NYC weekend

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair rolled in to New York mid May. So i headed down again to meet up with friends to see the show and the city for the weekend. Thursday afternoon on my way downstate, i stopped in to see my friend Kirsten down in Pine Bush. Kristen and i were classmates together at the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning. Kirsten was a bit busy getting ready for the National Odyssey of the Mind world finals in Michigan. Her daughter's team was competing in several days. We did however get the time to see some of her other activities during my visit. I told Kirsten i liked her kitchen floor. i thought it would a big hit down at ICFF. So you can see her demonstrating how she painted it. We also stopped in on Kirsten's store - The Clever Caterpillar. Lotsa of cool creative gifts and toys for kids.











Afterwards we headed over to her daughter's school to watch their team rehearse for their competition. [ Pics are a little dark..]





























After getting in to the city Thursday night, My friend Brian and I headed up to Central Park for a park hike friday morning. The day was a bit cold, so before we hit the park, Brian took me to a nearby outlet near Times Square to pick up a $5 sweatshirt.















Central Park was perfect for walking in the afternoon. I was glad to walk by the fountain i saw so much of in the movie Angels in America. I have seen both the play and the move and loved them both.






























We also managed to stop in at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum for their National Design Triennial. [ no pics of course] But I watched a pretty clever technique by the German tourists at the museum. Apparently if you act like you cannot speak English, you can do pretty much whatever you like. I will need to try that at a bank in Berlin sometime. While there, we also caught their other exhibition called Design for the other 90%. The juxtaposition was stunning. One exhibit showing design accessible to the poorest people on earth and the other showing what the other 10% get. [ including me..] In fact - you could say most of the weekend highlighted the luckiest 10%.
























Friday evening rolled in and so did my friends Cristian and Patricia. So everyone headed out to the Conran shop for a ICFF reception.


















I love the store. I fell in love with a set of retro black leather luggage. Apparently, it must be targeted for the super-lucky 5%, because the smallest piece cost more than my mortgage. So I guess I will wait till Target rips them off. We had a good time checking out some nice product design and taking pictures.

We found a great lamp that provided some fun photo op's. Apparently we were on to something because a total stranger started taking our pics as well. Soon we were taking to this guy who happens to be originally from Boston and is a stone mason/artist in Long island. He was obviously interesting to talk to because despite the 3 rum and cokes - i am still pondering an ancient fault line underneath Central Park referred to as Cameron's Line.
[ Those Rock people!]
Cristian's friend Jason caught up with us at the reception and then we headed to out to dinner.

Saturday morning we sat down to breakfast at the famous[?] Tick Tock diner in the lobby of our hotel. Afterwards we headed over to ICFF at Jacob Javits. The show was great this year. They had a special section for new designers. I got to talk to Adam Frank at his booth. He has a new lamp called Reveal that Eric really likes. [ i do too] Hopefully we will find a cool spot for one in our new place someday. There were lots of great booths to look at.













































I was really intrigued by 2 booths featuring sliding room dividers / barn doors / Shoji Doors. Another idea for the next house.












I also snapped pics of the Bocci Lamp [ again ] some Italian cooktops and some other interesting articles. Our friend Justin [ also from RIT ID ] meet us at the show with his girlfriend Judy. After the show [ and a small nap for me] We all caught up at another reception down in the Village. More fun, more friends and warm beer. Brian snagged us a reservation at a Brazilian restaurant nearby and we had a great dinner later that evening. We wrapped up the night at a famous cheese cake place near the hotel and called it night.







































I also took random pics over the course of the weekend.


































A very fun weekend

Bathroom finished

I completed the upstairs bathroom several weeks ago - but did not get a chance to post pics. Overall I am very happy how it came out. I really wanted to pull off a slick job to convince myself I could actually do this on a regular basis. I ended up subcontracting several parts to avoid a chance of a mistake due to my inexperience. So the shower base and the toilet were set by a plumber [$$$] Also - after i laid the floor tile, I had a friend Travis come over to help me grout. The required grout job was not rocket science - but i knew it would take me 4 hours and be an "OK" job - whereas it took Travis hmmm... 21 minutes to do it and it looks WAY better than I could have pulled off.


















































So lessons learned:

• Self leveling concrete does not always self level.
• Don't buy concrete in Barbie pail sizes to avoid a mess. [$$$]
• Lowes only charges $150 to install a shower door.
• Use only your Lowes and/or Home Depot Credit cards during a project to track expense better.
• I took WAY too long to figure out a couple of things
  

Mascot


I started this blog to chronicle our camping trip to Florida. For the trip, we adopted a battery powered singing frog as our mascot. I kept telling everyone about it's cute little song and dance which entertained us immensely on the drive. The entertainment factor went up as the batteries ran low and the little frog strained to deliver its happy routine. Sorta took on a evil alter ego kind of tone. All of this of course was lost on anyone who has not seen the little entertainer. Eric forwarded a movie clip this morning, so I have saved it forever on YouTube. Check it out. You can find the trip write up here.

Stuff













Trying to clean out the house these days. You look at some of the items that tend to collect behind your back. I just wonder what is waiting for me in the rest of the house .... This is a sample of what I pulled out of my stereo cabinet as I started packing the DVD's, Cd's and stereo equipment [ which did not include a cassette deck btw....]












Tape recorder i used for thesis interviews [1995] Sony walkman from RIT [1993]












Instructions on how to use my washer [2000]












Mixed Tapes. [1978 - 1997] The Maxell in the front is the pioneer of mixed tapes. My brother made in in 1978 by recording songs off the radio. It also contains many ballads and dramatic performances from when I got a tape recorder for Christmas in 1978. I promised some old classmates that the recordings WILL make it to mp3 eventually.












Kodak Camera [ 1992] with a half used roll of film on it












Gabe was helping me by holding down the couch.

Spring in Rochester












The past weekend weather here was beautiful! Eric and i took advantage of it to do some walking while meeting some friends for brunch. Eric also brought his new Canon PowerShot SD800 so we could give it a test drive.













The downtown Rundel library. An art deco piece - lotsa of scribings and steely face motifs of very serious people on the front. I spent alot of hours here working on thesis and reading old railroad maps.















This is the old Lehigh Valley Railroad station. It also served the Rochester subway[?] at one point. When I moved to Rochester in 1992, it was a club called Carpe Diem. People still talk about Carpe Diem being the best club Rochester ever had. Now it is Dinosaur BBQ, very popular with all the suburban mid life crisis biker wanna be's.











This is the bridge downtown behind the library. If you are a bridge freak of caliber- this is the "Mona Lisa" of Bridges. The upper deck used to carry the Erie canal over the Genessee River.










This picture is from 1914. They built the library in the center of the photograph on top of the water causeway. At the left you can see the Lehigh station. If you look carefully across the bridge from the Lehigh train station, you will see the Erie station that they knocked down for a parking lot.

After the canal was moved in the 1920's, the Rochester subway ran under it. Then they delivered paper to the Democrat & Chronicle under it on railroad cars. Last year they proposed filling it with dirt. Finally this year people proposed putting the canal back on it. Best idea yet.










This is the new Corn Hill landing. The river path runs south to Mount Morris and north eventually to Lake Ontario. Great place to bike and watch fireworks.













This is the new gateway bridge for downtown. 490 travels over it. Very nice.










This is the new Ford Street Bridge leading to my neighborhood.





Here is a view of downtown from the Ford Street bridge. You can see the Corn Hill Landing and the new bridge in the center.












Here is my building Gregory Park Condominiums. My unit is on the second floor above the hood of the car. I will miss the place when I leave, it has been a good home for nine years.
be's.

House updates

Have not posted my progress on the house lately. So after some clean up this afternoon, I am sitting down to post where I am at.












The shower stall was installed after the plumber helped with the base. I immediately covered it up with paper to prevent it from getting scratched or whatever while I drywalled and painted around it. I also started color testing for the final wall color. Many people can tell you that I can take several rounds on a color before I am happy. This bathroom will already have a white shower stall and sink with blue cabinets. So i searched around for what could coordinate with these and the brushed aluminum trim going in. So the pic has a blue and yellow I had in hand along with a Ralph Lauren Kahki i found. I also got a chance to install the new vanity light and update the GFI electrics.





My first experience with "self leveling" concrete was not quite "flat" I has what could be compared to a relief map of the moon as opposed to a smooth floor. So after 2 more pours - I finally had a surface ready for tile. I located a ceramic tile with the slate look I was hoping foor and have spent this week cutting and prepping for gluing the tile to the floor. I just located aluminum trim to run along the tile edges and the tile to floor transition and will be fitting those tomorrow.

Emusic

I am constantly jumping back and forth between Di.FM and iTunes looking for good Chillout music I hear on Di.FM. iTunes's selection of obscure stuff has improved lately but still comes up empty on some of the slightly older Chillout selections. I stumbled on Emusic recently. They run a subscription service and gives you a set numbers of downloads a month for a set price. [ The first 25 are free!] Their selection is different/ does not overlap with iTunes, so I am looking on their site as well these days. Some recent selections getting alot of play in the house:

• Sasha - Wavy Gravy
• Global Communications - Epsilon Phase
• Scott Bond vs Solar Stone - 3rd Earth [ this one uses a great sample from the choral hymn "The Lamb"
• Tranquility Base - Razorfish [Aspekt's Chillout mix]