I'm in a somber mood after learning that my extended family has been reduced by one with the loss of my sister-in-law's mother after a long fight with cancer. My thoughts are with you guys and your unconsolable loss.
J.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
Anstoss!!
I remember almost exactly 10 years ago, sitting at the kitchen table at home
with Daniel (Brazil), Carlos (Colombia), Roland (Slovakia), and Stefan
discussing the future. We were all about to graduate from high school and the
exchange students were going home and who knew when or if we would ever see
each other again. We were discussing a reunion of sorts sometime down the road,
possibly once we were all done with college. We could all meet up and go
backpacking through Europe together. Six years later, most of us met up for the
first time again in Peru and Brazil for a reunion of sorts, all grown up and
matured since our pre-voting age. We enjoyed each other's company so much that
we knew that we'd have to meet up again someday and we decided that the next
event would be in Germany, 2006, for the World Cup. After much planning and
deliberation, we decided to go at the end of June for the Quarter-Finals,
Semi-Finals, and Finals. But there was much more football to watch before that!
Kickoff day has arrived.
Justinho, I almost wore a jersey to work today
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Three Days Until Kickoff
With just three days remaining until the World Cup, it is essential for me to
pour over the charts and schedules to determine where I'm going to be and when
I'm gonna be there. Thus far, I've discovered English pubs, Czech pubs,
Brazilian pubs, Ecuadorian pubs, German pubs, and Polish pubs. Those should
keep me busy during the four weekend days (plus x number of sick days) of
football that are in the first couple of rounds. For those non-weekend and
non-sick day games, I'll be tivo'ing them and watching the good ones at night.
As for my predictions for the first round, I will lay claim to the following:
Group A:
Winner - Germany
Runner-Up - Poland
Group B:
Winner - England
Runner-Up - Sweden
Group C:
Winner - Argentina
Runner-Up - Ivory Coast
Group D:
Winner - Portugal
Runner-Up - Mexico
Group E:
Winner - Czech Republic
Runner-Up - Italy
Group F:
Winner - Brazil
Runner-Up - Australia
Group G:
Winner - Switzerland
Runner-Up - France
Group H:
Winner - Spain
Runner-Up - Ukraine
Justinho, please leave *your* predictions as comments.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
X-Men Trilogy
Forgive me Fast Food Nation, for I have sinned.
It wasn't entirely my fault, I'd rather deflect the blame to the location in which I was at noon this morning and the lack of organic, high-class culinary options in the Bronx. Last night Melissa finally had her housewarming (roughly two years after moving in) and New Roommate party at her nice pad up in the BX. It started and ended really late and a handful of us chose to stay up there for the night - errr, morning..... and we were famished by noon on Sunday morning.
Part of the reason for Sean and I staying up there was that we were having an X-Men party on Sunday morning that arose because the three of us really wanted to see the new X-Men movie and it was playing at the cheap theater by Melissa's pad. So, we woke up at 10:30, popped in X-Men 1, followed by fast-food ordering and eating, and X-Men 2 (and napping - imagine Justin napping during an action film :-/ ) shortly thereafter. That brought us to about 2:40pm with X-Men 3 starting at the theater at 3:00. Talk about a lazy Sunday!
Saturday consisted of submitting myself to my regularly-scheduled torture session at the orthodontist. Actually, it's not all that bad, but my teeth were actually pretty sore for once after getting a couple brackets on the furthest-back teeth in my upper jaw. My mouth is amazingly different from what it was back in January. In three weeks, I get the arch-expander taken out finally and start planning for surgery number deux. More on that to follow in a few weeks....
After the ortho, I did a little shopping at Zara and then started getting pumped up about the impending World Cup (starts Friday, June 9th) by stopping in my local soccer stores to check out jerseys and shoot the breeze about the games. I am like a little kid right now, so giddy about the games. I've already blocked my calendar off from 9:00am - 5:00pm every weekend day for the next few weeks. I've got a list of bars showing the games and plan on going to a different one for every day, including a place in BFE, Queens where the local Czechs will congregate :o). I'll be watching the Czech v. Ghana and Italy v. USA games there in a few weeks. After shooting the breeze there, I stopped by the soccer supply store to see if they had any new Pumas for me to investigate and, lo-and-behold, they did. Me and this guy with an England shirt on both tried on a pair in the same size and both walked away satisfied customers with something along the lines of these babies (mine are darker blue like my old ones):
Naturally, we did more than enough eating during the weekend as well. The big meal of the trip was 'inoteca, where we were joined by Sean and Melissa for some wonderful Italian small-plates and wine. We also did Carnegie Deli after watching The Producers for the first time, where we were fed a ridiculous, ludicrous amount of pastrami and roast beef, which was preceeded by a wonderful brunch at Diner 24, which is next to the recently-deceased Rue de Crepes. They had these ricotta cheese and poppy-seed pancakes that were to die for. Gotta investigate that recipe online!
J. Riley, the grain of the evening is hulled barley!
And a niece (and sister!) picture for the masses:
It wasn't entirely my fault, I'd rather deflect the blame to the location in which I was at noon this morning and the lack of organic, high-class culinary options in the Bronx. Last night Melissa finally had her housewarming (roughly two years after moving in) and New Roommate party at her nice pad up in the BX. It started and ended really late and a handful of us chose to stay up there for the night - errr, morning..... and we were famished by noon on Sunday morning.
Part of the reason for Sean and I staying up there was that we were having an X-Men party on Sunday morning that arose because the three of us really wanted to see the new X-Men movie and it was playing at the cheap theater by Melissa's pad. So, we woke up at 10:30, popped in X-Men 1, followed by fast-food ordering and eating, and X-Men 2 (and napping - imagine Justin napping during an action film :-/ ) shortly thereafter. That brought us to about 2:40pm with X-Men 3 starting at the theater at 3:00. Talk about a lazy Sunday!
Saturday consisted of submitting myself to my regularly-scheduled torture session at the orthodontist. Actually, it's not all that bad, but my teeth were actually pretty sore for once after getting a couple brackets on the furthest-back teeth in my upper jaw. My mouth is amazingly different from what it was back in January. In three weeks, I get the arch-expander taken out finally and start planning for surgery number deux. More on that to follow in a few weeks....
After the ortho, I did a little shopping at Zara and then started getting pumped up about the impending World Cup (starts Friday, June 9th) by stopping in my local soccer stores to check out jerseys and shoot the breeze about the games. I am like a little kid right now, so giddy about the games. I've already blocked my calendar off from 9:00am - 5:00pm every weekend day for the next few weeks. I've got a list of bars showing the games and plan on going to a different one for every day, including a place in BFE, Queens where the local Czechs will congregate :o). I'll be watching the Czech v. Ghana and Italy v. USA games there in a few weeks. After shooting the breeze there, I stopped by the soccer supply store to see if they had any new Pumas for me to investigate and, lo-and-behold, they did. Me and this guy with an England shirt on both tried on a pair in the same size and both walked away satisfied customers with something along the lines of these babies (mine are darker blue like my old ones):
Naturally, we did more than enough eating during the weekend as well. The big meal of the trip was 'inoteca, where we were joined by Sean and Melissa for some wonderful Italian small-plates and wine. We also did Carnegie Deli after watching The Producers for the first time, where we were fed a ridiculous, ludicrous amount of pastrami and roast beef, which was preceeded by a wonderful brunch at Diner 24, which is next to the recently-deceased Rue de Crepes. They had these ricotta cheese and poppy-seed pancakes that were to die for. Gotta investigate that recipe online!
J. Riley, the grain of the evening is hulled barley!
And a niece (and sister!) picture for the masses:
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Ooohhhh....Mexico
Earlier in the week I strategically capitalized on my American Airlines miles by
booking a trip to Puerto Vallarto, Mexico for later this year. I am going there
to attend my third international wedding in just over a year, which I am very
excited about. It's a stretch to call this an authentic "Mexican" wedding
though. "Mexican-American" is probably the more appropriate term - meaning two
white kids going to Mexico to get married on the beach and party for the whole
weekend. But hey, that works for me.
As everyone knows, my Name Day is coming up on June 1st. I am really excited
about this and have decided to make a wish-list of things for everyone to refer
to when shopping for their gift to me.
1.) Roomba Discovery Robotic Floor Vacuum
2.) Digital picture frame with scheduling and picture randomizing features
3.) iSight webcam for my Mac
4.) "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", written by John Perkins
5.) An air filter
6.) Those fabric softener dryer sheet things
J. Riley, maybe I'll put some new teeth pics online later
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Movin' on Up
I'm really going places in the world. A few weeks ago I finally got my hands on a luxury item that I've considered buying many a time for the past few years. As a techie, I am naturally inclined to be an early adopter of the latest and greatest technology, but I've kind of resisted the urge to buy this item because I am cheap and, well, I never really had much use for one. But it's official - I am now the proud owner of a second-hand, hand-me-down DVD player for my TV. I guess this means I can finally watch DVDs on my TV with other people rather than gathering a crowd on my bed to watch them on my computer screen. Unless, well, the circumstances dictate that that is appropriate ;o).
As further evidence of the fact that I am going places, my orthodontist invited me to a private party at a bar/lounge/club in mid-town to celebrate the opening of his new office. In all honesty, he was just looking for an excuse to party. But this place that he had reserved was some swanky place that would require me to 1.) Not wear Pumas, 2.) Not wear jeans, and 3.) Wear a jacket. Time to dust off the suit! I don't typically like places that require me to wear items like that outside of work, but I figured I'd go check out the scene and bounce early if I felt like it. It was worth a shot since what could be better than a room full of people drooling over themselves and spitting at each other when they talk in slurred voices with mouths full of metal like mine. I just hoped they had toothpicks for everyone to pick the food out of our teeths after munching.
Instead, I arrived at a party full of models, doctors, surgeons and their trophy girlfriends. Yea, I fit right in at this party! I had hoped to hang out with my doctor's hot Czech receptionist and assistant - both of whom are very sweet and are teaching me Czech when I come in for my appointments - but they were working to door so I had to awkwardly mingle with people who already had straight teeth, didn't slur their speach, and with whom I had nothing in common with. Where were all the railroad-faced people??? After a few cocktails au gratis, I warmed up to the crowd and met some people who also had nothing in common with anyone and didn't know anyone there.
A few minutes later and I felt a shove from the back and turned around to see my orthodontist, who also happens to be a well-decorated Marine (rumor has it he was special forces) but not a large guy, facing off with a short, wide fellow. I have no idea what it was about, but they were yelling at each other and the wide fellow was telling him to step outside with him if he wants to fight. It was completely out of the blue and you can imagine how strange a scene like that is at a swanky club. Needless to say, my doctor had his Marine friends quarintine this guy until the huge bouncers came in to take the guy outside and kick his drunk ass out of the lounge. Something must have really incited my doctor, because I'll never forget the look in his eyes when he was staring the guy down, especially considering his calm, soft demeanor whenever I go in for checkups.
Soon thereafter, I met a young Hispanic couple that were hanging out at the party and we soon got to talking and I ended up hanging out with them for most of the rest of the night. Both were Army veterans and had actually met each other Salsa dancing in Iraq last year. They were really a kick in the pants to talk to, very funny interaction between each other. The little guy was quite a talker but I could tell that she put up with a lot of him :o).
After they took off, I headed to the now-combustible, hopping dancefloor to get my quotient of grooving on. Apparently just before I got there, my female Czech buddies were released from door duties and had hit the dance floor, so I got some dancing in with them and some of the other girls with them, which was great. The greatest part about the dance atmosphere was that they were playing some good techno stuff that had some great beats mixed in, in particular the Latin and Arabic style - both of which are my favorite styles of this music. Although the music was a little different, this was the first time I'd felt like I was in a European disco, which was quite comforting and reminded me of my last night in Slovakia last summer. Minus the suit, of course :)
J. Riley, Wait until you hear about the movie(s) I saw this weekend. To be continued...
As further evidence of the fact that I am going places, my orthodontist invited me to a private party at a bar/lounge/club in mid-town to celebrate the opening of his new office. In all honesty, he was just looking for an excuse to party. But this place that he had reserved was some swanky place that would require me to 1.) Not wear Pumas, 2.) Not wear jeans, and 3.) Wear a jacket. Time to dust off the suit! I don't typically like places that require me to wear items like that outside of work, but I figured I'd go check out the scene and bounce early if I felt like it. It was worth a shot since what could be better than a room full of people drooling over themselves and spitting at each other when they talk in slurred voices with mouths full of metal like mine. I just hoped they had toothpicks for everyone to pick the food out of our teeths after munching.
Instead, I arrived at a party full of models, doctors, surgeons and their trophy girlfriends. Yea, I fit right in at this party! I had hoped to hang out with my doctor's hot Czech receptionist and assistant - both of whom are very sweet and are teaching me Czech when I come in for my appointments - but they were working to door so I had to awkwardly mingle with people who already had straight teeth, didn't slur their speach, and with whom I had nothing in common with. Where were all the railroad-faced people??? After a few cocktails au gratis, I warmed up to the crowd and met some people who also had nothing in common with anyone and didn't know anyone there.
A few minutes later and I felt a shove from the back and turned around to see my orthodontist, who also happens to be a well-decorated Marine (rumor has it he was special forces) but not a large guy, facing off with a short, wide fellow. I have no idea what it was about, but they were yelling at each other and the wide fellow was telling him to step outside with him if he wants to fight. It was completely out of the blue and you can imagine how strange a scene like that is at a swanky club. Needless to say, my doctor had his Marine friends quarintine this guy until the huge bouncers came in to take the guy outside and kick his drunk ass out of the lounge. Something must have really incited my doctor, because I'll never forget the look in his eyes when he was staring the guy down, especially considering his calm, soft demeanor whenever I go in for checkups.
Soon thereafter, I met a young Hispanic couple that were hanging out at the party and we soon got to talking and I ended up hanging out with them for most of the rest of the night. Both were Army veterans and had actually met each other Salsa dancing in Iraq last year. They were really a kick in the pants to talk to, very funny interaction between each other. The little guy was quite a talker but I could tell that she put up with a lot of him :o).
After they took off, I headed to the now-combustible, hopping dancefloor to get my quotient of grooving on. Apparently just before I got there, my female Czech buddies were released from door duties and had hit the dance floor, so I got some dancing in with them and some of the other girls with them, which was great. The greatest part about the dance atmosphere was that they were playing some good techno stuff that had some great beats mixed in, in particular the Latin and Arabic style - both of which are my favorite styles of this music. Although the music was a little different, this was the first time I'd felt like I was in a European disco, which was quite comforting and reminded me of my last night in Slovakia last summer. Minus the suit, of course :)
J. Riley, Wait until you hear about the movie(s) I saw this weekend. To be continued...
Thursday, May 18, 2006
That Guy
I realized today that I am so totally "That Guy" at work. I am "That Guy" who
brushes his teeth in the bathroom after lunch (those types always annoyed me or
made me snicker snobbily). I am "That Guy" who uses an exercise ball as a chair
at work when everyone else is complaining about their bad backs. I am "That
Guy" who walks around the office in his socks (the shoes are new and give me
blisters, but it's also nice to arridate my feet anyway). I am "That Guy" who
is always over by the coffee machine with his coffee mug, but drinks water
rather than coffee. At least I'm not "That IT Guy" that turns towards the wall
and hides when you walk by him. That guy works around the corner from my
windowless cage.
J. Riley, am I the only one who is tired of hearing about the "Da Vinci Code"
movie already? Everyone's read the book, so what's the deal with all the hype?
Monday, May 15, 2006
Gerrard's Goal
This YouTube thing is sweet! Check out Steven Gerrard's second goal of the game from Saturday's FA Cup Final:
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Happy Mamacita's Day
Against my better judgement, I am going to use a few minutes of my precious beauty sleep to jot some thoughts down, since that's been rather lacking of late. First of all, Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, especially mine :) . Yes, I did call her and say that! My mom is easy enough to shop for for Mother's Day, I get her the same thing every year (manicure and/or pedicure from a spa) because I know she loves it and it's easy for me to get it to her! I wish my dad were so easy for Father's Day. Then again, with the recent relevation that he had his eyebrows done recently, I might take that into consideration!
I just finished watching the award winning movie "Crash" a few minutes ago and found it somehow disturbing, deep, rewarding, and thrilling all in an hour and a half or two. It definitely changed my perspective on the remainder of my lazy day - all one hour of it that was left. I highly recommend seeing it, just brace yourself for some depressing stories. I guess I can see how that would win some awards, great acting there for sure.
Cathy was in town this weekend, back from Cyprus for a week in the center of the universe. She left Paul back in Limassol to work on his artistic rendition of Michelangelo in his mosaic studio. He sure lives the life, spending his days at the beach and in an art studio with an occassional trip to harvest honey on a ranch and cooking for his wife. I wish I was as productive when I was projectless at EY a few years ago!! Anyway, Sean and I took her downtown on Friday night for some good old LES exploration and beverage exploitation. We came across a couple new places down there that I hadn't been to before that were definitely proving the point that I need to move down there, including a very nice little bookwalled cafe that served real German beer and looked like a place to have a conversation on Plato's Republic on a sunny summer morning.
Saturday morning was rough because Liverpool was playing the final game of the year - they had reached the finals of the FA Cup, which is a tournament for all of the professional teams in England (at all levels) and had a chance to take their second significant trophy in two years. And what a thrilling game it was. Seriously, this was one of the best matches I've seen in my life. Liverpool was third place in the league and had won 11 games in a row coming into this and were hands-down the favorite to beat a mid-table team they had just beaten a few weeks back. In the last minute of the game, their team captain scored an absolutely amazing goal from 35-yards away from the goal. Do you realize how amazing it is to hit the corner of a goal from that kind of distance? As an example of the strength that goes into these kinds of kicks, take a look at this picture of him right after making contact with the ball (the guy in red facing the camera):
Amazing. That tied the score up, which sent the game into overtime and after half of both teams were limping around the field for thirty more minutes from leg cramps, Liverpool went on to win on penalty kicks. Simply astonishing in my opinion.
J. Riley, But maybe you had to be there :-/
I just finished watching the award winning movie "Crash" a few minutes ago and found it somehow disturbing, deep, rewarding, and thrilling all in an hour and a half or two. It definitely changed my perspective on the remainder of my lazy day - all one hour of it that was left. I highly recommend seeing it, just brace yourself for some depressing stories. I guess I can see how that would win some awards, great acting there for sure.
Cathy was in town this weekend, back from Cyprus for a week in the center of the universe. She left Paul back in Limassol to work on his artistic rendition of Michelangelo in his mosaic studio. He sure lives the life, spending his days at the beach and in an art studio with an occassional trip to harvest honey on a ranch and cooking for his wife. I wish I was as productive when I was projectless at EY a few years ago!! Anyway, Sean and I took her downtown on Friday night for some good old LES exploration and beverage exploitation. We came across a couple new places down there that I hadn't been to before that were definitely proving the point that I need to move down there, including a very nice little bookwalled cafe that served real German beer and looked like a place to have a conversation on Plato's Republic on a sunny summer morning.
Saturday morning was rough because Liverpool was playing the final game of the year - they had reached the finals of the FA Cup, which is a tournament for all of the professional teams in England (at all levels) and had a chance to take their second significant trophy in two years. And what a thrilling game it was. Seriously, this was one of the best matches I've seen in my life. Liverpool was third place in the league and had won 11 games in a row coming into this and were hands-down the favorite to beat a mid-table team they had just beaten a few weeks back. In the last minute of the game, their team captain scored an absolutely amazing goal from 35-yards away from the goal. Do you realize how amazing it is to hit the corner of a goal from that kind of distance? As an example of the strength that goes into these kinds of kicks, take a look at this picture of him right after making contact with the ball (the guy in red facing the camera):
Amazing. That tied the score up, which sent the game into overtime and after half of both teams were limping around the field for thirty more minutes from leg cramps, Liverpool went on to win on penalty kicks. Simply astonishing in my opinion.J. Riley, But maybe you had to be there :-/
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Traffic Lights
First of all, "oops". I don't know why but for some reason my blog from last week didn't post - until now. Check it out down below.
The weather here in the city has been pretty killer this past week. It's been in the 60's and 70's pretty much everyday, which makes sitting in my windowless office that much better. But the warm sunlight has been excellent on the rare moments that I am temporarily blinded when I walk outside. No complaints here though!
I took advantage of the great weather today by taking a Salsa class in a windowless dance studio :-/ . I know it is blasphemous to spend copious amounts of my weekends indoors with the weather like this, but it sounded like fun to me and I met some friends of a friend who trudged down from upstate New York to attend, which was pretty sweet. I have always wanted to improve my skillz in that area of my dance repetoire, but being the whitest man on earth and not having control of my hips makes me a lousy candidate for such activities. But I put that all aside and took a four hour crash course on the basics of Salsa and learning some spins and what not. I'd learned some of it a few years back when I was into Swing dancing, but I was definitely in need of some brush up lessons. Now that I've got that under my belt, I'm thinking that another trip to the epic Sounds of Brazil club downtown might be in order!! Well, my Name Day is coming up on June 1st (did you forget already??), definitely a worthy occassion...
Yesterday afternoon, while I was sitting in Central Park with Sean, I got a random call from a girl I had a few dates with a couple months back asking if I wanted to go to the MoMA museum to see the Edvard Much exhibit (you know, the guy that drew that famous "Scream" painting?). Yea, they all come crawling back begging for my attention eventually ;-P . Anyway, I was all for it since I haven't actually been to the MoMA since it reopened last year, even though I can get in for free :-x !! Ahhh...no wonder she called me.... In any case, it's definitely an impressive place. We followed that up with a free movie with Sean and his buddy - Mission Impossible III. As usual, the impossible mission was trying to figure out what the heck was happening in the end! I hate it when movies like that make you think ;o) ....
Funny thing, I've been checking out the traffic to my website lately and it seems like half of the random hits on it are people searching for either "jaw expander", "arch expander", "mouth expander", "palette expander", or "Getting to know your friends questionnaire". Is that all I'm good for ? ;o)
Justinho, my mouth is doing fine by the way, maybe someday I'll put more pictures up!!
The weather here in the city has been pretty killer this past week. It's been in the 60's and 70's pretty much everyday, which makes sitting in my windowless office that much better. But the warm sunlight has been excellent on the rare moments that I am temporarily blinded when I walk outside. No complaints here though!
I took advantage of the great weather today by taking a Salsa class in a windowless dance studio :-/ . I know it is blasphemous to spend copious amounts of my weekends indoors with the weather like this, but it sounded like fun to me and I met some friends of a friend who trudged down from upstate New York to attend, which was pretty sweet. I have always wanted to improve my skillz in that area of my dance repetoire, but being the whitest man on earth and not having control of my hips makes me a lousy candidate for such activities. But I put that all aside and took a four hour crash course on the basics of Salsa and learning some spins and what not. I'd learned some of it a few years back when I was into Swing dancing, but I was definitely in need of some brush up lessons. Now that I've got that under my belt, I'm thinking that another trip to the epic Sounds of Brazil club downtown might be in order!! Well, my Name Day is coming up on June 1st (did you forget already??), definitely a worthy occassion...
Yesterday afternoon, while I was sitting in Central Park with Sean, I got a random call from a girl I had a few dates with a couple months back asking if I wanted to go to the MoMA museum to see the Edvard Much exhibit (you know, the guy that drew that famous "Scream" painting?). Yea, they all come crawling back begging for my attention eventually ;-P . Anyway, I was all for it since I haven't actually been to the MoMA since it reopened last year, even though I can get in for free :-x !! Ahhh...no wonder she called me.... In any case, it's definitely an impressive place. We followed that up with a free movie with Sean and his buddy - Mission Impossible III. As usual, the impossible mission was trying to figure out what the heck was happening in the end! I hate it when movies like that make you think ;o) ....
Funny thing, I've been checking out the traffic to my website lately and it seems like half of the random hits on it are people searching for either "jaw expander", "arch expander", "mouth expander", "palette expander", or "Getting to know your friends questionnaire". Is that all I'm good for ? ;o)
Justinho, my mouth is doing fine by the way, maybe someday I'll put more pictures up!!
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