End of the Year Update

HEY!! four days without a new blog! What's going on? Your daily blogs is what keeps me going! Hope all is okay, Justin

Love, nana

Geez, tough crowd!

Well, it's the end of the year. Last week I spent Christmas back in California with my family. Lucky for me, everything went very well after my miserable flight experience. I was afraid that the flight was going to be a bad omen for my trip, but that wasn't the case! Thanks to the calendar this year, I got to experience back-to-back Christmases, one with my family and one with my dad's side of the family on Sunday. And, to top of the gorging festivities, my sister Faryn turned 18 on Monday, so we went to my favorite chain restaurant, Buca di Beppo's.

I got back to New York on Wednesday morning after a red-eye flight from SFO. By the time I got home, it was already 8:00am and I had just enough time to shower, change, and head to work for the day. This being a holiday week, work has been slow and mellow, which aided me greatly after the red-eye. On top of this, Matt Bullock, an old college friend of mine, was in town with his girlfriend, so I met up with them on Wednesday night and took them down to the East Village for dinner, followed by a tinychino down in the Lower East Side.

Now it's Friday and I've finally recovered from the flight. Just in time, since it's New Year's Eve! I've got a few things lined up for the evening, including a party at Sean's apartment and a pub crawl scheduled for 4:00pm. I have no idea how late things are going to happen tonight, but I can tell you that I won't be anywhere near Times Square!!

Until my next update,
J. Riley

Christmas Card For My Fans

There's a first time for everything: your first words, your first steps, your first birthday, your first Christmas, your first bikeride without training wheels, your first day of school, your first time driving a car, your first time legally driving a car, your first (and last) taste of cognac, your first time voting, your first college party, your first illegal download, your first REAL job, and....your first missed flight.

I spent three years as a consultant travelling around the country every week (and hating every minute of it, but that's besides the point). I've flown about 250,000 miles in the last two years on American Airlines alone, but I've never missed a flight. Today, on arguably the busiest flight day of the year, I did it. Normally I fly on the JFK to San Jose / San Francisco flight at around 6:00 or 6:30. So I was chilling...I mean working...at home today mentally preparing for my 2 hour commute to the airport on the subway - and nursing a mean hangover, but that's besides the point. At 2:00, I decided I should probably start packing (I have to leave at 3:00) and get dressed for the day. But first, I figured I'd check on my flight status to make sure that the rain and wind wasn't going to delay my flight. I found my flight reservation and my jaw dropped to the floor - my flight was at 3:45. I couldn't believe it, what was I thinking booking a flight that early??? I threw some clothes on, packed my luggage, and was out the door in about 5 minutes. I caught a cab and $50 later (ouch) arrived at the airport at 3:10. The flight check-in lady said that I was too late and wouldn't be able to catch my flight because I was checking luggage. My luggage being practically empty, I almost considered ditching my luggage, but that wouldn't be the best idea. I told her I didn't care when my baggage arrived, but she said the FAA required that the person be on the same flight as their luggage. She said all I could do is go stand-by on the 6:00 flight. I asked what would happen to my luggage if I didn't get on that flight and she said that it would go to San Francisco on the flight - with or without me. Wait, didn't she just say that that wasn't allowed???

To piss me off even more (as if not having an aisle emergency-row seat wasn't enough), when I got through security my original flight was still boarding but they wouldn't let me fly on it because I was already on stand-by on the 6:00 flight = ANNOYING.

For good measure, the heavens opened up and brought thunder and lightning to the airport right before the 6:00pm flight. So we'll add an hour delay for that. And then, despite already being delayed an additional hour, they couldn't get all the luggage into the plane in time, so we'll go ahead and add another hour for that. Then we get to wait in line to depart for another half hour for a grand total of.....2.5 hour delay! That's fun! The real kicker came on the flight when they couldn't get the VCR to work, so they couldn't show the first decent movie to play on an airplane - Shark Tales. And of course that caused me to miss out on catching up in my sleep....

I'm ready to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow...

Merry Christmas!

J. Riley

Wait, my flight is at

Wait, my flight is at 3, not 6. Oops. (Note the timestamp). I may not be going home afterall if there's bad traffic..

Chilly Willy

It's snowing!! Finally, after months of anticipation and a few weeks of cold nights, we got our first snow last night. It makes the 11 degree weather much more tolerable to know that at least we're getting something (besides frostbite) out of it. Now, where did I put those beanie hats....

My weekend (uhh...like most) began on Friday when I got home from work all amped to cook my organic, free-range whole chicken for myself and some lucky guests. I stopped by the store on my way home and bought all the ingredients I needed (you know, onions, fruits, rosemary, sage, etc.) and I got home early enough to start cooking the bird at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, when I pulled the chicken out of fridge, I realized that the bird had already gone fowl (pun intended) and totally reeked! I was tempted to cook it anyway ("maybe it's just the paper that's making it smell like that"), but thoughts of spelling the world "salmanella" (sp.??) ran through my head and I didn't feel like keeling over just yet.

So when your whole Friday night is screwed up because you bought a chicken a few weeks before you actually cooked it, what other options do you really have? Well, the bars are always open. So I met up with Sean and some of his friends that were going out for a few happy hour drinks and dinner. After eating a mediocre burger, we started hopping mid-town bars and found ourselves at the entrance to a nightclub at about 8:15pm. The cover charge was $8 to get in, but Sean's friend quickly said "No, we're here with 'Mike', the guy with glasses". The bouncer said "Oh, you're with MSI (or MISI or something like that)" and we were like "Uhh...yea...we're from MSI". So we got in for free, and it turned out that this MSI company was having a holiday party inside and had an open bar. So, naturally, we instantly became MSI employees (or friends with "Mike" or "Joe") and our happy hour turned into happy night!

I woke up early on Saturday and headed down to Hell's Kitchen for my monthly gig with some kids from a transitional housing center. This month we took a trip down to Seaport Village to make candles. It was a huge group of volunteers and we had a good time with them at the candle-making facility. It's pretty cook now that I've been on this trip a few times because a lot of the kids know me and I get picked as their "buddy" pretty quickly. Too bad I never got picked for any sports this quick when I was their age ;o)

Saturday night D's mother was in town, so I went with them and Paul & Cathy to Patsy's down near Broadway for an old-fashioned Italian dinner. This place is totally New York style, complete with the serious, no-BS host and the non-smiling older gentlemen waiters dressed in their white coats. This place has been around since 1944 and was one of Sinatra's hang-outs and I can see why. A very old-school ambience to it, it was pretty cool...

Sunday morning I played Cathy a few games of raquetball at our gym. I lost all four games; no wonder I never got picked quickly for sports when I was young ;o). We had some intense games, though, and I'm confident that she will pay for it one of these days! After doing some cleanup and laundry, I met up with Alan for some budget sushi at Yuka. I'd heard about this place for some time but I hadn't actually tried it out. I had a couple great rolls and I walked out of there paying $18 for a full meal of sushi, tax and tip included! Talk about a steal of a deal! With prices like that, I will definitely be eating down there again soon.

I seriously messed up my knee on Sunday afternoon. I wish I could say that I was playing tackle football in the park, or I was running out of a burning house with a pair of babies in my arms, or I was running the New York Marathon. No, this injury is right up my ally and is the result of me running up the stairs in my apartment building and catching the edge of last step with the front of my sandals. I was suspended in mid-air for what seemed like a minute before I went crashing down and landed on me knees at the top of the concrete stairwell. Apparently my right knee landed first because it's busted up pretty good and I got a nice little black and blue lump there. I think it's just a bruise, but it hurt enough to make walking in the morning difficult. Once I got it lubed up by walking in the brisk morning it was a bit better. New York is not very knee-injury-friendly with all the required walking, but I can still get around alright...

Sunday night I got a taste of Christmas when I went to Paul and Cathy's to help with their tree and watch some flicks like Elf. It was nice and cozy inside and snowing outside, so it had a very Christmas feel to it, much like most of the city. New York for the holidays is the stuff legends are made of, and I can see why. It has a very special ambience, but one that cannot be captured with a camera. It's definitely something that I'll remember for quite some time!

Bushism

I like how they spelled "challanges" (sic) for Bush. A bit of a personal touch for our intelligent leader...

Cure for the Common Cold

Wednesdays, especially at night, tend to be days to ponder vacation and travels of the past for me. The prime-time night event for me is my yoga class at my gym. There's a lot of mental and physical relief from the class, all the way up to the final five minutes of class, when the lights go out and you let energy radiate from your frozen body while you lay on your back with your eyes closed and arms out-stretched. Each time I get into this position, I only think of one thing: my vacation in Portugal back in September. The beaches in southern Portugal (Lagos) were prime territory for yoga. Every day, throughout the day, I would swim out into the water and enjoy the serene environment floating on my back with my arms behind my head and legs stretched out, just like yoga. And I would just breathe deeply and could almost fall asleep out in the cold water. I get back into this frame of mind every Wednesday night and I think about my trip, my stories, and my yoga on the beach, with the only sound being the water lapping on the golden sand.

I dress lightly for the gym, which is only a few blocks away. I wear my warm-up pants and a cotton sweater, gloves, and a beanie and have to practically run to the gym before I freeze solid. Today was no exception - it was cold out there! By the time I got to the gym, my body temperature dropped from 98.5 degrees to about 37 degrees. The light wind went right through my sweater and punished by face, neck, and whole body. So, after yoga, I spent some time going up to Northern Europe - Scandanavia. I do this by heading upstairs and waltzing into the sauna for a session. Considering the weather, I thought I would put my body through an extended session, Finnish style, to see what it would do for my walk home.

In 2001, when I was working in Germany for the summer, some friends and I went up to Finland to visit my Finnish friend Anssi for an extended weekend trip. Anssi is very well travelled and loves to get into discussions about cultures that he's experienced, so he is very good at explaining his own culture. One important aspect of the Nordic culture is their sauna. We took a trip out to his summer home, which was on a lake in the woods and had no running water and limited electricity. And, of course, a sauna. It was a wood-fired sauna and he would bring a bucket of lake water into the sauna and ladel water onto the sauna rocks to raise the temperature inside. He would explain to us the importance of the lake's water's minerals and the elements of the birch branch that we would slap on each other. Once our body temperature was rocking, we would sprint down to the little boat dock on the lake and jump into the frigid water, immediately closing all of the pores that were wide open from sitting in the sauna. We would repeat this process for several hours.

This is all I ever think of when I sit in the sauna - my four days of sauna bliss in Scandanavia. So, for tonight's session, I decided I would heat up, take a freezing cold shower, and then repeat the process a few times. The first shower was painfully cold, and I just stayed in long enough for me to cover my whole body with the freezing water and then jumped back into the sauna. And that's when the amazing events take place - the sauna's warmth quickly dries off the cold water and I start sweating again. The second shower stage was just climactic. It was comfortable being in the cold water and I could stay in as long as I wanted because the heat would just radiate from my body. I knew at that point that the walk home was going to be fun :).

Stepping out of the shower, I dried my hair off and left the rest of my body wet. By the time I had walked to my locker, my whole body was nearly dry from my skin's heat. Amazing. I quickly dressed in my light clothing and headed outside to see how the temperature was. This, my friends and family, is the cure for the common New York winter cold. I was so comfortable outside that I even took off my beanie and gloves and strolled home like it was June....

I also spent some time reviewing picture from my old travels today. I have been very fortunate to spend time in many parts of the world and if I could impart any wisdom on someone, it would be to see as much of the world as you can, especially when you're young and have crazy vacation time as a student. There really is no better time. Going over my photos from my trips to South America and Europe, I was reminded of Roland Vas's words of wisdom regarding taking pictures - they mean nothing without a person in them. I realized how few pictures I have of me and all of my great friends and family members. As I get older, I'm looking back at these pictures and I want to see what we all looked like a mere two, three, four, ten years ago. Sadly, those pictures are few and far between. If I want a picture of Machu Picchu, I can buy a postcard. But I can't buy a postcard of me and some of my best friends goofing off at our hotel with crazy hairstyles (like my mohawk in Brazil)! So, from now on, those will be the focus of my digital eye....

J. Riley

Celebrated Hawks to Return to NYC Home

This story has been dominating the news here in the city. Crazy New Yorkers :) !!

Spanish for Dinner

I once took a Food Science class (Foods of the World) in college. The class took place from 7-10pm on Monday evenings, and it was impossible to concentrate on ingredients and culinary cultures when I was starving to DEATH (weight scales have always presented evidence that I'm starving to death, 24x7 ;o) . Well college is over and I successfully gained a few pounds.

So last night I experienced deja vu, all over again. I showed up to my Spanish class directly after my 1.5 hour commute from North Bronx at 6pm. The teacher had the brilliant idea to focus that session's lesson on foods - fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. I was livid, and I let the teacher know that this was an irresponsible idea and that we should take a field trip to Harlem to practice pronouncing on a menu and drinking margaritas. That idea didn't go over too well. And neither did my suggestion that we take a field trip next week for our final class session...

My weekend was pretty mellow. Friday night Paul and I explored the East Village and found a cool little French bistro that was packed with people and served free-range meats. Afterwards, we headed up to Murray Hill to catch a live band who's drummer sat near Paul for a few days at work. Awesome band, though, I dug deep and bought a CD.

We sat next to a group of girls and, in the interest of conversation, I asked them if they were groupies. You know, female fans that see all of the shows of the band, right? Well, Paul informed me that I misused the word and that I was implying that I wanted to know if they were not just fans, but sleeping with the band. I later clarified it with the ladies, but the damage was done.

BTW, Paul:
group·ie - A fan, especially a young woman, who follows a rock group around on tours

Looks like I wasn't misusing the word after all....

Saturday night was a night of feasting. A pure, digestive orgy with hundreds of friends, all dressed in costumes that were designed to scare passerbys. Unfortunately, it wasn't me that was involved in the scene. It was rats, right outside of the subway station at about 1:00am. They were literally all over the place, hundreds or thousands of them. I have never seen such a scene in my life, it was disgusting. They were all over some bags of garbage placed on the curb, right in front of the most convenient Jamba Juice in the city. Disgusting....

Last night I finished The Poisonwood Bible. I enjoyed the book immensley, it was quite eye-opening about issues in Africa, the world's involvement in their affairs (especially colonialism and America), things we don't understand about the region, and the ramifications of these things on a family who's father takes them to Africa as missionaries. Two thumbs up!

J. Riley

Can I Rock Pink?

I've added a few new items to my wardrobe lately, which has (temporarily) quenched my thirst for shopping and required me to go buy some more wooden hangers (I mean, I surely can't use metal hangers, right?). I bought a new dual-use shirt at Banana (on sale, of course) and when picking up my new, tailored pants (non-pleated) from Jos A. Bank yesterday, I went ahead and purchased the required "white" shirt for work and formal occassions - textured, non-wrinkle cotton button up (on sale, of course). I find it midly amusing that I will, on a whim, spend double digits on a shirt but have a real hard time spending $3 on fabric softener sheets. In the academic world, this is known as "The Yogurt Affect" (self titled; possible research thesis if I ever decide to get my PhD in marketing).

But, getting back to my title: I can't stand Banana Republic. But I like them, sometimes. What can I say? They do have nice clothes, good quality stuff, fashionable (for a yuppy), and I find their shirts fit me very well. But it's expensive, and it seems like the whole city is crammed into each store. But I bought this new shirt (on sale, I repeat), and it's kinda risque: White base, with lots of red-hue stripes on it....including pink. I mean, my closet it chock-full of blues, yellows, oranges, grays, browns, greens, but very little reds, and NO pinks (or, as they say on Friends, "salmon"). I made sure to save the receipt for this shirt, because I wasn't sure if it would work with me. But, as they say in NY, "pink is the new black". I really have no idea what they mean by that.

After a few hours of ironing last night (I got through two shirts), the new shirt was queued up for today. The question lingered all last night: Can I really rock pink?

Why, Yes I Can.

The J. Riley

The Arts

Humanities and Linguistic Arts - Today I bit the bullet and signed up to attend a Weihnachtsparty on Thursday night. For you non-German speakers (I guess that's everyone, since the Germans don't care about my blog now that the political discussions are over), that is a Christmas Party. The difference is that this is for German speakers! Not German speakers like the ones dad just bought for the family room, but people who speak the language. I haven't attended this before, but they have rented out Hall Berlin and will have a DJ, beer (of course), sausages (of course), potatoes (of course), and other German stuff. It should be fun to dust off that side of my cranium and put the German to use for once. I'll find some people that are at my level and we can pretend to be in Kindergarten and talk about the color of the floor, the alphabet, and practice counting from one to ten.

In other linguistic news, my Spanish lessons are almost over :( . I'm not quite fluent yet, especially when I've been a major slacker on the studying. Today's class had quite an impact on me, as I will get into as this blog develops. The lesson was about possessive pronouns..zzzzzzz.....and romance... zzzzzz....wait, I'm the only guy in the class! So when I was asked to say, in Spanish "The girl is an angel", and the teacher made a point to mention that there is no feminine version of the word "Angel" in Spanish because languages are prejudiced, I quipped "Well, the feminine version would be 'the devil'". I am such a lady's man. I got some giggles from around the table on that one ;o)

Musical Arts - Today, my iPod (on shuffle) decided to play a song from Phish. I'd forgotten that I'd inherited quite a few Phish songs on my computer, so, after Spanish, I returned home and decided to listen to them for a while. We all know about Phish's rendition of Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Gin 'n Juice" song (even though it wasn't really them), but did you know that Phish has a few cd's dedicated to remaking Beatles songs??? I had no idea until now, and it's filled me with loads of energy and motivation - hence the blog, and hence ---

Culinary Arts - For some reason (probably because it was on sale), I ordered a pork tenderloin from Fresh Direct a few months back. After thawing it out last week, I'd declared that I would cook it on Wednesday. And then I declared I would cook it on Thursday. Well, that didn't work, so I would cook it on Friday. Friday was a downer day, so I would cook it on Sunday. Well, I ran out of time on Sunday, so I would cook it on Monday. Monday, I was - SUPER MOTIVATED FROM SPANISH and PHISH music, so the tenderloin is in the oven. I'm looking forward to it....

Literary Arts - I am reading "The Poisonwood Bible" from Barbara Kingsolver. It's about a Southern Baptist family that moves to the Congo in the 50's to become missionaries (just prior to them declaring their independance from Belgium). The book is told from the perspective of the four daughters and the mother. It kept me awake last night because it's getting so juicy! It was a bit slow in the beginning, but I think it's going to become part of Justin's Book Club, along with East of Eden...

And finally, I'm blogging, which falls under the latter category....

The J. Riley

The Forgotten Blog

In my most recent post, I mentioned that I had an important topic (which I subsequently forgot) that I wanted to throw to the masses and get feedback on. Well, today, during my volunteer activities with some kids up at the Bronx Botanical Gardens (which are beautiful, by the way!), the topic returned to me.

In an effort to save money, I have been making my own lunch lately. So, I would like to hear from you what the contents of the ultimate brown-bagged lunch are. Usuually I toss in a sandwhich, yogurt, and a piece of fruit, but that just doesn't do the job. So let me know!! I want feedback on this one!

A Walk Through Time

What happened? I take a few days off from blogging, and suddenly my hits plummet! That's kinda funny because it's like everyone in the WORLD has fallen into the holiday spirit of becoming fat, lazy, and happy :o) !

This week was D's birthday. Paul, Cathy, D, and I have sort of started a tradition of going to a legendary NYC restaurant for each of our birthdays. Cathy got Peter Luger's, I got Le Souk, and D picked Tao. The place was packed with frolicking girls looking to become mistresses for old Upper East Side curmudgens, young lawyers with their sport coats and suits, and apparently, move stars. But, we didn't see any that night. The food and environment were awesome though, with a huge buddha at one end of the three level room and gigantic Chinese tapestries lilting from the cealing. The food? Pan-Asiatic and awesome! I particularly liked the tuna sashimi with a small slice of jalapeno (sort of like the ones you get on your nachos at ballgames, except they taste good). Mmmmm...my mouth waters just thinking about it. Maybe I should have eaten more than an avocado and pita chips for dinner tonight, especially after that workout....

I've been thinking about vacations for next year and, in true holiday spirit, losing sleep over it. I have a friend getting married in Poland in August and have been invited to go on a three week expedition to Argentina with Paul and Cathy + Cathy's relatives, who have contacts and friends down there. In September. With my two weeks of vacation. Hmm...I'm not quite sure how that's going to work out. I haven't mentioned it to my boss yet, but I'm thinking "sabbatical". My employer will probably be thinking "pink slip". So we'll see how that shakes out in a few months.

There was something else significant I was going to blog about that I thought about in the sauna after the gym tonight. It was going to be magnificent. It was going to allow me to interact with my audience. It was really a brilliant idea. But, alas, I'm blonde. I'll think of it when I'm crammed in the subway tomorrow morning and don't have enough free space to blog from my cell phone.....

Write comments, people!!
J. Riley

I'm back. I just realized that my title makes no sense because I lost that thought. Anyways, over Thanksgiving I got rid of my old computer and backed up a bunch of old pictures and documents from college to my new computer. It was pretty funny going back and reading some of the stuff I wrote earlier this week, like letters to friends (pre-email), looking at digital pics I took of things like the world's largest pizza ever ordered by my roommate and I in Sunnyvale, CA (I think it fed us for a week or something), and pictures from a gathering that I couldn't remember taking place :o/ . Gee, and I wonder why I didn't get any work done this week....