Work Free-Fridays for the Month of December

I had some surplus vacation time to use up before the end of the year. As a part of it, I’m taking a vacation at the end of every week this month (for those weeks that don’t already end in holidays), starting last Friday. It was really fun to be able to go up and see Piper on a week day.  Our friend Andrea came with us on Friday. Piper enjoyed cuddling and playing with Andrea.

^—–Andrea and Piper, reading the bellybutton book.

^——Piper zoning out while Reagan gets Piper ready for her lunch.

Snowy weekend

Saturday was the first snowfall of the season, in New York City. Of course that had to be the day that we scheduled to do the first hair shoot for Reagan’s hair site. Hahahaha. It actually ended up going very well, considering that we shot everything outside, and it rained/snowed pretty much all day long. Luckily, we did the first set pretty close to our apt., pretty early in the morning before the really bad weather rolled in. The second part, we did under the Brooklyn Bridge, at the banks.

Reagan’s hair models were some friends that we met through my sister Sarah. They are both from Alaska, and happen to be in college together on Long Island. They were kind enough to make the trip into the city (and up to WaHi) so that Reagan could play with their hair, and take pictures of it. The shot above, is Haleigh, at the banks. Below is Brittany at Ft. Tryon.

In the afternoon, I was in Brooklyn doing some photos for a band called Game Rebellion (below). They were really cool guys and I had a lot of fun doing it.

Subway routine and rush-hour freaks

I have been riding the A-Train between the same two stops for a handful of years, now. My routine is pretty much down. I even have backup plans for when something goes awry. For example; in the morning, I know which crack to stand next to, so that I will be in the right spot to get in the door I want, when the train pulls up. Same thing, for the evening. Only, instead of a crack, it is a support beam that I stand next to. If someone is in my spot, I have two back-up spots to stand in and wait. It probably sounds crazy. Actually, it probably is kind of  crazy.

Anyway, I have been taking the train in the evening a lot more, since I moved groups at work. I used to pretty much always take a car home, because I would always work pretty late. Even when I didn’t work really late, I was taking the train late enough that it wasn’t rush hour anymore. I had no idea what I was missing. Afternoon rush-hour is complete crap. I hate it, bad. I don’t mean to sound like Max Hall, but I really can’t think of one thing that I like about rush-hour. Not only are there way too many people indignantly shoving their way in and out of the doors, but the freak-meter is off the scale. I mean, they are out in droves. Of course you get your occasional freak, no matter what time of day you are on the train. But during rush-hour, you can’t really avoid them.

This may seem like a petty example, but here is what happened on my way home Thursday evening: I was standing in the very end of the very last car. This dude gets on and posts up right next to me. He is probably late teens/early 20’s. He turns around to look out the back window of the train, and starts gradually shoving me over, so that he can be more squarely positioned in front of the window. Whatever. Not a big deal. I mean, there is a lot of exciting crap to look at back there, in the dark tunnel behind the train. Whatever he was seeing out there must have been pretty inspiring though, because next thin I know, he starts singing to himself. The singing is loud enough that I can hear it over my headphones which are turned up to 11. At first I thought he just got carried away, singing along to the music in his headphones. Oh wait, he isn’t wearing any.

Then this other lady gets on, and asks the woman sitting next to where I’m standing, to give up her seat. The woman obliges, and lets the other lady have her spot. This lady is dragging one of those annoying little backpacks with the rollers on it, the kind that everyone trips over while trying to walk behind them on the sidewalk. She slides her government-worker issued MTA pass back into its little plastic case and sits down in her commandeered seat, while wedging her little wheely bag right between her shins and the side of my leg. Nice. So, now I have aspiring American Idol-boy all up on my left side, and this crazy woman cramping me all up from the other side. The train is so jammed that I can’t really even move to another spot, at this point, without putting someone else out.

Next thing I know, this woman begins to rummage all through her little pack, which seems to be stuffed to capacity with a never ending supply of plastic sacks. Apparently she isn’t finding the right sack, because she rummages for like 3 stops. The whole time I’m blocking the stupid little fully-extended pull handle on her bag from hitting me in the junk, as it wildly swings around during all of the rummaging. Finally, she finds what she is looking for. It is a container of yogurt. She now begins to rummage through her handbag. Eventually she comes up with a plastic knife. Good enough, I guess. She opens the yogurt and drinks out all of that clear stuff that settles at the top. Mmmmm delicious. In the process, she gets a bit white smudge on the end of her nose from the partially peeled back foil at the top of the container. Next, she begins to spoon (knife) the yogurt into her mouth. Her first couple of attempts don’t go too well. The yogurt slides right off of her knife onto her sleeve. No problem she just licks it up. Then she takes a different approach, putting the cup to her mouth and just using the knife to shovel the yogurt in. So amazing.

There was a sudden and particularly loud burst of song that distracted me for a few seconds. When I looked back to my right, she had finished the yogurt and was back to rummaging. I was back to shielding the goods from the flailing handle. Momentarily she came up with yet another yogurt. Nice. At this point she had a substantial amount of white goop on the end of her nose. What harm could a little more do? She downs the second yogurt, plastic knife shovel-style and goes back to rummaging. I go back to shielding. Yellow plastic bags, black plastic bags, white plastic bags. She must have collected one from every bodega in the entire West Village. She finally retrieves a black plastic bag and unties it, to reveal a tupperware containing cut celery. Not too weird.

She opens up the tupperware and starts going to town on the celery. After placing one end of a celery stick in her mouth, she cups the palm of her hand at the other end and pushed it in, about a quarter of an inch with each chomp. It was similar to the way the beavers eat sticks in the old cartoons. She repeats this action with 3 to 5 sticks of celery, until her checks are completely jammed with partially masticated celery. She has one long celery string hanging from her lower lip, down past her chin. All the while, still rocking the goop nose. Over the next 5 minutes she chews that wad of celery.

This ride was taking forever. We stopped twice in the tunnel between 59th and 125th. When we finally arrived at 125, enough people de-trained that I was finally able to extract myself from between the aspiring vocalist and the hungry government worker, to find a less stimulating perch. I need to start working late, again.

[The photo is of the Rector Street stop, on the RW, in late October]

Street art o’ the week T.WAT

Entitled “Royal Protection Mutate Britain” by T.WAT.  Photo presumably also by T.WAT.

2009 in retrospect

I know it is only the first week of December. But it is already that time of year, where everyone starts publishing the “best of” lists etc.. So, the other night I sat down and put together a less-than-comprehensive little photo book of our 2009 activities. There are 118 images all together. Depending on which computer I’m on, it is kind of slow loading. It isn’t in chronological order, either. Anyway, if you are interested, you can check it out, over here.

A couple of more faves from 2 weekends ago

Once again, hopefully I won’t get in trouble for posting these. I was ordering the prints for our Christmas cards, yesterday, and decided to get a couple of additional prints made. I had a really hard time deciding. I ended up not going with either of these ones, but I liked them enough  to post. That little chair was hand painted by one of Reagan’s good friends, especially for Piper. It was so nice of her. I know that I have been posting a ton of Piper photos recently. But I can’t help it. A lot of times I really miss her during the week. Especially since we have been back from Brazil. Anyway, isn’t she so cute?

Facebook is for elderly women

I have been back and forth about the whole Facebook conundrum, several times. You may recall this post. Then, almost a year later, I caved under peer pressure and reactivated my account. I have to admit that some aspects of it have been really pleasant. I’m still not 100% keen on it, though. Possibly still because of the bitter taste in my mouth that Myspace left.

Anyway, it seems like it is pretty unavoidable these days. I read about it everywhere. I have read so many articles about how if they could just monetize the thing, it would be unstoppable, etc. It seems like Wired has a new take on Facebook, every month. But my favorite two Facebook factoids, as of late, are:  A. Facebook is for broads, and B. The elderly is the fastest growing demographic of users. I’m not kidding, in either case.

Examiner sends around all kinds of emails with tips on promoting, etc. The latest thing they have going is some sort of contest, involving Facebook. Here is a quote from the email:

If you think you’re too old for Facebook, consider that the fastest growing group of Facebook users is people over the age of 35.  Among that group, grandparents are some of the heaviest users.

What? Hahahaha. Some of the “heaviest users?” Ok, aside from the poor wording of that statement, I can sort of see some rationale behind the claim. The reason that I kind of buy into it, dovetails with my next point. The elderly are often home bound. With limited social options, I can see them resorting to Facebook, for interaction with others. The other demographic that  spends loads and loads of time on Facebook according to something that I read on Animal New York (and according to my personal observation), is the softer sex. I have to say that it seems like women, stay at home moms particularly (not saying this with any sort of negative inference), seem to author the bulk of the “updates” on my feed. The Animal post was actually taken from an NY Observer article, on the subject. The article claims that:

Women are more likely to be chatting it up on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites you’ve probably never heard of, like “Bebo.” According to data taken from Google’s U.S. Ad Planner, a site that tracks popular Web sites’ traffic, 84 percent (or 16 out of 19) of the sites they studied have more female than male users.

The Observer also stated that a study conducted by the WSJ in October yielded similar findings. So what does this mean? Put the Examiner claim with the other studies, and it appears that Facebook is becoming overrun by elderly women. Hahahaha.

In reality though, I have recently read a few useful pieces relating to Facebook. The first one, was in GQ, earlier this year. This article lays out the low down with Mark Zuckerberg, his unrelenting desire to be the head of the organization he created, and the back story on the ever changing Facebook privacy policy, about which rumors still circulate (Facebook owns all of the IP right to photos posted by users, etc.).

The other article I referred to, appeared in Details. The article discusses virtual friend collecting and lays out some guidelines and protocol on how to deal with awkward Facebook moments. I have found it helpful, when trying to decide if I should un-tag myself in certain photos, etc.. It also discusses the idea of transparency and honesty on one’s profile. It probably seems pretty commonsensical, but it was actually kind of interesting.

Maybe it is kind of pathetic I have even felt like I needed any guidance when dealing with Facebook. Maybe I’ll be strong armed out by all of the elderly women who are taking over. I guess I wouldn’t be too bummed about that.  Anyway, I find Idiotbook much more entertaining.

La Musica Coolica #48 (Hiero)

More Bay-area organic hip-hop for you, this week. Brought together by Del tha Funky Homosapien, “Hieroglyphics” first appeared on the scene in the early 1990’s. Though Del is heavily credited as bringing the group together, his vocals are probably not the most prominent in Hiero’s tracks. Del shares the mic well with the whole lot of the Hiero crew. In case you don’t already know, all of the guys from  “Souls of Mischief,” (Tajai, Opio, etc..), can be found in the mix.

As far as I know (feel free to set me straight) “Hieroglyphics” have have only produced two studio albums on a major label. One was released in 1998 called “Third Eye Vision.” The title may sound dirty (and I guess maybe it is), but primarily it refers to the ubiquitous graphic of the three-eyed straight lipped “smiley face” that serves at the group’s logo. The other studio album “Full Circle” was published in ‘03. In addition, there were a handful of discs put out on Hiero’s own label after “Full Circle” was released.

The song that I’m sharing today is from the “Full Circle” album. It samples Bjork’s “Army of me.” It has some swearin’. So, if you are opposed to that sort of thing, then it is probably best to pass up this track. The title is “Let it Roll.” Check it out.

Mo’ PJ from the long weekend

Piper had her fancy pants on, and was dancing around pretty much all weekend. It was really fun being able to see Piper for so many days, this week. It is really amazing how quickly standing has become one of her favorite things to do. She would probably sleep standing up, if she could figure out how to do it. It is so cute to watch her dance and wiggle around, while tapping and grabbing everything in reach. It is a lot easier to get her to take little steps now, too. She is clearly becoming a lot more sure of her little legs and feet.

Sunday, our intention was to head straight up to Westchester after church and spend all day there. But the long weekend caught up to us, and we ended up taking some serious naps. So, we didn’t get to Blythedale until after the sun had gone down. It was nice, though to get in a little rest. It is really mellow in the hospital at night. Piper had just dozed off and was out cold when we arrived. We got her out anyway and took turns holding her. She must have had a pretty great weekend too, judging by how deeply she was sleeping.

Turkey Day

This is the first year, since Piper has been around, that we have been in town for Thanksgiving  weekend. In the past we have spent it in New England with our Boston friends. It was kind of nice, not to be traveling, this year. It was extra nice to be able to see Piper on Thanksgiving. Of course, Reagan whipped up a festive turkey headband for Piper, at the last minute. Piper wasn’t too keen on having it around her head. But she was a good sport for the photo. We had a lot of fun teaching her about why we celebrate the first day that people ate turkey.

Something happened during our visit that was extra fun for me. I finally figured out something that makes Piper laugh. Normally Reagan is the only one that can crack Piper up. But yesterday, when I was holding her. She started tapping me on the mouth, like she does quite often. As she was doing this, I started pretending to eat her fingers. Apparently she thought that was pretty funny, because she started cracking up. Then I started cracking up. Good times had by all.

BTW, Reagan is now officially obsessed with her iPhone, which is where this photo came from. She has an application that renders photos to look like old Polaroids.