I guess New York might be a little dirty after all…
Check out this picture of people power-washing a building.
http://www.trevorlittle.com/2007/01/03/power-washing-188-suffolk-st/
Dirty Dirty NYC
05-Jan-07The Best and Worst Phone I’ve ever Owned
08-Dec-06After moving to NYC I started realizing the limitations of Cingular’s “fewest dropped calls of any carrier” claim: you need to have reception to place or answer a call before you can drop it.
Now I’m not saying Cingular is necessarily bad in New York. If you look at the coverage maps for any carrier, you’ll see Manhattan as one big block of max signal strength. I think it’s these damn high-rises and prewar buildings everywhere that severely degrade indoor reception.
So after being annoyed w/Cingular for about a month for my lack of even semi-constant reception, I decided it was time to take action and make a switch. Now given my reason for changing carriers, you’d think that I would seek out and subscribe to the carrier with the best service in New York.
Well… I thought about it, but the best/only good carrier is Verizon. Unfortunately, they also have the worst phones… So instead I decided to go by my usual criteria… (the reason I switched from Verizon to Cingular three years ago even though Verizon was still better back then – and the reason I decided to go with T-Mobile)… A COOL ASS PHONE.
So check it… the Blackberry “Pearl” (8100). I can’t say it’s “The Perfect Phone”… but it’s by far the closest thing I’ve seen to it. You can configure everything from fonts, to the menu layout, to even reassigning any key to be whatever you want it to be. Combine that with an unlimited data plan and push email and I sometimes wonder if I really care about whether or not it can make phone calls…
Unfortunately, that’s the one thing it can’t do well. Don’t get me wrong… again no complaints about the phone itself whatsoever… But if talking on Cingular felt like being a kid trying to play telephone with tin cans and string; T-Mobile leaves me feeling like a retarded kid trying to have a conversation with the radio.
I’ll admit, at first I was irate about this even more inferior service and ready to smash my phone up some T-Mobile rep’s nostrils. Then I discovered how ‘useful’ an unlimited data plan can be. Now, I’m instead learning to adapt my phone usage habits to cater to the limitations of the service [read: addicted to crackberry].
So if you find that I don’t call you, pickup, or return your phone calls… it’s for one of two reasons:
1. I don’t have reception.
2. I have reception but it’s so spotty that I don’t wanna deal with trying to have an unintelligible conversation.
Now if you email/IM/text message me on the other hand… I’ll be all over that shit.
The End of an Era
13-Nov-06The Broadlane SF office officially closed it’s doors and relocated to Oakland this last Friday. Even though I no longer work there it’s a hard to digest that the office building I spent the last 5 1/2 years of my life at is no longer as it was.
Despite the complaints I’ve had over the years, or perhaps because of it – and all the weekends and late nights spent in that office; it’s hard to fathom Broadlane not being there. I tend to be easily nostalgic about things, but I considering it’s the longest time I’ve ever spent under one roof (except for the house I grew up in), I think it’s fair. Everything else aside it was at very least a pretty damn cool office.
Here’s a photo tribute to my home for the last half-decade. [photos]
A Delayed Realization…
08-Nov-06Those of you who’ve been to my place in Emeryville know that I had a decent amount of kitchenware (pots, pans, dishes, glasses, etc).
When I was packing all this stuff up for my move to New York, I tried my best to get rid of things that I “wouldn’t” need. Now while in reality this is pretty much everything other than a few scotch/wine glasses; there’s a bit of guilt and remorse involved in getting rid of all your stuff. [And of course I need stuff for my parents to cook with when they come visit].
So when I finally started unpacking the kitchenware in my new apartment I did so with a bit of anxiety that things wouldn’t fit. Surprisingly and much to my delight, everything fit AND there was even a bit of extra space. I remember saying to myself… “Wow… this kitchen has a lot of storage space considering how small it is”. So for the last month and a half or so I’ve lived in bliss thinking that I have a very compact but usable kitchen.
Now, despite having all this “cookware” – I don’t cook. The reasons are a plenty. 1. I don’t know how. 2. I’m afraid of cockroaches 3. I’m too lazy, 4,5,6. I’m afraid of cockroaches, and 7. I’m too lazy.
So as a result, my kitchen currently contains:
- 1 unopened Kit Kat bar
- 2 cans of Arizona Green Tea
- 5 bottles of Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice
- 5-6 empty bottles of the previous beverages (I store the empty bottles in the fridge so that the cockroaches won’t smell them)
- 1 bottle of Scotch
- 5 bottles of wine
- 1 box of cookies that Michelle brought over cuz she knows that I don’t have food
- 1 can of walnuts that Angela brought over cuz she knows that I don’t have food.
And of course all of this (except for the wine and the scotch) are stored in my fridge because of the whole cockroach thing.
So today, while IMing w/a friend about the fact that I really should get some food; I decided that I was going to go grocery shopping the next chance I get… And then it hit me… I HAVE NO SPACE LEFT FOR FOOD.
My New Razor
22-Oct-06My mom bought me my first razor sometime during 7th grade. It was a Gillette Mach 3. It had 3 blades and a chrome and black handle. It wasn’t quite as cool as my dad’s old school metal razor, but it did the job just fine.
Fast forward a few years to college. All my friends had electric razors. In my naivety about the fact that I have far more facial hair than my yellow brothers, I decided to give it a try. My first shave with one was painful to put it mildly. Instead of ‘cutting’ the hairs it felt more like it was pulling them out. To make things worse, the shave left me with a 5 o’clock shadow. Disappointed, I gave the razor away and went back to my trusty old Gillette.
Fast forward again to my move to NYC. Somehow I manage to lose my Gillette. (Don’t worry I’m not too sentimental about that razor… well I might have shed a few tears). So I was left shaving with a disposable travel razor that I’ve had for about two or three years now. Yes I know, ‘disposable’ <> 3 years… but hey, I’m lazy and disposing entails going out and purchasing.
So let me tell you… shaving with a razor with dull blades feels like scraping a jagged rock against your face. And to top it off, you end up cutting yourself more because you’re fighting to get the razor down your cheek.
After a few weeks of this mortification of the flesh, I found myself in CVS standing before a plethora of razors. There were razors with 3, 4 or 5 blades, razors with/without gel strips, and even conventional razors that need batteries.
[The odd thing is that unlike electronics, old models don't seem to get retired. It's like going to a computer store and seeing a dot matrix printer for sale next to the color laser/fax/scanner/copier combo printer. The even stranger thing is that the price of the old products haven't gone down. The newer ones are just more expensive.]
Being the technology whore that I am… I of course had to get the one with 5 blades, gel strip, back blade (for those hard to reach spots), and yes… power. I figured that considering I’ve had my last razor for about 15 years, I should probably as get up to date as possible for the next 15.
So back to this power thing… I must admit that I had a bit of trepidation about buying a device that would send ‘electric pulses’ to my face. The theory behind it is that it makes the hair follicles stand up so that you get a closer shave.
So I get home with my shiny new Gillette Fusion Power and I get ready for my first shave. I first try w/out the power just to test it out as a razor. Not bad… 5 blades is definitely better than 3. The gel strip is kinda cool too. The only thing is that the razor pivots more than my old one and as a result it’s kinda hard to put pressure on the edge. That’s okay though, that’s what the back blade is for. So now on to the power.
I press the button and the whole thing just starts to vibrate. I stand there looking at this thing wondering what the hell electronic pulses have to do with vibration. Just to make sure I wasn’t going to electrocute my face I touched the blade with my finger to see what these so called pulses felt like… zilch. No tingling, no pulsing, just vibration. So after all this, I finally start shaving with the thing. It felt like I had an electric razor on my face; I couldn’t feel the blades at all. After the initial ‘hmm… do I like this vibrating razor?’ and shaving patch after patch of my face turning the razor on and off; I decided to leave it on. The end result… easily the closest shave I’ve ever had.
Now I don’t know if it’s the fact that the blades are new, or that there’s 5 of them, or if there really is something to this whole powered razor thing… but I must say I’m loving this new razor. I still try not to shave more than once a week if I can help it, but at least now I’m not walking around the house with little pieces of toilet paper stuck to my face afterwards.
My New Digs!!
20-Sep-06Yes, believe it or not… 6 long weeks after moving to NYC I finally got to move into my new apartment on Sunday. Di happened to be in town for work and had the honor of being my first house guest.
Unfortunately that night we were greeted by two unannounced visitors (read: coachroaches). BLEH, BLEH, BLEH. I saw the first one and was poising myself to kill him when a second one ran out to run interference. Unluckily for him I was ready to strike. His ploy did partially work though as #1 disappeared by the time I looked back. I haven’t seen any of those buggers since, but I’ve been sleeping with the light (read: clip-on desk light) on since. BLEH.
The funny thing is that even before seeing the roaches, I had gone out to the hardware store around the corner and spent about $45 on ‘preventatives’. I wasn’t expecting to have coachroaches, but seeing as the fumigator wasn’t coming till the end of this week I figured I might as well take some precautionary measures myself. Tonight I was at home depot about bought some night lights (I read that they don’t like light).
(roach killas & night light)
In other news, my bookcase and desk have arrived. I must say, I’m pretty impressed with Crate and Barrell. Next day courier service is only $15 per order.
That’s the light that’s been keeping the roaches away.
As promised, here are some pictures of my apartment/neighborhood.
Congrats to J & Nikki on their recent nuptials over Labor Day weekend! For those of you who hadn’t heard (or haven’t guessed from the accompanying picture); yours truly was given the honor of officiating the ceremony. How’d it go you ask? Well, despite pre-ceremony jitters my only real f-ups were having “You Nicole” sound like “unicole” and saying “man and wife” but thinking I had said “man and woman” and correcting myself.
In retrospect, I must say that the experience was not nearly as nerve racking as I had built it up to be in my head. I do want to thank Steve, Sals, and Daph for their help with all the last minute revisions to the ceremony, rides, housing, etc… (and especially for patiently allowing me to rehearse in their presence).
If any of y’alls need someone to officiate your gig, I’m here for ya.
My Favorite Time of the Year…
08-Aug-06… college football season. I know I should start blogging about my new life here in NYC… and I will at some point… but all I gotta say is… “You know it… you tell the story… you tell the whole damn world this is BEAR TERRITORY!!!”
Unfortunately I won’t be there in Memorial Stadium every weekend season tickets in hand… but I’ll definitely be spending every Saturday in some sports bar in (hopefully) the West Village watching the game. Here’s a nice uplifting article on SI.com about our beloved Golden Bears.
ROLL ON YOU BEARS!
So long San Francisco…
07-Aug-06As most of you know I’ve moved to New York. I know that this is the right decision and I have no regrets about it… But in all my pondering over what to do with my life I’ve never thought about missing/being away from my friends. It’s not that I don’t love y’alls, but I’ve never been one to think that friendships were dependent upon proximity (I still don’t think this).
That being said, all these going away events and hanging out with everyone has made me appreciate how lucky I really am to have the friends I do. Simply saying that “I feel loved” would be an understatement. When I originally made my decision to move, I wasn’t sure if I was planning on coming back. After all I have no family here and I could technically settle anywhere. I’ve come to realize since then that SF is my home and that all of you are my family.
Thank you all for making me feel so special now and always.
———
Salley gave me a goodbye card before I left that I think is very apropos for my life right now… It reads, “My life has a superb cast, but I can’t figure out the plot”.
The Action of Inaction
24-May-06I’ve come to yet another fork in the proverbial road of life; and this time I’m at a dead halt. Up until now I’ve been cruising down the highway, watching the mile markers, and planning my exit. Now that I’m finally here, I’m at a full stop in the divider, watching the other cars go by on both sides.
They say (and I do too to my indecisive friends) that inaction is an action in itself, and that you’re better off choosing ‘A’ path rather than sitting idly by and letting your future be determined for you. While this is good advice … even great advice; it’s a bit more daunting sitting here in the driver’s seat than I had anticipated.
I’ve never thought myself an indecisive person (I wonder how many of us really do). As it turns out though, I might just not care enough about most things in life to be indecisive about them. While for better or worse I’ve gotten this far with this mindset, this time it’s a bit different.
Whether or not true, I feel like this ‘decision’ will have lasting consequences on the rest of my life. As much as I like Robert Frost and all… I don’t know if ‘all the difference’ is necessarily a good thing. In my case the choices are: NYC vs. SF, job vs. no job, java vs. .net, and status quo vs. carpe diem. (At least this is how I see it).
The sad thing is that I know the ‘correct’ answers to this test: 1> NYC 2> No Job 3> Java and 4> Carpe Diem. Yet, despite this, the practical side of me says… “You can’t just quit your job.. And you can’t just take a job cuz it’s a job”.
As this internal struggle wages on in my head, I can see the consequences of letting life passing me by on both sides of the road.
What’s the conclusion to this story you ask? What’s the resolution that comes from this moment of clarity? Unfortunately, I can’t answer that… I’m not done being indecisive quite yet.