Our last day finally arrived. We had wanted to visit the new WTC Memorial downtown his weekend, but ran out of time yesterday. I floated the idea of trying to fit that into our Sunday morning, but we ultimately decided to not rush around. Everyone seemed pretty happy to sit around, eat breakfast in the room, and enjoy each other’s company. Maybe next time.

So today would be a light day. We had a kids birthday party hosted by our friends Neil & Megha — their twins Rohan & Kareena were celebrating their 2nd birthday this month. They live in Manhattan, so the party was being held down in the West Village. I’m glad we were able to aim this whole vacation around Josh’s two days off from school, my interim unemployed period, and the kids birthday party in Manhattan. Not bad, eh?

What we did have to figure out was how to make it to the party without carrying all of our luggage, make it to the party, then catch a reasonable train out of NY Penn Station. We decided to:

1. Check out of the hotel around 12 noon
2. Leave our bags with bell stand
3. take the subway down to the West Village
4. Have fun at the party unencumbered
5. Go back uptown to get our luggage
6. Head back to NY Penn to catch a train around 3:53pm
7. Get home!

We made to the party easily enough, albeit with more walking from the subway station than I anticipated. By the end of the walk, I’m glad we decided against bringing the luggage in tow. Lily would not walk, so we took turns carrying her. A number of guests were there already, and the children present were doing free play. “Free play” lasted a long while, but the people running the show eventually moved on to some singing. We spoke to a few people while the children ran amuck.

Soon, it was time for the kids to eat pizza, blowing out the cake candles, etc. We departed the party a little after 2pm, made our way to the Lex & 53rd St station. Num’s & the kids opted to wait for me to run up and out, get the luggage, and bring it all back to the station. We hustled, and caught the 3:53pm train out of NY Penn. I’m not sure how we caught it, but a little hustle will never serve you wrong.

Now for the monkey wrenches!

The train was packed. Why? Based on all the people carrying beer cans and wearing Jets jerseys, I guess there was a game today over at MetLife Stadium. Rats. Still, it should empty out after Secaucus. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only problem. Somewhere before Princeton Junction, the train crew informed us that there was a disabled train ahead. Oh no.

In order to get passed, the train would sit for a while, the eventually bypass and go straight to Trenton. We would have to get out, and wait at Trenton for another northbound station to take us back up north to Hamilton. Argh. We were tired, but we made the best of the situation and got home an hour later than expected. Oh well, that’s life.

So that was the big trip. It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad (in hindsight) to have listened to my wife about not filling up the itinerary. I wanted to visit the observation deck at 30 Rock, hit the Children’s Museum, and see downtown. However, trying to shoehorn all of these places in would have stressed and tired everyone out, and been ultimately counter productive. This was a good model — a vacation with only a few things to do, with a healthy amount of downtime. I don’t know where we’ll be going next year, but a few low-key weekend trips like this would be nice.

Now I get ready for my fresh start tomorrow.

Progress toward building a 9/11 memorial in New York has endured years of battles and negotiations. The president and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum expects it to open in a year’s time. I think it’s ridiculous how long the site remained idle while all these factions argued.

Tavern on the Green is closing on Dec 31st? It’s world-famous, and yet I’ve never eaten there. That sucks.

Josh & I visit the American Museum of Natural History

I finally scheduled a day off, and take Joshua to the city.  I had been promising to take him to the city for the entire spring and summer, but the schedules finally worked.  At the moment, I’m leading an audit, but am between the planning and fieldwork phases.  Now seemed like a good time to take a day off, recharge, and have a nice day out with my boy.

After running through various itineraries that became incrementally more complex (and likely less enjoyable for a 4-year old), I chanted the mantra “Less is more.” Why try to fit in observation decks, ferry rides, numerous subway rides all within one trip?  Too much for him. 

I decided on a train ride into the city (his first time on a train), subway uptown (first time on the subway) to the American Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center For Earth and Space for a planetarium show. Lots of new experiences there. My wife would drop us off and pick us up.

I’ll skip the additional bad decisions, delays, and other logistical problems that occurred that morning, and hurry to the important details.  We had 14 mins to make it to the train station and purchase tickets before the 9:04am train arrived. If we missed it, we would have to 30 mins more for a local train — doable, but not the best option when we were so close to making it! With some mad dashing, and bagels and water in hand, we arrived at the train station at 9:03am. I grabbed the bag with our breakfast in my left hand, Josh in my right arm, and ran to the platform.  As we were in line at 9:03am, the train arrived. As I paid for the ticket with a credit card at 9:04am, the last passengers and conductors boarded the train. I carried Josh and breakfast, ran out the door, and made a flying LEAP onto the train as the buzzer buzzed. I landed in the train vestibule, the doors closed, passengers looked at me, and I smiled and sighed with relief.

“Sweet.”

I don’t think my life would be as interesting if it wasn’t for all the bad decisions and melodrama. We ate our breakfast on the train, and I pointed out the various stops and towns we passed.  We arrived at NY Penn a little after 10am, took the #1 train to 79th St, and hoofed it to the museum.

I won’t give a blow-by-blow account of our trip through the museum.  There’s certainly too much to visit in one day. However:

• We did visit the entire lower level
• We explored the entire 1st floor, including the Northwest Native American exhibit, the Hall of Biodiversity, the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Gems and Minerals, The Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites, The Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, etc.
• We visited the Mammals of North America, and yeah, the entire 1st floor
• We watched the Journey to the Stars planetarium show, a 30-min show on stars narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.
• Joshua wasn’t hungry yet by 1:30pm, so visited the Discovery Room for kids so he could play and learn.

At a little after 2pm, we had lunch at the museum cafeteria.  Worst lunch I’ve had in a long while.  $7 chicken nuggets that tasted like cardboard. $7 chicken wings as dry as can be. $2.80 for a bottle of soda.  Over $20 for a meal that should not have cost me more than $8. Total ripoff.

At the dinosaur exhibits

In the late afternoon, we hit the 4th floor for all the dinosaur exhibits. We had made some progress into the extinct mammal halls, but Josh was too tired to walk anymore.  We wrapped up our tour of the museum around 4:30pm, hit the museum shop, and then went downstairs to catch the C train back down to Penn Station. 

Funny enough, on the ride home, we coincidentally sat in front of one of my coworkers from my previous job. Weird coincidence? You betcha. We chatted on the train ride, and caught up on old times and news until we reached our stop, and departed the train.

Good trip overall, and Josh had a great time. I’m glad I decided not to overload the trip with too much extra. I forget that he’s only 4-years old. Photos are already posted in the September 2009 gallery.

Vijay's birthday dinner

A group of us had plans tonight to meet up at the Macaroni Grill close to the Menlo Park mall in Menlo Park, NJ (or is it Edison NJ?)  My wife also wanted to stop by the shops in Edison beforehand.  To make these great plans happen, I had to get there. Instead of catching the bus home from NYC as usual, I used a one-way bus ticket in the AM, and I took a train from NY Penn Station in the evening to the Metropark station in Edison NJ.

It has certainly been a while since I rode NJ Transit, but it was a pleasant trip down memory lane — all those times years ago of running to Penn station, missing my train by 5 seconds, waiting another hour for the next train.   Today was one of the pleasant trips.  No running, plenty of time, and I rode in one of the new Northeast Corridor double-decker cars.

My wife picked me up at Metropark with kids in town, we hit a shop, then drove to Macaroni Grill, where everyone eventually showed up.  Kids were behaved, only one diaper that required changing, and the food was actually quite good.  I’m not a fan of Macaroni Grill, but they changed the menu, and the quality has improved. I was pleasantly surprised. The appetizers were good, my chicken parmigiana was excellent, and good wine.

It was a win for everyone.

I found civilization in the West Village.  I’ve been hurting for something decent to eat while working in the West Village this week.  I’m not familiar with the West Village as I am with other parts of NYC.  Incidentally, the whole lower half below 14th St is no man’s land for me. On Thursday, I committed to finding something reasonably priced to eat.  No more small portions of pasta for $10.

Thursday for lunch, I looked online, and found a promising pizza place with decent reviews on Bleeker St simply named John’s of Bleeker St.  I took a walk for a few blocks, and seemingly hit civilization.  Bleeker St and 7th Ave is where the action was — stores, eateries, etc.  Blame my ignorance.

I’m working in the West Village this week. I gotta tell ya, there are a lot of leather and fetish shops down there. I’m just saying I have to pass by a lot of them between the Christopher Street subway station and the office.   On a serious note, it’s just another colorful area of NYC with its own style and personality.  It’s a nice change of pace to be working in the city, but it sure is hot out there this week.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to live in one of the NYC boroughs or Manhattan itself.  It was always too expensive for my blood, and trying to find affordable housing near a subway line was seemingly next to impossible.  My friend Doug and I almost did, but we ended up in NJ instead.  Doug later moved to Astoria Queens for a few years, but he was never a fan.

I’ve never been a fan of lower Manhattan with all the quirky streets.  The grid system from 14th Street and northwards works for me.  All the crazy streets below 14th St that twist and turn are too confusing.  I still remember wandering the Village at night a few years ago for 45 minutes, trying to find the Christopher St PATH station before finally giving up. 

There isn’t a lot ot eat down there either, but I’m exploring on my lunch break.  I went to one small deli yesterday, but the sandwich was disgusting.  I tried City Search today, but that website used to be better.  It’s just easier now to just take a walk.  Fresh air, stretch the legs, and some boots-on-the-ground exploring in 60 mins.