Barbecue and Yoga

Today was SUPPOSED to be Eric's first Bikram Yoga experience! We were all pretty excited, but made one wrong choice: we decided to call Budget (a local cab company). Boy, do they suck. Why do we always call them?!

We wanted to get into the city a bit early so Eric could sign up and relax a bit before class. The cab was late as usual, and we missed the 12:15 train. By the time we got to 23rd street, it was 1:05pm. Class started at 1: The only class Eric had time for that day.

So, we drug our yoga mats around town, had lunch at Dallas Barbecue on 8th (one of our favs), and caught a movie (Wedding Crashers- very funny movie).

Dave and I ended up taking the 6pm class. After that, the day was done.

What a weird, drawn-out day!

Our first music session!

Today, Dave and I went into the city to the music studio I had mentioned. We rented a small room for 2 1/2 hours (for $32) and played around on guitar and sang. We're learning a few covers together.

I'd like to do a few songs at open mic one of these Mondays. There have been quite a few female singers coming up the last few times. Maybe one will be me sometime soon…



I wasn't sure about posting this photo of me singing... I feel embarrassed looking at it. I'm hoping it will aid me somehow in getting used to seeing myself like that. I don’t know… I think I need a hypnotherapist. Anyone know of a good one? =\

Dave's first NY gig (ICU Bar)

WHAT A NIGHT!

Dave's show at ICU Bar was so much fun! And the bar was ultra cool. It's like someone built a small stage and bar in their basement. It was a very laid-back but talent-filled free-for-all night. Dave did great- he played a few sets, and invited Geron to play a few, too! Eric also went up and jammed with Dave and Geron here and there. I even went up and played light drums. Everyone had a blast! We got home around 4am.

A good mix of people filled the place throughout the night (especially after 1am!): friends, trendies, jocks, and musicians. Even actor Ron Perlman wandered in and stayed for about two hours! [Note: This was my second celebrity sighting. The first was Harry Connick, Jr. standing in the same elevator. Dave had seen (and yelled at) Denzel Washington a few months later.] Ron (or "Mr.Perlman" as Eric approached him with) was having a great time watching Dave play. (He has the most distinctive voice!) Quite the cool guy.

My camera's still stuck on night, so here's a bizarre photo of Eric and Dave on stage...

Sailing through NY Harbor!!!

Ok, this was BY FAR the coolest thing I've done in New York!!!

One of the designers at work, Ron, took Dave, Eric, Jef and I out sailing with his wife and a few friends. AH-MAZE-ING. I've never been sailing. When we sailed out into the harbor with a gigantic wall of Manhattan in front of us, Ron cut the engine, the sail let out a POP when it caught air, and then, nothing. Just the sound of the water, a buoy bell ringing off in the distance, and then the crack of a single beer can opening, Tons of other sailboats were off in the distance, the sun was setting, the Statue of Liberty standing tall. Wow.

That's all I can do to describe it. Here are a few (out of something like a million) photos.

"Captian Ron's" boat


The financial district behind me...


The crew: Eric, Jef, Ron, Dave, Claudia and Kelly. (Frank got cut off!!!)


You know who this is...


Keeping the boat balanced ;)


I can't tell you how bummed I was that I couldn't take any night photos (my camera is stuck on night, and with the boat moving, they wouldn't come out right). All I could do to feel better was to remind myself that we'd be out there some time again.

A day at Chelsea Piers!

Dave, Eric and I took a ferry from Newport over to Chelsea Piers Chelsea Piers today, and the most fun we'd had here so far! Chelsea Piers consists of 5 giant piers, which holds a sports complex, a spa, a driving range, and a few restaurants. There's tons more to each individual pier, but those are the places we saw.

Each of us took turns in the batting cage- it was the BEST! Then we headed over to the four-story driving range where Dave and Eric (and I, reluctantly) hit a few golf balls. The weather was astounding. The driving range is on a pier on the Hudson River with yachts, party boats and sailboats docking and drifting by.

We wandered around some more, past the spa and over to the last pier. There's a restaurant there called "Cafe du Solei". It's huge! It takes up the whole pier, and there's a huge stage at the end where they have bands every Saturday. The food was great! (And so was my margarita!)

There's a boat docked up against one side of the dock called "The Frying Pan". It's an old ship that had sunk and was brought back up and left as a sort of museum, except that the restrooms are on it for the restaurant. It looks like you could have a band play in it... it's the coolest place, but you'd have to see it to believe it.

Here are a few photos (although I took a TON more- what an awesome day!)

Here's a building in Newport while we waited for the ferry.


From the ferry, a good shot of the building we work in! Notice the ESB, Madison Square Garden, the NY Post Office, One Penn Plaza, The New Yorker building... pretty cool, huh?


Me in the batting cage (I hit better than the guys!)


The driving range from the end: 250 yards out.


Dave after taking a great swing


Dave and I at "Cafe du Solei"


A shot of a small part of the restaurant from above


Across the Hudson from the same spot- a view of Newport/Jersey City

Geron's show/our Friday night

Tonight Dave, Eric, David, Jef, Deb, Jane, Kavita, and a few others met up at Alphabet Lounge in the lower east side to meet with friends and watch Geron play a few sets. Afterwards, we all took cabs over to his place on the upper west side... an extremely nice area and super cool apartment!

There's a restaurant downstairs from his place: a swanky seafood restaurant called The Neptune Room. We had drinks and scarfed some food, then headed up to his place for more partying, lots of guitar playing and singing.

Really great night.

It's @#!* HOT!

I'd just like to state the obvious: It's DAMN HOT. It was gorgeous last weekend, but Monday through today....HOT.

It's actually typical Florida weather, except in Florida you don't WALK everywhere! You just drive around with the AC on. It's supposed to be in the low 80s tomorrow and back to beautiful this weekend, thankfully.

Always carry your camera in NY!

I was talking to Marina at work who was very disappointed she didn't have her camera yesterday morning.

She told me that there was a small bomb scare about a block away, on the corner in a garbage can. There were two men dressed in bio-chemical suits working over the can, trying to lift the suspicious item out. However, practically leaning over their shoulder were about 20 people, trying to get a look.

Every single time I leave my camera at home, something crazy happens. What a shot that would have been!

Cells for Folks

Sounds like a cell phone drive for the needy!

This weekend I did my good deed for the year: I brought my parents to the 21st Century and bought them cell phones! This will be the first time either of my them have owned a cell phone. I bought the same one for myself, of course... (And, Dave and I finally got New York numbers!!!)

All of us will have the same kind- it’s got a camera (flash, 4X zoom and even a sliding lens cover), voice dial and speaker phone… it’s quite an upgrade to what I had before! I was still using an old crappy one that came free when signing up almost two years ago. It didn’t even have voice dial! (Poor me, right?)

Anyway, I’ve been having fun with the camera features. In fact, here are two I’ve taken in the last 24 hours:

This was an ad on the PATH train for “Eurofly”, a travel company offering travel packages to Europe. Someone has managed to smash an actual fly right on the poster.


This afternoon, we spotted a guy in a gorilla suit and a camera crew walking down 31st outside our office windows. He was all the way out across the street, so this was as close as my 4X zoom could get. I call this one “BigFoot on 31st”. (Oh, and don't worry about that truck. The light was red.)


Tonight, Dave is back at Kate Kerney’s again. It should be a fun, relaxing night.

Update for this week

To catch up with the week: nothing super-spectacular happened, just a few small "events". Everything is fine here- just getting busy with the big Social Studies jobs.

On Monday, Dave played open-mic night at Kate Kerney's again! The musicians doubled from last time. (Now 6. Ha!) Dave introduced two more new songs and one of them made the room go quiet ("My Own War"). It was awesome. Beautiful song! A few extra people from work came, and we had a great time.

On Wednesday, we found out that FRESH DIRECT could quite possibly deliver to our place!! We did a massive grocery run on Sunday, so we won't need an order for probably another week. But ordering groceries online and having them delivered to our kitchen counter....AGH! I used to order from Home Grocer in LA, and it was just the most amazing thing.

Thursday (today) I went back to Bumble & Bumble (@ West 13th Street) for a cut. I need to get my digital camera fixed this weekend- what a great view they have!!! We also went to an early Bikram class. I feel so much better tonight! Eric is thinking of trying Bikram out, too!

Homesick for hurricanes???

This is crazy. I'm crazy. I'm feeling really, really homesick due to watching all the updates on the weather channel about Hurricane Dennis...

Not that I want a hurricane! It's just.... well, it's sort of a "season" for Florida. The air has a slight electric feeling, there's a much different smell of rain in the air, and winds feel like they're coming from some direction that never existed before then.

It's such an interesting event- though stressful and bit panicky. It's sort of a heightened feeling you don't normally get out of living in Florida. Sad, I know. Having the weather channel on in the background, hearing the excitement in the reporters' voices, hearing that music they begin each segment with [insert drum solo here]... it's the only time I really only watch the weather channel. It was bracing for a time where you had no idea what was going to happen. Sometimes it meant packing up and leaving everything behind, along with thousands of other people in some form of mannerly fashion.

Maybe I just need to go jump out of a plane or something.

Here are the blogs from the month of September last year when we went through FOUR of them (all while planning our move to NY)!

Shecky's

Visiting or live in or near New York or Los Angeles? Ever try Shecky's.com?

I bought the Shecky's book when I lived in L.A., but the site is exactly the same. You can check on a place ahead of time and find photos and brutally honest descriptions of thousands of bars, clubs and restaraunts. You can find exactly what kind of night you're looking for by choosing different keywords: live music, food, sports, swanky, gay, dog friendly, romantic, cigarette friendly, etc. They also offer VIP tickets to places that are extra tough to get into!

You can also get great info on upcoming events, catch specials for those girls' nights out, or get suggestions for large parties and a wild night!

If you happen to pick up the book, try this- Close your eyes, open the book and point to a place. Go there! I've had some pretty adventurous nights and found some extremely cool places that way!

Our first 4th!

Dave, Eric and I spent our first "New York" 4th of July over at friends Jef and Angie's new apartment, just three blocks from our place. WOW, what a view!

Dave with Dixon Mills in the background (behind the church)


A small section of Jef and Angela's lucky 180-degree roof view!


I've never had a fourth of July like this one! I thought we were lucky because we had a great rooftop view of the fireworks that were to be set off between the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island... but we were even luckier! When I had heard that this 4th of July event would be the best in history, I just thought that they meant the one in the harbor would be that great. Nope! There were fireworks in the harbor, the financial district, AND in mid-town, all synchronized, all running 30 minutes long!!! Wow. It was just astounding.

These photos don't give it justice, of course, but here goes...

Our view to the left: Midtown


Our view in the center: the Financial District


Our view to the right: the Statue of Liberty/NY Harbor


We also saw fireworks off in the distance from all the other boroughs- even throughout New Jersey! We saw the shows going on in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, Newark, and all the other neighborhood fireworks. We were out there for hours, drinking margaritas, the air was cool and crisp, the sky was clear. Whew.

Thank you so much again, Jef and Angela!!!!!!!

War of the Worlds- WOW!

War of the Worlds: If you see the trailer coming on, overhear someone talking about the movie, or come across anything that will give away any tiny part of this movie, RUN AWAY!!!!

This movie was THE MOST THRILLING MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN. Eric and I both sat with our mouths wide open for over an hour! I had a napkin in hand covering mine for most of it....WOW. I hadn't read the book, didn't see much beforehand, and I am SO happy I didn't. I can't express how great this movie was! The effects were amazing. Steven Spielberg was awesome. Tom Cruise was REALLY good.

Please...do yourself a favor. See this movie and let yourself go for an hour and 57 minutes. Unbelievable!

Fireworks night

Great game last night! The Mets won again (...but lost today). The fireworks show.... magnificent!

On Wednesday night, Dave and I happened to watch "Imagine" (the documentary about John Lennon, not the musical one). There was a great part showing the Beatles performing at Shea Stadium in '64 (40 years ago). Then last night, the entire Fireworks show was set to Beatles songs! Very cool. And the show was so much longer than I thought it was going to be! Shea went all out!

It rained a bit just during the first two innings, even after the sun broke out...


Eric and Jef looking stoic, and Dave and I looking goofy!


Fireworks, just to the right of our seats!

I took more shots of us all at Shea ( Jef, Ron, Brad, Eric, Dave and I), but I had to use a film camera, something I haven't used in what seems forever! (I'll develop them after the fourth.) My digital camera broke last week and can only take night shots. I'm going to drop the camera off to get fixed while we're in the city tomorrow.

Our friends Jef and Angela rent a great apartment a few blocks away here in Jersey City, and he has a great view of the Statue of Liberty from his rooftop terrace. Aaaand, it just so happens that the city is shooting off fireworks between the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island! Dave, Eric and I are invited over to join them for a barbeque, a few drinks, and to get the best seats around! It's going to be SCHWEET! (Thank you so much, Jef and Angie!!!)

I practiced guitar today with Dave. I'd like to perform "Across the Universe" by the Beatles (with as little Fiona Apple in mind as possible. I really wish I had done that cover first!). Also Tracy Bonham's "Mother, Mother" (that song is so much fun to play acoustically), and Dishwalla's "Angels and Devils". BTW: I caught the Dishwalla posts a few people were making; I TOTALLY agree. I used to sing that song with Dave in Florida last year, and had started learning it on guitar- it's a great beginner's song! J.R. has an beautiful range, too! I'd also like to do a Semisonic song or two.

I'm totally not ready to share an original song. Not yet. I'm not even sure I'll be ready to perform next week, but I'm going to play hard to get there.