Londoners love their umbrellas.....and buses

a few more pix from our tasty weekend

here are a few pix from our visit to the wonderful fresh Borough market this past weekend
i am on my way out of work so i will just leave you with a few images from our perusing of the gastro delights that the market had to offer : )

snap shots of london...two weeks in and counting

as i have finally managed to get some photos to my work computer from a cd from home i am not going to go into lengthy words about each photo...just a few snap shots from my two weeks here coming via my camera and my flat mate chi's.

the first photo is me catching up on my sleep!!! not too flattering but just to take you thru the recovery period from all the work the last few months! not to mention the weather is very gray here a lot of the time and it lends itself very well too sleeping :) although i don't want you all to think i am sleeping my days away in London!
actually the first weekend we went the British museum and as you can see from this silly photo i was very excited by the glass roof!
also here is another silly one of chi and i showing our British patriotism ;P well trying to stagger these silly photos and add the text is driving me mad so i think i'll have to resort to starting another post or perhaps leaving more till tomorrow.

a short greeting from london town

well i just wrote this very long post about my new temporary life here in london and something has crashed here on my computer and poof it's gone :( ...so more later on my new life here as my lunch break is now over!

here is one of a few pix i managed to get on my computer here at work (your not suppose to put any usb device in here so i am technically not suppose to have downloaded any pix but anyway) this is a shot i took of my two co-workers walking into our office...i promise i'll post more interesting London related photos later :) i hope

e&g's wedding

although my never ending deadline is STILL! not over :) i did manage to break away for the weekend to go to a good friends wedding in Philadelphia. It was pretty big +300 people so i did not really get a chance to take many pix of the bride and groom, however i did see a ton of people from past chapter of my life (some i have not seen in more than 10 yrs). anyway here's one with me and my current and former roomies : ) also a blurry one of the bride and groom!

random thoughts of stressful lunacy

Gray hair. To some, it's the beginning of the end. Others accept it as a public token of wisdom. A few think gray hair is caused by stress and worry, though there is no evidence to support this concept.

Well weather myth or truth people have always at least associated gray hair with stress and overworking ones self. And being a mere 26 I am not into the whole public token of wisdom thing......Anyway i have to say the thought of my hair pre-maturely graying has crossed my mind more than a few times during these last few stressful months of work. So I am sure due to this unnecessary added worry last night i had a dream that i was looking at myself in the mirror getting ready for work and i put my head down and noticed that all my hair was turning gray!!! it was one of those crazy dreams that feels so real that when you wake up you almost want to run to the bathroom to see if your hair is really GRAY!

I know this is not the most exciting news or post but i did title the blog " + other random thoughts for a reason".....

Truth Vs. Advertising: The Banana Republic Architect

a bit of humours reading from the web today

The Banana Republic ad with the architects—it's everywhere! And it raised some questions for us. So we asked an architect—we'll call him Frankie Lloyd—who works at "a large firm downtown with an eccentric, megalomaniac starchitect at the helm" how the ad stacked up to his reality. The answers may surprise you!

Gawker: So have you seen those Banana Republic ads?

Frankie: No, I haven't.

Gawker: Okay, pick up a copy of any magazine. Well, any medium to highbrow magazine -- the New Yorker or New York mag will work well.

Frankie: Yeah, OK. I saw the one inside the cover of this week's New Yorker.
Wow, the colors of those shirts are very bright!

Gawker: So what is it like being surrounded by nubile 23 year olds in khaki coordinates at all times?

Frankie: I am not really sure, to be honest with you. I think I may be involved
in some different types of architecture than these people.

Gawker: What do you mean, it's not really like that?

Frankie: Well, firstly, these people look really well-rested and almost obscenely casual. If this were a real meeting, the model on the table would have some stray marks on it. More likely, it would be shattered in a million pieces on the floor.

Also, in my experience no architects dress like that - the Liebeskind eyeglasses and black turtleneck/blazer, German expressionist style is still the bottom line at most nyc offices. Most people are executing variations on this basic Sprockets-y theme.

Gawker: Well, you guys do spend a lot of time in the airy conference room overlooking the Hudson, staring at little wooden dollhouses and making flirty-eyes at each other, right?

Frankie: I think this is a myth more dangerous than the "Michael Brady is an architect" myth. The Brady Bunch story is totally feasible if you consider that he was an architect and he got divorced, most likely because he worked too much and cheated on his wife with someone from the office. That part is probably true, but that is where the Brady resemblance to reality ends. Honestly, there is just no way he is at home doing sketches and having Peter and Cindy barge in with their completely pedestrian nonsense and still be able to get any real building done.

Gawker: Which of the ladies in this ad most resembles a lady from your office?

Frankie: There was only one woman with four or five guys in the ad that I was
looking at in the New Yorker. She did not seem to reflect the disproportionately large number of Asian women in the field, so on this basis alone I won't take a stab at this resemblance question.

That having been said, there is a guy with curly hair sitting at the table who looks like a lighting designer I have worked with. Those guys are total lightweights.

Gawker: Do people wear trench coats indoors a lot at your office?

Frankie: People do tend to wear trench coats a lot. I think architects probably
are really into outerwear. In our office at least, for most of the year they blast the air conditioning to keep us awake all day and maintain design productivity. I don't know if this is like an industry-wide practice, but it is very effective.

Gawker: How would you describe your cheekbones, compared to those of the
architects in this advertisement?

Frankie: Yeah, I mean, compared to these people my cheekbones are so highly
undistinguished. I have nothing more to say on this question.

Gawker: How often do ladies put their giant hobo bags on the conference table during a meeting? Do you think that's appropriate?

Frankie: It is somewhat common. One woman in the office rocks one of these when she goes to the construction site. She's kind of homely, but I think the bag helps the general look and it gets her the whistles and catcalls she so desperately craves from construction workers.

Gawker: Do you think these ads will inspire a lot of youngsters to become architects when they grow up?

Frankie: If I were a high schooler with architectural aspirations seeing this, it would probably be too seductive to resist. Five years in a design program, however, at a sufficiently respectable design school will bleed most of the color out of this person's palette and leave them crushed and vulnerable enough to fully engage the profession.

I know I know more work stuff

I just thought I would post the latest of the model i am working on of my project here at work. well i am not personally building it, just coordinating with these awesome professional model makers that are here in ny ( nj actually). just to give you a sense of scale it's about 5' wide by 2' deep and will sit on a 4' base. The name of the company making the model is Radii Inc.

Buuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......

i took this second pic when i was getting off the subway this morning and the other one when i went to get lunch. the storefront image is my office.....high today 22! feels like 7 :-) ahhh i love this northeast weather :P

One of my favorite NY cheap lunches

Every Sunday that I got to church in Flushing Queens (as I did today) I can't help myself from buying the most amazing vegetable/pork steamed buns at a small shop just outside the #7 subway stop.

They are the most yummy cheap delight you can get in Chinatown Flushing. Unlike my over-priced chocolate treat from Tribeca these babies are a mere fifty cents!!! just 2 for $1!! how can you beat that?! :)

I am sure they are loaded with bad for you ingredients including the greasy pork/veggie filling and the white steamed bread but once in a while they are a must. And they are great food to eat on the run as I make my way back into Manhattan.

Modern in Manhattan

Since i am so busy working and don't have much time to do a lot and post it here i have to be lame and steel things from my fellow bloggers :)

Well actually i just wanted to share a link to this cool site i got from my friend's Abe and Erin's blog. I figure not everyone clicks on my friends links in the side bar since you don't know those people etc. etc.

The site has lots of good links and info to "modern" stuff in manhattan and other large cities in the us
i don't have time to mess with the flash site options so i can't paste an image of the site here, you will just have to clink on the following link to see more :) www.themodernlist.com

OH BABY!!!

Your probably wondering what these three images have in common and why the title..well just wanted to upload these pix before i left for work and i'll add the explanation later :)

Over the weekend i went to a coed baby shower, i guess that is the new thing. i am still not totally convinced that the men really enjoyed seeing a bunch of women oooohhh and ahhh over onesies and play games that involved sniffing different flavors of baby food smeared in the inside of a diaper. Overall though i think between the good food and conversation :-) plus the amazing view from this 35th floor apartment a good time was had by all.

The couple having the baby are both doctors and live in a brand new condo on the 35 floor of a high rise (it's on 5th ave. next to the Empire State building). It looks out onto the East river. I think i was more excited to take pictures of the view than the people at the shower ;-) (well except this cute little guy who decided to show me his kick boxing moves).

oh yes and a note on the cupcakes. one of the organizers of the baby shower Erin is a graphic designer and she created this great graphic for the party and put it on these yummy cup cakes. you can click on her blog http://www.wuyork.blogspot.com/ for more info. on her and these "babycakes"

A Tribeca Treat?

Like a good neighbor I thought I would visit the new bakery that just opened next to our office called "Tribeca Treats". Every day since it opened about a month ago tempting smells of chocolate and cake baking come traveling thru the office vents and the open bathroom window.

However, after my first visit today I just have to report that I had a serious I can't believe how expensive NY moment is. These little cookies pictured at right, actually the size of a quarter are a whopping $1.35 a piece!!!! I ate the little thing in 2 bites. I am embarrassed to say I spent the money. I can get a vegan, oat, low fat, organic, gluten free cookie 8 x this size at Whole Foods for the same price :) I don't know what is more crazy that they charge that much for a one bite cookie or that people actually pay it!!

image shown at right larger than actual size

Local Photographer

i finally had some time off this weekend but i was such a bum as i tried to catch up on my sleep from the sleepless week :) that i have no stories of my weekend adventures

however, i did run across this artist/photographers work after a friend sent me a link to one of his exhibitions. pretty cool stuff. especially cause if you ride the subway everyday you can totally relate to the characters in these images. i like the way he does them in a series as well. check out more of his work at Bill Sullivan Works.

Hillary Sighting!!!!

when i was coming off the train this morning at the PATH station in front of the world trade center site, i snapped this picture of Hillary Clinton giving some kind of press conference with this senator. i think he is a senator :) trying to remember his name. my lame camera battery was not working again though so i could only snap one photo :(

also there were tons of camera people so it was hard to get close.