New York City at Christmastime

Mike and I traveled to NY City this weekend. We both have other things to do in nearby areas early in the week so we came in on Saturday to see the city and go to a Jets game on Sunday. This blog will just be about the city and I'll do an update on the football game tomorrow.

We took the bus into the city and then walked to Rockefeller center to see "the tree." I don't think I have seen it in real life before but it is on the morning TV talk shows, like the Today Show, a lot, so it looked familiar. I am used to going to see the "other tree" - the National Christmas Tree in Washington DC. It is magificent, but in a different way. They added blue lights to the NY tree last year and they were beautiful. It made me re-think the lights on my miniscule 9 ft tree at home.

Last night was about 31 degrees, but dry so it was chilly but not unbearable. We walked all around Rockefeller Center with about 50,000 other people. Maybe a million people, I am not good at estimating crowds. Let's just say everywhere in that area and Times Square was packed. There is a snowflake light show set to Christmas music on the Saks building. I caught a shot when they were all lit. You can imagine how they come on individually and in bunches when set to music. Very pretty.

I haven't seen these other things before, the snowflakes, the red balls (at the beginning of the blog) and the angels below. The department store windows are all decorated individually but the crowd was just too thick to make our way across and down 5th Avenue. Apparently Dec 13th was THE NIGHT to go see these sights in the city, so we'll have to come back another year to see other things.

Everyone has seen this (below) on TV. The line to get on to the ice was about 3 hours long. The rink stays open all night long. Mike told me that they pay really good skaters to spin around and look good while normal people struggle to stay upright and go around in circles. I was game, but couldn't talk Mike into waiting in line that long! lol

After we had seen enough we found a subway and headed to the Village. We had planned to go see Kevin who works in our local regional office play in his bands. On the way, we kept running into Santas. Everywhere! Here is a gaggle of them outside a bar we passed. The inside was full of Santas too! We learned today that it was one of those things organized through the internet with meet up places spread through text messages. In the cab back we saw that the Santas made the news, there were so many.

Kenny's Castaway was where Kevin was playing in two bands. He's the drummer.An excellent drummer it turns out! We really enjoyed the second band, Friday's Child. I thought the lead singer had a Barenaked Ladies kind of voice. I would definitely pay to see them again, they were that good.

Sometimes I wonder

...how I put up with certain things for such a long time before doing something about them? We all do this, right? Like I know I am not the only person to have a junk drawer that I mean to clean out...for years...and never do. Surely there are others who have piles of clothes to take to Goodwill...that sit around so long they have gone out of style and I am too embarassed to take them. Tell me you are out there and can relate to this!



Ok, those were minor examples and I'm really talking about my kitchen again. Remember how many years I lived with those paleozoic era appliances before finally replacing them this summer? Well, I have to confess there is something even more awful than the old appliances in my kitchen that has continued to be tolerated. The lights. I was too embarassed to photograph the actual before's, but here is the "before" with the awful fluorescent tube lights with authentic plastic covers removed and only the 80's style wood frame left:

I am having can lights installed in their place. These have to be "eyeball" lights because where I really wanted to put the new lights there are too many pipes and a/c infrastructure to find space up in the ceiling. I am hoping these eyeball lights will be an improvement. To be honest, anything - even no lights - would be an improvement over the previous fluorescents with plastic covers. I am horrified to have lived in this house for 15 years with those lights.

I am also having pendants installed over the breakfast bar. And they were installed yesterday and other than having the wrong bulbs in them, I love them.

They have a Texas star.

Today, my new best friend and electrician Brian, is returning with someone named Brendon or Brenton to remove the wood frames and install drywall on the ceiling. :) They will have to come back on another day to finish the project.

Yay!

81 to snowing

Talk about weird weather. It was 81 degrees today at lunchtime and now, this evening, it is sleeting and snowing. Oh, and it was lightning and thundering earlier too. Only in Austin.

PS. Just woke up and looked outside. Here is all the "snow" that we got overnight. Unfortunately for school children, there is nothing on the roads so it probably won't be a snow day. Darn.

The Tale of the Carrot Suit

There has been SO much interest in the story behind Mike and the carrot suit that I am dedicating this blog to share the whole story once and for all. Just remember to have faith in the printed word and know that this is the TRUE story of the carrot suit.

A little background information...

Our office is no different than many others. There is talk of sports and friendly sports rivalries all year long through the basketball, baseball and football seasons. A few people are hockey or soccer fans and they are tolerated. Friday seems to be the day to wear your team jersey, although it is not an official tradition. Sports analogies are frequently used to make a point in meetings and presentations. I am sure there are some people who tire of the banter or just don’t enjoy or understand sports. I happen to love watching football, and have been a lifelong Washington Redskins fan. I dallied with the Colts when we lived in Indianapolis and I still think it is okay to have more than one team to root for, as long as they are in different divisions. I know, “that only works until those teams meet in the Superbowl!”

There are several of us who work together who root for different NFC east teams: the Redskins (me), the Giants (Dave, and Bill when he was here) and the Cowboys (David, Craig and Jeff before he moved). When our teams play each other we celebrate the winning team by having the fan of the losing team wear the winning team’s jersey all morning and take the winning team’s fans out to lunch. There is the “shirting ceremony” where we all gather in the loser’s office and watch them don the shirt (over their other shirt - nothing inappropriate for you with wild imaginations!). Photos are taken to preserve the moment and bragging rights. We hope that the loser has a lot of meetings to attend so he/she has to explain why they are wearing the football jersey of a team everyone knows they do not like. It is especially fun when we end up in the same meeting. For lunch, we always go to the same place – Frank and Angie’s Pizza. They recognize us and know who to hand the check to by who is wearing the jersey. There is usually a lot of bragging and whining by the winner and loser. It is all in good fun.

Now on to the Carrot Suit!

The 2007 NFL football season (last year) was unique because the NY Jets would play the NFC east teams Washington, NY Giants and Dallas all in one season. The Mike we know and love happens to be the sole Jets fan at the office here, probably - now that his son moved to Arizona - the only one in all of Texas. Because the Jets so rarely play our NFC teams he hasn’t been part of our regular losers lunch. But this year we were looking forward to inviting him to join. He had another idea however, which he would live to regret for a loooong time. During the summer prior to the season, Mike started bragging early about how well the Jets would do this season. The Jets would surely trample all 3 of our NFC teams with ease and many “style points” as they say in the BCS. We gave the trash talk right back to him and before we knew it a new bet was made.

The details of the bet have been under contention, but because I am the writer of this blog, what I say is the TRUTH (at least as far as you know it).

For Mike to win, the Jets had to beat all 3 of our teams: the Redskins, the Giants and the Cowbabies. If they lost to any one of these teams, “we” won the bet and Mike had to wear a carrot suit to the next annual “vision day” meeting that Mike’s whole team attended. If the Jets won all 3 games then Mike won the bet. The 3 losers would rotate coffee-fetching for Mike, a month at a time for 3 months or a year, depending on who you ask. Mike was so certain that he would win, he started placing his coffee orders for December. Some of us started whining about how unbalanced the bet was – that all Mike had to do was wear a carrot suit for a few minutes in one single meeting and yet we had to be in coffee-servitude for months.

It turned out that the Jets really did not have a very good team that year and the whole bet was over by Oct 7th when the Giants beat the Jets 35-24. Throughout the rest of the season Mike refused to concede and continued to talk as if his team beat each one of our teams, even though in "real life" the opposite was true. An elaborate email would arrive from Mike on Monday mornings after each “win” detailing the Jets’ superior strategy and play execution while pointing out the many flaws in the opponent’s futile attempts to spoil the manifest destiny of the Jets. Meanwhile, Dave had already collected money from us and purchased a carrot suit. Mike found out about the carrot suit and asked to wear it and march along with other Whole Foods fruits and vegetables in the annual Chuy’s Children Giving to Children Parade on Thanksgiving weekend. The carrot fit right in with the corn, grapes, tomato, banana and pineapple. Unfortunately the weather that weekend was miserable and the parade turnout was the lowest in years so hardly anyone saw the carrot that year.

I am fuzzy about when, but Mike finally emerged from Jets fantasyland and acknowledged that the Jets did not win all 3 games. But he claimed that by wearing the carrot suit in the parade he had already fulfilled his end of the bargain. Much nonsense ensued through the weeks and months leading up to Vision Day in March. In the end, Mike did the right thing and wore it to the large meeting. I wasn’t there but I hear he got some big laughs. I don’t think it is just a coincidence that it was one of his best Vision Day’s ever. Must've been the carrot suit.

The place to be on Saturday night

The answer is: The Cactus Cafe. Guy Forsyth and the Asylum Street Spankers were playing two shows at 7 and 10. Only now that I am awake on Sunday morning, I am wishing we had seen the earlier of the two shows. I didn't get home until 2:30. a.m.! Haven't been up this late since last summer at the Bruce Springsteen concert. If you click on that link you will be taken back in time to the Bruce concert in NJ.

That's the UT tower above - all lit up in orange to celebrate the December graduation.

Guy started out playing with just two others, a bass guitar/tuba player (that's a tuba in the photo below, right?) and female drummer. They played the first half of the show and the three of them were just great. Not many bands have a female drummer, so this was pretty cool and she was excellent. They must have been playing together for a while because they played at least one song that she and Guy wrote together.

Wammo was heckling Guy off to the side so he was brought up on stage to play his washboard.

Then they took a break and reset the stage for the Spankers. Guy used to play with this group for years and then they seem to have parted but they come back together every once in a while. I am too tired to do more links today so you will have to look them up yourself. We saw the Spankers, without Guy, at Threadgills over the summer and we've seen them at the Saxon Pub. They are a fun band with memorable voices and catchy fun tunes. I am pretty sure there's a blog in my archives about them, but I can't find it. If have an opportunity to see them - go!

At the very end of the show they brought up some former members of the Spankers who were in the audience and allowed them to play the last song with the current band. This meant that the drummer and stand up bass had to share playing the same instruments! It was pretty raucus and very very fun listening and watching them have fun.

I can see a nap in my future later today....

a tale of two hotels

I'm in Boston this week. Cambridge actually, where one of our regional offices is located. I booked a room at a hotel close to the office that had the irresistable benefit of a Starbucks in it. Anyone who travels with me knows that I am a Starbucks addict and have a sixth sense of where they are located and the exact route to take to the office that happens to pass a Starbucks on the way. Unlike other cities I visit, Cambridge does not have a Starbux on every corner (there are Dunkin Donuts everywhere though!) so having this one located in a hotel so close to the office seems perfect. The only other one I know of is pretty far out of the way and not near any hotel and the traffic is so heavy you really don't want to go that way.

Before making this trip I was looking forward to a daily coffee treat. But then I got to the hotel.

It was under construction.

It's always been a little on the shabby side, this hotel but IT HAD A STARBUCKS so I could overlook the wear. This week there were exposed cable bundles along both sides of the ceiling in the hallway. And holes in the ceiling and wallpanels leaning up against the walls at the end of the hall. Not a good sign. The room was okay, but the amenities seemed a bit lacking since my last visit. They only provided one small round soap that I had to move between the sink and the shower as I needed to use it. And they "forgot" to refill the coffee packets so on the second morning so I had to have decaf. The straw that broke the camel's back and totally exceded the value of the Starbucks happened this morning when I woke up and there was no hot water.

None. Zip. Just cold water that got colder the longer it ran.

I called the desk and they said that "yes, they were having some hot water problems in some of the rooms." I was instructed to run the water for 10 minutes and it might get warm. Well, uh oh I had left the actual showering part of my routine until the last possible moment this a.m. so I couldn't wait more than another 5 mintues or I would be late. So I did the unimaginable and got in a cold shower. Didn't wash my hair though. Ugh. Awful. Mad, I am. I did get $50 off the bill which is no where near enough for the pain and suffering of a cold shower. That is the last time I'll stay at that hotel! In spite of the convenience of the Starbucks.

So, fast forward to this evening. I moved to a less expensive hotel closer to the airport in preparation for my 8 a.m flight in the morning. I was a bit fearful that it would be worse - I mean it is closer to Boston and costs less than the really bad hotel - I was expecting a real dump. Anyway, here is what I was greated to upon entering the lobby:

and

and

And check out my room! Here is the first thing I saw in the dark. It is a chair with an outlet for a computer cable and power cord in the arm and two little built in tables.

Here is a close up

Then the bed caught my eye. Kingsize, lots of pillows.

The pillow says:

I think I will be well here.

Then on to check out the bathroom and these clever products!

and a SEPARATE bar of soap for the shower!

Finally, the coffee maker complete with Wolfgang Puck coffee.

I think I might oversleep just so I can enjoy this room a little while.

A real deal

On Monday after the Redskins-Giants Losers Lunch, I walked over to Waterloo Records to buy the annual KGSR Broadcast CD and a few Christmas gift CDs. While I was in the store I looked for music by Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues. He was a blues singer guitar player who lived an interesting life and died young, at age 27 (1911-1938) supposedly after being poisoned. His music and style have been influential to so many modern blues & rock musicians including Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and others. He is ranked 5th on Rolling Stones Greatest Guitar Players of All Time (after Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, BB King, and Eric Clapton). I read about him in an airline magazine and put his music on my "to look for" list. The story in the airline magazine was about a rare photo of a young Robert Johnson the author had found on eBay. The photo had been misidentified as another blues singer but the author recognized Robert Johnson's long fingers and compared it to other known photos of him to confirm his suspicion. I hit the jackpot yesterday at Waterloo and picked up a Blues Biography compilation of 24 songs for $4.99! The cashier couldn't believe the price either! Anyway, it's great and I've been listening to it ever since.