very simple

Two weeks later, and my photos are finally going online. I downloaded the trial version of Photoshop, which lets you try it out for 30 days, and went a little nuts cleaning up the pictures. In any event, they’re here. I’ll post later to point out some of my favorites, but they’ve got some descriptive headings if you want to take a look right now. Needless to say, as cool as these pictures are, they don’t begin to compare to what the actual beauty of the place is.

[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating these albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, photos now appear directly below.

I’m home (as if you couldn’t tell from the random flurry of new blog posts that are not actually from today). I had an excellent time (other than the part where I had to fly for 26 hours in each direction), and I’m completely exhausted. I’m going to be working on cleaning up the photos from my trip for a bit (which may involve purchasing some sort of photoshop product), but in the meantime, I thought I’d share one of the coolest things ever.

There is this lake in Palau that many many years ago got cut off from the ocean, isolating a population of jellyfish from any of there natural predators. Over time, these jellyfish, not having any predators, lost their ability to sting, and live in a symbiotic relationship with the algae inside of them. They basically survive through photosynthesis, even though they’re animals. Which is just really really cool.

Even cooler? you can go swimming with them. Upwards of 16 million of them live in this lake (they were all but wiped out from the temperature changes from El Nino a few years back, but the nodules or eggs that they laid in the walls of the lake managed to survive and repopulate the lake).

Hit play to check it out for yourself.

(and yesterday). My apartment is very drafty. The bedroom is the worst, thanks in large part to the air conditioning unit that is sitting in one of my windows – So much air was getting through, even with the cover that I put on, that my shades were actually fluttering (fluttering!) this morning. Not much I can do except put plastic window seals on all the windows. Unfortunately, when it gets a little warmer out, I have the reverse problem…

One of the quirks of living on the second floor of an 80-year old, 18-story building. Steam heat. They need to push enough heat through from the basement to keep the top floor heated to at least the minimum legal levels – Which means that when it’s not absolutely frigid out (like it’s been for the past few days), it can be a furnace in here. So the draft becomes a plus. Heck, I’ve been tempted to turn on the A/C.

Really, though – having to walk around my apartment wrapped in a blanket isn’t that big a deal. And I’m generally a naturally cold person too (so this may be partially in my head). But hey! I took some pictures of the apartment last weekend before I ventured out into the snow. I’m almost done furnishing (ordered a headboard and some more rugs from pottery barn today), but otherwise, I think I’m just about done. Here you go – they’re pretty self-explanatory (ignore the socks I forgot to pick up before taking the pictures!):

Now I just have to get around to hiring someone to reupholster the chair and the ottoman, and then I can decide that I hate everything and want to redecorate!

…that make you realize that traveling for work is actually not the same as being on vacation. Like spending an entire, beautiful, rain-free Saturday never getting further outside than your interior courtyard-facing patio because you have to work all day. And when I say "all day" I mean from when I woke up at 10 in the morning (oops! slept in!) until 11 p.m.

All meals? courtesy of room service. My one spot of inspiration involved getting them to hook me up with extension cords for both the power and the internet on my computer, just so that I could sit outside all day. So, while I run the risk of tripping over said cords and breaking my neck, I think it’s worth it.

Anyway, I finally had time this morning to upload my photos from last weekend, when I went and stood on line at the Vatican for, like 3 and a half hours in order to get in and see the Sistine Chapel (note to readers – when you come to Rome and hear about how the vatican is both open and free on the last Sunday of the month, don’t get sucked in – go on another day and just pay the $20 to get in). I ended up standing on line in front of a bunch of horrifically obnoxious contiki tour group teenagers, who thought it was perfectly appropriate to (a) continuously try to cut the line and (b) dress like britney spears when visiting the pope’s house. I learned such fascinating insights while waiting such as "hipster jeans are, like, totally out this year!". I wanted to shoot myself after about an hour.

In other news, we did finally hear back from my brother, who is abso-fucking-lutely the luckiest guy around – he’s getting the best assignment in micronesia for the next two years – working in the small business development office in Koror, Palau. I’m already researching scuba resorts. And here he was worried that he’d end up in a place with no electricity.

ciao for now…I think it’s time for a nap…

[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating these albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, photos referenced in this post now appear below.

week 1:

week 2:

So I’ve been here for almost a week, and I’m starting to get used to it. I’ve been working a lot (that is why I’m here after all), but I did get the chance to do some exploring this weekend. In particular, I went to the Pantheon, the forum, Palatine Hill, and the Domus Aurea. And I took lots of pictures.

On Sunday, before I settled in to do some work, I did manage to find my way to the Prada on via del Condotti (It’s right at the bottom of the spanish steps, my hotel is right at the top). I was forced to buy a new pair of shoes thanks to the cobblestones that destroyed one of the two pairs of heels I brought with me. So clearly I needed to replace my ~$60 dead aerosoles with a pair of prada ponyskin loafers with the comfy driving moc bottom. The worst part about it? with the dollar in the toilet, I’m pretty sure I could have bought the same pair in NYC for less money. But there’s something about being in Italy, and not having to pay for any of the ordinary stuff (hotel, airfare, meals) that makes buying obscenely expensive shoes seem perfectly reasonable. And they are really comfortable.

Anyway, it’s 11 at night here, and I’ve got to be at the clients’ offices fairly early tomorrow, so I’m signing off….enjoy the photos.

I cooked dinner in my new apartment for the first time this week, thanks to the installation of kitchen plumbing and my stove. I’m still waiting for the electrician to come back and hook up the electrical part of the dishwasher, but other than that, and a few touch ups to the paint job here and there, it’s about done.

Just as a reminder, this entry has all the photos of what the apartment looked like before my dad and stepmom moved out…

Like I said, it’s almost there. It’s certainly "home" now, and I’m getting used to the new neighborhood. I did have to go back to the old ‘hood this morning for a haircut (I’m certainly not changing hairdressers for a 3-mile move), and it was kind of weird. Particularly to walk past my old building and realize that I had no reason to walk in…

This is the first day in quite some time where I actually refuse to do anything apartment-related (OK, fine, I’m doing laundry at the moment, but that’s something I’d need to do whether I was moving or not).

I got my new mattress yesterday, and then proceeded to go a little nuts at Bed Bath and Beyond…Just because all I needed were some new sheets, didn’t mean that I shouldn’t buy a new comforter, isotonic pillows, regular pillows (for the decorative shams), an anti-allergen mattress cover, and a whole bunch of other stuff that required me to have everything delivered. So, there was that. And I bought knobs for my cabinets, got my intermittently crashing cable box replaced, and received a fresh direct delivery with many cases of water and diet coke.

My countertop is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, which means that I should have a fully-functioning kitchen by the end of this week. So now, I finally downloaded all of those pictures that I took during the move and the immediate aftermath. Click on the image in order to see a larger version…

Here’s what my old apartment looked like before I moved out (with the lamp that the movers "lost" featured prominently amidst my stuff…

Then, once most of my stuff got moved out…

Oh, and here are some final photos of the construction next door – The additional four floors are nearly complete…

The kitchen, finally getting put into place…

The evolution of the bathroom…

I’d show you photos of the rest of the place, but the only ones I have are just pictures of boxes stacked up against the walls. The next installment will be what the apartment actually looks like now that I’ve unpacked (and put away) almost everything.

Ok. So everything is set for me to move on wednesday, except…the apartment.

So I have to call tomorrow morning and see about possibly moving my moving date back a day or two. Just so the guys can get the floors done. I have no expectation that the kitchen will be anywhere near complete by Friday either (luckily, my parents gave me keys to their place). If I have to move on wednesday, either due to moving company or freight elevator issues, we’ll figure it out, but in the meantime…here’s where it stands…

The kitchen has actually been sheetrocked, including the drop ceiling (I’m putting in recessed lighting). The sheetrock, of course, is a lovely shade of fluorescent blue.

The bathroom is waiting for new tile, so that they can install the sink and the new shower fixtures….and yeah, I originally wasn’t going to replace the shower fixtures, but it turned out that I needed some sort of regulator in the wall, which wasn’t compatible with the old fixtures (said regulator, of course, to prevent the water from scalding me intermittently, so, good idea!). It also turns out that separate hot and cold taps in the shower are actually now illegal in NYC. So I had to get a single integrated handle. you can see the beginnings of that installation.

They got the bedroom floor sanded last week, but not the living room (hence my attempt at a delay – they still need to be painted and varnished (I’m pickling them because they’re not in great shape).

The living room has been painted in this light brown shade that I found at Restoration Hardware, which I love. I needed something neutral, because my artwork and furniture is fairly bold colors, but I didn’t want white or beige.

New electrical outlets in the foyer, where there previously had been none (there are also new outlets in the kitchen, and they replaced a bunch more wiring than originally planned because it was in pretty bad shape – but there was conduit, which made it a relatively simple job.

And finally, the kitchen cabinets that I spent this weekend putting together so that they could get hung this week.

Here are pictures of everything…

Other than that, I’ve been packing up a storm, Housing Works came yesterday to pick up the furniture I wasn’t taking with me, and I’m writing this entry as procrastination (I needed something to do after finishing Harry Potter, but that’ll be the next entry).

So, I was all excited today, because I got my new iMac, delivered to my office, sooner than expected.

Pretty cool, right? The only problem was that I clearly needed to take a cab, as the package weighed almost 30 pounds and I wasn’t about to drag it onto the subway. So I catch a cab outside of my office, and when we get down to around 23rd street, it becomes quite apparent that traffic is not moving. So I get out of the cab prepared to drag the computer the final 3 blocks, and when I get closer to my building, there’s this…

There was apparently a suspicious package, right on my corner. Once I got inside my building, the police actually wouldn’t let us back out, thereby pissing off a bunch of people who are apparently incapable of cooking dinner. I, of course, was just curious about what would happen. Because when there’s a suspicious package 50 feet away, and they’ve got the guys in the full body-armor bomb squad suits wandering around, it makes perfect sense to hang out in your building lobby right behind the giant plate glass windows. In the end, it turned out to be nothing. Well, not nothing, there was some sort of box taped to a lightpole, but it wasn’t a dangerous box.

My personal theory? it somehow got left in all of the detritus from Saturday’s street fair on my street, and was probably an improvised trash bin from one of the vendors that didn’t get cleaned up at the time. Because on Saturday night after the fair, there was trash everywhere, including piled up on the median in the middle of the street.

The reason I was actually up in my new ‘hood tonight was because I had tickets with friends to see Lucinda Williams at the Beacon Theater. Which was awesome, because she’s always awesome. This is the third summer in a row that we’ve seen her play (last year also at the Beacon and the summer before that in Central Park). I love her so much that I even bought her Live at the Fillmore CD when it came out, ignoring the fact that I already own the original albums with almost all of the songs already.

Tonight she actually played a bunch of new stuff (she tests out new songs on her audience), and for the most part it was pretty great. But the best part of the show? Was when she said that she had an old friend backstage that she was going to ask to come out and help her sing a song…

…and it was Elvis Costello. People in the audience kind of went nuts at that point. They were great together, and it was just such a great little surprise.