066/

Birthday Shout-Out!/Making The Rounds, Pt. 3

Last Monday, July 30th, was Alan's birthday! He was out of town, for a conference in Boston, so we didn't have a chance to celebrate until this weekend. We got up early Saturday and had coffee at our favorite coffee shop, then headed downtown to see The Simpson's Movie - which was hilarious! After the movie we were starving, and Alan wanted Italian, so we went to a restaurant that we have been wanting to try for a while now called Emmy's Spaghetti Shack! It is a really fun place that is located in the Outer Mission. The decor was really funky and fun - kind of hipster. The menu was rather small and to the point but it didn't take long to decide what we wanted. I had a delicious crab & avocado salad, with a glass of wine of course, and Alan had a huge plate of spaghetti & meatballs. Everything was super delicious and the dining experience was tons of fun. It is a small place so it got really crowded very soon after we arrived, so we didn't feel the need to stay there very long. I suggest trying it out though if you are in the area!

Here is a birthday video I made for Alan. He has been very busy lately, trying to finish up his PhD program at school. Pretty soon he'll be a doctor! He is really excited to start his position at GSK at the end of September - he has been in school for a looooooong time! Everyone join me in wishing him a very happy birthday!

Love, Josh