Found our way over to the city today.
I got a chance to meet with Brian Hamman, of the New York Times. Got a tour of the newsroom and office (quite an awesome building) and got some lunch with him.
Visited our good ol’ friend, Pat — the guy behind YoYo Nation. We know Pat through Glenn’s yoyoing — he’s ordered from that site plenty and Pat actually came down to St. Louis for one of the competitions a year or two ago. (Hell, he had dinner at our house when he was in town.)
Stopped by the B&H Photo super store, too. The place is huge. And from what I looked at, it’s got everything the online store has — it’s sheer ridiculous. Got the supplies to develop my many rolls of film (yum, Xtol), which I did the moment we got back to Livingston.
And of course, no trip to New York would be complete without a bite to eat at Tasty Dumpling. Seriously. You can feed a large family for $8 at that place and the stuff actually tastes good. Honest, pick some up and sit down in Columbus Park to eat. It’s a good meal.
I’ve found that navigating New York has become somewhat second nature to me, too. Might have been that summer exchange trip to Germany years ago, but transit maps over here make so much sense to me. Might also be the infographic guy in me, too. Or it could be that I’ve been to the city at least once a year for the past five years now. Either way. Got in via train, took the subway a few places, took the bus back to Livingston… Got lost once, and that’s only because I remembered the wrong street number — oops.
If I bother to borrow the scanner here, you might get some photos soon. I haven’t used my “good” (meaning “digital SLR”) camera all vacation, but instead have abused the hell out of my Yashica film camera lately. I dunno, I think I’m falling in love with film again.
My luck is a funny thing.
Back on Saturday night, right after getting into town, I had a tire blow out en route to Chris’ cousin’s for a family party of sorts. You know, mere hours after finishing a 1100 mile drive. We got the spare on and went on our way. It got to New Brunswick and back fine, too.
To tell you the truth, my tires should’ve been replaced way back in November — I’ve been having trouble keeping one of my tires inflated (a tiny leak practically at the sidewall, hard to completely repair). That was not the tire that blew out.
With help from Chris’ dad, we found our way to a couple of shops only to find that they didn’t have a full set in my size. We finally ended up in Parsippany, half an hour away, and got it fixed by an understaffed shop that had way too much to do today.
Oh, life. 1100 miles and then a blown tire after getting here? Someone’s smiling down on me.
Tomorrow: New York City.
Spent the night at Erin and Dave’s place at Rutgers. Had quite a blast even though it was just us five there (me, Glenn, Chris, Erin, and Dave). Had a couple trips to some local eats, including Stuff Yer Face and Grease Trucks (which is basically 500 feet from the house).
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Protip: If you’re ever near Rutgers, you must get yourself a fat sandwich at some point.
What’s a fat sandwich? Think of all the greatest quick food (cheese steak, fries, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, etc…), put it in a sub bun, throw some sauce on it (marinara, mayo, or ketchup), and suddenly you’ve got yourself one of the most ridiculous and amazing foods on the planet. Even better are the eccentric names by which the sandwiches are referred to: ranging from the classics (Fat Knight, Fat Sam, Fat Cat, etc…) to the strange (Fat Beach) to the controversial (Fat Dyke, Fat Phillipino, and Fat Bitch). They taste better than they sound, I promise.
Something about the names of things and places, and something about the very food itself screams creativity to me. Screams college town. It’s sure got soul.
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Quotable: Chris described SoCo & Lime shots by saying, “Imagine the smallest feather, tickling your ballsack.” (Everybody else agreed that they aren’t quite that good.)
After nearly 1100 miles, the worst is over. Quick rundown in numbers: 27 hours total, with 20+ hours driving. 1100+ miles. 6 total stops between Columbia and Livingston. Damn, that was smooth.
Okay, so gas the entire rest of the way was cheaper than what it was in Illinois. In fact, one gas station here in Livingston had gas at $2.97/gal… which is cheaper than what it was in even St. Louis.
Never came across any snow, either, even though the forecast for my entire route looked poor. But Bailey was five hours behind me, back in Ohio (en route to D.C.), and told me that it had started snowing there a bit. I guess I outran it or something.
I want to say that I’ll be updating with photos throughout the week, but I’m leaning closer and closer to just using film for the week, heh. We’ll see.
Like last month, I went over to St. Louis to take in the protest against the Church of Scientology.
I don’t have much to say this time, mainly because it was more of the same. The dogma and message are still the same and I honestly don’t feel it’s worth repeating. There are much better sources of information, anyway.
Continue reading ‘Anonymous vs. Scientology, redux’
