There is a bar in Brooklyn that has a bunch of old arcade games in it. Chris and I have been there once before, but it was really crowded and we could barely get a beer, so we didn't play any games. We went back the other day, and had a couple of beers and played some games!
Chris started with Galaga.
He played a couple other games.
I love my Tetris!!
Then we played Rampage together.
They have a great beer selection, too.
We were there on vintage beer night - I don't know if they were just trying to get rid of old kegs or what, because I didn't know if a keg would get better with age... anyway the beer was good.
This was the scene across the street from me today. There were 2-3 other moving trucks there, but by the time I made it back there with my camera, some were gone. Moving day! It brings back bad memories - our last move was so awful. :(
This is the time when change is in the air. Not for normal people, who have times of transition in the fall when school starts or in January when the new year begins, but for those doctor folks. Every year, July 1 is the standard start date for residency to begin, so this is also the date when you transition to the next year. One batch of residents graduates and moves on to new things, and another batch comes rolling in, scared out of their minds. (I speak from experience.) Since medical school, I've been doing something new every year around this time.
Including moving! Eek!
This is the first year I won't have a big transition to deal with. Sure, I'll go from being a CA-1 (1st year anesthesia resident) to a CA-2 (second year anesthesia resident). And it will be very nice to not have to be at the very bottom of the totem pole anymore! But we aren't moving (thank god! we renewed our lease for another year! And no rent increase - amazing!) and I really do not do anything new or different at work. Just more complicated stuff, maybe.
Anyway it is kind of fun to see the proliferation of moving activity around our area. There are tons of hospitals in this area so a lot of people are coming and going right now. Scary and exciting for everyone.
I haven't posted about brewing for a while. We have really spread out our brewing, mainly because we haven't been able to spend much time together. When we had one or two days each week where we could spend the entire day together, it was a lot easier to take 3 hours out of the day to brew. But we haven't had that luxury for a couple of months!
There is a more unfortunate reason why we have majorly slowed down the brewing. We had a few bottle explosions! Yes, that's right, a bottle of beer will just up and explode while sitting on the shelf or in a box. Obviously, this presents several problems - very messy, a little scary when you hear the explosion, and definitely dangerous. And it is so disappointing to miss out on drinking that beer!
We have had this happen to about 6 or 8 bottles. The strange thing is, they aren't all the same batch, we can't really find rhyme or reason - the most strongly carbonated beer has not had one explosion. I think a lot of the reason they are exploding is because it is warming up, and our apartment, being on the top floor, is difficult to keep cool without blasting the a/c all the time.
I have to say that the saddest casualty (to me) of this series of explosions is my She-Ra dress.
Some beer and broken glass got into the box where I had Halloween stuff stored. Some of the decorations had to be thrown out, which was not a big deal, and Chris didn't especially like wearing his He-Man costume, so I don't really feel too bad that his sexy shorts probably couldn't be washed anyway.
But when I saw the white dress soaked in brown beer, I almost cried a little bit. I had worked so hard on it and I really thought it turned out cool! But, no point in crying over spilled beer - don't worry about me, I have moved past it. Most of the beer came out, and the dress probably needed to be washed anyway! I'll just have to make a way cooler Halloween costume this year.
Our plan now is to take a few months off of brewing. Depending on our work schedules and how much time we'll be able to spend together after our wedding (less than 4 months away now!), we might pick it back up again. We probably have enough beer for the next few months. And then... we might have to switch to... (bum-ba-bum) COMMERCIAL BREW. Oh well, we'll survive. We may wait until we have more space and can start kegging, and not deal with bottles at all!
The weather here - and from what I can tell, all over the country - has been crazy during June. While we haven't had any of the tornadoes that they've had in Colorado, it has been so rainy. We have had multiple thunderstorms and heavy rains, and I saw on the news earlier this week that halfway through the month, we'd already recorded 3x the amount of rain that is average in June.
The rain is sort of annoying. A little bit of rain won't keep me inside, but if it is pouring, I feel like I'm stuck in my apartment. I know who is loving the rain, though - my green babies!
We have yummy herbs and veggies in our little garden. 5 tomato plants, 6 pepper plants, basil, rosemary, cilantro, mint, apple mint, oregano, and one flowering bush that I can't remember the name of (but it hasn't flowered yet this year).
I'm so glad we got everything planted before all these rains. We literally have not watered for about 3 months, and they are going crazy! Yum!
*Chris took half of the photos on this page! I can't take credit for them!
On Saturday night, Chris and I went to the Blind Pilot concert Saturday night. As I write this, I'm listening to my favorite BP song, Oveido. If you want to listen as you read, here you go!
On our way out the door, we stopped to take a picture in the mirror that is next to our front door.
We brought the small camera, unfortunately, because they wouldn't allow "professional" cameras at the concert. I am definitely no professional but I figured I was better off leaving the larger one at home. I hate built-in camera flashes, but have to play with this one a little bit so I can figure out if it will take less grainy photos without the flash.
Anyway, it was a good thing that we paused to take a few photos there, because before we left the building I remembered that we didn't have the tickets. Oops! Why is that so easy to do?
Before the concert, we headed out to dinner at another place we had a coupon for. Savor NY was AWESOME. I highly recommend them! The atmosphere was very nice, they have only a few tables. It was a romantic place.
They had small-ish dishes, kind of Spanish style but I think I saw they are listed as New American. Whatever - everything was delicious. We started with a bottle of wine, and they had many bottles that were reasonably priced.
We each chose 2 dishes, and split everything. We had tuna ceviche (Chris has majorly been craving ceviche since we left Peru!), grilled vegetable samosas with coconut curry sauce, spicy duck wontons, and braised pork belly with mandarin sauce and peanuts. All were very, very good! My favorite was the duck wontons. Everything was perfectly flavored, not too much food or too little. And everything we read about the place recommended the ricotta cheesecake, so we had to try some.
We split it, and we were fighting over every bite! YUM!!
Then we were ready to head to the concert. Blind Pilot is a group out of Portland, and I heard them mentioned on one of the top ten lists on NPR at the end of 2008. I have been loving their album, and a couple weeks ago I saw that they were coming to New York, and the tickets were only $15! You can't do anything in NYC for $15!! On top of that, there were still tickets available! I was more than happy to take advantage of this opportunity. I haven't been to a concert for years.
The warm-up band was this one guy who was finishing up when we arrived at 9 or so. He sounded good but I didn't get his name.
One drawback to the show - the doors opened at 8pm, and there were 2 opening bands. So I knew my band wouldn't take the stage till 10 or 11! This is way past my bedtime already. But I knew it would be worth it.
The next band was called Local Natives, and they are out of LA. They were awesome because they have a female violin player!
They were great to listen to, and seemed to be having a lot of fun onstage.
After their set, they came off stage from the front. That is one really cool thing about this show - I love small concerts where the bands just sort of chat with people afterward. I looked for the girl fiddle player between their set and Blind Pilot, but I didn't see her. Darn!
I have to add that the Bowery Ballroom was a really, really cool place to see a show. We would definitely like to go back there. It was very neat inside, very intimate feeling. It was cool because there is a lounge area in the basement that has the bar and the bathrooms. And they had Blue Point on tap, a beer out of Long Island which is very good.
The beer was $7, which by NYC standards is not bad - you could pay that in any bar in the city. And of course you could hear the whole show from downstairs too.
Blind Pilot came out and started with my favorite song!
I like that picture because it got the whole band in it. (Again, sorry about the graininess!)
It was cool to see that they had a female too. Both of the girls in the bands played multiple instruments. This one started with a banjo and later had this instrument... I don't know what its called.
The guy in the back seems very talented. He was playing the accordion (sideways?) and the keyboard and the trumpet, often all 3 in the same song. Who knows what other instruments he had stashed back there that I didn't catch.
Chris got some cool photos of the band.
The show was AWESOME. They also covered Whiter Shade of Pale, by Proco Harem. You may not recognize the title but you would definitely know the song if you heard it.
After the show, we left through the basement. While Chris went to the bathroom, I saw the girl violin player from the Local Natives and went and said hi to her! She thought it was cool that I played violin too.
And apparently their bass player is from Golden! He said hi too, but he was anxious to get to the bathroom. :) I looked for the girl from Blind Pilot to say hi to her, but she wasn't down there. We didn't especially want to wait around for them to come out, it was already 1230am. So we headed out to grab a cab, buying the Local Natives EP on the way out. And outside, we did see the keyboard player (in the big plaid patterned shirt and the hat) outside, and told him we enjoyed the show so that was cool.
It was a SUPER SUPER SUPER fun night! I was exhausted at work the next day but it was so worth it!!
On Saturday, I had big plans. I was hoping to go to Central Park. The organization Chris works for, YAI, was sponsoring a run/walk in the park and he was going to be walking it with several of the residents in his house. I was really looking forward to riding my bike up there and seeing him, and meeting some of his coworkers and the residents! Unfortunately, when I got up, I realized our bikes were locked up. And the key was on his keychain.
DOH!
I searched our apartment for over an hour, and tried every key we have, but apparently there is no backup key to that rusty old padlock. So I rethought my plans... but I was so excited to ride my bike up there, and it was such a beautiful day. I ended up renting a bike around the corner, and rode up to central park. It took me a while to find them, and when I did, they were headed home! But I did get to meet them and see him briefly. It was a gorgeous day for a bike ride. I can't wait to unleash my bike on the city this summer. :)
On the way home, I rode down Broadway. They have recently closed a few blocks of Broadway, around Times Square, to traffic. I didn't really want to deal with the tourists (I usually avoid Times Square at all costs) but I figured I could just ride on a bike lane right through the pedestrian area. But NO!
Notice the sign on the blockade thing. Boo! I knew it was only a few blocks, so I decided to just walk my bike through. Okay, it wasn't THAT bad. Notice the lawn chairs! They put these lawn chairs out to make it more welcoming or something. Later, there were pink, blue, and green vinyl ones.
Pretty cool. And one nice thing about this was that everyone seemed happy. Usually people are kind of grumpy around this area. (I don't blame them.) I think it is nice for people to be able to just sit in the lawn chair for awhile and watch everyone walk by. Some people were reading, or having a snack, or chatting. It was nice. And I even saw some celebrities!
Then after returning the bike, I headed home and then right back out again with the mutt. I took Lilly to her favorite local dog park, in Tompkins Square.
She had a great time and we both got to enjoy the gorgeous day.
