Friday, November 28, 2014

More Manhattan

September 4th, 2014

My second day in New York was going to be a little more challenging for getting around as Mr. Scooter Riley had to work so I’d be left with public transportation and of course my trusty two feet.  I walked from Riley and Dan’s penthouse pad to the Brooklyn Bridge which was only 25 minutes away.  I had to ask for directions a couple of times to make sure I was going the right way which wasn’t helped by some construction detours.  I couldn't help but think about 9/11 and the crowds that would have been streaming over the bridge in the opposite direction after the towers had been hit.  It is quite an impressive structure, especially for its age having been built in 1883.

The view from the roof of Riley's place:


Approaching the bridge:

Starting to cross the bridge:





Reaching Manhattan, my plan was to pay for one of the Citi Bike stations.  This is a system where you can have a membership or just pay for a day and ride any of the blue bicycles for half an hour before depositing it back in one of the hundreds of bike stations.  For ten bucks a day one can get on and off these bikes as much as you like.

Cruising on the bike:

The bull at Wall Street...there were so many people snapping pics that I wasn't bothered to get any closer.  I did like that not only were his horns all polished from people touching them thousands of times...but also his testicles.

Once I’d figured out the automatic dispensing machine I mounted my light blue stallion and started towards the Staten Island ferry terminal.  Of course the Statue of Liberty is a must see in New York City and you could pay a lot and line up for an hour or two to have a tour to see it and Ellis Island, where all of the early immigrants of New York were processed before they could enter New York proper.  Or you can take the free Staten Island ferry which doesn’t bring you too close to the statue, but close enough for me.  I always like getting out on boats and this was no exception.  It’s a passenger only ferry and it turns out that over half of the people were doing the same as me.  I couldn’t help but think that the captain must have to steer a little more to the port side on the way there with everyone lining the decks on the right side of the boat for a glimpse and photo op with the lady of liberty.  And once we arrived at Staten Island, more than half of the tourists just walked off the boat, which was mandatory, and then around the gates and right back on again…which is what I did.  Another bonus of taking this ferry were the lovely views of the Manhattan skyscrapers from the water.

Looking back at Manhattan:

There she is:

The mandatory Knuffle shot:


Impressive collection of buildings:

Returning to Manhattan:

With time ticking away I decided to cheat a bit and hop on the subway up towards Central Park.  I still wanted to bicycle around the park a bit and then finish the afternoon with the Empire State Building.  I made a mistake and got off the metro too early but that was okay in that it meant that I got to cycle by Times Square too.  I did a nice loop in the southern part of Central Park and then bee lined towards the Empire State Building as the afternoon was waning and I wanted to get there while there was still some light.


In the height of the summer tourism months it must be a zoo waiting to go up to the observation deck.  There were rows and rows of snaking ropes set up to accommodate the masses that must wait more than an hour to go up in the peak season but luckily for me I only waited about 20 minutes which included buying my ticket, a security check and receiving my audio tour equipment.  And I didn’t have much time to spare as the sun was close to setting once I reached the 86th floor.  It turned out to be a great time to be there as the city was transitioning from day to night in front of my eyes.  I always wondered why ascending the Empire State Building was more popular than going up the taller World Trade Centres but it’s the fact that the Empire is in a more centrally located area and provides a great overview of Manhattan, including Central Park.





It wasn’t until after dark that I hopped on the subway back to Riley’s place, who was out to attend a semi-final match in the US Open tennis tournament.  I hung out with his roommate Dan and watched the match on the TV, quite happy with what I accomplished of my essentially 48 hours in New York.  I’m super glad I went to check out the Big Apple…and if you haven’t done it…you must.

Thanks Riley and Dan for your hospitality.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

New York, New York

September 3rd, 2014

While I was in Goa I met a fellow Canadian and paraglider pilot Riley.  Riley has an infectious attitude for a real joie de vie.  His constant smile and positive attitude can only brighten your day.  At the time he was living in Shanghai and he even has the city’s skyline tattooed on his shoulder.  He was a relatively new paraglider pilot and I have to admit that he has a bit of a cavalier attitude about it that I thought might get him into trouble one day.  Flying in Arambol he somehow, accidentally performed a helicopter, a flat spin acrobatic move that isn’t normally performed just 50 meters above the beach.  Luckily it all ended well.

Riley had recently moved to New York City working in sales of solar panel systems for residential homes.  Being sort of in the neighbourhood, and never having been to NYC before I thought I’d pay him a visit.  I decided to take the Amtrak train from Baltimore and enjoyed the couple hour ride that ran mostly along the coast and passed through Philadelphia.  Arriving in New York I took the subway to Brooklyn, where Riley has a penthouse apartment with his friend Dan.  I got there before Riley had finished work so I hung out in his local watering hole, a nice little Irish pub.  Once he arrived we had a drink and caught up about the activities of the past year since we’d last seen each other.  Back at his apartment we had a bit of a snafu as he couldn't find his keys but the friendly security guard let us in.  What a pad the guys had.  Nice and spacious on the sixth floor on the south corner of the building with a massive balcony complete with a barbeque and table and chairs with a glimpse of the Empire State building from one corner...pretty sweet.

The next day Riley didn’t have any sales appointments until late in the afternoon so he offered to take me into Manhattan on his skookum scooter.  Having ridden many scooters in India I thought I was prepared for this adventure but I didn’t realize what a white knuckled ride this would be.  I was holding on for dear life as we motored across the Williamsburg Bridge, just north of the Brooklyn Bridge.  A number of times I thought I was going to pop off the back of the bike.  I desperately wanted to take some pictures and videos as we went but that was tantamount to suicide, but I still managed to snap a few.  What a way to see the dense metropolis of Manhattan…can’t think of a better way, or a faster one.  Riley was weaving through the traffic like a bat out of hell.

Crossing the Williamsburg Bridge:

Riley and his stallion:

Our first stop was the New York Museum which was right next to Central Park.  The museum wasn’t that big and almost half of it was closed for new exhibitions that weren’t finished yet but there was a 20 minute film that we watched that narrated the history of the city and it was a fantastic introduction to NYC.  It told how Manhattan was actually a native Indian word for “land of hills” and the first Europeans settled there since it was a natural harbour protected for the ravages of the Atlantic Ocean.  The Dutch were the first ones there and created a small fortified city on the south tip of Manhattan Island.  The reason that Wall Street has its name today is that it was the most northern part of the enclosed settlement, and hence it was actually a wall.  Cool.

After the museum we grabbed a couple of hot dogs from a cart and were seriously ripped off.  The guy didn’t have a price list and he wouldn’t accept my money while he was cooking the wieners.  He asked us where we were from and we responded Canada but in retrospect it would have helped if Riley had mentioned that he was now living in the city.  The vendor waited until Riley had taken a bite of his dog and then demanded $26 for both dogs and our soft drinks.  Later we saw another vendor with a pricelist and realized that he charged us at least double for our food.  Oh well, it wasn’t the worst rip off to have experienced.

In Central Park:

We sat by a big lake in Central Park as we gorged on our hot dogs.  This was followed up by a good Frisbee session in a slightly treed area.  The normal place to play, a large flat grassy area, was roped off as a tractor was aerating the ground.  Afterwards we walked by a few other areas of the massive park, a turtle pond, up a lookout tower, by an outdoor theatre and through some wooded areas on more natural paths.  Riley had brought a joint with him so we found a secluded area, or at least relatively secluded as you can be in the middle of New York City.  We sat down on the grass by some trees and there were some people about 50 meters slightly out of sight but otherwise we felt fairly isolated.  I found it odd that there was a sewer grate right beside me, in an otherwise seemingly natural area but I guess the water’s got to go somewhere after a big rain or when the winter snow melts.  Half way through the doobie one of the nearby guys came walking towards us with a big camera around his neck.  I thought that perhaps he was going to ask one of us to take a picture of him and his lady friend.  Riley wisely told me to ditch the spliff and that sewer grate was super handy for a place to dispose of it.  The guy started snapping pictures of us while stating that he was fed up with pot smokers violating his park.  He also had a GoPro camera which might have been taking a video.  We immediately stood up and started to walk away as he pulled out his cell phone and started to make a call to the police or some other authority.  I began to jog away and eventually Riley followed suit.  Damn.  I just got out of India for this shit and here I am again in a messed up situation.  We ran all the way back to Riley’s bike and it wasn’t until we pulled away that I started to relax a bit.  What a buzz kill that guy was.

Back on the bike we cruised by some famous locations like Times Square, the David Letterman Studio and the Empire State Building.  After a beer in a quaint little bar Riley had to head off for a client meeting so I wandered around near the World Trade Center memorial and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset before hopping on the subway back to his apartment.

The Late Show Studio:

Approaching Times Square:

Holdin' on for dear life in the back:

The Empire State Building:

We sat by a big lake in Central Park as we gorged on our hot dogs.  This was followed up by a good Frisbee session in a slightly treed area.  The normal place to play, a large flat grassy area, was roped off as a tractor was aerating the ground.  Afterwards we walked by a few other areas of the massive park, a turtle pond, up a lookout tower, by an outdoor theatre and through some wooded areas on more natural paths.  Riley had brought a joint with him so we found a secluded area, or at least relatively secluded as you can be in the middle of New York City.  We sat down on the grass by some trees and there were some people about 50 meters slightly out of sight but otherwise we felt fairly isolated.  I found it odd that there was a sewer grate right beside me, in an otherwise seemingly natural area but I guess the water’s got to go somewhere after a big rain or when the winter snow melts.  Half way through the doobie one of the nearby guys came walking towards us with a big camera around his neck.  I thought that perhaps he was going to ask one of us to take a picture of him and his lady friend.  Riley wisely told me to ditch the spliff and that sewer grate was super handy for a place to dispose of it.  The guy started snapping pictures of us while stating that he was fed up with pot smokers violating his park.  He also had a GoPro camera which might have been taking a video.  We immediately stood up and started to walk away as he pulled out his cell phone and started to make a call to the police or some other authority.  I began to jog away and eventually Riley followed suit.  Damn.  I just got out of India for this shit and here I am again in a messed up situation.  We ran all the way back to Riley’s bike and it wasn't until we pulled away that I started to relax a bit.  What a buzz kill that guy was.

Back on the bike we cruised by some famous locations like Times Square, the David Letterman Studio and the Empire State Building.  After a beer in a quaint little bar Riley had to head off for a client meeting so I wandered around near the World Trade Center memorial and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset before hopping on the subway back to his apartment.

Looking up at One World Trade Centre:



The memorial:



This is a piece of the Berlin wall that was nearby One World Trade Centre.  I saw this piece in 1995 in Berlin (which is actually the east facing side and was graffitied by an artist)...crazy:


The little blip just off to the left of centre is the Statue of Liberty:

What a great day in the Big Apple.

Under a Microscope in the Capital

August 25th-September 2nd, 2014

Arriving into Washington I was greeted by my sister Julie and her 16 year old daughter Rachel even though it was late for a school night.  A couple of days later my sister Sarah flew out from Phoenix since it was the Labour Day long weekend.  It was great to catch up with family.  It had definitely been a while, too long.  I enjoyed going out for lunch with my 18 year old nephew Matt and on another night taking his younger sister, Rachel and Emma, to dinner.  They are definitely turning into interesting and engaging young adults.

Lunch with Matt:

Dinner with Rachel and Emma:

On the weekend we drove into Washington (as they live in Frederick, about an hour outside of the capital).  Sarah and I had been there a few times before so seeing the White House, the Washington Monument and the Capitol wasn’t new but it is still a cool place to visit.  My sisters were off to the National Art Gallery while my brother-in-law Brad, my niece Emma and I went to the Natural History Museum.  The museum was pretty decent, definitely worth the price of admission, which was free as all of the Smithsonian museums do not charge entrance fees.  There was a cool high tech effect in the dinosaur section with cameras pointing at the museum goers while it was projected on a green screen with dinosaurs running about so it was easy to feel like you were about to become lunch for a T-Rex.  It was fun to watch the little kids who would try to pet the smaller raptors or punch out a bigger dinosaur.

At the White House:

Emma's been impaled:

Emma loves to pose with statues:


A triceratops:

The green screen dino action: 

Some nice totem poles:

However, we had the most fun at the end when we entered into a supposedly teenage focused area called Q?rius.  They had some microscopes that were hooked up to computer screens and some samples of different types of sand that you could check out.  Well we didn’t last long on the sand samples and started to stick anything and everything we could imagine such as our fingers, various money bills and other items from our pockets.  I’ll not mention all of them and see if you can figure them out from these pictures…

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

Answers
1, Top of a hand
2. My finger…it was wild as you could see the sweat droplets coming out
3. A squished penny
4. The penny closer up
5. Knuffle Bunny of course
6. Brad’s armhair
7. President Jackson on the $20 bill
8. The back of the $1 bill
9. The White House on the back of thee $20 bill
10. The top of the Lincoln monument on the back of the $5 bill.  Amazingly all 50 states are listed.
11. Lincoln on the $5 bill
12. An icon on an iPhone
13. The pixels of pixels.  We took a pic of the previous one and stuck that under the microscope. Could you keep going deeper and deeper?
14. The panic button on a car FOB
15. Car key
16. Car key
17. Button on my shirt
18. An SD memory card
19. Emma’s tongue!

Emma's tongue in video...a bit spooky:

We must have spent over half an hour playing with the microscopes and Brad couldn’t help but mentions that we could have just gone to his lab where he works on cancer research and done the same thing.

Once we met up with Julie and Sarah, we walked up to the Washington Monument.  All of a sudden three helicopters flew overhead and I immediately recognized that two of them were the same type as Marine One, the helicopter that the president uses to shuttle to and from the White House.  The third chopper was some type of gunship.  They banked towards the White House lawn where one helicopter landed and the other two flew off into the distance.  We wondered whether Obama had just arrived but about five minutes later the two copters flew back over the White House as Marine One took off so likely Barack had just boarded it.  I guess the other similar helicopter is a decoy while the third is the protection.  I couldn’t help but wonder whether my high school colleague, Marvin, who is Obama’s personal assistant might be in the helicopter.  Unlikely, but possible.

Knuffle at the Washington Monument:

Me with my sisters:

Is Obama in there?

If you look closely you can see Marine One on the White House Lawn:

The choppers:


During the rest of the week that I was there we went bowling, played some Guitar Hero and other games and just caught up.  It had definitely been too long since I saw everyone.  My nephew and nieces had grown up a lot since we were last together and I’m a bit sad that I missed so much but it won’t be so long until I see them again as we’re all meeting in Costa Rica for Christmas…can’t wait!