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New York City

By admin | Published: November 21, 2009

New York City, Day 1 (11/16/09):

I decided to head out to NYC this past week because I wanted to see A Camp perform their final show of the year, also I wanted an excuse to get out and take pictures of stuff. So before I get through the rest of the post let me tell you a couple of good deals if you are heading off to NYC for the weekend.

First, if you are in Boston then definitely consider booking a trip with Lucky Star. Lucky Star is one of those low budget, Asian owned, bus companies that offer daily routes between Boston and New York. The Fung Wah used to be the king of discount service, but Lucky Star has one-upped them with internet rates as low as $1 for a one-way ticket. I ended up spending $16 for my trip ($15 to get to NYC and $1 to get back). Sure you might have to worry about the occasional bus catching fire, and breakdowns can happen (more on that later) but at fares this low you really can’t beat it with anything else.

Second, if you are traveling by yourself and you know you really don’t need to spend a boatload of cash on a hotel room you’ll barely even see then consider booking a bed at a hostel. I managed to book 2 nights at the Hostel International New York hostel, the rate was $26/night in a 10 bed shared room. While that sounds like a lot of people, keep in mind that if you are like me you’ll be out till 4:00 AM and won’t have a problem sleeping when you get back. Make sure to bring a padlock and some shower slippers and you’ll be all set for your trip. The hostel is located pretty far uptown (around 103rd and Amsterdam), and it’s only a block from the nearest MTA station.

I had not been to NYC in over 2 years; it’s an amazing city that blows you away every time you visit it. I’m from Boston, and the scale of the place is just completely different. Boston’s a great town, very tourist friendly and walkable but New York is world class on a different level. Since I had been in town before I didn’t have the rush to explore everything like I did on my previous trip. The MO this time was to see the show, eat at a few top restaurants and check out Brooklyn.

I spent most of the day just walking around and talking pictures of anything that seemed inspiring to me. I honestly felt that the muse wasn’t talking to me on the first day. I try to push myself but I have a log way to go to take my photography to the next level, sometimes the shots just don’t get composed properly or become too cliché. And then other times you get back home and look through everything during processing and every now and then a few pictures seem to leap out at you.

After a few hours of doing this I decided it was time to head towards the hostel and check in. I was determined to check out Brooklyn that night so I wanted to drop off some of the extra gear before the night. On my way to the hostel I saw a French restaurant on Broadway and I was hungry so I decided to check it out. The restaurant was called L’Express and it was decent food. I ordered the Blood Sausage as an appetizer (I grew up in Europe and hadn’t eaten one of those in ages). For the Entrée I went safe and got the Wild Mushroom Ravioli, which was good but seemed a bit under seasoned for my taste. All in all I think my dining experience was about average here.

I started walking up North again on Broadway when lo and behold the next block was one of the Les Halles restaurants owned by Anthony Bourdain. I loved Kitchen Confidential and his show enough to buy the Les Halles cookbook, which has taught me some French cooking. Even though I was practically stuffed I decided to stop in for a quick bite since I was already there. I grabbed a glass of port and decided to order something that I couldn’t make at home, which ended up being the foie gras steeped in calvados. The food was great and it had a pretty down to earth atmosphere, I was getting there right during the after hours crowd but before the place got too packed.

After the meal I continued on towards the hostel to check my stuff and take a quick shower before heading out to Brooklyn. I stopped by Times Sq to take a few pictures before heading north to the hostel.

I was told to take the L train to Williamsburg, as that was a pretty safe and hip area, keep in mind that this was on a Monday so I wasn’t expecting too much craziness. Brooklyn reminded me of Davis Sq, a up and coming part of greater Boston that I’ve been living in for the last 3 years. The bars have a neighborhood feel to them but they are pretty friendly and fun. I went to three bars while in Williamsburg: Cyn Lounge, Spike Hill and The Charleston. Out of the three I’d say the Charleston was my favorite, I liked the divvy décor and the people that were there were the kind of people I could see my self-hanging out with. Plus the atmosphere was just too cool, for every beer purchase you would get a free cheese pizza, also they were playing great music on the jukebox and awesome movies. It turns out I really like drinking a beer with my free cheese pizza, while watching Clue on mute and listening to David Bowie in the background. Good times.

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New York City – Day 2

By admin | Published: November 21, 2009

New York City, Day 2 (11/17/09):

I decided during the previous day that two of the “touristy” things I needed to do on this trip were (a) visit MOMA and (b) check out the NBC studio tour. As it turns out MOMA is closed on Tuesdays so it was the studio tour by default.

One of the rules of the studio tour is that you can’t take any pictures. I figured that this would be an interesting diversion because I’m always interested in learning more about production, TV and film production have been around for so long that everything is a science. I work as an interactive producer, so I kind of geek out when I can learn more about how TV shows and movies are produced (definitely some parallels and lessons that can be learned). The tour lasted about an hour and consisted on walking through the news broadcast studio, a green screen studio (very interesting) and learning about makeup/costumes for SNL. It sort of made me wish that I came on a Saturday so I could sit in for a SNL broadcast or rehearsal – something to add to the “to do” list.

After this I went to the Apple store on 5th and 57th, not much to report here…. Just buying some earphones that are designed to fail every 4 months. I also wanted to take a few pictures of the store with my D90 and the Tokina 11-16mm, last time I came here I only had a compact.

I made plans to catch up with a friend of mine at Lupa’s, one of Mario Battali’s restaurants. I had looked forward to eating here but I had also heard some mixed reviews about the food and service falling off the cliff ever since Battali became famous. Like most celeb-chef restaurants a crowd of people are lining to show up any day of the week, so service and the food sometimes takes a back seat. I guess I’m partially to blame for this since I decided to eat there, to be honest the best meals I’ve had were at local established places or up and coming restaurants that haven’t achieved fame yet.

We ended up being seated at the community table located at the front of the restaurant, initially I was worried that it would be too loud but we got through the meal without too much trouble. We were sitting next to an elderly couple that we ended up befriending, I felt like we were on a cruise making friends with the patrons – nothing wrong with it but it’s just the impression that I got.

So, back to the food… I decided to be adventurous to my detriment and ordered the test, which is headcheese. What is headcheese? It’s all the miscellaneous meat and fat from the head of a sheep or cow that is packaged into a terrine and sliced to serve (I know, sounds great). I had never had it, nor would I ever make it and Andrew Zimmerman seems to rave about the stuff (yep, bad choice). The headcheese didn’t taste foul; it just didn’t taste that great – sort of like mushy/fatty cold cuts of roast beef. For our entrée’s I ordered the pork shoulder and Lauren ordered the tortellini (a good safe option). My pork shoulder tasted good but it was mostly fat, it had an acidic taste too it like a NC style vinegar sauce. Lauren’s tortellini was good, but it seemed a bit subtle on the flavor. So I experienced a Batalli restaurant, next time I think I’ll hunt harder for an up and coming restaurant or some place satisfying and cheaper.

After a couple of drinks I parted ways with Lauren and headed off to the concert. I was going to see A Camp, a band that I had missed earlier in the year when I took my vacation to San Francisco. I got into the band because I’ve been a Cardigans fan for quite a while now but I never had a chance to see them play while they were actively touring. When I found out about Nina Persson’s side project I stated getting into her new band. I think she is a pretty awesome singer, one of her qualities is that it seems as if she is singing directly to you. I was psyched to see her perform. Here are a few select pics but if you want to know more about the show click here to read my article/review on it.

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New York City – Day 3

By admin | Published: November 21, 2009

New York City, Day 3 (11/18/09):

This is really Day 2.5 as I had to head home to Boston this evening. I packed my stuff up and checked out of the hostel, the first stop would be to check out MOMA and then a bite to eat before catching the bus back home. One other thing, I woke up to find my D90 completely out of batteries – it must have been on the night before while I was out at the concert. Luckily I had my S90 with my as backup camera.

Last time I didn’t have time to check out MOMA, since this was a half-day and I had done most of the super touristy things already I figured it would good to chill out and look at some art. 2 things ended up happening at MOMA that I did not expect (1) there was a Tim Burton exhibit showing off some of his photography and illustrations and (2) Tim Burton was going to be at MOMA for a book signing. I didn’t realize the second part of this until I noticed a mass of people waiting in line at the first floor of the museum. When he arrived for the book signing I caught a fleeting glimpse of him from about 200 ft away, but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to snap his picture. Besides Tim Burton there was an awesome exhibit about the Bauhaus movement on the 6th floor – very interesting. I don’t have a ton of pictures from MOMA because some of the areas were restricted from photography.

After the museum I decided to check out Grammercy Tavern near the Flatiron area, when I got there I found out that I missed lunch and that it was formal attire required. Luckily Craftbar was around the corner from there and I figured it would be worth the stop. I ended up having the risotto balls as an appetizer and went with the veal meatballs w/ linguini as my main course (I learned a lesson about being too adventurous the night before). Both dishes were good but they didn’t bowl me over with flavor. Still couldn’t complain, I think some of my problem is that I need a little bit of spice and I was expecting the pasta to have some kick to it. Usually I don’t hesitate to pour on the Tabasco sauce, but I never really do that when dining at a fancy joint because I want to taste the dish the way it was intended. Honestly that’s kind of a stupid practice on my part.

Finally I get back to Chinatown to hop back on the Lucky Star bus. I fall asleep pretty quickly and before long we make the mandatory stop at Arby’s somewhere in the middle of CT. I swear that Lucky Star owns this Arby’s and it is a genius profit making rouse to consistently deliver 20-30 customers every hour, on the hour, to their own business for food. Pretty industrious. Either way we hop back on the bus and continue along until suddenly the driver pulls over under an overpass. Shit, I thought, the bus must be on fire or something. True to their ways, the driver never tells any of us what is going on. So we sit there waiting for 20 minutes for an explanation in broken English, some hand gestures or just obvious body language to let us know what is happening. He starts the bus again finally but we never top 20 MPH, I guess he must have blown his transmission. Finally the bus an hour behind us catches up and we all are able to transfer over to get a ride home. I wonder if Lucky Star is making a profit with these cheap fares and grueling touring schedule, I guess it all depends on limiting the amount of buses that have engine failure… Still I can’t complain, my sunk costs for this trip amount to about $68 – not bad for 2.5 days in New York.

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Refurbished Christmas Deals

By admin | Published: November 13, 2009

It’s Christmas season again and many of you are feeling the economic pinch. I went on bit of a shopping spree myself and bought three awesome items that top many people’s wish lists: a Macbook Pro, a Nikon D90 and a Garmin GPS unit. The catch? Everything was refurbished, these were amazing deals on amazing products and I wanted to let you know where I found them…

One quick note which applies to every product here… everything I bought was practically brand new, there wasn’t so much as a finger print on any of these devices and I felt like I was committing highway robbery when I bought them

1) Macbook Pro

I’ve been drooling over one of these for the past year or so, I work in advertising and it seems like everyone except for me is on a mac. I was on the fence about getting one for a while, considering the price difference between a capable windows machine and a Macbook Pro. Still I decided to make the jump after I found out about this deal.

Long story short, definitely look for refurbished mac’s, they are basically brand new and come with everything you would normally get except for the original box (who cares). I bought my refurbished Macbook directly from Apple, yes they sell refurbished items too but they kind of hide it on their site.

Here’s the link directly to their refurbished store: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

As you can see they sell all kinds of Macs from just about every line that they carry. Cheaper deals are usually found on older models.

Personally I went with the late 2008 15″ Macbook Pro w/ 512MB 9600M GT – this is the one with the unibody aluminum shell that had the removable battery (not the built in 7 hour battery that this year’s models have – though it looks identical from the outside). What did I pay? $1,599 – which is pricey but not too bad compared to the $2,300 price tag the same model had when it came out less than a year ago.

Apple constantly updates this page, basically when a refurbished unit is available it gets posted until someone purchases it, so you might check the site out a couple of times only to find what you wanted is gone Still they seem to have a constant flow of refurbished products so you won’t have to wait long till your next chance at buying one. Buying refurbished from Apple is great, I’m not sure if I would have made the same refurbished purchase through a third party site.

2) Nikon D90

Ok, so you know I’m into photography. I have been using a Nikon D40 for about a year know and slowly growing my lens collection. While I love the D40 I did feel that the lack of a autofocus motor in the body was a huge letdown. Basically the newest (and in many cases the most expensive) lenses from Nikon have internal motors that will work with the D40, but older Nikons or 3rd party lenses don’t have this. Also the 3 point autofocus system was kind of a letdown when you need to compose a shot quickly and the camera just keeps hunting.

D90’s these days are getting more affordable to most consumers. You can buy a new D90 (body only) for $809.99 from BHPhoto – this is probably the best deal I have found for a brand new copy. However, BHphoto also has a used/refurbished section of their site where they sell everything for a significant discount. This applies to any photographer out there, not just fellow Nikon SLR enthusiasts.

Here’s the link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/SLR-Digital-Cameras/ci/15488/N/4294182649

I got my D90 for $679! A couple of notes, BHPhoto does not keep these in stock so you have to be lucky and check this site after they have finished refurbishing a camera and listed it on sale. The D90 is very popular and so it rarely pops up on the site, but when it does it is usually listed for $679-$699. BHPhoto is a trusted reseller, so have confidence with any purchase you make through them.

3) Garmin nüvi 255W 4.3-Inch GPS Navigator

I have this joke about myself: I’m like a bird with a magnet stuck to it’s head, I can’t tell which way is North.

Having a GPS unit is like a sea change for me, I was the person who either had to do a complete recon with Google maps and driving directions before heading out, or risk being lost at sea until the winds of fate happened to get me in the right direction. In either case I was wasting a lot of time either before the trip or during it. My life since GPS has been quite different, the only thing I check for is the address I need to go to and then I wing it from there.

If you have a car you NEED a GPS, even if you are good with directions you will be surprised at the quicker ways to get to your destination that you never knew about.

I ended up going with this unit because it was the entry model which had text-to-speech directions (it will speak to you the street names you need to make turns at). Originally I was going to buy this brand new for about $165, until I came across a link to a refurbished version of the same model. I got my GPS for about $120, Amazon seems to fluctuate the price on these from week to week.

Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-4-3-Inch-Widescreen-Navigator-Refurbished/dp/B001PLOTWS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258140071&sr=8-1

I pretty much buy everything from Amazon without much hesitation, and I am sure you do as well. The great thing about this product is that you will get a visual indicator showing you the next turn you will have to do and it will also estimate your time of arrival (very convenient if you are letting people know when to expect you). When I got this I tested it out by driving 4hrs to Burlington, VT – this is something that would have normally required a lot of map scanning and looking at directions. Also, if you go to the Garmin website within 60 days of registering this product then you can download the most updated map (usually costs $50) for free.

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If it was too good to be true, you’re probably in foreclosure…

New York City

New York City – Day 2

New York City – Day 3

Refurbished Christmas Deals

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