Birthday and shit

Brandy and I are quite lazy and always find it very easy to sit around the apartment on our asses - me in front of the computer and her sprawled out on the couch. Then maybe later we'll head to one of our local establishments for dinner or drink. Sure, we have a fantastic apartment and neighborhood, perfect for such activities, but we also miss out on so much more that this city has to offer. So we do try to force ourselves out and about from time to time, and whenever we are out in some other neighborhood we are really happy with the choice. My birthday was on Thu and that was a good excuse to get out.
I didn't really feel like organizing anything, so I decided to make the B-day be more of a loner evening. I decided to go down to Brooklyn Heights to check out this coop cafe where they were having a few comedians and storytellers tell stories about "neighborhood", with of course, a NYC theme. It was pretty cool, and afterwards we went across the street and drank on the roof of the organizer. In her story she talked about her first Couchsurfing experience and we publicly chastened her for not having a full profile. We were the only CSers at the event, so lots of people were asking about it after.
On the way home the G train was only running part-way, but we were too drunk to notice until we were headed back towards downtown Brooklyn so we had to get out and take a cab in disgust.
We didn't do shit on Fri night.
On Sat we had a few people over for a cold food dinner party and then smoked hookah on the roof.
Yesterday we went to Governor's Island, finally. There was an event called Meatopia where a bunch of meat-centric restaurants would be grilling and you could sample. This sounded cool and we have been talking about checking out GI for a long time, so we made the trip. The boarding on the Manhattan side is a complete clusterfuck. Very poorly organized where you have to get in a line before being put into this room with everyone else where you have to rush the doors when they open and let a few people out at a time into another queue. Nobody knows what's going on, or whether they'll make the next boat (every half hour) and tensions are high. However, once you get to the island, you forget everything, or even that you are in the city. It's an old military base with mostly abandoned brick buildings and tons of huge trees. Really beautiful and relaxing. The meat thing was overpriced, so we just walked through and laughed at the people who paid huge $ for tiny portions.
We then took the ferry back to Brooklyn, which dumps you at pier 6 of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Turns out this is nowhere near the Brooklyn Bridge, so we had to walk half an hour since we were going to the Manhattan Brg to watch the World Cup final. They had this big screen set up on a street under one of the arches of the bridge and it was completely filled with people. It would have been really cool to watch there since there were about 300 people and the cheering really echoed through the arch, but we were late and it was hot, crowded, and we couldn't really see, so we wandered around trying to find a decent bar. I was getting hot and annoyed, noting the fact that, for one of my least favorite neighborhoods in the city, I find myself in DUMBO way too much. I finally crowded into a bar to watch the 2nd half, while Brandy said fuck this and sat outside. The game was really boring and I didn't really give a shit anyway, so I bailed instead of watching the overtime and we went and laid down in the waterfront park between the Bridges. This is a really nice spot with great views of the city and the bridges, plenty of nice grass, and shade if you look for it. We got a few drops of rain while we were here, but certainly not enough. It hasn't rained here since we got back from Peru 3 wks ago and everything is brown. All the trees that just got planted in McCarran are dieing b/c the city isn't competent enough to protect its investment and send someone to water them.
Later, we found a pretty nice bookstore that redeems DUMBO a bit. Then we walked into downtown Brooklyn and threw the disc in Cadman Plaza, which is a really nice park.
We took the bus home b/c we didn't want to deal with transferring on the train on a Sunday, but then it was 20 min late (after we'd just missed one) and once we got on, we went one block before a huge traffic jam somehow materialized and we sat in that for another 20 min. Thank god we had our books. I just picked up Les Miserables again after setting it down for last semester. Great book, but man are some parts tedious. And it is ridiculously long. Like 1000 bible thickness pages.

A pleasant surprise from the toilet

Our toilet must be monitored following flush since it typically continues flowing, requiring a hearty punch in the tank to cease. Today I failed to follow through with the ceremony as I discovered to my chagrin when I required its services a fair time later. An unexpected positive externality to this is that the water becomes quite cold, which in turn cools the entire unit, including the seat. A pleasant surprise on a hot summer day.

More

Monday morning we were out pretty early. I took Brandy to Roanoke
where she met up with her ride back to New York. In the process we
discovered that my phone had broken so that I could still hear, but
nobody could hear me talking. I then took a gorgeous mountain valley
road all the way to Blacksburg.
I had to check out Blacksburg b/c it's a college town and that means
they probably have a good sandwich shop and a good coffee shop. I
found a decent one of each in the same place and continued on my way
to where I was couchsurfing outside of Cincinnati.
I must point out here that I finally fixed my windshield wiper which
had not been making full contact with the window due to a faulty wiper
arm. Every time it rained or snowed was a disaster as I tried to peer
out of the little slightly clear square of window. Of course I never
thought of it when it wasn't raining. I had tried to switch the driver
side with the passenger side and had failed to get the latter off, as
had the mechanic. In VA I decided to give it one last shot with the
screwdriver, and pop, it came right off. I switched them in ten
minutes and it works like new. The bad one even actually works on the
passenger side. So, when it started raining in WV I was actually happy
b/c I could field test it.
I met up with Beth in Hamilton, OH. She couldn't host so she put me
with her friends out in the middle of nowhere. We all went over to a
neighbor's house and sat around the fire and several other people came
over. They were a really great bunch with really fun and witty banter.
Actually, I don't think I've really ever been in a group with quite
that kind of creative dynamic before.
The next morning Beth and one of my hosts, Joanna, went out to
breakfast before I took off. Beth was raving about the place, with
Joanna less excited. I fell somewhere closer to the latter.
I had brought Eric's bike, which I"m borrowing for the summer, with
the intent of cycling to most of the places I was visiting in WI. Here
at breakfast I made what would be the first of a series of decisions
that would drastically limit the utility of taking the bike.
I decided that I would go all the way to Sheboygan by car instead of
riding my bike due to logistics.

Crazy travelin'

I have been traveling quite a bit in the past few weeks. About two weeks before graduation, my step-mom's mother died. We just found out she had lung cancer in Feb and I had been expecting that she would last until I was planning to visit in June, but she deteriorated quite rapidly and made the last minute decision to ditch school and head out when they put her into hospice. I had an Austrian friend I met in Budapest, Birgit, and her boyfriend visiting and the day they left, Sunday, I caught a rideshare out to Chicago. I rode with a balloon artist, as in, she twists balloons into shapes at parties. She was picking up her car which she had purchased back from her old roommate in CT. She went to sleep and put me in charge around 11 and I ended up driving all night. I didn't think I would, but she brought along some podcasts put out by How Stuff Works called, Stuff You Should Know. They were really interesting and kept me awake all night. A couple of the podcasts were about synesthesia, which is this really interesting condition where stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to perception along another. Common ones include seeing numbers as colors, seeing numbers, days or months as having personalities, tasting sounds, etc, although there are dozens of different types.
We arrived in Chicago at Liz's place around 6, where I attempted to hang out with her before she went to work, but mainly just nodded off and provided nonsensical responses. I work in the early afternoon and took her car to head to Wausau. I had been planning on grabbing dinner in Madison and seeing Annie in the morning, but then figured that my friends would be there for awhile and Annie would not. When I arrived around 6:30 I came into her room to see my dad, Dawn, her brother Wayne, his wife Kelly, my brother John and Annie's husband Harold sitting around the bed. Annie looked horrible, withered away and was basically just laboring over her breath with her eyes closed. After a bit of sitting there everyone finally gave me some privacy. I took her hand and told her how I felt and kind of said my goodbye's since it was pretty obvious she wouldn't be there long, or at least I hoped not in that state. I am pretty sure that she labored a light acknowledgement. Later that night we got that call that she had died. Everyone was kind of relieved that she was free of it, although Dawn is still having a bit of a time. I bought a return flight and spent the rest of the week with my family and even got to see my mom for a day in Sheboygan on the way out. The weather was terrible and it actually snowed on the day of the funeral, which was May 7th!
I had foolishly lugged all my books and stuff along with the intention of working on my schoolwork during the days in order to make the Tue and Wed deadlines. I did nothing of course and took the incomplete.
I went to my graduation anyway and watched my classmates walk. Afterward we went over to Starkey dorms where several of them lived and just hung out drinking beers and playing volleyball for a few hours. One of the guys from our class, known to be very lazy and a terrible group member, was visibly missing from graduation. When he came to our little hang out later he revealed that he had gotten a third C and had been told on Friday that only two can be applied to his graduation. Getting one C in grad school is nearly impossible, so he must have been unbelievably lazy to get three. To add insult to injury, they told him they had never had to deal with this before. This only furthers my belief that higher education is deteriorating due to overzealous admissions thanks to the "run it like a business" fools. As he was relating this story for like the fifth time, someone said, "well, better luck next time." Later on we went over to a backyard grad party and everyone and their mother was there. Well, not every mother, but there were a couple of them. After the party I went out with Charlie, Anna and Eric, played some shuffleboard and crashed in Anna's roommate's vacant bed.
After coming back from the trip, I had a couple weeks before I was to head back to WI for a wedding. Plenty of time to get my stuff done and maybe even apply to a job or two. Somehow I only got one class done and didn't apply to shit. I'm really disappointed about this, but I was also really burned out at that time and the class I did finish was really important to me so I let it kick my ass. I'm hopefully using the work I did for it for another publication this summer.
On Memorial Day weekend Brandy and I went down to VA right after work on Thu. We crashed with a CSer, Micah, outside of Richmond and spent the day with him and Brandy's brother Joe at a roller coaster park called King's Dominion. Joe got insanely lost on his way and had to be talked through the directions by Micah, who has learned great patience by working IT phone help. We heard him say several times, "turn right. What do you see? Ok, it sounds like you turned left..."
Brandy thought he would be in a bad mood because, "he's going to be embarrassed and he doesn't like to be embarrassed." His mood was fine though. I'm pretty sure that something made him get as lost as he did and that same something allowed him to be in a good mood. The park had some pretty amazing rides, definitely better than the 6 Flags in NJ. Unfortunately Joe got sick and couldn't ride that many coasters and I realized that my brain can't handle them anymore. I almost blacked out twice as the blackness closed around me while taking g's. The second time was really bad and I just couldn't get on the last ride. This is really sad because I love roller coasters. Just one more thing on my march toward death that I'll not be able to do again. Perhaps I have a tumor. Perhaps it is the shape of a cell phone...
After the park Joe left and the three of us joined Micah's g/f Shannon to get dinner at this suburbia brew pub-esque place. I say 'esque' because they don't actually have their own beer. The beer was damn good though although poor Brandy ordered Starr Lager, which is a local crappy beer. It was a nice dinner but I froze my ass off with the outrageous A/C. Of stupid ass A/C, this place is one of the worst I've seen. I mean, I know, I know, we have dominated nature and want to prove it by reversing the seasons, but fer chrissake I know that if that temp had been outside, everyone in that place would bitching up a storm. If I could have my choice, I would take no A/C anywhere, ever, if that meant I'd never have to wear a jacket in the summer. This of course excludes cooling for server rooms and other technology needs. After dinner we played Settlers of Canaan which they had also found at a garage sale and had been dieing to try. It actually turned out to be a fairly cool game although very long and certainly not as good as the original.
Oh yeah, I stepped on a slug on Micah's front step and it was pretty gross. I'll take my predicament over his though.
On Sat we drove to Brandy's parents' house and relaxed. We convinced them to go to this independent steak house about a mile away rather than the chain one in suburbia despite the fact that it was "high", which means expensive. It was a bit pricier than I normally spend, but damn was it good. I had a prime rib that just melted in the mouth and Brandy had some ribs that fell off the bone. On Sun they drove us up to a place where hang gliders launch, although there were none and we just looked at the spectacular view and got a couple ticks.

Later we went over to Brandy's cousin Jeremy's place and he took us fishing on his father in law's land. I hadn't really ever fished and it was actually pretty fun. I snagged a pretty big one, but then the damn hook broke and didn't have any more luck.

Tomato-egg interface

Man, I just cooked an egg with melted cheese on top and put it on some tomato slices. As I went to set it down I tilted the plate like no more than 15 degrees. Apparently the coefficient of friction between a freshly cooked egg and a tomato slice is negligible because it shot off like a slippery fish and landed cheese-side-down, of course, on an open page of my planner. I quickly grabbed it, but alas it only takes a milisecond for cheese to cement itself to paper and soak through with grease. What a nuicance.
I was able to salvage most of the cheese, but not the page which had to be town out to save the rest.

Hey purity. Organic, eat me

My girlfriend asked me last night to pick up some cranberry juice before going out. Usually I'm pretty careful of getting the legit stuff, but I had been to happy hour already, so I was a couple sheets to the wind and too lazy to walk to the better grocery a block away. I analyzed the two choices a bit before settling on the purity. Organic Cranberry Harmony because it had some organic shit in it and was 23% juice instead of 21% as in the other one. Of course, Brandy has been mocking me all day for making this ridiculous mistake.
The bottle is adorned with 18 large cranberries, which seem to be arranged to appear as though they are line dancing. This must be one cranberrifically delicious and simple food! Hmm, does it actually have any of the cranberry that she needs? Let's take a look at the ingredients:
Water, evaporated cane juice, organic apple concentrate, organic cranberry concentrate, organic concord grape concentrate, organic vegetable coloring, organic citric acid (for tartness), ascorbic acid.
Hmm, evaporated cane juice? Well, this is just a fancy word for refined sugar. I wonder if this is part of the 23% juice? So, not only is the juice concentrate, which everyone knows is shittier than real juice, but there is more sugar than cranberry juice, and more apple juice than cranberry juice. Of course, the apple thing is common with real juice blends because straight cran is pretty rough stuff. But there sure isn't much cran in here after all this.
However, if you'd like 125% of your daily value of sugar, you've come to the right place. The US guidelines for a 2000 calorie diet indicate 40g refined sugars a day. There are 25g of sugars in one serving of this juice, but the 8 oz bottle contains two servings. Surely some of those sugars are from the little bit of fruit, but the bulk must be the refined "cane juice".
Let's move on to some of their other bottle talk. Underneath the ingredients that show clearly how not juicy this drink is, there is a line that says, "SHAKE! Real fruit settles." However, there really wasn't any sediment to shake. Come on guys, who are you trying to kid? I guess drunken suckers like myself.
On another side of the bottle, under the trademarked slogan, "Better fruit. Better juice." they boldly discuss why their "juice" is so, um good. "Begin with tart cranberries. Expertly blend them with the sweetness of apples and grapes. Voila! Cranberry Harmony, a sweet, sharp melody your tastebuds will never forget." Ohh, yeah, the cranberries are there for their tart flavor. Then why do they need citric acid (for tartness)?
To add icing to the cake, they pose the question, "Glass or plastic?" in their fun, bouncy red and black font. Well, they'll tell you! "We chose PET instead of a glass bottle because it is lighter (takes less energy to ship and produce) and can be recycled to make many new products"
So what you mean is that it's cheaper?
Sure, it's lighter for a small sliver of its traveling existence, but I'm pretty sure that the oil that makes up the plastic travels pretty far from its source. Also, glass is much easier and more economical to recycle than plastic. This is why we've been recycling glass for years, and not plastic. Actually, a lot of places do not recycle plastic at all, so these bottles are still ending up in the landfill, or turning into dioxins as they are burned in incinerators. Discarded glass is also much less bad for the environment because it erodes down more or less back into sand, whereas plastic does not break down at all and will likely end up as part of the great pacific garbage island.
Thanks guys, I'm glad you're watching out for the well-being of our planet.

Warm toes

After coming back from Costa Rica for ten days, I realize that I had forgotten how wonderful it is to walk down a cool, wet street with warm, dry toes in comfortable socks and closed shoes.

Bleeding

I was attempting to pull some archived documents off of my old, jumbled document bookshelf, which also happens to be an unbelievably shitty Ikea trash shelf. The shelf jostling inherent in the shittiness of Ikea caused a poorly located framed Monet print to tip off and fall onto none other than my head. In the process it brought down several other office supplies that had been in front of it. Luckily I was able to catch it through the hail of markers and note pads as it bounced off my back, thereby preventing it from shattering all over the floor or my foot. After swearing and cleaning up the mess, I went into the kitchen where I noticed that, Holy God, my finger is bleeding!! This did puzzle me since there had been no broken glass. I then realized that the real problem was that a sharpie had exploded, so I needed to clean that up.
While writing this, I dropped a glass of water on my computer. My reaction was to brush it off quickly, which of course resulted in broken glass and water all over the floor. Let's hope this is the end of the evening's disasters.

Guilted

Eric's recent blog update - the first in months - has seemingly guilted me into updating mine, although, like him, I will probably still not update that frequently. It's not like anyone actually reads this shit anyway, it's more to add to the useless berth of shit oozing from the internet.
I am currently waiting for a classmate of mine to arrive, and will probably be interrupted by him. We are going to go to McCarran for some much needed tossing. I was excited to learn recently, through his response to my gchat status eulogizing the man who first spread the frisbee across the US, that my classmate Devin, who lives a block from me, is also quite a fan of ultimate. I was further excited to learn that he was interested in getting into a tossing and sprinting regimen with me. We shall see how serious we both are about this as the semester drags on.
This has actually been a very good week.
Last night I went to my first ever "Koffee Klatch", which is basically a cocktail party with coffee instead of booze. It was a ridiculous amount of fun. This first-year student, Jessica, has a couple of friends, one of whom may be her boyfriend, who are trying to start a coffee roasting business in New Brunswick. Man, the interjections (perhaps my favorite - and way overused - literary technique) are getting out of control. They made some spectacular coffee and have convinced me to buy my beans from them from now on. I had what may have been in the top three best espresso drinks I've ever had, and I also had this delicious Costa Rican coffee dripped in a Chemex, which I don't believe I've seen before. Jessica made some amazing chocolate cookies with raw cocoa and broken up Girardelli candy bars instead of chips. The company was also great, despite the fact that there were some serious Christians. They are the type of Christians who believe that Christ wants them to help the poor and grow organic food, so they are cool.
Just got back from a way too long session of tossing. It was insanely windy too.
After the coffee, I headed back to the city. On the bus I reflected on what it would be like to die on the bus ride. I found it somewhat poetic to think about the concept of taking this trip I take daily, but my body and soul diverging in their travels. My body would arrive at the typical destination, but I wouldn't be there. Of course, in order to appreciate that it was happening I would have to know I was dieing, in which case I would have to ruin it by trying to save myself, unless I was in such a mess that I knew I was going to die, in which case the other people on the bus would probably know too, which would distract from the peacefulness. So I guess I'll still have to hope for the meteorite death.
When I got back, soul intact, I headed straight to Eric's. I was supposed to print Brandy's lift ticket coupon that she earned when she bought her new board, but then she couldn't find the serial number on the board so we headed out to the bar. We checked out the place that used to be Lenora's Way, one of Brandy and my favorites and found that it had become quite cool, although in a different way. They had kind of turned into a typical hipster bar, but they were playing some good music and had expanded their beer menu tremendously. It was really crowded, so we decided to just get one beer and take off. Miraculously though we got seats at the bar pretty quickly and decided to stay for three. It was kind of funny because they had all this great beer, but then had these very kitchy Miller Highlife and Pabst signs, and there were all these idiots ordering really shitty beers like Bud in bottles. I thought the burly bartender who was a caricature of a derby girl was going to be shitty to us after she implicitly accused me of taking money off the bar, but I think she determined that nobody who feels about beer the way we do could be a thief. That or she decided we were too big of dweebs. She gave us a freebie after the cask we both ordered gave out 2/3 through the second pour, and then she and the other bartender gave us free (totally unnecessary) fourth beers and challenged us to a chug-off. They absolutely decimated us as we could barely touch our frigid, bubbly stouts before they gulped the whole thing. I just remembered this event and now all the pieces have fallen into place to explain how I got so wasted.
After the beers we went back to Eric's as Brandy had finally found the serial number, but the internet was down for the first time ever. I completely forgot this and I awoke filled with guilt at having forgotten to print the coupon. Brandy responded to my text, "What are you talking about? Eric's internet didn't work, [sic] you called to tell me at 3 am."
Now I really have to get my shit together since I have a ridiculous amount of stuff to do this weekend. Mmm, I smell my coffee is ready...

YANBAG - Yet Another North Brooklyn Attractions Guide

I know there are a lot of these fuckers around, but this is mainly for visitors who want our personal opinions of stuff to do in the area. If you've found this randomly, you're lucky because we have spectacular taste in all things. This is centered in North Brooklyn, specifically Williamsburg and Greenpoint as we live right near McCarran Park in Greenpoint. Some Bushwick might creep in here too.
This is basically an ongoing process that we add to whenever we have time. The views are all our own, and do not represent the views of your mother, blah, blah, but they are 100% correct. Keep in mind that we have only been to a few of the places once or twice. They must have made an impression on us, or we wouldn't have included them, but the quality experience may be a fluke. We generally specify this though. In the music venues (whenever the hell we finish this section), we wanted to be comprehensive, so we have included places we've never been to so you know they exist. If they suck, let us know.
Anyway, have fun.

*Disclaimer: I am a beer snob. I believe that life is too short and there are way too many amazing beers to drink marginal shit if you don't have to. Keep this in mind when you read. Here is a key to my terms:
Amazing/excellent/etc: There are very good microbrew beers typically with a varied, and hopefully, rotating tap selection.
Decent: They have some good beers and/some decent beers but I'm not blown away, and the selection is probably not that varied or that unique, maybe one rather good, but common beer like Leffe. 2-3 beers I wouldn't complain about, but wouldn't jump around the room about either, read: Six Point, Brooklyn Brown or Winter (not stupid Lager), Magic Hat 9, Fat Tire, etc.
Typical NYC bar pretend good crap: Ugh, this is even more annoying than having complete shit. These are the typical beers that people who are just getting past Miller are experimenting with, or for those who think they drink good beers but have no idea what they're talking about. Sorry if this offends you, but I was there once too. Anyway, there seems to be this specific menu for bars in New York where they want to pretend to have good beer but have to ask their distributor what that means. These bars will have any or all of the following: Brooklyn Lager, Guinness, Blue Moon, Bass, Sierra Nevada (very cool business ethics though), Stella (ughh), Heineken (shittiest macrobrew in Holland), Corona (decent in the right mood, but there are far better ones for that mood), maybe Harp. Ok, these are all drinkable, but always a huge disappointment when I see a huge row of taps only to discover this clichéd crap.
Marginal: They might have 1 of the decent beers, but generally a bunch of crap, including the worst of the pretend good stuff. Perhaps Magic Hat, Stella, Bud Light, Budweiser, Pabst.
Undrinkable/"they don't have beer": I'm not going to drink at this horrible place, how the hell did I get here??


Restaurants

Ella
Local
Moto
- Probably our favorite restaurant in our neighborhood, although it's a bit out of the way. It's a small place with a dark, intimate atmosphere, great for taking a date, but also great with a group of friends no greater than 4 (due to size). They have excellent, rich food. We typically get a main course and a small plate and have never been disappointed. It's also hard not to pass up the dessert. They usually have musicians playing in the corner, which is nice. It's not a super cheap place, but not insanely expensive either. The beer is okay, not a huge selection, but they have a pretty decent wine selection. They are on the corner of Broadway and Hooper in a triangle building. It is literally right underneath the Hewes J,M,Z station. You can also get there by walking from Lorimer L. Go S on Union 4 bl. R on Grand, then quick L on Hooper. 6 bl to the obvious location. This is kind of in the hood, but we used to live right around the corner and it's not terrible either.

Fette Sau
- We love this BBQ place/whiskey bar. It is in an old auto shop converted to a no-nonsense, all red meat BBQ joint. Walk up to the buffet, point out your meat, sold by the pound, maybe get some veggies and a roll, select your picnic table and chow down in communal good cheer. You can also just quaff beers at the bar. They sell quite good beer in mason jars or by the gallon and have a whiskey bar with a wide selection. The wall is painted with all the cuts of meat, and they have an outdoor area. On Metropolitan just W of Havermeyer. Lorimer L/Metro G walk E on Metro, under the freeway and just over two bl on L. From Bedford L, S on Bed, L on N 4th 2.5 bl to merge on Metro and it's right across the street. The entrance is a little narrow and there is a chainlink fence on one side and brick wall on the other. Right across from Spuyten Duyvel and close to the New York Reliquary Museum.
Lomzynianka
- Our favorite Polish restaurant in this very Polish neighborhood. It has a small, cozy atmosphere with friendly staff. The food is very cheap and delicious. It's typical heavy Polish food, so be ready to walk slow afterward. I almost always get the Polish Platter (3 pierogies, kielbasa, stuffed cabbage, bigos and potatoes). The kielbasa and stuffed cabbage are my favs, but everyone seems to rave about the pierogies. I think it's a cult of personality. I also like the potato pancakes but they are very greasy and in huge portion. Everything gets Polish salads on the side. The first time we went there, we spent about $13 for two and had leftovers. Even better, it can be seen from our back window! Manhattan Ave b/w Nassau (or Bedford, I guess) & Norman. E side of the street. It's literally above the Nassau G. From Bed L, walk N all the way to the end, take a L and it'll be pretty close on the R. It's very small. They have newspaper reviews in the window and the interior is decked out in X-mas lights.
Bosu
Enid's
Eat
Vinnie's Pizza


Bars

Barcade
- Old-school arcade games for a quarter, amazing rotating US microbrew tap selection for $5-7 - what else can I say? I love this place and always try to take visitors here. If you think American beer is piss water with, get your European ass to this bar and you'll see what our recent change in beer laws has done for the industry. Lots of space, although it tends to get crowded, often with lame-o's, later on the weekend. I'll kick your ass at Tapper. On Union b/w Ainsle & Powers. 2.5 bl S of Lorimer L/Metro G (Union exit).
Spuyten Duyvel
- Tired of American beer at Barcade? This amazing Belgian beer bar is very close by. There is a good rotating tap/cask selection, and has many, many great beers from all over the world in bottles. They serve meat and cheese and pickles. Decor is cozy and wooden with maps everywhere (you know I love it!). They have a huge, beautiful tree covered garden (although they expanded it and the new area is kind of crappy), but you gotta show up early if you want a table. On Metropolitan, directly across from Havermeyer. Lorimer L/Metro G walk E on Metro, under the freeway and two bl on R. From Bedford L, S on Bed, L on N 4th 2.5 bl to merge on Metro and it's just past on the R. Across from Fett Sau and the New York Reliquary Museum.
Fette Sau
- We love this BBQ place/whiskey bar. It is in an old auto shop converted to a no-nonsense, all red meat BBQ joint. Walk up to the buffet, point out your meat, sold by the pound, maybe get some veggies and a roll, select your picnic table and chow down in communal good cheer. You can also just quaff beers at the bar. They sell quite good beer in mason jars or by the gallon and have a whiskey bar with a wide selection. The wall is painted with all the cuts of meat, and they have an outdoor area. On Metropolitan just W of Havermeyer. Lorimer L/Metro G walk E on Metro, under the freeway and just over two bl on L. From Bedford L, S on Bed, L on N 4th 2.5 bl to merge on Metro and it's right across the street. The entrance is a little narrow and there is a chainlink fence on one side and brick wall on the other. Right across from Spuyten Duyvel and close to the New York Reliquary Museum.
Black Rabbit
-
Diamond
- Good local bar. They have a revolving selection of excellent microbrews on tap. I've never seen it crowded and the crowd is friendly as is the bartender who is easy to get into a conversation. They have a cool-looking yard, but we discovered it this winter. There is shuffleboard. On Franklin b/w Meserole & Calyer/Banker, W side of street. From here, walk north 2 bl to Calyer, L on Calyer 5 bl to crazy intersection w/Franklin. L on Frank and it's right there on the rt.
DBA
- Beer bar with locations in New Orleans and Manhattan. Good beers on rotation. Can't say much about the decor, it's pretty unremarkable. They have a small yard. 117 N. 7th b/w Berry & Wyeth (2 bl W of Bedford Ave L).

The bar formerly known as Lenora's Way, aka Craft
-
Pete's Candy Store
- Great bar, even when not seeing the music. See under music venues.
Gutter
- The bowling alley of choice in N. Bky, and also a great place to hang out and drink. Fairly hipster crowd, not too pretentious. Not filled with douchebag condo dwellers like Brooklyn Bowl. Good beers available for decent prices. Usually good music and, yeah, we really like to hang out here. Show up early for bowling since there will be a wait. 200 N 14th b/w Berry & Wyeth. From here or Nassau G, walk W on Nassau 5 bl past Manhattan to right where the road is curving. R on 14th and it's on your L. From Bedford L, walk N on Bed until just before the park. L on 12th 1 bl. R on Berry. Go 2 bl, L on 14. It's on your L. Don't worry about the abandoned warehouse feel of the area, it's legit.
Enid's
-
East River Bar
-
Crocodile Lounge
- On Metropolitan b/w Lorimer/Leonard, just E of Lorimer L, Metro G. Not the coolest place, but you do get a small brick oven pizza with every beer, always. It's actually pretty good, although the beer selection is the typical NYC, "good beer for those who don't know any better." We sometimes go there when we want a bite to eat before heading somewhere else.

Music Venues

Pete's Candy Store
- 219 Lorimer b/w Frost and Richardson (2 blk S of McCarran & 2 blk N of BQE. Friendly local and unique music venue. We've always had fun here, meeting people, etc. Free music every night. It's a small venue - the music part is like a wide school bus, but it's fun and there is a ton more space in the front and back. There is a really cool garden in the back where they grill in the summer. Beers I suggest are the 6 Point on tap or a bottle of Chimay.
Glasslands
-
Club Europa
-
Music Hall of Williamsburg
-
Warsaw


Coffee Shops

El Beit
- On Bedford b/w N 8 & 9. W side of street. Great coffee (they have a Clover). It's also a nice place to hang out. They have huge front windows from which you can do a lot of good Bedford Ave people watching. In nice weather they open up the windows and back door for a good breeze, and they have a pretty large garden. I find it good for working with the right amount of background noise, but their internet has become a bit dodgy. It's almost always crowded, but the turnover is pretty high, so I usually get a seat quickly. Barristas have always been friendly and really happy that you want coffee.
Oslo
-
Cafe Grumpy
-
Gimme Coffee
-

Retail

Cheese Shop of Williamsburg
Beacon's Closet

Points of Interest

East River Park
- Take N 8th all the way to the river. New, chill park with great views of the city. The summer concerts that used to take place at McCarran Pool have moved there.
New York Reliquary
- Interesting, but tiny NYC museum on south side of Metropolitan just E of Havermeyer. Only open on Thu nights and Sat, Sun.
The Rocket Factory
- My buddy lives in a place with an amazing roof view. You can see the whole of Manhattan, and all of the major bridges besides the GWB and perhaps Throgs. It's easy to get in since there are so many people living there, you just have to wait outside. 100 s 4th st, just west of Bedford on the south side of the street. Sometimes the elevator doesn't go up to the roof, so you have to take the stairs from the top floor. If you show up on a Thu-Sat night with good weather there is almost guaranteed to be a hopping party, although some douches moved in and have been complaining about the noise lately.

Amsterdam Falafelshop

Must do some advertising for the best falafel shop I know. It is on 18th St in Adams Morgan in Washington DC. Was recommended to me by two Egyptian professors I met at the hookah lounge last night as, "the best falafel yet tasted in N. America." Good recommendation. It was true. Really moist and delicious falafel with a huge, wonderful salad bar to put on. When I went, there was also a hilarious stoned dude who would toss the salt into the air and catch it with the fries.
There I met a guy from Ft. Greene and another from Portland. Ft. Greene dude recommended a donut place called Papa Crispy, or something in New York. There is one on Bleeker in the W. Village.
I just now met a guy at the table next to me at Tryst who works for the BRT in Mexico City, which might be a good contact for a project I'll work on soon.
I love TRB.

Transportation Research Board

Just a short list of sessions that I will not attend tomorrow:

Bridge Sensors, Monitoring, and Risk Model
Mechanistic Pavement Analysis
Culvert Service Life, Durability, and Health of High-Density Polythylene Pipe
Warm-Mix Asphalt, Part 1: Evaluating Properties
Warm-Mix Asphalt, Part 2: Evaluating Components
New Developments in Airport Pavement Management
Field and Laboratory Assessments of Crack Sealants
Geosynthetic Reinforced Structures Subjected to Dynamic and Cyclic Loading
Influence of Aggregate Shape, Angularity, and Other Physical Characteristics on Performance

Guns, VA, Philly, whatever

As usual, it has been awhile.
After my previous post, which was the result of a night out in Harlem/UWS with a high school buddy whom I had not seen since I moved to NY despite living in the same city, travels and studies have dominated my life. I flew out to WI for a week and a half beginning on the Wed before Thanksgiving. I spent the evening hanging out with Simon catching up, and the next day early I went up with my father to this state forest in the middle of nowhere outside of Ladysmith. Since he has been with my stepmom, my dad has gone from, "goddamn redneck hunters drinkin' beers and shootin' shit," to a converted man who considers hunting to be an amazing sport rivaled by no other. He has been talking about the amazing experience that is the Grubb family hunting shack for a couple of years and urging me to come out. They are going to lose it in 2011 due to changes in the state regulations, so I had to come out now. It really was a great experience, although I did no real hunting myself. This place was the most wilderness place in WI I've been and the peace was incredible, improved upon by the fact that it was a terrible season leading to few gunshots heard. The nights were darker even than I remembered as a child in the country, with great views of the thickness of the Milky Way. I did some sitting, and some drives, and it was all quite interesting and I would like to go back again, although this time I'd like to have a license and a gun.
My time away in the woods meant I did not get much homework done, so I was swamped when I returned. My studio had imploded in upon itself where one of my group members who could not handle the pressure and apparently forgot how I told him I'd be gone way back when he skipped out for a week, had some horrible clashes with the editing team, etc, etc. That was annoying, but the insanely early deadlines foisted upon us meant that was out of our hair early, even though it meant lousy work. Strangely enough, nobody has gotten a grade in that class an nobody has heard from the instructor yet (grades were due by the 24th). Two of my other classes went alright as I got two As. We believe that the prof of one class did not even read the final papers since he got the grades in within a couple days of receiving our papers. My GIS class did not go so well since the prof said, "don't worry about deadlines, just do them eventually." Well, the obvious occurred and I still have a few hours of work to do on that.
Brandy, Lauren, and I went down to VA for Xmas, giving a ride to Alex, a dude who rideshared with us last year for Thanksgiving. We Couchsurfed the first night in Richmond with this American-grown Asian guy who does some nebulous business degree work. He had just bought his house in a fairly nice part of town and I cannot help but be shocked every time I find out how cheap houses are outside of NYC. I don't recall the price, but I can assure that it was rock bottom. The next morning we had brunch at this shitty diner that didn't even have maple syrup and then took off for Lynchburg. I can finally say that I am starting to visualize both Lynchburg and Richmond, or at least the parts where we go. This is always harder to do when I follow directions instead of having to make them myself. Brandy and I have started to make a place for ourselves in Lynchburg as we have explored most of what there is and found a really great coffee shop with good coffee, beer and food, and found a couple ok bars. There really isn't much around, but we've found the good stuff.
As usual, we didn't do much besides sit around, sleep, and visit family. I used the several days downtime to make a dent in Les Miserables and create Kwordquiz flashcards of something like a thousand Spanish words. I am taking an advanced grammar and composition class this semester with the hopes of finally becoming solid in the language, or as much as I can without actually living in a speaking country. I also decided to start rounding out my vocabulary by memorizing some of those simple, but marginal words that you never bother to learn in the beginning, like shovel, hammer, artichoke, crow, isthmus, gravel, and so forth. Not that I've actually spent much time studying them yet, but they're there for when I need them.
After we came back, my school and work were closed until after New Years, so I bumbled around the house trying to pick up all the loose ends of things that I've wanted to do over break, such as preparing vows and such for the wedding I'm officiating in April, and doing some research for the non-profit with whom I've been communicating, Project for Public Spaces. You see, I was on a train a couple months ago and I met the son of one of the founders. They were hiring, but since I have my GA work, I could not think to apply. Therefore we decided that perhaps I could do some volunteer research and perhaps writing until after school and we can see if there would be a way for me to get in. This was fortuitous since I've been wanting to get writing, but needed the motivation. Funny though, I was at my team's holiday party and chatting with one of the guys who plays with us, and I found out that this guy I met on the train is his brother, and he also works for them.
Looks like now is the time to go though. I am on my way to DC for Transportation Research Board, a really fun conference, and Brandy joined me for the weekend in Philly. This is really the first time I've ever spent any real amount of time in this city and I've decided that I really like it. Very relaxed and interesting people, cheap, and actually fairly nice. I also went from feeling like I knew hardly anyone, to suddenly having a ton of friends here. Actually, one couple I've known from Lancaster and they've been here awhile, and a classmate who was here doesn't live here, but his girlfriend does and so he spends a lot of time. We also met a bunch of cool CSers that we would like to visit again. Now however, we need to run off and catch our buses.