Mumblepants

Nothing new to report

2012-02-01T19:49:00.002-05:00

So nothing has really happened recently. I have been wanting to blog about something, but the last few weeks have just been, well, blissfully dull and incredibly busy, but with dull things. Have some exciting stuff coming up though, superbowl party (don't care about football, care about ribs), one of my best friends is coming to visit, spending a weekend snowshoing in Vermont with friends and their dog ... and then in April, big stuff, passover, with a spitted pascal lamb and then a trip to Hawaii for a conference and a vacation .. so I will hopefully have a lot of interesting stuff to talk about soon.

But for now I leave you with these thoughts about the 10 worst things about working in a lab (excerpted from Adam Rubens article on the AAAS website, here.

10. Your non-scientist friends don’t understand what you do. Even when talking about their jobs to outsiders, your friends in other professions can summarize their recent accomplishments in understandable ways. For example, they can say, “I built an object,” or “I pleased a client,” or, if your friend works on Wall Street, “I ate a peasant.” But what can you say? “I cured … um, well, I didn’t really cure it, but I discovered … well, ‘discovered’ is too strong a word, so let’s just say I tested … well, the tests are ongoing and are causing new questions to arise, so … yeah. Stop looking at me.” At least you’re doing better than your friends with Ph.D.s in the humanities, who would answer, “I put sheets on my mom’s basement couch.”

So true.

9. The scientist who is already the most successful gets credit for everything anyone does. If you discover something, your principal investigator (PI) gets credit. If you write a paper, your PI gets credit. If you submit a successful grant proposal, your PI gets credit (and money). And what do you get? If you’re lucky, you get to write more papers and grant proposals to bolster your PI’s curriculum vitae.

8. Lab equipment is expensive and delicate. And you, you’re not so coordinated. Nope. Not so much. Oops! You could pay to replace this one broken piece, or you could hire another postdoc.

7. Sometimes experiments fail for a reason. Sometimes experiments fail for no reason. As anyone who works in a lab knows, things that work perfectly for months or years can suddenly stop working, offering no explanation for the change. (In this way, lab experiments are like Internet Explorer^®.) This abrupt and inexplicable failure changes your work to meta-work, as you stop asking questions about science and start asking questions about the consistency of your technique. You can waste years saying things like, “When I created the sample that worked, I flared my nostril in a weird way. So this week, I’ll try to repeat what I did last week but with more nostrils flarin’!”

Honestly, I cannot believe this one only came in at number 7 ... this is one of the toughest things about science.

6. Your schedule is dictated by intangible things. Freaking cell lines, needing to be tended on a regular basis regardless of your dinner plans. Freaking galaxies visible only in the middle of the night. If it weren’t for your lab work you’d have such a vivacious social life! Sure. That’s why you have no social life. It’s the lab work.

Uh-huh. I try to explain this to Aviva all the time.

5. Science on television has conditioned you to expect daily or weekly breakthroughs. Have you ever had a breakthrough in the lab? Yeah, me neither. Sure, I’ve had successful experiments, which usually means that the controls worked and no one was injured. But a real, eureka, run-down-the-hallway-carrying-a-printout, burst-into-a-room-full-of-military-personnel-and-call-the-President-even-though-it’s-three-in-the-morning breakthrough? Not yet. Unless you count the programmable coffee maker that, after much cajoling, made decent coffee at the appropriate time. Maybe I should publish that.

4. Your work is dangerous. People say their jobs are killing them, but you work with things that could actually kill you -- things like caustic chemicals, infectious agents, highly electrified instruments, and angry PIs.

3. Labs are not conducive to sex. Unless you work in a sex lab, which may or may not be a real thing, it’s unlikely you can convince anyone to crawl under your lab bench with you (“Just ignore the discarded pipette tips, baby”) and, as protein biophysicists say, put their zinc fingers in your leucine zipper. But hey, prove me wrong, people.

2. You have to dress like a scientist. When I worked at an amusement park, I had to wear a purple polo shirt tucked into khaki shorts with giant white sneakers, so I suppose things could be worse. But some of our (scientists’) uniform choices are pretty unflattering. Disposable shoe covers look like you stepped in two shower caps. Safety goggles trap humidity as though you’re cultivating a rainforest on your face. And white lab coats with collars and lapels make men look like nerds and women look like men who look like nerds.

Yeah, I don't have much of a problem with this as my fashion sense is pretty poor anyway.

1. You can feel time creeping inexorably toward your own death. If you think I’m being melodramatic, you were obviously never a grad student or postdoc. As a grad student or postdoc, you spend longer than you’ve planned working on something less interesting than you’d believed, all while earning less money than you assumed reasonable with an endpoint that’s less tangible and less probable than you thought possible.

Being a Research Scientist

2012-01-13T21:08:00.001-05:00

This quote, from Kottke.org, is a fantastic explanation about what it is like to do research

"You are comfortable with feeling like you have no deep understanding of the problem you are studying. Indeed, when you do have a deep understanding, you have solved the problem and it is time to do something else. This makes the total time you spend in life reveling in your mastery of something quite brief. One of the main skills of research scientists of any type is knowing how to work comfortably and productively in a state of confusion."

A weekend of mitzvahs

2012-01-10T20:25:00.008-05:00

Its not that I call all celebrations mitzvahs, but last weekend we went to a Bat Mitzvah, as well as along with two birthdays (our niece and Aviva's grandmother) .. so in this context, mitzvahs seem appropriate. The last week or so has not been all that exciting, been working a lot and so has Aviva, which is new as she just started her new job at the end of December, and that is exciting ... and of course, Aviva passed her EPPP test and can now be a licensed psychologist in the state of NY ... I am, as I said, super proud of her.

Anyway, it was a quite a celebratory weekend, plus we got together with Aviva's family again for the second time in two weeks, which was pretty nice. It was great to spend Saturday morning at Joey's birthday (thats her with Aviva at dinner in Papa Strangers hat) with Rachel and Larry and everyone else, and how Rachel scored by making the morning a breakfast burrito party ... Love Burritos.

Saturday night we had a really nice dinner the family had at Nunzios, a nice Italian place in Collingswood, for Charlottes 90th birthday. I never get tired of going out to eat with a gaggle of Jews and having proscuitto and shrimp :) Most importantly, Charlotte had a wonderful time ...

And the Bat Mitzvah on Sunday was wonderful, Aviva's family and extended friend "family" were all there and we have been together long enough that I know them all and it is just this really comfortable, pleasant feeling to get together and hang out with everyone. A little disturbed by some of the 13-year olds dressed in outfits fit for 25 year olds complete with 4" stiletto heels and ultra-clingy dresses, but I am told this is the way it is these days. And despite all their pretensions of being older, seeing all the kids limboing and crowding the ice cream bar reminds one that they are all still just 12 and 13.

And then home, getting back to Scott and Nikkis just in time to see Nikki downtrodden that her Steeler succumbed to the incredibly odd quirk of fate that is Tim Tebow's bizarrely successful season in Denver. Still, Nikki had just made incredible chili, so we got to eat that and live vicariously through Zeke for a little while before heading home.

AVIVA PASSED!!!

2012-01-09T21:02:00.000-05:00

WHOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

Aviva passed her EPPP licensure exam. Now she can be a professional psychologist!!!!

I mean, after she works for a while ... but still, WHOOOPEEE!!!

She worked really, really hard on this, studying her ass off for the last few months and I am so incredibly proud of her!!!!

New Year, Old Blog

2012-01-02T19:36:00.010-05:00

So, its 2012 ... and already the blogging thing is going badly, as I just erased the post I was trying to write. So anyway, as I was saying, I know I have been quite delinquent in the writing of this post in the last few months, something I have resolve to remedy in this new year ... not that anyone probably noticed, I mean, I am not sure how many people actually look at this blog, but for those who (still) do, I am sorry and I will do better.

Not setting the bar too high though, work has become too crazy for that - but once a week I should be able to bring you some new and interesting news about our lives.

As to the past few months, its just been madness. Since July I have done quite a lot of work, and have become very good at working while traveling, as we have been out of town for 5 weddings, an anniversary, a bris (above right), a trip to Europe (on top), Thanksgiving and Rosh Hashanah. Not to mention hiking in Vermont with my Dad (left, awesome series of hikes through Jamaica State park along the rail trail), hiking in the Catskills around North-South Lake (Ashley Falls is below, right) for a friends birthday, attending a conference in Maryland and giving a seminar at NIDA.

And that's just what happened when we left town, because while we were here we have had a number of friends come to stay, spent the weekend with my family for Chrismakkuh (ahh, latkes and ham, sacrelicious), saw a friend perform in the New York Oratorio society's wonderful rendition of Handels' Messiah in Carnegie Hall and went hiking in massive snowdrifts in October, and of course ate at some wonderful restaurants ... we are definitely live to eat people. Of the restaurants, I would say that Saul in Brooklyn and Eastchester Fish Gourmet, both of which we enjoyed with my aunt and uncle, were the best ... although we also ate with my in-laws at Jean-Georges, which was fabulous but incredibly heavy (too much cream).

So, those are the highlights, but as you can see, we have been busy ... but that is no excuse, or at least not much of one, and this year I will hopefully see you more often. Hope your 2012 started as well as mine, I spent the morning exploring the Hudson river on the Westchester County Riverwalk with Aviva.

Slow return to blogging ... and lab mice

2011-11-27T15:15:00.004-05:00

So getting back into blogging has been slower than I had wanted it to be, as things are still hectic at work (I wonder if they will ever settle down, doesn't seem that way right now ...) and we had thanksgiving last weekend - which was quieter than normal as my brother & sister in law from Boston did not make it down due to an impending pregnancy - a wedding this weekend and are busy the following weekend as well, have christmas plans and may be in Boston over New Years for the bris of my brother & sister in laws new baby. Life sometimes seems to be an endless series of vignettes in which I play various versions of myself at different times ... I wish I had more time to stop and watch all these little plays I am putting on.

Essentially, I am busy because I have a full life ... and I am really grateful for it.

Anyway, I am hoping that I will have a chance to blog about more soon, to share some of the most recent photos I took and to just gab a little more. I did head over to Europe in September and have not even had time to talk about that, so maybe that should come next. But for now I would share a remarkable piece of writing I was reading last week about the development of laboratory mice and the use of them in todays scientific community. Not that I agree with everything that is said in the article, but it is an interesting and provocative read and if you have time and any interest in the way scientific research happens in the US today, it is worth a look (if the link above does not work, here is the web address (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_mouse_trap/2011/11/lab_mice_are_they_limiting_our_understanding_of_human_disease_.html)

The origin of HIV

2011-11-19T14:48:00.002-05:00

If you know me and I have not told you nov much I love the podcast series "Radiolab" from WNYC, we either don't talk enough or .... we don't talk enough. Their most recent episode promises to be a particular favorite of mine, as it includes a wonderful narrative about the origin of the HIV virus, how it moved into humans from chimpanzees and how it got into chimpanzees in the first place. Among the scientists speaking in the story is Dr. Beatrice Hahn, who is one of the foremost authorities of the origins of HIV. If you have some time, its awesome ....

You can download the podcast on iTunes, but you could also find it here

http://www.radiolab.org/2011/nov/14/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=%24%7Bfeed%7D&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+%24%7Bradiolab%7D+(%24%7BRadiolab%7D)

Why Income Inequality is Bad

2011-10-25T08:17:00.001-04:00

TED talks, by the way, are awesome.

This particular talk, by Dr. Richard Wilkinson, is a fairly devastating indictment of the negative impacts of social inequality. One might argue that the presentation is biased, it would depend on the data set you looked at, data can be made to say anything, etc ... but if you watch this talk with an open mind and no predispositions, I struggle to see how anyone could see social inequality as a force for evil in our modern society.

Also, it was weird to watch something where the USA is consistently worse than almost everyone else ... I am used to the US being number one, at least in my own head (although around the world I think we are beginning to realize this is just not the case anymore for so many things). But as a scientist, to see it laid out so plainly and effectively was actually pretty tough.

Anyway, watch the talk, the video is below - it is definitely worth 17 minutes of your lives. In case you cannot see the video, the link is here http://www.hulu.com/watch/292664/tedtalks-richard-wilkinson-how-economic-inequality-harms-societies.

Welcome back

2011-10-24T22:05:00.002-04:00

So its been a long while since I last wrote, around three months or so since I posted what I thought was a fascinating discussion about the effectiveness of Prozac ... but that is so July. A lot has happened in my life since then, and that very busy-ness has been what has kept me from writing here more often.

I went to a wonderful conference in DC about the kind of grant I have from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which was both inspiring (because of the wonderful people I met and the view of where my career could go) and terrifying (because it was very clear about the amount of work and time I will have to put in just to have a chance at getting there).

I spent a wonderful weekend with my Dad in southern Vermont, near Grafton and Saxtons River, hiking in Jamaica state park.

I went to the Jersey shore (for the first and likely last time) with the Buchmans to celebrate Bucky and Tanya's 40th wedding anniversary. Awesome.

Went back to Vermont to for Amy and Max's wedding and got trapped in the wonderful Inn at the Round Barn when Hurricane Irene turned the state into a pool.

Attended Christines beautiful wedding in New York.

Spent two weeks in London, Paris and Scotland before attending Alex and Kathys highland wooding on Loch Tay in central Scotland.

Went back to Cherry Hill for a wonderful (as always) Rosh Hashanah.

Went back to DC to give a seminar at NIDA. It went really well :)

Joined a synagogue (Sha'rei Tikvah) in time for the Jewish holidays and spent Yom Kippur and Sukkot with our wonderful new congregation. They are all a tad incredulous that we joined before we had kids.

And, all of a sudden it was mid-October and I had not spoken to any of you in forever. I can't promise anything, but lets try not to do that again.

What use prozac?

2011-07-13T09:26:00.006-04:00

This week in the New York review of books, Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and a lucid, thoughtful critic of the american medical establishment, published an interesting article in the New York Review of Books called "The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?", about the efficacy of psychoactive drugs. It was a really interesting look at this topic, discussing the proliferation of mental illness among americans and questioning not only the effectiveness of the drugs but also the necessity of these diagnoses. She has also written a number of similar articles on related topics over the last few years, all of which are really interesting.

Also of note is the response to Dr. Angells article in the New York Times, "In Defense of Antidepressants", written by Dr. Peter Kramer, who popularized Prozac in his book Listening to Prozac. It is also well-thought and well reasoned, and most importantly to me, it is not nasty or vituperative, but rather a spirited, rational defense of the use of psychoactive medication.

This discussion and its implications are fascinating and well-worth reading, and this type of thoughtful, intelligent exchange is something I wish that we saw more of these days.

About the economy

2011-07-07T21:39:00.010-04:00

So recently, a friend an I got into an email debate about the effect of the stimulus and the efficacy of government in helping the economy recover from the recession. We are very close, have similar upbringings and have very similar views on the world overall, but I think our views on government have been changing over the past few years - in particular because his disappointment with Obama has been more acute than mine. As it turns out, we had our debate over email and looking over it as I was writing my final message I thought that it very interestingly demonstrated two well-reasoned, relatively centrist views about the current situation in this country, so I thought I would share.

I know, not as exciting as mermaids or waterfalls or the blueberry picking we hope to do this weekend, but still, I humor myself in thinking that some of you might be interested.

My friend -

"White house released their stimulus report on Friday. $772 billion 'created or saved' between 2.4 million and 3.6 million jobs. That's between $210k and $320k per job. I'm actually generally in favor of the stimulus, not because I think the government is effective or more intervention is a good thing, but just because doing nothing seemed like a really bad idea in 2008 and 2009. My guess is that it smoothed the trough of the recession but didn't make it end faster (it's not solving the structural economic problems or healing the economy, it just helped staunch the bleeding at the time) or put the recovery on a better footing. And I think now the debt worries that are partially exacerbated by the spending are creating a hangover that is affecting economic prospects also. But I do think that it's a good example of how bad government is at effectively allocating resources. They literally could have cut a $50k check to each of the 14 million unemployed and would have been better off financially. Plus, kind of disingenuous to release a report on a Friday before a long weekend ...."

Me (I know, I have logorrhoea ... even in email) -

"So I am also in favor of stimulus (I guess that makes me a Keynesian - I just think that the majority of the evidence that I can see suggests that stimulus is the key to ending recessions, and I think the stimulus should have been bigger) but putting that aside, since we are both agreeing on it for now, I think that your overall comment is mostly right, although I think I disagree some of the things you said. Where we agree is that I think that you are right about the inefficient allocation of resources, and I would continue to say that despite why one thinks the resources are allocated inefficiently - I for instance would likely argue that because of Republicans 1/3 of the stimulus devoted to tax cuts was wasted and would have been better off as more aid to states to prevent teacher/fire fighter lay offs, but that is only my perspective and I think a credible argument can be made for many (not all) different ways to allocate resources - anyway, whyever the money was spent badly, I think that our government, run by people who are pandering to special interests and to the mob and massively undereducated about the majority of the things they decide on, is inherently inefficient.

I suspect that the founding fathers had no concept that government would become so large and complicated (this is either an argument for smaller government or an argument for the government to become larger by necessity of a more complicated world) and that the structure they would have set-up today would look vastly different. However, I would ask, given today's government and world, is there a better way that we could have done it.

We disagree is the efficacy of the stimulus (although I think this might actually be a semantic argument) - I think that it worked (in that it not only stopped the bleeding but started healing the economy) and not only smoothed but prevented the trough of the recession from being much deeper, it seems like you think that it was basically a band-aid. If you take the report at face value, then what it suggests is that the stimulus did in fact heal the economy, that economic growth from January to March 2011 was anemic, at 1.9%, but without the stimulus there would not have been growth at all. One could argue that we would have come out of recession eventually and that if the stimulus just hastened that it was only patching something that would otherwise have healed on its own, but that is like saying that using anti-biotics does not cure bacterial infections, it just holds them back and eventually the healing happens on its own. I totally agree with you that the debt worries that are partially exacerbated by the spending are creating a hangover that is affecting the economy.

However, I think that your argument about how the government could have simply cut a check to 14 million people is wrong (it is also straight out of the Weekly Standard and is the popular right-wing talking point of the week p://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-economists-stimulus-has-cost-278000-job_576014.html). I think it is wrong because the stimulus did a lot more than just create jobs, it funded infrastructure projects, gave a lot of aid to states, went to education investments, and a lot went to tax cuts. I could go on here, but I sound like a left-wing talking point - in fact I sound like the White House (here is a quote from them).

"The Recovery Act was more than a measure to create and save jobs; it was also an investment in American infrastructure, education and industries that are critical to America’s long-term success and an investment in the economic future of America’s working families. Thanks to the Recovery Act, 110 million working families received a tax cut through the Making Work Pay tax credit, over 110,000 small businesses received critical access to capital through $27 billion in small business loans and more than 75,000 projects were started nationwide to improve our infrastructure, jump-start emerging industries and spur local economic development."

While this quote is quite a bit of propaganda, it also makes the point that the stimulus did a lot more than just create jobs. So overall I absolutely agree that we could have spent the money a lot more efficiently, although I am not sure if it would be possible in the reality of the US today. But the idea that it was just 250K per job is not really accurate.

And in regards to releasing the report just before the long weekend - I think that the report shows that the stimulus worked, that it actually produced jobs (something that Republicans have been denying for years now), so you would kind of think that the administration would trumpet this news, rather than to hide it on Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend ... it makes it seem not disengenuous but rather truthful, as if they published the report when it came out. However, if one is inclined to see the administration in a negative light, I can understand how it would be seen as hiding something ... similarly, if one is inclined toward the administration in a positive way, one could look at things the way I do. "

My friend -

"Wow - long reply. A couple of questions / observations:

1. Do you think the stimulus accelerated the recovery or just prevented a lower nadir? I.e. do you think the economy is better off today because of the stimulus or that it was just less painful than it could have been Mar 08 - present? I'm not sure if we're where we would be anyway, if we're actually very slightly worse off now, or if we're a little better. I do agree that either way a $770b intervention in a $14t economy over a couple years (so, what, 2.5% intervention per year?) is pretty minor.

2. Totally agree that sending a check to participants doesn't have the same indirect impacts as hiring construction workers to repave roads which then helps smooth transportation of goods and services and cuts down wear and tear on personal automobiles. But they would spend some of the money also. At the end of the day, government waste is economic stimulus also - money is neither created or destroyed, it's just spread differently through a relatively closed system. Mostly where my problem is is when the government puts up silly roadblocks to business that restricts economic activity. Please note that I do think some regulation (level playing fields, antitrust, stringent environmental protections, etc...) are totally reasonable and long term supportive. So the difference between me and Rush Limbaugh is our relative, totally subjective definitions of "silly" here.

I'm totally prejudiced against this administration and I fully acknowledge it. I was an ardent supporter of the president from early in the primaries (and had been listening to his weekly podcasts and other media stuff since shortly after his breakout for the democratic convention in 06 or whatever). He has more than not lived up to my expectations - the reasons I supported him seem to have been largely thrown by the wayside either because of base politics, ineptitude, or lack of leadership. I'm just really disappointed that we don't have Kennedy 2 in office right now, and actually it seems to me to be more Carter 2 than even a George Bush Sr. or some middling version. I'm voting for Jon Huntsman (who has no shot in hell at making it through the religious base-pandering comically terrible republican primaries).

4. I still think the reason they quietly released the report on Friday and they haven't been trumpeting it so far this week (unless I've just missed it) is that they see it as either being unfavorable/below expectations, or politically risky in some other way."

Me -

"I do think the stimulus accelerated the recovery, but the difference between a lower nadir and an accelerated recovery is tough to quantify. Also, all of this is tough because its not like we have actually evidence of 'what would have happened'. But I look at things like Japans lost decade and I think without the stimulus we would have kept losing jobs and had much longer negative growth - I mean we started losing less jobs pretty quickly after the stimulus was passed in Feb/Mar of '09, so that suggests the stimulus accelerated the re-growth of jobs (see chart). Also, if you look at the chart, the recovery from the relatively small recession in 2001 took about 2 years without stimulus, while the recovery from the 2008 recession (in terms of re-starting positive job growth) took about as long despite the much larger recession, also suggesting the stimulus did something. And I think that some good evidence for the stimulus accelerating the recovery is what is happening to the economy right now. It is slowing down and doing worse, just when the last dregs of the stimulus left the economy. However, I do think that it is possible to logically argue the stimulus was just fortuitously timed and that while it maybe arrested downward growth, we were already close to nadir and would have been growing anyway - and I acknowledge that I am totally oversimplifying the picture, because surely many of the things the government did were essentially 'waste'.

You are totally right about money functioning no matter how it is spent, although I would say that 1) if the money is saved and not spent it is very ineffective stimulus (this has been a lot of my problem with the bank bailout, that there was not some requirement for the banks to reinvest the bailout into the economy) and 2) while all money that is spent comes back into the economy, there are studies that show that things like food stamps (provide 1.61 of stimulus per dollar spent) are much more effective means of stimulus than many of the things we spent money, meaning (back to your original point) that government spending is highly inefficient and that the government could have gotten us a lot more bang for our buck, so to speak.

I have to say, not working in the private sector (per se) I am a bit out of my depth with my perspective on regulation (still think Rush is nuts though). I probably think more of regulation than you do, precisely for that reason, but I agree that much of what government does restricts free economic growth. But there are instances where the public good and policies good for economic growth conflict. i.e. regulations for much of the energy sector - oil spills and coal mine collapses are bad for the public, but requiring massive safety regulations, inspections, retrofits not only costs those companies money, it also slows down our energy supplies, messes with the energy futures markets - particularly when the government is dithering about whether or not to have new regulations .... I think you are right when you say that uncertainty is very bad for growth, in fact I think the impact has been marginalized because people like me generally consider it only a republican talking point and not a real thing. So I think the major place that reasonable people (i.e. not Rush, Bachmann, Nader or Kucinich) differ about this is which regulations are important enough to the public good to enact despite their effect on economic growth.

As a side note, I also think the need for regulation is a case where a small number of private corporations who are not good corporate citizens give the corporations which are a bad name. I think a lot of private companies self-police, have good environmental practices, and are adequately controlled by market forces. But when companies get so big they can weather local, or even regional market forces, they necessitate the need for regulations which have a much more negative effect on all companies.

It is sad to me that you feel the way you do about Obama, not because you feel that way but because it is a feeling that is echoed by most people our age that I know. I am incredibly sad to have been mostly lost by Obama, I very much believed in him - and you never know, his resolution to this debt issue or his second term might redeem him and in 6 years we might be looking back on the most transformative president of our lifetimes. But, I don't know if I believe that any more and I have said to a number of people (probably including you), that I hope that the Republicans nominate some crazy person (Bachman) who has no chance of winning so that I can feel safe voting against Obama in an effort to support a 3rd party, because he has been tremendously disappointing to me as well.

I wish he was Jimmy Carter 2.0 (at least that guy had the guts to tell us to wear sweaters), he is more like Reagan 2.0, minus the communication skills - which is shocking, because one of the things I thought would be most amazing about Obama would be his communication skills as a former professor and such a great speaker - its not that he can't communicate, I seem to get him fine. Its just that somehow he does not seem to get his point across and inspire the energy he did during the campaign. If Huntsman was nominated and I truly thought that he is simply lying right now to get through the Republican primary (not sure that I do), I would vote for him in a second - but that to might be false hope, because I think he has was Obama had, the sense of newness, difference and professionalism we originally all wanted in Obama. What we really need right now is Eisenhower 2.0."

What struck me the most about this conversation - other than the fact that a) I ended up wishing for the reincarnation of a dead, republican WWII hero and b) I am really blessed to have such thoughtful friends with whom I can interact on such a high level - was how positive our interaction was in terms of respecting and learning from each points of view. I don't think I won him over, nor he me, but I do think we now have a better understanding of each others opinions, and through that, a (a least slightly) broader perspective on our national situation. I wish our politics was more like this and less like reality ...

Mermaid Parade 2011

2011-06-19T21:01:00.008-04:00

So its not every day that ones wife and a number of her beautiful friends say to you, "We are going to get dressed up as mermaids and walk through the streets of Brooklyn in shell-covered bikinis and fluorescent wigs and we want you to come and take pictures of us." I said yes ... and while it was a little intimidating to papparazzi a group of gorgeous mermaids parading up the street and onto the beach, I was able to tough it out :)

All of the girls looked spectacular in their great mermaid costumes (which of course they made themselves) and apparently had an incredible time .. it was probably the best bachelorette party that I have seen ... having said that, I don't make it to a ton of bachelorette parties, but it still looked like a great blast.

But you can judge for yourselves, here are a bunch of the pictures from group #134 in the mermaid parade 2011 (my favorites are above the text).

2nd Anniversary at the Delware Water Gap

2011-06-14T21:44:00.000-04:00

Its hard to believe that Aviva and I have been married for two years already, it feels very short and very long at the same time, both in a good way. Last year for our first anniversary, we did a couple of different things (all involved cooking and eating, of course) but the one I remember best was that we hit up Mac bar, spent the night at the Manhattan Club, and had breakfast at Normas. This year we decided to range a little farther a field, and spent the weekend hiking at the Delaware Water Gap ... it was awesome.

We stayed at an incredible, Zen-retreat like bed and breakfast called Santosha on the Ridge, on a hilltop in Shawnee, PA (see above and to the left). The place was tremendous, a beautiful wooden mountain house on a hillside within and overlooking the forest, with a gigantic, gorgeous deck and surrounded by gardens, ponds and a lush, green landscape. We arrived late Friday, went for a quick walk along the river and saw more fireflies than I have ever seen before. It was like there was a disco ball reflecting little specks of yellow everywhere your eye could see. When we got back at to the B & B, we sat in our private jacuzzi tub for a while and crashed, waking up to soft morning sun and beautiful green branches through the giant windows in our room (on the right). The proprietors, Leslie and Amy, made an incredible breakfast, yogurt, homemade granola and fresh fruit followed by homemade fruit biscuits and an amazing, savory bread pudding.

After breakfast we packed up, picked up some sandwiches at the general store in town, and drove over to Bushkill Falls, "The Niagara of Pennsylvania". While the falls were not niagara (not even close from the pix I have seen), and something was lost because of the commercialization of the area, they were still really beautiful (below is the top of Bushkill Falls) and the way the area was maintained, especially the network of wooden bridges and walkways, was really impressive. We spent about 2 hours there, and Aviva was phenomenally patient

with me as I took about 200 pictures :) Afterwards, we drove up the Gap, stopping at Hornbecks creek (a little, unmarked turnoff between mile markers 10 and 11) for a gorgeous, waterfall draped hike along the creek. Although blanketed in bugs - I think I must have gotten 3 dozen mosquito bites despite slathering my self with Cutter - we loved the secret feeling hike along this river, and spent about 2 or 3 hours there before getting back to the car and heading back to Santosha.

We showered up and hung out for about 2 hours, before going a truly unique dinner at Momentos pizza in East Stroudsburg. This place, a podunk looking pizzeria in a small strip-mall, was anything but - filled with just a couple of boothes and a few tables with typical red-and-white checkered tableclothes ... you wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary about the restaurant until you saw the wall menu, with items like spinach gnocchi topped with a white-truffle reduction. At the very top of this was a tasting menu, which we chose and which resulted in a very good meal couched inside a fantastic dining experience.

As it turns out, one of the chefs used to work in NYC at a high-powered restaurant and recently left for some reason and was hanging out in this kitchen making stuff that is not normally made in a pizzeria. Overall our dinner was six courses, including the parmesan breadstick and lunch meat appetizer and the ice creamy desert, and while the food itself did not blow our mind, having a personal chef who explained each course as we ate it was great. But the best part was spending 2.5 hours sitting in a rickety booth, drinking wine we brought out of mis-matched wine glasses while sitting next to guys eating slices and stromboli while we ate spinach gnocchi with truffle sauce, chicken "Walker" and delicately sauteed shrimp with a yellow pepper reduction. It was a super fun evening and a truly unique dining experience. By the time we finished, paid - the chef had already left so we paid the guys making the normal pizza and when I paid, they looked t me incredulously and asked "Was it good? Was it worth it?" - and got back to the B & B we were beat, and crashed almost immediately.

Our final morning began with Aviva doing yoga on the deck with one of the proprietors (Leslie) and me photographing lichen by the pond. After another wonderful breakfast, we headed up to Dingmans falls for a short hike up to another gorgeous waterfall (above), then stopped in Milford for sandwiches and headed home - this time the ride was only about 2 hours. It was only about 2 days of time, but it was a wonderful break and a fabulous time. Plus, the waterfalls were amazing (below you can see bridesmaids falls)

Need a tank?

2011-05-31T11:34:00.003-04:00

It is not so often that one needs a tank, although they do lend a helpful hand to the occasional rampage or quick invasion. Normally its difficult to obtain a tank, weapon sales being restricted as they are today, but fortunately Amazon is here to help you out. Now you can buy the JL 421 Badonkadonk tank directly from Amazon ...

Awesome ...

Aviva's a Doctor

2011-05-22T17:26:00.020-04:00

So last week, my wife finished up her five years at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and is now a doctor - I am so incredibly proud of her. And even more excited about the fact that now, when people write us a formal greeting, they address it to "The Doctors Gaskill", which just sounds awesome.

The celebration for Aviva's graduation actually lasted a lot longer than just the day, as we spent the weekend with Aviva's sister Rachel and her adorable kids Dylan and Joey. We went hiking at Ward Pound Ridge on Saturday, which was great, we walked up to the Leathermans' cave and caught frogs and dragonflies (you can see Dylan and I hunting for more frogs here on the left, and Dylan and Joey playing on the trail to the cave below). And then I went and did the AIDS walk Sunday with my cousin Julia before meeting Aviva, Rachel, Dylan and Joey in Brooklyn and heading over to my aunt Debbies in Long Beach to celebrate my cousin Toby's birthday and take the kids to the beach. The best part of this afternoon was watching Dylan have an incredible time playing with my cousin Amanda's daughter Sarah, chasing dragons all over the house and the beach.

The big day (graduation) was on Tuesday, and we started with brunch at Norma's with my parents David & Peg, Aviva's parents Bucky & Tanya, her aunt Irene, her sister Rachel and our nephew and niece Dylan and Joey. Breakfast was fabulous, I had a incredible duck confit hash that replaced the potatoes normally in hash with duck, making it essentially a delicious mix of duck, peppers and onions ... having said that Tanya's gigantic belgian waffle covered with fresh fruit was unbelievable.

Being together with family is pretty awesome, and just breakfast would have made for a pretty great day - but obviously Aviva's graduation made breakfast essentially an afterthought. After breakfast we all headed up to Washington Heights, to the main campus of Yeshiva University, where we met up with Koffman (who quite thoughtfully brought the flowers which all the rest of us forgot) and my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Steve and we all watched Aviva and a number of the wonderful friends we have made (really Aviva made and I just kind of inherited) over Aviva's time at Ferkauf walk and get hooded. I have to say, I have seen a number of graduations and been in two of my own, and generally they were fairly boring. And structurally this one wasn't really any different from those other graduations, but it was awesome ... I was so thrilled and proud of her that the ceremony was fantastic. Afterwards we all headed over to a reception put on by Yeshiva, where I got to watch with delight as my parents and aunt & uncle mixed almost seamlessly with Aviva's parents, aunt and sister. That (and watching my wife smile enormously as she was hooded) was really the best part of the day for me. We all hung out for a few hours and then headed back downtown, where we visited my parents hotel room in the crazy, modern hotel Andaz with Debbie & Steve before heading home.

While most people went home on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, Aviva and my celebration continued for one more night, as we met up with Tanya and Bucky in the city for an unreal dinner at Nobu. Fantastic sake (YK35 - which apparently means that only the best 35% of the original rice grains were used to make this sake that was so silky and flavorful I didn't believe it was actually sake) and ridiculous sashimi. Incredibly thin and so well flavored, all four of the sashimi that we tried (yellowtail with jalapeno, fluke with ground red miso, tuna in salad with ginger-onion marinade and another fabulous tuna) we just wonderful. And the hot dishes and sushi, particularly the rock shrimp with a tangy kind of orange-spicy aioli and the unagi, were also tremendous - though nothing compared to the sashimi. All together, dinner was awesome, entirely satiating and an incredible amount of fun, as it often is when we go out with Bucky & Tanya. A fitting and wonderful end to a fantastic few days celebrating Aviva's graduation.

My Belated Birthday

2011-05-10T17:01:00.014-04:00

So this year for my birthday, Aviva organized a picnic with two of our friends Amy and Max, who happen to be fantastic photographers, so that they could teach me more about photography, particularly of waterfalls ... which are a minor obsession for me. I have been pretty excited about this all year, and when we finally went it was fantastic ... Aviva not only organized the picnic, she also made all the food, all of which was fantastic. She made a series of amazing salads; curry chicken, a crisp, not mayonaise-y potato salad with bacon, a corn-black bean salad and an amazing fruit salad. But I think the best thing of all was dessert, which was an unbelievable sea salt chocolate tart (it was actually huge, more like a cake) - it was ridiculous.

The place we went was also pretty fantastic, the YMCA camp at Frost Valley, about 2 hours north west of Westchester. It was really beautiful, and there was a fantastic plunge/punchbowl type waterfall about 1.5 miles from the picnic site, which was perfect. High falls was fantastic, and I think we got some pretty good shots, and there was another wonderful 4-tiered waterfall on the side of the road .. And best of all, it was a fantastic time, great company incredible food and a beautiful setting. Wonderful birthday all around ... I love my incredible wife :)

Its after Pesach so its spring ... and that means hiking

2011-04-24T19:26:00.008-04:00

And as of this weekend, it is definitely spring. The magnolia trees are blooming, the air is getting heavy with pollen (as judged by my poor wifes allergies) and the temperature is creeping into the 60's and 70's. Yup .. spring is definitely here.

Plus last week was Passover, so that means that it is definitely time for spring. Passover was a bit late this year, mid- rather than early April, but Cherry Hill was still a bit damp and cold, though I did wear shorts most of the time. It was, as usual, a wonderful time, with a big seder on the 1st night (25), the Rappaports (who always make it fantastic) came over, and Arthur Bailey came along with Tom and Barbara, and our friends Jen & Volkan came down from the Bronx for the night - Volkan blew Buckys mind by telling him he was in Betar. The second night was a much smaller (just the 13 family) seder, somewhat tired and subdued but still wonderful food and good company. More than anything, as my nephew and nieces were running around, communicating and interactive and just incredibly fun and wonderful, this passover made me realize that the holiday is really for the kids ... and how important it is for us to make it accessible to and share it with them.

Anyway, back to spring and hiking, today Aviva and I met up with Jen and Volkan and their wonderful dog Maddie to go hiking in Mountain Lakes Park in northern Westchester county, up in the irrefutably cute town of North Salem ... I mean the town and the surroundings are gorgeous, like a Crate & Barrel catalog for farms and street signs. The park itself was great, a bunch of small lakes strung together along a series of small rivulets - the defining feature of many of the trails we went on today was wet and muddy and kind of rich with life - you could see the swamp lettuce blooming all over the park. The park also contains, Mt. Bailey, purported by my trail guide to be the highest point in Westchester county. This is something I seriously doubt, and the mountain, as it was, was not particularly impressive ... in fact I am not sure we noticed when we were on top of it.

Still, the whole park was great - though I am sure it would be even better in the late spring once all the trees have leaves, because the trail we took today would be under a leafy canopy then - we kind of hiked around one side of the lakes along a gravel road, then closed in on the other side and spent some time throwing sticks for Maddie in Hemlock Lake before walking around Spruce lake, through the parks ropes course (which looked cool, I would happily go back) and back to the cars. The hike was short and easy, but it was really nice to be outside and just enjoying the forest, plus there were a number of small waterfalls around the park which I got to photograph ... all in all a pretty great day :)

SNIP In Tampa

2011-04-13T22:11:00.001-04:00

Last week, and into the weekend, I headed down to Tampa for the 17th annual Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology Conference. I have actually been attending the meetings of the society for about 6 years now, and the meetings have become as much fun for the friends I get to see as for the science ... at first I thought it was kind of weird that my colleagues and contacts have become friends and people I really look forward to seeing, but then I realized that I was just very lucky to work with people I liked so much.

This meeting was no different, good science discussion, a lot of talk about alcohol and drugs of abuse (actually less about drugs this time) and generally a lot of debating/arguing/enjoyable conversation about dopamine and how it can effect immune cells and modulate HIV infection - I know, sounds thrilling right :) But I actually love it. And I got to see all of my favorite folks there, many of whom I had missed at the ISNV the previous fall, particularly my old mentor Howard. We hung out much of Friday afternoon, talked science and Nebraska, reminisced about old times at Scripps, took in the Tampa Aquarium and went back to Columbia (above), the restaurant where Howard, Trish and I first learned to make mojitos at this meeting six years ago at SNIP 11 (you can see that picture below - I had slightly more hair then). The food was once again excellent, I had some kind of grouper in a bready bag of some kind with asparagus and a citrus-cream dressing and Howard had some exquisite seafood pasta. His, unfortunately, was better although mine was great as well. Again, despite the fact that Florida is too hot and sticky at almost any time of year, I had a great time with the science and most importantly the people.

I LOVE food

2011-03-23T20:06:00.005-04:00

I LOVE food. I really do. Particularly great food. Aviva and I have pretty much realized that we are snobby, snooty foodies ... sure she is a bit more discriminating that I, for instance, I kind of love the Kraft parmesan cheese in the green can (you know, the stuff that looks - and tastes - like Ajax) while Aviva holds out for the real stuff.

But really, we both just love food. But we don't eat out a lot, because we are cheap, but also because we are good cooks and don't like to pay for things we can make on our own. At least, thats how things are normally.

But this month things have been a little different, we have been a bit gluttonous by our standards ... and if you read on, I will expound on it.

We have been helped out by the fact that it is restaurant week in the Hudson Valley this month (actually, it should be restaurant 2 weeks as that is that actual length of time, but hey ...). So, to take full advantage of this occasion, last week Aviva and I met up with our friends Scott and Rachel at Xaviars X2O in Yonkers. But before I get to that, just a special mention to the Candlelight Inn on Central Ave, where we were with Rachel and Scott when we discussed going to Xaviars. Candlelight might be a small, tight, dingy place where you have to wait an hour to be seated, but it is all worth it once you taste the incredible, giant wings. Best in wings in Westchester.

Xaviars is an offshoot of the original in Piedmont, and somewhere we have been wanting to go to for a long time. It is in the kind of swanky, modern looking area in the center of Yonkers just by the water and is supposed to be some of the best food in Westchester. The place had a great atmosphere, the staff were great and most importantly, the food was really excellent (mostly). Happily for me, I thought my butternut squash bisque was the best of the appetizers, although Rachels risotto with aged parmesan was pretty great. For dinner, each couple ordered the same thing, so we had two pork chops and two braised beef ribs. The ribs were good, but the pork chops were really incredible .. I am becoming a huge fan of heritage pork. The deserts were meh, which leads me to my understanding of a truly great restaurant, which is one that excels at every course.

We will be continuing our gluttony next week at the Iron horse Grill in Chappaqua, but over the weekend, we spent some time in Philly with Rachel, Larry and the kids for Rachels birthday. Aviva helped out with some babysitting, Larry and I drove down to Delaware to get his son Marley, we walked around the Italian market and ate 5 pints of blueberrys and some chocolate covered pretzels, spent some time on Sunday at the purim carnival in Cherry Hill and saw Aviva's grandparents, but the highlight of the weekend was dinner at Varalli, an Italian seafood place, for Rachels birthday. The place was not as modern or hip as I thought it would be, the piano and lounge singer on the way in gave it a kind of 50's night club feel ... but the food was superb, from the wonderful ceviche and pesto we had as appetizers to the delicious seafood risotto (the scallops were huge and fantastic) and Aviva's agnolotti stuffed with mascarpone and eggplant. Desert was, again, a little disappointing, although the vanilla bean gelatto was pretty good. Overall the meal was fantastic, that is definitely one to hang onto.

Thats the end of our gluttonous tales for now, I will tell you how the Iron Horse Grill is this weekend :)

Berkshires

2011-03-02T21:25:00.013-05:00

Last weekend, Aviva and I finally got to get away for the weekend with two of our favorite people, Jen and Volkan, and their wonderful dog Maddie. The five of us spent the weekend ensconced in a very cute rented cottage in the Berkshires, cooking, gabbing, snowshoeing, watching Seinfeld (no cable but 5 seasons of Seinfeld on DVD) and generally relaxing ... it was a great time.

We all arrived on Friday evening, Aviva and I getting there around 6 and Jan, Volkan and Maddie arriving around 9. Aviva and I made vegetarian Bim Bim Bop (Korean Rice Bowl) for dinner, and when Jen and Volkan arrived we made Shabbat, ate and afterwards we destroyed the cookies they brought up.

Saturday we got up, made an eggy stir fry and headed off to Benedict Lake in Beartown State Forest to go snowshoeing. Except for the fact that it took us about 45 minutes to find the lake (an example of our impatience, as if we had just kept driving about 2 minutes more we would have found the correct turn), it was perfect. The lake itself was completely frozen over, and the surround deep forest was blanketed in dusty white, and gave a feeling of comfortable isolation and closeness to something wild. It was really breathtaking, and the trails around it, including a section of the AT apparently known as "the Ledges", were equally so. There were other people there, no many but we did run into another couple with a dog and some other snowshoers on the AT, but generally it was quiet and peaceful ... well, when Maddie was not running around going nuts. I think she had a blast, and we certainly had a fabulous time playing with her - as you can see on the right, she loves sticks, the bigger the better. After our expedition, we returned to the cottage and Jen made a veggie matzah ball soup for lunch while the rest of us lounged and watched Seinfeld. Lunch was delicious, and after a bit more lounging we went snowshoing around the property, returning at around 6 and heading out to dinner at the Castle street cafe in Great Barrington.

Dinner was pretty good, I think that my duck in black currant sauce with grilled fruit was the best, but it was mine so I am slightly biased. The meal was excellent (desert was a bit lacking, the chocolate mousse was very grainy) and a lot of fun, and after a very short walk around town (as it was quite cold and nothing was open), we headed back to the cottage and all fell asleep (or mostly asleep) watching a quite boring movie called Brideshead Revisited.

Sunday we had to be out by 10, which surprisingly, was not difficult. After a short trip into town to buy some organic beef at the Berkshire co-op (awesome store), a coffee for Volkan and an orchid for Jen, left the Berkshires and headed home, by way of Bash Bish falls, which is where Aviva and I had our first kiss (I strangely do not mention it in the original post, but I think I might have been afraid to jinx things ... it worked out and I am not complaining). Bash bish did not disappoint, just as beautiful as always - frozen waterfalls, if you have never seen one, tend to be absolutely spectacular - and Aviva, Jen, Volkan and Maddie all humored me while I spent a good hour taking pictures of the scenery and of us, and just kind of lapping up the beauty.

And then we were back to the cars and done, heading home. It was too quick, barely felt like we had any time there, but at the same time it was very relaxing and felt like we were away much longer than 2 days. Also, it was a blast to hang out with Jen, Volkan and Maddie, something we will hopefully get to repeat in the no to distant future :)

Valentines Day

2011-02-17T21:10:00.000-05:00

So, being both foodies and relatively poor compared to the crazy people who drop 500$ going to dinner on Valentines day, Aviva and I decided to make our own special meal on Valentines day - romantic pizza.

Before baking ...

Goofing around in the kitchen ...

Mmm, looks good ...

... and it was delicious.

Snowshoeing

2011-02-08T20:38:00.019-05:00

As you almost certainly know, January this year was rough in terms of the weather. We had the snowiest January in New York history, several big storms dropping 56 inches of snow all over the tri-state area. Most people thought it was awful, but I gotta tell you, all I wanted was another 10 inches. The snow stuck in Westchester the way it never does in the city, leaving everything blanketed in gorgeous white ... and most importantly, it left an incredible snow pack in the mountains and parks nearby. The icicles to the right are found in the ice caves up at Sam's Point preserve near the 'Gunks ... more about that later.

Snowshoeing.

So each Sunday for the last two weekends, I have been out snowshoing, first in Sam's Point (just south of the gunks) with Cheo and Jurrian, and then with Aviva at Ward Pound Ridge preserve near Katonah.

The first trip, with Cheo and Jurrian, took in a trail Cheo and I had done two winters ago out to an ice cave and then down to Verkeerder Kill Falls. Both times the we have done it, we have not been able to complete the whole trail, and this time was no different ... again we had to turn around at the waterfall. However, the trail out to the falls was much tougher this time, about 3 feet of snow obscuring most of the manzanita that lines the trail in the summer and fall. The whole day was awesome, deep snow everywhere, with massive icicles everywhere. The ice cave was just as cool as last time ... although the insides were not coated with ice the way they were last time. Still, Cheo brought his snow chains for boots, allowing us to climb up the icy staircase we had not been able to navigate two years before.

After the caves, we trekked out to the falls, only stopping for lunch once we reached the top. After lunch we were about to leave when Cheo walked a bit farther for a look at the front of the falls, and I am really glad he did, because the view was of the frozen falls was spectacular.

Cheo wanted to keep going, but it was already pretty late in the day, so we headed back towards the caves, walked out and took in the frozen Lake Maratanza and headed back to the car, stopping at an overlook on the way back to take in the magnificent views of the Hudson to the east and the Gunks and the Catskills to the north. Even though we did not get close to finishing the trail, we went about 8 miles and were exhausted, soaked and thrilled when we got back to the car.

The next weekend Aviva and I headed up to Ward Pound Ridge State Reservation, near Cross River about 35 minutes north of here. One of the things I love the most about where we live is the incredible access to so many beautiful little parks and preserves that are easy to use for a quick hike or just easy access to the outdoors. On the way into the park, the ranger recommended the brown trail along the river in the far side of the park.

Good choice.

The trail was beautiful and empty, with a gorgeous blue sky, great tempteratures and a solid snow pack it was about as perfect as a day as we could have asked for. The park has good trail markings and the trails are well used, making the trail easy to follow and fun to move on. We only saw one other person (and her wonderful dog), as well as a small group of white tailed deer. The whole trail was only about 4 miles long, which was perfect, because we got a late start (I had to work in the morning) and snowshoing is pretty rigorous, so 4 miles was plenty. We got back to the car, tired and sweaty, around 4 in the afternoon, and quickly headed home to eat the pasta calabria (with shrimp) I had made the night before, and then headed upstairs to watch the Super Bowl with Zeke and Ali.

Red Hat on the River

2011-02-06T20:38:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, my aunt and uncle and one of my cousins came up to have dinner and check out our "new" (it is new since that last time they were over anyway) kitchen. So we decided to have dinner at Red Hat on the River, a cute little French place over in Irvington and then come back here for desert. We had heard about the place from our neighbors, who recommended it pretty highly, and they turned out to be right.

Red Hat was a lot of fun, very good food, a limited but excellent drink selection and a very pleasant wait staff. The restaurant itself was a bit difficult to find, at least for us, because it is kind of hidden in an old factory building. They say it is right under the large smokestack, but in the dark, the smokestack being large does not help its visibility (at least this was our experience). I think that the best dish was my own, a luscious pork chop from Snake River Farms
fbut Aviva's mussels and my uncles duck were also delicious. The goat cheese gnocchi and crab cakes we had as appetizers were pretty good too, and the stiff glass of WhistlePig Rye whiskey I had to wash it down was excellent.

After dinner, we came back to our place and ate some of the fabulous toffee blondies Aviva made, as well as some of the assortment of delicious treats my aunt and uncle brought up from Long Island City. Another great night in Westchester.

Snowpocalypse, part II?

2011-01-28T19:49:00.008-05:00

The snow here is fantastic, so beautiful .... and under heavy snow is the only time that NYC slows down to match the pace of life with most of the rest of the world. Which is nice.

Check out the snow from out the window on Thursday morning ...

I had previously written about how bummed I was to be missing the massive snow storm that shellacked the East Coast in late December while I was in California, but that disappointment is completely gone right now because New York has gotten quite a bit of snow lately ... in fact, this is a new record, as we have gotten about 36 inches of snow in the last 30 days. I love it, but I am a rare one here ... people are getting very tired of it. And it certainly hasn't helped with parking, particularly around work, where the people in the neighborhood have taken to walking into cleared out spots to keep us Einstein folks from using the few available parking spots.

Sunday I get to go snowshoeing ... should be a fantastic snow pack and a great day. More about that later.

Back to the impound lot

2011-01-21T10:03:00.002-05:00

I am not sure how many of your remember the last time my car was towed, but it was many moons ago, when I was fairly new to New York. That time was much more expensive than this time, although the process and reasoning this time were, if anything, even more ridiculous.

Just like last time, I was parked on Seminole, except that this time it was on the other side of the hospital. Just the same as last time, a fully legal parking spot, about 4o feet from a fire hydrant, in a spot clearly left open because another car had just left. I have in fact parked in this particular spot several times, and am always pleased when I can get it, because it is a good spot, close to work and easy to pull into ... which is saying something these days, as snow takes up about 20% of the available parking spaces around here. Thus parked, I walked into work and had a pretty good day, and was excited to leave a bit early, around 6, to get home and spend time with Aviva. So I walk over to where I parked ... and the car is gone. At first, I think it was stolen, then I talk to Aviva, who convinces me to check the near-by streets in case I misremembered where I parked. Obviously the car was nowhere to be found, so I call the police, tell them my car is stolen and they tell me to call 311 and see if it has been towed.

At this point, I cannot think of a reason why my car would be towed, I parked legally and have no outstanding tickets. It occurs to me that my inspection sticker expired on December 31st, I had tried to get it done on the 3rd but everywhere I went was too busy, and I was planning on taking it in over the weekend. But that was just a ticket the last time, so I am left in a quandry about my offense would have been to get my car towed - nevertheless, I am shocked when I find out it has, in fact, been towed to the impound yard.

I trudge back to work, trying, without success, to get someone at the tow yard to pick up the phone, the first yard I call is the wrong one, which the very angry guy on the other end of the phone assumes is because I am an idiot .. and not because that is the number I was told to call. As I walk back to work, I call the Bronx tow yard number and finally, after 4 calls over 30 minutes to 3 different numbers I finally get someone on the phone. She tells me the yard is open until 10 pm, and that I was towed because my inspection had expired and then hangs up while I am asking for directions.

It begins to occur to me that perhaps I sound like some sort of raving lunatic or something else dramatically unappealing, because everyone I am speaking too sounds angry at me and cannot wait to get off the phone.

Once back at work, something goes right and one of the students in the lab offers to drive me down to the impound yard. Its only 4 miles away, but it takes 35 minutes to get there because in the Bronx streets are laid out like the city planner was a one-eye drunkard with no thumbs, and the drivers are not much better. When we finally arrive, I walk in, show my ID and am gestured into the first of several portable offices. As I walking into the office, the guard asks if I will be needing a tow truck. I tell him no.

This, as it turns out, was foolish ...

I quickly find out that the guy in front of me in line has also had his car towed for an expired inspection, and that his inspection also expired on December 31st, 2010. Further, I find out that because our cars have expired registrations, they are deemed "unsafe" to drive in New York City, and must be towed to an inspection station. In fact, they will only release the car to a registered tow truck driver who is present in the office. A bit incredulous, I lean back out the door and ask the security guard about that tow, I am informed that the truck just left, but another will be by in 5 minutes.

It briefly occurs to me to find it odd that they generally have a truck just waiting there ... this immediately makes much more sense when the tow truck driver informs me that he does not have to tow me back to my house, just out of the impound yard, at which point I can repossess and drive my car ... oh, and the 60 foot tow out of the yard will cost me 65$, in cash, because they don't take checks. But I can use the ATM conveniently located in the office, which of course charges a reasonable fee. At this point I have not even mentioned the glacial pace at which our paper work is being filled out. There are 3 people in the office but on only 1 is doing work, 2 if you count continuously refilling staplers as work. I arrived at the yard at about 730 pm, and there was one guy in line in front of me and they ended up processing our paper work together. By the time I get out into the street, having given our receipts to the tow truck operator, it is already 830 pm. The tow truck driver goes down to his truck - which as it turns out, is just a Ford F-150 with a wooden 2x4 and some large chains in the back - and drives into the yard, slowly coming out with our vehicles, first the other guys, then mine. While he is doing that, I ask the security guard when they started towing for inspection violations. He says that it has been the law for more than 5 years, but the tow is at the officers discretion. He notes that recently officers have been choosing to tow an awful lot more often, so often that now there is a tow truck permanently parked outside the impound yard.

I choose not to mention that if are cars are truly unsafe to drive, necessitating the tow, in seems silly that towing them would probably not be at an officers discretion.

When the tow truck finally comes back out with my car, 35 more minutes have passed ... probably because it is more difficult to tow a car when your tow hitch looks like something MacGuyver would come up with. The tow truck driver also mentions, in response to my queries, that he works for the body shop across the street, and that once this sort of thing started happening, they just got a truck and started to do towing, and it has already easily paid for itself .. obviously, as this guy just made 130$ in 20 minutes. Less than amused, I go to pay the guy, and only have 62$ or 80$, not the chane for 65$, which is what he told me the official fee was mandated to be by the tow yard. He looks for a minute and says, "62 will be fine." Mandated my ass.

After I pay the guy and get my car off the truck, I receive one final bonus from the NYPD ... I discover that I have also received a ticket indicating that I need to pay 65$ because my inspection is expired ... good thing they gave me that ticket, otherwise I might not have realized my inspection was expired.

Yet another reason my wife is awesome!!!

2011-01-12T09:56:00.005-05:00

So I collect swords, have been for about 15 years now, shockingly, even to myself. I think I probably started when my grandfather brought me a "Siamese samurai sword" (an appellation I now know is not real) from Thailand, and it just kind of kept up. I am sure my love of fantasy (Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, etc ...) fueled this hobby ... but it is still surprising to me that it has lasted into adulthood. At this point I have 8 swords and sword like weapons (if you count the WWII bayonet I inherited from my grandfather) ...

What is even more surprising to me is that despite her humor with my pre-adolescent hobby, my incredible wife not only supports my sword collecting but encourages it. I mean how many women do you know who would let you get this and put it up in your bedroom?

California for Christmas

2010-12-30T19:18:00.011-05:00

I missed the snow ... again. Last week, while New York was suffering under the onset of Snowpocalypse, I was visiting friends and family out in the Bay Area. This is the second year in a row I have missed a massive snowstorm, last year we were in Thailand and this year in California. One of the best parts of the East Coast is the weather, and while not everyone agrees, I think the snow is a major part of that ... Still, Cali was sweet this winter, and I was happy to be there ... as always the purpose of the trip is to see as many of my people as possible in as short a time - well, not really but it often feels that way. Still, I was really lucky and got to see everyone I wanted to, although not for as much time as I would have liked. I got out late on Christmas eve, and spent the next morning eating breakfast with with my Dad and Peg before heading up to SF on BART to spend the day eating, drinking and watching movies (Return of the Jedi and Southpark; Bigger, Longer and Uncut - I had actually never seen Southpark and, as expected, it was hilarious and quite beyond the bounds of any kind of taste) with Dave, his new fiance Lindsey (who is awesome and was definitely the highlight of the SF trip), Danny and some of Dave's friends. A generally great day, punctuated by delicious ham and mustard sandwiches and a good number of delicious whiskies (I find that the Macallan 18 Fine Oak is quite nice).

I headed back down to Dave and Em's place to spend the night, so I could wake up Sunday morning and play with their son Ethan and their new daughter Allison (not so much playing with Allison as looking at her - she is 10 days old, but quite cute as you can see in the picture to the right). But Ethan, he is up for playing, and walking all over the place, so that's what we did, as you can see in the pictures scattered throuhout this post - we walked all over the neighborhood, up past Broadway and back down, and spent some time teaching Ethan about rocks and leaves and drains, ending up at the neighborhood park when Neal and Terri showed up. Neal, being infallible, taught Ethan a little about riding a motor cycle and we all just kind of appreciated being around each other ... and appreciated the brilliance of making a line-of-sight park. The rest of the day was pretty much just hanging out around Burlingame, although we did (sans Emily and the kids) head over to the Steelhead brewing company for lunch. In the late afternoon, Jane and Glenn, Dave's parents, also came by and we all hung out with the kids for a little while longer until Neal and Terri dropped me off at my Dad's for dinner and yahtzee.

The next two days were taken up with my fathers storage locker and our past, as we spent time looking through dozens of albums and lose pictures, books and all kinds of memorabilia from the last 20 years, such as swords and war maces, seder plates and the Lord of the Rings books on which I learned to read. We went through everything from years of cub and boy scout pictures to the framed pictures and certificates hanging on the walls of the house I grew up in to the old artwork friends of my parents did for movies that never got made in the '60's. It was a pretty emotional set of days, punctuated by a burrito with Ryan and dinner at Max's Opera Cafe (which, I discovered with my new-found East Coast savvy, is essentially a diner).

It was actually a pretty tough thing to do, and it often felt like we were throwing away the past ... although I know what we were really doing is looking at a lot of identical things we had not touched in 10 years + and picking out a few that were meaningful. And we did keep a lot, but still, it was tough. Tuesday night, after going through everything and sending several boxes back to NY for me, my Dad and I made stuffed portabello mushrooms for he, Peg and myself to have for dinner, then my parents went to a movie while I went out for a drink with Dave in Burlingame. And then Wednesday I got up and with only a few delays, got back to NY late but still fairly easily ... as always when I visit California, I am tremendously sad to leave and the whole flight back is always filled with the formulation of different strategies by which my life could take me back there to live. It was a really fun, but really tough visit in equal parts, but I am so glad to have been able to go and only hope to make it out again soon ..

Artsy Chicks and Gingerbread

2010-12-19T18:33:00.010-05:00

So as many of you know, my wife, despite the fact that she is a psychologist, got her undergraduate degree at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) in illustration. This means she went to school with a bunch of immensely creative people .... and due their creativity, they come up with wondrous, inspired and often bizarre things to do, things that do not strike these folks as unusual, but that totally baffle the rest of us ... or at least me. I often think to myself, how in the hell did they come up with that idea. Friday night was another of these evenings ... Amy, Abby and Ilana (who will protest that she did not attend RISD and is not an artist, but is just as creative and kooky as the rest of them) arrived just a few minutes before me, but as I came in, our place was already a whirlwind of noise and activity as the girls broke into hugs, giggles and the frenetic activity that, at least in my mind, is always associated with these four getting together. Having said that, I love seeing all these girls together ... they make each other happier than almost anything else that I know of, and seeing Aviva smile that much is an incredible treat for me.

Aviva had prepared a load of tabouli and the girls brought over salad and a load of brussel sprouts, as well as wine, which was opened and drunk. Dinner was delicious and for dessert, we had a do-it-yourself ginger bread man, which quickly became an x-rated activity .... as I said, these ladies often come up with things to do that would not occur to me, so as the ginger bread man became a transgender individual by gaining breasts and a penis, I simplay sat back in wonder and took pictures. Clothes and other accoutrements were debated and tossed aside, the final product looked kind of like a tranny Annie stick-figure. The girls proceeded to perform a variety of interesting acts with it. After another 20 minutes of goofing around we ate the gingerbread man, who was surprisingly not very good, and spent some time playing a game where you stick the name of a person on your head without looking and guess who it is. Although I had not wanted to play, it was hilarious, especially when Amy started to wonder if she was a porn star (but was in fact Fiddler on the Roof) and Abby wondered about masturbation (she was Edward Scissorhands). After the game I was in a bit of giggly female overload, so I secluded myself and watched a bit of basketball while the girls hung out for another hour or two before heading home. Overall it was a really fun night, and I have to say that I feel incredible fortunate that my wife has brought such fabulous people into my life. Hope we can do it again soon :)

A birthday in the city

2010-12-15T20:07:00.015-05:00

Not my birthday, but rather a celebration for one of our good friends and neighbors, Zeke, who lives upstairs (that's him on the right with a boot full of good, German beer). His wife, the lovely, irish Ali, organized a night out in the city for his birthday. Little did we know that the party was also on the night of Santa-Con, a day when getting dressed up like Santa is enough of an excuse to start drinking at 10 am, so that by the late afternoon you are not so much Santa as alcohol in a red suit ... over beers later in the day we decided that next year we should dress up in blue and white Santa suits and go as Hanukkah Harry.

But the day was not about Santa, it was about Zeke ... and, as it turns out, spending the day in the city with my wife. And we had a really nice day together, coming in around noon and heading over to Chipotle to have burritos for lunch (props to Karla), before meeting up with Ilana (who we absolutely adore) and trolling around Soho for a bit, stopping for hot chocolate at Aroma, exploring the Donna Karan sample sale and ending up at the Sheraton on Canal where we were spending the night.

Spending the night at the Sheraton was a real treat, as it was a really nice hotel and we were comped the room because our friends A.J. and Alana decided to use their hotel points to get us a room. Props guys, that was awesome. Because we had some extra time before meeting up with everyone else, I decided to take Aviva out for a drink at my favorite bar in the city, the Brandy Library. This place is all class, a quiet, gorgeous library like atmosphere tucked away on N. Moore street in the center of TriBeCa, where drinking is really about flavor and knowledge, rather than just getting drunk ... plus it has something like 400 whiskey's on the menu ... its simply fantastic. I have taken my father-in-law, and my uncle and cousin there recently, and it was great to be able to take my wife out for a drink there. We we lucky to get my favorite librarian, Jorge, and he advised us, as always toward some excellent beverages. We savored our drinks, she had wonderful French '75 and I tried a new scotch for me, Isle of Arran, which I liked very much - not peaty or salty like a lot of island scotches.

After the library, we met up with the neighbors at the hotel, then walked up 7th to Wilfie & Nells. While walking, we saw an incredible number of trashed santas, including a very drunk, very scantily clad young female Santa and her mother wandering up the the center of 7th avenue trying to hail a cab. The bouncer was also complaining about the crazy, drunk Claus's as we entered the bar, and sure enough, it was chock-full of Christmas. But we quickly found the neighbors, and settled down for a couple of beers before heading over to Lederhosen, a nearby German bierhaus, to surprise Zeke with all of his other friends (he said he had an inkling, but I personally think we was surprised).

We quickly took over a table in the back and the hijinks and hilarity ensued. We all acquire 1/2 liter beer glasses and a series of large pitchers of beer, which kept reappearing, full, throughout the course of the night ... along with the beer, large plates of sausages and mustard also magically appeared, and at some point we all ordered large heavy platters full of meat and cabbage. At this point I was quite drunk, having polished off about 1.5 liters of beer rather quickly, and as many of you know, rapid consumption of beer is kind of my weakness. As Alie would tell me later, I was quite the social butterfly, rambling around the table and talking to just about everyone, and spending a bit of time convincing Zeke to drink more ... not that he really needed my help. Zeke started with a 1-liter stein, but soon graduated to full on drunken-ness and a 2-liter boot. He occasionally got into drinking competitions with the table full of recently graduated NYU business undergraduates at the table next to ours, and at one point got up to give a rambling, incoherent speech in which no one seems to remember what he said. Zeke mentioned later he had no idea what he said as he was saying it.

At some point AJ and Alana needed to step out to another party, but before they left they helped us set up a game of beer pong, which Ali somehow convinced the waitresses would be calm and not messy. Surprisingly, pong was relatively calm, despite Zekes effort to liven things up by making terrifying passes at his friends wife and showing us his nipples, underwear and several other regions none of us wanted to see. Despite his efforts, we won and after drinking the remainder of the beer, we left the bierhaus and headed over to Fat Cat, a games bar a few blocks away. By the time we got downstairs and sorted out the gaming situation, Aviva and I were exhausted and soon we said goodnight and walked back to the Sheraton to crash. Apparently most people left soon after us, but Alana and AJ stuck it out with Zeke and Ali and they ended up at 5 guys around 2 am, where Zeke had a double cheeseburger .. which we are pretty sure he regretted as soon as he ate, and definitely regretted the next morning :)

The morning was considerably calmer, as we got up and fortuitously met Alana and AJ next door at the bagel place, headed over to grand central and caught the train home ... where we met Zeke and Ali who just made the train. We rehashed the night over bagels on the train, and when we got back to Hartsdale we hustled home in the rain ... I know that I was still smiling.

Greensaw

2010-12-15T19:58:00.005-05:00

So my brother-in-law Larry works in Philly as a painting contractor, and he recently started doing some work with a new company. Its called Greensaw and it looks awesome ... it is an eco-conscious building company, they do a lot of sustainable work use a lot of recovered material in their projects. Larry he was telling me that he loves working with the guys and I was checking out the website, here, and it looks awesome. It is always heartening to see and hear about a company where the people are motivated by a passion to do something good in a responsible way. Way to go Larry, I am excited for you!!!!

Thanksgiving in South Jersey

2010-12-02T19:21:00.011-05:00

November this year was quite a stressful time, Aviva defended her thesis (and did an amazing job I might add) at the beginning of the month and then we had a number of other activities over the next few weeks, plus we both had pretty rough months at work, so getting away to Cherry Hill was something we were both really looking forward to. And it was great.

We drove down very late on Wednesday night, getting there around 1 am, and spent most of Thursday chopping and cooking with Tanya ... which was a lot of fun, and makes me feel particularly warm because I know that Tanya lets you cook with her in your kitchen you are "in". All the kids (Aviva & I, Rachel & Larry and Josh & Debbie) were, there and they brought all their kids. And of course Aunt Irene and Papa Stranger and Grandma Charlotte came, and as special guest this year some extended "family", the Koreh's, children of some of Tanya and Buckys dear friends from Israel, stayed the the weekend, so it was a great time all around. Arthur Bailey also stopped by for dinner, which is great because Arthur is a real character and it is always wonderful to see him.

Dinner was a typical excellent thanksgiving meal, wonderful turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, etc ... and excellent wine. Bucky has been going through some of the older napa cabernets (the Hewitt from 2004 is outrageously good, so juicy) he has sitting down in his wine cellar as they are about ready to drink, and they are really excellent.

Friday was really more of the same, Aviva and I did a little shopping, getting her a new computer ... a MacBook Air which everyone loved (another successful conversion to Mac), and getting some new warm clothes at REI (because we cannot go to Cherry Hill without stopping at REI. After shopping Aviva and I got together with Laurie, Vasily, Jackie, Andrew and Heather for a leftovers lunch at Jackies, which was really good but far too close to dinner because I was stuffed at 430 and knew we were having breast of veal at 7. So I went for a run when I got back to the house, just to work up an appetite, and was really glad I did ... because dinner was once again fabulous, in my opinion much better than Thursday, because Tanya made breast of veal and brisket as well as turkey, in part because we had 24 people, and in part because Tanya is Jewish mother and she is simply staying true to her biological obligations.

Again, excellent wine (this night the clear winner was the 1997 silverado reserve ... perhaps the best cabernet I have ever had). And again wonderful company, as we were joined by the Rappaports for Shabbat and an early hanukkah, which was wonderful. Bucky and Tanya had gotten gifts for each of the 10 kids there, and soon the living room was a chaotic mess of giggling, smiling kids, wrapping paper, annoying toy music and small, flying toys.

Saturday morning the Korehs left, and Aviva and I walked over to the Rappaports for breakfast (Nitsa made waffles) and hung out with Yair and Nitsa, and then took turns with Debbie watching Dylan and Samara (our nephew and niece) play with Mika in the basement. Getting to see the Rappaports is quickly becoming a highlight of visiting Cherry Hill for me, as they are really warm and wonderful people and I just really love seeing them. The rest of Saturday was kind of a loss, as Aviva and I were both feeling tired and a bit down, and we realized we were getting sick. I think the fact that all the little kids were fantastic snot factories the whole time we were there should have been a warning, but neither of us thought to worry about it and so we were both starting to feel bad on Saturday night, so after Josh led Havdalah and we all sat down for more leftovers, we packed up and drove home, hoping to beat both the traffic and our illness.

We did miss the traffic, but have been under the weather for about a week now ... still, I wouldn't trade it, our time in Cherry Hill was, as always, really wonderful and relaxing. And for once, I am not the only one who wrote about it, you can see that the Korehs also had a wonderful time going to read Omers blog here.

Cho Dependent

2010-11-06T23:25:00.000-04:00

So one of our neighbors - I could interchangeably have said good friends, but the neighbors who live upstairs and down the hill are kind of a wonderful group in my mind so they are all the neighbors, despite their very distinct differences - anyway, one of our neighbors helps to put on the New York Comedy Festival every year, so we was able to get us all tickets to difference comedy shows last night. Aviva and I lucked out and got tickets to see Margaret Cho doing her "Cho Dependent" routine and it was awesome ... actually so was the whole night ...

We met up with all the neighbors at a restaurant called Braai, a South African place in Hell's Kitchen. Braai actually means roasted meat in Afrikaans, and is often used as another word for BBQ. The place was pretty good, the leftover appetizers that we got to try when we arrived were nice, as were the ribs and the ostrich steak. The best meal was the "bunny chow" that Aviva got, which was a curried lamb stew in a hollowed out half a loaf of wheat bread, topped with a crusty piece of french bread.

After dinner, we all went to different shows, Rosie O'Donnell, Joel McHale and our show, Margaret Cho's "Cho Dependent" at the Beacon theater on 75th and Broadway. The show started with a second comedian, John Roberts, who basically put on wigs and did impressions. It was passable, and if I were at a club with a 2 drink minimum, I probably would have laughed a lot, but as it was he was only okay. After about 15 minutes Margaret Cho came on, and proceeded to rock the house for the next hour and a half. The show was hysterical and incredibly raunchy and politically incorrect, with a lot of discussion of cock, blow jobs anal sex and a good deal of focus on the perfection of being a gay man and having gay sex all the time, and also a lot of focus on being asian, being LGBT and being a minority in general. There were a number of songs from the new album, "Cho dependent", about murder, loving cock and older women's pussies.

Something I had not realized is that Margaret Cho is much funnier in person because she has fantastic comic timing in combination with really great use of facial expressions. The theater had a huge screen set up over the stage with close-up on Margaret, so that everyone in the room could see her face very well. Although a good number of people (probably 15 - 20 over the course of the show) left during the performance, almost everyone else seemed to love it. We laughed loud and long, with many tears ... though not nearly as much as the group of gay men behind us, who were laughing so hard it sounded like they were having asthma attacks the entire show. The final act was a song about loving dick, in conjunction with the Empire city gay men's chorus ... which was a nice touch. The two encores were also both songs, which were funny, but did not hit the heights reached in the middle of the show when she was imitating her Korean mother.

After the show we met up with all the neighbors at the Atlantic Grill on 65th for the after party. We were actually on the list (I have never been on a list before), which was kind of exciting, and once we got in it turned out that everything was free, which was awesome. We parked ourselves at a booth and enjoyed some Jameson and a variety of Absolute vodka flavors (sponsored by absolute and Jameson) - Absolute Mango and Absolute Vanilla are both delicious, and various American style tapas - beef tenderloin with blue cheese, little dollops of ice cream on a stick, cheesy profiteroles, a lobster bisque cappuchino, various types of sushi - it was a lot of fun. Aviva and I took off early, around midnight, because I needed to work the next day and she was prepping for her upcoming thesis defense. We almost didn't make the train because of stalled subways, and ended up running down 42nd street at 1225 (Aviva was a trooper running several blocks in high-heeled thigh high boots) and barely making the 1230 train ... but overall it was a really fantastic night out - huge props to AJ for setting everything up.

Welcome to the 35th floor

2010-11-04T21:35:00.008-04:00

Last night Aviva and I went out to dinner with Bucky and Tanya to celebrate Aviva's upcoming thesis defense (it may seem premature, but my wife is incredible and we all know she is going to rock here defense). As it was for such a special occasion, you know we Bucky and Tanya had somewhere excellent in mind.

That excellence was given form at Asiate, on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel at Columbus Circle.

Amazing restaurant, fabulous evening.

I guess we had a hint that the evening would be interesting when we pulled into the parking garage next to the hotel and found ourselves parked on the entry ramp, wait for a number of cars in front of us. I got out to ask what was going on, and was thoroughly ignored by every parking attendant I could find, all of whom were paying a lot of attention to a particular SUV waiting alone in the center of the parking area. I couldn't figure out what was going on until Aviva saw Brad Pitt and a bunch of his kids get into it just before it pulled off (she saw him, I didn't).

After Mr. Pitt left, the garage got back to normal, so we parked and went up to the restaurant which is on the 35th floor of the hotel. When we got out of the very speedy elevator (which took less time to go up 35 floors than the elevator at work takes to go up 7), we were greeted by an opulent room made of marble (on the right) dripping into a gorgeous bar abutting a floor to ceiling window overlooking Columbus circle (above). I had thought about this during the day and kind of thought I would even be a little disgusted at the opulence or showiness of the place, but it was gorgeous, tasteful and really magnificent.

We walked over to the restaurant and were seated with Bucky and Tanya at a table essentially hanging over Central Park. The view, even at night, was really spectacular. Perusing the saki list, we order a bottle of nigori, munched on the delicious little bread puffs and ordered the tasting menu (after making sure it could be altered so Tanya could eat it - being kosher, her meal was slightly altered). The first course, probably my favorite, came almost concurrently with the saki ... the raw tasting - 5 small bites served on a rectangular plate in won ton soup style spoons - a fresh oyster in a light bloody mary sauce, a slurry of sea urchin and caviar, a seafood ceviche with asian pear, a fluke sashimi in a thin grapefruit sauce and an ahi tuna sashimi wrapped around thin slices of japanese pear. Each one looked beautiful and tasted quite distinct, though the overall dish left me with a crisp, fruity-sweet taste.

The second course was a small bowl of buckwheat soba in a sea urchin broth, topped with a quail egg, sea weed and caviar. The egg, which was intact when the dish was presented, broke over the noodles when you started eating them, giving the whole dish a creamy, rich, sweet-earth taste .. Aviva said it reminded her of the pasta with shavings of egg we ate at the French Laundry. It was superb, I could have eaten it for the whole meal.

The third course was their Etuvee - don't really know that word, but know it was delicious. This dish was very thai, a prawn, several scallops and pieces of squid served in a ginger, coconut milk and lemon grass broth. It was excellent, particularly the scallops, which were crisped on the outside but still tender inside. During this course I think we polished of the first bottle of saki and replaced it with another bottle, which was so fresh and crisp and delicious, with like a honey-pear-grass-ice flavor, that it made the first bottle seem very mundane.

We now entered the "main course" phase of the meal, which, though still excellent, was not as impressive as the first courses. We had a sea bass with asian vegetables and mushrooms, followed by a lobster tail in a lobster and pepper reduction on top of a slurry of white polenta and waygu beef with with chanterelles, coupled with a very delicate braised short rib. The waygu was the best of these by far (the lobster was just lobster - its always weird to me when people serve a meat in a sauce made of a reduction of that same meat), with the beef either light salted or lightly braised. And the chanterelles were, as they often are, heavenly.

The meal finished with two deserts, first a shot glass full of tofu with a ginger slush, which sounds terrible but was in fact delicious - light, sweet and tangy and very refreshing. The second was a plate containing a semi-molten chocolate tart, a moussy-crispy Napoleon, a tiny walnut cake and a small trough of ginger vanilla ice cream. While Aviva informs me that all the deserts were good, Bucky and I fought over the extra ice cream it was so delicious and I think everyone agreed that the Napoleons were exquisite.

After we finished, Bucky and Tanya had coffee and Aviva had tea and we spent another few minutes just sitting and enjoying the view and each other. I have to say, as I sat back, well satiated on excellent saki and an amazing meal, pampered by incredible service and stared out over Central Park and Columbus Circle, I felt wonderful. We had had such a good time, such easy conversation and such a nice feeling of nachas and joy ... it was not the best meal I have ever had (but it was a damn good one), but the overall feeling of essentially floating over the city, dining in such remarkable style - a truly exceptional evening.

I can dream right?

2010-11-01T14:46:00.004-04:00

So listening to my favorite podcast (Hardcore History by Dan Carlin - fantastic, highly recommended to all history buffs) while I was crunching some data today and the narrator mentioned a company called Albion swords, which makes incredible historical reproductions of Western swords. I spent some time looking at the website - and I am drooling. The accuracy of the weapons seems incredible, and they look beautiful. Plus they have weapons from a number of historical periods, longswords from across the middle ages, roman gladii, falchions and other curved or one-sided blades, some two-handed weapons - fantastic. Too bad they are around 1000 - 2000$ each ... still, I can dream can't I ...

Parc Nationale Gran Paradisio

2010-10-18T22:06:00.061-04:00

Last week (now two weeks ago, sorry it has taken me so long to get this out, its a long one and I have been busy) I was in Milan for a conference, 10th International Symposium on Neurovirology. It was a good conference, stimulating science (really excellent talk on rabies virus, another on SIV escape mutants and some great interactions about dopamine in the brains of late-stage HIV infected individuals), excellent food (we were in Italy ... on successive nights I had unbelievable lamb followed by almost as unbelievable duck) and generally a good time. Except for the fact that our 4-star hotel did not provide irons (or a number of other standard amenities ... I DO NOT recommend the Hotel Dei Cavalieri) it was a very good meeting.

But the best part of the conference was that Cheo and I flew out 4 days before it started and went hiking in the Parc Nationale Gran Paradisio in northwestern Italy. The park adjoins another park in France on the other side of the border, forming a huge Ibex preserve in the Graian Alps. It is a beautiful place, full of valleys, waterfalls and 3,000 meter plus mountains ... and we got to spend 4 days hiking there. We were based in Cogne (pronounced cone-yeh), a quaint little town/ski resort/commune in the Valle D' Aosta on the north side of the park, essentially in the shadow of Mont Blanc across the nearby border with France.

It is kind of amazing that things worked out as well as they did, being that the only planning Cheo and I did was reserving a car ... a lovely Fiat panda I christened Fernando. We figured out that we were going to the north side of the park, not the south side, while on the plane, sorted out directions while we were in the car, and found our incredibly cheap (45 Euro/night for both of us) hotel - in an 800 year old monastery named the Chateau Royal - after we arrived in town. But looking back, these details seem minor and irrelevant when compared with the spectacular, and completely surprising hikes that we took over the next 3 days (they were surprising, at least to me, because

The day we arrived, after getting a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches at the only open restaurant in town (there were about 15 restaurants but only one was open ... more about this later) and settling into the Chateau Royal, we couldn't wait to get into the mountains. The Cogne valley has a massive network of trails, all well labeled and described, in detail, in the wonderful map available only in the town. So we picked trail 17, and headed up. And up. And up. And up ...

It turns out the trail we picked was a beautiful nature trail, when it leveled out at 2000 meters. But from 1550 up until 2000 it turned out to be quite steep, as it was a ski trail. So after about 2 miles and 450 meters up, we found the top of the gondola, a gorgeous meadow and an incredible view of the valley and the surrounding mountains as the fog passed by. I think one of the most spectacular views we had all week was the first view we had of autumn in the alps, as the pines were all deep orange, gold and red ... I've never seen evergreens change with the seasons.

Dinner was not great, we learned that you should never order pasta at a pizza place. But dinner was filling, and it was definitely necessary for our hike the next day, along the Torrente de Valnontey up to the Alpe de Money, for a fantastic view of the glaciers at the end of the valley. We drove up the road to the tiny town of Valnontey (permanent population 10), picked up some panini and started in along a wide dirt track. We passed a bizarre house, inexplicably named David, built into a boulder, and stopped in our tracks at the river to gawk and take pictures of the glaciers far in the distance. Okay, really only I stopped for pictures. Cheo stopped to humor me. But it was definitely worth it .. check out the glaciers in the picture below.

We continued for another mile or so until we reached the turnoff from trail 22, which we one, to trail 22C. The map we had illustrated that 22C was up hill, but it did not make it clear how up hill, as we ascended about 400 meters in the next mile or so, hiking up a series of brutal switch backs up the side of the ravine. As we rose, the view got better and better, allowing us to take in the waterfalls on the opposite wall. A one point the edge was quite sheer, and we needed to use rope handholds. When we finally stopped going up, it was not at the top, but rather at the top of a smaller ridge, which then led us past a series of small streams and waterfalls. As we walked it got foggier and foggier, obscuring the glaciers as we approached them. We finally reached the Alpe de Money, a large alpine meadow with a small refugio at which we ate lunch, waiting for the fog to clear so we could see the glaciers at the end of the valley. After lunch we moved on, walking another couple of miles across a series of deconstructed bridges and light-running streams, and eventually we got to the fairly steep downhill, which Cheo is standing on the edge of here. Still, even after we got back to the base of the valley and within a mile or two of the glaciers, they never appeared to us because the fog got thicker and thicker, until by the late afternoon we could not see waterfalls that were 50 feet up the hill. Still, the hike was pretty spectacular, as you can see in this view along the valley that we had hiked up.

Below on the right you can see us at the highest point we made it up to on the way to the glaciers. We were chasing a waterfall we had seen coming down another ridge, but by the time we got to this bridge it was completely obscured. The bouldering was a lot of fun, but at around 4 in the afternoon we began to worry that the fog would settle in and make it impossible to see on our way out, so when we reached this bridgeEventually we stopped going up and turned around. Despite walking out for about 5 hours, the return was much faster, taking only an hour and a half ... the best part about this is that we got to walk past many of the waterfalls, including this beauty (down left) we had seen from the opposite ridge earlier in the day.

When we finally back, first to Valnontey and then to Cogne, we showered and waited, because it turned out that the many restaurants in Cogne were open, but only from 730 - 10 at night. This night, after skyping our wives, we ate in a small cafe, a much better meal than the previous evening. We crashed hard, woke early and generally repeated the whole thing, except this time we headed up trail 15, along the torrente de bardoney starting from Lillaz. We had hoped to see a number of glaciers at the end of the valley, but the fog this day was far worse than the previous day. At the start of the day, we could see maybe 100 or 200 feet, but later on, by the time we stopped for lunch, visibility was down around 30 feet (in the picture below Cheo is about 40 feet away across the start of a boulder field).

And everything was cold and wet. But the hike was really amazing into its own way, like hiking in an ethereal, fairy world. It started on a wide, easy path next to the river, but after this enormous boulder about 2 miles in, the trail narrowed and quickly moved up the hill and eventually took us across several huge boulder fields. This scrambling was really challenging because everything was went and slick, but it was a lot of fun. The whole day we hiked along the river valley, although there were several points where we could barely see the water. We passed about a dozen small and medium sized waterfalls, around huge boulders and along a gorgeous blue/white river of glacial run-off. We turned back early, just after lunch, as it was too cold and too cloudy to see anything anyway. But instead of returning to the hotel, we spent a couple of hours walking around the magnificent Cascate de Lillaz, an incredible multi-tiered waterfall just a short walk from the town. The entire waterfall was probably 150 to 200 meters, but it was divided into several sections (me in front of the bottom above, the center section and Cheo & I in front of the top section below), each different in shape. It was a truly marvelous waterfall, and the mist that had plagued us all day lightened up a bit, and combined with the overcast conditions I actually had perfect weather for shooting the falls.

Dinner back in Cogne was marvelous, as we were starving and cold from hiking all day so we devoured an amazing pot of risotto de Cogne, which was essentially a giant bowl of rice with pepper and several cheeses. It was amazing, although I think it was a bit too much cheese as neither of us sleep all that well. In addition, it had been so foggy that we were thinking of trying to leave early, with the idea that it would not be worth hiking the final day because of the lack of visibility. But after calling around and looking for a way to get back to Milan, we realized that it was way too expensive ... and lucky we did, because the last hike we took was the best of all of them.

For our last hike we again started from Lillaz, hiking up trail 13, past the Cascate de Lillaz we spent so much time photographing the previous evening. The hike started on a long, slow up hill with only a few switchbacks, rising from 1600 to 1850 meters along the gorge made by the torrente Urtier, then down into a beautiful valley along the torrente. We crossed the river at a man made waterfall next to a small cottage, then headed back up-hill. Our path uphill wound through a wide valley, and then through a beautiful pine forest that was turning red and orange with autumn, and lit up like fire in the mid-morning sun.

At the top of the forest we caught up with another river, the torrente des Eaux-Rousses. We passed another set of waterfalls, a huge thin river running at least 300 meters down a hillside in the distance, and another single plunge fall right along the trail. It was gorgeous, and again we stopped for photos ... I of the upcoming valley and cheo of the lip and plunge of the falls. About a mile later, after Cheo was nearly trampled by a herd of angry bulls, we crested a small rise and stared out onto the gorgeous Alpe de Bardoney (on the left).

We walked a bit farther, and stopped for lunch at the refugio in the Alpe de Bardoney, at around 2200 meters (as I am pointing out here on the left). It was cold, and windy, but after a good lunch we kept going up the valley until the trail split off at the northern end of the valley underneath several glaciers. As we walked up the valley it got much colder as the wind got stronger, to the point that the water on the trail was frozen on the trail. At the point when we turned around, I think it must have been a bit below freezing with the wind chill, and walking up to the glaciers had been really tough (I can't remember the last time I hiked in heavy pants and three shirts and a jacket and was still cold) ...

... but as soon as we stopped to take some pictures things seemed to warm up. Still, after getting our glacier glamour shots (above), we quickly turned around and walked back down the valley. We passed back by the refugio and the herd of bulls and then headed up trail 12 towards the Lago de Loie.

Getting up over the pass leading to the lake was a lot tougher than we thought, but the view we got cresting the rise, Mont Blanc in the distance looming over the Cogne valley, was (as you can see above) the best of the trip. We walked about half a mile with Mont Blanc looming in the distance, passed the Lago de Loie and we treated to a spectacular view of the glaciers we had not been able to see the previous day (see the image at the end of the blog). Finally, after a number of incredible views, we walked down about 800 meters over the last mile or two ... essentially straight down through another amber colored pine forest (on the left here) and past the Cascate de Lillaz in the distance. This was an amazing hike, my favorite of the trip.

For dinner, we ended up wandering around town for about 45 minutes looking for a restaurant (because apparently everything closes on Mondays) before we finally found the only open place and had another excellent meal. Finally, good pasta :)

The next day we got up at 0530 and hustled Fernando back to the airport in Milan, meeting the rest of the lab and riding into the city to start the conference.

How San Franciscans See the world

2010-10-10T13:53:00.001-04:00

NYC 100K/42K Skate Marathon

2010-09-26T08:41:00.015-04:00

So, yesterday I skated my first (and last?) marathon in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I have been doing a bit more skating recently, mostly along the North County trailway and had bought some new, faster skates over the summer (Rollerblade Crossfires - big wheels and good bearings) and wanted to really test them out. Plus, it is not very often that you can find 26 miles of uninterrupted good pavement on which to skate. It was a sponsored race, which basically meant it cost money, there were prizes and frees stuff and that I got a little timing chip to put on my ankle, giving me splits and other fun, useless information about my race. It was a bit disorganized, and I remain fairly unimpressed with the organization (when was the last time you went to a paid race which started 40 minutes late), but the race itself was a blast and I am thrilled to have done it.

The race started at 7 am on the Eastern side of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, too far from Hartsdale to drive in the morning ... so Aviva and I slept over at Ilana's place in Park Slope, eating at Fornino, a very good modernist Italian place near 5th and Union. I had braised short rib ravioli (more like pot roast ravioli), which were excellent, as was Aviva's remarkably light chicken-apricot sausage over broccoli rabe.

I got to bed a little later than I wanted to, around 1130, and slept a bit fitfully, but when I got up at 0545 I was pumped. I got dressed and drove over to the starting area, arriving, getting my timing chip and getting ready to race by 645. And then I waited, along with everyone else, until 40 minutes past the start time before the organizers finally got their shit together and the race got underway. It was a staggered start, as usual in races like this, and the Rec division, which I was in, started last, 4 minutes after the men's Pro division. The race was 8 laps around Prospect Park, each lap being a hilly 3.35 miles, with the biggest hill just after the start and a longish downhill in the middle of the backside.I think that the first lap was the hardest, as I was afraid of the hill - which I was told was 1.5 miles long and super steep. It turned out to be a reasonable hill, but not as steep as some of the ones I skate up in Westchester, so even on the 8th lap I was able to get up it without too much trouble.

I was also concerned about congestion and running into other skaters, particularly the fast moving Pro skaters (you can see the pros in conga line formation in this picture on the right, although this one is not as tight as the formation actually was). The first time the Pro Men passed me I was about 2/3 of the way through my first lap while they were on their second, and I could hear them coming even before the race marshal passed and asked me to move right. They sound like a swarm of hornets, the huge wheel making a buzzing, grinding sound that get much louder very quickly as the conga-line formation of spandex clade men whizzes by you going 15 - 20 miles an hour, much faster on the downhill. This formation broke up over the course of the race, dividing into smaller units and slowing a bit, but in the first few laps, each time they passed me it felt like I narrowly avoided getting snapped up by some large predator. Once I got used to it, it was actually very cool.

I tried to keep my pace solid, one thing I have learned running races is that I very often go out too fast and run out of energy. About 3 laps in I started to feel really comfortable and began to crouch on the downhills like the pros were doing, which got me going a lot faster and left my feet, knees and teeth shaking a little as I stood up at the bottom of each hill.

While I was definitely getting tired as the race went on, I managed to keep my lap time to about 16 minutes per lap, or about 11-12 miles an hour ... with my fastest lap being the last one. I guess that means I had a little more in the tank and could have gone a bit faster, but as it was I thoroughly enjoyed the race, taking in the pro skaters, enjoying the scenery and the people watching (or people whizzing as I went by) and generally enjoying the feeling of my body working efficiently under me as I cruised along. I finished the race in 2 hours and 12 minutes, which felt pretty respectable to me, particularly later on that afternoon as my body started to protest my continuing state of wakefulness and forced me into an extremely rare mid-afternoon nap.

First skate marathon ... fantastic exercise ... tons of fun. Check. Check. Check.

Neal's Wedding

2010-09-23T20:39:00.002-04:00

I have written before about my friend Neal, that he is not infallible and how he almost killed himself training for a marathon ... but this time I want to tell you about a more joyful experience in his life, because last weekend Neal got married. The wedding, as it would have to be, was in Yosemite valley, where Neal and Terri got married on Sentinel beach in front of about 60 family and friends and in the shadow of thousands of tons of granite ... being such avid climbers (that is of course what they did on their mini-moon after the wedding), I was kind of surprised the wedding was not on a rock.

Although I am told that they did take some pictures wearing harnesses in their wedding outfits.

Anyway, the weekend was fantastic, not just because of the great joy Aviva and I got seeing Neal and Terri get married, but also because many of Neals best friends are my best friends, so I got to spent the weekend with about half of my closest friends and their significant others. And I got to do while showing Aviva one of the most beautiful places that I can think of.

The details of the weekend were pretty unimportant, there was wandering and hiking in Yosemite valley, a beautiful ceremony on sentinel beach, a viewing of the giant redwoods in Mariposa grove on the way out of the park on sunday and just generally wonderful hanging out and merrymaking.

Oh, and I got to give the toast at the wedding, which was really and honor ... I think I did an alright job, but you can judge for yourselves since a friend of mine recorded the whole thing ..

PJ's Toast @ Neal's wedding from Dave Fisher on Vimeo.

Poop powered Lamps

2010-09-23T07:24:00.002-04:00

Often when we are driving, Aviva will ask people we are with about pee-powered cars. We are never exactly sure how the pee gets in the car, whether you have to deposit it or you just pee into the gas tank, but this is something she came up with along with her brother, and is occasionally rather fascinated by it. In her honor then, I draw your attention to this story, about poop powered lamps - apparently an artist at in Boston set up a lamp which allows you to pick up dog poop and deposit it in large tanks connected to a lamp. The methane released by the poop then powers the lamp ... its a meditation on waste ...

I think its a pretty cool idea, and you wonder if the next step is using our poop to power things? Perhaps a poop powered light in the bathroom?

The Ultimate Travel Clothes?

2010-09-22T14:12:00.003-04:00

Scottevest .... never heard of it before my recent evening in Sacramento, when a friend was telling me about some guy named Rolf who is traveling for six weeks with no luggage. Idea seems a bit nuts, but awesome at the same time (here is the site for that trip). The clothes he is using are primarily from a company called Scottevest. I love to travel, so I have definitely spent a lot of time looking at travel clothing, but these clothes are in a class by themselves. The jackets have 26 pockets, some big enough to hold an iPad - check out the picture on the right. The pants have 16 pockets. The shirts have 3-5 pockets. Even the hat has 2 pockets. Crazy.

I gotta get some of the these things ... shorts with 11 pockets seem like a dream :)

The Rosh ... 2010

2010-09-14T09:09:00.008-04:00

This year Rosh Hashanah really felt like the beginning of something new, because Aviva had begun her new job, a fantastic internship at a nearby VA, just a week before, and we had been having a bit of trouble adjusting. I had spent so much time adjusting my priorities at work so that I could be home and spend time with Aviva that when she started not having as much time at home (especially since she also has a part-time job after work), I didn't really know what to do with myself.

Another big difference was that this year, the reason we could not leave early for Rosh Hashanah in Cherry Hill was Aviva's job, not mine. I think it is only the first or second time in our 4 years together that her job has been more restrictive than mine. So I left work early, got in a swim, picked up Ilana at the train station and the we waited for Aviva and left Hartsdale around 5:15 pm. And traffic was a big problem, we got to Cherry Hill around 8:45 pm, about an hour and half longer than expected.

Still, despite the differences, the holiday was standard; which essentially means excellent food, wonderful company and a generally joyous occasion, along with a lot of blissful down time. In addition to Ilana, Rachel and Larry brought Larry's mother for the whole of the holiday, which was great as I had never gotten to meet her before. Tanyas brisket was wonderful, as usual, much slivovitz was drunk and much laughter was had. Thursday was pretty relaxed, I walked with Larry, the girls walked in the afternoon, we ate lots of fruit and helped make dinner .. which was delicious again. The second night was much like the first, Josh and Debbie and Samara showed up and the food was turkey and stuffing instead of brisket and chicken. I love the stuffing, so much so that now Tanya makes two batches of stuffing :)

Friday was another relaxed day, we got up in the morning and met with Carol, then came back to the house and hung out with the family during the afternoon. Koffman showed up Friday night, better late than never, and dinner was leftovers and scotch, coupled with some of Bucky's fantastic wines .. he was thinking that it was about time to drink them, and what better people to drink them with. The first of these was a '95 Opus One, and the second was a '98 Silver Oak from Alexander Valley. Both were excellent, although the '95 Opus One was a bit off, slightly tinny but very complex. The '98 was extremely juicy, delicious. For desert we walked over to the Rappaports, where, for the second time in 2 days, I explained to Gal and Roni that men are idiots, that until they get into their 20's, our sex is not to be taken fully seriously. We also ate Nitsa's wonderful strudel and played with their dog.

Fantastic.

Saturday was services and dropping Koffman and Ilana off at separate mass transits, followed by a trip to the park with the kids (see the surrounding pix up left and down right), followed by pizza and a night out at National Mechanic in downtown Philly for Rachel and Larry's anniversary .. which they very nicely chose to share with us and Josh & Debbie. And Sunday was a late morning, we missed Yoga, which turned out to be good, and then stopped by Wegmans for groceries on the way home. The end of our weekend, Sunday afternoon, was a wonderfully relaxed afternoon full of cooking, reading and snuggling.

A truly wonderful and relaxing start to the year ...

PS - I just read over this, and it is pretty boring, I mean, not a lot happened ... but with the new jobs and the traveling and all of the stress, I honestly can't think of a better & more relaxing way to have started our new year.

... farther from California ...

2010-09-08T09:33:00.008-04:00

So I have been living on the East Coast for about 4 years now, having arrived on September 11th 2006 ... when I was first living here there were so many things I missed about California ... most notably my family and friends, but also the weather, the lack of humidity, the fruit, the rollerblading, the hiking and mountains, the ocean (not the beach, don't love the beach), the thousands of burritos, the tap water in the Bay Area (San Diego has shitty tap water), the relaxed atmosphere and attitudes ... and I am sure there was more that I cannot think of right now.

But I was recently in California, camping in the Sierra National Forest, and I realized that I was thinking about how dry and bare the area looked. And as I thought about this, and how dry my lips were, I realized, to my great surprise, that I missed the outdoors in the Northeast. So I have started to take stock, and as I have spent more time here, and settled into my life (got married, bought a house, got promoted, new friends, explored the city and Westchester), I see that where I live now really provides a lot of what I have been missing.

The best super market I have ever been to, Fairway, just opened on my commute home from work last spring. On the whole, the super markets in California are far better, and I really miss Henry's, but with Fairway and Trader Joes and the great asian market down the road, things are pretty good here.

The mountains here are more like hills, and the foliage is very different, with crazy ground-to-sky green ... but the Hudson Valley, the 'Gunks, Catskills and especially the Adirondacks have incredible opportunities for hiking and nature photography that are closer to where I live now than they ever were in California. I still miss the majesty of the Sierras, but the mountains here are spectacular in a wholely different way.

The city, really Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, have such a rich variety of amazing restaurants that I am constantly shocked at the incredible eating opportunities that I am presented with ... still, the burritos will never hold a candle to El Zarape, Cotixan or even Robertos or Santana's.

I have often deplored the lack of good trails for rollerblading here; I used to spend every Sunday year-round skating around Mission Bay, an 8 - 16 mile loop. I love it. Except for the wonderful bicycle sundays where they close down the Bronx River Parkway near our house, the best I could find here was Joe Michael's Mile. But recently, I discovered the North County Trailway, which stretches the length of Westchester County, which is by far the most beautiful, longest rollerbladeable trail I have ever skated on.

Sure, Californians are much more relaxed and low key than New Yorkers, sometimes the tension here can feel physically oppressive. But in terms of low key-ness, I was never the most relaxed guy in California, while now I am one of the calmest people around. Its kind of nice to be the voice of calm most of the time ... although there are definitely times I wish everyone would just chill out.

There are many more examples leaning the way of the East Coast and all of them leave me tremendously thrilled with my life ... but also sad because they leave me much farther from California.

California = credit card fraud?

2010-09-01T14:03:00.007-04:00

So recently, I went to California for a friends bachelor party (it was a blast, if you have not read about it you can see my take here), and when I returned to New York, I noticed that my REI Visa card was not working. I tried it a couple times, and each time it was declined.

So I called the customer service line for the card, and as soon as I entered my card information, I heard an automated message saying,

"Please hold, we are transferring you to the credit card fraud division."

I was, I think, justifiably nervous when the agent got on the phone and asked me to confirm several recent transactions, most of which had been denied (thus my reason for calling). They were all correct, and after confirming some more information, the agent genially told me that he would reactivate my credit card. I asked why it had been de-activated in the first place and he said,

"Well, we noticed that your card had been used in California, so we locked it automatically."

Excuse me? I asked him why the use of the card in California was an indicator, thinking he was just humoring me or something, and he said that California has the highest rate of credit card fraud in the country, and that a noticeable percentage of all transactions there are scams. I mentioned that I had lived in California for almost 30 years and never had a problem, and he told me that I was extremely fortunate. He also asked me to call the company any time I wanted to go to California in the future, so they could be prepared to combat fraud. Still incredulous, I asked,

"That is a little ridiculous ... I mean this is California, within the United States. Not Nigeria or some other country where false princes are always offering you a cut of their millions if you just open a bank account for them. Are there other states I should be worried about, or is it only California that is rife with thieves and scam artists?"

As I was joking, I was quite surprised when he responded with a list of 9 states, the Gulf states (Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana) plus Georgia, particularly the Atlanta area, California and Texas. But, he noted that California was the worst. As he was being completely serious and quite earnest, I thanked him for his help and hung up.

So there you have it, all visitors to California and the Gulf should be wary ... and for all of you living in California, well you are screwed. I recommend that you all call your credit card companies, particularly if they are US Bank, and let them know you live in California ... so they can watch for the inevitable fraud.

Bachelor Party At Shuteye

2010-08-24T20:22:00.033-04:00

So last weekend I learned, painfully, that I am no longer as young as I used to be. I took a red-eye back from California on Sunday night, a 5 hour flight, and then went straight to work. I was returning from Neal's (he of the infallibility) bachelor party in the Sierra National Forest, just south of Yosemite, so the pain was definitely worthwhile, but still .... I know that there have been times in my life when I did not need a lot of sleep, but apparently I am no longer in them, as I was a disaster on Monday. So now, after sleeping for 13 hours last night, I can reflect back on the weekend with a little more lucidity.

While I arrived in California Thursday night, the weekend really started on Friday around 3 when we rolled (quite slowly given the rough dirt roads) into Gaggs Camp, a primitive (meaning no potable water) campsite in the Sierra National Forest at about 5700', just south of Yosemite and above Bass Lake. The campsite was beautiful, situated in a grove of redwood trees with a small stream running alongside several of the campsites (two of which we occupied). The vegetation is so different on the West Coast, instead of the floor to ceiling foliage I am now used to in the east, the ground is dusty and dirt covered emptiness broken up by shrubs, and the rich but not quite lush canopy starts several stories above ones head. I had definitely missed this ...

After some frisbee golf we settled down around the fire pit at about 630 pm, cracked open some beers and contemplated dinner. We had chicken sausages, burgers, tri-tip, Hebrew National hot dogs and an almost infinite amount of fruit and snacks. However, we had no grill, spatulas or any other type of cooking implements. After about an hour we had cooked several sausages on sticks and performed some experiments frying our burgers on Neal's 10 year old cook kit. This worked to a degree, resulting in my sloppy joe type burger thing, 2 successful burgers and a severely blackened cook kit.

Chris, then Brandon and Ryan showed up. Chris had the portable grill, which was key for further cooking, although Neal's cook kit was already black beyond redemption. Ryan had been a bit lost, inexplicably blaming Miller for poor directions despite the fact that I was the one to convey Brandons directions (which ended up being entirely accurate). Ryan had been able to find the campsite when, stopped on the side of the road, he saw someone (Brandon) driving in with a large, inflatable sex doll in the front seat. The doll was christened Paris and quickly became a central feature of the weekend, accompanying Neal all over the place.

After a few more hours and a number of drinks, and our enjoyment at watching Johns burgeoning pyromania, we crashed out and got up around 0730 the next day. After a prolonged breakfast, we piled into Chris and Brandons trucks and headed up to Shuteye Ridge. The road was pretty rough up to the climbers camp .. particularly for me since for some reason I ended up in the bed of Brandons truck ... but up until this point there were only two or three places at which we had to drive over large granite plates and rocks in the road. At least they looked massive until we got past the climbers camp, at which point we started up the roughest road I have ever driven on. Huge piles of granite lined the road and massive rock formations highlighted the route as we drove over tire sized stones, across large dips and pits and around huge boulders. After maybe a quarter mile Brandon had to pull off, so we piled into Chris's truck and onto the bumper and drove the last 1.5 miles. We stopped along the way at a particularly beautiful rock pile to fool around on the rock and take in the view ... and for Chris to slash his forehead with some falling rock. It was just a flesh wound, and once bandaged we got on our way, hiking down to the site of the climb that Neal, Brandon, Chris and Paris were going to do that afternoon.

It was a gorgeous setting, a massive rock pile stuffed into the side of a hill, set above a beautiful landscape overlooking much of the Sierra south of Yosemite. It was so clear that we could see all the way to Mammoth mountain. Chris, Neal and Brandon prepared Paris for the climb and headed off, and the rest of us dispersed, with Ryan, Alan and John climbing up to the fire tower by way of the ridge, while Miller and I stayed at the rock for a while and then headed back to the truck.

I had originally wanted to take pictures of the climbers, but I could not actually find the climb after they left, so I spent a remarkably pleasant afternoon taking pictures of the gorgeous view. Once the hikers returned to the truck, I hiked back down the hill a ways with Alan and John before we saw Neal fly by us on a mountain bike, wearing Paris.

Soon after Chris picked us up in the truck and we headed down to camp, dropping Brandon, John and Alan off at his truck .. which happened to be next to one of the most incredible rock formations (a giant hunk of exfoliating granite) I have ever seen.

After returning we mounted a 7 hour assault on the food, polishing off the pastrami, tri-tip, sausages, cheese and a vast amount of snack food, as well as a huge number of guinesses and a bottle of black bush. Although much was made of the hustlers, the anal beads and the stories we passed around, the theme of the night was definitely the fire. Chris, Brandon, Ryan and John, but mostly Chris, spent some time chopping wood ... but at some point we decided that the six or seven huge logs we had chopped up were not enough. So we started a volcano.

There was a large, dry stump with a hole in it being used as a seat at the campfire, we gingerly placed this on the fire pit, little knowing that it would provide literally hours of entertainment. As the stump began to burn, flames began to spew out the hole, providing a kind of amazing spectacle. Over the next few hours, food, beer cans, forks and all sorts of other things were placed in, across and around the fountain of flame. During this time we finished the handle of Crown Royal, the bottle of black bush and much of the remaining beer. Neal used the spurting fire to cook several sausages and melt a fork and made a brief return to the realm of fire-jumping. Ryan lost his tofurky dogs, pickles were incinerated and launched and we discovered that potato chips make pretty remarkable kindling. This continued until around midnight, when we all found our way to bed.

The next morning we woke up around 8, ate a motley breakfast of muffins, sausage, cheese, pickles and whatnot and then played an excellent round of frisbee golf ... yours truly was the winner with an overall of -7. After golf we packed up and Alan, Ryan and I left, leaving the rest of the guys to have a special celebration to say goodbye to Paris. Overall a humorous, fun weekend full of fantastic activities in a beautiful setting ... an ideal bachelor party.

PS - Here is a picture of the route that Neal, Brandon and Chris climbed during the day while the rest of us hiked. Note how far down the start of the climb is, this is why I could not find the climbers ...

The Obama Blues

2010-08-18T15:55:00.003-04:00

I spent about 45 minutes on the phone last night debating the state of our government with one of my closest friends. We did not really get anywhere, I am still saddened with my growing disillusionment with the Obama administration, who are suffering from, in my opinion, a lack of effective executive leadership. I feel like Obama should not just make speeches (which he is good at) but take courageous stands on the substance of those speeches and use the power of his remarkable oratory to throw the moral might of the White House (as small as that may be these days) behind issues that he feels passionately about. I want to be inspired by him to fight for the things we elected him to fight for.

I know, I know. He got health care and passed financial reform. He has done a remarkable amount for the LGBT community in terms of equalizing benefits. He passed the hate crimes act and the Lily Ledbetter fair pay bill. He has done a lot .. an almost ridiculous amount, in fact. And in the face of really implacable Republican opposition.

But he has not done a lot more that it seems like he could do. That he promised us and that we elected him specifically to do.

I know he got health care passed and I know that the Senate kept him from doing a lot of what he wanted (for more on the Senate, check out George Packers remarkable article about the senate today). But when we elected him, he was against an individual mandate. When the debate was winding down, and more than 50 senators were for a public option (which would have only effected a tiny number of people, but like many wonderful social programs in this country, i.e. social security and medicare, that would have been a good start), the White House let it die. The public option still probably wouldn't have passed, but to see our President, who claimed to have supported it, crusading for it would have been encouraging.

I know he can't repeal DADT, that needs to come from congress. But he could be loud and out front about the rightness of its repeal, he could issue an executive stay on the implementation of the order. I know he came out and said that people have a right to build a Mosque (within a cultural center) a few blocks from the site of the former WTC. But he could have thundered about the sanctity of the first amendment and how central that was to our country's founding. Instead, we get milquetoast boilerplate and the strong language comes from the Daily Show.

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So my disappointment with Obama and his administration is not based on the policies they have passed, but on the things that they could have fought for or things that they could have tried to pass but failed to do. In many cases, not pushing, not fighting, has left many of his policies unsatisfactory or potentially ineffective or simply not enough.

It is not enough to remove all combat troops from Iraq when we still have 50,000 men there and are basically farming out the combat missions to private contractors. Yup, this is technically removing combat troops, but not really. Yup you check off your promise to be out by summer 2010, but its not really ending the war. If this is the bad war, if there are all these reasons we should not be there, explain it to us and show the millions who believe in you that you ideas about the war were true. You are the commander in chief, make it happen and make us believe and understand.

It is not enough to say you are closing Gitmo, to work at it, to release some of the prisoners and then just not get it done. If you campaign on Gitmo being a moral atrocity and something which must end, it does not cut it to pay only passing attention to fighting the ridiculous claims that it would be dangerous to close Gitmo and house the prisoners within the US. Be a moral leader, use your towering oratory and inspire us to agree with you and fight the uninformed politics of fear.

It is not enough to pass financial regulation that has no details and can still be gutted by lobbying regulators. Regulatory capture, which was not addressed at all, was a major factor in the financial crisis. Yup, you get to check off financial reform, but you didn't really give us financial reform. If this is such a major threat to national security and our way of life, and if you are really with main street and want to curb finance to help the populace, fight for reform that will really do that. You might not get it, but fight for us.

I know it uses up political capital (which you have to shepherd carefully to be successful) to fight for things, and the administration wants to be successful. And I know that things now are so much better than under Bush. And that Obama is working on improving transparency and changing the culture of government ... and maybe in two years I will eat my words and things will really be moving in the direction I think that they should be. That would be awesome.

And maybe he really is trying his best and the nature and scope of the problem are such that I really don't get it, it is truly a monumental task and he is doing the best that anyone can do. But for now, I am deeply disappointed and it is Obama's fault; he centered his political identity on promises that he is not fulfilling. He set himself up for my disappointment ... perhaps he did not realize the difficulty of fulfilling many of his campaign promises when he made them, but the fact is I was passionately pro-Obama because I thought, more I believed he was going to do things that he is not getting done.

In my eyes, the most important promise of his presidency, his promise of major changes in our political system, hasn't happened. Maybe this is the Republicans being successful, preventing change and leading me to blame it on the White House. But regardless of the reason, Obama was elected to change the status-quo, to upend the system. His seeming ineffectiveness in this regard is especially disappointing because Obama was such a skilled orator during the campaign, he convinced us that he really could change things. But instead of being a careful, calculating political amalgamation of Bush + Clinton in a prettier package, we wanted him to smash typical political ideal. We wanted a crusader, a game-changer. We got a skilled, centrist politician who seems to knows how to sell the change bill of goods but not how to actually make the change.

So hopefully I am wrong, that Obama is diligently working for change and is playing a longer game than I can see. I would be thrilled to be shown to be incorrect, and would happily throw my weight behind him again. But for now, I am left disappointed in Obama and looking at third-parties and other, essentially hail-marie's in an attempt to support something that will truly change our system.

Vermont!!!!!

2010-08-10T20:33:00.024-04:00

So last week, Aviva and I headed north for some much needed and much wanted vacation. I have not seen all that much of New England since I moved out here a couple years ago, and this trip was our first to this area. What made the trip especially exciting (beyond the fact that we were getting to spend time with Aviva's family, and that we got to do lots of hiking and camping and cheese tasting and photography and waterfall hunting) was that this vacation was tri-partite, starting with some camping in the Adirondacks, then a week on the Lake Champlain Islands, then a romantic night in Brattleboro before heading home.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip. Rachel, Larry and the kids on got here on Friday night, and on Saturday we all headed up to the Adirondacks and set-up camp at the Wilmington Notch campground along the Ausable river near White Face mountain. The camp was great, cheap, showers and most importantly, right next to an incredible waterfall that I was able to take pictures of in the evening during the good light. The next day we took a wonderful hike up two of the Adirondack peaks, Cascade and Porter Mountains, bringing up Dylan and Joey in Ergos ... although Dylan did a good amount of the uphill by himself. The peak was beautiful, a large rocky outcropping set atop a gorgeous 4,000 foot peak covered in thick green trees and brambles. The views were wonderful, clear, bright skies with distinct, sharp clouds. From the top of Cascade we could see almost all the other high peaks, Algonquin loomed particularly large just to the south. After the leaving the peak we made our way across the saddle to nearby Porter mountain, and then down and back to camp. The next day was a quick jaunt up Mt. Jo, a smaller peak overlooking Heart Lake in the center of the high peaks region, before we just missed a thunderstorm as we headed up to the house on Grand Isle.

We had to take a ferry, very cool, from Plattsburgh to Grand Isle to get to North Hero, where the house was located at the end of a remote road right next to a YMCA camp. The house was great, with a large screened in front porch overlooking our dock and our essentially private bay. Over the course of the week, a number of people swam in the lake, which was apparently teeming with fish, Aviva painted the barn, I took tons of pictures, we BBQed and walked and played soccer, read and just relaxed. It was wonderful ... I finished an entire book, Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherford. Not the best historical fiction I have ever read, but pretty good.

Not that we stayed at the house all week. We went walking at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge a couple times, spent some time in Burlington, had a picnic at Shelburne farms after feeding the animals (you can see me here helping Dylan pick up a chicken) and tasting their cheese, mustard and relishes. We drove through a bunch of tiny, incredible cute towns searching out small, family owned cheeseries (Goat Cheese from Blue Ledge Farms,Vermont Ayr Cheese from Crawford Family Farms and fresh cream cheese from Champlain Valley Creamery). We also went kayaking with Marley on Lake Champlain ... got our asses kicked by the wind ... went out to a fabulous dinner at the Blue Paddle (my pork loin was extraordinary, soft and savory with a like crunchy nut crust, awesome), ate copious amounts of ice cream at Shebbs, drank excellent wine (some nice Pomards, 06' Groth reserve and Cakebread Cellars) from Bucky's wine cellar and generally had a marvelous time.

We closed out the week with a wonderful Shabbat dinner at the house, then Aviva and I spent the next day hunting waterfalls in the Green Mountains. We stopped at Bingham and both Moss Glen Falls (the one near Stowe and the one near Granville), and my incredibly patient, wonderful wife read and relaxed for an hour at each place while I took about 600 pictures.
The falls were really incredible, supposed to be some of the best in the Northeast. Bingham was a classic punchbowl fall, about 30 feet tall.

The Moss Glen Falls at Stowe was my favorite, a beautiful 125 foot tall cascade falls in a shaded glen, the approach was the trickiest, requiring some fancy footwork and a lot of precarious balance to get all the shots I wanted. The shot below is only the top half of the falls, but its my favorite (and this is my blog) so ...

The Moss Glen Falls near Granville was the easiest, right of the side of the road, and the most picturesque, you could call it either a veil or a cascade, although it felt light and delicate, almost ethereal, so I prefer a veil.

After hunting falls all day, we spent an uber-cute night at Forty Putney Road, a B&B in Brattleboro, wandered the streets (Brattleboro is a super granola town, the food co-op there is awesome) and treated ourselves to dinner at the most adorable restaurant we had
ever been to, T.J. Buckleys, a small quiet bistro converted from a tiny diner. The ambiance was fantastic and the food pretty good, particularly the trout tart and Aviva's scallops. I have to say my rabbit was not bad either. After a wonderful dinner and a good nights rest, we hunted down one more falls, Hamilton Falls in Jamaica (it was not running well enough to merit its own picture), stopped to gawk at a beautiful covered bridge and pick up some roadside berries, and then headed home from a wonderful vacation. All in all, absolutely fantastic!!!!!

For all its dysfunction, the government is getting a lot done

2010-08-10T20:03:00.005-04:00

Lately, the meme going around a lot of the political blogosphere, and I imagine a lot of TV as well (although I get all my news from the internet so I am not really sure), is that the government is broken, that the senate is a hopeless mess beyond repair and that drastic changes need to be made before the the calcified remains of Congress become fixed in hopeless gridlock for all time. I have to admit, the government has seemed to operate with a lot of sturm and drang over the last 18 months.

There has been a lot of shouting about health care and finance and the deficit ... and depending on your political views either a lot of stonewalling and needless obstructionism by Republicans or crazy spending and the enactment of all sorts of "liberal", misguided programs by the democrats and Obama.

Having said all of this, the government has been remarkably effective at getting big stuff passed recently. The stimulus. The lily Ledbetter Fair pay act. The Hate Crimes act. Health Care Reform. Financial Reform. Two Supreme Court justices confirmed. And even more stuff was done in the house (climate change, for instance). For all the complaints that the government is broken, it seems to be getting a reasonable amount done.

Now I don't actually think the government is fine. I think that the largest Congressional majorities in a generation should have been able to pass bills that were more in-line with the actual left's desires .. think public option, real Volcker rule, 1 trillion + stimulus, transportation reform ... rather than bills that the right thinks are too liberal but are really recycled, centrist ideas from the 80's. and 90's. But that is because I am fairly left, and I think that if I were fairly right, I would have a different opinion. Perhaps I would think the new laws had gone too far and would be at least a little pleased that the government was passing these bills rather than the aforementioned more-left versions.

And maybe that means the government is working alright after all ... if neither side is satisfied, maybe that means we have found the right medium. Personally I don't think so, because passing centrist bills that do not (in my opinion) really address the problems they are supposed to be addressing does not seem to be a good solution ... but maybe thats just my left ideology getting in the way ...

The weather right now

2010-07-17T18:11:00.004-04:00

Its hot. And it has been hot for like 2 weeks. It is so hot that when I get home, it takes more than 10 minutes to break a full sweat, I say it feels pleasant. Ridiculous.

I could say it is like Africa hot, but I have not spent enough time in Africa to know if the whole continent is this miserable. I could, with accuracy, say Thailand hot. But whatever, it is too hot ... I looked at the forecast for the next month, and there is not a day below 88°F with high humidity ... WTF ... I mean, for three months out of the year the place is abhorrent, so hot and humid that walking outside is like putting on a thick, body-sized wool scarf. When we came home from the finger lakes, it was 106°F here in the afternoon. That meant it was 15°F cooler, 91°F, when we left Seneca lake ... 91°F should never be 15°F cooler than anywhere. 91°F is definitely a 15°F warmer number ...

Taaa-daah!!!! Kitchen

2010-07-12T22:05:00.012-04:00

So the kitchen is finished, and it is fabulous. When we cook in it, we feel like master chefs, its kind of amazing. It is, as it should be, the absolute focus of our home - we talk while we cook, sitting at the counter while we watch the other chop, saute and generate fantastic food.

I could go on and on, talking about the incredible fridge and how much space it has or how easy it makes it to put things away. The stove, with its power and precision burners, and how easy it makes it to make up the pan-fried noodles that we love (it is especially enjoyable to saute in a pan that is level ... compared with our last stove). The counters, and how we can both work on preparing separate dishes and still have room for people to sit at the bar, how we sit at the bar every morning for breakfast. Or the new bar cabinet, and the gorgeous way that it displays my scotch collection .. or the hanging copper pots shining beautifully by the side door.

We love it, it is so fabulous. I am so excited to get home each day just to see and work in the kitchen. But enough with the superlatives, you can judge for yourself by the pictures.

Finger Lakes on the Fourth

2010-07-07T22:29:00.011-04:00

So, over the fourth of July weekend, we took off out of the city with our neighbors and we spent three days camping at the south end of Seneca Lake, the deepest of the Finger Lakes. Overall it was a fabulous weekend, with plenty of hanging out on the lake (horse balls and beers), good food, good wine, a solid, if unspectacular hike (it would have been a lot better if it had not been so hot/buggy or if the waterfalls had been running) and, most importantly, some of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever encountered. In the center of Watkins Glen, a small, tourist town at the south end of Seneca Lake, is Watkins Glen State Park, wherein a fabulous, paved trail winds its way around 19 gorgeous waterfalls ... which have cut their way down through hundreds of layers of rock creating an incredible, striated gorge which highlights the flowing water like nothing I have ever seen (you can see more pictures on my Facebook page). As you can see by the pictures, the running water and the shadows and sunlight mix to make up a really magical place.

But before I got to the waterfalls on the first evening at camp, we explored Cool-lea camp ... a nice, grassy parking lot of a camper area, with some wooded areas (one of which we camped in) by a smallish, algae-filled but pretty lake (Lake Cayuta). Just after we arrived, the neighbors got embroiled in a horse shoe competition and I headed out to see the falls. Dinner and drinking followed on my return, and afterward we enjoyed some local fireworks (which almost, but not quite, set the forest on fire).

The next day (the 4th)we spent the wine drinking good reisling and poor to average red wine at a variety of different wineries along the Eastern shore of Seneca lake. The area is known for its reislings, and we had a number of good ones, most memorably at Standing Stone vineyards, where the wonderful woman helping us taste was far and away the most pleasantly talkative person we met. She was also a great saleswoman (or it could be that that winery had the tastiest wines), because between the many tastes and the dips and spreads we were eating we ended up dropping a pretty penny for some excellent vidals, reislings and ice wines. All in all we hit I think five wineries before lunch, but Standing stone was definitely the most fun. After picking up lunches at Stonecat (catfish sandwich for me, quite good), we swam in Seneca lake, stopped back by Watkins glen and then enjoyed another excellent meal (burgers and chicken kebabs), before drinking our way late into the night. A fun and fabulous day, you can read more about some of the other wineries in this article my friend Ali wrote.

On the fifth, we got up relatively early, ate a quick breakfast and went out to a near-by hike ... which was nice but probably would have been a lot nicer if it had not been 97°C and really huid and buggy. And if the waterfall we were supposed to be hiking too had been running. Give huge props to everyone for sticking it out, because even though it was a pretty forest and a nice trail, it was a hot, tough day for that kind of exertion. I heard several "I cannot remember ever sweating this much" comments, and I have to say I was myself fairly disgusting. After the hike we rampaged an ice cream store and ate far too much (at least I did, the large was aggressively so) and then headed back to the lake, where everyone but Aviva and I relaxed and took a powder while we went back to see the waterfalls again. Still absolutely stunning. The last nights dinner was an excellent crab risotto Aviva masterminded, and then we turned in relatively early before heading back to the city. Great place, great food, great company ... fantastic weekend!!

Almost there

2010-07-01T22:02:00.002-04:00

So the kitchen is making really good progress and should be 98% done by the end of the week. Two days ago the pendant lamps, fan (which operates by remote and has a dimmer ... yeah, I am excited about our fan, home ownership does these things to you) and microwave. Yesterday we got the countertops, activated the microwave and installed the sink and the stove. Aviva also assembled my scotch cabinet, which is basically superfantasticawesome.

Today, we took another series of steps in getting the sink active, installing the undercounter freezer, moving the old fridge into place (the new fridge was not in stock at Sears despite the fact that they told us it would be, so we are not getting it until July 8th), adding cabinet handles and drawer pulls and installing the backsplash. No pictures today but the next set, coming up soon, will be the final ones ...

Coming Along

2010-06-23T22:10:00.004-04:00

So the kitchen is making progress, a little bit here and a little bit there .. actually, there have been a few days where far more than a little bit happened; one day we came home and the bar was built, the next, the cabinets were up. But that was last week, this week has been a bit slower, as we have been waiting for the silestone counter tops, which apparently take 7 - 10 days to finish after templating.

And since nothing else can really be put in until the counter tops are set, we are waiting, mostly. The kitchen has been painted, a lovely, strong shade of peacock blue, and we received almost all our appliances today (you can see them waiting patiently to be installed ... although not the fridge because Sears are liars about their inventory) and apparently the stove will go in tomorrow, and sometime before the end of the week the electrical will be finished, which means the fan and pendant lamps will be going up. The contractors (Kitchens and Additions) have been fantastic, except for starting late, they have been prompt, hard-working and very nice thus far, Brendan in particular has been fantastic. So sometime next week we will be all done ... but for now, great progress.

New Kitchen

2010-06-16T20:23:00.005-04:00

So we are having our kitchen redone, and despite the late start, the contractors are making fantastic progress ... on Monday the contractors tore out the whole kitchen, Tuesday they built the bar and today they gave us a new floor!!!!

Here's the beginning of the bar!!!

Mini-hikes near Home

2010-06-12T20:10:00.005-04:00

Today we had planned on going hiking, but after I got back from work and Aviva got back from the gym, it seemed like there were going to be thunderstorms, so we elected to do a short hike in one of the parks near our house. We chose Sprain Ridge Park, which is about 4 miles from us, nestled in between the north and south bound branches of the Sprain Brook Parkway. It has a pool and a lot of picnic facilities, but also has a nice little network of trails which we spent an hour or two enjoying this afternoon. I love that we live somewhere so beautiful that even the space between a highway can make a lovely hike. To get to Sprain Ridge Park, head up to Jackson avenue in North Yonkers.

Another take on a Solar Car

2010-06-11T23:01:00.002-04:00

Okay, this is awesome ... you need to see this.

Tripartite 1st Anniversary

2010-06-11T21:26:00.000-04:00

It is really hard to believe that a full year has passed since Aviva and I got married last May 31st, mostly because the year has really sped by and so much has happened. I mean, we got married, bought a house and moved, I published a paper, got my grant and got a promotion, Aviva finished classes, got a part time job and got her 1st choice internship at the Montrose VA, we went on our honeymoon to Thailand .... it's been a hell of a year.

So to commemorate the year, we decided that instead of having a big, elaborate (and expensive .. we are currently redoing the kitchen after all) celebration of our first year together, we would have a series of smaller fiestas, just the two of us.

So about 3 weeks ago we attended a cooking class focusing on spring at the Natural Gourmet Institute in lower manhattan, where we learned to make edamame cakes, a ricotta salata salad, a variety of moroccan style main courses (chicken, lamb and cod, I think the chicken was probably the best suited to the course, although I still like the lamb better), oven baked ramps & asparagus and some kind of raspberry crumble thing I did not pay attention to. It was a great time ...

Next, on our actual anniversary (which was memorial day this year), I took off from work early, and picked up some lobsters and peonies ... Avivas absolute favorite flower is the peony, which fortunately for me only blooms for about 3 weeks a year :) After I got home we gardened together for a while, then ate the lobsters and watched a movie, for a peaceful, wonderful night.

Finally, last night, we were lucky enough to borrow Aviva's parents timeshare in Manhattan for the night (the Manhattan club on West 56th, very nice) and we went out for dinner at MacBar in SoHo. I thought it was a full restaurant, but in fact it is just a tiny hole in the wall place, painted yellow and in the shape of a macaroni noodle, which serves only different types of Mac & Cheese. So of course we got five small dishes of lobsta Mac, margarita Mac, Magic Mushroom Mac, Duck Mac and Cheeseburger Mac ... it was great, and filling and very, very cheesy. So from there we walked back to the Manhattan club, stopping at Haagen-Daaz and Max Brenners for dessert. Back at the club we watched the second half of the Lakers-Celtics game (messy game but great energy, good one to watch) and eventually went to sleep. This morning, we packed up and hit up Norma's for a fantastic brunch (the arepas and chorizo I had were superb) before moving on with the day.

Our Problems and our ADD

2010-05-24T17:00:00.005-04:00

So right now, we are looking at the biggest environmental disaster ever to hit the US. The scope of the BP oil spill in the gulf is ridiculous, we don't even know how big it is going to be, but we know that right now it is massive, growing and as yet unstoppable. Yet, we are not hearing that much about it ... there are (or were, now no one seems to want to say that the spill is not bad) a lot of stories that it is not that bad, and others that tout BP's active anti-publicity campaign. But I think the big problem is our ADD about bad things. We simply don't want to hear about bad things day-in and day-out. Its why we are still at war in Iraq ... even though the majority of Americans are unhappy with the war, even though Obama campaigned on ending the war and now the vast majority of us no longer want to be there ... we cannot maintain focus long enough to muster our massive, collective angst and push to get out.

When I think back to many of the major problems we have had, the pattern is the same, intense interest followed by rapidly waning interest which is mirrored in a declining number of stories and news casts featuring said problem. Did things used to be like this when we did not have such a 24/7 media culture? I feel like the protests against Vietnam were larger and more cohesive for much longer, but it could just be my Gen X imagination. Is it just that we are so distracted but the next iPad or Twitter or other shiny new thing that we forget the important stuff, or is it active avoidance of unpleasantness?

AIDS Walk

2010-05-18T17:26:00.001-04:00

So I want to thank everyone who donated to the 2010 NYC AIDS walk on my behalf, we raised almost 1400$ on behalf of the GMHC and a bunch of other AIDS groups in the area. The walk itself was fantastic, although I was unfortunately quite hung over to to an ill-fated bout with far too much Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold the previous afternoon (I spent much of the evening sleeping on the bathroom floor ... not good). Still, it was a beautiful morning and a fabulous walk, up through central park, across 110th and down Riverside Drive until turning back in the park at 86th street. They had completely fixed the congestion problems of previous years and the walk was smooth, easy and very enjoyable.

It was really amazing to see so many people out in force to support AIDS work, and extremely heartening to see the cross-section of society (almost every type of person I could think of was there) who are aware and active in support of defeating the problems of AIDS.

Bicycle Sundays and today's disappointment

2010-05-09T12:24:00.004-04:00

So the Bronx River parkway closes on various Sundays during the summer from 10 AM - 2 PM. The first year we moved to Hartsdale we missed all the summer Sundays, and because I love rollerblading and a 13 mile rolling stretch of good road (through a gorgeous forest along the river no less) is a roller-bladers paradise, I was anxiously anticipating it this year. The schedule for bicycle sundays in 2010 is as follows

Bicycle Sundays

May 2, 9, 16 & 23
June 6, 13, 20 & 27
September 12, 19, & 26

And last weekend we went for the first time. It was fabulous, tons of families with adorable little kids on tiny bikes or little skates, fitness bikers speeding by, many rollerbladers, it was awesome!!! I went about nine miles, discovered that the road is far less flat than I thought and got so sweaty that by the time we got home I needed three separate ice-cold showers to cool off.

With that in mind, we were excited to go again this week, despite the ridiculously unseasonable windy/cold (48°F) weather. So we got dressed up and headed down to the highway, only to find it open to traffic, despite the schedule. I know its Mother's Day, and I know that it is probably a good idea to have the parkway open, but I was quite disappointed having been looking forward to it all week. We won't be able to do it next week, because of the AIDS walk, but I guess I will be back on the road on the 23rd ... sigh.

Procrastination deluxe

2010-04-28T15:31:00.002-04:00

Do you love classic nintendo and miss Mario, Link, Samus and Megaman? If so, you will love this as much as I did ...

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534416

Its super mario brothers but with characters from all the classic nintendo games including samus, a contra character, link, megaman, mario, etc .. and they all function as they did in the original games. Amazing ...

Joy

2010-04-21T22:25:00.005-04:00

Spring in Westchester is fantastic. The trees out our window are blooming, bright and green but still bright because the sunlight is still filtering through the thin leaves at the tops of the trees. The grounds around our place are growing green and lush. The trees along the Bronx river parkway are bursting with bright white and pink flowers, air is crisp and feels light and bright and driving home to Hartsdale simply makes you smile.

Joy is spring in Westchester.

AIDS and the AIDS Walk

2010-04-21T15:49:00.005-04:00

So two ago (not last year because of that whole getting married thing), I did the AIDS Walk in NYC. It is not actually that fun as an experience, because so many people come out it is like being in a giant, slow-moving mosh pit. Having said that, it is wonderful that so many people come out for this event, the biggest of its kind in the world, because of the attention and money that it brings to such an important issue (I am a little biased here as this is the cause of my life).

So I am doing it again this year, on the 25th anniversary, and am again excited to participate and hoping to raise a good bit of money in the process. I sent a letter out to almost everyone that I know hoping to raise funds, but I figured that if you are reading this blog (and God knows why you would be :), than you might be interested in helping me raise a little cash for HIV research/education/other services.

So if you want to sponsor me, go here http://aidswalknewyork2010.kintera.org/pjgaskill

If you need further convincing, below is the fundraising letter I wrote -

As many of you know, since my mother was diagnosed with HIV in 18 years ago, I have devoted my life to researching causes and cures for HIV. This virus is currently the worst pandemic in human history and while we have made great strides in developing therapies, we have a long, long way to go in order to develop an effective treatment, vaccine or cure. Though there has been success with drug treatments that are prolonging some people's lives, they don't work in all cases, and many of these drugs have severe and difficult side-effects. Further, the spread of HIV, which had at one point begun to slow, has again started to rise, particularly among young people who do not fully comprehend the danger HIV poses. There is a great need for comprehensive prevention programs and services that target youth in their language.

To support HIV research, education and assistance programs, I have once again registered for AIDS Walk New York, and am hoping that all of you will help me to raise money for this important cause. The AIDS Walk in New York is the world’s largest AIDS fundraising event, benefiting GMHC and over 30 other tri-state area AIDS service organizations. GMHC is the nation’s oldest and most comprehensive AIDS service organization, serving approximately 15,000 people living with HIV and AIDS and their families each year, and countless more through its prevention and advocacy work locally and nationally. I would really appreciate your help.

Please sponsor me for AIDS Walk New York. Just click on the link below to visit my personal fundraising Web page. It’s fast, easy, and safe to make a donation online with a credit card, debit card, or paypal! After making your donation, you may be able to double your donation with a matching gift from your employer, so please consult your human resources department, or use the matching gift search engine on the AIDS Walk New York website, to find out if your company has a matching gift program!

http://aidswalknewyork2010.kintera.org/pjgaskill

Thank you for helping me to support the AIDS Walk New York and for helping to put an end to this epidemic.

My first talk ...

2010-04-16T22:15:00.000-04:00

It has, yet again, been a while since I posted, and this time I really don't have much of a good excuse like the last time. Basically, I spent all of March stressed about a meeting I was going to in April, so I did tons of experiments and only a few worked (typical in science but it always feels worse when you are trying to get things done by a certain point). Still, a lot worked and now that I am at the meeting and talking to people about my research, the 16th Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology (SNIP), I feel really good about my most recent work and that I am definitely heading in the right direction.

Best of all, today I out here in California at the Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology and this afternoon I presented my data in my first scientific talk and it went pretty well. Everyone else told me it went great, but you know, people are nice, so I will settle on pretty well. Maybe even pretty dang well :) I think I was a bit wooden presenting my data, I got all the points across but perhaps I over prepared or more likely I just need to become more comfortable presenting my data ... however, I generated a lot of great questions and felt like the best part of my presentation was answering the questions. It felt so cool to be asked such good, probing questions, questions that I have spent lots of time pondering, and to be able to share my opinion on them with such a knowledgeable crowd. Overall, fantastic ...

And once I was done, the weight which lifted off me, which I didn't even know was there, was quite large and the relief was palpable .... and glorious.

SNOW DAY!!!!!!

2010-02-27T11:35:00.008-05:00

When I got up on Friday morning, the snow was coming down heavy, Thursday night it had been hard to get the car up the hill to park near our place and Friday it was fully buried and the roads were not plowed enough to drive it anyway, even if I could have gotten it out. So I took Metro North to work, which was fine except that the trains were running 45 minutes late because of downed trees on the tracks and icy conditions. There were so many people on the train that no one collected tickets. The entire way down to the Bronx, the world was a blanket of white.

Then, inexplicably, when I got to the Bronx, Pelham Parkway was completely plowed, like it had snow weeks ago ... not like the snow was still falling. I got to work and stayed until about 1:30, when I caught a ride home because it looked like Metro North would be having more problems later ... and when I got home it turned out that none of our neighbors had actually been able to get to work in the city, so we had a SNOW DAY!!!!

My first Snow Day ever, by the way.

Soon after I got home, we met out in the "quad" at our complex, dropped some beer in the snow to cool down and commenced to have a giant snowball fight. I think I took the worst hit, a solid one to left eye, but Aviva took a giant snowball in the head for that one. After the snowball fight was a game of snow football, followed by the construction of the largest snowman ever (and my first snow man, as well), as a joint effort with several of our neighbors. When we finally finished that, we built snow stairs up to our balcony, so our down the hill neighbors could get home quickly, and then drank and ate chinese with our upstairs neighbors while slowly sinking into a pit of exhaustion as we all realized how much energy it takes to play in the snow ....

Thailand, Week 3

2010-02-24T10:32:00.008-05:00

So we are obviously back from Thailand, and I have to tell you, the trip was fantastic. We had the time of our lives, except that hopefully we will get to do many more things like this in the future. Anyway, the third week of the trip, spent mostly in Phuket, was just as great as the first two. We spent our time on, in and under the water, with breaks mostly for eating and sleeping.

On Sunday, after the spectacular meal in the pool on Friday night and a similarly wonderful and romantic meal at Azur, the fabulous Mediterranean place at the hotel (amazing giant seafood platter), on Saturday, we were picked up at the hotel, and along with the 4 generations of a Malaysian family we picked up on the way, headed up Phang-Nga Bay (pronounced Pang-Ga) for a tour. We rode in a longtail boat out to Koh Tabu (on the right), the island from the James Bond film Man with the Golden Gun, then sea kayaked through a series of Karst caves in another part of the bay before stopping for lunch at Koh Panyee, a muslim fishing village built on stilts over the water in the shadow a large, karst cliff. Lunch was great, and the place was really interesting, and we lingered for a while before heading back to land to visit the monkey cave before heading back to the hotel. The whole tour was a bit touristy, but the bay and the national park it contained were truly beautiful, with islands of giant limestone karst looming over the water, scattered throughout the bay like they had been sprayed there by a giant blunderbus. Back at the hotel, we had time for a quick dip in the sea side pool before dinner, which was a surprisingly mediocre chinese new years banquet at the hotel, highlighted by the made to order duck rolls. The food was okay, but I think we are spoiled by the incredible chinese food in New York and had hoped it would be better.

Monday was both good and bad, as we tried to go scuba diving around Raya Island, but on the 1 and 1/2 hour boat ride out there, Aviva got so seasick that she was unable to dive. I had two fabulous dives of about 10 and 20 meters, and saw a number of remarkable sea slugs, beautiful schools of fish, a really cool black lionfish and a fairly large (maybe 4 feet long) grouper. Aviva did recover while we were out there and she got in some good snorkeling. For dinner we ate at a little resturant down by the Panwa Bay promenade, I had yellow seafood curry and Aviva had an amazing whole fish (we think it was sea bass) spiced with peppers, plums and lemongrass. Mine was okay but hers was fantastic and we demolished it.

Since Monday was kind of rough on the water, Tuesday we took it easy, spending the morning at the hotel, in and out of the pool, before catching a speedboat over to coral island in the afternoon for some snorkeling, lounging and general relaxation. The beach was beautiful and not so crowded (no small thing in Phuket), and although the snorkeling was not fantastic, because most of the corals we fairly badly damaged, it was still nice to be snorkeling and looking at fish together. After returning to our hotel, Aviva took a dip in the pool and we headed out for the night, renting a car and driver to take us over to a wonderful seafood place on Karon beach, one of the more lively parts of the island. The resturant, Mali seafood, did not disappoint, as we had a variety of excellent ocean fare, and seeing the crowded, Englishized, ridiculous party that was Karon beach made us incredibly happy that we had ended up staying in the remote, quiet, romantic corner of Phuket that was Panwa Bay.

Wednesday, we woke up late and flew back to Bangkok, getting to our hotel in the early afternoon. I was exhausted and crashed while Aviva toured the neighborhood, which was far outside the city center and a much more authentic (we were guessing) slice of bangkok life than we had seen the first time we were in the city. The evening was occupied by a self-guided tour of the local markets, an internet cafe where we arranged spa treatments for the next day, followed by pad thai from a street cart, fantastic as always. On thursday we awoke and took a cab to the spa, where we were pampered and rubbed for several hours. My body and head massage for shorter than Avivas seaweed wrap, body massage and facial, so I also got my hair cut (what little there is of it) and wandered about. We ate lunch and elaborate, ridiculous ice cream cones in the office tower where the spa was before wandering around a bit and then heading over to the Erawan museum and sculpture garden for our last taste of Thailand. After some small confusion getting back in a taxi, we again had dinner at a nearby street cart restaurant, this time dumplings and soup, which was also delicious. Then to bed and when we awoke too early at 5 am, we headed over the the airport and began the long, long, long (15 hours in the air) flight home ... stopping briefly in Tokyo, to eat udon and buy some whiskey.

And now we are back, have been here a few days and are finally beginning to realize that this is not just another hotel (the bed is way too nice). Over a fantastic trip ... can't wait for our next one.

Thailand, Week 2

2010-02-17T07:13:00.007-05:00

I intended to post this about four days ago, but was completely seduced by the Radisson resort we have been staying at on Phuket and have come to understand why people got to resorts to do nothing ... but comes later and I still haven't told you what we did last week. Again, no pictures, we have had a small camera malfunction and the small camera that is easy to upload images from is no longer working ... but if it were working, you would have seen some amazing stuff ...

When I last wrote, we were wandering around Chiang Mai, and the day after that post we spent all day at a fantastic cooking class where we learned to make a large number of Thai dishes ... the hands down winner was chicken with cashew nuts, which is secretly the most popular dish in Thailand. A close second was the curry with noodles, Khao Soi. Spectacular!

The day after the cooking class we slept in and then took the bus up to Chiang Dao, a small town about an hour north of Chiang Mai, up in the mountains. We stayed at a resort called the Nest ... which is really a small portal into some kind of paradise we can somehow access here on earth. It is a series of gorgeous wooden bungalows spread out across a series of edenesque gardens on the edge of a National Park full of soaring 2,000 meter mountains. Fantastic. While we we there we walked the 500 steps up to an incredible monastery, took a guided trek through the park, exploring a cave, a gorgeous waterfall and 2 Lisu villages and ate at the incredible European style restaurant at the Nest. Best dish was probably the duck in passion-fruit reduction with new potatoes and leeks, followed by an incredible vanilla bean creme brulee. Awesome. After two glorious days at the Nest (and we both wished we had booked longer), we went back to Chiang Mai, picked up our tailored shirts and Aviva's suit, and we to a Thai cultural dance performance that was half-tourist trap, half-fantastic ... the dance where the young men danced while playing veritcal drums was awesome.

Then, Friday, we headed down to Phuket. We were originally going to Samui, but it turns out that Chinese New Years is a bigger deal here than we expected and every flight to Samui was full. So Phuket (pronounced poo-get) it was ... and even though our hotel choices were limited, we ended up with an incredible deal at the Radisson Plaza Resort Panwa Bay, in a deluxe suite with a private balcony including an outdoor bathtub overlooking Panwa Bay. It was unreal. We spent much of Friday and Saturday just lounging around in the seaside pool, having drinks at the swim-up bar, checking out the aquarium and walking in the tidepools just off shore during low tide.

Friday night we ate at a an insanely pretentious beach club, Sri Panwa, down the cape, where we sat at a table that was recessed into a huge cliffside swimming pool over looking the ocean (its really tough to describe so I grabbed this image from their website - we sat at the far left table). The way to the restaurant was a half a mile walk, and we were asked no fewer than eight times if we needed a taxi to get there from the entrance (proving, again, that as we were told, Thais do not walk anywere). The table was only accessible by a series of stone steps through the pool, and as the waiters we walking over to you it looked like they were swimming. The food (giant tiger prawns and sweet/spicy grouper) was great, but the ambience was ridiculous.

Saturday afternoon we headed into Phuket city, made plans for some tours in the next few days, ate an incredible lunch at Siam Indigo (I think Aviva's loster ravioli just edged my braised young duck fillets over hokken noodle clusters) and spent another romatic night on our balcony, before waking up on Sunday to start our tours .... which I will tell you more about in the last update ....

Thailand, Week 1

2010-02-07T04:15:00.002-05:00

I wish I could get the pictures off my camera to show ... this last week has been unreal. You would be seeing pictures of incredible ruined Wats and Chedis (temples) from the Ayuthaya period, a wild bull elephant, Aviva feeding long-tailed macaques, me feeding semi-domesticated catfish, sampan deer, gibbons and pig-tail macaques, our completely tatooed tour guide in wildman pose, an amazing 25 meter plunge fall in the middle of the rainforest, the fascinating back-canals of bangkok, fried shrimp head cakes, elaborate, gorgeous vegetable stands, the insanity of Bangkok traffic, the incredible, rainforest-like spa in Bangkok where we got two hour massages, and of course, lots and lots of Buddhas, black and white and emerald and gold, sitting and standing, old and young.

The people here are incredibly friendly and happy, and almost everyone goes far out of their way to help and to try to make you happy or comfortable whether you are eating at a street stall or a restuarant, looking for directions or buying fish food. Except for the tourist traps around major sites and the agressive tuk-tuk and taxi drivers, everyone here has been amazing.

We just arrived in Chiang Mai last night, and are staying with Daniel and Amanda, one of my best friends brother and his wife, who are basically amazing. They are doing research on the Thai highland tribes and are basically working to improve the lives of hundred of thousands of natives who are being pushed out of their heritage by modernity (and the aggressively racistish laws of the Thai government). Even though we were all exhausted we spent the first night here just talking for about 3 hours about their and our research. It was great.

So today we wandered Chiang Mai, which is a delightful city, and tomorrow we will be taking an all day cooking class before we head up into the mountains near Chiang Dao to relax, hike and enjoy nature a bit more before flying down to spend a week in on Koh Samui and Koh Tao. I cannot believe we still have two weeks to go, and that I am as excited about each of them as I was about the last week.

The Eagle has Landed

2010-01-31T12:20:00.005-05:00

So, we are here, in Bangkok safe and sounds and man, it was a long flight. So long that when we woke up this morning it was yesterday. But 14 hours to Tokyo and another 6.5 to Bangkok are behind us, and we managed to avoid dropping babies in Tokyo and have ridden the travelators through the Bangkok airport. We only needed two taxis to get here, as the first stalled out after we got into it, and now we are nestled into our wonderful suite at Aspen Suites in the Sukhumvit area of central Bangkok. The rooms are awesome and despite my masssive temporal discombobulation I will definitely be crashing out soon. We will have many more adventures for you soon, but for now good night.

Thailand!!!!!

2010-01-30T07:33:00.003-05:00

Today Aviva and I are finally starting our long delayed honeymoon, so we are heading off to Thailand until February 19th. It should be an absolute blast and we are incredibly excited about it. I will try to blog a little while we are there so if you want to know what we are up to, come here and check it out. Otherwise I will talk to you all again in about 3 weeks.

Obama's the Man

2010-01-29T15:00:00.003-05:00

So the State of the Union was great, and it reminded a lot of us why we like Obama, that he is a powerful and persuasive speaker and has a distinctly post-partisan viewpoint ... at least that is what his ideal viewpoint is. And I know a speech is just a speech, and actions really need to be taken to either restore faith in Obama or to show people who don't believe in his vision that he is the real thing. Still, it was an impressive speech and well worth watching ... its below.

However, what is even more impressive is Obama's time at the House GOP meeting this afternoon. It was awesome to watch Obama interact with the house GOP members and to see him articulately and frankly address both the political and policy aspects of Republican questions in a brilliant way. Sometimes we forget that our president is a really smart guy ... If you have the time, the video of this meeting is well worth watching, particularly the Q & A, which starts about halfway in. You can find the video here if you want to watch it ... do take a look, its awesome.

I'm a believer

2010-01-22T09:07:00.004-05:00

Last night I went to see Avatar in digital 3-D.

I had heard all the disparaging comments, that its "Pocahontas" meets "Dances with Wolves", that the Na'vi are basically giant, deadly smurfs, that they are looking for something so stupidly called Unobtanium that it cannot possibly be good. And I had heard, repeatedly, from all of my friends who had seen it that it was simplistic, the plot was basic, that it was a little goofy .. but also that it was beyond a fantastic experience and was a must see in the theatre.

So even though I never go to the movies (the last movie I saw was It's complicated, 3 weeks ago because Avatar was sold out in 4 theaters ... before that it has been more than a year since I went to the movies) I went to see it in 3-D, even though I don't handle 3-D well and often get a bit nauseous.

And it was INCREDIBLE. I mean absolutely visually stunning, arresting and fantastic. Honestly, the plot was solid if shmaltzy, but enjoyable, and there was so much for my eyes and mind to enjoy that if the plot had been any more complex I would have missed it. Sure, it was not a life altering event, but it was, hands down, the best money I have spent on entertainment in a long time. I absolutely loved it and even though it gave me a migraine, I want to see it again. Soon.

Hello Joey!!!

2010-01-19T21:47:00.008-05:00

So Aviva and I are an aunt and uncle again, because Rachel and Larry just had a new baby girl, Joey Rose Howe, our new niece. She is currently in blivet stage, kind of a wrinkled bag of cuteness, but still very adorable, and is rapidly metriculating toward the full-fledged baby stage. Last weekend, Aviva and I went down to Cherry Hill to participate in Joeys naming ceremony ... in which we got to carry Joey in to be named and then work to prevent Dylan from burning down the living room and wiping snot all over the challah. We did a fairly good job as the challah tasted wonderful and the Buchmans house is still standing :)The whole weekend was a lot of fun, and somewhat unusual as we do not normally see Bucky and Tanya in the winter unless we go down to Boca, but they came up so it was like a holiday in the middle of January, which was great.

We got down to Cherry Hill mid-morning on Saturday, in time to catch the end of Shabbat services at Chabad and enjoy the wonderful kiddush Bucky and Tanya sponsored in honor of Joey. It's funny, I have had a relatively negative history with chabad, and am not particularly versed in most of the prayers and customs they practice, but I have found myself at chabad more than any other shul of late, and I have to say I really enjoy it. In particular, Mende, the rabbi, is a great guy, and I think he has the right perspective on Judaism and religiousity and just really enjoy talking with him.

Anyway, after services we ate a lot of smoked fish (I do love lox ... could be Jewish just for the lox) and delicious chinese-ish noodles and Mendes cholent (for those unfamiliar with cholent it is basically Jewish chili), then went back and hung out at Bucky and Tanyas for the afternoon. I played Titan with Marley (our older nephew), we walked with Tanya, had a fabulous dinner and watch Rollerball (the original James Caan classic), which was better when I saw it 12 or 13 years ago.

Sunday was the big day, and as you can see in the pictures throughout this post, it was packed and a lot of fun. Well, maybe you can't see how much fun it was from the pictures, but it was great. A lot of people, maybe 40 or 50, showed up and crowded into the living room for the ceremony, which consisted mostly of grandparents and great-grandparents reading things, kissing Joey and smiling. Rachel and Larry both spoke very movingly about their hopes for Joey's life and future, and just seeing Larry and Rachel on the couch with Marley, Dylan and Joey was great. They are such a beautiful family, it makes me so happy to get to see them all the time.

After the ceremony, we ate a lot of smoked fish (this is what Jews do to celebrate) and I ended up drinking quite a bit of scotch with Bucky, Mende and Stewart, a fantastic guy and family friend. I think we are going to get to go scotch tasting together in NYC sometime in the future, which should be a blast. The party lasted quite a while, and people finally started to trickle out around 2 or 3 and only the family was left by 430ish. Everyone hung out until around 7, eating hoagies and salad for dinner, and then Aviva and I drove home and hung out with our neighbors, Ali & Zeke and Alana & A.J., to watch the Golden Globes before heading to bed. Pretty fantastic weekend all around ...

Camping inside with my wonderful wife

2010-01-19T21:40:00.005-05:00

Last week was a pretty tough week at work, and by Friday I was pretty wiped out ... so when I got home I was surprised and thrilled to see the Hobitat (the incredible, awesome tent that Rachel, Larry, Josh and Debbie got us for our wedding) in the center of the living room. To cheer me up, my incredible wife set up our tent in our living room so we could camp out, because we have not had a chance to camp this winter. I love my wife, she is absolutely incredible.

Frutti del Mar for New Years!!

2010-01-04T23:19:00.005-05:00

So last year, Aviva and I did not go out for New Years. We took advantage of the cheapness of lobster and had a lobster/shrimp/scallop extravaganza, drank too much prosecco, watched Kung Fu panda and passed out around 1045 ... although I woke Aviva up at 1155 to watch the ball fall. And thus a tradition was born.

This year, on New Years eve, after work, Aviva went my Stew Leonards and Morton Williams and picked up a pile of seafood, including these two delicious lobsters or the right, as well as crab legs, shrimp and mussels. When I got home around 2 hours later, she had just finished consolidating this fabulous variety of seafood into a large platter of risotto liberally filled with Frutti del Mar ... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. It was kind of incredible, I had a lot of trouble not wolfing it down as soon as I got home, but instead we got the water boiling and got ready to cook up the lobsters. We romanced our lobsters a little bit , you have to treat them nicely if they are going to treat you nicely if they are going to treat you nicely , and then dumped them in the boiling pot to cook them up for our 1st course.

While the lobsters were cooking we put the finishing touches on the table, and when they were done we sat down in our beautiful living room and tore into the sea food extravaganza, spraying lobster bits and mussels all over the table as we devoured the butter soaked, incredibly tender and delicious sea food. After we ate, a process which we savored over about an hour and a half, we retired to the den and watched The Brothers Bloom, a quite bizarre movie, on the computer. Then exhausted and slightly drunk, we brought up Times Square live on the computer, looked at the poor, cold people standing for hours in the freezing rain, and decided we were thrilled not to be there. Then we went to bed around 11, falling asleep at around 1130 and not waking up until 8 or 9 hours into the next year.

Welcome 2010

2010-01-04T09:57:00.001-05:00

Neal regains some infallibility in the sky

2009-12-30T10:16:00.004-05:00

So by now those of you who avidly follow my blog (those one or two of you), have read a couple of things about my buddy Neal, who is both an extraordinary and an extraordinarily crazy human being. His most recent hobby is skydiving, because kite-boarding and rock climbing are quite enough. Apparently all the maneuvers we see in the movies, the somersaults and flips and whatnot, are not that easy to do and in the video below we see Neal learning to flip a little bit ..

Neal you are awesome, keep living the adventure so I can continue to adventure vicariously with you.

Finally, the Moth ... or not

2009-12-29T22:28:00.003-05:00

So last night, Aviva and I finally found the time to go into Manhattan to watch the Moth live at the Bitter End down on Bleecker street. At least, we thought we found the time ... when we arrived there was a huge line around the corner and halfway down the block. When I first saw it I said, "Don't worry, that can't be for the Moth, it has to be for something else." But lo, when the front of the Bitter End came into view, it was clear the line stopped there. (For those of you who are unaware of the Moth, it is AWESOME. It is an organization that puts on storytelling nights where different people get up on stage and tell short (15-20 minute) stories live without notes in front of a crowd. Aviva and I listen to their regular podcasts, which tell one story each week, and while the stories are generally very funny, but can me quite moving and sad, depending on the subject matter and the skill of the story teller.)

So anyway, last night we did not get to see the Moth because of the insane line, so instead we wandered west up 3rd avenue, and on the advice of our friend Koffman, stopped in for a drink at a bar called Amity Hall, at 80 West 3rd. What a fantastic bar!!! It was a wonderful surprise, warm and quiet, with a comfortable atmosphere and a dark, but somehow well-lit ambience. I think it is kind of a modern take on an Irish/Scottish beer hall, and the had a wonderful selection of beers and wines, along with some nice Scotches and other whiskies. Aviva had a nice pinot while I got a Scotch Ale from Michigan, we got some Asiago fries and basically had a date. After our drinks we wandered up to Grand Central and did a crossword puzzle on the train home.

It was a fantastic evening .. not that I don't realize it everyday, but sometimes I don't consciously remember how amazing and beautiful my wife is. And nights like this, being out on a "date" with her and seeing me across the table, helps me remember how incredible she is and how lucky we are.

DUCK!!!! With Jews!!!!! On Christmas!!!

2009-12-25T11:13:00.006-05:00

Last week I was talking with my friend Cheo and he asked me what we were doing on Christmas eve? I said we were doing the Jewish thing, and he was surprised, saying he thought that Jews did not celebrate Christmas. I told him that he was right, we didn't celebrate, but that generally on Christmas eve Jews went out for chinese food and then went to the movies, because those were the places that stayed open that night. This year was no different, as Aviva and I met up with our friends Koffman and Erez at New Green Bo, a fabulous hole-in-the-wall place down on Bayard street (66 Bayard) in Chinatown. We arrived first, Koffman showed up with his friend Heather about 20 minutes later (in a bizarre quirk of fate she was meeting three different groups of people for dinner at the same restaurant, so sat with us in between here 1st and 3rd meals), and then Erez showed up soon after that.

We were pretty hungry after waiting outside for 40 minutes or so, and Koffman had been raving about the duck at this place, so as soon as we were seated in the back we ordered Peking Duck and a bunch of appetizers including an excellent scallion pancake and some very good cold, sesame noodles. As the appetizers we coming two other people were seated at our table, and over the course of the meal we had a very enjoyable conversation with everybody. Overall we ordered entirely too much food, as usual when everyone is hungry at a chinese place, and after the duck we got four more entrees, so we stuffed ourselves and packed the rest to go home. Overall the food was very, very good, although I can say that the foods in brown sauce, the eggplant with garlic and the beef with scallions, were much better than the shrimp chow fun and the rice cakes (kind of a chinese gnocchi) with mushrooms.

After dinner we got desert at the excellent chinatown ice cream factory, and then Aviva, Erez and I walked briskly up to 59th and Madison, giving our extra food away to a homeless guy and generally having a wonderful conversation, before Aviva and I got on the express bus back to the Bronx, where we got our car and drove home. Wonderful friends, wonderful night.

Sledding!!!

2009-12-21T22:45:00.010-05:00

So last weekend, there was an epic snowfall ... which just happened to coincide with our nephews (Marley on the left, Dylan below right) visiting from Philadelphia, so we got to go sledding with them. Awesome!!! It dropped two feet of snow on DC, some 16 inches in Philadelphia and around 10 inches in New York. This was the first real snowfall this year, and since my nephews were visiting, I was particularly excited about the snow. A few years ago, Aviva had surprised me after work with a nighttime sledding expedition, so we already had a sled. And when we told my 2 1/2 year old nephew Dylan on Saturday that we were going to go sledding tomorrow, he was ecstatic.

We got the early jump on sledding that night, around 11, when AJ, Alana, Allie and Zeke (our fabulous neighbors ... they are fantastic, and add an incredible new dimension to our lives here) came up from AJ & Alanas, walked in and demanded, in their heavily inebriated state, that we go sledding right now. So a stiff whiskey later, I found myself sliding backwards down the semi-public road in front of our building, desperately but futilely trying to steer myself away from the cars and the curbs ... I was not the only one with steering issues, and overall, despite the bruised knees and the cold, it was super fun. The rest of the evening, consisting of Balderdash and drinking, was also a blast, and as usual with our neighbors, we were up until around 0130 before we even knew it.

When we rose on Sunday, there was a beautiful, white blanket of snow covering everything. I love it when you first see snow before it has turned brown or been salted or moved into piles, it makes everything see so calm and beautiful. After a slow morning, we got everyone ready and ventured outside, finding several places in the complex in which to make sled runs. Although it was not Dylans first time sledding, I think it was the first time he remembered doing it (Rachel said she took him last year) and he loved it. Everyone had a blast sliding down hills with him and dragging him around on the snow, and I have to say I just loved the sledding by myself, as did Marley, who also enjoyed pelting us all with snowballs. We spent about an hour rampaging around int he snow, and when we got back inside I was exhausted. It is tiring playing in the snow, particularly dragging little and not so little kids around. Still, absolutely fantastic time and overall a wonderful weekend.

Elliptical Love

2009-12-17T21:36:00.003-05:00

Back issues but love to run? Want to exercise in the icy weather? Have rodent envy? No problem ... love the elliptical!!!

So one of the best things about where we live now is that we are about 5 minutes, door to door, from the New York Sports club in Hartsdale. I have finally been able to get on a semi-regular schedule and have gone and used the elliptical trainer each night for the last two days. I know, its like being a hamster, particularly because in this gym they are by the window and people walking by stare at you ... but at least when you are done you feel like a very fit hamster. Its not a big gym, and unfortunately it does not have a pool (I do miss the pool in the Bronx) but I can go easily and quickly. And since I now have a commute to work, about half an hour to an hour a day depending on the vagaries of the train, the bus or traffic, being able to work-out quickly is huge for me.

Its definitely been a struggle to integrate our lives, and sometimes I am not sure what is tougher, integrating our lives or adjusting to the new house, both are serious work. But its been great, and its getting better every day ...

Happy Hanukkah

2009-12-14T22:10:00.004-05:00

We hope that everyone has a wonderful Hanukkah and holiday season this year! Thus, far Hanukkah has been great, as we lit candles in our home last Shabbat (as you an see below) and tonight, but we went to a Hanukkah party at my Aunt Mays in Fort Lee on Saturday and then over to our friend Erez's place on the Upper West Side for dinner on Sunday. It is particularly special to us, because just like everything these days, it is the first Hanukkah in our new home ... and the first with the wonderful menorah we got from Sari & Rotem for our wedding, which we love.

And even though we agreed not to buy each other presents this year, my amazing wife found a loophole in the language and got me a present without buying me anything. She actually got a huge jigsaw puzzle that a friend was going to get rid of an painted one of my photos onto it, making a puzzle out of one of my photos. She is amazing!!! Here is the picture she painted on the jigsaw puzzle ...