What I'll Miss

I was trying to think about what I'll miss about New York City and here's what came to mind: I will miss the crowded trains where my feet get stepped on with laser guidance precision by people who pretend it didn't happen. I will miss the frenetic pace where people run from place to place or speed to red lights, just to hurry up and wait. I will miss the obscene rental rates. I will miss the winters of yellow snow--and the brown snow even more. I will miss the cool way that people like, speak, like. I will miss the schizophrenic subway dwellers who take up entire train benches or have a monopoly of an entire car because the smell can make a sewer worker vomit. I will miss the opulence, the doorman buildings, the overpriced stores where only the special people shop. I will miss the great restaurants where every cuisine in the world is represented. The nightlife will also be missed by me--particularly those nights that weren't spent trying to rent apartments to people who really only wanted to do comparison shopping. I will miss the glittering beaches of Brooklyn where the glitter comes from the broken beer bottles left by guys who, when they're not on the beach, are wearing jeans below their butts to show their taste in underwear. I will really miss New York--you probably think I won't.

wahoooooooo

I just learned this morning that the offer we made on the house came through. We're going to Ottawa. I am going to become a Senator's fan, say words differently, like "aboot," and freeze my ass off in October. I probably will remain a Yankees/Mets fan, Jets/Giants, but with hockey, I'll have to go with the Senators if I know what's good for me. The best thing is that we'll be close to Shabana and Frankie. I really don't feel that I'm losing anything by leaving New York--all my friends are gone and the only thing I will miss is the convenience of shopping and the availability of great restaurants and entertainment, but the truth is, I/we don't really go out that much. So when I came out of the subway this morning, Thas left me an email that beeped and the subject was "Wahooooooo!" And that's how I feel 

Roosevelt Island

I am really getting into HDR--High Dynamic Range Photography. I never thought I'd even like digital photography when it first came out, thinking it was less than art, that it was cheating, but I changed my tune. HDR, and digital photography in general is fantastic. It's amazing how much you can manipulate reality with it--schizophrenics would have a ball--and there's an art to it too. This photo was taken the other day from Carl Schurz Park near Gracie Mansion, on the Upper East Side. It's a balanced composite of three shots spaced at one f-stop apart and blended for balance. Then it was "Photoshopped" to punch up the quality a bit. Now that I've written this, I believe that this is my most technical blog I've ever written.

Onstar Reporting

"This is Onstar. Your vehicle Onstar System has reported a crash. Are you okay, Mrs. Goldberg?"
"I've felt better."
"How do you feel?"
"How should I feel?"
"Don't worry, we're sending help now."
"It's so hard to find good help."

The F'ing F train

Red is the appropriate color for tonight's blog. I left work almost at a normal hour--5:30 PM after taking out a nice suspect to see a few apartments. I got on the Lexington Avenue bus, the 103 local, went to 65th, walked to the F train station at 63rd and took the F. Unfortunately, there was a problem of a stalled F train at Church Avenue, my stop, all the way in Brooklyn from where I had to get off on West 4th. Now why couldn't they have used the express track in Brooklyn instead of changing the F train into a D train? I had to go to Coney Island and we crept along and waited for five minutes at a time at each station for no particular reason that any passenger could fathom. Two hours to get home. And here I was so glad to be able to not have to work an extra long day, typical of my business. Why is it that whenever there's an MTA controversy, such as there is now about cuts in service, that the trains get screwed up? Is it always a coincidence--every single time? Yes, I am pissed. I am tired of this garbage and tired of this city. I cannot wait to move away. Ottawa, here I come. I am even happy about leaving this country with all the violence aimed against the very democratic processes we uphold. Gee, I sound angry--sorry if I offended anyone.

HDR

I've become quite fascinated with HDR photography--I took this photo a few days ago from the window of an apartment I was previewing on the Upper East Side. It's near Asphalt Green, as you might be able to tell. And while HDR makes the world look a lot prettier than it often is, I think there's an artsy quality to it.

the wasteful census

I recently received my census paper asking me questions whereby I had to predict who would be living in my apartment on April 1st, whether or not they would be white, black, hispanic, etc. Two days later I received instructions on who to call if I had questions, but it was too late--I had sent out the form and figured it out, guessed how many white, black, Asian, Hispanic, American Indian, etcetera would be living in my apartment besides my Asian Indian wife. I cannot imagine the actual cost of this second mailing, but I know it's more than I make in a year--or in a lifetime. Why did they send it separately in the first place? It was just a small paper. Who runs the Census Bureau anyway? I know it's some guy I saw briefly on CNN. Anyway, they are spending billions of our dollars for this nonsense when they could be using it for something that has to be better than that.

buy my beads