10.12.2004

Fall arrives

Its definitely cold out now. I'll be wearing my fleece to work for the first time, likely tomorrow. Very happy about that.

Great weekend, I just wish it lasted more than 6 seconds. Friday night I worked on Sunday's lesson, Saturday morning J gave me a ride to the PATH and I went to the office for a bit, then to Bryant Park to work on my football picks and read some of the new book (see sidebar). I really like it so far.




And I've found the formula for my football picks. Tennessee is up 17-3 in the first and as long as they hang on, I win the pool this week. When I won week 2, I used the same prep method. So we have our strategy for the rest of the year.

Met J-lo, Kat, and one of my freshmen guys, Andrew, for a free tour of Grand Central Station, thanks to Open House New York. It was really interesting, although on the surface felt like a very non-New Yorker thing to do. But it was cool, because OHNY is only in its 2nd year and not a lot of people know about it yet, especially not out-of-towners, so it was mainly city folk.

On the way over to meet two of my other guys, Christian and Nathan, we saw way cool breakdancing in Times Square.




(the guy was holding this position, he lowered himself down further than that, then went right back up)

Then, crossing Times Square, a motorcade of maybe 200-300 bikes, most (all?) custom on their way to the custom bike show on the Intrepid. Loud bikes. Fun.




Saw Shark Tale, the second movie about sharks I've seen this year. I'm so far behind on reviews I ain't even gonna start. I'll just say it was funny and pretty engaging but Dreamworks / Pixar need to be careful in the future that they aren't just throwing together scripts and 30 random pop celebs to put some $ in the pocket, or these movies will become a dime a dozen. The Toy Stories did so well because they were quality writing backed up by quality voices. The first component is key.

Back to the pad to finish Sunday's lesson. Sunday was church, high school group, and then my boy Joel who graduated last year and is now in Boston for college came back to Hoboken with me - he was in town for the holiday weekend. I love that kid, he cracks me up, and he's just a real cool kid. We played Virtua Tennis then I convinced him to go to evening service with me, where he convinced me to introduce him to girls afterwards. Met Eric, the first person I've met thanks expressly to blogging. Sorry I couldn't hang afterwards Eric, call me and we'll grab a brew.

Joel and I went to the gym and then got some Q. Back here to organize for the week.

Boss is on vacation for the week, and you always think that's gonna mean you can come in late and leave early, but what it really always means is that your workload increases and you work a lot longer. Oh well. At least I can use his office and actually feel professional for a change, instead of being crammed on my swarthy excuse for a workstation, with my trainee. Nice girl but hey I need some elbow room.

Have I ever mentioned that I've met Dave Barry? Just thought I should.

Also, check out cool stuff I found today when our systems were down (thank God the net wasn't) for a few hours:

Curbed is an interesting New York blog on neighborhoods/real estate.

Also this video is pretty cool.

The (arguably) complete rules of Shotgun. I personally feel that the driver maintains complete power and can be appealed to by losing parties, who seek an "Overruled" call, but may be smitten with a "Sustained."

And I dig what little bit I've seen here.

Random shout out to Gizmodo, a site every red-blooded man should check often.

Last thing. The apples. I swear these things are going to be used to take over the city. Mark my words. I only hope I can escape when they initiate their first wave attack. They're already strategically positioned all around Manhattan. Most noticeably at the major transportation hubs (Penn Station, Grand Central, and they're all over Port Authority). The rest are all sitting in high-traffic areas. Just awaiting their orders. Mark my words. I will seek to photo-document them here, until the end comes. For posterity's sake (click the picture for other apples - you'll have to sort thru the other misc pix to find the obvious fru-it of the dev-il).


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