lucky brand jeans now made in china

I don't know what else to say, but lucky brand jeans are now made in china! I went to get a new pair of pants today and was forced to walk out of the store in disgust as replacing my pants included dumb distressing AND a new label declaring the loss of more american jobs, including higher prices!

BOOOO!

Hello winter

Parking out front

Storm King

Storm King is about a 1.5 hour drive outside of Manhattan and is probably my most favorite place in NY. It's 500-acres of former farmland that has been converted into an outdoor sculpture park. It is the best place to go when the city starts to get on top of you.

Boat ride around the island

Columbus Circle

Time Warner Center - the best office location. Whole Foods in the building and Central Park across the street.

Unicycle in chelsea

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Why not?

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Front wheel protection

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Train fun

Subway in the evening

Air drying

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Umbrellas are useless

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Knit bike

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chelsea pier

this weekend we ventured over to brooklyn to the brooklyn flea. sorry, no pictures, i forgot to bring the camera. it was good venturing around a new area in brooklyn - ft. greene - not a bad place, could see us living there. the flea was ok but the food was really the highlight. ted allen was there so the food had to be good - right? i had some amazing mexican food which i've been craving since we got here. mexican food doesn't seem to be as prevalent here as in atlanta where there are taquerias with people lined up around the block.

on saturday night we headed down to the chelsea pier and had a picnic as the sun set.

Ethan Hawke sighting

Just when you thought it was safe to walk about you run into Ethan Hawke eating lunch at a local cafe.

co pizza, nyc

So tonight we decided to go out and eat. We tried a local fancy pizza place called Co. (company).

What can I say? It was okay, but I haven't felt so ripped-off by a restaurant in quite some time. $$$ for what?

Not worth it.

yoga

Today we took a yoga class. This was my first.

It was beginner-level yoga but my arms are a little sore anyway. We didn't do as much balancing and strength stuff as I might have liked, and there was a lot of chanting or singing, but otherwise it was a lot like any other martial arts class you might take. Sans beating of each other after stretching, of course. :)

I was surprised that guided meditation still basically works on me and how many parallels to my old karate class we had. Luckily, I'm pretty flexible so most of the moves were do-able.

I can definitely see how yoga, as a regular thing, would lead to a much healthier life as you get older. Anything that promotes flexibility is good. Especially foot and leg flexibility as I know all about old people, feet, and death from my time at the VA.

July 4th and Anniversaries

Yesterday Matt and I experienced our first 4th of July in NYC and celebrated five years of togetherness! That's right - 5 years together. Who would have thought...

This move has been really good and I'm so proud of us for finally doing it. I couldn't have done it without him and I think we make a great team. Although I did have to apologize to him for being such a pain during the initial move. It was a shock to the system and the wee apartment in Minetta nearly killed me -- that's my excuse anyways.

Thanks for being so supportive and patient. If we can make it in this 400 sq ft place I think we can make another 5 years together.

xoxo,

Ginny

Home security

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long weekend + yankees

Finally, we get a little break.

It's the 4th and we're sticking around in nyc. Mostly because it's weird not having a car and we can't go anywhere, really. :)

So I went to a yankees game, which was fun. The new stadium is pretty nice. Of course, I never saw old yankee stadium so who knows. I wanted to buy a cap, but they were $45! Can you believe that?! The yankees won, which is good. We got to see two home runs and everything.

Cable modem!

We finally have real internet at our house! Hooray!

Dealing with time warner has been pretty bad, but I'm excited to have fast internet again. For the past few months we've been using a verizon usb modem over wirelss and it just doesn't cut it. Last month we had something like $40 in overage fees.

Anyway, I decided to not get cable tv since it's $75 and sucks. I'll let you know how replacing tv with the internet works out. I'll probably need to work more on a upnp server so the ps3 can stream more stuff. For $75 I could buy all of my shows on itunes anyway..

nyc guest checklist

Okay, we have now entertained two sets of visitors so far. One was Ginny's mom and aunt, and the other was my friend Danny. I wasn't here for the mom visit, but I think it gave Ginny some good experience that we carried forward with Danny.
He got in friday night and we went to Izakaya Ten and the ace hotel for drinks and dinner
Here's what we did on saturday:
Battery park- view of statue of liberty
Wall St
World Trade Center site
West village: Taim, Doma, and Joe's pizza.
walking tour to look at: Flatiron building, chrysler building, empire state building
grand central station
new york public library (my favorite)
central park
the MET museum
le grainne for dinner

Phew!

Adventures around town

Today we ventured down to the art galllery district of Chelsea and went to a Monet exhibit at the Gagosian gallery. It had a nice selection, small and, most importantly, free.

We then ventured over to the flatiron district and stopped by the Ace Hotel. This is where the hip kids stay when they come to NYC. We grabbed lunch at No. 7 Sub - really unusual sandwiches. Should have gotten the sandwich with BBQ chips on it.

We walked down the street and ate lunch in Madison Square Park. This is the area where they have the naked man statues on the top of a bunch of buildings including the Flatiron building. Can you spot the three in the bottom photo?

pics!

The haps

So we've been in our place for almost a month now. Or, more accurately, Ginny has been in here for a month and I've barely been here at all since I've been in Israel for the past few weeks.

This was my first week back and it's been tough re-adjusting to the time difference and everything. No new celeb sightings, but we did build a giant Ikea cabinet to start making up for the storage/space deficit in our new place.

Some interesting restaurants near us:
cookshop
Izakaya japanese pub
cafe grumpy

And for all of you techies, we use an interesting product at work called Varnish. I recommend you put it in-front of all of your high-volume websites:
Varnish

Bjork sighting

So tonight we were coming home from brooklyn and a mediocre restaurant when we just sort of ran into Bjork! Of corse I couldn't say anything but it was still pretty awesome.

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for real this time?

Okay. I think we'll be able to move in on monday.

At least I hope so because I've scheduled movers and utilities! Anyway, the beginning of what was supposed to be the actual beginning can begin. Just in time too since Minetta is started to get very full of the homeless AND someone was complaining about our dog in the temporary apartment.

Of course, these are the same people who bang around as loudly as possible when walking so it's no wonder a dog would be interested in contributing.

I must say that my month in the village has validated what I already knew- I prefer the cleaner parts of new york. ;) Chelsea isn't exactly clean either, but it's a little nicer and our little block is pretty good. If it comes down to it, though, we can probably sublet our place and move to UWS, which is always very nice.

In other news we continue to search for good restaurants. There are so so many that finding a decent place (priced reasonably) is pretty difficult. It's easy to find great food if you're willing to pay through the nose, but I guess it always takes months of experimenting before you find a place with good food and not a ton of cost.

Vbar and more cafe select

So we have been using the internet in the vbar now. It's not bad.

I also learned that the cafe select has some kind of secret bar through the kitchen. I will have to check it out.
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Cert still waiting

Ugh. Okay.

So we thought the apartment was ready but it turns out that the plumbing needed another inspection.

So we drove ourselves in a 12' penske truck from atlanta to nyc.

We had to move into a storage unit and now we're still waiting to find out when we can move in!

Of course, like every move there was drama and atruggle at every turn. For example, the truck was moved to 16', we had to get the lock cut on our storage unit, and now we're full of doubt about living in chelsea with a dog.

The next time I relocate somewhere I will know a few things to avoid.
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Cert acquired

Our chelsea apartment was certified by the city. Hooray! I guess they have a few loose end to finish up so it looks like the 15th will actually work and we can move in. I hope chelsea is right. We were almost in the upper west side and it's so much cleaner. I guess chelsea is really central, though, so that's good.
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mario tiled

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Ginny in today

So it's been kind of cold for two weeks but now it's hot as hell!

That means ginny probably packed all the wrong clothes. Oh well. At least she'll be here for the next week and our little family life will be slightly more normal.
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Cook much?

So I ran into this old cookbook store today. I have been there before and can recommend a long study of the inventory if you're interested in what american cooking used to be about.

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Walk in the east side

Today it was warm after work so I went to the other side of the island to check it out.  First I had a salad at the whole foods where they were sure to throw on a bunch of salt!  I knew I should have made my own.

I started writing this post on my blackberry but blogger can only upload images in "Compose" mode which is too java-script heavy for the BB.

Anyway, here are some pics.

Fist I ran into some bike polo while going through Sara D. Roosevelt Park.

Then I ran into little Italy where it was all tourists, but some of the restaurants looked okay.  I had a little run in with a guy doing the "wassa matta you" hand thing to the music followed by a frontin "whacho lookin at" to me.  Unfortunately, an image of that guy would have probably resulted in the breaking of my blackberry.

And then I ended my adventure
with a glass of wine at Parigot.

first full week

So last week was my first full week living in new york city. I spent the weekend in Atlanta (ugh, flying) so Ginny and I could actually spend some time together.

Check out this Manhattan luxury dresser:

;)

Anyway, things are going okay. My commute is very short and will eventually get shorter, but I can't wait to get into our permanent place and actually settle back down.


I wanted to point out three restaurants that stood out for me in the past week:

Mamouns. I can eat there for $5 and it's close to home.


Cafe select I chanced upon and found it to be nice.


The old rabbit club craft beer bar. It's dark dark dark, but pretty friendly with different beers. I guess it's related to the Bourgeois Pig? Maybe I'll have to check that out too.

it's official...

i am moving to nyc. i gave my notice at work today. pretty anti-climatic considering i'm walking away from a job i've had for eight years! that's almost a decade of my life! i'm feeling pretty good about the decision - i've wanted to do something for a long time now and it's hard to believe it's finally happening. i'm so glad that matt and i decided to take this journey together.

made it

Okay, I'm in new york. My home for the next month is pretty small and I guess it will take some adjustment. I can't wait to move into my permanent place and actually get fully moved. Being in-transition is annoying.

It's pretty difficult right now since Ginny is still in atlanta, but we'll work everything out shortly.

final day in atlanta

So this is my final full day in atlanta. My flight to new york is tomorrow morning pretty early, and I'll be there until we do a full move. This is making me reflect on my life here, my initial move to atl, and all of that.

When I first moved here I was 17 and I packed all of my junk into my Ford Escort wagon (still my favorite car) and my parent's car. We unpacked my stuff into a two bedroom apartment I was sharing with three other guys and started going to school and looking for a job.

Now I am, once again, getting rid of most of my earthly belongings and packing my clothes into a 20" carry-on suitcase to start a new life. Will it last? We're moving into a shoebox and probably in the wrong phase of life (hello, five years ago), but life isn't about perfect planning, it's about doing stuff and moving forward. I'm frightened and excited.

an ode to octane

In the past week in-between jobs and cars I have been riding my bike up to octane coffee very often. Although I'm sure there are -really- great cafes in new york, I haven't found one that competes with my three southern favorites yet. The one that will be near my future apartment is very nice with good coffee, but has a very sterile feel and no beer.

So along with octane coffee (the best cafe in atlanta), here are two other good ones:

The Sentient Bean

The now defunct Map Room in Memphis, TN. This place closed years ago, so you can never visit it. :)

deviled egg recipe

Since the spotted pig showed how popular deviled eggs were, I thought I would give a quick recipe.

Make the eggs:

1. put some eggs in cold water and put on the heat for 9-12 minutes. They should boil most of the time
2. spoon the eggs out and run them under cold water until you can handle and peel off the shells
3. cut the eggs in half length-wise and transfer the fully cooked yolks into a mixing bowl
4. arrange egg-white halves on a plate (or deviled egg platter if you're in the south)

Now the filling is where the varieties go. The most basic recipe is just:

1. mayonnaise
2. egg yolks

You can sub miracle whip for mayonnaise if you're my sister. I've also used the following additions at some point. Just make stuff up:

• mustard
• dill
• black pepper
• hot sauce
• pickle juice (sweet or dill)
• lemon juice
• curry
• onions
• scallions
• bacon
• jalapeno

And, as with all mayo-based salads, I like to top it with paprika. I generally use hungarian or smoked paprika.

the spotted pig

On our first night in nyc looking for an apartment we decided to have a nice meal (while we can still afford one) at a restaurant. Coming from the south, especially living in memphis before atlanta, the spotted pig was -hilarious-. We sat next to the kitchen so let me go over what was so funny:

• People were ordering deviled eggs like crazy. French people were trying to eat them with a knife and fork
• The menu is expensive and the ingredients are a little out there, so 80+% of the people ordered the hamburger
• the decor was trying to be funny by ripping off suburban memphis bbq style

My pulled pork was good and presented in an interesting way. However, this restaurant, relied heavily on over-salting and over-buttering each dish to make it seem better. This messed up the barley base of my meal. You can wash it down with their house beer at $9 glass, though. ;)

hi

This is our blog to document our move from atlanta to new york city.

I will be moving on sunday to temporary lodgings and working while our new apartment in chelsea is being renovated.