Time Lapse Friday

January 25th

I've been getting a little burnt out taking regular photos for the blog. Thankfully PJ came to town this weekend and we experimented with the time lapse feature on my camera. In addition to giving our awesome bar tender Pat a one man show, I've got a ton of new ideas for the blog. I hope you all enjoy a sneak peak at a typical happy hour Friday night.

Sexy Drugs

January 24th

Not just regular pharmaceuticals, but fancy big city drugs.

Bottomless Bacon

January 23rd

Ok, so no photo was taken today because all I've done recently is work work work. However, while writing this post I received a photo of a restaurant called Wonderland Ballroom in Washington, DC that serves a bottomless basket of bacon at their brunch! Amazing. This is an idea I can get behind and is certainly much better than a Bacon Bloody Mary.

Belgian Beer

January 22nd

Tonight I met my friend AJ for a long overdue hang out session. Looking for a common ground location in mid-town, we stumbled into this Belgian "estaminet" for some beers. Belgian beer = thumbs up!

FEAST Fit For A Martin Luther King

January 21st

Tonight was the January installment of FEAST. This month's theme was favorite foods of Martin Luther King Jr. and soul food in general. The food spread was insane because I think everyone wanted to make up for their lame contributions last month.

The best part about this FEAST was the venue. There are some really gorgeous brown stones in Park Slope but most of them, like my own, are subdivided into apartments. However, this is a fully intact five floor building furnished in mansion style. I can't tell you how fantastic it was to sit in a real decorated spacious room and eat at a real table. It's little things like space that most Americans take for granted.

One FEASTer made collard greens with corn dumplings cooked with many many many full strips of bacon. SO delicious.

This was my first helping. As you can see, there's a lot going on here.

For my own reference, I made a full list of FEAST items:

BBQ Ribs
Fried Chicken
Potato Salad
Corn Cowder
Spicy Corn Bread
Hot Dog Stuff (not too sure what this is actually called)
Deviled Eggs
Mashed Potatoes
Collard Greens with Bacon and Corn Dumplings
Fried Okra
Hush Puppies
Green Salad

And

Pecan Pie

UCB Asscats

January 20th

Tonight a whole mess of my friends attended the Asssscats show at the Upright Citizen's Brigade. For $9 we were lucky enough to see Chevy Chase perform terrible monologues about crickets and gynecology exams (shudder) as well as Amy Poehler, the gorgeous Seth Meyers, and many others rock the improv.

Perhaps because I was feeling silly and immature, I could only see what is totally wrong about this subway ad for "educational programs" at NYU!

Adopt A Neighborhood - Williamsburg

January 19th

When trying to think of an all day activity where we wouldn't freeze during this month's exploration, art gallery hopping came to mind. Since we visited Chelsea last year, Brooklyn was the next best option. I used to spend a fair amount of time in Williamsburg, but hadn't been in almost a year. It was nice to be back for a visit.

In addition to seeing some "art", we all had a blast perusing the wares in this store aptly named Junk. I recently heard that items sold at Brooklyn Industries, which was started in this neighborhood, are made in China! I was proud of my messenger bag so it was really depressing to lose faith in my local homegrown business.

In addition to art, we all wanted to swing by McCarren Park and check out hipster greenery. Turns out... we're all just a bunch of kids! Acting stupid and messing about on playground equipment was by far my favorite part of the day.

Playing made us thirsty, so we picked up a few additions to our group and proceeded to explore the fine establishments in the area. First we had $3 beers at Rosemary's Tavern, followed by pitchers of sangria and great Mexican food at Bonita, and microbrews with a side of Miss Pacman at Barcade. You can click here to see photos from our whole day.

And this...well...this is just something I am posting for myself and the few of you that understand why I am proud of this photo and myself in the past year.

Union Market Happy Happy

January 18th

Since I got back from Russia, many things have opened up in the six blocks between my house and the subway. While it is always nice to have a new coffee shop, sushi joint and chocolate store, nothing made me happier than the long awaited Union Market. Yes, it is upity and overpriced, but I'm very excited to have a store with high quality meat and veggies just down the street.

Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

January 17th

Some kickball friends are now in a dodgeball league that plays on the upper east side on Thursday nights. I swung by their sponsor bar Aces and Eights after another late night at work. I was very pleased to encounter this bar stool...

...as was Chris. Giddy up, Cowboy.

Car TV

January 16th

Cab drivers lost their recent strike and in addition to sporting the hideous flowers, now they all have this TV bullshit embedded behind the drivers seat. I usually turn it off because I refuse to support advertising to a captive audience, but today, for your blog enjoyment, I watched my little blue circle travel uptown.

Four Eyes

January 15th

I've been without glasses since Air France lost my luggage. I finally caved today and bought the first decent affordable pair I saw at Lens Crafters. I'm not in love with these frames, but I'm happy to finally reconcile the problem and avoid suffering further migraines.

PS - It's been a little over a month since I installed the counter on the right. I can not believe you people have viewed my stupid little blog over 500 times already! Thank you SO much for reading and making this all worth while.

View From Above

January 14th

The view from the Director's office aint too shabby. I could get used to this.

Interestingness

January 13th

I didn't snap a single photo today, but want to take this opportunity to point your browser towards some cool shit on Flickr.

Since approximately 20,000 photos are uploaded from around the globe every minute and most photographers share in a communal fashion, there are some amazing things to see. Photographers have created geotagged photo maps, amazing narrative sets, and formed an almost infinite numbers of groups (including this one exclusively of photos of bacon).

These are just a few images I pulled for you from a calender for January 13th, but if you are willing to waste several hours at your monitor, be sure to click here to explore this amazing online photo community.

For Flipping Charity

January 12th

Today I played in a charity flip cup tournament to help regional food banks. Honestly, we all know I didn't participate in an all day competitive drinking game for altruistic reasons, but it eased the pain of the $30 entrance fee.

I took a few photos throughout the day, but none came out nearly as well as these mid-action shots taken by my friend Suggs. You can see his full set showing the hilarity of the day here. This is me and my team seriously kicking ass. Too bad flip cup skills do not translate anywhere else in life.

The entrance fee included free beer until 5:00pm so a certain amount of hording happened among my friends around 4:45.

These lovely ladies and coach Suggs were the only team to beat us (2-1) in our three rounds and they placed 3rd in the overall tournament. I think the New York City flip cup world was put on notice that you can't mess with kickball alumni and our game.

Americans Are Assholes

January 11th

I adore the person that did this! I am so repulsed by the concept of this show and don't even get me started about the fact that this dating service exists. That being said, I'll probably end up watching this piece of shit.

Death Of A Holiday

January 10th

There's something so sad about discarded Christmas trees on the sidewalk awaiting death by NYC garbage man.

On The Road

January 9th

Today I was traveling behind some art on the road. It was a smooth drive up I87 and through the Berkshires. With the scattered showers, I saw four different rainbows along the way. (There is one barely visible in the far right of this photo.)

After delivery, I swung over to Albany for a quick slice of pizza with the parental units and a chance to wish my Gram a happy early birthday. I snapped these two photos while driving, but decided that wasn't any worse than dialing my cell phone. Overall, I had awesome day cruising and singing all by my lonesome in the car. I do miss driving living in the big city.

Happy Birthday, Little Piglet!

January 8th

I did not take a photo today, but since I've recieved some new photos and birthdays seem to be a theme, I wanted to wish a happy belated 1st year of life to frequent blog subject, The Pig!

Hard to believe this little lady is already a year old! I'm sad I missed the party, but am happy I can post this adorable photo with her great grandma! I do like grandmas an awful lot!

Happy Birthday, Kickball Cowboy!

January 7th

A few friends and I are going to a ski house in early February and I'm trying to hone my carrot cake skills before we leave. Thankfully, Cowboy had a birthday this week and was more than willing to come taste test! I think we both gave this particular cake the thumbs up! Happy birthday my friend!

WTF? No. Seriously. WTF?

January 6th

WTF is this supposed to be? A mutant snow monster?

No, seriously. WTF? I'm freaked out by this even more than my family's Chucky snow family.

Hey Beavis

January 5th

"Uh huh huh. Hey Beavis. Look. Something is on Fire. Uh huh huh huh"

"Heh heh. Fire. Cool. heh heh Like Burn. Yeah Fire. Heh heh."

Surprise!!!

January 4th

THIS is the "surprise" face we got out of my friend Ryan for his 30th. If you know him, this will fit right into your concept of his personality. Don't worry friends, he assured me he was indeed taken aback.

The biggest part of our surprise was Ryan's brother in town from Milwaukee. Funny, even without his glasses, I don't think they look alike. Perhaps it is the beard.

A few shots of Bison Grass vodka later, we got a more natural smile out of the birthday boy! Welcome to the 30+ club my friend.

Guggenheim Revealed

January 3rd

The Guggenheim has been under wraps of a hard core scaffolding for months now. I noticed today that one half has finally been freed up. It looks a lot better than before the work.
Now if only I could walk around the inside without getting serious vertigo...

Bloody Marie

January 2nd

In addition to my huge box of booze, I got a calendar with drink recipes on them each day from my brother and sister in law. (I think my family knows me.) January 1st was a Bloody Mary and today was a Bloody Marie. GROSS! I hate tomato juice. It is the food anti-christ second only to olives and pickles. And seriously, why so violent, drink calendar?

New BJ 99 Cent

January 1st

As it is a new year, I thought I would share my goals for 2008. These are things I can accomplish over the course of the entire year. It's been a good way to focus my life and accomplish things for the past two years so I decided to carry on with the tradition.

1. Find a way to punish Air France
2. Open an ING savings account, create a budget, and learn how to invest properly
   
3. Buy a new computer and keep up with blog (Also, think of new idea for post birthday)
   
4. Go back to gym and weight watchers (The ever present resolution)
5. Get new glasses (since old ones were stolen by Air France)
   
6. Read the NY Times Sunday edition
7. Christmas shop early
8. Redo resume and network outside museums, research new career
9. Plan Adopt A Neighborhoods
10. Read 26 Books
11. Listen to 52 albums
12. Watch 52 never before seen "classic" movies

13. Find out what the hell a New BJ 99 cent might be....

2007 In Review

December 31st

Every year on New Years eve, I take stock of the 364 days prior to see if I met my goals and hopes for the year. I think I did pretty good in 2007 with a big check mark in the "start a blog"column. While I actually took a photo today in Chinatown, I decided I'd rather share my year in review photos instead.

January

In addition to hosting the first Adopt A Neighborhood in Chelsea (included teaching Martin to roller skate at The Roxy) and seeing my friend Clancy absolutely amaze me with his cello, I traveled to DC to deinstall an exhibition and to LA for a reunion with the girls. We made the ultimate mac and cheese, visited the Getty Center, gorged on In and Out Burger, diner food, Zankou chicken and polished the weekend off with Roscoe's chicken and waffles.

February

This was a month of new things. I tried eHarmony (huge mistake), attempted to learn watercolor, joined a gym, and went to Chinatown during their New Year with the AAN crew. I also celebrated my BFF Heather's 30th birthday. Good times.

March

Emotionally, this was a tough month so I kept busy. I saw Wicked, a few games of the Big East Basketball tournament, supported Spin at several small venues in Brooklyn, and ate at ALMA during Brooklyn restaurant week. Despite the huge freak snow storm on the actual holiday, I still traveled to Albany to walk in the St. Patrick's Day parade. I also attended my friend Vivek's wedding. That was truly interesting.

April

During this month work on our upcoming exhibition sucked away a lot of energy. However, I went to Albany for Easter, started my summer kickball season with the Bad News Bears, and hosted my favorite AAN neighborhood of 2007, Bay Ridge.

May

May started off with a hilarious Cinco de Mayo party, followed shortly by my dad's yearly weekend adventure where we saw the amazing full scale model of NYC at the Queens Museum of Art. Kickball was in full alcoholic swing and I spent time in Glens Falls installing our traveling exhibition.

June

This month was dominated by work and the impending doom of my 30th birthday. However, I still led AAN trips to The Cloisters and Red Hook, had mi madre for a weekend of pretending to be lesbians while watching the gay pride parade, played more kickball, and went to a really cool Exquisite Corpse party.

July - December

Since most of you can click back on the blog and review my life during this time, I'll just summarize here. During this six month time period I jumped out of a plane, threw a big party, started this blog, took summer trips to Coney Island, New England and camping, ran AAN trips galore, went on an amazingly weird trip from Russia to Spain, went wine tasting, played kickball on a different team, went to a bachelorette party and wedding, and celebrated the holidays with my family. Below is one photo from each month that I love but be sure to go here to check out my favorite photos since the beginning of the blog project.

July

August

September

October

November

December

In general, it was an interesting year where I read 26 books, listened to almost 52 albums, got over a broken heart, traveled a bunch, spent time with my friends and family, ate and drank tons and explored the city I live in. I have a few regrets, but overall I'm happy with my progress as a human during this calendar year.