Ascent Into Madness

Work Ethics

2011-12-21T19:56:00.001-05:00

At work today the secretary was preparing to be out of the office tomorrow and asked if she could give me the cash to pay the cleaning woman tomorrow. It's not a problem at all, so I agreed.

I was already thinking about it, and knew I'd better pay the cleaning woman when she finishes, and I was looking up online for a Spanish translation for "I will pay you when you finish."

Later, when I went to the secretary to collect the envelope of cash, she said "don't pay her before she's finished."

My first thought was that if I paid her all $60 up front for six hours of work, that she'd stretch out the cleaning to a full six hours, rather than whatever time it actually takes. When I told the secretary that, she said, "no, if you pay her first she'd probably take the money and go home."

It must say something about my work ethic that my vision of cheating still including actually getting the job done.

It must also say something that I'm not qualified to manage people...

Chilly December Saturday in Manhattan

2011-12-11T17:53:00.001-05:00

After Leena and I got off the phone I did a few things around the apartment, cleaned the robot vacuum filter and what-not…

Then I got my backpack put together and dressed and headed on out…

I wanted to see the East River Park, so I looked on the map to see the best way to get there, and took the F train to its first stop in Manhattan, East Broadway.

Fisherman in the East River Park

From East Broadway it was a bit of a walk to the park, and not all of it felt like a completely safe neighborhood, but some did here and there. I ended up across a freeway from the park, with no obvious sign how to get across, until I saw a foot bridge a couple of blocks away, next to the Williamsburg Bridge. The footbridge, of course, just went across the FDR Drive freeway to the park.

I walked over there and checked out the park. It was cold, with a cold wind blowing off the river, so there weren't many people there. A few guys were fishing, and there were tennis games going on, as well as some people running along the sidewalk along the edge of the river. The bathrooms had really classy tile work on the outside of the entrances.

Since I was down near the Williamsburg Bridge and looking at cross the river at Williamsburg, I got the great idea to go and look for an address there my mother suggested, where her parents lived when they first got married. So, I went back over that footbridge and walked quite a few blocks up Delancey Street to where the Williamsburg Bridge comes down to street level so people and vehicles can get on it.

Crowd coming over the Williamsburg
Bridge from Brooklyn

The foot path onto the bridge is right in the middle of the street, so while I was waiting for the light I saw some people on the entrance to the bridge in matching T-shirts with some logo on them and waving Mexican flags, with lots of police officers around. When I finally got a walk signal and crossed over to the entrance to the bridge I looked up the path and saw it completely filled with marches coming my way. The front of them were carrying a Virgin Mary statue, and there were thousands of people behind, almost all wearing identical t-shirts and many waving flags, and singing or chanting…

I decided to skip walking over the bridge when I saw that, especially since I planned to go the opposite way and they completely filled the bridge's walkway…

So, I continued across the street and walked around Manhattan some more.

I walked up to Prince Street, then along Prince Street past Broadway, until I couldn't take the crowds anymore and turned up a less crowded street and went up a couple of blocks. I sort of zig-zagged about, went to Washington Square Park, then out and up University Place amidst NYU. I bought a pretzel from a vendor and walked across the street from Union Square, then up Broadway to Madison Square Park, then up 5th Avenue to 40th Street, and over a couple of blocks and up to Grand Central Terminal.

Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building

Grand Central Terminal was packed. There was a line of people waiting to get up to the new Apple Store so I skipped that. There was a line for the men's room, so I skipped that, too. I bought a chocolate croissant from a small bakery that didn't have a line and went back out to 42nd Street.

I walked up 42nd Street and through Bryant Park, which was also crowded. So was 42nd Street, completely packed…

At Times Square I found an empty table with a couple of chairs and sat down to eat my croissant and write in my diary. Despite being night time it was brightly lit, like daytime, from all the lights around. It was chaotic and noisy, too… Today was SantaCon, so the city was full of many thousands of people dressed as Santa Claus, walking around to party and drink… And of course, Time Square is a popular spot for everyone, so lots and lots of SantaCon people were singing and yelling and cheering and going through drunk, but it was all cheerful noise and chaos, not violent or protest or anything negative.

Me in Times Square, writing in my diary

I stayed there for close to an hour, but then I was cold from sitting in the cold wind on a cold metal chair… I didn't realize just how cold till I got up and started walking again. I walked over to the Port Authority Bus Terminal to use the public restroom, then caught the A train back to Brooklyn.

Back in the apartment I took a hot shower when I first got in. My feet were really sore, as that was the longest I wore the new Nike sneakers for walking, and they rub in different places, so there's some blisters.

Small sculpture in a kindergarten
on the Lower East Side

Crossing a footbridge over the FDR
next to the Williamsburg Bridge

Alongside the Williamsburg Bridge

Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg

Underside of the Williamsburg Bridge

That crowd coming off the Williamsburg Bridge

42nd Street, Bank of America Tower
reflecting off another building

SantaCon in Times Square

Times Square

Avoiding Christmas Tree Sales

2011-12-11T12:24:00.001-05:00

Walking around New York City in the month before Christmas there's lots of guys on the streets selling Christmas trees and wreaths and things... A few are aggressive salesmen and the instant they see me glancing their direction begin trying to sell me something, "want to buy a tree?"

Me, "um, no, I'm a Jewish atheist..."

It's a good way to get them to stop...

Return Travel from India

2011-11-30T20:59:00.001-05:00

I returned to the U.S. from my three week vacation in India on November 18th, with a flight around 2:30am on the 19th.

The trip to the airport in Mumbai was fine.

Once in the airport I checked in and dumped my bags with the airline for the trip, then paced up and down the nonsecure parts of the terminal looking for a quiet place to sit and fill in the immigration form. There was a small lounge that was jam packed with people at the far, far end of the terminal from where I checked in.

Finishing that, I got in line for Immigration (which technically, should be Emigration, since it's for exiting India). There were two lines, both of which stretched completely out of the Immigration hall's roped queues and freeform into the terminal. While I was waiting, some guy tried to go through the First Class and Diplomatic line, which is shorter, telling the gov't security woman "I'm a platinum customer" and when she said nothing, and didn't open the rope he started yelling "PLATINUM, DO YOU KNOW WHAT PLAT -- I -- NUM MEANS?" and she still didn't let him through, so he got in the regular line.

Behind me in line was a young woman who whenever the line inched forward would walk ahead until she hit me, never just stopping a few inches behind me. The line took about 40 minutes or so until my turn at an Immigration counter, where I had no troubles and didn't get any questions from the officer.

Through there the line formed for the security check. There was a bottleneck in that two officers checked all the passengers' passports and boarding cards for the fresh Immigration stamp, then there were the roped queues going to the actual security checks. The security check was like it always is in Mumbai, chaotic and confusing about where to go, which line to be in, and a longer time separated from my bag than at other airports. It took another 20 or 30 minutes…

Once through I found a seat in a somewhat quiet lounge in the terminal to call Leena and talk for a bit...

After she and I got off the phone I just sort paced around the terminal. There wasn't any food that seemed appealing at the time, so I was a little hungry, but didn't get anything. I kept using the bathrooms, too, to empty myself out for the travel.

We started boarding at the time I sent Leena an SMS (which was quite a struggle because I forgot how the old Motorola RAZR worked…) to say I was on my way...

I got a window seat for the flight from Mumbai to London, so that was good… I slept for around 4 continuous hours when they dimmed the lights, and then off and on later. The whole flight was in night time, with the dawn some way behind us, but getting closer and closer throughout...

I got to my seat early in the boarding process because it was so far in the back. That was when I opened my backpack to get out my sweatshirt that I noticed my new, $1,500 Canon 35mm f/1.4 lens was not there...

It wasn't until the plane was nearly full and few people were still getting on that my row-mates arrived… They were an elderly Gujarati couple. The wife took the aisle seat and the man took the middle one, immediately spreading his legs wide so he encroached on my space. And smelled kind of bad…

Both of them coughed horribly throughout the whole flight, without covering their mouths or anything. The woman looked like she was pretty sick most of the time. She refused all food and spent a lot of the flight with her head against the seat in front of her.

When the meal came around, the flight attendant asked me if I wanted the egg or the idli & upma option, but asked them if they wanted veg or non-veg. The man got veg, which I also got, since the non-veg one was scrambled eggs, which I don't like.

I take it the older couple are not seasoned, worldly travelers… The man opened his meal and didn't recognize the idli, sambar or upma, all three of which originated in south India but are now common everywhere. For each one of them he asked me, "what this?" and when I told him he asked, "is vegetarian?".

Near the end of the flight the flight attendants handed out suggestion and rating cards to some passengers to fill, about how the airline performed. After I finished filling my rating card, the guy next to me handed me the couple's U.K. Immigration Landing Cards and their passports and sort of asked me to fill them out, because neither of them speaks or reads enough English for that… So, I started with one, copying the details from the man's passport (that's how I know they were Gujarati…) onto the Landing Card.

I filled all of it except the details about their stay in the U.K. and when I asked, the guy said they were going to London. But I'd noticed his Indian passport had been issued in San Francisco, so I guessed they have relatives in the U.S. and might be visiting there, so I asked "U.S.?" and he said "Los Angeles" and showed me his boarding pass for a flight from London to Los Angeles.

At that point, I couldn't ask in Hindi or English for him to understand whether or not they were spending any time in the U.K. that would require them to go through Immigration. I rang for a flight attendant and when she showed up I explained the problem and she asked the guy in Hindi about their travel plans, finding that they weren't leaving Heathrow Airport, so they didn't need the cards at all…

The couple split up after we landed, the man getting off the plane while the woman stood in the aisle and indicated for me and others to go ahead of her. Maybe she needed assistance getting off and was waiting for a wheelchair or something, I'm not sure. She definitely didn't look well, so it's a possibility.

It was a long, long walk from the plane to the first sign for transfer passengers showing what terminal to go to for the next flight. I stood around a little bit to see if I'd see them so I could tell them where to go, but they never showed up. If she needed assistance then probably the airline person who helped would also get them to the right place.

It turned out to be a lot more walking to get to the bus between terminals, which I just barely got on before the doors closed and the bus left the terminal. And then in that other terminal another security checkpoint for transfer passengers. It was smaller, yet more confusing and chaotic than the regular security checkpoints for passengers entering the airport there at Heathrow. But I got through okay, and into the terminal…

I didn't have all that long to wait until the gate opened for my flight to New York. At the gate when I handed my boarding card and passport to the woman it gave her some kind of error, then it worked, but she still had some trouble. She got another gate agent to help her with what to do, and he asked me to step aside while he did a bunch of things, running the boarding card through the scanner and my passport through it and a tremendous amount of typing on the computer before he finally handed it to me and said "it's okay" and waved me into the waiting lounge… I don't know what that was about, maybe the barcode from the Mumbai airport's computer wasn't compatible or something like that… Weird…

For this flight I had an aisle seat next to a window seat in the very last row of the plane. The woman with the window seat was an extremely large woman who needed to get an extension for the seatbelt to go around her bulk. I was already sitting there when she came back and saw her seat and apologized to me about my having to be crammed in next to someone of her size. And she did encroach into my space a bit, simply because she was so big...

Otherwise, the flight was fine. I didn't sleep at all on it, just read stuff on my iPad most of the time. Virgin Atlantic heats their planes more than other airlines, so I was comfortable the whole flight in short sleeves.

Once at JFK the Immigration line was slow, with only two agents handling the line for U.S. citizens, but no problems there. Baggage claim was okay, I got my bags fine, and then the line at Customs was chaotic, with a single desk and one agent on each side of it, but no defined queue for people to get into. When I got to an agent he just looked at my forms and said "welcome home," and passed me through to the exit.

I had to wait in line for a taxi but got one to Brooklyn. That was $34 so I gave him $40 and he helped me with my bags to the door and all that…

So, both Jet Airways and Virgin Atlantic were fine airlines to fly with. There service on board both of them was good, the meals were, well, airline food, but not bad. Virgin Atlantic's food service had several rounds of snacks, that were good stuff, including high tea…

Reply from Virgin Atlantic Customer Relations

2011-11-30T19:56:00.001-05:00

After the fiasco at the end of October with getting to India, I wrote to Virgin Atlantic to complain about the confusing lack of customer service at JFK after the flight was canceled.

I got a reply from one of their customer service representatives today:

Dear Mr Rubin Thank you for your email regarding your recent experiences when your flight home from New York was delayed.

This flight was delayed as a direct result of the inbound service being diverted to Bangor. This was due to excessive holding times at JFK airport caused by light snow, wind and low visibility. Due to on-going delays while the diverted aircraft was waiting for ground provisions, and clearance, the crew ran out of their legal operating hours and it was therefore necessary for the flight to be delayed in Bangor.

I can make no attempt to justify the lack of communications with passengers and the poor service you experienced with us on this occasion - it was unacceptable. However, I would like to assure you it was not intentional or the result of any lack of effort by our ground and operational teams, we were simply overwhelmed by the task in hand. We are of course taking this matter up in the strongest possible terms internally, so should something similar occur in the future we will have better contingencies in place.

Mr Rubin, I appreciate that this experience may not have given you a great desire to fly with us again, however we would very much love to welcome you back onboard in a bid to restore your faith in us.

With Kind Regards,
Lee Pope

Customer Relations Executive

Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, The Office (GSW),
Manor Royal, Crawley, RH10 9NU, UK

http://www.virginatlantic.com

Well, that sounds like they're looking at what went wrong. In my message to them I made sure to not complain about the flight being canceled because of the snow, that my complaint was strictly about the problems in the airport after the flight was canceled.

In my complaint I suggested that more uniformed Virgin Atlantic staff to direct the crowd from the gate to the baggage claim to the ticketing area would've been nice. And as the wait in line was several hours, uniformed Virgin Atlantic staff to at least periodically go along the line and reassure customers that they were in the right line, since that wasn't at all clear. Nothing that seems huge or drastic, small things that would've made the process less confusing and stressful.

That last sentence, though, makes it sound like they should be offering me an incentive to fly with them again, "...in a bid to restore your faith in us." I interpret that as there should be more coming, like a discount or an upgrade to upper class or something if I fly with them again.

Probably not, though...

The Old Man in the Garage

2011-11-10T12:19:00.001-05:00

A poor, old man sleeping in the car port under our kitchen.

About a year before I left India to return to the U.S. some creepy old guy started living in our building's garage. I didn't know much about him, but Leena said she thought he was a servant of one of our neighbors, although he never seemed to do any work, just sit or lay in bed, half dressed, and stare at us when we came and went in our car.

This week, while visiting Leena here, he actually waved and smiled at me as we were getting into the car, the first time he's acknowledged my presence. So I commented about him to Leena and she said that over the last year, while I've been in the U.S. she's talked to him a little, and related some of his story to me.

He's an old, uneducated man. He worked almost his whole adult life at low paying, menial jobs, but spent almost every rupee he ever earned to send his sons to school and college so they'd get educated and live better lives than him.

Only now that they're grown up, better educated and far wealthier than he ever was, they don't want anything to do with him because they think he's too far "beneath" them, and don't want to be associated with an uneducated laborer. They don't want their acquaintances to know where they came from.

So, now he's too poor to have his own home. Somehow he knows our neighbor who was kind enough to let him live in his parking spot under our building (and that's directly under Leena's and my kitchen). He works as a night watchman at a bank ATM somewhere nearby.

In her conversations with him she's found out his favorite food is fish, so when she has some extra, or left over fish dishes she shares them with him.

Sounds like he's a nice enough guy, but life has dealt him a less than ideal hand...

Another view of our garage, with the old man at the back...

Made it to India...

2011-11-01T07:02:00.000-04:00

Whew, that was tough, stressful travels...

I started to get worried about the trip on Saturday when it started snowing in New York City, and a few hours before I planned to call a cab to drive me to the airport, the snow started to stick!

At 2:30pm I called the cab company and was told it would be half an hour before they could get a driver to me, because of the weather. I'm glad I called early... The driver showed up about 2:50pm and it took around an hour to get to the airport.

Check-in with Virgin Atlantic was easy, a fairly short line. My bags were about half a kg over the weight limit, but they didn't charge me for the excess. The woman said the flight might be up to an hour late due to the snow. Getting through security was a breeze and I was in the terminal with some time to kill...

After sending a quick email to Leena, I found a place at the quiet end of the terminal to get a nice, pepperoni pizza. Once finished with that I walked the length of it again, and vaguely noticed that the display over my gate didn't show anything, not the flight, just the generic background.

I dashed over to the nearest large display of flights to see if maybe the gate changed, but alongside my flight it said "CANCELED". Canceled? Gulp!

I dashed back to the gate and as I arrived the agent announced on the PA system that due to the snow the flight was canceled, the plane we were supposed to be on was unable to land in New York and had been diverted to Maine. I asked her about connecting flights and she said they'd have to be rebooked, and asked me to wait patiently while Virgin Atlantic sorted everything out as best they could. She said we'd be provided with hotel accommodations and all that overnight.

The waiting around by the gate got more full and more full as people waited around for the next news about our flight and the arrangements. No new announcements were forthcoming, just an occasional one about being patient while the airline worked out the arrangements. They said they'd supply refreshments, but they never showed up.

After a while they finally announced they were ready for us, and said to go to the "domestic loft" (no one understood that last word) to get our baggage, then go to the ticket counter to make new arrangements for the bus to the hotel and rebooking of flights. As a group we all went en-masse away. Some of us went up to what we thought "loft" meant, which was the ticketing and check-in area, and the closest we saw to the stairs was Virgin America, which matched the term "domestic" but we found out that was the wrong place...

Back down to a baggage claim area... Our suitcases were alongside a baggage carousel and people were taking them away. I went through it over and over, but didn't see my bags. There were no Virgin Atlantic uniformed staff for assistance. A few other people looked equally puzzled and didn't find their bags either, and after going through the rows of bags over and over and over, the carousel started again and more bags came, with an airport working hauling them off as they came, to throw them on the floor. No idea why they didn't just let them roll around the carousel, as it was harder work to get them from the floor when they were stacked in a huge pile...

I got whacked in the face once by a taller man with a backpack who wasn't paying attention to where he was swinging it. But he was gone before I could say something snarky to him about being careful.

With my bags in tow, and not ready to spend the money on a trolley, I wheeled them to an elevator and waited in line for my turn to go up. Once I got to the Virgin Atlantic check-in area there were no uniformed staff, again, to help with where to go. It wasn't at all obvious. I saw a few other people with tags on their bags and carry-ons that looked like they'd already checked in, so I figured that was the line to wait in, especially as it went to the small ticket counter...

I was behind a friendly, older British lady and we chit chatted during the two plus hour wait. Her husband came and went, going between possible places trying to make sure they got served in one spot or another. The husband turned out to be the guy with the backpack, but once in line like that they were friendly. They were on their way back from an Atlantic cruise, and she said the storm affected that, too, with huge waves and lots of people getting seasick.

So, after around two hours or so I finally got my turn at the ticket desk. Travis was the agent who helped me out. He first said he couldn't get me to London that night to make my connection and I'd be delayed by a day. But then he didn't give up too easily... Using both telephones and the computer whe worked my case for around 20-25 minutes. The other agent was rebooking passenger after passenger on the Kuwait Airways flight to London that left at 9:45pm, filling out some forms, stamping them and saying "take this to Row 6 over there and hand it to the agent and they'll check you in..."

Travis eventually said he could get me to London that night, but was still working on the London to Mumbai route for me. He had some trouble getting hold of Jet Airways to cancel my current booking, as no one was answering their phones. He got one of his supervisors to get him an unlisted number, and got through and I heard him telling the Jet person about canceling my booking as "he's not gonna make the flight."

Finally he had everything ready for me, around 8:45pm. He had me booked on the Kuwait Airways flight to London and a British Airways flight form London to Mumbai, but with a 12 hour layover in London. He explained that he wasn't able to get me checked in all the way, or my bags, so in London I'd have to collect my bags at the baggage claim and then check them in again at British Airways. Then he gave me the form he stamped and sent me to Row 6...

I found the Kuwait Airways check-in desk and handed my form to the agent who then weighed my bags and put the tags on them and handed me my boarding pass. She sent me to the baggage security area where there was a massive line, both for Kuwait Airways and some other airline. There someone in a uniform stopped me and then stopped other Kuwait Airways passengers saying he'd have to halt the whole line and get us through in order to make our flight. He coordinated with another person and blocked the line of other passengers and led us as a group to drop our bags.

The next security was easy enough, and I got to the gate before boarding actually started.

Once on the plane we stayed on the ground for an hour and a half before taking off...

I slept badly on the flight, with an aisle seat and a somewhat annoying, older fellow on my right who kept banging his legs and arms into me.

The Kuwait Airways flight was shorter than my original Virgin Atlantic flight for the same route.

We made it to London early in the morning. At Immigration I just told the agent there that I was only transiting through and had to get my bags and go check-in for another flight and he didn't give me any trouble.

After getting my bags I had no clue where to go in Heathrow... I found the service desk who said I needed Terminal 5, and said the bus was faster than the train, but he'd have to carry my bags up the stairs to it. So, I opted for the train (let's face it, with a 12 hour layover, who's in a rush?). Only I got on the wrong train, the one that went between Terminal 4 and Terminals 1, 2 & 3. After twice I figured out that one didn't go to Terminal 5 at all and switched to the parallel one...

At Terminal 5 I took my bags up the elevator to the check-in area and got in a short line for assistance. The guy there booked me onto my flight, asking what kind of seat I wanted, with window seats still available. I asked about my bags and he said it was too early to check them in, they would only accept them 3 hours before the flight. I said I was hoping to dump them off, and directed me downstairs to a private company that'll store bags, for a fee that he didn't know. He said "check your bags there and take the Underground into London, don't take a black cab, they're too expensive, that's what I reommend, that's what I'd do if I had a full day layover like you."

After checking my bags into the storage, I got some cold drinks at the Marks & Spencer, then struggled to get hold of Leena to tell her about the change in plans. None of the pay phones in the terminal would accept my American credit cards, without the chip & pin combo. Eventually I turned on the roaming on my iPhone and sent a couple of emails.

Then I got an Underground ticket and took the Piccadilly Line into London. I kept falling asleep on the train, though... It took about to get to Piccadilly Circus.

I enjoyed a few hours down there. Walking around Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Green Park and down to Charing Cross and Embankment. I didn't want to go too far from the Piccadilly Line as I had a plane to catch... I had a good time, took a bunch of pictures with my newest lens (which I haven't offloaded from the camera yet). I had too much acid reflux to stop to eat, which now I regret, I should've gotten a hamburger at Ultimate Burger anyway...

Around 3:15 or so I made it back to the Underground and headed out to the airport again. I was still a bit early, but I didn't want any delays to prevent me from making my flight. I stood up all the way on this train and still kept dozing off between most stops...

I got to Heathrow half an hour before the earliest I could check my bags in, so I sat down and wrote in my diary for a bit. By then I was developing a migraine, too, which was unpleasant...

At 5pm I got up to check my bags in, and stood in the long, slow line... Again I didn't get charged for my overweight bags, so that was good. Heathrow security was easier than JFK and I was into the terminal to wait for my flight.

I spent about an hour and a half just walking up and down, up and down, trying to find a drinking fountain, but no luck. Once I bought a bottle of water, though, then I sat down at the quietest spot I could find to relax and sip it, only to see the water fountain there...

Then some more walking and I found another spot in a busier place to sit and write in my diary. After I ran out of things to write I kept dozing off... I'd start to dream a bit, then my eyes would close then I'd shake awake a few minutes later. I did that for about an hour before getting up to keep walking more...

The British Airways flight was good. It wasn't crowded, so I had a window seat and the seat next to me was empty. A British lady had the aisle seat... I slept most of the flight, with my head against the wall by the window.

Once in India a bunch of flights came in at once, so the line at Immigration was the longest I've ever seen it out of all my entries. They had the rope barriers up but the crowd extended way beyond the entrance to that. Once in, the line was moving fairly steadily, but it was still long...

The immigration agent asked me if this was my first trip to India, and I told him it wasn't (as though he didn't already know) but when he asked when my last one was, I had to think about it... Because I was living in India, not just visiting, I thought of my previous trips as "out of India" and my entries as "visiting India." But I figured it out as 2009.

My bags came quickly at the baggage claim, but the customs officer directed me to the x-ray, not directly out of the terminal. The only problem I had at the x-ray machine was getting my bags, since a crowd developed around and I simply couldn't get through to get both bags off the machine.

And then out for my ride back to Pune.

So, here I am... It's great to be with Leena again after a year, and nice to be back in our flat in Pune. It felt like coming home.

And I'm quite wiped out... I dozed off in the shower, and had a rip roaring headache. I went to bed around 9:30pm or something and slept till 1:30pm. When I woke up my headache was reduced quite a bit, but still slightly there... It's easing off more and more...

Cold Brewed Green Tea

2011-10-23T20:23:00.000-04:00

In the past I've experimented a bit with cold brewing coffee, with some success (actually, it's hard to tell, I'm not really much of a coffee drinker, and I only like it with enough milk and sugar that I probably can't tell good coffee from bad...). The beverage I drink a lot of, though, is green tea.

This summer I've been making cold-brewed green tea. A chilled Thermos of that is a wonderfully refreshing drink to carry around the hot city in the summer...

My basic recipe is:

2 tablespoons of loose Japanese Kokei-Cha green tea
24 oz refrigerated tap water (bearing in mind New York City water is good water)

I use a French coffee press to make it.

First, I pour the loose green tea in, then a little water, and slosh it around so the tea is well soaked, before adding the remaining water.

I let it refrigerate overnight, not being too careful about the time, but at least around 12 hours. Sometimes I swirl it around before I go to bed, and sometimes in the morning, a few hours before I'm actually going to pour it out.

When pouring it out to drink, the bottom bit of it that's been on the tea the whole time tends to be quite bitter, so don't try to use every last ounce of it.

And that's it...

I'm not clear if the Kokei-Cha that I buy at Java Joe's, two blocks up the street here in Brooklyn, is what's listed on Wikipedia as Kukicha, or Konacha... When I bought it the first time I thought I remembered the woman at the store saying it was made up of bits and pieces, including dust, which matches the konacha description, but the name is closer to kukicha...

October - New 35mm Lens

2011-10-17T20:03:00.001-04:00

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Full photo album on my Picasa page...

I slept in till almost 9am in the morning, then hung out on the computer a little bit before hitting the shower. I lost track of time in the shower and it was 11am when I got out… I guess I was daydreaming in there longer than I realized.

I puttered around the apartment, reading stuff about camera lenses online, munching some cereal and things in the apartment.

I finally left the apartment at nearly 2pm… I took the R train to 42nd Street - Times Square, figuring I'd check out the grey market electronics dealers that are all over there about the lenses I was interested in, still not fully decided on which of the two I really wanted to buy.

First stop, though, was the public restroom in the Port Authority Bus Terminal…

Then I just walked up and down 7th Avenue, Broadway and 8th Avenue, plus some of the streets in between, ranging from 50th Street down to 35th Street… I must've tried at least 25 shops. Most stops were very fast, I'd walk in and ask a clerk, "I'm looking for the Canon 35mm f/1.4 lens" and nearly all of them instantly said "no."

Some followed the "no," by "we have the 50mm" or "we have the f/2.0". At a few they took me where they had all the lenses they stocked to look at the selection, but they didn't have it. One brought out a box with a 35mm film camera. Another guy tried to convince me the 7mm fisheye he had was much better than a 35mm lens, and I asked "is this like golf, or something?" but he didn't get it.

Only one shop had it. But they wanted $20 more than the normal retail price from an authorized dealer. He did agree to drop down almost $100 if I paid cash (for them, that would mean no credit card merchant fees, and possibly hiding the income on their taxes…) but it wasn't enough of a savings for me to be worth buying it grey market and not getting the regular warranty or purchase protection from the credit card.

I checked one or two more stores after that, but they didn't have the lens, so I took the subway from Herald Square (the subway station under Macy's is full of JC Penny clothing ads!) down to City Hall. I'd pretty much decided not to get the Carl Zeiss lens, as it's $400 more expensive and doesn't do autofocus, while the Canon one is a professional series one anyway, so it's like "gee, do you want gold or platinum?" already near the top of the line...

First photo with the new lens,
in City Hall Park.

There I went to J & R Camera across the street, which isn't as big as B & H but still one of the country's larger camera stores. I'd already seen online they had the lens in stock, and $20 cheaper than B & H or Amazon, so theirs was already the price I was trying to beat.

The salesman in the SLR department was quick with what I wanted, got it off the shelf and took it the cashier where I waited in line for quite a while to actually pay for it.

Once I got it, I took it to the park next to City Hall and unpacked the new lens from its box and put it on the camera to start playing with it. A couple of squirrels saw me sitting there and probably the bright colored packaging and they came begging, within a few inches of me. But I didn't have any food, and by the time I could get the lens situated on the camera for a picture they gave up and ran off…

I took the camera on a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge (whose Manhattan side walkway starts right at City Hall) but had to put it away pretty quick as the rain started. But once I got halfway across the rain eased off and I took it out again.

At various places I tinkered with some settings on the camera to make use of the capabilities of the new lens and learn a bit more about it.

Origin - by the Creators Project

On the Brooklyn side of the bridge my first stop was to the public bathroom at the Brooklyn Bridge Park… Then I used the lens around the park a bit, catching some of the sunset (too cloudy to see the sun actually set, just the sky getting darker) with Manhattan across the river lighting up…

Once it was fully dark I went over to another part of the park (in all, it's a very large park, stretching for quite a distance along the river, but not all of it is completed) where there's the Jane's Carousel.

On the way I saw a weird light and sound art project in an old, industrial roofless building (it probably wasn't built that way, it's just that only the walls are remaining). It was weird, a big cube, divided into smaller cubes, of multicolored lights that would light up in various moving patterns, and deep, throbbing techno music shaking the place in time to the patterns of light so you could feel the movement of the lights…

Jane's Carousel

Then I wondered over by the carousel and did some night photography of that. It wasn't running much, probably because there were hardly any people around to pay to ride it (I mean, it is a Thursday evening, not prime time for leisure activities…)

I played with the camera and lens a bit, trying to get some interesting night shots near the carousel, and some of the waves from passing boats splashing on the rocky shore of the East River.

And then a while I headed up to the York Street subway station and took the F train back to Park Slope.

After getting to the apartment I dropped my things off and went out grocery shopping. Then I came back and took out some trash, another trip down the stairs for that…

--------

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Full album also on my Picasa page...

After Leena and I got off the phone I hit the shower then puttered around the apartment a bit.

I did some errands around the apartment in preparation for my upcoming vacation to India.

The workers outside got noisier, and kept banging the buckets they were hauling up on ropes against the air conditioners sticking out.

I finally got out around 2pm… I figured my first stop would be Shima for sushi, so I took the R train into Manhattan and got off at the 8th Street - NYU stop, which is a few blocks from Shima. The sidewalks were crowded with people, and it was somewhat sunny. It was really windy, and kind of chilly in shade of buildings, but I was overheating uncomfortably whenever I was in the sunshine. This is the second unseasonably hot October weekend in a row, with the city more crowded than even holiday weekends...

Shima ended up being crowded, all the seats I could see near the window were taken and there were people standing near the entrance, probably waiting for seats. So I skipped it.

Washington Square Park

I wandered on down to Washington Square Park, figuring I'd use the public restrooms there. All the streets on the way were crowded with people, young and old. Lots of police were standing around the outer edges of the park, though not as many as last weekend with the Occupy Wall Street protest going on. It turned out this time to be another protest. Judging by the signs this seemed more anti-war than the Occupy Wall Street, which is more political and economic.

The restrooms were more crowded than I'd seen them before, but there was no line.

After finishing up my business there I found a shady park bench to sit on. I tried using my iPhone for some connectivity, but I think there were too many people using AT&T (and probably other carriers as well) for me to get much of a connection.

I got out my diary and tried writing on it in my lap, but the book is slightly flexible, so it was a challenge to do that. I'd written maybe a quarter of a page when I was interrupted by two well dressed, elderly ladies. They wanted to tell me that from what they could see of my handwriting in my diary, upside down from where they were standing, they thought my handwriting was very nice. I started to protest, that my handwriting isn't all that great, and maybe it was just them seeing it upside down, but they said "no, it's very neat and orderly." I gave up arguing and simply said, "thank you."

Great musicians in Washington Square Park

After they left a small group of park rangers had a get-together next to my bench. I could hear them discussing their day. One of them, in plainclothes, came running up and took over. He told how he was crossing a street next to the park and a driver ran a red light and nearly hit him. Then when he told the driver to be careful the driver started yelling back at him. He didn't look like a park ranger, but he said he warned the driver "you don't want to fuck with me, I'll get you good," because of course, he's a law enforcement officer, not a mere civilian with a sharp tongue… I don't think anything happened, as his story to the other rangers didn't go farther…

On the next bench over were a young couple, probably NYU students, making out. The girl was laying on top of the guy, who was sitting, and every time she'd shift a bit her boots would bang against the arm rest of my bench, a couple of feet from me…

At one point a bag lady, dressed in rags, pushing one wheeled suitcase, wrapped in plastic bags of things, and pulling another, also draped with plastic bags of stuff, came walking by, cursing and yelling at no one in particular. The park ranger who was guarding the lawn near me looked at me and said "she's harmless, she's always like that" and I asked "a regular?" and the ranger said, "yeah, she comes through every day."

After a while I was done writing and ready to walk more. I'd cooled off a bit sitting there in the shade and wasn't sweating too much anymore from the heat, so I got up to go walking a bit. By then the protest in the park seemed to have disappeared, too, while I wasn't paying attention.

I got out my camera and walked through the park, taking some photos, then up 5th Avenue. Traffic was insane, both on the street and foot traffic on the sidewalks. Crowded everywhere. Drivers were honking like mad, police were at almost every street corner directing traffic in the neighborhood, and there was such gridlock that as lights changed no cars would move, there was nowhere for them to go.

It wasn't until I got up around 14th Street, a block from Union Square, that I heard a police officer telling someone else that it was all messed up because of the protest. Apparently the protest that I saw in Washington Square Park was marching somewhere…

Art in the Flatiron Building's front gallery

I worked my way up 5th Avenue until I got alongside the Flatiron Building. I took photos of the Empire State Building at various place, trying different focus points and depth-of-field stuff with my new lens. Then I crossed into Madison Square Park. Not much is going on there, and there's no artwork at the moment that really has my attention the way the last two sculptures in the main lawn did.

From there I walked up Broadway. It was getting even more crowded and the sidewalks between about 28th Street and 33rd Street are full of vendors selling things, so it's more crowded.

At Greeley Square, a block south of Herald Square and Macy's, near the Empire State Building, I walked through the park part of it and a police officer walked through yelling "Everyone, the park is closed!" at 4:30pm, which is awfully early for a public park to close…

My favorite picture of the day, the sunlit Empire State Building viewed from the shadows...

Walking up past Herald Square, towards Times Square was getting more and more crowded. At 42nd Street, I crossed and the press of people was so thick I simply couldn't get past it. As I was turning away I noticed that there were police barricades blocking some of the square, so it was empty inside, and I realized that the protest march was probably coming up there…

Police in front of the Bank of America Tower

I turned on 42nd Street and walked over towards Bryant Park. As I passed the Bank of America Tower building (one of the two tallest buildings currently in New York City) I saw there were police barricades and police officers in front of it, keeping people out, checking IDs of the few they let through. There were lots of police cars on the street, too… Bank of America is held up as the poster child for the current protests, of what's wrong with the politics and economy and things… So I figured there might've been some threat against it.

I took some photos over there and then went into Bryant Park. The main lawn in the park is no longer accessible, they're covering it with things, preparing the winter-time ice skating rink, though it's still early, but I guess it takes a lot of preparation.

After I finished up in Bryant Park I went back to 5th Avenue, planning to head over to the Port Authority Bus Terminal to use the public restroom, but things on the street were getting busy… The protest march was working its way up there… Or maybe it was another one, I don't know the route it took. I was on the sidewalk and about to be engulfed in it, and could hear the police bullhorns telling marchers to stay on the street, off the sidewalk. Actually, I think the sidewalk was full of not so much protestors put photographers and news people recording it from the side.

I managed to get away from it and turn up 40th Street, though I could hear the roar of the crowd behind me. I saw some interesting looking building spires from there and took a bunch of photos. Then as I was crossing Broadway, a block away from Times Square there was full-on crowd roar going on up there. I continued on my way to the bus station where I got my relief.

Back outside again I walked up 8th Avenue, thinking I could cut over to Times Square around 46th or 47th Streets and get a view of things from the red steps, since I'm a bit too short to see things from street level in a crowd. It was slow walking, the sidewalk was jam packed with people going about. And once I got to Times Square again, police had the red steps blocked off so the only people on them were a police officer at each corner. Bummer…

One of the cartoons I saw online recently was an octopus in a business suit with the caption, "I'm here for Octopi Wall Street". In Times Square the crowd of protesters had a huge octopus shaped structure made of what seemed like blue plastic bags they were holding up overhead…

It was starting to get dark around then and I wanted to get down to the Apple Store on 14th Street before they closed, which was probably at 9pm, so I'm sure I was early… I used my iPhone to run an app and find the nearest A C & E subway station, which was up at 50th Street, four blocks away. So I made my way through the crowds and got up there to catch the C to 14th Street.

At the Apple Store I waited quite a while, actually, longer than I have before to make a purchase. All the salespeople were working with customers, and from what I could tell giving detailed explanations of things, which I'm sure is really good for those who aren't sure what they want. One couple that was looking at 15 inch MacBook Pros, at the same table as the one I wanted, with a saleswoman were an Indian man and an American woman in a pale blue sari with loads of pale blue, glass bangles.

But me, I knew exactly what I wanted, I wasn't there to ask questions… Eventually I went over to wait in line at the checkout counter so I could clearly get "a turn" to talk to someone. Then a guy in a blue shirt, Louis, came from somewhere else and asked if he could help me. I told him, so he ordered one up from the godown under the store and said he'd bring it in a few minutes, to just wait where I was…

A few minutes later he brought the box with the MacBook Pro and took me to the checkout counter where I paid for it with a simple swipe and it was done… He put it in a large size plastic bag, we shook hands and he said "hey, any time you're in, say hi to me."

I went up a block and caught the A train back to Brooklyn, then transferred to the F to Park Slope and walked home from there…

Love Lock on the Brooklyn Bridge

On the Brooklyn Bridge

Jane's Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park

Art in the gallery of the Flatiron Building.

Louis Vuitton handbags, only $10 on the street...

Glass high rise amidst old brick buildings, reflecting old brick buildings...

Empire State Building reflected off another glass tower

Playing with bokeh in the new lens

The Once in a Lifetime Compliment

2011-10-15T23:39:00.001-04:00

Today I was sitting in Washington Square Park on a park bench, holding my Moleskine notebook in my lap and writing a diary entry. The notebook isn't a hardbound one, so I was struggling to write in it. After I'd filled about a quarter of a page I was interrupted.

Two well-dressed, elderly ladies walked by and said to me that they couldn't read what I'd written, but that my handwriting looked very nice.

I tried to tell them that my handwriting isn't really very good, and never has been, but they cut off my protest with, "it's very neat and orderly." I decided not to argue and said, "thank you."

I mean, my handwriting is awful. Calling it "chicken scratch" is likely to get chickens up in arms (wings?) over the insult... It's never been good. In elementary school I had to take special handwriting classes with a special pencil because my writing was simply that bad.

The only time it was ever not terribly awful was the few years I used a fountain pen for my diary entries. It actually had improved a little during that time, but then all my pens started leaking and I quit using them.

So, it was very odd for complete strangers passing by to tell me my handwriting is nice, neat and orderly...

This is what I was writing in my notebook when the ladies saw me... They would've seen
it upside down, from the walkway...

This is something I wrote a few weeks ago, in my previous notebook, with a
more rigid plastic cover, writing at a table on the High Line.

A Requirement or A Choice?

2011-10-09T11:58:00.000-04:00

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is whether religious restrictions and activities are a requirement or a choice.

For instance, I work in an office where everyone but me keeps strictly kosher. I respect that, and I make sure all the snacks I bring to work are certified kosher, and I don't start conversations with others about what non-kosher foods I eat outside the office, though I'm honest if anyone else brings up the topic. And I don't tell anyone else that they should change their ways (let's face it, being an observant Jew is not a bad thing, it's not like being a heroin junky or something that harms others) and I generally don't disapprove of other people living their lives the way they want.

But a few times I've had discussions about meals and some of my religious coworkers sigh and say they wish they could eat what I eat, "but I can't eat that."

On fast days that are still work days, some (not all, of course) of my coworkers lament that they can't eat or drink all day, as much as they would really like to, and they don't sound happy about fasting. On those days, out of respect for my coworkers I choose to not eat or drink, so as not to make the fasting harder on them. It's a sacrifice I choose to make, and I don't grumble about it during the day, and generally I don't even mention that I'm doing it unless someone else brings the topic up first, I accept it's my choice.

Yesterday I did not fast on Yom Kippur, a choice I made to not participate. In an online conversation someone else said they wished they could eat, and that while I cut my finger on a food related item during the day, they said that they'd happily make that trade themselves, a cut finger for not fasting.

So, why not?

I think I'm missing something. People are following religious restrictions, but in some cases don't sound happy about them. They don't sound like they accept that being religious and following the religious activities and restrictions is a choice they've made.

The word "can't" implies that one doesn't really have a choice, that someone else is forcing it on you, possibly against your will.

What I'd rather here instead of "I can't" is "I won't" or "I choose not".

Yom Kippur - Not For Me

2011-10-07T17:30:00.000-04:00

This evening begins the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. It's the most solemn, and holiest day of the year for Jews, involving fasting, with the goal of atonement and repentance for the past year's sins.

However, I don't think I'm going to participate.

It's something I've thought about, and based on the fact that I simply don't believe in G-d, it doesn't make sense.

Some holidays are about people, like Passover is about when the Jews were slaves and left Egypt, Chanukah is about the temple and people. Those I can honor and feel good about it.

But Yom Kippur is between an individual and G-d. So, in my case, with my beliefs (or lack thereof), half the equation would simply be missing, making it an empty participation.

Last year I fasted for part of Yom Kippur and in the end decided it was pointless and not fulfilling in any way, so I quit in the afternoon and enjoyed a nice meal. This year I don't think I'll bother at all.

Thursday Evening on the High Line in September

2011-09-30T14:44:00.000-04:00

Thursday afternoon I spent a few hours on the High Line park in Manhattan, since it was a day off from work.

At sunset I walked north with the 100-300mm lens on my camera, and then at 30th Street, after the sun had set, I swapped to my 11-16mm f/2.8 lens for some night photography.

Unfortunately, my hands shook a lot more than I realized and I've had to toss out lots and lots of photos.

The album, with captions (I really with Blogspot would copy those over when I choose photos from Picasa albums) are on my Picasa page...

This is one of the coolest sunsets I've seen.

My Dad, Octopus Wrangler

2011-09-20T20:38:00.001-04:00

My father just embedded this video in an email he sent to me... You can see him wrangle and Octopus at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon...

My parents have been volunteers at the aquarium since it first opened (whatever year that was) in the 90s... Both still volunteer now, my father with the animal husbandry staff and my mother in the office. My father also conducts special hands-on tours and octopus handling.

I've been there numerous times and it's a lot of fun.

The last time I was there, in 2008, I followed my father on his fish feeding rounds, snapping lots of photos...

Friday Afternoon at Brooklyn Bridge Park

2011-09-17T09:59:00.002-04:00

Yesterday after I worked the usual half day at work (my company works half days on Friday for people to prepare for Shabbat (or Shabbos, depending on your family's regional origins...)). I got home, but didn't really want to just hang around the apartment, I wanted to go outside.

I didn't have much of a goal in mind, so just went out to the subway and got on... Not long after I got on, though, the glass of orange juice and orange seltzer I drank sort of caught up with me, so I got off at Jay Street - MetroTech in Brooklyn to find a convenient public restroom...

In my wanders I ended up at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, down by the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges (where there was a decent public restroom...). I saw the middle section of the park, between the bridges, open for the first time since I got to New York City, and the new carousel was operating.

Unfortunately I'd only carried my 100-300mm lens for the SLR, so I had to use the iPhone for the sky photos... But I had some fun with the SLR, too, photographing people around the park. A few couples gave me their cameras for me to photograph them with the bridge and the Manhattan skyline behind them, and I always smilingly oblige...

Anyway, I wrote captions for all of them, but importing the photos from my web albums here doesn't bring those in automatically. You can see them all in my Picasa web album...

Shalom Bombay Restaurant Review

2011-09-14T21:14:00.000-04:00

I've been craving a particular Indian dish for months and months now, chicken kheema, looking on the menus posted outside all the Indian restaurants I see, and Shalom Bombay on Lexington Avenue is the only one I've found so far that has it. So, I ate there this past Sunday.   I picked this restaurant for that particular dish, not because it's a kosher restaurant.

Overall, I was disappointed in the food. Chicken kheema isn't a common dish, so there's no "standard" to it that I know of (in fact, my in-laws' three kitchen servants all make it distinctly different enough that I can tell which of them made a particular batch, and there's one, Ashok Singh's, that I like much better than the other two...) but Shalom Bombay's was relatively flavorless, though I asked for "medium" when the waitress asked how spicy I wanted it. The methi in it was the strongest flavor. There wasn't much oil or gravy to bind the ground chicken together very well, so it was hard to pick up with naan.  

While I was waiting she brought out a plate of complementary pakoras. A nice treat, except they were room temperature and soggy. Not at all the way pakoras should be served, hot and crisp straight from the street-side frier...   (my favorite pakoras are from the food vendors up on top of Sinhagad, an old fort in the hills outside Pune)

The rice that came with the chicken dish was sticky, one big lump, and had no basmati smell at all. It was just as generic as rice could be.  

The service, however, was fantastic. My server, Roma, was attentive, but not pushy or annoying. When the chicken was taking a while to finish cooking she came by to assure me I wasn't forgotten.  

Eating alone, one entree with rice and naan was plenty filling, so I didn't indulge in dessert, as that would've just left me uncomfortably full.  

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon and the restaurant was not crowded, the atmosphere was quiet and pleasant, with soft music playing. Not a bad place to sit for a while.  Anyway, maybe some of their more standard dishes are better than their chicken kheema?  

Still, at 20-30% more in price than most of the other nearby Indian restaurants and very disappointing food, I'm not really in a rush to return here.

One Year in New York

2011-09-08T21:33:00.002-04:00

Well, it was just a year ago today that I arrived in New York City after nearly a decade in India...

It's been good to be here and I'm totally loving New York City. It's a great city to explore, with fascinating architecture, both old and new, next to each other. Old, run down industrial areas have been revitalized as new, modern parks. And there's a million restaurants of every variety to try out (though no Indian food I've had compares to what's in India...)

I've been walking and walking and getting exercise. While no one will mistake me for skinny, I've lost a bit of weight since I got here, while my legs are definitely a lot stronger and I'm in better shape than I was.

During my year here I've switched from reading up to 100 books a year to reading five or six (well, maybe twenty if you count comic books) because I just want to be outside all the time, not sitting in the apartment.

I've developed quite a taste for sushi... And I'm thoroughly enjoying New York style pizza and hamburgers, which I missed in India (but admittedly, not a single burger I've had in NYC compares to the Ultimate Burger restaurant in London where I traveled on business...)

I'm still thinking about one of the things that annoyed me in India, coworkers talking on cell phones a lot more than I thought was appropriate for work time. Only to come here and find the same thing. So maybe that was time, working in Oregon was before cell phone usage exploded... Maybe?

Overall my health is better than it was in India. While not perfect, I'm not falling sick with fevers and sore throats and colds every few weeks. I'm still getting migraines, but not as bad as the last few years in India, especially the long, long one in 2010. My stomach problems aren't completely gone, but I'm not having diarrhea three weeks a month... So that's all good...

I've only gotten my hair cut once, in May, and it's getting long again...

I've been trying various green teas here in New York, but can't get any of them to taste as good as I was making in India. I've talked to a couple of coffee & tea store owners and the general consensus is it's the water...

But I am getting lonely...

Leena and I didn't realize how long it'd take for her to get a green card. We envisioned that I'd get here, get an apartment, make sure my job was okay and stable, start the application and she'd follow a few months later. Well, it turns out that this is a one and a half to two year project... And the immigration service hasn't even started processing our application yet...

And when I got here Leena's cousin, Nitu, was over in New Jersey, not far from New York. We used to get together once or twice a month to explore the city, bowl, get a nice meal and chit chat and all that. She's one of my closer friends. However she flew to India on April 1st for a two week vacation, during which something went wrong with her visa and she hasn't been able to return to the U.S.

Since then I've pretty much been going about New York City solo all the time. While I enjoy solitude, possibly more than is healthy, it's been a bit much... I met up with another friend from India and some of his friends on August 20th for the Indian Independence Day parade.

Over the year, I enjoyed autumn, winter and spring, but found summer a bit hard to handle. I know that sounds funny after having spent ten summers in tropical India, but I think some of it what I do. In India I mostly stayed indoors, not just because the weather, but the pollution, the crowds, the noise, the chaos and all that, and I was happy enough to laze around the apartment playing computer games or reading books (especially with the unreliability of the electricity).

But here in New York City I want to get outside almost every waking moment. It's hard enough just sitting in the office all day, but on weekends I don't want to stay in the apartment, I WANT OUT!

But it was hot outside... Whew... That really slowed down my photography and even more my writing about my adventures and sorting my photos, requiring sitting at the computer in the heat to do it.

Of course, with summer, I enjoyed reading in parks and watching people, especially women in short skirts, so there was that... Compared with India in the summer, though... In India summer is mango season, sweet, juicy, tender mangos... Summer in New York is women in short skirts... Look & smile vs. touch, taste & smell. Which also brings to mind what a lesbian former coworker once said around fifteen years ago when I brought some mango to work as a snack... She said the color and texture of mangoes, especially when heated up, was just like giving a woman oral sex... Which I probably thought of every single time I ate a mango since...

Yeah, missing Leena, coming home every day to an empty apartment is about the toughest part of the year here...

So, that's a quick rundown of a year, written late, at bedtime...

Here's hoping Leena's visa comes quickly....

Sunset from the High Line

2011-09-05T21:09:00.000-04:00

Saturday evening I was on the High Line, just having finished my book, when the sun was setting, so I walked south on it, stopping here and there to take photos of the sun setting behind New Jersey, across the Hudson River.

Taken with my 100-300mm lens...

Before Hurricane Irene - Walking Around Brooklyn

2011-08-30T20:48:00.000-04:00

The full photo album is on my Picasa albums...

Saturday I didn't really want to sit around the apartment all day before Hurricane Irene hit, especially as it was nicer out than it had been most of the summer, lots of clouds and breeze...

After Leena and got off the phone I showered and got my green tea ready and switched to the widest lens on my camera (which I haven't been using in the summer because in sunshine there's too much contrast between light and dark).

I found a map of New York City from the city which shows the various hurricane evacuation zones. I planned a rough route to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade that would avoid all the evacuation zones in between, which re mainly the ones lower down, closer to the water. My own apartment is about three blocks uphill from where they're evacuating.

Then I headed out. Since 5th Avenue was the edge of some of it, I walked up to 6th Avenue to be sure I stayed out of those zones. There was less traffic, but lots of people walking along 6th Avenue. Every time I passed by friends or neighbors who were passing each other the conversations between them was usually "hey, we're having a hurricane party tonight, come on over. We have wine, but if you want, bring some beers, too…"

Almost everyone coming out of a grocery store when I was passing by had either bottled water or beer, and the wine shops (retailers selling bottled wine, not bars) were packed with people, more than I usually see…

I hadn't gone more than a few blocks before the heat started getting to me. It's super hot out today, even if it doesn't look like it should be… My clothes were just sticking to me…

Once I got up to Flatbush Avenue, I took a bit of a zig-zag path through the Boerum Hill and Brooklyn Heights neighborhoods. I tried to explore some of the streets I'd crossed before without walking along and that was fun.

On Livingston Street I got soaked as the rain started pouring and pouring. Lots of big, fat drops… But it felt so much cleaner than the sweat, so that was good. Once under a construction scaffold, and out of the rain I took out my phone. In my pocket it was getting a bit wet, since my pants were soaking through. I stuck it in a water resistant compartment of my backpack that has rubber covering the zipper to help keep the water out.

Around there I also got lost and where I thought I was walking to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, I ended up on a street going downhill and under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I knew that was wrong, because the promenade is on top of the BQE…

Fortunately I was only about two blocks off, and it was easy to find where I needed to go.

I've been on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade a couple of times before, and it's always been pretty crowded, but not today. Today there were maybe a dozen people or so on it. Most with umbrellas. Some people relaxed on the wet benches… When I was up there it wasn't raining anymore, so I took out my big camera and used that to take some photos. I haven't offloaded them to the computer yet to see them…

At the far end of the promenade there's a little circle with benches all around and lots of trees on one side. In the middle is a weird sculpture with zodiac signs and roman numerals and all that. I took lots of photos of that, with light shining through the little droplets of rain water hanging off it…

Then since it was pretty calm I went down the hill to the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is unambiguously in the evacuation zone, right on the water…

The main part of the park was blocked off with a police barricade and an officer was standing there. But one small pier (the one with all the wedding parties I photographed from another) was open and a few people were milling about. I wandered out there and took some photos, too. Across the river the heavy clouds were covering the tops of the lower Manhattan sky scrapers, while looking a both farther away the top of the Empire State Building was fading into the clouds… Pretty cool looking.

I walked around down there for a little while, as all was calm no wind and no rain. I photographed a lot of graffiti on a building under the Brooklyn Bridge. I'd seen it before, but usually there so many people I felt like I'd be in the way if I was blocking the sidewalk to take photos. Not today, of course…

There were continuous patrols from police cars with their lights flashing, but no sirens. I guess checking to make sure no one was looting because of general solitude down there. Or keeping an eye out to be able to tell people to leave if it got later or the wind started picking up.

From there I worked my way up hill and back to my neighborhood. By then the subway was shut down so walking was the only option.

On the way I stopped for a couple of slices of pizza and a Coke at a place that was open. Restaurants were a mixed bag, some open, some closed that are usually open on Saturday afternoons… Some jam packed with people and some virtually empty.

I was uncomfortable in the restaurant because my clothes were completely soaked and sticking to me, while sweat was running down my face into my mouth while I was eating…

After getting back to the apartment the first thing I did was move the computer some distance from the windows so I can keep them open without worrying about the computer.

By around 7pm the rain outside was picking up again. It's very, very noisy, dripping down on the air conditioners that stick out of the windows. Louder than the music I was playing…

Earthquake, Hurricane? Wasn't G-d...

2011-08-30T19:49:00.000-04:00

So far this week, in the subway stations I've been to, the street preachers (and at least one prominent national politician (who has since backtracked to say it was just a joke)) have a common theme... That last week's earthquake and this weekends Hurricane Irene are the wrath of G-d...

But I must disagree... Basically on the whole G-d thing to start with...

I think the concept of G-d may have made sense a long time ago, and still does slightly. G-d is a good way to to fill in the blanks, the unknown knowledge. Thousands of years ago people probably didn't know about meteorology, why it rained, why it didn't and things like that. They were probably used the normal, average yearly weather cycles, and when things deviated, when big storms came, they just prayed to G-d(s) and do it long enough and the cycles swing back to normal...

But we humans have, overall, accumulated more knowledge that's built up and built up... Why use G-d to fill in blanks that simply aren't there anymore?

For instance, if a young child is just learning math, and thinks 2 + 3 is 6, we might be pleased that they're working on learning math, and eventually they'll learn a more accurate answer. But if years later they persist in thinking 2 + 3 is 6, because they don't want to change, we'll, we won't really stand for that.

So we do so many people do that with religion?

Baggin' It!

2011-08-16T20:53:00.002-04:00

I'd been using the same backpack for years, a nice, cheap purple one I bought on a whim in 1993. I wasn't shopping around for a backpack at the time, I just happened to be in a department store in Beaverton and bought a Computer Shopper magazine that was too big for the backpack I was happily using at the time, so I went to the stores bag section and found one that would hold the magazine, was cheap and I liked the purple.

The original, hard-to-replace, worn out bag...

After that, I used it all the time, I carried it to work every day after that. I used it as my carry-on bag when traveling on vacations. I hauled it to India on vacation where it got chewing gum stomped onto one shoulder strap on the Jhelum train from Delhi to Pune...

I carried spare clothes in it when walking to work in the pouring rain, laptops wrapped in multiple plastic grocery bags. I've stuffed it almost to the bursting point at times.

It was the near perfect bag. The pockets were arranged just right, everything I put in it was exactly where I needed it to be, and easily accessible without pulling the bag out from under the airplane seat in front of me. Laptop, books, camera, water, snacks, sweatshirts... One pocket was just right for any of the diaries I took with me on my travels, plus nice pens. And the outermost was perfect for travel papers, passport, plane tickets, cash... And since everything had its place, I could easily take stuff out and put stuff back in while walking through an airport or a busy sidewalk...

But alas, time had its way with it... And the TSA, too... The first real damage to it came while boarding a flight out of PDX, when a security agent tore off one of the zippers at the last check before getting on the plane... Oops... She apologized, and when I asked if there was anything they could do about the damage, she said yes, but I'd have to skip my flight to file paperwork. So I didn't anything about it (not with more than 20 hours of connecting flights starting in San Francisco and Seoul before arriving in India...)

Hipstamatic photo with an
octopus toy...

After that I also started washing it in our washing machine and then the water resistant lining inside began wearing away. And the zippers got worse and worse over time, and the nylon fabric started unraveling and threads got stuck in the zippers... And the hand strap is getting close to ripping out.... Well, you know, it was a cheap backpack, and it's getting worn out after nearly two decades...

In 2007 and 2008 I browsed around shops in London looking for a replacement backpack, and saw some interesting ones (I particularly liked some stuff at a water sports shop near Embankment, and one of my friends bought a pretty cool bag when I took him there), but I guess my heart wasn't quite into replacing a trusted, old friend because nothing was "just right".

Now in New York City I've been looking for a replacement, and I've tried a bunch out, too...

First I got a nice, green waxed canvas backpack from Brooklyn Industries that seemed good, especially for daily hauls to work and back when I don't need to carry much. I used it a bit, off and on. Being small, it's good in a crowd, I don't have to worry so much about bashing other people with it.

But it had some significant flaws... The wax felt kind of funny on my hands, but not a big deal, not compared to the other problems. The red flannel lining looked cool inside, but then my iPad, camera and anything else I carried ended up with red fibers all over, which is not good... And one day I bought a box of Saltine crackers to take to work as a snack, and no matter how I oriented it, it simply wouldn't fit. The bag just got too narrow at the top...

After that I rarely bothered with it. For the rainier days I simply wrapped things in plastic bags and tossed into my leaky, purple bag.

Then on New Year's Day in 2011 I had a whim to go look at some bags at the Oakley store on 9th Avenue at 14th Street (don't look for it now, it's closed...). Oakley has some good sports gear. I ended up buying the Surf Pack, and maybe I wouldn't have if I didn't have a rip roaring headache that day.

I really didn't use the Surf Pack much right away. It's quite big, and as I was taking the subway daily at the time it felt too bulky in the crowded trains, like I was using more space than I really needed to. It has one main compartment, so everything sort of jams into there, without much division, except for stuff like medicines and pens and a small notepad into some of the side pockets. Really, as the name implies, they intend it to carry a bundle of wet suit gear, not really urban adventuring...

Still, though, it proved exceptionally useful when I was moving apartments, simply because it's big. I could carry a significant amount of stuff per trip using it, and it was comfortable to haul a heavy load right on my shoulders. I'm glad I got it for that alone.

On the other hand, when I had something recently that was large and blocky, it wouldn't fit into the tapered top of the Surf Pack, even if the total volume was okay for it.

Shortly after that I got a Wenger Synergy bag that I bought on a whim at Best Buy, where they had it in the section of laptop bags. It's got lots of pockets, lots of space, a sturdy bottom so it stands up straight most of the time. It's quite a bit larger in all dimensions than my old purple one. But the odd thing is, when I was transferring "stuff" between them, the things I always seemed to have in the purple one, with plenty of space for shopping, seemed to take up much more of the Wegner bag. It seemed like much of the Wegner bag's space was taken up by compartment separators and things like that...

Another major problem with it is that the zipper pulls inside are all solid pieces of metal, without small holes in them like most zippers. Minor thing, but my mother gave me a glass pendant on a small chain years ago "to ward off the evil eye" and this bag doesn't have a good place to attach it.

Worse still, once I started actually using it a bit, it wasn't all that comfortable. The arrangement of the back padding just didn't seem to conform to the shape of my back very well. I was constantly fidgeting and moving my shoulders around to try and get comfortable in it, but no luck. I think it's made for someone with a larger back than me.

el Cheapo Target

And frankly, I was never happy with the color, the blue, black and silver, with some red highlights and some high tech looking, but useless grommets... After I bought it I've seen a few people around with green ones, but not many. I'd rather have that...

At Target one day I picked up really cheap green backpack, but after getting it home and comparing it with others, it's really small, and the nylon makes an annoying crinkly sound. I haven't even taken the tags off it yet to try it out. Maybe I will, maybe I won't...

A couple of weeks after that I bought another Oakley bag, Contact that I don't see online anymore. It's kind of classy looking, and has lots of pockets, while not being too big, so everything is fairly compact. It has a removable bag on top, with a few pockets, good places to put everything.

Oakley Contact

It's comfortable enough to carry, but is smaller than the old purple one, so I can't fit quite as much as I'm used to. Its two main pockets are different sizes, which always throws me for a loop, too. Carrying a camera, spare lens, iPad and a book is really too much for it, they fit, but nothing is comfortable to get in and out without something else feeling like it's in the way.

And unfortunately, it doesn't have a mesh sort of pocket outside for a water bottle, so to get a drink I have to set it down and open it up.

And when shopping, it doesn't have much capacity, especially not if I already have my camera gear in it. Since a lot of the shopping I do is books, bulky books, that puts a serious crimp in my style...

Recently I ordered a Kelty Women's Redwing 40 from Zappos. I did a bit of reading and comparison before picking that and thinking it sounded like just what I need. I figured a women's size might suit my smaller back a little better, and the overall size looked pretty good. Not to mention the kick-ass green!

The night i got it I figured out how to get the waist belt off it, since I've never really used one of those and wasn't sure I needed it in the city. Maybe it'll be useful to put back on in cold weather, but in the heat it can't be comfortable.

While I like it, after a few weeks of using it, I suspect it's designed more for hiking out of the city and overnight camping than for city adventures and commuting... It came with detailed instructions on how to pack it, including putting light, bulky things, such as a sleeping bag, on the bottom, and heavier stuff on top. Plus it's got a lot of straps and harnesses that probably hold it steady while hiking on uneven terrain, up hills and down mountains (and if I tried to use all of them, taking it off would probably be as complicated as getting a bra off my wife...) that aren't necessary on pavement and walking up the steps to the High Line...

Regarding their packing instructions, I can see how they make sense. When I simply toss in my camera and a lens, the bottom isn't rigid at all, so those heavy item just pull it down and inside the bag they bounce against my butt when I walk, which is annoying.

Due to the floppy bottom and the width, it proved useful in Manhattan at stopping a handball some kids accidentally knocked over a fence. I was able to swing the bag down at the ground and keep the ball from rolling into the street, then hand it back to them inside the fenced handball court.

Another problem is when riding on the subway, without it being packed pretty full it won't stand up next to me for me to use as an armrest. When I try that, it just sort of slides away from me along the seat.

It also does have ice ax loops though, so now I can finally buy that ice ax I've always wanted but never had anywhere to put...

I recently ordered the Burton Profanity Pack from Zappos and after about a week of using it I like it. It doesn't seem to have the biggest capacity, or the most pockets, but for a general use bag, it seems pretty good.

I've carried it to work for a week and there hasn't been any trouble, although it wouldn't hold a larger size Amazon box that I received at work. It has two mesh pockets on the sides, so I can carry a water bottle in one and a Thermos of cold-brewed green tea in the other. When loaded with just the camera and lens it didn't weight down heavily like the Kelty bag. And I was still able to do some light shopping and carry on top of that.

With the camera and lens in the main compartment, I carried the iPad and a book in the narrower laptop compartment, and the book was easy to take out and put back in when I hung out in a park to read. That was a lot better than the same situation with the Oakley Contact bag.

Certainly with name like "Profanity Pack" it puts a bit of a grin on my face whenever I put it on...

Online Order Wishlist

2011-08-11T19:37:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm preparing for a trip to India, we're doing a lot of online shopping for things (what things? that's not important for this...). So far we've had at least one package go awry, and maybe more of that to come...

One feature I'd like to see from online stores is either being able to specify a shipping company, e.g. UPS or U.S. Postal Service, or be able to specify a shipping address based on what shipping company the seller picks. With nearly all online stores, as a customer I only pick what level of shipping service I want, and the seller picks which company to use for that service.

The problem I have now is that my office is actually on a residential block in Brooklyn, and so the U.S. Postal Service won't deliver packages there, and so far the mailman has yet to leave one of those yellow slips, so anyone going to nearest post office to get it has to fight and argue with the clerks. UPS delivers reliably (and I'm buddies with the delivery guy, we talk about Hindi movies and things when he comes by...) FedEx is a toss-up, some packages come, some don't.

On the flip side, my apartment has a small entrance where anyone can come in, but then a locked door to reach the lobby and the mailboxes. The local mail carrier has a key so he or she can get in to deliver the mail and leave packages on a table. But UPS doesn't, so UPS requires someone to actually receive the package or they can leave it in the unlocked, unsecured area.

So, the problem is that when placing an order, if I don't want to pay extra for some fast, expensive shipping, I don't know if the seller is going to use UPS or USPS, so I don't know which address to give to actually receive the package.

With Amazon or Zappos, it's easy. I paid for Amazon Prime, so they ship almost everything with 2nd day air via UPS. Sure, it costs, but the $79 a year is worth it to get things fast and reliably. With Zappos, Leena and I are VIP customers, so they ship everything with overnight shipping for free, via UPS. With those two I know exactly how I'll get the package and it works great.

But with any other sellers, I just don't know.

This past weekend we placed an order from Macy's, who has used USPS in the past. I mistakenly ordered it to be shipped to my office, then spent time Sunday morning on the phone with a Macy's customer service representative to get it changed to my apartment address. She wasn't able to do it because the package was already packed and in their shipping department for pickup. Later I saw it was being shipped via UPS and figured that's fine, I'll get it at the office. Then Tuesday morning she called me back and said they were successfully able to make an address change request after UPS picked it up, so UPS would deliver it to my apartment address as I requested...

Yesterday we got an online notification that UPS delivered the package, left it at the door of my apartment building. However, when I got home there was no package. No package anywhere.... It's probably been stolen.

So, the feature I'd like to see from online sellers is to set up conditions or "business rules" where I can specify the address based on the shipper they use.

Death, Destruction and Clean Tighty-Whities

2011-07-09T21:33:00.001-04:00

When I moved into my current apartment I bought the cheapest washing machine available at the appliance store (we're not talking about Bob from Atomic Laundromat here...). The salesman talked me into getting it without paying an extra $150 for installation, saying it's easy to do, just remove the shipping bolts, hook up the hoses and plug it in... He also suggested that just tipping the delivery guys a little extra and they'll be happy to do it. I went with the last option, though in fact, I had little choice, the delivery guy just did it as he brought it up...

When I ran it the thing vibrated and shook. It seemed like it was trying to escape from the closet.

The machine in the closet
with the box and blanket.

Over the course of a couple of months it got worse and worse. I crammed a box with another appliance's packing material in between the wall and the washing machine, and it helped it a little, at least keeping it from shaking and moving enough in one direction to bang out the door... But it still hit the door jamb enough to often turn itself off by knocking in the power button...

To get around that I took a green blanket I had and tried to jam it in hard enough between the machine and the door jamb so it wouldn't move in that direction, and it mostly worked.

Some friends suggested trying to adjust the feet to get it level as that could cause it to make noise. But using my iPhone with some spirit level software, it was already fairly level, though various parts of the top were off level in different directions, so I couldn't easily determine which way I'd adjust it, even if I had the strength to pull it out of the closet to get to the feet... So, I didn't do anything...

But then it just got louder and louder. For a few loads I seriously worried about it. I thought it was self destructing. I thought I should be sure not to stand or walk in front of the door as shattered machine parts might come flying out with force as the machine tore itself apart.

Finally, there was one load when it started going into a spin cycle and made the loudest BANG! noise I've ever imagined a washing machine making. And then there was dead silence...

I sighed and reiterated my determination to track down the purchase and warranty information for the machine, which I'd already misplaced somewhere in the apartment.

Then I got up and opened the closet, not sure what to expect...

What I didn't expect was that the blasted thing was spin drying my clothes. Without a peep. In dead silence...

And since then, every load is like that. The loudest it gets is when sloshing soapy water around during wash cycles, maybe a little shaking and shuddering for as much as five seconds when beginning a spin, then all quiet...

Now what a total luxury it is to have a quick and easy washing machine, to toss a load into it after work and not worry about being tense and stressed out about the horrible noise...

Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Competition...

2011-07-04T19:17:00.001-04:00

For the last decade or so, I kept reading about Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Competition every summer, around this time, online and thought, "that'd be fun to just go and see." And so this year, since I'm in New York City (and Brooklyn, at that) I figured I'd go and see...

I showered and had a light breakfast and got dressed and was out before 10am.

I took the F train down to Coney Island. It was crowded and lots of screaming kids, but then, it's a big summer holiday and Coney Island is a big destination for that...

I got off the train and out of the station a bit before 11am, and I'd read that the competition was scheduled for 11:30am, so I found a mostly empty area on the sidewalk and hung out. There was lots of pre-competition entertainment, music and some performers and things. There were already tens of thousands of people there by the time I arrived, filling up the whole intersection outside Nathan's main restaurant, of Surf Avenue and Stillwell Avenue (my mother lived on Surf Avenue, a few blocks from there, in the early 1950's).

A few people were going around protesting meat, handing out vegan pamphlets. Not far from me one woman was changing into a fluffy, pink pig costume and had a sign that said "Meat is Murder." Once she got into her costume, though, I never saw her again.

The crowd was also bouncing beach balls overhead all through the place. At one point the MC brought out a homemade, giant slingshot and Nathan's employees used that to sling rolled up Nathan's t-shirts out into the crowd. A major competitive eater and rapper, "Badlands" Booker, who didn't qualify for this competition also entertained the crowds with some rapping, mostly "raise your hands in the air!" cheering sorts of things.

There was also a shorter eating contest in advance, the "cleanest eaters" which features some under-10 kids competing on who could eat a meal with the best manners and cleanliness, rather than speed. The MC called it the "farm league of competitive eating" (in the U.S. pro sports usually have minor leagues, a step, or two or three, below the big leagues, called "farm leagues").

Then there were the Sky Fliers, a small team of trampoline performers who bounced around a bit... Together, one with a hoola hoop, another on a snowboard…

There were a few short speeches from the CEO and the President of Nathan's, and then the director of the New York City Food Bank came on stage and Nathan's presented her with a check for their donation of 100,000 hot dogs.

I couldn't get real close, and I couldn't get many good pictures because I'm sort of short and there were lots of taller people in between me and the stage.

This was the first year they held separate women's and men's competitions. The women's competition started around 11:40am or so. Usually they have cute girls, the "bunnettes" who hold the counting cards for the competitors, so now with a women's competition, they have the "bunners," hunky men holding the counting cards...

The MC first introduced each contestant, one by one, as they came out onto the stage as the crowd roared... The last one was the current champion, the #1 ranked woman amongst eating competitions around the world, Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas, a tiny woman about 5 feet tall and 100 pounds (45 kg).

Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas on the left
and "The Lovely" Juliet Lee on the right.

Once the eating started it was more exciting than the preliminary stuff... Amongst the women it was close, between Sonya Thomas and the woman next to her, Juliet Lee. In the end, though, Thomas won it by eating 40 hot dogs, with buns, in ten minutes, compared to Lee who only ate 29.5. Both of them stood there for a couple of minutes after the times-up to swallow what was in their mouths.

After being presented with the trophy and the pink championship belt, the MC announced someone in the crowd had flowers for Thomas, and then was stunned when she went down to get them, instead of staying up on the stage. "Badlands" Booker then paraded her around on his shoulders.

Then there was over an hour of stuff before the men's competition. I nearly left, it was getting hotter, more crowded and my legs were getting stiff from simply standing still. There was a small team of "silk dancers" who did some kind of boring dance with silk strips hanging off a tripod, but it looked more like they were struggling to hang on than actually dancing.

A tired couple sat down on the ground next to me, leaning against the building. And moments later a street vendor who'd been standing nearby for at least twenty minutes walked right up to them and asked "can you move so I can set up my table?" They did and he unfolded his table, opened a suitcase and started laying out his junk to sell, cheap jewelry, non-name perfumes, pirated DVDs and so forth...

By the time the men's competition started the crowd was much bigger and I could only barely see the stage because of all the people in front of me, including lots of parents holding children up on their shoulders.

It started again, with the MC introducing each contestant with their history in eating, "...who's record for waffles is 17 pounds..." and all that. He saved the reigning champion, Joey Chestnut, for last.

I could barely see the eating this time because of all the people. Fortunately there was a big screen showing the action. Joey Chestnut managed to win this one, but not break any records, eating only 62 hot dogs with buns in 10 minutes... He looked pretty funny eating, though, wiggling and shaking, looking like he was going to have a "reversal" (euphemism in the sport for throwing up...) But I guess that's just part of how he gets it down so fast.

As soon as the ten minutes were up, I followed much of the crowd in heading away from there. I went much the same direction, too, to the boardwalk.

The beach... Nearly as crowded as
the beaches around Waldport...

I walked on the boardwalk a little, but the sun came out and it was hot. I put on a hat, but it still didn't take long before I was sweating and my clothes were getting a bit wet. It was super crowded. There's a pier there and I walked out a little, but the police had it blocked off before it went over the water, saying only fishermen were allowed beyond their blockade. Probably for safety, so no one gets a hook in the eye or something.

I didn't stick around long, it was just too hot for me, so I headed back to the subway station. There was an F train waiting, and it was air conditioned, so that felt nice.

Getting home I found I've got a bit of a sunburn… My arms and face are all red. I didn't realize I got that much sun, but I guess I did… Overall, it was fun, and the hot dog eating contest was entertaining.

Baking Cheesecake Cupcakes

2011-06-26T21:04:00.000-04:00

I like baking cheesecakes, but with my cheesecake "partner in crime" out of the country right now, not being able to eat a whole one myself (nor should I!) nor being able to share at work since while all the ingredients may be kosher, I don't keep a kosher kitchen, my mother suggested I bake them as cupcakes, which I can then freeze to take out one at a time for a while…

With Friday's being half days at work I got home and then went out to buy ingredients. But after eating and stuff, I didn't end up starting to prepare this till around 7pm or so, which was kind of late for me.

I haven't bought a mixer yet, so I had to mix it up with a fork. That takes between an hour and a half to three hours, depending on how thoroughly I feel like mixing it. Since I started late, I got kind of tired early and left the batter a bit lumpy.

I didn't actually get the first batch in the oven till 10pm, when I was already getting pretty sleepy.

The Nilla Wafers didn't end up making a good cake crust, as some of them floated up in the batter and left hollow spaces inside. They don't add much flavor and seem more to dilute the cheesecake richness.

Despite my cheesecakes never really expanding much, for some reason I still expected these to look regular cake cupcakes… So I was disappointed in that.

Recipe (from Kraft's website, with minor changes by me, skipping crust as I didn't do it this time...)
4 bars cream cheese
5 eggs
1 cup sugar
lots of vanilla
some nutmeg

Mix it all… Fill in cupcake wrappers and bake at 325 degrees for about 50 minutes...

Cheesecake Cupcakes!

Okay, just kidding on this one...

The one on the left is also a joke...

Just The Fizz

2011-06-15T20:48:00.000-04:00

I'm wondering if this is a sign that I'm getting older...

As a kid I hated seltzer (and I don't mean the Original New York Seltzer soda pop we used to get, that was sweetened and all that...) and the few times I tried it made a bitter yuck face because it was horrible... I didn't drink it often because it was so bad, and always disappointing, fizzy, but not sweet like soda pop. I remember my grandpa had at least one seltzer siphon thing, a shiny metallic bottle thing with a black dispenser on top, and it was fun to see him use it, even if I hated what came out of it...

But lately I've been drinking lots of seltzer, and now I like it.

I suppose my first taste of it where I thought, "okay, that's not so horrible" was in London in 2007. I spent the weekends walking all over London on hot days and buying bottles of water in small shops. But one time I simply wasn't paying attention and bought a bottle of sparkling water, instead of still water. I didn't notice right away, I just bought it and stuck it in my backpack. But later, after walking a bit, hot, sweaty and thirsty, I took it out, cracked the seal and got soaking wet from the spray of carbonated water practically exploding out of it... When I'd finished cursing over my mistake and took a sip, I didn't particularly like it, but neither was it as awful as I remembered, and I was thirsty anyway...

On subsequent trips to the U.K. when I stayed in hotels they'd put two bottles of water on the table for guests, one still and one sparkling, and I started to take a liking to the sparkling. Not great, but kind of, well, interesting, the slightly bitter, but fizzy feel on my tongue.

Now here in New York City, I started buying an occasional bottle of seltzer, the flavored, but unsweetened ones, as a change from plain water.

Only now I'm drinking lots of it... Almost every day, sometimes a litre or more a day... It's just enjoyable. I'm liking the taste and the "mouth feel" of seltzer.

On the other hand, I also bought a bottle of tonic water... And that was heinous! No wonder the British invented gin & tonic to be able to drink their medicine in the tropics...

Rainy June Saturday

2011-06-13T20:08:00.001-04:00

Full photo album at my Picasa pages...

After Leena and I got off the phone I showered and got dressed to head on out...

Getting out of the apartment building I started to walk uphill towards the F train station, but then at the next street corner up I couldn't decide if I should do that or not... The weather was so nice and pleasant (i.e. cloudy, cool breeze and a somewhat wet fog) and I realized I had no particular plan for the day or anything special to do, so I thought I'd walk...

I must've stood at the corner for two cycles of the light, starting to walk one way, then the other, then the first... Anyone watching must've thought I needed help or something...

In the end I figured I'd walk, the weather was great, I didn't really have anywhere to be, and no need to waste a ride on my subway MetroCard (I haven't bought the monthly, unlimited pass...) So, I turned up 6th Avenue here in Brooklyn, and since I haven't walked on that street as much as 4th, 5th or 7th Avenues, so I might as well sight see there. From 6th Avenue, almost every other block had barricades cutting off access to one street other another on either side, pretty much all for block parties for the day.

When I got up to Flatbush Avenue I popped in at the big Target to use the bathroom, then back out on the street. I followed a different path up towards the bridges than usual, through more residential neighborhoods, and that was nice.

The rain was picking up a little, though, and I was getting a bit wet, especially the front of my shirt from walking into it, but not drenched, just sort of a slow soaking...

By then I had an idea where I wanted to go, too, Shima, in the East Village for sushi. So when I was close to both the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge I decided to take the Manhattan Bridge, since the way it's angled means I'd end up in Manhattan slightly further north, in Chinatown, rather than at the top of the financial district, and closer to where I wanted to go.

As I was across Jay Street from the walkway entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, and two blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge, a guy who was walking ahead of me for a couple of blocks turned around asked me "which direction is the F?" and I had to ask, "you mean the F train?" and he said so... Unfortunately, he was going the wrong way, so he made a face when I told him it went to the Jay Street - MetroTech station about six or seven blocks behind us... As soon as he walked back the other way, another guy who'd been standing a little distance approached me and asked "where's Jay Street?" so I pointed to the sign next to us and said "this is Jay Street." He asked if it went far the other direction, the way I'd just come and I told him it did, so he went up that way, too...

So, then I got onto the Manhattan Bridge. I walked it once before, sometime last fall. Today because the rain it was virtually empty of walkers and runners, which I found nice. I took some photos, but it was raining enough that I worried my camera could get wet and damaged, so I put it away after a little bit. I played with a panorama photo program on the iPhone with some of the graffiti to get a long, long photo of it.

Once across the river in Chinatown, I walked up Bowery until I hit 4th Street in the East Village, where there was a street festival going on. One singer was on a stage in the rain, getting wet, playing a guitar and singing. He sucked, and was playing some song I vaguely recognized, but doing it really badly, but looked like he was having a good time (and to be fair, was probably a hell of a lot better than me!).

I got to Shima as the rain was picking up and I was pretty wet, so it was great to get inside for lunch. The service was unusually slow, and I didn't recognize either of the waitresses, despite having been there quite a number of times before. I overheard one of them apologizing to other customers for not knowing a particular dish from the dinner menu because she was new there. I didn't get too upset with the slow service because it was pouring outside, so the longer I stayed in the more I dried off...

I also got an earful of the "soap opera" at the next table, with a 50-something woman and an older Japanese man. Mostly it was just her talking, and talking and talking… They must've been dating off and on for a decade or so, then it sounds like he broke up with her leaving a note, "sorry, I'm just selfish" and she's trying to get him back, or something… Near the end she said "we've known each other for years and I still don't have your address" and he refused to give it to her for a while, then caved in and wrote it down, and I heard her say "and the apartment!" and then he wrote something and she said "apartment 2, just 2? I don't think so! Write the whole apartment number down!"

Meanwhile, on the other side of me a lone woman, maybe in her late 20's or early 30's came in and sat down. She ordered a cup of tea to start with, then took her bag and went to the restroom, came back and started reading a book and sipping her tea. Then when the busboy, who didn't speak English, came by she said she'd like to order, but I couldn't figure out what he said. But before a waitress could come to take her order, I saw her get up, grab her bag and dash at high speed to the exit. There was a loud *BANG* as she burst out the door… All talking stopped for a moment in the restaurant, then a customer near the door said "shit, she broke the glass."

As I was finishing lunch it was almost 4pm and I was surprised how late it was, since I usually get there earlier in the afternoons, but then I remembered I walked instead of taking the subway, so it made sense... And the rain had stopped by then, too.

Out on the street I walked across Manhattan to the High Line. It was more crowded that I expected in the rain, but not terribly so. By then it wasn't really raining, just foggy and misty and gray, my idea of perfect weather...

I had to wait under the High Line for a few minutes while a wedding party got their photos taken on the Ganesvoort Street Stairs at the southern end of the park, going up. When they were done, I dashed up from the the southern end to the bathroom at 16th Street, and then strolled leisurely up the new section to 30th Street. I took some photos with my longest lens on the way up, then at 30th Street I swapped lenses and put a wider one on the camera. I walked back down again, taking pictures with the other lens. On the balcony of one of the apartment buildings right next to the High Line was a banner someone put up as a marriage proposal to a girl.

At another part of the park, overlooking 10th Avenue, I saw another wedding couple with their photographer. They had an assistant blocking traffic so the photographer could take the couples' pictures in the middle of the street...

I made it to a part of the park with a bunch of seats a little before 6pm and figured I'd stop there and read until close to 7pm. Some of the benches were wet from the earlier rain, but I found one that was dry enough for me to sit on without soaking my rear end, and relaxed there for a bit, reading and watching people coming and going. At that section there's a sort of fountain where it's just a thin layer of water running over the concrete into a drain, and in sunny weather it's jam packed with people taking off their shoes and walking in it. Today it wasn't, but one little boy really loved it and ran up and down that section at least ten times, splashing in the water and giggling...

And another well dressed, but obviously not wedding, couple with a photographer and a bright red umbrella were going up and down the High Line, posing in various places.

At about 7pm I put my book away and went down to the lower end of the park to see the dance performance going on. A dance troupe was redoing its very first performance, from the 70's, on the rooftops of buildings around the High Line. The dancers were in bright red uniforms, scattered around so each could see at least one other. One of them was the leader and others followed the moves. The dancing itself wasn't very appealing, not nearly as much as the concept of it, with dancers all around, and the fun of trying to see if I could actually find all of them.

I didn't stay for the whole performance, because frankly, I didn't find the dancing itself very engaging once I'd seen the spectacle of it, so I went down to 14th Street. I stopped at a place for a cantaloupe frozen yogurt that was pretty good, then in Union Square I caught the subway back to Brooklyn.

Once in the apartment I changed and brewed a cup of tea, but then decided that since the weather's cool, for a break from hot summer, I should go out and stock up on ice cream. This way I can carry it home without it melting too much, so that worked well. I'm not eating ice cream much in the hot weather, though, it just melts faster than I feel like I can properly enjoy it.

Memorial Day Weekend

2011-05-30T20:44:00.000-04:00

Saturday…

Whew, it's pretty warm out. After Leena and I took a cool shower then researched paneer pasanda on the web, got dressed and headed out.

I found two restaurants in Manhattan that listed paneer pasanda on their online menus, and one in Queens, but looking at photos of the one in Queens, I couldn't tell if it was a sit-down place, or take-out only. I'm sure there's more, but not tied in with the GrubHub menu system...

I decided to try the nearest one, on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. I took the R train from near my apartment. I got lucky on the train, too, the R line was backed up and running behind schedule, the so the particular train I was on was going to "go express" and skip a bunch of stops, going over the Manhattan Bridge instead of the tunnels under the East River and jump up ahead of some other R trains to fill in the gap in front of them. When it left DeKalb Avenue it was on the right track for me to see the artwork I've been trying to figure out which train to ride to see... Cool... It's two sets of underground cartoon animation, but only clearly visible from one track.

I got off the train at Prince Street, turned around a few times at the top of the stairs to orient myself and then headed up to Bleecker Street and over into The Village...

I almost didn't see Indian Taj because it was on the opposite side of the street, with a big truck blocking it while offloading... But I did and went in. It wasn't very crowded, only two couples at tables near the front, close to the buffet. Since I was already sweating from the short walk, I asked for a table wherever it's coolest, so they seated me at private booth in the back. I told the waiter I'd like to order from the menu rather than the buffet, so he came back with that... I quickly found what I wanted, the paneer pasanda, and ordered that with two plain, sada naan.

There was a bit of a wait, and the booth was very close, with curtains running all the way to ceiling. But across the restaurant, to the side was some nice Indian artwork to keep my eyes occupied while I waited.

When he brought the dishes I was surprised. I'd never seen paneer pasanda in a red gravy before, always white, and relatively dry... But he set it down saying "paneer pasanda" then set down the bread bowl, saying "two orders of naan" so it's not like they got the order wrong... And it was chunks of paneer, not thin layers with stuffing... But now that I'm looking online again at their menu, the description is "cubes of cheese seasoned with authentic spices butter & cream, served with basmati rice" which is exactly what I got...

My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach and I should've only ordered one naan, not two. Especially since they were butter naan, despite ordering plain. Same as last time, but maybe "plain" means "butter" here because that's the normal order or something. The bill has always been for the price of plain, so maybe butter naan just has a lot more butter or something... I couldn't finish it all, and in fact, I think I tried too hard because I was a bit uncomfortable from eating too much, rather than stopping at "fully satisfied."

I also think my capacity has gone down since coming to New York because I eat smaller meals all the time, so when faced with a big meal, I simply can't eat as much. Not that that's a bad thing, just don't take me to any expensive all-you-can-eat places...

Overall, it's probably worth returning to that restaurant. The dish was good, it simply wasn't what I expected, but I'm sure other stuff is probably good, too...

After I finished and paid I headed out to the streets again. I walked up to Madison Square Park, near the Flatiron Building, where I found a park bench in the shade. I spent an hour or so reading there on the iPad, occasionally sipping some of the water I carried with me, watching people go past, watching the squirrels and birds, etc...

While sitting there I cooled off and started to think maybe summer weather isn't so bad. But once I got up again, I was uncomfortable in the heat before I was even out of the park... Also, the allergies weren't so bad when I was sitting still, but once I got up to walk again, I was stuffed up, my eyes were running and I was sneezing...

I walked along 23rd Street, from the Flatiron Building almost to the river, and it's quite a busy street. Lots of good looking restaurants to try there... It also rained lightly, very lightly, unbelievably lightly, just a few drops from a single cloud overhead, for a few minutes till that one cloud blew over. That single cloud didn't even block the sunshine...

Then down to the High Line again. I walked the length of it, twice, but couldn't find a free seat in any shady spot because it was so crowded. But at least I got to use the bathroom and the water fountain...

From there I walked over towards the river, because I saw an interesting ship at the dock, but couldn't get close, and the sun was awfully hot out there, despite the breeze blowing off the water. So, I headed back in on 15th Street, till 9th Avenue and then walked up 14th Street to Union Square. I picked up a $1.50 cup of fresh apple cider from a vendor at the farmer's market there (the market is in Union Square Wednesday, Friday and Saturday almost every week of the year).

Then I took the subway home. Back in Brooklyn I dropped my backpack off at the apartment, then went out once more to buy some allergy medicine Gary recommended, then out again to buy some groceries...

Now I'm in... I took a long, cool shower that helped some. I see I got some sun on my face, a light sunburn, not too bad...

-----------
Sunday...

I slept in a bit later this morning, took a long, cool shower, a light breakfast, another cool shower and got dressed to head on out, with no particular plan in mind.

I took the R train and even into Manhattan couldn't decide where to get off and what to do, other than be outside... It was blazing hot just walking from my apartment to the subway station two blocks away. But not as hot as yesterday... I was half considering getting off at 23rd Street and reading in Madison Square Park, or Times Square and doing who-knows-what, or Central Park and finding a spot to read, or taking it to Queens and check out Jackson Heights, or switching to an R or Q along the way and taking either of those to Astoria in Queens just to sight see...

In the end some other dude made the decision for me... A one-man-band guy got on at the station before 57th Street and was playing a trumpet. A trumpet! A fucking trumpet! In a subway car! It was way too loud and hurt my ears like hell, so I got off at 57th Street, which is very close to Central Park.

So, I walked up to Central Park and figured I could use the bathroom there, except that it was packed and while shorter than the line for the ladies' room, there was still a line waiting to get into the men's room and I didn't feel like waiting. So, I walked around the lower portions of Central Park a bit, stopped on a park bench in some slight shade, with the sun peeking through some of the trees and cooled off a little. Even the fifteen minutes of walking before that were enough for me to get uncomfortably hot and sweaty. It stank of horse manure there, but was kind of fun watching people walk by and take photos of some rather uninteresting rock formations.

Once I realized I wasn't going to get any cooler at that spot I got up and started walking. I walked out of the park near the Plaza Hotel and the Apple Store, at 5th Avenue, then at 57th Street I cut across to 7th Avenue and caught the Q train down to 14th Street Union Square.

I got off there, in the mood for sushi at Shima in the East Village. It wasn't a long walk from Union Square there, but it was pretty hot out. I made my way mostly in the shade of buildings, and only out in the sun to cross streets.

Lunch was good. None of the usual waitresses were working today, so the service was a little more chaotic. There was one guy who I've seen before, I think behind the sushi bar, and he didn't seem too familiar with waiting tables, and another waitress who I've also seen before, but she didn't seem to be in the mood to wait tables or something. Both were polite, but not efficient or cheerful as usual. Still, the food was what I expected and afterwards I got two scoops of green tea ice cream. The waitress also brought me a cup of green tea that I thoroughly enjoyed as well at the end.

From there I walked up to 23rd Street and across to Madison Square Garden. It was jam packed with people and the first shady bench I found turned out to be too close to Jemmy's Dog Run, a place in the park for people to let their dogs run loose in a fenced in area (lots of New York City parks have these) so I got up and found another. But it turned out to only be shady when the occasional cloud blew over, and when the sky was clear it was hot... On the other hand, it was easier reading the iPad screen when the sun shone on it than when it shone on me.

I got up again and found another place, where I actually sat Saturday, and that was better. I read there for a while, as well as watched people, squirrels and birds... It was relaxing there... Another middle aged couple eventually came and sat on the bench next to me and read for a long time (the guy had a book I've been thinking about getting...)

Eventually I was getting hotter and hotter as the breeze faded, plus I had to use the bathroom and there isn't one that I know of in Madison Square Park, but I checked on the internet anyway, and didn't see one listed. So, I figured it was only 15 blocks up to 42nd Street and Grand Central Terminal, where there's also a shop, the New York City Transit Museum, with some artwork I keep planning on getting, but none of my wanderings have me ending up there at the end of the day.

So, I walked up. By the time I got up there the sweat was rolling off me and my clothes were uncomfortably abrasive from sweating... I used the bathroom but just missed the shop, which closed at 6pm, since I got there around 6:03pm or so... And they're not open tomorrow because the holiday... Ah well...

From there I wandered over to Bryant Park and sat in the shade to read for a little while, then got up and took the F train home from there. In Brooklyn, instead of getting off at the 9th Street & 4th Avenue station, then walking uphill, I took it one more station to 9th Street & 7th Avenue, so the walk was downhill, and about the same distance.

--------------------------

Monday, Memorial Day...

Well, today was relaxed and interesting...

For a change I decided to wear the Birkenstocks Leena's mother got me in New York in 2007, but without socks. I can't wear my usual black ones without socks because the foot liner isn't suede so my feet make a horrible sounding and uncomfortable sucking sound with every step.

I got out the door around 11:30am or so, and dropped my rent check off at the mailbox on the way to the subway station, feeling like I left only partially dressed because of the missing socks...

I just missed an R train when I got down to the platform, but then an N train came, which doesn't usually stop at the 9th Street station. But there was no room to sit in the first two cars, and I didn't feel like standing all the way to Manhattan, so I skipped it and waited for the next R train, a few minutes more.

What luck, too... I couldn't make out the conductor's announcement clearly, but due to some incident, this particular R train was going to take a different route. At the next station, DeKalb Avenue, it was on the opposite side of the platform from where the R usually goes. And as luck would have it, on the track that goes past the artwork underground I keep wanting to see...

I got my camera ready and as we passed the lit up art I took a bunch of photos. Unfortunately, I don't think they came out well, though. It was more brightly lit inside the train, so it's mostly reflections off the window, and the window was fairly smudged, too... Oh well...

After DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, this R train followed an F route through lower Manhattan, which is very strange. I would've expected it to at least follow an N route, not an F. One guy who'd been wearing headphones got confused when we exited the tunnel onto the Manhattan Bridge and asked "I was wearing headphones, what was that announcement?" so I explained it.

Then at one of the stations, where the R normally does not go, a woman looked at the signs outside and the map near my seat and asked, "I thought this was the train to Whitehall?" and I explained to her that there was some incident and this particular R train was taking a weird route, but that the conductor was still calling it an "R train to Queens". I suggested she stay on it till it rejoined its regular route, then get on a Brooklyn bound R to get to Whitehall... When we got to 34th Street at Herald Square, I told her that was the best place for her to make the switch...

I got off the train there, too... I felt too stinky, sticky and sweaty to possibly go into Macy's and try on summer clothes, so I didn't. I did check out the Manhattan Mall shopping mall, but it was a pretty lousy place, not much in the way of interesting stores (e.g. no music store!)

I made my way down the streets to Madison Square Park where I walked around looking for a cool, shady bench, preferably closer to the middle, but no luck and I got one near the north end of the park.

I took out my book and read a bit... It was a book about travelers' tales from India. After a little bit some scruffy looking, heavily tattooed elderly guy in a wheelchair, being escorted by a young woman, asked "are you planning a trip to India?" I told him not right away, as I'd recently returned after about ten years there and was still thoroughly enjoying life back in the U.S. again... We chatted a bit. He'd never been farther from New York than New Orleans. When I mentioned still being kind of new to New York City he asked me how I liked the park, and reminisced about how it's been cleaned up over the years. He said when he used to be homeless he slept in that park for a couple of years. Eventually he said, "well, you return to your book, I'm just going to close my eyes here in the sunshine for a few minutes..." and dozed off...

After they left some college students came. One was a big, muscular black guy who took off his shirt a couple of times to flex his muscles and show off quite a few tattoos, the other was a long haired, fat white guy with a heavy metal t-shirt, spiked leather wristband, studded boots... Once they settled down they started drilling each other on their anatomy homework, about various joints in the body, which are unilateral, bilateral, trilateral, some stuff about the thumb joints and things... It sounded like they were preparing for a test or something in medical school...

I started getting hungry and got up to buy a pretzel from a vendor at the corner of the park (the line for the Shake Shack again had around 75-100 waiting, so I wasn't going to do that, though I really want to try it sometime). When I returned I'd lost my bench...

So I took another bench nearby. After a couple of bites of my relatively unsatisfying pretzel, a woman on the next bench asked "is that pretzel any good?" I told her it was only mediocre, not the worst I've had, but not really very good. She mentioned that she'd bought a cup of beer from the food fair across the street and she knew she shouldn't have it in park, but wasn't causing any trouble...

We ended up chatting for another hour or more, mostly about New York City, parks, computers, local food, dog walking and India. She mentioned going to college in the mid-70's so I guess she fifteen years older than us, or so. She took a year off then to live in India, staying mostly in villages to get "the authentic Indian experience" as she put it. She was curious for my descriptions of how India has changed since she was there.

She mentioned she used to be a writer, and had written a book about New York City's parks, but is now a professional dog walker to the wealthier people in Manhattan. At various times other people walking dogs greeted her when passing by, and she'd point them out as another professional dog walker. She said she has keys to apartments where many owners don't even know her last name, she's just "that weird lady with the green flour on her hat" that their building doormen recommend as a dog walker...

She was pleasant and friendly to chit chat with. But a little weird, in a not-quite-right manner... She was totally paranoid of the government and kept pointing out people in the park who were covert government agents. At one point a couple of guys came a bit closer than normal to photograph some squirrels that were actually being a bit cuter than normal, right behind the bench she was sitting on, then the guys drifted off... A little later she asked if I remembered the two black guys with the camera, and I said I did, but not that they were black or anything, just a couple of other tourists paying more attention to squirrels. She told me they were government agents and on the way over they'd flashed her with a "laser refractor" to hurt her eyes, and the squirrel photography was just their cover, to look like tourists...

She asked if I ever read science fiction novels, which I do. She said writers like Heinlein and Bradbury weren't just speculating on future things, like government control of citizens, but they were actually involved in it and had first hand knowledge. I asked if she'd ever read any books by Philip K. Dick, but she didn't recognize the name and agreed to look for some of his. Some good Philip K. Dick novels should blow her mind...

Around 4pm, I still hadn't eaten more than a few bites of my pretzel, that had gone totally stale and I didn't want any more of it, and I figured I should be heading back to Brooklyn, do laundry and all that... As I was walking away, she called me to come back for a moment, then she gave me advice on buying a pair of Birkenstock sandals with a strap at the back because she said I was walking funny...

From Madison Square Park at 27th Street I walked down to Union Square, then across 14th Street to catch the F train back to Brooklyn. I like returning on the F because I can take it one stop further and my walk home is all downhill.

First Weekend of May

2011-05-10T20:43:00.002-04:00

The full set of photos is available on my Picasa page...

Saturday

Whew, long day out walking... I actually got off to what felt like a late start after a shower and reading stuff online for a little bit (I'd drank a can of soda while Leena and I were on the phone so I wanted to make sure it went through me before going out...)

Just a random scene while
I was out walking...

I got on the R train and at Atlantic Avenue - Pacific Street there was an N express that pulled up right next to it, so I went across the platform to that one, as it's faster and goes over a bridge instead of in the dark tunnel under the river. The guy sitting across from me was sleeping with a bottle of soda in his hand and actually looked a bit like Fred Flintstone on his t-shirt. At one station he got up and walked to the door, but then seemed pretty drunk or something because he couldn't stand up, then ended up sitting back down and closing his eyes again...

I got off the train at 49th Street, sort of right behind Times Square, and walked up to 55th Street and Lexington Avenue to the shoe repair shop to get my Birkenstocks. I waited in line while a woman in front of me kept the clerk busy answering questions about what they could do if she didn't like the new dye she was getting on her shoes and all that... The woman who wasn't paying attention to customers, just polishing shoes, saw me and took my receipt, but had a lot of trouble finding my sandals. Once the woman in front of me finished, the clerk helped the other woman find them.

She was going to put them in a bag for me, but I said "no, I'll put them on". My feet were aching slightly from the walk up there in the other Birkenstocks, with the softer footbed, and at first the freshly resoled pair felt a little weird, since I hadn't worn them with these particular socks in a while. But it was good to get them back. After a few blocks they felt just as comfortable as an old pair of shoes (which they are...)

I like this sign!

I wasn't sure just what to do, so I walked down Lexington Avenue from there... I kept my eyes open for lunch, too... And about fifteen blocks down I found it... I passed an Indian restaurant and saw dhansak on the menu outside and thought, 'hmm....' Then I kept walking, saw some sushi and a good looking burger place, then thought "dhansak... Dhansak!" and turned around to get that...

The place was called Nirvana. I walked in and it was totally empty. The maitre'd didn't tell me they were closed, so I indicated just one person and he led me upstairs to the restaurant, which was totally empty, too, not a single other customer. I pointed to a table and I asked if I could sit by the window, but he said "no, the window tables are for parties of four or five only" and then pointed me to a table for two not far from the window. He said they closed at 3pm, and by then it was 2:20pm... To be fair, though, it did get a lot busier, the crowd actually doubled before I was done...

As soon as I was seated I ordered dhansak and naan. He asked "do you want rice?" and I said no, just naan. He asked if I wanted butter, garlic or spicy naan and I said "just sada naan" and he acknowledged plain naan... So I sat and waited a few minutes.

The dhansak wasn't like Leena's family's cook's at all... It had chunks of chicken in it (which I expected, ordering it from the chicken section of the menu) but other vegetables, like green beans, carrots and peas. The waiter also brought a dish of rice, saying "compliments of the house" (I assume it was just part of what was left from their lunch service to get rid of). It was good, not exactly what I expected, but good. While I was eating another guy came in and sat behind me, he also turned down the rice, but then when his meal came got a complimentary bowl of it as well...

I finished right around 3pm, paid and headed back out... I continued on down Lexington a few more blocks, then started heading towards the west, knowing one thing I was looking for was on west 34th Street, but not exactly where. Around there, too, I figured I could use a bathroom, and knew there was a public one in Penn. Station, on 32nd Street and 8th Avenue. On 34th I found the Affordable Art Fair, in a fancy building across the street from the Empire State Building, and the sidewalk and entrance to it were packed with people. After going a few blocks further to Penn. Station I didn't feel like walking back into that crowd, so I didn't make it there...

I exited Penn. Station on 7th Avenue, heading southward. The Fashion Institute of Technology has an interesting looking building, so I drifted that way, and found FIT had a street circus going on outside of there. I wandered through there a few minutes, enjoying watching people do karaoke, and play some of the games, then kept going...

A couple blocks from there I ran into another street closed off for a carnival, too... It was more crowded and had lots of kiddie rides and things more geared towards small children, was noisier and less interesting...

I made my way over to the High Line. The northern-most stair case was absolutely full of people, with a line waiting to climb up and a crowd up at the top waiting to go down. I skipped it... By the time I got to the next one down, it was pretty crowded, too. So instead I went to the Chelsea Market thinking I'd get a ginger popsicle from the stand inside, People's Pops, that specializes in them. There was a little line there, but the guy in front didn't know what he wanted. First he asked if there was anything sugar-free, to which the guy working there said no, all flavors had a little bit of organic cane sugar in them, then the customer asked "oh, they all look so good, which should I get?" and the worker said "they're all good, it's a matter of what you'd like" and the customer asked "well, if you wanted one right now for yourself, which would you get?"

At that point I gave up, I didn't feel like standing in line for all that, and I left.

I walked up 14th Street towards Union Square, but then decided to check out Madison Square Park and see if there was more to that artwork I saw the crew setting up last weekend. I also figured that would be a good place to stop and sit for a while and sip some of the water I'd carried in my backpack.

Madison Square Park was indeed crowded, though less than last weekend when there was a Sikh festival in it. Lots of people were examining and photographing a huge, 44 foot sculpture in the main lawn, Echo by Juame Plensa. Small leaves were falling off the trees, and every time there was a breeze they blew around like a snow storm. I sat on a bench there for a while, not sure how long, just relaxing, playing with my camera and trying out some different techniques. After a while, though, I started to get congested and sniffly, maybe from the stuff from the trees blowing around...

Once I got ready to move, I changed lenses on the camera and walked down Broadway to Union Square. In Union Square I walked a full circle around it, then used the public restroom there. Three days a week there there's a big farmer's market, with fresh produce, meat, honey, wines and things. One stall had fresh made apple cider at $1.50 for a cup, so I got one and it was really good cider.

A shop near where I went the
wrong direction...

By then it was close to 6pm and I was getting a little tired. But I decided to walk back to Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge... It was some walk down Manhattan, but I took the subway from Union Square to Canal Street. Only once I got out at Canal Street, I got turned around and walked a few blocks in the wrong direction before I figured it out. I was waiting at a traffic light to cross along with another couple when one asked "what bridge is that?" pointing to one to our right a few blocks and he said "the Manhattan Bridge." I thought about it and realized, that it being on the right would mean I was facing the wrong direction, it should've been on my left...

So, I turned around and headed the other way, through Chinatown and down along a street lined with government buildings and courthouses. I saw the plaza I found late last year that was pretty interesting, but once I bought the 11-16mm ultra-wide angle lens, the plaza was closed for some construction. The construction permits posted listed an expiration date of April, but today it was still blocked off with construction barricades...

Near there I passed a fountain with three young women horsing around and after I'd passed one of them came running and asked "can you take our picture?" and gave me a camera. So I took a bunch of photos of them posing on the edge of the fountain, then gave it back and continued on my way...

Outside City Hall I got onto the path to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was pretty crowded, lots and lots of people, but not the most crowded I've seen it. I've seen it before with so many people that walking on it was like walking in a crowd leaving a movie theater. Today was a little better.

I took a few photos on the bridge, but with some of the construction it's hard to get a good view over it, and with all the crowds, many are blocked by taller people...

On the Brooklyn side of the bridge I walked around a bit, walked down by the water, under the bridge. I found the big park that I've seen in movies, that I couldn't quite find before, with a great view of lower Manhattan. It was cool down there. I got a few photos of the sunset reflecting off the Empire State Building in the distance, as well as some of lower Manhattan. Definitely nice down there.

But it was getting chillier with a breeze, probably from being right by the river. I didn't quite know how to get home from there, other than a general south-east direction, but not which streets go through and which don't. I partially retraced my steps to get up near the Brooklyn Bridge close to where I left it for the ground.

Then there was a park I recognized from the last time I was in that area, so I went through there. The other side of it has big businesses and government buildings, courthouses, Brooklyn Borough Hall, a university and things.

At the edge of the park, when it was getting dark and there was hardly anyone there I ran into a couple who were lost. They asked me if I knew where the nearest subway station was. I said I knew it was in the park, but when I used it before I entered the park from a different place. But I whipped out my iPhone with its map, located where we were with the GPS and from there I showed them where the subway station was.

A few blocks and I figured out where I was and remembered how to get home from there. I walked through the Fulton Mall district, full of retail shops closing up for the night, and then to Flatbush Avenue and down there till it crossed 4th Avenue, where I headed up a couple of blocks then up to 5th Avenue all the way to my apartment.

Whew, quite a walk. But it was fun. There's some places I definitely want to go back with a different camera lens...

--------------------------------
Sunday

Well, today was shorter... After Leena and I got off the phone and I showered, I got dressed and headed on out. I didn't really have much of a plan...

So, I got on the R train near my apartment. At Atlantic Avenue - Pacific Street there was a D express train across the platform, so I hopped over to that, knowing it would go over the bridge instead of the tunnels.

I kept imagining it would stop at Canal Street, despite knowing that the D doesn't, it's the N that does. When it got across the river and stopped at Grand Street, I got off there, since I'd never used that station before.

Grand Street was near Chinatown, not far from where I'd been yesterday and pretty close to Canal Street, and most of the shop signs had Chinese writing, the smell of Chinese food wafted all around, and a city street sign had an arrow pointing away from it all and said "Chinatown". I walked around some of the less crowded streets around there a little, took some photos. The lens I carried wasn't good for some of the things I wanted to photograph, but then none of them does it all...

I walked north on some street I'd never been on before, and through Little Italy, which had some interesting looking restaurants and shops. Mostly I tried to stay on the shadier sides of the streets because the sun was blazing hot out. Eventually I crossed over into the East Village, where I've been quite a few times.

As I got closer to 12th Avenue I decided to stop in at Shima for some sushi and worked my way over there. There were hardly any customers and I got a nice table by the window. This time the waitress actually recognized me and remembered that I wanted a window table last time. The sushi was great, as usual.

Back out on the street I walked up to 14th Street and to Union Square. In Union Square I caught the crowds from the Asian American and Pacific Islander Culture Festival going on. There was some Thai sort of performance going on in one part of the square, and a big stage set up at the back of the square. People handed out pamphlets related to it so I got one of those. I watched some of the performance, but couldn't really get close enough through the crowds to see more than a glimpse.

The Andy Monument -
for Andy Warhol...

From there I walked up towards Madison Square Park, which is about eight blocks up Broadway. Just before the park I took some photos of the Empire State Building and crowds and then my camera's memory card ran out of space and the camera shut down. Actually, in the nearly four years I've been using that camera this is the first time I've filled the card...

When that happened I turned around, went back to Union Square, watched the performance a little more then got on the subway to head back to Brooklyn.

Back in the apartment I offloaded the last few weeks' photos from the camera and started a load of laundry and that's that...

Night Time in 8th Street Apartment...

2011-05-08T18:25:00.000-04:00

This is what my apartment looks like at night when the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses across the street has their outside lights on. The lights are evenly spaced, so the window frames cast dramatic shadows inside. It completely changes the shape of the room, making the ceiling feel sloped.

The End is Nigh!

2011-04-25T20:37:00.000-04:00

Whew, finally... I think I have just one more load of moving and I'm done.

I picked what was probably the most disorganized and inefficient way of moving from one apartment to another. I schlepped a backpack and a tote bag of stuff on the subway, over and over and over... A few times I left the tote bag and carried a box or a suitcase, when those had to be moved, but otherwise, nearly everything came in those two bags...

I knew at the start that I wasn't going to be organized enough to actually pack and have everything ready to be moved in one shot, or even a couple, despite a friend offering to drive down to New York City and help me (it wouldn't be fair to her to drive down and me not have anything ready...)

So, when I got the keys to the new apartment I started with what items I would need to spend a first night in the new apartment. The next day I prioritized based on what I would need to spend a first work night in the apartment and get to work in the morning. Then I had a surprise and had to change some priorities because the new apartment had no hot water at the time...

All subsequent weekends this month I've simply taken the subway back and forth between the two apartments. Carrying the empty backpack and tote bag one way, full the other... Fortunately both apartments are pretty close to stations on the R line.

The hardest part of each trip is getting out with full bags at the 9th Street station in Park Slope. I have to walk up the stairs, then it's uphill for an avenue block, when I'm already winded...

Today I hired some movers to help with the furniture, the dining table, four chairs and bookcase, which were too much for me to haul on my own. I suppose I could've taken the chairs and bookcase, one-by-one on the subway, but I decided not to.

Late in the morning I looked up movers on Craigslist to see what options there were. I found one that had a reputable looking website where they also listed prices, so I called them. It was $75 an hour for two guys with a van, which seemed reasonable. That was the cheapest option listed that included transportation, others involved labor but no transportation, which was exactly the problem I have doing it myself...

I called them and the guy said to email him all the details and he'd call me back. So, I did that, emailed the two addresses, the quantity of stuff to be moved, and that I'd like to get a ride with the movers. A few minutes later he called and said they'd be there at the old apartment at 2:30pm and I confirmed the price with him.

Then I headed to the old apartment. There's not so much left to pack at this point, but still garbage to throw out. I didn't realize how many plastic bags I've accumulated in just six months. Lots and lots! I brought a pocket knife with me so I could cut the tape on various shipping boxes that were lying around so I could flatten those out.

I also left my Visa card and most of my cash in the new apartment, since I expected to get a ride with some strangers and didn't want to risk them stealing too much if it turned out to be a scam to get me alone and rob me. Craigslist has a bad reputation for crooks using it to set up meetings with people who'll have cash, though I think that applies more to people offering stuff for sale for nontrivial amounts to get prospective buyers to meet them, carrying cash (e.g. I could use it to advertise a $1,000 computer and expect a prospective buyer to meet me somewhere with $1,000 cash, so I could then beat them up and steal the money) than it applies to services (one recommendation I read is if you want to buy something via Craigslist, arrange to meet the seller at a police station, if they're legitimate they won't have a problem with that...)

Around 2:10pm they called and said they'd be there at 2:30pm. I continued doing my stuff and around 2:30pm I was taking a load of trash out when I saw a black, windowless van pull up and stop in front of the apartment. A couple of minutes later they called and I asked if that was them in the black van and they confirmed, then one of them got out and introduced himself as Danny, and said the other was Tyrone.

Tyrone stayed with the van while I went up with Danny and we moved the chairs and bookcase down to the van. Then I stayed with the van while they went up and got the table, the largest, heaviest item.

Once loaded in the van Danny sat in the back on the floor while Tyrone got in the driver's seat and I sat in the passenger seat. Tyrone set the GPS thing to give directions, which gave weird ones that would work, but involved quite a few extra turns, so he just followed mine.

In front of the new apartment I put down the door stops so we could load all the stuff into the lobby, then Tyrone stayed with the van while me and Danny got things in the elevator and up into my apartment. I didn't really want just the two of them in my apartment without me, so that's why I did half the work...

Once finished I paid Tyrone $75 since it took almost an hour from when they arrived till we finished.

I made another trip down to the old apartment and filled the bags, then realized, that there's not two bags worth of stuff left! Whoo hooo!

But I'll use both, anyway, I think I'll haul the robot down tomorrow and let it run wild a bit. It should like the wide open, empty apartment.

So, after I do the last load, I'll write a letter to my former landlords, stick the keys in an envelope and slip it under their door.

AND THE SUBSEQUENT WEEKENDS ARE MINE AGAIN!

What is computer programming?

2011-04-13T20:40:00.001-04:00

Recently on Slashdot I read a comment about a new Microsoft programming environment, TouchStudio, for the Windows Phone 7 that allows programmers to write programs on the phone to run on the phone. Another commenter wrote:

So, it appears to be not true programming but just script manipulation.

Well, that brought up something that I've heard a lot, especially as a professional FileMaker Pro application developer... What is programming?

Other developers working in FileMaker Pro used to say that it wasn't programming, but just "scripting" or things (often with some concerns over how it would look on their resume and what negative effect it would have on future career options). Sure, with FileMaker Pro we didn't sit down with a text editor and write code to compile or interpret, it had a lot of point -n- click, choose items from a list, etc. to create a script. And FileMaker Pro used the term "script" for code written in it.

But I don't agree that it isn't programming.

To me, computer programming is simply about instructing the computer what to do later.

Later is any time after the instructions are created, whether it's a one-time fix for something, or a piece of code that'll run a thousand times a second for a few years or an event handler to deal with users clicking an OK button somewhere or a scheduled task for every day at 3pm.

The way I see it, whether it's assembly language, BASIC with line numbers, C, Java, SQL, JavaScript, FileMaker Pro, LabVIEW, Access, Python, Ruby, Logo and a virtually unlimited list of others (and I could grudgingly add VisualBasic...) if you're using it to tell the computer what to do sometime after you've given the instructions, it's computer programming...

Blessed be those who speak to inanimate objects...

...For they shall be computer programmers.

From a sign on my uncle's old office in the math department of Whittier College in 70's...

House Cleaning is Hell

2011-04-12T21:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not known for my love of doing house cleaning... In fact, probably just the opposite... The apartment I lived in Beaverton, Oregon in the 90's I don't think I ever thoroughly cleaned in the seven years I lived in it. The only thing I like to clean are the dishes...

It's not that I don't appreciate a clean house. I mean, I like how Leena keeps the apartment all nice and clean and puts such a tremendous effort into either doing it herself or managing the servant through it, or a combination of both. Especially in Pune where the amount of dust blowing in is simply incredible and most of the tools are sub-par. And I've always enjoyed visiting my Aunt Lenore in Florida where I can walk around her apartment in bare feet without them getting filthy (my parents' house misses this qualification not because of dirt, but because the Oregon coast weather means always wearing socks in the house...)

But rather, it's just that I don't find the act of cleaning to be worth the time, effort and energy. I work my butt off at the office, and while I earn a decent living, I pay a heavy price in terms of time, so when I have free time, there's so many other, far more rewarding ways to spend the time: reading, writing, web surfing, programming, playing computer games, exploring the city, baking, eating, watching a movie, sleeping, laying back and staring at the ceiling...

And it's worse because I'm not very good at it. Or is that an understatement? I suck at house cleaning. Sure, I possess the knowledge of how to do it, but it seems like after I sweep a floor there's still dirt everywhere, if I wash a bathroom there's still dirty water streaked all over the place. So on top of the miserable work, there's the end result that just makes me feel angry, frustrated, like I'm totally incompetent and I wasted my time.

To top it off, whenever I sweep I usually end up getting a sore throat and a cold that lasts for a week or two of sneezing, sniffling and coughing afterwards, while using cleaning chemicals gives me headaches and makes me nauseas... And the noise of the vacuum cleaner causes pain to shoot through my ears...

I'll go out of my way to avoid making messes, but over time it does accumulate... And I just don't find it worth it to deal with it...

Anyway...

I for one welcome our new robotic vacuum cleaner overlords...

I've had this now for a bit less than a week... It's less noisy than most vacuums, which is good, and best of all I can just start it and step out...

Perfect? No... As one friend pointed out, he bought one six years ago and hopes they've improved its algorithms since then. But even if they haven't it still probably cleans better than I will over the course of six years...

First Weekend Of Moving

2011-04-03T20:50:00.000-04:00

The afternoon view from my new
apartment... Looking north.

Well, it's Sunday night, and this ends the first weekend of moving to my new apartment...

Some ups, some downs... Some stuff that's cool and some that isn't...

I started off yesterday morning with the goal of bringing over enough stuff that I could spend last night in the new apartment and get up this morning for breakfast and a shower and all that. That was how I prioritized what's gotta go.

I used my biggest Oakley backpack and a tote bag. Most of the trips I tried to pack the heaviest things in the backpack, since it's easier to carry with weight, and bulky, but lighter stuff in the tote bag. And for the most part that worked quite well.

The hardest part of each trip was getting up the subway steps at 9th Street and then walking uphill on 9th Street to 5th Avenue. After the stairs, the uphill was killer. If the light was red, I'd get a short moment to stop and catch my breath at the corner of 9th Street and 5th Avenue. And once there, the remaining walk wasn't far. At least the new building has an elevator. I may not always use it, but for carrying stuff, it's useful.

After I stopped for lunch yesterday, though, I started to get diarrhea. I'm not sure it was lunch, or if that was just a catalyst. I'd eaten Indian food from a street vendor on Friday night in Manhattan, so maybe that could've been what was truly not agreeing with me. I don't know.

But after the first round of diarrhea in the new apartment, I found out something not so hot... There's no hot water... The water heater is simply not working... Uh oh...

Around 11pm, at the end of my last trip, I ran into the building superintendent in the lobby and told him "garam pani nehi" which he didn't understand, so then I thought more about it and switched to the appropriate Spanish, though possibly not grammatically correct, "no agua caliente".

He came up and checked it out, then called someone on his cell phone and spoke in rapid fire Spanish, then handed the phone to me. It was Jones, whoever Jones is, and he said he'd try to get a mechanic to come today to look at it. I told him I'd be in and out, and might not be accessible on my cell when I'm in the subway, so he said "then we can do it on Monday." I told him better to do it Sunday, so I can get a hot shower before work on Monday morning.

One thing I discovered at night was there's no light in the bedroom. There's a switch, but no light fixtures anywhere... I hadn't noticed that before... I guess I'll have to pick up a floor lamp of some kind. The switch is probably for one of the outlets. The living room is the same way, no lights, although it's a single room with the dining area, where there is one. On the other hand, I like dark and walking around the apartment in the dark.

I slept in the new place on an inflatable mattress that wasn't very comfortable, but I was exhausted...

In the morning I got up early enough and figured I'd dash over to the old place for a shower and the first trip before my morning call with Leena.

That worked. For the call I sat on the window sill of the new apartment, watching the view out the window. It's also the place with the least echo in the empty room...

Then I got on the phone to switch over the electricity to my name, followed by the gas. Only the gas company wasn't doing that on Sundays. I got through, followed all their voice menus and everything only to get a live person who said I'd have to call back tomorrow.

Then I called the one contact I have for the new apartment and he said the cold water was because I hadn't yet switched the gas to my name, so the gas company locked it. A reasonable explanation, though I wish he'd have told me in advance. And it doesn't explain why the stove has gas.

So, my next trip I figured I'd bring back my biggest cookpot. That way tomorrow morning I can use one of the skills I picked up in India. I'll heat a pot of water on the stove and use a cup to shower with warm water in the bathtub. I've done it before, lots of times, so I can do it...

I took a lunch break and walked around Park Slope looking for something to eat. Some places look good, but on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a trendy neighborhood they were all crowded, with people waiting outside for tables. I ended up back at a sushi place I'd been to before and had a tasty tuna platter.

Then after another trip I simply fell asleep on the bed for an hour and a half in the new apartment.

Now it's about bedtime...

A March Saturday Wandering Manhattan

2011-03-30T20:29:00.001-04:00

The full album of photos is on my Picasa page...

After Lenea and I got off the phone I used the washroom, took a shower and then got dressed and prepared to head out. I figured I'd carry my most extreme opposite lenses for the camera and see what I'd see... It didn't seem too cold, so I wore layers with my worn-out green sweatshirt and the "new" green sweater with the massive hole in the back (which would be covered by my backpack all day).

I only had two goals for the day. First, get sushi in the East Village... Second, get some photos of a synagogue on the Upper East Side.

Leaving the apartment I walked up to 59th Street so I could catch the N express train, instead of the R local at my local stop at 53rd Street. The 59th Street platform was more crowded than usual. Just as the R was pulling into the station there was an announcement about the N train, but then the R made so much noise it drowned out the loudspeakers. After the R left, the announcer repeated it, saying that "due to a stalled train at Stillwell Avenue, N service is temporarily suspended. All Manhattan bound passengers should take the R train." Fortunately, a couple of minutes after that announcement an N train rolled in...

It also turned out to be about the most crowded I've seen the N train on a weekend afternoon. It was packed. I squeezed in, though. My nose was slightly stuffed up from the migraine (a normal effect of the migraines) but several people complained about the smell in the train and walked through the doors to the next car to get away from it, though I didn't particularly smell anything. I mean, it wasn't like fresh, outside air, it smelled like the subway... After people moved out I saw there was a dirty, filthy homeless looking guy with his bags of "stuff" on one of the benches not far away, so maybe that's what they were complaining about.

Unfortunately this N train wasn't on the right track to see the light artwork in the tunnel in Brooklyn. I still haven't figured out exactly which train to be on to see it consistently. Mostly I think I've seen it when the N is running local in Brooklyn, but that's unusual during the day. The R definitely doesn't go by it. Maybe the Q? I might have to try switching to a Manhattan bound Q in Atlantic Avenue and see.

In Manhattan I got off the train at 8th Street - NYU in the East Village and walked a bit of a zig-zag path up four blocks and over a few avenues to 2nd, where I stopped in at Shima for a sushi lunch. It was good, as it always has been on my trips there.

Once I'd paid and left I went out and walked up to 15th Street, then turned to head over to Union Square, figuring I'd catch a subway train up towards Grand Central or somewhere, still unsure what I really wanted to do with the day.

On the way over to Union Square I was near a scruffy looking, somewhat older guy who was ranting and raving quite loud, to no one I could see. "What the fuck was she thinking?" and "Fuck her, she wouldn't give me $5 to get home... What the fuck was she thinking?" and variations on those two themes over and over... I happened to glance at him, mostly curious because when I'd first seen him I didn't notice a phone headset wire, and he noticed, then patted me on the shoulder and said "hey, sorry about the language, man." I never said anything to him but "yeah" and "hmm..." and "ahh" while I listened to him tell me parts of story. Someone, I guess, was supposed to give him cash for subway fare to get home or something. He went on, hoping he wouldn't have to beg in Union Square for it, but prepared in case he'd have to, and how he believes "what goes around comes around" and "it's not always about money, you know, I help someone move, but when I ask a favor they always seem unhappy I've turned up..."

Once we got to Union Square he dashed across the street while I waited for a light and went our separate ways.

It looks like the farmers market in Union Square has started up again. It wasn't quite as packed as I've seen it before, but it was there from when I first arrived in NYC in September, all through the winter, until the weekend I took my parents to see it in February, then it wasn't there till this weekend... Some good looking items, honey, breads and things, I'll have to try some stuff out when I get moved...

At Union Square I couldn't squeeze into a 6 train because it was so crowded, but then got the next 4 or 5 (I forgot which) and took that uptown to Grand Central Terminal. Always a good place to stop and use the bathroom... I also looked at the subway map for some inspiration on where to go, but couldn't decide.

So, I went out of the station and walked up along the west side of it. It was bright and sunny, with sunshine gleaming off the skyscrapers all around, so I took out my camera and took a bunch of photos as I walked around. I was using my 11-16mm wide angle lens, which often results in overly dark pictures in the daytime, but it was so sunny I couldn't see the display on the back of the camera to see what the photos looked like, or which direction to adjust the settings, so I hope they came out (haven't offloaded them from the camera yet...).

I worked my way up Lexington, Park and 3rd Avenues from 42nd Street to 58th Street. I stopped to take some photos of the synagogue I had in mind at 55th Street, but from what I could tell on the camera I didn't get any good shots. The sky was bright, but the face of the building was in shadow, so it was really dark, with the sky too bright, and trying to lighten the building ended up with way, way too bright sky... Oh well...

At 58th Street I wasn't sure if I should continue up, or go somewhere else. So, I stopped to look at Leena's Amazon wish list for that Bluetooth headset, figuring that with the Apple Store a few blocks away, between 58th and 59th Streets, I'd pop in and see if they had it.

On the way I passed the ING Direct bank branch. It didn't look much like a bank, actually, except that it was all orange inside with ING signs, their lion logo and bank sorts of product ads on the walls. It was two stories tall, all windows, with a cafe inside and people sitting on orange chairs at orange tables drinking coffee. Unless those were actually the bankers' desks?

When I came up on the back of the Apple Store I got a look at the line going in... There was a steady stream of people backed up about twenty feet from the entrance, with the line snaking inside and down the spiral stairs that go around the glass elevator. I decided not to go in, too much of a line... Then I remembered there's another Apple store a few blocks away on Broadway, at 67th Street (well, "a few blocks by my walking") so instead of waiting two minutes to get into this store, I walked about twenty-five or thirty to the other store...

Across from the Apple Store, at Grand Army Plaza (not to be confused with the one in Brooklyn, which is my Friday "crossroads" decision time, to go to the apartment or anywhere else) I joined a throng of spectators watching a dance troupe performing on the sidewalk for a few minutes. Some of them were fun, but then one dorky guy took his solo and I couldn't understand what he was doing, but whatever it was, it wasn't interesting to watch, so I left.

It was crossing the street there that I got hit by the blast of cold, cold wind that pretty much continued all the rest of the afternoon and evening. East of Central Park was merely chilly, but from the park on westward was downright cold. I should've worn a warmer jacket...

The other Apple Store didn't have any of those Bluetooth headsets at all... But I did take some notes on other products I'm thinking about, a couple of video devices for the Mac so I can probably view video from other things. I was thinking about getting an XBox 360 or Wii, but didn't want to buy a TV just for that, so if I can hook it to the Mac, that'd work... This store has lots of tables of Macs with store workers giving shoppers lessons at almost every one of them how to use some of the software on them. I was listening to one guy teach some people how to do some image manipulation.

Back on the street again, I worked my way in another zig zag path over to Central Park. I walked down Central Park West, along the outside of the park, taking some photos of the inside of the park and people on the sidewalk. Around there I swapped lenses from the wide angle to the 100-300mm zoom, the longest, narrowest one...

At the bottom of the park I stopped and enjoyed the sunshine at Columbus Circles, which had a bit less wind than the rest of the west side of Manhattan. I saw some of the first flowers of spring there. I got startled by one guy who came up behind me while I was paying attention to the camera viewfinder, and asked "do you want a ride in the park?". I think he was a cycle-rickshaw driver, since there didn't seem to be any horse carriages waiting around there...

I walked around Columbus Circle, taking photos of buildings and statues shining bright in the afternoon sunshine. There's one that's all covered in gold that practically glowed in the sunshine.

From there I walked down 9th Avenue a few blocks, taking photos where I saw any interesting architectural things, mostly juxtapositions of old buildings and new buildings in the background, or details on old buildings that appealed to me. Neither of the lenses I carried were well suited to that, though... Lots of things were well lit up by the west-ward moving sun.

And then I wound up at Times Square again... Naturally I made my way up to the red steps at the north end... While standing up there a few different pairs of people gave me their cameras to take their photos, all wanting the hordes of people below in the square as the background. This is the first time anyone's ever handed me a fancy digital SLR, though, to take their photo... Maybe they were confident I wouldn't steal it because I had my own, with an impressive looking lens, around my own neck...

When my hands got cold and numb from holding cameras in the biting wind I took off. I walked over to the Port Authority Bus Terminal to use the bathroom. While deciding what to do next, I figured I might as well go try the Thai grilled chicken salad at the New York Burger Co. that I've been curious about for a couple of months. So, I grabbed the E train at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and got off at 23rd Street, and walked to 10th Avenue.

The guy at the order counter of the restaurant greeted me just like he knew me, a little too familiar than appropriate, so I was confused as to whether I should know him or not, because I certainly didn't recognize him, and I'd only been to this one once before (there's another one of them at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, where I've been twice). This meal was disappointing. I've had better Thai chicken salads before. I think maybe I'l stick to burgers when I go to these places...

Since I was close to the High Line, it seemed like a good idea to go there. And it was, except it was really cold up there. But I enjoyed some photography from there, even if it was too cold and windy to sit down and relax (then again, if it hadn't been, all the places to sit would've been taken). There were lots of other photographers up there, too... I think I got a couple of good shots of the sun setting behind New Jersey.

After it got dark I was walking up 14th Street towards Union Square to get a train home, when I got a whim to go see Prince Street after dark, so I hopped on an A train at a closer station and went down there. It was fun walking around there for a bit, but cold...

Walking along I was listening to some young women very closely behind me talking. They mentioned how the English language is changing, how they don't like some of the changes, and agree with some of their professors from when they were in college.

I was just about turn around and tell them how I've spent ten years overseas in a country where nearly all who speak English speak it as a second (or third) language, and while I've heard some speak it perfectly, mostly I've heard it butchered beyond belief… But as I was about to turn, one of them abruptly changed the conversation, "hey, I need to buy a pair of black tights…"

I listened to them talk of that until I came upon the Oakley store, where I wanted to check out backpacks, so I popped in. There was one I asked to see and the clerk took it down for me then went back to doing some work at the checkout counter. I nearly bought it, but kept standing at the checkout counter and no one there even glanced at me to say "just a moment." Once the impatience set in, I decided I really didn't need it, left it on the counter and walked out. I really didn't need it, so fortunately their rudeness overrode my impulsiveness and saved me some money.

I caught an N train at Prince Street as soon as I got into the station and came home... It was relatively late for me and I didn't get home till close to 8:30pm...

The Universe is Listening

2011-03-29T19:28:00.000-04:00

I just had a weird coincidence yesterday... But not the first of its kind...

On New Year's Eve I walked most of the way home from Times Square to Sunset Park after midnight. Partway through Brooklyn I passed a big sign advertising BAM and listing what appeared to me to be names of performances. The name, BAM, intrigued me, of course.

Then that following Monday I got a pamphlet in the mail with a calendar of performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. BAM. There it was. Same logo... BAM!

Is that weird or what?

Then this past Saturday on my wanderings about Manhattan (I'm still editing the travelogue, not posted yet...) I was near Columbus Circle and happened to see some interesting stuff at the entrance to the Museum of Arts & Design. While not in the mood for being inside at the time, I made a mental note to check out that museum as it looked like the sort of place I'd enjoy.

Yesterday I got home from work and in the mailbox was an invitation to an open house at the Museum of Arts & Design. A weird coincidence for sure!

I suppose both of them got my name and address from the mailing list at the Museum of Modern Art, which I joined last year. Still, the first mail from each came on the first working day after I saw them...

As one of my friends commented about this, "the universe is listening."

My Hair is Getting Longer!

2011-03-27T20:17:00.001-04:00

Now that I've been in New York City on my own for over six months, my hair is starting to get a bit long... If anyone asks, I'm not really growing it, it's just doing that on its own without much intervention from me (beyond eating regularly...).

Me in early October 2010,
a few weeks after
getting to New York City

Getting my hair cut and maintaining it just isn't something that's very interesting or important to me, and frankly, salons and barber shops stink of noxious chemicals that I find really unpleasant. It never really has been and the only times I've ever gotten it cut regularly are when other people push me to bother...

It was kind of fun in Pune the first year or so, going to Sheela's Beauty Parlor in Sagar Arcade with my buddies to all get our hair cut, and sitting and talking while each of us had our turn.

But then Leena and I started dating and she wanted my hair kept short. Fortunately she pretty much took care of all the arrangements. She made the appointments with the barber, who's shop is on the same block as her family's house, so it was convenient when we went there for lunch every weekend. She took care of getting a servant to run over to see when the barber was free and could take me. She took care of telling him how she wanted my hair cut.

All I had to do was go and sit in the chair while he worked, then go back to Leena's family's house with him for her approval on the haircut (with occasional trips back to his shop for a quick fix...) And pay him the cash I already counted out and had ready (including a 100% tip).

Me in late March 2011
with my hair getting
longer and quite windblown...

But now that I'm on my own for a while, I just can't be bothered with finding a respectable looking barber shop, that'll still probably smell of chemicals, trying to tell a barber what to do with my hair, when I don't know the terminology ("um, just like it was before?") and wondering what's the appropriate tip and all that. And why? So I can do it again in a month?

And besides, I think a bit longer some of the brown hair overlaps and covers up some of the gray, but when it's short, the gray has nowhere to hide...

Not Reading

2011-03-25T19:50:00.000-04:00

For the last couple of decades I've read and read and read, with most of my free time being spent with books. Typically I read 50-100 books a year. I get up in the morning and read while I eat breakfast, read while I use the bathroom, read while I brush my teeth... In the evenings I read while I eat dinner, read on the couch for a bit, read while I brush my teeth, and so on...

But since coming to New York City in September last year, I've hardly read any books at all. It's very strange to me, but I've thought about it and I guess it's a couple of things.

I haven't bought any comfortable furniture to read in. There's the less than comfortable, cheap Ikea dining chairs, or the floor. From the floor, though, there's no good lighting that'll come from behind to read, only overhead. The lighting can be solved by using the iPad for reading, instead of a dead tree book...

When I have free time on the weekends, I just want to get out of the apartment, walk around and explore the city. After ten years in India where I found getting out and walking to be uncomfortable (traffic, lack of sidewalks, noise, pollution, heat, feral dogs, etc.) now that I'm in a city where I'm comfortable walking, I don't want to spend as much time inside.

In the evenings, I don't feel like I have much time, and what I do I spend writing to Leena and reading friends' things on Facebook, and maybe a bit of light stuff on the web, like Slashdot. But it's very quickly bedtime.

About the only time I'm really reading any books is when I'm in the bathroom... And that's the most comfortable furniture, too...

When will I read again? Maybe when it gets too hot to be outside in the summer. Or when the newness of New York City wears off a bit. And when I get a nice comfy chair or couch...

The Dilemma

2011-03-20T18:46:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm moving to an apartment about an hour walk from the office, and plan to walk on a daily basis (unless I buy a bicycle, but that's a topic for another, future post), I'm not sure what to do...

So far I've been buying monthly, unlimited use subway passes, which recently went up to $104. When I take the subway to and from work every day, except most Fridays when I walk home from work, and take the subway into and out of Manhattan almost every Saturday and Sunday, it's worth it. I know I'm getting my money's worth out of each one.

MTA card, with my handwritten
activation date so I remember
when to buy a new one...

But I'm planning to walk to and from the office, which cuts out about 40 subway trips per month, that's is the bulk of the usage. And in pure financial terms, the $104 will no longer be worth it.

However, there's the non-financial aspect...

Part of the ease of getting around is that I have an unlimited use card. I don't have to think twice about heading into the subway to go anywhere, it's already paid for, and using it ten times won't cost me more than using it once.

I know that if I had one that wasn't unlimited I would weigh every decision to go somewhere. For instance, if I was thinking of going to a restaurant for some meal I felt like, I'd calculate the extra $3 each way as part of the price and probably not go. Or, if I was walking around somewhere and got the whim to go somewhere else, like in Manhattan but then wanted to see the Gantry Plaza Park across the river in Queens, I'd think that even a short, one station subway ride would suddenly cost me $6 and not go

I can imagine that if I didn't spend the extra money on an unlimited use card, I'd spend more time sitting in the apartment, wishing I could go out, but being too stingy to spend the lesser amount on subway fare.

For "quality of life" it's probably worth it, to me at least, for the more expensive, unlimited rides per month card, even if I don't use the full dollar value in rides.

March Weekend - Aimless Walking and Photography

2011-03-15T20:03:00.001-04:00

Saturday

After Leena and I got off the phone I had a tough time getting started on my way out... Trying to decide to carry a backpack, not carry one, etc...

It was later than usual by the time I got dressed and out the door... In the subway station near the apartment I missed a photo op, when I was heading down to the platform on one set of steps were a huge crew of subway construction workers in their orange safety vests and hard hats standing watching a supervisor give them a speech about their workday. I caught something about "and remember there will be trains passing..."

I walked to the far end of the platform where there was only one other person. After she noticed the construction workers' lamps going down onto the tracks she asked me if there were trains today and I told her there were, they were probably working on the express track in the middle, where there are no trains this weekend. But I told her the trains would probably be going slower near this station to reduce the risk of hitting any workers...

In Manhattan I got off the train at 8th Street - NYU, which has some nice tile mosaics in the walls that my father asked me to photograph. I took a bunch of photos, trying to avoid getting hit by people walking around the platform and being sure to keep an eye on how far back I was from the wall so I wouldn't step off the edge of the platform. Actually, I planned for that and carried my widest lens, the 11-16mm, that would get whole mosaics without having to step back too far from them.

I couldn't photograph the mosaics on the opposite platform without going up and out of the station, then running my card through on the other side as that station doesn't have a connection between the two directions, or at least, not one I know of.

Up on the street, I got turned around, never having used that station before, I didn't know exactly where I'd exited it. I walked a little in the wrong direction before I recognized some stores and realized I was on Broadway, not 8th Street like I thought. So, I turned and went over the direction I wanted, to work my way to the corner of 2nd Avenue and 12th Street...

That's where Shima Japanese Restaurant is, and I was in the mood for sushi for lunch, if you can imagine that... Lunch was good, sushi... This time I got the regular salmon roll instead of the spicy salmon roll and it was a lot better. I think the spicy one they use a specially spiced mayonnaise, which adds a texture I don't like

As I was finishing and paying the bill a couple of slightly older women came in and couldn't decide where to sit. As soon as I put on my jacket and hadn't even grabbed my backpack from the chair by the window (I'd sat at the one facing the window) and before the busser cleared the table they sat down at it, saying "ah, this one has nice sunshine."

Out on the street I walked up towards Union Square, intending to catch the subway up to Times Square. There was a fancy looking Food Emporium next to it and I stopped in, planning to see what sort of chocolate bars they had. I wandered around but couldn't find the chocolate section, though I did wander into the tea aisle, where I picked up a few packs of various green teas I hadn't tried before. It was the first time I've ever used a self checkout at a store, too... You put all your things on a scale on one side of the scanner, then as you scan each item you put them on a scale on the other side and it tracks the weight to make sure you ring everything up... Interesting, and convenient for not having a whole lot of items...

I took ended up taking a different train than usual, a 5, from Union Square, up to Grand Central Terminal, which was good for a bathroom break. From there I walked over to Times Square, stopping in Bryant Park to look at the empty, sand covered space where the wintertime ice skating rink was until a couple of weeks ago...

At Times Square I wandered around a little. The red stairs where I like to go at the north end were blocked off for some kind of maintenance or something. I tinkered with the IncrediBooth app on the iPhone 4, which simulates an old style photo booth...

Then I went down into the subway. The Times Square station has some interesting artwork in the walls in the tunnel connecting it under the street to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, so I wanted to photograph some of that. Closer to Times Square are big, chunky glass cubes with lots of cermaic stuff inside them and some are interesting. Under the bus terminal are mosaics with themes related to marbles, the little glass balls for playing games with. In between are mosaics of people who appear to be celebrating...

Finished up some photography there I used the bathroom in the bus terminal, then went back out to the street. I walked towards Times Square and checked out a few souvenir shops for fridge magnets. I got a few, but didn't really like most of the selections. There were lots of them, but mostly they looked very cheaply made.

Doing that I worked my way down Broadway to Herald Square, by the big Macy's. Then I noticed the Empire State Building in the sunlight and wandered around it, taking photos with my wide angle lens, until I'd circled back to Broadway. I followed that down to Madison Square Park, and then walked up 5th Avenue a few blocks until I was getting too close to the Empire State Building for new photos.

I cut across 28th Street, intending to take the subway up to Central Park, but passed a shop selling cheap miscellaneous stuff, that had a sign about watch batteries in the window. I stopped in there to see about getting the battery replaced in my Seiko, since it's getting warmer and I don't want to wear my Rolex around much of New York City with short sleeves (no need to make myself a conspicuous target...)

An older, Indian fellow in the store said he'd replace my watch battery. I almost walked out because after I handed it to him, he set it on the counter and then got distracted by another customer coming in and saying "I'll take one of the fake G-Shock watches" and the Indian guy said "no, no, is real" but took one out of a cheap looking cardboard box with a bunch of them in it, and only charged the customer $10 and no sales tax (looking online, Macy's has the same one for $99).

Then he got to my watch... He popped it open and immediately asked me if anyone else had ever replaced the battery in it, because it looked like someone had done it wrong before. I told him lots of times, I've had the watch since the mid-1980's. I mentioned the last time it was replaced was in India and he asked me where, so I told him Pune. He asked if I was there for a business trip, and I said I lived there for about ten years, got married there and all. He said "ah, you must speak our language very well?" and I disappointed him by saying "thora, thora..."

I noticed that whoever replaced the batter in India scratched the date and what may be initials or a name I can't read clearly into the inside of the cover. I know it was from someone in India because the date was 18-6-2009.

While he was working on it another Indian customer came in to pick up a watch that must've been repaired or something and had a conversation in Hindi with him. I understood a bit of it, and when the other customer left, the guy asked me if I knew what they talked about.

Getting the battery replaced was just $8, and he gave me his card for any other watch repairs I ever need.

Then I took the N train from 28th Street up Broadway to 57th Street and 7th Avenue. I got off there as there was a building nearby, on 58th Street, I wanted to photograph. It was a couple of blocks from the station, but I think I got a couple of interesting ones of it. I don't even know what kind of building it is, except it's 70's sort of modern or something and looking up at it it just looks interesting...

I took some photos from Pulitzer Fountain, a park across from Central Park, in front of The Plaza Hotel, facing the 5th Avenue Apple Store. At one point while I was there some guy had the nerve to stop right there, on the sidewalk, and take photos...

Then walking up 59th Street I saw a big commercial building with dark, purple glass that was reflecting nearby buildings in an interesting way, but couldn't get a picture of it I was happy with.

A few blocks further on and I caught the subway again, thinking of a hamburger down on 23rd Street at the New York Burger Co. This time I took a 6 train downtown. Me and everyone else standing got a surprise when it made a curve on the tracks. It was on the map, but maybe the driver took it faster than normal or something, as all of us got thrown around a little. I was ready for the second one, though, since I was standing near the map and looked at the route after the first one...

I got off at 23rd Street, at Madison Square Park and walked west along the bottom of the park, until I got to 6th Avenue and didn't see the restaurant. Then I remembered it was two blocks down, on 21st Street and went there. I got a regular New York Burger, which is just a beef patty, lettuce and tomato on a toasted bun, sweet potato fries and a blueberry milkshake. It was good, just what I expected.

After dinner the sun went down and I walked a few blocks over to the High Line to use the bathroom and enjoy it for a little while before walking up 14th Street to Union Square to get the subway home.

So, all in all, a good day. I suppose if anyone tracked my movements on a map they'd be confused because I was all over the place, and going back and forth a few times to places, with no obvious pattern except my whims...

Sunday

I was really confused in the morning with the time change, which after ten years in India I'd gotten used to not doing at all. I had a slight headache, too, but not a terrible one, with my stomach a little but not awfully upset (which usually goes with a migraine).

It was around 12 noon, I think, that I got out of the apartment because I missed an hour there somewhere. I don't know where the hour went, it seemed like I got up at a reasonable hour, but then it got late fast.

I decided to take my longest lens, the 100-300mm zoom lens. It's not the most useful for city photography because to get interesting shots of architecture I have to be a long, long way away, which is hard, since there's then buildings in the way. But there's been a few things I wanted to try it with.

I got off the subway at 14th Street - Union Square and walked up to the High Line where I took the camera out and started taking some photos.

There's one part of the High Line where there's a view of the Statue of Liberty a long, long, long way away. But I'd never taken the right lens for a decent photo there before. By coincidence, a block or two from the High Line was a digital traffic sign, and lined up almost directly under the Statue of Liberty it said "expect delays - use alternate route."

With the weather warming up again there were lots and lots and lots of people on the High Line taking photos. There was hardly any place to move without getting in the way of someone taking a photo. The wooden lounge benches were full of people once again, and there was a long line of people waiting to look through the viewing box at some modern artwork... Spring is here!

After using the bathroom on the High Line I made my way back down to the street and zig zagged a bit on the streets, intending to head to Madison Square Park. When the traffic lights were right I tried taking some photos looking up the avenues while crossing the street, but at my height, it's hard to get good ones over the nearby stopped cars, and having been hit twice before in my life, I'm probably a little overcautious about taking the photo and getting out of the street quickly.

At Madison Square Park I put my camera away and bought a pretzel and bottle of water from a street vendor, then sat down on a bench to eat that while watching the squirrels and birds wandering around looking for food. That was entertaining for a little bit...

After finishing the pretzel and putting the 2/3 full water bottle in my backpack I hit 5th Avenue... I worked my way up about 15 blocks to 42nd Street, where I headed off to the right to use the bathroom in Grand Central Terminal. While I was there I picked up a take-out package of sushi from a counter in the food court.

I took the sushi over to Bryant Park where I grabbed a small, green table and sat down to eat it outside. It was pleasant there, sort of away from many things, in the middle of the city. Unfortunately, it was about the worst sushi I've had... Oh well...

Once I finished eating, I threw away the trash and headed to Times Square. It wasn't as crowded as the most I've seen it, but still pretty crowded. It turns out the red steps actually are open and yesterday I was mistaken. It's not maintenance or construction scaffolding blocking it, it's a stage for some kind of performances. Nothing was going on in it, but it did obscure the view from the steps. I hope it won't be there all spring and summer...

By then it felt like it was getting late, since Monday was a workday, so I headed down from 47th Street, where the red steps are, to 42nd Street to get onto the subway and head home to Brooklyn. The first train that came was an R, which goes right to my apartment. I sort of dozed off a bit, but got woken up in Brooklyn when a family got on with a screaming kid, who didn't want to get on that train... Ug... Fortunately the kid fell asleep within two stops and shut up.

Bring Us Your Poor, Your Huddled... Expect Delays...

2011-03-13T21:19:00.000-04:00

I'm sure it's just a coincidence... But now that I've started the paperwork for Leena's immigration stuff, I was out today and for the first time carried a lens that would let me photograph the Statue of Liberty from the High Line park. Normally I carry wider lenses, with which the distant statue is barely a few pixel blur, but today I carried the 100-300mm zoom.

Coincidentally, in my line of sight, right under the Statue of Liberty was a digital traffic sign. Unfortunately without a traffic context, the sign's message could apply...

Minute to Lose It

2011-03-11T19:36:00.001-05:00

I've been seeing ads all over recently for a new New York Lottery game called Minute To Win It. But I really don't like these ads... They just seem so wrong...

First off... It's just like the game show? I looked up the game show, Minute To Win It, since I'd never heard of it (not a surprise as I don't have a TV). A scratch-off lottery ticket doesn't sound even remotely like the game show.

"But a whole lot easier?" Isn't that pretty much contradicting that it's "just like the the game show?" If it's really a whole lot easier, it can't be a challenge like the game show... Every card is predetermined to be a winner or a loser, with no skill involved what-so-ever, it's all plain luck...

"No Time Limit..." Hmmm... That bugs me, too, for two reasons... First of all the name says "minute" in it, and that it's just like the game show, in which contestants have a time limit of one minute. Plus, the graphic by it shows what appears to be a countdown, sort of making it seem like there's a time limit, you have to what, scratch off the whole card in a minute?

The name having "Win It" makes it sound like it's already a winner... Never mind the odds of actually winning, especially the $1 million they fuss over, is so low, it's more realistically like "A Minute to Lose 5 Bucks". And raising hopes of winning up can't be good, considering the majority of people buying losing lottery tickets are the lower income people who can least afford it. There's a reason it's jokingly called "a tax on people who can't do math."

Cold Hands

2011-03-10T20:40:00.001-05:00

As a teenager my mother got worried about my cold, white fingers and a doctor diagnosed me with Raynaud's Phenomenon (fortunately my hands never look as bad as the ones shown in the article!), so it's not uncommon for my hands and feet to be really cold, and sometimes really pale coloured.

In India it was rarely bad, since it's tropical and hot most of the time. And so far here in New York City, even though the winter, it never got bad, either. Once in a while in the office, and I usually warmed up one hand at a time wrapping them around a hot cup of tea (fortunately I can use the computer mouse with either hand). After warming up one hand, when I grab it with the other, the part I was holding onto is often cooler than the rest of the cup.

But I really notice it on the subway, holding onto the metal poles. They're usually chilly.

But if someone else has recently held one it's hot there. Sometimes I'll grab onto the pole and then someone else gets off at a station. It could be several stops later, but I change my grip and hold on where they held on, and the metal still feels hot. Then if I move my hand to where I'd been holding on for a few stops it'll barely be warmer than the parts no one touched.

When outside most of the winter I walked and walked and kept moving, so that kept my blood flowing without much trouble with circulation. My fingers got cold when taking photographs, but not the same as the Raynaud's symptoms...

Reading through that Wikipedia article, there's an interesting fact, "Sufferers are more like to have migraine ... than controls." No doubt... I certainly have the migraines...

Now that I think about it, maybe that's how I developed my love of long, hot showers...

A Rainy Sunday - MoMA - Japanese food in the East Village

2011-03-06T19:48:00.000-05:00

After talking to Leena on the phone, then preparing some papers for the apartment broker, I got dressed and decided to go to the Museum of Modern Art. I'd purchased a membership in October or November, but the only previous time I went the lobby was crowded I left immediately. Knowing I was going there, I didn't take my backpack, since those have to be checked, nor my camera, since I wasn't fully clear on the camera policy from their website.

I took the R train, and at 36th Street transferred to an N express train to get there faster. The MoMA is near (or maybe part of the complex) Rockefeller Center, having been founded by Rockefeller's wife.

I got off the train at 49th Street, near the top of Times Square. Walking to the MoMA, across from Radio City Music Hall an Indian fellow all by himself stopped me to ask me to take his photo, with his camera. I asked him what he wanted for a background and he said "the tall buildings" so I did that, and had him move a little over so I could get the Radio City Music Hall sign behind him in a couple as well, as that's a major landmark in the city.

When I got to the MoMA it was jam packed. I had to go around the revolving door twice because the woman before me stopped right inside and didn't give me room to enter the lobby while she fiddled with her dripping umbrella. The second time she'd moved away enough I could squeeze past her, but still got splashed slightly by water from her umbrella.

I found my way through the lobby to the entrance to the museum proper, where I gave the attendant my membership card, which she scanned, and I went through. The other side was pretty packed, too...

I explored all five floors of exhibits. I liked some of the art and didn't like some of it. The exhibit on photographs used to prepare for filming action scenes, for instance, just wasn't very interesting. Some paintings here and there were interesting. I was more fascinated by an exhibit of industrial designs, like chairs and tables and what-not, most of which were designed by architects.

A few galleries had exhibits that I never would've associated with the term modern art, like Picasso, Cezanne and Monet? I thought modern art started as sort of a rebellion against those, but now that I'm looking it up online after going there I see my impression was wrong. There were some works by a famous modern artist, Marcell Duchamp, whose works I'd seen before were mostly kind of silly, but they had some that were actually kind of nice.

Another gallery was full of just Jackson Pollack paintings, some of which I'd seen in art books before. But none of which I actually liked. I mean, sure I remember in junior high, it was fun to splatter paint like Pollack, but the end result isn't much to bother looking at…

The single largest crowd of people was standing in front of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night painting. Although there were a tremendous number of people sitting on the benches across from the room-wide Monet triptych, Water Lilies, so many I was uncomfortable walking between them and the painting to get to the other side of room...

It was fun, but super crowded. In places it felt like trying to walk through Times Square or something. Lots and lots of people were taking photos, so almost everywhere I tried to walk I stepped in between a photographer and their subject, "oops, sorry, excuse me". And people reading the little explanations next to paintings would step back without paying any attention to whether someone, like me, was behind them, "oops, sorry, excuse me..."

I don't think I saw it all. The galleries have lots of entrances and exits between them, so I'm sure I missed something. But there's also things I'd go back and see again.

Back out on the street I was thinking about sushi again for lunch, down on 12th Street in the East Village, since I quite like a Japanese restaurant I found there. At the moment it wasn't raining so I sort of considered grabbing a knish near Bryant Park and then walking 30 blocks down and being hungry enough for a full lunch.

But while I was walking from 53rd Street down to 42nd it started raining pretty heavy... Too heavy to eat a hot, fried snack outside without it getting wet, cold and soggy... So, I went into Grand Central Terminal, used the bathroom and contemplated getting sushi in the food court there. However theirs was all packaged and I figured it'd be better to go to a real restaurant and get it fresh.

I grabbed a subway train from Grand Central. First I got to a platform with one train on either side, so I dashed into the one with an open door closest to the staircase, which turned out to be a 6 local. The other train, a 5 left, while the 6 just sat there, with the conductor playing the "we're being held momentarily by the train's dispatcher, please be patient" message every couple of minutes, but without going anywhere. Then a 4 pulled up across the platform, so I went over to that, and immediately the 6 train left, while the 4 I just got into played the same delay message... Fortunately it didn't play it long, and we were soon underway, with that one being an express train, so the next stop was 14th Street Union Square, exactly where I wanted to go.

At Union Square I got out and got wet in the rain walking a few blocks over to 2nd Avenue and 12th Street, where Shima is located.

Shima was virtually empty, with the only other customers being a Japanese couple at the corner window. The hostess told me to sit where I wanted so I took a seat looking out the window onto 2nd Avenue. I ordered the sushi lunch and asked if they had sunomono salad, which is a Japanese salad made with thin sliced cucumber, a little thing sliced carrot, vinegar, sugar and salt that I like. I didn't see it on the lunch menu anywhere, but she said they had "sunomono mix" on their dinner menu and that it wasn't included with the lunch, but they could "mix it" if I wanted. I agreed, since I hadn't had it for a long time...

I got my miso soup first and burned my tongue on it as it was piping hot. When I finished that she brought the sunomono mix, and it was not at all what I expected... I expected a small bowl of salad, but this was a large square plate with sashimi, slices of fish, mushroom (I think?), crab, a prawn, some things I couldn't identify, and two slices of octopus tentacle.

I never really wanted to try octopus before, and I always wondered what I would do if it ended up on a plate in front of me. Now I know. It doesn't have much flavor, and its texture is very, very rubbery, like it was a rubber octopus toy or something... It was easier to eat it while I was by myself, without someone else watching to see what I do. I ate both pieces and I wouldn't say they were really bad, but there's so many better things available I definitely wouldn't go out of my way to get it again.

The things I couldn't identify also had a rubbery texture, and I actually don't know if they were animal or vegetable.

Underneath the other stuff there was a bed of sunomono salad that was what I actually thought I was ordering... And once I found that under there, it went great in combination with the other items as a single mouthful.

I definitely enjoyed the fish, prawn and crab pieces, delicious!

As I was nearly finished with the sunomono mix my plate of sushi came. This time for the roll I picked spicy salmon, and now that I've had it, I prefer the regular salmon or tuna rolls... Not that it was bad, but the spicy flavor from it stayed in my mouth and overpowered some of the rest of the subtle sushi flavors, which is quite subtle indeed... And the fish on the sushi pieces was fresh and tender, melt-in-your-mouth... Mmmm...

All in all, a delectable meal...

When I finished and paid I grabbed my jacket off the chair back, and the earlier rain had had time to soak through it at the shoulders, so it was kind of cold putting it on.

Back out on the street it was raining harder again and I got wetter on my way to Union Square. There's a Whole Foods store across the street from Union Square so I figured I'd pop in and see if they had chocolate bars with bacon in them, something I saw a few years ago at a Whole Foods in Los Angeles, which seemed gross at the time but I've been thinking of it since then and would like to satisfy my curiosity... The store was jam packed with people, although not as crowded as the MoMA. I passed a truly overwhelming tea selection before finding the chocolate bars. They didn't have what I wanted, so I didn't buy anything. And when I returned to the front of the store where the checkouts were, I was glad I didn't find it, or I would've been stuck in that insane line for the checkouts and I have no idea how much longer I would've been there...

So, I got the train home and here I am...

Park Slope, Here I Come - 2011 Apartment Hunt

2011-03-05T22:18:00.001-05:00

Okay, it worked out today... And I don't have the nagging feeling at the back of my head, "uh oh, I may have made a mistake," that I had when I last got an apartment in September.

Late in the morning I got an email from the broker from Rapid Realty, Jason, asking for my phone number. I emailed it to him, but he didn't call right away. After a while I got antsy and impatient sitting in the apartment, so I called him up and he asked me some questions about what I was interested in and then we arranged to meet at Rapid's 4th Avenue & 21st Street office at 2pm.

I ate a quick bowl of soup and then got dressed and headed out. I got to his office around 1:50pm or so and the receptionist told him I was there. He was still organizing things and getting some keys ready to go out.

Once he had all that he said a new broker, Rico, was going to shadow us to learn the ropes. Rico ended up having a car, so we drove everywhere instead of walking or taking the train.

The first apartment we looked at was right on the same block as his office, on the corner of 4th Avenue and 21st Street. It was four or five (I lost count, I was out of breath) floors up, without an elevator, and it wasn't a really nice building. In the apartment the living room and kitchen combination was tiny. It had two bedrooms, both fairly big, and a huge bathroom with a fabulously huge window looking out over Brooklyn, and it would be easy to imagine showering in there at night with the lights off and looking at the city, without the city looking back... One downside was the kitchen was tiny and had almost zero counter space or cabinets.

He said he wasn't sure I would like it, but it was close to their office and he said getting a client into an apartment and asking what they do or don't like about it is an important first step, often more valuable than talking on the phone.

Rejecting that one, for several of those reasons we then hopped into the Rico's car and went a few blocks up to another apartment building on 17th Street, between 4th and 5th Avenues. Rico has kids so he had a child lock on the door, so when we parked I couldn't get out. Jason was walking away, not knowing the door couldn't be opened from the inside and gesturing to me to come out, while I shrugged and made a face because I couldn't... Then Rico apologized and opened the door from outside...

This building looked like it had been grand and luxurious at one time, once very wealthy accommodation, but was fairly decrepit now. Lots of old carvings in the stone of the building, but long faded and dulled, some cracked off. Jason was on the phone and using the intercom to try and get us into the building, but no one answered the intercom to buzz us in. He kept trying and trying until some people were just coming out and let us in. The lobby was like the outside, really fancy, with grand tiles and details on the moldings and ceiling, but worn out, broken, dirty and obviously not maintained.

We were stuck in the lobby, as we couldn't get in the next door to the hallway and elevator without someone buzzing us through. Again, we got lucky and some people going out, actually another broker and client, let us in. Jason asked "where's the elevator?" and they said there isn't one. He said he was told there was... He asked me if I wanted to walk up five flights of stairs to see it, and I said forget about it, not another long stair case, not that far up.

Back at the street he asked me a few more questions about what I was looking for, whether I wanted to look at more of the apartments in that part of the neighborhood or what. I said I wanted to be on lower numbered streets, closer to the top of Park Slope, in a somewhat better building than he'd shown me, and he asked if I was flexible in my budget because that would cost more. I said I could go another $100 or even $200 a month for something better.

So, we went back to the office for him to do a bit more research on the computer. I sat in a room by myself he while he did a computer search out in the main area. After a few minutes he came in and said he wasn't having much luck, as most things that I was really looking for were all not available at the time, with notes in the computer listings like "don't show till May" and stuff... He said he'd check a bit more and then let me know if there were any options or if it would be a bust.

He came back again and said he found one that wasn't yet listed in the computer on 8th Street, between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue. That sounded promising, that's in the heart of Park Slope, a great location. So we hopped in the car and Rico got lost, he mixed up the Avenues and Streets, but then Jason corrected him and we found it.

It turned out to be the least attractive building on the block, the only one that's not a classic brownstone, but an apartment building with hardly any character on the outside... At first I thought "ug, oh no..."

We went into the first part of the lobby, and Jason kept trying to buzz people on the intercom to let us in. Inside the locked door it looked somewhat fancy, modern and rich, so that was more promising than the outside. Jason was talking to the building superintendent on the phone who was telling him to try buzzing one apartment after another on the intercom, 2C, 3C, 3D, 2D, 4C, 4B and so forth, but only one person even answered their intercom and didn't stay on the line to talk to us...

Eventually some people were leaving, yet another broker and client, in fact, and we went through the door as they left. The elevator was pretty fancy for an apartment building, with doors on both sides of it, quite high tech, and that took us up to the 2nd floor. Stepping out of the elevator was like being in the hallway of a nice hotel. Of course, once away from the elevator, the hallway was a bit shabby...

The apartment itself was nice, though. It's big. One bedroom and a large, large living room and dining area. The dining area has mirrors on the walls which make the room seem a lot bigger than it really was, and helped reflect light from the windows so it was quite bright in there, despite being cloudy outside.

The bedroom was big, the bathroom was good sized. The kitchen had a lot of cupboards, with shelves low enough for me to easily reach them, and a lot of counter space. It even has a dishwasher (but since I prefer to hand wash dishes, it's still useful as a drying rack without taking up counter space on a drain board). There were a couple of closets in the apartment, including one with a hookup for a washer and dryer, which aren't included, but can be purchased.

So, I said I'd take this one. And it's still a couple of hundred bucks a month lower than my initial maximum budget...

We then drove up to one of their farther offices in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where they have a debit card machine and I filled out some applications. I paid a month's rent to reserve it for now. I have to supply some financial paperwork, bank statements and salary slips, and then if my credit check passes we'll arrange a time over the next two weeks to actually meet with the landlord and sign the lease and I'll pay the rest at that time.

After wrapping up at their distant office, in a part of town I hadn't been, Rico gave me a lift back to a more familiar neighborhood. We had an interesting chat in the car. He works half the year doing movie making stuff, but now that he has two kids wants to do the real estate brokerage work to earn money the other half of the year. He asked me a bit about India and said that his 6 year old daughter picked India as a place to visit, and he told her if she could find it on a map of the whole world, then he would save money to take her there, and she instantly pointed right to it, so now he's saving money to go there.

After he dropped me off I walked around a bit in Park Slope, then at 9th Street I took the subway home.

So, that's that... It's a great location, just a block and a half walk from cool restaurants and shops on 7th Avenue and a good neighborhood. It's not on the "fringe" but right in the heart of it. Close to two subway stations a couple of blocks either direction. A big park, Prospect Park, is also nearby.

Here's a link to it on Google Maps.

7th Avenue, to the right of it is the key restaurant and shopping street, with 5th Avenue and 4th Avenues to the left of it being a bit less classy shopping and restaurants, but probably lots of useful things, including 24 hour small food shops and take-away delicatessens.

For me it's probably about an hour walk to the office, though that could be reduced if I learn my way through the park.

Rico and Jason

Jason in the doorway

There's Rico on the left

Art - Code on the Subway?

2011-03-04T17:17:00.000-05:00

I've seen this poster on the subway lately and I like it (I took the image itself from the MTA's website).

I didn't notice it the first time I saw it, but what's with the letters and numbers on the bottom?

They're presented as the symbols for the various subway lines, including the colour the subway system uses on trains, signs and maps for each line, but there's no obvious order and the strings are different lengths. Several are duplicated, but not all of them... All of the subway lines are represented.

I suspect it's an encrypted message...

The symbols are:
LZN ABG3S FRJME76D R41CBS 5MQL2

Any ideas? I've tried a few simple, basic decryption attempts, but no luck so far...

-------------
Follow up on March 4, 2011

I wrote to the artist, Takayo Noda to ask if I was on the right track... This is her reply:

Thank you for your Question / Comment.
I wish I had an exciting code to give you but the line numbers and letters are placed for the visual purpose. However, I was careful with not spell out any words with the letters.

Safety in Crown Heights

2011-03-01T20:41:00.000-05:00

I work in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, which is predominantly lower class black, along with lots of French speaking blacks from Caribbean area, with a smaller, but very visible community of Hasidic Jews. Unfortunately it's not one of the safest neighborhoods in New York City...

I'm sometimes a bit nervous walking from the subway station to the office. It's about five or six blocks, but I go through the sort of edge of the neighborhood where I see the ethnic mix pretty strongly.

This New York Times article from early December last year mentions that there had been 66 shootings up till that point in the year in Crown Heights. Later in December there were at least two more murders that I know of, both on the same block as our office. One was a body the police found in the empty derelict building directly across the street. The other was an armed robbery gone bad in the laundromat in the same building as our office.

After the laundromat one a coworker of mine recognized the victim as someone he hadn't met but saw in the same Russian immigrant synagogue he went to, so he bought a bullet-proof vest that he wears everything he comes in and out of the office, even for lunch or a quick walk to the office of our biggest customer, two doors down from us...

Now that my apartment lease is almost finished I mentioned at work that I'm about to start looking for a new apartment. One of my coworkers, who lives a few blocks from the office asked, "why not move ot Crown Heights?".

I told him I don't feel very safe there. He said it's safe, there's nothing to worry about. I mentioned I feel a bit uncomfortable walking to the office from the train station and he said "well, that's just the fringe of Crown Heights where it's a bit rough, other parts are much nicer." I mentioned the two murders in December and thought about it and said even his wife doesn't feel safe there, but he hadn't really taken her seriously before, but now that I brought it up she might actually have something...

In any case, I'm more interested in the Park Slope neighborhood for now...

Old Business Plan....

2011-02-22T20:20:00.000-05:00

I was just reading a blog by a woman, Kelli, who moved to New York City last year and in one post she mentioned $6 for Cheerios in Manhattan. I'm only paying $5 (plus tax) here in Brooklyn...

But it reminded me of a similar situation a little over a decade ago when I lived in Beaverton, Oregon and worked for First Insight in Portland, Oregon, before the office moved out to Hillsboro...

A bunch of my coworkers lived in student housing in downtown Portland. They were paying significantly higher for Nestle Quik chocolate milk mix in downtown Portland than I was paying out in the suburbs. So for a while I was buying it for $4.99 and selling it to them for $5 in the office.

When the boss announced the office was moving and that everyone who lived in downtown Portland would be moving out to apartments in Hillsboro (and consequently shopping at the same store I shopped at) I told him it wasn't fair, that he was putting me out of business, and explained that I had a good business plan in place, earning $0.01 per tub of Quik, with my expectations for my friends to drink 30,000 glasses of chocolate milk a month, each...

MTA Apps are Whiz Kid Certified

2011-01-06T20:10:00.001-05:00

Lately the subway trains have had ads posted on them by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, who runs them, about the various improvements they're making to New York City's transit system. As one says "a city is only as good as its transit system."

One of them admits that they didn't create their own apps, "Our apps are whiz kid certified. Instead of developing transit apps ourselves, we gave our info to the people who do it best."

Now, as what they would probably qualify as a "whiz kid" I don't think I'd certify the app based on the screen shot they show. From a UI perspective it looks awful.

A quick glance at it and I'm confused. Those are definitely subway lines, but if I was looking for one, they don't seem to be in any order. The rectangle in the upper left makes sense, 1 2 3 and 4 5 6 on the next line. But why is J between 3 and 7? That makes no sense!

My first thought was maybe they were ordered by their routes, although that might make sense for someone who really knows the whole system, knows that 2 3 4 & 5 all run pretty near each other for long distances. But if that was the case, why isn't J by Z? J and Z run perfectly parallel their whole routes and are so tied together a famous singer even used the J & Z lines as his stage name...

Or maybe I should make an allowance for half the screen being cut off from the ad?

Hopefully it's not made by the same people who wrote the software that creates their status alerts on their home page. During last week's blizzard one had this:

MTA Service Notice

Due to ongoing snow related conditions:

There is no train service between the Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard Station and the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station in both directions.

There is no train service between the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station and the Whitehall Street Station in both directions.

Please allow for additional travel time.

Ok, sounds reasonable. One of my coworkers, who very, very rarely takes the subway, went to the Q station nearest her and found out it was closed. She thought it was running.

I did, too. Until I looked at a route map. Turns out Astoria-Ditmars and Coney Island are opposite ends of the lines. Basically, that Q notice translates to "there is no Q service" because it's not running from the stations at each end of the line.

My guess is the MTA must have some application which lists the lines and they just check the first and last stations that are out of service and it generates the message for their web page. But it doesn't recognize that if the first and last stations on a line are checked, then the whole line is out of service.

New Year's Eve in New York

2011-01-02T19:26:00.000-05:00

Whew, that was fun.

Nitu and I arranged to meet at the 40th Street Port Authority Bus Terminal at 4:30pm, then Meenakshi and Deepak were supposed to get there around 5:30pm.

I work up with a nasty headache in the morning and took a long, long shower with the lights off, took Excedrin, aspirin and a Suminat through the late morning and early afternoon, and cooked a high protein breakfast of a salmon fillet. The medicines had some side effects and shortly before I left the apartment my hands were shaking so much I thought I might end up trimming a whole finger while I was trying to clip my nails.

But things eased off in transit. I got to Manhattan around 3pm, and got off the train at 23rd Street & Broadway, figuring a bit of a walk would be nice, and I was early. The streets were more crowded than normal, and there was a lot of really dirty snow, or partially melted and refrozen as ice all over. At all the curbs when stepping off the sidewalks there were puddles of slush, and some were just blocked by the plowed snow.

At Madison Square Park a young couple with some kind of foreign accent stopped me to ask "is there a liquor store near here?". I didn't know of one, off hand, but I've seen so many around Manhattan that I told them I didn't think they could walk too far and not see one if they pay attention. I also pointed out a lot don't say "liquor" but "wines & spirits".

The higher up the streets I got the more police were out and about, within a few blocks of Times Square there were walls of them along the buildings at every intersection. Even more than them were street vendors everywhere selling 2011 glasses and paper hats, and unfortunately, vuvuzelas...

I got to the Port Authority Bus Terminal around 3:30pm, used the bathroom then decided I was still pretty early, and it was quite warm inside, so I headed out to walk for half an hour or so. I was on my way back, around 4pm, two blocks away when Nitu called to say she'd arrived, so I hurried back in.

We met up at our usual spot, above the stairs leading down to the subway and Nitu wanted to see what Times Square looked like with the celebrations just starting. We got out on 8th Avenue, but it was packed. Across the street the police had barricades and walls of cops at every street leading towards Times Square and weren't letting anyone in. We walked a few blocks up, but it was al the same, and the sidewalk was super packed with people.

Back in the bus station we checked out the bowling alley on the second floor to find out the prices. We thought about playing a couple of games while we waited, but by then my feet and shoes were wet and I didn't want to take my shoes off, and then have to put them back on wet after we played. That would be too uncomfortable, and it's hard to put wet shoes on comfortably.

We waited in a Casa Java cafe in the station, talking about work stuff.

Meenakshi and Deepak were a bit later than we expected. They'd made 7:30pm reservations at an Indian restaurant, Bay Leaf, for us. Nitu expected them around 5:30pm, but they turned up closer to 6:30pm.

We took the subway over to the restaurant on 56th Street, though it took two trains to get there. I would've just taken one, the R, but when I said "it's not far" they didn't trust my measure of walking distances, since they all know I walk long, long distances on a regular basis...

Dinner was good. We started with a round of drinks. I got a lychee martini that was okay, I think my expectation was more fruity than it was, which was more alcohol. We got a plate of paneer from their tandoori menu for a starter and that was delicious.

We stayed there for a couple of hours, visiting and talking and having a good time.

Deepak taking photos

After dinner we went out onto the street and walked down 6th Avenue, with Deepak and I using our cameras a bit. He's a lot taller and probably got better shots over other peoples heads than I could get. Meenakshi and Deepak wanted to get to the 7 train to head back to Queens, while Nitu wanted to get to the Port Authority terminal, but it was on the opposite side of Times Square, that was completely closed off by police.

A police officer said to cross over to the other side would require going down to 38th Street, the highest open cross street. But going down 6th Avenue they'd blocked it off, so we couldn't go down anymore. Another office said we could get the subway shuttle train at Grand Central Terminal, so we went that way.

The shuttle took us under 42nd Street to the Times Square station. In the station there was a wall of police preventing people from going to any exits to Times Square, leaving only transfer to other trains or the under street tunnel to the Port Authority, so we went that way.

We said goodbye to Meenakshi and Deepak there so they could get the 7 train, while Nitu and I went through the turnstiles to the Port Authority. She got a bus ticket and after using the bathroom I hit the streets again.

I walked around, but 8th Avenue leading up towards 42nd Street was like a wall of people and I couldn't move anywhere, so I turned around and went down. I thought maybe I'd check out 38th to see if I could get to 7th Avenue from down there. At 38th the police had barricades set up, and they were letting people out from where I was, but no one in. One guy even went out but then tried to turn around and they just grabbed him and told him "you left, you can't come back" while the guy was pointing to someone near me saying "but my friend is right there, I have to get in!" and they wouldn't let him. When a few others of us wanted to get out, they dragged the guy out of the way so we could pass.

I walked up 38th Street, but before 7th Avenue it was so crowded I couldn't move anywhere close to next avenue to see up, so I turned around headed back to 8th Avenue where I walked down to 36th Street. Not seeing a big crowd in the distance, I walked up there to 7th Avenue and had a narrow view of Times Square between the buildings up the street.

Fireworks in Times Square
at midnight.

I got there just about midnight so I could see the fireworks being fired off from a building in Times Square. After a few minutes it was over and there was a mass migration of people down the street. For once I was in a crowd and it was all going the same way and easy to walk in...

I cut across to Broadway and walked down there, to walk home.

Going down Broadway, here and there I passed people, mostly women, crying and from the little bit I could hear as I went by, they were talking to friends about break-ups. Must have been the night for changes for people...

At 32nd Street & Broadway some guy asked me "hey, do you know how to get to 14th Street?" and I pointed down Broadway and said "straight that way". Then he asked "how far is it?" and I couldn't quickly calculate it, but said something like "12 blocks or so" and he said "no, it can't be that far... What? 4 blocks?". Then we stood there, struggling to calculate that it was 18 blocks. Must've been tired.

Near the Flatiron I was waiting to cross a street, while a few others were around on both sides. Some woman in a short skirt and knee high boots came running through and then tripped and fell in the street, sliding on the wet pavement and scattering her bag and hat all over... She rolled over, didn't instantly get up, and people were asking "are you alright?" but she didn't answer. Then as people approached her, she crawled, gathered her things, stood up and started running again the same direction. Halfway down the block she was waving and yelling to get the attention of someone much farther... People said "well, I guess she's okay..."

Champagne cork at the end of the
night...

On my way down Broadway I passed a lot of drunken people, but almost all pretty cheerful, wishing random strangers a happy new year. One woman was going the opposite direction, carrying a bottle and some big plastic party favor or something and as she neared me she stumbled on her high heels, arms flailing, but didn't fall. She looked at me, smiled and giggled a bit.

I made my way to the Brooklyn Bridge, near City Hall, and crossed over that. I wasn't sure about how safe it would be, but figured I'd keep an eye on people in the distance and behind me. It turned out nearly everyone walking on it was either a couple, or two women with one man or three women groups (well, and me). Except for me, nearly everyone was pretty well dressed, too. I think I scared one woman, though. I was making a good pace on foot, but she kept stopped to take photos, and even though I slowed down a little so I wouldn't end up overtaking her, I did because she stopped near a tower for longer, and when she finished and turned around to see who was behind her, I was much closer than I'd hoped to be by the time she noticed me... Once she saw me she nearly ran to catch up to her group.

Glitter on the sidewalk

The view of Manhattan at night from the bridge was fantastic. All lit up and everything. Very nice.

On the Brooklyn side I was making good walking time, but up ahead, on a long, long, straight walking path in the middle of the street, with no way on or off except ahead or behind, there were two more obviously drunk women, all dressed up for a party and stumbling pretty bad, weaving back and forth, taking the whole width of the walkway (which was narrower than usual because of unmelted snow on the sides). As I got closer and closer I started saying "um, excuse me, behind you" a few times so they'd know I was behind, but they didn't acknowledge me at all or turn around, but they both managed to weave left at the same time and I dashed past them on the right and scooted ahead...

By the time I hit downtown Brooklyn my feet were aching bad. Going through the Brooklyn streets there were more, and deeper puddles than I encountered in Manhattan, and my feet just got wetter and wetter and more uncomfortable. I could feel the blisters forming and hurting...

I used my iPhone to find exactly where I was and how to get to the Atlantic Avenue - Pacific Street subway station and worked my way there. Crossing a street on Flatbush Avenue there was a deeper puddle than any others and got both feet soaked, which in one way was good, they were both equally soaked instead of an imbalance of one of them more than the other...

At the Atlantic Avenue - Pacific Street station there was obvious signs of people having been sick in the station. Near the turnstiles a large police officer was talking to several young women, one of them utterly hysterical, sitting on the ground and I thought she was tearing her clothing. I couldn't make out anything she was yelling, the officer was forcefully telling them to calm down, and another was yelling at the hysterical one, "he don't fuckin' need you!".

But that faded out as I went down the steps to the platform. On the platform there was vomit at the bottom of five or six pillars in a row, and I just kept going past that, far enough not to smell it. Lots of very tired people were down there waiting for the train.

When I got out of the 53rd Street station near my apartment shortly before 3am the sidewalk was filled with extremely well dressed people with more going in and out of the church on the street corner, so it looked like they had some event that evening.

I stayed up just enough to drink, without gulping, some seltzer and then off to bed.