Brooklyn Water: Also Keeping It Real
Tried some NYC water w/o the faucet-mounted water "purifier" today. Tasted kind of campy/mineraley. Going to go back to the filter.
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September 28, 2006
September 26, 2006
The Big Three Oh
Birthday today. 30th. Little brother called me an "old head" via voicemail.
Had a dream I could fly -- I had artificial bird wings that I was perfecting. My arms grew to nearly the size of my legs due to all testing and flapping. I probably had this dream because of an article I was reading in Wired the night before about a 79lb flying bicycle plane that was built in the 1970's and flown across the English channel.
Overall a day of food and relaxation; made whole wheat pancakes with blackberries, blueberries, bananas and strawberries (blueberry syrup) for breakfast. Also had scrambled eggs with fresh basil and french sea salt on the side. Tall glass of orange juice.
Had some espresso and went to Pier 17 in the afternoon to relax and read with a nice view of Brooklyn and the East River. It was sunny and warm and nice to have no agenda during business hours on a weekday. Not too much air and water traffic; just a few water taxis, the coast guard, a few yachts and barges, and the usual planes on their approach to La Guardia and JFK.
Went to the Oasis Day Spa for an hour long couples massage followed by wine and cheese in the evening. CL and I did a quick survey of our dinner snack and came up with the following origins:
From NJ: Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, Peach Chardonnay
From Iowa: Maytag blue cheese
From Vermont: Cheddar Cheese
From Denmark: Havarti Cheese
September 19, 2006
Most Apartments Are Smaller Than Tennis Courts
Played tennis with Justin today. Looked like it was going to rain from today straight through Friday but it quickly passed overhead.
Observed that though I have, according to my tax measurements, over 500 sq feet to myself that nowhere in my apartment is big enough to swing a tennis raquet safely.
First time playing on clay courts and the first time playing tennis in almost 10 years. Not sure how that happened, but my swing came right back and had a great time.
My old grip tape started to deteriorate within the first 15 minutes of playing. The red dye "bled" onto my hands and looked pretty dramatic.
Definitely used to more "ventilated" sports like cycling. I did not think it was possible for me to sweat through clothes like I did. Note to self: Get headband. Also consider a tennis raquet that wasn't manufactured in the early 1980s...
September 17, 2006
Conflict Free Diamond Sellers Still Want Blood: Yours
The following sentence contains profanity. This has been done on purpose to fully express my feelings: The Diamond District is populated mostly by sick fucking vultures.
Who, with any sense of class, puts aggressive young women (with partially exposed chests) into shop windows to entice guys into the store who are looking for a ring to represent monogamy to the one they love?!
To their credit, some of their old-school watch repair guys are pretty skilled. They took an off-the shelf wristband and cut it and brushed the steel clasp to be a near perfect match to my old Kenneth Cole watch, finally closing out my search for a replacement (after two unanswered order forms were sent to the company's service center).
September 14, 2006
English for Short Order Cooks
In bodegas and diners around the city you can see how positions are staffed by the level of English spoken; the hosts and hostesses have the greatest handle on the language, followed by the waiters, then the chefs, then the bus boys and girls.
Two of my favorite food order relays overheard at a local diner are:
Sandwich, "all the way" (all the toppings) and
"french fries, two times" (two orders)
Love it.
Karma Often Wears Strange Disguises
Recently I ordered a new computer on eBay. The price was a noticeable notch lower than other comparably equipped machines but there was something strange about it; the listing used a photo from Apple's website, not a photo of the actual machine being sold. I went with a gut feeling and decided something was going to be a little off but that it would turn out ok.
When the machine arrived it looked like it had been hit by a truck, not delivered by one. Many would be outraged by this but since it was insured I decided to follow the path and see where it led. Outside of higher level offices in large companies it seems that nobody has any follow through and it took some effort (and 60 days) to coordinate between the seller, the shipper, and a local repair shop to get a check to cover the damages.
After I sold my old computer and collected the insurance I had enough money left over to buy a Treo 700p that I had been eyeing for a while. So for a little time and energy I got a computer upgrade and a new top-of-the-line smartphone and broke even financially. Not bad.
(I'll eventually buy a G5 case on ebay (when they're cheaper) and swap the guts myself, but for now the machine is happily whirring away under my desk where it's blemishes can't be seen.)
Taking a closer look at my office, it is a wealth of fortune, actually; the two Herman Miller Aeron chairs were built from the parts of three such chairs found discarded on sidewalks around the Park Slope area within a two week period (only needed to buy one chair frame and a hydraulic lift), the deeply-discounted and stylish "floor model" leather furniture, the bookshelf that I found in the alley that is the same make and model as another one I already had, the corkboard donated by a neighbor who was moving out, and the stacks of matching black milk crates that were collected over the course of monts in the city are perfect for stacking and storing magazine collections in. I have no complaints.
If you put good things and energy and work out into the universe it WILL find it's way back.
September 09, 2006
Everyone Should Be a Writer
Writers are some of the most interesting people. They want to learn about the world and want to get into other people's heads. They listen. They have stories. Everyone should be required to keep a journal because I think it gives those who do it perspective on their own lives and better defines them as people.
When writing you are forced to NOT gloss over your life. You pick out details like cinematographers do. You remember things that would have ordinarily forgotten. You laugh. You get upset. You feel. You work through (or at least vent about) problems you experience. You learn how to formulate linear thoughts and proper sentences. You also learn how to spell. You get a better understanding of yourself, who you are, what kind of life you lead, and what kind of person you want to become.
Even if nobody has access to your journal you will at least be able to take your more organized self out of your home each day and into the world to share with everyone.
September 07, 2006
City Sounds, They Are 24/7/365
Though the sounds at night are not multi-layered like the day (cars on top of trains on top of people yelling on top of construction on top of planes on top of...), it's still an all-night-every-night thing.
I am glad to have an air purifier in the bedroom as it makes a nice white noise that takes the edge off most everything happening outside. While I bought it mostly to help CL's allergies and to do battle against NYC's famous particulate-level count, in retrospect it sure could have come in handy in trying to sleep through the dogs.
Last summer we were tortured by the howls of this/these crazy dog(s). The crazy dog(s) next door would wail all night as if it/they were trying to gnaw it's/their own legs off to get out of a bear trap, and I mean all night. All night every night for about 3 months. They were right across the alley from us and there is not much we could do. I think the neighbors called the cops on them. Others tried screaming out the window to "shut the f--- up". To no avail.
Eventually they moved out or died and we were able to sleep a little more soundly.
Tonight at about 1am I heard a horrendous screaming coming from the sidewalk in front of my apartment. Unsure what it was but it was at full volume -- kind of like what you might expect to hear if someone just witnessed a murder before their very own eyes. The screaming was constant with the exception of this person taking breaths of air every once in a while. I rushed to front window to see what was going on.
The screams are coming from a middle-aged woman standing at our crosswalk. Nobody else is responding (and there are a dozen people on the sidewalk in the area). The light turns green and she stops screaming and walks down the road. A half block later she starts again.
September 06, 2006
Riding the Rapids of Wine
When you start a new hobby later in life it is a really strange thing -- there is a sense of urgency, a self-conscious realization of how far "behind" you are, of how much you have to learn.
Wine is one of those things, like life, that you just can't rush. The only way to taste a thousand wines is to taste a thousand wines. The only way to learn what one grape is like is to spend some time with it, it's neighbors, it's friends, and it's transplanted friends of friends.
I remember thinking to myself, when I was just 4 bottles into Shiraz that I longed to know more. I wanted to know the vocabulary of wine and to speak about it from a place of confidence and excitement -- but the only way to get there was simply to get going, and to just pay attention along the way.
We're getting there. We've gone to many wine tastings (that are so popular around NYC) and have tried grapes from around the world and love them. I've shed my worries about the vocabulary and openly disagree with wine labels and have gotten back into my old "free association" right-brain days and will make offhanded remarks like "if you could juice tree bark this is what it would taste like" and "it smells just like this label looks -- I am at this chateau playing frisbee with the owner's dog".
There is still much to learn, and like technology it is always changing -- next years grapes will be different than this years; the vines will be one year older, maybe there will be a drought, maybe rain. Maybe the vineyard will use computer sensors to monitor the crops, maybe the grapes will be crushed by bare feet.
Such are the raging rapids of life.
September 02, 2006
Hot Dogs, The Presumed Snack, Dinner
Hot Dogs in America have somehow come to defy manners. It's one of those foods that people just prepare it (because it's easy?) and let you know you can start eating. They don't ask you. You don't ask them. They are just there and you become the jerk for turning them down.
Hot dogs are not for everyone. As a matter of fact they shouldn't be for anyone. They are vile, terrible things.
September 01, 2006
My Bank's Robot is Programmed to Hate Me (and how)
Got a funny notice from citibank today. It came in the usual unmarked white envelope from some nondescript place in San Antonio, Texas. It was my personal loan statement. Before I reveal why the note is funny, a little background about this loan;
One of the defining moments of my young life was when my apartment was broken into in the late 1990s. I had finished art school and was in that uncomfortable lurch of trying to apply my blossoming talent into some form of career. I was struggling. The closest thing I could get to a design job was a reception position at a small branding firm in the warehouse district of Minneapolis. At night I worked at a bakery in a high-end grocery store.
Along with answering phones I also had the opportunity to enter in time sheets and poke my head in on weekly progress meetings for the company. In my down time I would attempt to use the internet to learn more HTML and to IM with this young lady I had taken a liking to. The computer was excruciatingly slow so I asked the CEO for a new one. I said it would not only help me do my work quicker, but a sexy new iMac would be a very stylish addition to the entry to their office. He agreed. The office manager was irate that I went direct to him instead of consulting her - but that's office politics and that's the way I worked back then.
The new iMac did everything I had hoped. After installing Dreamweaver I was allowed to create a company newsletter in HTML. It had all kinds of fun items like the hot projects for the week, who was working on what, who was going to be on vacation, and more. As far as I could tell everyone hated it and never wrote to the "editor" with any questions, news, or anything, really.
But it was good enough, after making it a dozen newsletters in I was getting a very good handle on HTML and building up a small portfolio. I decided that despite being debt-ridden I would have to take out one last loan and get a computer so that I could take this work home with me.
Apple obliged and a week later I had a brand-new Tangerine iMac on an Apple loan. I loaded it up with software and started designing as many web interfaces and sites (mostly for aarondeutsch.com) as possible. I started to make progress. The web was becoming a very real possibility for me.
One day I came back from work, unlocked my door, and immediately felt that something was off. One of the doors for my stereo cabinet was slightly ajar (yes, I'm the kind of person that notices that kind of detail) -- but it could have been the cat. I took a casual walk around my small studio+ apartment, head tilted slightly to the side in a curious fashion. Kictchen looked ok... When I entered the bedroom nook I found my computer and webcam gone, my climbing backpack on the floor, and a chef's knife on my desk. My heart sank.
Though I still had half of my computer loan to pay, my first reaction was one of relief; if I had caught the theif in the act he/she would have been trapped in my apartment with only one way out, through me with a knife. After this was the feelings of confusion, anger, disappointment.
There is a law in MN that all keys to all apartments must be kept somewhere on the premesis in case of fire. We had a steel box in the boiler room that contained all of our keys. Though it was kept locked today it was forced open and everyone's keys were missing. The police had been notified. Everyone was getting new locks. Mine was the only apartment they had broken into.
The scenario is easy to recreate: get keys downstairs, quick scan of apartment for valuables, find computer and backpack. Think to put computer in backpack so it seems less suspicious, find it doesn't fit, get knife to cut it open, abandon and run out of apartment with the most valuable item you can find.
I knew it probably wansn't a terribly prudent choice, but just giving up was not a consideration for even a moment. I would spite not only the theif and fate, but I would spite myself and my debt by getting the dreaded credit card. I would not only buy another computer, it would be an even better computer, the recently released Powermac G4. A computer actually listed on the 'restricted for export' list of items by the US Government because it was considered a "supercomputer" and could be used to create nuclear bombs or God knows what.
And you know how the story goes. You add a few "necessities" to the credit card, like, say, a bed. Maybe some new cloths for work. Then if you don't pay off your balance each month a funny thing happens over time; despite paying the monthly minimum (or even more), your balance ceases to decrease over time. You actually fall into a money vortex and your bill is always the same amount. I had stopped using my credit card for well over a year and yet I had virtually the same balance every month. I owed almost $11,000.
It was tough to get a loan in the first place. I had borrowed $6000 from Citibank when I first opened an account with them upon moving to the city, in an effort to stay here without a job and get established. That wasn't a problem. But $11,000? A lot of people were afraid to take the risk. Banks who were advertising loans to anyone with a pulse turned me down. I had to apply at my own bank, from where I paid off my first loan early, almost three times before they said "yes".
The stipulations: payments had to be auto-deducted from my checking account each month. Additional payments were to be mailed with these funny little forms you could only get from the bank itself. No matter, the CC would finally have an "end date" for final payoff. At long last.
A few months ago we started taking in more work and were on the path to getting ahead financially. I noticed that my "personal loan" appeared on my online interface which meant that making additional payments meant only selecting it from a menu and pressing "go".
After two huge rifle-shot payments the loan was gone. The messgage on this month's bank statement read:
08/24/06 PAYMENT ACCOUNT FORCE CLOSED -THANK YOU
Account "forced closed". I love it. No, I really do.