Harris and Anne

Walking the High Line

2009-07-05T22:49:00.002-04:00

After ten years in the making, the High Line park is finally open. The park, which is a renewal of an elevated train yard originally built during the 1930s, runs from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street and will eventually extend to 34th Street. I was really impressed with the landscaping...benches, shade trees, wildflowers, an art installation, and a viewing window over 10th Ave., which makes it seem as though you're floating over all the passing taxis. I only wished I lived closer; I could come here every day! I can't wait to see how it will change with the seasons.

Rainbow over Brooklyn

2009-07-05T22:44:00.003-04:00

One good thing to come from the many, many weeks of rain we've had lately. . . a rainbow behind our building.

Babycakes and Soap art

2009-06-03T20:47:00.004-04:00

Here's some great art from the 2009 San Francisco Art Institute MFA Thesis Exhibition, which I saw a couple of weeks ago when I was in the Bay Area. The babies are carved of chocolate cake and covered with frosting, and the jail cell installation is made of soap. The artist of the top piece is Miles Conrad. He has some other great stuff on his website: http://www.milesconrad.com/index.html
I am not sure who the artist of the cakes is, but she should totally get a job here:
http://www.idreamofcake.com/

Trip to Philadelphia

2009-06-01T22:11:00.009-04:00

Now that the blog has been declared dead, I'm bringing the Harris & Anne blog back. I always did have an affinity for the retro. Here are some pics from Harris's and my trip to Philadelphia this past weekend with more photo essays likely to follow soon.

Vintage Mustang: Sold

2008-03-25T18:33:00.004-04:00

This one is completely my fault. I had no idea I'd be in New York three years after I left Atlanta and I really just wasn't thinking ahead. Anyhow, I got myself into a bind here by leaving my '66 Mustang at my mother's condo. There was really nowhere else for me to stash it, but I should have known better than to throw a car cover over it and call it a day. Three years later the condo association got tired of seeing it sit there unmoved and I sat here 750 miles away with little recourse other than to sell it cheap.

So thats what I did. The fine folks at Vintage Mustang, who'd done some work on it in the past did me a favor and took it off my hands. I hope they don't just piece it out, but I'm afraid that may be the case. Though it was a very beautiful ride, it probably wasnt the best reconstruction job ever done, and thats what the Mustang-o-philes really look for.

Regardless, a brief photo essay to commemorate the gone but not forgotten.

If anyone see's it cruising the streets of Atlanta, let me know. I'm curious about its eventual fate. Here's to ya! Farewell to my 30th birthday present to myself!

Rhode Island and Northern California

2008-03-08T21:35:00.002-05:00

A couple more work trips to add to the archives here, bumping my total travel days in 2008 up to a grand total of 8. That number is actually way lower than I thought it'd be at this point in the year. I've had jobs in the past that required travel and that number could certainly look more like 30. Thankfully it's still in the single digits...but that'll be changing shortly. As in this week.

I drove to Providence, Rhode Island a few weeks back and forgot to mention it. I'd never been to Rhode Island before, but I'd heard plenty of good reports about Providence, dating way back to my first years in Atlanta (after college) when I hung out with a group of graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) - Jonas, Chris, and to a lesser extent Huckleberry and Andrew - who constantly talked it up. These guys let me try my hand at metal working, among other cool artistic labors, none of which my business degree from UGA would ever have led me towards. When it was all said and done I ended up spending an unemployed spring (one of my best ever) delivering flowers for Chris' wife Bonnie and taking my first trip to New York to visit Gretchen with Jonas. Lots of good memories conjured up simply by driving to Providence.

As far as the city goes, again, it was a nighttime arrival and a daytime departure, but I got to walk through the Federal Hill Neighborhood, which was charming enough and offered me a nice choice of restaurants. I'd have been happier with something a little more college-ey but my hotel was within walking distance of this neighborhood, so it was the easy choice. If you're in Atlanta, think Virginia Highlands.

As for my other trip - the one to Northern California - I just got back early this morning after flying back on the red-eye. The highlight, travel-wise, was not having to wear a jacket. After a long, albeit mild winter in NYC, it was nice to not bundle up before walking outside. On the downside, I didn't leave my hotel for three straight days as we really had no downtime and I didn't have a car anyhow. Nothing much to write about this trip, although Jet Blue flies out of the International Concourse at SFO and International Concourses always make travel so much cooler. Lots of foreign languages being spoken (in this case Japanese), nicer bars/restaurants, and a general feeling that travel is exciting, not dreary. Then you land at JFK and you feel like you're at the Atlantic City bus terminal.

TED Conference - Statistics

2008-02-24T17:33:00.002-05:00

Highly informative video that's probably more about statistics than world health, though I find both elements equally interesting. Is it bad though, that at the end of the clip my first thought was "I wonder how I can use this to help me out in my fantasy baseball draft?"

Travel Technology

2008-02-21T22:18:00.002-05:00

It's been nearly three years now since I've spent a significant amount of time behind the wheel of a car. Even if I have to leave the city I'm normally on a train or catching a ride to the airport. It's only when I'm out of town that I sometimes need to rent a car. I'd say that I've maybe driven a car fifteen or twenty times, give or take, since 2005. But some things have changed at work and I find myself needing to get to places that are relatively local, but aren't served by public transportation, so I've taken to renting cars.

In the last few weeks I've noticed that some of the technologies that weren't mainstream three years ago are completely accessible at this point, so I've started buying all sorts of travel accessories even though I don't have a car. For some reason, I feel like I need this stuff even though I'll probably never spend more than 5 or 6 hours a week in a car.

It started with the GPS. I realized that if I was in a car, there was a 100% chance that I was lost. By virtue of the fact that I was driving, I was either in another state or driving somewhere that I couldn't get to by train. I was constantly reading directions or looking at a map. So I bought a cheap GPS, which changes everything about traveling to places unknown. I'm still printing out directions 'just in case', but there really is a sense of relief, especially driving at night when you have no idea where you are.

Next I realized that I could listen to my iPod in the car, rather than taking a handful of CDs with me. People have probably been doing this for years now, but the last time I owned a car, I hadn't even contemplated buying an iPod. So I bought one of those iTrip type devices that allow you to broadcast audio at an unused frequency. Problem: there are no unused frequencies in New York. Other problem: if you're traveling long distances the stations come in and out so you end up tuning your iPod every twenty minutes or so. I'm assuming this is unsafe. My solution, however, was even more unsafe - just listen to the iPod with the earbuds in. Yeah, I know, but I figured that at night at least nobody could witness my careless ways.

Anyway, this week when I rented a car I noticed that there was an auxiliary port for plugging in an MP3 player. This was news to me. So on my way home from the last trip I punched 'Best Buy' into the trusty GPS, drove two miles off the highway and grabbed an audio cable. Now I can drive around in my rental car, juggling my GPS and my iPod, content that I probably won't get lost or bored.

Anything else I'm missing? What should my next travel purchase be?

Annapolis

2008-02-15T16:32:00.002-05:00

I heard someone refer to Annapolis as 'Georgetown on the water' and it made me think of the big sister-little sister rivalry that Savannah and Charleston seem to have. In this case, Georgetown gets the headlines, but Annapolis certainly rivals it in charm and probably has it beat in architecture. Bonus points for being on the water.

I was told that Annapolis has the oldest capital building in the US and it did look glorious from the rear window as we drove by it. Didn't get to do too much sightseeing this time around. Hopefully next time, when the weather's nicer and I have more time.

I was tempted to drive through Baltimore on my way back to help satisfy my curiousity surrounding The Wire, but I thought better of it. If it's depicted inaccurately, I wasted my time, if it's accurate I don't make it home alive.

New York Real Estate

2008-02-13T09:38:00.001-05:00

It continues to get me down.

Ithaca is Gorges

2008-02-11T23:03:00.000-05:00

Of all the phrases coined for the indie t-shirt market, I think this one might be the absolute best. Ithaca is Gorges. Truly, it is.

So the travel for work has been cranking up a bit lately and I found myself driving four and a half hours to Ithaca last week, from a beautiful 60 degree New York afternoon into my first snow storm of the year. I watched the skid lights flicker on and off as I realized that I can't really drive in snow or ice. The fact that I drive once every six months, rain or shine, probably doesn't help out at all. Actually, I anticipate quite a few more trips via car in the upcoming weeks/months, so I went ahead and bought the cheapest GPS I could find. After using it I think I might have made a mistake by buying on the cheap end. I saved myself $100 or $150 and in return I hear:

"Prepare to turn right in 1.2 miles"

When what I could be hearing is:

"Prepare to turn right in 1.2 miles on to McDougall Street"

I didn't think it was that big of a deal when I was researching it, but in retrospect, it would probably have been money well spent.

Anyhow, Ithaca. Gorges. Very cool college town, albeit with a bit of a hippy vibe. It was too cold for me to see much of anything besides, well, the inside of a bunch of buildings, but I hear there are some amazing summertime outdoor options as well as the arts/bars/downtown shops required of any self respecting college town.

More travel soon.

Atlantic City

2008-02-05T23:28:00.000-05:00

After almost three years of living in New York, I finally found my way to Atlantic City this weekend. Traveling by Greyhound isn't the way the high-rollers do it I suspect, but it seems like the best way to make that trip for a non-car owner like myself. I guess the casinos subsidize bus tickets, because $36 for a round trip is an absolute steal.

And we aren't high rollers, anyhow. Sticking to the cheapest tables available, we mostly played $10 and $15 hands of blackjack along with some of the more creative poker games, including 3 and 4 card poker, as well as VS. the dealer Texas Hold em. I have to admit that I thought that those games would be lame, but they we definitely interesting enough to keep me occupied for hours (and hours) on end. Three-card poker is actually on the boring side, though the dealer I spoke with claimed that it provided the best odds, but four card poker seems like a decent way to spend some time.

Atlantic City, from what I saw, wasn't much to look at, though there seemed to be quite a few nice casinos scattered throughout. The surrounding areas looked run down and uninviting, so I could definitely see skipping the sight seeing on my next trip, but if the weather were nicer I'd be up for checking out the boardwalk area next time.

One of the highlights was watching the Super Bowl with a bunch of insane Giants fans. Apparently betting on sports is illegal in New Jersey, which is just ridiculous. I mean, if you're going to have a full blown casino where everyone is sinning all day and night, what's the point of keeping sports gambling out? Anyway, it didnt seem to dampen the spirits of the Giants fans, though I think my mom and I would have been more into it if we had bets going. Better off as it was, we probably would both have lost.

Lesson Learned

2008-01-30T13:05:00.000-05:00

Pull out your camera and take pictures of your food at restaurants. They'll think you're a food blogger and top off your glass of wine in hopes of a good 'review'.

Guest Chef

2008-01-26T20:23:00.000-05:00

I don't know that I've ever had someone come over to my place in the morning specifically to cook me a gourmet breakfast. Until today. It's great having a good friend who's a chef-in-training. Definite perks.

Not the city, the place

2008-01-22T18:16:00.000-05:00

Candlepin Bowling?

2008-01-18T12:33:00.000-05:00

I was having a conversation with some friends a couple weeks ago that turned to the topic of bowling. A few of us had just been to a new bowling alley here in Brooklyn and another friend asked what kind of bowling it was. What kind of bowling? I didn't realize there were multiple kinds. But guess what? There actually are, especially in the Northeast, more specifically in and around New England.

Candlepin bowling? Never heard of it. Honestly, it doesn't look great, but it does actually look more difficult than 'standard' bowling. Its pretty hard to take regular bowling seriously on video, even harder to watch this without a snicker.

If I commuted to work, this is what it would be like

2008-01-15T12:55:00.000-05:00

In the future, all my meals will be liquid

2008-01-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

Apparently the future is right around the corner, because Anne's new robotic juicer has already made its presence felt only two days after being removed from its packaging. Yesterday it was oh so delicious orange juice. Tonight, carrot juice. I'm pushing for a banana smoothie or tomato juice next, but I think Anne is going to have me drinking celery or cauliflower juice by week's end. It won't be long before we're juicing up a batch of 'leftover' juice.

NYE

2008-01-05T11:29:00.000-05:00

Though not as crazy as years past (Irish car bombs at the Highland Tap?) this New Years gave Anne the opportunity to wear her new dress and gave me the opportunity to sport my apparently see-through sweater...subtle.

My Year in Cities, 2007

2008-01-02T19:03:00.001-05:00

I've always liked this post and, since I managed to travel a bit more for work this year, I thought I'd go ahead and post my travels for 2007. Most of these trips were work related and most were fairly short. I doubt I spent more than four weeks in total outside of Brooklyn this year. Just on city names alone, however, this was probably a top three travel year.

Atlanta, GA
Binghamton, NY
Boulder, CO
Buffalo, NY
Cancun, Mexico
Chicago, IL
Clearwater, FL
Denver, CO
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA
Philadelphia, PA
Phoenix, AZ
New Paltz, NY
Rochester, NY
Sacramento, CA
Seattle, WA
Sunnyvale, CA
Tokyo, Japan
Washington DC

Southern Comfort

2007-12-31T11:46:00.000-05:00

Southern comfort, southern hospitality, call it what you want but know that it is alive and well. The trip back home was certainly one of my better ones, due in no small part to it's relative length. It seems that many of my recent trips back to Atlanta were two or three day affairs but this time around I gave myself a full five nights to catch up with friends and family. Unfortunately I forgot to charge the camera up after the trip to Tokyo, so you'll have to imagine all the friendly faces and group hugs.

The week started off on Christmas Day at Anne's parents place where we dined on the traditional Christmas lasagna, snacked on dried vegetables from the Tokyo airport, and did our best to annoy the only type of cat I can safely get within three feet of. Unfortunately Anne needed to be back at work on Thursday and Friday, so our ongoing streak of not being in the same city continued the next day when she caught her flight back to New York.

I spent the day after Christmas at my brother's place. With my sleep schedule still somehow off, I managed to wake up before both kids and went upstairs as they were waking up. I have to rank this as perhaps the highlight of the trip, getting to see these little guys as they got up. I heard Kevin whispering to Josh that someone had arrived in the middle of the night as he walked from his room. When he saw me at the other end of the hall he ran towards me and gave me a big hug. It always makes me feel good when he remembers me, as I see him every six months or so, and constantly think that he'll have forgotten my name. I guess he's old enough at this point not to forget.

Wednesday night saw me in Avondale Estates at Ginger and Andy's new place where I was treated to a few pints of fine homebrew. I've never seen a place look more lived in then theirs does after six months. It's amazing - I thought I was staying at the Avondale B&B. The place is simply tremendous. Also on the plus side here is their proximity to the rental houses I share with Doug. We got to spend a couple hours working on one of them on Thursday, just doing some routine maintenance. I was pleasantly surprised by its condition and finally got to meet the tenants after a year of occupancy. Definitely happy about the way things are going there. Of course there was the mandatory stop at the James Joyce, the crown jewel of Avondale Estates in my uninformed opinion.

Doug, Jess, Kevin, and I made our way to Athens on Friday where Brant and Melissa were nice enough (again with the southern hospitality) to host us for the evening. We started off at Harry Bissets for dinner, had a couple drinks at the 283 bar, and then finished up at a new place that I'd never been to called Little Kings. Even though the campus was on vacation, Little Kings still attracted quite a crowd, including Opel and Christina and Opel's beard. An Opel sighting is an every other year event at this point and thus must be treated with great respect. The big question that was answered is this - when a friend who is constantly refered to by his last name gets married, do you still address him that way in front of his wife, who shares his name? The answer is an unequivocal yes, they can figure out who you're talking to.

We finished the evening off the same way we started the following morning...Nintendo Wii! I'd been dying to give it a shot and figured that 3 AM was as good a time as any. Faced with a dozen plus options, we chose to go with tennis, ping pong, and bowling. I've seen a few videos of people playing and I know that it's all in the wrist, but it's so difficult to refrain from taking a full swing. I know that I was doing it wrong (and that I'm out of shape/getting old) because, embarassingly enough, I could feel it in my shoulder the next morning. Ridiculous.

Anyway, it was back to Atlanta the next day for my final night. Many of my friends were out of town for the holidays but by Saturday, they'd made their way back to Atlanta so we got together at 97 estoria, which I think is just a great spot. It was so cool to see everyone and I really appreciate all of you coming out on such short notice. Every one of you are welcome to the air mattress if you'd like to plan a trip to New York. Beatty and Jonathan, I'll be expecting you in the spring!

Finally, New Years Eve and New Years Day will be spent listening to KEXP's top 90.3 albums of the year. You have two weeks to listen to their archived data stream, and I highly recommend it, as always.

Vacation in Athens is Calling

2007-12-25T07:29:00.000-05:00

Not Athens so much as Atlanta, though I'm fairly certain that I'll be able to make it up to Athens for one night. It's been a long time since I've paid it a visit, so long that I don't think I can actually recall it. I doubt I've been since I lived in New York, so I'd guess at least three years. My guess: more bars downtown, nicer houses, larger price tags. From what I've heard Athens is becoming more and more a remote suburb of Atlanta. I'm not certain that this is a bad thing, at least from my perspective. Though an hour plus will be too long of a commute for most, I have a few friends who've lived most of their post-college lives there and, more and more, it seems like a viable solution.

Band of Horses is playing four sold out shows at the EARL, one of my old favorite Atlanta venues, but tickets sold out in minutes. The EARL is a tiny little club and it would be great to see BoH there, especially seeing as how Anne and I last saw them at McCarren Park, with 4,000 of our closest friends. There's no way the EARL holds 400 people. I poked around on Craigslist and Stubhub, but there were 10 people looking for tickets to every 1 seller. I asked one of the sellers who simply stated 'make an offer' how much he was looking for and he replied that he had offers of $150 for 2 tickets. As I told him, too rich for my blood. I was thinking about swinging by to try to scalp tickets, but if that price is any indication, it's just not worth my time.

Odaiba

2007-12-21T18:12:00.000-05:00

One of the other things that was recommended to me was to take a bus tour of Tokyo from a company called Hato Bus. I know these tours always promise more than they deliver, but there were two things about the tours that appealed to me. One was the chance to listen to an english speaker describing some of the sights. As I mentioned, a few of my co-workers speak english very well, but unfortunately I did most of my work with speakers who are learning the language at a rapid rate, but are still relative novices. The second thing that appealed to me was that I'd pretty much seen everything their tours offered of interest except for one particular one which offered views of the Tokyo Bay area, which I hadn't ventured toward.

So after a few hours of work in the morning, I headed out to Hamamatsucho Bus Terminal for the 1:40 PM tour. It wasn't too expensive, 3,500 Yen or about $30, so I paid and waited for the trip to begin. As 1:40 approached I still hadnt seen any other touristy looking people, so I went to look for the #6 bus. A man came up to me and asked if I was on the Tokyo Seaside Tour. After confirming this, he told me that since it was off-season and mid-week, I was the only person who had signed up for the tour. So it was just me and him.

Nakagawa-san was probably in his mid to late fifties and walked slowly. I couldnt tell if he had a limp or not. We had an entire 50+ person bus to ourselves. I mentioned that this seemed kind of wasteful and that we could probably take the tour in a car if he wanted to. He explained to me that they don't make any money if they don't fill the bus. Anyway, I just appreciated, at this point, that he didn't cancel my trip, though it certainly would have saved us a few awkward moments. We waited for the boat. He sat at his table and I walked around taking pictures of anything that might seem interesting. On the trip, he sat inside, while I sat outside enjoying the view and trying to communicate with the Korean tourists on the boat.

Odaiba itself is a man-made island in the Tokyo Bay. It's actually pretty cool, designed almost as a future city, with interesting architecutre (that will probably look very dated very soon), a showroom for new Sony products, and the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, all of which were part of the tour. Nakagawa-san waited patiently as I looked at Sony products (true convergence is upon us - the TV and the PC are now one and the same). We walked through the mall together. I suspect that this is a great way to kill time on a 50 person tour, but I wasn't really interesting in checking out the GAP or Banana Republic. This was one of our more awkward moments. Teenagers ran through the mall, shopping and chatting, while Nakagawa-san and I tried to make conversation. Yikes.

Apparently France gave Tokyo a miniature version of the Statue of Liberty in 2000, and they've got it set at the entrance to the island. Pretty jarring to see, actually. We took a driverless train with tires and electric current passed through via metal conductors attatched to it's sides (pretty cool actually) to the Museum where again, he read his book and I walked around for an hour and half or so. This wasnt a bad way to spend a little time. It would have been better if I were a child/teen or understood Japanese, but many of the concepts (robotics, environmental conservation, aerospace, deep sea drilling) are conveyed just as easily with pictures. Nakagawa-san and I finally hopped back onto our luxury bus and were driven back to the bus terminal. We thanked each other and finally parted ways.

I went back to one of my favorite Yakitori places for dinner. Chicken on a stick, served atop a green salad, with a pint of Hoppy White beer. Not bad. Saturday Night Fever was playing on one of the television sets and one of the Japanese cooks was doing a little dancing of his own. I had to smile.

Finally, one of my co-workers volunteered to take me out for a beer at 8 PM, so he met me at my hotel and we grabbed a subway ride across town. After one pint, we realized that it just wasn't working. We'd exhausted our ability to speak to each other rather quickly, but that was OK, I really appreciated his effort. I have to say, yesterday was a day straight out of Lost in Translation. My flight leaves tonight at 6:30 and I get back to New York an hour earlier, at 5:30. I'm going to try to spend a few hours at a nearby park this morning, but the weather doesnt look like it wants to co-operate. Hopefully the rain can hold off for a few more hours.

Asakusa and Akihabara

2007-12-20T21:14:00.000-05:00

My team of co-workers here in Japan told me on Wednesday night that my assignment was complete and that I was free to take the day on Thursday to explore the city a bit. They peppered me with suggestions of places to see, which seemed to fit nicely with the suggestions that a couple of American friends gave me. So, I planned my day to see the temple at Asakusa and the electronics mecca that is Akihabara.

Asakusa is on the northeastern side of Tokyo and I'm staying in the southwestern part, so the trip took quite a while, but was well worth it. In New York, when I get off the subway I still sometimes have trouble getting my bearings a bit, figuring out which way is north or east and that sensation of being out of sorts is obviously very much exaggerated here. When I emerge from underground, I tend to take about ten minutes looking for anything that might lead me to my destination. Many of the stops have large maps on ground level, but they've been surprisingly unhelpful. After a few minutes, I crossed the main street and headed into a tunnel of shops and restaurants, after noticing that quite a few other people were heading in that general direction.

After wandering through some tight alleys I finally caught a glimpse of the temple off to the right, so I headed that way. It opened up and the vendors started looking a bit more touristy, selling trinkets rather than food, so I figured I was on the correct path. Anyhow, Asakusa is one of the last remaining links to Tokyo's past, from what I could gather, with ancient architecture intact and well kept. The coolest thing as far as I was concerned was a central area smoking with incense that was said to be the breath of the Gods. Everyone would walk up to it and do their best to inhale as much of it as possible, so as to take in some of it's restorative powers. Many people even went so far as to hold their hands up to it and then rub their bodies afterwards.

After spending an hour or so at the temple and then grabbing a quick bite, I headed towards the subway to find Akihabara. One of my coworkers recommended it, as did one of Anne's coworkers. Akihabara is essentially the center of technology and computer equipment sales. There must have been 500 stores of various size selling all things electonic. iPods, Macs, PCs, along with phones, cameras, cabling, GPS systems, power supplies, surveilance systems, all the way down to hobbiest type stuff including anime and role playing game cards. It was easy to get lost through all the little side streets and shops. Nothing really jumped out at me as being especially unique gear-wise, but I had a blast wandering around and people watching.

I got the sense that the most interesting thing about this area wasn't necessarily the equipment for sale, but the life-style that it encouraged. There was a weird combination of technology and anime that produced interesting sytles of clothing, almost Matrix-esque. I think the wikipedia page describes this better than I can. My highlight was a guy standing outside one of the larger stores rapping in Japanese to try to convince people to come in and check out their gear. The scope of this place is truly overwhelming and I've never seen anything like it. Also, 3 PM on a Thurdsay and the place was packed with children and adults, shopping perhaps for work, but more than likely just goofing off. I'm not sure exactly how you make a living selling nothing but cables, but apparently it's doable.

Cameron Diaz sells stuff, too

2007-12-20T03:20:00.000-05:00