My niece Abigail celebrated her 6th birthday party. It was some pajama-themed party from some Nickelodeon tv show about…. pajamas? I’m not sure, but hey, kids love pajamas.
I used my still-new 55-200 mm telephoto lens at the party, and I really like it. The technical term is “dope.”
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View of Pittsburgh
In October, I went on a quick week-long business trip to Atlanta (one day) and Pittsburgh (4 days.) I didn’t stay long enough in Atlanta to see anything, but Pittsburgh was nice.
Monday morning I was up and out the door around 4 am headed to Newark via black car. Flight was at 6:20 am straight to Atlanta Hartsfield. Once there, I met one of my colleagues and took a taxi to the suburbs for a onsite data center tour. In the early evening, after all of our meetings, we caught a ride with another individual back to the airport to catch out next flight to Pittsburgh. I’ve never had a business trip with such a quick turnaround.
Pittsburgh is an older city with lots of beautiful early 20th century architecture that seems to be still in recovery mode after many industries moved out. New tech companies are moving back in, so I hope it all works out. We arrived late Monday night and had an interesting taxi ride with a cab driver who had strong opinions about Uber testing driverless taxi cabs.
The rest of the work week went fairly well. I had some opportunities to have dinner with my colleagues most nights, and to work out in the hotel gym. I even did a little exploring in the evenings. I stayed at the Doubletree Hilton Pittsburgh Downtown. It’s an older hotel, somewhat renovated, and I would honestly recommend checking out other hotels in the area instead.
I’d like to go back to Pittsburgh again for a few days to see more of the city. Plenty to see, and I digged the architecture. I took a few photos when I could.
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Early October, we dropped the kids off with my sister for the weekend, and drove into Philadelphia. We had signed up months earlier with three other couples for the 1st annual cityseek event. The event was a charity fundraiser for the Princeton Child Development Institute.
CitySeek is a team based scavenger hunt for adults through the Old City section of Philadelphia. You and your team of 4 to 8 members will earn points as you complete various tasks and explore the streets of Philly. These tasks will take place in various museums, shops, restaurants and bars as well as many historic sites such as the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Along the way, you will have time to enjoy some great Philly foods and a beverage or two.
Our friend Sofia organized our team, and even made us some t-shirts. We all stayed at the Hilton Philadelphia Penn’s Landing, which was conveniently walking distance to the event. Namita and I got in early Saturday morning, parked in the hotel garage, and met up with our teammates in the hotel lobby. We all walked over to the event meeting place at Buffalo Billiards, signed in, got our gear and instructions, and then we were off to the races. We spent the entire day (until around 4 or 5 pm (I forget exactly) running around the Old City section, looking for various clues. The answers to historical questions, getting a photo with a horse, getting a photo with a wedding party, etc. It was a lot of fun. We didn’t know how well we would do, of course. We figured we would compete, have fun, raise some money for charity, and then go out to dinner at Cuba Libre.
The event ended up raising over $25,000 with all of the teams participating. We somehow came in first place with the most tasks completed, and earned some great prize money (in the form of gift cards) to Cuba Libre and another bar. Yeah, unbelievable. The prize money ended up paying for dinner, and additional drinks at that other bar. I think we hit the hay around midnight, because of all the running around.
Sunday morning, we were out the door, and met up with my sister and her family for lunch at a Jersey diner near their house. Kids had a good time doing hayrides and other stuff.
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Can I tell you that I enjoyed this film? I didn’t know what to expect, but my son Joshua wanted to see the film, so we all went out to see it on a late Friday night. I was mighty surprised to learn that it’s a stop-motion animated film with strong Japanese themes. It’s a film by Laika studios, who’ve produced Coraline, Paranorman, and the Box Trolls. The film stars:
Here’s a summary from IMDB:
Kubo lives a quiet, normal life in a small shoreside village until a spirit from the past turns his life upside down by re-igniting an age-old vendetta. This causes all sorts of havoc as gods and monsters chase Kubo who, in order to survive, must locate a magical suit of armor once worn by his late father, a legendary Samurai warrior.
The film was apparently overshadowed at the box office this summer, but I’d recommend catching it on rental if you can. The story is very original, the animation is very good, and it strongly reminded me of the old anime movies that I used to watch when growing up. I loved the creepiness of the Sisters, the “feels” between Kubo and his mother, etc.
Can 13 years fly by that quickly without noticing? I’m sure it can, but it seems like an odd number to say that about. It’s not a round number. It’s really one of those seemingly nondescript numbers in the middle between 10 and 15. Am I rambling?
Probably.
For our 13th wedding anniversary, we decided to switch up for variety. We had the kids stay with one of the grandparents overnight, and we went out for dinner at Sahara in New Brunswick. It’s one of our favorite Middle Eastern restaurants, but we haven’t been there in a long while.
Parking is always always beast in New Brunswick but it was especially that Saturday evening. We eventually found parking after circling around, then ate one delicious dinner.
After dinner, we moved the car to another parking garage, and hit up the bar at Old Man Rafferty’s for a few drinks. Now we were ready for the main event – we’re big fans of the comedian Anjelah Johnson. Nums and I saw her Bon Qui Qui show earlier this year in May down at the Gramercy. Good show, but we were pretty far from the stage.
I found out she would be performing at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick. Hmmmm. And if we went in for VIP seats, we could participate in a meet & greet after the show. Double hmmmmm. If you’re not aware, Stress Factory is one of the premiere comedy clubs in NJ. a few years ago, we saw Amy Schumer perform before her career took off.
We stood in a long line for a long time to get into the Stress Factory, then waited another 45 minutes for the show to actually start. One female comedian (forgot her name) did her act, and she was good. Old school NY DJ Cipha Sounds came out, and did his set. (I was not aware he was doing comedy now, but whatever pays the bills?) He was decent.
Finally Anjelah came out and she was great. We had excellent seats. Once the show was over, we hung around so we could get queued up to go into the green room. They cut your bracelet and tell you to have your camera ready, because you won’t have much time.
We went in, and she was really friendly. We told her the show was great, and that the whole family loves her performances (even the kids.) And we mentioned seeing the Bon Qui Qui show earlier. Time for the photo, we said thanks and good night, and we were ushered out.
It was a long day, and a longer night, but it was worth it.
In September, we made a quick weekend road trip to Baltimore to see my sister-in-law Anju and her family, then go to Washington D.C. on that Saturday to take one of those bus tours of the city. We drove in Friday evening, and go to their house in Baltimore without too much fuss or muss. On Saturday, after a late breakfast, we couldn’t make the bus tour happen — traffic, and being generally late. However, we went out for lunch at Jaleo DC (a tapas place), hit up the International Spy Museum, then got a snack at a coffee shop.
It was a pretty quick trip — Friday evening to Sunday morning, but it was good.
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A bunch of us went out to Long Branch NJ in mid-September to celebrate birthdays for friends Teo and Brian. We had a babysitter to watch the kids, then carpooled with another couple out to the beach. We had reservations at Avenue Le Club, which was kinda French cuisine. It was a nice night, albeit breezy. Drinks were good but pricey. Food was okay but service was slow.
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Friday September 9th I went down to Hoboken to meet up with some former JPMorgan Chase colleagues to celebrate our friend Jen’s birthday. It was also moving day for me at the office, so I had to ensure I had properly labeled my carefully cultivated collection of napkins. Once that was done, I hit the various trains to get to Wicked Wolf Tavern on the water. Nice views, nice place, not very attentive servers. Well, it didn’t matter, because I had come for the company.
We haven’t been to Wildwood or Cape May in 9 years, so we thought driving down for an impromptu weekend over Labor Day weekend. We didn’t have any plans for the weekend — absolutely none. First there was idle chit chat, then more serious discussion, then once we found out Namita’s old high school friend would be staying in Cape May for the week of Labor Day, we finalized. For fun, we decided to stay at the exact same bed and breakfast from 9 years ago, when we had celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary in 2007. Turns out, The Sea Gypsy bed and breakfast is still going strong after all these years.
On a late Friday night after work, we hit the Garden State Parkway. For no reason in particular, the traffic was surprisingly light on a late Friday night, even with Labor Day weekend. We arrived at The Sea Gypsy around 10 pm, with a brief stop at a Burger King along the way. How brief? We picked up dinner and ate in the car while driving. We had wanted to arrive early to watch the Wildwood fireworks display, but we were lucky enough to at least catch the fireworks from the road as we entered the city limits.
This time at the inn, we went “inn” (haha) for the 2 bedroom “Rudyard Kipling” suite. If you ever decide to try Wildwood, we would definitely recommend this place — good food, nice rooms, WIFI, walking distance to the beach, etc.
Namita & I relaxing on the veranda at The Sea Gypsy in September 2007
9 years later, relaxing on the veranda at The Sea Gypsy in September 2016
Saturday and Sunday were very basic days. We spent our entire Saturday at the beach, and a late lunch at a Stewart’s right on the Boardwalk. In the evening, I walked the kids over to the piers for a slice of pizza, and a few rides at one of the amusement parks. It was insanely expensive, so we limited the kids to two rides each.
On Sunday, we drove back to Cape May to have lunch at Cabana’s Bar & Grill, to check out the famous lighthouse, and to meet up up with Namita’s friends Barb and John and family for dinner at a restaurant on the main strip (the name escapes me.)
And that was it for the trip — we made a quick pit stop back then back on the road for a 2 hour ride home.
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Saturday and Sunday were pretty low-key so I’ll summarize. After so many days of running around, some folks went to play golf, while others like me hung out at the pool, the gym (just me), etc.
Saturday night we had dinner at the resort sports bar to watch some MMA fight.
Sunday was a pretty uneventful travel day. I got back to Newark (via Economy seating — Boooo!) without any hassle. Nums and the kids came to pick me up too, so that was really nice.
It was a very nice trip with the guys, albeit having to share a room with three other guys.
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