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Friday, 20 March 2015 - Yay, spring is here

 
 
First day of spring today up here in the north, and it's pouring with snow out there hehe. Just when the food delivery guys, along with the rest of us, thought it was all over for another season. Oh well. Anyway, since the half-marathon last Sunday, Kristina and I can both walk normally again and I've come down with a wicked head cold. I was probably a little underdressed for the occasion given I wasn't exactly running at 100%, whereas in the official event photos that have been released Kristina's face looks like a tomato, so at least she kept warm :)

Monday, 23 March 2015 - 100 days

 
In exactly 100 days, Kristina and I leave our life of three years in New York and hit the road on a four-month, 15,000-mile road trip across the USA and Canada! Details of our tentative route and itinerary etc. are here. At the other end we'll being starting a new life (again) in Austin, Texas, an hour up the road from Kristina's home town of San Antonio. Bloody exciting stuff! :)
 

Tuesday, 24 March 2015 - Black Caps!

 
In the most excruciating yet exhilarating game of cricket I've ever sat through, New Zealand shook off the demons of 23 years ago when at this same stadium, in this same quadrennial tournament, in almost identical circumstances, they narrowly lost to Pakistan in the semi-final of the 1992 Cricket World Cup, and in doing so a nation was devastated. Today's match in Auckland was a much tighter affair that went right down to the wire, but this time New Zealand were the eventual victors against an extremely competitive South Africa to progress to their first World Cup final! Due to the time zone difference I watched the game online in the dark, in the middle of the night while Kristina slept. Like every New Zealander back home and throughout the world I sat through every agonizing ball, gnawing at my nails, and willing the boys on. This was New Zealand's seventh World Cup semi-final appearance - their third in a row, and surely it was our time, at home in front of 45,000 screaming fans, but South Africa always seemed to have their noses slightly in front. With 5 runs required from the final 2 balls of the match, and with my ass so close to the edge of my little fold-up Ikea seat it was on the brink of collapse, Grant Elliot here did it in one with an almighty heave over the fence! South Africa were in tears, we were in tears, I was in tears - it's an incredible achievement for the little nation down under on the world stage. We will now go on to play either Australia or India in the final on Sunday, and personally I'm rooting for the Aussies in their semi-final on Thursday; an Australia vs New Zealand finale in the greatest corner of the planet would be an awesome spectacle!
 

Thursday, 26 March 2015 - There's that smell again

 
 
Bit of a smoky view from my office this afternoon right after I got a bunch of push notifications on my phone about a huge gas explosion and subsequent fire and building collapse in Manhattan's East Village.
 
This seems to be an almost common occurrence throughout New York City. A gas leak goes unnoticed or unaddressed, and sooner or later a building blows up. Last March almost exactly a year ago I went to check out the aftermath of another mammoth gas explosion up in Harlem, but these are just two examples of many since we've been living here. This one today blew up at about 3:15pm in a huge explosion that sent shards of metal, glass and wood clear across Second Avenue, injuring 14 unlucky people who happened to be walking past and leaving dozens more unlucky people homeless with their apartment buildings now just a pile of rubble.

Friday, 27 March 2015 - What's wrong with my phone?

 
 
I woke up this morning to news of a large fire that broke out overnight just a few blocks up the street. I'm not sure how it started but it looks to have only damaged the top couple of floors.
 
There wasn't much left to see when I got there on my way to work - just a lot of crap all over the sidewalk, and the cycle path that I go screaming along every day.
 
Those things on top of the building are the remains of a bunch of cell phone antennas. I know this because some dude who claimed to work for the phone company decided to tell me all about how they work, for five minutes. I have no idea why. Then he walked off to go tell the next person.

Sunday, 29 March 2015 - Game over

 
I probably could have written the script for this one. The odds were always against us: first and only game in Australia for us this tournament, against an Australian team playing at home in front of close to 100,000 screaming fans, and our first ever World Cup final to their several (of which they've won many). Be that as it may, we at least hoped for a competitive showing and who knows - maybe an upset, but in the end we were pummelled by a much better side on the night. It was our most successful World Cup campaign to date, and we'll have another crack in four years.
 

Monday, 30 March 2015 - Gas

 
Before...
 
And after. This is the scene of the massive gas explosion down in the East Village last Thursday. At the time a gas leak was assumed to be the cause, but since then it has emerged that illegal gas siphoning may be to blame (or a shoddy attempt to hide such siphoning), i.e. bypassing the utility company's meters and thereby getting free gas.

 
 
I headed down there for a look today but couldn't get closer than a block away, along with the relentless media circus hehe. I could do that job :)

Thursday, 2 April 2015 - Slowest thousand ever

 
Another thousand on clock, but despite averaging around 3,500kms per year, this thousand took more than six months to get through. That's the northern winter for ya! I'm hoping to hit 10,000 before Kristina and I leave New York, in less than three months.
 

Friday, 3 April 2015 - Ten years later

 
After more than ten years since my last beast that I left behind in New Zealand, I'm officially a car owner again! Well, co-owner - with Kristina :) This is a brand-spanking-new 2015 Ford Fusion (known as a Mondeo in New Zealand and Australia). Although they don't (yet?) fly, as was depicted in Back to the Future Part II when they went forward to the year 2015, cars these days sure do have a lot of bells and whistles and this one is no exception!
 
Between now and when Kristina and I set off on the road trip in three months, this is where the car will be living - some dude's unused garage out in Queens hehe. It's much safer and a lot more convenient than leaving it parked on the street. It's pretty bloody tight for room in there though, but it'll do. More photos to come :)

Sunday, 5 April 2015 - Stretching the wheels

 
After working on the car all day yesterday, Kristina and I had planned to stretch its wheels (legs), get out of New York and take a day trip somewhere. Unfortunately the weather forecast had other ideas so that didn't happen. Oh well - next weekend. I needed the car for something else today anyway so we took a quick drive up the road from where it's parked in Queens to the neighbourhood of Forest Hills.

 
 
If I'm honest, Queens is a bit of a hole for the most part which makes Forest Hills something of an oasis. Homes around here are worth some number of millions, rental prices are on par with those of Manhattan, and it looks nothing like the rest of Queens at all. Very odd. Kristina had her first drive of the car around here too - she's not too confident at driving around New York City hehe.

Thursday, 9 April 2015 - Always entertaining

 
 
I don't catch the Subway too often thanks to the bike, but when I do, it rarely fails to amuse in some random way. Here we have some guy counting his wad of singles (I counted $12)...
 
Here we have some guy stretching his legs, while other folk off-camera had to stand...
 
And here we have some guy taking a nap. Failing that, there's always this, or even this!

Saturday, 11 April 2015 - Caumsett

 
Spring is finally upon us, so we took our shiny new wheels for a joy ride today out of the city and east into Long Island - a random part of it with huge two-million-dollar properties everywhere. I wonder what these folk do for a living.

 
 
Aside from invading the locals' privacy, we got close to nature and had a good hike in and around Caumsett State Historic Park. The 1,400-acre park is plonked on a peninsular extending into Long Island Sound, and contains miles of bridal paths and nature trails. It's still looking a bit Blair Witch Project at the moment but in a month or so it'll be pretty damn nice in here.

 
The park has a rather impressive home of its own. Back in 1921, some guy by the name of Marshall Field III purchased 1,750 acres of land here to create a large English-style estate, and had this house built in 1925. The land was later purchased by New York State in 1961 after his death, and turned it into the state park it is today.

 
 
Not a bad view out the back - overlooking Long Island Sound across to Connecticut. The beach however isn't exactly Caribbean :)
 
This tree, is a male.

Tuesday, 14 April 2015 - If it's free, it's meant to be

 
My mate David there gets all giddy over the smallest things, and convinced me to come stand in line with him today (and take stupid photos) for Ben & Jerry's annual Free Cone Day.

 
 
As per the name, B&J put about a dozen ice cream flavours on the menu and hand them out for free (with a nominal donation to charity requested). The line was moving pretty swiftly and we ended up doing three laps within about half an hour hehe. Yum :)
 
After all the ice cream we felt like some food, and just happened to find this guy giving out free samples to promote his new restaurant, so we gorged ourselves on some of this too hahaha! Then we figured we should get back to work.

Wednesday, 15 April 2015 - What do we want?!

 
 
More money! This rabble were making a ruckus along one of Manhattan's busiest thoroughfares this afternoon, demanding an increase in wages for their construction union while the rest of us tried to pass by. Tensions seemed to be running pretty high and a few fisticuffs almost broke out between this mob, people trying to get through them all, and shop keepers demanding they clear their store fronts hehe.
 
Just another day in the city - I'm gonna miss it! :)

Saturday, 18 April 2015 - Parking in (little) Asia

 
 
Kristina is back home visiting family in Texas for the next week, so I spent today installing an aftermarket air intake system in the car (makes it run better, and sound better :) and picking up its new license plates from the dealership etc. The car is parked in a garage we're renting in a Queens neighbourhood called Elmhurst, which has a rather large Asian population and its own rapidly growing Chinatown. Without fail, I seem to be the only white guy around here every time I come.
 
While walking to the car from the nearest subway station this morning I found the ladies on the left dancing with their, umm, fans, and these guys performing some sort of ceremonial dance with their, umm, swords. Anywhere else in the city you'd get arrested for this hehe.
 
"Hey look, a white man! Why they all look the same?"

Tuesday, 21 April 2015 - Parking in New York

 
Not just a problem for cars.
 

Wednesday, 22 April 2015 - Wile E. is on the loose

 
In the last couple weeks there have been several coyote sightings over in New Jersey, and now some in the Upper West Side of Manhattan (on the opposite side of the island from our apartment) which has a huge area of parkland and woods. While generally not at all dangerous (and in fact they do us a favour by controlling New York's rat population), there has been a spate of attacks on humans by coyotes that were subsequently caught, destroyed, and tested positive for rabies. The photo above was tweeted out by the NYPD overnight in Riverside Park on the west side, though it managed to evade capture and didn't appear rabid. Either way, there has been no sighting of the Road Runner :)
 

Saturday, 25 April 2015 - Let there be light, and competence

 
Story time. Today I installed HID headlights in the car for the low beams. HID bulbs work very differently to standard halogen bulbs, and put out a much brighter and whiter light. In other words, they're awesome for driving at night which we'll likely be doing a lot of during the upcoming road trip. However, without going into detail, I'm leaving the high beams and fog lights as halogen bulbs, but I wanted to replace the standard yellow'ish bulbs with aftermarket bulbs that give out a whiter light that better matches the colour of the HID's (because I'm picky). After a lot of research, I decided on a couple pairs of these Philips bulbs from Amazon that claim to match the colour of the HID bulbs.

Now then, when you live in an apartment building without a doorman to take receipt of your mail and packages, having items delivered can be a hassle when you're out at work all day. Usually it requires having the courier or postal service hold the package at their depot and collecting it yourself which a) is a pain in the ass, and b) in some cases incurs an additional cost that I'm not interested in paying. So instead I've started having packages delivered to Kristina's office just down the street, where she or someone is always there during the day to receive them.

Anyway, I ordered these bulbs on Monday night, and Amazon had some deal going for next-day delivery that meant it was the same price as snail-mail. So what the hey - I'll take next-day thanks so they'll definitely be here in time to install this weekend along with the HID's (not an easy process in this particular car since access to the headlight housing internals requires dropping the bumper, so it's not something I want to do twice). Well my package didn't arrive until 8:30pm the next day (Tuesday), long after Kristina's shop had closed up for the day. Fair enough - the package had a long way to travel in a day so I was ok with that, and I assumed it would instead be delivered during business hours the following day (Wednesday). Wrong! The package never turned up, and its online tracking was updated at 8:15pm with another failed attempt. Fast forward to Thursday, the package hadn't arrived during business hours again, so I went and stood outside Kristina's office and waited for it. After an hour of standing around like a moron, I managed to get the courier company on the phone and was informed the courier driver had somehow left my package behind at their depot in New Jersey. Wow.

I returned home and did some Google'ing on this courier company. They're called A-1 Courier Services and I'd never heard of them before, let alone ever received packages from them. Before long I found the worst possible record of reviews from online review sites such as Yelp and Google (click the links and see for yourself - it actually makes for entertaining reading). Even Amazon has a forum thread about these clowns that has been active since 2008, and is filled with nothing but hate. "My package was ten days late!" "My package never arrived!" "My package was delivered to my neighbour half way down the street!" "My package was hurled on my porch and the driver just walked off!" "My package was left in the driveway and I nearly ran it over with my car!" "My package looked like it had been fucked by a train!" On and on and on it went. At this point I got Amazon on the phone and slammed them for continuing to utilise these cowboys despite seven years of piss-poor reviews on their own forum, especially for time-critical deliveries of all things! To their credit, they were very accommodating, refunded the entire order, added a $25 credit to my account, and told me to just keep the bulbs if they ever arrive. I then got these A-1 assholes back on the phone, slammed them, had them re-route the package to our apartment instead since delivery during business hours is apparently too difficult, and demanded they get their shit together.

Next day then - Friday (yesterday). I called the courier again in the morning to confirm they had my address and cell phone number recorded correctly, and to get an estimated delivery time. The address was correct, my number was correct, and the ETA was 5-9pm. Ok then. Well 9pm rolled around, I'd been in the apartment since before 5, and nothing had arrived. I called them again, and was given a new ETA of 10pm hahaha! At 9:50pm I looked outside (again) and noticed a white van double-parked out front that wasn't there five minutes earlier; I couldn't see a driver anywhere though. I wandered outside to find a guy wearing an A-1 shirt with a package in hand, trying to get into the bloody apartment building next door! The exchange that followed went like so:

"Hey, sunshine, what address are you looking for?"
"Umm, 486." (He was trying to get into 484).
"So why are you at this building?"
"Umm, because this is 486."
"Show me how you know that."
He took a step back, pointed up at the awning above the door, and then realised it said 484 hahaha!
"That package you're holding is actually for me, but what would have happened if I hadn't spotted you out here?"
"I would have left it in this building [484]."
"So, I wouldn't get my package - is that right?"
(No response.)
"And this would be yet another fine example of your company's utter incompetence and apparent inability to do its job properly - is that right?"

Again, no response, though I suspect there were a few too many 'big' words in that last sentence. I then noticed the updated address on the box, while correct, was missing the apartment number, so I have no idea how that would have worked out even if he did manage to find the right building. He did have my cell phone number on the packing slip, but admitted he didn't even notice it there.

Anyway, all's well that ends well, even if that end is three days late and almost ended up in the building next door. I miss having a mailbox - haven't had one since I left Brisbane almost nine years ago.

Sunday, 26 April 2015 - Vultures!

 
 
It was late in the day by the time I'd finished working on the car yesterday, after which I really couldn't be bothered fighting with traffic to take it back to its garage in Queens and then fighting with the subways (which are always messed up on weekends) to get myself back to Manhattan. Instead, I parked it just up the street overnight opposite a construction site in a temporary no-parking zone. It's a Saturday night / Sunday morning, there's no construction on the weekend, and (I thought) no parking wardens on a Sunday either. Well so much for that theory. It turns out there are indeed parking wardens working on Sundays, and I got stung with a $115 parking fine at 7am this morning. The bastards!
 
I had something else to do to the car this morning, after I which I went and had lunch with Kristina. I left the parking ticket where I'd found it under the wiper in case the wardens did another sweep, and sure enough they did but ignored the car this time thanks to the visible ticket hehe. Look at him down there, and notice the boarded up and locked up construction site. Vultures!

Monday, 27 April 2015 - Here we go again

 
Same old story: a black man killed by white police officers (this one suffered a broken neck and severed spinal cord during his arrest and died a week later in hospital), and subsequent police protests devolving into destructive riots and looting. This time it's in Baltimore, Maryland.
 
The man in question was 25-year-old Freddie Gray and his funeral was held this afternoon, after which the carnage kicked off. News reporters were right in the thick of it all, and needless to say such events attract some interesting characters. I particularly like the dude wearing the gas mask here on rode in on his bike hahaha!
 
 
Rival gangs across the city have apparently signed a temporary peace agreement so they can come together, wreak havoc, and attack the police. Never a shortage of scumbags in the world.
 
This woman (I think it was a woman) was high, and seemed to forget what she was talking about mid-sentence.
 
 
Rioters later set fire to several looted stores and fire crews had to be called in. Several folk, including Mr Gas Mask here, then stabbed holes in their hoses (on live TV), rendering them useless.
 
This building was under construction and was going to be a senior care home. Its construction was paid for by a local church. The response from city officials to all of this has been pretty piss-poor and large parts of the city are completely out of control at the moment. Should be an interesting night.

Wednesday, 29 April 2015 - I will miss the action

 
 
With all the action going on down in Baltimore at the moment over the death of yet another young black man at the hands of police (allegedly), I figured something would have to be kicking off in New York as well. It always does :) There are only a few places throughout the city where protesters routinely meet, one of which is Union Square here. And sure enough, this is what I found down there after work tonight.
 
This old geezer was giving the fuzz a piece of his mind hehe.
 
While I was there the crowd was continuing to grow, as was the police presence, and several police choppers turned up as well.

 
Before long the crowd made their move and hit the streets.

 
 
As was the case with the Michael Brown march back in November, the protesters shut down entire blocks, ruined traffic, and just generally made a spectacle. Video here. I will miss this when we leave ;)

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