baseball

after speaking with many colleagues, neigbors and strangers, no other eight letter word in the english language can spark more debate, more emotion, more excitment in any new yorker when the subject of baseball comes up. yankees. dodgers. mets, giants, everyone has their loyalties. this past week, my buddies shawn and dave were visiting ny and we made our way up to the bronx to visit the hallowed grounds of where legends once stood. mickey mantle, joe dimaggio, the babe. all have donned the pin stripes.

my co-worker was heading to the game as well, with the first pitch set at 7.05 pm, we left our office at 5.30 and made it up to the bronx at about 6.15 where we hit 'stans' jam packed bar and grill after a couple of beverages, we met up with shawn and dave and made our way inside. then, we got our first glimplse of yankees stadium.

our seats were awesome, bottom tier about 15 rows up right behind 1st base, a perfect place to catch your first game here. it was an amazing site, yankees statium. the romance of yester year ozooing out of every seat. the atmosphere was almost electric. however, as the game wore on, the romance faded. these new york yankee fans weren't all that crazy. then i looked arond. seemingly there were more tourist taking pictures of themselves and businessmen on their blackberry's in the stands than real fans. maybe the real fans were at home, or just didn't care too much about a early august game against a so-so division rival. the yankees were battling the orioles of baltimore that night. however, it wasn't such a good night for the yankees, somehow the orioles were able to pull of an embarassing 10-0 win over the home team. in the end after one too many hot dogs, slices of pizza, bags of peanuts and frosty beverages, we just wanted to be there and despite the lopsided loss, the uninterested fan base, we all had fun that night, up in the bronx.

the great nyc subway disaster of 2007

the sky above opened up and unleashed a storm of rain, thunder and lighting of biblical proportions. it provided a great show for this weary new yorker, to lazy to do anything but watch the light show that mother nature provided. little did i know that mother nature's display of her awesome power would have such an inconvenience for me, and the other 8 million new yorkers.

the next morning, a lot of new yorkers woke up with sidewalks torn apart, tree branches on top of cars, water in their living room...
and a broken subway system. the storms apparently flooded the subway station at canal street making it impossible for commuters to go north south on the island. for about 7.5 million of new yorkers, that's a big thing. the subway is the life blood of the city. it shuttles the tourist from statue of liberty tours to times square to catch the latest broadway show. it shuttles the billion dollar mayor, mike bloomberg from his sprawling penthouse in the upper east side to his city hall office. and most importantly, it gets us new yorkers to work every morning. so with the subway out...

we had to walk...
cram onto buses...
for the most part, it was a disaster. commuting the 2.5 miles to work for me, which normally takes 25 minutes door to door, took a hour and a half. between walking to the station, walking from the 1,2,3 line to the a,c,e to the n,q,r,w, fighting my way through the crowds, trying to get on the bus, and mostly walking south to get to work, that's exactly what i did. i guess the most shocking thing for me, was the actual panic that i witnessed. not something i would've expected from the usually resilient city dwellers. one lady actually came up to me and expressed her dismay and utter confusion of the whole situation, "what am i suppose to do, where's the police to direct us, there's nobody here to help us, how am i suppose to get downtown". Considering that we were about 2 miles away, i pondered why she couldn't just walk, which is exactly what i did.

a ny minute

mil and doreen came up from the washington dc area to spend a fun weekend in ny. what doreen didn't know, was mil's plan, which apparantely everyone who went to brian and jacque's wedding two weeks prior, knew about. after a nice dinner in the village, mil took doreen out to the boardwalk along the hudson river. with a cool westerly breeze in the air, a full moon and sweaty palms, mil got down on one knee and popped THE question.



it's good he got the answer he was looking for because mil had gathered his and doreen's ny friends and family and rented a cabana at the posh 230 fifth lounge. surrounded by family and friends, and the ny city skyline, we all celebrated throughout the night.



we were lucky enough to snap a picture with the happy couple.



what can happpen in a minute? in what sometimes seems like a lifetime, where the seconds tick off agonizingly slow, you can do a third of a round in a boxing ring; you could run a quarter mile; you could cook rice; you could do an eighth of an abs workout. And what's often referred to as a 'ny minute', you can also make a life altering decision, especially after a little four word question, "will you marry me"? doreen and mil experienced this happy event in ny a week ago, and now, they can proudly introduce each other as, "my fiance". have fun with the planning! Congrats

Hanging in NYC and the Bajamas

Theresa and Jeannie

So, our last set of visitors to visit the Big Apple were my friends, Theresa and Jeannie. They had the worst flight coming over: left SFO 2 hours late, their flight then got redirected to Buffalo, New York, then finally arrived to JFK at 3am, 6 HOURS AFTER they were supposed to arrive. What a horrible way to start off their 2 week vacation!

During their week stay, we did lots-o-fun things like: took the FREE Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty...

view of downtown Manhattan, from the Staten Island ferry

partied hard with THE party girl herself, Miss Dre...

and ate lots-o-yummy food!!

At the end of the week, the three of us flew to the Bahamas for a week of RELAXATION...

...where we stayed at the Comfort Suites, which allowed us FREE ACCESS!! to the huge Atlantis resort next door.

a view of Atlantis, from the beach

the upper hand

laurie and i once again packed our bags, made the trek out to jfk, flew the 3,000 miles to the left coast and drove the 405 to a little place called pala. but we weren't headed back to cali for any old reason though. brian and jacque had gathered 200 of their closest friends, added some food, beverages, and a rockin band and threw the party of the year. but this wasn't just any old party, it was, after all, brian relinquishing the upper hand, for life...

the blushing bride...

the teary eyed groom...
his two best men; cousins, friends, teammates, patients, boys, brothers.

some of the charming guests...
and the two bloggers enjoying the evening.


after the introductions, the speeches, the food and some beverages, the groosmen and the bridal party had a dance-off. suffice it to say, brian and the boys brought sexy back. clearly, the groosmen brought it like jt, nick lachey and the rest of backstreet boys. i'm sorry but the girls looked like a bunch of drunks with two left feet each. it was all, fun and games and both sides had a great time. it was good to see everybody and can't wait to do it again. brian and jacque, we love you guys, congrats, and good luck in singabore!

oh yea, the stow-away. my parents decided to bring minnie along to join the festivities. however the hotel didn't allow dogs so they had to sneak her into the place in this covert doggie bag. for some reason, she really liked her doggie back.

cabo wabo

memorial day. a time to reflect and honor all of america's armed forces units, veterans and heros. it's also a time for sun, bbq, beer and in this case, bachelor parties. although i won't go into the specifics of the debauchery that ensued, you will nonetheless get an inside scoop of brian & jacque's bachelor party 2007.

7 strangers picked to live in a house... after a 2.5 hour flight from LA, an hour long immigration line and a van full of lushes from the airport to cabo, we finally made it to villa de la luz, a 6,000 square foot villa featuring 5 large bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, a pool table, swimming pool, a fountain in the foyer, a fridge full of ice cold beverages, and plenty of room to get into trouble. the bachelor party was ready to rock...
after a day spent relaxing poolside, the rest of the crew arrived friday just in time for the jungle cruise, a scenic boat tour of cabo, with free beverages. i must admit, after booking the tour for our party of 17 without first seeing the boat, i was a bit skeptical. once we got to the marina and i saw the boat, and the eye popping, jaw dropping facial expressions of my fellow bachelor party attendees, my skepticism was justified; a beat up looking catamaran with limited seating, turned tour boat was suppose to serve as our mode of transportation? yikes!
however, once the boat headed out to sea, the tour boat quickly lived up to it's 'jungle cruise' name. with the beverages flowing, the music pumping and the terrific scenery, everyone had a good time. but i think some of us had a better time than others...
brian had an UNBELIEVABLE time... after going to bed at 9pm after intense games of operation, twister, and truth or dare, a couple of us woke up the next morning and headed out to the beach for some atv riding. this being our first time on these bikes, some of us were a little cautious opting to take it slow (bunty) and get insurance (scam). brian and i chose not to get the insurance, however it was a good thing that adolfo did. after an hour and a half of crazy all-out atv'ing on the beach with the pacific to our west, one of us had a bit of a spill.
which landed adolfo in the emergency room. good thing he got the $10 insurance for the $1,000 stitch up. i guess the rest of us were lucky. in the end, he was fine, anyway whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.


and that was cabo wabo!

Dirty Birdies and Sweet Brains

Kristie, Angie, me

We continued to have more visitors over the past week. The first set was my friend Kristie's sister, Angie and her BF Wilson from the Bay Area. We all went to dinner one night at Chow Bar and had the most yummy desserts...chocolate filled crispy wontons and flourless chocolate cake.

chocolate-filled crispy wontons

flourless chocolate cake

At the beginning of the week, Mike played hooky because it was such a beautiful day :) and we attended our friend Julie's white coat graduation, at the Columbia Medical Center Garden, all the way up on 168th St.

Later on that day, Mike and I checked out the famous Bryant Park, where NY Fashion Week is usually held. It's my new favorite park here. It's just a really nice, clean place to people watch and eat lunch. It's located right in front of the NY Public Main Library. The park gets super crowded during lunchtime. By the time we left, the lawn was completely filled with lunchers.

Mike ate a chocolate cupcake...

I liked Bryant Park so much that later on that week, when my mom came to visit, I brought her there for lunch :)

Then I brought her to Max Brenner (a chocolate maker) to get, Mike and my most favorite, bestest drink in the whole wide world......a CHOCOLATE GRANITA. It's an icy version of a milkshake, but a hundred times yummier. They serve it in this fun "Alice" cup with a metal straw, making the drink even more fun to drink. Mom loved it...so much we went back 2 nights later for another :)

Mom drinking her granita from the Alice cup

As a mother's day gift, we brought mom to our favorite restaurant...Babbo..the same place that I brought Mike to for his bday.

We had a good time and even got mom a little tipsy before the main course arrived :)

For our main courses, mom had Sweet Breads (aka BRAINS!!!). Isn't it interesting how they disguise brains with a nice, cute name like Sweet Breads?! I feel for the person who expects literally sweet breads and realizes that it's BRAINS!! I did try the Sweet Brains, I mean Breads and they were amazingly good. I just wish mom didn't tell me what they really were....

Mom and her Sweet Brains...I mean Breads

I had the XXX quails (aka dirty birdies). The reason I call it triple X quails was well....you can get the idea from looking at the picture...for some reason, anytime I order quail ANYWHERE, it comes out looking real dirty on the plate...just ask Lisa, she knows what I'm talking about :)

Get a room you dirty birdies!!!

It was finally time for mom to bid farewell, so we had a wonderful brunch that morning before seeing her off...