i love nyc

jessie decided to celebrate her pre-birthday with a sunset champagne cruise. what a fabulous idea... but sounds expensive, right? well, it wasn't. it was free! that's right folks... for all of nothing you can take a sunset cruise in nyc... on the staten island ferry. we picked up a few bottles of champagne and headed to the ferry terminal near battery park in lower manhattan and then boarded our ferry along with all the other tourists who have figured out this marvelous free boat trip. check out the views you get of the city! that's the lower manhattan skyline at sunset. absolutely beautiful! the reason a lot of people take the ferry to staten island isn't because staten island itself is a marvelous place full of things to see and do... they take it because they've figured out it's a free way to get a really great view of the statue of liberty. instead of waiting in line for hours and paying lots of money to take a boat to the statue of liberty, folks have figured out that you can get very close to seeing lady liberty without having to pay and wait in long lines. check out this view at sunset...
and finally, here is a shot of me and the birthday girl on the ferry. jessie is my second oldest friend - we've been friends for 14 years!
ahhhhh nyc. so much to do and explore...

harry potter mania

ok, so my office building is located in union square and about 2 doors down there is a barnes and noble. tonight at midnight they are hosting a harry potter book party. this is all fine. what i don't understand is why people feel the need to line up a day or more in advance to get a copy of the book. now, i like harry potter and i've read all the books and i will read the last one too. but, i do not feel the need to wait in line to get one of the first copies. that's ridiculous! the barnes and noble by my office has a really big line already formed... what do these people do while they are waiting?! there are some people dressed up as sorcerers and witches too. and i even saw a couple people with wands 'practicing' magic spells... umm, ok...i wish i had my camera, but alas, when i was done uploaded that tragic picture from my previous blog, i forgot to put the camera back in my purse. but don't worry, fox news has the situation covered. and actually, i'm pretty sure i accidentally walked in front of where the camera was pointing. i saw the van, then i saw the crew, and saw the camera was kind of pointing at me and i thought, crap, i just walked in to where they are filming. and there was their newscaster. i don't know what her name is but she was earnestly giving her report from the barnes and noble in union square. and i'm pretty sure i was in her shot. oops. sure hope my hair didn't look to scary! :) i think i'll order my copy from amazon or buy it in a few days when the dust has settled. i'm a fan... but not that big of a fan!

yet another work trip...

i fly a lot. so much some people think i should be a flight attendant. but seriously, i don't fly all thaaat much. i mean i do, but not as much as flight attendants do. anyways, this week for work, i got to go to hot and humid florida. i went down at the crack of dawn tuesday and had a full day with my partner from work. we managed to fit in appointments with reps from the time i landed until that night. it was a really good full day in ft lauderdale and boca raton. my coworker, pat, and i had a lot of fun and found a good amount of money. we both have about the same sense of humor and well...that's where the picture for this blog comes from... we're in the car and stopped at a stoplight when pat and i look at eachother and start cracking up. the truck in front of us has a very interesting and not so classy appendage from it's rear... check out this picture...click on it to enlarge if you can't figure out what i'm trying to show you. it isn't just a white truck...
how ridiculous is that?!?! seriously, where does one buy something as classy as that. yeah, when i get another car you can bet i'll look around on the internet for something that good... yeah, right. anyways, pat was all i've got to get a picture of that and gets out his treo to take the pic and all of a sudden, i realized i had my camera... i tend to carry that around a little more than usual b/c now i'm a blogger and i've got to take pictures! so i whipped out my camera and took the prize picture. i flew home on wednesday which was a big long fiasco b/c of bad weather, circling in the air, and runway congestion at jfk and then horrible traffic on the way home. but, i took the rest of the day of cause i was exhausted and it was only a couple hours until quitting time anyways. i love this travel stuff... it really breaks up the week. i don't think i have any trips planned for next week, but you never know... these things tend to pop up rather suddenly and randomly!

my first trip to denver

well, it wasn't really my first trip to denver because i went to denver when i was like 8 with my family. about the only thing i remember from that trip is that we stayed in estes park. no other memory really than that. so, i while techncially i had been to denver before i don't think it can really count. last weekend was my first weekend in denver with scott. it was a very quick weekend (as weekends usually are) but we managed to pack in a pretty full weekend and have a blast. we had planned on going on a hike...and we did... with a couple of his friends. however, i had kind of forgotten about the altitude and how i've spent my entire life at or slightly (as in 50 feet) about sea level so this 5,000+ feet above sea level stuff was slightly higher than i was used to. i pretty much was dead after like 30 minutes and felt really pathetic for not being able to move faster and being so out of breath. wow, maybe those spinning classes don't get you in as good of shape as you think or as i like to think... it was just the altitude. in any case, we decided at my pace this rather easy hike would take hours longer than it should so we scrapped the hike and went tubing down a river. unfortunately i don't have any pictures of tubing b/c my camera doesn't take to the water well. but i can tell you that that water was frigid!! once you got in and got fully wet it was much better. oh i should mention - we were in our hiking clothes and didn't have anything to change in to. well this is a real popular spot and there were a lot of people in there tubing down the river. there are mini little rapids to go down and it was really fun (and cold!). this, this i could do. altitude did not kick my ass here!! here is a picture of me and scott on our little hike.

i will conquer that dang mountain...someday!

my place in the big city

i've got to be honest here... i really don't know what to write, but i promised sarah i would update this and so i will... while i wait for my sushi to be delivered. nyc is the best city ever for delivery. you can get anything delivered...including the mcdonald's down the street. i love ny.

this is my building.

it's a great building and i have amazing views. the only issue i have with my building is that it is kind of far from the subway. it's a hike if it's snowing or pouring rain or super hot. but other than that - joe and carmen at the front desk and rick the doorman are the greatest.

i woke up one day and it was one of the most gorgeous sunrises i had ever seen. absolutely beautiful. so i hauled myself out of bed and toke a few pictures.



and because i haven't cleaned up my place completely, i can't take pictures of all of my apartment yet... so i took a picture of my little area in the apartment that works as my office. and that is where i am writing this at this moment. and now... my sushi is here and i am going to eat my dinner!

i will not be moving to rutland, vt....ever

so last friday i found out i had to go to rutland, vt to do a property tour for a rep and his client on monday. nice notice, right? but i figured, that's ok... at least it will break up the week and make it go by a little faster. so i decided to drive to rutland which should be about 4.5 hours and it was. the drive really wasn't too bad at all. but then my gps device died and i didn't have a charger for it. luckily i printed out the directions and was able to follow them the good old fashioned mapquest way. i made it to my destination which for those of you who do not know - rutland is about 10 miles from killington. ok, for those of you who still have no idea... killington is a big east coast ski resort.

and rutland is also about an hour south of burlington which is the biggest city, but not the capital. the capital is montpellier. but i digress...i made it about 730pm that evening and decided to order from a local restaurant...little nicky's or something along those lines. if you are ever in rutland, don't order from there. it was terrible!

so tuesday is the day of my property tour. only i get a call from the rep saying the flight is delayed and they'd be about 2 hrs late. ok fine. but then i kept getting the delayed calls. and then the dreaded call: they cancelled their flights and were going to drive the following day. well, under strict orders from the boss man only days before, we were not allowed to let any go up there and tour the property by themselves. so i had a free day in rutland b/c i had to spend the night and extend my stay. oh joy! what is there to do in rutland? NOTHING! so i drove around. checked out the scenery. but you can only do that for so long. and then i went to the mall we bought that i was supposed to give the tour of. and bought a phone charger from the radio shack (remember i only packed for one night thinking i'd be home tues night). and then went to old navy. folks, this mall is nothing to write home about shopping wise. investment wise, well it's a great deal, but shopping wise, it just isn't a place that appeals much to me with such tenants as kmart, jc penney, and sears among others.
so then i went back to the hotel. took a nap out of pure boredom. watched a ppv movie - we are marshall - which i highly recommend. it's a great tearjerker...only i didn't cry. maybe some tears welled up at one point, but i think i was still groggy from my nap. in any case... after that, i read some and watched some more tv.

finally! the property tour day. my tourees arrived around 1130am and we toured the mall and the town until about 330. i hadn't eaten all day and was starving. so i devoured wendy's (trust me, by far the best option) and got on the road around 345ish. it was rainy here, rainy there but not too bad...until it decided to DUMP rain. and i mean, it was the scary torrential type of rain. there were times i couldn't see the 18 wheeler in front of me. luckily he turned on his flashers and then i could make out those lights. at times i thought about just spending another night somewhere along the way, but i just wanted to get home. so i perservered through the torrential downpour and finally got home safely around 8pm last night. what a nightmare drive though!

i do have some pictures (not of all the rain, i had to concentrate on the driving part), but i do have some pics from around the great town of rutland and killington. it really is quite pretty, but... i don't think i'll be moving there anytime soon!

my day in brooklyn with jessie

today jessica and i went to brunch and then the brooklyn botanical gardens. i'd never been to this part of brooklyn and it was really quaint and pretty with gorgeous brownstones and tree lined streets. we wandered around 7th avenue and then had brunch in a nondescript place that was just ok. we were both hungry and there was a line which usually means the place is great. we sat outside and enjoyed the sunny, hot, and breezy weather and since everyone else wanted air conditioning, we were able to sit right away. i think we both need to remember that we don't have to pick the first place we see. after brunch, we walked over to prospect park and the botanical gardens.

a mere 8 dollars later and we were strolling through the gardens. at one point jessica told me that "you on not on vacation, you are only 30 minutes from your house" after i whipped out the camera again for the 12th time claiming i needed more pictures for my blog! i told her, true, i am not on vacation, but my friends not in nyc will never understand unless i show them pictures!


after the gardens, we walked back to the q train where upon hearing the train coming, jess made a mad dash only someone who has lived in nyc for awhile can do and managed to make the train and i, i was just a few steps behind and got the doors slammed in my face before i could jump on the train or she could jump off. so there went jess... and as the subway left the station, i realized she was on the j train...not the train i wanted anyways. the q came a few minutes later and i was on my way home...it was a lovely, if not very hot, day in brooklyn.

the big fat otis bear...

this one is just for courtney! she asked for an update on otis and here it is. he is doing splendidly... he loves ny and the view from my apartment as he has lots of birdies to watch. he's gotten another bad habit of drinking from my sink. i unfortunately have a rather small bathroom as does everyone in nyc not living in a 2 million dollar plus apartment. i have promised otis that whenever we move i will make sure the next place has two sinks in the master bathroom.... one for him... and one for me. it's more for my sanity than his... here is my monster!

my very first blog ever...

so, here is my very first blog ever and it's going to be a very short one... i'm at work. procrastinating as usual...

devon and i were talking over gmail's im thingy and she convinced me that i too can create a blog and keep people informed. she says it's her mission to get everyone to create a blog. so here it is dev dev... my blog!